Isaiah 9

Today’s Passage: Isaiah 9

After the long gathering gloom of the previous chapter, where a people who would not seek their God were left to grope in a darkness with no dawn in it, the sky breaks open all at once. Isaiah looks first to the very lands that had felt the invader’s boot most heavily, the northern reaches of Zebulun and Naphtali out along the Sea of Galilee, and he sees light flooding in upon them, the region that had known the deepest shame chosen to see the first of the glory. Then comes the reason for it all, the most familiar and most astonishing lines in the whole book, the promise of a child born to us upon whose shoulder the government will rest and whose names run past the edge of what any mere man could bear: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His kingdom will have no end. Yet the chapter does not float away on that joy, for its second half turns soberly back to the proud and unrepentant north, showing us a people struck again and again who still will not turn, so that we feel by contrast just how great a mercy this coming Light is.

As you read, hold this: Into humanity’s deep darkness God sends a child who is Himself Mighty God and Prince of Peace, whose just and peaceful reign will never end, the great light for all who sit in darkness.

Isaiah 9:1–2 (BSB)

¹ Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those in distress. In the past He humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future He will honor the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations: ² The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned.

That first word, nevertheless, is one of the sweetest in the prophets, for it stands against everything the darkness had claimed. The gloom looked total, the distress looked final, and then God says nevertheless. He does not merely lift the shadow; He turns the very region that had known the deepest humbling into the place He will most honor. And the picture He chooses is the oldest comfort there is, the coming of the light (אוֹר) or, pronounced OHR. Strong's H216, light. It is the plain Hebrew name for light, and it is the very word God spoke on the first morning of creation when He said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Isaiah reaches for that word on purpose, for what he is describing is nothing less than a second and greater dawn, a light breaking into a world grown dark with sin the way the first light broke into a world still without form. Notice that the people do not make this light or find it or earn it; it is simply given, dawning upon those who were walking in the dark and could not have lit a single candle of their own. That is grace exactly. And when this Light at last came in the flesh, walking the roads of that same Galilee, He took the word up as His own and said, “I am the light of the world; whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness.” Learn this small bright word, and you will find it running like a thread from the first page of Scripture to the face of Christ. . Think of what it is to sit through a long night of fear and to watch, at last, the first grey turning gold along the hills. That is the whole gospel in a single image. These are not people who lit a lamp of their own; they are people walking in darkness upon whom a light has dawned from outside themselves, sent, given, breaking over the land of the shadow of death like a sunrise no night can undo. Praise God that His mercy runs toward the darkest places rather than away from them.

Isaiah 9:3–5 (BSB)

³ You have enlarged the nation and increased its joy. The people rejoice before You as they rejoice at harvest time, as men rejoice in dividing the plunder. ⁴ For as in the day of Midian You have shattered the yoke of their burden, the bar across their shoulders, and the rod of their oppressor. ⁵ For every trampling boot of battle and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.

See how the joy overflows here, and see too whom it is aimed at, for the people rejoice before You, their gladness lifted up to God as worship. Isaiah gathers the two happiest scenes his world knew to say how great this joy will be: the shout of the harvest, when the long labor is over and the barns are filling, and the glad noise of soldiers dividing the spoil after a battle already won. And the reason for the rejoicing is that God Himself has done the thing no one else could do. He has snapped the yoke that lay across the neck, broken the bar that pressed the shoulder, splintered the rod of the oppressor, and He has done it as in the day of Midian, when Gideon’s little band watched the LORD rout an army by night. Then, in a stroke of pure hope, the prophet sees every boot that ever trampled and every bloodstained garment of war heaped up and burned, made into nothing but fuel for a fire. This is what the Prince who is coming will finally bring: not a truce, but the end of war itself, the very instruments of violence turned to ash. Let the heart lift at that, for it is God’s own promise.

Isaiah 9:6–7 (BSB)

⁶ For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. ⁷ Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from that time and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of Hosts will accomplish this.

Here we come to the mountain summit of the whole chapter, and it is right to slow down and read it on our knees. Every deliverance the prophet has just sung, the light and the joy and the shattered yoke, all of it rests upon this one gift, and the gift is a person. Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and notice that little word us, so wide it can hold you and me and any soul that ever sat in the dark. The government of all things is to rest upon the shoulders of this child, and then Isaiah gives us His names, four of them, each one greater than the last. He is the Wonderful Counselor, whose wisdom never fails and never needs correcting. He is the Mighty God, and here the veil lifts entirely, for the child born to us is Himself God in strength and majesty, no mere prince but the LORD come down. He is the Everlasting Father, tender and unchanging toward His own, a fountain of life that never runs dry. And He is the Prince of Peace, the one ruler under whom the war finally ends and the soul comes home to rest. Read those names again and worship, for no ordinary king could carry a single one of them, and this child carries all four.

