Verse by Verse study of Isaiah 11: 1 - 9
Seeing Beyond the Shadows
Isaiah is the kind of prophet who stands with one foot planted firmly in the crises of his own century and the other in the far horizon of God’s eternal story. He lived in the 8th century BC—around 700 years before the birth of Jesus Christ—during a time when the world felt dangerously unsteady. Assyria was rising like a brutal storm from the north, Israel was collapsing into exile, Judah was trembling, and kings lived in the uneasy space between faith and fear. Armies marched, alliances splintered, and the people wondered whether God had abandoned them. Yet into this swirl of anxiety and political collapse, Isaiah saw more than military reports and failing thrones. He saw a deeper story unfolding—a God who refuses to give up on His world and a future that evil cannot swallow.
It is in this weary, frightened landscape that Isaiah begins to speak of impossible things. He describes a Child who will carry the government of God on His shoulders; a King whose reign will be marked by wisdom, righteousness, and joy; a Branch growing from a cut-down stump, signaling that even when human history looks barren, God is quietly beginning again. These prophecies appear in the middle of siege threats, national humiliation, and moral decay, yet Isaiah dares to proclaim a world remade—justice for the poor, judgment for the wicked, harmony among creatures, safety for children, and peace that fills the earth like water fills the sea. It is the sort of vision C.S. Lewis would recognize instantly: that strange, bright tearing of the ordinary world, when we glimpse the real story behind the shadows.
A similar instinct shapes Z. Randall Stroope’s Dona Nobis Pacem. A composer who treats sacred text not as ornament but as soul-language, Stroope begins by letting the words themselves speak—whispering them, repeating them, attending to their emotional weight. The Latin prayer Dona nobis pacem —Grant us peace— echoes the longing of Isaiah’s day and the longing of every heart across the centuries. He has said that peace is never shouted into existence—it is longed for, waited for, prayed for—and the music reflects this quiet theology. He writes with an instinct for emotional arc rather than triumphal closure, shaping the piece so that the final Dona nobis pacem feels less like an ending and more like a candle left burning. In this way the music doesn’t merely accompany the text—it becomes the prayer itself.
Into Isaiah’s ancient dream, therefore, Stroope’s Dona Nobis Pacem enters with quiet beauty. When Stroope sets Isaiah’s imagery to music—the wolf resting with the lamb, the child fearless beside the viper’s nest—the prayer becomes both supplication and prophecy. It is the heart-cry of a world still bruised and waiting: Give us that peace… the peace Isaiah foresaw… the peace the Child of Bethlehem came to bring. And as the music rises, we find ourselves standing beside Isaiah across seven centuries, watching the hope of God slip quietly into a broken world—and daring to believe, as he did, that this Child is still the One who makes all things new.
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father,
You are the God who plants shoots in stumps, who begins new stories in the very places where ours seem to end. As we open this study of Isaiah’s vision, lift our eyes beyond what is broken toward the world You long to bring. Help us see, as Isaiah saw, the Child who comes quietly into history yet carries heaven’s peace within Himself. Let the Branch from Jesse’s stump become for us a sign that Your purposes endure, even when our circumstances feel barren or uncertain.
Send Your Spirit to rest upon us as He rested upon the Messiah—giving us wisdom to understand, reverence to listen, and delight to walk in Your ways. Still our hurried minds, soften our guarded hearts, and prepare us to hear Your Word with wonder. As we listen to Isaiah’s poetry and hear the ancient plea Dona nobis pacem—grant us peace, awaken in us a holy longing for Your kingdom, for Your justice, for Your healing of all creation.
Draw us into Your great dream for the world: a world reconciled, restored, and filled with the knowledge of the Lord as waters cover the sea. Let this study form in us not only understanding but trust, not only insight but expectancy, not only longing but hope. Come, Prince of Peace. Begin Your work in us today. Amen.
Isaiah 11:1 - The Branch of Peace
“Then a shoot will spring up from the stump of Jesse, and a Branch from his roots will bear fruit.”
