David’s house was told, “Syria is allied with Ephraim.” His heart trembled, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the forest tremble with the wind.
Then Yahweh said to Isaiah, “Go out now to meet Ahaz, you, and Shearjashub your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway of the fuller’s field. Tell him, ‘Be careful, and keep calm. Don’t be afraid, neither let your heart be faint because of these two tails of smoking torches, for the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria, and of the son of Remaliah. Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have plotted evil against you, saying, “Let’s go up against Judah, and tear it apart, and let’s divide it among ourselves, and set up a king within it, even the son of Tabeel.” This is what the Lord Yahweh says: “It shall not stand, neither shall it happen.” For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin. Within sixty-five years Ephraim shall be broken in pieces, so that it shall not be a people. The head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah’s son. If you will not believe, surely you shall not be established.’ ”
Yahweh spoke again to Ahaz, saying, “Ask a sign of Yahweh your God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.”
But Ahaz said, “I won’t ask. I won’t tempt Yahweh.”
He said, “Listen now, house of David. Is it not enough for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. He shall eat butter and honey when he knows to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child knows to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you abhor shall be forsaken. Yahweh will bring on you, on your people, and on your father’s house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah, even the king of Assyria.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 For fear.
For fear.
Meaning, the King’s house.
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That is, Israel, because that tribe was the greatest, Gen. 48:19.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv2–17 Isa 7:2 And it was told the house of…
Isa 7:2 And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.
Ver. 2. And it was told the house of David,] i.e., the king and chief officers of the crown and court. Ill news flieth swift, and filleth all places.
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Syria is confederate with Ephraim.] Though these two were oft at a deadly feud between themselves, yet they could combine for a mischief to God’s people. So could the Herodians and Pharisees, Herod and Pilate, &c. The devil, doubtless, had a design by these two champions of his to have utterly rooted out the house of David (as he sought also afterwards to do by Herod, Caligula, and others), and so to have prevented Christ’s being "made of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh"; {Rom 1:3} but that could not be.
And his heart was moved.] Concussum est et conquassatum, Impiety triumpheth in prosperity, trembleth in adversity. Tullus Hostilius, that godless King of Rome, set up Pavor and Pallor for gods to himself. Saul and Ahithophel in distress despaired and despatched themselves; so did Demosthenes, Cato, and other heathen sages, who were without God in the world, and therefore without comfort. Sin maketh men timorous, {Lev 26:36} but righteousness bold. {Pro 28:1 Psa 27:1} The Spirit of power and of a sound mind are fitly set together. {2Ti 1:7}
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 The house of David; Ahaz, and his royal relations…
The house of David; Ahaz, and his royal relations and courtiers. He calls them the house of David, to intimate that the following comfortable message was sent to Ahaz, not for his own sake, but only for the sake of his worthy progenitor, David, to whom God had promised an everlasting kingdom.
Ephraim; the kingdom of the ten tribes, commonly called Ephraim, as Isa 28:1; Hos 12:1, because that was far the most numerous and potent of’ all of them.
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Was moved with excessive fear, arising partly from the conscience of their own guilt, whereby they had put themselves out of God’s protection; and partly from the consideration of the great strength and power of his enemies, who having prevailed against him severally, 2Ch 28:5,8, and having now united their threes, he, having no faith in God, nor confidence to desire or expect his help, concluded his case desperate and deplorable.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv10, 17 Here, I. God, by the prophet, makes a gracious…
Here, I. God, by the prophet, makes a gracious offer to Ahaz, to confirm the foregoing predictions, and his faith in them, by such sign or miracle as he should choose (Isa 7:10, Isa 7:11): Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God; See here the divine faithfulness and veracity. God tells us nothing but what he is able and ready to prove. See his wonderful condescension to the children of men, in that he is so willing to show to the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, Heb 6:17. He considers our frame, and that, living in a world of sense, we are apt to require sensible proofs, which therefore he has favoured us with in sacramental signs and seals. Ahaz was a bad man, yet God is called the Lord his God, because he was a child of Abraham and David, and of the covenants made with them. See how gracious God is even to the evil and unthankful; Ahaz is bidden to choose his sign, as Gideon about the fleece (Jdg 6:37); let him ask for a sign in the air, or earth, or water, for God's power is the same in all.
II. Ahaz rudely refuses this gracious offer, and (which is not mannerly towards any superior) kicks at the courtesy, and puts a slight upon it (Isa 7:12): I will not ask. The true reason why he would not ask for a sign was because, having a dependence upon the Assyrians, their forces, and their gods, for help, he would not thus far be beholden to the God of Israel, or lay himself under obligations to him. He would not ask a sign for the confirming of his faith because he resolved to persist in his unbelief, and would indulge his doubts and distrusts; yet he pretends a pious reason: I will not tempt the Lord; as if it would be a tempting of God to do that which God himself invited and directed him to do. Note, A secret disaffection to God is often disguised with the specious colours of respect to him; and those who are resolved that they will not trust God yet pretend that they will not tempt him.
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III. The prophet reproves him and his court, him and the house of David, the whole royal family, for their contempt of prophecy, and the little value they had for divine revelation (Isa 7:13) "Is it a small thing for you to weary men by your oppression and tyranny, with which you make yourselves burdensome and odious to all mankind? But will you weary my God also with the affronts you put upon him?" As the unjust judge that neither feared God nor regarded man, Luk 18:2. You have wearied the Lord with your words, Mal 2:17. Nothing is more grievous to the God of heaven than to be distrusted. "Will you weary my God? Will you suppose him to be tired and unable to help you, or to be weary of doing you good? Whereas the youths may faint and be weary, you may have tired all your friends, the Creator of the ends of the earth faints not, neither is weary." Isa 40:28-31. Or this: "In affronting the prophets, you think you put a slight only upon men like yourselves, and consider not that you affront God himself, whose messengers they are, and put a slight upon him, who will resent it accordingly." The prophet here calls God his God with a great deal of pleasure: Ahaz would not say, He is my God, though the prophet had invited him to say so (Isa 7:11): The Lord thy God; but Isaiah will say, "He is mine." Note, Whatever others do, we must avouch the Lord for ours and abide by him.
IV. The prophet, in God's name, gives them a sign: "You will not ask a sign, but the unbelief of man shall not make the promise of God of no effect: The Lord himself shall give you a sign (Isa 7:14), a double sign."
1. "A sign in general of his good-will to Israel and to the house of David. You may conclude it that he has mercy in store for you, and that you are not forsaken of your God, how great soever your present distress and danger are; for of your nation, of your family, the Messiah is to be born, and you cannot be destroyed while that blessing is in you, which shall be introduced," (1.) "In a glorious manner; for, whereas you have been often told that he should be born among you, I am now further to tell you that he shall be born of a virgin, which will signify both the divine power and the divine purity with which he shall be brought into the world, - that he shall be a extraordinary person, for he shall not be born by ordinary generation, - and that he shall be a holy thing, not stained with the common pollutions of the human nature, therefore incontestably fit to have the throne of his father David given him." Now this, though it was to be accomplished above 500 years after, was a most encouraging sign to the house of David (and to them, under that title, this prophecy is directed, Isa 7:13) and an assurance that God would not cast them off. Ephraim did indeed envy Judah (Isa 11:13) and sought the ruin of that kingdom, but could not prevail; for the sceptre should never depart from Judah till the coming of Shiloh, Gen 49:10. Those whom God designs for the great salvation may take that for a sign to them that they shall not be swallowed up by any trouble they meet with in the way. (2.) The Messiah shall be introduced on a glorious errand, wrapped up in his glorious name: They shall call his name Immanuel - God with us, God in our nature, God at peace with us, in covenant with us. This was fulfilled in their calling him Jesus - a Saviour (Mat 1:21-25), for, if he had not been Immanuel - God with us, he could not have been Jesus - a Saviour. Now this was a further sign of God's favour to the house of David and the tribe of Judah; for he that intended to work this great salvation among them no doubt would work out for them all those other salvations which were to be the types and figures of this, and as it were preludes to this. "Here is a sign for you, not in the depth nor in the height, but in the prophecy, in the promise, in the covenant made with David, which you are no strangers to. The promised seed shall be Immanuel, God with us; let that word comfort you (Isa 8:10), that God is with us, and (v. 8) that your land is Immanuel's land. Let not the heart of the house of David be moved thus (Isa 7:2), nor let Judah fear the setting up of the son of Tabeal (Isa 7:6), for nothing can cut off the entail on the Son of David that shall be Immanuel." Note, The strongest consolations, in time of trouble, are those which are borrowed from Christ, our relation to him, our interest in him, and our expectations of him and from him. Of this child it is further foretold (Isa 7:15) that though he shall not be born like other children, but of a virgin, yet he shall be really and truly man, and shall be nursed and brought up like other children: Butter and honey shall he eat, as other children do, particularly the children of that land which flowed with milk and honey. Though he be conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, yet he shall not therefore be fed with angels' food, but, as it becomes him, shall be in all things made like unto his brethren, Heb 2:17. Nor shall he, though born thus by extraordinary generation, be a man immediately, but, as other children, shall advance gradually through the several states of infancy, childhood, and youth, to that of manhood, and growing in wisdom and stature, shall at length wax strong in spirit, and come to maturity, so as to know how to refuse the evil and choose the good. See Luk 2:40, Luk 2:52. Note, Children are fed when they are little that they may be taught and instructed when they have grown up; they have their maintenance in order to their education.
2. Here is another sign in particular of the speedy destruction of these potent princes that were now a terror to Judah, Isa 7:16. "Before this child (so it should be read), this child which I have now in my arms" (he means not Immanuel, but Shear-jashub his own son, whom he was ordered to take with him for a sign, Isa 7:3), "before this child shall know how to refuse the evil and choose the good" (and those who saw what his present stature and forwardness were would easily conjecture how long that would be), "before this child be three or four years older, the land that thou abhorrest, these confederate forces of Israelites and Syrians, which thou hast such an enmity to and standest in such dread of, shall be forsaken of both their kings, both Pekah and Rezin," who were in so close an alliance that they seemed as if they were the kings of but one kingdom. This was fully accomplished; for within two or three years after this, Hoshea conspired against Pekah, and slew him (Kg2 15:30), and, before that, the king of Assyria took Damascus, and slew Rezin, Kg2 16:9. Nay, there was a present event, which happened immediately, and when this child carried the prediction of in his name, which was a pledge and earnest of this future event. Shear-jashub signifies The remnant shall return, which doubtless points at the wonderful return of those 200,000 captives whom Pekah and Rezin had carried away, who were brought back, not by might or power, but by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts. Read the story, Ch2 28:8-15. The prophetical naming of this child having thus had its accomplishment, no doubt this, which was further added concerning him, should have its accomplishment likewise, that Syria and Israel should be deprived of both their kings. One mercy from God encourages us to hope for another, if it engages us to prepare for another.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv2–17 And it was told the house of David,.... Ahaz,…
And it was told the house of David,.... Ahaz, and his family, the princes of the blood, his court and counsellors; who had intelligence of the designs and preparations of the Syrians and Israelites against them:
saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim; the ten tribes; or the kingdom and king of Israel. Some render it, "Syria led"; that is, its army "unto Ephraim" (y); marched it into the land of Israel, and there joined the king of Israel's army; others, as the Vulgate Latin version, "Syria rests upon Ephraim" (z); depends upon, trusts in, takes heart and encouragement from Ephraim, or the ten tribes, being his ally. The Septuagint version is, "Syria hath agreed with Ephraim"; entered into a confederacy and alliance with each other; which is the sense of our version; and is confirmed by the Targum, which is,
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"the king of Syria is joined with the king of Israel:''
and his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind; the metaphor denotes the strength and force of the confederate armies, comparable to a strong, blustering, boisterous wind; see Isa 32:2 and the weakness of the king and people of Judah, who were like to trees shaken by the wind; and also the fear they were possessed with, partly through consciousness of guilt, and partly through distrust of divine power and Providence; and also on account of what they had suffered already from these powerful enemies, when they attacked them singly; and therefore might much more dread them, as they were combined together against them; see Ch2 28:5.
(y) "duxit exercitum", Tigurine version. (z) "Syria quievit super Ephraim", Forerius, Cocceius; "Syria acquiescit in Ephraimo", Piscator.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 David - Ahaz, and his relations. He calls them…
David - Ahaz, and his relations. He calls them the house of David, to intimate that the following comfortable message was sent to Ahaz, not for his own sake, but for the sake of his worthy progenitor David. Ephraim - The kingdom of the ten tribes, commonly called Ephraim, because that was the most numerous of all. Moved - With fear, arising from a consciousness of their own guilt, and their enemies strength.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 17 Verse 3. Now] נא na, is omitted by two…
Verse 3. Now] נא na, is omitted by two MSS., the Septuagint, Syriac, Arabic, and Vulgate.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 13, 15, 16, 17 Isa 7:2. And it was told the house of…
Isa 7:2. And it was told the house of David — Ahaz and his royal relations and courtiers. He calls them the house of David, to intimate that the following comfortable message was sent to Ahaz, not for his own sake, but only for the sake of his worthy progenitor David, to whom God had promised an everlasting kingdom. Syria is confederate with Ephraim — With the kingdom of the ten tribes, commonly called Ephraim, because that tribe was by far the most numerous and potent of them. And his heart was moved — Namely, the heart of Ahaz; and the heart of his people — With excessive fear, arising partly from a consciousness of their own guilt, whereby they had put themselves out of God’s protection; and partly from the consideration of the great strength and power of their enemies.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 And it was told the house of David -…
And it was told the house of David - That is, the royal family; or the king and princes; the government. Ahaz was the descendant and successor of David.
Syria is confederate with Ephraim - Ephraim was one of the tribes of Israel, and the kingdom of Israel was often called “Ephraim,” or the kingdom of Ephraim; in the same way as the tribes of Judah and Benjamin were called the kingdom of Judah. The phrase, ‘is confederate with,’ is in Hebrew ‘resteth on;’ see the margin. The meaning is, that Syria was “supported by” Ephraim, or was allied with Ephraim. The kingdom of Israel, or Ephraim, was situated “between” Syria and Jerusalem. Of course, the latter could not be attacked without marching through the former, and without their aid. In this sense it was that Syria, or the Arameans, relied or “rested” on Ephraim. Though Syria was by far the stronger power, yet it was not strong enough to attack Jerusalem had the kingdom of Israel been opposed to it.
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And his heart - The heart of the king - of Ahaz.
