A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 9: A Child is Born

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 9: A Child is Born

Thus far in these first 8 chapters of Isaiah, there have been condemnations of both Israel and Judah, and similar condemnations shall be found repeatedly throughout the first 40 chapters of the words of the prophet. But if one were to sit and read Isaiah through all at once, this seems repetitious, and it may seem that at least some of the language is repeated unnecessarily. But we must bear in mind that during the life of the prophet himself, the prophecies recorded in these chapters happened over the space of as many as fifty years. So elements of his message were repeated frequently, but it was indeed necessary to present such a testimony to the people of Judah over that long span of time.

Isaiah had begun prophesying these things during the reign of Uzziah, and through the reigns of three generations of his sons who had followed him, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, who is last mentioned in Isaiah chapter 39. There Isaiah had informed Hezekiah that his own sons and all of his riches would be taken into captivity to Babylon. Of course, that did not happen for nearly another hundred and twenty years, and we do not know whether Isaiah had outlived Hezekiah, who would live for another fifteen years from that point. But if Jotham and Ahaz had each ruled for sixteen years, discounting the possibility of coregencies, and since the fourteenth year of Hezekiah is mentioned in Isaiah chapter 36 and made evident again in chapter 38, then the prophet had been prophesying for nearly fifty years by that time. Then some time after that, he had written the last twenty-six chapters of his book, which are addressed to Israel in captivity.

So at this point in Isaiah’s ministry, while the imminent destruction of both Israel and Judah should now be inevitable to the reader, it will be constantly forewarned in different ways as we continue reading this book. But there is no turning back, because the Word of Yahweh God cannot fail, and warnings of that destruction have already been given. Therefore, as we hope to have explained already, where there are messages of hope, that hope cannot be fulfilled until some time after the destruction. In the interim, when on a few occasions the people had received a worthy ruler, or any apparent form of salvation, it was only a temporary deferment of the coming pain. Therefore reading these chapters which contain messages of hope, we must bear in mind that the destruction is to come, and the promises of hope must be in reference to some greater overarching purpose, because any hope which is realized at this point in the history of the kingdom of Judah would not last for very long. For the kingdom of Judah, words such as forever must have a transcendental meaning, because from this time the kingdom itself would only have another hundred and twenty or so years.

So in Isaiah chapter 7 we saw a promise that A Virgin Shall Conceive, and then in Isaiah chapter 8, the prophet had taken witnesses along with him, and went to the house of a woman who was apparently a virgin, since she had been a prophetess at the temple of Yahweh, and he went into her and she conceived. Perhaps it may be argued that at the precise point in time when she conceived she was no longer a virgin, since her hymen had just been broken only a few seconds earlier, but that is an argument more fitting for the Midrash than it is for Christian discussion. The woman was a virgin up to the point of her conception, and Isaiah brought witnesses to record that event, but in the eyes of the people the loss of her virginity would not have been apparent until the display of her pregnancy, some months later.

Now in this chapter, there is an announcement that a child is born. However no man had ever fulfilled the words which describe this child, so while Mahershalalhashbaz was a sign for Ahaz and had also served in some aspects as a prophetic type for the Messiah, here we have an announcement of a child who would be the Messiah, and that could not be this child. So here it must be recognized, that while there were immediate fulfillments to many prophecies, even those fulfillments were often only symbols of the fulfillment of the greater promises which they included. Therefore while on the surface this chapter seems to announce the birth of Mahershalalhashbaz, that child did not save Judah, he had never ruled a kingdom, and this announcement must be a promise of a much greater child who would come at some time in the future. As we have also explained, some commentators claim that this chapter announces the birth of Hezekiah, but neither did Hezekiah fulfill any of the prophecies concerning this child, and according to the historical Scriptures, Hezekiah had been born about nine years before his father Ahaz had become king, where here at this point Ahaz has already been king for at least several years.

Here in Isaiah it is prophesied that this child would rule forever, even in the shorter version of the passage in the Septuagint, and that there would be no end to his peace or his kingdom, whereas during the time of the divided kingdom, Judah had only been diminished, and even in the time of its most righteous kings, Hezekiah and Josiah, the kingdom was never augmented. Then in a manner contrary to peace, Hezekiah had lost all of his fenced cities, their populations were either slaughtered or brought into captivity, and most of the territory of Judah was destroyed, except for Jerusalem itself. Later, Josiah died in what had apparently been the only battle in which he had ever taken part, where he had attempted to intercept Pharaoh Necho at Megiddo circa 608 BC. So these good kings never had peace, and their kingdom came to a miserable end.