Isaiah 11:1
Stroope’s text echoes Isaiah’s hope with quiet reverence: “A shoot will come from the stump of Jesse… Dona nobis pacem—Grant us peace.” It is a prayer whispered over desolate ground—a plea that God’s peace would rise where despair once lived. Isaiah opens with a startling promise: “Then a shoot will spring up from the stump of Jesse, and a Branch from his roots will bear fruit.” But why does Isaiah mention Jesse and not David, the celebrated king? Isaiah intentionally takes us back before the golden age of the monarchy—back to the humbler, quieter beginnings of David’s line. By choosing Jesse, the unknown father rather than the famous king, Isaiah signals that God’s new work will not be a revival of political grandeur or royal power. It will be a return to simplicity, humility, and dependence on God—an origin story starting again from the roots. The royal tree that once flourished has been cut down; only a stump remains. Yet Scripture insists that God’s purposes do not end where human eyes see endings. Even when the monarchy lay shattered, God had already pledged, “I will raise up for David a righteous Branch” (Jeremiah 23:5), and “Your throne shall be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:12–16). Alexander Maclaren captures the wonder: the Messiah arises precisely “when the fortunes of David’s house were at their worst… out of the stump is to come a ‘shoot,’ slender and insignificant.” Eugene Peterson echoes: “A green Shoot will sprout from Jesse’s stump.” What looks like loss becomes the seedbed of God’s renewal, and the choral cry Dona nobis pacem—Grant us peace, becomes the world’s longing for that new beginning.
This quiet shoot is the One Gabriel promised would sit on “the throne of His father David” (Luke 1:32–33), the One Revelation calls “the Root of David” (Revelation 5:5). E. Stanley Jones described the kingdom as “God’s new order,” the most radical proposal ever given to the human mind—and it begins exactly here, in hidden, unnoticed places where God brings life out of what seems dead. By naming Jesse instead of David, Isaiah anticipates a Messiah who will not rise from power but from humility, not from splendor but from a stump. Rick Warren reminds us that “nothing matters more than knowing God’s purposes for your life,” and Isaiah 11:1 announces that God’s purpose for the world is still moving forward even when history looks like a stump. In Advent, we stand before that stump and dare to believe, with prophet and choir alike, that what God plants cannot be uprooted; what God begins cannot be stopped. The Branch will bear fruit. The kingdom is coming. Dona nobis pacem (Grant us peace).
Isaiah 11:2-3 - “The Spirit of Peace”
“The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him— the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord. And He will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what His eyes see, and He will not decide by what His ears hear,”
Isaiah 11:2-3
Isaiah unveils the identity of the coming Messiah not through titles of power but through the quiet fullness of the Spirit: “The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him—the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.” This is not a king rising by force or political brilliance, but One shaped entirely by God’s breath. Isaiah’s sevenfold description echoes later visions of the “seven Spirits before the throne” (Revelation 1:4; 5:6), showing that the Messiah embodies the complete work of God’s Spirit. Stroope lets this prophecy sing: “The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him… and His place of rest will be glorious!”—a reminder that peace is not a condition of the world but a Person who carries God’s presence into the world.
The New Testament reveals this moment visibly when “the Spirit descended upon Him like a dove” at Jesus’ baptism (Matthew 3:16). Jesus Himself claims Isaiah’s promise when He reads in Nazareth, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me…” (Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18–21). J.B. Phillips captures the heart of this vision when he describes Jesus’ teaching as “God Himself explaining… how life is meant to be lived.” Eugene Peterson echoes this in The Message: “The life-giving Spirit of God will hover over him… instilling wisdom, understanding, and Fear-of-God.” Isaiah is telling us that the world’s renewal begins not with human resolve but with a Man fully saturated in God’s Spirit—Jesus, the Branch who bears fruit because the Spirit rests upon Him.
