OUTLOOK STANDARD LESSONS
UNIFORM LESSON FOR SEPTEMBER 4, 2016
Scripture passage and lesson focus: Isaiah 11:1-9
This lesson begins a unit on what the Bible says about the sovereignty of God in the books of Isaiah, Hebrews and Revelation. Historically, the sovereignty of God has been a central teaching and a foundational doctrine of our Reformed theology. For Calvinists in general and Presbyterians in particular, trust in God as the creator, sustainer and, ultimately, the redeemer of the world is at the heart of our faith.
In our world of rapid technological and social change, looming ecological crises and unending warfare and violence around the globe, many people find it difficult, if not impossible, to believe in a God who is the sovereign ruler of history. The biblical witness from Genesis to Revelation points to God revealed especially in Jesus Christ as the constant reality who calls believers to demonstrate God’s love and justice in our conflicted and confusing world.
The book of Isaiah, where this unit begins, is a composite work that contains three distinct but related traditions. Chapters 1-39 contain primarily the words of the 8th century B.C. prophet Isaiah of Jerusalem. The quite different realities of Israel’s exile in Babylon during the 6th century B.C. are reflected in chapters 40-55, and an unnamed prophet living in post-exilic Judah addresses the new situation God’s people found themselves in after 539 B.C.
Isaiah 11:1-3a — A new spirit-filled leader
In order to grasp Isaiah’s radical message in this passage, we must look at the preceding chapters. There, Isaiah describes God’s judgment against Israel and Israel’s oppressor, Assyria, as the chopping down of a forest. “Look, the Sovereign, the Lord of hosts, will lop the boughs with terrifying power; the tallest trees will be cut down, and the lofty will be brought low”
(Isaiah 10:33).
Isaiah points to a lifeless stump identified with Jesse, the father of king David, whose royal sons have failed miserably as the leaders of Israel. Out of that stump a new branch will grow.
That branch symbolizes the new leader God will provide. The spirit of God will be with him, the same spirit God gave when Samuel anointed David to be Israel’s king. “And the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward” (1 Samuel 16:13).
The godly ruler will have wisdom and understanding, good judgment and effective power rooted in the knowledge and fear (i.e. reverence) of God. Psalm 72 is a prayer that God’s justice and righteousness will enable Israel’s king to “defend the cause of the poor of the people, [and] give deliverance to the needy” (Psalm 72:4).
Isaiah 11:3b-5 — Righteousness and equity
The godly ruler will not make decisions based on external appearances. Instead, his judgments will be based on righteousness and equity for the poor and the meek. In the words of Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah’s words mean that “any derivative theory or practice of public power that claims to be ‘biblical’ must attend to issues of economic justice for the vulnerable.”
John Calvin’s comment on this passage is equally appropriate: “It doesn’t belong to men to penetrate into the heart; and those whom
we suppose to be very excellent men have frequently nothing but a hollow mask.”
Isaiah 11:6-9 — Peace comes from knowledge of God
Isaiah concludes his description of God’s peaceful reign with what one writer has called “a pearl of Hebrew poetry.” He paints a picture in which a young child brings together in peaceful coexistence strong animals that would ordinarily devour the weak: a wolf with a lamb, a leopard with a young goat, a lion with a calf and a yearling. An infant will safely play where snakes live.
Where God reigns, symbolized by Mt. Zion in Jerusalem, the weak and vulnerable will live in peace and safety. Pain and destruction will be no more. God’s sovereign rule will bring about what is impossible according to human calculations.
Isaiah proclaims that peace will reign in God’s new realm because it will be full of the knowledge of God. This is not an intellectual awareness of God or even a comprehensive theological understanding of God’s very nature. No, Isaiah is talking about the faithful acknowledgement of God as the sovereign whom to know brings about what Walter Brueggemann calls a “deep, radical, limitless transformation in which we — like [the] lion, wolf and leopard — will have no hunger for injury, no need to devour, no yearning for brutal control, no passion
for domination.”
For discussion
What connections can you see between Isaiah’s description of God’s peaceful reign and Jesus’s earthly ministry? Can you detect hints of God’s peaceful kingdom anywhere in your experience? What specifically can you and/or your congregation do to be peacemakers? O
