Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Isaiah 9:3 You have multiplied the nation And increased its joy; They rejoice before You according to the joy of harvest, As men rejoice when they divide the spoil.
EARTHLY LOSS -- HEAVENLY GAIN
"The words are clear and require no further explanation. The joy they describe is, first of all, a joy before God--a pious, God-fearing joy that acknowledges God as the giver. Secondly, the joy is described as great. It's like joy at harvest-time (Ps 126:5) or at the time of military victory (Jdg 5:30; Isa 33:23; Ps 68:13). The first is a quiet, inner joy; the other is a loud, external joy; but both designate the highest joy. People who had often seen their harvests confiscated by invading armies would [finally] experience harvest-joy. People who had often been plundered would taste the joy soldiers experience when they divide up the spoils for battle. And the reason for their joy would be the light that had dawned on them, the LORD, the sun of righteousness (Mal 4:2)" (August Pieper).
One of the things which the Holy Spirit does through Isaiah and which the Lutheran commentator August Pieper picks up on and highlights is to take the very thing which is the source of much of their misery and declare the joy of the Lord will be as if you had received those things. The Land of Naphtali and Zebulun was constantly being invaded by foreign armies. They were constantly losing in those military struggles and their fields were being wiped out before harvest. This also is the threat that looms over them--the threat of military defeat and being taken from their homes and from their farms so they could no longer rejoice in their harvest. Yet Isaiah says, "Now you mourn for the lost of these things, in that day you will rejoice more over the spiritual blessings I will pour upon you than you do now over the physical." He certainly is not promising them the restoration of these physical gifts, for the source of the joy is yet coming in verse six, the child, but rather again Isaiah is turning them from a view of physical loss to a view of spiritual gain. Even as Paul often repeats as well:
"I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us" (Romans 8:18).
