And the envy of Ephraim shall depart, and the troublers of Judah shall be cut off; Ephraim will not envy Judah, and Judah will not trouble Ephraim
Isaiah 11 describes the Messiah and His reign, and verse 13 turns to an old family wound: the split between the ten northern tribes, called Ephraim, and Judah in the south. Has that split ever healed, and what must change in people before rivals can live as brothers?
The break has a clear starting point in history and a fixed end in the future:
We would add only a few remarks to trace the roots of the division that took place at the death of Solomon. It tore the kingdom in two, and the two parts will not come together again until that day of Israel's regeneration still to come, when "the jealousy of Ephraim shall depart… Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah, and Judah shall not harass Ephraim."
The jealousy had a specific object: the birthright, and who would give Israel its Ruler.
Judah may have taunted Ephraim that the Ruler did not come from Ephraim. What use, then, was the birthright? Ephraim envied Judah the privilege and honour of giving the Ruler. That honour belonged by right to the one who held the birthright. In the coming day Ephraim will acknowledge that the birthright belongs to Him who fulfils the original promise in His own Person. He will appear then to reign over all Israel.
That temper was older than the split, and it kept showing itself:
From that time on, the tribe of Ephraim was always jealous about its position in the nation of Israel. It always envied those who did anything for God. They kept pushing themselves forward all through the book of Judges and in David's time. In the end that jealousy bore its proper fruit: the kingdom split in two.
Verses 11 and 12 promise that God will gather His scattered people. Verse 13 promises something no journey home can give:
"He shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah." What could be plainer than this? "The jealousy of Ephraim shall depart." It will not only be the restoration of the ancient people. It will be their spiritual renovation.
If this promise has already come true, history should show it. One writer puts the test simply:
"He shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah." Where and when has there been any approach to a fulfilment of this prophecy? It will not only be a national restoration in the fullest sense — the ten tribes as well as the two tribes, or "all Israel" as the New Testament puts it. There will also be a great spiritual work on souls. God's grace will remove all strife, rivalry, harassment and jealousy between the different parts of Israel.
The setting for the fulfilment is the King described earlier in the chapter:
So in Isaiah 11 and 12 we have the Messiah and His reign, the source of the millennial blessing of the people of God. The first verses of Isaiah 11 give His character; afterwards it is the effect of His reign.
Remove the envy, and what fills the space is more than a truce. One writer applies it to brothers who now wear on each other:
The same brothers who may now be a trial to one another, like Job and his friends, shall then heighten and enlarge each other's joy. And on the earth, "Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah, and Judah shall not harass Ephraim." Pride and selfishness cheapen the pleasures of the heart now, along with all their companion lusts and wickedness. In that day they will do so no longer.
And the healing does not stop at the family border:
Not only shall Ephraim not envy Judah, and Judah not envy Ephraim; but in that day there will not be an atom of narrowness in either toward the nations. God's mercy to them has enlarged their hearts. If the casting away of Israel meant the reconciling of the world, as it does now, what will the receiving of them be but life from the dead?
- Cause. Ephraim held the birthright, but the Ruler came from Judah. That grievance grew from the days of the Judges until the kingdom split in two.
- Cure. No king healed it. The cure waits for the reign of the Messiah, described earlier in Isaiah 11: His character first, then the effects of His rule.
- Change. Bringing the scattered home is not the whole promise. God removes the envy itself — a spiritual renovation, not just a change of address.
- Completeness. The restoration leaves no part of Israel out — the ten tribes as well as the two — and nothing in history has matched it yet.
- Consequence. With envy gone, brothers who once wore each other down enlarge each other's joy. That enlarged heart reaches past Israel to the nations.
but they shall fly upon the shoulder of the Philistines towards the west; together shall they spoil the sons of the east; they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab, and the children of Ammon shall obey them.
Isaiah 11 turns from a reign of peace to a scene of conquest, where a reunited Israel sweeps out against its old enemies. Two questions press: when does this happen, and how can nations long gone from the map take part?
Many read this as fulfilled when the exiles came home from Babylon. One writer sets that homecoming beside the promise and finds it far too small:
On the one hand, it is a poor fulfilment of this great and precious promise to suppose it all came true in the weak return from Babylon. Only a small part of the Jews went up to Jerusalem, with very few people of Ephraim... No, this is a bright day of great things, not for man only, but for the name of the LORD on earth. On the other hand, it is not the heavenly mystery of Christ and the church. It is the time when all things are restored, just as prophecy said. Nor is it the gospel calling souls out of the world for glory on high. It is the earth set free, Israel saved, and the nations converted under Messiah's reign, when His rest will be glory.
Isaiah calls this recovery a second one. Another writer works out what that single word rules out:
Suppose you count the return from Babylon, in Ezra's and Nehemiah's day, as the first restoration. Then for that very reason it cannot be the one foretold here, because this one is called the second... They are converted as well as restored; for it is at the time when "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea" (v. 9). Their enemies are subdued and overthrown.
Philistia, Edom, Moab and Ammon vanished from the map long ago. One writer meets that objection head on:
In that day the races that have vanished out of history will once more appear, according to prophecy, as Isaiah plainly declares (Isa. 11:14), and others also. The mouth of the LORD has spoken it. Unbelievers cry, Impossible. Good men are just as quick to believe their empty talk, because they are afraid to trust the word that lives and abides for ever.
Daniel 11:41 says that Edom, Moab and Ammon escape the invading king of the north. Read alongside Isaiah, that escape turns out to be a delay, not a rescue:
This escape is a detail not to be left out, because it shows the exactness of the written word. For in Isaiah 11:14 you will find that these three powers, which escape the king of the north, are still in existence later.
These nations once tormented Israel. One writer shows whose hand now carries out the sentence:
God will punish them in the end, and the Philistines too, by the very people they persecuted for so long. This comes when Messiah sets up His kingdom and Ephraim and Judah are one again. Israel will yet carry out God's judgment on these nations, who long ago oppressed them.
The shoulder is where a burden rides. One writer sees both a reversal of roles here and a mercy:
The Philistines will be burden-bearers. As they treated the Israelites with the greatest indignity in early days, they will be obliged to be their servants now. A very good thing, then, that they are even allowed to be servants. God in strict righteousness might have cut them off; but He is good.
The lands named in this verse sat inside the borders God first promised Israel. One writer explains why Israel never held them:
Israel is now ready to receive the full inheritance she has never yet had. Even in her greatest days, Moab, Edom and the Philistines lay inside the land God first promised her. Their divine Leader deliberately spared the first two, along with Ammon, the other son of Lot, and left them the lands they held then. But this was only temporary; for they never turned to God.
- Healed — Ephraim and Judah stop fighting each other, and act as one against the old enemies.
- Future — a second recovery cannot be the return from Babylon. It belongs to Messiah's reign, when the earth is full of the knowledge of the LORD.
- Literal — the peoples named here have vanished, but they will appear again. The names mean nations, not the church.
- Reserved — Edom, Moab and Ammon slip past the king of the north only because God has kept them for Israel's hand.
- Restored — God spares the enemies to serve, and Israel at last holds all the land promised.