Dawn and darkness

Matthew says that Jesus' residence in Capernaum fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah 9 about the dawning in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali. There are several aspects to this.

1) Isaiah 9 comes at the end of a prophecy concerning the Aramean crisis in Judah. Rezin of Aram and Pekah of Israel are ganging up on Ahaz of Judah to force Judah into an anti-Assyrian alliance. Isaiah warns that the Lord is going to bring the bees of Assyria (Isaiah 7:18-19) to invade Judah; the Euphrates that will submerge Israel (in the generation after Ahaz) is going to overflow into the land of Judah until it nearly drowns the land (8:5-8).

2) In this situation, many in Judah - those who are following mediums and spiritists rather than the law of Yahweh - are awaiting a dawn that will not happen (8:20). The sense of 8:20 is that those who do not go to the Torah and testimony of Yahweh will never see the day dawn. Darkness will cover them, "distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and they will be driven into darkness" (8:22).

3) Yet, there will be a dawn: That's what Isaiah 9 says, the portion that Matthew quotes in his gospel. But the dawn will not happen in Judah, but far from away in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, in the land Tiglath-pileser has already begun to carry off into captivity (2 Kings 15:29; 16:1). In context, the prophecy of hope simultaneously condemns Judah, or a large portion of Judah at least. The dawn will not come from Ahaz. Though the throne of David is going to be re-established (9:7), yet the glory of that throne will first be apparent in "Galilee of the Gentiles" (9:1). Eventually, the light will extend to all Israel, but the day dawns from the north (where God's throne is, Psalm 48:2).

Keil and Delitzsch point out that the prophecy promises a new day for the tribes that "suffered the most in the almost incessant war between Israel and the Syrians, and afterwards between Israel and the Assyrians."

4) This of course fits neatly into Matthew's story. 4:12 says that Jesus withdrew from Nazareth to Capernaum when John was taken captive. The wickedness of Judah forces the light to withdraw to the northern extremities of the land, where the kingdom of the new David first begins to take shape among the semi-Jews of Galilee. That light dawns in Zebulun and Naphtali is a condemnation of Judea and her king, Herod the king of darkness and, behind him, the devil. Isaiah, to quote Keil and Delitzsch again, directed "the Messianic hopes of the Jewish nation . . . towards Galilee."

5) A final speculative note: Capernaum, where Jesus settles, is (possibly) derived from the Hebrew Kephar-Nahum, the village of Nahum. If this is Nahum the prophet, then we have a link with the Assyrian crisis that Isaiah is talking about, since Nahum is a prophecy concerning Nineveh after the city had turned from Yahweh (some time after turning to Him in the days of Jonah.)

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 02:02 PM

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