Now, commencing with Isaiah chapter 9, it is evident that we are still in the vision which Isaiah had begun describing at the beginning of chapter 7. Ahaz is king of Judah, and Isaiah had taken his son, Shearjashub, along with him to meet the king. There Isaiah began to communicate a prophecy to Ahaz, offering him mercy and deliverance from his troubles. So a sign was given to him that “a virgin shall conceive” and it was explained to him in certain allegorical language that before the child would eat anything more than butter or honey, that his enemies would be destroyed. At the beginning of chapter 8 there was a break in that vision while Isaiah had brought the promise to fruition by impregnating a virgin. In this capacity, Isaiah, representing the Word of God, had served as a type for God Himself, because the child who would ultimately deliver Israel and Judah in the manner which is described here in verse 6 can only be Yahshua Christ, and the apostles of Christ had also related the promise that a virgin shall conceive to Him.

So once Isaiah had fulfilled that part of his vision himself, the vision resumed with further warnings of the coming of the Assyrians. In those warnings, both Israel and Judah were going to suffer at their hands. But Isaiah had evidently been relating these things to the priest and the scribe whom he had brought along with him to record what he had done with the prophetess, and thereafter he had told them to “16 Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples.” Then he made another proclamation which also serves as a messianic prophecy, and he said: “17 And I will wait upon the LORD, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him. 18 Behold, I and the children whom the LORD hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion.”

Isaiah may still have had his son Shearjashub with him when he had said this, and now he had just sired another son, having been confident in the Word of Yahweh which had caused him to visit the prophetess. So “I and the children” may refer to them, but it also seems to refer to anyone in Jerusalem who would keep his words, the disciples of the previous verse who would honor his words as the Word of God, and take them to heart once they had been fulfilled. So that passage was also cited in reference to Christ, as Isaiah is once again a type for Christ in that manner.

Then Isaiah chapter 8 closed with a warning which must be related to what had preceded concerning the Assyrians, that during the dark days which lay ahead for Judah, there would be men who sought to turn to wizards or sorcerers. So we read in the closing verses of the chapter: “19 And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter…” and here the translators should have closed the sentence, because what follows are the instructions on how to answer such men, although we had expressed a preference for the translation found in The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible: “19 … Should not a people consult their god, or the dead for the sake of the living, 20 for instruction and testimony?” But even that is problematical, because the people are being criticized for consulting the dead for the sake of the living. So it seems that the Septuagint is even better, where we read: “19 … shall not a nation [or people] diligently seek to their God? why do they seek to the dead concerning the living?”

Then, returning to the King James Version, there is further warning concerning them: “20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. 21 And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward. 22 And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness.

So now, as we enter into chapter 9, this darkness is still the subject, and it is manifest that Judah would suffer the same darkness which Israel had suffered, while the overall context is still that of the imminent invasions of both Israel and Judah by the Assyrians which was described in Isaiah chapter 8:

Isaiah 9:1 Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations.

The word גליל or גלילי, galil or galili is sometimes used to describe different types of rings, as it appears in chapter 5 of the Song of Songs (5:14) and in chapter 1 of the spurious book of Esther (1:6). On two occasions, it is translated as folding, in reference to doors, in chapter 6 of 1 Kings (6:34). But the word is also defined as a circuit or region. So Strong’s has one definition of גליל or galil as a common noun (# 1550) to mean “from 1556; a valve of a folding door (as turning)” and “also a ring (as round)”. Then, as a proper noun (# 1551), it is defined as “the same as 1550; a circle (with the article); Galil (as a special circuit) in the North of Palestine.” The root word ascribed by Strong’s (# 1556) is גלל or galal which is defined as a verb meaning to roll.

