“For the yoke of his burden, and the staff for his shoulder,
and the rod of their oppressor, You have broken as on the day of Midian.”
(Isaiah 9:4, ESV)
In Isaiah 9:1-7, Isaiah prophesied to Israel, the northern
kingdom, about their captivity. God sought to bolster their hope, give them
joy, and remind them of His promises to them as His children. Though God
allowed the Assyrians to capture the people of Israel, He meant for it to last
only for a time, not for an eternity. As His mode of disciplining the people of
Israel, God allowed Assyria to capture Israel. Like most captives, the
government (kings, governors, and ministers) and captors, would subjugate them
according to their whims and by their laws. God would allow this captivity by
Assyria, but He would not allow Assyria to oppress the people of Israel permanently.
He promised Abraham His heirs would own their own land and be a nation.
With Isaiah 9:1, God spoke to every person within Israel,
not just the Jews. Abraham trusted God’s promises long before the Mosaic covenant,
and God credited his faith as righteousness. That means God credit a person as
righteous if he or she believed in God before the Messiah’s arrival on earth. That
person in a right relationship with God became an heir to the promise He gave
Abraham. With the disciplining by God of the people of Israel, which God
allowed by Assyria, each captive would experience oppressive servitude. Isaiah 9:2-3
reveals what God would do for the people of Israel — both Jews and Gentiles—and
how they would respond. God said, through Isaiah, that He would give them
light, joy, and an increase in their nation. For people living in captivity,
this hope of God leading them from the shadow of death by His light, giving
them joy, and enlarging their nation, would cause them to rejoice in their
hearts, minds, and spirits. With their internal rejoicing, their bodies would
join with singing, dancing, praising, praying, and celebrating God. God would
give them His joy, His light, and His redemption.
In Isaiah 9:4, God continued telling the people of Israel
what He would do for them. He did this so they would not lose heart and
completely turn away from Him. God did not want their captivity to be
permanent, but a temporary disciplining. God remains true to His people,
Himself, and His promises. Isaiah told the people they would become but would
not stay slaves. That sentence tells the intent of verse four. The next
sections of this study will expand on God’s message in verse four.
God said He would break “the yoke of his (the people’s)
burden.” For the people of Israel, this meant the slavery and subjection the
people would endure in Assyria would not last forever. God gave the people hope
by telling them this. Assyria would treat Israel harshly. History bore witness
to this terrifying and formidable army. The Assyrian army laid siege to Samaria
for three years before they overthrew it. They waged war within the northern
kingdom from 740 BC. The Assyrians overthrew Samaria, the capital of Israel, in
722 BC. The Assyrian army possessed tenacity, manpower, and extensive military
training. When captured, Assyria put rings in the noses of each person they
overtook. This government subjugated its captives. God told the people of
Israel He would break the yoke of the burden Assyria put on them. He would free
them from their oppressors. The people of Israel would go home, live as they wanted,
and worship God alone, not the Assyrian gods.
Compare what Jesus said about God’s yoke with the yoke of
the Assyrian oppressors. In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus said,
Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and
lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and
My burden is light (ESV).
Jesus described the yoke God’s
people would have with Him. He said His yoke would be gentle and easy. Contrast
that with Assyria, whose army and government people feared most at that time.
The people of Israel, by force, would become slaves to Assyria. They would not
choose to enslave themselves. Note the difference between slavery and servants.
Slavery is a coerced servitude, an oppression. People chose to serve someone. Throughout
the Bible, the people of God have called themselves—Jew and Gentile—servants of
God. Nehemiah, in Nehemiah 1:10, wrote about the Jews being God’s servants and
His people whom God redeemed. Paul wrote about being God’s servants in 2
Corinthians 6:4. He said, “In everything we commend ourselves as servants of God,”
even in affliction, hardships, and distress. Ezra called the Israelites
servants of God in Ezra 5:11. The psalmist in Psalm 105:6 referred to Abraham as
being God’s servant. In each of these Bible passages and many others, the
people choose to be servants of God because of who God is and
what He did for them. Just as the psalmist wrote in Psalm 100:2, the people of
Israel reacted to God and His love, promises, and care for them by gladly
serving Him. Because God promised to break Israel’s yoke of oppression, they would
endure and rejoice. The people of Israel would have hope. They would see God’s
light in the deep darkness of Assyrian slavery.
