Isaiah's Messiah

I, like others, am content to ignore the (supposed!) fact
that Isaiah never actually made this iconic juxtaposition.

Isaiah's main Messianic prophecy constitutes Chapter 11 of the book that bears his name, with a shorter, possibly Messianic passage in 9:6-7. (Isaiah 7:14 is also commonly cited as a Messianic prophecy, but it is very obviously nothing of the kind, and I shall dismiss it without further ado.) Nowhere does Isaiah actually say "the Messiah," but that is the conventional title that was later applied to the ruler whose coming is prophesied in passages such as these.

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Isaiah 9:6-7

[6] For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. [7] Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

"Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace" is one possible translation of a long prophetic name (Pele-joez-el-gibbor-abi-ad-sar-shalom) of the same sort as Maher-shalal-hash-baz. Like many Hebrew names, it contains theophoric elements, but no Jewish reader would understand this name to indicate that the child would be God himself. However, once we have decided this prophecy refers to Jesus, that meaning can certainly be read into it in retrospect.

As it reads, this is clearly a prophecy of a political leader: "the government shall be upon his shoulder." His sitting "upon the throne of David" refers to ruling over a reunited kingdom of Israel and Judah. He will reestablish Israel as a kingdom and establish a a just and peaceful government that will endure forever.

Against reading this as a Messianic prophecy, we have the fact that v. 6 refers to the child as having already been born, although his reign is still in the future. In this, he is similar to the other children who are given prophetic names in Isaiah 7-9, Immanuel and Maher-shalal-hash-baz, both of whom were clearly born in Isaiah's own days. Rashi's commentary in fact interprets this passage as referring to Ahaz's son Hezekiah, later to rule over Judah (including David's ancient capital, Jerusalem) in peace and righteousness, and understands "for ever" to mean "all the days of his life," as when it is said of Samuel (in 1 Samuel 1:22) that he will "abide for ever" in the Temple.

(Rashi also, I regret to report, reads the second part of v. 6 as "his name shall be called -- by the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father -- 'the Prince of Peace'" -- thus demonstrating the sort of tin-eared obtuseness which has, alas, so often been typically rabbinical.)

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Isaiah 11

While Rashi believes 9:6-7 to be a non-Messianic prophecy about Hezekiah, he does see Chapters 11 as being about the Messiah.

[1] And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:

Jesse was the father of David, so this refers to someone of the Davidic line.

[2] And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; [3] And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: [4] But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth: with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. [5] And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.

While the reader might naturally assume that a king is being described, nothing in this passage says that directly. He will judge and reprove and smite, but it is not said that he will rule or reign. The obviously metaphorical bit about his smiting and slaying "with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips" leaves open the possibility that this Messiah will be primarily a teacher or prophet rather than an actual king.

[6] The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. [7] And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. [8] And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's den. [9] They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

I would tend to interpret this is a hyperbolic way of saying that the Messiah will bring peace -- and he will bring it by spreading "the knowledge of the Lord" over the earth, not by exercising political power. Again, this is consistent with the Messiah's being a teacher and not a king.

[10] And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.

Commentators generally understand "his rest" to mean "the place where he lives" -- i.e., Judah.

[11] And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. [12] And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. [13] The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim. [14] But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west; they shall spoil them of the east together: they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon shall obey them. [15] And the Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dryshod. [16] And there shall be an highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.

The Israelites will leave the lands where they now live scattered and will return to Israel, as happened in the Exodus. There is even a reference to the Red Sea being parted again. This seems to connect the Messiah with the prophet like unto Moses, suggesting that they are after all the same person.

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Applicability to Jesus

The only thing about Isaiah 9:6-7 that would bring Jesus to mind is the name itself, with its implication that a child could be born who would be God himself. As I have said, I don't think it actually implies that in context, though, and nothing else in this brief prophecy has anything to do with Jesus. All in all, I think I agree with Rashi that, pace Handel, this was never intended to be a Messianic prophecy at all.

Isaiah 11 is indisputably Messianic in character, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how little in it suggests a literal king on the throne of David. Everything in vv. 2-5 is more or less consistent with Jesus. However, vv. 6-9, describing a peaceable kingdom in which even predators will cease to prey, is harder to apply to Jesus, who did not after all bring anything resembling world peace. The bit about how "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea" seems to have been at least partly fulfilled by Jesus. Knowledge of the God of the Hebrews is now virtually universal -- that is, very nearly everyone in the world has heard of him and knows a bit about him -- and that happened because of Jesus. However, Isaiah seems to be predicting a "knowledge of the Lord" that runs deeper than mere information -- seems to be saying that people will really know the Lord and will thus become peaceful -- and that has not happened. In v. 10, we are told that the gentiles will turn their attention to the Messiah and his homeland, and that certainly came true because of Jesus. The remainder of the chapter, which is about the return of the scattered Israelites to their ancient homeland, arguably began to be fulfilled with the creation of the modern state of Israel, but that was long after Jesus' time. Many of the details of this prophecy refer to nations that were already irrelevant even in the time of Jesus, to say nothing of the 20th century.

I think it's safe to say that if Isaiah had consciously foreseen Jesus' life and work with any degree of clarity or accuracy, this isn't what he would have written. At best, he had a vague intuition that a "savior" was coming -- but what exactly that meant, and what he would save people from, was filled in by his own preconceptions, or possibly by prophetic inklings of other things to come, not directly related to the life of Jesus, which unintentionally got mixed up with his Messianic vision.