Paul the Poke

Isaiah 9:3 You shall multiply the nation, You shall increase their gladness; they will be glad in Your presence as with the gladness of harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.

The grammar in the Hebrew indicates that God is the One who causes the population of Israel to increase abundantly. God is the One who causes their joy to increase.

The nation will be happy in His presence. Harvest time for people of Israel is a time of shouting, joy, gladness, and singing. There are festivals and eating and drinking. This is a happy time full of merriment as evidenced from passages in Judges, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. This the joy the nation will experience with the living God.

There is the implication of a great military victory. The Hebrew word for “spoil” is shalal. According to Strong’s Concordance, it means: prey, plunder, spoil, booty of war. Gladness abounds as the men gather and divide the plunder.

Isaiah 9:4 For You shall break the yoke of their burden and the staff on their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, as at the battle of Midian. 

Israel is being compared to an ox that has a yoke and carrying heavy equipment. A yoke is a wooden bar or frame that is placed on the neck of animal for the purpose work and plowing a field. An ox is an animal of labor. It was whipped and beaten.

God will step in and break this oppression as He did in the battle of Midian. The reference is to Gideon’s victory in Judges 7-8. God chose the men for battle. God needed only 300 men when the enemy had tens of thousands of soldiers. Israel was directed by God to attack at night. Confusion was created and the enemy attacked itself. The victory was decisive. It did not take long to achieve the conquest.

Isaiah 9:5 For every boot of the booted warrior in the battle tumult, and cloak rolled in blood, will be for burning, fuel for the fire.

As confusion was the case in the battle of Midian, so shall confusion and trembling reign during the battle when God intervenes again. The enemy will be burned from the head of the cloak to the toe of the boot. They will be consumed by fire.

These are future events. We know this person of the Godhead to be the man, Jesus. This says in Isaiah that He is physically coming to Earth.

This entry was posted on June 10, 2013 at 7:45 AM and is filed under Isaiah, Prophecy with tags Gideon, Isaiah 9, Israel, Jesus, Judges 7, Midian, Prince, Prophecy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.