5 And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. He will be called Immanuel or the Prince of Peace, or here in chapter 11 He’s called “the Branch.”Īnd there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: 2 And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD 3 And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: 4 But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. In the face of warring nations and warring nature, Isaiah continues to set our hope on a miraculous birth. Well, as ever, Isaiah answers by pointing us to the Messiah. How absurd to think that nature itself could be tamed! What could possibly bring about such a cosmic reversal? Nature, as Tennyson reminded us, is red in tooth and claw.

Isaiah has painted a deliberately provocative scene. “The lion will lay down with the lamb, but the lamb won’t get much sleep.” (Woody Allen)

“No absolute is going to make the lion lie down with the lamb unless the lamb is inside.” (D.H. “Only in art will the lion lie down with the lamb, and the rose grow without thorn” (Martin Amis) It’s a vision that has drawn mockery from many quarters: Yet, as with a phrase like “ Pride goeth before a fall“, it’s the abbreviation that has survived the test of time: the lion shall lie down with the lamb.īut however it’s phrased, what could sound more unnatural than a wolf or lion lying down with a lamb? Isaiah wrote about “the wolf dwelling with the lamb while the leopard lies down with the kid… and the young lion” (Isaiah 11:6).

Here’s a phrase that has morphed from it’s biblical origins.

Lie down with lions