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.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 Counting from the five and twentieth year of the…
Counting from the five and twentieth year of the reign of Uzziah, at what time Amos prophesied this thing, and now Isaiah confirmeth that the Israelites should be led into perpetual captivity, which thing came to pass within 20 years after that Isaiah did this message.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv8–16 Isa 7:8 For the head of Syria [is] Damascus,…
Isa 7:8 For the head of Syria [is] Damascus, and the head of Damascus [is] Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people.
Ver. 8. For the head of Syria is Damascus.] Not Jerusalem, as they haply had contrived it; looking upon Jerusalem as a city fatally founded to bear rule, as one saith of Constantinople.
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And the head of Damascus is Rezin.] Let him set his heart at rest, and not reach after the dominion of Judah; lest, falling from his high hopes, he lose that he hath already, and cry out with that ambitionist, Sic mea fata sequor.
And within threescore and five years,] sc., From the time that Amos foretold it, {Amo 5:27; Amo 7:8} that is, from the twenty-fourth year of Uzziah to the sixth of Hezekiah, whenas the ten tribes were carried away by Shalmaneser. {2Ki 17:3-6} Thus Jerome out of Seder Olam. But I like better Piscator’s computation, which is thus within sixty-five years, that is, from the fourth year of Ahaz, now current, to the twenty-third of Manasseh, when Ephraim ceased indeed to be a people by the command of Esarhaddon, son of Sennacherib; whereof see Ezr 4:2.
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 vv8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 Is Damascus; or rather, shall be Damascus; for the…
Is Damascus; or rather, shall be Damascus; for the verb is not expressed in the Hebrew text, and therefore may be either way supplied. The sense is, Damascus shall still continue to be the capital and chief city of the kingdom of Syria; and therefore Jerusalem shall not be taken, nor become a part of Rezin’s dominion; but he shall be kept within his own bounds, and be king of Damascus only, and not, as he hopes, of Jerusalem.
Within threescore and five years; to be computed either,
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1. From the prophecy of Amos, who prophesied in the days of Uzziah, two years before the earthquake, Amo 1:1, which the Jews affirm to have happened about the time of his usurpation of the priest’s office, and being smitten with leprosy, 2Ch 26:16, &c., which though it be not proved, yet it may be admitted, because it cannot be disproved. And it is more than probable that that action and accident was divers years before his death, during which time Jotham acted as his viceroy, 2Ch 26:21. And the prophecy of Amos being express and full concerning the destruction of the people and commonwealth of Israel, being also fresh in the memory of many now living, the prophet Isaiah might well have respect to it. So the sense is as if he had said, There shall be but sixty-five years between the delivery and the execution of that prophecy. And so the number of years may be thus made up. Fix the beginning of them ten years before Uzziah’s death, add the sixteen years of Jotham’s reign, and then the sixteen years of Ahaz’s reign, and then six of Hezekiah’s reign, in which Israel was carried captive, 2Ki 18:10, these make up forty-eight years; and for the seventeen years which yet remain of the sixty-five, they may be taken out of the rest of Hezekiah’s reign. For although the transportation of that people began in the sixth year of Hezekiah, yet it might be continued or repeated divers years after, and completed seventeen years after, Jer 52:28-30. Or rather,
2. These years may be computed from the time of this prophecy of Isaiah. And whereas it may objected against this opinion, that the judgment here threatened was executed in the sixth year of Hezekiah, as was before noted, and therefore within eighteen or nineteen years of this prophecy, which was delivered in the third or fourth year of Ahaz; two things may be answered,
1. That the Israelites were not transported in the sixth year of Hezekiah; for although Samaria be said to be taken in the sixth year of Hezekiah, 2Ki 18:10, and the transportation of the Israelites be mentioned immediately after it, Isa 7:11, yet it doth not thence follow that it was done immediately, and at that one time; because this is not unusual in Scripture, in historical relations to mention those things together which were done at a considerable distance of time one from another, as it is recorded, Act 7:15,16, Jacob died, he and our fathers, and were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre of Abraham, &c., although it was above two hundred years ere all which is said in those few words was done. And other instances of like nature might easily be produced.
2. That this work of transportation was not done at once, but successively, and by degrees. Thus it certainly was in the transportation of Judah, which was begun in Nebuchadnezzar’s seventh year, continued in his eighteenth year, and perfected in his three and twentieth year, Jer 52:28-30. And thus it might be, and probably was, in this transportation. It might be begun presently after the taking of Samaria, and afterwards continued, until at last the whole body of the people was removed; and as soon as that was done, and not before, the king of Assyria brought into their place those new colonies mentioned 2Ki 17:24. Which that it was not done at the time of the taking of Samaria, but many years after it, seems to me evident, because those colonies were not brought thither by Shalmanezer, who took Samaria, 2Ki 18:10, no, nor by Sennacherib, his next successor; but by Esar-haddon, as is affirmed, Ezr 4:2, who was the son and successor of Sennacherib, 2Ki 19:37, and reigned above fifty years; for he seems to have begun his reign about the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign, by comparing 2Ki 18:13, and 2Ki 19:35-37; and so he reigned with Hezekiah about fifteen years, and with Manasseh above forty years, as the learned Sir John Marsham affirms in his Chronicus Canon, &c, p. 496. And this work of transporting the remainders of the Israelites, and bringing the new colonies, might not be done till towards the end of his reign; which delay might be occasioned by his wars, or other great affairs. And lest this should seem to be only my own private conjecture, if the reader consult Sir John Marsham’s fourth and last chronological table, inserted after p. 589 of his work, he will find that learned chronologer to be of the same mind, and to make above fifty years’ distance between the taking of Samaria, and the translation of the new colonies into those parts. And thus these sixty-five years might well be accomplished in his time. And so this place agrees with other scriptures, and the difficulties objected against other interpretations seem to be avoided.
