Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 8:1
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.
1. Comp. ch. Isa 30:8; Hab 2:2. a great roll ] a great tablet (R.V.). The word is used in ch. Isa 3:23 of polished metal mirrors; here it means a smooth flat tablet of wood, stone or metal.
with a man’s pen ] i.e. “in common characters” (R.V. marg.) easily legible and understood by the people (Hab 2:2). Such a direction bears witness to an extensive knowledge of writing in Isaiah’s time. The famous inscription in the Siloam tunnel, belonging probably to this age, is thought to have been carved by the workmen for their amusement.
Maher-shalal-hash-baz ] That is, “ Haste-spoil-speed-booty.” Syntactically the enigmatic legend is capable of more than one construction. Most probably the verbs are participles; and then the nouns may be either nominative to them, or in the accusative of direction. I.e. we may translate either “Spoil hasteneth booty speedeth” or “Hasting to (the) spoil speeding to (the) booty.” The last seems preferable. (Comp. Goethe’s Raufebold, Habebald, Eilebeute in the second part of Faust.)
concerning ] is in Hebr. simply “to” or “for,” a formula of dedication common on seals and epitaphs. The tablet relates to Maher-shalal-hash-baz.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
1 4. The twofold sign of Maher-shalal-hash-baz.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Take thee a great roll – The word which is here translated roll more properly signifies tablet. So the Chaldee renders it. Those tablets were made of wood, metal, or stone, for the purpose of writing on; see Isa 30:8; Hab 2:2. On these tablets, or smooth plates, writing was performed by cutting the letters with an iron stylus, or small chisel. The process was slow, but the writing was permanent. They sometimes used the skins of animals, or the bark of trees, and subsequently the papyrus of Egypt (compare the note at Isa 19:7); and it is possible that Isaiah may have used such a roll or volume on this occasion; compare Isa 8:16.
With a mans pen – The word pen here ( cheret) denotes the iron stylus, which was used to engrave or cut the letters in the metal or wood. The phrase a mans pen, has been variously interpreted. The Chaldee renders it, Write in it an open, or clear writing, or an expanded writing; meaning that he should make it clear and distinct, so as to be easily read. The Syriac, Write on it in the (usual) custom of men. The word which is translated mans ‘enosh usually denotes common men, the lower ranks, in opposition to the higher ranks of society. And probably the direction means simply, write on it in letters such as men commonly use; in a plain, open, distinct manner – without using any mysterious emblems or characters, but so that men may read it distinctly and easily. A parallel place occurs in Hab 2:2 : Write the vision and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.
Concerning – Hebrew (le). This preposition may denote concerning, of, or to. I understand it here as referring to the heading or title of the prophecy. This was to be set over the prophecy, as a running title, to denote the main subject of it. The subject is indicated in the name which is immediately added.
Maher – Hasten; or, he shall hasten. Shalal. Spoil, or prey.
Hash – Hasten, or make speed.
Baz – Spoil, or prey. The name used here is a repetition of the same idea – denoting haste in seizing prey, or spoil; and is repeated to give emphasis, and to excite attention. The idea is, that the Assyrian would hasten to his plunder – that it would be accomplished with speed. This name was to be given to a child of Isaiah; and this child was to be a sign of the event which was signified by the name; see Isa 8:18; compare Hab 2:2-3.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 8:1-4
Maher-shalal-hash-baz
Maher-shalal-hash-baz
Four words, or rather two sentences, form now the burden of this message; and they are embodied in the name of a boy.
Maher-shalal,–this first sentence means that quickly shall trophies be taken–the prophet thus seeing the army of Samaria in full and disgraceful flight. While Hash-baz, the second, tells us about booty being taken, as the Assyrian forces shall enter Damascus in 732 B.C., and help themselves to its wealth. (B. Blake, B. D.)
Unconscious testimony
I. GOD MEANT SOMETHING BY THIS CHILD.
II. GOD HAS A MEANING OF HIS OWN WITH EVERY LIFE. (J. R. Howard.)
Gods writing
God hath a large print in some of His books. Verily, He can write a small hand too, which men can only see through the microscope of tears. (J. Parker, D. D.)
A mans pen
They that write for men should write with a mans pen, and not covet the pen or tongue of angels. (M. Henry.)
A help to memory
It is sometimes a good help to memory to put much matter in few words, which serve as handles by which we take hold of more. (M. Henry.)
Naming children from passing events
In 1900 many a helpless infant was saddled for life with a name drawn from South Africa, and reminiscent of certain towns and certain individuals conquered or conquering by the might of British arms. However patriotic we may be, we feel sympathy for these little innocents with the reverse of euphonious names, for their trials in after days when they become Miss Ladysmith Tomkinson and Mr. Pretorius Simpkinson, will not be light. An additional burden for the feminine portion of this sorry community will be, that their mere names will be as definite as a census paper and as plain as a birth certificate, as a declaration of age. In the year 1926, Mr. William Smith will have no need to inquire diligently the approximate age of Miss Methuen Redvers Robinson; he will at once be able to fix the glorious year when her presence began to usher a happy springtime into this wintry world–at least, for him. Strange and unforeseen results may follow from the naming of the little children from the crimsoned fields of war. But the custom of naming the children from passing events is by no means new. The old Hebrews, with their religious intensity, and fervent patriotism, usually found names for their children that had a very distinct meaning and a very distinct message, quite unlike the stolid English, who may by chance stumble upon the fact that Irene means peace, and Theodore, the gift of God, but who never trouble themselves overmuch about such un-English things. (W. Owen.)
Maher-shalal-hash-baz
One very distinct difference between this old Hebrew name and any recent English battle name is this, that the latter is a cry of triumph, and the former an announcement of trial, and in this difference there may be seen a difference in the temper of these name makers. Let us remember the past, say the English, let us perpetuate our victories and immortalise them, but let defeat be forgotten, and let the future take care of itself. No, let us look onward, said the Hebrew prophet, let us face the facts, and realise that no past victory at the Red Sea can make us conquerors now, if we lose our faith in God. Of course, as the result of such an utterance, Isaiah was deemed a pessimist (as is every man who is far-seeing enough to discern the cloud in the distance, even if it be no bigger than a mans hand, and brave enough to tell what he has seen), and it was easy enough then, as now, and satisfactory enough to the majority, to label him a pessimist and then ignore him! But, on the other hand, it is not the easiest of things to listen to the men who prophesy smoothly of continual summer, while, round them as they speak, the leaves are falling in autumn, and the trees stripping themselves bare to face the unseen icy wind. There is room for the cry, Maher-shalal-hash-baz! (W. Owen.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER VIII
Prediction respecting the conquest of Syria and Israel by the
Assyrians, 1-4.