God
continued to bolster the minds, hearts, and spirits of the people of Israel in
Isaiah 9:4. He said He would break “the staff from his shoulder.” In the Hebrew
vocabulary, a staff, bar, and or scepter come from the original Hebrew word. It
represented the government’s authority over the people. The staff of the
Assyrian King, Shalmaneser V, sought to oppress the people and acquire their
lands for his empire. He sought dominance over the nations surrounding him. That
King’s heart and mind cared not with helping the people he overthrew, but with
his power and dominance. Contrast this with what David wrote in Psalm 23:4. He
said God’s rod comforted him. David feared his enemy, king Saul, but he showed
no fear of God. He trusted God loved him and would protect him. God promised
David would be king. He told Samuel to anoint him as king (1 Samuel 16:1-13).
God vowed that, through David’s line, a king would reign forever (2 Samuel
7:16). His staff would be light, unlike Assyria’s staff. God would lead and
guide David, not push and oppress him. David chose to be God’s servant (2
Samuel 7:18-29). The people of Israel faced a lack of options; Shalmaneser cast
them into slavery after his army overthrew them. They did not choose willing to
be servants. The people of Israel became slaves.
Isaiah
continued prophesying in verse four by saying God would break the rod of the
oppressor of the people of Israel. This rod is like what shepherds fight with
against bears and lions to keep their flocks safe. David, a shepherd, told King
Saul about fighting lions and bears to “deliver” the sheep from their predators’
mouths (1 Samuel 17:34-36, ESV). The rod in Isaiah 9:4 was a weapon God would
use to free His people. Assyria used this rod to subjugate the people of
Israel. They would use it to beat the captives into submission. The captives
from Israel would not willingly and joyfully assent to being slaves. The
Assyrians created submissiveness by the force wielded through the rod. God’s
rod, according to David is Psalm 23:4, would bring comfort, not fear. It would
bring peace.
God promised the people of Israel He would break the rod of
fear the Assyrians oppressively wielded over them like “on the day of Midian.” This
promise recalled the day Israel prepared to battle the Midianites. Isaiah used
this battle to help the people of God’s promise recall how God’s might, wielded
for them, showed His light, and gave them joy, hope, peace, and comfort. The
story of God’s defeat of the Midianites is in Judges 7:15-25.
First, though, why did God tell the Israelites to battle the
Midianites? In Judges 6, the people of Israel sinned against Him and His
commands (2 Kings 17:6-23). God allowed the Midianites to win a battle against
Israel. The Midianites punished Israel more than God wanted by capturing their
crops and continuing to pester them. When Israel saw they had sinned against
God, and His disciplining of them included sending Midian against them, they
cried out to the Lord.
Judges 7:15-25, God’s response to His people calling to Him included
sending Gideon, the prophet, to deliver them. He commanded Gideon to cleanse
Israel of the pagan influences. One act God commanded included destroying the
altars of Baal in Israel. The people were unhappy about him destroying the
altars, but God’s hand kept them from harming Gideon. Gideon wanted
confirmation from God about His promise to save Israel. He laid a fleece on the
ground twice. Because the Israelites doubted God’s promise to save them, He reduced
the number of men for Gideon’s army to three hundred. Gideon spied on the
Midianite encampment and heard a Midianite soldier’s dream about Israel
defeating Midian. Emboldened, Gideon and his army obeyed God’s command because
of that dream. The Midianites ran in fear when the three hundred Israelites
trumpeted their horns and shattered their clay pots.
