Bible Commentaries
Isaiah 7

Verses 1-17

Isaiah and King Ahaz ( 7 : 1 - 17 )

The dramatic incident related in this section appears to have been written by one of Isaiah’s disciples, since in verse 3 the prophet’s name is mentioned and the story is related in narrative fashion. The attack of the two kings on Ahaz of Jerusalem has so frightened King Ahaz and his people that they are said to have shaken “as the trees of the forest shake before the wind” (vs. 2 ). At a time when the king was inspecting the open canal which brought water from a spring into the city, God sends Isaiah out to meet him. One of the problems in defense of ancient cities was that of providing a certain supply of water for the inhabitants within the city walls during a time of siege. Portions of an old aqueduct which lead to a pool at the southern end of the hill Ophel from the Gihon spring in the Kidron Valley have been discovered by archaeologists. So also has the city wall around the city in the time of Isaiah. The wall was low enough along the slope that we may understand the aqueduct to have been inside it for protection.

For the first time we hear of one of Isaiah’s sons: the prophet is told to take him along to his meeting with the king while the latter is inspecting the aqueduct. The boy’s name is given as “Shear-jashub.” It seems clear that the boy was to accompany his father because his name presented one of the main points of Isaiah’s early prophecy: the name meant “a remnant shall return.” As previously indicated, after disaster had befallen Judah, the prophecy of the remnant would be one of hope. At this stage in Isaiah’s career, however, it was one of judgment, and is to be interpreted, “only a remnant shall return.”

God’s message through Isaiah to the king is simply that he

“Take heed, be quiet, do not fear” (vs. 4), because God’s decree is that the attack upon Judah will not be sustained or successful. The implication of verses 8-9 is that both Damascus and Samaria are shortly to be destroyed. A parenthetical statement inserted by an editor at the end of verse 8 is difficult to interpret. It speaks of sixty-five years as the period within which the northern Israelite kingdom will be broken to pieces. Actually, the destruction of Israel occurred in two stages, in 733-32 B.c. and in 724-21 B.c. (see Introduction). The final and complete destruction of Samaria occurred in the second of the two periods and is described in more detail in 2 Kings 17.

In the second part of verse 9 Isaiah uses a play on words in his description of God’s message to Isaiah which he, the prophet, is called upon to convey to the king. In Hebrew it is one short poetic line in two parts with three words in each part. The first part of the line, “If you will not believe” (or “be sure”), refers to the king’s faith in God. If he will not commit himself completely to God in faith and in trust, then certainly he is not going to be firmly established or secure on his throne in Jerusalem. The Hebrew word used in the word play is a verb which is one of the primary terms in the Hebrew vocabulary for faith. “Believing,” in this context, does not refer to an intellectual acceptance of an idea, but to a complete and entire commitment of the self to God so that in whatever crisis one finds himself, he can stand firm in confidence in the faithfulness of God. If the king does not have this commitment, but instead trembles in fear as though God did not exist, then of a truth his security on the Jerusalem throne is threatened.

As a way of confirming his faith, Ahaz is instructed to ask a sign of the Lord, that is, some unusual happening or event in order to confirm the king’s wavering faith. Ahaz very piously and unconvincingly gives the classic answer to such a request: it is not proper to put the Lord to a test of this type (Deuteronomy 6:16). In reply, Isaiah says that the Lord will provide a sign (vs. 14). It will be a most unusual and remarkable event. A young woman shall bear a son and name him “Immanu-el,” meaning “God is with us.” The exact significance we are to place on this passage is not clear, because the meaning is not elaborated. The main point of the sign is an assurance that indeed God is with his people. Judging from 9:6 and Micah 5:2-3, however, it seems clear that the Jerusalem and Judean prophets of the eighth century were speaking of a birth of a new child of the royal line who would be God’s answer to the problems of the present era. That is, God would provide the new king who would carry out all of his promises. The reason that such an event would be spoken of in terms of the birth of a new royal child would seem to be a special way of calling attention to a dramatic intervention of God in the human scene. There are three birth stories of this nature in the Bible. They are those of Moses, Samuel, and Jesus. In each case the birth of the child is God’s answer to the need of the present moment. It is God’s new and dramatic act of grace for the salvation of those in trouble. In this context it is not surprising that the otherwise rather enigmatic verse 14 should early have been considered as a Messianic prophecy and that Immanuel would be one of the names of the Messiah to come.