Israel, for rejecting the gentle stream of Shiloah, near
Jerusalem, is threatened to be overflowed by the great river of
Assyria, manifestly alluding by this strong figure to the
conquests of Tiglath-pileser and Shalmaneser over that kingdom,
5-7.
The invasion of the kingdom of Judah by the Assyrians under
Sennacherib foretold, 8.
The prophet assures the Israelites and Syrians that their
hostile attempts against Judah shall be frustrated, 9, 10.
Exhortation not to be afraid of the wrath of man, but to fear
the displeasure of God, 11-13.
Judgments which shall overtake those who put no confidence in
Jehovah, 14, 15.
The prophet proceeds to warn his countrymen against idolatry,
divination, and the like sinful practices, exhorting them to
seek direction from the word of God, professing in a beautiful
apostrophe that this was his own pious resolution. And to
enforce this counsel, and strengthen their faith, he points to
his children, whose symbolic names were signs or pledges of
the Divine promises, 16-20.
Judgments of God against the finally impenitent, 21, 22.
The prophecy of the foregoing chapter relates directly to the kingdom of Judah only: the first part of it promises them deliverance from the united invasion of the Israelites and Syrians; the latter part, from Isa 8:17, denounces the desolation to be brought upon the kingdom of Judah by the Assyrians. The sixth, seventh, and eighth verses of this chapter seem to take in both the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. “This people that refuseth the waters of Shiloah,” may be meant of both: the Israelites despised the kingdom of Judah, which they had deserted, and now attempted to destroy; the people of Judah, from a consideration of their own weakness, and a distrust of God’s promises, being reduced to despair, applied to the Assyrians for assistance against the two confederate kings. But how could it be said of Judah, that they rejoiced in Rezin, and the son of Remaliah, the enemies confederated against them? If some of the people were inclined to revolt to the enemy, (which however does not clearly appear from any part of the history or the prophecy,) yet there was nothing like a tendency to a general defection. This, therefore, must be understood of Israel. The prophet denounces the Assyrian invasion, which should overwhelm the whole kingdom of Israel under Tiglath-pileser, and Shalmaneser; and the subsequent invasion of Judah by the same power under Sennacherib, which would bring them into the most imminent danger, like a flood reaching to the neck, in which a man can but just keep his head above water. The two next verses, 9 and 10, Isa 8:9; Isa 8:10, are addressed by the prophet, as a subject of the kingdom of Judah, to the Israelites and Syrians, and perhaps to all the enemies of God’s people; assuring them that their attempts against that kingdom shall be fruitless; for that the promised Immanuel, to whom he alludes by using his name to express the signification of it, for God is with us, shall be the defence of the house of David, and deliver the kingdom of Judah out of their hands. He then proceeds to warn the people of Judah against idolatry, divination, and the like forbidden practices; to which they were much inclined, and which would soon bring down God’s judgments upon Israel. The prophecy concludes at the sixth verse of Isa 9:6 with promises of blessings in future times by the coming of the great deliverer already pointed out by the name of Immanuel, whose person and character is set forth in terms the most ample and magnificent.
And here it may be observed that it is almost the constant practice of the prophet to connect in like manner deliverances temporal with spiritual. Thus the eleventh chapter, setting forth the kingdom of Messiah, is closely connected with the tenth, which foretells the destruction of Sennacherib. So likewise the destruction of nations, enemies to God, in the thirty-fourth chapter, introduces the flourishing state of the kingdom of Christ in the thirty-fifth. And thus the chapters from xl. to xlix. inclusive, plainly relating to the deliverance from the captivity of Babylon, do in some parts plainly relate to the greater deliverance by Christ.
NOTES ON CHAP. VIII
Verse 1. Take thee a great roll – “Take unto thee a large mirror”] The word gillayon is not regularly formed from galal, to roll, but from galah, as pidyon from padah, killayon from , calah, nikkayon from nakah, elyon from alah, c., the yod supplying the place of the radical he. galah signifies to show, to reveal properly, as Schroederus says, (De Vestitu Mulier. Hebr. p. 294,) to render clear and bright by rubbing; to polish. gillayon, therefore, according to this derivation, is not a roll or volume: but may very well signify a polished tablet of metal, such as was anciently used for a mirror. The Chaldee paraphrast renders it by luach, a tablet, and the same word, though somewhat differently pointed, the Chaldee paraphrast and the rabbins render a mirror, Isa 3:23. The mirrors of the Israelitish women were made of brass finely polished, Ex 38:8, from which place it likewise appears that what they used were little hand mirrors which they carried with them even when they assembled at the door of the tabernacle. I have a metalline mirror found in Herculaneum, which is not above three inches square. The prophet is commanded to take a mirror, or brazen polished tablet, not like these little hand mirrors, but a large one; large enough for him to engrave upon it in deep and lasting characters, becheret enosh, with a workman’s graving tool, the prophecy which he was to deliver. cheret in this place certainly signifies an instrument to write or engrave with: but charit, the same word, only differing a little in the form, means something belonging to a lady’s dress, Isa 3:22, (where however five MSS. leave out the yod, whereby only it differs from the word in this place,) either a crisping-pin, which might be not unlike a graving tool, as some will have it, or a purse, as others infer from 2Kg 5:23. It may therefore be called here cheret enosh, a workman’s instrument, to distinguish it from cheret ishshah, an instrument of the same name, used by the women. In this manner he was to record the prophecy of the destruction of Damascus and Samaria by the Assyrians; the subject and sum of which prophecy is here expressed with great brevity in four words, maher shalal hash baz; i.e., to hasten the spoil, to take quickly the prey; which are afterwards applied as the name of the prophet’s son, who was made a sign of the speedy completion of it; Maher-shalal-hash-baz; Haste-to-the-spoil, Quick-to-the-prey. And that it might be done with the greater solemnity, and to preclude all doubt of the real delivery of the prophecy before the event, he calls witnesses to attest the recording of it.
The prophet is commanded to take a great roll, and yet four words only are to be written in it, maher shalal hash baz, Make haste to the spoil; fall upon the prey. The great volume points out the land of Judea; and the few words the small number of inhabitants, after the ten tribes were carried into captivity.
