Chapter 23 — Isaiah 9:5–6 Is Read and Explained

DTT.01_023,01 The chief priest pushed the book towards Me and said, “There! Read it yourself and convict yourself!”

DTT.01_023,02 I took the book and handed it to the judge, pointing out the passages and asking him to read them aloud so that no one could say I had read them in My own favour. The judge could easily do so, for he knew most of the languages of the East and read the ancient Hebrew script far better than all the Temple officials together.

DTT.01_023,03 The judge took the book gladly and read: ‘To us a child is born, to us a son is given, whose dominion rests upon his shoulder. He is called Wonderful, Counsel, Power, Hero, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His dominion shall be great, and there shall be no end to peace upon David’s throne and in his kingdom. He shall establish it with judgement and righteousness from now on and for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.’ The judge then asked the chief priest whether he had read the passage correctly.

DTT.01_023,04 The chief priest assented with a deep bow.

DTT.01_023,05 The judge continued on My behalf, saying, “In my view you have chosen exactly the passage that fits this dear and wise young boy as precisely as scarcely any other!

DTT.01_023,06 “We have discussed how a virgin would bear a son and call him Immanuel, and at least to my own understanding it is so clear that I have not the slightest doubt this boy is the very son foretold by the prophet, born of the virgin whom you admit you know well, Mary, I believe.

DTT.01_023,07 “If I am not mistaken, the centurion Cornelius told me not long ago of the wondrous birth of a boy in Bethlehem, in an empty sheepfold for want of better lodgings. He spoke with great enthusiasm and heartfelt sympathy for the remarkable family’s difficult circumstances at the time. He often asked after them but had heard nothing since they left Egypt. Unfortunately affairs of state took him to Tyre, or he would certainly be sitting here.

DTT.01_023,08 “As far as the boy’s foretold birth is concerned, then, we are clear, and no objection can stand before the tribunal of sound and unbiased reason.

DTT.01_023,09 “As for his eating butter and honey so that he may understand and choose the good and reject the evil, in the ancient Egyptian manner I can only take it as a correspondence. In my judgement it means perhaps that he will be filled with all love and wisdom and know well what is truly and purely good and what is decidedly evil.

DTT.01_023,10 “He gave you the clearest proof a little while ago that he can do this as no wise man or scholar in the world can. He must have spiritual honey and spiritual butter in the greatest abundance. He has shown this sufficiently even to you, the wisest men of the Temple. You could learn a great deal from him, but he could surely learn nothing from you! That should show how much honey and butter he must have taken in by now.

DTT.01_023,11 “All this testifies even more clearly that he is the Immanuel foretold by the ancient prophet and born of a virgin. No virgin will ever bear such a son on earth again!

DTT.01_023,12 “In the whole vast Roman Empire I have never met a boy of twelve who comes even remotely near him, quite apart from his incomprehensible powers to work wonders. So I believe the second passage of the prophet, which you yourselves have put before us, fits him just as closely as the first, which he raised at the outset as an opening question.

DTT.01_023,13 “Truly, in him a child above all children has been born to us, a son from the bosom of the gods, as we Romans say, given to us mortals. He bears his incomprehensible dominion on his very own shoulders and needs no one to help him.

DTT.01_023,14 “The prophet plainly used the names he listed to describe the boy’s qualities. Tell me yourselves whether he lacks even one.

DTT.01_023,15 “Is he not wonderful in his understanding, his speech and his deeds?

DTT.01_023,16 “What wise man on earth can give me wiser counsel than this true and purest son of the gods?

DTT.01_023,17 “Surely no one who has heard him speak and seen him act will doubt that he possesses truly almighty power in every respect, over spirit as over matter.

DTT.01_023,18 “He has shown his fearless heroism clearly enough in the courage with which he faced you notoriously arrogant priests, who have yourselves praised and worshipped far above all the gods.

DTT.01_023,19 “In a few words he made it so clear to you how his spirit is necessarily eternal and one with the Spirit of God that one would have to be struck with the blindness of every night that ever fell on earth not to feel at once where this wind begins to blow from.

DTT.01_023,20 “I have already felt that he alone can give a person true, living inner peace. That makes him the truest prince of all the princes on earth, able to give people a peace no other prince can give.

DTT.01_023,21 “He alone can restore to life David’s old kingdom of prophetic vision and understanding, which you long ago destroyed. He can found a dominion to which all the princes of the earth, despite their sceptres and crowns, will be subject for ever. The kingdom of the clearest understanding is and remains the strongest in the world, and no power can ever wholly subdue it. Where there is light that sees through everything, there is also right judgement and the fullest, most open justice.

DTT.01_023,22 “Finally it says, ‘The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.’ Who else is the Lord of hosts Himself but the Spirit of God who fills this boy through and through? I saw that at once! How is it that you did not, when it plainly ought to concern you more than it concerns me, a Gentile?

DTT.01_023,23 “O gods and all the oracles of the world together! How terribly blind, foolish and utterly wicked of heart you must be not to see and feel at once where this wind began to blow from. I, a Gentile, have to tell you that it is so.

DTT.01_023,24 “What would the prophet who wrote down this prophecy say to your dark obstinacy if he rose again and stood before you?

DTT.01_023,25 “Do you feel no shame as you stand there foolish and blind before him whose will alone allows you to keep the corrupt life you have brought upon yourselves and the dark dominion that goes with it? Could he not do with you what he did yesterday with the fully formed donkey and the great stone?

DTT.01_023,26 “Still they rack their brains over what might be right, either before a God they do not know and have never believed in, or before the world on which they have all grown fat and intend to grow fatter still. Yet a most true god stands before them, endowed in the most exalted way with every quality the human imagination could ever ascribe to a god!

DTT.01_023,27 “Now I should like to hear from you old fools how you picture a god! Surely you must form some conception of him. Speak, for I now command you to answer me!”