As I’m working on this, early Christmas, really early Christmas music, is streaming from the chapel. Of course, we have started Advent in the church year. We have permitted the destructive themes of apocalyptic material dominate discussion, but here the aim of the revelation is to point to a brighter future that is new, that does not replay the past.
Jesse Tree-Jesse, of course, is the father of David. Some use the Jesse Tree as a decoration to teach the antecedents and promises of the Messiah. It is a large Advent calendar, in its way. Some may combien it as a gift tree for getting the poor some needed resents.
Regeneration- The emergence of a green shoot out of a seemingly lifeless stump is a type of resurrection. Patricia Tull notes in her commentary (229) the messianic power of this passage in late second temple Judaism. One could perhaps use this image to speak of regeneration in individual and collective life.
Again Hicks and the Peaceable Kingdom, that we touched on in Is. 65 recently certainly comes into play again. Notice how he often had Penn’s treaty with the natives of his colony, a sign of political peace for him. Again, look at the shifts in his repeated composition over the years.
End of Predation-”Nature is red in tooth and claw” with blood. That violent element of creation is pictured as ending, and a new era of natural shalom will emerge one fine day.
Gift of the spirit-we speak if this passage less than the fruit of the Spirit from the NT. We could spend more time on its emphasis on counsel, on deliberation. I learned 7 gifts, since the LXX added piety to the list, so it acts as the culmination of the set of pairs. Mental acuity is a major feature of this list of illumination. One could use it to discuss loving God and others with the mind.
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