However on five occasions in the Old Testament the word was used to describe a region which was evidently in the land of Naphtali. So speaking of the assignments of the cities of refuge in Joshua chapter 20 we read in part that “they appointed Kedesh in Galilee in mount Naphtali” and in chapter 21 (21:32), “Kedesh in Galilee with her suburbs”, which is repeated in 1 Chronicles chapter 6 (6:76). But Kedesh and its suburbs must not have comprised all of the region known as Galilee since we read in 1 Kings chapter 9 (9:11) that “Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee.” There it is recorded that Hiram did not like the cities. Then it is evident in 2 Chronicles chapter 8 that Naphtali did not inhabit all of the territory in Galilee which the tribe had inherited, since Solomon had to repopulate many of those cities in his time. There we read “2 That the cities which Huram had restored to Solomon, Solomon built them, and caused the children of Israel to dwell there.” [Once again, the King James Version is very annoyingly inconsistent in the rendering of names.]

Evidently, Solomon had repopulated Galilee with Israelites from Naphtali, because later Galilee is once again included in the land of Naphtali when the tribes went into captivity, which happened only a little more than a decade or so before this point which we are at in Isaiah, and we read in 2 Kings chapter 15 that “29 In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglathpileser king of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abelbethmaachah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria.”

While Zebulun was not mentioned by name in that passage, apparently at least much of Zebulun also went into captivity at that time, along with portions of Gad, as Gilead was in Gad east of the Jordan River. That is evident here, where we read that “at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali…” The pronoun must refer to Yahweh Himself, as Yahweh is the last subject mentioned, in the closing verse of chapter 8. So this reference of affliction is God’s affliction of Israel for their sins, as He used Assyria to execute His wrath.

Many commentators claim that just because we read the phrase “Galilee of the Gentiles” here in Isaiah chapter 9, which is the only other mention of Galilee in the Old Testament besides those five which we have already mentioned, that other nations must have dwelt in Galilee. But according to 2 Chronicles chapter 8, it is apparent that nobody had dwelt there, for which reason Solomon rebuilt the cities and “caused the children of Israel to dwell there.” So the commentators who make such claims are wrong. But the truth is that this may not be a reference to Galilee at all. Galilee in Palestine was never “Galilee of the Gentiles” in the Old Testament, and it cannot justly be assumed that the Word of Yahweh would ascribe the land which He had given to Israel as if it could also belong to others, even if others had dwelt there.

Furthermore, what is later known as the Sea of Galilee has little or no bearing here, since in the Old Testament it was never called by that name. Rather, it was always called the Sea of Chinneroth. The tribe of Naphthali only bordered about half of the coastline of that sea, and Manasseh east of the Jordan had bordered the rest, but the name Galilee as it was used in Palestine pertained only to some portion of the territory of Napthali, as it was described as having been “in mount Naphtali” in Joshua chapter 20. Additionally, the Sea of Galilee is not “beyond Jordan”, but rather, it is actually the source of the River Jordan. While there are various lands in Scripture which are mentioned as having been “beyond Jordan”, no sea is mentioned in such a context, and especially not the sea of Chinneroth. Neither are there any records of Yahweh afflicting Zebulun or Naphtali in the Sea of Galilee, which was wholly encompassed by territory belonging to a few of the tribes of Israel. While some incidents may have occurred there as a result of the normal course of activities associated with a fishery, there is nothing of note in Scripture.

But from one perspective, that of the invading Assyrians, the sea beyond Jordan would be the Mediterranean Sea. The following citation is from a paper which I had written over twenty years ago titled Galilee of the Gentiles?

The Septuagint says at Joshua 19:28-29, of Asher’s inheritance: “And Elbon, and Raah, and Ememaon, and Canthan to great Sidon. And the borders shall turn back to Rama, and to the fountain of Masphassat, and the Tyrians ...”. But a little further on, describing Naphtali’s inheritance at 19:35: “And the walled cities of the Tyrians, Tyre, and Omathadaketh, and Kenereth ...”, quite different than the version found in the King James Version. Although not within Naphtali’s territory, did Naphtali inherit Tyre, on the coast of the territory of Asher? Or did this refer to the island off the coast? Such can not be told with the data I have presently. Reading the accounts given at 1 Kings 9:11-13 and 2 Chronicles 8:2, it is evident that Naphtali did not inhabit all of the territory in Galilee which they inherited, for Solomon had to repopulate many of those cities in his time.

