Jesus’ establishment of Capernaum as His headquarters and His ministry emphasis around the Sea of Galilee was a fulfillment of prophecy. And we can say that the prophecy was in a very precise context in Isaiah. First, of course, it is in Isa. 9:1-2 which is part of the Immanuel Prophecy (Ch. 7-12). In 9:2 the great light, according to Matthew, is Jesus. It/He shines upon those who have lived in the shadow of death. This is a description of the Galilee region. In Isaiah’s day it was part of the northern kingdom that had been conquered and deported by the Assyrians.
This devastation by the Assyrians was not unique. The heritage of Zebulun and Naphtali (Northern or Upper Galilee) were often exposed to ravages of enemy invasions. The Via Maris (Way of the Sea), the road from Egypt up the Mediterranean coast, then east along the shores of Galilee to Damascus, made these areas of frequent dispute. It was referred to as Galilee of the Gentiles as it was the common way for the nations to enter Israel, either for invasion or for commerce. (VB, p161)
The light did shine brightly in the Galilee. Jesus made more than one circuit around the area, teaching in all the synagogues. The light was so bright that Jesus singled out three cities in the area whose judgment would be more severe because they had seen such a Light (Capernaum, Bethsaida and Chorazin; Mt. 11:20-24).
Did the Jews understand from Isaiah 9:1-2 that the Messiah would have this connection with Galilee? The answer is, “not necessarily.” But does this matter? Jesus fulfilled this prophecy by His Galilean emphasis. Allow me to place a somewhat lengthy quote from Alfred Edersheim, whose Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah is the classic on the subject.
There was a dim tradition in the Synagogue, that this
prediction, ‘The people that walk in the
darkness see a great light,’ referred to the new light, with which God would enlighten
the eyes of those who had penetrated into the mysteries of Rabbinic lore,
enabling them to perceive concerning ‘loosing and binding, concerning what was
clean and what was unclean.’ Others regarded it as a promise to the early exiles,
fulfilled when the great liberty came to them. To Levi-Matthew it seemed as if
both interpretations had come true in those days of Christ’s first Galilean
ministry. Nay, he saw them combined in a higher unity when to their eyes,
enlightened by the great Light, came the new knowledge of what was bound and
what loosed, what unclean and clean, though quite differently from what Judaism
had declared it to them; and when, in that orient Sun, the promise of liberty
to long-banished Israel was at last seen fulfilled. It was, indeed, the highest
and only true fulfilment of that prediction of Isaiah, in a history where all was prophetic, every partial fulfilment only
an unfolding and opening of the bud, and each symbolic of further unfolding till,
in the fulness of time, the great Reality came, to which all that was prophetic
in Israel’s history and predictions pointed. And so as, in the evening of his
days, Levi-Matthew looked back to distant Galilee, the glow of the setting sun
seemed once more to rest on that lake, as it lay bathed in its sheen of gold.
It lit up that city, those shores, that custom-house; it spread far off, over
those hills, and across the Jordan. Truly, and in the only true sense, had then
the promise been fulfilled: ‘To them which
sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up.’ (AE, p462-463)
Did Jesus fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy? Yes. Did the picture look the way the Jews thought it would look? No. But then, that was common in Jesus ministry.
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