Every now and then something triggers a thought, and you want to sit with it for awhile. Maybe it’s more like it sits with you until you notice something you didn’t before.
Recently, a reader wrote asking whether I had ever written anything concerning the prophet Isaiah. As I sat with the question, my thoughts were drawn toward a few familiar passages. At first I found myself considering Isaiah 11, Isaiah 61, and Luke 4. Yet the longer I sat with that, the more I realized the story actually begins before that.
It begins in a throne room.
The Holy Seed
In the sixth chapter of Isaiah, the prophet is caught up into one of the most profound encounters recorded in Scripture. He sees the Lord seated upon His throne. Seraphim surround Him, crying, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD of hosts.” The foundations shake. The temple fills with smoke. Isaiah is overwhelmed by the reality before him.
The encounter changes him.
And what follows is equally remarkable.
The prophet receives a commission that contains both judgment and hope. Cities will be laid waste. Houses will be abandoned. The land will become desolate. Everything appears to move toward devastation.
Then, within the vision, an interesting image is described.
The tree will be cut down.
The land will be stripped bare.
Yet a stump will remain.
And Isaiah hears these words:
“The holy seed is its stump.”
The vision doesn’t end with loss.
What is reduced is not abandoned.
What appeares on the surface to be finished was not finished at all.
Beneath the devastation, the holy seed remained.
The longer I have walked with the Lord, the more I have learned that revelation often works like a seed. Something is deposited within us during an encounter with God. We genuinely receive it, yet we do not immediately comprehend its fullness. The revelation is real from the moment it is given, but understanding comes as it unfolds over time.
The seed itself is complete. Our understanding is not.
I cannot help but wonder whether that is what we are witnessing through Isaiah’s experience. What if the stump is one of those images that remains with Isaiah long after the encounter ends? What if revelation surrounding this stump continues unfolding? It is years later when Isaiah writes:
The Branch
“Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, And a branch from his roots will bear fruit.”
There’s that stump again. But now greater light shines on it. The stump (a holy seed) Isaiah saw in the throne room is no longer simply a surviving remnant. He sees something emerging from it. A branch.
Life is cropping up where death seemed to have prevailed.
Hope is emerging from devastation. What appeared at first to be complete destruction was actually preservation. What arrived as loss was actually carrying a promise.
What seems to be getting defined now is not more details about the mysterious stump, but a person. The imagery is no longer a tree having been cut down. He is seeing Messiah. And this Branch emerging from Jesse’s lineage carries a distinction unlike any king before Him.
As the revelation expandes Isaiah sees beyond David, beyond earthly kingdoms, and even beyond his own generation. He is seeing the unseen. And what he sees concerning this Branch is stunning. The Branch is not only a coming King. He is the Anointed One [משׁיח Mashiach].
The Spirit Upon Him
“The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him,
The spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The spirit of counsel and might,
The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.”
This would be no ordinary ruler.
What distinguishes Him is not earthly power, but the Spirit of God resting upon Him.
Isaiah’s vision does not stop with the Branch Himself. The effects of His reign are what is coming into view.
Wolves dwell with lambs. Leopards lie down with young goats. Lions eat straw like oxen. Children play safely where danger once existed.
Fear loses its place.
Violence gives way to peace.
Creation itself is brought into harmony.
The imagery is breathtaking.
Mashiach, The Anointed One, Isaiah sees is not merely restoring a people. His reign reaches beyond even that. Everywhere His rule is fully established, disorder gives way to peace, hostility gives way to reconciliation, and creation moves toward God’s intended purpose.
The vision culminates in one of the most beautiful declarations in all of Scripture:
“For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.”
What a remarkable promise.
The revelation that began with a holy seed hidden within a stump now reaches to the ends of the earth.
The goal is not merely the restoration of a kingdom.
The goal is a world saturated with the knowledge of God.
Everything Isaiah sees flows from the same source: the presence and reign of Messiah.
Yet, once again God expands Isaiah’s vision even further as He returns him to the same mystery. Only now the contours are beginning to become clearer.