That Asher inhabited the coasts of the Mediterranean, and not the Canaanites, can be discerned in the King James Version at Judges 5:17: “Asher continued on the seashore, and abode in his breaches”, where “breaches” is the Hebrew miphrats (# 4464) and may be translated “havens” or “inlets”, the word meaning “a break (in the shore), i.e. a haven” (Strong’s). In the Egyptian records of the 18th dynasty, which predates the Israelite conquest of Canaan, Tyre is called “T’aru the haven”, and it is said of the island off the coast “water is carried to it in barks, it is richer in fish than in sands” (Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th edition, p 817).

And so the Israelite presence in Tyre and Sidon, at about the same time that the so-called “Phoenicians” began their rise to supremacy over the seas, is absolutely undeniable. At 2 Samuel 24:2-7, for instance, King David sends Joab to number the tribes of Israel. Tyre and Sidon were among the places to which Joab journeyed. Elsewhere on the seacoast, Elijah visited the widow of Zarephath, and neither was that noble woman a Canaanite.

Part of our point here is to demonstrate that these were seagoing tribes. Tyre was a famous port during this period, and Asher and Dan were explicitly described as seagoing tribes as early as the song of Deborah in Judges chapter 5. While we have a lot more evidence which assists us in Identifying the Phoenicians of history with the northern tribes of Israel, perhaps this is sufficient to help support our conclusion that the phrase “Galilee of the Gentiles” may have been used in Matthew’s time to refer to Galilee, where this was also used as a prophetic type for Christ, but it also literally meant “circuit of the nations” or “region of the nations”, and that could very well describe all of the seaports of the Mediterranean in which the children of Israel had settled. But it could also describe the area to which the remnant of them in Israel had been brought into captivity.

So from another perspective, that of the Israelites of the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali who remained in Israel, the “sea beyond Jordan” could refer to the Caspian Sea, which the ancient country of Medea had bordered, which was one of the places where Israel in captivity had been settled in significant numbers. So we read, for example, in 2 Kings chapter 18: “11 And the king of Assyria did carry away Israel unto Assyria, and put them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.”

In any event, reading this first verse of Isaiah chapter 9 it is clearly evident that “the way of the sea, beyond Jordan” in Galilee of the nations, or the region of the nations, cannot be in the same place as “the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali”, or else the passage becomes nonsense. So here in Isaiah the phrase must refer to a region of nations in some place other than the lands of those tribes of Israel. First Yahweh afflicted them in their lands, and then He afflicted them where they had gone by way of the sea. They went by sea to the coasts of Europe, but those who remained of them were taken by land to the cities of the Medes.

However later the meaning of the phrase changed to something else, since some time after the captivity of Israel, and by the time that the Septuagint was translated, the phrase “Galilee of the Gentiles” had taken on a meaning which it did not have here in Isaiah. Therefore in that same paper which I had written twenty years ago, I concluded with a note which read:

Two other places [in Scripture] contain the phrase “Galilee of the Nations”, in English versions. Joel 3:4 in the Septuagint (the King James Version has here “all the coasts of Palestine”) and 1 Maccabees 5:15 in both the Septuagint and in the King James Version Apocrypha. However in the Septuagint Greek in both places the phrase reads Γαλιλαίας ἀλλοφύλων (Galilaias allophulôn) or literally “Galilee of the other tribes”, “the region of the other tribes”, the Septuagint translators long ago making the same error of “Galilee” for “galilee” which I hope to have illustrated above. Now, in context, these verses may also be better understood.

With this it is evident that at some time in the intertestamental period, during the early years of the Hellenistic era, the term Γαλιλαίας ἀλλοφύλων became popular enough for it to appear in a translation in Joel, and also in the text of 1 Maccabees, of which we have no available Hebrew copy. But in that passage of Joel in the Hebrew there is a phrase, גלילות פלשׁת or galilah Peleset, which means “all the coasts of Palestine”, as it appears in the King James Version. The word גלילות or galilah (# 1552) is defined by Strong’s as “feminine of 1550; a circuit or region” and Strong’s gives that same feminine form as an alternative in his definition of גליל or galil (# 1551), where we would assert that the two are actually interchangeable and bear the same meanings. With this, Gesenius agrees, having two separate entries, one for 1550 and 1551 which he defined primarily “rolling, turning” and then secondarily as a “circuit, region” and in another for 1552, the feminine form which he defined only as a “circuit, region”. [2]

However seeing the transition of the use of the term in the intertestamental period, a time in which alien tribes of Edomites, Canaanites and others had indeed inhabited much of Galilee following the captivities of Israel, then the area did indeed fit the description. So as we continue with Isaiah, it also becomes manifest that the double meaning also served as a prophetic type for Christ, however that in itself does not mean that He intended to spread the gospel to anyone but the children of Israel.

