NOTES for Isa 11:9

It is impossible to see such a thing being in our human being's ordinary state. It is necessary for it "to get up" above this world - in a way that what the events of real and closer future don’t cover those far away times, towards which is directed the human history. It is in particular in similar state that God Himself indwells, we call it eternity, that is why the prediction is the result of what the Holy Spirit joins with eternity, this place and time, where there is a prophet, and to him opens " a spiritual sight", through which he begins to see clearly something that was until then out of sight. Since this vision comes true in the eternity, where there is not our ordinary succession of time, so to the prophet remain unknown the "time and deadlines", he is in the state to testify the fact (as well as he can understand it and describe), but not say, when it will occur in the history.

Why does God give then this vision? Probably, the fact is that He finds just to open His plan, His intention to man, to show him to what He leads this world, so that man should have a possibility of choice – is he going to help God in this work or to resist Him. God loves men, and this means – He respects their freedom.

Once again Isaiah prophesies about the coming of the One who will save Israel. Another of His names is revealed to him: the Branch. He will be a green shoot springing up from the stump left after the tree has been cut down - the royal house of David, which will not be able to stand.

And yet this stump will still have roots nourished by living water. And the day will come when a new shoot appears, from which a new tree will grow - a new royal line.

Isaiah is also shown that this Savior will be God's Anointed One, the Messiah. The Spirit of YHWH will give Him everything necessary for His royal ministry: wisdom, extraordinary strength, and knowledge of what is hidden. At the same time He will be filled with the fear of God - meekness and humility.

The Messiah will restore God's justice. This will lead to the establishment of peace, shalom, which will fill all creation.

The Lord promises His people peace, and this is not merely the end of the war with Assyria. When the Messiah reigns, the shoot from the root of Jesse, David's father, peace will become all-embracing: it will extend to all nations and transform all nature. Animals will stop destroying one another and human beings, an infant will be able to play with a snake, and enmity between Israel and the Gentiles will cease.

When will these fairy-tale times come? The New Testament tells us of reconciliation with God through the death of Jesus Christ. Is this not the beginning and root of peace on earth, the beginning of the realization of His Kingdom?

Isaiah shows us two qualities of God: truth and mercy. Humanity, as is its habit in everything, always tries to settle on just one. Each person chooses what he likes best and refuses to acknowledge the other side. In God, however, incompatible things are held in balance. Truth testifies to God’s faithfulness to His promises—a faithfulness that extends to the literal fulfillment of prophecies, which a person, being limited in time and space, cannot always see. This is what strengthens our shield of faith, our faith in God. Mercy, meanwhile, gives us hope that if no prophecy was found concerning us, He will accept us even without it.

A “shoot,” a “branch”—these are the names Isaiah of Jerusalem usually gives the Messiah. A righteous ruler: that is how the prophet sees Him. The simplest explanation would be that Isaiah is repeating what the prophets of earlier times had said before him. Indeed, the idea that God's people should be headed by a righteous leader appointed by God, who would judge the people according to the law given by God Himself, had already been voiced by the spiritual leaders of the prophetic movement in the time of the Judges, before the first kings were chosen. But is this only a matter of tradition? God's Kingdom is not of this world, as the Savior Himself will say when He comes into the world.

Yet “not of this world” does not mean “outside the world.” “Not of this world” means “not according to the laws of this world.” Not according to this world's laws, because all of them are distorted by the sin in which the fallen world lies. Yet God conceived this world as His Kingdom! If it is not so now, that is only because, at some point, something in it went differently from what God had intended. And God decided to put this right. He Himself is the King of the world.

“Blessed are You, our Lord, King of the universe”—this is how most Jewish prayers begin. This means that God's people, too, should have a righteous King over them, and that the people themselves should show the world an example of a righteous Kingdom. For the ancients, a kingdom meant above all its subjects, not its territory; the relationships binding its inhabitants together, not the lands over which the king's authority extended. A king might have no land of his own, but he could not be without subjects. Land, after all, was something that could be acquired or conquered.

Each king, however, has his own ways of keeping his subjects under his authority. The King of whom Isaiah speaks holds them through righteousness and faithfulness to God; the Russian Synodal translation calls righteousness “justice” and faithfulness “truth.” This is the very righteousness that makes it possible to judge the poor's cases fairly. It would seem to be an earthly ruler's earthly court, and yet… One would hardly find a ruler on earth capable of resolving the problems of all the poor, the unfortunate, and the deprived fairly, without wronging anyone. Such a task is beyond an ordinary human being, even one devoted to God with all his heart.

Then, behind the image of an earthly king, however righteous, the image of another King begins to emerge: a King whose Kingdom is “not of this world”; a King bound by none of the earthly limitations of a fallen world lying in evil; a King who alone can finish the work that rulers striving for righteousness sometimes tried to begin in this world; a King who will reveal that very righteousness to the world in a fullness beyond the reach of any ordinary human being.

At first glance, the coming Savior is portrayed as a fearsome judge dealing with sinners, which would seem to be confirmed by the words that He will kill the wicked. But then we read that the wolf will lie down with the lamb, and the lion will eat straw. That means cruelty and predatory ways will no longer reign, not only in human society but even in nature. But if violence will not be needed even to protect lambs, why then kill a wicked human being?

These words, apparently, still refer not to sinful people who are under the power of evil, but to the inspirer of evil, the ancient tempter who provokes people to sin in the hope of enslaving their souls. In that case, the words about the victory over him, accomplished by the spirit of the Savior's mouth, should be understood as a prophecy of the Lord's final victory over every evil, which is to come at the end of time.

It may appear that different events are joined in the prophecy: the final victory over evil and the more immediate deliverance of the people from captivity. But there is no contradiction here; the joyful pictures of the people's liberation from foreign oppressors were seen by Isaiah as a foreshadowing of the coming victory of truth and justice for all nations. For every genuine good is a particle of that great good coming from the Lord, which in the end must triumph.