Isaiah continues, “He will delight in the fear of the LORD; He will not judge by what His eyes see nor decide by what His ears hear.” Here the prophet shows us the Messiah’s inner life: His deepest joy is to please the Father. “Fear of the LORD” is not dread but joyful reverence—the glad surrender that shapes real wisdom. Jesus echoes this heart when He declares, “My judgment is just because I seek not my own will but the will of Him who sent Me” (John 5:30). Even His enemies admit He “is not swayed by appearances” (Mark 12:14). Isaiah’s Messiah sees beneath surfaces, hears beyond gossip, and judges with the clarity that comes only from perfect communion with God.
Timothy Keller often describes the kingdom of God as “God’s power to renew the whole of creation… broken into the old world through Christ’s first coming.” Isaiah 11:2–3 reveals the source of that renewing power: the Spirit resting on the Messiah and the Messiah delighting in God above all else. Phillips reminds us again that the Spirit-filled life of Jesus shows “how life is meant to be lived”—a life guided not by appearances but by truth, not by ambition but by reverence, not by human sight but by God’s wisdom. When Stroope’s choral refrain returns—“Dona nobis pacem” (Grant us peace) —it becomes the prayer that this Spirit-shaped peace would rest upon us too, making us a people who see, hear, and live with the same clarity and joy as the One upon whom the Spirit rests.
Isaiah 11:4–5 - “The Justice of Peace”
“but with righteousness He will judge the poor, and with equity He will decide for the lowly of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth and slay the wicked with the breath of His lips. Righteousness will be the belt around His hips, and faithfulness the sash around His waist.”
Isaiah 11:4-5
Isaiah’s vision turns from the Messiah’s inner life to the way He rules: “With righteousness He will judge the needy, with justice He will give decisions for the poor of the earth.” This is no distant or indifferent king. His justice is fiercely protective of the vulnerable and compassionately tilted toward those society overlooks. The “rod of His mouth” and “the breath of His lips” signal the sheer force of His word—truth that dismantles oppression, speech that confronts lies, a voice strong enough to unmake evil (John 12:48; Revelation 19:15). Psalm 72 echoes the same hope: the ideal king “delivers the needy… saves the children of the poor… and crushes the oppressor.” In Stroope’s choral movement, this prophetic vision becomes prayer: “Dona nobis pacem—grant us peace.” Isaiah’s Messiah brings not sentiment but shalom—a world where justice is the foundation and peace is its fruit.
This righteous kingship fulfills Jesus’ own ministry: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me… to proclaim good news to the poor” (Luke 4:18–19). Isaiah insists that the Messiah’s rule is not neutral; it leans decisively toward mercy for the crushed and judgment for the cruel. Walter Brueggemann describes this as the Bible’s “central vision of world history”—all creation living in community, harmony, and security. In another reflection on Isaiah 11, he writes that this is creation “reconciled… when all God’s creatures ease up on hostility and destruction and find another way of relating.” Patrick Miller echoes the same conviction: shalom includes social, economic, and political wholeness, not merely inner calm. Under this Messiah, peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of justice.
Isaiah deepens this portrait with the imagery of clothing: “Righteousness will be His belt and faithfulness the sash around His waist.” For ancient readers, the belt held everything together; it was what allowed a person to move freely and confidently. Righteousness and faithfulness are not occasional actions for the Messiah but His very garments—His instinct, His identity, the atmosphere around Him. Isaiah 9:7 confirms this: His government is established “with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.” Eugene Peterson captures the tone beautifully: the Messiah’s reverence for God is His “joy and delight”—righteousness not as duty but as glad obedience.
E. Stanley Jones, whose life centered on the kingdom, observed that God’s order “demands total obedience in the total life,” yet paradoxically that obedience is “total freedom.” Isaiah 11:4–5 paints the One who embodies this freedom perfectly—the King whose justice liberates, whose faithfulness steadies, whose word reforms, and whose righteousness holds the world together. Rick Warren reminds us, “You cannot fulfill God’s purposes for your life while focusing on your own plans.” The Messiah’s heart draws us into a life larger than ourselves. As His people wear the same belt of truth and breastplate of righteousness (Ephesians 6:14), we join His mission: to see the poor, to speak truth, to live faithfully, and to pray with the world-longing chorus, “Dona nobis pacem—grant us peace.”
