What does it mean that a little child shall lead them in Isaiah 11:6?

In contrast to man's vaunted, and yet often futile efforts, God shows us in the remarkable passage of Isaiah 11 how He accomplishes His purposes, and removes every trace of the power of evil in a "little child." The word in the original could be translated "little finger" — and before this tiny symbol the whole power and ferocity represented in the previous verses is completely defeated, the whole earth filled with God's glory, the people blessed and a resting place of glory secured. A weaned Isaac was the occasion of "a great feast;" a weaned Samuel became a mighty prophet none of whose words dropped to the ground. Benjamin (the son of the right hand) is referred to as "little Benjamin" (Psalm 68:27), yet in Deuteronomy 33 he is spoken of as "the beloved of the Lord." In 1 Samuel 9 Saul refers to himself as belonging to the smallest tribe, and his family the least amongst them. In 1 Samuel 10 he "hid himself." As such he was anointed king and honoured of all. In 1 Samuel 15 he had lost the sense of smallness and hence came into rejection by God who "resisteth the proud." By contrast Saul the erstwhile proud "Pharisee of the Pharisees" is Paul (little) and in his own eyes is "less than the least of all saints." It is with this change of name he meets the attack of Elymas, the "child of the devil;" and it is as "less than the least of all saints" that the preaching of "the unsearchable riches of the Christ," and the making known of "the mystery … hid in God" is committed. It is as accepting the place of "a little child" that one is morally fitted to enter the region where the will of God — His kingdom — prevails (Matthew 18; Mark 10). A "little maid of Israel" carries the dual thought of smallness and of dignity. Her message is marked by affection and assurance and is honoured by God. She herself goes out of sight; in the reference to Naaman in the gospels the effect of her testimony only is mentioned.

In Isaiah 6 we find a remedy. How bring together the wolf, the leopard. the young lion, with the lamb, the kid, the calf? The situation seems impossible. And so it often is in assemblies of the Lord’s people, with such a divergence of natural characteristics, temperaments, outlooks, capabilities. I repeat, the thing seems impossible. But Isaiah also gives the remedy — “A little child shall lead them.” Do we believe it?

“ And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shalt dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the falling together; and a little child shall lead them ” (Isa.11).

In Isaiah 2 all outward evidence of hostility between men is abandoned; here the passions that give rise to that hostility are subdued and quelled, for the wolf and the leopard and the young lion represent uncontrolled passions of men; these animals will no doubt cease to be beasts of prey, but a greater change, because moral instead of physical, will take place in men, and this we are taught by the figure used, a little child shall be the leader.

In Isaiah 2 all outward evidence of hostility between men is abandoned; here the passions that give rise to that hostility are subdued and quelled, for the wolf and the leopard and the young lion represent uncontrolled passions of men; these animals will no doubt cease to be beasts of prey, but a greater change, because moral instead of physical, will take place in men, and this we are taught by the figure used, a little child shall be the leader.

The former passage tells of all the weapons of war being beaten into instruments of peace, of all hostility between nations ceasing for ever, in this passage we learn that there will be an inward change in men. The wolf, the leopard, and the young lion will cease to raven of course, but there is more in the passage than that; these fierce beasts represent the lust for blood and power in men, the cause of all the strife, they picture the inhumanity in them “that makes countless thousands mourn,” and the unbridled passions that drive them to brutal deeds. But all that will be changed. “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fading together and a little child shalt lead them.” This will be done by the power of God. Men will be born again. He says of His own people in that day, “I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh … and they shall be My people, and I will be their God” (Ezek. 11:19).

Lastly in Isa. 11. This chapter refers to what will obtain in the world to come, but I am convinced that some of these things can be experienced in the assembly today. What is the constitutional difference between this world and the world to come? A very simple one. In this world, man does what he likes. In the world to come, Christ does what He likes. Look at the blessedness of what accrues when Christ is doing what He likes. Evil is negatived; conditions of safety are there. These beasts represent principles which are diametrically opposed to each other in any scene but this. Here they are restful together. Why is it? For this is not the eternal state, it is the world to come. What permeates the whole? The spirit of a little child. Pride, arrogance and such like will not be there but the spirit of a little child, and this enables one to put his hand on the asp and the viper. The enemy can do nothing in the presence of the spirit of a little child.