2 The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.

In Matthew chapter 4 the apostle interprets this passage in reference to the ministry of Christ and says: “12 Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee; 13 And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim: 14 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, 15 The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles; 16 The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up. 17 From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

So Christ, having preached in Galilee, is the fulfillment of the light which is prophesied here in Isaiah, which would ultimately cure the darkness and dimness that the children of Israel were described as having suffered here in Isaiah chapter 8 and the opening verse of chapter 9. While the “Galilee of the nations” of Isaiah is not the same as the “Galilee of the Gentiles [or nations]” there in Matthew, in relation to the prophetic fulfillment as a sign of the truth of the Word of God the difference is immaterial. Rather, as we hope to have exhibited, the meaning of the phrase had evolved in the intertestamental period, and Yahweh God took advantage of the errors of men, which He must have also foreseen, in order to exhibit His truth to His people, even if the apostle who recorded these things may not have understood the evolution of the meaning of the phrase in the common vernacular of his time. Yahshua Christ is the Light come into the world to open the eyes and heal the blindness of the children of Israel in captivity, which is a subject of prophecy found in later chapters of Isaiah.

Continuing with Isaiah chapter 9:

3 Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy: they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.

The joy of the children of Israel was not the joy which the children of Yahweh should exhibit, because evidently they had only rejoiced over material abundance, such as that of the harvest. Perhaps the joy here which ancient Israel should have had, and the underlying reason for their affliction are summarized in the 5th Psalm: “8 Lead me, O LORD, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies; make thy way straight before my face. 9 For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue. 10 Destroy thou them, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions; for they have rebelled against thee. [This is what had happened to Israel here, they were cast out in to captivity on account of their transgressions.] 11 But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee. 12 For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.” As it is recorded in Matthew chapter 25, Christ would say to the faithful servant: “ 23 … Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”

Evidently, in the time of their affliction, Israel would be multiplied, but their joy would not be increased on account of their disobedience. So Isaiah seems to be describing the period of the Assyrian captivity of Israel, which at this time had already been in progress. So, as we read in an analogy found in Isaiah chapter 49: “18 Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the LORD, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on thee, as a bride doeth. 19 For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away. 20 The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell. 21 Then shalt thou say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? and who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been?”

So here, where the children of Israel are described as being in captivity and multiplying in number, their ultimate deliverance shall be as it was at the Day of Midian:

4 For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian. 5 For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire.

Here the oppressor is the Assyrian, and the yoke of his burden is the captivity of Israel, so at some point in the future Yahweh is promising that the yoke will be broken, much the way He had broken the yoke of Midian.

In the opening verses of Judges chapter 6 we read: “1 And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD: and the LORD delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years. 2 And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel: and because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strong holds.” With this, Gideon was called to free Israel from the oppression of the Midianites. This was about a hundred and seventy years after the death of Joshua, or the closing decades of the 13th century BC. Towards the end of Judges chapter 6, Gideon had sent messengers throughout the territories of the northern tribes in order to raise an army so that they may oppose their enemies.

Then in the opening verses of chapter 7 it is apparent that approximately thirty-two thousand men had responded, but Yahweh informed Gideon that was too many, and showed him steps by which the number was reduced to ten thousand, and ultimately to only three hundred men, whereas the armies of Midian and the associated Amalekites and others were described as having been very numerous. So once Gideon is down to three hundred men we read: “13 And when Gideon was come, behold, there was a man that told a dream unto his fellow, and said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and, lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian, and came unto a tent, and smote it that it fell, and overturned it, that the tent lay along. 14 And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel: for into his hand hath God delivered Midian, and all the host. 15 And it was so, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and the interpretation thereof, that he worshipped, and returned into the host of Israel, and said, Arise; for the LORD hath delivered into your hand the host of Midian. 16 And he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put a trumpet in every man's hand, with empty pitchers, and lamps within the pitchers. 17 And he said unto them, Look on me, and do likewise: and, behold, when I come to the outside of the camp, it shall be that, as I do, so shall ye do. 18 When I blow with a trumpet, I and all that are with me, then blow ye the trumpets also on every side of all the camp, and say, The sword of the LORD, and of Gideon. 19 So Gideon, and the hundred men that were with him, came unto the outside of the camp in the beginning of the middle watch; and they had but newly set the watch: and they blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers that were in their hands. 20 And the three companies blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers, and held the lamps in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands to blow withal: and they cried, The sword of the LORD, and of Gideon. 21 And they stood every man in his place round about the camp: and all the host ran, and cried, and fled.” At this point in Judges chapter 7, all of Israel was once again called to pursue the fleeing Midianites.

