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Matthew Henry |
I S A I A H.
CHAP. XI.
It is a very good transition in prophecy (whether it be so in rhetoric
or no), and a very common one, to pass from the prediction of the
temporal deliverances of the church to that of the great salvation,
which in the fulness of time should be wrought out by Jesus Christ, of
which the other were types and figures, to which all the prophets bore
witness; and so the ancient Jews understood them. For what else was it
that raised so great an expectation of the Messiah at the time he came.
Upon occasion of the prophecy of the deliverance of Jerusalem from
Sennacherib, here comes in a prophecy concerning Messiah the Prince.
I. His rise out of the house of David,
II. His qualifications for his great undertaking,
III. The justice and equity of his government,
IV. The peaceableness of his kingdom,
V. The accession of the Gentiles to it
(ver. 10),
and with them the remnant of the Jews, that should be united with them
in the Messiah’s kingdom
and of all this God would now shortly give them a type, and some dark
representation, in the excellent government of Hezekiah, the great
peace which the nation should enjoy under him, after the ruin of
Sennacherib’s design, and the return of many of the ten tribes out of
their dispersion to their brethren of the land of Judah, when they
enjoyed that great tranquility.
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1 And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse,
and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:
2 And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of
wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the
spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD;
3 And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the
LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither
reprove after the hearing of his ears:
4 But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove
with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the
earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips
shall he slay the wicked.
5 And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and
faithfulness the girdle of his reins.
6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard
shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and
the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
7 And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall
lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and
the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den.
9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for
the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the
waters cover the sea.
The prophet had before, in this sermon, spoken of a child that should
be born, a son that should be given, on whose shoulders the government
should be, intending this for the comfort of the people of God in times
of trouble, as dying Jacob, many ages before, had intended the prospect
of Shiloh for the comfort of his seed in their affliction in Egypt. He
had said
that the yoke should be destroyed because of the anointing; now
here he tells us on whom that anointing should rest. He foretels,
I. That the Messiah should, in due time, arise out of the house of
David, as that branch of the Lord which he had said
should be excellent and glorious; the word is Netzer, which some
think is referred to in
where it is said to be spoken by the prophets of the Messiah that he
should be called a Nazarene. Observe here,
1. Whence this branch should arise-from Jesse. He should be the
son of David, with whom the covenant of royalty was made, and to whom
it was promised with an oath that of the fruit of his loins God
would raise of Christ,
Acts ii. 30.
David is often called the son of Jesse, and Christ is called so,
because he was to be not only the Son of David, but David himself,
2. The meanness of his appearance.
(1.) He is called a rod, and a branch; both the words
here used signify a weak, small, tender product, a twig and a
sprig (so some render them), such as is easily broken off. The
enemies of God’s church were just before compared to strong and stately
boughs
(ch. x. 33),
which will not, without great labour, be hewn down, but Christ to a
tender branch
(ch. liii. 2);
yet he shall be victorious over them.
(2.) He is said to come out of Jesse rather than David, because Jesse
lived and died in meanness and obscurity; his family was of small
account
and it was in a way of contempt and reproach that David was sometimes
called the son of Jesse,
1 Sam. xxii. 7.
(3.) He comes forth out of the stem, or stump, of Jesse.
When the royal family, that had been as a cedar, was cut down, and only
the stump of it left, almost levelled with the ground and lost in the
grass of the field
(Dan. iv. 15),
yet it shall sprout again
(Job xiv. 7);
nay, it shall grow out of his roots, which are quite buried in
the earth, and, like the roots of flowers in the winter, have no stem
appearing above ground. The house of David was reduced and brought
very low at the time of Christ’s birth, witness the obscurity and
poverty of Joseph and Mary. The Messiah was thus to begin his estate
of humiliation, for submitting to which he should be highly exalted,
and would thus give early notice that his kingdom was not of this
world. The Chaldee paraphrase reads this, There shall come forth a
King from the sons of Jesse, and the Messiah (or Christ) shall
be anointed out of his sons’ sons.
II. That he should be every way qualified for that great work to which
he was designed, that this tender branch should be so watered with the
dews of heaven as to become a strong rod for a sceptre to rule,
v. 2.
1. In general, the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. The
Holy Spirit, in all his gifts and graces, shall not only come, but rest
and abide upon him; he shall have the Spirit not by measure, but
without measure, the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him,
He began his preaching with this
(Luke iv. 18),
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.
