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August 31, 2026 |
| Isaiah 7 | ||
Isaiah is known for being a prophet. As you would expect, his book contains prophecies, but not all of it. Some chapters are narratives from the time of Isaiah. Some others are a combination of those; for example, a prophecy in response to a narrative.
Chapter 7 is one of those combination chapters. In the narrative the king of Judah is watching developments in the countries around him, fearing they might attack. To assure him, God tells the king that nothing will come of it and provides a prophecy as a sign to back that up.
Now it happened in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Aram and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not conquer it. 2 When it was told to the house of David, saying, "The Arameans have camped in Ephraim," his heart and the hearts of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind. (Isaiah 7:1-2)
The problem here comes from a king and the son of a king who have teamed up: the son of the king of Israel, just north of Judah, and the king of Aram, which is northeast of Judah. Together these two figured they could conquer Jerusalem, and with that, all of Judah. They found, however, that they could not. Their forces pulled back, but only as far as the geographic area of Ephraim, in Israel.
This left an ongoing situation where they could attack with a moment's notice. Many people made their living outside the walls of Jerusalem. A sudden attack could catch some people outside Jerusalem's walls.
The way God sees it, the real problem here isn't the kings, though. It is the utter lack of faith in God displayed by the king and the people, as shown by their fear. God will bring this up again.
Then Yahweh said to Isaiah, "Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, to the highway of the fuller’s field, 4 and say to him, ‘Take care and stay quiet, have no fear and do not be fainthearted because of these two stubs of smoldering firebrands, on account of the burning anger of Rezin and Aram and the son of Remaliah. (Isaiah 7:3-4)
God sends Isaiah to the king and begins to give him the message he is to deliver.
One thing God says is, "Have no fear; don't be fainthearted." He is asking them to trust in him.
Because Aram, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has counseled evil against you, saying, 6 "Let us go up against Judah and terrorize it, and make for ourselves a breach in its walls and set up the son of Tabeel as king in the midst of it," 7 thus says Lord Yahweh: "It shall not stand, nor shall it happen. 8 For the head of Aram is Damascus and the head of Damascus is Rezin (now within another sixty-five years Ephraim will be shattered, so that it is no longer a people), 9 and the head of Ephraim is Samaria and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah."’" (Isaiah 7:5-9)
To help them lose their fear, God tells them some history and some of the future. He says that these two do plan to terrorize Jerusalem and eventually attack and conquer it by breaching the wall so they can set up one of their own as king. But don't worry, God says, that isn't going to happen.
Then God begins to speak about who is the head of what, and there is this parenthetical comment about the coming end of Ephraim that doesn't seem to belong in the text at all. Many people have struggled with why these are said and what they mean. They are making the statement that these two people are insignificant. The kings are kings of small areas. Together they weren’t able to conquer Jerusalem. The point is that they, and specifically Ephraim, are too weak to protect themselves from a king with real power, and one is coming.
If you do not establish your faith in Yahweh, you surely shall not be established. (Isaiah 7:9)
This sentence goes back to the problem God sees. People of that time understood the need to have an established, fortified place. This came from the walls of a city. God knows that walls have limits. He wants a people and king who have made him their foundation, who are established on him. If they don't fix their trust in God, they will have no foundation and will be weak and run around crazily in all directions, and the walls of the city will not help them.
This ends the message that God gives Isaiah to give to the king.
Then Yahweh spoke again to Ahaz, saying, (Isaiah 7:10)
Notice what we don't see here:
Prophecy handles these situations both ways. Sometimes we see God telling the prophet the message, and later we also see the prophet repeating the message as he delivers it. So the message appears twice in the Bible's text. Similarly sometimes we see the prophet listed as the intermediary, but sometimes not. I don't see any significance to these differences. They are only curious inconsistencies.
"Ask a sign for yourself from Yahweh your God; make it deep as Sheol or high as heaven." 12 But Ahaz said, "I will not ask, and I will not test Yahweh!" (Isaiah 7:11-12)
We would see this as the genie saying, "make a wish, any wish," but Ahaz refuses to engage. We see his reason when he says, "I will not test Yahweh." He thinks that doing so would be putting God to the test, as the Israelites did in the wilderness. He doesn't want to repeat their sin. It is good that he is mindful in this way, but instead he sins in a different way, not being obedient.
In his defence though, he hears these words coming from Isaiah's mouth, not God's mouth, so it may be unclear to him who is speaking. That doesn't really matter, though. Isaiah speaks for God as though God were speaking.
Then he said, "Listen now, O house of David! Is it too slight a thing for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God as well? (Isaiah 7:11-16)
The verse says "He said," but who is "he?" We don't know until we get to "my God" that this is Isaiah speaking. So we can see that Ahaz might have been confused.