Was moved as the trees of the wood - This is a very beautiful and striking image. It expresses universal trembling, consternation, and alarm, as the trees are moved “together” when the wind passes violently over them. A similar expression is found in Ovid - in “Canaces,” Epist. xi. ver. 76, 77.
Ut quatitur tepido fraxina virga noto
Sic mea vibrari pallentia membra videres.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 Jasub. This name was mysterious: Shear-Jashub means "the rest…
Jasub. This name was mysterious: Shear-Jashub means "the rest shall return" from Babylon, or be converted under Ezechias, chap. x. 22. (Calmet) --- Protestants, Go "thou, and Shear-Jashub, thy son, at the end of the conduit," &c. (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v10 b) Isaiah in the bosom of the royal family…
b) Isaiah in the bosom of the royal family giving a sign by announcing the Virgin’s Son Immanuel
Isa_7:10-25
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10 40 Moreover the Lord spake again unto Ahaz, saying,
11 Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God;
41Ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.
12 But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord; 13And he said,
Hear ye now, O house of David;
Is it a small thing for you to weary men,
But will ye weary my God also?
14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign;
Behold, a virgin 42shall conceive, and bear a son,
And 43shall call his name Immanuel.
15 Butter and honey shall he eat,
That he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.
16 For before the child shall know
To refuse the evil, and choose the good,
The land that thou abhorrest
Shall be forsaken of both her kings.44
17 The Lord shall bring upon thee,
And upon thy people, and upon thy father’s house,
Days that have not come,
From the day that Ephraim departed from Judah;
Even the king of Assyria.
18 And it shall come to pass in that day,
That the Lord shall hiss
For the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt,
And for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.
19 And they shall come, and shall rest all of them
In the 45desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks,
And upon all thorns, and upon all 4647bushes.
20 In the same day shall the Lord shave 48with a razor that is hired,
Namely, by them beyond the river, by the king of Assyria,
The head, and the hair of the feet:
And it shall also consume the beard.
21 And it shall come to pass in that day,
That a man shall 49nourish a young cow, and two sheep;
22 And it shall come to pass,
For the abundance of milk that 50they shall give he shall eat butter:
For butter and honey shall every one eat
That is left 51in the land.
23 And it shall come to pass in that day,
That every place 52shall be,
Where then were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings,
It shall even be for briers and thorns.
24 With arrows and with bows shall men come thither;
Because all the land shall become briars and thorns.
25 And on all hills that shall be digged with the mattock,
Then shall not come thither 53the fear of briers and thorns:
But it shall be for the sending forth of oxen,
And for the treading of lesser cattle.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
On Isa_7:10. וַיוֹסֶף ו׳ occurs again in Isaiah only Isa_8:5.
On Isa_7:11. The words העמק ונו׳ admit of several explanations. But that must be excluded at once which reading שְׁאָלָֽה (with the tone on the ultima) takes the word as substantive. For “request” is שְׁאֵלָה, and there is no reason for assuming that the Masorets punctuated falsely. The explanation is very old that takes שְׁאָֽלָה as a pausal form for שְׁאלָה (Gen_37:35; Gen_42:38; Gen_44:29; Gen_44:31; Num_16:30; Num_16:33; Eze_31:15 sqq.). The LXX. Vulg., Pesch., Arab, have it, and it commends itself in point of sense very much. For when it says. “Descending deep into hell, or mounting up to the height,” both members correspond admirably both in respect to sense and to sound. But this construction is dubious. For the examples cited by Ewald § 93, a, 3, rest all of them on this, that an existing or possible form with a may be chosen in pause for the form with o in accordance with the law of variation. For there is no such thing as an o changed into a in pause. We must therefore take שְׁאָֽלָה as imperative (comp. רְנָֽזָה Isa_32:11; שְׁמָֽעָהְ סְלָֽחה Dan_9:19; סְעָֽדָה 1Ki_13:7. Then הַֽעֲמֵק (Isa_29:15; Isa_30:33; Isa_31:6) הַנְכֵּהּ (Psa_113:5) are inffabs. with a gerund sense: “going deep ask or mounting up high.”
On Isa_7:12. ולא־אנסה a paratactic construction.
On Isa_7:13. The construction המעט מכם means originally “is it from you out (from your point of view) a little?” The כִּי has a causal sense: because ye insult my God. One sees that to insult men is a small matter, an unsatisfying indulgence to your haughtiness. Comp. Num_16:9; Job_15:11; Eze_34:18.
On Isa_7:14. Regarding עַלְמָה it may be considered settled that directly and properly it can never signify a married woman. It may, perchance, be used of a young married woman, whose youth or youthful looks one would especially emphasize, like Ruth (Isa_2:5-6) as a young wife is called נַֽעֲרָה. But in point of fact no such form of expression occurs in the Old Testament. On the other hand a virgin, as such, (as virgo illibata) is never called עלמה. For the proper term for virgin is בּתְוּלהָ (Gen_24:16; Lev_21:3; Lev_21:13-14; Deu_22:14; Deu_22:19-20; Jdg_19:24; 2Sa_13:2; 2Sa_13:18) and virginity is בְּתוּלִים (Deu_22:15; Deu_22:17; Jdg_11:37 sq.; Eze_23:3; Eze_23:8). עַלְמָה is fem. of עֶלֶם (1Sa_17:56; 1Sa_20:22) and has nothing to do with עָלַם “to conceal.” עֶלֶם, however, is from a root עָלַם, kindred to עוּל (trans. sugere, potare, intr. redundare, succulentum, vegetum esse). The latter עָלַם occurs in Hebrew only in the words עֲלֻמִים ,עַלְמָה , עֶלֶם (œtas juvenilis of women Isa_54:4, of men Psa_89:46; Job_20:11; Job_33:25) more common in the dialects, where it has the meaning of “becoming fat, thick, strong, mature, manly.” עלמה occurs (not to count the musical term עֲלָמוֹת Psa_46:1; 1Ch_15:20) six times: Gen_24:43; Exo_2:8; Pro_30:19; Psa_68:26; Son_1:3; Son_6:8. In none of these passages can it be proved to have the sense of virgo illibata or conjux. Especially from Song of Sol. it appears that the third class of the occupants of Solomon’s harem comprised the עֲלָמוֹת. Was virginity characteristic of them? Pro_30:19 is difficult. According to all the foregoing it seems to me certain that every בְּתוֹּלָה is indeed a עַלְמָה, but not every עַלְמָה a בְּתוּלָה. As עֲלוּמִים is the time of youth generally, and may be used of men as well as of women, (בִּתוּלִים could not be said of men) then עלמה is the young woman, still fresh, young and unmarried, without regard to whether still a virgin in the exact sense.—הנה הע׳ הרה, that these words may be read: “behold, the virgin is pregnant,” is owned by every one. The expression occurs twice beside. Gen_16:11 the angel says to Hagar, who was already pregnant: הנָּךְ הָרָה וְיֹלַדְתְּ בֵּן וְקָרָאת שְׁמוֹ יִשְׁמָעֵאל. This passage has, moreover, so much resemblance to ours that we must suppose that it was in the Prophet’s mind. Jdg_13:5; Jdg_13:7, it is at least very probable, considering Isa_7:12, that the wife of Manoah was already pregnant. The form קָרָאת in the original passage, Gen_16:16, Isaiah 2 pers. fem. In our passage it may also be 3 pers. fem. For this form is still to be found Gen_33:11; Exo_5:16 (?); Lev_25:21; Lev_26:34; Deu_31:29; Jer_13:19; Jer_44:23; 2Ki_9:37 (K’thib); Psa_118:23. It is seen that the form occurs most frequently in the Pentateuch, while Jer_44:23 is a verbatim quotation from Deu_31:29; and 2Ki_9:37, there exists likely an error of the pen, thus leaving only two instances not in the Pentateuch beside our verse. The form occurs nowhere else in Isaiah.
On Isa_7:15. That לדעתו is not: “until his knowing,” appears from this, that, the Prophet would in that case say that from his birth on to the years of discretion the boy would be nourished with butter and honey, and then no longer. Thereby, too, the prospect of a brief period of desolation for the land would be held out, which plainly is not the meaning of the Prophet. For Isaiah had in mind the periods of exile, both the Assyrian and the Babylonian, and neither comprises in itself and in the Prophet’s representation so short a period. That the latter is so is seen in the way he expresses himself (Isa_7:17 sq.) on the occasion and extent of the desolation. Therefore לדעתו means: “to the time of his knowing; or about the time.” Comp. לָאוֹר ,לָבֹּקֶר לְעֵת עֶרֶב ,ְלָעֶרֶב, Psa_30:6 : Job_24:14; Gen_3:8; Gen_8:14; Gen_49:27, etc.—המאה is “thick milk,” lac spissum, (comp. Gen_18:8; Jdg_5:25; Pro_30:33).
On Isa_7:16. That the Prophet says האדמה and not האדץ, has for its reason doubtless that he would designate Syria and the territory of the Ten Tribes by one word. But the two together did not constitute an ארץ, but a land complex in a physical sense.—On קָץ comp. at Isa_7:6.
On Isa_7:17. The form of expression אשׁר לא באו is like Exo_10:6; Exo_34:10; Dan_9:12. The construction למיום ונו is like Jer_7:7; Jer_7:25; Jer_25:11. All that follows depends as one notion on the distributive לְ. Without לְ Exo_10:6.
On Isa_7:18. והיה ביום ההוא, this formula occurs Isa_7:21; Isa_7:23; Isa_10:20; Isa_10:27; Isa_11:10; Isa_11:1; Isa_17:4; Isa_22:20; Isa_23:15; Isa_24:21; Isa_27:13, and not again. In this formula יום does not designate only a day in the ordinary sense, but, according to circumstances, an undetermined period, like we use the word “period.”—זבוב only here in Isaiah.—יְאֹר is an Egyptian word (comp. on Isa_19:6) which, however, has become naturalized in Hebrew. It is partly appellative, and as such means “ditches” (Exo_8:1; Isa_33:21) and rivers (Nah_3:8; Dan_12:5); partly a proper name, and as such means the Nile (Isa_19:7-8; Isa_23:10). The יארי מערים (comp. Isa_19:6; Isa_37:25; 2Ki_19:24) are the canals of the Nile (Exo_8:1).
On Isa_7:19. בּתּוֹת is ἅπ. λεγ. If it is kindred to בָּתה (Isa_5:6) which is most probable, it means abscissum praeruptum, the steep side of a wady.—נָקִיק (found beside only Jer_13:4; Jer_16:16) is, as appears plain from Jer_13:4, “the cleft.”—נַֽעֲצוּץ (again only Isa_55:13) is “the thornbush; נַֽהֲלֹל (from נֵהַל Exo_15:13; Isa_40:11; Isa_49:10; Isa_51:18, “to lead to pasture”) pascuum, the pasture, grazing ground.
On Isa_7:20. נִּלַּח and תער only here in Isaiah. שׂכירה subs. abstractum (conductio), but may be also fem. of שָׂכִיר (conductus, “hired”) occurs nowhere else. This razor is to be had נהר ּבעברי נהר without article, like Mic_7:12, and Jer_2:18 (which passage, more over, looks back to ours), is the Euphrates. The עברי are the two sides of the Euphrates; for עֶבֶר alone may mean the territory on the hither side as well as the further side (comp. Jos_24:2-3; Jos_24:14-15; 2Sa_10:16; 1Ch_19:16, with 2Ki_5:4; Ezr_8:36; Neh_2:7; Neh_2:9; Neh_3:7), and עַבָרִים are the sides generally: Exo_32:15; 1Ki_5:4; Jer. 58:28; 49:32.—שׁער רנלים is euphemistic, like Deu_28:57; Isa_36:12 K’ri. Comp. Jdg_3:24; 1Sa_24:4. תסכּה proves that the Prophet uses תער as fem., which usually is masc. Thereby the adjective construction of שׁכירה is confirmed as the correct one. Regarding the usus loquendi, comp. Isa_13:15; Isa_29:1; Isa_30:1.
On Isa_7:21. שׁתי צאן, because female sheep, yielding milk are meant. He does not kill them, but lets them live, raises them. חיה is “to make live.” This does not occur only when something dead, or non-existent, is called into life: but also when something living, but on the point of dying, is let live; therefore “preserves alive.” Comp. Isa_38:1; Gen_7:3; 2Sa_12:3; 1Ki_18:5, etc.
On Isa_7:23. On שׁמיר ושׁית see on Isa_5:6.
On Isa_7:25. Both the verb נֶעְדַּר and the substantive מַעְדִּר occur only in Isaiah, viz., here and Isa_5:6.—מִשְׁלָח is a place where cattle are allowed to roam free (comp. Isa_32:20). The expression belongs to Deuteronomy, where only, except here, it is found; Deut. 12:7; 15:10; 13:21; 28:8, 20.—מִרְמָס see on Isa_5:5.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Moreover the Lord—tempt the Lord, Isa_7:10-12. When Isaiah says: “Moreover the Lord spake,” he puts himself quite in the background. He gives prominence only to the proper author of the address, as Isa_7:3, he reports only the words of Jehovah to himself, and passes over the performance that was his, a man’s work, as a matter of course. Though Ahaz was a backslider, the divine love on its part does not let him go. The Lord says still to him: I am thy God. De jure. He is so, though de facto so no longer. Because Jehovah still loves Ahaz, He seeks to reclaim him, coming to him half way, and holding out His hand in order to make return as easy for him as possible. That is, the Lord demands no unconditional faith from Ahaz, but He permits him to attach his faith to any condition that he will. If Jehovah fulfils the condition, then that is security, or the sign, that Jehovah deserves to be believed, that He is therefore the God He gives Himself out to be.
There is no other instance of submitting to a man’s choice what the sign shall be. It may be fearlessly said that for Isaiah to propose to Ahaz the choice of a miraculous sign is itself a sign. It is a pledge that he serves the true, living, and almighty God; that therefore there is such a God, who not only can do miracles, but who, under circumstances, will do them. Had Isaiah offered Ahaz this choice without possessing the power to perform what he promised, he would have been either a deceiver or a crazed enthusiast. In the name of science, rationalistic expositors may be challenged to prove that Isaiah was a deceiver or an enthusiast. In any case the Prophet leaves it to Ahaz, from what part of the universe he will have a miracle.
The reply of Ahaz is hypocritical. He acts as if he still believed in Jehovah, and as if he declined the proposal only through fear, lest he should have the appearance of tempting God (Deu_5:16). But he had already his own plans. He had already resolved to oppose to the gods and kings of Syria and Ephraim, not Jehovah, the God of Judah, but the gods and the king of Assyria.
