'The people that walked in darkness hare seen a great light: they that
dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light
shined. 3. Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy:
they joy before Thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men
rejoice when they divide the spoil. 4. For Thou hast broken the yoke of
His burden, and the staff of His shoulder, the rod of His oppressor, as
in the day of Midian. 5. For every battle of the warrior is with
confused noise, and garments rolled in blood: but this shall be with
burning and fuel of fire. 6. For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son
is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name
shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting
Father, The Prince of Peace. 7. Of the increase of His government and
peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon His
kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with
justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts
will perform this.'--ISAIAH ix. 2-7.
The darker the cloud, the brighter is the rainbow. This prophecy has
for its historical background the calamitous reign of the weak and
wicked Ahaz, during which the heart of the nation was bowed, like a
forest before the blast, by the dread of foreign invasion and conquest.
The prophet predicts a day of gloom and anguish, and then, out of the
midst of his threatenings, bursts this glorious vision, sudden as
sunrise. With consummate poetic art, the consequences of Messiah's rule
are set forth before He Himself is brought into view.
I. Image is heaped on image to tell the blessedness of that reign (vs.
2-5). Each trait of the glowing description is appropriate to the
condition of Israel under Ahaz; but each has a meaning far beyond that
limited application. Isaiah may, or may not, have been aware of 'what'
or 'what time' his words portrayed in their deepest, that is, their
true meaning, but if we believe in supernatural prediction which,
though it may have found its point of attachment in the circumstances
of the present, was none the less the voice of the Spirit of God, we
shall not make, as is often done now, the prophet's construction of his
words the rule for their interpretation. What the prophecy was
discerned to point to by its utterer or his contemporaries, is one
thing; quite another is what God meant by it.
First we have the picture of the nation groping in a darkness that
might be felt, the emblem of ignorance, sin, and sorrow, and inhabiting
a land over which, like a pall, death cast its shadow. On that dismal
gloom shines all at once a 'great light,' the emblem of knowledge,
purity, and joy. The daily mercy of the dawn has a gospel in it to a
heart that believes in God; for it proclaims the divine will that all
who sit in darkness shall be enlightened, and that every night but
prepares the way for the freshness and stir of a new morning. The great
prophecy of these verses in its indefiniteness goes far beyond its
immediate occasion in the state of Judah under Ahaz. As surely as the
dawn floods all lands, so surely shall all who walk in darkness see the
great light; and wherever is a 'land of the shadow of death,' there
shall the light shine. It is 'the light of the world.'
Verse 3 gives another phase of blessing. Israel is conceived of as
dwindled in number by deportation and war. But the process of
depopulation is arrested and reversed, and numerical increase, which is
always a prominent feature in Messianic predictions, is predicted. That
increase follows the dawning of the light, for men will flock to the
'brightness of its rising.' _We_ know that the increase comes from the
attractive power of the Cross, drawing men of many tongues to it; and
we have a right to bring the interpretation, which the world's history
gives, into our understanding of the prophecy. That enlarged nation is
to have abounding joy.
Undoubtedly, the rendering 'To it thou hast increased the joy' is
correct, as that of the Authorized Version (based upon the Hebrew text)
is clearly one of several cases in which the partial similarity in
spelling and identity in sound of the Hebrew words for 'not' and 'to
it,' have led to a mistaken reading. The joy is described in words
which dance and sing, like the gladness of which they tell. The mirth
of the harvest-field, when labour is crowned with success, and the
sterner joy of the victors as they part the booty, with which mingles
the consciousness of foes overcome and dangers averted, are blended in
this gladness. We have the joy of reaping a harvest of which we have
not sowed the seed. Christ has done that; we have but to enjoy the
results of His toil. We have to divide the spoil of a victory which we
have not won. He has bound the strong man, and we share the benefits of
His overcoming the world.
That last image of conquerors dividing the spoil leads naturally to the
picture in verse 4 of emancipation from bondage, as the result of a
victory like Gideon's with his handful. Who the Gideon of this new
triumph is, the prophet will not yet say. The 'yoke of his burden' and
'the rod of his oppressor' recall Egypt and the taskmasters.
Verse 5 gives the reason for the deliverance of the slaves; namely, the
utter destruction of the armour and weapons of their enemy. The Revised
Version is right in its rendering, though it may be doubtful whether
its margin is not better than its text, since not only are 'boot' and
'booted' as probable renderings of the doubtful words as 'armour' and
'armed man,' but the picture of the warrior striding into battle with
his heavy boots is more graphic than the more generalised description
in the Revised Version's text. In any case, the whole accoutrements of
the oppressor are heaped into a pile and set on fire; and, as they
blaze up, the freed slaves exult in their liberty. The blood-drenched
cloaks have been stripped from the corpses and tossed on the heap, and,
saturated as they are, they burn. So complete is the victory that even
the weapons of the conquered are destroyed. Our conquering King has
been manifested, that He might annihilate the powers by which evil
holds us bound. His victory is not by halves. 'He taketh from him all
his armour wherein he trusted.'
