This is one of the visions that Isaiah _saw_ (chap. i. 1, ii. 1,
&c.). He was a dreamer of dreams. With a keen perception, not
surpassed, of the men and things actually surrounding him, much of
his life was passed in an ideal and future world. There he found
comfort and strength to endure the sorrows that otherwise would have
crushed him. At the outset of his ministry, when the great king who
had done so much to restore the prosperity of the nation was about to
be removed, there was vouchsafed to him a vision of the King
immortal, eternal, invisible, throned in the temple, and surrounded
by the exalted intelligences who do His will (chap. vi. 1-4); and
now, at the close of the wicked and disastrous reign of Ahaz, when
his hopes concerning his race would naturally have failed, there was
granted him a vision of a King of righteousness and peace, who on
earth would rule over a kingdom such as the world had never seen. His
soul had been stirred and appalled by a vision of disaster and woe.
He was the king of Assyria, then the terror of the earth, utterly
broken, his vast armies hewn down as forests fall before the axes of
the woodmen (chap. x. 33, 34); a vision of blood and terror which may
well have filled him with trembling. But just as sometimes the
sweetest daylight follows a night of storm, this vision of terror
fades away, and he sees--
I. A KING (chap. xi. 1-5). 1. _Royally descended,_ "a rod out of the
stem of _Jesse._" A simple farmer on the hills of Bethlehem, and yet
a father of kings. Not an accident. We are here confronted with the
mystery of blood, of race. No common man was he from whom sprang
David, Solomon, Hezekiah, Josiah, and a long line of kings. In his
ordinary hours, Isaiah may well have derived assurance that the
vision that gladdened him was given him from above, from the fact
that it was in harmony with God's promise (2 Sam. vii. 12-16).
Without dismay he could view the royal house lapsing into the
obscurity from which it sprang--becoming merely a house of _Jesse_
once more--assured that in His own time God would again raise it up
to glory.[1] It is always well when our hopes rest upon the Word of
God. 2. _Royally endowed;_ a King by truest "right divine," because
possessed of royal qualities of heart and mind (chap. xi. 2, 3). Of
the thousands who have sat on thrones, how few have possessed them!
How many have ruled over the miserable wretches subject to their sway
merely by the craft of the serpent or the cruelty of the tiger! Of
those who have been popular, how many have owed their popularity to
mere physical prowess and politic good-nature (Richard I.,
Charles II.)! How few have endeavoured to approach the Biblical
conception of what a ruler ought to be (Deut. xvii. 14-20; 2 Sam.
xxiii. 3; Ps. lxxii. 4; Prov. xx. 28)! In the marvellous superiority
of that conception to anything that has prevailed among men, have we
not another proof that the sacred writers were indeed inspired by the
Spirit of God? 3. _Ruling in righteousness;_ using His marvellous
endowments for the welfare of those subjected to His authority (chap.
xi. 3-5); not judging of things or men by their mere appearance, nor
by common report; caring for the poor, befriending the shrinking and
helpless, fearless in His dispensation of justice; His very words
being swords that smote and overthrew the arrogant oppressor; made
strong by the very righteousness which merely politic men would have
feared to display in view of the might of iniquity in this disordered
world; a Hero of the truest and divinest kind, in actual life setting
forth the ideal to which the noblest knights in the purest days of
chivalry strove to conform. Such was the King whom the prophet "saw"
in an age when "ruler" was merely another word for tyrant and
oppressor. Surely the vision so fair and wondrous was given him from
above!
II. He also saw THE KINGDOM. 1. _A kingdom of righteousness_ (chap.
xi. 9). The kingdom necessarily resembles the king. Appalling is the
influence of a court upon a nation. Correspondingly great is the
responsibility of those who sit in high places. 2. _A kingdom of
peace._ Set forth by the most beautiful symbolism (chap. xi. 6-10,
13). 3. _A kingdom of prosperity._ Those included in it are no longer
miserable exiles and bond slaves; rather they rule over those by whom
they were spoiled and oppressed (chap. xi. 14). This is the true
interpretation of a symbol that is in itself harsh and repulsive. The
coarseness of the symbol is due to the coarseness of the minds it was
first intended to touch. 4. _A kingdom of gladness and joy._ There
pervades it the gladness of exiles who have been restored to their
own land (chap. xi. 15, 16); the true and religious joy of men who
recognise that the deliverances which inspire their songs have been
wrought for them by God (chap. xii. 1-5); the joy of men who are
absolutely assured of continual safety (chap. xii. 2, 6).
Was all this merely a bright vision? 1. It has been already fulfilled
in part. 2. In our own day it is being fulfilled more completely than
ever before. 3. It shall yet be fulfilled triumphantly.[2] Let us
then, 1. Recognise and rejoice in the fact that we are living under
the rule of this righteous King. This is at least the dawning of the
"day" which Isaiah saw (Matt. xiii. 16). 2. Exult in view of the
certain future of our race. The kingdom of God shall come generation
after generation with mightier power (H. E. I., 3421-3423). 3. Labour
as well as pray that future may be hastened.