Isaiah 11:4

This is the standard according to which He will judge when saving, and judge when punishing. "And judges the poor with righteousness, and passes sentence with equity for the humble in the land; and smites the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He slays the wicked. And righteousness is the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the girdle of His hips." The main feature in Isa 11:4 is to be seen in the objective ideas. He will do justice to the dallim, the weak and helpless, by adopting an incorruptibly righteous course towards their oppressors, and decide with straightforwardness for the humble or meek of the land: ‛ânâv, like ‛ânı̄, from ‛ânâh, to bend, the latter denoting a person bowed down by misfortune, the former a person inwardly bowed down, i.e., from all self-conceit (hōcı̄ach l', as in Job 16:21). The poor and humble, or meek, are the peculiar objects of His royal care; just as it was really to them that the first beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount applied. But "the earth" and "the wicked" (the latter is not to be understood collectively, but, as in several passages in the Old Testament, viz., Psa 68:22; Psa 110:6; Hab 3:13-14, as pointing forward prophetically to an eschatological person, in whom hostility towards Jehovah and His Anointed culminates most satanically) will experience the full force of His penal righteousness. The very word of His mouth is a rod which shatters in pieces (Psa 2:9; Rev 1:16); and the breath of His lips is sufficient to destroy, without standing in need of any further means (Th2 2:8). As the girdle upon the hips (mothnaim, lxx την̀ ὀσφύν), and in front upon the loins (chălâzaim, lxx τὰς πλευράς), fastens the clothes together, so all the qualities and active powers of His person have for t…

It is a very good transition in prophecy (whether it be so in rhetoric or no), and a very common one, to pass from the prediction of the temporal deliverances of the church to that of the great salvation, which in the fulness of time should be wrought out by Jesus Christ, of which the other were types and figures, to which all the prophets bore witness; and so the ancient Jews understood them. For what else was it that raised so great an expectation of the Messiah at the time he came. Upon occasion of the prophecy of the deliverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib, here comes in a prophecy concerning Messiah the Prince. I. His rise out of the house of David (Isa 11:1). II. His qualifications for his great undertaking (Isa 11:2, Isa 11:3). III. The justice and equity of his government (Isa 11:3-5). IV. The peaceableness of his kingdom (Isa 11:6-9). V. The accession of the Gentiles to it (Isa 11:10), and with them the remnant of the Jews, that should be united with them in the Messiah's kingdom (Isa 11:11-16) and of all this God would now shortly give them a type, and some dark representation, in the excellent government of Hezekiah, the great peace which the nation should enjoy under him, after the ruin of Sennacherib's design, and the return of many of the ten tribes out of their dispersion to their brethren of the land of Judah, when they enjoyed that great tranquility.

11:4 The poor and . . . the exploited would receive the justice due to them, which the wicked leaders of Judah had previously withheld. • the force of his word: Literally the scepter of his mouth (see Ps 2:9; Rev 19:15).