2. In particular, the spirit of government, by which he should be every
way fitted for that judgment which the Father has committed to him and
given him authority to execute
and not only so, but should be made the fountain and treasury of all
grace to believers, that from his fulness they might all receive the
Spirit of grace, as all the members of the body derive animal spirits
from the head.
(1.) He shall have the spirit of wisdom and understanding, of
counsel and knowledge; he shall thoroughly understand the business
he is to be employed in. No man knows the Father but the Son,
Matt. xi. 27.
What he is to make known to the children of men concerning God, and his
mind and will, he shall be himself acquainted with and apprised of,
He shall know how to administer the affairs of his spiritual kingdom in
all the branches of it, so as effectually to answer the two great
intentions of it, the glory of God and the welfare of the children of
men. The terms of the covenant shall be settled by him, and ordinances
instituted, in wisdom: treasures of wisdom shall be hid in him; he
shall be our counsellor, and shall be made of God to us wisdom.
(2.) The spirit of courage, or might, or fortitude. The
undertaking was very great, abundance of difficulty must be broken
through, and therefore it was necessary that he should be so endowed
that he might not fail or be discouraged,
ch. xlii. 4.
He was famed for courage in his teaching the way of God in truth, and
not caring for any man,
(3.) The spirit of religion, or the fear of the Lord; not only
he shall himself have a reverent affection for his Father, as his
servant
(ch. xlii. 1),
and he was heard in that he feared
(Heb. v. 7),
but he shall have a zeal for religion, and shall design the advancement
of it in his whole undertaking. Our faith in Christ was never designed
to supersede and jostle out, but to increase and support, our fear of
the Lord.
III. That he should be accurate, and critical, and very exact in the
administration of his government and the exercise of the power
committed to him
(v. 3):
The Spirit wherewith he shall be clothed shall make him of quick
understanding in the fear of the Lord–of an acute smell or scent
(so the word is), for the apprehensions of the mind are often expressed
by the sensations of the body. Note,
1. Those are most truly and valuably intelligent that are so in the
fear of the Lord, in the business of religion, for that is both the
foundation and top-stone of wisdom.
2. By this it will appear that we have the Spirit of God, if we have
spiritual senses exercised, and are of quick understanding in the
fear of the lord. Those have divine illumination that know their
duty and know how to go about it.
3. Therefore Jesus Christ had the spirit without measure, that
he might perfectly understand his undertaking; and he did so, as
appears not only in the admirable answers he gave to all that
questioned with him, which proved him to be of quick understanding
in the fear of the Lord, but in the management of his whole
undertaking. He has settled the great affair of religion so
unexpectedly well (so as effectually to secure both God’s honour and
man’s happiness) that, it must be owned, he thoroughly understood
it.
IV. That he should be just and righteous in all the acts of his
government, and there should appear in it as much equity as wisdom. He
shall judge as he expresses it himself, and as he himself would be
judged of,
1. Not according to outward appearance
(v. 3):
he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, with respect of
persons
and according to outward shows and appearances, not reprove after
the hearing of his ears, by common fame and report, and the
representations of others, as men commonly do; nor does he judge of men
by the fair words they speak, calling him, Lord, Lord, or their
plausible actions before the eye of the world, which they do to be seen
of men; but he will judge by the hidden man of the heart, and the
inward principles men are governed by, of which he is an infallible
witness. Christ will judge the secrets of men
(Rom. ii. 16),
will determine concerning them, not according to their own pretensions
and appearances (that were to judge after the sight of the
eyes), not according to the opinion others have of them (that were
to judge after the hearing of the ears), but we are sure that his
judgment is according to truth.
2. He will judge righteous judgment
(v. 5):
Righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins. He shall be
righteous in the administration of his government, and his
righteousness shall be his girdle; it shall constantly compass him and
cleave to him, shall be his ornament and honour; he shall gird himself
for every action, shall gird on his sword for war in righteousness; his
righteousness shall be his strength, and shall make him expeditious in
his undertakings, as a man with his loins girt. In conformity to
Christ, his followers must have the girdle of truth
and it will be the stability of the times. Particularly,
(1.) He shall in righteousness plead for the people that are poor and
oppressed; he will be their protector
(v. 4):
With righteousness shall he judge the poor; he shall judge in
favour and defence of those that have right on their side, though they
are poor in the world, and because they are poor in spirit. It is the
duty of princes to defend and deliver the poor
and the honour of Christ that he is the poor man’s King,
He shall debate with evenness for the meek of the earth, or of
the land; those that bear the injuries done them with meekness and
patience are in a special manner entitled to the divine care and
protection. I, as a deaf man, heard not, for thou wilt hear,
Ps. xxxviii. 13, 14.
