The Root of Jesse
“Then a shoot will spring up from the stump of Jesse, and a Branch from his roots will bear fruit. The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him—the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and fear of the LORD. And He will delight in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what His eyes see, and He will not decide by what His ears hear, but with righteousness He will judge the poor, and with equity He will decide for the lowly of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth and slay the wicked with the breath of His lips. Righteousness will be the belt around His hips, and faithfulness the sash around His waist.
The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the goat; the calf and young lion and fatling will be together, and a little child will lead them. The cow will graze with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play by the cobra’s den, and the toddler will reach into the viper’s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the sea is full of water.
On that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples. The nations will seek Him, and His place of rest will be glorious. On that day the Lord will extend His hand a second time to recover the remnant of His people from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; He will collect the scattered of Judah from the four corners of the earth. Then the jealousy of Ephraim will depart, and the adversaries of Judah will be cut off.
Ephraim will no longer envy Judah, nor will Judah harass Ephraim. They will swoop down on the slopes of the Philistines to the west; together they will plunder the sons of the east. They will lay their hands on Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites will be subject to them.
The LORD will devote to destruction the gulf of the Sea of Egypt; with a scorching wind He will sweep His hand over the Euphrates. He will split it into seven streams for men to cross with dry sandals. There will be a highway for the remnant of His people who remain from Assyria, as there was for Israel when they came up from the land of Egypt.”
When Isaiah received this message, he must have been overjoyed. God wanted Isaiah to announce that the Messiah was coming and that when He came, everything would be put right. All the evil, all the injustices, all the hatred in the world would be banished. These spiritual changes would be so complete that the curses put on creation at the time of Adam and Eve would be reversed. Predatory animals would live peacefully with those on which they had previously fed. Even poisonous snakes would refrain from attacking little children. But these changes would only be the beginning.
Today climate change is a hot topic. But here Isaiah is predicting that God is going to dry up the Euphrates River. The Encyclopedia Britannica says this about the Euphrates: ”The longest river in southwest Asia, it is 1,740 miles (2,800 km) long, and it is one of the two main constituents of the Tigris-Euphrates river system. The river rises in Turkey and flows southeast across Syria and through Iraq.
Formed by the confluence of the Karasu and Murat rivers in the Armenian Highland, the Euphrates descends between major ranges of the Taurus Mountains to the Syrian plateau. It then flows through western and central Iraq to unite with the Tigris River and continues, as Shatt Al-Arab, to the Persian Gulf. Its valley was heavily irrigated in ancient times, and many great cities, some of whose ruins remain, lined its banks. With the Tigris, it defines an area known historically as Mesopotamia.”
What is God predicting here through Isaiah? God is promising that He is going to remove every barrier that has prevented His people from returning to Israel. The language employed here is fascinating. The language used to describe the division of the Euphrates indicates that God will strike the Euphrates with His mighty Hand. But the language used to describe the drying up of the Red Sea indicates that it might dry up from inside itself. How and when these events will take place is not certain, but what is certain is that God Himself will remove these physical barriers.
APPLICATION: How far away is God? Many times when catastrophes take place such as accidents, hurricanes, droughts, floods, or wars and economic collapses, people blame God. “Where is God in this mess? Why has God allowed this horrible thing to happen?” These verses indicate that God has not removed Himself. In fact, God is as close to each of us as our own heartbeats. If there are barriers between God and us, WE are the ones who have erected those barriers.
These verses indicate that before the end of the age, God will call His people out of the lands of their exile, summoning them to return to Israel. Is it possible for God to dry up the Gulf of Aqaba or to split the mighty Euphrates into seven small streams? Of course! God is the One who created those geographical features in the first place, so He can certainly rearrange the earth as He chooses. But what do these verses mean for the people of the world in general?
First, we must realize that God’s will for mankind has been and always will be for peace. The picture at the top of this devotional is the Benjamin West painting entitled “The Peaceable Kingdom.” Not only does West depict the events described by Isaiah, but he also includes a painting of William Penn making a treaty with Native Americans. Both West and Penn were Quakers devoted to bringing peace to all those around them. West included this picture of the treaty to indicate that peace among men would also be an important part of the peaceable kingdom.
Isaiah 9:6 – 7 tells us “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from that time and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of Hosts will accomplish this.”
Notice that there is nothing uncertain about this prophecy, and in fact this prophecy has already been fulfilled. Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, has been born as a man, has lived as a man and has died for the sins of the entire world. Now Jesus reigns from the God – given throne of David with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. One day, Jesus will return to earth and establish His kingdom on earth; meanwhile, we must trust that even when terrible things happen, God is still in our midst and is still working. We live in a fallen sinful world, and the disasters we see are the results of that sin. But when we turn to God and follow Him, we can have hope even in the midst of our suffering. And we can trust that the same God who can smite the longest and most powerful river in southwest Asia into seven small streams is still at work to perfect us into His Image.
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Lord, we acknowledge that we are sinners and that our sins have blighted our world. Forgive us and help us to follow hard after You all the days of our lives. Let Your Kingdom come and Your perfect will be fully done in our lives. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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