[Isa_7:11. “Ask it in the depth,” etc. There may be an historical relation between this expression and Deu_30:11-14, and Joh_4:11-13, and Rom_10:6-8, and comp. Psa_139:6-10, that makes them useful for mutual interpretation. Τὴν ἃβυσσν, Rom_10:7, seems to show that Paul combines the language of Deuteronomy and Isaiah, and also to favor the LXX. and Vulg. in reading our passage as if שְׁאֹלָה were meant.—Tr.].
2. And he said—Immanuel, Isa_7:13-14. It seems to me that this form of address, joined to the “moreover the Lord spake,” Isa_7:10, intimates that the Prophet spoke these words, not on the spot mentioned Isa_7:3, but in the house of David, i. e., in the royal palace, and before the royal family, and that the contents of his address concerned very nearly the house of David as a family, (not merely as representative of the government). הלאה, to weary,” corresponds exactly to the French ennuyer, which means primarily the discomfort one experiences from anything that lasts too long, and then any sort of discomfort. Without doubt Ahaz had often enough made trial of human patience. But “to weary men” seems to point to the fact that in Ahaz’s refusal lay an insult to the Prophet. For this refusal might be regarded as indirectly repelling an insane presumption on the part of Isaiah. Still, doubtless, the insult to his God is the chief matter to the Prophet. Notice that by “my God” here, he in a measure retracts the “thy God” of Isa_7:10. By this one word he lets Ahaz know that by his unbelief he has excluded himself from a part in the Lord. Full of this displeasure, the Prophet declares to the house of David: Because ye will have no sign, one shall be given to you. The sign must therefore be one that Ahaz could observe, and every meaning that ignores this, must from the outstart be regarded as mistaken. It is further clear that the sign which Ahaz must accept against his will must be of a character unpleasant to him. The whole connection shows this clearly. The unbelief, the desertion, the hypocrisy of Ahaz must be punished. Had he accepted the offer of the Lord, he might at will have chosen a sign from any sphere. But because he insolently declined the offer, he must put up with a sign that will appear in a very delicate quarter, and consist in a fact very unpleasant for him. Consider in addition that the Prophet, as we learned above, spoke these words in the royal palace, and before the royal family, and we obtain an important threefold canon for the exposition of the passage: the sign must have been for Ahaz, 1) recognized; 2) unpleasant, punishing; 3) of concern to his whole family.
Behold the virgin,etc.—“Behold” has great emphasis. “It stands here as if the Prophet raised his hand, signed to all the world that they should be still and give heed to this the chiefest miracle of which he would now preach.” (Foerster).—On העלמה see Text. and Gr. Who is “the virgin” here? To whom does the definite article point? We must at the outset exclude all those exposisions according to which the Alma = “virgin” is a purely ideal person, whether belonging to the present or the future. What sort of a sign for Ahaz could it be, if the Prophet in spirit saw in the remote future a virgin that bore the Messiah; even if, by means of an ideal anticipation, the wonderful child, which formed, as it were, the soul of the people’s life, is construed as representative of the contemporaries of Ahaz (Hengstenberg)? It is no better when, by a figurative construction the Alma is made to mean Israel, out of which a people of salvation shall arise, which, after it has endured the consequences of the present ignorance, shall know to prefer the good to the bad (v. Hofmann). It is the same with the explanation of W. SchultzProf, in Breslau, Stud. and Krit., 1861, Heft. IV.) who by comprehending under the Alma or virgin the Messiah and His mother, and all their typical forerunners, understands by this person “the quiet ones of the land, who needed not the king nor his co-operation.” The canon we have set up as imperative, is equally violated by Kueper (Die Proph. d. A. B. übersichtle dargestellt, Leipzig, 1870, p. 216): he admits that Alma does not necessarily mean a pure virgin, yet he lays especial emphasis on the virginity of the mother, because it may be inferred from the name Immanuel, which proves the piety of the mother; and he sees precisely in this virginity the threat against Ahaz, because it follows that Immanuel is to be born without co-operation of a man of the race of David. For it is impossible that Ahaz could infer this virginity thus from the words of the Prophet. Beside, there is nothing threatening in the promise that the Messiah shall be born as the Son of God in the sense of Luk_1:35, without co-operation of a man, of the race of David; it is rather the highest honor. The latest attempt at exposition, too, by Ed. Engelhardt (Zeitschr. f. Luth. Theol. and K. 1872 Heft. IV.), does not satisfy. “The house of David cannot be destroyed before the promised deliver comes forth from it. The mother is therefore, yet to appear that bears Him, and this mother, determined by the word of the Prophecy, it is that the Prophet means here “(l. c. page 627).” How is it to be proved that העלמה was a standing expression for the mother of the Messiah? What, moreover, was there punitive in this? What in the text says that the house of David would be destroyed after the birth of the Messiah’s mother? Moreover, how is this conceivable? To express what Engelhardt fancies is the meaning of the Prophet, the words must read: the Alma has not yet borne. What sort of a sign, would that be?
Others adopt an ideal construction in the sense that they regard the birth of a son from the Alma, at the time indicated, as an idea, a possibility, without reference to its realization (“were a virgin to conceive this instant a boy as an emblem of his native land, the mother would name her babe like the land at that time must say: God was with us,” Eichhorn, comp. J. D. Michaelis, Paulus, Staehelin,etc.). The arbitrariness of this exposition is manifest; the Prophet does not speak hypothetically, but quite categorically. This sign, too, would be neither observable, nor threatening.
Others find the key to the exposition (Rosenmueller, Ewald, Bertheau), in the supposition that Isaiah saw the Messiah Himself in the child to be born, and that consequently we have before us, an erroneous hope and an unfulfilled Prophecy. But it is incredible that the Prophet, accompanied as he was by his son Shearjashub, could have expected in so short a period the fulfilment of the Prophecy contained in his name. The people must first become a remnant. Comp., the Prophet’s inquiry Isa_6:10 and the reply Isa_7:11. If the Alma does call her son Immanuel, he is not necessarily therefore really Immanuel. It may mean only that he signifies the Immanuel. And so, too, Isa_8:8, the land of Immanuel is not the land of the present, but of the future Immanuel, who only is the true Lord and Master of the land. In Isa_8:10 where עִמָּנוּ אֵל is written separately as two words, can at most only a play on the name Immanuel be recognized. Moreover if Isaiah saw in the boy Immanuel the Messiah himself, then must certainly his mother be the legitimate wife of a member of the family of David. But it is incredible that עַלְמָה alone without any qualification, can mean married women.
The ancient Jewish explanation, according to which the Alma was the mother of Hezekiah, that Abi. daughter of Zachariah (2Ki_18:2), was shown by Jerome even to be impossible, inasmuch as Hezekiah at the time Isaiah spoke these words was already 12 years old. The later Jewish explanation ranks among its supporters Faustus Socinus, Joh. Crellius, (Socinian), Grotius, (who in his Dever. religionis Christ. still presented the orthodox view, but afterwards went over to Crellius’ views), Joh. Ludwig Von Wolzogen (Socinian), John Ernst. Faber (in the Anm. zu Harmar’s Beobachtungen über den Orient, etc., I. S. 281), [Put Dr. Barnes here: only that he includes a reference to Messiah, according to Mat_1:22.—Tr.] Gesenius, Hitzig, Heudewerk, Knobel,etc. According to this view the Alma is the wife of the Prophet himself, either the mother of Shear-jashub, or a younger one, at that time only betrothed to him. But this is wrecked on the impossibility of referring העלמה to the wife or the betrothed of the Prophet without any nearer designation and without the faintest hint of her being present. Beside, how should the family of the Prophet happen to have the Immanuel born in it? Were the promises to David to be transferred to Isaiah? Kimchi and Abarbanel modify this view by saying that by the Alma must be understood the wife of Ahaz. But then, instead of something bad, the Prophet would rather have announced something joyful. Others again understand by the Alma any virgin, not more particularly specified, that was present at the place of interview, and to whom the Prophet pointed with the finger.
For my part I believe, that in expounding our passage, it is an exegete’s duty to leave out of view at first Mat_1:23. We have only to ask: What, according to the words and context, did Isaiah in that moment wish to say, and actually say? How far his word spoken then was a prophecy, and with what justice Mat_1:18 regards the fact recounted there as the fulfilment of this prophecy will appear from inquiry that must be made afterwards. Bearing in mind then the canon proposed above, and we obtain the meaning: Behold the (i. e. this) virgin (i. e. this yet unmarried daughter of the royal house) is pregnant, etc. After the indignant words of the Prophet, Isa_7:14 a, that roll up like dark clouds, we must look for a sign that strikes the house of David like thunder and lightning. Doubtless Ahaz was not the only guilty person. While Joshua (Jos_24:15) had said: “I and my house will serve the Lord,” Ahaz had said the contrary. If not, why did the Prophet, instead of addressing himself to the king with such emphasis, address the whole house? And did what was said Isa_3:16 sq. about the luxury of the daughters of Zion have no application to the women in the household of Ahaz? Therefore the whole house must with terror endure the shame of one of the princesses who was present being pointed out as pregnant. That is the bold manner of the prophets of Jehovah—a manner that is no respecter of persons—the “sackcloth roughness” of men that know that they have Almighty God for their support. Thus, for example, Jeremiah said to king Jehoiakim that he should be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem, Jer_22:19.
As regards the sense, it remains essentially the game whether קרתא is translated “thou wilt call” or “she will call.” For in any case the word is spoken in presence of the Alma. She herself takes note of what the Prophet announces in regard to the name to be given. Whether she is spoken to or spoken of, remains immaterial. If God, with no expression of disapproval, says “she will call him Immanuel,” is not that as much as to say: “she shall so call him?” She would hardly have thought of that name herself. It was not a usual name. It is found only here in the Old Testament. It was a beautiful name, rich in consolation. The Lord would have spoken quite differently if the name had given Him displeasure. That such was not the case, we see from Isa_8:8; Isa_8:10 very decidedly. If often occurs in Scripture that mothers give names to their children: Gen_4:25; Gen_19:37 sq.; Gen_29:32; Gen_30:6; Gen_30:8; Gen_30:11; Gen_30:13; Gen_30:18; Gen_30:20; Gen_30:24; Gen_35:18; 1Sa_1:20. Often the name is determined by divine command: Gen_16:11; Gen_17:19; Hos_1:4; Hos_1:6; Hos_1:9; 1Ch_22:9; Mat_1:21. Here, now, grave doubts arise. Is it conceivable that God has made a fallen woman the type of the θεοτόκος, and an illegitimate child the type of the Son of God become man? The objections to our view, founded on the piety of the Alma (see above), disappear when we refer back the giving of the name to the announcement of the divine will. For if the Alma does not name the child Immanuel self-prompted, she gives no proof of fearing God and faith in God. She did only what she could not have omitted to do without defying the divine will. But how is it conceivable that God should make such a child the bearer and symbol of His holy purpose of salvation, a child to which clung the reproach of illegitimate birth, that was therefore the fruit and the continual monument of sin, whose mother, in fact, in some circumstances, might have incurred the penalty of stoning, according to Deu_22:21? How can this fruit of sin bear the holy name of Immanuel? Does this not involve the dangerous inference that God does not take strict account of sin? that in some cases He does not mind using it as means and instrument for His plans? To this I would reply as follows. The Prophet is extremely sparing in portraying the historical background of his prophecies. He indicates only what is indispensable. It is just this scantiness that makes our passage so difficult, and all effort’s at expounding it suffer alike from this. For there is not a single one against which it may not be objected that one explanatory statement or other is necessary to its complete establishment. It seems to me that the presence of the article in ”the Alma” is easiest explained if, in the circle to which the Prophet addressed, there was only one person present that could be designated as Alma. In every language in such a case a more exact pronominal definition may be dispensed with. Besides, in Hebrew, the article in some cases has decidedly a demonstrative meaning, and can be used δεικτικῶς (comp. הַיּוֹה ,הַשָּׁנָה ,הַפַּעַם הַלַּיְלָה,).
The Prophet, as the servant of Jehovah, might come to the king unannounced. Though hated by the king, the king still dreaded him, and, according to Isa_7:12, Ahaz did not venture to express his unbelief openly, but only under the mask of reverence. Assuredly Nathan did not first request an audience and permission to deliver a message of Jehovah’s to the king (2Sa_24:11 sq.). And thus we may assume that the Prophet came to the palace at a time when the king was not surrounded by officers of state—at least not by these alone, but also by his family. And in the circle into which Isaiah stepped in the discharge of his prophetic disciplinary office there must have been one—but only one—daughter of the royal house who was indeed unmarried, but no longer a virgin. More than this we do not know. The Prophet writes no more than he said, perhaps out of compassion, or perhaps to avoid making the person in question the object of honors she did not deserve (possibly of idolatrous worship in after days). By revealing this secret to the dismay of the family, the Prophet had of course given a sign, a pledge of the credibility of what was promised Isa_7:7. For whoever knew that secret of the past and present could know also the secret things of the future. And the king could at once ascertain the verity of the sign that was given. Of course he might take measures to defeat the prophecy and render its accomplishment impossible. But what good would that do? The chief thing, that there was a boy in the body of the (supposed) virgin, he could not undo, and this boy was called, and was de jure, and indeed de jure divino, Immanuel, even though the king (or his mother) gave him no name at all, or another name. [See addenda of Tr. pp. 127, 128.]
But how shall we account for so unholy a transaction being made the type of the holiest transaction of history? Here we must consider the relation of our passage to Mat_1:23. The sacred history narrates that Mary, before Joseph took her home, was found with child, and that Joseph had resolved not to denounce her, but to leave her privately (Mat_1:18 sq.). Ought it to surprise us if this part of the history of the fulfilment should be prefigured, too, in the period of the prophecy? But why just so and then? If that event, that the mother of the Lord was to be found pregnant before marriage, was to be prefigured, could it be done otherwise than that there should happen to a virgin in a natural way and in sinful fashion what happened to Mary in a supernatural way and without sin? Sinful generation occurs in the list of the ancestors of Jesus more than once. Compare only the genealogy in Matthew that calls especial attention to these cases by naming the mother concerned. Remember Judah and Tamar. And not to mention Rahab and Ruth, there is Solomon, born of David and the wife of Uriah. “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me,” Psa_51:7, applies to the whole genealogy, and, apart from the birth, we must apply to every individual of it the words: “there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Psa_14:3; Rom_3:10 sq.). Let one call to mind the sins of Jacob, a David, a Solomon, and one must say it depends on circumstances which was the more unworthy vessel, they or this unfortunate virgin. In short, we here stumble on secrets of divine sovereignty that we cannot fathom. The day shall declare it (1Co_3:13).
