Isaiah 7:8

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,

1. From the prophecy of Amos, who prophesied in the days of Uzziah, two years before the earthquake, Amos 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, 2 Chronicles 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, 2 Chronicles 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, 2 Kings 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, Jeremiah 52:28. 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, 2 Kings 18:10, and the transportation of the Israelites be mentioned immediately after it, Isaiah 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, Acts 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, Jeremiah 52:28. 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 2 Kings 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, 2 Kings 18:10, no, nor by Sennacherib, his next successor; but by Esar-haddon, as is affirmed, Ezra 4:2, who was the son and successor of Sennacherib, 2 Kings 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 2 Kings 18:13, and 2 Kings 19:35; 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.