The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. The light has shined on those who lived in the land of the shadow of death.
Parallel Translations
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The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. The light has shined on those who lived in the land of the shadow of death.
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The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.
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(9-1) The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.
Cross-references (20)
Passages linked to Isaiah 9:2 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Matthew 4:16 the people who sat in darkness saw a great light, to those who sat in the region and shadow of death, to them light has dawned.”
- Ephesians 5:8 For you were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord. Walk as children of light,
- John 8:12 Again, therefore, Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.”
- John 12:46 I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in the darkness.
- Luke 1:78-79 because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the dawn from on high will visit us, to shine on those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death; to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
- 1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
- 1 John 1:5-7 This is the message which we have heard from him and announce to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in the darkness, we lie, and don’t tell the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.
- Isaiah 60:1-3 “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and Yahweh’s glory has risen on you. For, behold, darkness will cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but Yahweh will arise on you, and his glory shall be seen on you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.
- Isaiah 60:19 The sun will be no more your light by day; nor will the brightness of the moon give light to you, but Yahweh will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory.
- Luke 2:32 a light for revelation to the nations, and the glory of your people Israel.”
- Ephesians 5:13-14 But all things, when they are reproved, are revealed by the light, for everything that reveals is light. Therefore he says, “Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
- Psalms 23:4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
- Psalms 107:14 He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and broke away their chains.
- Psalms 107:10 Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron,
- Isaiah 50:10 Who among you fears Yahweh and obeys the voice of his servant? He who walks in darkness and has no light, let him trust in Yahweh’s name, and rely on his God.
- Micah 7:8-9 Don’t rejoice against me, my enemy. When I fall, I will arise. When I sit in darkness, Yahweh will be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of Yahweh, because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my case, and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light. I will see his righteousness.
- John 12:35 Jesus therefore said to them, “Yet a little while the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, that darkness doesn’t overtake you. He who walks in the darkness doesn’t know where he is going.
- Isaiah 9:1 But there shall be no more gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time, he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali; but in the latter time he has made it glorious, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
- Amos 5:8 seek him who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night; who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the surface of the earth, Yahweh is his name,
- Job 10:21 before I go where I will not return from, to the land of darkness and of the shadow of death;
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (15 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Meaning, the comfort of their deliverance.
Meaning, the comfort of their deliverance.
Which were captivity in Babylon: and the Prophet speaketh of that thing which should come to pass threescore years after, as though it were now done.
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This captivity and deliverance were figures of our captivity by sin, and of our deliverance by Christ through the preaching of the Gospel, Matt. 4:15, 16.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Isa 9:2 The people that walked in darkness have…
Isa 9:2 The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.
Ver. 2. The people that walked in darkness.] Liberationis lucem promittit. {See Trapp on "Mat 4:16"}
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain The people; the people of God, Israel and Judah,…
The people; the people of God, Israel and Judah, and especially those of them mentioned in the foregoing verse.
Walked; in Mat 4:16, it is sat. It notes not their gesture, but their state or condition, they lived or abode. Only walking in darkness is more perilous than sitting. Darkness: the expression is general, and so may well comprehend both the darkness of calamity, and the darkness of ignorance, and idolatry, and profaneness, in which those parts were eminently involved, by reason of their great distance from God’s sanctuary, and by their frequent converse with the Gentiles, who bordered upon them, and of which this place is expounded, Mt 4.
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Have seen, i.e. shall see, at the coming of the Messiah.
The land of the shadow of death; which notes both extreme, and dangerous, or deadly darkness.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain The people that walked in darkness,.... Meaning not the…
The people that walked in darkness,.... Meaning not the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem, in the times of Hezekiah, when Sennacherib besieged them, as Jarchi and Kimchi interpret it; and much less the people of Israel in Egypt, as the Targum paraphrases it; but the inhabitants of Galilee in the times of Christ; see Mat 4:16, Joh 1:48 and is a true character of all the people of God before conversion, who are in a state of darkness, under the power of sin, shut up in unbelief; are in gross ignorance of themselves, and their condition; of sin, and the danger they are exposed to by it; of divine and spiritual things; of the grace of God; of the way of peace, life, and salvation by Christ; and of the work of the blessed Spirit; and of the truths of the Gospel; they are in the dark, and can see no objects in a spiritual sense; not to read the word, so as to understand it; or to work that which is good; and they "walk" on in darkness, not knowing where they are, and whither they are going; and yet of these it is said, they
have seen a great light; Christ himself, who conversed among the Galilaeans, preached unto them, and caused the light of his glorious Gospel to shine into many of their hearts; by which their darkness was removed, so that they not only saw Christ, this great light, with their bodily eyes, but with the eyes of their understanding; who may be called the "light", because he is the author and giver of all light, even of nature, grace, and glory; and a "great" one, because he is the sun, the greatest light, the sun of righteousness, the light of the world, both of Jews and Gentiles; he is the true light, in distinction from all typical ones, and in opposition to all false ones, and who in his person is God over all.
