1, 2. (a) The promised Messiah was to be anointed by whom and with what? (b) What prophecy of Isaiah was he to quote and apply to himself?

KINGS and high priests of ancient Israel were anointed to office by the pouring of official oil upon the head. Was the promised Messiah to be anointed in that way? No! The genuine Messiah was to be one whom God would anoint “with holy spirit and power.” (Acts 10:38) He would be the one who was authorized to quote and apply to himself the prophetic words of Isaiah 61:1-3:

² “The spirit of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah is upon me, for the reason that Jehovah has anointed me to tell good news to the meek ones.

3. Why did men of earlier times toward whom God’s spirit became active not prove to be the promised Messiah?

³ Men of earlier times had God’s spirit envelop them or become operative upon them or were filled with it. But they were never anointed with it. Hence they did not prove to be the longed-for Messiah. This was true even of John the Baptizer, of whom the angel Gabriel had said to his father, priest Zechariah: “He will be filled with holy spirit right from his mother’s womb.”​—Luke 1:15.