Moreover Immanuel is only a transitory apparition. He is named only here and chap. 8. It is a single though significant point, that is visible above the horizon once and then disappears again. Therefore it is also to be noted that spite of Mat_1:23, and that the words of the angel Luk_1:31 remind us of our text and of Gen_16:11, Mary still did not receive command to call her son Immauel. Had our passage the significance that is attributed to it; were it a direct prophecy of the birth of Jesus from a virgin, then properly the name that the son of Mary was to bear was already settled, and one can’t comprehend why the angel (Luk_1:31) gives another name. But Immanuel is not Himself and immediately Jesus. He is only a type, like many others. And, indeed, as a son of a virgin, He is a type of that reproach of antenuptial conception which the Saviour of the world had to bear as a part of the general reproach that was meted out to Him, and which He has now-a-days to bear still. This is a point that prophecy might not pass in silence, and yet could touch only lightly.
But by his name he points to the faithfulness of God that will not forsake His people, even when they have become a בֶּן־זְנוּנִים, and have signalized their desertion of Him by the alliance with the secular power. And this faithfulness is itself a pledge in turn of that which had determined on the most glorious visitation of the people (Luk_1:78) in the person of the God-man, precisely for that time when the nation would lose the last remnant of its independence in the embrace of the secular powder. All the features must not be pressed; which is the case with Isa_7:15 sqq. especially. The prophetic word hovers freely over present and future, combining both, yet leaving both their peculiarities. It was God’s providence that Isaiah should select these words that at the same time fitted so wonderfully the event narrated Mat_1:18 sqq., to whom the tongue of an Isaiah was just as subservient as that of a Caiaphas (Joh_11:51).
3. Butter and honey—the King of Assyria.
Isa_7:15-17. Butter and honey is by no means a mean food. That appears from Deu_32:13-14; Job_20:17, where the words rather mean a very noble food. Comp. 2Sa_17:29. Nor do they appear in any passage of the Old Testament, as children’s food. Rather from Isa_7:21 sqq. it appears that butter and honey represent natural food in contrast with that procured by art. For butter comes immediately from milk, and honey, too, may be had ready from bees in a form that men can enjoy. And as Palestine had and still has many wild bees, on account of which it is called a land “flowing with milk and honey” (comp. Exo_3:8; Exo_3:17, sqq. and the characteristic passage 1Sa_14:25 sqq.; Jdg_14:8), therefore we may suppose that wild honey (Mat_3:4) is especially meant here. Therefore the boy shall eat butter and honey on to the time when he shall know evil and good (anni discretionis). If the ability to distinguish good and evil is employed as marking a period of time, it can only be in a moral sense. For even the smallest child distinguishes in a physical sense what tastes bad and what good. Moreover the expression reminds one of Gen_2:9; Gen_2:17; Gen_3:5; Gen_3:22; comp. Deu_1:39. Naturally the land must be deserted before the boy knows how to distinguish between good and evil, in order that at the time when this happens, his food may be reduced to butter and honey.
The two kings of the land are Rezin and Pekah. It may be seen from Isa_7:2 how great was the dread of these
experienced by Ahaz.
The Lord shall bring,etc.—It is to be noticed here, first of all, that the Prophet adds these words roughly and directly, without any particle connecting them with what goes before. This mode of expression is explained by the fact that the Prophet contemplates the transactions of Isa_7:17 as immediately behind those of Isa_7:16. From his point of view he sees no interval between them. That is not the same as saying that there is no interval between. Prophecy sees all as if in one plane, that in the fulfilment is drawn apart in successive planes. Hence one may say: Isaiah prophesies here the Assyrian and Babylonish exile. For the desolation that (Isa_7:16) is to befall Ephraim happened by the carrying away of the Ten Tribes (comp. 2Ki_17:6; 2Ki_17:23 sqq.). But what the Prophet predicts Isa_7:17 sqq. was fulfilled by the captivity of Judah more than 120 years later. Accordingly, the relation of the prophecy to the fulfilment takes the following shape. Our prophecy must have happened in the beginning of the reign of Ahaz, consequently about the year B. C. 743. The first devastation and partial desolation of the territory of Ephraim by the Assyrians, i. e., by Tiglath-Pileser, happened already in the time of Pekah (2Ki_15:29), who died B. C. 739. The boy, that was to be born according to Isa_7:14, in fact did not live to see any period of the desolation of his native land, nor did he use butter and honey in the manner designated. This form of expression is traceable solely to contemplation of events together that in reality are far apart. For Judah succumbed to such a devastation not till 130 years later. But if we may assume that a child awakes. to moral consciousness in its third or fourth year, and is consequently to be regarded as a personality, capable of distinguishing between good and evil, then that child was alive to see the first inroad of the Assyrians into the territory of Ephraim (and Syria according to 2Ki_16:9) and consequently the beginning of the fulfilment of our prophecy. But did it live to see the beginning, then the Prophet might regard it as one that had lived through the entire fulfilment, because, as remarked before, he does not distinguish successive plains of fulfilment. And he has good reason for this. For as all consequences are contained in the principle, so in the first-fruits of fulfilment are contained the rest of the degrees of fulfilment. For him, who has an eye open to divine realities, all these degrees are ideally contained, but just on that account divinely and really contained in the degree that is the first-fruits. For divine ideas bear the pledge of their reality in themselves. Therefore where a complex of divine ideas is realized even in its beginnings, there the whole is become real for Him who contemplates things with an eye divinely illuminated. Thus Jeremiah regards the world-dominion of Nebuchadnezzar, the subjection of all nations under his power, and the seventy years of Judah’s exile as realized practically by the battle at Carchemish, although, to human eyes, Nebuchadnezzar during several years did nothing to extend his kingdom on one side or other. Comp. my remarks on Jer_25:11. So, too, the Lord says Mat_24:34; Luk_21:32, “This generation shall not pass away till all this be fulfilled.” He could, with entire justice, say that the generation then living would live to see the last judgment because they would witness the beginning of it, the destruction of Jerusalem. Comp. Van Oosterzee on Luk_21:32.
It is seen from the foregoing that, regarding the passage in the light of its fulfilment, we understand “the king of Assyria” Isa_7:17, to include the king of Babylon. But Isaiah could speak here only of the king of Assyria. For in the foreground of his tableau of the future he saw only the king of Assyria. He did not know, or did not need to intimate that the king of Babylon stood behind the former as continuer and accomplisher. The Assyrian king, this would-be-helper and protector, for whose sake Ahaz has so impiously contemned the support of Jehovah (see on Isa_7:12), just he must be designated as the instrument of the judgment that was to burst in on unbelieving Judah and its equally unbelieving royal house. Thus it appears how impossible it is to treat the words “the king of Assyria” as a gloss, like Knobel and Diestel do. If the words were not there, there would be no hint as to who was to be the instrument of the judgment predicted Isa_7:16-17. The words connect very well with “days” in apposition as being explanatory—for it is just as easy to say “bring days on a people” as “bring a king upon any one.”
4. And it shall come to pass——treading lesser cattle.
Isa_7:18-25. These verses connect very closely with Isa_7:17, as its amplification. This happens as follows: that in a section underlying which is a duality, there is described first, the means and instruments of the desolation, second the consequences of the desolation. The means and instruments are characterized in a two fold image. First, the destroyer is compared to flies and bees, second, to a razor. The flies mean Egypt, the bees Assyria. But both images merge into one, into that of the razor, and Assyria appears as the razor, by which we are to understand not Assyria alone, but also Babylon. The consequences of the desolation, again, are portrayed under a double figure, or rather by the presentation of two examples. The first example: a man has nothing of his cattle left but a little cow (young cow). But he feeds on thick milk, for, in consequence of the superabundance of food for stock, the remnant of the inhabitants will feed on butter and honey. The second example is itself again divided in two: a.) a vineyard once well cultivated, planted with noble vines, is so over-grown with thorns and thistles, that no one ventures into it without bow and arrow; b.) all the once cultivated heights are so overgrown with thorns and thistles, that they are only fit for the pasture of cattle.
Will hiss,etc.—Jehovah’s might and sovereignty will reveal itself here in the most glorious manner. He only needs to whistle (comp. on Isa_5:26; Zec_10:8), and the flies of Egypt and the bees of Assyria come obedient to His call. That Egypt was a land abounding in flies may be supposed from the warmth of its climate and the frequent overflows with their slimy sediment. Comp. Exo_8:12 sqq. If the flies at the extreme ends of the canals (see crit. note on ׳אר) are called, those that are nearer would not stay away. The expression then means that all the Egyptian flies, even the farthest off, shall come on.—The Assyrians are compared to the bee as noble, martial, strong, dangerous. Assyria had many bees. Comp. Knobelin loc. Therefore the entire land, to the steep, rocky ravines and cliffs of the brooks, and to the prickly thorn hedges and the trampled cattle pastures will be covered (נָחוּ comp. a Isa_7:2) with the swarms of flies and bees. Thus, extensively and intensively, an entire devastation of the land is predicted. The same appears by the second figure Isa_7:20. Ahaz, at a great price, had hired the Assyrian king as an ally against Syria and Ephraim. For this purpose he had not only sacrificed great treasures but also the independence of his land. For he had caused it to be said to Tiglath-Pileser: “I am thy servant and thy son, come up and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria and out of the hand of the king of Israel.” 2Ki_16:7. For this purpose he sent the Assyrian the gold and silver that was in the house of Jehovah and in the house of the king. The definite article in תערחשׂכירה, “the hired razor,” was both historically justified and comprehensible to Ahaz, who must have felt the reproach that lay in the expression. Thou hast hired a razor to shave others, says Isaiah to him, but this razor will shave thee. In Lev_14:8 sq. the shaving off all the hair on the body is prescribed as a part of the purification to be observed by one recovered from leprosy. Perhaps the Prophet would intimate that this devastation was also an act of purification, by which the nation was to be purified from the leprosy of sin, that therefore the punishment is intended for the improvement of those that would accept the chastisement (Pro_8:10; Pro_19:20). The shaving bald evidently signifies the entire devastation and emptying of the land in every quarter and with regard to men, cattle and every other possession.
In Isa_7:21-25, the degree and extent of the devastation is portrayed by two illustrative figures. The first example shows that instead of skilful cultivation, the grass shall grow rank. A man rescues from his stock a heifer, the Prophet supposes, (comp. Isa_15:5; Jer_48:34; Deu_21:3; 1Sa_16:2) and two sheep. Because there is no regular cultivation, grass grows in every field. Therefore there is abundant pasture for the few cattle. Beside, the wild bees produce honey in abundance. Thus honey and butter are the food of that man and of all the remnant of the inhabitants still in the land. The second example presents a still greater degree of uncultivated wildness; the whole land growing rank with thorns and thistles. And this greatest wildness appears in a double gradation: first, every place for growing wine appears covered with thorns and thistles (Isa_7:23-24), and then the same is affirmed of all the hills. It is hard to find a distinction here, because wine grows on the hills, or mountains, too. It seems to me that the Prophet carries out completely in this last member the duality which, as was remarked, rules in the whole section. Everything is double. Already in Isa_7:18 we have flies and bees, meaning Egypt and Assyria; ravines and clefts of the rock; thorn-hedges and pastures. Only Isa_7:20 neglects the rule, because the Prophet would designate the two enemies in an unity. But Isa_7:21 and on, this rule of duality is carried out, and at the close becomes emphatic. We observe two degrees of growing wild. In the first appear: one man and the entire remnant of the inhabitants, cattle and sheep, butter and honey. The second degree, subdivides in two again, in which appears to me to lie the emphasis, and both are characterized by the double notions of thorn and thistle, arrow and bow, a seeding place for cattle, and a trampling place for sheep. The thousand vines and thousand shekels recall Son_8:11. In Syria at the present time the vineyards are still taxed according to the number of the vines; a good vine at one Piaster = about four cents. Therefore, the price of one shekel = to about 25 cents is high. The construction of Isa_7:23 betrays a certain luxuriance and rankness. The first or the last יִהְיֶה “shall be” is certainly an excess. Perhaps the Prophet would thereby express by word painting the rank growth of the weeds. Will one go into the property with bow and arrow in order to hunt, or to protect himself? I believe, with Gesenius, both. He that goes in will need his weapons for protection; he that would hunt needs only to go into the nearest vineyard. The protecting fence is gone; beasts wild and tame, penetrate into it. The vineyards of Israel are now a copy of what Israel itself as the vineyard of Jehovah had become (Isa_7:5).
[J. A. Alexander on Isa_7:14-16. “The two interpretations that appear to me the most plausible, and the least beset with difficulties are those of Lowth and Vitringa, with which last Hengstenberg’s is essentially identical. Either the Prophet, while he foretells the birth of Christ, foretells that of another child, during whose infancy the promised deliverance shall be experienced; or else he makes the infancy of Christ Himself, whether seen as still remote or not, the sign and measure of that same deliverance. While some diversity of judgment ought to be expected and allowed in relation to this secondary question, there is no ground, grammatical, historical or logical, for doubt as to the main point, that the church in all ages has been right in regarding this passage as a signal, and explicit prediction of the miraculous conception and nativity of Christ.” On הָעַלְמָה, “the Alma.” “It is enough for us to know that a virgin or unmarried woman is designated here as distinctly as she could be by a single word. That the word means simply a young woman, whether married or unmarried, a virgin or a mother, is a subterfuge invented by the later Greek translators, who, as Justin Martyr tells us, read νεα̈νις, instead of the old version παρθένος, which had its rise before the prophecy became a subject of dispute between Jews and Christians. The use of the word in this connection makes it, to say the least, extremely probable that the event foretold is something more than a birth in the ordinary course of nature.”
“To account for the Alma by a second marriage of Ahaz, or of Isaiah, or by the presence of a pregnant woman, or the Prophet’s pointing at her,” “may be justly charged with gratuitously assuming facts of which we have no evidence, and which are not necessary to the interpretation of the passage.” “A further objection is, that though they may afford a sign in one of the senses of the word, viz.: that of an emblem or symbol, they do not afford such a sign as the context would lead us to expect. It seems very improbable, after the offer to Ahaz, which he rejected, that the sign bestowed (unasked) would be merely a thing of every-day occurrence, or at most the application of a symbolical name. This presumption is strengthened by the solemnity with which the Prophet speaks of the predicted birth, not as a usual and natural event, but as something which excites his own astonishment, as he beholds it in prophetic vision.”
