Charles Spurgeon Commentary Isaiah 9

Read the fine translation of the Revised Version: But there shall be no gloom to her that was in anguish. What a marvelous light from the midst of a dreadful darkness! It is an astounding change, such as only God with us could work.

Many of you know nothing about the miseries described in those verses, but there are some who have traversed that terrible wilderness; and I am going to speak to them. I know where you are: you are being driven as captives into the land of despair, and for the last few months you have been tramping along a painful road, "hardly bestead and hungry." You are surely hard-pressed, and your soul finds no food of comfort, but is ready to faint and die. You fret yourself: your heart is wearing away with care, and grief, and hopelessness. In the bitterness of your soul, you are ready to curse the day of your birth.

The captive Israelites cursed their king who had led them into their defeat and bondage; in the fury of their agony, they even cursed God and longed to die. It may be that your heart is in such a ferment of grief that you do not know what you think, but are like a man at his wit's end. For such as you there shines this star of the first magnitude. Jesus has appeared to save, and he is God and man in one person: man, that he may feel our woes; God, that he may help us out of them.

No minister can save you, no priest can save you—you know this very well; but here is one who is able to save to the uttermost, for he is God as well as man. The great God is good at a dead lift; when everything else has failed, the lever of omnipotence can lift a world of sin. Jesus is almighty to save! That which in itself is an impossibility is possible with God. Sin which nothing else can remove is blotted out by the blood of Immanuel. Immanuel, our Saviour, is God with us; and God with us means difficulty removed, and a perfect work accomplished.

Jesus came to Galilee of the Gentiles, and made that country glorious, which had been brought into contempt. That corner of Palestine had very often borne the brunt of invasion, and had felt more than any other region the edge of the keen Assyrian sword.

They were at first troubled when the Assyrian was bought off with a thousand talents of silver, but they were more heavily afflicted when Tiglath-pileser carried them all away to Assyria (see 2 Kings 15). It was a wretched land, with a mixed population, despised by the purer race of Jews; but that very country became glorious with the presence of the incarnate God. Even so, even today his gracious presence is the day-dawn of our joy.

The Revised Version reads, Thou hast increased their joy. If Christ comes to you, my dear hearer, as God with us, then shall your joy be great; for you shall rejoice as with the joy of harvest, and as those rejoice who divide the spoil. Is it not so? Many of us can bear our witness that there is no joy like that which Jesus brings.

Your enemy shall be defeated, as in the day of Midian. Gideon was, in his dream, likened to a barley-cake, which struck the tent of Midian, so that it collapsed. He and his few heroes, with their pitchers and their trumpets, stood and shouted, The sword of the Lord and of Gideon! and Midian melted away before them.

So shall it be with our sins, and doubts, and fears, if we believe in Jesus, the incarnate God; they shall vanish like the mists of the morning.

The Lord Jesus will break the yoke of our burden, and the rod of our oppressor, as in the day of Midian. Be of good courage, you who are in bondage to fierce and cruel adversaries; for in the name of Jesus, who is God with us, you shall destroy them.

When Jesus comes, you shall have eternal peace, for his battle is the end of battles. All the armor of the armed man in the tumult, and the garments rolled in blood, shall even be for burning, for fuel of fire. This is the rendering of the Revision; and it is good. The Prince of peace wars against war, and destroys it. What a glorious day is that in which the Lord breaks the bow and cuts the spear apart, and burns the chariot in the fire! I think I see it now.

My sins, which were the weapons of my foes, the Lord piles in heaps. What mountains of prey! But see! He brings the fire-brand of his love from the altar of his sacrifice, and he sets fire to the gigantic pile. See how they blaze! They are utterly consumed forever.