Isaiah 9

The chapter opens by naming a place, and the place matters. The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali… by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations (v. 1) was the northern frontier of Israel - the first territory in the path of any army marching down from the north, and so the first to be crushed. It had already been lightly afflicted and then more grievously afflicted; it was border country, mixed and overrun, looked down on by the south. Isaiah deliberately sets his great promise over the most battered ground in the land. Then comes the turn: The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined (v. 2). The contrast could not be sharper. Darkness and the shadow of death are the language of people with no way out - the gloom of defeat, captivity, grief. And into exactly that gloom the light does not flicker but breaks. Notice it is given, not earned: upon them hath the light shined. The people did not generate it. It dawned on them from outside, as a sunrise dawns on those still sitting in the dark.³

The light brings a flood of joy, and Isaiah measures it with two homely pictures: they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil (v. 3). Harvest joy is the gladness of a long season's work finally gathered in; the joy of dividing spoil is the elation after a battle won, when the danger is past and the reward is shared out. Both are the joy of relief after long strain. And the reason for the joy follows: 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 (v. 4). The yoke, the staff, the rod are the gear of oppression - the weight laid on a beast of burden, the stick that drives a slave. God snaps them. And He does it as in the day of Midian, a pointed memory: in the days of Gideon, Israel was delivered from a vast Midianite host not by an army but by a tiny band and the LORD's own hand, so that no one could claim the victory as their own. The reference is a promise in disguise. This rescue, too, will be God's doing, not the strength of soldiers - which is why verse 5 can announce the end of war itself: the boots and bloodied garments of battle become only fuel of fire.

After the darkness and the dawn, Isaiah finally names the source of the light, and the announcement is breathtaking in its smallness: For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given (v. 6). Not an army marshalled, not a fortress raised - a child. The two phrases work together: he is born, truly entering human life as every child does, and he is given, a gift handed down from God rather than produced by human effort. And the twice-repeated unto us is tender and personal - this is not a distant wonder but one belonging to the people in the dark. Then, in the same breath, the scale turns vast: and the government shall be upon his shoulder. The whole weight of rule - the burden of ordering a people, of bearing responsibility for them - will rest on this one figure. The image is of a load carried, the way a yoke or a robe of office sits on the shoulders. The contrast is the heart of the verse: a newborn child, and upon that child the government of everything. Strength wrapped in weakness; the ruler of all arriving as an infant given to us. The verses that opened in defeat now rest the hope of the whole land on a baby.

Then come the names, four titles laid on the child like robes of office: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace (v. 6). In Scripture a name is not a label but a declaration of what someone truly is, and each of these reaches higher than any title an ordinary king could bear. He is Wonderful - a wonder, something beyond the ordinary run of things, beyond full human reckoning. He is Counsellor - the source of true wisdom and direction, the one whose plans never fail for lack of insight. He is The mighty God - words of sheer divine strength, the same phrase Isaiah uses of God Himself a chapter later (Isa. 10:21). He is The everlasting Father - the title speaks of one who endures without end and who cares for his people with a father's lasting, protective love, a fatherliness that does not run out or pass away. And He is The Prince of Peace - not merely a ruler who stops wars, but the bringer of shalom, the deep wholeness and rightness in which everything is as it should be. These are not four small compliments; they are a portrait, and a staggering one to hang on a newborn. The verse holds them out for the reader to weigh, name by name.

The seventh verse opens the child's rule out to infinity: Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end (v. 7). Every earthly kingdom has an end - it rises, peaks, and falls. This one only ever increases; its growth and its peace have no end. And it is anchored to a specific promise: it rests upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom. Centuries before, God had sworn to David that his throne would be established for ever (2 Sam. 7:16); here that ancient promise finds the heir who will fulfil it without limit. This King will order it, and… establish it with judgment and with justice - a reign founded not on raw power but on what is right, where the weak are no longer crushed and the oppressor's rod is broken for good. It will stand from henceforth even for ever. Then comes the line that guarantees the whole thing: The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this. How can a promise this large possibly be kept? Not by human striving but by God's own burning commitment - His zeal, His passionate resolve to see it done. The promise does not depend on us. The LORD Himself will bring it to pass.

At verse 8 the chapter turns sharply. The light over Galilee gives way to a hard word aimed north, at Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria - the northern kingdom of Israel: The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel. A divine word has been launched, and it will land. The charge against them is named precisely: pride and stoutness of heart (v. 9). And Isaiah lets us hear that pride in their own mouths: The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars (v. 10). It is a defiant boast in the face of disaster. Their cheap mud bricks have been knocked flat and their common sycomore timber felled - God's warning has already struck - but instead of asking why, they swagger: we will rebuild grander than before, in cut stone and costly cedar. It is the voice of a people who treat God's discipline as a mere setback to be out-built, a chance to upgrade. They read the blow and draw exactly the wrong lesson. The danger Isaiah exposes is not the falling of the bricks; it is the heart that meets correction with bravado instead of return.

Because they will not humble themselves, the discipline deepens: Therefore the LORD shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him, and join his enemies together; The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth (vv. 11-12). The picture is of a people caught in a vice - enemies pressing in from the front and from behind, devouring the land with open mouth. What they boasted they would rebuild will instead be swallowed. And here the chapter sounds, for the first time, the solemn refrain that will toll twice more before it ends: For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still (v. 12). The line has a deliberate double edge. On its face it is a warning - the discipline is not finished, the hand that strikes is still raised. But the very same words carry mercy. A hand stretched out still is also a hand still reaching, still extended toward the people, not yet withdrawn. God has not turned His back and walked away; He keeps His hand out. The tragedy the refrain laments is not that God has stopped reaching but that the people keep refusing the hand that is held out to them.³

Isaiah names the root of the whole tragedy in a single verse: For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the LORD of hosts (v. 13). This is the heart of it. The blows were never meant to destroy - they were meant to turn the people back, to send them seeking the LORD again. The purpose of the striking was return. But they will not turn, and they will not seek. That refusal is what makes the judgment run its course. The verses that follow show the rot reaching every level of society: head and tail, branch and rush (v. 14) - from top to bottom, the whole nation. Isaiah even names the two ends. The head is the ancient and honourable, the respected leadership; the tail is the prophet that teacheth lies (v. 15). And he puts his finger on a particular guilt: the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed (v. 16). Those entrusted to guide have misled, and the led are ruined. When teachers traffic in lies and leaders flatter pride instead of calling for return, a whole people can be carried over the edge together.

The judgment now takes the shape of fire, and the most sobering note is where the fire comes from: For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns (v. 18). The blaze is not only sent from outside - it is kindled by the people's own wickedness, which burns like a brushfire racing through dry thorns and timber until the whole land is wrapped in smoke. Sin here is self-consuming; evil is its own conflagration. And so the land is darkened (v. 19) - a grim echo of the chapter's opening, where a people sat in darkness before the light dawned. The darkness has returned, this time self-inflicted. The horror reaches its lowest point in the breakdown of every bond: no man shall spare his brother (v. 19); the people devour and are never satisfied (v. 20); and the very tribes that should be kin turn on each other - Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh: and they together shall be against Judah (v. 21). This is what unchecked wickedness finally does: it does not merely offend God, it dissolves the ties that hold a people together, until brother turns on brother. And a third and final time the bell tolls: For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.