This last objection applies equally to the Author’s theory of the Alma being an unmarried princess detected in pregnancy. In addition to all the other assumptions of this theory, which are greater than those of any other, it must be assumed that the pregnancy was at a stage that could be kept secret from the scrutiny that ever characterized the regime of the women’s apartments in an oriental family. Otherwise it would be no sign in the Author’s sense.
The Author’s threefold canon has its foundation in what are obviously conjectures. Whether the sign was to be such as Ahaz was to test, because he would see it accomplished, depended precisely on the sign itself. It might be a sign like that to Moses Exo_3:12, which could only be fulfilled after other events predicted, with which it was associated as a sign, had come to pass. Comp. Isa_37:30. It may have been like those signs given by Christ to unbelievers in His day, that were not meant to induce belief in those that asked, but were the refusal of a sign to them. (vid.Joh_2:18-22; Mat_12:38-40). If it was such a sign, then the Author’s first canon is an error. Whether the sign was meant for the whole royal family, according to this third canon, depends wholly on the “house of David” having the meaning he gives it. Yet that meaning has no other foundation than the conjecture that Isaiah had intruded on the private, domestic retirement of Ahaz. The second canon, viz.: that the sign in its form must be punitive, is only an assumption. The contrary is as easily assumed.
The connection of the words Isa_7:10-16 with the Isa_7:9 b is very close. The belief there challenged is, by a second message, brought to the test. Ahaz does not stand the test. He does not believe, or he would joyfully avail himself of the offered sign, as Hezekiah did later 2Ki_20:8 sq. Thereupon Isaiah proceeds to denounce the consequences already threatened Isa_7:9 b, that must follow unbelief. But first, as to unbelieving Saul was announced the man after God’s own heart that was to be raised up in his place, so to Ahaz is announced, in a clearer light than ever before, the promised “seed of the woman” who would deliver Israel. But before that would come to pass, the two kingdoms of which Israel was composed, Judah as well as Ephraim must suffer desolation. Thus the prophecy of Immanuel relates to Christ alone, as J. H. Michaelis and others suppose (vid. J. A. Alex,in loc.); and Isa_7:16 is (with Henderson) to be understood of Canaan and its two kingdoms, Ephraim and Judah. This view encounters fewer difficulties than any other, while such as it does encounter are felt as much by any other. On the other hand it is much in favor of this view, that there is then in Isa_7:17 simply a continuation and amplification of the theme begun in Isa_7:16, and no such abruptness as the Author, with most expositors, finds in what Isa_7:17 announces.
The chief difficulty is that in כִּי בְּטֶרֶם יֵדַע הַנַּעַר the כִּי must be given the force of “but” (Umbreit). Yet כִּי may have its usual sense “for,” and assign the reason why an Immanuel, that knows good and evil, shall be needed. For before such a one comes, those that call good evil and evil good (vid.Isa_5:20), etc., shall have brought the inheritance of Jehovah to that extremity, by their unbelief, where only such a deliverer can save.—Tr.
On Isa_7:18. “Assyria and Egypt are named as the two great rival powers, who disturbed the peace of Western Asia, and to whom the land of Israel was both a place, and a subject of contention. The bee cannot of itself denote an army, nor is the reference exclusively to actual invasion, but to annoying and oppressive occupation of the country by civil and military agents of these foreign powers. It was not merely attacked, but infested by flies and bees of Egypt and Assyria. Fly is understood as a generic term, including gnats, mosquitoes, etc., by Henderson, and bee as including wasps and hornets, by Hitzig and Umbreit.”
On Isa_7:20. “The rabbinical interpretation of שׂער רנלים is a poor conceit, the adoption of which by Gesenius [and Naegelsbach—Tr.], if nothing worse, says but little for the taste and the “æsthetic feeling” which so often sits in judgment on the language of the Prophet. The true sense is no doubt the one expressed by Ewald (von oben bis unten) [from head to foot] and before him by Clericus. ”J. A. Alex.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Isa_7:1. “Hierosolyma oppugnatur, etc. Jerusalem is assaulted but not conquered. The church is pressed but not oppressed.”—Foerster.
2. On Isa_7:2. “Quando ecclesia, etc. When the Church is assaulted and Christ crucified over again in His elect, Rezin and Pekah, Herod and Pilate are wont to form alliance and enter into friendly relations. There are, so to speak, the foxes of Samson, joined indeed by the tails, but their heads are disconnected.”—Foerster.—“He that believes flees not (Isa_28:16). ‘The righteous is bold as a lion’ (Pro_28:1). Hypocrites and those that trust in works (work-saints) have neither reason nor faith. Therefore they cannot by any means quiet their heart. In prosperity they are, indeed, overweening, but in adversity they fall away (Jer_17:9).” Cramer.
3. On Isa_7:9. (“If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.”) “Insignis sententia, etc. A striking sentiment that may be adapted generally to all temptation, because all earnest endeavor after anything, as you know, beguiles us in temptation. But only faith in the word of promise makes us abide and makes sure whatever we would execute. He warns Ahaz, therefore, as if he said: I now promise you by the word, it shall be that those two kings shall not hurt you. Believe this word! For if you do not, whatever you afterwards devise will deceive you: because all confidence is vain which is not supported by the word of God.”—Luther.
4. On Isa_7:10-12. “Wicked Ahaz pretends to great sanctity in abstaining from asking a sign through fear of God. Thus hypocrites are most conscientious where there is no need for it: on the other hand, when they ought to be humble, they are the most insolent. But where God commands to be bold, one must be bold. For to be obedient to the word is not tempting God. That is rather tempting God when one proposes something without having the word for it. It is, indeed, the greatest virtue to rest only in the word, and desire nothing more. But where God would add something more than the word, then it must not be thought a virtue to reject it as superfluous. We must therefore exercise such a faith in the word of God that we will not despise the helps that are given in addition to it as aids to faith. For example the Lord offers us in the gospel all that is necessary to salvation. Why then Baptism and the Lord’s Supper? Are they to be treated as superfluous? By no means. For if one believes the word he will at the same time exhibit an entire obedience toward God. We ought therefore to learn to join the sign with the word, for no man has the power to sever the two.
But do you ask: is it permitted to ask God for a sign? We have an example of this in Gideon. Answer: Although Gideon was not told of God to ask a sign, yet he did it by the impulse of the Holy Spirit, and not according to his own fancy. We must not therefore abuse his example, and must be content with the sign that is offered by the Lord. But there are extraordinary signs or miracles, like that of the text, and ordinary ones like Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Yet both have the same object and use. For as Gideon was strengthened by that miraculous event, so, too, are we strengthened by Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, although no miracle appears before our eyes.” Heim and Hoffmann after Luther. Eliezer, the servant of Abraham, also asked the Lord to show him the right wife for Isaac by means of a sign of His own choosing, (Gen_24:14).
It ought to be said that this asking a sign (opening the Bible at a venture, or any other book) does not suit Christian perfection (Heb_6:1). A Christian ought to be inwardly sensible of the divine will. He ought to content himself with the guarantees that God Himself offers. Only one must have open eyes and ears for them. This thing of demanding a sign, if it is not directly an effect of superstition (Mat_12:39; Mat_16:4; 1Co_1:22), is certainly childish, and, because it easily leads to superstitious abuses, it is dangerous.
5. On Isa_7:13. “Non caret, etc. That the Prophet calls God his God is not without a peculiar emphasis. In Zec_2:12 it is said, that whoever touches the servants of God touches the pupil of God’s eye. Whoever opposes teacher and preacher will have to deal with God in heaven or with the Lord who has put them into office.”—Foerster.
6. On Isa_7:14. “The name Immanuel is one of the most beautiful and richest in contents of all the Holy Scripture. ‘God with us’ comprises God’s entire plan of salvation with sinful humanity. In a narrower sense it means ‘God-man’ (Mat_1:23), and points to the personal union of divinity and humanity, in the double nature of the Son of God become man. Jesus Christ was a God-with-us, however, in this, that for about 33 years He dwelt among us sinners (Joh_1:11; Joh_1:14). In a deeper and wider sense still He was such by the Immanuel’s work of the atonement (2Co_5:19; 1Ti_2:3). He will also be such to every one that believes on Him by the work of regeneration and sanctification and the daily renewal of His holy and divine communion of the Spirit (Joh_17:23; Joh_17:26; Joh_14:19-21; Joh_14:23). He is such now by His high-priestly and royal administration and government for His whole Church (Mat_28:20; Heb_7:25). He will be snch in the present time of the Church in a still more glorious fashion (Joh_10:16). The entire and complete meaning of the name Immanuel, however, will only come to light in the new earth, and in the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev_21:3; Rev_21:23; Rev_22:5).”—Wilh. Fried. Roos.
Isa_8:7. On Isa_8:5 sqq. “Like boastful swimmers despise small and quiet waters, and on the other hand, for the better display of their skill, boast of the great sea and master it, but often are lost in it,—thus, too, did the hypocrites that despised the small kingdom of Judah, and bragged much and great things of the power and splendor of the kingdom of Israel and of the Syrians; such hypocrites are still to be found now-a-days—such that bear in their eye the admiranda Romae, the splendor, riches, power, ceremonies and pomp of the Romish church, and thereupon ‘set their bushel by the bigger-heap.’ It is but the devil’s temptation over again: ‘I will give all this to thee.’ ”—Cramer.—“Fons Siloa,” etc. “The fountain of Siloam, near the temple, daily reminded the Jews that Christ was coming.”—Calvin on Joh_9:7.
8. On Isa_8:10. “When the great Superlatives sit in their council chambers and have determined everything, how it ought to be, and especially how they will extinguish the gospel, then God sends the angel Gabriel to them, who must look through the window and say: nothing will come of it.”—Luther.—“Christ, who is our Immanuel, is with us by His becoming man, for us by His office of Mediator, in us by the work of His sanctification, by us by His personal, gracious presence.”—Cramer.
9. On Isa_8:14-15. Christ alone is set by God to be a stone by which we are raised up. That He is, however, an occasion of offence to many is because of their purpose, petulance and contempt (1Pe_2:8). Therefore we ought to fear lest we take offence at Him. For whoever falls on this stone will shatter to pieces (Mat_21:44).” Cramer.
10. On Isa_8:16 sqq. He warns His disciples against heathenish superstition, and exhorts them to show respect themselves always to law and testimony. “They must not think that God must answer them by visions and signs, therefore He refers them to the written word, that they may not become altogether too spiritual, like those now-a-days who cry: spirit! spirit! … Christ says, Luke 16 : They have Moses and the prophets, and again Joh_5:39 : Search the Scriptures. So Paul says, 2Ti_3:16 : The Scripture is profitable for doctrine. So says Peter, 2Pe_1:9 : We have a sure word of prophecy. It is the word that changes hearts and moves them. But revelations puff people up and make them insolent.” Heim and Hoffmann after Luther.
Chap. 9–11. On Isa_9:1 sqq. (2). “Postrema pars, etc. The latter part of chap. 8 was νομικὴ καὶ ἀπειλητική (legal and threatening) so, on the other hand, the first and best part of chap. 9 is εὐαγγελικὴ καὶ παραμυθητική, (evangelical and comforting). Thus must ever law and gospel, preaching wrath and grace, words of reproof and words of comfort, a voice of alarm and a voice of peace follow one another in the church.” Foerster.
12. On Isa_9:1 (2). Both in the Old Testament and New Testament Christ is often called light. Thus Isaiah calls Him “a light to the gentiles,” Isa_42:6; Isa_49:6. The same Prophet says: “Arise, shine (make thyself light), for thy light is come,” Isa_60:1. And again Isa_9:19 : “The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light.” In the New Testament it is principally John that makes use of this expression: “The life was the light of men,” Joh_1:4, “and the light shined in the darkness,” Joh_9:5. John was not that light, but bore testimony to the light, Joh_9:8. “That was the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” Joh_9:9. And further: “And this is the condemnation that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light,” Joh_3:19. “I am the light of the world,” (Joh_8:12; Joh_9:5; comp. Joh_12:35).
13. On Isa_9:1 (2). The people that sit in darkness may be understood to comprise three grades. First, the inhabitants of Zebulon and Naphtali are called so (Isaiah 8:23), for the Prophet’s gaze is fixed first on that region lying in the extreme end of Palestine, which was neighbor to the heathen and mixed with them, and on this account was held in low esteem by the dwellers in Judah. The night that spreads over Israel in general is darkest there. But all Israel partakes of this night, therefore all Israel, too, may be understood, as among the people sitting in darkness. Finally, no one can deny that this night extends over the borders of Israel to the whole human race. For far as men dwell extends the night which Christ, as light of the world, came to dispel, Luk_1:76 sqq.
14. On Isa_9:5 (6). Many lay stress on the notion “child,” inasmuch as they see in that the reason for the reign of peace spoken of afterwards. It is not said a man, a king, a giant is given to us. But this is erroneous. For the child does not remain a child. He becomes a man: and the six names that are ascribed to Him and also the things predicted of His kingdom apply to Him, not as a child, but as a man. That His birth as a child is made prominent, has its reason in this, that thereby His relation to human kind should be designated as an organic one. He does not enter into humanity as a man, i.e. as one whose origin was outside of it, but He was born from it, and especially from the race of David. He is Son of man and Son of David. He is a natural offshoot, but also the crowning bloom of both. Precisely because He was to be conceived, carried and born of a human mother, and indeed of a virgin, this prophecy belongs here as the completion and definition of the two prophetic pictures Isa_7:10 sqq.; Isa_8:1 sqq.—“He came down from heaven for the sake of us men, and for our bliss (1Ti_1:15; Luk_2:7). For our advantage: for He undertook not for the seed of angels, but for the seed of Abraham (Heb_2:16). Not sold to us by God out of great love, but given (Rom_5:15; Joh_3:16). Therefore every one ought to make an application of the word ‘to us’ to himself, and to learn to say: this child was given to me, conceived for me, born to me.”—Cramer.—“Cur oportuit, etc. Why did it become the Redeemer of human kind to be not merely man nor merely God, but God and man conjoined or θεάνθρωπον? Anselm replies briefly, indeed, but pithily: Deum qui posset, hominem, qui deberet.” Foerster.