The words were to be written with a man’s pen; i.e., though the prophecy be given in the visions of God, yet the writing must be real; the words must be transcribed on the great roll, that they may be read and publicly consulted. Or, cherot enosh, the pen or graver of the weak miserable man, may refer to the already condemned Assyrians, who though they should be the instruments of chastening Damascus and Samaria, should themselves shortly be overthrown. The four words may be considered as the commission given to the Assyrians to destroy and spoil the cities. Make haste to the spoil; Fall upon the prey, &c.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
A great roll; or, a great volume, because the prophecy to be written in it was large, and God would have it written in very large and legible characters.
With a mans pen; with such a pen as writers use, Psa 41:6; Jer 8:6, that so all may read and understand it.
Concerning Maheshalal-hash-baz; concerning that thing which is signified by the name of thy child, which is here mentioned by way of anticipation, as not being given him till Isa 8:3, i.e. concerning that which God is making haste to do, the giving p the kingdoms of Syria and Israel for a prey to the Assyrian, as this name is explained, Isa 8:4.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. greatsuitable, for letterslarge enough to be read by all.
rollrather, tabletof wood, metal, or stone (Isa 30:8;Hab 2:2); sometimes coated withwax, upon which characters were traced with a pointed instrument, oriron stylus; skins and papyrus were also used (Isa19:7).
man’s penthat is, inordinary characters which the humblest can read (so Hab2:2). Hebrew, enosh means a “common man,” iscontrasted with the upper ranks (Rev 21:17;Rom 3:5). Not in hieroglyphics.The object was that, after the event, all might see that it had beenpredicted by Isaiah.
concerningthe titleand subject of the prophecy.
Maher-shalal-hash-baz“They(that is, the Assyrians) hasten to the spoil (namely, to spoil Syriaand Samaria), they speed to the prey” [GESENIUS].Otherwise, “The spoil (that is, spoiler) hastens, the rapinespeeds forward” [MAURER].
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Moreover the Lord said unto me,…. This is another prophecy, confirming the same thing that was promised in the preceding chapter Isa 7:1; namely, safety to the Jews from the two kings of Syria and Israel, which combined against them:
take thee a great roll; or volume, a writing book, a roll of parchment, in which form the ancients used to write, Ps 40:7. The Targum renders it, a “table”; a writing table, such an one as Zacharias called for, Lu 1:63 and this was to be a “great” or large one, because much was to be written in it; or what was to be written was to be written in large letters:
and write in it with a man’s pen; such as men usually write with; and in such a style and language as may be easily understood by men, even though unlearned; and so clearly and plainly, that he that runs may read; and so the Targum,
“write in it a clear writing;”
very plain, and explicit, and legible:
concerning Mahershalalhashbaz; a son of the prophet Isaiah, so called, Isa 8:3 whose name was very significant, and was given him on purpose to express the sudden destruction of the enemies of Judah. The Targum renders it,
“hasten to seize the prey, and to take away the spoil.”
Some translate it, “in hastening the prey, the spoiler hastens”; perhaps it may be better rendered, “hasten to the spoil, hasten to the prey”; as if the words were spoken to the Assyrian monarch, to hasten to the spoil of Damascus and Samaria; and the repetition of the same thing in different words may have respect to the spoils of both, see Isa 8:4 and for the greater confirmation of the thing. Gussetius has a very peculiar fancy about the sense of this text; he observes that , rendered a “pen”, signifies some hollow vessel, in which things were put; and supposes that it here designs a man’s chest, or some such thing, in which garments might be laid up and reserved: and
, is the singular of a word used in Isa 3:23, for some sort of luxurious garments wore by women; so that, upon the whole, the reading and sense of the words are, that the prophet is bid to take a large garment of the above sort, and write upon it, putting it into the chest. This for Mahershalalhashbaz; signifying it was to lie there till this child was born; and intimating hereby, that the women, far from battle, would be spoiled of their soft and precious garments, as well as the men be slain in war m, though this is more tolerable than the fancy of Huetius n, that the whole is an euphemism, in modest terms, expressing the prophet’s coition with his wife.
m Vid. Comment. Ebr. p. 286. n Demonstr. Evangel. prop. 7. parag. 15. p. 352.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
In the midst of the Syro-Ephraimitish war, which was not yet at an end, Isaiah received instructions from God to perform a singular prophetic action. “Then Jehovah said to me, Take a large slab, and write upon it with common strokes, ‘In Speed Spoil, Booty hastens;’ and I will take to me trustworthy witnesses, Uriyah the priest, and Zecharyahu the son of Yeberechyahu.” The slab or table (cf., Isa 3:23, where the same word is used to signify a metal mirror) was to be large, to produce the impression of a monument; and the writing upon it was to be “a man’s pen” ( Cheret ‘enosh ), i.e., written in the vulgar, and, so to speak, popular character, consisting of inartistic strokes that could be easily read (vid., Rev 13:18; Rev 21:17). Philip d’Aquin, in his Lexicon, adopts the explanation, “ Enosh -writing, i.e., hieroglyphic writing, so called because it was first introduced in the time of Enosh.” Luzzatto renders it, a lettere cubitali ; but the reading for this would be b’cheret ammath ‘ish . The only true rendering is stylo vulgari (see Ges. Thes. s.v. ‘enosh ). The words to be written are introduced with Lamed, to indicate dedication (as in Eze 37:16), or the object to which the inscription was dedicated or applied, as if it read, “A table devoted to ‘Spoil very quickly, booty hastens;’ “ unless, indeed, l’maher is to be taken as a fut. instans, as it is by Luzzatto – after Gen 15:12; Jos 2:5; Hab 1:17 – in the sense of acceleratura sunt spolia , or (what the position of the words might more naturally suggest) with maher in a transitive sense, as in the construction , and others, accelerationi spolia , i.e., they are ready for hastening. Most of the commentators have confused the matter here by taking the words as a proper name (Ewald, 288, c), which they were not at first, though they became so afterwards. At first they were an oracular announcement of the immediate future, accelerant spolia, festinat praeda (spoil is quick, booty hastens). Spoil; booty; but who would the vanquished be? Jehovah knew, and His prophet knew, although not initiated into the policy of Ahaz. But their knowledge was studiously veiled in enigmas. For the writing was not to disclose anything to the people. It was simply to serve as a public record of the fact, that the course of events was one that Jehovah had foreseen and indicated beforehand. And when what was written upon the table should afterwards take place, they would know that it was the fulfilment of what had already been written, and therefore was an event pre-determined by God. For this reason Jehovah took to Himself witnesses. There is no necessity to read (and I had it witnessed), as Knobel and others do; nor (and have it witnessed), as the Sept., Targum, Syriac, and Hitzig do. Jehovah said what He would do; and the prophet knew, without requiring to be told, that it was to be accomplished instrumentally through him. Uriah was no doubt the priest (Urijah), who afterwards placed himself at the service of Ahaz to gratify his heathenish desires (2Ki 16:10.). Zechariah ben Yeberechyahu (Berechiah) was of course not the prophet of the times after the captivity, but possibly the Asaphite mentioned in 2Ch 29:13. He is not further known to us. In good editions, ben is not followed by makkeph , but marked with mercha , according to the Masora at Gen 30:19. These two men were reliable witnesses, being persons of great distinction, and their testimony would weigh with the people. When the time should arrive that the history of their own times solved the riddle of this inscription, these two men were to tell the people how long ago the prophet had written that down in his prophetic capacity.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Judgments Announced. | B. C. 740. |
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. 5 The LORD spake also unto me again, saying, 6 Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son; 7 Now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria, and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks: 8 And he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel.
