Isaiah11chapter 11

Isaiah 11:1-2

a rod out of the stem of Jesse: Out of the stump left standing at the close of chapter 10, a rod comes forth from the stem of Jesse, David's father named rather than David himself, which the older writers read as pointing past the fallen royal line back to its root, life from what looked finished. The spirit of the Lord rests upon him in a sevenfold description, wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and the fear of the Lord, three pairs plus the spirit itself, the fullest description of the Spirit resting on any single figure in the Old Testament. Delitzsch reads the naming of Jesse rather than David as deliberate humility in the prophecy's own language, the shoot rising from the family's low root rather than its royal height.

Isaiah 11:3-5

he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes: His judgment is set against ordinary kingship at the point kings fail worst: he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears, a standard no merely human ruler can keep since every human judge depends on exactly those senses. With righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth, the case Assyria's own boasting kings never made in chapter 10. Righteousness and faithfulness are named the girdle of his loins and his reins, the garment wrapped closest to the body, which Henry reads as these virtues belonging to him rather than being merely worn for show.

Isaiah 11:6-8

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb: The wolf dwells with the lamb, the leopard lies down with the kid, and a little child leads the calf and the young lion together, predator and prey reordered under a single small hand rather than removed from the earth. The lion eating straw like the ox reverses the animal kingdom's usual violence rather than merely restraining it, and the sucking child who plays on the hole of the asp extends the peace to the most fearful image available, a serpent's den made safe for an infant's hand. Gill and Barnes both note the images build on each other by degree, moving from large predators toward the smallest and most vulnerable figure in the whole picture, the weaned child.

Isaiah 11:9

the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord: They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain names the reach of the peace just described, not confined to one land but reaching as far as the same knowledge reaches. For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea states the scope in a single comparison, complete coverage rather than a partial improvement, and Habakkuk 2:14 closely echoes the same clause. Barnes reads the verse as the hinge of the whole chapter, the point where the animal peace of verses 6 through 8 is named as one expression of a knowledge that will fill the whole earth.

Isaiah 11:10

a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people: 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, a verse Paul quotes at Romans 15:12 to argue that Gentile hope in the Messiah was written into the prophets from the start, verified. The same Jesse named at verse 1 as the root of the shoot is now the ensign the nations rally to, tying the chapter's opening image to its closing scope. Calvin reads the ensign language as military in origin, a standard raised to gather scattered troops, now applied to gathering nations rather than armies.

Isaiah 11:11-12

set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant: The Lord sets his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, the word again marking this as a second deliverance distinct from the exodus out of Egypt, gathered now from Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and the islands of the sea, a spread far wider than Egypt alone. He shall set up an ensign for the nations, repeating the ensign of verse 10, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth, both northern and southern kingdoms named together as one gathered people. Delitzsch reads the second regathering as looking beyond any return already recorded in the book's own history, a promise the text leaves open rather than tying to one datable event.

Isaiah 11:13-14

The envy also of Ephraim shall depart: The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off, healing the old rivalry between the two kingdoms named plainly by their tribal heads, Ephraim and Judah no longer vexing one another. What follows reads as an image of a united people turned outward rather than inward, flying upon the shoulders of the Philistines and laying hands on Edom, Moab, and Ammon, old regional enemies rather than new conquest for its own sake. Henry reads the historical enmity of Ephraim and Judah, visible through Israel's whole monarchy, as the specific wound this verse names as healed.

Isaiah 11:15-16

utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea: 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 smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dryshod, language that reaches back to the Red Sea crossing and forward to a new one. 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 chapter's closing sentence naming the exodus as the pattern for this second deliverance. Barnes reads the dried river and the highway together as one image, a road made passable exactly where water once stood as a barrier.