Scripture · Matthew 2:2
Isaiah 61:3
The Nativity
to console the mourners in Zion—to give them a crown of beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and a garment of praise for a spirit of despair. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.
The angels have brought a crown of thorns to a birth. Beside their solemn gifts, Mary and her child lie quietly together on the straw.
About the artwork
Three standing angels balance the long, reclining mother and child. Joseph sits between the groups, bent over his book. The wide spacing holds the scene still, giving the objects in the angels’ hands unusual weight.
Carnegie Museum identifies those objects as thorns, myrrh and a chalice: signs of suffering, burial and the Eucharist. Burne-Jones made the picture for St John the Apostle in Torquay, where the Nativity would have been seen within Christian worship. The birth already contains the future Passion. Above it, a Latin inscription from Psalm 12:5 answers the distress of the poor with God’s promise to arise.
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What does Isaiah 61:3 mean?
The paired Isaiah 61:3 offers consolation to people mourning in Zion, imagining ashes and grief exchanged for beauty and praise. That promise casts a different light on the angels’ ominous offerings. Suffering is present at the beginning, but the painting’s resting mother and child are not overwhelmed by it. Isaiah supplies a language of hope for this tension; the words actually painted overhead remain those of the Psalm.
Sources
Louise Lippincott, “Victorian Masterworks Come to Pittsburgh,” Carnegie Magazine (1997). Carnegie Museum curator Louise Lippincott on the Torquay commission, Passion objects and Psalm inscription.
Isaiah 61 — Berean Standard Bible. The paired text read in its surrounding chapter.
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