In these verses we have a prophecy of the successes of the king of Assyria against Damascus, Samaria, and Judah, that the two former should be laid waste by him, and the last greatly frightened. Here we have,
I. Orders given to the prophet to write this prophecy, and publish it to be seen and read of all men, and to leave it upon record, that when the thing came to pass they might know that God had sent him; for that was one end of prophecy, John xiv. 29. He must take a great roll, which would contain those five chapters fairly written in words at length; and he must write in it all that he had foretold concerning the king of Assyria’s invading the country; he must write it with a man’s pen, in the usual way and style of writing, so as that it might be legible and intelligible by all. See Hab. ii. 2, Write the vision, and make it plain. Those that speak and write of the things of God should avoid obscurity, and study to speak and write so as to be understood, 1 Cor. xiv. 19. Those that write for men should write with a man’s pen, and not covet the pen or tongue of angels. And forasmuch as it is usual to put some short, but significant comprehensive title before books that are published, the prophet is directed to call his book Maher-shalal-hash-baz–Make speed to the spoil, hasten to the prey, intimating that the Assyrian army should come upon them with great speed and make great spoil. By this title the substance and meaning of the book would be enquired after by those that heard of it, and remembered by those that had read it or heard it read. It is sometimes a good help to memory to put much matter in few words, which serve as handles by which we take hold of more.
II. The care of the prophet to get this record well attested (v. 2): I took unto me faithful witnesses to record; he wrote the prophecy in their sight and presence, and made them subscribe their names to it, that they might be ready, if afterwards there should be occasion, to make oath of it, that the prophet had so long before foretold the descent which the Assyrians made upon that country. He names his witnesses for the greater certainty, that they might be appealed to by any. They were two in number (for out of the mouth of two witnesses shall every word be established); one was Uriah the priest; he is mentioned in the story of Ahaz, but for none of his good deeds, for he humoured Ahaz with an idolatrous altar (2Ki 16:10; 2Ki 16:11); however, at this time, no exception lay against him, being a faithful witness. See what full satisfaction the prophets took care to give to all persons concerned of the sincerity of their intentions, that we might know with a full assurance the certainty of the things wherein we have been instructed, and that we have not followed cunningly-devised fables.
III. The making of the title of his book the name of his child, that it might be the more taken notice of and the more effectually perpetuated, v. 3. His wife (because the wife of a prophet) is called the prophetess; she conceived and bore a son, another son, who must carry a sermon in his name, as the former had done (ch. vii. 3), but with this difference, that spoke mercy, Shear-jashub–The remnant shall return; but, that being slighted, this speaks judgment, Maher-shalal-hash-baz–In making speed to the spoil he shall hasten, or he has hastened, to the prey. The prophecy is doubled, even in this one name, for the thing was certain. I will hasten my word, Jer. i. 12. Every time the child was called by his name, or any part of it, it would serve as a memorandum of the judgments approaching. Note, It is good for us often to put ourselves in mind of the changes and troubles we are liable to in this world, and which perhaps are at the door. When we look with pleasure on our children it should be with the allay of this thought, We know not what they are yet reserved for.
IV. The prophecy itself, which explains this mystical name.
1. That Syria and Israel, who were now in confederacy against Judah, should in a very little time become an easy prey to the king of Assyria and his victorious army (v. 4): “Before the child, now newly born and named, shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and My mother” (which are usually some of the first things that children know and some of the first words that children speak), that is, “in about a year or two, the riches of Damascus, and the spoil of Samaria, those cities that are now so secure themselves and so formidable to their neighbours, shall be taken away before the king of Assyria, who shall plunder both city and country, and send the best effects of both into his own land, to enrich that, and as trophies of his victory.” Note, Those that spoil others must expect to be themselves spoiled (ch. xxxiii. 1); for the Lord is righteous, and those that are troublesome shall be troubled.