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They that dwell in the land of the shadow of death; as Galilee might be called, because it was a poor, miserable, and uncomfortable place, from whence no good came; and this character fitly describes God's people in a state of nature and unregeneracy, who are dead in Adam, dead in law, and dead in trespasses and sins, dead as to the spiritual use of the powers and faculties of their souls; they have no spiritual life in them, nor any spiritual sense, feeling, or motion; and they "dwell", continue, and abide in this state, till grace brings them out of it; see Joh 12:46,
upon them hath the light shined: Christ in human nature, through the ministration of his Gospel, by his spirit, so as to enlighten them who walk in darkness, and to quicken them who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, and to comfort them in their desolate estate; and this light not only shone upon them in the external ministration of the word, as it did "upon" the inhabitants in general, but it shone "into" the hearts of many of them in particular, so that in this light they saw light.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain The people - Israel and Judah. Darkness - The…
The people - Israel and Judah. Darkness - The expression is general and so may well comprehend both calamity and ignorance, idolatry and profaneness, in which those parts were eminently involved. Have seen - Shall see at the coming of the Messiah.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Isa 9:2. The people — Israel and Judah; that…
Isa 9:2. The people — Israel and Judah; that walked — Or sat, as it is in Mat 4:16; in darkness — Both in the darkness of ignorance, and in the darkness of calamity; have seen a great light — The prophet speaks of what was future, and would not take place till after seven hundred years, as though it were already arrived. Though “there would be very many among the Jews, to whom the Messiah, arising with his new light, would be an offence; who would resist his salutary doctrine, and who would therefore fall into the most grievous calamities, and thick darkness;” yet, “there would be others to whom the Messiah would truly appear with the light of grace and consolation, and who should receive him with the greatest joy, as attaining the summit of their hope and desire.” Accordingly, after the prophet had described the misery of those who, he foresaw, should reject him, he turns his style to describe the felicity of those on whom this Sun of righteousness should arise, setting forth both their joy and the cause of it.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain The people that walked in darkness - The inhabitants…
The people that walked in darkness - The inhabitants of the region of Galilee. They were represented as walking in darkness, because they were far from the capital, and from the temple; they had few religious privileges; they were intermingled with the pagan, and were comparatively rude and uncultivated in their manners and in their language. Allusion to this is several times made in the New Testament; Joh 1:46 : ‘Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?’ Joh 7:52 : ‘Search and look, for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet;’ Mat 26:69; Mar 14:70. The word walked here is synonymous with lived, and denotes that thick darkness brooded over the country, so that they lived, or walked amidst it.
Have seen a great light - Light is not only an emblem of knowledge in the Scriptures, but of joy, rejoicing, and deliverance. It stands opposed to moral darkness, and to times of judgment and calamity. What is the particular reference here, is not agreed by expositors. The immediate connection seems to require us to understand it of deliverance from the calamities that were impending over the nation then. They would be afflicted, but they would be delivered. The tribes of Israel would be carried captive away; and Judah would also be removed. This calamity would particularly affect the ten tribes of Israel - the northern part of the land, the regions of Galilee - “for those tribes would be carried away not to return.” Yet this region also would be favored with a especially striking manifestation of light. I see no reason to doubt that the language of the prophet here is adapted to extend into that future period when the Messiah should come to that dark region, and become both its light and its deliverer. Isaiah may have referred to the immediate deliverance of the nation from impending calamities, but there is a fullness and richness of the language that seems to be applicable only to the Messiah. So it is evidently understood in Mat 4:13-16.
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They that dwell - The same people are referred to here as in the former member of the verse.
In the land of the shadow of death - This is a most beautiful expression, and is special to the Hebrew poets. The word צלמות tsalmâveth, is exceedingly poetical. The idea is that of death, as a dark substance or being, casting a long and chilly shade over the land - standing between the land and the light - and thus becoming the image of ignorance, misery, and calamity. It is often used, in the Scriptures, to describe those regions that were lying as it were in the penumbra of this gloomy object, and exposed to all the chills and sorrows of this melancholy darkness. Death, by the Hebrews, was especially represented as extending his long and baleful shadow ever the regions of departed spirits; Job 38:17 :
Have the gates of death been opened to thee?
Hast thou seen the gates of the shadow of death?
Before I go - I shall not return -
To the land of darkness
And of the shadow of death.
Job 10:21
It is thus an image of chills, and gloom, and night - of anything that resembles the still and mournful regions of the dead. The Chaldee renders these two verses thus: ‘In a former time Zebulun and Naphtali emigrated; and those who remained after them a strong king shall carry into captivity, because they did not remember the power which was shown in the Red Sea, and the miracles which were done in Jordan, and the wars of the people of the cities. The people of the house of Israel who walked in Egypt as in the midst of shades, came out that they might see a great light.’
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Risen. the kingdom of Juda hoped for redress, when…
Risen. the kingdom of Juda hoped for redress, when they saw the people of Israel humbled, (Haydock) or rather after the defeat of Sennacherib. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain the people--the whole nation, Judah and Israel.
the people--the whole nation, Judah and Israel.
shadow of death--the darkest misery of captivity.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 2. The people that walked in darkness — The…
2. The people that walked in darkness — The “darkness” of commingled Judaism and paganism.
Upon them hath the light shined — The light, namely, of Messiah’s own presence and preaching.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 2. have seen] the perfects throughout are those of…
2. have seen] the perfects throughout are those of prophetic certainty; the writer is transported into the future.
the shadow of death] Heb. çal-mâveth, usually held by scholars to be a corruption of çalmûth (= “shadow” simply). But the traditional etymology is forcibly defended by Nöldeke in Zeitschr. f. A.T. Wiss., 1897, pp. 183 f.
