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CHAPTER TWO

The Glory Progressively Revealed in Isaiah 9:6-7

THE CONTEXT

In Isaiah 8, we find a most lugubrious end. Anguish and burden blight the dark horizon of life. But in Isaiah 9, we come into the light, as when you move from a deeply cavernous gorge, into the open day.

This however is no ordinary day. Sites of special trouble are passed by as we arrive at a great light that belittles the darkness as if it were nothing. The shadow of death itself is chased away by this light (9:2). They receive this supernatural light as one does the sunlight: it shines on them.

To be sure, the nation has been multiplied, but joy has not been its lot (as in the written Hebrew text). The darkness was not enjoyable as a track. However, because of this light, there is now, not a national, but nevertheless a widespread rejoicing. There is a sense as of harvest, as of spoil in a military victory. What actually oppresses Israel, in spiritual terms, is now broken like the hand of an invader. Indeed, battles bring blood and soiled garments declaring death, but this is more like the fire that burns up such things (9:5). What then is this marvellous novelty, this impending action, like the start of a race, of a season, of a voyage ?

It concerns a child, a son given, and the immediate focus is this: HE GOVERNS, for such is given as a commission. Not only is His such power by appointment, but He is given a name, as normal, to distinguish and not disguise who he is. His name will be known, and this is what He will be called put in 5 statuesque terms, the last two hyphenated, namely Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. How can this Father of all, of spirits, basis for mankind, sited in eternity, yet be the name for a son, whose birth is such a distinctive feature indeed ? To use such terminology of both at once and in the same respect would tend to confusion. That the trinity is three persons in one Being is relatively simple fare; but you do not expect to refer to one of these Persons in the name of another, in terms of the specialty!

The answer is found in the other names. His name is also stated to be 'wonderful', as in Judges 13:18. Manoah, father to be of Samson then, asks the name of the angelic being announcing this, and is asked a question in return: "WHY DO YOU ASK MY NAME SEEING IT IS WONDERFUL!"

In other words, Is it not evident that this is the Lord who gives you this prediction about your coming son (in that case, Samson) ? Why ask ? Hasn't it yet become apparent that you are talking with none other than the Lord! and so as in the flames, the visitor departs, exhibiting complete superiority to things mortal. Such is the episode in Judges 13.

Hence in Isaiah 9:6, is using the term 'wonderful' relative to a name of an obviously wonderful person, this is a virtual summary declaration that it is God, surprising as it may be to the dulled mind, that is coming; for how often and in how much has this, His coming to earth, been predicted in the past (as in Psalm 2, 16, 22, 40, 69, Genesis 3:15, with 12, 15)!

Moreover, in terms of His wonderful boon and blessing, bringing spiritual light where anguish in darkness had ruled for so many, He is called COUNSELLOR! That is the second name listed. What other counsel is there, but that of the Lord! as in Proverbs 8 ? There it is the very  wisdom of God which comes to bear, God Himself, personally, as a Being with the Father, involved in all creation, before it was. This He did, in His own place in the trinity, from the first, One uncreated (Colossians 1:15ff., I Cor. 1:30). As if the point might still be lost, the third name appears; THE MIGHTY GOD. This is the same term used in the next Chapter of Isaiah of God in the normal manner (Isaiah 10:21), as of Him to whom Israel will return.

THE COMPILATION

Thus now we see how this compilation of names unfolds naturally like a rose bud in its season; and it does so only if you view it progressively in terms of a multiple name, to cover the grandeur of the event and its focus. NO LESS than all these distinctive attributes of God Almighty are applicable in naming this wonderful Son who is born, the focus of all the interest and acclamation, in the birth that creates such joy in terms of who it is, and what it is He is to do (Isaiah 9:7).

Even the title of everlasting Father is not too high (precisely as in Philippians 2) for this name, It is precisely because this is His stature, that the name can be one of His own, at birth, one of the very Trinity itself, so that all that the Father has is His (John 16:15), so that equality with the Father is not something to be snatched at to be equal with the Father, as Paul later declares. This SON IS His equal and can even be discerned in terms of the Father's own name as to height, might and authority (John 14:9 exhibits this). Just so a son might have access to an account in a store, and his name is treated as equal to that of the father, in authority to buy, this being a store's work. This however, in Isaiah 9, is salvation's work.

Thus instead of this being a word incorporating Father and Son as joint subject when talking of the Son, as if He were both, we have what plain in the text, a series of names which constitute an overview of WHO HE IS, for as Christ declared (John 14:9), "He who has seen Me has seen the Father."

