Commentary on Isaiah 9:1-4

The Season of Epiphany characteristically focuses on light. One of its flagship texts comes from Isaiah 9, with its verse made famous by Handel’s Messiah: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined” (verse 2). 

But what is this darkness? What, or who, is the light that has shined? And how might Christian preaching lay hold of this passage?

The tendency of Christian preachers is to take our cue from the use that Matthew’s Gospel makes of this Isaiah passage: to take the darkness as a reference to the ignorance of gentile nations, to take the light as a reference to Christ, and to preach this text as an announcement of the brilliance that Christ brings to peoples who were, in the words of Ephesians (2:12), formerly without hope and without God. 

This approach to the Isaiah text issues a triumphant word. It celebrates what God in Christ has already achieved. Certainly that mood is true to Matthew’s Gospel, which begins with the Epiphany scene of gentile magi, led by the brightness of a star to worship the Christ child (Matthew 2). When Matthew cites Isaiah 9 in a later chapter, it fits the same triumphant coordinates. Matthew 4 recounts how Jesus relocated to the seaside city of Capernaum. Because this city falls within the traditional tribal territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, Matthew discerns in this detail the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy:

Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
    on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the gentiles—
the people who sat in darkness
    have seen a great light,
and for those who sat in the region and darkness of death
    light has dawned. (Matthew 4:15–16)

To echo these themes—gentiles, light, fulfilment—sermonically is therefore commensurate with Matthew’s Gospel. But there are resources available in the source text, Isaiah 9, that press beyond this message; that enable us to preach it not as a past triumph but as an abiding promise, a word of encouragement as we wait for God to bring about its full completion.  

Already one phrase in Matthew’s quotation hints at a larger significance of the light dawning. Matthew follows the ancient Greek translation of Isaiah in describing the predicament of “the people” in terms of sitting in the “darkness of death”—Greek: skia thanatou. This is somewhat distinct, a more ominous and cosmic condition, relative to the underlying Hebrew term (ṣalmāwet), which really only means extreme darkness, without reference to death. Yet Matthew, and the Greek translators of Isaiah before him, were picking up on an authentic resonance within the Isaiah passage. The darkness besetting the people is more than just (gentile) ignorance. 

This larger and more sinister resonance can be seen from consulting the preceding Isaiah chapter. The famous line from Handel’s Messiah (“on them light has shined”) responds to the conclusion of Isaiah 8:19–22. That oracle presents a scenario of divination, specifically necromancy, or communication with the dead. It raises the possibility: “Now if people say to you, ‘Consult the ghosts and the familiar spirits that chirp and mutter; should not a people consult their gods, the dead on behalf of the living, for teaching and for instruction?’…” (verses 19–20a). The oracle then pronounces a judgment on such people: “Surely those who speak like this will have no dawn!” (verse 20b). 

The line of thinking here seems to connect the dead with the earth where they are interred. Necromancers who “look to the earth” (verse 22a) for teaching and instruction will not only experience disappointment in that regard but will face an even greater shock: The sun, which appears to rise out of the earth, will refuse to emerge. No light, whether of spiritual illumination or solar brightness, will shine on them. Indeed, the final verse of chapter 8 piles up Hebrew vocabulary for darkness: “They will see only distress and darkness, the gloom [Hebrew: mə‘ûph] of anguish, and they will be thrust into thick darkness” (verse 22b).   

Thus the ending of one story—a judgment story. But then Isaiah 9 takes the conclusion of the previous chapter and transforms it into the beginning of a different story. What had been a finale becomes a “former time” in relation to another, “latter time.” Darkness is not, as it turns out, the last word, but rather the first, and the earth in general that had been the site of divination is localized, focused into specific lands of Zebulun and Naphtali. Verse 1 of chapter 9 hence reads like this: 

But there will be no gloom [Hebrew: mû‘āph, sounding like mə‘ûph in verse 22b] for those who were in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. 

The very next verse announces the shining of the light on those who had dwelt in deep darkness—or again, in Greek, the “darkness of death.” The mention of death in Isaiah 9:2 connects backward to the consultation of the dead in Isaiah 8. This link suggests that the darkness facing the people is more than just ignorance. It concerns the shroud that is cast over all the peoples (Isaiah 25:7)—the ongoing reality of death.

Even as we look back on the partial fulfilment of this prophecy—Jesus coming to Galilee, as Matthew narrates—the full dispersion of this darkness still lies ahead of us: “The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26). The subsequent proclamations of Isaiah 9 similarly exceed our current experience: “To us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders” (verse 6a). Yet, as Hebrews puts it: “We do not yet see everything subject to him” (2:8). The light has shined, yes, but in the meanwhile, before it shines completely, the promises of Isaiah 9 hold us in hope.