Isaiah 9:1-7

A Tale of Two Realities

Isaiah opens this text with a bridge that spans the dread of 8:21-22 to the hope he will build up in 9. This is the 4th and final section of prophecies regarding Judah

Notice that in the reading, it is all spoken of in the past tense, but it is a promised future. This is the Hebrew method of emphasizing that it is a sure thing. The Prince of Peace is not here yet, but He will be to the extent of promise already fulfilled

9:1

Zebulun and Naphtali, the areas West and Southwest of the Sea of Galilee, were the first areas in the the Northern Kingdom to fall to the Assyrian incursion in 733 B.C.

This text is really a continuation from the end of Chapter 8, Isaiah recognized that his prophetic utterance of the doom of Israel and the suffering of Judah was going to come to pass; yet that reality was not the only reality, rather it was one fact in a tightly knit tapestry of facts

Isaiah, the prophet, as much as Isaiah the main of faith understood that the news was dire, but that it was not the end of the report

Just as his sons Shear-Jashub and Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz followed along in a named balance of the wrath and mercy of God so too does the text follow the tragedy to come with hope to later follow

This hope is not simply to be capitalized on by the Jewish people, rather just as darkness was universal to all those outside of God’s faithful elect, so too is the promise of future hope and light and glory

The promise is not confined to the borders of Judah or even the two kingdoms that will be restored to one; instead “the land East of the Jordan, and to Galilee of the nations.”

Galilee of the nations is a term peculiar only to Isaiah and that is fitting to his prophetic ministry as in these first 9 chapters he has already given a multiplicity of small, hazy, insights to the coming Messiah and what would be His worldwide Church

9:2

Themes at work: Darkness, God’s turning away His face, removing His favor— Light, the return of His presence— It has a sense of creation story happening again. The bleak and cold chaos of no God at work, He reenters the scene and with Him invariably comes light, warmth, protection, sight

The faithful are no longer required to walk in the darkness, that is to live their lives faithfully in patience and expectation of God’s return

Once more they have God and can rest in His favor, providence, protection

It is not that He is assuredly saving their bodies, but rather He is saving their souls. What is offered in this portion of the text is not the promise of individuals being saved from the sword, but instead the people as a group being assured the dawning of a new day, a new period where war and calamity are a matter of history and instead are going to know peace, joy, bounty

9:3

Isaiah holds the tension between the more current reality of a small remnant and the equally accurate final estimation of a multitude of the faithful — We see the same sense of this in the New Testament such as in Matthew 7:13-14:

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

The nation of the faithful will be multiplied, it is not a pitiful and thin crowd that God has marked out for salvation and continuation, but instead what He has in mind and is revealed to Isaiah is this idea of a teeming and living society of the faithful, abounding in the gifts of God as much as in Godliness itself as their creed

What is offered to them is the bounty of the ground and the bounty of the war that they will win. Plunder and harvest it is all promised to them— Their lot in the here and now is to hold fast to their faith until that day of promise is before them where victory is achieved and the spoils are divided

9:4

Isaiah turns his eye back to the enslavement in Egypt Lev. 26:13

Leviticus 26:13 ESV

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. And I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

Deliverance is promised. Hope from the previous verse is now explained.

In the deliverance to come God will remove the suffering that His people have endured (yoke) and the suffering that they have had inflicted (rod)

With an eye still on the past Isaiah looks to Judges 6-8 where God gave Israel over to Midian for seven horrible years

The people fled to the caves in the mountains, anytime they attempted to plant crops the Midianites and Amalekites would harvest their food instead, they would descend like locusts and devour plant and livestock alike

Finally, after numerous cries were heard by God he gave them redemption and salvation in the form of his powerful hand upon Gideon and his men

Here too, in the time of Isaiah will God be seen at work in saving His people and so much more so in the fullness of the promised glory and hope to come as anchored by demonstrations of power in the past

9:5

Isaiah 2:2–4 NASB95

Now it will come about that In the last days The mountain of the house of the Lord Will be established as the chief of the mountains, And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it. And many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, To the house of the God of Jacob; That He may teach us concerning His ways And that we may walk in His paths.” For the law will go forth from Zion And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He will judge between the nations, And will render decisions for many peoples; And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they learn war.

9:6-7

The final verses in this section answer who and how the covenant-fulfilling God will see His people blessed and victorious. How peace will abound and His light will shine through the darkness

It rests in the names in which this child will be called, for in the name, is the character itself

Ahaz v. The Future King