Isaiah 9:6: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given and the government will be upon His shoulders.”
With the advent of worship teams, church choirs are starting to become an endangered species, if they are not already extinct. That is good and bad in certain ways. For me it is good in the sense as I no longer have to endure Christmas or Easter Cantatas. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with some quasi classical cantata musical score running through my head. One such score came from a Christmas Cantata I endured as a child that comes to haunt me many times in the middle of the night. It is a musical score where the choir keeps repeating Isaiah 9:6 and the phrase; “And the government will be upon His shoulder.” Only they do it in a halting voice like some opera or bad movie musical you know where they emphasize each syllable and the gov—er—ment—will – be—etc. Sort of like they hiccup their way through it. Not only would the whole choir do it together but then each group singing their musical part would do it, the tenor, the bass, then the baritones etc. They finally work their way down to various soloists singing in a falsetto voice and the gov-er-ment-will-be-…
Last night as the Christmas season came to an end, I re-read the Christmas story including Isiah 9:6. At about 3:00 in the morning I woke up thinking I had the hiccups only to realize I was be haunted by that nightmarish Cantata I heard so many years ago as a child and the choir singing the government shall be upon His shoulder part. I figured, “that’s it.” So I got up and began to do some research to see if I could find some redeeming message in that government upon His shoulder bit, other than the fact that the government gave Jesus a hard time while he was on the earth?
Then I started wondering, “Just what makes us think that phrase has to mean the government gave Jesus a hard time?” For one thing, it really does not fit the context and another when you look at the word for government in the Hebrew, you find the word is sarah which only has some obscure use as government. As one rabbi once said, “Christian translations of the Jewish Bible tend to do a lot of editorializing.” Such is the case here with the Hebrew word sarah. In its Semitic root sarah really has the idea of protecting someone or fighting for someone. In a sense, I suppose, that is the purpose of a government, but do we have to really translate it as government?
The phrase sarah (government) being upon one’s shoulder is an expression that is used in the Near East in the climax of a marriage ceremony. Even today it is practiced in some Semitic cultures. However, it is a common practice in a Jewish wedding that is familiar to most of us. In a Jewish wedding ceremony a veil is always used to cover the face of the bride. Removing the veil is the most dramatic moment of the wedding. It is the climax and probably the most romantic part of the wedding ceremony. The bride will walk around her groom three times. It is believed that the groom is closest to God during this time as his future wife’s role will be to serve as a gateway to God. In fact people often slip a prayer request to the bridegroom to offer up to God at this time. You see it is believed that a male child receives instructions about the Torah, the laws of God, from his parents as he is going through childhood. However when he becomes an adult and has the laws of God down pat, he is ready to leave his parent’s instruction and be married to a woman who will replace his parents role as teachers and take the role of instructing him in his love relationship to God by teaching about the love and mercy of God. When the bride circles her groom three times it is to declare that his bride will teach him three things about God as found in Hosea 2:21-22. She will teach him of the righteousness and justice of God by being righteous and just before him. She will teach him of the love and mercy of God by loving him and being merciful to him. Finally she will teach him of the faithfulness of God by being faithful to him. She circles her bridegroom as the circle is the picture of eternity and thus she is declaring that she will be betrothed to him forever to demonstrate what God promised to us in Hosea 2:21 that He will be betrothed to us forever. Then the bridegroom will remove the veil from the bride’s face and throw it over his shoulder. In this gesture the groom is making a public declaration that the government of his bride will be upon his shoulder. In other words it will be his honor and privilege to now be her protector and provider. He will protect her heart and provide all the love and affection that God created her to desire just as God has placed within us the need for love and affection from Him which He has promised to provide. It is also a demonstration of the fact that we are to be God’s protector and provider. That is to protect His heart and provide Him with all the love and affection that He longs for from us.
I believe that is what Isaiah 9:6 is conveying to us, not that the Messiah will have a difficult time with the governments of the earth, but that he will throw the veil of his bride over his shoulder signifying that he will be the protector and provider for His bride, which is us and His church. By dying on a cross and rising from the dead, He will defeat the sin that keeps us from consummating our marriage to Him and he will remove that veil from our face and throw it over his shoulder signifying that He will protect our hearts and love us for all eternity.
Now, at least, if I should awaken to the sounds of this really bad musical score running through my head, and listen to that choir hiccup its way through the government shall be upon his shoulder routine, I can find some real comfort in being reminded that God has voluntarily taken on the role of being my provider and protector. Not a bad thought to have in the middle of the night.
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