A Lesson in Isaiah

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

The kids are memorizing this verse this week. When I have them memorize a verse, I want them to know more than just the words. I want them to know what it means, who wrote it, why it was written... I also use the verse for an English lesson and have them find nouns verbs, punctuation, subject, predicate... Dissecting the verse helps them memorize the verse better than if I just had them repeat it over and over.

Isaiah was a prophet, poet, and politician. I love this book because of the way it is written and some say that he is the Shakespeare of Hebrew literature. When I was in high school, I did my Senior English final term paper on the major prophetic books and I loved reading Isaiah because of how it was written. When we were reading about Isaiah today, I learned some things I thought I would share. Did you know that he was writing his book around the same time Homer was writing The Iliad and The Odyssey? (That I never realized until today even though I knew the dates of Homer and Isaiah, I never put the two together.) Also, something else I thought was interesting was that during that time, Israel was in a civil war. I did not know that.

When we were dissecting the verse today, I was watching my kids eyes light up as God was revealing little tidbits of Himself to them. It was really cool. One of the coolest moments of today’s lesson was when we were talking about how Jesus is a gift. We do not have to earn Him, there is nothing we can do to deserve Him, and He is freely given to us. All we have to do is receive Him the same way we receive a gift at Christmas. My kids were explaining it to me not me explaining it to them!

My kids get it! I love that and it makes my heart sing.