Isaiah Chapter 11
2025 - For the last two days I have worked on my Revelation notes first - Chapter 13 specifically - in hopes of finally getting that moving forward again. I have made great progress, in my own opinion at least, and have had some ideas come together that have never been there before. However, by the time I got to my Daily Reading these last two days, my mind has been quite tired already. So I will mostly be reading through these three chapters of Isaiah and one chapter in Ephesians.
1 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. 2 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. [Isa 11:1-2 ESV]
Prophecy of Jesus again, all in association with this great purging and this chastising of God.
2021 - Through the first five verses, Isaiah is looking well out past the specific near term prophecies of Chapter 10 to a restoration that will come with Jesus first advent. Then in vs 6, he seems to skip still further ahead to the Millennial. The OT prophets just didn't "see" the age of the Gentiles separating the two advents by, so far, thousands of years. They see the first and second advents as one continuous time.
2024 - In vs 1, the NASB95 says "THEN a shoot will spring" and "a branch will bear." ESV says "There shall come" and "roots shall bear". I think "Then" in the NASB95 is trying to convey that "will spring" is a sequential perfect. We can see that this prophecy is about Christ, and his appearance on the earth. Since this is 11:1, we know that the sequential looks back to something in Chapter 10. The perfect tense tells us that this shoot's appearance is a certainty, though it does not specify the when.
We want to know the when, and there are two possibilities. Either the first or second advent.
The verb immediately preceding "will spring" was "Lebanon will fall", which is Qal imperfect, meaning an ongoing process. I think we also have to note that Lebanon will fall "by the Mighty One", which seems to narrow this down some. We saw this back in Chapter 2: 13 against all the cedars of Lebanon, lofty and lifted up; and against all the oaks of Bashan; [Isa 2:13 ESV]. If we go back and review that whole chapter, which is one long connected prophecy, it is pretty evident that Chapter 2 is about the second coming, and the establishment of Christ's earthly kingdom. Here are some other verses from that chapter that, for me, tie it to the second coming:
10 Enter into the rock and hide in the dust from before the terror of the LORD, and from the splendor of his majesty. ... 1
7 And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low, and the LORD alone will be exalted in that day. ...
19 And people shall enter the caves of the rocks and the holes of the ground, from before the terror of the LORD, and from the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to terrify the earth. ...
21 to enter the caverns of the rocks and the clefts of the cliffs, from before the terror of the LORD, and from the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to terrify the earth. [Isa 2:10, 17, 19, 21 ESV];
....and here are some other references, in other books, that tell us "when" this is:
8 The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed. Thorn and thistle shall grow up on their altars, and they shall say to the mountains, "Cover us," and to the hills, "Fall on us." [Hos 10:8 ESV]
15 Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, [Rev 6:15 ESV]. This is the Sixth Seal, the rapture, after which only the lost will remain as the wrath of God is poured out on the earth. This of course is prequel to the second advent.
6 And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them. [Rev 9:6 ESV]. No rocks here...but the same sense of things.
2024 - So the whole point of this exercise is to pin down the time of the fulfillment of this prophecy, when the shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse. It seems quite obvious, even if we stop right here, that this is about the second advent, not the first, though some of these things - the ones that describe the characteristics of the branch, will hold true in both advents. Both time, and always, the Branch Spirit of the Lord will rest on him, and wisdom and understanding, and so on. All the things in vss 2 and 3. In 4 however, we see that he will judge. Jesus did not do this in the first century. He brought His spiritual kingdom, but not his earthly. He will judge during the Millennial. So I think there is little doubt that in this passage Isaiah has skipped over the church age, and is describing the Millennial.
6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. [Isa 11:6 ESV]
This verse surely refers to Christ's second advent.
2024 - I thought the whole lion and lamb thing was also in Revelation, but it looks like it shows up twice in Isaiah and nowhere else:
25 The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain," says the LORD. [Isa 65:25 ESV]
Vss 6-10 are NOT about the return from Babylon. They are about the Millennial.
