Messianic Expectations in Isaiah 11

1A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,

and a branch shall grow out of his roots.

2The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,

The spirit of wisdom and understanding,

The spirit of counsel and might,

 the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord…

4But 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 kill the wicked.

One of the facets that I have really enjoyed in reading Isaiah comes in attempting to grasp the messianic expectations of the Jews going into the first century AD.  In the first chunk of Isaiah, we see the prophet anticipating a great deal of trouble for the Israelites as a result of war and subjugation by other nations.  It appears as though the prophet points to the haughtiness and wickedness of the Israelites as the primary reason for their impending destruction and toil.  We can look back in 3:8 where the prophet proclaims “Jerusalem has stumbled, and Judah has fallen, because their speech and their deeds are against the Lord.”  Again in verse 14 of chapter 3 he says “It is you who have devoured the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses.  What do you mean by crushing my people, by grinding the face of the poor?”

Clearly Isaiah does not look kindly upon the actions of the Israelites, and he recognizes that Israel has not fulfilled its charge as a light to the nations.  However, the prophet still understands that God will fulfill his promises through the Israelites, and since the Israelites have failed, he anticipates the coming of a messiah through whom God’s justice will be displayed throughout the nations.  This is the context in which the messianic poem of chapter 11 springs up.  The prophet speaks about a messiah who is full of wisdom and understanding, deals justly with the poor and the wicked.

I know that this is an Old Testament class, but I have found it quite helpful to understand that Jesus’ ministry functions as the fulfillment of these good, divinely inspired Jewish expectations for the messiah.  Instead of looking at these prophetic passages as magical moments where the prophet projects or looks into the future, seeing Jesus and then writing to describe what he sees, it is helpful to understand that God began forming these expectations of a messiah to fulfill His promises to Israel and the nations, expectations that found their completion in the person of Jesus Christ.