Isaiah gave these four names to a frightened king while Assyria was swallowing the north. Seven centuries later Jesus started preaching in the same territory, and his government has been growing ever since.
The Prince of Peace is the last of four names Isaiah gave to a promised son of David in Isaiah 9:6. In Hebrew it is sar shalom, the ruler of wholeness, and it belongs to Jesus.
Isaiah announced it to a Judah shaking under Assyria. Matthew saw it begin when Jesus moved to Galilee, and verse 7 promises that this government never stops growing.
Isaiah did not describe a peace we are still waiting for. He described a Kingdom that starts small and keeps increasing, and we live inside it now.
Pele is the Hebrew word for a wonder, the kind God works at the Red Sea in Exodus 15:11. This king's counsel carries the wisdom of God, exactly what Ahaz refused to hear from Isaiah.
Isaiah uses this exact phrase in Isaiah 10:21 for the LORD himself: a remnant will return to the Mighty God. It is not a royal compliment. Isaiah puts divine language on a human child.
Ad means perpetuity, time that keeps going. In Isaiah 22:21 a faithful steward is told he will be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. A father in a ruler's role is a protector and provider, and this one never stops.
The climax. Wisdom, divine power and fatherly care, all aimed at one outcome: people and places made whole.
The third name trips people up. Some conclude that Jesus and the Father are the same Person wearing different masks. That is wrong. The Son is fully God and distinct from the Father, as Scripture reveals the Trinity. Avi ad describes what kind of king he is to his people, not which Person he is.
One more thing worth knowing. The Jewish Publication Society's 1917 translation does not break the name into titles at all. It renders the verse “his name is called Pele-joez-el-gibbor-Abi-ad-sar-shalom”, one long name, like the sentence names Isaiah gave his own sons. Read that way, the name can be a statement about God rather than titles for the child. Careful people hold that reading, and we will come back to it.
Isaiah 9 is not a Christmas card that fell out of the sky. It ends a long argument between a prophet and a king, and the geography in verse 1 is the key.
Syria and northern Israel march on Jerusalem, and the king's heart shakes like trees in the wind. Isaiah tells him to trust God. Ahaz declines.
He sends temple silver and gold to Tiglath-pileser and calls himself his servant and son. Protection bought, independence sold.
Tiglath-pileser captures Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carries the people captive to Assyria.
The land of Zebulun and Naphtali, brought into contempt in the former time, will be made glorious in the latter time. The people who walked in darkness will see a great light.
Jesus settles in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, Matthew quotes Isaiah, and Jesus begins preaching that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
The light Isaiah promised was to rise in the region that went dark first, and that is exactly where Jesus began. Read more about the prophet himself in who Isaiah was, and the shape of his whole book in what the book of Isaiah is about.
“For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.”
Isaiah 9:5That verse sits right before the four names. Isaiah does not mean a truce between exhausted armies. The gear of war itself goes into the fire.
In English, prince sounds soft, a king's son waiting his turn. Sar is not that word.
A head person of any rank. The standard lexicon gives chieftain, chief, ruler, official, captain, prince. It is the word for someone who already holds authority, including the commander of an army.
Completeness, soundness, welfare, peace. It comes from the root shalam, to be complete. Shalom is wholeness first, and the absence of war is one of the things wholeness includes.
The ruler of wholeness. Someone with real authority whose campaign is to make people, households and nations complete again.
Watch the shoulder in this passage. In verse 4 the staff on Israel's shoulder is broken. In verse 6 the government goes on his shoulder. The weight moves from the oppressed people to the king.
Now a correction, even though it cuts in our favor. A popular teaching says the letters of shalom spell out a hidden sentence about destroying the authority attached to chaos. It sounds wonderful and has no basis in Hebrew. You do not need a secret code in a word that already means wholeness. For more on the word itself, see the meaning of shalom in the Bible.
Sar shalom is a ruler with real authority whose whole agenda is wholeness. Peace is what his government produces, not a mood he hands out.
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Manage My Giving"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."2 Corinthians 9:7
“Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.”
Isaiah 9:7The verse does not say the government will one day arrive. It says it will increase, which means it begins and keeps growing with no ceiling.
Now the strongest alternative, stated fairly. Many Jewish readers hear this as a birth announcement for Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, who trusted God where his father would not. That is a serious reading. Isaiah's prophecies spoke into his own day first.
But Hezekiah did not fit the words. Assyria came to his gates in Isaiah 36, and Isaiah 39 closes his story with Babylon on the horizon. The promise was bigger than the man. That is what Messiah means, the anointed son of David in whom the promises land.
Jesus is the Prince of Peace. Isaiah spoke into his own crisis, and the promise outgrew every king in Jerusalem until it found Jesus. Matthew is not stretching when he points to Galilee.
His government is here. Jesus announced the Kingdom at hand, was raised and enthroned at the Father's right hand, and the covenant transition that closed the old age in AD 70 settled which kingdom stands. The teaching that his reign is postponed to a future date is wrong. It puts Isaiah 9:7 on hold when the verse says the increase runs from this time forth.
We also refuse the opposite mistake. A present Kingdom does not mean every conflict is already fixed. Increase means growth. Jesus said the Kingdom works like leaven in dough (Matthew 13:33), spreading from the inside through people who carry it.
