
Isaiah 11:1
©️2020 Gloria M. Chang
But a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse,
Isaiah 11:1
and from his roots a bud shall blossom.
Decay of the Davidic Dynasty
Over three hundred years after the reign of King David, his dynasty had decayed to a stump. Ahab, the idolatrous king of Judah, sacrificed his own son to Moloch by fire and promoted the worship of foreign gods. When threatened by Aram and Israel, Ahaz put his trust in Assyria rather than the Lord. Pleading to Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, Ahaz fawned, “I am your servant and your son” (2 Kings 16:7). In exchange for military aid, Ahaz stripped the gold and silver from the house of the Lord and his palace as tribute to Assyria.
The Fall of Assyria Prophesied
In opposition to the faithless obsequiousness of the king of Judah, the prophet Isaiah pronounced judgment upon Assyria:
And the glory of its forests and orchards
Isaiah 10:18-19
will be consumed, soul and body,
and it will be like a sick man who wastes away.
And the remnant of the trees in his forest
will be so few,
that any child can record them.
Assyria, too, will be reduced to mere stumps:
Now the Lord, the Lord of hosts,
Isaiah 10:33-34
is about to lop off the boughs with terrible violence;
The tall of stature shall be felled,
and the lofty ones shall be brought low;
He shall hack down the forest thickets with an ax,
and Lebanon in its splendor shall fall.
A Faithful Remnant
Destruction from war and devastation will be so great that God’s people, once as numerous as the “sand of the sea” (Isaiah 10:22; Genesis 32:13) will be cut down to a small, but faithful remnant:
On that day
Isaiah 10:20
The remnant of Israel,
the survivors of the house of Jacob,
will no more lean upon the one who struck them;
But they will lean upon the Lord,
the Holy One of Israel, in truth.
Out of this backdrop of darkness and desolation, Isaiah beholds new life emerging from a withered stem—a fragrant blossom from the stump of Jesse.
Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming
Lo, how a rose e’er blooming,
From tender stem hath sprung.
Of Jesse’s lineage coming,
As men of old have sung;
It came, a flow’ret bright,
Amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night.Isaiah ‘twas foretold it,
Traditional German carol (1599), translated by Theodore Baker (1894).
The Rose I have in mind,
With Mary we behold it,
The virgin mother kind;
To show God’s love aright,
She bore to men a Savior,
When half spent was the night.
O Flower, whose fragrance tender
With sweetness fills the air,
Dispel with glorious splendor
The darkness everywhere;
True man, yet very God,
From sin and death now save us,
And share our every load.
Verse 3 by Friedrich Layritz (1844), translated by Harriet R. Krauth (1875).
Beautiful old hymn chant for Advent/Christmas both.
Yes, and it’s the first harp piece in our video, Advent at Our Mary Garden.
Dear GMC, Wow! Your reflection led me to find Sting singing this beautiful German carol. Traditional meets contemporary in a beautiful rendition of this Marian hymn.
That’s wonderful, fdan!
Like Isaiah prophesied,
The remnant of the trees in his forest
will be so few,
that any child can record them.
Our forest trees are fewer every day.
Commercial enterprise takes them away.
Our mountain tops are destroyed
by industrial greed.
Minerals rare and common
sold for technical need.
When our planet weeps,
Few wipe her tears.
Who are God’s faithful remnant
crying out for creation,
dying from persecution,
praying without ceasing.
singing loud hosannas?
When Jesus wept
over his lost sheep,
Who gave him comfort?
Let us bow low
before the Mercy throne.
Begging for wisdom
gifted by the Holy One.
May we become like trees planted by streams of water, yielding their fruit in due season (Psalm 1:3).