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2, 3. The sudden change of style is remarkable; all at once the prophecy breaks into a strain of rapturous and animated poetry, which is sustained to the close. In the Hebr. ch. 9 begins here.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (2) The people that walked in darkness . .…
(2) The people that walked in darkness . . .—The words throw us back upon Isa_8:21-22. The prophet sees in his vision a light shining on the forlorn and weary wanderers. They had been wandering in the “valley of the shadow of death” (the phrase comes from Psa_23:4; Job_3:5), almost as in the gloom of Sheol itself. Now there breaks in the dawn of a glorious day. Historically the return of some of the inhabitants of that region to their allegiance to Jehovah and the house of David (2Ch_30:11; 2Ch_30:13) may have been the starting point of the prophet’s hopes. The words have to the Christian student a special interest, as having been quoted by St. Matthew (Mat_4:15-16) in connection with our Lord’s ministry in Galilee, perhaps with His being “of Nazareth,” which was in the tribe of Zebulun. We cannot positively say that such a fulfilment as that was in the prophet’s thoughts. The context shows in that he was thinking of Assyrian invasions, and the defeat of Assyrian armies, of a nation growing strong in numbers and prosperity. In this, as in other cases, the Evangelist adapts the words of prophecy to a further meaning than that which apparently was in the mind of the writer, and interprets them by his own experience. When he compared the state of Galilee, yet more, perhaps, that of his own soul, before and after the Son of man had appeared as the light of the world, Isaiah’s words seemed the only adequate expression of the change.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain The people that walked in darkness.All (comp. Isa_8:22) the…
The people that walked in darkness.All (comp. Isa_8:22) the world was "in darkness" when Christ came; but here the Jews especially seem to be intended. It was truly a dark time with them when Christ came (see Dollinger"s "Judenthum and Heidenthum," vol. 2. pp. 301-335). Have seen; rather, saw. The "prophetic" preterit is used throughout the whole passage. A great light. "The Light of the world," "the Sun of righteousness," "the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world, "first broke on man in that northern tract" by the way of the sea, "when Jesus came forward to teach and to preach in "Galilee of the Gentiles." For thirty years he had dwelt at Nazareth, in Zebulon. There he had first come forward to teach in a synagogue; (Luk_4:16-21) in Galilee he had done his first miracles; (Joh_2:11 Joh_4:54) at Capernaum. "Upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim," he commenced his preaching of repentance. (Mat_4:13-17) The "light" first streamed forth in this quarter, glorifying the region on which contempt had long been poured.
HOMILIES BY W.M. STATHAM Ver. 2. The dawn of gospel day.
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"The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined." The glory which God revealed then through the prophet was but a prelude to that greater glory which the Incarnation made manifest. So much so that these words are used in Mat_4:16, and relate to Jesus leaving Nazareth and coming to Capernaum, upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim, that so the prophecy might be fulfilled.
I THE GREAT DARKNESS. History attests that of which prophecy foretells. There was moral darkness. Look at Corinth so much so that to Corinthianize was to play the wanton. Look at Ephesus. Look at Rome, with its lust and license; its terrible realism in the cruel sports of the amphitheatre, stained with the massacre of beasts and with the gladiators" blood. Think of the intellectual darkness, when even the city of philosophy, proud Athens, erected an altar which was a monument of its failure in the search after wisdom the unknown God.
II THE SOMBRE SHADOW. "The land of the shadow of death." This language does not apply alone to the article of death itself. Every hopeless sorrow is a shadow of the grave. Death reigned supreme over human thought. There was no "looking forward" which could comfort the weary heart of man in its bereavements and griefs. Over city and throne, over the groves of philosophy and the gardens of pleasure, the same shadow brooded. So that the gloom came not alone when life drew near to its close, but the long dark shadow fell over all the pursuits and hopes of human life. As we think of all this we shall understand what the prophet means by a "great" light. For the wondrous glory of the Savior"s revelation of life and immortality" none of us can overestimate. It changed the face of society, and turned the weeping eyes of a weary world to glory, honor, immortality, and eternal life.
III THE WELCOME LIGHT. Light makes all things beautiful. And light from "above" transfigures the lot of man. It turns his afflictions into momentary tribulations, and makes him to look, not on" the things which are seen and temporal, but on those which are unseen and eternal. It is related, therefore, to human life as well as spiritual life. Heaven is not only "the rest that remaineth;" its spirit pervades the entire sphere of our earthly history. Everywhere that blessed light shines; and whilst it makes us patient and hopeful in adversity, it gives cheerfulness to our pursuits and sacredness to our friendships inasmuch as we are his disciples who said, "Let not your heart be troubled... I go to prepare a place for you. W.M.S.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK Ver. 2. Light in darkness.
Cheyne"s translation brings out the meaning and reference of this passage. "Surely there is (now) no (more) gloom to her whose lot was affliction. At the former time she brought shame on the land of Zebulun, and on the land of Naphtali, but in the latter he hath brought honor on the way by the sea, the other side of Jordan, the district of the nations." The historical facts to which allusion is made are:
1. The despoiling of Upper and Lower Galilee by Tiglath-Pileser. (2Ki_15:29; comp. Zec_10:10) This part of the country was attacked first, and it suffered most and longest.
2. The Messiah, the Savior, the great Light shining on the darkness, came in the part of Galilee belonging to Zebulun. It is here noted, as a characteristic of the Divine dealings, that those who suffer most are graciously considered first, and that Divine restorings come most tenderly where there have been Divine woundings and smitings.
