The Root of Jesse, Day 1

But a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse,
and from his roots a bud shall blossom.

Isaiah 11:1

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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
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.

Isaiah 10:18-19

Assyria, too, will be reduced to mere stumps:

Now the Lord, the Lord of hosts,
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.

Isaiah 10:33-34

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
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.

Isaiah 10:20

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,
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.

Traditional German carol (1599), translated by Theodore Baker (1894).
Verse 3 by Friedrich Layritz (1844), translated by Harriet R. Krauth (1875).