“On that day the root of Jesse will stand as a signal for the peoples; nations will come to him to inquire.” (Isaiah 11:10, Quinn-Miscall p.64)
“And again, Isaiah says: ‘There shall be a root of Jesse; And He who shall rise to reign over the Gentiles, In Him the Gentiles shall hope.’” (Romans 15:12 NKJV)
Isaiah 11:10 brings back the Shoot from 11:1. The green part of the root of Jesse now has grown, and will “stand” for all to see, as a “signal for the peoples.” The Shoot includes its root, the original idea of God that the world will be saved in this way, an idea as small and fragile as a growing seedling.
The Hebrew text says the shoot is a “signal” or “banner” the peoples, like the antiphonal banners in St. Mark’s. The Greek text differs significantly. In Greek, the word maintains the basic concept of “shoot” but shifts it toward the royal meaning of “scepter,” so that the Greek text says the shoot will “rule over” the nations. This shifts the verse toward a more traditional royal, political meaning.
The Greek text is clearly political, but as Peter Quinn-Miscall points out, nowhere does the Hebrew text specify that the shoot is a king. Quinn-Miscall interprets the text literally, concluding, “I do not speak of the shoot as a king, real or ideal.” This literalism lets the word shine with its own color, next to the regal purple of the Greek word “rule over.”
The verb saying what the root does also differs between the two texts. In Hebrew, the root “will stand” but in Greek it “shall rise.” The Greek verb, “anistamenos,” adds the prefix “ana-“ meaning “up” to the Greek word for “stand.” This is one of Paul’s favorite words, both in Acts and in his letters. When Paul preached in Athens, he talked so much about the “anastasin,” the resurrection, that at first the philosophers half-listening to him thought Paul was preaching about two gods, “Jesus” and “Anastasin” (“Resurrection”)!
So at the very end of his greatest, longest argument, Paul concludes with a verse that says exactly what he wants to say, just written by Isaiah hundreds of years before. Paul quotes the Greek text of Isaiah 11:10, saying the root of Jesse shall rise (“anistamenos”) to reign over the nations. (Romans 15:12). After this, Paul has made his point. He drops his mic (so to speak) and moves on to practical matters like travel plans and farewells.
Paul quotes Isaiah 11:10 to say that Jesus has received the Gentiles into the family of God, as Isaiah predicted. Paul also uses this verse because it says HOW Jesus will be seen by the nations, by “rising up” from the lowest point, from death itself. As Jesus said, “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.” (John 12:32) The cross is a banner or signal that both confounds and attracts the nations. Jesus is the stumbling-block that can also be the sheltering rock, depending on how you approach Him.
Here, we can let the growing green Hebrew word “shoot” and royal purple Greek word “scepter/rule over” overlap and reinforce, so that both meanings mix. This shoot both stands and rises up; it both signals and rules; it both entices and governs the nations. This shoot is indeed a king, but a different kind of king, one in which the very concept of leadership and lordship has been transformed, one who burns up the garments rolled in red blood.
In Jesus, and before that through Isaiah, God changed what it means to be a king into something with shades of green like Isaiah’s shoot. After all, green is the color of the life-giving power of the Spirit, according to Hildegard of Bingen, and this same Spirit rests on the shoot (Isaiah 11:2). (“St. Hildegard of Bingen develops this idea of the greening power of the Holy Spirit, calling it viriditas.” in “Do We Love Creation Like God Does?” by Terry Ehrman in Church Life Journal, https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/do-we-love-creation-with-the-same-love-god-has-for-it/ ).
But Isaiah isn’t done with his predictions about the Shoot. Much later in his book, Isaiah describes a strange, suffering figure, a Servant who God appoints to be rejected and afflicted by the crowd. In one of the songs about the Servant, he is described with terms from Isaiah 11:
“He grew up before him like a sapling, like a root from dry ground; He had no form, no beauty, that we should look at him, nor appearance that we should find him pleasing.” (Isaiah 53:2, Quinn Miscall p. 197)
The “root” is the same word as in 11:1; the “sapling” is actually related to the “nursing infant” from 11:8. These two unusual words are no coincidence, and they point to a deep connection beyond appearances. The “appearance” of the Servant is not beautiful, not at first, but if this is the same as the figure in Isaiah 11, he must have a deep attraction that calls to the deepest needs of the nations. They are not coerced into his empire, but they come to him of their own free will. This too is God’s plan.
Some of the language in Isaiah 53 is difficult to even translate. Verse 8 asks a question but we’re not sure what it is. If it’s translated “Who shall declare his Generation?” then Katherine Sonderegger sees in this the three-part generative movements of the Trinity, each person giving and receiving as the Servant gives (in her Systematic Theology).
But others see other questions. Quinn-Miscall translates this verse as “Who could imagine his fate?” (n. 39 p. 213) The ambiguity fits here. The Servant is beyond appearances, beyond imagination, beyond us. He is part of the “bright darkness” of God.
After this question, Isaiah goes on to say what the Servant does: he absorbs the bad, the sickness and sin, and takes it on himself. Who can imagine this fate? How does this work? Isaiah says that, like water, “he poured out his life to death” and “he bears the sins of many and intercedes.” (53:12, Quinn-Miscall, p. 200)
I’ve got to stop asking how this works and just see if it will work. That is the leap of faith I need right now. Pride insists on choosing your own burden and on choosing others’ burdens. The Servant in humility does not choose his burden – he obeys and carries.
Rene Girard wrote that “the most dangerous temptation [is] the pride that aspires to uniqueness, picturing this uniqueness first as a prize that must be won, and then as an insufferable burden that we frantically try to unload on others. The victimization of others is a defense against the self-victimization to which the failure of pride inevitably leads.” (Theatre of Envy p. 326 on The Winter’s Tale)
The Servant is not proud – in Isaiah, he’s not even named. He refuses to victimize others and becomes the victim. This does more than revealing the corruption of the system (although it does that). It somehow metaphysically transfers weight from the victim you blame to the Shoot and Servant you trust, not a general principle but a specific Person. But to transfer the weight I first have to let it go.
I see this in my favorite stories (The Fisher King, The Leftovers) and hear it in my favorite songs (“One”). It plays in ten thousand places because it is a deep truth of the universe that I’ve got to learn over and over.
I can only open the window in a short blog post, but there are mysteries and riches to be found in comparing Isaiah to Isaiah and the Shoot to the Servant. When comparing these two chapters, I can start to see how someone well-versed in the prophetic literature, someone like John the Baptist, could look at his cousin Jesus and be inspired to declare, “Behold! The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” John the Baptist’s imagination was trained to see the Shoot and the Servant when he appeared.
Our job is to contemplate all this and to try and fit these differently colored texts together so they add together like mixed colors of light. After we put together the Hebrew and Greek texts for Isaiah 11, we can also put together the bright colors of Isaiah 11 and the dark tones of Isaiah 53.
The Shoot draws people with its beauty, but the Servant is hard to even look at. The Shoot bears fruit, but the Servant bears burdens. Both are true of Jesus, fully God and fully human, and in their combined truth, we sense the infinite truth beyond appearances, with the power to carry away and forgive.
(Image: The prophet Isaiah, stained glass window in St. James church in Hohenberg, Germany, https://www.dreamstime.com/prophet-isaiah-stained-glass-window-st-james-church-hohenberg-germany-prophet-isaiah-stained-glass-window-sieger-image177142610 )