I THE DARKNESS OF BONDAGE MAKES BEAUTIFUL THE LIGHT OF LIBERTY. This district had been the first to fall under the yoke of Assyria. As the border country, its sufferings under bondage had been extreme. This may be taken to represent the bondage of men under sin. "Whosoever committeth sin is the bond-slave of sin." Christ came to bring liberty for such captives. And the more bitterly the yoke of sin is felt, the more glorious seems that breaking of bonds and letting prisoners go free, which was the work of the spiritual Redeemer.
II THE DARKNESS OF SUFFERING SHOWS UP THE LIGHT OF LIFE. The distress of the country resulted in prevailing diseases of singularly painful types, such as the demoniacal possessions. In view of these how gracious was his work who came healing all the diseases of the people, and casting out the evil spirits! Life for the stricken! Life for the maimed, blind, deaf, dumb, dead! Life even for those "dead in trespasses and sins." "In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
III THE DARKNESS OF LONELINESS GLORIFIES THE LIGHT OF LOVE. Galilee was a despised, neglected region. "Can any good thing come out of Galilee?" Christ, the Lord of love, finds out the neglected one and comes first to it; honors it, brings to it the joy unspeakable of being cared for and loved. The sinner, in the sense of his sin, feels lonely nobody cares for him. It is light, hope, the dawn of bliss, when it comes right home to a sinner"s heart, "Jesus cares for me." The light has risen on your dark Galilee; but the grave question is Have you seen the light? Have you welcomed the light? Are you walking in the light? R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain The people that walked in darkness have seen a…
Isa_9:2
The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light
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The true Light
The prophets vision has been fulfilled.
The true light now shineth; Jesus Christ as the Word made flesh is the true Light which lighteth every man. There is no light in any real sense but that which comes to man through Him.
I. Christ sheds light upon SIN. By His words and by His life He testifies to the reality of sin.
1. In Him was exhibited for the first and only time a life perfectly obedient to the will of God, a life the one inspiring motive of which was love to God and love to man, a life in which every thought, every word, every act was influenced only by a regard to the glory of God, a life in which was manifested in perfect union and in perfect harmony every human virtue. Thus Christ has shown us what we ought to be, and in showing us this has shown us what we are. In the presence of His awful purity how deep our impurity appears.
2. And He has tracked sin to its secret hiding place. He has discovered the fountain in the heart, the evil thought, the murderous hate, the impure desire, the covetousness, the malice, the bitterness which lurk within, and which no human law can touch. He has made us discern not only the evil done and the evil thought, but the good left undone. There is no part of our nature which He has not explored. Never had it been so profoundly, so truly judged, never had man been so discovered to us.
3. Is the light which Christ casts upon sin only a condemning light? Is it a light which shows us our misery only to leave us without hope, which shows us what we ought to be, but gives us no power to attain to the ideal set before us! No, the light which reveals to us our sin, reveals to us also the mercy of God, a love greater than our transgressions, a pardon greater than our sin. It is the light of the Cross that gives us hope. Never does God appear in more perfect holiness than when He pardons sin, and the sinner looking upon the Cross feels the malignity of that sin which nothing but the sacrifice of the Son of God could take away. All other religions, all other philosophies have failed here, all have made some compromise with sin, all have concealed its deep malignity; the Cross alone dares to reveal it, because the Cross alone takes it away.
II. And so, too, of HUMAN SUFFERING. The Cross consoles sorrow, because it manifests to us a power of sympathy in God such as man had never dared to dream of. There is no suffering for which the Cross is not a precious balm, because there is no suffering which it does not surpass and consecrate.
III. And much more Christs light is a light cast upon DEATH. Or rather let me say the light which He came to bestow is the light of life. He came that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. Beyond the Cross there is the Resurrection. Because I live, ye shall live also. This is the grand prerogative of the Gospel All other religions have failed here. All have spoken with stammering lips of the world beyond the grave. (Bishop Perowne.)
Experiences on a sick bed
We are accustomed to conceive of our experience of bodily affliction as a land of the shadow of death. Just as there was a preparation for receiving good in the moral shadow which enveloped the Galileans, so is there also good in the pain and abasement of bodily suffering. There is a breaking down of pride, and a clearer insight into our own utter weakness. There is new openness to spiritual realities, and in this, at least a preparation for being dealt with according to the light of our relation to eternity.
