Isaiah 11:9-16
Isa 11:9
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain:
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover
the sea.
When the New Heavens and the New Earth are created, there
will be no sin and that means there will be no destruction or fighting.
The holy mountain is a synonym for the Kingdom of God of which all
believers are a part of at the present but will be fully realized on that day.
The earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD but in the present
time there are many false teachings which are vying for the knowledge of people
such as evolution, religion, philosophy, etc.
Right now many of those false teachings have taken over the minds of the
unbelievers and because their mind is darkened by sin, they do not retain any
thoughts of God.
The wicked, through the pride of his
countenance, will not seek after God:
God is not in all his thoughts.
(Psalm 10:4) Once the New
Heavens and Earth are created all false teachings will have disappeared and only
the truth will prevail and that is why the entire earth will know of the LORD
because there will be nothing else but truth and righteousness.
Isa 11:10
And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which
shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his
rest shall be glorious.
The day which is in view is the day of grace when the
Lord Jesus Christ shall come upon the scene in fulfillment of the prophecy found
in Isaiah 11:1. The root of Jesse
will be the Lord Jesus Christ who will be in the lineage of Jesse and David.
An ensign is like a standard or a flag which goes into battle at the
front of the lines. The ensign will
be grace as opposed to the keeping of the law.
The Lord Jesus Christ will keep the law perfectly and will impute that to
every one of his Elect. The
Gentiles will seek the Lord from all over the world when the gospel goes out as
it is proclaimed in every nation.
The rest that is glorious means that the true believer will never have to look
to other religions or do some type of work to gain or maintain salvation.
We rest in Christ because the work was finished.
Who
being the brightness of his
glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word
of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand
of the Majesty on high; (Hebrews 1:3)
When Christ purged our sins and went back to Heaven, he sat down on the
right hand of the Father. To sit
down means that something was accomplished and completed.
Since all our sins were purged, what else has to be done?
Nothing, and that is why we rest in the finished work of Christ.
Isa 11:11
And it shall come to pass in that day, that the
Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his
people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and
from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands
of the sea.
The first time was the freeing of Israel from Egypt when
the entire nation was brought out of bondage.
This would represent God naming all the believers he planned to save
before the foundation of the world.
The remnant refers to those who are true believers as remnants are found in
every country on earth and small numbers of them.
Then the naming of those prominent nations which existed when Isaiah was
written can be brought down to today.
Since God has named all those he was going to save, he shall be bringing
them into the kingdom of God from all the countries that have ever been on earth
and even those countries that are not among the countries of today.
Just as ancient Israel was scattered throughout major empires like
Assyria, Rome, and Babylon, the true believers of God are scattered all over
this world.
Isa 11:12
And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall
assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from
the four corners of the earth.
The ensign for the nations will be the Lord Jesus Christ
who was lifted up on Calvary for the whole word to see.
And I, if I be lifted up from the
earth, will draw all men unto
me. (John 12:32) Then this
verse points to the fact of the last day when there will be a gathering of all
the true believers.
And he shall send his angels with a great
sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four
winds, from one end of heaven to the other. (Matthew 24:31)
The Judah in view is a synonym
for all true believers. The
Lord Jesus Christ came through the tribe of Judah and that makes all true
believers Jews in the biblical sense of the term and not the political sense.
28 For he is not a Jew,
which is one outwardly; neither is
that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: 29 But he
is a Jew, which is one
inwardly; and circumcision is that
of the heart, in the spirit, and
not in the letter; whose praise is
not of men, but of God. (Romans 2:28-29)
The Bible redefines the name “Jew” which means it refers to all the true
believers. The modern Jews in
Israel are all members of a cult called Judaism which holds rank hatred for the
Lord Jesus Christ. The true Jew is
one who is born again in Christ.
Isa 11:13
The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the
adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah
shall not vex Ephraim.
Just as the vicious animals which Isaiah stated would
live in peace with the weaker animals, the true believers in Ephraim will live
in harmony with the true believers of Judah.
Ephraim and Judah were always in some type of antagonism towards each
other but because of the Messiah, those differences will diminish and disappear.
Just as the true gospel makes friends out of enemies, there will be no
more social or political lines of distinction between races or even between
people who were at odds with each other.
In light of eternity, present problems or hostilities are very petty.
The reason why this is speaking of the gospel is because by this time
Ephraim or the Northern kingdom was already taken to Assyria.
Isa 11:14
But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines
toward the west; they shall spoil them of the east together: they shall lay
their hand upon Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon shall obey them.
Here are mentioned four major enemies of Israel which had
caused them much problems in the past.
The east and west is mentioned which means the entire earth is in view.
The flying is not a literal flying because no human can fly on their own.
It is speaking of the spread of the gospel to the entire earth as
symbolized by the angel which has the everlasting gospel.
And I saw another angel fly in the
midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on
the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, (Revelation
14:6) Keep in mind the name
“angel” means “messenger” and every true believer will be a messenger of the
gospel. The only way the enemies of
the true believers can be silenced is one of two ways: they either become saved
or they will be judged on the last day and removed from the presence of the
believer.
And another angel came out of the temple,
crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and
reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is
ripe. (Revelation 14:15) One
angel will have the everlasting gospel and the other will have the
responsibility to thrust in the sickle and reap which will happen on the last
day.
Isa 11:15
And the LORD shall utterly destroy the tongue of the
Egyptian sea; and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river,
and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dryshod.
In the Bible the country of Egypt normally represents the
world and its opposition to the Lord and the true gospel.
Here God is stating that the tongue of the Egyptian Sea will be
destroyed. The Egyptian Sea is the
Red Sea which borders on Egypt and where the Egyptian army was drowned in their
pursuit of Israel. The Red Sea was
not a hindrance to God as he dried up the Red Sea and thus allowed the
Israelites to go across on dry land.
Shaking his hand over the river was like Moses who shook his rod over the
Red Sea right before the Lord opened it for Israel.
The river is the Nile river which had seven tributaries proceeding from
it. The key is the word “seven”
which represents the perfect number.
Seven is the number of perfection and completeness.
John to the seven churches which
are in Asia: Grace be unto you,
and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the
seven Spirits which are before his throne; (Revelation 1:4)
In Revelation 1:4, the Holy Spirit is defined as seven spirits which
means he is completely deity. There
shall be no hindrances in this world to the sending forth of the gospel and
nothing can hinder the salvation of God’s people whom he named before the
foundation of the world.
And the sixth angel poured out his vial
upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way
of the kings of the east might be prepared. (Revelation 16:12)
The great river Euphrates was dried up for the kings of the east.
(See my commentary on Revelation 16:12 on this site)
Isa 11:16
And there shall be an highway for the remnant of his
people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day
that he came up out of the land of Egypt.