Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 11

And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him ... — The words at once throw us back upon the memories of the past, and forward to the hopes of the future. It was the “spirit of the Lord” that had made men true heroes and judges in the days of old (Judges 11:29; Judges 13:25). It was in the “spirit of the Lord” descending on Jesus of Nazareth and abiding on Him (John 1:33) that men were taught to see the token that He was the Christ of God. And in this case, the spirit was to give more than the heroic daring which had characterised Jephthah and Samson.

The future King was to be as a David and Solomon in one, pre-eminent, chiefly, as the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:7), in the wisdom and counsel which had been the glory of the latter. “Wisdom,” in its highest form, as implying the comprehension of the secret things of God; “understanding,” as the sagacity which discerned the right thing to do and the right word to say (Hebrews 5:14) in all human relationships; these formed the first link in the chain of supernatural gifts.

With these there was to be the “spirit of counsel and might,” the clear purpose and strength which fits a king for the right exercise of sovereignty; and lastly, as both the crown and source of all, the “spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord,” the reverence and faith which is the beginning of all wisdom (Proverbs 1:7). The copious use of the vocabulary of the Book of Proverbs is interesting as showing the part which that book played in the prophet’s education. (See Introduction.)

And shall make him of quick understanding ... —Better, he shall draw his breath in the fear of the Lord. It shall be, as it were, the very air in which he lives and breathes. Some commentators, however, interpret he shall find a sweet savour. The Hebrew word rendered “understanding” means primarily, as the margin shows, “scent” or “smell,” either as the organ or the object of perception.

He shall not judge after the sight of his eyes ... —Earthly kings are apt to judge according to the appearance (John 7:24), and the reports of interested or corrupt advisers, but the true King shall know what is in man (John 2:25), and judge righteous judgment.

With righteousness shall he judge the poor ... —The picture which Isaiah had drawn of the corrupt judges of his time gives point to the contrast (Isaiah 1:23; Isaiah 2:14–15; Isaiah 10:1–2). The poor whom they trampled on should be the special objects of the care of the true King (Matthew 11:5).

He shall smite the earth ... —The “earth” stands here, if we accept the reading, for the rulers who are for the time supreme in it. A slight alteration of the Hebrew gives shall smite the tyrant, which forms a better parallelism with the “ungodly” of the next clause. The phrase “the sceptre of his mouth” is significant. The word which the Messiah-King speaks shall be as the sceptre which is the symbol of authority. So in Revelation 1:16, “a sharp two-edged sword” comes forth from the mouth of the Christ of St. John’s vision. The latter clause, “with the breath of his lips shall he slay ...”, has a parallel in Hosea 6:5.

Righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins... —The image of clothing as the symbol of habit or character was already familiar (Psalms 109:18–19). The repetition of “girdle” has needlessly offended some fastidious critics, but the emphasis of iteration is quite in Isaiah’s style (Isaiah 15:8; Isaiah 16:7; Isaiah 17:12–13). It perhaps implies an upper and a lower girdle as the symbol of complete equipment. In the loins girt about with truth of Ephesians 6:14, we may probably trace an allusive reference. The armour of the followers of Christ was to be like that of Christ Himself.

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb... — It is significant of the prophet’s sympathy with the animal world that he thinks of it also as sharing in the blessings of redemption. Rapine and cruelty even there were to him signs of an imperfect order, or the consequences of a fall, even as for St. Paul they testified to a bondage of corruption (Romans 8:21). The very instincts of the brute creation should be changed in the age to come, and the lion should eat straw like the ox. People have discussed the question whether and when the words will receive a literal fulfillment, and the answer to that question lies behind the veil.

It may be that what we call the laws of animal nature in these respects are tending to a final goal, of which the evolution that has tamed the dog, the bull, the horse, is as it were a pledge and earnest (Sophocles, Antigone, 342-351). It may be, however, that each form of brute cruelty was to the prophet’s mind the symbol of a human evil, and the imagery admits, therefore, of an allegorical rather than a literal interpretation. The classical student will remember the striking parallelism of the fourth Eclogue of Virgil, which, in its turn, may have been a far-off echo of Isaiah’s thoughts, floating in the air or embodied in apocryphal Sibylline Oracles among the Jews of Alexandria and Rome.