Thus the naming done (Isaiah 9:6), we learn of the functions further, for the Prince of Peace. The Son named, distinct, distinctive, singular, the focus of this staggering announcement, seen with the declaration concerning the birth as a thing just now happened, in the time for the fulfilment of the prophecy, before the very eyes of the beholder. Though now small, at the foreseen birth, this predicted babe will be great, as His names attest.

Exposed is this brilliant event with its infinite significance. In terms of such a name He has such a task; for in the next verse, we learn that His government does not decline or know any decrease; and indeed, that it is endless. Further, it is not a mere novelty, for it is the forecast Son of David, whom even his father would call Lord! (as he does, in Psalm 110). Thus before us is the sight of the One in whom is the long prepared coming of God to earth (Psalm 2, 67:4, 72, 102:13-22); and as such does the prophet Isaiah identify the bearer of this name. Eternal is this, His kingdom, and it is held up with justice and righteousness.

An effort^*1 was once made to remove this simple, solemnly joyful and straightforward succession of names, like removing the heart from a body: but this would leave it dead, meaningless. Thus there was a proposal to turn the name, as we have seen, in its five units of deep, singular, divine significance, into a sentence about God counselling, in this way: A wonderful thing is counselling the Mighty  God ... the Prince of Peace etc.. However when you take it to its then supposed end, we learn that it is the everlasting Father together with the babe just born who is doing the counselling. It is not just unusual for a babe to be seen deciding on its birth, but as for participating in his own naming is still more outrageous, and this breaches the barrier of nonsense! Moreover, as noted, in this rendering, you have Father and Son as such separated in name, but put as just one recipient of the counselling. In this construction,  THEY are counselling, but the ONE named is somewhere in the background sudden arises as the one involved, and it is He decisively in the singular, who indeed is to become the Son ruling.

THEY are counselling and His kingdom ... A wonderful thing THEY are counselling and HE, it continues, as for one subject, will rule. But it is not about counselling but naming a child just born. An event just happened and justly famous is in view, not a prelude. You do not rejoice that the builder and architect are counselling about a ship, at its launching. That is more than outré.

Again, either it is they or he in this naming. The sentence has he. They does not fit. The sublime focus is that named, and to turn a colloquy, a counselling party of several into the name of one, which in the singular finishes the sentence, or its extension, is verbal acrobatics and visual blindness.

This is mere confusion of terminology, as well as making what is all about declaration of a FACT, of a ACT, into some matter of counselling. It is like having a meeting to show a new car, and calling it, We are thinking about the car to come! That is not relevant, but ludicrous, both out of time and displaced from the actuality which is what it is all about. It is not this sort of complex cacophony that is in mind, but the child in focus having a name then given, leading on to more about this self-same child, namely His kingdom.

THE REALITY

Thus it is not those mentioned (on the sentence idea for a name) to whom, in the birth focus involved, the kingdom in view, is revealed as for one, in 9:7. In fact, it is for the one born, the prince, the last singular of the names, for though these are many, He whose name they compose, is One. Hence it is not possible but by contradicting the  text, to  'interpret'  the name in this regressive manner. This grand name accelerates like a rocket taking off, from stage to stage in eminence, and then is applied to a kingdom which likewise, proceeds from glory to glory, in stages, in verse 7.

THESE MAGNIFICENT FIVE NAMES depict deity as babe, as ruler, as doing so in terms of deposition into fleshly format, with all that follows this. They show the glow, the all-competent sufficiency of this Saviour, no mere deputy, but God Himself, and so fulfil to the uttermost the fanfare that precedes the naming, like a trumpet proclaiming a magnificent event

There is no need for consideration of what follows, as to its duration, for it is FOR EVER. No concern is required about ebb and flow, for though many kill (as in Isaiah 49:7, 52-53), and the Messiah Himself has this as part of His way to salvation for man, life is like a first innings. The second innings relies on this same Prince of peace who in peace, gives eternal life (cf. Isaiah 26:19, Daniel 12, Psalm 16), whose work abates all natural grief with supernatural reconstruction both of the body and of the world, before it is sent away, like a Prep School (Matthew 24:35, Isaiah 11).

Think of the name, then, in terms of Isaiah 9:6, and the company concerned, yes follow this with thought of the kingdom, never less, never changing, never ending, one ruler, a member of the Trinity, become man^*1, fitting for the task. Rejoice therefore as in Isaiah 9:3-4. The nations may ruin each other as so exhaustively done in the last 100 years on a scale and in proportions ghastly to consider (Nazi racism alone having reportedly led to some 55 million deaths! Communists more tens of millions some in USSR, some in the Cambodia of that day, many in China).

