Isaiah 11
One of the most striking features of this remarkable passage is the dual title of the coming King as both the shoot (1) and the Root (10) of Jesse. The reference to Jesse indicates that the shoot is not just another king in David’s line but rather another David. In the books of Kings, successive kings were assessed by comparision with ‘their father David’ (e.g. 2 Ki. 18:3) but no king is called ‘David’ or ‘son of Jesse’. Among the kings, David alone was ‘the son of Jesse’ (e.g. 1 Sa. 20:27–33; 1 Ki. 12:16), and the unexpected reference to Jesse here has tremendous force: when Jesse produces a shoot it must be David. But to call the expected king the Root of Jesse is altogether another matter for this means that Jesse sprang from him; he is the root support and origin of the Messianic family in which he would be born.
The Shoot of Jesse
The earth full of the knowledge of the LORD
When the words are used together, ‘wisdom’ is the more general characteristic while ‘understanding’ is more particularly the power to see to the heart of issues; the former is the reservoir, the latter the judiciously directed outflow. These mental endowments of wisdom and understanding contrast with the proud boast of the king of Assyria
In its full sense, knowledge is truth grasped and applied to life. Evildoers are those who ‘do not know’ (Ps. 14:4)—if they had a real knowledge they would not behave as they do. Knowing a person involves a life relationship (Gn. 4:1) and when that person is the Lord, then the life must be religious and moral, conformed to him. Up to 1 Samuel 3:7 the young Samuel, for all his information, ‘did not know the Lord’ nor, for all their position, did Eli’s sons (1 Sa. 2:12). Here knowledge and fear are both subordinate to the single following noun, the LORD: true knowledge showing itself in a life of reverence. In relation to the Lord, fear is moral concern (Gn. 20:11); it motivates obedience (Ex. 20:20) and moulds conduct (Ne. 5:9, 15). It is the spirit of true loyalty (Ps. 2:11) and worship (Ps. 5:7〈8〉) and it marked the Spirit-endowed David (2 Sa. 23:2f.).
It is not that peace is restricted to one place but rather that a dramatic change has come over the whole earth. When the true order of creation is restored the whole earth is the Lord’s hill, indwelt by his holiness. Will be full is in the perfect tense, which is indicative either of certainty (‘will surely be full’) or of a future sense (‘will have become full’). Knowledge of the LORD is a verbal noun (cf. verse 3). It is more ‘alive’ than the abstract word ‘knowledge’ and could be translated ‘full of knowing the Lord’. (On ‘knowing’ see verse 2.) The holy God dwells with them, ungrieved, welcoming them to his holy mountain; they enter into personal and intimate communion with him, ‘knowing the Lord’. The waters cover the sea by filling it to the fulness of its capacity. Everywhere God is present in holiness, and in every place the knowledge of him is enjoyed to its fullest extent.