Isaiah 11-12

What’s Happening?

Israel is meant to be a beacon of God’s justice, peace, and goodness and invite the world to join God’s Kingdom (Genesis 12:1-3). But Israel’s kings abandoned their divine calling and filled the nation with injustice, violence, and corruption (Isaiah 1:1-5). In response, God promised he would purge the evil from within Israel. From the first pages of Isaiah, this divine purging has been described as the burning down of a forest (Isaiah 1:10-11, 6:11-13, 9:18-19). Specifically, God will use the nation of Assyria like an ax to fell the great forest of Israel before burning the land and scattering the survivors (Isaiah 10:15-19). But Isaiah prophesies that after this purging, new life will branch from the charred stump of Israel.

A new king will be born to Israel’s royal line (Isaiah 11:1). This new king will not be like Israel’s past kings. He will not love power or fill his mind with wicked advice and unjust counsel. Instead, he will love God, and God’s Spirit will rest on and fill him. He will be filled with true wisdom to rule God’s people in justice (Isaiah 11:2-3). This king will vindicate the poor, punish the wicked who prey upon them, and peace will reign among God’s people (Isaiah 11:4-5). This king will so decisively end predation that even wolves, lions, and snakes will play gently with lambs and toddlers (Isaiah 11:6-8). Under his rule, Israel will finally become the beacon of God’s justice, peace, and goodness God intended them to be, and foreign kings will rally to join the Kingdom (Isaiah 11:9-10). 

Once this king establishes his rule and restores Israel to her calling, Isaiah says Israel itself will be healed. The disagreements and jealousies that divided Israel into warring kingdoms will all be forgotten (Isaiah 11:13). Israel’s longest-standing conflicts will be brought to a definitive end (Isaiah 11:14). Finally, the Israelites Assyria scattered throughout the world will make the long trek back home and live in God’s perfected Kingdom (Isaiah 11:11-12, 15-16). God will even dry up the river that would block the exile’s return home, just as God pushed back the waters of the Red Sea to rescue Israel from slavery in Egypt (Isaiah 11:11-12, 15-16). This new king will heal Israel’s divided and scattered people.

In light of this new exodus, Isaiah composed a song just like Moses did after God parted the Red Sea. He thanks God that even though God has purged and burned Israel, God’s purpose has always been the comfort, salvation, and restoration of his people (Isaiah 12:1-3). In gratitude, Isaiah calls Israel to remember their calling and begin praising God so that the whole world will know God is with his people, and he will soon send a king (Isaiah 12:4-6).

Where is the Gospel?

Isaiah’s description of the rule and reign of Israel’s king is superhuman. He is a man perfectly filled with God’s Spirit and enflamed with a love for God. His words dispense perfect justice and create a world of total peace. His leadership can heal ancient hostilities between warring tribes and even compel foreign kings to give up their thrones to join his kingdom. Isaiah is not describing a human leader but the eternal reign of God on the earth. Isaiah is describing the Kingdom that Jesus came to bring. 

Throughout Jesus' life, we see that the eternal Kingdom described by Isaiah dawns in Jesus. Jesus begins his ministry when God’s Spirit rests on him and declares that he is the royal son of God (Luke 3:21-22, 38). Almost immediately after, Jesus says that God’s Kingdom of justice, peace, and goodness for the poor and oppressed was coming true in him (Isaiah 4:17-19). Israel’s twelve tribes were divided by civil war. But Jesus appoints twelve new apostles to lead the Kingdom he was inaugurating and, in so doing, symbolically heals the divisions of the past (Luke 6:12-16). Isaiah also prophesied that foreign kings would leave their nations behind and join Israel’s restored Kingdom. In Luke’s Gospel, a foreign general is one of the first people to trust in Jesus’ authority as King and become one of the first citizens in God’s Kingdom (Luke 7:1-10). Throughout his life, Jesus is the royal king who restores Israel to its calling, heals divisions and rallies all nations to his Kingdom.

Like the foreign general, when we trust Jesus’ authority, we also become members of God’s Kingdom. In response to our trust, God’s Spirit rests on and fills us (Acts 1:8). He empowers us to be the beacons of God’s justice, peace, and goodness God’s people were always meant to be (John 14:26). Through the Spirit’s power, our lives will be marked by a love that heals divisions, comforts the suffering, and offers hope to the grieving (John 13:35; 1 Corinthians 12:4-5; Romans 12:14-15). 

See for Yourself

I pray that the Holy Spirit will open your eyes to see the God who restores his people. And may you see Jesus as the King who has restored God’s people to their purpose and inaugurated God’s eternal Kingdom.