I’m going to skip over chapter 8 with but one comment. The sign of Maher-shalal-hash-baz (Isa 8:1-4) is the sign that is often wrongly understood as the sign of Immanuel. That is to say, MSHB signals the timing of the destruction of Aram and Israel by Assyria. Immanuel does not. It doesn’t make much sense to me that God would need two different boys, with two very different names, to provide the same sign. But if they are each revealing different parts of God’s plan, it makes more sense. If you think that Immanuel = MSHB, I would point you back to my 7 reasons against this equation. MSHB is a boy born by natural means with a very short-lived and non-glorious hope.
Chapter 9 begins with the darkness that descended in chapters 7 and 8. I believe that it is important to see that the darkness (judgment) that has been mentioned throughout the book to this point, and which will be mentioned in the chapters following, is the same darkness. God is not revealing multiple future judgments that will occur at various times. Instead, he is describing the imminent (but not short-lived) results of Israel’s sin. Out of the gloom emerges signs of hope. In chapter 6, it is a stump. In chapter 7, it is a boy born to an unmarried woman. In chapter 9 it is a child who will rule on the throne of David. The natural question that arises is whether these are multiple, different “hopes,” or rather multiple descriptions of a single hope. If you assume, for a moment, the former, then you can reconstruct the situation something like this: a boy named Immanuel comes, indicating “God is with us.” Then there is judgment, and later a son is born who is a righteous ruler. Later, after more judgment (9:8-10:34), a shoot comes from Jesse who judges the earth in righteousness (Isa 11:1-5). That vanishes into the judgment and later a throne is established of a Davidic ruler who is quick to act righteously (Isa 16:5).
There are two reasons why I believe it is impossible that these descriptions are not all of a single hope. First, the descriptions suggest an irreversible situation. It does not seem that a world where the “wolf lies down with the lamb” and the earth is “full of the knowledge of the Lord” could revert to a state as it had been in the days of Isaiah. It is hard to picture a reversal of Isaiah 12; exactly how the people would go from utter trust and lack of fear to idolatry is hard to fathom. Furthermore, in at least one place, this one is explicitly said to be lasting. Isaiah 9:7 says, “Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end.” I think this needs to color our thinking, and we should be picturing this future hope as singular and unending.
Second, the multiple descriptions of this hope, while having some differences, also have remarkable similarities. Thus, the boy born in 7:14 will “know how to refuse the evil and choose the good,” and the son given in 9:6 rules “with justice and with righteousness.” The shoot of 11:1-5 does not judge by his eyes or ears but “with righteousness.” In fact, in a metaphor I love, “Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.” That means that this guy is intrinsically righteous! The one who is the “Prince of Peace” in 9:6 sounds like he must be the one presiding over a world where leopards lie down with goats (Isa 11:6) and where people beat their swords into plowshares (Isa 2:4). There are more similarities, and I commend to you the exercise (not all that difficult or lengthy) of putting these together into a single, glorious picture of our (oops, I mean, Isaiah’s) future hope.
I’ve already made important connections between the individual in Isaiah 7:14-17 with the one in Isaiah 9:1-7, so if you missed that, go back to the middle of this post. I simply want to state here that Isaiah 9 should be read as building on top of what the prophet has already established. He expects you to have read it, and he expects you to have understood it, even though it was brief and vague. You might wish that Isaiah had added yet one more title to the child in 9:6, namely “Immanuel,” as that would have ended all debate. I, however, think that God does not necessarily feel the need to stoop so low as to spell everything out. And, as I said before, I think that Isaiah is intentionally less direct because of the hardened hearts of unbelievers who are listening to him. For those with ears to hear, however, the truth is readily obvious.
Now, I haven’t said a whole lot by way of explanation of Isaiah 9:1-7 itself. Partly that is because I think it is relatively clear. In essence, it is the same message as Isaiah 7:14-17: out of judgment/darkness God sends a child who is the hope of Israel. If you read 7:14 as I think they did, you are alerted to a supernatural element: a virgin gives birth. The formula announcing the child’s birth (“Behold, the virgin will conceive and bear a son”) is almost exactly the same as the angelic declaration that Samson’s barren mother would bear a child (Judg 13:5). This miraculous nature of this birth of a boy named “God with us” is further developed by Isaiah as a child who will be called “Mighty God,” and “Everlasting Father.” Though every Davidic king had failed to live according to God’s commands and thus was removed from the throne, this future Davidic child will “establish and uphold it with justice … forevermore.”
To sum up in a sentence, Isaiah 9:1-7 takes the kernel of hope introduced in 7:14-17 and starts to add beautiful detail.
Matthew, by the way, never quotes the all-familiar Isaiah 9:6-7. Why not? Two reasons. First, he cites Isaiah 9:1-2 which immediately connects the (knowledgeable) reader to this passage. So the reader knows that Jesus is this guy described by Isaiah. But, second, Matthew also knows that Jesus did not sit on David’s throne and establish the kingdom, as this figure is predicted to do. Matthew’s gospel is largely designed to explain precisely this point: how Jesus could be the light of Isaiah 9:2 and not be the one whose “increase of his government and of peace there will be no end.” How does Matthew figure this out? Isaiah told him. Isaiah had all the pieces of the puzzle on the table, and Matthew merely had to put them together. His gospel explains how the King (Isaiah 7-12 plus) could also be the dying Servant (Isaiah 42-53). The rejection of Jesus by his own people allowed him to die first, but to come back to rule later. Isaiah does not explain this clearly; in fact, I think it would have taken some of the force of Jesus’s demands upon the people if they all understood that when the king came they would have to kill him first.
But returning to Matthew, I think that it is significant that he quotes Isaiah 9:1-2 but not verses 6-7. It’s the equivalent of Matthew’s later quotation of Zech 9:9, where he breaks the passage in between the peaceful entrance of Jesus and the military conquest of the same one (Matt 21:5). It is one person, but all of the activities of that individual are not fulfilled at one time. You see the same thing when Jesus quotes Isaiah 61:1-2, stopping before the statement of vengeance (Luke 4:18-20).
It is fascinating to see how the prophets wrote some of their prophecies so that you could read the first portion and it would describe Jesus’s first coming and the second portion would describe his return. It almost makes you think that there was a divine Author behind all of this.