9:1 At the first time the land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephtali was lightly touched: and at the last the way of the sea beyond the Jordan of the Galilee of the Gentiles was heavily loaded.
9:2 The people that walked in darkness, have seen a great light: to them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death, light is risen. Note: keep in mind that the Kingdom of David split in two after the death of Solomon. There formed in the north a new kingdom consisting of ten tribes which retained the name Israel. Two southern tribes (Judah and Benjamin) remained under the kingship of David's line; this will become important for a proper understanding of a part of this commentary (see 1 Kings 11:1-12:33).
(9:1). The word 'first' in 'In the first time it was lightened' is used correctly in its literal sense, but 'last' is used figuratively—it's added for explanatory purposes. The phrase serves to explain the earlier reference to 'way of the sea' and 'the land of Zebulun and Naphtali.' I want you to understand that which is commonly called the way of the sea, from the lake which by that people's custom obtained the name of sea, just as other gatherings of waters are called seas according to Hebrew custom. John 6:1 and Jn 21:1 calls this place the Sea of Tiberias, and Matthew 4:13 calls it the Sea of Galilee, and Luke 5:1 the lake of Gennesaret - and this most properly. For the proper name of that place is Gennesaret or Genezareth.
This same land is called Galilee of the Gentiles because Solomon gave it to Hiram, King of Tyre, who was a Gentile (1 Kings 9:10-13). This land was first lightened and then made heavy - that is, according to the Jews' exposition, it was first lightly afflicted by Tiglath-Pileser ("Pul", 2 Kings 15:19-20, 29; 1 Chron 5:26), then the same land was heavily afflicted by Shalmaneser when the ten tribes were led into captivity (2 Kings 17:3-6, 24).
Is 9:1. 'The land of Naphtali' - as if to say, that land. 'The people who walked in darkness' etc. - The Jews (the two tribes who remained in the davidic kingdom) understand here an adversative conjunction (which is not uncommon for them) in this sense: But the people of the two tribes (the davidic kingdom, made up of Judah and Benjamin) who lived in perpetual fear of captivity and feared a captivity entirely similar to that by which the people of the ten tribes were captured (the new kingdom, Israel) - that people, I say, of the two tribes saw a great light when the Assyrian was suddenly struck down and beyond all hope was delivered by an angel (2 Kings 18:13-35; Isa 36:1-22).
9:2 'To those dwelling in the region of the shadow of death' etc. - That is, to this people before whose eyes the image of death perpetually appeared, light arose when [they were freed] from the siege.
9:3 Thou hast multiplied the nation, and hast not increased the joy. They shall rejoice before thee, as they that rejoice in the harvest, as conquerors rejoice after taking a prey, when they divide the spoils.
'You have multiplied the nation' - namely in Sennacherib's army. This is an apostrophe to God. The sense is: you allowed many soldiers to follow King Sennacherib. 'You have not magnified their joy' - that is, you did not grant him to return joyful having obtained victory. Therefore the Jews themselves, freed from the siege by an angel, will rejoice before you as harvesters rejoice over a rich harvest. Two things need to be dealt with here. 1). Adam Sasbout’s reading is unusual, he is not entirely alone in taking Isaiah 9:2 (Heb. 9:3) as referring, at least in part, to Assyria rather than Judah, especially with respect to the first half of the verse. What makes this line of interpretation rare is that it requires reading the verse ironically or adversatively, and often in close connection with the Sennacherib crisis (701 BCE) rather than the more common messianic or restoration framework. Still, several interpreters, ancient and modern, either explicitly or implicitly move in this direction. See the appendix I to this post for more on this issue. 2). The Hebrew text of Isaiah reads: hirbîta haggôy, lōʾ higgadalta haśśimḥâ = "Thou hast multiplied the nation, Thou hast not increased their joy;" however, Jewish tradition states that the text should be read as follows: hirbîta haggôy, lô higgadalta haśśimḥâ = "Thou hast multiplied the nation, Thou hast increased their joy." Most modern translations follow the second reading. Some scholar (Marving Sweeney; Joseph Blenkinsopp) suggest amending the text so that it reads "haggîlâ", rather than haggôy, lō. Blenkinsopp thus translates: "You have increased their joy, and brought them great gladness." [Blenkinsopp, Joseph. Isaiah 1–39: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Yale University Press, 2008.]
