4/06/17 Isaiah
7:10-16 “God doesn’t bless upstarts!”
Isaiah 7:10 – Moreover the Lord spake again unto Ahaz, saying,
Already in Isaiah 7 we have seen
that it is Isaiah who is actually speaking God’s words here. Isaiah has already
demonstrated that his calling is from God (Ch.6) and therefore Ahaz should
listen carefully indeed. But it is clear that Ahaz is making a point of not
listening. After all, who is God that he should tell Ahaz what to do?!! And Ahaz
isn’t alone in his arrogant upstart attitude; Isaiah has already noted the
sarcasm of Judah when God has proclaimed His counsel to them.
Isaiah 5:19 – That say, Let him
make speed, [and] hasten his work, that we may see [it]: and let
the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know [it]!
Isaiah 7:11-12 – 11 Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it either in the
depth, or in the height above. 12
But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord.
Ahaz is being given an offer that
he should not be able to refuse! But asking of God would clearly imply that God
is in control of things, not Ahaz! So, Ahaz, being the unintelligent upstart
that he is, won’t have a bar of anything that would imply his reliance upon
God. He doesn’t need God, no way! He’ll do things his way. Hell will be full of
people singing, “I did it my way!”
If we look back at the sarcasm of the
people of Judah in Isaiah 5:19, it is apparent that this alleged people of God
is not going to accept any statement from God unless it is absolutely proven
first, and for that they required God to come Himself and tell them! So, Vs 11
above may well be God simply telling them that if they need a sign to know that
it is God speaking, then ask for such a sign. If they really wanted God to
demonstrate His counsel to them, then here it is. If they accept, then they are
forced to acknowledge God’s counsel if He answers, yet if they refuse, they are
forced to back down from their sarcasm.
Matthew Henry says that they are those who are resolved that they will not trust God, yet
pretend they will not tempt him.
Ask God for a miraculous sign, says
Isaiah to Ahaz; you can ask for any sign, whether it be in the depth below you,
or in the heights above you. There is no limit to what you may ask. As the
saying goes: the sky’s the limit! That is, it is limited only by the extent of
the creation!
The provision of all our needs is
a consistent theme throughout the Bible.
Philippians 4:19 – But my God shall
supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
John 14:13-14 – 13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do,
that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If ye shall
ask any thing in my name, I will do [it].
Ultimately this sign in Isaiah
7:11 was the birth of their Messiah, something every godly person of Israel
should have been seeking; apparently Ahaz considered he didn’t need a Messiah!
Ahaz is the epitome of the self-made person who thinks he needs no-one else to
help him – a picture of extreme pride.
Luke 2:11-12 – 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a
Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. 12 And this [shall be] a
sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a
manger.
Herod didn’t want a Messiah
either!
Matthew 2:16 – Then Herod, when he
saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth,
and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts
thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had
diligently enquired of the wise men.
When God offers a sign, such as
offered to Ahaz here, man should take up the offer. When man asks for a sign,
though, sometimes God gives a sign (eg Gideon), yet
when Zachariah asked for a sign, it was taken as an expression of unbelief.
Luke 1:18-20 – 18 And Zacharias said unto the angel, Whereby shall I know
this? for I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years. 19 And
the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of
God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings. 20
And, behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day
that these things shall be performed, because thou believest
not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season.
“ask” can be seen as the asking of
a favour. If this is so, then God is offering Ahaz a sign as a special favour
to Ahaz, yet Ahaz says, “I don’t want any special favours from God, nor will I
tempt (put to the test) the Lord.” It is likely that Ahaz didn’t want to put
God to the test because if God delivered what He had promised, then Ahaz would
end up looking like the fool that he was! There was no godly piety in Ahaz’s
attitude here. He uses words that make him sound like a pious man, yet his
motives are far from pious! One could just imagine Ahaz using the following to
justify his seeming piety toward the counsel of God:
Deuteronomy 6:15-16 – 15 (For the Lord thy God [is] a jealous God among
you) lest the anger of the Lord thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy
thee from off the face of the earth. 16 Ye shall not tempt
the Lord your God, as ye tempted [him] in Massah.