Just as it is here, in the Day of Midian the hosts of the enemies were put to flight by three hundred men with trumpets, lamps and pitchers, and all they had to do was blow the trumpets and break the pitchers in order to put the much more numerous hordes of the enemy to flight. Where it says here that “For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden”, the reference is to their current oppressors, and the prophecy indicates that the children of Israel would one day far in the future overcome the Assyrians in a similar manner than it had been in the Day of Midian, where it would be Yahweh’s doing, and not their own. Perhaps from this perspective, the lamps of the men who were with Gideon are a type for the lamps held by the virgins who are invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb, in Matthew chapter 25, but we need not elaborate.

Now there is an announcement of the birth of a child, and perhaps the significance of Gideon’s lamps becomes even more clearly evident once it is realized that this is a Messianic prophecy of the coming Christ:

6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

There has always been contention over the reading of this passage, and especially because as it stands in the modern editions of the Septuagint which are published in the common languages today, it is missing many words and phrases. So here we shall make a full examination of that, and we shall begin by providing the Greek text of this passage from the Rahlfs-Hanhart edition of the Septuagint, followed by our own translation. [We shall not read the Greek texts here, but only their translations, to save our listeners the pain of hearing things that at least most of them will not understand. Here I shall also provide images of all of the pertinent sections of the codices which I shall cite. It must also be stated, that Isaiah 9:6 in our English Bibles is 9:5 in both the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint Greek manuscripts.]

Beginning with Isaiah 9:5 from the Rahlfs-Hanhart edition of the Septuagint:

5 ὅτι παιδίον ἐγεννήθη ἡμῖν, υἱὸς καὶ ἐδόθη ἡμῖν, οὗ ἡ ἀρχὴ ἐγενήθη ἐπὶ τοῦ ὤμου αὐτοῦ, καὶ καλεῖται τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Μεγάλης βουλῆς ἄγγελος· ἐγὼ γὰρ ἄξω εἰρήνην ἐπὶ τοὺς ἄρχοντας, εἰρήνην καὶ ὑγίειαν αὐτῷ·

5 For to us a child is born, and to us a son is given, the primacy is upon his shoulder and his name is called Messenger of great counsel. For I shall bring peace upon the rulers, peace and health to him.

This is very similar to the reading from the text of Brenton’s Septuagint, who translates the passage to say “6 For a child is born to us, and a son is given to us, whose government is upon his shoulder: and his name is called the Messenger of great counsel: for I will bring peace upon the princes, and health to him.”

While Brenton provided some footnotes which make remarks about translation, or alternate readings found in the Greek text, the Rahlfs-Hanhart edition of the text of the Septuagint is accompanied with a critical apparatus, just as the Nestle-Aland editions have done for the New Testament, which explains the significant differences found among the various important ancient manuscripts. While Brenton’s Septuagint translation is based on a reading of the Codex Vaticanus, the Greek text he provided is in near agreement with our own reading of that manuscript. He has a conjunction, καὶ, in the second clause which is not found in the codex Vaticanus Graecus 1206, the copy of the Codex Vaticanus readily available to the public at the Vatican Library website.

However in a footnote Brenton explains that the Codex Alexandrinus has additional text following the phrase “Messenger of Great Counsel”, which he had translated to read: “Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty One, Potentate, Prince of Peace, Father of the age to come.” But even with this, it is still missing the word for God which is found here in the Masoretic Text. So for that, Brenton wrote “Mighty One” rather than “Mighty God”.

