The Ideal Davidic King

Isaiah 11:1–12

Biblical Period

1But a shoot shall grow out of the stump of Jesse,
A twig shall sprout from his stock.
2The spirit of the Lord shall alight upon him:
A spirit of wisdom and insight,
A spirit of counsel and valor,
A spirit of devotion and reverence for the Lord.
3He shall sense the truth by his reverence for the Lord:
He shall not judge by what his eyes behold,
Nor decide by what his ears perceive.
4Thus he shall judge the poor with equity
And decide with justice for the lowly of the land.
He shall strike down a land with the rod of his mouth
And slay the wicked with the breath of his lips.
5Justice shall be the girdle of his loins,
And faithfulness the girdle of his waist.
6The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
The leopard lie down with the kid;
The calf, the beast of prey, and the fatling together,
With a little boy to herd them.
7The cow and the bear shall graze,
Their young shall lie down together;
And the lion, like the ox, shall eat straw.
8A babe shall play
Over a viper’s hole,
And an infant pass his hand
Over an adder’s den.
9In all of a-My sacred mount-a
Nothing evil or vile shall be done;
For the land shall be filled with devotion to the Lord
As water covers the sea.
10In that day,
The stock of Jesse that has remained standing
Shall become a standard to peoples—
Nations shall seek his counsel
And his abode shall be honored.

11In that day, my Lord will apply His hand again to redeeming the other partb of His people from Assyria— as also from Egypt, Pathros, Nubia, Elam, Shinar, Ha-math, and the coastlands.

12He will hold up a signal to the nations
And assemble the banished of Israel,
And gather the dispersed of Judah
From the four corners of the earth.

Notes

I.e., the Holy Land.

I.e., the part outside the Holy Land; lit. “the rest that will remain.”

Credits

Reprinted from Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright 1985 by the Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 1.

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