The Israelites retold this victory story through the
generations. People of Israel readily recalled this story. Because the battle
with Midian was well known, when Isaiah prophesied in Isaiah 9:4 that God would
break the rod of the Assyrians like He broke the rod of the Midianites, they
had hope. The Israelites knew God would defeat the Assyrians. The Babylonians
defeated the Assyrians. The Persians defeated the Babylonians in 539 BC. Cyrus the
Great, the Persian king, freed the Israelites to return to Judah. Those Jews
began rebuilding the Temple. God broke the rod of oppression. The people of
Israel would remember God and His promises to them from Isaiah. Because they
recalled the defeat of Midian at God’s hand, they would have hoped, would have rejoiced,
and been at peace, acknowledging and praising Him as the source of all good
things.
Because of God’s promises, the people of Israel would have
hope for the end of captivity. These people would have hope that God would free
them from their oppressors. Hearing, knowing, and trusting God’s promises would
shed God’s light on their hearts, minds, and spirits. Like His promises to
Abraham and Moses caused joy and peace, the people of Israel would receive God’s
joy and peace, then recall and know God loves them.
God promised light, joy, and an enlargement of the numbers
of the people of Israel. These people include all people today. We each can be part
of those promises because of God’s promises to Abraham, through Isaiah, from Jesus
in John 3:16-17, and from others throughout the Bible. God did not promise a
light and intend to keep the interpretation vague. He did not intend it to be
just a metaphor. His promise became real. The Light, Jesus, became flesh and
dwelled among us (John 1:14). Jesus taught and proved He is the Light of all
humanity in John 8:12. He said, “Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness,
but will have the light of life.”
Yes, God gave the people of Israel light in their hearts,
minds, and spirits to bolster their hope. He also alluded to His Son, Jesus,
who would come into this world and be the actual Light for all people. Approximately
740 years after the captivity of these people of Israel, this Light, Jesus, was
born in Bethlehem. Jesus came to proclaim good news to the poor, release to the
captives, sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed (Luke 4:18). Isaiah
prophesied this in Isaiah 61:1-2. Like the captives in Assyria, God gave hope,
joy, peace, and light. It stilled their anxious hearts and helped them turn to
God.
Today, for people everywhere, Jesus’ words proclaim the same
thing. The hope, joy, peace, and light God alluded to in Isaiah 9 came true for
the Israelites, is true now, and Jesus will fulfill it entirely upon His second
coming to Earth. Isaiah said, “The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this”
(Isaiah 9:7d, ESV). He told the truth; it happened.
Jesus is the Light of the world. David celebrated God’s
yoke, rod, and staff in Psalm 23. Jesus tells us His yoke is easy, and His
burden is light. God continues to offer His promise that will give hope, peace,
and joy. He makes our yokes light. God gave the Light, Jesus, for eternal
freedom from our oppressor, Satan. Jesus calls out even now for us to receive release
from captivity, sight from blindness and darkness, the bounty of provision, and
the redemption from our sin-captive souls.
Isaiah proclaimed this Light of God, “Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of peace” (Isaiah 9:6b, ESV). David ended
Psalm 23 by saying, “Surely (God’s) goodness and mercy shall follow me all the
days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23:6,
ESV).
Who is God to you? Who is the Redeemer of your captivity? Who
or what do you rely upon to give you perfect peace, full joy, and eternal
freedom from captivity? Join saints of the past, including Abraham, Moses, Isaiah,
David, Micah, the angels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, and millions of
others who believed in Jesus, and whom God declared righteous. Believe in Jesus.
We celebrate Jesus, whom Isaiah and other prophets foretold.
God includes all people in His promise of Light. Will you rejoice with other
believers, praise God, and celebrate His goodness? Join all believers and the
angels in proclaiming what Luke recorded in Luke 2:14.
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among
those with whom He is pleased! (ESV).