Matthew 1:23, following the Greek translation, refers to this passage as being fulfilled by Jesus Christ and translates the Hebrew word in question as “virgin” instead of “young woman.” The exact history of how this interpretation came to be made cannot be traced, but virtually all modem interpreters who have studied the question say that the Hebrew word in question refers to any young woman of marriageable age and does not in itself require the translation “virgin.” There is another Hebrew word which has the unequivocal meaning “virgin.”

The remainder of this section in verses 15-17 is by no means as clear as an interpreter would like it to be. The main point is certainly in verse 16. That is, before the child reaches the age of discernment the coalition of the two kings who are threatening Ahaz with war will have broken up and the threat to Jerusalem will have come to an end. Verse 15 probably is to be interpreted as meaning the same thing, but the Hebrew is simply not clear. Verse 17 continues with the promise that the Lord will bring great things upon Judah and upon the dynasty of King David in Jerusalem, things such as had not happened since the division of the kingdom of David into two parts, as narrated in 1 Kings 12:1-20. The final words of the verse, “the king of Assyria,” is a later addition, apparently by an editor who knew what indeed had actually happened. The overriding single fact of ancient Near Eastern history between the ninth and seventh centuries was the power of the Assyrian empire and its conquest of one small state after another, forcing them all under a burden of heavy tribute.

Prophetic Fragments Concerning the Coming Terror ( 7 : 18 — 8 : 10 )

This section is apparently not a continuous prophecy, but rather a series of fragments, all concerning the coming disaster. Verses 18-20 refer to the terror activities of the imperialistic powers, Assyria in particular. In verses 21-22 the reference to “curds and honey” seems to suggest the reversion of the land to a pastoral state in which these foods of the semi-nomadic dweller with his flock will be the staples of the land, rather than the foods grown ordinarily by agriculturists. Verses 23-25 continue with the same theme: the settled and the agricultural land will return to a place for the grazing of cattle and sheep. It perhaps should be noted that these words are not a mere pessimism on the part of the prophet. What he states here actually did take place in the destruction of Samaria and the cities in the central hill country by the Assyrians in the period 724-21 b.c. While Judah received a severe punishing at the hand of the Assyrian, Sennacherib, in 701 b.c., the complete destruction of all settled occupation of the land was not to come until a little over a century later at the hands of the Babylonians (587 or 586 B.c.).

The paragraph 8:1-4 returns to the theme of the war against Ahaz in 734 b.c. Here we learn of a second son of Isaiah with a very long name, Maher-shalal-hashbaz. Again it is a symbolic name referring to one of the major points in the prophecy which Isaiah is called upon to deliver to his people. The name means “speed the spoil, hasten the prey”; that is, it refers to the coming destruction of Damascus and Samaria, as verse 4 makes clear. As was the case with the prophet Hosea, so the private life of Isaiah is used to dramatize and symbolize the dreadful message which the prophet is called upon to deliver to the people.

A new prophecy in verses 5-8a is closely related to the foregoing. The metaphorical reference in verse 6 to the “waters of Shiloah” is to the waters of the aqueduct to which allusion is previously made in 7:3. The meaning is that because the people cannot trust in the quiet waters, a great river, the river of Assyria, will sweep over its banks and overflow into Judah. Politically this means that the forces let loose when Ahaz in his frantic fear appealed to Assyria for aid will not stop with the destruction of Damascus and Samaria, but will sweep over and engulf Judah also, which indeed was the fact.

The second part of verse 8, “its outspread wings will fill the breadth of your laud, O Immanu-el,” is most easily understood if it is read with the lines of poetry which follow in verses 9-10. This would appear to be a fragment of a hymn of hope and praise to God, though the antecedent of “outspread wings” is not here preserved. The reference, however, must be to the wings of God that will cover the land as a protection so that all those who attack the country will fail, “for God is with us.” Here a play on words is again used wherein “Immanu-el” is addressed directly in verse 8b, but the meaning of the name is translated at the end of the poetic fragment. Since the country of Judah is referred to as “your land, O Immanu-el,” there is an additional suggestion that Isaiah’s Immanuel prophecy in 7:14 is indeed meant to refer to the new king whom God is going to supply as salvation to his people.