15. On Isa_9:5 (6). “You must not suppose here that He is to be named and called according to His person, as one usually calls another by his name; but these are names that one must preach, praise and celebrate on account of His act, works and office.” Luther.
16. On Isa_9:6. “Verba pauca, etc. A few words, but to be esteemed great, not for their number but for their weight.” Augustine. “Admirabilis in, etc. Wonderful in birth, counsellor in what He preaches, God in working, strong in suffering, father of the world to come in resurrection, Prince of peace in bliss perpetual.” Bernard of Clairvaux. In reference to “a child is born,” and “a son is given,” Joh. Cocceius remarks in his Heb. Lex. s. v. יֶלֶד: “respectu, etc., in respect to His human nature He is said to be born, and in respect to His divine nature and eternal generation not indeed born, but given, as, Joh_3:16, it reads God gave His only begotten Son.”
“In the application of this language all depends on the words is born to us, is given to us.” The angels are, in this matter, far from being as blessed as we are. They do not say: To us a Saviour is born this day, but; to you. As long as we do not regard Christ as ours, so long we shall have little joy in Him. But when we know Him as our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption, as a gift that our heavenly Father designed for us, we will appropriate Him to ourselves in humble faith, and take possession of all His redeeming effects that He has acquired. For giving and taking go together. The Son is given to us; we must in faith receive Him.” J. J. Rambach, Betracht. über das Ev. Esaj., Halle, 1724.
On Isa_9:6 (7). “The government is on His shoulders.” “It is further shown how Christ differs in this respect from worldly kings. They remove from themselves the burden of government and lay it on the shoulders of the privy counsellors. But He does not lay His dominion as a burden on any other; He needs no prime minister and vicegerent to help Him bear the burden of administration, but He bears all by the word of His power as He to whom all things are given of the Father. Therefore He says to the house of Jacob (Isa_46:3 sq.): Hearken unto me ye who were laid on my shoulders from your mothers’ womb. I will carry you to old age. I will do it, I will lift, and carry and deliver,—on the contrary the heathen must bear and lift up their idols, (Isa_46:1; Isa_46:7).”—Rambach. “In the first place we must keep in mind His first name: He is called Wonderful. This name affects all the following.” “All is wonderful that belongs to this king: wonderfully does He counsel and comfort; wonderfully He helps to acquire and conquer, and all this in suffering and want of strength. (Luther, Jen. germ. Tom. III. Fol. 184 b.). ” “He uses weakness as a means of subduing all things to Himself. A wretched reed, a crown of thorns and an infamous cross, are the weapons of this almighty God, by means of which He achieves such great things. In the second place, He was a hero and conqueror in that just by death, He robbed him of his might who had the power of death, i.e., the devil (Heb_2:14); in that He, like Samson, buried His enemies with Himself, yea, became poison to death itself, and a plague to hell (Hos_13:14) and more gloriously resumed His life so freely laid down, which none of the greatest heroes can emulate.”—Rambach.
17. On Isa_9:18 (19) sqq. True friendship can never exist among the wicked. For every one loves only himself. Therefore they are enemies one of another; and they are in any case friends to each other, only as long as it concerns making war on a third party.
Isaiah 10-18. On Isa_10:4. (Comp. the same expression in chap. 10). God’s quiver is well filled. If one arrow does not attain His object, He takes another, and so on, until the rights of God, and justice have conquered.
19. On Isa_10:5-7. “God works through men in a threefold way. First, we all live, move and have our being in Him, in that all activity is an outflow of His power. Then, He uses the services of the wicked so that they mutually destroy each other, or He chastises His people by their hand. Of this sort the Prophet speaks here. In the third place, by governing His people by the Spirit of sanctification: and this takes place only in the elect.”—Heim and Hoffmann.
20. On Isa_10:5 sqq. “Ad hunc, etc. Such places are to be turned to uses of comfort. Although the objects of temptation vary and enemies differ, yet the effects are the same, and the same spirit works in the pious. We are therefore to learn not to regard the power of the enemy nor our own weakness, but to look steadily and simply into the word, that will assuredly establish our minds that they despair not, but expect help of God. For God will not subdue our enemies, either spiritual or corporal, by might and power, but by weakness, as says the text: my strength is made perfect in weakness.” (2Co_12:9).—Luther.
21. On Isa_10:15. “Efficacia agendi penes Deum est, homines ministerium tantum praebent. Quare nunc sibilo suo se illos evocaturum minabatur (cap. Isa_5:26; Isa_7:18); nunc instar sagenae sibi fore ad irretiendos, nunc mallei instar ad feriendos Israelitas. Sed praecipue tum declaravit, quod non sit otiosus in illis, dum Sennacherib securim vocat, quae ad secandum manu sua et destinata fuit et impacta. Non male alicubi Augustinus ita definit, quod ipsi peccant, eorum esse; quod peccando hoc vel illud agant, ex virtute Dei esse, tenebras prout visum est dividentis (De praedest Sanctt.).”—Calvin Inst. II. 4, 4.
22. On Isa_10:20-27. “In time of need one ought to look back to the earlier great deliverances of the children of God, as to the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt, or later, from the hand of the Midianites. Israel shall again grow out of the yoke.”—Diedrich.
Isaiah 11-23. On Isa_11:4. “The staff of His mouth.” “Evidence that the kingdom of Christ will not be like an earthly kingdom, but consist in the power of the word and of the sacraments; not in leathern, golden or silver girdles, but in girdles of righteousness and faith.”—Cramer.
24. On Isa_11:10 sqq. If the Prophet honors the heathen in saying that they will come to Christ before Israel, he may be the more readily believed, when Isa_11:11 sqq., he gives the assurance that the return out of the first, the Egyptian exile, shall be succeeded by a return out of the second, the Assyrian exile, (taking this word in the wider sense of Isaiah). It is manifest that the return that took place under Zerubbabel and Ezra was only an imperfect beginning of that promised return. For according to our passage this second return can only take place after the Messiah has appeared. Farthermore, all Israelites that belong to “the remnant of Israel,” in whatever land they may dwell, shall take part in it. It will be, therefore, a universal, not a partial return. If now the Prophet paints this return too with the colors of the present (Isa_11:13 sqq.), still that is no reason for questioning the reality of the matter. Israel will certainly not disappear, but arise to view in the church of the new covenant. But if the nation is to be known among the nations as a whole, though no more as a hostile contrast, but in fraternal harmony, why then shall not the land, too, assume a like position among the lands? But the nation can neither assume its place among nations, nor the land its place among lands, if they are not both united: the people Israel in the land of their fathers.
25. On Isaiah 11 “We may here recall briefly the older, so-called spiritual interpretation. Isa_11:1-5 were understood of Christ’s prophetic office that He exercised in the days of His flesh, then of the overthrow of the Roman Empire and of Antichrist, who was taken to be the Pope. But the most thorough-going of those old expositors must acknowledge, at Isa_11:4, that the Antichrist is not yet enough overthrown, and must be yet more overthrown. If such is the state of the case, then this interpretation is certainly false, for Isa_11:4 describes not a gradual judgment, but one accomplished at once. There have been many Antichrists, and among the Popes too, but the genuine Antichrist described 2 Thessalonians 2, is yet to be expected, and also the fulfillment of Isa_11:4 of our chapter. Thereby is proved at the same time that the peaceful state of things in the brute world and the return of the Jews to their native land are still things of the future, for they must happen in that period when the Antichristian world, and its head shall be judged by Christ. But then, too, the dwelling together of tame and wild beasts is not the entrance of the heathen into the church, to which they were heretofore hostile, and the return of the Jews is not the conversion of a small part of Israel that took place at Pentecost and after. The miracles and signs too, contained in Isa_11:15-16 did not take place then. We see just here how one must do violence to the word if he will not take it as it stands. But if we take it as we have done, then the whole chapter belongs to the doctrine of hope (Hoffnungslehre) of the Scripture, and constitutes an important member of it. The Lord procures right and room for His church. He overthrows the world-kingdom, together with Antichrist. He makes of the remnant of Israel a congregation of believers filled with the Spirit, to whom He is near in an unusual way, and from it causes His knowledge to go out into all the world. He creates peace in the restless creatures, and shows us here in advance what more glorious things we may look for in the new earth. He presents to the world a church which, united in itself, unmolested by neighbors, stands under God’s mighty protection. All these facts are parts of a chain of hope that must be valuable and dear to our hearts. The light of this future illumines the obscurity of the present; the comfort of that day makes the heart fresh.” Weber, der Prophet Jesaja, 1875.
Chap. 12–26. On Isa_12:4 sq. “These will not be the works of the New Testament: sacrificing and slaying, and make pilgrimage to Jerusalem and to the Holy Sepulchre, but praising God and giving thanks, preaching and hearing, believing with the heart and confessing with the mouth. For to praise our God is good; such praise is pleasant and lovely” (Psa_147:1). Cramer.
27. On Chap. 12 “With these words conclude the prophetic discourses on Immanuel. Through what obscurity of history have we not had to go, until we came to the bright light of the kingdom of Christ! How Israel and the nations had to pass through the fire of judgment before the sun arises in Israel and the entire gentile world is illumined! It is the, same way that every Christian has to travel. In and through the fire we become blessed. Much must be burnt up in us, before we press to the full knowledge of God and of His Son, before we become entirely one with Him, entirely glad and joyful in Him. Israel was brought up and is still brought up for glory, and we too. O that our end too were such a psalm of praise as this psalm!” Weber, Der Pr. Jes. 1875.
Footnotes:
[40]Heb. and the Lord added to speak.
[41]Or, make thy petition deep.
[42]is pregnant.
[43]Or, thou, O Virgin, shalt call.
[44]kings that thou fearest.
[45]brooks of the ravines.
[46]Or, commendable trees.
[47]pastures.
[48]with the hired razor beyond the river.
[49]shall raise of cattle a calf.
[50]he gets.
[51]Heb. in the midst of the land.
[52]where are a thousand, etc., shall be, etc.
[53]for fear of.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 is confederate with--rather, is encamped upon the territory of…
is confederate with--rather, is encamped upon the territory of Ephraim [MAURER], or better, as Rezin was encamped against Jerusalem, "is supported by" [LOWTH] Ephraim, whose land lay between Syria and Judah. The mention of "David" alludes, in sad contrast with the present, to the time when David made Syria subject to him (Sa2 8:6).
Ephraim--the ten tribes.
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as . . . trees of . . . wood--a simultaneous agitation.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 2. Told the house of David — This signal…
2. Told the house of David — This signal phrase refers not to the court of Ahaz, but to the blood royal, the lineage; as in modern phrase, “the house of Bourbon,” “the house of Brunswick.” So always, as 1Ki_12:19 : “Israel rebelled against the house of David unto this day;” as also 1Ki_12:16 and 1Ki_12:26, same chapter. And in Nathan’s memorable message to David, (2 Samuel 7,) the king was told that as he had purposed to build Jehovah a “house,” so Jehovah would build him “a house,” that is, a royal lineage. “Thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee.” 2Sa_7:16. And David replies, (2Sa_7:18; 2Sa_7:25-25, and 2Sa_7:29,) “Bless the house of thy servant that it may continue before thee for ever.” And so Luk_1:27 : “To a virgin… of the house of David.” Illustrious was the pedigree of that house, as given by Luke, beginning with Adam and the fall, and reaching to the Messiah. And never yet, in Ahaz’s time, had the line of David on the throne been broken. The royal line in the northern kingdom had been changed by a succession of usurpers, of whom this Pekah was then the last one. Doubtless the royal family of David realized their high descent, and were most deeply alarmed at the thought that its sacred continuity should be broken, and a usurper, the son of Tabeal, should break the promised line.
His heart — David’s “heart,” ideally identified with David’s “house;” and so his people, no other than David’s.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 2. the house of David] (Cf. Isa_7:13; Isa_7:17) either…
2. the house of David] (Cf. Isa_7:13; Isa_7:17) either the court (ch. Isa_22:22) or the royal family (1Sa_20:16, &c.), which must have formed a numerous and powerful caste, and must have exercised a considerable influence on the government under a weak king like Ahaz. This was probably the first time that the Davidic dynasty had been menaced by a serious danger.
Syria is confederate with Ephraim] lit. Syria has alighted upon Ephraim (R.V. marg. “resteth”). The idea seems to be that the Syrian armies already occupy the Ephraimitish territory (settling there like a swarm of locusts, v. Isaiah 19 : 2Sa_17:12) preparatory to the joint attack. The fine simile at the end of the verse is enough to prove that Isaiah himself is the narrator.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 (2) Syria is confederate with Ephraim.—Literally, rests upon .…
(2) Syria is confederate with Ephraim.—Literally, rests upon . . . Ephraim stands, of course, as often elsewhere, for the northern kingdom of Israel as a whole.
His heart was moved.—There was a general panic. King and people alike asked, How could they resist? Would it not be better to join the confederacy, and take their chance with it in attacking the king of Assyria? The image of the trees is generic, but suggests something like the quivering of the aspen leaves.
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(2) The other interpretation sets out from an entirely different starting-point. The words of Mat_1:23 are taken as, once for all, deciding the entire meaning of the Immanuel prophecy. The prophet is supposed to have passed into a state of ecstasy in which he sees clearly, and with a full consciousness of its meaning, the history of the incarnation and the marvel of the travail-pangs of the Virgin mother. The vision of the future Christ thus presented to his mind, colours all his after-thoughts, and forms the basis of his whole work. The article emphasises the definiteness of his visions. He sees “the virgin mother” of the far-off future. And the prophet learns to connect the vision with the history of his own time. The growth of that Christ-child in the far-off future serves as a measure of time for the events that were passing, or about to pass, within the horizon of his earthly vision. Before the end of an interval not longer than that which separates youth from manhood, the Syro-Ephraiminitic confederacy should be broken up. So far, here also, we have a coherent and consistent view. It is attended, however, by some serious difficulties. A “sign,” in the language of Hebrew prophets, is that which proves to the person to whom it is offered that there is a supernatural power working with him who gives it. If a prediction, it is one which will speedily be tested by a personal experience, the very offer of which implies in the prophet the certainty of its fulfilment. He stakes, as it were, his reputation as a prophet on the issue. (Comp. Isa_37:30; Isa_38:7; Exo_4:8-14; 1Sa_12:16.) But how could the prediction of a birth in the far-off distance, divided by several centuries from Isaiah’s time, be a sign to Ahaz or his people? And what would be the meaning, we may ask again, of the words “butter and honey shall he eat,” as applied to the Christ-child? Do not the words “Before the child shall know to refuse the evil . . .” point, not to a child seen as afar in vision, but to one who was to be born and grow up among the men of that generation? Should we not have expected, if the words had implied a clear revelation of the mystery of the virgin-birth, that Isaiah himself would have dwelt upon it elsewhere, that later prophets would have named it as one of the notes of the Messiah, that it would have become a tradition of the Jewish schools of interpretation? As a matter of fact, no such allusion is found in Isaiah, nor in the prophets that follow him (see Note on Jer_31:22, for the only supposed, one cannot say even “apparent,” exception); the Jewish interpreters never include this among their notes of the Christ. It is indeed, as has been said in the New Testament portion of this Commentary, one of the strongest arguments for the historical, non-mythical character of the series of events in Matthew 1, Luke 1, 2, that they were contrary to prevailing expectation. (See Note on Mat_1:23.)
