Isaiah - episode 4

We continue reading Prophet Isaiah with another well-known passage that announces the arrival of the messianic liberator: the “shoot of Jesse”. The context in which we find those verses is a general devastation as a result of a foreign invasion; the enemies of the people are personified by the cedars of Lebanon, hit by the Lord’s intervention. «Behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, will lop the boughs with terror. The tall will be cut down, and the lofty will be brought low. He will cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon will fall by the Mighty One» (Isa 10,33-34). In the midst of this forest of felled trees we find also the trunk of Jesse’s family (he is King David’s father), cut at its base and apparently dead. However, surprisingly, «A shoot will come out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots will bear fruit» (Isa 11,1). This is a subject dear to Isaiah: the “remnant”. It is a small part of the people who remained faithful to the Lord and survived His punishment; from them a new life will be born (see for example Isa 4,3-6; 6,11-13; the name of Isaiah’s son in 7,3: “a remnant will come back”; 10,20-23).

 

 

Here are the Shoot’s qualities: «The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD» (Isa 11,2). The Lord’s Spirit will take a permanent residence on him, filling him up with talents. «Wisdom» denotes the practical ability to lead life in the proper way, bringing it to a happy ending (see the Introduction to the Books of Wisdom), while «understanding» means he will be able to penetrate the mysteries of the world and of God’s plan for history. «Counsel» is the capacity to make important and wise decisions (being based on the two previous talents), «might» allows the Shoot to put them in practice overcoming every obstacle. «Knowledge» is something very concrete, the Bible uses this term to describe the marital intercourse between man and woman: the Shoot will have a unique and unparalleled intimacy with God. Finally, «the fear of the Lord» is a deep and adoring respect to Him. We can divide the six talents into three couples, that make of the Shoot a complete personality: wisdom, politics, religion.The seventh talent (“piety”) was added in the Greek translation of the Septuagint, doubling the “fear of the Lord”: the idea of fullness, usually presented with the use of number seven, in the Hebrew text is replaced by the four mentions of the Spirit (with similar meaning: four like all the cardinal points).

The Shoot’s description continues: «His delight will be in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by the sight of his eyes, neither decide by the hearing of his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the poor, and decide with equity for the humble of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; and with the breath of his lips he will kill the wicked. Righteousness will be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his waist» (Isa 11,3-5). «Righteousness» to the people and «faithfulness» to God will be tied to his person like the mentioned «belt». The arrival of the Shoot will bring a new creation, with the order and the peace of the origins ( see Gen 1-2), including vegetarian feeding. «The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat; The calf, the young lion, and the fattened calf together; and a little child will lead them. The cow and the bear will graze. Their young ones will lie down together. The lion will eat straw like the ox. The nursing child will play near a cobra’s hole, and the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. They will not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea» (Isa 11,6-9).

Again the closest identification of the mysterious Shoot could be with King Hezekiah, son of Ahaz who was faithful to the words of the Lord. Christians see here the figure of Jesus, about whom John the Baptist tells: «I saw the Spirit descending like a dove out of heaven, and it remained on him. And I did not recognize him, but he who sent me to baptize in water, he said to me, ‘On whomever you will see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, this is he who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God» (John 1,32-34).

In the next post we will start to read the second part of the Book of Isaiah (chapters 40-55).