Isaiah 7:10-16

THE CHRIST Isaiah 7:10-16

TEXT: Isaiah 7:10-16

10

And Jehovah spake again unto Ahaz, saying,

11

Ask thee a sign of Jehovah 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 Jehovah.

13

And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; is it a small thing for you to weary men, that ye will weary my God also?

14

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

15

Butter and honey shall he eat when he knoweth to refuse the evil, and choose the good.

16

For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land whose two kings thou abhorrest shall be forsaken.

QUERIES

a.

Was Ahaz right in refusing to tempt Jehovah?

b.

Who is the virgin?

c.

Why mention that the child would eat butter and honey?

PARAPHRASE

Not long after this, the Lord sent this further message to King Ahaz: Ask Me for a sign, Ahaz, to prove that I will indeed crush your enemies as I have said. Ask anything you like, in heaven or on earth. But the king refused. No, he said, I-'ll not bother the Lord with anything like that. Then Isaiah said, O House of David, you aren-'t satisfied to exhaust my patience; you exhaust the Lord's as well! All right then, the Lord Himself will choose the signa child shall be born to a virgin! And she shall call Him Immanuel (meaning, God is with us.). By the time it would take for the child to be weaned and come to know right from wrong, the two kings you fear so muchthe kings of Israel and Syriawill be dead.

COMMENTS

Isaiah 7:10-13 THE SIGN OFFERED AND REFUSED: Ahaz made no move to show that he believed God's promise concerning the continuity of the kingdom of Judah. He was silent. God, to stir up his faith, offers a sign to guarantee fulfillment of His promise. Ahaz haughtily refuses the sign in language he intended should sound pious and loyal, but Ahaz had already decided to do his own will. He knew as well as anyone that when God commands a man to ask for a sign it is not putting God to the test to obey Him. Ahaz, like many others before and after him, wanted to work things out in his own way! His way seemed to be so much better. To be an ally of this great and feared monarch of Assyria was so much better than being an ally of an invisible God. Isaiah rebukes the king (Isaiah 7:13) by pointing out that the king may try the patience of men (God's prophets) and not suffer dire consequences, but it is no small matter to try the patience of Jehovah by hypocrisy and rebelliousness.

Isaiah 7:14-16 THE SIGN COMPELLED: Ahaz tried to fool the prophet with his feigned piety. But God was not fooled and spoke through Isaiah that He would give Ahaz a sign whether the king wanted one or not. This sign would not be wasted, as we shall see, for it would establish the faithfulness and veracity of God to keep His covenant. And if Ahaz refused to appropriate it, others of the house of David would!

To consider the sign here to be given, one must first consider the Hebrew word almah, translated in the ASV virgin and in the RSV young woman and in some other versions maiden. The Hebrew and English Lexicon of The Old Testament by Brown, Driver and Briggs says of almah, young woman (ripe sexually; maid or newly married). Gesenius-' Hebrew lexicon, the accepted authority among practically all Hebrew lexicographers says, a girl of marriageable age. the notion of unspotted virginity is not that which this word conveys, for which the proper word is bethulah. Keil and Delitzsch say in their commentary here, ... whilst bethulah signifies a maiden living in seclusion in her parents-' house and still a long way from matrimony, almah is applied to one fully mature, and approaching the time of her marriage. It is also admitted that the idea of spotless virginity was not necessarily connected with almah, since there are passages (e.g. Song of Solomon 6:8 where it can hardly be distinguished from the Arabic surrije); and a person who had a very young-looking wife might be said to have an almah for his wife. the expression itself warrants the assumption that by almah the prophet meant one of the young maidens of the king's (Ahaz-') harem. We conclude then, that a child was to be born to one who might be a young woman who was a virgin, or a young woman of marriageable age not necessarily a virgin, or a married woman who was very young looking, or perhaps a young woman who was a member of a king's harem whatever her state of virginity.

Perhaps the more immediate question is, Who is Immanuel? The literal meaning of the word is, of course, God with us. It should be apparent that Immanuel of Isaiah 7:14, Isaiah 8:8, and the child of Isaiah 9:6 and the branch of Isaiah 11:1 ff is one and the same mighty divine personage. This can be none other than Christ, the Messiah. But, if the passage here under discussion (Isaiah 7:10-16) constitutes a real prophecy of Christ, how are we to explain the plain reference in Isaiah 7:16 to events belonging to the days of Ahaz and Isaiah? How can the coming of Christ to years of discretion, some seven centuries after Ahaz, be made to fix the time for the forsaking of the land of Israel and Syria? And how could a child's coming to age of understanding some seven centuries after Ahaz be a sign to Ahaz? Surely some more immediate birth of a child must be in view here.