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 v10 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 vv8–16 For the head of Syria is Damascus,.... Damascus was…
For the head of Syria is Damascus,.... Damascus was the metropolis of Syria, the chief city in it, where the king had his palace, and kept his court; of which See Gill on Gen 15:2, Act 9:2,
and the head of Damascus is Rezin; he was king of it, as of all Syria; the meaning is, that Syria, of which Damascus was the principal city, was the only country that Rezin should govern, his dominion should not be enlarged; and Ahaz, king of Judah, might assure himself that Rezin should never possess his kingdom, or be able to depose him, and set up another; and as for Ephraim or Israel, the ten tribes, they should be so far from succeeding in such a design against him, that it should befall them as follows:
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and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people; which is by some reckoned, not from the time of this prophecy, that being in the third or fourth year of Ahaz, who reigned in all but sixteen years; and in the ninth of Hosea king of Israel, and in the sixth of Hezekiah king of Judah, Samaria was taken, and Israel carried captive into Assyria, Kg2 17:6 which was but about eighteen or nineteen years from this time: some think indeed the time was shortened, because of their sins; but this does not appear, nor is it probable: and others think that it designs any time within that term; but the true meaning undoubtedly is, as the Targum renders it,
"at the end of sixty and five years, the kingdom of the house of Israel shall cease.''
This is commonly reckoned by the Jewish writers (d) from the prophecy of Amos, who prophesied two years before the earthquake in Uzziah's time, concerning the captivity both of Syria and Israel, Amo 1:1, Amo 7:11 which account may be carried either through the kings of Judah or of Israel; Jarchi goes the former way, reckoning thus,
"the prophecy of Amos was two years before Uzziah was smitten with the leprosy, according to Amo 1:1. Uzziah was a leper twenty five years, lo, twenty seven. Jotham reigned sixteen years, Ahaz sixteen, and Hezekiah six; as it is said, "in the sixth year of Hezekiah (that is, the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel) Samaria was taken", Kg2 18:10 lo, sixty five years.''
So Abarbinel; but Kimchi goes another way, which comes to the same, reckoning thus,
"the prophecy of Amos, according to computation, was in the seventeenth year of Jeroboam, son of Joash, king of Israel, how is it? Jeroboam reigned forty one years, Menahem ten, so there are fifty one; Pekahiah the son of Menahem two, so fifty three; and Pekah twenty, so seventy three; and Hoshea the son of Elah nine, and then Israel were carried captive, so there are eighty two: take out of them seventeen (the years of Jeroboam before the prophecy), and there remain sixty five, the number intended; for we do not reckon the six months of Zechariah, and the month of Shallum.''
Cocceius reckons from the death of Jeroboam, who died in the forty first year of his reign, and in the fifteenth of Uzziah, so that there remained thirty seven years of Uzziah; in the twentieth of Jotham, that is, in the fourth after his death, Hoshea son of Elah was made king, this was the twelfth of Ahaz, Kg2 15:30 and in the ninth of Hoshea, Samaria was taken, and Israel carried captive. But Junius and Tremellius are of a different mind from either of these, and think the prophecy wholly respects time to come; they observe, that
"Isaiah in these words first shows, that the kingdom of Syria should be immediately cut off, and the king should die, which at furthest must needs happen four years after; so (say they) we may suppose that these things were said by the prophet in the first year of Ahaz; thence, from the destruction of the Syrians, to the full carrying captive of the Israelites, or from the time of this prophecy, sixty five years must have run out; for although the kingdom of Israel was abolished in the sixth year of Hezekiah, yet Israel did not immediately cease to be a people when only some part of it was carried away; but they entirely ceased to be a people when new colonies were introduced by Esarhaddon, the son of Sennacherib, and all the Israelites were forced into bondage, which the Samaritans explain, Ezr 4:2 wherefore so we fix the series of the times, from the fourth year of Ahaz, in which the kingdom of Syria fell, unto the end, are eleven years, Hezekiah reigned twenty nine years, so the last translation of the Israelites was in the twenty fifth year of Manasseh's reign; but if you begin from the time of the prophecy; the thing will fall upon the twenty first or twenty second of Manasseh's reign; at which time perhaps, as some say, Manasseh was carried captive into Babylon.''
And of this mind was the learned Dr. Prideaux (e), who observes, that in the twenty second year of Manasseh, Esarhaddon prepared a great army, and marched into the parts of Syria and Palestine, and again added them to the Assyrian empire; and adds,
"and then was accomplished the prophecy which was spoken by Isaiah in the first year of Ahaz against Samaria, that within threescore and five years Ephraim should be absolutely broken, so as from thenceforth to be no more a people; for this year being exactly sixty five years from the first of Ahaz, Esarhaddon, after he had settled all affairs in Syria, marched into the land of Israel, and there taking captive all those who were the remains of the former captivity (excepting only some few, who escaped his hands, and continued still in the land), carried them away into Babylon and Assyria; and then, to prevent the land becoming desolate, he brought others from Babylon, and from Cutha, and from Havah, and Hamath, and Sephervaim, to dwell in the cities of Samaria in their stead; and so the ten tribes of Israel, which had separated from the house of David, were brought to a full and utter destruction, and never after recovered themselves again.''
And this seems to be the true accomplishment of this prophecy; though the sense of the Jewish writers is followed by many, and preferred by Noldius; so that there is no need with Grotius and Vitringa to suppose a corruption of the text. Gussetius (f) fancies that signifies twice six, that is, twelve; as twice ten, or twenty; and so five, added to twelve, makes seventeen; and from the fourth of Ahaz, to the taking of Samaria, was about seventeen years.
(d) Seder Olam Rabba, c. 28. p. 85. Aben Ezra in loc. (e) Connection, &c. par, 1. B. 1. p. 30. Bishop Usher, Annal. Vet. Test. A. M. 3327. (f) Comment Ebr. p. 892.
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 vv8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 Damascus - Damascus shall still continue the capital of…
Damascus - Damascus shall still continue the capital of the kingdom of Syria; and therefore Jerusalem shall not become a part of Rezin's dominion: but he shall keep within his own bounds, and be king of Damascus only.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv8, 9, 11, 14, 15 Verse 8. - 9. For the head of Syria,…
Verse 8. - 9. For the head of Syria, c.]
"Though the head of Syria be Damascus,
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And the head of Damascus Retsin
Yet within threescore and five years
Ephraim shall be broken, that he be no more a people:
And the head of Ephraim be Samaria;
And the head of Samaria Remaliah's son.
