Sneaky wicked animals

1 A shoot will come out of the stock of Jesse,
and a branch out of his roots will bear fruit…

4 …He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
and with the breath of his lips he will kill the wicked.

Isaiah 11:1,4

Justice and Mercy. Our Messiah reigns with his Justice and Mercy. Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah would kill the wicked. Praise God that He will kill the wicked! Justice will be brought to the world and the innocent will be saved from the horrors of the wicked. But of course that is not the whole story. Yes, He will kill the wicked, but also…

6 The wolf will live with the lamb,
and the leopard will lie down with the young goat;
The calf, the young lion, and the fattened calf together;
and a little child will lead them.

7 The cow and the bear will graze.
Their young ones will lie down together.
The lion will eat straw like the ox.

8 The nursing child will play near a cobra’s hole,
and the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den

Isaiah 11:6-8

This seems to portray the predator animals (wolves, lions, bears, cobras) as having been wicked. They used to eat poor innocent animals like sheep, and baby cows, and even baby humans! But somehow they have changed.

9 They will not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of Yahweh,
as the waters cover the sea

Isaiah 11:9

That’s great that those wicked animals have changed into righteous animals, but how did they escape that earlier verse when the shoot of Jesse killed all the wicked? Somehow those wicked animals managed to slip through the cracks, eluding their capital punishment.

Of course, we have firsthand knowledge of how they managed to slip through the cracks, because we were wicked animals too. Through God’s mercy, Jesus endured our punishment for us. And now we “will not hurt nor destroy,”[1] for we are “full of the knowledge of Yahweh” through the Holy Spirit[2].

Footnotes

• [1] I actually still eat poor little innocent lambs, though. In fact, I am making a tasty lamb recipe for dinner this Friday. Maybe I should post the recipe…
• [2] I think it is interesting that verse 9 uses the phrase “for the earth will be full of the knowledge of Yahweh, as the waters cover the sea,” because we are full of the knowledge of Yahweh only by his Holy Spirit, which way back at the beginning of time was “hovering over the surface of the waters” (Genesis 1:2).