A truer way of interpretation than either of those that have been thus set forth, is, it is believed, open to us. We may remember (1) as regards St. Matthew’s interpretation of Isaiah’s prophecy, that two other predictions cited, as by the Evangelist himself, in the history of the Nativity, in Matthew 1, 2 are, as it were, detached from their position, in which they had a distinct historical meaning, and a new meaning given to them (see Notes on Mat_2:15; Mat_2:18). and that this holds good of other prophecies cited by him elsewhere (see Notes on Mat_21:5; Mat_27:9). It was not, as some have thought, that facts were invented or imagined that prophecies might appear to be fulfilled, but that the facts being given, prophecies were shown to have a meaning which was fulfilled in them, though that meaning may not have been present to the prophet’s own mind. In this case the use of the word for “virgin” in the LXX. version may have determined St. Matthew’s interpretation of the words. Here, in the history which had come to him attested by evidence which satisfied him, he found One who, in the truest and highest sense, was the “Immanuel” of Isaiah’s prophecy. We must not forget (2) the limits within which the prophets lived and moved, as they are stated in 1Pe_1:10. They “enquired and searched diligently” as to the time and manner of the fulfilment of their hopes; but their normal state (the exceptions being only enough to prove the rule) is one of enquiry and not of definite assurance. They had before them the ideal of a righteous king, a righteous sufferer, of victory over enemies and sin and death, but the “times and the seasons” were hidden from them, as they were afterwards from the apostles, and they thought of that ideal king as near, about to burst in upon the stage that was filled with the forms of Assyria, Syria, Ephraim, Judah, as the apostles appear to have thought afterwards that the advent of the Lord would come upon the stage of the world’s history that was filled with the forms of Emperors and rebellious Jews and perverse heretics and false prophets (1Th_4:15; 1Co_15:51; 2Th_2:3-4; 1Pe_4:7; 1Ti_4:1-3; 1Jn_2:18). And neither prophets nor apostles, though left to the limitations of an imperfect knowledge, were altogether wrong. Prophecy has, in Bacon’s words, its “springing and germinant accomplishments.” The natural birth of the child Immanuel was, to the prophet and his generation, a pledge and earnest of the abiding presence of God with His people. The overthrow of Assyria, and Babylon, and Jerusalem were alike forerunners of the great day of the Lord in which the ultimate and true Immanuel, the name at last fulfilled to the uttermost, shall be at once the Deliverer and the Judge.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 It was told the house of David. Before the…
It was told the house of David. Before the actual siege began, news of the alliance reached Ahaz. It is said to have been" told the house of David," because the design was to supersede the family of David by another apparently a Syrian house (see note on ver. 6). Syria is confederate with Ephraim; literally, rests upon Ephraim. Under ordinary circumstances the kingdoms of Syria and Israel were hostile the one to the other. (see 1Ki_15:20 1Ki_20:1-3 1Ki_22:3-36 2Ki_5:2 2Ki_6:8-24 2Ki_8:29 2Ki_10:32 2Ki_13:3, 2Ki_13:22, 2Ki_13:25) But occasionally, under the pressure of a great danger, the relations were changed, and a temporary league was formed. The inscriptions of Shalmaneser II show such a league to have existed in the time of Benhadad II and Ahab ("Ancient Monarchies," vol. it. pp. 103, 104). The invasion of Pul, and the threatening attitude of Tiglath-Pileser. It had now once more drown the two countries together. On the use of the word "Ephraim" to designate the kingdom of Israel, see Hosea, passim. His heart was moved; or, shook. If the two kings had each been able separately to inflict on him such loss (see the introductory paragraph), what must he not expect, now that both were about to attack him together? It is not clear whether Ahuz had as yet applied to Assyria for help or not.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv4, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17 Take heed and be quiet
Isa_7:4
Take heed and be quiet
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Take heed, and be quiet
That is, be on your guard and do not act precipitately, rather keep at rest.
I. A WARNING AGAINST SELF-WILLED ACTING.
II. AN EXHORTATION TO UNDISMAYED EQUANIMITY. (P. Delitzsch. D. D.)
The true attitude of life
This is the attitude we should observe in all this human life--on the one hand, vigilance, determination, earnestness; and on the other silence, resignation, hope. Just as we observe in due proportion the active and passive aspects of life will our character become complete and our heart find rest.
I. ALL TRUE LIFE IS A LISTENING.
1. Take heed, i.e., be attentive, alert, susceptible. Light will not come to careless, inattentive souls. We must hearken, which really means the concentration of all the powers of the soul that we may detect the significance of things.
(1) This is true in relation to nature. The light does not shine into our soul irrespective of our gazing; the secret does not disclose itself to us irrespective of our listening.
(2) This is true in relation to revelation. The Bible is a great whispering gallery; but Gods whisper is often lost because men come with souls full of noises, or because they do not lend their ear patiently and systematically.
(3) It is so with our personal life. Our personal history is a revelation of the mind of God; but we often miss the precious instructions.
2. And when you have given full place to observation and reflection, be quiet, for you will find plenty of room and reason for suspense, resignation, silence. When you have carried criticism to its final limit, see that no place is left in your heart for anxiety, unbelief, and despair.
II. ALL TRUE LIFE IS A WATCHING. Take heed. Be cautious, vigilant, circumspect. There is no room in life for presumption. But when we have felt the need of earnest prayer, when we have cultivated the habit of prayerful watchfulness, let us be quiet. Many Christians feel the need of walking softly, of being on the alert, their soul is full of solemn caution; but they never know how to combine with this that strong confidence in God which brings the sensitive heart assurance and peace. Let us remember that when we have done our best God will do the rest.
III. ALL TRUE LIFE IS A STRIVING. Take heed. Life must be full of effort, aspiration, strenuousness, perseverance. The policy of many is the policy of drift. But this is not the true idea of life. We are perpetually called upon to consider, to discriminate, to decide, to act. And yet with all this we are to be quiet. Calm amid tumult, tranquil in severest effort, full of peace and confidence when life is most difficult and denying. Let us remember this--
(1) In all our worldly life. God has not promised the things of this life to the lazy. We must be earnest, discreet, economical, prudent, painstaking. But when we have done our best to provide honest things we must be quiet. No painful, misgiving thoughts or words.
(2) In all our religious life. We shall never moon and dream ourselves into spiritual knowledge, strength, beauty, completeness. But having given ourselves to Gods service and glory with a single, purposeful heart, let us for the rest be quiet. (W. L. Watkinson.)
The crooked serpent
True rationalism not only investigates, but is cautious, reticent, patient, hopeful. Much about us is very mysterious and bewildering.
1. It is so with nature. Ages ago the patriarch Job found this out. By His Spirit He hath garnished the heavens; His hand hath formed the crooked serpent. Garnished the heavens!--that we can understand, that we can admire. The vast, the balanced, the magnificent, the beautiful, the benign--this is what we expected from the wise and generous Source of allthings. His hand hath formed the crooked serpent. Nature contains the mean, the unharmonious, the dark, the grotesque, the bloody; and this we did not expect. The thoughtful man is sorely puzzled in the presence of these confusions and contradictions.
2. It is so with revelation. We are often greatly delighted with the contents of the Bible. It is a firmament full of stars of light, speaking to us eloquently of the glory of God. We cry with rapture as we scan successive constellations which gleam with truth and love and righteousness. By His Spirit He hath garnished the heavens. But it is not long before the problems of nature reappear in revelation; there are teachings obscure and painful, in fact, the crooked serpent wriggles across the page. People who read cursorily-and think loosely may glide over such pages, but thoughtful souls are often sorely troubled.
3. It is the same in our personal history. There are times in our life when all things go smoothly with us--our health is good, in business we are in the swim, we are socially popular, and, full of gratitude and thanksgiving, we wonder how anybody can ever be fretful, or call into question the government of God; we feel that the Spirit that garnished the heavens has brought order and beauty into our persona! lot. But soon circumstances change: our health fails, we are called to attend two or three creditors meetings, our popularity wanes; and then we are staggered, and begin to ask sceptical questions touching the ways of heaven. What is the matter? The crooked serpent crawls across our path of roses. Now what are we to do when these dark enigmas reward our study, when we witness the contradictions of nature, the tragedy of history, when we endure the pathos of our own life? Are we to take refuge in scepticism, cynicism, despair? Surely not. Be quiet. (W. L. Watkinson.)
A New Years motto
I. A WORD OF CAUTION. Take heed. It is as though Isaiah called a halt; as though, to use another metaphor, he swung the red light in front of the rushing train as though he put a detonator on the rails in the time of mist and fog. Saith he, Take heed; you are very busily preparing, your mind is filled with a multitude of thoughts. He does not speak ill of these preparations and these plans, but he does say, Proceed with caution; look before you leap, think before you act. Do nothing till you have thought it over and prayed about it. You will discover, Ahaz, that whereas some of your precautions are legitimate, others of them are dishonouring to God and to the throne of David. Well now, is there not a word for you and for me just here? Take heed!--do not rush blindly on, wait to be guided, slip your hand into Gods. Ye people of God, take heed! Worldliness is gradually creeping into the Church and fastening its fangs upon her. Doctrine of all sorts is at a discount, except false doctrine. Take heed lest you sip of the poisoned cup or ever you are aware. And ye shepherds of the flock, take heed! Ministers are too busy nowadays getting up this, that, and the other Be it ours to bring the blessing down. Sunday school teachers, take heed that you do not merely amuse or only instruct the children. Win them for Christ. Take heed, ye who profess to follow Jesus! Look where you are going; ponder the paths of your steps.
II. THEN THE PROPHET RECOMMENDED QUIET. Be quiet. It is not the easiest thing in the world to be quiet, especially when there are two confederate armies coming up against you. It is ever easier to assault than to sit tight. I do not believe there is anything that more honours our holy religion than self-possession in the time of stress and storm. It is then that the worldling says, Why, I could not do that! What is the secret of that wonderful composure! The secret is God. That heart is kept quiet that is stayed on Him.
III. Then Isaiah says, FEAR NOT. He has spoken of the outward attitude and action; now he refers to the reward emotion. Know you not that fear is fatal? I suppose that, humanly speaking, almost as many people die of fear as of anything else. Many of our best hopes are thwarted, not because there was any real necessity they should suffer so, but because we were afraid from the first that they would. Many of our high ambitions come to nought because we were never very confident that they would have any other ending if the work be of God, trust God to see it through. We may have our fears, but we must not cherish them. There were words of cheer accompanying this message. The prophet said, These great flaming firebrands that you fear are going out. Already they are smoking. They are only the tails of firebrands. A little patience and you will see an end of this trouble. We do not ask a sign of God that Ha will give us the victory in our warfare, and success in our work for Him. He gives it without asking. We would believe without a sign. Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. But if God offers us a sign we do not refuse it. Ahaz did. He said--suddenly posing as a saint--No, I will not tempt God. When God offers us a sign it is not reverence to refuse it; it is gross irreverence. But He has granted us the best sign of all, the sign to which I do not doubt that Isaiah made reference. Christ has come; nay, God has come, for Christ is God. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established. John Bunyan used to call unbelief a white devil. (T. Spurgeon.)
Tails of smoking firebrands
The two allies are at once designated as what they are before God, who sees through things in the future. They are two tails, i.e., nothing but the fag ends of wood pokers, half-burned off and wholly burned out, so that they do not burn any longer, but only still keep smoking. (F. Delitzsch.)
Caution with confidence
Life is danger. The more precious anything is the more enemies it has. You rarely see any lice on the wild rose in the hedgerow, but the prize rose in the garden will soon be covered with them if the gardener remits his severe attention; crab apple trees on a common may be left with confidence to take care of themselves, but the husbandman must watch by night and day an orchard full of sweetness. Man has the most enemies of all, they swarm on every hand, he walks in jeopardy every hour. But we often forget all this and act with strange heedlessness. Awhile ago, from the flowery cliffs, I was watching the beautiful gulls as they flashed between the sun and the sea uttering cues of joy, when some wretched sportsmen appeared on the scene and began to fire at the lovely creatures. I thought that at the first shot the birds would have vanished into space, but, strangely enough, as if they were enchanted, they continued to whirl around the very focus of destruction. Fortunately they were not hit, the marksmens aim was as bad as their temper; but at any moment the glorious birds might have dropped shattered, bloody things, into the sea. It is very much the same with men. They go negligently, presumptuously, although moral dangers are thicker than all other dangers, and any moment might see the glory and hope of life quenched in midnight darkness. (W. L. Watkinson.)
Morbid nervousness
We all know suspicious souls whose nervousness gives them not a moment of peace. If they are going on a railway journey, they anxiously look out for the middle compartment of the middle carriage, fancying that the safest place, and there is no telling how many trains they miss looking for that carriage; if they are in the country, they will not drink a drop of milk until they have ascertained whether the foot and mouth disease has been in that district; and at the railway station they cross-examine the driver to know whether he has conveyed in that cab any passenger having an infectious malady. Now, if you once give way to a morbid nervousness of this sort, there is positively no end to the thing, and every bit of comfort is taken out of life. (W. L. Watkinson.)
God the sure Protector of His people
The sensible voyager lays his head on the pillow and goes to sleep, although the gleaming teeth of sharks are only a few inches away; the thickness of the plank or plate is practically the thickness of a planet: and although hell is always nigh., let us remember that God is still nigher, and that a bit of tissue paper in His hands is the munition of rocks to those who trust in Him. (W. L. Watkinson.)
