11 Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse,
And a branch from his roots will bear fruit.
2 The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him,
The spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The spirit of counsel and strength,
The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
3 And He will delight in the fear of the Lord,
And He will not judge by what His eyes see,
Nor make a decision by what His ears hear;
4 But with righteousness He will judge the poor,
And decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth;
And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth,
And with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked.
5 Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins,
And faithfulness the belt about His waist.6 And the wolf will dwell with the lamb,
And the leopard will lie down with the young goat,
And the calf and the young lion [a]and the fatling together;
And a little boy will lead them.
7 Also the cow and the bear will graze,
Their young will lie down together,
And the lion will eat straw like the ox.
8 The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra,
And the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den.
9 They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain,
For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
As the waters cover the sea.10 Then in that day
The nations will resort to the root of Jesse,
Who will stand as a [b]signal for the peoples;
And His resting place will be [c]glorious.
It is likely that those hearing this in Isaiah’s day would have seen this as a prophecy of a messiah. That is, someone who was going to come and vanquish all their foes, and establish peace and prosperity. Yet, if we flash forward to the actual Messiah, that is Jesus, we do not see all of this fulfilled. It’s no wonder that many people were confused, even Jesus’ followers.
When was he going to deliver them from Rome, when was he going to “strike the earth with the rod of his mouth” and slay the wicked with his very breath? He never did, and in part, that is because much of this is still to come–which we can read also in the vision that God gave to John in the book of Revelation.
Unsurprisingly, we can be guilty of the same thing. When are you going to do this God? Or, when are you going to fix this problem God? Yet He often works in ways we don’t expect, because we don’t/can’t see the end goal. We don’t know what is coming like God does, and so our expectations can be skewed by what our flesh would like to see. What makes us comfortable, what would make life easier?
On the contrary, Jesus promised his followers (and us) that we would have trials, and that life on this earth would be difficult. He also promised what this passage speaks of, but not until this earth is melted away and remade once more.
Sometimes we need to recalibrate our expectations, and watch to see what God is doing. Listen for His voice, and don’t get so caught up in your own plan that you miss out on His plan. God’s way is better, there’s no contest. It may not be easy, or what we envisioned, but God has it all under control and He knows exactly what we need, every day, every month, all the time.