I. One almost invariable sight revealed to us in the shadow of death is THE IMPERISHABLENESS OF THE PAST. I remember reading some years ago an account of an exploration of one of the pyramids of Egypt. The impression of the darkness upon the explorers at first was very oppressive. On every side and overhead, piled one above another in prodigious lengths and masses, rose the polished blocks of granite which formed the walls and ceiling. There was not a window, nor open chink from top to bottom. The torches of the guides only deepened the sense of awe, blinking as they did like mere glow worms in the gloom. As the travellers crept and slid along the dismal passages, through the almost solid darkness, an undefined and painful consciousness of something like terror arose within them, from the felt want of any really satisfactory knowledge of the purpose which could be intended in such a building. At length they came to what seemed to them a coffin of stone. When they struck it, it rung like a bell. Everything else had had a baffling and perplexing effect on their minds. Here was one object they could thoroughly understand--the monument of a purpose, even if not the main purpose, which the building was intended to serve. And in the midst of that darkness they found their minds summoned by that coffin into the presence of the past. Something not very unlike this takes place when we are sent in, under some serious illness, to explore the land of the shadow. At first we are oppressed by the mere darkness--the deepening out on every side of the possibilities of the disease. Then, the ignorance of the purpose for which we are afflicted perplexes us. But at last, more or less in every case, we find our minds settling upon the past. Sometimes it is our instinctive forward looking, our attempt to penetrate the dim, unsounded future which thus leads us back into the past. The consciousness that we are passing onwards into its territory will not let sleep the question, What sort of past am I carrying thither with me? More frequently it is the consideration of unfinished purposes which recalls the past. Often, however, there is something in the very circumstances of the affliction, some appropriate word, perhaps, suggested and pressed upon our attention, which leads us in this direction of the past. Josephs brethren, e.g., in the Egyptian prison, by the simple utterance of the words, Your youngest brother, had the past which related to themselves and Joseph recalled to their minds. It was this which Job complained of when he cried to God: Thou makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth. His youth was not dead as he had supposed; nor had its actions altogether passed. The threads of these were still in His hand who was afflicting him. And now, in his distress, they are drawn up and placed like network around his soul. But there is good in this revision of the past. For one thing, the very sight of the fact is good that nothing of our lives passes utterly into oblivion. It is good to know that the past as much as the present is real, that our deeds lie there, imperishable, dormant, but yet dead. For a second reason it is good. The remaining hours of our time here are more likely to be encountered and occupied with serious hearts. But, for a third and still deeper reason, it is good to have made this discovery. One of the main purposes of redemption is to deal with this imperishableness of the past, and solve the problems which arise out of that and our responsibility. Our Redeemer came to put away the guilt of our past lives, and to lift us into a position from which the consequences of our guilt would shut us out forever. But nothing more disposes us to listen to the offers of Divine mercy, than a clear unambiguous view of the actual past of our lives.
II. Another and most important sight vouchsafed to us in serious illness, is THE SIGHT OF THE WORLD WE LIVE IN DWARFED TO ITS TRUE PROPORTIONS. It is a great loss to anyone to see the world he lives in only from the side of health. The true proportions of things are almost sure to be hidden from his view. This is especially the case with respect to the common pursuits of life. It requires the discipline of a sick bed to reveal our error--to discover to us that we have transgressed the bounds of mere necessity, and have been giving them more thought than they demand. I would liken the false value which we put on our lower vocations to the shadow cast by a manor house on the lawn. The house itself may represent the actual legitimate thought, which we may put into our daily toils. The shadow of the house is the added, illegitimate thought--the burdensome, down crushing care, thrusting and pushing from their centres our higher affections and hopes. At two different moments there is no shadow. There is none when the sun is in the centre of the heavens, and pouring his light down upon the roof of the house; there is none until he bends from the centre. But then the shadow begins to lengthen out its neck. The sunlight comes forth in horizontal beams, and the shadow stretches out its arms and spreads its wings, and lies prone and black on all the colour of the neighbouring field. At last the sun goes down, and the shadow has disappeared again. Night has rolled its shadow over the land, and the greater has swallowed the less. The house is there, but not its shadow. A most true picture this of the different values we put on our pursuits in the hours of health and at the gates of the grave! For with us also there are two moments when no shadow falls. There is no false estimate so long as God is in the centre of our heavens. At last death is rolling his shadow over our earthly life. And we are enveloped in the gloom of that. And then, looking outward, we discover how all other shadows have disappeared, and have been to us but vanity and vexation of spirit.
III. A third experience in serious illness is, that AWAY FROM THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST, THERE IS NO LIGHT FOR THE WORLD TO COME. The lights which surround us in our daily walks, when all is well with us, forsake us in the shadow. The light of friendship, for example. It cannot pierce the blackness of the shadow of death, nor search forward into the dimness of unrevealed futurity. Next to our friends, as lights of life to us, are our books. They are our inner lights. But away from the Book which specifically tells us of the resurrection of the Son of God, the light of no book in our keeping abides with us in the shadow to give us one gleam of hope. But it is worth while being sent into the shadow, if we come out with this experience.
IV. A fourth experience is generally reached in serious illness, of which it is not so easy to see the good. This is THE LONELINESS OF SUFFERING. Our spirits are gadders about too much. Our lives spread themselves too far upon society. A serious illness carries us away from this folly. It takes us out into the solitude, and leaves us there. This loneliness of great suffering is the shadow sent forth to bring us home. Society is not our home. The dearest, innermost circle of it is not our home. God is our home--our present home.
V. TO THE CHILDREN OF GOD AFFLICTION IS IN EVERY WAY A GOOD. Its shadow is a retirement for renewed and deeper insight into the character and purposes of their Father. As much as unspiritual sufferers they feel the distress of their circumstances. The difference is, that over and through this distress they discern the loving purpose towards themselves of Him who chasteneth. Every way their condition is different. The world which death is bringing close to them is the habitation of their best and most beloved Brother. Sustaining promises are suggested to them by the Spirit, which have new and unthought of appropriateness to their case. Light from heaven, in inexpressible fulness, comes down into familiar passages of the Bible, revealing unimagined depths of Divine love for human souls. There is a nearer, sweeter, more experimental view of the Cross of Christ. Sin is felt to be the evil thing on which God cannot look, in a way to deepen the abhorrence of it, and to excite a more cleaving love to Him who is making all things work together to deliver us from its marks and power. And glimpses of the sinless land, holy, beautiful as morning light, come glowing and reddening through the clouds. And the hour of weakness is changed into an hour of strength. (A. Macleod, D. D.)
