This is one place in scriptures that is majorly relied upon as the pointer that Israel would be rebirth as a nation before a coming of Jesus that will herald a global tribulation and some endtime events that would eventually lead to end of the world and time as we know.
I would like us to use this platform to look at it again but this throw some context in the form of more verses.
There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse,
And
a Branch shall grow out of his roots.
2 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 His delight is in the fear of the Lord,
And
He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes,
Nor
decide by the hearing of His ears;
4 But with righteousness He
shall judge the poor,
And
decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
He
shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth,
And
with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked.
5 Righteousness shall be the
belt of His loins,
And
faithfulness the belt of His waist.
6 “The wolf
also shall dwell with the lamb,
The
leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
The
calf and the young lion and the fatling together;
And
a little child shall lead them.
7 The cow and the bear shall
graze;
Their
young ones shall lie down together;
And
the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 The nursing child shall play
by the cobra’s hole,
And
the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’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.
10 “And in that
day there shall be a Root of Jesse,
Who
shall stand as a banner to the people;
For
the Gentiles shall seek Him,
And
His resting place shall be glorious.”
11 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 who are left,
From
Assyria and Egypt,
From
Pathros and Cush,
From
Elam and Shinar,
From
Hamath and the islands of the sea.
12 He will set
up a banner for the nations,
And
will assemble the outcasts of Israel,
And
gather together the dispersed of Judah
From
the four corners of the earth.
13 Also the envy of Ephraim shall
depart,
And
the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off;
Ephraim
shall not envy Judah,
And
Judah shall not harass Ephraim.
14 But they shall fly down upon
the shoulder of the Philistines toward the west;
Together
they shall plunder the people of the East;
They
shall lay their hand on Edom and Moab;
And
the people of Ammon shall obey them.
15 The Lord will utterly destroy the tongue of the Sea of
Egypt;
With
His mighty wind He will shake His fist over the River,
And
strike it in the seven streams,
And
make men cross over dry-shod.
16 There will be a highway for
the remnant of His people
Who
will be left from Assyria,
As
it was for Israel
In
the day that he came up from the land of Egypt.
The first 5 verse talks about the Jesus the Messiah. He is
the rod from the stem of Jesse, the one that the Spirit of God rests upon in
his completeness. That is why he is the anointed one. We see this confirmation
at the river Jordan at his encounter with John the Baptist.
Isaiah gives us prophetic insight into his messianic work
and passion where in His righteousness the poor will be judged. How will judge
the poor? Remember Jesus proclaimed goodnews for the poor. The poor had no hope
of prosperity seeing their disqualification but he declared through his
finished work that “I am your qualification”. The imputation of life and
righteousness is the result of his judgment at the cross.
But Isaiah then tells us that he will strike the earth with
the rod of his mouth. This is very similar to what the prophet Malachi says in
Malachi 4
Behold, I
will send you Elijah the prophet
Before the coming of the great
and dreadful day of the Lord.
6 And he will turn
The hearts of the fathers to
the children,
And the hearts of the children
to their fathers,
Lest I come and strike the
earth with a curse.”
The rejection of the Messiah by the Jewish nation would lead
to their eventual downfall as they held on that crumbling system. John was the
Elijah promised and he warned them not hang to their ancestral lineage but flew
from THE WRATH to come.
Isaiah then proceeds to state that the Messianic age would
see the wolf
now dwelling with the lamb. I have seen many commentaries on this pointing to a
literal fulfillment of this in the future. It is just a case of cherry picking
what is to be seen as literal to support a futurist view.
This part is symbolic and is a fulfilled reality in
our time. It is not separate from the manifestation of the Messiah and His
kingdom. Paul saw it as being fulfilled in his own lifetime in Romans 15:12,
“The root of Jesse will come, even He who arises to rule the
Gentiles, in Him will the Gentiles hope” (Romans 15:12).
The
context of both Isaiah 11 and Romans 15 suggests a bringing together in Christ
the remnant of God’s people from among both the Jews and the Gentiles. Isaiah
uses figurative language; Paul in Romans is gives us the fulfillment in straightforward
words.
This is the mystery that was hidden in ages. The regathering is not
about only the Jews but also the gentiles. He was gathering everyone in Christ
the Israel of God.
“This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the
same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel”
(Eph. 3:6).
12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord
over all is rich to all who call upon Him. 13 For “whoever
calls on the name of the Lord shall be
saved.” (Romans 10:12-13)
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor
free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
(Galatians 3:28)
To do this the Messiah had to pull
down the wall that separated humanity.
5:6, 6:15-16); “the dividing wall of hostility” has been broken down
14 For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has
broken down the middle wall of separation” (Eph.
2:14).
15 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision
avails anything, but a new creation. (Galatians 6:15-16)
The wolf are the Gentiles who now dwells safely with the lamb
the Jews i.e. among those who belong to Christ. The Gentile nations which were
deceived and dwelling “far off” (Ephesians
2:11-22; Romans 9:22-26) prior to Christ’s work on the cross are now brought
near (so that without distinction or division “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved”
This is
why Paul says in Romans 15:12.
For I tell you that Christ has
become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God’s truth, so
that the promises made to the patriarchs might be confirmed and, moreover, that the Gentiles might glorify God for his
mercy.
The regathering that Isaiah speaks
about is not about the national Jews but the spiritual one. He references the "first"
gathering of God’s people from foreign oppression was the Exodus itself.
The Lord will utterly destroy the tongue of the Sea of Egypt;
With His mighty wind He
will shake His fist over the River,
And strike it in the
seven streams,
And make men cross over dry-shod. (vs 15)
This regathering by Isaiah is a
"second" exodus. We find Moses and Elijah, on the mount of
transfiguration, discussed with Jesus "the exodus that He was about to
accomplish in Jerusalem" (Luke 9:31) though it wrongly translated in the
KJV as
31 who appeared in glory and spoke of His decease which He was about to
accomplish at Jerusalem.”
The word “decease” is actually the word for “exodus”. The salvation
as experienced by the 1st century was an exodus from the oppression
of “Ismael” over “Isaac” and “Egpyt” over “Israel”. The early church saw that they were transiting into the
kingdom at the close of that Old covenant age.
Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our
fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, 2 all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that
spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. 5 But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered
in the wilderness.
6 Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should
not lust after evil things as they also lusted. (1 Cor.10:1-6)
This transition involved a
remnant which Paul also says are “a remnant according to the election of grace”
This gathering has been fulfilled at the dawn of the age of God’s kingdom. This
fulfills the last part of the prophecy in chapter 11
There
will be a highway for the remnant of His people
Who will be left from
Assyria,
As it was for Israel
In the day that he came
up from the land of Egypt.
National Israel is no longer the
timetable for God’s agenda. The kingdom is here and the church is the agency of
her life and glory. The glory of the kingdom will keep spreading over the earth
and many in all nations will be drawn to righteous judgment of the lamb of God.