Monday, February 18, 2013

Isaiah 9:8


Copyright Ó 2013 J. Neely
Isaiah 9:8

8 The Lord ['Adonay] sent [shalach] a word [dabar] into Jacob, [Ya`aqob] and it hath lighted [naphal] upon Israel. [Yisra'el] KJV-Interlinear

8 The Lord sends a message against Jacob, And it falls on Israel. NASB


The tone of the rest of the chapter now changes for the promise and certainty of God, to threats and warnings from God.

There are two kingdoms within the nation.  The northern kingdom made up of ten of the tribes, which assumed the name of Israel, and the southern kingdom called Judah.

Isaiah usually calls the northern kingdom Ephraim or Samaria, indicating the tribe, Ephraim, and the capital city, Samaria as the seat of power and government of that northern kingdom.

The nature of the nation is traditionally derived from its capital, its leaders, and so forth.

Judah, which is the southern kingdom, remained loyal to the line of David, while the northern kingdom rejected that line and went with another line of royalty in its leadership.

The line of David is of course the line of the Messiah. So rejecting the line of David is the same as rejecting the promised Messiah out of that line.

The northern kingdom was the first to reject the promised line of David, and they were the first to fall to invading enemies.

The southern kingdom eventually will reject the truth of the scriptures and the way of the proper spiritual life, and will fall into the legalism system of Judaism, over the next several centuries, and they will be the second to fall to enemies.

So the reference to Jacob here, designates the promised line, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Jacobs name will be changed to Israel, the designated name of the nation, Israel.

But as Jacobs name is used, too, that precedes the changed name of Israel or the chosen nation, and leans toward the nation of the Hebrews, which is the genetic nation, not the spiritual nation.

This is the drifting away of the people back to their roots as Hebrews, which is a rejection, though subtle, of Gods promises, in a reliance on ancestry rather than on the spiritual promise.

And so the northern kingdom rejected the line of David and thus they rejected the Messiah, while the southern kingdom rejected the scriptures by substituting their own version of a messiah, namely legalism through Judaism.

These warnings are directed at all people, through specifically both kingdoms of Israel, for both rejecting by means of unbelief, and through rejection by means of substitutionary belief systems.  And this covers all forms of religions and philosophies and cults and so forth.

As goes the nation of Israel, so goes the world.  As goes attitude toward Jesus Christ and doctrine, so goes the repercussions of that attitude.

The word for Lord, ‘Adonay,’ is the proper use of the name.  The people refused the use Gods name and word in its proper sense.

God sent a word, or truth, and that was rejected or ignored by all.  People invent their own systems of belief through asceticism or lasciviousness, both of which are a rejection of truth.