Isaiah 9:6

For unto us a child is born,.... This is a reason of all that is said in the context; of the great light that shone upon and was seen by those that sat in darkness, and in the land of the shadow of

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Having spoken of the glorious light, and joy, and victory of God’ s people, he now proceeds to show the ground of it, and by what person these things are procured. Unto us; unto us Jews, of whom Christ was born, and to whom he was primarily sent, , for our use and benefit. A Child; the Messiah, by the consent of interpreters, not only Christian, but Jewish; for so the ancient Hebrew doctors understood the place, and particularly the Chaldee paraphrast; although the later Jews, out of opposition to Christ, wrest it to Hezekiah; which extravagant conceit, as it hath no foundation at all in that or any other text of Scripture, and therefore may be rejected without any further reason, so it is fully confuted by the following titles, which are such as cannot without blasphemy and nonsense be ascribed to Hezekiah, nor indeed to any mere mortal man, as we shall see. But all the following particulars do so truly and exactly agree to Christ, that they cannot without great violence be alienated from him, or ascribed to any other. Is born, for shall be born, as the prophets generally speak. A Son; so he determines the sex of the child. Or, the Son, to wit, of the virgin, of whom I spake before, . Is given; is freely and graciously given to us by God. Other children also are said to be given by God, Genesis 30 6 48:9, but this in a peculiar manner, and therefore he is called the gift of God, . The government, to wit, of Israel, or of God’ s people, to whom he is given, shall be upon his shoulder, i.e. upon him, or in his hands. He mentions shoulders, because great burdens are commonly laid upon men’ s shoulders; and as all government, if it be rightly managed, so this especially, is a very heavy burden, requiring extraordinary care, and diligence, and self-denial. Possibly here may be also an allusion to the ancient custom of carrying the ensigns of government before the magistrate upon the shoulders of their officers; or to the cross of Christ, which was laid upon his shoulders, , which also was the way to his kingdom or government, . His name shall be called; either, 1. He shall be called; for names are oft put for persons, as 11:13. Or, 2. His name shall be; for to be called in Scripture is off put for to be, as I have noted before on , and oft elsewhere. But this is not to be taken for a description of his proper name, by which he should be commonly called, but of his glorious nature and qualities. See my notes on . Wonderful, Counsellor: these words may be taken either, 1. Severally, as they are in our translation, and by many others.

Isaiah 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.Ver. 6. For unto us a child is born.] That child foretold of. Christ shall be born in the fulness of time, as sure as if he were born already. This was "good tidings of great joy to all people." The Hebrew besher, for good tidings, cometh of bashar, for flesh; because, say some critics, there should be a taking of flesh, God manifested in the flesh, which should be the best tidings. Angels first brought it, and were glad of such an errand. Still they pry into this mystery, Trono capite et propenso collo and can never sufficiently wonder to see that μεγας Yεος should be μικρον Bρεφος, the "great God, a little child"; regens sidera, sugens ubera; that he who ruleth the stars should be sucking at the breast; that the eternal Word should not be able to speak a word; that he that should come in the clouds should appear in clouts in vilibus et veteribus indumentis, saith Ludolphus, in old tattered rags, in such clouts as we cover wounds and beggars’ sores withal, say others. Well might Synesius call Christ viscerum ingentium partum, the birth of huge bowels. For the time of his birth, Christ living just thirty-six years and a half, saith one, and dying at Easter, it must needs follow that he was born about the middle of the month Tisri, which answereth to part of our September, at the Feast of Tabernacles, &c., to which feast the word εσκηνωσεν, in John 1:14 probably alludeth. Unto us a Son is given.] That "only begotten Son of God." begotten of the substance of his Father before all beginnings, after an unspeakable manner. The Scripture speaketh of it usually by way of circumlocution, or giveth us only some glimpse by way of similitude. This eternal Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, assumed our nature. He "overtook" it, as the Greek word signifieth, as the shepherd doth his sheep that has run astray. A shepherd with a sheep upon his shoulder engraved upon the communion cup in the primitive times of the gospel, imported the same notion. And the government shall be upon his shoulders.] The power and majesty of the kingdom is committed to him by his Father, and he hath strength enough to manage it. Princeps est baiulus Reip. The Hebrews call a prince Nassi, because, Atlas-like, he is to bear up the commonwealth, and not to overload his subjects. Christ, both as prince of his Church, and as high priest also, beareth up and beareth out his people, "helping their infirmities." And his name shall be called.] Heb., He shall call his name; (1.) God his Father shall; or, (2.) Every true believer shall call him and count him all this.