"Here are six lines, or three distichs, the order of which seems to have been disturbed by a transposition, occasioned by three of the lines beginning with the same word וראש verosh, "and the head," which three lines ought not to have been separated by any other line intervening; but a copyist, having written the first of them, and casting his eye on the third, might easily proceed to write after the first line beginning with וראש verosh, that which ought to have followed the third line beginning with וראש verosh. Then finding his mistake, to preserve the beauty of his copy, added at the end the distich which should have been in the middle; making that the second distich, which ought to have been the third. For the order as it now stands is preposterous: the destruction of Ephraim is denounced, and then their grandeur is set forth; whereas naturally the representation of the grandeur of Ephraim should precede that of their destruction. And the destruction of Ephraim has no coherence with the grandeur of Syria, simply as such, which it now follows: but it naturally and properly follows the grandeur of Ephraim, joined to that of Syria their ally.
"The arrangement then of the whole sentence seems originally to have been thus: -
Though the head of Syria be Damascus,
And the head of Damascus Retsin
And the head of Ephraim be Samaria;
And the head of Samaria Remaliah's son:
Yet within threescore and five years
Ephraim shall be broken that he be no more a people."
DR. JUBB.
Threescore and five years] It was sixty-five years from the beginning of the reign of Ahaz, when this prophecy was delivered, to the total depopulation of the kingdom of Israel by Esarhaddon, who carried away the remains of the ten tribes which had been left by Tiglath-pileser, and Shalmaneser, and who planted the country with new inhabitants. That the country was not wholly stripped of its inhabitants by Shalmaneser appears from many passages of the history of Josiah, where Israelites are mentioned as still remaining there, 2Ch 34:6-7; 2Ch 34:33; 2Ch 35:18; 2Kg 23:19-20. This seems to be the best explanation of the chronological difficulty in this place, which has much embarrassed the commentators: see Usserii Annal. V. T. ad an. 3327, and Sir I. Newton, Chronol. p. 283.
"That the last deportation of Israel by Esarhaddon was in the sixty-fifth year after the second of Ahaz, is probable for the following reasons: The Jews, in Seder Olam Rabba, and the Talmudists, in D. Kimchi on Ezek. iv., say that Manasseh king of Judah was carried to Babylon by the king of Assyria's captains, 2Ch 33:11, in the twenty-second year of his reign; that is, before Christ 676, according to Dr. Blair's tables. And they are probably right in this. It could not be much earlier; as the king of Assyria was not king of Babylon till 680, ibid. As Esarhaddon was then in the neighbourhood of Samaria, it is highly probable that he did then carry away the last remains of Israel, and brought those strangers thither who mention him as their founder, Ezr 4:2. But this year is just the sixty-fifth from the second of Ahaz, which was 740 before Christ. Now the carrying away the remains of Israel, who, till then, though their kingdom was destroyed forty-five years before, and though small in number, might yet keep up some form of being a people, by living according to their own laws, entirely put an end to the people of Israel, as a people separate from all others: for from this time they never returned to their own country in a body, but were confounded with the people of Judah in the captivity; and the whole people, the ten tribes included, were called Jews." - DR. JUBB. Two MSS. have twenty-five instead of sixty-five; and two others omit the word five, reading only sixty.
If ye will not believe - "If ye believe not"] "This clause is very much illustrated by considering the captivity of Manasseh as happening at the same time with this predicted final ruin of Ephraim as a people. The near connection of the two facts makes the prediction of the one naturally to cohere with the prediction of the other. And the words are well suited to this event in the history of the people of Judah: 'If ye believe not, ye shall not be established;' that is, unless ye believe this prophecy of the destruction of Israel, ye Jews also, as well as the people of Israel, shall not remain established as a kingdom and people; ye also shall be visited with punishment at the same time: as our Saviour told the Jews in his time, 'Unless ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish;' intimating their destruction by the Romans; to which also, as well as to the captivity of Manasseh, and to the Babylonish captivity, the views of the prophet might here extend. The close connection of this threat to the Jews with the prophecy of the destruction of Israel, is another strong proof that the order of the preceding lines above proposed is right." - DR. JUBB.
"If ye believe not in me." - The exhortation of Jehoshaphat, 2Ch 20:20, to his people, when God had promised to them, by the prophet Jahaziel, victory over the Moabites and Ammonites, is very like this both in sense and expression, and seems to be delivered in verse:
"Hear me, O Judah; and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem;
Believe in JEHOVAH your God, and ye shall be established:
Believe his prophets, and ye shall prosper."
Where both the sense and construction render very probable a conjecture of Archbishop Secker on this place; that instead of כי ki, we should read בי bi. "If ye will not believe in me, ye shall not be established." So likewise Dr. Durell. The Chaldee has, "If ye will not believe in the words of the prophet;" which seems to be a paraphrase of the reading here proposed. In favour of which it may be farther observed, that in one MS. כי ki is upon a rasure; and another for the last לא lo reads ולא velo, which would properly follow בי bi, but could not follow כי ki.
Some translate thus, and paraphrase thus: If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established. Or, If ye do not give credit, it is because ye are unfaithful. Ye have not been faithful to the grace already given: therefore ye are now incapable of crediting my promises.