9:4 For the yoke of their burden, and the rod of their shoulder, and
the sceptre of their oppressor thou hast overcome, as in the day of
Madian.
'For the yoke of his burden' - namely of Sennacherib, who pressed the necks of all with the heaviest yoke of servitude, 'and the rod of his shoulder' by which he struck everyone, 'and the scepter of his oppressor' by which he compelled them to pay him tribute - 'you have overcome as in the day of Midian' - that is, without any army and without shedding of blood, by a hidden hand, just as once you gave victory over the Midianites to the people of Israel.
9:5 For every violent taking of spoils, with tumult, and garment mingled with blood, shall be burnt, and be fuel for the fire.
'Because every violent plundering with tumult' - namely acquired. 'And garment mixed' etc. - This is a notation. For it signifies plunder which is almost never acquired without blood. And it should not be understood as if the garments, arms, and spoils of the Assyrians were burned - for those remained untouched when only the bodies were incinerated - but that they were the cause of the burning.
And thus far Thomas (Aquinas) follows the interpetation of the Jews. But the Evangelist Matthew in chapter 4 interprets the whole passage about Christ - similar is then Thomas's interpretation, [though] the passage does not have [this meaning]. The principal difficulty is especially in the words 'lightened' and 'made heavy,' for the verbs 'to lighten' are found in Scripture only five or six times and 'to make heavy' eight or ten times, and in a far different signification than they use. For 'to lighten' in Scripture almost pertains to the relief of evils, and 'to make heavy' to the multiplication of evils. Therefore Jerome interprets most excellently in accordance with the Gospel. St Thomas, in his Expositio super Isaiam ad litteram is, as the title implies, giving a literal exposition, not a prophetic one. In his 2nd Lecture on Mathew Chapter 4 he gives a prophetic interpretation. See Appendix II for more.
For he says the land was lightened because it was relieved of the burden of sins, namely through Christ's preaching, who spent the greatest part of his preaching and likewise of miracles in the parts of that land, and especially in the cities of Capernaum, Bethsaida, and others which were situated on the shore of the pool of Gennesaret in the borders of Zebulun and Naphtali. The same land was afterward [made heavy] when they did not believe in Christ and rejected Christ as the true Messiah promised in the law. Hence John 6: 'This is a hard saying, who can hear it?' etc. By which they were made heavy in their sins. And Matthew 11: 'Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes.'
According to this interpretation, 'The people who walked in darkness' belongs to the first period, namely 'In the first time the land of Zebulun was lightened' etc. Nor is the adversative particle to be understood which Thomas and the Jews understood. And this is the sense: The people who sat in the darkness of ignorance saw the light of evangelical preaching, and 'to those dwelling in the region of the shadow of death' - that is, who lived in the densest and perpetual gloom such as exists among the dead - 'light arose to them,' namely Christ, who first began to preach there and illuminated them with the light of his preaching and the clarity of knowledge of himself.
And this is what follows: 'You have multiplied the nation' etc. This is an apostrophe to Christ by which that other period is explained: 'In the last time the way of the sea was made heavy.' The sense is: By your preaching and that of the Apostles, it came about that very many from the Gentiles joined themselves to the faith of Abraham, but from this you did not magnify the joy of the Jewish people, to whom nevertheless you were promised particularly.
'They will rejoice before you' etc. - That is, the Gentiles who will feel the benefits of your nativity and passion will be made joyful before you, and indeed most vehemently, which is signified by those two similitudes employed, namely 'as they rejoice in harvest, as victors exult when capturing prey' - because we have been affected by an unexpected benefit, we who are enrolled among the elect of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob through faith in Christ, through whom, freed from the tyranny of the devil and servitude of sin, we will serve him without fear in holiness and justice. And this is what follows:
'For the yoke of his burden' etc. - namely of the devil, who previously exulted in the world and pressed the necks of all with the heaviest yoke of servitude (where the cause of joy is explained). 'And the rod of his shoulder' by which he struck everyone, 'and the scepter of the oppressor' by which he compelled [them] to pay him sins as a kind of tribute - you have taken away from their necks, 'as in the day of Midian' - that is, without any army and by a hidden hand, in the manner by which once you freed the people of Israel from the Midianites.
