p. 199Between the lopping of a bough, the cutting down of thickets of a forest, and the shooting forth of a branch, there is a great and effective contrast, and it is this that challenges attention in the opening verses of chapter xi.
The modern division of chapter and verse somewhat obscures the fact, but “the scribe instructed unto the kingdom of heaven” will override this and grasp the idea conveyed. The purpose of the Assyrian invader was thus alluded to by God in His message to Hezekiah (ch. xxxvii. 24), “Thou hast reproached the Lord and hast said, By the multitude of my chariots am I come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon: and I will cut down the tall cedars thereof, and the choice fir trees.” But instead of his cutting down the Israelitish cedar, and taking Hezekiah captive as he designed, he was himself cut down; and the occasion taken of foretelling the prosperity in righteousness and peace of the kingdom of the “Root and Offspring of David.”
The opening words of the eleventh chapter—words that have sustained God’s people for so many generations—run thus: “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots: And 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; and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord; and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. p. 200 And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.”
The apostle Paul, quoting this eleventh chapter of Isaiah when writing to the Roman Christians, alludes to the mission of Jesus in these words (Rom. xv. 8): “Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy, as it is written. . . . There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles trust.”
This in few words is the inspired summary of the substance of Isaiah xi. Believing Gentiles should note well the order of their salvation: “the Jew first,” and then the Gentile. The covenant God made with the Son of Jesse, is that which required the coming forth of the “rod out of the stem of Jesse,” and which in the initial fulfilment of it at the birth of the Lord’s forerunner caused Zechariah to exult in that God “hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David.” Although Jesus was not born till six months afterwards, the angel Gabriel’s words to Mary were accepted implicitly by her, and by Elizabeth and Zechariah; and hence the language of accomplished fact.
The exhortation Paul bases upon his allusion to the divine purpose expressed in Isa. xi. and the other scriptures he quotes, is briefly this: “Rejoice in belief and hope, and minister to Israel’s need as occasion offers, realising your deep indebtedness to them in partaking of their spiritual things” (Rom. xv. 13, 27). This argument appeals as powerfully to believing Gentiles of the twentieth century as it did to those of the first. They are contemporary with stirring signs of the approaching restoration of the Kingdom of David, and their faith and hope is strengthened by daily contemplation of these things in the “lively oracles.”
The term Branch (Nehtzer) of Isa. xi. 1 has sometimes been supposed to be referred to by Matthew in ch. ii. 23, “He shall be called a Nazarene.” This was Jerome’s idea. The precise term “Nazarene” is not found in any prophecy extant. But against p. 201 Jerome’s interpretation it has to be urged that Matthew’s reference is general and not precise—“that which was spoken by the prophets,” not by one of them in a certain place. And, moreover, his allusion is geographical in its essence:—“He came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.” The view of Matthew’s saying that sees in it reference to the “reproach of Christ” is evidently the correct one.
Nazareth was an obscure place (not even mentioned in the Old Testament Scriptures), in a despised district, and having so evil a reputation, that the first impulse of Nathaniel on hearing of “Jesus of Nazareth” was to exclaim, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” He had much reason after he came and saw, to answer enthusiastically in the affirmative. As to Galilee, of which district Nazareth was a city, it was “Galilee of the nations,” the goyim, the heathen, who were transplanted from Assyria and the neighbouring countries, “instead of the children of Israel” (Is. ix. 1; 2 Kings xvii.). In Solomon’s time he gave Hiram “twenty cities in the land of Galilee” (1 Kings ix. 11), in return for his preparation of timber for the temple. Hiram was much dissatisfied, “And he called them the land of Cabul (Disgusting, Dirty) unto this day” (verse 13). Thus the land of Galilee seems always to have been alienated and despised.
The name Nazareth seems likely to be more correctly referable to the root whence comes the term Nazarite, than to the term Nehtzer, branch. This verb is nahzar, to separate; and the derived noun is used in Gen. xlix. 26, of Joseph, who “was separate from his brethren.” It is remarkable that the city which was the home in youth of Jesus, who is a Joseph to his brethren, should bear a name the associations of which in the days of his flesh should be alienation and dishonour, and which, descending upon his disciples in the epithet “Nazarenes,” should in the public eye brand them as pestilent fellows and movers of sedition among the Jews (Acts xxiv. 5).