As a digression, the editors and translators mentioned here do not interpret θαυμαστὸς, which is an adjective meaning wonderful, or marvellous, as the King James Version often has it, as a modifier for the noun σύμβουλος, or counsellor, but we would insist that it should be interpreted in that manner. Although the King James Version did not interpret the Hebrew in that manner, other versions have, such as the New American Standard Bible, and as we shall cite further on, The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible.

The critical apparatus of Rahlfs-Hanhart affirms that the Codex Alexandrinus has these words, but it also informs us that a supplement in the Codex Sinaiticus has a variation of these words, where it has Mighty God rather than merely Mighty One as it is found in the Alexandrinus. So in order to test the integrity of these notes which we have found in these editions, we have verified the readings in these codices for ourselves, and we found them to be reliable in this instance. The Alexandrinus has the words in the manuscript, as Rahlfs-Hanhart and Brenton both indicate, while the Sinaiticus has them in a note in the margin. It is probable that Brenton had not had access to the Codex Sinaiticus when he published his Septuagint in 1844, since the Sinaiticus was not first published until 1862 in Leipzig, Germany.

The missing words from the apparatus of Rahlfs-Hanhart, as they appear in the margin of the Codex Sinaiticus:

θαυμαστὸς, σύμβουλος, θεὸς ἰσχυρὸς, ἐξουσιαστὴς, ἄρχων εἰρήνης, πατὴρ τοῦ μέλλοντος αἰῶνος

In the Codex Sinaiticus, the words θεὸς and πατὴρ are abbreviated θς and πηρ, with a line over the letters, as they and other words are commonly found abbreviated throughout the codices. The same words in this phrase are found in the Codex Alexandrinus, with the exception of θεὸς, where Mighty God is instead translated as Mighty One.

In the portions of the Codex Sinaiticus above, Isaiah 9:6 is found at the bottom of the first column of a four-column page, and runs into the top of the second. Below the first column is a note marking the missing text, and in the text itself, after the word ΑΓΓΕΛΟϹ, which is a messenger or angel, is a mark indicating where it should have been, as corrected by some later scribe. The image is linked so that a larger view can be seen.

So we have verified these readings of the Codices Alexandrinus and Sinaiticus to be correct, and we shall provide all of the excerpts containing the passage in facsimiles here. In the marginal note which had signified the words that should have been in the text, which was evidently made by a different hand some time after the text itself had been copied, the Codex Sinaiticus has its abbreviated form of the Greek word θεὸς preceding ἰσχυρὸς, or “the mighty God”, along with the rest of the words from the passage which Brenton and Rahlfs-Hanhart had both noted are found in the text of the Codex Alexandrinus. So the marginal note would bring the Codex Sinaiticus to agree with the Masoretic Text in substance, and also with the text of the Septuagint as Origen had presented it at least a a century earlier.

Therefore we shall now provide the Septuagint reading from Origen’s Hexapla as it was reproduced by Fredericus Field for his 1875 publication of the work, along with our own translation:

5 ὅτι παιδίον ἐγεννήθη ἡμῖν, υἱὸς καὶ ἐδόθη ἡμῖν, οὗ ἡ ἀρχὴ ἐγενήθη ἐπὶ τοῦ ὤμου αὐτοῦ, καὶ καλεῖται τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Μεγάλης βουλῆς ἄγγελος θαυμαστὸς, σύμβουλος, θεὸς ἰσχυρὸς, ἐξουσιαστὴς, ἄρχων εἰρήνης, πατὴρ τοῦ μέλλοντος αἰῶνος· ἄξω γὰρ εἰρήνην ἐπὶ τοὺς ἄρχοντας, εἰρήνην καὶ ὑγίειαν αὐτῷ. [1]

5 To us a child is born, and to us a son is given, the authority is upon His shoulder, and His name is called Messenger of Great Counsel, Wonderful Advisor, Powerful God, Primacy, Prince of Peace, Father of the Coming Age. For I shall bring peace upon the rulers, peace and health to Him.

A segment of page 448, Volume II, of the Hexapla as it was published by Fredericus Field. The two volumes can be downloaded from links found at the bottom of this page.

