Isaiah 9:4 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

For thou hast broken, &c. Bishop Lowth translates this verse, For the yoke of his burden, the staff laid on his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor hast thou broken, as in the day of Midian. The Jews had been under the yoke repeatedly, to one hostile people or another, and had been sorely oppressed by them; formerly by the Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites, and Midianites, and, in after times, by the Assyrians, Chaldeans, Persians, and Macedonians; and many and successive deliverances from their oppressors had God granted them. Now, as the yokes which they had been under were emblematical of those of Satan, sin, and death, the spiritual enemies of God's people, so their deliverances were figures of the spiritual deliverance which believers, whether Jews or Gentiles, receive through Christ. And of this spiritual deliverance and salvation, as the context shows, this verse is to be understood. For the preceding verses foretel the diffusion of gospel light, and those that follow attest the birth of the Messiah, unfold his characters and offices, and set forth the blessings of his peaceful and righteous reign. See Jeremiah 23:6; Luke 1:70-74, where Zacharias, full of the Holy Ghost, seems most admirably to expound this passage of the prophet. As in the day of Midian When God destroyed the Midianites in so admirable a manner, and by such unlikely and contemptible means, which was an eminent type of Christ's conquering the powers of darkness, and all his enemies, by dying on the cross, and by the preaching of a few unlearned, and poor, despised men.