Isaiah 7:13 – And 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?
God is not buying any of Ahaz’s pious
rhetoric. And this isn’t the first time in Isaiah that God has been weary of
His people!
weary – weary; exhaust; make someone tired of you; to be
tiresome.
The same word “weary” was used in
Isaiah 1:14.
Isaiah 1:14-15 – 14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to
bear [them]. 15 And when ye spread forth your hands, I
will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear:
your hands are full of blood.
Note that while it was “thy God’
in Vs 11, it is now “my God”. God has gone from being the God of Ahaz to now
being just the God of Isaiah. Ahaz has rejected God’s offer of a sign to
demonstrate the strength of His counsel; now God appears to have rejected Ahaz.
The sign is still given, but it is now not for Ahaz, but for those who call God
“my God”! What Ahaz does get here is the rejection that he has just
given to God and His offer. He might be of the house of David, but he has also
just been put down, by the future son of David, the one called Immanuel.
It’s clear that Ahaz has wearied
men by his rebellion against God, his sham of being holy when, like the
pharisees, he was dead and filthy on the inside. But Ahaz has not been
satisfied with just wearying people; he treats God the same as he treats man.
Both are treated equally with contempt!
And Babylon later on does not
escape the condemnation of God for their wearying, this time in the large
numbers of obviously conflicting counsels that could not save them from the judgment
of God that is to come upon them.
Isaiah 47:13 – Thou art wearied in
the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the
monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from [these things] that
shall come upon thee.
Isaiah 7:14 – Therefore the Lord
himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,
and shall call his name Immanuel.
Therefore – It will be so in spite of Ahaz’s rejection of it. If
Ahaz doesn’t want to know the sign, God is going to give it anyway, but not for
Ahaz, as he is clearly out of the redemptive picture now.
the Lord himself – God will give the sign because He is sovereign; it is
His decision and no-one may change His mind on that.
virgin – virgin; young woman (of marriageable age); can mean
bride.
There is no instance where it can
be proved that this word designates a young woman who is not a virgin. In the
Hebrew it is recorded as “the virgin”, which would indicate a definite
person in mind. The Septuagint also translates this as “virgin”.
Isaiah 7:14 – 14 Therefore
the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive in the
womb, and shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel. (LXX)
Immanuel – symbolic and prophetic name of the Messiah, the Christ,
prophesying that He would be born of a virgin and would be ‘God with us’.
There are many opinions on what
this verse means. Many have decided that the word actually means “young woman”,
not necessarily virgin, yet if that were so, why would such a statement be of
such importance for God to declare it a sign?
The New Testament also makes it
clear that Mary was a virgin when she was found pregnant.
Matthew 1:18; 21-23 – 18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as
his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was
found with child of the Holy Ghost.
21 And she
shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save
his people from their sins. 22 Now all this was done, that it
might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, 23
Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son,
and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
Consistency demands that the only
possible reading of Isaiah 7:14 must include the word “virgin” and not “young
woman” or similar.
Why has God given a sign (or
rather, promised a sign for the future)? What is the purpose of such a sign? If
we look at the context of the passage so far, we see that God (through Isaiah)
has offered Ahaz a sign in reply to Judah’s current need to defend itself
against both Israel and Syria. Isaiah has met with Ahaz at the end of the
conduit to the upper pool to reassure him not to be afraid of these two
enemies.
This passage today may or may not
be part of the same occasion, but today’s passage clearly follows on from what
was being discussed along the highway to the fuller’s field. Therefore, the
sign has to be seen as some sort of “proof” of God’s commitment to deliver His
people, in spite of their evil rebellion.
Ahaz was offered a way of escaping
from these enemies if he had so desired; the extent of the sign was open-ended.
Thus, Ahaz could have (and should have) asked for God to wipe the enemies off
the map, so to speak! Jehoshaphat was faced with three massive armies, without
being promised such a sign, yet he still asked for God to stand by them to
deliver them. Look at the contrast in the following.
