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Summary of Chapter 11

What seemed to be a dead stump of the line of Jesse is going
to bring forth a Branch. On him the Spirit of the Lord will rest,
a spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, power, knowledge, and
fear of the Lord.

He will not judge by mere impressions or by flattery, but
will give righteous judgment. He will strike the wicked with the
rod of his mouth. Righteousness will be his belt, faithfulness
his sash.

In this glorious age the wolf will live with the lamb, the
leopard with the goat, the calf and lion will live together,
while a small child can lead them. For there will be no harm on
all the holy mountain of the Lord, the earth will be full of the
knowledge of the Lord.

The Lord will again reclaim the remnant of His people from
all other lands. There will be no more jealousy between Judah and
Ephraim. Together they will capture Philistia, Edom, Moab, and
the Ammonites.

To bring back His people the Lord will dry up the gulf of
Egypt and make the Euphrates easy to walk through. There will be
a highway for the remnant to return.

Comments on Chapter 11

The first verses read: "There shall come forth a shoot from the
stump 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 the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in
the fear of the Lord. "

<Targum Jonathan sees this line as messianic>: " A king
will come from the sons of Jesse, and the Messiah will be
anointed from his children's children. "

Some scholars, disinclined to see a real prophecy,
want to make this refer to the great reduction in size of the
Kingdom of Judah at the time of Isaiah and Achaz - the king then
controlled absolutely only Jerusalem (Cf. John H. Hayes and
Stuart A. Irvine, <Isaiah, the Eight Century Prophet>, Abingdon,
Nashville, 1987, pp. 212-13. They point out that the word which
RSV renders "stump" is Hebrew <geza>, a rare word, found only
three times in the OT, in this passage and in Job 14, 7 and
Isaiah 40. 24. In the latter it means a newly planted tree; in
Job it means a felled tree. The Targum renders it by "sons", as
we saw. But the Targum also definitely makes it refer to the
Messiah, and historically, the line of David had lacked power for
about 600 years by that time (from 586 BC to the time of Christ).

So, following the Targum interpretation, we see this passage as
a real prophecy that the Messiah would come from the line of
Jesse, that is, the line of David. But that line disappeared
after the exile. And so the Messiah did come from a shoot from
the withered line of the sons of Jesse.

The Spirit of the Lord is to rest upon this Messiah. Several
times the Gospels speak of Jesus as being moved or led by the
Spirit, e. g., in Mt 4:1, He was led into the desert by the
Spirit. In Lk 10. 21, He rejoiced in the Holy Spirit. In Lk 4.
18: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me," (referring to Is 61. 1-
2. Similarly, in Mt 12. 18 the Evangelist says that His cures
were to fulfil Is 42. 1-4). In view of His divinity, how is it
that He would need or want the action of the Holy Spirit? The
answer is that He had a complete and perfect humanity, and
although His divinity could supply for anything, could even do
the functions of a human soul, yet the Father, in His love of
good order, willed that His humanity be full and fully provided
for as such. This is in accord with the principle of St. Thomas,
Summa I. 19. 5. c in which it is said that God wills that one
thing be in place to serve as a title for the second thing, even
though that title does not really move Him.

Incidentally this same reasoning can account for many other
things: the role of the Mass and of Our Lady and the other
Saints. Even though Jesus paid for all forgiveness and grace in
dying once for all (Heb 10:12 & 18) there are still two reason
for the Mass and His command, "Do this in memory of me):1)It is
one thing for Him to earn forgiveness, another for us to receive
it. For that we need to be like Him, esp. cf. Rom 8:17: "We are
heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ, provided that we suffer
with Him so we may also be glorified with Him." 2) God in His
love of holiness and good order loves to have one thing in place
to serve as a title for the second, as we said above on the basis
of I. 19. 5. c. Similarly the cooperation of Our Lady in Calvary
was not needed, and her entire ability to do that came from Him,
so that her role did not ADD to His. Yet the Father is pleased to
have it to make the title for forgiveness and grace more rich. It
is similar for her role in the subjective redemption, and for
that of the other Saints.