The prophet is no longer showing us merely who Messiah is.
He is showing us what Messiah will do.
Mashiach, The Anointed One
“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
Because the LORD has anointed me
To bring good news to the afflicted;
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to captives
And freedom to prisoners.”
I find it striking that Isaiah first sees the nature of Messiah before he sees His ministry. The Spirit rests upon Him. Righteousness marks Him. Yet, the revelation still unfolds. We see the remarkable character of this Messiah.
The brokenhearted are healed. Captives are set free. Mourners are comforted. Ruins are rebuilt. Shame is exchanged for inheritance. Despair gives way to joy.
What Isaiah first saw resting upon the Branch now becomes visible through the actions of the Anointed One.
He does not arrive like earthly kings, crushing the wounded. He does not approach the broken with condemnation. He does not rule through intimidation.
The heart of Messiah is revealed through the restoration He brings. And in doing so, Mashiach reveals the very heart of God. The Spirit resting upon the Branch is seen flowing outward through acts of mercy, healing, liberation, and restoration.
What moves me most about this passage is how clearly Isaiah sees Messiah, even though it is through a vision and from a long way off.
Isaiah’s Messiah does not distance Himself from human suffering. He moves toward it. He enters places of loss. He touches what is broken. He restores what appeared beyond repair. Where others see failure, He sees redemption. Where others see ruin, He sees rebuilding. Where others see shame, He speaks of inheritance. The King Isaiah sees does not reveal Himself through displays of earthly power. He reveals Himself through the lives He restores.
Isaiah’s vision, however, contained another aspect that is difficult to ignore. The Messiah who brings restoration also brings separation.
And remarkably this is how another prophet bears the first public witness to Messiah when his eyes behold Yeshua. This distinguished hearld, sees, recognizes, testifies and announces. “My eyes have seen Yeshuaekha.” [יְשׁוּעָתְךָ your salvation] The salvation of God is no longer an abstract promise, a future hope, or a prophetic expectation. It has become a Person.
When the aged Simeon took the infant Jesus [Yeshua – יֵשׁוּעַ] into his arms, he spoke words that seem to echo the very patterns Isaiah had seen centuries earlier:
“Behold, this Child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel.”
The rise of many.
The fall of many.
Something is being revealed.
Something is being exposed.
Something is being separated.
And then years later, John the Baptist stands beside the Jordan and announces: “The axe is already laid at the root of the trees.”
The language is striking.
It sounds remarkably familiar.
Like Simeon, John too, is not describing a distant future, but a current living reality.
The Branch Isaiah saw is now present.
Messiah, the Word made flesh, is now physically standing among His people.
Upon His arrival the presence of Messiah forces a separation.
Isaiah saw it from a distance, in a vision.
Simeon recongized its arrival.
John announced it in real time.
Jesus embodied it.
That may be one of the great mysteries of prophetic revelation.
A prophet sees truly. Yet the fullness of what is seen often becomes clear only when the reality itself appears.
Isaiah saw the stump. He saw the Branch. He saw the Spirit. He saw the restoration. But one day what was only a promise became a reality.
After His baptism, the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus, and the Father declared Him to be His beloved Son. After having been tempted in the wilderness, Luke then tells us that Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit.
And that day the manifestation of Isaiah’s revelation stood up in a synagogue in Nazareth.
He was handed the scroll of Isaiah. He opened it and the room fell silent as He read:
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
Because the Lord has anointed Me…”
Then Jesus closed the scroll and declared:
The Reality Arrived
What was revealed as an Anointed One.
Now stood before them.
Messiah has arrived.
Perhaps Isaiah’s greatest gift was not simply foretelling what would happen. But seeing the One who was coming. Discovering that the holy seed is a coming King. A Spirit-anointed Messiah.
The One who restores. The One who heals.
The One to whom all prophecy ultimately points.
For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
Sometimes a revelation lingers, refusing to let us go until greater light emerges from what was first seen. I am convinced that prophecy finds its fullest meaning when it leads us beyond events into the revelation of Christ Himself, Yeshua HaMashiach.
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