Isaiah 7

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Dave Burnette's Commentary

Isaiah Chapter 7

Written By: God through Inspiration

Penned By: Isaiah

Date Penned: (700-681 BC)

Overview: To Tell of God's Salvation through the Messiah (c 1-66)

Theme: Words of Judgment (c 1-39)

Message: Immanuel - God with Us (v 1-25)

Isaiah 7 Commentary

(7:1) King Ahaz - The year was 734 BC. Ahaz, king of Judah in Jerusalem, was about to be attacked by an alliance of the northern kingdom of Israel and Syria (or Aram). He was frightened by the possible end of his reign and by the invading armies that threatened to kill many and take many captives (2 Chronicles 28:5-21). But, as Isaiah predicted, the kingdom of Judah did not come to an end at this time.

(7:3) Shear-jashub - The name Shear-jashub means "a remnant will return." God told Isaiah to give his son this name as a reminder of his plan for mercy. From the beginning of God's time of judgment he planned to restore a remnant of his people. Shear-jashub was a reminder to the people of God's faithfulness to them.

(7:3) The Gion Spring - The "conduit of the upper pool" may have carried water from the Gion Spring, located east of Jerusalem. This spring was the main water source for the holy city, and it was also the spring that emptied into Hezekiah's famous water tunnel (2 Chronicles 32:30). The "fuller's field" was a well-known place where clothing or newly woven cloth was laid in the sun to dry and whiten (see Isaiah 36:2).

(7:4-8:15) Syria - Isaiah predicted the breakup of Israel's alliance with Syria Because of this alliance, Israel would be destroyed; Assyria would be the instrument God would use to destroy them (7:8-25) and to punish Judah. But God would not let Assyria destroy Judah (8:1-15). They would be spared because God's gracious plans cannot be thwarted.

(7:8) King Ahaz - Ahaz, one of Judah's worst kings, refused God's help and instead tried to buy aid from the Assyrians with silver and gold from the temple (2 Kings 16:8). When the Assyrians came, they brought further trouble instead of help. In 722 BC, Samaria, the capital of "Ephraim" (another name for the northern kingdom of Israel), fell to the Assyrian armies, thus ending the northern kingdom. 7:10-12 Ahaz appeared righteous by saying he would not test God with a sign ("I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD"). In fact, God had told him to ask for one, but Ahaz didn't really want to know what God would say. Today, we often use some excuse-such as not wanting to bother God or blaming some theological question that concerns us--to keep us from communicating directly with him. Don't hesitate to bring your requests to God. Hearing his answers and responding to them, no matter how difficult, will be far better for you than ignoring him and the help he wants to offer.

(7:4-16) Virgin - The word virgin is translated from a Hebrew term used for an unmarried woman who was old enough to be married and was sexually mature (see Genesis 24:43; Exodus 2:8; Psalm 68:25; Proverbs 30:19; Song of Solomon 1:3; 6:8). Some have interpreted this young woman and child to be Isaiah's young wife and newborn son (Isaiah 8:1-4). This is not likely because she had already borne a child, Shear-jashub, and her second child was not named Immanuel. Some believe that Isaiah's first wife may have died and so this would refer to his second wife. A more likely explanation is that this prophecy had a double fulfillment: (1) The immediate fulfillment was that a young woman from the house of Ahaz who was not married would marry and have a son. Before three years passed (one year for pregnancy and two for the child to be old enough to talk), the two invading kings would be destroyed. (2) Matthew 1:23 quotes Isaiah (7:14) to show a further fulfillment of this prophecy in that a virgin named Mary conceived and bore a son, Emmanuel--Jesus Christ.

(7:18) Flies and Bees - Flies and bees are symbols of God's judgment (see Exodus 8:20-32; 23:28). Egypt and Assyria did not devastate Judah at this time. Hezekiah followed Ahaz as king, and he honored God; therefore, God held back his hand of judgment. Two more evil kings reigned before Josiah, the king who, more than any other, turned completely to the Lord (2 Kings 23:25). However, Judah's doom had been sealed by the extreme evil of Josiah's father, Amon. During Josiah's reign, Egypt marched against the Assyrians. Josiah then declared war on Egypt, though God had told him not to. After Josiah was killed (2 Chronicles 35:20-27), only weak kings reigned in Judah. Three months after Josiah's death, the Egyptians carried off Josiah's son Jehoahaz into captivity. The next king, Jehoiakim, was taken by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon. Egypt and Assyria had dealt death blows to Judah.

(7:20) Judah's Downfall - Hiring Assyria to save them would be Judah's downfall (2 Kings 16:7-8). To "shave" Judah was symbolic of totally humiliating them. Numbers 6:9 explains that after being defiled, a person who had been set apart for the Lord had to shave their head as part of the cleansing process. Shaving bodily hair was an embarrassment--an exposure of nakedness. For a Hebrew man, having even his beard shaved was humiliating (2 Samuel 10:4=5).

(7:21-25) A Wasteland - Judah's rich farmland would be trampled and left uncultivated until it became an unproductive wasteland, overrun by thorny plants and wild animals. No longer would it be a place of agricultural abundance, a land "flowing with milk and honey" (Exodus 3:8), but a land with only briers and thorns.

Dave Burnette's Life Application
Immanuel

Each day we walk through the Bible chapter by chapter making an application of our text to help us grow in the Lord. Many applications can be made from each day's text. Today, we continue in the Book of Isaiah with Chapter 7. In our text today, we see Immanuel, or God, who is with us. Ahaz was about to be attacked by Assyria. Still, it did not prevail because the people tried to follow God even though Ahaz was a poor leader. In making an application, we see that as Christians in a worldly nation with a worldly President, we too will prevail if we follow the Lord. How about you? Are you discouraged by the world we live in and the direction we are going? Let us learn from our text today to remember that we have Immanuel, God, with us that is in us, and we too will prevail if we follow the Lord and do His Will.

Isaiah 7

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Isaiah 7

¹And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it.

²And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.

³Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field;

⁴And say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah.

⁵Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying,

⁶Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal:

⁷Thus saith the Lord GOD, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.

⁸For 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.

⁹And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.

¹⁰Moreover the LORD spake again unto Ahaz, saying,

¹¹Ask thee a sign of the LORD thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.

¹²But 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?

¹⁴Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

¹⁵Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.

¹⁶For 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.

¹⁷The 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.

¹⁸And 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.

¹⁹And they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all bushes.

²⁰In the same day shall the Lord shave with 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.

²¹And it shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep;

²²And 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.

²³And it shall come to pass in that day, that every place shall be, where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings, it shall even be for briers and thorns.

²⁴With arrows and with bows shall men come thither; because all the land shall become briers and thorns.

²⁵And on all hills that shall be digged with the mattock, there shall not come thither the fear of briers and thorns: but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen, and for the treading of lesser cattle.

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