The Kingdom of God is not a waiting room. It is active and still expanding. For the bigger picture, read what the Kingdom of God is.
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”
John 14:27He said that the night before the cross, to men about to scatter in fear. The world gives peace when the trouble goes away. Jesus gives it in the middle of the trouble, because the ruler of wholeness is with you there.
Justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus. The cross ends our hostility, and shows a Father who was never keeping his distance.
“He himself is our peace.” Jew and Gentile, once divided by a wall of hostility, are made one new people through the cross.
The peace of God guards hearts and minds. We work through that promise in the peace of God, so we will not repeat it here.
Peacemakers are called children of God. The Prince of Peace recruits. See blessed are the peacemakers.
Ephesians 2:17 says he preached peace to those far off and to those near, echoing Isaiah 57:19. That is Isaiah's light reaching past Galilee of the nations to everyone, and it gives the church a job, which Paul calls the ministry of reconciliation.
Some people read John 14:27 with a racing heart and feel accused by it. Feeling anxious is not proof that you failed Jesus. He spoke those words to men who were about to be terrified, and he did not take them back when they were.
Bring the fear to him as it is. If you would like someone to pray with you, send us a prayer request. And if anxiety is wearing you down, talking with a doctor or a counselor is wisdom, not a lack of faith.
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
Matthew 10:34Skeptics quote this as proof that Jesus contradicted Isaiah, and some Christians have used it to excuse violence or harshness toward family. Both get it wrong.
Jesus is sending out the twelve. The next lines quote Micah 7:6 about a man set against his father. Luke's version drops the metaphor and says division (Luke 12:51). The sword is the split that loyalty to Jesus causes inside households. It is a cost his followers carry, not a weapon he hands them. When Peter drew a real sword in Gethsemane, Jesus told him to put it away, warning that those who take the sword perish by it (Matthew 26:52).
In that first generation, families and synagogues split over whether Jesus was the Messiah. The peace he offered was refused by some, and the refusal cut through homes.
Jesus endorses force, permits believers to push faith on people, or makes conflict with family a badge of faithfulness.
Jesus warns that following him will divide some households. The division is suffered, never inflicted, and peace remains the goal wherever it depends on us.
This verse gets used on young believers whose families are uneasy about their faith, as if every fight proves them right. It does not. As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone (Romans 12:18).
In Luke's version of this saying, what word does Jesus use instead of sword?
Luke 12:51 says, I tell you, but rather division. The parallel shows the sword in Matthew is a picture of households split over Jesus, not an instruction to fight anyone.
Go back to verse 6 one more time. The government is on his shoulder. Not yours.
Ahaz tried to carry his own security, and it cost him the temple silver and his freedom. A lot of us buy a little calm from whatever empire is closest. Isaiah's answer is the one Jesus gives us: a king who carries the weight, whose counsel is wonderful, whose strength is God's, whose care does not run out.
That king is Jesus, and he rules now. His government grows wherever someone forgives instead of retaliating, tells the truth instead of spinning it, and rests instead of grasping. That is the increase Isaiah saw.
For related reading, see what peace is in the Bible, how many prophecies Jesus fulfilled and the sword of the Spirit, or come worship with us and plan your visit.
Isaiah promised a frightened king a son of David whose names are wonder, divine strength, lasting care and wholeness, Jesus began that reign in the very region Assyria darkened first, and his government of peace has been increasing ever since.
Tell us what is weighing on you, and someone at Sound of Heaven will pray with you by name.
The title comes from Isaiah 9:6, where a promised son of David is given four names, ending with sar shalom. Sar means a ruler with real authority, and shalom means wholeness and welfare as well as the end of war. Jesus is the one those names describe. He reconciles people to God through the cross, makes former enemies one family, and gives his own peace in John 14:27. His government of peace keeps growing.
Sar is a head person of any rank, and lexicons render it chieftain, chief, ruler, official, captain or prince. Shalom comes from a root meaning to be complete, so it covers wholeness, safety, welfare and peace. Together the phrase describes a ruler whose rule makes things whole. It is stronger than the English word prince suggests, because a sar already holds authority rather than waiting for it. In Hebrew Bibles the verse is numbered Isaiah 9:5.
Many Jewish readers hear it as a birth announcement for Hezekiah, the faithful son of Ahaz, and Isaiah did speak into his own day first. But Hezekiah did not fit the words. Assyria reached his gates and Isaiah 39 closes with Babylon ahead. Matthew 4 shows the promise landing when Jesus settled in Zebulun and Naphtali and began preaching the Kingdom. We read the prophecy as reaching its full meaning in Jesus.
In Matthew 10:34 Jesus is sending out the twelve and warning them of the cost. The next verses quote Micah 7:6 about family members turning against each other, and Luke's parallel simply says division. The sword is the split that loyalty to Jesus causes in some households. It is suffered, never inflicted. Jesus told Peter to put his real sword away, and Paul tells believers to live at peace with everyone as far as it depends on them.
Isaiah 9:7 promises that the increase of his government and of peace will have no end. Increase means growth, and Jesus said his Kingdom works like leaven working through dough. His rule is present and active now, but it spreads through changed people rather than by force, so conflict has not vanished overnight. We are not going to weigh in on any current war here. We simply follow the Prince of Peace by forgiving, reconciling and making peace wherever we have influence.