Christ as light
I. HOW THIS LIGHT MAY BE APPROPRIATED TO CHRIST.
1. Light is an all-necessary thing.
2. It separates--divides the night from the day.
3. It cheers.
4. Christ stands preeminently glorious as a great light. There is a fulness in Him commensurate with His Divinity; there is a brightness in Him that knows neither change nor diminution.
II. THE DESCRIPTION OF PERSONS TO WHOM THIS LIGHT HAS BEEN, OR SHALL BE, REVEALED.
1. In darkness.
2. Walking in darkness.
3. In the shadow of death. (F. G. Crossman.)
Christ the true Light
I. THE DARKNESS reigning in the world beforehand was to be traced even in the land of Judaea itself. At the period of Christs nativity, there was the darkness of types, the shadows and mere secondary images of Divine truth. Some few only were partially enlightened to believe and understand the truth, and these exulted in the coming light, e.g., Simeon and Anna. But if some few in Jerusalem looked for redemption, what was the state of the heathen world! They, indeed, by all their wisdom, knew not God; they were immersed in the darkest idolatries and most cruel superstitions. There was, in all this mass of external darkness, something congenial to the inner corruption, the shadow of death, resting on our common sinful nature: never could the one have existed or taken effect without the other. We must look within our own hearts for that guilty ignorance, that wilful blindness and hardened indifference to God and His truth, which was the source Mike of Jewish perversions and heathen abominations.
II. Christ was THE LIGHT spoken of by the prophet. To the Jews, how well calculated was His appearance to clear up the obscurities of their own Mosaic ritual and prophetic declarations! To the Gentiles, no less did the coming of Christ present a religion able, for the first time, to resolve all their doubts, to satisfy all their wants, and unite the whole family of man under one great Head of all.
1. It was a sudden light; unexpected by most, and undeserved by all, the Sun of Righteousness, Jesus Christ, rose upon a benighted world.
2. It was a great light.
3. This was verily the true light. It shines with a ray which, saith St. John, lighteneth every man that cometh into the world. It is that which is adapted to man as man, beaming with an evidence only to be resisted by wilful blindness, and convincing all with a force which leaves the wanderer without excuse, who perishes in his sin.
4. It is a Divine light; one shining as if from the very throne of God Himself. (C. J. Hoare, M. A.)
Darkness and the shadow of death
Picture to yourselves a traveller fallen into a defile, the heavens concealed from his view by clouds and darkness; and as he turns in his passage he hears the ravening beasts of night yelling around him, and ready to devour him; conceive his heart sinking within him, and seeking a refuge in vain! If to this mans glimmering light was raised from a distant cottage where he might find security, oh, what joy, what hope of escape would burst across his mind! But yet this will but faintly represent the scene, for the light here spoken of is not a transitory light which may soon be extinguished, but it is a bright light that arises in the land; a light that is raised in heaven to shine on benighted man. (J. Burnett, LL. B.)
Walking in darkness
Concerning the people it is affirmed--
I. That they walked IN DARKNESS. Darkness must he understood in the figurative sense in which it is often used in Scripture to signify a state of ignorance, sin, and misery. Ignorance, like a veil, continues upon their hearts until the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ shines into their minds. In this uncomfortable state they act under the influence of corrupt principles, committing those enormous transgressions which are justly denominated the works of darkness. From hence arise distresses and miseries of various kinds, which terminate in utter darkness and everlasting woe, unless prevented by the illumination of the true light.
II. In this condition the people are described as WALKING, which, in the Word of God, frequently denotes the whole course of mans life, in which every action makes a step towards that everlasting state to which we are journeying.
1. Walking is a voluntary motion, the consequence of preceding choice and deliberate resolution
2. Walking is a continued motion, in which one step regularly follows another, until the ground intended is gone over.
3. Walking is a progressive motion, by which a traveller still goes forward until he arrives at the end of his journey. (R. Macculloch.)
The Light of the world
In the Arctic regions, after the long dark night of winter, the rising of the sun is especially welcome. So should Christ be to us.
I. THE WORLD WITHOUT CHRIST SITS IN DARKNESS.
1. The minds of the heathen are dark.
2. Their religion is dark and gloomy.
3. Their conduct is dark.
4. Their prospects after death are dark.
II. JESUS CHRIST IS A GREAT LIGHT. He is--
1. Great in Himself, for He is God.
2. He is a perfect light.
3. He shines into the heart (2Co_4:6).
4. He gives happiness and healing as well as light (Mal_2:2; Joh_15:11).
5. This light cannot be put out (Isa_55:20).
6. It is the light of heaven as well as of earth (Rev
21:23).
III. IT IS THE WILL OF GOD THAT THE HEATHEN AS WELL AS OURSELVES SHOULD SEE THIS GREAT LIGHT (1Ti_2:1-6; 1Jn_2:2; Mar_16:15). (R. Brewin.)
The land of darkness and the great light
I. WHO ARE THE PEOPLE WHOM THE PROPHET SAW WALKING IN DARKNESS? By darkness, Scripture means spiritual alteration. Our normal condition is light; for God is light and we were made in His image. But this primitive state no longer exists; an astounding fact has overthrown Divine order; sin has changed all things. The alteration produced by sin is--
I. An alteration of truth Our intellect is darkened through the ignorance that is in us, because of the blindness of our heart. The knowledge of God and of ourselves, which in the origin was pure, has been perverted by a spirit of error and replaced by a veil of darkness. Man has ceased to know God and to know himself. What light would you kindle to dispel these shadows of death!
