Day 1: INTRODUCTION

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—and he will delight in the fear of the Lord, He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.
Isaiah 11:1-5

There are a number of places we see this reference-the ‘7 Spirits of God’: in Isaiah 11, the 7 ‘graces’ or ‘gifts’ Paul speaks of in Romans 12, the ‘7 Spirits of God’ represented by candlesticks and stars in Revelation and perhaps the ‘fruit of the Spirit’ in Galatians 5. (Though to the last we often say ‘fruits’ plural, but Paul didn’t say plural. It was one fruit-the Spirit- that manifests in actually 9 different forms). Or it could be a metaphor for the perfect Spirit of God-that of the Holy Spirit, as the number 7 is associated with completeness.  Some commentators take this to be a reference-based on the Greek rendering of the word ‘Dunamis’ as ‘power’, and indeed the reference in Revelation 1 of the 7 Spirits that stand before the throne of God are 7 ‘princes’ or ‘Archangels’ such as the one Daniel met in his vision as recorded in Daniel 10. 

But for this study, let us limit our consideration to the usage in Isaiah and it’s wording that fulfills itself in the coming Messiah prophesied there. For we see a parallel here that is in John’s Revelation, whereby Jesus-the Lamb of God-who holds the 7 spirits -and the prophesy of the coming Messiah who will have these 7 ‘spirits’ making up the sum of Him.

A bit of background: God has judged Israel, and He is about to unleash the Assyrians on them to punish them. This takes place in 721 B.C. when Sargon II captures the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom. Judah survived another 20 years before finally falling to the Babylonians. But God was not done with Israel as a nation-the Messiah had been prophesied to come from there and there were and still are promises He is going to keep. He had Isaiah write the prophesy in chapter 11 to remind Israel that He was not slack in either His punishments OR promised blessings. In this case of the coming Messiah, the one who would ‘take away the sins of the world’ (John 3:29).  As to the history of the Assyrian captivity, it is found in chapters 15, 17 and 18 of 2 Kings.

So for the next 7 days let us pause and consider just what makes up the ‘Messiah’-what these specific 7 ‘spirits’ or ‘ideals’ or what have you that we look to Him to have according to Isaiah’s prophesy, and see how they are fulfilled I our Lord.

Revelation 1:12-13
And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks one like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt abut the paps with a golden girdle