Some read it, He shall reprove or correct the meek of the earth with
equity. If his own people, the meek of the land, do amiss, he will
visit their transgression with the rod.
(2.) He shall in righteousness plead against his enemies that are proud
and oppressors
(v. 4):
But he shall smite the earth, the man of the earth, that doth
oppress (see
the men of the world, that mind earthly things only
(Ps. xvii. 14);
these he shall smite with the rod of his mouth, the word of his
mouth, speaking terror and ruin to them; his threatenings shall take
hold of them, and be executed upon them. With the breath of his
lips, by the operation of his Spirit, according to his word, and
working with and by it, he shall slay the wicked. He will do it
easily, with a word’s speaking, as he laid those flat who came to seize
him, by saying I am he,
John xviii. 6.
Killing terrors shall arrest their consciences, killing judgments shall
ruin them, their power, and all their interests; and in the other world
everlasting tribulation will be recompensed to those that trouble his
poor people. The apostle applies this to the destruction of the man of
sin, whom he calls that wicked one
whom the Lord will consume with the spirit of his mouth. And the
Chaldee here reads it, He shall slay that wicked Romulus, or
Rome, as Mr. Hugh Broughton understands it.
V. That there should be great peace and tranquillity under his
government; this is an explication of what was said in
that he should be the Prince of peace. Peace signifies two things:–
1. Unity or concord, which is intimated in these figurative promises,
that even the wolf shall dwell peaceably with the lamb;
men of the most fierce and furious dispositions, who used to bite and
devour all about them, shall have their temper so strangely altered by
the efficacy of the gospel and grace of Christ that they shall live in
love even with the weakest and such as formerly they would have made an
easy prey of. So far shall the sheep be from hurting one another, as
sometimes they have done
that even the wolves shall agree with them. Christ, who is our peace,
came to slay all enmities and to settle lasting friendships among his
followers, particularly between Jews and Gentiles: when multitudes of
both, being converted to the faith of Christ, united in one sheep-fold,
then the wolf and the lamb dwelt together; the wolf did not so much as
threaten the lamb, nor was the lamb afraid of the wolf. The leopard
shall not only not tear the kid, but shall lie down with
her: even their young ones shall lie down together, and
shall be trained up in a blessed amity, in order to the perpetuating of
it. The lion shall cease to be ravenous and shall eat straw
like the ox, as some think all the beasts of prey did before the
fall. The asp and the cockatrice shall cease to be
venomous, so that parents shall let their children play with
them and put their hands among them. A generation of vipers
shall become a seed of saints, and the old complaint of homo homini
lupus–man is a wolf to man, shall be at an end. Those that inhabit
the holy mountain shall live as amicably as the creatures did that were
with Noah in the ark, and it shall be a means of their preservation,
for they shall not hurt nor destroy one another as they have
done. Now,
(1.) This is fulfilled in the wonderful effect of the gospel upon the
minds of those that sincerely embrace it; it changes the nature, and
makes those that trampled on the meek of the earth, not only meek like
them, but affectionate towards them. When Paul, who had persecuted the
saints, joined himself to them, then the wolf dwelt with the
lamb.
(2.) Some are willing to hope it shall yet have a further
accomplishment in the latter days, when swords shall be beaten into
ploughshares.
2. Safety or security. Christ, the great Shepherd, shall take such care
of the flock that those who would hurt them shall not; they shall not
only not destroy one another, but no enemy from without shall be
permitted to give them any molestation. The property of troubles, and
of death itself, shall be so altered that they shall not do any real
hurt to, much less shall they be the destruction of, any that have
their conversation in the holy mountain,
1 Pet. iii. 13.
Who, or what, can harm us, if we be followers of him that is
good? God’s people shall be delivered, not only from evil, but from
the fear of it. Even the sucking child shall without any terror
play upon the hole of the asp; blessed Paul does so when he
says, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? and, O
death! where is thy sting?
Lastly, Observe what shall be the effect, and what the cause, of this
wonderful softening and sweetening of men’s tempers by the grace of
God.