But this proves the mistake of applying the language to spiritual effects now, still more of denying what awaits the earth and its denizens in "that day." If conversion and the fruit of the Spirit in the heart and life were sought, the supposed figures would ill express the idea. For the wolf and the leopard and the lion are represented as still existing, and contrasted with the lamb and the kid and the calf and the more general "fatling," but with instincts of prey quite vanished. Spiritually regarded, how strange to represent mankind as thus distinguished when the gospel pronounces all as lost and ungodly on the one hand, and all believers as alike saved, and God's children on the other! One could understand the metaphor of the wolf becoming a lamb, and perhaps the leopard a kid, if hardly a lion turning calf or fatling (though the shades become somewhat misty, even for the liveliest fancy). But the actual phraseology forbids all such flights; and as it speaks only of animals, once predaceous, dwelling in peace with the gentlest cattle, it cannot be duly interpreted, save as predictive of facts yet to be made good. Till then faith counts on the power God gives against a state of disorder, as when David saved the lamb, and slew both the lion and the bear, and as figuratively now one may be delivered out of the lion's mouth.

In "that day" will surely be "the regeneration," and the creature will be delivered into a state suited to Christ. An allegorical sense does not consist with the exactitude of the language; the simple grammatical or literal force is in unison with the Old Testament prophecy and New Testament doctrine. For as we were shown the setting aside of the antichrist at the end of this age, we have next a display of the reign of the true Christ and its beneficent effects. "And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the she-bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the adder, and the weaned child shall put forth his hand to the viper's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea" (vv. 5-9).

It is the world or habitable earth to come "whereof we speak" (Heb. 2:5) - not heaven, but earth, and especially the land of Israel under Him Whose right it is. What ground is there to doubt its plain and punctual accomplishment? Who has ever heard of any serious objection, save for Sadducean minds which know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? Why should it be thought a thing incredible that God should, in honour of the reign of Jesus, change not the face only but the habits and bent of all animated nature, delivering the creature from the bondage of corruption under which it now groans? When the days come, as Jehovah declares they surely must, that the ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that sows seed, it is not only the earth that shall answer suitably to His beneficent power, but the animal kingdom also, with the one exception which seems good to Him that does not forget the subtle evil-doer. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all His holy mountain. Even now, when other and deeper questions are before Him, what pity for babes and even for cattle! (See Jonah 4:11)

As the result of this, peace will descend upon the earth, so much so that all antagonism and ferocity will depart, even from the animal creation. The creature was made subject to vanity, not of its own will but by reason of the sin of Adam, and it is to be "delivered from the bondage of corruption" (Rom. 8:20-21); but the Apostle gives us a detail not made known to Isaiah, for it will be the time when not only the Shoot of Jesse will be manifested, but also the manifestation and glory of the sons of God.

The picture of millennial blessedness, presented to us in verses 6-9, is a very delightful one. Missionaries would tell us, we believe, that to slay and eat a kid of the goats is a special attraction for the leopard, just as the wolf naturally slaughters the lambs. All creation shall be at peace, all ferocity abolished; even the poisonous serpent deprived of its venom and its desire to bite. The earth in that day, instead of being full of the confusion and the conflicts created by the fall of man, will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. How do the waters cover the sea-bed? They do so completely, without one crevice being unfilled. Such is the lovely picture that is presented to us here.

Again, the ferocity of the wild beasts is restrained; and man's supremacy established. To the Son of man — the Second Man — all nature is made subject, "all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passes through the paths of the sea" (Ps. 8:7-8). Hence "the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together: and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den" (Isa. 11:6-8).