“God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him” (Acts x. 38).
p. 202 This is Peter’s testimony to the household of Cornelius of the fulfilment of the promise of Isa. xi. 2. The Spirit of the Lord is the base of everything created, and Jesus always referred his wisdom and power to this Source. At Nazareth, in the synagogue, “there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias,” and turning to the opening words of the sixty-first chapter he read before them: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings.” And, in comment upon the prophecy, he appropriated it to himself, and by incisive reference to the history of Elijah and Elisha, warned those whose “eyes were fastened on him” that, as in the days of those prophets the divine succour and healing passed over apostate Israel to reach unto a Sidonian widow and a Syrian captain, so it would be again with them in their rejection of him as the “Physician” sent of God. For this the congregation in their wrath sustained the evil reputation of their city by seeking to throw him over the precipice (Luke iv.).
But it was not only that Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power. The Holy Spirit had come upon others, enabling them to speak and do wonders. But He was above them, being begotten by the spirit: “The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee (Mary), and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke i. 35). He was “the Word made flesh” that dwelt among the Jews and manifested forth the Father’s glory and goodness. John the Baptist, sent from God to bear witness to him, testifies of the Father’s visible approval of him, saying: “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not, but he that sent me to baptise with water, the same said unto me, upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, the same is he which baptiseth with the Holy Spirit. And I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God” (Jno. i. 30). Again (Jno. iii. 34), “God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.” And, by voice from heaven, the Father proclaimed Jesus to be His beloved Son. In controversy with the Jews Jesus always came back upon this effectual testimony that the righteousness of his claims p. 203 was attested by the words and works of power which none other man ever did or could manifest (Jno. v. 19, 36: viii. 47: ix. 4: x. 25, 38: xv. 24).
The quickness of his understanding in the fear of the Lord, even at twelve years of age, was the cause of astonishment in all that heard him, as was manifested on the occasion of his remaining in Jerusalem after the passover, and being found by his parents in the temple in the midst of the doctors (Lu. ii. 47).
The piercing discernment that depended not upon the sight of the eye or the hearing of the ear finds many exemplifications in the history of his life and work. Look at his reception of Nathaniel: “Behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile.” And listen to his answer to the surprised enquiry, “Whence knowest thou me?” “Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee” (John i. 47). Against this place his seven times repeated declaration to the seven representative churches of Asia: “I know thy works,” and we begin to realise that all things are naked and open before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. In a word he revealed to the Samaritan woman “all things that ever she did” (John iv.). He reproved the Jews for murderous intent (John vii. 19), and by a simple act revealed the traitor at the table (John xiii. 26). With the brief words, “He that is without sin among you let him first cast a stone at her,” he convicted and scattered the callous and designing company of Scribes and Pharisees who used the woman taken in adultery as a means whereby “they might have to accuse him” (John viii.). “He knew what was in man,” and anticipated an argument (Matt. xvii. 25) or turned a situation, leaving his enemies on the horns of a dilemma (Matt. xxi. 23-27) with a superhuman righteousness and skill that at last reduced them to the position of not daring to risk further controversy (Matt. xxii. 46).
But these manifestations in the days of his flesh were only the earnest of better things to come. It remains for him to judge the poor with righteousness, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth; to smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips to slay the wicked. In the days of his p. 204 flesh he “judged no man,” in the sense of condemning them to death; but at his second coming it will be different. The picture of Rev. xix. 11-21, exhibits Christ in an aspect that is almost lost sight of in the prevalence of so-called evangelistic teaching concerning him, as also is the picture of his judgment seat. It belongs to the truth to recognise in their places all features of the divine purpose in Christ. With the records of his past mighty works in our hands, and the striking developments of modern scientific inventions before our eyes, we cannot but recognise the unspeakable changes that will be wrought in human affairs when once he takes the tangled skein in hand.
That the world should be given into the hands of One of whom it was foretold that “righteousness should be the girdle of his loins and faithfulness the girdle of his reins,” is a glorious dispensation of the Creator’s goodness. It will be appreciated to the utmost by reason of the long continued sufferings of the world at the hands of the wicked, whose characteristics are the very opposite of those which grace the Lord Jesus. The spirit of folly, ignorance and rebellion, has for thousands of years controlled the affairs of the earth, subject only to the invisible control of God. Paul sums up “the course of this world” as one directed by “the spirit which now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Eph. ii. 2); but he defines the end of the matter as the gathering together of all things in Christ in the dispensation (or economy) of the fulness of times. Righteousness and faithfulness, unequalled in human affairs, qualify the Lord’s Anointed for immortal Kingship over all the earth; and like qualification, in varying degrees, obtains in all the units of the glorious “hosts,” who, with him, are to “take the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever.”