2. An alteration of life. A false life has invaded the soul and driven away the light of life. The source of life is in God, but it is no longer God who holds dominion over the soul; it is self, the world, and sin
3. An alteration of joy. Light and joy are synonymous, in Scripture: Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. But what becomes of joy if it is deprived of truth and life! It is turned into sorrow. Our earthly joys are but disguised sorrows.
II. WHAT IS THE LIGHT SPOKEN OF BY THE PROPHET? Revert to the fall of the first man and woman in Eden; a promise shines. This promise henceforth accompanies humanity. (Homiletic Magazine.)
Darkness exchanged for light
The North American Indians used to hold a New Years feast with revolting ceremonies, the sick and aged being neglected, or even killed, to avoid trouble. But missionaries have taught them the Gospel They are Christians, and their New Years feast is kept in a different way. Before it begins a list is read of aged and sick unable to come. Bundles of good things are packed up and sent to each by the fleetest runners, who think it a joy and not a burden. Surely these people have seen a great light. (Egerton Young.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain Isa 9:2 - Isa 9:7.
Isaiah
THE KINGDOM AND THE KING
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Isa 9:2 - Isa 9:7.
The darker the cloud, the brighter is the rainbow. This prophecy has for its historical background the calamitous reign of the weak and wicked Ahaz, during which the heart of the nation was bowed, like a forest before the blast, by the dread of foreign invasion and conquest. The prophet predicts a day of gloom and anguish, and then, out of the midst of his threatenings, bursts this glorious vision, sudden as sunrise. With consummate poetic art, the consequences of Messiah’s rule are set forth before He Himself is brought into view.
I. Image is heaped on image to tell the blessedness of that reign {Isa 9:2 - Isa 9:5}. Each trait of the glowing description is appropriate to the condition of Israel under Ahaz; but each has a meaning far beyond that limited application. Isaiah may, or may not, have been aware of ‘what’ or ‘what time’ his words portrayed in their deepest, that is, their true meaning, but if we believe in supernatural prediction which, though it may have found its point of attachment in the circumstances of the present, was none the less the voice of the Spirit of God, we shall not make, as is often done now, the prophet’s construction of his words the rule for their interpretation. What the prophecy was discerned to point to by its utterer or his contemporaries, is one thing; quite another is what God meant by it.
First we have the picture of the nation groping in a darkness that might be felt, the emblem of ignorance, sin, and sorrow, and inhabiting a land over which, like a pall, death cast its shadow. On that dismal gloom shines all at once a ‘great light,’ the emblem of knowledge, purity, and joy. The daily mercy of the dawn has a gospel in it to a heart that believes in God; for it proclaims the divine will that all who sit in darkness shall be enlightened, and that every night but prepares the way for the freshness and stir of a new morning. The great prophecy of these verses in its indefiniteness goes far beyond its immediate occasion in the state of Judah under Ahaz. As surely as the dawn floods all lands, so surely shall all who walk in darkness see the great light; and wherever is a ‘land of the shadow of death,’ there shall the light shine. It is ‘the light of the world.’
Isa 9:3 gives another phase of blessing. Israel is conceived of as dwindled in number by deportation and war. But the process of depopulation is arrested and reversed, and numerical increase, which is always a prominent feature in Messianic predictions, is predicted. That increase follows the dawning of the light, for men will flock to the ‘brightness of its rising.’ We know that the increase comes from the attractive power of the Cross, drawing men of many tongues to it; and we have a right to bring the interpretation, which the world’s history gives, into our understanding of the prophecy. That enlarged nation is to have abounding joy.
Undoubtedly, the rendering ‘To it thou hast increased the joy’ is correct, as that of the Authorized Version {based upon the Hebrew text} is clearly one of several cases in which the partial similarity in spelling and identity in sound of the Hebrew words for ‘not’ and ‘to it,’ have led to a mistaken reading. The joy is described in words which dance and sing, like the gladness of which they tell. The mirth of the harvest-field, when labour is crowned with success, and the sterner joy of the victors as they part the booty, with which mingles the consciousness of foes overcome and dangers averted, are blended in this gladness. We have the joy of reaping a harvest of which we have not sowed the seed. Christ has done that; we have but to enjoy the results of His toil. We have to divide the spoil of a victory which we have not won. He has bound the strong man, and we share the benefits of His overcoming the world.
That last image of conquerors dividing the spoil leads naturally to the picture in Isa 9:4 of emancipation from bondage, as the result of a victory like Gideon’s with his handful. Who the Gideon of this new triumph is, the prophet will not yet say. The ‘yoke of his burden’ and ‘the rod of his oppressor’ recall Egypt and the taskmasters.
Isa 9:5 gives the reason for the deliverance of the slaves; namely, the utter destruction of the armour and weapons of their enemy. The Revised Version is right in its rendering, though it may be doubtful whether its margin is not better than its text, since not only are ‘boot’ and ‘booted’ as probable renderings of the doubtful words as ‘armour’ and ‘armed man,’ but the picture of the warrior striding into battle with his heavy boots is more graphic than the more generalised description in the Revised Version’s text. In any case, the whole accoutrements of the oppressor are heaped into a pile and set on fire; and, as they blaze up, the freed slaves exult in their liberty. The blood-drenched cloaks have been stripped from the corpses and tossed on the heap, and, saturated as they are, they burn. So complete is the victory that even the weapons of the conquered are destroyed. Our conquering King has been manifested, that He might annihilate the powers by which evil holds us bound. His victory is not by halves. ‘He taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted.’