These fade into fury and futility as people now increasingly use their own bodies to destroy those of others, talking of religion, with apparent disregard for their immoral preying, as if the immoral were immortal. But death is death as in Revelation 6, and as predicted, it has now become for many a pathological pre-occupation, to have it and to bring it, even to babes, to school buses, to meeting places indiscriminately.

Herod tried with much the same disregard for slaughter, when Christ was a babe. It did not even work. There was some greater work to come, where death and resurrection secured salvation and settled a kingdom!

THIS kingdom neither fails nor falters, nor ends. Such is the message of Isaiah 9:7 concerning the name He is to be called. Set to be that of what appears here first as a tiny babe, very singular, yet in name He is multiplied as in power in the outcome; and though through many tribulations we who come to Him must move into the kingdom in its final glory, yet through Him, the path is secure, the outcome certain, the guarantees seen in history and in heart, in word and in deed. They are beheld, as in the power of this Son to heal multitudes, raise the dead and predict His own time of being raised victorious over the grisly menace which still seeks to level His kingdom, as if it could be included with the dust of such famed centres as Nineveh and Babylon, whose lust ended in just dust.

They were for going down to oblivion, as predicted; and they went down (Nahum, Isaiah 13-14); but He is for rising, and His eternal life and His kingdom does not cease. Rejoice in its stability, as in the tenderness of the Saviour who breaking death, bought life for sinners, and who rising from the dead, removed the fearful preoccupation with ending (Isaiah 26:19, 51:11). Life for the Christian, for whom the now-grown babe is Lord, does not end; His kingdom endures forever, as does He, its foundation and founder. Let us therefore rejoice and USE this life (I John 1:1-4) while we may as privileged, on this earth. Again I say, rejoice!

Let us not be careless (I Thessalonians 5), let us test all things, and not be deceived in this final scurrying in the desert of confusion of the serpent; but let us be fearless in the favour of this peace, this eternal and unique prince whose it is, who has made this depth of peace a gift (Philippians 4:7). Like a waterfall in its ceaseless beauty of sound, its overflowing power, its grace of descent, its wonder of height, its active work on falling, its continual height, moving into a forest of many trees, watered by its abundance, is this peace. It is quiet, but can stand challenge; it is beautiful, but washes the ugly. It is His!

See also, in  On Translations of the Bible, Item  20.

NOTE

*1     Excursion concerning the Divine Excursion

Let us ponder the situation concerning the effort made by one translator to turn this name in Isaiah 9:6 into a sentence, namely, a wonderful thing is counselling the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, which proceeds, with the words, of the end of His kingdom ...

In this case, this sort of translation, the name announced for this babe prodigy constitutes a disruptive alternative model, is too long (a sizeable sentence), not only grammatically contrary to itself, moving from singular to plural and on, after the announcement, back to singular on this model, but comically inappropriate, a focal babe depicted in this version of the name as joint counsellor, and singular king in one nominal sentence or declaration. You invest one depiction with what appears almost the work of a buffoon, babe in focus, named as counselling with the Father.

It is about two focussing thought, when action accomplished is in fact the vastly emphatic focus and criterion of the passage. Its theme ? It is one of arrival, not prelude, action, not thought, unitary deposit, not plural idea. It is briefly, not about prelude but accomplishment, preparation but arrival, consideration but its result, convocation but evocation.

In either translation, the name itself ends with the prince of peace and His divine kingdom, but only in one does it start with one human and incarnate singularity, moving with the same in view to the end, the continuation in verse 7 referring exclusively and intensively to that one focal person, one human, announced, portrayed and performing.

In the abortive translation which breaks up what God has put together, makes a travesty of singularity, a contemplation out of an occasion, instead of the Son seen in the name as sent, He appears as considering things with His Father when the whole passage is the result of such prior consideration, not of Father and focal babe but of eternal Trinity before time, its occasions and the babe arrived. It, this sublime announcement of a divine marvel in what is sent, it is the temporal result of an eternal coup in incarnation, not a matter of couped up thought, but brilliant announcement concerning the time-deposit and its eternal consequences. Nor, moreover,  is it a matter of saying, with that translation, A and B and C are counselling together about a wonderful thing, and he will be on his throne. It is a shove that does not fit! It is a diversion which does not relate. What is announced is a superb and astonishing work of wonder, to which the text is set to declare and name.