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 vv10, 13, 15, 16 Isa 7:10-12. The Lord spake again unto Ahaz —…
Isa 7:10-12. The Lord spake again unto Ahaz — Namely, by Isaiah. “From hence to Isa 7:16, we have the confirmation of the promise, by a sign to Ahaz, in the name of God; in which we have, first, the prophet’s address to Ahaz, exhorting him, by the divine command, to ask whatever sign he would, with the reply of Ahaz, Isa 7:10-12 : and, secondly, a declaration of God’s good pleasure to give an illustrious sign, which he offers rather to the true believers than to a hypocritical and incredulous king, Isa 7:13-16.” Through the strong and forcible objections which some learned men have made against applying the prophecy contained in these verses to Christ, in its primary sense, Huetius, Grotius, and some other commentators, have been led to suppose that it immediately related to the birth of a child in a natural way, and that it only refers in a secondary sense to the birth of Christ. Thus Bishop Lowth observes, “The obvious, literal meaning of the prophecy, not excluding a higher secondary sense, is this: ‘That, within the time that a young woman, now a virgin, should conceive, and bring forth a child, and that child should arrive at such an age as to distinguish between good and evil, that is, within a few years,
(compare Isa 8:4,) the enemies of Judah should be destroyed.’” But, surely, as Dr. Doddridge observes, on Mat 1:23, “A son’s being born of one, then a virgin, when she was married, was no such miraculous event as to answer such a pompous introduction” as we have here. Of this the reader may easily judge by attending to the prophet’s words, and a short and easy paraphrase upon them. Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God — A sign is a miracle wrought for the confirmation of some message, promise, or doctrine delivered from God. “Some unusual or extraordinary effect, production, or phenomenon, which could not be explained from natural causes, but only from the omnipotence of the Ruler of the universe; which, moreover, signified that God was present, and ratified the word, or declaration, for which the sign was given.” See Exo 4:8; Jdg 6:17; Isa 38:22. Ask it either in the depth, or in the height above — Demand some prodigy to be wrought, either in earth or heaven, at thy pleasure. By speaking thus, the prophet signified that “all nature was subject to the power and control of that God, whom he calls the God of Ahaz, as being the God of his fathers, and in order to admonish him wherein to place his confidence.” But Ahaz said, I will not ask — This refusal did not proceed from faith in God and true humility, but rather from his contempt of God, and disregard of his word, as is sufficiently evident from the history of his life. He probably feared lest, if such a sign should be given as he did not choose, he should be compelled to desist from his purpose of calling in the aid of Assyria, which he could not well have called in after Jehovah had given a sign to the contrary. Besides, he did not dare to commit himself to that divine favour and providence, which he had heretofore so proudly despised; preferring to it the protection of other and false deities. See Vitringa. Neither will I tempt the Lord — By distrusting his providence, or asking a sign, as if I questioned the truth of his word. But this was deep hypocrisy, as appears by the prophet’s answer.
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 vv8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 For the head of Syria - The “capital.” The…
For the head of Syria - The “capital.” The “head” is often used in this sense.
Is Damascus - For an account of this city, see the notes at Isa 17:1; compare the notes at Act 9:2. The sense of this passage is, ‘Do not be alarmed as if Rezin was about to enlarge his kingdom, by taking Judea and making Jerusalem his capital. The revolution which these kings contemplate cannot be accomplished. The kingdoms of Syria and Israel shall not be enlarged by the conquest of Judah. The center of their power shall remain where it is now, and their dominion shall not be extended by conquest. The capital of Syria is, and shall continue to be, Damascus. The king of Syria shall be confined within his present limits, and Jerusalem, therefore, shall be safe.’
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The head of Damascus - The “ruler, or king” of Damascus is Rezin.
And within threescore and five years - There has been some inquiry why “Ephraim” is mentioned here, as the prophet in the former part of the verse was speaking of “Syria.” But it should be remembered that he was speaking of Syria and Ephraim as “confederate.” It was natural, therefore, to intimate, in close connection, that no fear was to be apprehended from either of them. There has been much difficulty experienced in establishing the fact of the exact fulfillment of this, and in fixing the precise event to which it refers. One catastrophe happened to the kingdom of Ephraim or Israel within one or two years of this time, when Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, invaded the land and carried no small part of the people to Assyria; 2Ki 15:29. Another occurred in the next reign, the reign of Hoshea, king of Israel, when Shalmaneser king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away captive into Assyria; 2Ki 17:1-6.
This occurred in the twelfth year of Ahaz. But that the Israelites remained in Samaria, and kept up the forms of a civil community, and were not finally carried away until the time of Esarhaddon, is evident; compare 2Ch 34:6-7, 2Ch 34:33; 2Ch 35:18; 2Ki 23:19-20. Manasseh, king of Judah, was taken captive by the king of Assyria’s captains 2Ch 33:2 in the twenty-second year of his reign; that is, sixty-five years from the second year of Ahaz, when this prophecy is supposed to have been delivered. And it is also supposed that at this time Esarhaddon took away the remains of the people in Samaria, and put an end to the kingdom, and put in their place the people who are mentioned in Ezr 4:3. “Dr. Jubb, as quoted by Lowth.” The entire extinction of the people of Israel and the kingdom did not take place until Esarhaddon put new colonists from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim in the cities of Samaria, instead of the children of Israel; 2Ki 17:24; compare Ezr 4:2, Ezr 4:10.
Long before this, indeed, the power of the kingdom had been on the wane; a large portion of the people had been removed 2Ki 17:5-6, 2Ki 17:18; but its entire extinction was not accomplished, and the kingdom utterly destroyed, until this was done. Until this occurred, the land might be still regarded as in the possession somewhat of its former people, and all hopes of their rising again to the dignity of a kingdom was not extinguished. But when foreigners were introduced, and took possession of the land; when all the social organization of the ancient people was dissolved; then it might be said that ‘Ephraim was forever broken,’ and that it was demonstrated that it ‘should be no more a people.’ Its inhabitants were transferred to a distant land, no longer to be organized into a unique community, but to mingle with other people, and finally all traces of their origin as Jews were to be lost. This event, of placing the foreigners in the cities of Samaria, occurred just sixty-five years after it had been predicted by Isaiah. - “Dr. Usher.”
It may be asked here, how the statement of what was to occur at so remote a period as sixty-five years could be any consolation to Ahaz, or any security that the designs of the kings of Syria and Samaria should “then” fail of being accomplished? To this we may reply:
(1) It was the assurance that Jerusalem could not be finally and permanently reduced to submission before these dreaded enemies. “Their” power was to cease, and of course Jerusalem had nothing “ultimately and finally” to dread.
(2) The design was to inspire confidence in Yahweh, and to lead Ahaz to look directly to him. If these formidable powers could not ultimately prevail, and if there was a certain prediction that they should be destroyed, then it was possible for God, if Ahaz would look to him, now to interpose, and save the city. To inspire that confidence in Yahweh was the leading purpose of Isaiah.
(3) This prediction is in accordance with many which occur in Isaiah, that all the enemies of the people of God would be ultimately defeated, and that God, as the head of the theocracy, would defend and deliver his people; see the notes at Isa. 34. A kingdom that was so soon to be destroyed as Ephraim was, could not be an object of great dread and alarm. Rosenmuller conjectures, that Isaiah refers to some unrecorded prophecy made before his time, that in sixty-five years Israel would be destroyed; and that he refers here to that prophecy to encourage the heart of Ahaz, and to remind him that a kingdom could not be very formidable that was so soon to come to an end. At all events, there is no contradiction between the prophecy and the fulfillment, for within the time mentioned here, Ephraim ceased to be a kingdom. The ancient Jewish writers, with one consent, say, that Isaiah referred here to the prophecy of Amos, who prophesied in the days of Uzziah, and whose predictions relate mainly to the kingdom of Israel. But as Amos, does not specify any particular time when the kingdom should be destroyed, it is apparent that Isaiah here could not have referred to any recorded prophecy of his.
