Isaiah 9:2-7 is a further sign for
Ahaz. It offers new hope with a new Davidic ruler after Ahaz. This passage
promises a royal savior. It promises an heir to the throne from David who will
bring salvation and greatness to Israel. Pannenberg[1]
points out that while even in the period sacral kingship the Lord was the king,
as Isaiah 6 makes clear, we see here that Isaiah regarded the successor to Ahaz
as the representative of divine rule. Further, Isaiah composed the poem at the
beginning of a series of disastrous political and military moves that took
Judah from one precarious position to another.
It is in response to the first invasion of Judah in 733 BC that Isaiah
composed these words of future hope and deliverance. Verses 2-3 are a general expression of joy.
Light refers to the saving action of God. Ahaz jeopardized the Davidic dynasty.
A new king gives rise to new hopes. The central thrust of the message of Isaiah
is that Israel’s rulers need to remain firm in their trust in their God,
Yahweh, rather than in their own military strength or international alliances.
A concomitant theme is the denunciation of false gods and religious practices,
such as the reference to necromancy (consultation with the dead) in 8:19. The
word of the Lord that came to the prophet declared that those who urged such consultations
with the dead “will have no dawn” (8:20), one of the thematic terms that opens this
passage (see also 8:22). The people “who walked in darkness” are the prophet’s
compatriots, fellow Israelites — “both houses of Israel,” 8:14, collectively
called “this people, 8:11, who have metaphorically lost their way, as evidenced
by their desire for both forbidden
religious practices and entangling foreign arrangements. The Hebrew word
translated “deep darkness” means literally “death-shadow,” Heb. tsalmaweth,
whose first half, “shadow” is from the same root as the word “image” as in
“image and likeness of God,” Genesis 1:26, and whose second half is from the
root meaning “death,” personified in the god Mot/Death, as in Job 18:13.
Tsalmaweth conveys a fuller notion of darkness than simply the absence of
light; death-darkness includes a palpable malevolence that is frightening in a
way that the night’s darkness for sleep is not. Future wellbeing depends on the
defeat of the enemy, relating newness to the realities of power. The community has lived in oppression, but
the new king comes to the rescue. It
will be brutal and violent, as the Lord breaks the rod of the oppressor. Verses
6-7 reveal the source for the joy and the victory is in a new heir will head
the government. The new king will
dispense justice, will have the power of a god, will be reassuring and
protective as a great tribal leader, and will be a bringer of peace and
prosperity. The ultimate reason for the
joy and light to which the prophet has referred is here. Isaiah predicts the
birth of a child. The prophet applies
four epithets to the crown prince/savior-king: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. In verse 7, God will unite the Davidic
kingdom and peace will be a reality. Later, the thought of contemporaries was
that Josiah would fulfill this prophecy. Whatever the child’s name, his purpose
is clear: to establish and uphold the throne of David “with justice and with
righteousness” forever.
No comments:
Post a Comment