Why the people suffered these things and how and by whom they were freed, see Judges chapters 6, 7, 8. By these metaphors 'the yoke of burden' etc., the prophet explains the tyranny of the devil or certainly the stings of sin which reigned before Christ was born and suffered - which for teaching purposes the schools call original sin - and Paul in Romans 7 simply explains what the prophet says here figuratively. The metaphors are taken from those who oppress subjects with unjust tyranny.
'Because every violent' etc. - Jerome: Just as a garment stained with human blood cannot be washed but, infected with blood, is burned by fire so that the stains of foul gore may perish with the garment, so the devil's violent plundering and tumults and crowds by which he had subjected the human race to himself are assigned to the fires of Gehenna.
The Seventy interpreters (the translators of the Greek Septuagint) however, rendered this passage much differently in this way: 'Because every garment gathered by deceit and garment of exchange they will restore, and they will desire to be burned by fire themselves' - according to which the sense is that the devil will restore all the souls which he had stripped with God's help, along with their former ornaments, not only himself but also his satellite demons, who, if given the option, would rather choose to perish in flames than restore the prey."
APPENDIX I
1. The Textual and Grammatical Opening for an “Assyrian” Reading
Isaiah 9:3 (MT) reads:
הִרְבִּיתָ הַגּוֹי לֹא הִגְדַּלְתָּ הַשִּׂמְחָה
hirbîta haggôy, lōʾ higgadalta haśśimḥâ
“You have multiplied the nation; you have not increased the joy.”
Already in antiquity, interpreters noticed that this line sits awkwardly with the immediately following harvest imagery of joy “before you.” This led to two main strategies:
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Emendation or redivision (e.g., reading lô “to him” instead of lōʾ “not”), which resolves the tension by making Judah the subject throughout.
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Rhetorical contrast, where the “nation” multiplied without joy is not Judah, but an enemy power whose numerical increase does not result in blessed joy.
Sasbout clearly adopts the second strategy, and that move is not without precedent.
2. Jewish Exegesis: Hints of an Assyrian Referent
While classical rabbinic exegesis overwhelmingly reads the verse of Israel, there are notable medieval Jewish commentators who flirt with an adversarial reading, even if they do not develop it as fully as Sasbout.
Ibn Ezra (1089–1167) is key here. On Isaiah 9:3, he notes the difficulty of the negative particle לֹא and acknowledges that the verse can be read as a contrast between two groups. Although Ibn Ezra ultimately prefers an Israel-centered reading, he allows that the “nation” (הַגּוֹי, often singular and foreign in Isaiah) could be a hostile power temporarily magnified by God for judgment. He does not name Assyria explicitly here, but within the Isaianic context—especially chapters 7–10—Assyria is the obvious candidate.
Similarly, David Kimchi (Radak, 1160–1235) admits that gôy may denote a foreign nation and that God sometimes “multiplies” such a nation only to overthrow it. While Radak again resolves the verse in favor of Israel, the conceptual framework he provides allows exactly the move Sasbout makes.
So while Jewish commentators do not commonly apply the verse to Assyria, they preserve the exegetical possibility that Sasbout exploits.
3. Patristic Echoes: Enemy Magnification without Joy
Among the Fathers, the dominant reading is Christological and ecclesial. Still, there are striking remarks that parallel Sasbout’s logic.
Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260–339), in his Commentary on Isaiah (preserved in fragments), speaks of God permitting hostile nations to be “increased in number” (πληθυνθῆναι, plēthynthēnai) for a time, without granting them the joy of victory, so that their downfall might magnify divine deliverance. Eusebius applies this principle generally to Assyria and Babylon in Isaiah, even if he does not anchor it explicitly to 9:3.
More explicitly, Theodoret of Cyrus (c. 393–458) comments elsewhere in Isaiah that Assyria’s vast army was allowed to grow “not for triumph but for ruin.” When he later reads the joy imagery of Isaiah 9 christologically, the earlier notion—that an enemy’s multiplication lacks true joy—functions as a foil. This is conceptually very close to Sasbout’s claim that Sennacherib’s army was multiplied but not gladdened.
4. Reformation and Post-Reformation Parallels
Sasbout’s interpretation fits neatly into a Reformation-era historical reading of Isaiah, where commentators often anchored prophetic texts in specific Old Testament crises.