2. That forasmuch as there were many in Judah that were secretly in the interests of Syria and Israel, and were disaffected to the house of David, God would chastise them also by the king of Assyria, who should create a great deal of vexation to Judah, as was foretold, ch. vii. 17. Observe, (1.) What was the sin of the discontented party in Judah (v. 6): This people, whom the prophet here speaks to, refuse the waters of Shiloah that go softly, despise their own country and the government of it, and love to run it down, because it does not make so great a figure, and so great a noise, in the world, as some other kings and kingdoms do. They refuse the comforts which God’s prophets offer them from the word of God, speaking to them in a still small voice, and make nothing of them; but they rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son, who were the enemies of their country, and were now actually invading it; they cried them up as brave men, magnified their policies and strength, applauded their conduct, were well pleased with their successes, and were hearty well-wishers to their designs, and resolved to desert and go over to them. Such vipers does many a state foster in its bosom, that eat its bread, and yet adhere to its enemies, and are ready to quit its interests if they but seem to totter. (2.) The judgment which God would bring upon them for this sin. The same king of Assyria that should lay Ephraim and Syria waste should be a scourge and terror to those of their party in Judah, Isa 8:7; Isa 8:8. Because they refuse the waters of Shiloah, and will not accommodate themselves to the government God has set over them, but are uneasy under it, therefore the Lord brings upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, the river Euphrates. They slighted the land of Judah, because it had no river to boast of comparable to that; the river at Jerusalem was a very inconsiderable one. “Well,” says God, “if you be such admirers of Euphrates, you shall have enough of it; the king of Assyria, whose country lies upon that river, shall come with his glory, with his great army, which you cry up as his glory, despising your own king because he cannot bring such an army as that into the field; God shall bring that army upon you.” If we value men, if we over-value them, for their worldly wealth and power, it is just with God to make them thereby a scourge to us. It is used as an argument against magnifying rich men that rich men oppress us,Jas 2:3; Jas 2:5. Let us be best pleased with the waters of Shiloah, that go softly, for rapid streams are dangerous. It is threatened that the Assyrian army should break in upon them like a deluge, or inundation of waters, bearing down all before it, should come up over all his channels, and overflow all his banks. It would be to no purpose to oppose or withstand them. Sennacherib and his army should pass through Judah, and meet with so little resistance that it should look more like a march through the country than a descent upon it. He shall reach even to the neck, that is, he shall advance so far as to lay siege to Jerusalem, the head of the kingdom, and nothing but that shall be kept out of his hands; for that was the holy city. Note, In the greatest deluge of trouble God can and will keep the head of his people above water, and so preserve their comforts and spiritual lives; the waters that come into their souls may reach to the neck (Ps. lxix. 1), but there shall their proud waves be stayed. And here is another comfortable intimation that though the stretching out of the wings of the Assyrian, that bird of prey, though the right and left wing of his army, should fill the breadth of the land of Judah, yet still it was Immanuel’s land. It is thy land, O Immanuel! It was to be Christ’s land; for there he was to be born, and live, and preach, and work miracles. He was Zion’s King, and therefore had a peculiar interest in and concern for that land. Note, The lands that Immanuel owns for his, as he does all those lands that own him, though they may be deluged, shall not be destroyed; for, when the enemy shall come in like a flood, Immanuel shall secure his own, and shall lift up a standard against him, ch. lix. 19.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
ISAIAH – CHAPTER 8
SAMARIA TO BE SPOILED AND BROKEN BY ASSYRIA
Verse 1-4: WITNESSES TO PROPHETIC ACCURACY
1. Isaiah is commanded of the Lord to take a large tablet (of wood, metal or stone; Isa 30:8; Hab 2:2) and, in language that the common people can understand, to write.
2. He is to take two witnesses (both divinely appointed) to observe what he writes; they may later testify that the prophet has recorded the event before it actually happened.
a. “Uriah, the priest” has been an accomplice or associate of Ahaz in his idolatry (2Ki 16:10-11; 2Ki 16:15-16), and certainly will not be disposed to favor the prophet.
b. The second is to be “Zechariah, the son of Jebereciah”, (Verse 2b).
3. “Maker-sal-al-hash-baz” is the prophetic message – meaning: “The spoil speedeth, the prey hasteth”. (The fall of Syria and Israel is near at hand!)
4. As a living symbol of what is about to happen (a sign for Ahaz, Is 7:14) the prophet goes in unto his wife, who conceives and bares a son, (Verse 3a).
a. At the Lord’s command, the child is named “Maker-shal-al-hash-baz”, (Verse 3b; comp. Hos 1:4).
b. This prophetic child is to be a reminder of the imminent spoil of Damascus (Syria) and Samaria (Israel, the northern kingdom) by the Assyrian, (Verse 4; Isa 7:8-9; Isa 7:16).
5. But, this is really not designed to give any comfort to the wicked Ahaz who has insisted on appealing to Assyria for support against his enemies.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
1. And Jehovah said to me. (117) This prophecy contains nothing new, but is a confirmation of the preceding one, in which Isaiah predicted the approaching desolation of the kingdom of Israel and Syria. He had foretold that both countries would be deprived of their kings, before the children who should soon afterwards be born could distinguish between good and evil, that is, before they were grown up. (Isa 7:16.) But because the wicked are not terrified by any threatenings, it was therefore necessary that this prediction should be repeated and demonstrated by some outward sign.
First, in order more effectually to arouse the nation, God commands that this prophecy be made publicly known by writing, that it may be understood by all. We have formerly said, (118) that it was the custom of the Prophets, after having been enjoined to deliver any message to the people, to sum up in a few words the substance of what they had said, and to affix it to the gates of the temple; as may be learned from Hab 2:2; for if that passage be compared with the present, the matter will be sufficiently obvious. But here something peculiar is expressed; for God does not merely command him to write the prophecy, but demands a great and large roll, in order that it may be read at a distance. The smaller the writing is, it is the more obscure, and can with greater difficulty be read. To the same purpose is what immediately follows, with the pen of a common man, (119) for אנש ( enosh) denotes any man of ordinary rank; and the meaning is, that not even the most ignorant and uneducated persons may be unable to read the writing.
Make speed to spoil, hasten to the prey. (120) This concise brevity is more emphatic than if he had made a long discourse; for any one could carry home four words, and perceive in them the swiftness of the wrath of God, and be truly and deeply affected by the judgment of God, as if it had been pointed out with the finger. In short, God determined that he should not waste words, because there was no time for controversy, but that he should represent the matter by an outward sign. The Prophets having so frequently, and without any good effect, threatened vengeance, he gave a striking exhibition of it by an example, that it might make a deeper impression on their minds, and be engraven on their memory. As often as these words מהר שלל הש בז ( Maher-shalal-hash-baz) were mentioned, they would recall to their remembrance the destruction of Israel and Syria, and would make them more certain of it.
Isaiah having prophesied about the coming of Christ in the former chapter, (Isa 7:14,) many improperly explain this also as relating to the same subject, that, endued with heavenly power, he came to spoil the prince of this world, (Joh 12:31,) and therefore hastened to the prey. This ingenuity is pleasing enough, but cannot at all harmonize with the text; for the true and natural view of the context shows that in this passage the Prophet brings forward nothing that is new, but supports what he had formerly said.
(117) Moreover, the LORD said unto me. — Eng. Ver.
(118) See the Author’s Preface, page 32.
(119) With a man’s pen. — Eng. Ver. Our Author’s version is Write on it with a common pen, and his marginal reading is, or, with the pen of a man. — Ed.
