The Captive
So who are the captive? In Solomon’s prayer during the temple dedication, he declares in 2 Chronicles 6:37-39:
37Yet if they bethink themselves in the land whither they are carried captive, and turn and pray unto thee in the land of their captivity, saying, We have sinned, we have done amiss, and have dealt wickedly; 38If they return to thee with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, whither they have carried them captives, and pray toward their land, which thou gavest unto their fathers, and toward the city which thou hast chosen, and toward the house which I have built for thy name: 39Then hear thou from the heavens, even from thy dwelling place, their prayer and their supplications, and maintain their cause, and forgive thy people which have sinned against thee.
This was a reference to the future captivity of the Israelites in Babylon. Psalm 137:1-4 is about the Israelites in captivity.
1By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. 2We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. 3For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. 4How shall we sing Yehovah’s song in a strange land?
In Job’s case, captivity was not in a foreign land, Job 42:10.
10And Yehovah turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also Yehovah gave Job twice as much as he had before.
Job’s captivity was oppression and suffering. God turned it and blessed him. It was a spiritual captivity.
Paul writes about the captive in 2 Timothy 2:24-26.
24And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, 25In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; 26And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
These captives are not in prison or even in a foreign land. They are in the trap of the devil and have become captive at his will. This actually refers to both non-believing and believing alike.
Let us not forget the prophecy of Isaiah concerning the Messiah, Isaiah 42:7.
7To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.
The prisoners were those living that had been taken by the snare of the devil.
Isaiah 61:1
1The Spirit of the Lord Yehovah is upon me; because Yehovah hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
Isaiah 61:1 is referring to those who are alive who could hear the Gospel Message. The same passage is in Luke 4. Those in sheol are in unconscious rest until the millennium They cannot hear the Gospel Message until then. (Refer to Resurrection of the Just and the Unjust.) Why would anyone think that the captive are anything, but living people? Anything else would be inconsistent with the Bible itself. These are not dead people in sheol, they are people alive in captivity.
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