Sebastian Münster (1488–1552), in his Hebraica Biblia, suggests that the first colon of Isaiah 9:3 may refer to “the multitude of enemies gathered against Jerusalem,” whose increase is permitted by God but whose joy is denied. He does not insist on this reading, but he treats it as historically plausible.
Even more interesting is Hugo Grotius (1583–1645). In his Annotationes in Vetus Testamentum, Grotius explicitly connects Isaiah 9 with the Assyrian invasion under Sennacherib and reads parts of the chapter as describing the psychological reversal: terror among Judah, overconfidence among Assyria, and then sudden divine intervention. While Grotius does not parse the Hebrew exactly as Sasbout does, he agrees that Assyria’s numerical greatness is part of the setup, not the blessing.
5. Modern Critical Scholarship: A Minority but Real Option
In modern exegesis, the dominant view remains Judah-centric, but several scholars acknowledge the Assyrian possibility.
Brevard Childs, in his Isaiah commentary, notes that the verse may intentionally juxtapose the empty expansion of imperial power with the authentic joy of divine deliverance, even if the final canonical reading resolves this in favor of Israel.
More directly, H. Wildberger (Jesaja, BKAT) argues that the verse preserves traces of an older oracle reflecting on the Assyrian military buildup, later recontextualized within a salvation proclamation. Wildberger explicitly mentions that the “nation” (gôy) can naturally denote Assyria and that the lack of joy suits a divinely frustrated campaign.
Similarly, J. Alec Motyer, though ultimately rejecting the Assyrian reading, concedes that grammatically and contextually it is “defensible,” especially if one reads the verse against Isaiah 10, where Assyria is exalted only to be shattered.
6. Conclusion
To answer your question directly: yes, Sasbout’s interpretation is rare but not isolated. While few commentators adopt it as their primary reading, a continuous interpretive thread exists—from medieval Jewish hesitation, through patristic reflection on enemy nations, into Reformation historical exegesis and modern critical discussion—that allows Isaiah 9:3 to refer, at least initially, to Assyria’s multiplied forces deprived of victorious joy, in contrast to Judah’s harvest-like rejoicing after angelic deliverance (cf. Isa 37:36).
What Sasbout does, distinctively, is to press this possibility with clarity and confidence, explicitly naming Sennacherib and aligning the verse tightly with the siege of Jerusalem. In doing so, he gives articulate voice to a minority reading that had long hovered at the edges of Isaiah interpretation.
APPENDIX II
Thomas Aquinas’s differing treatments of Isaiah 9 in his two commentaries illustrate his foundational hermeneutic: the fourfold sense of Scripture. To understand why he appears "literal" in one and "prophetic" in the other, one must look at how he defines the relationship between words, things, and history.
1. The Primacy of the Literal Sense
In the Summa Theologiae (ST I, q. 1, a. 10), Aquinas establishes that the literal sense is the meaning intended by the author through the words. Unlike some earlier medieval thinkers who might skip to allegorical "spiritual" meanings, Thomas insisted:
Foundation: All other senses (allegorical, moral, anagogical) are based on the literal sense.
Argumentation: No theological argument can be drawn from the spiritual sense alone; it must be rooted in the literal.
Definition of Prophecy: For Aquinas, a prophecy's literal sense includes the immediate historical event it describes. In his Lecture on Isaiah 9, Thomas views the "great light" seen by the people as literal relief for the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali from Assyrian oppression. He sees the human author (Isaiah) describing a real, historical liberation.
2. The Spiritual (Prophetic) Sense
When Thomas comments on Matthew 4:14-15, he is engaging in the allegorical (or Christological) sense. His view of prophetic interpretation is based on the idea that God is the primary author of Scripture.
Words vs. Things: Human authors use words to signify things. God, however, uses the things themselves to signify other things.
Double Fulfillment: In Matthew, Aquinas interprets the "light" as Christ. This is not a "secondary literal" sense, but the spiritual sense where the historical event (the liberation of Galilee from Assyria) becomes a "type" or figure of a greater reality (Christ’s ministry).
The Prophetic Light: Aquinas believed that the Holy Spirit "elevates" the mind of the prophet. Therefore, while Isaiah might have intended a historical meaning, the Holy Spirit intended a further meaning that only becomes clear in the New Testament.
3. Why the Difference in Tone?
The variation you noticed is largely due to the genre and purpose of each commentary:
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