But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
2 The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shone.
3 You have multiplied the nation;
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
as with joy at the harvest,
as they are glad when they divide the spoil.
4 For the yoke of his burden,
and the staff for his shoulder,
the rod of his oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.
5 For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult
and every garment rolled in blood
will be burned as fuel for the fire.
6 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
Judgment on Arrogance and Oppression
8 The Lord has sent a word against Jacob,
and it will fall on Israel;
9 and all the people will know,
Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria,
who say in pride and in arrogance of heart:
10 “The bricks have fallen,
but we will build with dressed stones;
the sycamores have been cut down,
but we will put cedars in their place.”
11 But the Lord raises the adversaries of Rezin against him,
and stirs up his enemies.
12 The Syrians on the east and the Philistines on the west
devour Israel with open mouth.
For all this his anger has not turned away,
and his hand is stretched out still.
13 The people did not turn to him who struck them,
nor inquire of the Lord of hosts.
14 So the Lord cut off from Israel head and tail,
palm branch and reed in one day—
15 the elder and honored man is the head,
and the prophet who teaches lies is the tail;
16 for those who guide this people have been leading them astray,
and those who are guided by them are swallowed up.
17 Therefore the Lord does not rejoice over their young men,
and has no compassion on their fatherless and widows;
for everyone is godless and an evildoer,
and every mouth speaks folly.
For all this his anger has not turned away,
and his hand is stretched out still.
18 For wickedness burns like a fire;
it consumes briers and thorns;
it kindles the thickets of the forest,
and they roll upward in a column of smoke.
19 Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts
the land is scorched,
and the people are like fuel for the fire;
no one spares another.
20 They slice meat on the right, but are still hungry,
and they devour on the left, but are not satisfied;
each devours the flesh of his own arm,
21 Manasseh devours Ephraim, and Ephraim devours Manasseh;
together they are against Judah.
For all this his anger has not turned away,
and his hand is stretched out still. Isaiah 9 ESV
Isaiah 9: 1-7 A Child is born
You are surely put to it, and your soul finds no food of comfort, but is ready to faint and die. You fret yourself: your heart is wearing away with care, and grief, and hopelessness. In the bitterness of your soul you are ready to curse the day of your birth. The captive Israelites cursed their king who had led them into their defeat and bondage; in the fury of their agony, they even cursed God and longed to die. It may be that your heart is in such a ferment of grief that you know not what you think, but are like a man at his wit’s end. For such as you there shines this star of the first magnitude. Jesus has appeared to save, and he is God and man in one person: man that he may feel our woes, God that he may help us out of them. No minister can save you, no priest can save you — you know this right well; but here is one who is able to save to the uttermost, for he is God as well as man. - C. H. Spurgeon
1-5. But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish - She was first forsaken, the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, ravished and captured by Assyria. This land, called Galilee was despised by the Jews, for it was a mixed land, of Samaritans who did not know the God they worshiped and gentiles. Can anything good come out of Nazareth?
40On hearing these words, some of the people said, “This is truly the Prophet.” 41Others declared, “This is the Christ. But still others asked, “How can the Christ come from Galilee? 42Doesn’t the Scripture say that the Christ will come from the line of David and from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?”… John 7: 40-42
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light - They worshiped in their own way, long ago the kingdom was divided, and Jeroboam was given 10 tribes, told to follow God, but he did not. He feared losing the northern kingdom to Judah if people continued to worship the true God in the way that God put forth. He did not want the people from the northern tribes to continue travelling to Jerusalem, the place of the Lord's temple, and so he made them golden calves and encouraged the high places. He created a false Judaism, apostasy, and it is forever after that his name is a reference to such disobedience. Godless leadership always brings darkness, corrupt a nation.
He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” John 4: 16-26
You have broken as on the day of Midian - If God is for us, Midian reminds us of Gideon, lanterns and pots, of an army that wasted it's own self. Every sin that is ever placed in the bow of our opponent, every vile thing we have now confessed, Christ has victoriously conquered in our place.
6-7. For to us a child is born - The King of kings, promised in the garden after the fall of mankind. True salvation is born humbly in a manger in Bethlehem, ministers and heals in a forsaken place called Galilee.
A Son is given - For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. It is the eternally holy, the God infinitely opposed to sin, and so it must be the eternally begotten, no other sacrifice will do. He must be clothed in humanity because that is fallen. This must be added to His deity, for it is human kind that has embraced pride, arrogance, the lie. All we like sheep have gone astray. Surely He has born our griefs and carried our sorrows. Note that God's love is not a mere feeling or good thought; it is action, and sacrificial. His love towards man is crowned by His holiness, and so the debt must be paid, the Just for the unjust.