One other variation in the Hexapla, along with the Codex Vaticanus, it has the words ἄξω γὰρ εἰρήνην following the text which is missing the word, where ἐγὼ that is found in some of the other codices. The Alexandrinus and Sinaiticus both have ἐγὼ γὰρ ἄξω εἰρήνην and that is also found in Rahlfs-Hanhart. The difference is minor, since ἄξω means I shall bring and the appearance of ἐγὼ only makes the pronoun explicit. So either phrase would be translated “For I shall bring peace…”

It is noted in Latin in that passage of the Hexapla that only some examples had the word peace in that final phrase, so with that it is also clearly evident that Origen had access to multiple copies of Septuagint manuscripts, perhaps even to many copies, and they all had the other words in this passage, but not all of them had that one word for peace.

So here it is evident that the Codex Alexandrinus retained at least most of the text of Isaiah 9:6 as it was in Origen’s Septuagint, but the marginal note in the Codex Sinaiticus has all of it. However the scribe who copied the Sinaiticus had dropped the entire clause, which is also wanting in the Codex Vaticanus, while in the Sinaiticus it was restored by another hand in the margin. However the scribe who copied the Alexandrinus only omitted the word for God, which was not restored by another hand. Here we see the hands of men who have sought to corrupt the Word of God, and how that has happened over time.

So out of all of these sources, the earliest version which we have of the Septuagint text of Isaiah 9:6 is that of Origen, and the reading of the passage as it is in the Masoretic Text is fully supported in the Septuagint text which was employed by Origen, who was an early Alexandrian Christian writer of the first half of the 3rd century BC. But the Masoretic Text is also fully supported in the margin of the Codex Sinaiticus, and mostly supported in the Codex Alexandrinus, although the missing word for God is critical. To us, this demonstrates the near-certain probability that the Septuagint texts had been purposely altered to corrupt the words of the prophet concerning this child, and to remove the illustration that this prophesied child would be God born as a man from the words of the prophet. The Jewish rabbis have long contended with this passage as it stands in Hebrew, and since it supplies a firm basis for Christian beliefs concerning Christ, it is no wonder that this passage would be attacked in the Greek sources which Christians were accustomed to using.

Then there is the Latin Vulgate, which was translated by Jerome in the early 5th century AD, and which is originally as old or older than any of our surviving Greek codices. It also contains all of the language of the Hebrew which is under contention here, as the Douay-Rheims edition has the verse to read, in part, “… his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace.”

Now, in order to fully vindicate the reading of Isaiah 9:6 as it is in the Masoretic Text, there is still another witness found in even older sources, which are the multiple copies of Isaiah which have been discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls. So in The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible by Abegg, Flint and Ulrich, verse 6 reads as follows: “For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will be on his shoulders. He is called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” There it is noted that one copy of Isaiah found among the scrolls has “He will be called”, as it is in the Masoretic Text.

With this, it should be fully manifest that the text of Isaiah 9:6 as it is found in the King James Version should not be doubted. But of course, the enemies of Christ will do anything not to believe Him. However once He returns, as Christ Himself had promised:

7 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

While some men throughout history may have been considered to have been wonderful counsellors by either their peers or their students, there is no counsel more wonderful that the counsel of God, and no man can justly be called “the Mighty God”, “The everlasting Father”, or even “The Prince of Peace”, since no man can bring peace except perhaps to himself, if he is obedient to God.

Furthermore, no man, not even David, was without end to the increase in his worldly government. The Hebrew word for end there is קץ or qets (# 7093) which is literally an extremity, as Strong’s defines it, but which comes from a word meaning to cut off (# 7112), and I am persuaded that it is the origin of our English word cut. But in the Septuagint it was translated with a word pertaining to geography, rather than time, the Greek word ὅριον, which means boundary. Either way, David’s kingdom was soon divided, ultimately it came to naught, and it did have boundaries which had been defined by Yahweh God Himself, in the opening verses of Numbers chapter 34.

However in Luke chapter 1, where the angel had spoken to another virgin, Mary, who became the mother of the Christ child, we read: “30 And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. 31 And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. 32 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: 33 And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. 34 Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? 35 And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, 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.”

It is this event, the birth of Christ which has been prophesied here in Isaiah, in chapters 7 through 9. Yahweh willing, we shall return to this point in Isaiah chapter 9 in the near future.

Footnotes

1 Origenis Hexaplorum, Fridericus Field, AA. M., Volume II, Clarendon Press, 1875, p. 448.

Origenis Hexaplorum - Volume 2 - Field - 1875.pdf

2 Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, translated by Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, Baker Books, 1979, p. 172.