Isaiah 9:1-4 Commentary

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It may feel strange to be preaching Isaiah 9—a quintessentially Christmas text—a full month after the holiday has passed.  Surely decorations are put away, the tree is in a woodchopper somewhere, making mulch for next spring and our lives have gone back to “normal,” whatever that means. But, rereading Isaiah 9 in late January reminded me of this poem.

When the Song of the Angels is Stilled

Howard Thurman

When the song of the angels is stilled

when the star in the sky is gone

when the kings and princes are home

when the shepherds are back with their flocks

the work of Christmas begins:

            to find the lost

            to heal the broken

            to feed the hungry

            to release the prisoner

            to rebuild the nations

            to bring peace among the people

            to make music in the heart.

There is a beautiful choral arrangement by Dan Forrest, entitled: The Work of Christmas

Commentary:

Getting Our Bearings

This brief text holds multiple geographical allusions that will likely escape us in our 21st century context so let’s stop a moment to recap.

Zebulun and Naphtali were two of Jacob’s twelve sons, meaning their descendants were two of the twelve tribes of Israel.  When the Israelites entered the Promised Land, each tribe was allotted their portion of the land.  By the casting of lots, Zebulun and Naphtali received territory on the northernmost part of Israel.  This means that these two tribes were conquered by Aram and then absorbed into Assyria earlier than the other tribes.  The promises of these verses are all the more poignant since, according to the CEB Study Bible, “hope is now offered to regions long subject to political turmoil.”

In verse four, we encounter a reference to “the day of Midian,” which sends us back to the book of Judges, to the story of Gideon.  Gideon built an army to conquer Midian but God reviewed the troops (as it were) and determined there were too many! God’s reasoning was that, when Israel won the battle, they “might claim credit for themselves rather than for me, thinking, ‘we saved ourselves.’”  So then God commands Gideon to winnow the soldiers down to just 300 men. And then God delivered the Midianites into Israel’s hands as a testimony to God’s strength, rather than human might. For more of this story, see Judges 7.

Walking in Deep Darkness

The phrase has resonances for those of us familiar with, arguably, the most famous text in Scripture: Psalm 23.  The people who walk in deep darkness in Isaiah 9 are the same people who “wander in the valley of the shadow of death” in the Psalm.  And the firm conviction and comfort of the Psalm is that those who walk in the valley of the shadow of death will not fear because “You are with me.” So, too, in Isaiah 9 the problem and solution are set up similarly. The punchline of Isaiah 9, admittedly beyond the scope of this Lectionary reading is the revelation of Emmanuel, God with us.  The promise of God’s presence is prefigured in the image of light.  For those “living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.”

This imagery is, according to Robert Alter, “one of the most arresting instances of antithetical parallelism in biblical poetry. The line is starkly simple yet haunting.” He observes the outworking of the image in the subsequent verses as well as through portions of the text attributed to Second Isaiah (chapters 40-66).  We have indeed seen this motif—quite fitting for the season of Epiphany—throughout the readings this month. Light can barely be denied in our previous, accompanying texts.

A Good King

Isaiah wrote this portion of his text during a tumultuous period in Judah’s history with turnover from king to king, particularly from King Ahaz to King Hezekiah. A lot of hope was placed on the young King to live up to the ideals of his father. While we read this text, as Christians, and see the foreshadowing of Jesus Christ, the true and perfect David King, it was more likely written as an expression of hope for Hezekiah’s reign.  According to the Interpretation commentary, Isaiah “is not anti-royal in any simple sense, even as he takes a stand against Ahaz and his father’s house. The prophet does not propose a different form of government, one under the control of priest, or wise man, or prophet…Nor does he propose a return to an earlier model, where the nation was governed by judges. Isaiah is not concerned with the form of government but with the substance of Israel’s governors.”

Even Hezekiah, who was a particular focus and interest for Isaiah, as asserted in the Interpretation commentary, “Isaiah traditions have developed with a distinct interest in the figure of Hezekiah, as a model for proper kingship in Israel” couldn’t help but fall short of Isaiah’s admittedly high expectations. This text is a kind-of hymn written to celebrate the ascension of a new king to his throne. The language of a child being born might be allegorical, a reference to a king’s coronation. While it’s true that Hezekiah brought in needed worship reforms and combatted the people’s temptation to idolatry, he was not the long-awaited Messiah after all. Although he held the nation steady as the Northern Kingdoms fell, he cannot stop the encroaching exile and punishment of God’s people.

A human government will never save us. And yet, throughout generations, across the globe it seems we are all longing for good kings, for people who will govern with integrity, who will model the kind of character we hope to emulate in our countries.  If we are disappointed in our rulers, we can join a club that spans the whole of history and the whole of the globe.  In fact, satisfaction with and allegiance to our rulers is, by far, the exception rather than the rule.  And yet we find Christians who expect precisely what history teaches us not to expect of our earthly leaders.

So, in this oracle, we see a juxtaposition, last words given to the Interpretation commentary. “Next to that vision of just and righteous government stands the stark and sober portrait of a prophet under siege, of a God who is sanctuary for some but a snare and stumbling block for many. Before we encounter a people who see a great light, we must first encounter a people thrust into thick darkness.”