NOTES for Isa 9:9-21

Today we read Isaiah's prophecy, which was fulfilled already during the prophet's lifetime: words about the destruction of Samaria, which together with the whole Northern Kingdom was destroyed in 722 BC. And in this prophecy there are several things that draw attention by their relevance. The prophet speaks of people (a believing people) who do not see in their own disasters the fruit of their lawless deeds. This is precisely what makes the catastrophe unavoidable.

Never mind, the northerners say, that the country is in decline, impoverished and ruined. We will not lose heart, but will rebuild our dear... Samaria, of course, even more beautifully. But, the prophet says, the people do not turn to the One who strikes them, and they do not seek the Lord of Hosts. That means that under conditions of decline and disintegration, when the economy is dying and abuse of power is multiplying, when the country is falling apart like a sandcastle, the right thing would be not only to think about how we should arrange... Samaria, of course. The right thing would be to think: "What is our sin that has brought us to this?" and to seek the Lord of Hosts.

The key words of the whole prophecy are verses 1-2 of chapter 10. The prophet accuses those who enact unjust laws and write cruel decrees, who deprive the poor of justice and rob the weak among the people of their rights. This denunciation is addressed by no means only to Pekah and Hoshea, the kings of Samaria at that time, but to the whole country. This common responsibility is perhaps the reverse side of the unity of a nation, the unity of a country. And therefore the cruelty and tragedy of our history is a matter for our common repentance.

Isaiah's prophecy of the Son-Messiah is like the sun suddenly emerging from behind the clouds. It was given to Israel as consolation at the moment when the darkness that had fallen seemed impenetrable. This promise is one more testimony that the Lord is faithful to His word and does not leave His people without care in the most difficult moments of their life. All the names that partially reveal the Messiah's essence and speak of His wisdom, power, eternity, and peace tell us that no one in this world can oppose Him. All that is required of the people is faithfulness to the Covenant.

If the people, or even a small part of them, the remnant, prove faithful, then the Lord Himself will fight against Israel's enemies, and it will no longer matter what forces oppose Him. The day of Midian, when the adversary fought against itself, can always be repeated.

But if not, if the people do not turn back and their heart remains proud and arrogant, then everything will happen in exactly the opposite way: external enemies will “devour Israel with open mouth”, and civil strife will become its scourge. Then “no man will spare his brother... each will devour the flesh of his own arm: Manasseh will devour Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasseh; together they will turn against Judah”.

A wonderful gift: prophecy. Several centuries after these words were written, the apostle Paul will say that we should especially seek this very gift, because it opens the Lord's ways to us.

It would seem that Isaiah is simply prophesying about the birth of an earthly Messiah, the King from the line of David, but he lists names that can refer only to God Himself. And for a person of Isaiah's time a name was not a conventional label, but something that expressed the essence of the bearer of the name.

So the King from David's line in some astonishing way turns out to be God Himself, establishing His Kingdom forever. And all this is accomplished by the zeal of God, or, as the New Testament would later clarify, by the love of God.

In this prophecy, a rebuke to Israel and Judah sounds by way of contrast, because they do not want to turn to God even in a time of trials. Alongside it comes the message of the exaltation of Gentile Galilee, where oppression and wars will cease because the Prince of Peace will shine there - peace as a state of harmony between God and people. It is paradoxical that the promise of the Son comes against the background of unbelief and forgetfulness of God among His people. But beyond human unfaithfulness and sin, another power is at work in the world: the zeal of the Lord, His fiery love for people, which stops at nothing.

Today's reading includes a messianic hymn (vv. 1-7) linking the Messiah's earthly ministry with Galilee - a place of no religious distinction. There were no major Yahwist religious centers here like those that existed farther south, in Samaria, and Jerusalem with its Temple was, by local standards, rather far away. But none of this prevented Galilee from hearing the preaching of the Messiah-Christ or from becoming the place where the Savior's childhood passed.

External greatness and ancient tradition do not always help the work of God. Who knows what Jesus' childhood would have been like if He had spent it not in quiet Nazareth, but in Jerusalem? God's plan often requires quietness and hiddenness, especially at the first stages, when its fulfillment is only beginning. Human plans, by contrast, often assume from the very start noise, fame, and the earthly greatness that fallen man loves so much (vv. 8-10).

Today's reading not accidentally contrasts despised Galilee with the Kingdom of Israel. The irony of the situation was that Galilee belonged, though not completely, to this state, but was considered in it a remote backwater, of no interest to anyone and of no distinction. All the large cities and all the important political and religious centers of the country lay farther south, in Samaria. Galilee, however, was a border region already partly settled by Gentiles (which is why the prophet calls it "of the nations," v. 1). But centuries passed, and of the Kingdom of Israel, whose rulers were proud of the greatness of their, in essence, quite small country, only memories remained. And the most famous city in this land today is not even Bethel, which was the religious capital of the North and one of the most ancient Yahwist religious centers, but Nazareth, which in the flourishing era of the Northern Kingdom did not yet exist at all and later was by no means distinguished by fame until it was glorified by the One to whom Isaiah bore witness.