2 Chronicles 20:1-24 – 1 It came to pass after this also, [that] the
children of Moab, and the children of Ammon, and with them [other] beside
the Ammonites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle. 2 Then
there came some that told Jehoshaphat, saying, There cometh a great multitude
against thee from beyond the sea on this side Syria; and, behold, they [be] in
Hazazon–tamar, which [is]
En–gedi. 3 And
Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast
throughout all Judah. 4 And Judah gathered themselves
together, to ask [help] of the Lord: even out of all the cities of Judah
they came to seek the Lord. 5 And Jehoshaphat stood in the
congregation of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord, before the new
court, 6 And said, O Lord God of our fathers, [art] not
thou God in heaven? and rulest [not] thou over
all the kingdoms of the heathen? and in thine hand [is there not] power
and might, so that none is able to withstand thee? 7 [Art]
not thou our God, [who] didst drive out the inhabitants of this land
before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed
of Abraham thy friend for ever? 8 And they dwelt therein, and
have built thee a sanctuary therein for thy name, saying, 9 If,
[when] evil cometh upon us, [as] the sword, judgment, or
pestilence, or famine, we stand before this house, and in thy presence, (for
thy name [is] in this house,) and cry unto thee in our affliction, then
thou wilt hear and help. 10 And now, behold, the children of
Ammon and Moab and mount Seir, whom thou wouldest not let Israel invade, when they came out of the
land of Egypt, but they turned from them, and destroyed them not; 11 Behold,
[I say, how] they reward us, to come to cast us out of thy possession,
which thou hast given us to inherit. 12 O our God, wilt thou
not judge them? for we have no might against this great company that cometh
against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes [are] upon thee. 13
And all Judah stood before the Lord, with their little ones, their
wives, and their children. 14 Then upon Jahaziel
the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, a
Levite of the sons of Asaph, came the Spirit of the Lord in the midst of the
congregation; 15 And he said, Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye
inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou king Jehoshaphat, Thus saith
the Lord unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great
multitude; for the battle [is] not yours, but God’s. 16 To morrow go ye down against them: behold, they come up by
the cliff of Ziz; and ye shall find them at the end
of the brook, before the wilderness of Jeruel. 17
Ye shall not [need] to fight in this [battle]: set
yourselves, stand ye [still], and see the salvation of the Lord with
you, O Judah and Jerusalem: fear not, nor be dismayed; to
morrow go out against them: for the Lord [will be] with you. 18
And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with [his] face to the ground:
and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the Lord,
worshipping the Lord. 19 And the Levites, of the children of
the Kohathites, and of the children of the Korhites,
stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with a loud voice on high. 20
And they rose early in the morning, and went forth into the
wilderness of Tekoa: and as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear
me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem; Believe in the Lord your God, so
shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper. 21 And
when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord, and
that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army,
and to say, Praise the Lord; for his mercy [endureth]
for ever. 22 And
when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushments
against the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir,
which were come against Judah; and they were smitten. 23 For
the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of mount Seir, utterly to slay and destroy [them]: and when
they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, every
one helped to destroy another. 24 And when Judah came toward
the watch tower in the wilderness, they looked unto the multitude, and, behold,
they [were] dead bodies fallen to the earth, and none escaped.
And Ahaz is more or less
guaranteed victory if only he can bring himself to humble himself to accept the
provision of God! But he won’t!
In spite of Ahaz’s rejection of
the sign, God still gives it, though. Judah survives Syria and Israel. However,
this has to be seen as a commitment by God to deliver His people through the Son
of the virgin. Clearly this sign can only be effective for Israel when they
finally do accept Him as their God so that they can be His people. That will
happen, but it hasn’t happened yet. It will only happen when Israel has hit
rock-bottom and cannot go down any further!
Zechariah 12:10 – And I will pour upon
the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace
and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and
they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for [his]
only [son], and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in
bitterness for [his] firstborn.
And it will only happen when
Israel is finally redeemed, when their Immanuel returns to fulfil the
requirements of His sign: God with us!
Revelation 1:7 – Behold, he cometh
with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they [also] which pierced
him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.
Isaiah 7:15 – Butter and honey
shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.
See Isaiah 7:21-22 – 21 And it
shall come to pass in that day, [that] a man shall nourish a young cow,
and two sheep; 22 And it shall come to pass, for the
abundance of milk [that] they shall give he shall eat butter: for butter
and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land.