…6Who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross.… Philippians 2: 6-8
And the government shall be upon His shoulder - He is no politician like men who govern today, he needs no government to carry Him. The full realization of His peace will be in the Millennial Kingdom, but He has also said repent, and be saved, for the Kingdom of God is at hand. All who truly believe come under His governance now; they seek to serve rather than be served, are humbled at so great a treasure of the gospel. You know who they are by their love of His word, constantly seeking His intent in Scripture that they may know their King and His law.
Wonderful Counselor - He inspires such awe, amazement, and this only grows with time. The more I wonder about Him, the more I learn of Him, the less held I am to this world. It all grows strangely dim.
How we need Jesus as our Counselor! “It was by a Counsellor that this world was ruined. Did not Satan mask himself in the serpent, and counsel the woman with exceeding craftiness, that she should take unto herself of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, in the hope that thereby she should be as God? Was it not that evil counsel which provoked our mother to rebel against her Maker, and did it not as the effect of sin, bring death into this world with all its train of woe? Ah! beloved, it was meet that the world should have a Counsellor to restore it, if it had a Counsellor to destroy it.” (Spurgeon)
ii. Jesus is our Counselor in the sense that He sits in the High Counsel of the Godhead and takes council with the Father and the Holy Spirit for our good. The High Counsel of the Godhead brought forth our salvation. “Hence you read in the book of Zechariah, if you turn to the sixth chapter and the thirteenth verse, this passage — ‘The council of peace shall be between them both.’ The Son of God with his Father and the Spirit, ordained the council of peace. Thus was it arranged. The Son must suffer, he must be the substitute, must bear his people’s sins and be punished in their stead; the Father must accept the Son’s substitution and allow his people to go free, because Christ had paid their debts. The Spirit of the living God must then cleanse the people whom the blood had pardoned, and so they must be accepted before the presence of God, even the Father. That was the result of the great council.” (Spurgeon)
Mighty God - All things were made through Him. This is the great mystery of our faith, part of much wonder, for who is like God? Only the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made.… John 1: 1-3
Can there be a more straightforward declaration of the deity of the Messiah? Yet some groups (such as Jehovah’s Witnesses) try to make a distinction between Mighty God and Almighty God. Scripturally, there is no distinction, because both titles are used of Jesus and Yahweh specifically (Almighty is applied to Jesus in Revelation 1:8).
ii. In Isaiah 10:21, the prophet uses the exact same phrase to refer to Yahweh: The remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the Mighty God. Therefore, this is a clear statement of absolute deity Enduring Word
iii. “And indeed, if Christ had not been God, it would have been unlawful to glory in him; for it is written, Cursed be he that trusteth in man. (Jeremiah 17:5)” (Calvin)
iv. “We extend the right hand of fellowship to all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth; but we cannot exchange our Christian greetings with those who deny him to be ‘very God of very God.’ And the reason is sometimes asked; for say our opponents, ‘We are ready to give the right hand of fellowship to you, why don’t you do so to us?’ Our reply shall be given thus briefly: ‘You have no right to complain of us, seeing that in this matter we stand on the defensive. When you declare yourselves to believe that Christ is not the Son of God, you may not be conscious of it, but you have charged us with one of the blackest sins in the entire catalogue of crime.’ The Unitarians must, to be existent, charge the whole of us, who worship Christ, with being idolaters. Now idolatry is a sin of the most heinous character; it is not an offense against men it is true, but it is an intolerable offense against the majesty of God.” (Spurgeon)
v. “If Christ were not the Son of God, his death, so far from being a satisfaction for sin, was a death most richly and righteously deserved. The Sanhedrin before which He was tried was the recognized and authorized legislature of the country. He was brought before that Sanhedrin, charged with blasphemy, and it was upon that charge that they condemned him to die, because he made himself the Son of God.” (Spurgeon)
Everlasting Father - Do you recognize Him? Have you really seen Him, known Him as savior and Lord, the lamb of God, Holy?
…8Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” 9 Jesus replied, “Philip, I have been with you all this time, and still you do not know Me? Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words I say to you, I do not speak on My own. Instead, it is the Father dwelling in Me, performing His works.… John 14: 8-10
Prince of Peace - We were born enemies of God, dead in our trespasses and sins, but He has called us to Him through His Son. Peace Offering
…13But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. 14For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has torn down the dividing wall of hostility 15by abolishing in His flesh the law of commandments and decrees. He did this to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace… Ephesians 2: 13-15
From this time forth and forever more - Even now He reigns in the hearts of believers, but not only there, for God is sovereign, declaring the end from the beginning. It should bring the greatest joy in our hearts, peace that passes understanding, that circumstances shall not rule us, nor evil government, for we see God's hand above that.
…44“Come here,” he called to David, “and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!” 45But David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.46This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand. This day I will strike you down, cut off your head, and give the carcasses of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the creatures of the earth. Then the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.… 1 Samuel 17: 44-46
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