Isaiah 11:6–8 - “Creation at Peace: Creatures and Child Together”
“The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the goat; the calf and young lion and fatling will be together, and a little child will lead them. The cow will graze with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play by the cobra’s den, and the toddler will reach into the viper’s nest.”
Isaiah 11:6-8
Isaiah begins his peaceable kingdom vision with creatures that have never shared the same space without fear: “The wolf will live with the lamb… the leopard will lie down with the goat… the calf and the lion and the yearling together.” In these pairings of predator and prey, Isaiah imagines a creation no longer governed by threat or rivalry. Stroope lets the poetry breathe: “The wolf will lie with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the goat, and the calf and the lion and yearling together.” Walter Brueggemann calls this “a world in which creation is reconciled… when all God’s creatures ease up on hostility and destruction and find another way of relating.” This is not myth or sentiment—it is shalom restored, the world as it should be under the reign of the Messiah.
Isaiah presses deeper into this impossible harmony: “The cow will feed with the bear… and the lion will eat straw like the ox.” No longer do the strong devour the weak. The ferocious become gentle; the dangerous become tame. Stroope mirrors Isaiah’s vision with clarity: “The cow will feed with the bear, and the lion will feed with the ox.” This evokes Genesis 1:29–30, when all creatures lived peaceably in God’s original design. The New Testament sees the same horizon: creation groans for this day (Romans 8:19–22), and through Christ, God will “reconcile all things… making peace through the blood of His cross” (Colossians 1:20). Tim Keller says Jesus’s miracles are “a promise to our hearts that the world we all want is coming.” Isaiah’s animals give that promise flesh—Eden reawakened under the Branch’s gentle rule.
Then Isaiah moves from the wild to the intimate: “The infant will play near the cobra’s den… the young child will put his hand into the viper’s nest.” Vulnerability itself becomes fearless. The most fragile life stands unthreatened before what once killed. Stroope’s line carries the tenderness: “And the young child will play near the nest of the viper.” This is innocence preserved, not endangered; humanity restored to trust rather than fear. C.S. Lewis wrote that in God’s restored world, heaven will one day “work backwards” and turn even agony into glory. Here Isaiah anticipates that glory: a creation so healed that a child may wander freely where death once reigned. Fear is dethroned. Safety is universal. Shalom is embodied in the smallest human frame.
Taken together, Isaiah 11:6–8 offers a picture of the world as God intends it: every creature in community with every other, hostility replaced by harmony, danger replaced by delight. This vision is both literal and symbolic—literal in its promise of renewal, symbolic in its portrayal of the powerful and the vulnerable reconciled. Patrick Miller reminds us that biblical peace is not private serenity but communal flourishing—social, relational, ecological wholeness. And Brueggemann is right: this is the Bible’s central dream. When we hear Stroope’s choral refrain woven through these images, our hearts join Isaiah’s: Dona nobis pacem—grant us peace. Not just a peaceful moment, but the great peace—the healed creation Christ came to begin and will one day bring to completion.
Isaiah 11:9 - “The World of Peace”
“They will neither harm nor destroy on all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is full of water.”
Isaiah 11:9
Isaiah ends his peaceable-kingdom vision with a breathtaking horizon: “They will neither harm nor destroy on all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.” This is the reason creation can finally rest—because the world is no longer fragmented or hostile, but saturated with God Himself. This “knowledge” is not bare information about God; it is deep relational knowing—reverence, trust, love, and glad obedience. Habakkuk echoes the same future: “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD” (Habakkuk 2:14), and Jeremiah promises that one day, “They shall all know Me, from the least to the greatest” (Jeremiah 31:34). When God is known truly, harm cannot thrive, destruction cannot continue, and fear cannot survive.
