Advent 3 - PEACE Isaiah 11:6-9

11/12/22

Scripture

Isaiah 11:6-9

Questions

Isaiah 10 describes Assyria’s downfall because of their atrocities against the northern kingdom, Israel. This is contrasted to Judah’s restoration in chapter 11 to an Eden-like state.¹ “The fathers, and such commentators as Luther, Calvin, and Vitringa, have taken all these figures from the animal world as symbolical”²…

6 And a wolf shall stay with a lamb, and a leopard shall lie down with a kid, and a calf and a lion and a fatling together as a small boy leads them.

1. This is a parallelism. One commentator writes, “Old hostilities and fears are reconciled and allayed…a mere child is safe among them”³. What does the imagery suggest to you?

7 And a cow and a bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together. And a lion shall eat straw like the cattle.

2. Another parallelism. This is Hebrew poetry. “Natures are transformed…They all eat the same food: carnivores have becomes herbivores”⁴. How must our natures change to bring about this promised peace [Deuteronomy 10:12-17, Ezekiel 36:26, John 3:3 etc.]? When does this change in our nature happen? Is it complete?

8 And an infant shall play over a serpent’s hole, and a toddler shall put his hand on a viper’s hole.

3. Another parallelism. This is poetry! Is there surd⁵ evil in this changed world?

9 They will not injure and they will not destroy on all of my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of YHWH, as the waters cover the sea.

4. What is God’s holy mountain? Eden or Zion or both or more?

5. What does shalom mean? How is this different to the world’s idea of peace?

6. Read Luke 2:9-15. When is the peace of v14? Now or future?

7. Read Colossians 1:19-20 and discuss the extent of the atonement!?

More

1. Douglas Mangum, ed., Lexham Context Commentary: Old Testament, Lexham Context Commentary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2020), Is 9:1–12:6.

2. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 7 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996), 184.

3. J. Alec Motyer, Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 20, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 118.

4. J. Alec Motyer, Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 20, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 118.

5. "Natural evil (also non-moral or surd evil) is a term generally used in discussions of the problem of evil and theodicy that refers to states of affairs which, considered in themselves, are those that are part of the natural world, and so are independent of the intervention of a human agent."‘Natural Evil’. In Wikipedia, 19 May 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Natural_evil&oldid=1088589701.