Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

The Northern Kingdom of Israel is falling apart, but the Southern Kingdom of Judah is still moving along, and that's where we find ourselves today.

King Uzziah has just

died, and his son Jotham takes over the throne officially. Jotham was one of the good kings in the

southern kingdom, and 276 says he became mighty because he ordered his ways before the Lord

his God. It's important to note that this corresponds directly to God's covenant promise with the Kings of David's line.

He promised them that if they obeyed him, they'd flourish, and if they didn't, they wouldn't.

It's important to remember these kinds of context details.

Otherwise, we might be tempted to look at our own lives or the lives of others,

and try to determine what their faith is like based solely on their apparent circumstances.

After Jotham dies, his son Ahaz takes over the throne, and he is not a great king. We'll read more

about him in two days, so buckle up. Moving on to our chapters in Isaiah, the early parts of

Chapter 9 include some verses you may have recognized as messianic prophecy.

Or maybe you just thought, hey, that's on a lot of Christmas cards.

It's natural for us to look at this and immediately attach it to Jesus, but let's talk about what people in Isaiah's time would have thought of this prophecy.

They're living in a land that constantly sees war.

They've experienced lots of oppression and exile, their nation state exists in division and decay,

and they currently live with the threat of the Assyrians attacking them. So when Isaiah

prophesies about the birth of a new king under whose reign light will dawn and oppression will cease,

they're thinking literally. They expect a literal king who will win every war. That sounds awesome.

But in light of all it really means, it's incredibly short-sighted. There are a few hints in this

passage that let us know it's more than what they expect.

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