Isaiah 4

THE BRANCH OF THE LORD

‘In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel.’

Isaiah 4:2

The symbolism of the text is double. He who is the ‘branch of the Lord’ is also the ‘fruit of the earth.’ A comparison with the other passages in which precisely the same word occurs (Jeremiah 23:5; Zechariah 3:8; Zechariah 6:12) will make it clear that this phrase means the King Messiah. He was the ‘Branch of the Lord.’ The words for ‘glory’ and for ‘beauty’ are used to describe the priestly robes (Exodus 28:2). ‘The Branch of the Lord’ was thus to possess the holiness of priesthood, while as ‘the fruit of the earth,’ the grain of wheat cast into the ground, He was to be a sacrifice for sins, holy and acceptable for ‘them that are escaped of Israel,’ for the remnant of God’s people, who should believe in Him, and form the nucleus of the Church of Christ. We are thus taught with regard to our Lord’s advent and work:—

I. His holy manhood.—The perfect God-man in His sinless two-fold nature, exhibits to us not merely the holiness of the God, but the holiness of the ‘Branch,’ the descendant of David according to the flesh, the offspring of Mary the Virgin, that was found in our Lord. (1) That He was perfect Man is demonstrable from God’s Word. (2) That His holiness was perfect, and a human holiness, is equally provable. The holy attire of the Mosaic priest was a figure of the personal holiness of the Lord. Even the enemies of the faith admit that His character is ‘beautiful and glorious.’ Such should He be Who was to come.

II. His Divine sacrifice.—Delitzsch says: ‘He was the grain of wheat (the fruit of the earth) which redeeming love sowed in the earth on Good Friday; which began to strike through the ground and grow toward heaven on Easter Sunday; whose golden blade ascended heavenward on Ascension Day; whose myriad-fold ear bent down to the earth on the Day of Pentecost and poured out the grains from which the Holy Church not only was born, but still continues to be born.’ And the descriptive word ‘excellent’ is used in this prophet for the majesty of God. ‘The Branch’ was thus ‘the fruit of the earth.’ He was to be a holy man and a holy sacrifice.

III. The holy manhood and the Divine sacrifice the life of the Church.—‘For them that are escaped of Israel.’ The doctrine of ‘the remnant’ appears frequently in Isaiah and is treated of by St. Paul. The remnant was the foundation of the ever widening and spreading Catholic Church, and that Church has her foundation deep in the sacrificial manhood of the Saviour.

Illustration

‘The Branch can be no other than our Lord. He alone is worthy to be described in these adjectives, as beautiful and glorious, excellent and comely. It is a conception of the Messiah which is taken up by later prophets, as Jeremiah and Zechariah (Jeremiah 23:5; Zechariah 3:8), and has some analogy with the figure of the Vine. He is the Branch of the Lord, in His Divine nature, and of the fruit of the earth, as the Son of Mary.’