Matthew 4:13-14. "[A]nd leaving Nazareth [Jesus] went and dwelt in Capernum by the sea, in the territory of a Zebulun and Napthtali, that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled". Yes, Isaiah prophesied that from the lands of Zebulun and Napthtali would come a great light; and yes, Jesus goes to Zebulun and Napthtali to begin His preaching and thus fulfills the prophecy, but it is important to remember that Jesus is not just "checking prophecy boxes," there is a reason He goes to Capernaum by the sea to begin His preaching, and there is a reason God inspired Isaiah to talk about it seven hundred years before Jesus was born. Capernaum is where Peter, Andrew, James, and John were fishermen. Jesus is beginning His mission, and He goes first to where his first Pope and first four chosen disciples are.

Did Isaiah know this when he prophesied? I have been thinking a lot lately about questions like this, and prophecy in general. Prophecy keeps popping up in my readings, and in some ways and some times, I feel a bit like a prophet myself (we are all called to be prophets at times!). The messages prophets receive often don't make much sense at the time. Sometimes, their meaning becomes clear during the prophet's lifetime, like Jeremiah's did, but sometimes the message sits for hundreds of years before its meaning becomes clear, as with Isaiah's reference to Zebulun and Napthtali here. I also think of Isaiah telling King Ahaz that a virgin would conceive and bear a son, and name him Emmanuel (Isaiah 7:14). At the time, did Isaiah fully understand what he was prophesying? I guess it's possible God gave him full understanding, but I think it's more likely that God gave him the message without giving him all the details of what would happen seven hundred years later, and trusted Isaiah to deliver it nonetheless. I sometimes get what I call "messages," and I often see a little of the meaning behind them (I think I needed that at first in order to understand that they were coming from God), but usually I do not fully understand, and often they are a great mystery to me! As time goes by, though, their meaning sometimes becomes more clear, sometimes crystal clear. Others remain clouded, but I know I can trust them.

God is so far beyond us, His ways and plans are unfathomable to us and reach to the end of time. Just as God gave Isaiah a message about Zebulun and Napthtali, He sometimes gives us messages we don't fully understand. But He doesn't do anything without purpose, so we must trust His messages, try to discern what we are to do with them, and deliver them when we are called to. Because Isaiah trusted, and spoke words that he probably did not fully understand, the truth of his prophecy was born out seven hundred years later when Jesus began his mission exactly where Isaiah said a great light would come forth for a people in darkness. The prophecy is evidence that both Isaiah and, more importantly, Jesus, are who they held themselves out to be, and that was God's purpose for it. It took a long time to be realized, but prophecy often does - God’s time is not our time!