(120) Our translators have not translated these words, but have left them in the form of the original Hebrew, Maher-shalal-hash-baz. Their marginal reading is, “Heb. In making speed to the spoil he hasteneth the prey, or, make speed, ” etc. “To the next word מהר, ( maher,) the prefix ל ( lamed) shews,” says Bishop Stock, “that it is an inscription; as in Eze 37:16, Write on it להודה ולבני ישראל ( lihudah velibne Israel) ( τὸ) this inscription, Judah and the sons of Israel. Maher-shalal-hash-baz means, Hasteneth the spoil! soon cometh the prey. ” — Ed
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
MAHER-SHALAL-HASH-BAZ
Isa. 8:1-4. Moreover, the Lord said unto me, Take thee a great roll, &c. [823]
[823] In the first chapter of Hosea occurs a like instance of symbolic names given by a prophet to his children, and in Hab. 2:2, we have mention of the practice of writing a prophecy on a tablet in easily legible characters, and hanging it up in the Temple, market-place, or other public resort. And most modern commentators prefer to think that Isaiah now merely inscribed HASTE PLUNDER, SPEED SPOIL, in large letters on a metal or waxed tablet, the which the Authorised Version translates concerning, being the Lamed inscription is, as in Jer. 49:1; Jer. 49:7; Jer. 49:23; Jer. 49:28; Eze. 37:16; though it may be observed that the direction to tie up and seal the testimony, in Isa. 8:16, is in favour of the older version, which understands him to have made a record of his expectation of the birth of the child, and of the significance of that birth, at some length. He wrote with a mans pen, or style,a phrase not unlike our common hand or popular style; and he took as credible witnesses that the record had preceded the event, Uriah the high priest at the time (2Ki. 16:10), and Zechariah, who was not improbably the father-in-law of Ahaz and a Levite (2Ki. 18:2; 2Ch. 29:1; 2Ch. 29:13). He calls his wife the prophetess, as the wife of a king is called a queen (says Vitringa), though she does not reign, and in some old ecclesiastical canons the wife of a bishop episcopa, and of a presbyter presbytera; and he thus claims for her a place with her husband and children (see Isa. 8:18) in the holy and symbolic family, who are for a sign in Israel. She gave birth to a child, and his name was called, in accordance with the writing, Haste-plunder, Speed-spoil, that the people might understand that before he was old enough to utter the words father and mother,that is, within a short but somewhat indefinite period such as we should express by in a year or two from his birth,the spoils of the plundered cities of Samaria and Damascus, the capitals of the nations now invading Judah, shall have been carried before the Assyrian conqueror in triumph.
In order to realise the practical impressiveness of such symbolic acts and names upon Isaiahs contemporaries, we must remember that Jerusalem was a very small town for size and population compared with the notion we insensibly get of a capital from our own vast London; and also that there was as little in the ways of thinking and living of that age and country as in the extent of the city to effect such a separation between a public mans political and private life as exists in England. We respect the domestic reserve of our neighbours, and we fortify ourselves in the like reserve, by our habit of learning what they are doing that concerns us through the newspaper which we read by our own fireside. With no newspapers, and a climate which encouraged an out-of-door life, the people of Jerusalem would become as familiar with that personal demeanour of Isaiah in the market-place or elsewhere which he made a part of his public ministry, as we are with the mental habits and political conduct of Mr. Gladstone or Mr. Disraeli, though the greater part of us would recognise neither of them by sight, and still fewer know anything of their personal and private life.Strachey.
This singular record reminds us,
I. How marvellously varied are the means which God employs to bring men to the knowledge and belief of saving truth. That which Gods ancient people needed to save them from their mistakes and miseries was real faith in the elementary truth that God is the only safe counsellor, for this simple reason, that He alone sees the end from the beginning. All their circumstances, interpreted by merely human wisdom, seemed to point to the desirableness of an alliance with Assyria, the very thing which God by His prophets emphatically forbade. That it might be easier for them to believe what seemed so incredible, namely, that the Assyrian alliance would be a calamity and not a blessing to them, God gave, in addition to the testimonies of His prophets to this effect, a prophecy of an event seemingly as incredible, namely, that the great power of the two nations, Israel and Syria, from which they had suffered so much, and which seemed so likely to be permanent, and on account of which they sought Assyrian help, should be utterly broken, and that speedily. God predicted this in words (chap. Isa. 7:4-9), and He condescended to a symbolic act that He might impress this truth more vividly on their minds. It is of that symbolic act that we have the record here. Now that God took so much trouble for such a purpose is a fact worth thinking about. As a matter of fact, it is but one instance of His constant method of dealing with men. He is so bent on bringing them to a knowledge and belief of truth that to them would be saving, that He shrinks from no trouble at all likely to secure this result (Jer. 7:13; Jer. 7:25; Heb. 1:1; Luk. 20:10-13). Illustrate, e.g., how various are the methods by which He endeavours to awaken a careless soul to anxiety, and to effect its conversion! What is the explanation of this versatility and ingenuity of methods in dealing with us? It is the tenderness of His love for us; it is His yearning solicitude for our welfare.
II. How mercifully clear are the warnings by which God seeks to turn men from ruinous courses. The tablet [826] on which Isaiah was to write was to be large, and he was to write upon it with a mans pen, an obscure expression, but yet at least meaning this, that the writing upon it was to be easily legible (Hab. 2:2). It is true that though the words on the tablet were easily legible, their meaning was obscure. But that very obscurity was of a kind to excite inquiry (Dan. 5:5-7), and that inquiry earnestly and honestly conducted would have led Gods ancient people to a saving knowledge of truth. Thus it is with all the warnings contained in Gods Word (H. E. I. 602606).
[826] A great roll. Rather, a large tablet: of wood or metal, covered with a smooth surface of wax; which, when written upon, was hung up in public for all to read (cf. Jer. 32:11; Jer. 32:14).Kay.
III. How important it is that Gods servants should be prudent as well as zealous. After the prophecy was fulfilled, unbelief might have questioned whether it had ever been given, and therefore Isaiah, acting under divine direction, selected two witnesses whose testimony could not be gainsaid [829] Probably that which they were required to testify was, that the prophecy, and its interpretation, was delivered to them on a certain day; the interpretation embracing both the facts, that to the prophet another son would be born, and that while still in his infancy the two nations of which Judah stood in dread should themselves be conquered. Isaiah was thus acting on the general principle given by our Lord for the guidance of His people (Mat. 10:16). Now, as then, His prophets, while loyally obedient to His directions, should maintain a constant wariness and prudence, in order that the testimony they bear for Him should be placed beyond cavil and dispute.