Be broken - Its power shall be destroyed; the kingdom, as a kingdom, shall come to an end.
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 vv8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 Rasin. Both the king and his capital shall be…
Rasin. Both the king and his capital shall be ruined. --- And five. Capellus (p. 497.) would read six and five; or, in eleven years time. But (Calmet) Ephraim was led captive twenty-one years after, and the Cutheans took their place when sixty-five years had elapsed. (The year of the world 3327., Usher) --- Most people date from the prophecy of Amos to the ruin of Samaria, just sixty-five years. The former solution seems preferable. (Calmet)
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 vv8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 head--that is, in both Syria and Israel the capital…
head--that is, in both Syria and Israel the capital shall remain as it is; they shall not conquer Judah, but each shall possess only his own dominions.
threescore and five . . . not a people--As these words break the symmetry of the parallelism in this verse, either they ought to be placed after "Remaliah's son," in Isa 7:9, or else they refer to some older prophecy of Isaiah, or of Amos (as the Jewish writers represent), parenthetically; to which, in Isa 7:8, the words, "If ye will not believe . . . not be established," correspond in parallelism. One deportation of Israel happened within one or two years from this time, under Tiglath-pileser (Kg2 15:29). Another in the reign of Hoshea, under Shalmaneser (Kg2 17:1-6), was about twenty years after. But the final one which utterly "broke" up Israel so as to be "not a people," accompanied by a colonization of Samaria with foreigners, was under Esar-haddon, who carried away Manasseh, king of Judah, also, in the twenty-second year of his reign, sixty-five years from the utterance of this prophecy (compare Ezr 4:2-3, Ezr 4:10, with Kg2 17:24; Ch2 33:11) [USHER]. The event, though so far off, was enough to assure the people of Judah that as God, the Head of the theocracy, would ultimately interpose to destroy the enemies of His people, so they might rely on Him now.
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 vv8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 8, 9. In these verses there is at first…
8, 9. In these verses there is at first sight a degree of complexity which has induced some able commentators to propose amendments of the text. But a closer investigation reveals the real parallelisms. In each verse there is an antecedent statement and a result, and the two statements correspond, and the two results correspond. In Isa_7:8 the statement is, that the ally of Israel — Ephraim — is nothing more than Syria, with its capital, Damascus, culminating like a pyramid in king Rezin; and the result is that Israel — Ephraim — in spite of the alliance, shall be broken up within sixty-five years. That is, the Assyrian kingdom does not amount to much, is a temporary combination, soon to vanish. In Isa_7:9 the statement is that Ephraim, Samaria, and Pekah taper up into a similar and even smaller pyramid; but yet it is only by faith in Jehovah that the third pyramid, Judah, Jerusalem, and Ahaz, can maintain position.
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 vv8–16 8. and within threescore and five years … people]…
8. and within threescore and five years … people] This clause is suspicious on several grounds. (1) Because of its position; Ephraim has not yet been mentioned, and a prophecy of its annihilation would hardly have been followed by an argument (9a) which assumes its continued independence. (2) There is no analogy in the prophets for so exact a specification of time with regard to a distant event. When the prophets fix a term of years they use round numbers (ch. Isa_23:17, &c.). (3) Isaiah could not expect to allay the fears of Ahaz by a prediction that was not to be fulfilled for 65 years. In Isa_7:16 and ch. Isa_8:4 he foretells the overthrow of Pekah and Rezin within a very short period. Even Delitzsch, who defends the verse as a whole, admits the force of the last two objections and proposes to substitute the words “within a little while.” But the great majority of commentators agree in regarding the whole clause as a marginal gloss, intended to be read after the first half of Isa_7:9. This view ought probably to be accepted; but Duhm rightly observes that the gloss must be a very old one, since a late annotator would almost certainly have dated the extermination of Ephraim from the destruction of Samaria in 721, about 15 years after Isaiah spoke. What precise event he had in his mind is indeed very uncertain. The most plausible conjecture remains that of Archbishop Ussher, who explained it of the settlement of foreign colonists in Samaria by Esarhaddon or Asshurbanipal (Osnappar, Ezr_4:2; Ezr_4:10). Sixty-five years from the assigned date of the prediction would bring us to about 670 b.c.; and Esarhaddon was succeeded by Asshurbanipal about 668. Of course the chronology need not be strictly accurate.
8, 9. A confirmation of Isa_7:7; but the thought is difficult to grasp. The general meaning seems to be that the league is an attempt to obliterate the political distinctions which Jehovah has established between the neighbouring states. (Observe that in Isa_7:16 the prophet seems to speak as if Syria and Israel had become one kingdom in virtue of their alliance.) Syria and Ephraim are separate nationalities, each with its own capital and king; Judah belongs to neither of them and is not to be amalgamated with them. In short: “Damascus is the head of Syria and of nothing else, &c.” We may even suppose (with Ewald) that Isaiah intended to add, “but the head of Judah is Jerusalem and the head of Jerusalem is Jehovah of Hosts.”
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 vv8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 (8) The head of Syria is Damascus . .…
(8) The head of Syria is Damascus . . .—The prediction of the failure of the alliance is emphasised. Each city, Damascus and Samaria, should continue to be what it was, the head of a comparatively weak kingdom, and should not be aggrandised by the conquest of Judah and Jerusalem. There is an implied comparison of the two hostile cities and their kings with Jerusalem and its supreme King, Jehovah. Bolder critics, like Ewald, assume that a clause expressing that contrast has been displaced by that which now follows, and which they reject as a later interpolation.
Within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken.—Assuming the genuineness of the clause, we have in it the first direct chronological prediction in the prophet’s utterances. Others follow in Isa_16:14; Isa_17:1; Isa_21:6; Isa_23:1. Reckoning from B.C. 736 as the probable date of the prophecy, the sixty-five years bring us to B.C. 671. At that date Assyrian inscriptions show that Assurbanipal, the “Asnapper” of Ezr_4:2-10, co-regent with his father Esarhaddon, had carried off the last remnant of the people of Samaria, and peopled it with an alien race (Smith’s Assurbanipal, p. 363). This completed the work which had been begun by Salmaneser and Sargon (2Ki_17:6). Ephraim then was no more a people.