1. The effect of it shall be tractableness, and a willingness to
receive instruction: A little child shall lead those who
formerly scorned to be controlled by the strongest man. Calvin
understands it of their willing submission to the ministers of Christ,
who are to instruct with meekness and not to use any coercive power,
but to be as little children,
Matt. xviii. 3.
See
2. The cause of it shall be the knowledge of God. The more there is of
that the more there is of a disposition to peace. They shall thus live
in love, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the
Lord, which shall extinguish men’s heats and animosities. The
better acquainted we are with the God of love the more shall we be
changed into the same image and the better affected shall we be to all
those that bear his image. The earth shall be as full of this knowledge
as the channels of the sea are of water–so broad and extensive shall
this knowledge be and so far shall it spread–so deep and substantial
shall this knowledge be, and so long shall it last. There is much more
of the knowledge of God to be got by the gospel of Christ than could be
got by the law of Moses; and, whereas then in Judah only
was God known, now all shall know him,
Heb. viii. 11.
But that is knowledge falsely so called which sows discord among men;
the right knowledge of God settles peace.
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10 And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall
stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek:
and his rest shall be glorious.
11 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall
set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his
people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and
from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and
from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.
12 And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall
assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the
dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.
13 The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries
of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and
Judah shall not vex Ephraim.
14 But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines
toward the west; they shall spoil them of the east together: they
shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab; and the children of
Ammon shall obey them.
15 And the LORD shall utterly destroy the tongue of the
Egyptian sea; and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand
over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make
men go over dry-shod.
16 And there shall be a highway for the remnant of his people,
which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in
the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.
We have here a further prophecy of the enlargement and advancement of
the kingdom of the Messiah, under the type and figure of the
flourishing condition of the kingdom of Judah in the latter end of
Hezekiah’s reign, after the defeat of Sennacherib.
I. This prediction was in part accomplished when the great things God
did for Hezekiah and his people proved as an ensign, inviting the
neighbouring nations to them to enquire of the wonders done in the
land, on which errand the king of Babylon’s ambassadors came. To
them the Gentiles sought; and Jerusalem, the rest or habitation of the
Jews, was then glorious,
Then many of the Israelites who belonged to the kingdom of the ten
tribes, who upon the destruction of that kingdom by the king of Assyria
were forced to flee for shelter into all the countries about and to
some that lay very remote, even to the islands of the sea, were
encouraged to return to their own country and put themselves under the
protection and government of the king of Judah, the rather because it
was an Assyrian army by which their country had been ruined and that
was not routed. This is said to be a recovery of them the second
time
(v. 11),
such an instance of the power and goodness of God, and such a reviving
to them, as their first deliverance out of Egypt was. Then the
outcasts of Israel should be gathered in, and brought home, and
those of Judah too, who, upon the approach of the Assyrian army,
shifted for their own safety. Then the old feud between Ephraim and
Judah shall be forgotten, and they shall join against the Philistines
and their other common enemies,
Note, Those who have been sharers with each other in afflictions and
mercies, dangers and deliverances, ought in consideration thereof to
unite for their joint and mutual safety and protection; and it is
likely to be well with the church when Ephraim and Judah are one
against the Philistines. Then, whatever difficulties there may be in
the way of the return of the dispersed, the Lord shall find out some
way or other to remove them, as when he brought Israel out of Egypt he
dried up the Red Sea and Jordan
(v. 15)
and led them to Canaan through the invincible embarrassments of a vast
howling wilderness,
The like will he do this second time, or that which shall be
equivalent. When God’s time has come for the deliverance of his people
mountains of opposition shall become plain before him. Let us not
despair therefore when the interests of the church seem to be brought
very low; God can soon turn gloomy days into glorious ones.
II. It had a further reference to the days of the Messiah and the
accession of the Gentiles to his kingdom; for to these the apostle
applies
of which the following verses are a continuation.
There shall be a root of Jesse; and he that shall rise to reign over
the Gentiles, in him shall the Gentiles trust. That is a key to
this prophecy, which speaks of Christ as the root of Jesse, or a
branch out of his roots
(v. 1),
a root out of a dry ground,
ch. liii. 2.
He is the root of David
(Rev. v. 5),
the root and offspring of David
Rev. xxii. 16.