The late Dr. J. Gresham Machen, famous defender of the inspiration of the scriptures and world-renowned scholar, wrote in his classical work, The Virgin Birth of Christ, In reply, either one of two things may be said. In the first place, it may be held that the prophet has before him in vision the birth of the child Immanuel, and that irrespective of the ultimate fulfillment the vision itself is present. -I see a wonderful child,-' the prophet on this interpretation would say, -a wonderful child whose birth shall bring salvation to his people; and before such a period of time shall elapse as would lie between the conception of the child in his mother's womb and his coming to years of discretion, the land of Israel and Syria shall be forsaken.-'

In the second place, one may hold that in the passage some immediate birth of a child is in view, but that that event is to be taken as the foreshadowing of the greater event that was to come. So in our passage, the prophet, when he placed before the rebellious Ahaz that strange picture of the mother and the child, was not only promising deliverance to Judah in the period before a child then born should know how to refuse evil and choose the good, but also, moved by the Spirit of God, was looking forward, as in a dim and mysterious vision, to the day when the true Immanuel, the mighty God and Prince of Peace, should lie as a little babe in a virgin's arms.
According to Machen's second explanation, then, a young woman (almah) contemporary with Ahaz and Isaiah would conceive and bear a son and call his name Immanuel. Before this child should reach the age to be able to choose the good and refuse evil, Israel and Syria would no longer be a threat to Judah. This contemporary almah and her child was a type of the virgin Mary and her child, the Christ! In view of the many prophecies of the Old Testament which have two fulfillments and are typical of the Messiah or the messianic age (Hosea 11:1 etc.), and in view of the plain necessity for a contemporary sign to Ahaz, we have no problem in accepting Machen's second explanation.

But who is the almah whose child-bearing in Ahaz-' day constitutes the sign that Jehovah gives? Two unsatisfactory answers have been given in the past: (a) Isaiah's wife. She named her son Maher-shalal-hash-baz and the almah'S son was to be named Immanuel. Besides, Isaiah's wife would hardly be a young-looking woman since Isaiah was about 60 years old at this time; (b) Ahaz-' wife, Abi (Abijah), mother of Hezekiah. But Hezekiah was born before Ahaz came to the throne (as pointed out by Jerome) so his birth could not have been referred to within the reign of Ahaz as lying still in the future! Who she was we do not know. We do know that she and the birth of her child and the divine deliverance of Judah connected to that birth became a type of the virgin who would conceive when the Holy Spirit came upon her and give birth to the Messiah who would bring the divine deliverance from sin and death finally and completely (Matthew 1:23), and would sit upon the throne of Judah forever. This is the concept Ahaz refused to believe, that God's throne, God's people, God's covenant could be perpetuated without some recourse to human power. So Ahaz thought to protect the throne of Judah and perpetuate it by making alliance with pagan Assyria. Ahaz assured himself that Assyria was his only source of help against Israel and Syria.

But God told Ahaz that he would be given a sign of the divine power to protect and perpetuate the throne of Judah whether Ahaz wanted such divine help or not! The immediate sign to Ahaz (and all in his day) of the divine protection of the covenant would be the fulfillment of Isaiah's prediction that within a very short time the lands of Pekah and Rezin would be made desolate. The very short time is indicated by the prediction that before the child born to the almah could come to the age to make the moral choice of good and evil, these lands would be desolate. This time element is the real focus of the sign for Ahaz. Some have said that within two or three years from birth most children are able to choose good and reject evil. Isaiah delivered God's sign to Ahaz approximately 734 B.C. and in 732 B.C. Tiglath-Pileser captured Damascus (capitol of Syria) and invaded Israel. This immediate demonstration of God's foreknowledge and power in the perpetuation of His covenant of redemption should establish and confirm His faithfulness to complete His work of redemption in the dim and distant future in the child and the branch who would be Immanuel. This is the aim of Isaiah 7:14, and this is the application the inspired gospel writer, Matthew, made of the prophecy. The conception of the virgin Mary was the signal to all the world that God had at last arrived at the time for consummation of all His promises of establishing the throne of Judah forever. And the sign given to Ahaz was a type of this divine entry into history given seven centuries in advance.

The child born to the almah contemporary with Ahaz will eat butter and honey up to the day it shall be able to choose good and evil. In other words, the danger to Judah, then being caused by the war upon it by Pekah and Rezin would be only temporarytwo or three years at the most. Butter and honey are not the ordinary food of an agricultural population. Rather such a diet indicates shortage of staple foods. Judah, under attack by the northern coalition, was suffering food shortages, but God would deliver them from this in a short time. However, because of Ahaz-' unbelief and his enslavement of the whole country to Assyria, they would soon be back on their starvation diets (Cf. Isaiah 7:22).

QUIZ

1.

What may the Hebrew word almah mean?

2.

Who is the Immanuel of Isaiah 7:14?

3.

What are two possible interpretations of the sign to be given to Ahaz?

4.

Why could the almah of Ahaz-' day not be Isaiah's wife?

5.

What is the overall idea God is attempting to deliver to Ahaz?

6.

What is the application of this prophecy to the conception of the virgin Mary, Matthew 1:23?