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 vv8–16 For the head of Syria is Damascus, etc. Syria…
For the head of Syria is Damascus, etc. Syria and Ephraim have merely human heads the one Rezin, the other (ver. 9) Pekah; but Judah, it is implied, has a Divine Head, even Jehovah. How, then, should mere mortals think to oppose their will and their designs to God"s? Of course, their designs must come to naught. Within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, etc. If this prophecy was delivered, as we have supposed, in B.C. 733 (see note on ver. 1), sixty-five years later would bring us to B.C. 669. This was the year in which Esar-haddon, having made his son, Asshur-bani-pal, King of Assyria, transferred his own residence to Babylon, and probably the year in which he sent from Babylonia and the adjacent countries a number of colonists who occupied Samaria, and entirely destroyed the nationality, which, fifty-three years earlier, had received a rude blow from Sargon. (comp. Ezr_4:2, Ezr_4:9, Ezr_4:10, 2Ki_17:6-24 and 2Ch_33:11) It is questioned whether, under the circumstances, the prophet can have comforted Ahaz with this distant prospect, and suggested that in the present chapter prophecies pronounced at widely distant periods have been mixed up (Cheyne); but there is no such appearance of dislocation in Isaiah 7., in its present form, as necessitates any such theory; and, while it may be granted that the comfort of the promise given in ver. 8 would be slight, it cannot be said that it would be nil; it may, therefore, have been (as it seems to us) without impropriety added to the main promise, which is that of ver. 7. The entire clause, from "and within" to "not a people," must be regarded as parenthetic.
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 vv9, 11, 12, 13, 14 If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not…
Isa_7:9
If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established
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Faith in the Divine Word and promises the alone ground of the believers establishment and happiness
There are only two sources from which human hope or happiness can be derived, and these are sense and faith.
I. SENSE AS THE SOURCE OF HUMAN HAPPINESS. It is self-evident from the history of what is past and from observation and experience of what is present that, amidst all the enjoyments, whether more gross or more refined, the objects of sense can possibly furnish to flatter or gratify the passions, nothing is to be found that can give establishment to the human heart, or settle and compose the restless spirit. There are three things which render it impossible that any mere worldly object or pursuit should render us happy.
1. The difficulty of acquiring what, in imagination or forethought, we have placed our happiness upon, and in the possession of which we have fondly dreamed of enjoying all that our hearts could desire.
2. When with infinite labour we seem to have surmounted every difficulty and to have gained the point we had in view, our promised happiness is snatched from us in a moment, and we feel our disappointment and distress rendered more poignant from the flattering prospects that lay before us, and the ideal estimate we had formed of what we have lost.
3. But let us suppose that we could acquire with ease, and enjoy with security, for a limited time--to our dying day--the objects we so eagerly pursue; how do we know that we shall preserve our relish for them? Our very wishes give us not our wish.
II. FAITH ALONE HOLDS FORTH THOSE OBJECTS THAT CAN ESTABLISH THE HUMAN HEART OR QUIET THE RESTLESS SPIRIT. Nothing can give establishment to the mind of man but what can effectually remove the cause of our present disordered state and prove a never-failing source of inward peace and self-enjoyment.
1. What is the cause of this disorder; of this disquietude and restlessness, amidst all the objects of sense; of this vacancy of the human mind, amidst all the profusion of nature? The cause is evidently a departure from the original constitution of our nature. For no creature can be unhappy, continuing in that state, in which, he was placed by perfect wisdom and goodness.
2. The remedy which faith provides for the cure of this evil. It directs us to the righteousness of God, manifested without the law, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all that believe; for there is no difference. The doctrine that holds forth a finished salvation by the blood of Christ, as the alone ground of a believers hope, is, of all others, the best fitted to beget not only a humble submission, but a cheerful resignation to our gracious Lord in the various allotments of His providence concerning us. Who that believeth all this with all his heart could for a moment entertain a doubt that his bodily and temporal concerns would be safe in His hands? (T. Gordon.)
Stability through faith
1. The promises of God are not at all times easily, steadily, and firmly believed.
2. God, in the communication of His Word, does not regard us as mere machines. The Word cannot profit unless it be mixed with faith in those who hear it. In the Christians life there are three kinds of stability.
I. THERE IS A STABILITY OF JUDGMENT. This regards the truths of religion. It is of great importance to have a judgment clear and fixed as it respects the great concerns of the soul and eternity, and the doctrines of the Gospel of Christ; for as we think we feel, as we feel we desire, as we desire we act, and as we act our characters are formed, and our conditions determined. There are some things in revelation concerning which a mans mind, so to speak, need not be made up. Little or no injury will arise from his hesitation or suspense. But this is not the case with all. There are some things which must be fundamental, and therefore sustain others; and according to the firmness of the foundation will be the firmness of the whole superstructure. Now what is to lead us into this stability but faith? It cannot be human authority among men. What one patronises another denies, and here you would soon find yourself like a man in a labyrinth, who on this side and on that is calling out, Is this the way? and knows not what direction to take with safety and comfort. Or, if you depend upon reason, this may do something from observation and analogy; but if you receive the revelation of God only as far as you can understand it, you will make your faith commensurate with your knowledge. Thus obstructions and difficulties will arise continually, and you will be strangers to all satisfaction and repose. No, we must believe all that the Lord has spoken to us in His Word, and because He has spoken it. I had a little talent and a little learning, said Dr. Watts before his death; but now I lay them all aside, and endeavour to receive the Gospel as the poor and unlearned receive it.
II. THERE IS A STABILITY OF PRACTICE. This regards the duties of religion. By faith we stand. In order to see the strength and beauty of the sentiment contained in our text, let us place the believer in three positions.
1. In a place of secrecy. When alone, how do we act? Faith is a principle that always operates alike upon the mind, i.e., its motives are the same in private as in public. Faith shows us the future and eternal consequences of our actions. Faith brings God and places Him before us Hence the closet is visited as the temple. The good fight of faith is carried on amidst many struggles, unobserved by any human being, but all well known to Him who is the Captain of our salvation.