This son called Immanuel shall
grow up as a normal child, eating the usual food of normal children – curds
(clotted milk) and honey. “that he may know” is either a consequent knowledge or
knowledge that follows this stage of eating clotted milk and honey.
Thus, here it appears to be that
he shall eat curds and honey as a child until he is of an age to know the
difference between good and evil, and thus to reject the evil while choosing
the good. It appears that this child will be encumbered with the limitations of
the flesh, that even though he is to be “God with us”, he will also be “God in
the flesh with us”.
John 1:14 – And the Word was made
flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only
begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
Isaiah 7:16 – 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.
Here is the important part of this
eating clotted milk and honey, and it is not that the child would eat such food
or why, for that doesn’t appear to be the main reasoning behind this passage
here. Instead it is the timing of such events that is important here. For
before that child (Immanuel) is of an age to be able to choose good and refuse
evil, the land will be forsaken of both her kings. Is it talking about the two
kings (Rezin and Pekah) who
have come against Judah? If so, then those two vexatious kings which are come
against Ahaz will be dealt with. It is certainly true that the kingdom reigns
of both Rezin and Pekah
ended in 732 BC which must have been only a year or two, maybe three at most,
after the events in this passage. The translation of this verse is, according
to Barnes, For before the child shall learn
to refuse the evil and to choose the good, desolate shall be the land, before
whose two kings thou art in terror.
However, that would create a
problem, for if Immanuel is the Messiah, then it will be more than 700 years
before that child is born of a virgin. Some have said that the virgin refers to
the wife of Ahaz who had a son named Hezekiah, and that Hezekiah was a type of
Immanuel. But Hezekiah would have been at least 9YO when this prophecy was
made. And, the Jews of that time appeared to have accepted Immanuel to be their
Messiah. That Immanuel is the Messiah is difficult to dispute.
However, look at Isaiah 8:1-4 – 1 Moreover
the Lord said unto me, Take thee a great roll, and write in it with a man’s pen
concerning Maher–shalal–hash–baz.
2 And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the
priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah. 3
And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son.
Then said the Lord to me, Call his name Maher–shalal–hash–baz. 4 For before the child shall have
knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the
spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.
It does seem from the context that
this event may be related to today’s passage. Damascus and Samaria would refer
to Rezin of Syria and Pekah
of Israel. The name Maher-shalal-hash-baz means “swift are the spoils, speedy is the plunder”. Such a child
was probably born 1 - 2 years after Isaiah 7:16 was pronounced, which would
indicate the demise of both Rezin and Pekah before the child could talk.
The most logical and scripturally consistent explanation for
Isaiah 7:16 is that there are two levels of prophecy here. This is actually
quite common in prophecy, for before a prophet could be established as the
spokesman of God, he had to establish his credentials, which meant that he had
to be proven 100% correct in his prophecies. So, a more immediate fulfillment
would be permitted to establish Isaiah’s credentials as God’s prophet, with a
more complete fulfillment further in the future. In this case, an immediate
fulfillment would have demonstrated Isaiah’s credentials, but the ultimate
meaning of the prophecy has to relate to Jesus who was Immanuel according to
Matthew 1:23.
Thus, the two kings could also relate to the two kingdoms of
Israel and Judah which would both be destroyed after the Messiah had come in
the flesh. Israel would be destroyed in Isaiah’s lifetime, but Judah would hang
on for many centuries before her destruction in 70 AD.
However, for the current time, before
this child (Maher-shalal-hash-baz)
shall be of an age to know the difference between good and evil, the land that
Ahaz abhorred (felt a loathing at; felt a sickening dread at – see the use of
this word as “vex” in Isaiah 7:6), that is, Israel with her confederate, Syria,
shall be left without either of the two kings (Pekah
and Rezin). This would happen in 732 BC.
Ahaz is being told that the land
that so vexes him will one day have no legitimate king. Israel (with the
assistance of Syria) won’t win over Judah, although Judah is going to lose some
of her sovereignty anyway. What concerns Ahaz will happen quickly (within a
couple of years), with the rest of prophecy still certain.
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