II. Now we are ready to ask, And who is to do all this? The guarantee for its accomplishment is the person of the conquering Messiah. The hopes of Israel did not, and those of the world do not, rest on tendencies, principles, laws of progress, advance of civilisation, or the like abstractions or impersonalities, but on a living Person, in whom all principles which make for righteousness and blessedness for individuals and communities are incarnated, and whose vital action works perpetually in mankind.
In this prophecy the prophet is plainly speaking greater things than he knew. We do not get to the meaning if we only ask ourselves what did he understand by his words, or what did his hearers gather from them? They and he would gather the certainty of the coming of Messiah with wondrous attributes of power and divine gifts, by whose reign light, gladness, liberty would belong to the oppressed nation. But the depth of the prophecy needed the history of the Incarnation for its disclosure. If this is not a God-given prediction of the entrance into human form of the divine, it is something very like miraculous that, somehow or other, words should have been spoken, without any such reference, which fit so closely to the supernatural fact of Christ’s incarnation.
The many attempts to translate Isa 9:6 so as to get rid of the application of ‘Mighty God,’ ‘Everlasting Father,’ to Messiah, cannot here be enumerated or adequately discussed. I must be content with pointing out the significance of the august fourfold name of the victor King. It seems best to take the two first titles as a compound name, and so to recognise four such compounds.
There is a certain connection between the first and second of these which respectively lay stress on wisdom of plan and victorious energy of accomplishment, while the third and fourth are also connected, in that the former gathers into one great and tender name what Messiah is to His people, and the latter points to the character of His dominion throughout the whole earth. ‘A wonder of a counsellor,’ as the words may be rendered, not only suggests His giving wholesome direction to His people, but, still more, the mystery of the wisdom which guides His plans. Truly, Jesus purposes wonders in the depth of His redeeming design. He intends to do great things, and to reach them by a road which none would have imagined. The counsel to save a world, and that by dying for it, is the miracle of miracles. ‘Who hath been His counsellor in that overwhelming wonder?’ He needs no teacher; He is Himself the teacher of all truth. All may have His direction, and they who follow it will not walk in darkness.
‘The mighty God.’ Isa 10:21 absolutely forbids taking this as anything lower than the divine name. The prophet conceives of Messiah as the earthly representative of divinity, as having God with and in Him as no other man has. We are not to force upon the prophet the full new Testament doctrine of the oneness of the incarnate Word with the Father, which would be an anachronism. But we are not to fall into the opposite error, and refuse to see in these words, so startling from the lips of a rigid monotheist, a real prophecy of a divine Messiah, dimly as the utterer may have perceived the figure which he painted. Note, too, that the word ‘mighty’ implies victorious energy in battle. It is often applied to human heroes, and here carries warlike connotations, kindred with the previous picture of conflict and victory. Thus strength as of God, and, in some profound way, strength which is divine, will be the hand obeying the brain that counsels wonder, and all His plans shall be effected by it.
But these are not all His qualities. He is ‘the Father of Eternity’-a name in which tender care and immortal life are marvellously blended. This King will be in reality what, in old days, monarchs often called themselves and seldom were,-the Father of His people, with all the attributes of that sacred name, such as guidance, love, providing for His children’s wants. Nor can Christians forget that Jesus is the source of life to them, and that the name has thus a deeper meaning. Further, He is possessed of eternity. If He is so closely related to God as the former name implies, that predicate is not wonderful. Dying men need and have an undying Christ. He is ‘the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.’
The whole series of names culminates in ‘the Prince of Peace,’ which He is by virtue of the characteristics expressed in the foregoing names. The name pierces to the heart of Christ’s work. For the individual He brings peace with God, peace in the else discordant inner nature, peace amid storms of calamity-the peace of submission, of fellowship with God, of self-control, of received forgiveness and sanctifying. For nations and civic communities He brings peace which will one day hush the tumult of war, and burn chariots and all warlike implements in the fire. The vision tarries, because Christ’s followers have not been true to their Master’s mission, but it comes, though its march is slow. We can hasten its arrival.
Isa 9:7 - Isa 9:8 declare the perpetuity of Messiah’s kingdom, His Davidic descent, and those characteristics of His reign, which guarantee its perpetuity. ‘Judgment’ which He exercises, and ‘righteousness’ which He both exercises and bestows, are the pillars on which His throne stands; and these are eternal, and it never will totter nor sink, as earthly thrones must do. The very life-blood of prophecy, as of religion, is the conviction that righteousness outlasts sin, and will survive ‘the wreck of matter and the crash of worlds.’
The great guarantee for these glowing anticipations is that the ‘zeal of the Lord of hosts’ will accomplish them. Zeal, or rather jealousy, is love stirred to action by opposition. It tolerates no unfaithfulness in the object of its love, and flames up against all antagonism to the object. ‘He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of Mine eye.’ So the subjects of that Messiah may be sure that a wall of fire is round about them, which to foes without is terror and destruction, and to dwellers within its circuit glows with lambent light, and rays out beneficent warmth.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.