The Spirit rests upon Him, does not merely come for a time,
as it is reported to have done on various persons in the Old
Testament. The qualities it gives Him are the Gifts of the Holy
Spirit.

There are two great categories of graces:sanctifying, and
charismatic. The sanctifying are all those that lead to final
salvation. These are offered without limit to all, since the
Father has accepted the infinite price of redemption. These gifts
mentioned here are in the sanctifying category, not in the
category of tongues etc. Some today make the mistake of saying
all Catholics have the Gifts. This is true, in the sanctifying
category:they come with sanctifying grace. But then they add all
Catholics must be charismatics, speaking in tongues etc, as if
things in one category, charismatic, could be the actualization
of things in a different category, sanctifying things.

The gifts in the Sanctifying category have many functions:e.
g., they bring, in advanced souls, infused contemplation. They
bring also guidance in which the soul does not need to reason
from step to step to reach a conclusion:the conclusion is dropped
ready made, as it were, into the mind. Of course, there is room
for self-deception here. But we must remember that the clear
manifestations of graces of this sort are found only in souls
well advanced. Further, this sort of guidance usually leaves a
soul somewhat less than certain of the course to be followed, as
a sign that it should seek guidance from authority or a director.
St. Teresa of Avila, who had so many extraordinary gifts, and had
been told in a revelation to found a reformed branch of the
Carmelites, would not go ahead without consulting four directors.

Kings and other powerful people are exposed o flattery,
which may turn their heads. But the Messiah will judge
righteously, and not by appearances. He knows what is in man:cf.
John 2:25.

He will protect the weak and the poor. Remarkably ancient
kings often were expected to do that, and many did. The Pharaohs
of Egypt, especially in the Middle Kingdom did at least some of
that. Hence one of the chief insignia of the Pharaoh was a
shepherd's crook. So did the kings of the ancient Near East (cf.
W. von Soden, <The Ancient Orient>, tr. D. Schley, Eerdmans,
1994, p. 63. . The Messiah of course was to be far greater than
they in this respect. He is to use the rod of his mouth - not
military force - to overcome the wicked (cf. 2 Th. 2:8 and Psalm
2:9).

The idyllic picture of the peace in the animal world seems
to mean a return to the conditions of paradise, before sin:cf.
Romans 8:19-23.

The earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord (11:9).
Knowledge here is <de`a> (cf. Is 53:11. <with same word>: in his
knowledge he shall make righteous (hiphil=make righteous,
not:make to be accounted righteous). Same word is found in Hosea
6:6 "and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings". The verb
<de`ath> is the Qal infinitive of <yada>, which means not only
know, but love also. <So here: the earth is full of love of the
Lord, that is, giving love to the Lord>.

This root of Jesse wi, one thought of no account(cf. chapter
523) will be exalted like a banner. His place of rest will be
inglorious:does this hint ahead to His rest in chapter 53?

Now another image: the return from exile. It had begun with
deportation in 734, then more when Samaria fell in 722, and
finally to come under Nebuchadnezzar in 597 and 587. The old
jealousy of Ephraim and Judah will be gone. Together they will
take the Philistines, Edom, Moab, and the Ammonites. This return
from exile is then pictures in extremely idealistic terms:God
will dry up the gulf of the Egyptian sea, make the Euphrates
shallow, there will be a highway from Assyria. Literally Ephraim
did not come back - this is idealized.

Further we may compare the idealized vision of a future temple
in Ezekiel 40-48 -- which will not really have animal sacrifices.
Just as in the old law material images were used which were later
understood to stand for spiritual things, so also here
(Augustine, City of God 4. 33). The real fulfillment comes in
Christianity, which as Romans 11 shows is the continuation of the
old Israel. Cf. Augustine <City of God> 17. 3 on the three kinds
of prophecies.