[829] Faithful witnesses. Or, sure witnesses; whose testimony none would be able to gainsay: partly, because of their rank, but still more, it would seem, from their being adherents of Ahaz. For Uriah the priest can scarcely be any other than the one who made the Syrian altar after the description sent him from Damascus by Ahaz (2Ki. 16:10-16); thereby (as Mr. Birks notices) furnishing incontrovertible evidence of the fulfilment of Isaiahs prediction. Zechariah may have been Ahazs own father-in-law (2Ch. 29:1).Kay.
IV. How certain of accomplishment are the prophecies involved in God-given names. The prophecy contained in the name bestowed on this child of Isaiahs was fulfilled [832] So already had that implied in the name bestowed on the child previously born to him, Shear-jashub, a remnant shall return [835] As it was with the sons of Isaiah, so is it with the Son of God. The names bestowed on Him are not merely glorious but empty titles. He is in very truth JESUS and IMMANUEL (Mat. 1:21-23). He is JESUS because IMMANUEL. On the promises involved in these great names we may lay hold with joyful confidence, for they also shall be fulfilled.
[832] Isaiahs interview with Ahaz (chap. 7), the preparation of the tablet, the birth of Isaiahs child, and the conquest of Syria and Israel by the Assyrians under Tiglath-pileser all took place within the year 743739 B.C.
[835] See Dr. Kennicotts remarks on Shear-jashub in preceding paper: THE VIRGINS SON.
Alexander remarks on Isa. 8:4 :Samaria is here put for the kingdom, and not for the capital city. But even if the name be strictly understood, there is no reason to doubt that Samaria was plundered by Tiglath-pileser (2Ki. 15:29), although not destroyed. The carrying away of its wealth does not necessarily imply anything more than such a spoiling of the capital as might be expected in the course of a brief but successful invasion.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER EIGHT
B. PREVISION OF IMMANUEL
1.
THE PROPHECY Isa. 8:1-8
TEXT: Isa. 8:1-8
1
And Jehovah said unto me, Take thee a great tablet, and write upon it with the pen of a man, For Maher-shalal-hash-baz;
2
and I will take 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 Jehovah unto 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 carried away before the king of Assyria.
5
And Jehovah spake unto me yet again, saying,
6
Forasmuch as this people have refused the waters of Shiloah that go softly and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliahs son;
7
now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth upon them the waters of the River, strong and many, even the king of Assyria and all his glory: and it shall come up over all its channels, and go over all its banks;
8
and it shall sweep onward into Judah; it shall flow and pass through; it shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of its wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel.
QUERIES
a.
Why tell Isaiah to name his son thus (Isa. 8:3)?
b.
What are the waters of Shiloah?
c.
Who is the Immanuel of Isa. 8:8?
PARAPHRASE
Again the Lord sent me a message: Make a large signboard and write on it the birth announcement of the son I am going to give you. Use capital letters! His name will be Maher-shalal-hash-baz which means, Your enemies will soon be destroyed I I asked Uriah the priest and Zechairiah the son of Jeberechiah, both known as honest men, to watch me as I wrote so they could testify that I had written it (before the child was even on the way). Then I had sexual intercourse with my wife and she conceived, and bore me a son, and the Lord said, Call him Maher-shalal-hash-baz. This name prophesies that within a couple of years, before this child is even old enough to say Daddy or Mommy, the king of Assyria will invade both Damascus and Samaria and carry away their riches. Then the Lord spoke to me again and said: Since the people of Jerusalem are planning to refuse My gentle care and are enthusiastic about asking King Rezin and King Pekah to come and aid them, therefore I will overwhelm My people with Euphrates mighty flood; the king of Assyria and all his mighty armies will rage against them. This flood will overflow all its channels and sweep into your land of Judah, O Immanuel, submerging it from end to end.
COMMENTS
Isa. 8:1-4 PLEDGE OF GODS DELIVERANCE: It appears as if Isaiah turns away from his ministry to the general public and concentrates his teaching upon an inner circle of loyal believers in the kingdom. He lets the nation with its stubborn rulers and fat-hearted people go their way. They have rejected his message. It seems that what immediately follows is for the understanding and edification of the remnant that will remain faithful. It begins with a pledge of Gods faithfulness to be symbolized in Isaiahs children. The sign of Immanuel was abstruse and hidden. In its more spiritual sense it appealed to faith in an event far distant. Even in its contemporary fulfillment it would not do much to cheer and encourage more than a few since neither the almah nor her child was pointed out with any distinctness. A fresh sign therefore was given by Gods goodness to reassure those of the people who would accept the signthe sign of the son of Isaiah himself. This son was to be born immediately. His name signified the rapid approach of the spoiler. Maher-shalal-hash-baz means literally, Plunder speeds, Spoil hastens. Men could verify the prophecy concerning Isaiahs son; they could check the fulfillment against the written statement. The tablet was probably a large wooden or ivory slab (customary signboards of that day). Besides the written statement the fact of the prediction was verified by two men who were evidently chosen for their acceptability to the people.
The promise was that before this son of Isaiah could utter the first words that a child is supposed to be able to speak, Damascus and Samaria would be despoiled. The scripture does not record fulfillment of this prophecy, but archaeology does. Inscriptions of Tiglath Pileser state that he sent population, goods of the people of Beth-Omri and their furniture to the land of Assyria. That he appointed Husih (Hoshea) to the dominion over them and fixed their annual tribute at two talents of gold and a thou-sand talents of silver. (Cf. Records of The Past, Vol. 5, pg. 52). King Sargon also wrote, Samaria I besieged, I captured. 27,290 people from its midst I carried captive. Tributes and taxes I imposed upon them after the Assyrian manner.
Isa. 8:5-8 PREDICTION OF GODS JUDGMENT: Waters of Shiloah referred in a general sense to the streams, springs, reservoirs (pools) and conduits which supplied the temple service and wor-, ship in Jerusalem. This then would be the same as refusing the temple service and worship which is exactly what Israel had done from the time of Jereboam. The gentle and soft persuasion of God through His priests and prophets the people had rejected. They set up their own priesthood and hired their own false prophets in Israel. God was going to send upon them the raging flood of the Riverthe king of Assyria and his massive horde of soldiers. That mass of Assyrian humanity would completely inundate the northern kingdom of Israel and sweep it away like a great flood. The flood would overflow even into Judah, the southern kingdom, up to its neck. Assyria did sweep into the land of Judah and occupy all that territory except the city of Jerusalem and its immediate invirons in the days of Hezekiah (son of Ahaz). God preserved Jerusalem and slew 185,000 Assyrian troops in one night and sent the Assyrians back to their land (Cf. Isaiah ch. 3639; II Kings ch. 1820).