Eugene Peterson captures Isaiah’s imagery with luminous clarity: “The whole earth will be brimming with knowing God-Alive—ocean-deep, ocean-wide.” This is the great tide of shalom that the prophets longed for and the apostles proclaimed. Jesus sends His followers into this future when He commands, “Go and make disciples of all nations…” (Matthew 28:18–20), a call that extends the knowledge of God until the whole creation is renewed (Revelation 21–22). E. Stanley Jones understood this expansiveness when he described the kingdom as God’s “new order” embracing not only individual hearts but the entire earth. Patrick Miller and Walter Brueggemann remind us that biblical peace is communal flourishing—social, economic, ecological, and spiritual well-being under God’s reign. When Isaiah says “no more harm,” he means a world in which every dimension of life is healed.
This is the horizon toward which God’s story moves, and the horizon toward which our prayers lean. Rick Warren is right: our lives only make sense inside God’s larger purpose, and Isaiah 11:9 reveals that purpose—a world fully aligned with God’s character. It is no accident that Stroope’s choral prayer rises here: “Dona nobis pacem—grant us peace.” It is both plea and prophecy. One day, peace will no longer need to be requested; it will be the air creation breathes, the truth creation knows, and the glory creation reflects. This is the future the Branch brings, the future Isaiah saw, and the future for which we still pray.
Conclusion - Until the Prince of Peace Returns
Isaiah 11:1–9 gathers the whole sweep of Scripture into a single, breathtaking vision. It begins with a stump—bleak, barren, seemingly final—and yet from that unlikely place a tender shoot emerges. The Messiah rises not from splendor but from what looks like failure, reminding us that God’s purposes do not falter when human history falls apart. Out of what appears to be the end, God quietly begins again. Then Isaiah leads us to the Spirit-anointed King, the One who carries God’s wisdom, understanding, counsel, and might. He sees with God’s eyes, delights in God’s heart, and judges with a truth untouched by appearances. Here is the world’s true Center stepping gently into the world’s confusion.
From that Center the vision begins to widen. Justice rises for the poor. Evil is confronted and undone. Hostility unravels. Predators rest beside prey. Children play where death once lurked. Creation exhales for the first time in ages. It is a world healed from the inside out—a great restoration in which all things move toward harmony. One can almost hear Lewis saying that in the kingdom of the Messiah, “everything sad is going to come untrue,” and Isaiah’s images echo that promise with startling clarity. This is peace with weight and substance: not sentiment, but shalom—thick, communal, creation-deep restoration.
And then Isaiah brings us to the horizon toward which all Scripture leans: a world “full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.” A world so saturated with God’s presence that harm becomes unthinkable and peace becomes the air all creation breathes. This is the kingdom already breaking in through Christ’s first coming and the kingdom that will one day flood the world entirely—what Lewis might call the moment “when the real story begins.” Until that day, we live between stump and shoot, between promise and fulfillment, learning to hope, to watch, to long, and to pray, Dona nobis pacem—grant us peace. For the time is coming when peace will no longer be petitioned but simply lived, when creation will finally become what God has dreamed it to be from the beginning.
Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus,
You are the Child Isaiah promised and the King who will one day set all things right. We thank You for the glimpse of Your kingdom in Isaiah’s vision—for wolves resting with lambs, for children unafraid, for creation healed, and for a world filled with the knowledge of the Lord as waters cover the sea. Let these promises sink deeply into our hearts and steady us in the days we live between Your first coming and Your glorious return.
Make us people who join Your work of peace: people who lift the poor, speak truth, practice mercy, and live in joyful reverence. Shape in us the righteousness that is Your belt and the faithfulness that is Your sash. Align our small stories with Your great story, our desires with Your dream, our lives with Your kingdom.
And until the day when “everything sad is going to come untrue,” and Your shalom becomes the atmosphere of all creation, keep this prayer on our lips and in our hearts: Dona nobis pacem—grant us Your peace.
Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Amen.
“Dona Nobis Pacem by Z. Randall Stroope is a serene yet compelling choral work that weaves the timeless plea ‘grant us peace’ into rich, expressive harmonies. Through its elegant melodic lines and emotional depth, the piece invites listeners to reflect on our shared longing for peace in a fractured world.”
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