2. In cases of prosperity and indulgence. How easily is a person drawn aside from the path of duty by the honour which cometh from men, by a regard to the friendship of this world, or by earthly riches! We are therefore told that the prosperity of fools destroys them. But the believer in Christ is not a fool: faith makes him wise unto salvation, wise both for time and eternity. This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.
3. In a condition of suffering and danger. What an agonizing trial was Abraham called to endure, when God bade him take his only son Isaac, whom he loved, and offer him up for a burnt offering! yet faith enabled him to do it. Moses had a hard task to accomplish, when he went and stood before Pharaoh, but we are told, he had respect unto the recompense of the reward; by faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible. And how was it with Daniel? There was something dreadful in being cast into the den of lions; but what was this to a man who saw that God would shut the lions mouths, so that they should not hurt him? What was this to a man who by faith heard the voice of Him who said, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do; but fear Him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell; yea, I say unto you, fear Him. Faith also views the Saviour as acting and as suffering for us.
III. THERE IS A STABILITY OF HOPE. This regards the comforts of religion. How is it that Christians can rejoice amidst their sorrows? The Scripture assigns the reason when it tells us of the joy of faith. Faith appropriates. (W. Jay.)
Isaiahs commission and King Ahaz
Isaiah had a very heavy commission from God. He was to go and speak to people who would not hear him, and to be to them a messenger rather of death than of life. Though the message itself would be full of life, yet they would refuse it, and so bring upon themselves a ten-fold death. As a sort of experiment in his work, he was called upon first to go and speak to King Ahaz, that wicked king. He knew in his own soul that what he had to say would be rejected; but, nevertheless, at the command of God, he went to speak to the king. He was told where he would meet him. God knows where to send His faithful servants. He knows how to adapt the message with great speciality to the individual case of each person who is within sound of the preachers voice; and He knows how to adapt even the voice itself to the ear of every hearer. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
No fixity without faith
These words furnish us with a warning and an encouragement.
I. GOD DESERVES TO BE BELIEVED.
1. He is God; and being God, He cannot lie.
2. His Word always has been true.
3. He has no motive for being untrue.
4. The honour of God is involved in His veracity.
5. Suppose even for a moment that we could not trust in the truthfulness of God, what would be left for us to trust to? When rocks move, what stands firm?
II. SOME ARE NOT WILLING TO BELIEVE GOD. That is clear by the fear expressed in the text: If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established. Believing is a matter of the will. Gods grace works faith, not upon us, but in us. God works in us to will and to do; and in the willing He leads us up to believing. We voluntarily believe; and certainly men voluntarily disbelieve. Why is this, this strange unwillingness of some men, nay, in a sense of all men, to believe in God?
1. They are willing to believe other things.
2. Another thing is significant, that men cling tenaciously to faith in themselves.
3. Instead of believing in the Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life, some prefer an emotional religion.
4. Some stubbornly suffer under unbelief.
5. I notice, too, that such people demand this and that of God, beyond what He has revealed.
III. FAITH IS NOT A THING TO BE DESPISED. Have you never heard people say, Oh, they preach up faith, you know? Well, what is faith? Well, it is just believing so-and-so. Faith is a most wonderful thing, for--
1. It is a fair index of the heart.
2. A sure proof of a change of mind.
3. It inaugurates purity of life.
4. It is faith that leads to prayer, and prayer is the very breath of God in man.
5. It is faith that glorifies God.
IV. THOSE WHO REFUSE TO EXERCISE FAITH WILL MISS MANY GREAT PRIVILEGES. I might mention many, but the text gives us the one which I will dwell upon: If ye will not believe, surely he shall not be established.
1. It means, first, that those who believe not will miss establishment in comfort.
2. Ye shall never enjoy establishment in judgment. There are many persons who do not know what to believe; they heard one man the other day, and they thought that he spoke very cleverly, and they agreed with him. They heard another the next day, who was rather more clever, and he went the other way, so they went with him. Poor souls, driven to and fro, never knowing what is what! If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established; you shall be like the moon, that is never two days alike; you shall seem to believe this, and to believe that, and yet really believe nothing.
3. Next, we want an establishment in conduct.
4. So it is also with establishment in hope.
5. We want to be established in spiritual vigour and strength. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
The principle of true permanence
The principle of true permanence is here shown to be a holding of Divine truth. He who confides in God will abide. (B. Blake, B. D.)
Holding and being held
If Judah does not hold fast to his God, he will lose his fast hold by losing the country in which he dwells, the ground beneath his feet. (F. Delitzsch.)
Ahaz a representative of double-mindedness
Ahaz was a mixed character. He has been convicted in history of being an idolater as well as a professor of the true religion. He was therefore the representative of double-mindedness, a halting between two opinions, that double-mindedness which is unstable, and which cannot excel. Probably Isaiah, marking the workings of his countenance under the delivery of this communication, saw signs of fear, doubt, hesitancy: the king did not spring at the word with access of energy and with the confidence of inspiration; so the prophet, quick to detect all facial signs, blessed with the insight that follows the spirit in all its withdrawment, said instantly, If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Unbelief undermines character
To take an illustration from architecture, materialism cuts out the foundation of the soul structure just where the strain comes. We are told that the lamentable disaster to the Campanile of St. Marks at Venice was due to the action of the Loggia architects in cutting out the stone coping in its whole length, thus making a wound on the side, where the pressure was severest, half a yard deep and half a yard high. If this be true, it is not remarkable that the massive tower came down bodily. Neither is the downfall of many a man remarkable to us when we come to know how his faith in God had been utterly destroyed. (Sunday School Chronicle.)
The power of faith
Lord Wolseley said, Give me 20,000 fanatics and I would march across Europe. Grotius, in describing the success of the Dutch in snapping the Spanish yoke, gives this as the secret of their prowess, Believing that they could do it they did it. (Sunday School Chronicle.)
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 vv9, 12, 13, 14, 15 Isa_7:9. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall…
FAITH, THE CONDITION OF FIRMNESS
Isa_7:9. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.
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“Established” is what every man wishes to be—fixed in fact and in feeling; established like a great oak which, because its roots take fast hold of the soil, is able to grow broader and higher and more luxuriant year by year. Such growth is impossible to a tree that is frequently transplanted. Notwithstanding—nay, in perfect harmony with the desire for progress that is in us all, we all desire to be “established.”