Vigilance and gladness
The bird on the branch is intensely sensitive and tremulous; it looks around, above, beneath; all the world might be a fowler, a mare, a eat, and yet at the same time it goes on pouring out its happy soul in music. Let us be like it in watchfulness and gladness. (W. L.Watkinson.)
Morbid introspection
When I was a growing lad I was always measuring myself to see how much I had gained every week or two. Sometimes there was a distinct gain, and then another testing seemed to indicate that I was standing sty; so I fed my hopes and fears. But I did very well on the whole, and it would have been a great deal better if I had let the measuring tape alone and attended to my learning and my business. Do not afflict your souls with morbid solicitudes. (W. L. Watkinson.)
Gods contempt for Rezin and Pekah
God will have those in derision who set their shoulders against His throne for the purpose of overturning it. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Harmfulness of fear
There is a legend which is in itself instructive concerning the time of plague in a certain Eastern city, to the effect that 20,000 people having died therein, a traveller entering the gates spoke to the plague as it was leaving, and said, I understand that you have slain 20,000 people within these walls. No, said the plague, I have slain but 10,000; the rest have died of fear. It is an instructive story. (T. Spurgeon.)
Injurious struggling
Once I remember I picked up a small bird which had fallen on the pavement by my feet. I sought to reinstate it among the branches overhead; but the creature could not appreciate my generosity, and with passionate eagerness struggled to escape. I began unconsciously to talk aloud to it, Poor, silly thing; why do you not trust your best friend? All I want is to get you up again in the fork of the tree. You are making it harder for me, by dashing so against my fingers; for I am obliged to hold you firmly, and you do all the hurting yourself. Why is it we all struggle so, when the Lord is giving us help (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
Be quiet
Phoebe Simpson said to Ellice Hopkins, I think, miss, religion is doing things still. Stillness of spirit is like the canvas, for the Holy Spirit to draw His various graces upon. (Dr. Love.)
The happy people are calm
The really and substantially happy people in the world are always calm and quiet. (Recreations of a Country Parson.)
Christian serenity
The child of God should live above the world, moving through it, as some quiet star moves through the blue sky,--clear, and serene, and still (Hetty Bowman.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv3, 4, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17 Isa_7:3-25. Then said the Lord unto Isaiah, &c.
ISAIAH’S INTERVIEW WITH AHAZ
Isa_7:3-25. Then said the Lord unto Isaiah, &c.
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In this interview of Isaiah with Ahaz we have an instance—
I. Of God’s efforts to turn men from ruinous courses. God is the great Lawgiver, and the Judge before whose bar all impenitent transgressors of His law will have to stand. Absolute inflexibility is necessarily His characteristic in both these capacities. But these are not the only capacities He seeks to sustain to us. It is His ambition to be the Saviour of men from sin and ruin. Consequently, He does not merely lay down His law and stand coldly by, to see whether men will keep it or not. He plies them with inducements to keep it. When He sees them bent on transgression, He endeavours to arrest them in their foolish and fatal purpose. Short of that destruction of the freedom of their will, which would be the destruction also of their responsibility and of their possibilities of virtue, He leaves nothing undone to turn them from the broad road that leads to death [784] By adverse providences, by the strivings of His Holy Spirit, by awakening conscience to an active exercise of its functions, He works upon and in them to will and to do His good pleasure. No sinner has ever gone down to perdition unheeded, unpitied, without attempts to rescue him. Your own experience attests the truth of these statements: you know you had to fight your way through to those transgressions of which you are now ashamed. God’s “preventing grace” is a great fact of which we should take reverent heed, and for which we should give fervent thanks [787]
[784] Augustine, in his Confessions, makes thankful note of the manner in which, in the years of his ungodliness, God had raised up obstacles in his path of sin. When sinful desires raged within him, he says, the means for gratifying them were absent; or when the desires and the means of gratifying them came together, some witness was present to deter him; and when the means were present, and no witnesses stood by to hinder him, the desire to transgress was wanting. He rightly judged that these were no mere accidents or coincidences.
[787] The preventing methods of grace may deservedly pass for some of the prime instances of the divine mercy to men in this world. For though it ought to be owned for an eminent act of grace to restore one actually fallen, yet there are not wanting arguments to persuade, that it is a greater to keep one from falling. Not to break a limb is more desirable than to have it set and healed, though never so skilfully and well. Preservation in this, as in many other cases, being better a great deal than restoration; since after all is done, it is odds but the scar will remain when the wound is cured and the danger over.—South.
II. Of the manner in which sinners, by insincere pretences, resist God’s saving purposes. The stubbornness and insincerity of Ahaz are obvious [790] But in neither of these is he singular. Sinners who are bent on their sins not seldom go on to them under pretexts of righteousness, with which they endeavour to deceive themselves and others. The greatest crime ever committed was done under a pretext of righteousness (Mat_26:65). So has it been with countless crimes since. Let us be on our guard against our own hearts (Jer_17:9; Pro_14:12). Let us not act upon any reason which we do not really believe will bear the scrutiny of God.
[790] Ahaz listened in sullen and incredulous silence; and the prophet resumes—“Ask thee a sign of Jehovah thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.” But Ahaz, who looked on Jehovah not as his God, but only (like any of his heathen neighbours) as the god of Judæa, and as such inferior to the god of Assyria; and who had determined to apply to the king of Assyria, or perhaps had already applied to him, as a more trustworthy helper than Jehovah, in the present strait; declines to ask a sign, excusing himself by a contrary use of the words of Moses, “Thou shalt not tempt Jehovah.” He refused the sign, because he knew it would confirm the still struggling voice of his conscience; and that voice he had resolved not to obey, since it bid him give up the Assyrian, and trust in Jehovah henceforth.—Strachey.
III. Of the twofold result which always follows such resistance to the divine purposes.
1. The sinner is, ere long, compelled to confess that the counsels he set aside were counsels of truth and wisdom. In less than three years, Ahaz had cause to acknowledge the soundness of the advice to which on this memorable day he refused to listen [793] A typical case.
2. The obstinate sinner is left to the ruin from which he would not permit God to deliver him. There is no salvation by force. God acts upon our will, but He will not save us against our will. Neither shall those who refused to be saved from sin be saved from its consequences. If we choose evil, no act of omnipotence will render the choice harmless (chap. Isa_3:11). Ahaz chose the help of Assyria rather than the help of Jehovah, and with the help of that great and unscrupulous power he had to take its domination and destructiveness (2Ch_28:16; 2Ch_28:20). Again a typical case. The retributive justice of God is a fact of which it behoves us to be heedful.
[793] Within the space of time figuratively indicated by the time necessary for the child of the prophet to become capable of discerning between good and evil,—i.e., in about three years,—Rezin and Pekah were slain, and the fact that they were but “two tails of smoking firebrands” demonstrated. (See 2Ki_15:27-30; 2Ki_16:1-9.)
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 13, 15 In the prophetic books "Ephraim" and "Israel" are the…
Ephraim
In the prophetic books "Ephraim" and "Israel" are the collective names of the ten tribes who, under Jeroboam, established the northern kingdom, subsequently called Samaria 1Ki 16:24 and were (B.C. 722) sent into an exile which still continues. 2Ki 17:1-6.
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They are distinguished as "the outcasts of Israel" from "the dispersed of Judah." Isa 11:12. "Hidden" in the world Mat 13:44 they, with Judah, are yet to be restored to Palestine and made one nation again.; Jer 23:5-8; Eze 37:11-24.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v10 The Son of the Virgin Promised
The Son of the Virgin Promised
v. 10. Moreover, the Lord, through the prophet Isaiah, spake again unto Ahaz, who had not answered upon the consoling message of the Lord’s messenger, since he had already made arrangements to get the assistance of Assyria, saying, in an earnest endeavor to have him place his trust in the help of the Lord,
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v. 11. Ask thee a sign of the Lord, thy God, this offer to perform a miracle being intended to confirm the promise just made; ask It either in the depth, in the underworld, in hell, or in the height above, in heaven. The Lord permitted Ahaz to attach his faith to a condition named by himself, so that every excuse of unbelief would be taken from him.
v. 12. But Ahaz, in wicked unbelief and disgusting hypocrisy, said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord. Having already decided upon enlisting Assyria’s help, he rejected the offer of Jehovah with a hypocritical pretext. This was the very climax of obduration. When unbelief assumes the garments of piety, the effect is much more loathsome than open blasphemy and mockery.
v. 13. And he, Isaiah, through whom the Lord was addressing the apostate king, said, Hear ye now, O house of David, not only the present monarch being addressed, but all his followers as well: Is it a small thing for you to weary men, making the prophet, who had labored so long and faithfully in trying to win him for the truth, both disgusted and weary, but will ye weary my God also? so that He also becomes filled with weariness and turns from the reprobate people in disgust and delivers them into the destruction they so deliberately sought.
v. 14. Therefore the Lord Himself, in a significant revelation of His almighty power, shall give you a sign, cause a miracle to happen which would have abiding significance. Behold, an exclamation calling attention to the extraordinary prophecy now following, a virgin, literally, "the virgin," that certain virgin whom the Lord had even now selected for this purpose, not merely an unwed woman of marriageable age, but an undefiled maiden, Psa 68:25; Mat 1:25, shall conceive, without the carnal knowledge of man, and bear a son, the event being represented as happening now, in the everlasting present of the eternal God, and shall call His name Immanuel, which is correctly interpreted by Matthew as meaning, "God with us. " This name characterizes the person, the essence, and the work of the Messiah. The son of the virgin, conceived and born a true human being, yet without sin, is at the same time true, almighty, eternal God. It is the great mystery of godliness: God manifest in the flesh, the true Savior, Protector, and Helper of all men.
v. 15. Butter, the thick curdled milk, which is a favorite in the Orient, and honey shall He eat, that He may know to refuse the evil and choose the good, such would be His food beginning with the age of discretion and throughout His life, partaking, as a true human being, of the food of a desolate country.
v. 16. For before the Child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, before He would reach the age of adolescence, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings, rather, "desolate will be the land, of the face of whose two kings thou hast a horror," the judgment of the Lord having been carried out upon it. The time of this event is more exactly fixed in the next verses.
v. 17. The Lord shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father’s house, days that have not come from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah, when the northern tribes seceded after the death of Solomon; even the king of Assyria, this kingdom being here introduced as the representative of the great world powers which finally overthrew Judah. The disintegration began at that time and continued for centuries.
v. 18. And it shall come to pass in that day, at the time when He would send His judgment upon Judah, that the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, the various canals of the Nile, and for the bee that Is in the land of Assyria, calling them to come and do His bidding, for these insects are evidently types of the armies of the heathen nations which subjugated Judah.
v. 19. And they shall come and shall rest, all of them, in the desolate valleys, rather, in the valleys of the declivities, and in the holes of the rocks, in the clefts of the mountains, and upon all thorns and upon all bushes, in all the rich meadow-lands, with the object of devouring and destroying everything in sight.
v. 20. In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired, through an army which He placed in His service, to carry out His will, namely, by them beyond the river, by the king of Assyria, the head, and the hair of the feet; and it shall also consume the beard, the land being depopulated and the entire body of the nation destroyed by the heathen power summoned by the Lord.
v. 21. And it shall come to pass in that day that a man shall nourish a young cow and two sheep, glad to have kept these animals, a small remnant of the herds which he formerly possessed; the land no longer being cultivated, the people took their recourse to stock-raising and dairying;
v. 22. and it shall come to pass for the abundance of milk that they, the few animals left him, shall give he shall eat butter; for butter and honey, which was abundant in the wild state, shall every one eat that is left in the land, for that was the food of a land which had practically been turned into a wilderness by the enemies.
v. 23. And it shall come to pass in that day, at the time when Jehovah’s judgment would be carried out, that every place shall be, where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings, valued at about 64 cents apiece, it shall even be for briers and thorns, which would overrun the former rich vineyards.
v. 24. With arrows and with bows shall men come thither, to hunt wild beasts in the former orchards, because all the land shall become briers and thorns.
v. 25. And on all hills that shall be digged with the mattock, which ordinarily were hoed and cultivated, there shall not come thither the fear of briers and thorns, that is, no one will venture there for fear of not being able to cope with the thorns; but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen, who would make the devastated lands their playground, and for the treading of lesser cattle. Thus the history of Judah and Jerusalem, till the coming of the promised Messiah, is sketched in a few bold lines. At that time the former glory of Judah had departed, and the proud nation had become subject to a heathen world power. Christ Himself, although the eternal Son of God, was born into the lowliness of this bondage. He is, to this day, with the Gospel proclaimed by His messengers, a savor of life unto life to those who accept Him, but a savor of death unto death to those who reject Him
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv3, 5, 7, 10, 13, 16 General Information:
General Information:
Isaiah writes about what happened to him as if it had happened to someone else.
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Shear-Jashub
Translators may also add a footnote that says, "The name Shear-Jashub means 'a remnant will return.'" The meaning may have given hope to Ahaz. (See: How to Translate Names)
at the end of the conduit of the upper pool
"where the water flows out of the tunnel and enters the upper pool"
conduit
man-made ditch or tunnel through which water flows
road
If your language has a word for a road or path that people have made smooth by filling in the low places and lowering the high places, you can use it here.
Launderer's Field
Possible meanings are 1) this is the proper name by which the people called the field or 2) this is the common noun that the people used to talk about the field, "the launderer's field" or "the field where men wash wool" or "the field where women wash clothes." (See: How to Translate Names)
Launderer's Field
A launderer is either 1) a man who washes wool that someone has cut from the sheep, "Wool Washer Field," or 2) a woman who washes dirty clothes, "Clothes Washer Field." (See: How to Translate Names)
Tell him
"Tell Ahaz"
do not be afraid or intimidated by these two smoldering firebrands, by the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram, and of Pekah son of Remaliah
God compares Rezin and Pekah to burning sticks whose fire has gone out and are making smoke now. God is emphasizing that they are not real threats to Judah. This can be stated in active form. AT: "do not let Rezin and Pekah make you afraid; their fierce anger is like a burning stick whose fire has gone out and there is only smoke" (See: Metaphor and Active or Passive)
afraid or intimidated
The words "afraid" and "intimidated" mean the same thing and can be translated as one word. AT: "afraid" (See: Doublet)
translationWords
Yahweh
Isaiah
Ahaz
fear
anger
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17 7:2 hearts . . . trembled with fear: In…
7:2 hearts . . . trembled with fear: In contrast, Ahaz’s son King Hezekiah faced the Assyrians some thirty years later with great faith (701 BC; see 37:6-7, 14-20).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.