Isaiah9chapter 9

Isaiah 9:1-2

Galilee of the nations: The gloom that ends chapter 8 is answered directly: the very regions first afflicted by Assyria, Zebulun and Naphtali, by the way of the sea and Galilee of the nations, are named again as the place where the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Matthew 4:15-16 quotes this verse of Jesus beginning his Galilean ministry, the same despised northern territory made the map reference for where the light first shines. The reversal is total: the district hit earliest and hardest by judgment becomes the district honored earliest by grace.

Isaiah 9:3-5

multiplied the nation: Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy reads oddly against the harvest gladness the rest of the verse describes, and the older commentators trace the tension to a Hebrew consonant ambiguity between the word for not and the word for to him, so an alternate reading gives thou hast increased the joy done to him rather than a flat denial. Either reading lands on the same picture, joy like harvest gladness and like men dividing spoil after victory, and the yoke, staff and rod of the oppressor broken as in the day of Midian, recalling Gideon's rout of an overwhelming army by the Lord's power rather than by numbers. Verse 5 contrasts every battle of the past, fought with confused noise and garments rolled in blood, against a deliverance to come that will be settled with burning and fuel of fire instead of ordinary combat.

Isaiah 9:6-7

unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, ties this new king to the ordinary human process of birth even as the government is laid upon his shoulder, a burden elsewhere carried by the strongest man in the land. The four names, Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace, are read by the bench as titles of one person rather than a list divided among several, and Delitzsch and Barnes both state that the mighty God is what the Hebrew el gibbor says, the same phrase used of the Lord himself at Isaiah 10:21, so the text itself makes the claim of deity rather than a later reader importing it. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, ties the child's reign to the Davidic covenant of 2 Samuel 7 and gives it a duration, for ever, that no merely human dynasty had ever claimed for itself.

Isaiah 9:8-10

The Lord sent a word into Jacob: The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel, returns the chapter from the child's throne back to the northern kingdom's own coming judgment, all the people meaning Ephraim and Samaria specifically. Their answer to the warning is defiant self-sufficiency: the bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones, the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars, replacing cheap ruined material with costlier and better on their own initiative rather than turning back to the Lord who sent the warning. Henry reads the boast as pride mistaking its own resources for security, rebuilding grander than before instead of repenting.

Isaiah 9:11-12

adversaries of Rezin: Against Ephraim's boast the Lord sets up the adversaries of Rezin, joining Syria and the Philistines, once separate threats, into a single instrument against the same pride that had just refused correction. Verse 12 closes the unit with the refrain that structures the rest of the chapter and runs into chapter 10, for all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still, a line repeated four times as a drumbeat marking that no single judgment has yet exhausted the warning. The commentators read the refrain as deliberately unresolved, each stanza ending not with relief but with the same threat still standing.

Isaiah 9:13-14

turneth not unto him that smiteth them: The people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the Lord of hosts, names the real failure behind the boast of verse 10, judgment received without repentance following it. Because correction produces no turning, the Lord answers by cutting off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day, a single stroke removing every rank of society at once rather than judging by degrees. Gill reads the totality of the cutting off as proportioned to the totality of the refusal, the whole nation having ignored the whole warning together.

Isaiah 9:15-17

The ancient and honourable, he is the head: Verse 15 defines the head and tail of the previous verse plainly: the ancient and honourable is the head, and the prophet that teacheth lies is the tail, corrupt leadership at both ends of the social order sharing equal blame for leading the people astray. Because the leaders cause the people to err, judgment falls without regard to ordinary claims on mercy, no joy in their young men, no mercy on the fatherless and widows, every mouth speaking folly and every one an hypocrite. The refrain returns a second time at the end of verse 17, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still, the same warning repeated exactly as after the first stanza.

Isaiah 9:18-19

wickedness burneth as the fire: Wickedness burneth as the fire, devouring briers and thorns and kindling the thickets of the forest until the smoke mounts up, a picture of sin as a self-spreading blaze rather than an isolated act, consuming everything near it. The wrath of the Lord of hosts darkens the whole land, and the people themselves become fuel for the fire they kindled, the same image turned from metaphor to judgment: no man shall spare his brother, social bonds burning away with everything else. Delitzsch reads the fire imagery as continuous from verse 18 into the cannibal horror of verse 20, one fire consuming the nation's land and then its own flesh.

Isaiah 9:20-21

eat every man the flesh of his own arm: Hunger drives the nation to devour itself in the most literal terms the prophet can supply, they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm, self-consuming want standing for a society that has turned entirely inward against itself. Manasseh and Ephraim, brother tribes descended from one father, turn against each other and then together against Judah, civil strife added on top of foreign invasion as the full measure of the nation's unraveling. The refrain closes the chapter a third time, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still, unresolved and carried forward into chapter 10's continuing woe against the same unrepentant nation.