But no man can be “established” unless he believes. It is a universal law: No faith, no firmness. There are two tilings essential to “establishment,” to blessedness and peace in life: First, that we should find a good foundation, and then that we should rest upon it calmly and immovably. These are the conditions of social, commercial, political, and scientific blessedness and prosperity. In every realm of human activity, if we would be strong in fact and in feeling, it is essential that we should find something trustworthy, and then that we should trust (H. E. I. 1882–1888).
We are only stating this general truth in its highest form, when we say that if men do not believe in God as He has revealed Himself in His Word, they cannot be “established.”
1. God has revealed Himself in His Word as the righteous Ruler of nations, who will exalt the nations that seek after righteousness, and bring swift vengeance upon those who follow courses of evil. What will happen if a statesman, like Ahaz, does not really believe this? He will become a mere politician; he will do what seems to him “expedient.” This will often be iniquitous, and this at no distant period will inevitably lead to disaster and ruin (P. D. 2544).
2. God has revealed Himself as the supporter and rewarder of individual men who are resolved always and simply to do what is right. Confidence in God as thus revealed to them was the secret of the courage and endurance of the martyrs (Dan_3:16-18), and of countless sacrifices for truth and righteousness known only to God, but which He will never forget. But if a man does not really believe this truth, how easily is he swept away by temptation, whether it presents itself threateningly or seductively!
3. God has revealed Himself as, for Christ’s sake, pardoning absolutely all who repent and believe. Into the hearts of those who accept this revelation there come peace and joy, but into their hearts only. Want of faith in this revelation is the secret of all painful efforts to merit the Divine mercy.
4. God reveals Himself as the Saviour of His people from sin, as their Sanctifier from all the stains of iniquity. Want of faith in this revelation is the secret of the trouble that fills and oppresses many devout souls. They will never travel towards Zion with steadfast feet and rejoicing hearts until they do indeed believe it (Jud_1:24-25).
5. God reveals Himself in Christ as the Good Shepherd who is with His people always. How troubled, because of the possibilities of life and the mystery of death, are those who do not with any vital faith accept this revelation which He has been pleased to give us! But the twenty-third Psalm is the song of those who do believe it (P. D. 1156–1160).
The practical application of all this is very simple, but supremely important. First, let us inquire whether God is worthy of our trust; and then, if the inquiry should lead us to an affirmative conclusion, let us trust Him. This trust will transform our whole life. No terrors shall have power to dismay us. The misery of Ahaz and his people (Isa_7:2) we shall never know (H. E. I. 1911–1919); but ours shall be the rejoicing confidence of the spiritual hero of whom Ahaz was such an unworthy descendant (Psa_27:1-6; P. D. 1177).
STABILITY THROUGH FAITH
Isa_7:9. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.
Thus closes the address of Isaiah to Ahaz and his people on a very memorable and trying occasion.… Its meaning is, Take God at His word; place entire reliance upon Him, and not upon an arm of flesh. If ye will not do this as a country, the state cannot be safe; and if you will not do this as individuals, your minds cannot be composed and established. Now, let us pass from the house of David naturally to the house of David spiritually, and pursue the train of thought set in motion. Let us consider the stability of faith, and the peace it induces. In the Christian’s life there are three kinds of stability.
I. There is a stability of judgment. This regards the truths of religion. It is of great importance to have a judgment clear and fixed, as it respects the great concerns of the soul and eternity, and the great doctrines of the Gospel of Christ; for as we think we feel, as we feel we desire, as we desire we act, and as we act our characters are formed and our conditions determined. Instability concerning these great truths is both perilous and painful; but whence is stability to come? Not through human authority; for what one patronises, another denies. Not through human reason (H. E. I. 537, 1087, 2022–2024; P. D. 2926, 2929, 2931, 2934). There must be a revelation received by faith; divine declarations, believed because God has made them. This leads to an experience which tends still further to establish the Christian in the faith (H. E. I. 1087, 1142–1148).
II. There is a stability of practice. This regards the duties of religion (1Pe_1:5). In order to see the strength and beauty of the sentiment contained in the text, let us place the believer in three positions.
1. In a place of secrecy. To many this is a place of temptation. Not so to the believer. Faith brings God and places him before us (Gen_16:13; Gen_39:9).
2. In prosperity and indulgence (Pro_1:32). But faith brings to the Christian the earnests of a better country, the firstfruits and foretastes of it, and thus gives him a victory which others can never achieve (1Jn_5:4).
3. In a condition of suffering and danger (Heb_11:24-27; Dan_6:10; H. E. I. 1911–1919).
III. There is a stability of hope. This regards the comforts of religion (Rom_15:13; 1Pe_1:8; Psa_23:1; Psa_23:4; Psa_23:6).
1. Beware of unbelief. It is a grievous offence against God; it is hurtful and perilous to man. Every sin renders our salvation impossible by the law, but only one sin renders it impossible by the Gospel, and that is unbelief; not by any decree or threatening of God, but by its natural tendency and result. For there is only one remedy that can restore a perishing sinner, and if this be rejected, destruction is inevitable (H. E. I. 443).
2. Labour and pray for an increase of faith (Mar_9:23 : 2Ch_20:20).—William Jay: Sunday Morning Sermons, pp. 101–109).
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 vv13, 15 Hear ye now
Hear ye now
The prophecy is not addressed to the faithless Ahaz, but to the whole "house of David." The objection that such a far-off event as the birth of Christ could be no "sign" to Ahaz, is, therefore, puerile. It was a continuing prophecy addressed to the Davidic family, and accounts at once for the instant assent of Mary. Luk 1:38.
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 vv10, 13, 16 ask for it in the depths or in the…
ask for it in the depths or in the height above
Yahweh uses the word "depths" and "height" to mean Ahaz could ask him for anything. (See: Merism)
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depths ... height
The abstract nouns "depths" and "height" can be translated with prepositions. "places far below you ... places far above you" (See: Abstract Nouns)
will not ask
"will not ask Yahweh for a sign"
translationWords
Ahaz
sign
Yahweh
God
test
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 vv8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15 7:8 The Assyrian kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal had Israel…
7:8 The Assyrian kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal had Israel resettled with people from other places within sixty-five years (by 670 BC; see 2 Kgs 17:24-34). • Damascus was crushed and completely destroyed by 732 BC, and Samaria was crushed by 722 BC.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.