So a new car model is an event, a deed done, the product of thought, a thing apparent and object for inspection. Its name is not a thought about plans, for that is already done, and the result is on display. It concerns a derivation of their fulfilment. A new babe of deity as man irrupting onto the threshold and named,  is not a question of ideas, but fulfilment; and this is precisely what the undeviating straightforward rendering of the text in context does. It even moves to a crescendo of meaning and impact as the five individual names progress to the "prince of peace" at the end, that leading -  with the last two hyphenated names complete - in verse 7, to the equal crescendo of the consequences in detail, just as they were announced at the first. Both single babe and single kingdom are subjected to the same treatment, succession of attributes extending the reality in view, till it is complete, like an image focussing, at last sharply visible in outline and in content.

It is imperative that the singularity of the babe be seen, as a once only divine incarnation,

	questing to its end,
	accomplishing its aim,
	soaring to a kingdom,
	focus of thought,
	its full meaning displayed in successive terms,
	each augmenting the one before,

not distorted into a confusion of Father and Son, two persons in the Trinity when One Son is the point in one incarnate body and all-encompassing throne. Here is  an elevation of the Son to successive levels, till we see indeed that "all that the Father has is mine," and it is a ground as nothing less than deity that is in view, as we then come to a kingdom suitable for no-one short of deity, in verse 7. Verse 6 not only explains verse 7, but is the warrant for it. In this, there is meat and meaning, not disturbance and imbalance.

To seek to misalign in such anomaly as this, what is present, a perfectly uninterrupted developmental set of names, each pointing to the next in explication of the glory, in the perfect thrust of the transformative text, for the sake of inventing a division in the simple series of items,  where none is authorised in the text, where indeed not only does there lack any warrant for interruption or indication for a separation, but such action leads to a prodigy of clashes, is not a work of translation. Rather is it one of joint declaration of translator and deity, an intrusive presumption.

It amounts to a derangement of cohesive arrangement, a self-refuting enigma derived from a perfect orchestration, a wandering hotch-potch replacing a series in successive developments with a one to one correspondence between marvel announced and babe, of prince and kingdom; it comes to a seedy solecism, forcibly erupting to replace a bloom. You cannot breed a complex cacaphony into a brilliant and symphonic simplicity and cohesive compression without a contextual index, a clear pointer to authorise such a step, especially in the case of divine writ; for that would imply a dilatory author, giving the clearest of testimony without any subtlety or sign that it is really a roving reference to a singular-plural combination ending in singularity. That would be a gross failure in clarity; whereas the Bible is not twisted but clear to the understanding (Proverbs 8:8), and that is the course of that wisdom of God which is Christ, whose Spirit has given the Bible (I Peter 1:10-12, I Cor. 2:9-13).

This turgid translation turns the pellucid into a puzzle, and the puzzle into disruption of thought and sentence structure, with change of theme and excursion from the trumpeted singularity of the particular human birth with its limits and lordship in interpretation and expression, declaration and definition, into a discursive excursion.

In short, the text TELLS us the transformative light, joyful triumph, the focus of the Son, His name and His kingdom in uninterrupted accord and development and to interrupt even the name with a contrary, contrived and plural subject for a singular presentation from outset to end, two persons then ungrammatically becoming one singular subject, the product made diffuse like an object discerned vaguely in a heat haze, is an extortion, like that of a thief tossing in his dirt and out the goods of a household.

Thus in all straightforwardness and simplicity, we move from His shoulders, to His name, to His kingdom as Prince of Peace, on the one throne of one called David, and it is as Prince of Peace that He is projected onto that throne as One, not a tenure of Father and Son on that seat for the alone incarnate Person; and this where indeed, the whole point highly is focus is the relevant human format. Singular and plural do not so mix, let alone when the topic is the incarnation of the leader, with one set of shoulders, one form, as one babe with one kingdom.

The multiplication is in gussets of greatness, painstakingly sown into both the name of the glorious One, and the status, stature and eternity of the kingdom consequential. The name thus explains the kingdom and the singularity of the Judge, King, Prince, Leader thus installed from heaven, and operative on earth.

The sending is One to One as in Isaiah 48:15ff., not a confusion of the One arriving with Him sending, and here the incarnate wonder, the sent Person, is both human and (therefore) one. When the theme is trinity, not its performance and advent, then you indeed have the relationship of three persons as One, as seen in the text above. When it is the sent One, then such in its human singularity as a Person in view, keeps its integrity. So all things in place, one sees and is shown the paths of His grace.