II. Now we are ready to ask, And who is to do all this? The guarantee
for its accomplishment is the person of the conquering Messiah. The
hopes of Israel did not, and those of the world do not, rest on
tendencies, principles, laws of progress, advance of civilisation, or
the like abstractions or impersonalities, but on a living Person, in
whom all principles which make for righteousness and blessedness for
individuals and communities are incarnated, and whose vital action
works perpetually in mankind.
In this prophecy the prophet is plainly speaking greater things than he
knew. We do not get to the meaning if we only ask ourselves what did he
understand by his words, or what did his hearers gather from them? They
and he would gather the certainty of the coming of Messiah with
wondrous attributes of power and divine gifts, by whose reign light,
gladness, liberty would belong to the oppressed nation. But the depth
of the prophecy needed the history of the Incarnation for its
disclosure. If this is not a God-given prediction of the entrance into
human form of the divine, it is something very like miraculous that,
somehow or other, words should have been spoken, without any such
reference, which fit so closely to the supernatural fact of Christ's
incarnation.
The many attempts to translate verse 6 so as to get rid of the
application of 'Mighty God,' 'Everlasting Father,' to Messiah, cannot
here be enumerated or adequately discussed. I must be content with
pointing out the significance of the august fourfold name of the victor
King. It seems best to take the two first titles as a compound name,
and so to recognise four such compounds.
There is a certain connection between the first and second of these
which respectively lay stress on wisdom of plan and victorious energy
of accomplishment, while the third and fourth are also connected, in
that the former gathers into one great and tender name what Messiah is
to His people, and the latter points to the character of His dominion
throughout the whole earth. 'A wonder of a counsellor,' as the words
may be rendered, not only suggests His giving wholesome direction to
His people, but, still more, the mystery of the wisdom which guides His
plans. Truly, Jesus purposes wonders in the depth of His redeeming
design. He intends to do great things, and to reach them by a road
which none would have imagined. The counsel to save a world, and that
by dying for it, is the miracle of miracles. 'Who hath been His
counsellor in that overwhelming wonder?' He needs no teacher; He is
Himself the teacher of all truth. All may have His direction, and they
who follow it will not walk in darkness.
'The mighty God.' Chapter x. 21 absolutely forbids taking this as
anything lower than the divine name. The prophet conceives of Messiah
as the earthly representative of divinity, as having God with and in
Him as no other man has. We are not to force upon the prophet the full
new Testament doctrine of the oneness of the incarnate Word with the
Father, which would be an anachronism. But we are not to fall into the
opposite error, and refuse to see in these words, so startling from the
lips of a rigid monotheist, a real prophecy of a divine Messiah, dimly
as the utterer may have perceived the figure which he painted. Note,
too, that the word 'mighty' implies victorious energy in battle. It is
often applied to human heroes, and here carries warlike connotations,
kindred with the previous picture of conflict and victory. Thus
strength as of God, and, in some profound way, strength which is
divine, will be the hand obeying the brain that counsels wonder, and
all His plans shall be effected by it.
But these are not all His qualities. He is 'the Father of Eternity'--a
name in which tender care and immortal life are marvellously blended.
This King will be in reality what, in old days, monarchs often called
themselves and seldom were,--the Father of His people, with all the
attributes of that sacred name, such as guidance, love, providing for
His children's wants. Nor can Christians forget that Jesus is the
source of life to them, and that the name has thus a deeper meaning.
Further, He is possessed of eternity. If He is so closely related to
God as the former name implies, that predicate is not wonderful. Dying
men need and have an undying Christ. He is 'the same yesterday, and
to-day, and for ever.'
The whole series of names culminates in 'the Prince of Peace,' which He
is by virtue of the characteristics expressed in the foregoing names.
The name pierces to the heart of Christ's work. For the individual He
brings peace with God, peace in the else discordant inner nature, peace
amid storms of calamity--the peace of submission, of fellowship with
God, of self-control, of received forgiveness and sanctifying. For
nations and civic communities He brings peace which will one day hush
the tumult of war, and burn chariots and all warlike implements in the
fire. The vision tarries, because Christ's followers have not been true
to their Master's mission, but it comes, though its march is slow. We
can hasten its arrival.
Verses 7 and 8 declare the perpetuity of Messiah's kingdom, His Davidic
descent, and those characteristics of His reign, which guarantee its
perpetuity. 'Judgment' which He exercises, and 'righteousness' which He
both exercises and bestows, are the pillars on which His throne stands;
and these are eternal, and it never will totter nor sink, as earthly
thrones must do. The very life-blood of prophecy, as of religion, is
the conviction that righteousness outlasts sin, and will survive 'the
wreck of matter and the crash of worlds.'
The great guarantee for these glowing anticipations is that the 'zeal
of the Lord of hosts' will accomplish them. _Zeal_, or rather
_jealousy_, is love stirred to action by opposition. It tolerates no
unfaithfulness in the object of its love, and flames up against all
antagonism to the object. 'He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of
Mine eye.' So the subjects of that Messiah may be sure that a wall of
fire is round about them, which to foes without is terror and
destruction, and to dwellers within its circuit glows with lambent
light, and rays out beneficent warmth.