August 09, 2024 | Be God's Light
The Root Of Jesse
Scripture: Isaiah 11(NIV)
1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
2 The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
3 and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
5 Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist.
6 The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.
7 The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
8 The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.
9 They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
10 In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious. 11 In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the surviving remnant of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the Mediterranean.
12 He will raise a banner for the nations
and gather the exiles of Israel;
he will assemble the scattered people of Judah
from the four quarters of the earth.
13 Ephraim’s jealousy will vanish,
and Judah’s enemies will be destroyed;
Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah,
nor Judah hostile toward Ephraim.
14 They will swoop down on the slopes of Philistia to the west;
together they will plunder the people to the east.
They will subdue Edom and Moab,
and the Ammonites will be subject to them.
15 The Lord will dry up
the gulf of the Egyptian sea;
with a scorching wind he will sweep his hand
over the Euphrates River.
He will break it up into seven streams
so that anyone can cross over in sandals.
16 There will be a highway for the remnant of his people
that is left from Assyria,
as there was for Israel
when they came up from Egypt.
Devotional
Much of Isaiah’s prophetic writings applied to the events of his day as well as the future Messiah. Isaiah was honest with both Israel and Judah, telling them that they will be conquered by other nations as God’s judgment for their unfaithfulness.
Three hundred years earlier, Jesse was the father of King David. The root of Jesse would be someone who came from that family line. In Matthew 1, verses 1 and 6, the gospel opens with, “This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the [descendant] of… Jesse the father of King David.” Matthew wanted to make sure the reader knew that Jesus was the root of Jesse spoken of here in Isaiah chapter 11.
The Jews from Israel and Judah would be conquered and scattered throughout the world in the coming centuries. But Isaiah gave them hope that they would be reunited. Isaiah 11:11 prophetically says, “In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the surviving remnant of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the Mediterranean.”
Compare that with who was in Jerusalem at the birth of the Christian Church in Acts 2:9-11, “Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome… Cretans and Arabs.”
The people of God were dispersed into many parts of the world. Indeed, the final gathering of all His people will be when Christ returns and reigns over the whole earth.
Look over today’s reading again. What else stands out to you in Isaiah’s prophetic words about the shoot from the stump of Jesse?
Poem
A Fruitless Tree
A fruitless tree
Sawed down to stump
The Jesse line
A-tumble
But roots sunk deep
In fertile soil
Produced a Shoot
Full humble
Its spirit wise
Its counsel strong
Its knowledge
“Lord alone!”
Its fruit, delight
For nations all
The fruitless tree
Re-born
This Shoot, the Hope
This Shoot, the Peace
This Shoot, the Joy
The Love
This Shoot, fulfillment
Promised long
God’s glory
From above
Judgment with justice
Now is seen
Righteous, the bark,
The belt
Faith, truth, its Fruit
Creation saved
Under Its shade
To dwell
