The promise the prophets kept making
“For to us a child is born. To us a son is given; and the government will be on his shoulders. His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”Isaiah 9:6 · WEB
Across centuries and through different prophets, a set of promises accumulates that does not quite fit together. A child will be born who is called Mighty God and Prince of Peace, and his government will never end. He will come from Bethlehem, a village too small to count. He will be a king in David's line — and also a servant, despised and rejected, wounded for our transgressions, silent before his accusers, buried with the rich, and somehow alive afterwards to see the outcome. No one reading these before the fact could reconcile a conquering king with a suffering servant. Israel waits four hundred years after the last prophet, with the promises on file and no obvious way for them all to be true at once.