(6) For unto us a child is born.—The picture of a kingdom of peace could not be complete without the manifestation of a king. In the description of that king Isaiah is led to use words which cannot find a complete fulfilment in any child of man. The loftiness of thought, rising here as to its highest point, is obviously connected with the words which told that Jehovah had spoken to the prophet “with a strong hand.” His condition was one more ecstatic and therefore more apocalyptic than before, and there flashes on him, as it were, the thought that the future deliverer of Israel must bear a name that should be above every name that men had before honoured. And yet here also there was a law of continuity, and the form of the prediction was developed from the materials supplied by earlier prophets. In Psalms 110 he had found the thought of the king-priest after the order of Melchizedek, whom Jehovah addressed as Adonai. In Psalms 2, though it did not foretell an actual incarnation, the anointed King was addressed by Jehovah as His Son. The throne of that righteous king was as a throne of God (Psalms 45:6). Nor had the prophet’s personal experience been less fruitfully suggestive. He had given his own children mysterious names. That of the earthly Immanuel, as the prophet brooded over it, might well lead on to the thought of One who should, in a yet higher sense than as being the pledge of Divine protection, be as “God with us.” Even the earthly surroundings of the prophet’s life may not have been without their share of suggestiveness. The kings of Egypt and Assyria with whom his nation had been brought into contact delighted in long lists of epithetic names (e.g., “the great king, the king unrivalled, the protector of the just, the noble warrior.” Inscription of, Sennacherib in Records of the Past, i. p. 25), describing their greatness and their glory. It was natural that the prophet should see in the king of whom he thought as the future conqueror of all the world-powers that were founded on might and not on right, One who should bear a name formed, it might be, after that fashion, but full of a greater majesty and glory. His name shall be called Wonderful.—It is noticeable that that which follows is given not as many names, but one. Consisting as it does of eight words, of which the last six obviously fall into three couplets, it is probable that the first two should also be taken together, and that we have four elements of the compound name: (1) Wonderful-Counsellor, (2) God-the-Mighty-One, (3) Father of Eternity, (4) Prince of Peace. Each element of the Name has its special significance. (1) The first embodies the thought of the wisdom of the future Messiah.

Verse 6. The government shall be upon his shoulder] That is, the ensign of government; the sceptre, the sword, the key, or the like, which was borne upon or hung from the shoulder. See Clarke on Isaiah 22:22. And his name shall be called] אל גבור El gibbor, the prevailing or conquering God. The everlasting Father - "The Father of the everlasting age"] Or אבי עד Abi ad, the Father of eternity. The Septuagint have μεγαληςβουληςΑγγελος, "the Messenger of the Great Counsel." But instead of אבי עד Abi ad, a MS. of De Rossi has אבעזר Abezer, the helping Father; evidently the corruption of some Jew, who did not like such an evidence in favour of the Christian Messiah. Prince of Peace] שר שלום sar shalom, the Prince of prosperity, the Giver of all blessings. A MS. of the thirteenth century in Kennicott's collection has a remarkable addition here. "He shall be a stumbling-block, המכשלה; the government is on his shoulder." This reading is nowhere else acknowledged, as far as I know.

6, 7. The last and greatest cause of joy is the birth of the Messiah and his wonderful character and government. When Isaiah expected the event to take place, cannot be gathered from this prophecy. There is no reason for supposing that the reference is to a child already born; the perfect tense is used, as throughout the passage, from the ideal standpoint of the writer, which is within the Messianic age. The birth of the child is most naturally conceived as taking place in the age of miracle which succeeds the overthrow of the Assyrian; hence no part is assigned to him in effecting the national emancipation.

For - This is given as a reason of the victories that were predicted in the previous verses. That it has reference to the Messiah has been almost universally conceded; and indeed it does not seem possible to doubt it.

6. For unto us — Jews first, then all the world. A child is born — The antitype of the child of chap. vii; a child of the Davidic house, as asserted in next verse. Unto us — Or for us — for our benefit. A son is given — In chap.