And His reign, the prophet says, will only ever increase, spreading and deepening with no end to it, a kingdom of justice and righteousness set upon the ancient throne of David and held fast forever. Then comes the line that seals the whole promise and steadies every trembling hope: the zeal of the LORD of Hosts will accomplish this. It does not depend on our strength or our worthiness, nor upon the rise and fall of empires. The burning, jealous love of the Almighty for His people and His glory is the engine that will bring every word of it to pass. What God has here promised, God will surely do.

Isaiah 9:8–12 (BSB)

⁸ The Lord has sent a message against Jacob, and it has fallen upon Israel. ⁹ All the people will know it—Ephraim and the dwellers of Samaria. With pride and arrogance of heart they will say: ¹⁰ “The bricks have fallen, but we will rebuild with finished stone; the sycamores have been felled, but we will replace them with cedars.” ¹¹ The LORD has raised up the foes of Rezin against him and joined his enemies together. ¹² Aram from the east and Philistia from the west have devoured Israel with open mouths. Despite all this, His anger is not turned away; His hand is still upraised.

Now the light of the promise makes the shadow of the north stand out all the darker, and Isaiah turns to speak soberly of Ephraim and Samaria, the northern kingdom of Israel. God had sent them a message, not merely in words but in hard events meant to wake them, and the sorrow of it is how they answered. Struck low, they only stiffened. When their brick walls fell they boasted they would rebuild grander, in cut stone; when their common sycamores were felled they vowed to replace them with costly cedar. It is the voice of a proud heart that will not read God’s hand in its troubles, that treats a warning as a mere setback to be repaired and improved upon. So the LORD let their enemies close in from both sides, and still, the prophet says with a solemn refrain we will hear again, His anger is not turned away and His hand is still upraised. We should read this not with any gloating but with a sober fear for ourselves, for the same pride can harden any heart that will not humble itself under the discipline of God.

Isaiah 9:13–17 (BSB)

¹³ But the people did not return to Him who struck them; they did not seek the LORD of Hosts. ¹⁴ So the LORD will cut off Israel’s head and tail, both palm branch and reed in a single day. ¹⁵ The head is the elder and honorable man, and the tail is the prophet who teaches lies. ¹⁶ For those who guide this people mislead them, and those they mislead are swallowed up. ¹⁷ Therefore the Lord takes no pleasure in their young men; He has no compassion on their fatherless and widows. For every one of them is godless and wicked, and every mouth speaks folly. Despite all this, His anger is not turned away; His hand is still upraised.

Here is named the one thing that would have turned everything around, and the one thing they would not do: they did not return to Him who struck them, they did not seek the LORD. The blows had been meant to drive them home, the way a shepherd’s staff turns a straying sheep back toward the fold, and instead they only wandered farther. So the judgment reaches from top to bottom of the society, head and tail together, the honored elder and the lying prophet alike, for the rot ran through the whole. Isaiah lays a special weight of blame on the leaders and false prophets who told the people smooth and pleasant untruths, guiding them straight into the pit, and this is a warning worth carrying in every age, that those who teach are answerable for where they lead the trusting. The hardest line is that the LORD takes no pleasure even in the young men and shows no compassion on the widow and the fatherless, and we should feel the grief in it, for God elsewhere calls Himself the defender of exactly those. It is the measure of how deep the corruption had gone, that even the ordinarily tender objects of His mercy were caught up in the common godlessness. And still the refrain tolls: His hand is still upraised. God’s justice is patient, but it is not asleep.

Isaiah 9:18–21 (BSB)

¹⁸ For wickedness burns like a fire that consumes the thorns and briers and kindles the forest thickets, which roll upward in billows of smoke. ¹⁹ By the wrath of the LORD of Hosts the land is scorched, and the people are fuel for the fire. No man even spares his brother. ²⁰ They carve out what is on the right, but they are still hungry; they eat what is on the left, but they are still not satisfied. Each one devours the flesh of his own offspring. ²¹ Manasseh devours Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasseh; together they turn against Judah. Despite all this, His anger is not turned away; His hand is still upraised.

The chapter closes with a picture of sin left to burn itself out, and it is a terrible one, meant to sober us rather than to thrill us. Wickedness, Isaiah says, is like a fire in dry brush that no one lit and no one can stop, catching in the thorns, leaping to the thickets, rolling up in great columns of smoke until it has scorched the whole land. This is one of the deep truths about sin, that it is not only punished from above but is itself devouring, consuming the very people who nurse it. And so we watch a nation turn upon itself in a famine that no eating can fill, brother refusing to spare brother, the northern tribes tearing at one another, Manasseh against Ephraim and both against Judah, hunger without end. Sin promises satisfaction and delivers only a deeper emptiness. The refrain sounds one last time, His anger is not turned away, His hand is still upraised, and set against the great light of the chapter’s opening it makes the mercy shine all the brighter. This is the darkness the child was born to end. This is the war the Prince of Peace came to burn away forever.