Verse 5
5. Righteousness… girdle of his loins That which is spotlessly just in his dealings with men is, by figure, the cincture or band which shall engirdle him.
Girdle This essential article in the dress of the East, both among men and women worn about the waist, or, if loose, the loins was of leather or linen, cheap or costly, and was used to hold in place or gird up, as might be needed, the outside flowing garment which it enclosed. It was common to represent the better habits under the figure of clothing; the meaning of which was, that they adhere to character as inseparably and closely as the garment did to the body to which it was bound. Job 29:14; Psalms 109:18; Isaiah 61:10.
Nothing is more clear than that the new succession out of Jesse is the Messiah, with features in the description here much like those belonging to the humble and holy Jesus of Nazareth. “The root of Jesse” is a figure which answers to the lowly remnant-reduction of Israel, who become, instead of a worldly Davidic house, a lowly body of true adherents to Jehovah despite of all vicissitudes and tribulations; and become, also, the genuine stock out of which the incarnate and true David is to arise. As a ruler and administrator he is, in the last five verses, set before us as making earth as peaceful a realm as is heaven, the ideal realm divinely intended for king David to build up, but in respect to which himself, but more particularly his successors on the throne, had made a shocking failure.
The verses following (6-9) present in a strain of allegory the results of Messiah’s righteous and peaceful government.
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