But Isaiah slips in another point. Ahaz's inaction in other matters has caused his own people to become impatient with him.
Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. 15 He will eat curds and honey in order that He will know to refuse evil and choose good. 16 For before the boy will know to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken. (Isaiah 7:14-16)
God had known that Ahaz would refuse to make his own wish, so God used that as an opportunity to chide the king and to give him a sign and a prophecy that God wants him to have, and to give a prophecy to us.
There are multiple New Testament references to Isaiah 7:14. Matthew 1:23 quotes the verse to show that Jesus' birth to a virgin was prophesied. Modern Jews do not agree with Matthew's interpretation. Appendix A digs into the prophecy, what the Jews say it means, and what they don't understand about it.
Matthew 1:23 also claims this prophecy is fulfilled in Jesus, where it says he would be named Immanuel, meaning "God with us". Appendix A also explains why his name was instead Yeshua, which means "God's salvation," as the angel instructed in Luke 1:31. Matthew 18:20 and 28:20 echo the idea that Jesus was "God with us."
So far this message to the king has been encouraging. That is about to change.
Yahweh will bring on you, on your people, and on your father’s house days which have never come since the day that Ephraim separated from Judah — the king of Assyria!" 18 And it will be in that day, that Yahweh will whistle for the fly that is in the remotest part of the rivers of Egypt and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. 19 And they will all come and rest upon the steep ravines, on the crevices of the cliffs, on all the thorn bushes, and on all the watering places. (Isaiah 7:17-19)
Back in verse 8, there was a quick mention that "within 65 years Ephraim (Northern Israel) would no longer be a people." We must not think this means that it will be 65 years before Assyria attacks. It means that by 65 years Ephraim, the people, will have been shipped out of their land. In that sense they will no longer be a people.
The same thing is seen later, when Jerusalem is conquered. It was a long process to attack, besiege the city, gain control of the city, and set up a government. The people of Jerusalem were shipped out in waves over a period of 12 years.
Having made that reference to the end of Ephraim earlier, now God begins to elaborate on that, saying that Assyria is being called into the land.
He says that Ahaz himself will see this along with the people of Judah.
In that day, the Lord will shave with a razor — one hired from regions beyond the river (that is, the king of Assyria) — the head and the hair of the legs; and it will also remove the beard. (Isaiah 7:20)
This "shaving" doesn't make sense to us. The razor is a metaphor for Assyria, and God's use of the razor represents what the Assyrians will do to Israel. It speaks of leaving a barren land after cutting down all the trees to make siege works, and raiding all the crops and animals, and it speaks of cutting off manly dignity (beards were very important for men), but the indignity it refers to is that of being enslaved and forced to walk to the country of your conqueror.
The river referred to is the Euphrates, which was quite a distance north of Israel.
The word "hire" may be an allusion to Ahaz's prior attempt to try to hire Assyria to fight against Syria (2 Kings 16:7).
And it will be in that day, that a man may keep alive a heifer and a pair of sheep; 22 and because of the abundance of the milk produced, he will eat curds, for everyone that is left within the land will eat curds and honey. (Isaiah 7:21-22)
This is another cultural reference that we do not understand. "Curds and honey" were mentioned earlier. They represent the best of the foods. So, at a glance we see plenty of milk and honey, which doesn't sound bad. There's a reason behind it though. This abundance exists because almost no people are left in the land. In normal times, if a man produced more milk than he needed, he would sell it to someone, but now there is no one to sell it to.
And it will be in that day, that every place where there used to be one thousand vines, valued at one thousand shekels of silver, will become briars and thorns. 24 People will come there with bows and arrows because all the land will be briars and thorns. 25 As for all the hills which used to be cultivated with the hoe, you will not go there for fear of briars and thorns; but they will become a place for pasturing oxen and for sheep to trample. (Isaiah 7:23-25)
Because there will be almost no one left, there will be no cultivation going on. Valuable grapevines will be conquered by weeds. Valuable land will produce no crops. What grows naturally will be food for cattle and sheep. Hunters will come there to hunt.
The Bible and other historical accounts tell us what happened. The Assyrians conquered Ephraim (Northern Israel) and took the people into captivity, where they vanished from history. Conquering a country at that time meant besieging towns and cities, which took from 1 to 2 years each. Though multiple towns were under siege at the same time, it was a long process.
The Judeans got to see this happen. When the Assyrians moved south into Judah, they began sieges against some towns, but when they came to Jerusalem, God destroyed them with a plague. The Assyrians then also vanished into history.
The most important aspect of this chapter, to us, is the prophecy about the child born to a virgin. There is a lot to be said about it, so I've included a separate study of that as an appendix here.