Isaiah 4 · a question people ask
"In that day, the LORD’s branch will be beautiful and glorious" (4:2). Who or what is the LORD's branch?
The verse says no more than its own words, and it sets a second line beside the first: "and the fruit of the land will be the beauty and glory of the survivors of Israel" (4:2). In Hebrew branch is tsemach, which Brown-Driver-Briggs gives as "sprout, growth" (tap branch). The Hebrew Bible uses it for what grows from the ground, as in "that which grew on the ground" (Genesis 19:25) and "For as the earth produces its bud" (Isaiah 61:11), and in Jeremiah and Zechariah for one the LORD raises: "I will raise to David a righteous Branch" (Jeremiah 23:5), "I will bring out my servant, the Branch" (Zechariah 3:8), and "Behold, the man whose name is the Branch!" (Zechariah 6:12). Isaiah 4:2 names no David, king or servant, and the New Testament never quotes the verse. Christians read "the LORD’s branch" here in more than one way: some as the one Jeremiah and Zechariah call the Branch (Jeremiah 23:5, Zechariah 3:8, 6:12), some as what the LORD makes grow for his people, beside "the fruit of the land" in the same verse (4:2). The verse doesn't settle it, and these notes don't either.
The verses
“In that day, the LORD’s branch will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the beauty and glory of the survivors of Israel.”
“He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew on the ground.”
“For as the earth produces its bud, and as the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring up, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.”
““Behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will raise to David a righteous Branch; and he will reign as king and deal wisely, and will execute justice and righteousness in the land.”