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.