1. He shall stand, or be set up, for an ensign of the
people. When he was crucified he was lifted up from the
earth, that, as an ensign of beacon, he might draw the eyes
and the hearts of all men unto him,
John xii. 32.
He is set up as an ensign in the preaching of the everlasting gospel,
in which the ministers, as standard-bearers, display the banner of his
love, to allure us to him
(Cant. i. 4),
the banner of his truth, under which we may enlist ourselves, to engage
in a holy war against sin and Satan. Christ is the ensign to which
the children of God that were scattered abroad are gathered
together
(John xi. 51),
and in him they meet as the centre of their unity.
2. To him shall the Gentiles seek. We read of Greeks that did so
We would see Jesus), and upon that occasion Christ spoke of his
being lifted up, to draw all men to him. The apostle, from the LXX. (or
perhaps the LXX. from the apostle, in the editions after Christ) reads
it
(Rom. xv. 12),
In him shall the Gentiles trust; they shall seek to him with a
dependence on him.
3. His rest shall be glorious. Some understand this of the death
of Christ (the triumphs of the cross made even that glorious), others
of his ascension, when he sat down to rest at the right hand of God. Or
rather it is meant of the gospel church, that Mount Zion of which
Christ has said, This is my rest, and in which he resides. This,
though despised by the world, having upon it the beauty of holiness, is
truly glorious, a glorious high throne,
Jer. xvii. 12.
4. Both Jews and Gentiles shall be gathered to him,
A remnant of both, a little remnant in comparison, which shall be
recovered, as it were, with great difficulty and hazard. As formerly
God delivered his people, and gathered them out of all the countries
whither they were scattered
(Ps. cvi. 47; Jer. xvi. 15, 16),
so he will a second time, in another way, by the powerful working of
the Spirit of grace with the word. He shall set his hand to do
it; he shall exert his power, the arm of the Lord shall be
revealed to do it.
(1.) There shall be a remnant of the Jews gathered in: The outcasts
of Israel and the dispersed of Judah
(v. 12),
many of whom, at the time of the bringing of them in to Christ, were
Jews of the dispersion, the twelve tribes that were scattered
abroad
shall flock to Christ; and probably more of those scattered Jews were
brought into the church, in proportion, than of those which remained in
their own land.
(2.) Many of the nations, the Gentiles, shall be brought in by
the lifting up of the ensign. Jacob foretold concerning Shiloh that
to him should the gathering of the people be. Those that were
strangers and foreigners shall be made nigh. The Jews were jealous of
Christ’s going to the dispersed among the Gentiles and of his
teaching the Gentiles,
John vii. 35.
5. There shall be a happy accommodation between Judah and Ephraim, and
both shall be safe from their adversaries and have dominion over them,
The coalescence between Judah and Israel at that time was a type and
figure of the uniting of Jews and Gentiles, who had been so long at
variance in the gospel church. The house of Judah shall walk with
the house of Israel
and become one nation
so the Jews and Gentiles are made of twain one new man
(Eph. ii. 15),
and, being at peace one with another, those that are adversaries to
them both shall be cut off; for they shall fly upon the shoulders of
the Philistines, as an eagle strikes at her prey, shall spoil those
on the west side of them, and then they shall extend their conquests
eastward over the Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites. The gospel of
Christ shall be successful in all parts, and some of all nations shall
become obedient to the faith.
6. Every thing that might hinder the progress and success of the gospel
shall be taken out of the way. As when God brought Israel out of Egypt
he dried up the Red Sea and Jordan before them
and as afterwards when he brought up the Jews out of Babylon he
prepared them their way
(ch. lxii. 10),
so when Jews and Gentiles are to be brought together into the gospel
church all obstructions shall be removed
(v. 15, 16),
difficulties that seemed insuperable shall be strangely got over,
the blind shall be led by a way that they knew not. See
ch. xlii. 15, 16; xliii. 19, 20.
Converts shall be brought in chariots and in litters,
Some think it is the further accession of multitudes to the church that
is pointed at in that obscure prophecy of the drying up of the river
Euphrates, that the way of the kings of the east may be prepared
(Rev. xvi. 12),
which seems to refer to this prophecy. Note, When God’s time has come
for the bringing of nations, or particular persons, home to himself,
divine grace will be victorious over all opposition. At the presence
of the Lord the sea shall flee and Jordan be driven back; and those who
set their faces heavenward will find there are not such difficulties in
the way as they thought there were, for there is a highway thither,
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