11 In that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that remains of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea. [Isa 11:11 ESV]
The first time was from Egypt. This will be like that. A migration of the whole nation, not just 30,000 per year. (Israel's return)
2021 - Will this be during t/gt or during the Millennial? MSB says the first return was from Egypt, under Moses. The second will be a return from worldwide dispersion. So per MSB, this return is still future, but he doesn't narrow it down at all. There are many many verses about Israel's return. I will start tagging them, starting with this verse. (Found a footnote in MSB about this return, and it gives these references in Isaiah: 35:8,9; 42:16; 43:19;, 48:21; 49:11; 57:14; 62:10. That saves me a lot of tagging Israel's return.)
2023 - We have to consider that this would not be distinguishable as "a second time" unless it was of the same order of magnitude as the return from Egypt (though I see no reason for us not to be talking about the return from Babylon.) If similar to Egypt, then we would have essentially the entire population of Jews on the planet at that time returning to Israel. This would meant that the 144.000 are not the ONLY Jews converted at the end, but in fact substantially all of them would be. This is the way I prefer to think about it. BUT, it does NOT say they will all be recovered but that the remnant that remains will be recovered. There is also a geographical limitation to the recovery area. The US is not included. Though I prefer the other way, I suspect that only a few will return - in which case those returning today may be argued to represent those about whom this prophecy is written. A remnant returns for the second time. I just do not believe this is about a return on par with Egypt.
2023 - But vs 12 says from the four corners...but still does not say how many. Don't forget vs 16 either which mentions the return from Egypt, and compares this future return to that one. So maybe the way I prefer it to be is what this really means.
2023 - How do you reconcile this return of Israel to the idea that the church is now Israel? You either have to say these things have all happened already before the church comes OR that it will be the Christian church that returns to the land? I have a hard time with making that apply to the last section of this chapter.
2022 -Could this also be about the return from Babylon, which has already happened as the first return, and the second the return from Rome, and the scattering that Rome caused from 70 AD onward? If you say the first was Egypt, they came back, but they were not scattered. I guess Babylon didn't really scatter them very much either did they...? But...God never took his hand away from them in Egypt. They were there voluntarily. They cried out for deliverance. But God's hand was always extended. In Babylon, not so. God had withdrawn his hand, his protection, his benevolence. But we all knew that they would come home, and he extended his hand to them again under Cyrus. Surely we can see Rome as the second withdrawal of his hand. They rejected his son, of course he withdrew his hand. But in tgt, he will extend it again and bring them home. I think this is what is in view.
vss 12-16 talk about Israel's return. Looks like there will be seven routes through the Nile delta for those returning from Egypt in that day. (2021 - No. Not the Nile, they've already come home from there once. The river here is the Euphrates, so a return from "Babylon", and then vs 16 specifically mentions Assyria.) So they come from the west also, and those will pass through Philistia and loot it as they come. (MSB notes say the River in vs. 15 is the Euphrates - so these people would be coming from the east. Probably so...but it reads better if the river referenced is the Nile. I should remember that Babylon took many captives from Judah into exile, and these also went towards the north and a bit east, rather than toward Egypt. So we'd expect them to return from the north, possibly from the east, but we have no great "re-migration" to Egypt.) Also, it says there will be a "highway" from Assyria, and that they will come in sandals - as if the highway is smooth and straight. These will be the remnant of the Northern Kingdom, finally coming home.
I think this return will be very recognizable when it happens!
2021 - Yes. This is not about 30,000 Jews a year migrating to Israel, almost all of them secular. This will be a migration that is not just about geography but a return to the God of the Bible. This will be unmistakable when it comes. Possibly Rev. 16:12 is connected to Isa. 11:15? If so, that puts Israel's massive homecoming in progress at the 6th Bowl judgment. That is still future, certainly.
2024 - In the above speculation, I seem to have left out the possibility that this "return home" will occur as the Millennial gets underway. Israel will be established as the seat of Christ's Kingdom, and from there, all the world will be ruled with a rod of iron. It reads as if only Israel will be allowed to migrate there and live there. Note in vs 10 where it says "The nations will resort to the root of Jesse..." This does not happen until the Millennial.