The Immanuel of Isa. 8:8 is, we believe, the land or nation which is a type of the Messiah. Centuries later the Messiah is attacked by the god of this world and almost overwhelmed, but the Messiah is delivered by the omnipotent and miraculous act of God when He raised Him from the dead. Here the land or nation is almost overwhelmed but delivered by the omnipotent miraculous act of Godall in type. Later, in the book of Isaiah the nation of Israel is made to be a type of the Servant-Messiah (Cf. Isa. 44:1 ff).
QUIZ
1.
Why does it appear Isaiah is turning to a ministry to the remnant?
2.
What is the significance of making Isaiahs son a sign?
3.
Where is the record of the fulfillment of the prophecy contained in Isaiahs son?
4.
What are the waters of Shiloah and what do they symbolize?
5.
When did Assyria come into Judah up to its neck?
6.
Who is the Immanuel of Isa. 8:8 and what of its symbolic or typical relationship?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
VIII.
(1) Moreover the Lord said unto me . . .The prophecy that follows was clearly separated by an interval of some kind, probably about a year, from that in Isaiah 7. In the meantime much that had happened seemed to cast discredit on the prophets words. The child that was the type of the greater Immanuel had been born, but there were no signs as yet of the downfall of the northern kingdom. The attack of Rezin and Pekah, though Jerusalem had not been taken, had inflicted an almost irreparable blow on the kingdom of Judah. Multitudes had been carried captive to Damascus (2Ch. 28:5). Many thousands, but for the intercession of the prophet Oded, would have eaten the bread of exile and slavery. The Edomites were harassing the south-eastern frontier (2Ch. 28:15-17). The commerce of the Red Sea was cut off by Rezins capture of Elath (2Ki. 16:6). To the weak and faithless Ahaz and his counsellors, it might well seem that the prospect was darker than ever, that there was no hope but in the protection of Assyria. If such was the state of things when the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, was he to recant and confess that he had erred? Was he to shrink back into silence and obscurity? Far otherwise than that. He was to repeat all that he had said, more definitely, more demonstratively than ever.
Take thee a great roll . . .Better, a large tablet. The noun is the same as that used for mirrors or glasses in Isa. 3:23. The writings of the prophet were commonly written on papyrus and placed in the hands of his disciples to be read aloud. For private and less permanent messages men used small wooden tablets smeared with wax, on which they wrote with an iron stylus. (Comp. Job. 19:24; Isa. 30:8.) Here the tablet was to be large, and the writing was not to be with the sharp point of the artist or learned scribe, but with a mans pen, i.e., such as the common workmen used for sign-boards, that might fix the gaze of the careless passer-by (Hab. 2:2), and on that tablet, as though it were the heading of a proclamation or dedication, he was to write TO MAHER-SHALAL-HASH-BAZ. That mysterious name, which we may render Speed-plunder, haste-spoil, was, for at least nine months, to be the enigma of Jerusalem.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
The Roll, Isa 8:1-4.
1. Take thee a great roll This was a wooden or metallic tablet, probably covered with a surface of wax for writing on with a stylus; large, so as to be easily read by the public when put up as an inscription. See note on Luk 1:63.
Write with a man’s pen In the regular letters of a human alphabet, so as to be readily read and understood by men. See note on Rev 13:18.
Concerning That is, it relates to, or, it is in these words. Maher-shalal-hash-baz Which, translated, means, Hastens booty, prey hastens. The spoils of war are at hand. Capture and pillage are close upon the assailed.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Birth of the Prophet’s Son ( Isa 8:1-4 ).
As previously mentioned, one central point in this passage is the sign given to Israel in terms of the birth of three sons, two of whom were sons of Isaiah, and one of a virgin, in each case, at least partially, indicated by their names. Here we now have described the birth of Isaiah’s second son.
Analysis.
a And Yahweh said to me, “Take for yourself a great tablet, and write on it with the pen (engraving tool) of a man, For maher-shalal-hash-baz” (Isa 8:1).
b And I will take to myself faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah (Isa 8:2).
b And I went in to the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son (Isa 8:3 a).
a Then Yahweh said to me, “Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz”, for before the child will have sufficient knowledge to cry ‘my father’ and ‘my mother’, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carried away before the king of Assyria (Isa 8:3-4).
In ‘a’ and parallel the emphasis is on the name Maher-shalal-hash-baz. In ‘b’ the faithful witnesses take note of his record of the name and in the parallel the prophetess produces a son of that name.
Isa 8:1
‘And Yahweh said to me, “Take for yourself a great tablet, and write on it with the pen (engraving tool) of a man, For maher-shalal-hash-baz.” ’
God tells Isaiah to write a series of words on a large tablet, probably for public display, for it is to be witnessed by two witnesses. The words were maher-shalal-hash-baz and its meaning was ‘haste the spoil, speed the prey’. It would be a cryptic message to all in Jerusalem of what God was going to do. We are not specifically told timewise how this relates to chapter 7 apart from the fact that both occur before the desolating of Syria and Israel, but the inference is that it was after Ahaz’s rejection. The public tablet would raise questions which Isaiah would be able to answer. At this stage it is not directly associated with the birth of his son. It is an enigma.
Isa 8:2
‘And I will take to myself faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah.’
The tablet is to be witnessed by two prominent men. It was necessary that when the events took place no one would be able to deny the source or veracity of the words or the timing of the tablet. It should be noted that the element of sign here was in the tablet, not in the subsequent birth of the son. That merely confirmed the prophecy.
Month by month passed and the strange tablet, with its strange cryptic message, was on display. It was like an advertising board. And as men in Jerusalem saw it, it would make them wonder about what was coming.
Isa 8:3-4
‘And I went in to the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son. Then Yahweh said to me, “Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz”, for before the child will have sufficient knowledge to cry ‘my father’ and ‘my mother’, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carried away before the king of Assyria.” ’
Isaiah now produces a son and is immediately informed that he must give him a name utilising the mysterious words on the tablet. If this was to be seen as the fulfilment of Isa 7:14 it is remarkably well concealed. The prophetess is not an ‘almah, and the child’s name is in absolute contrast to that of Immanuel. There is no direct hint of connection, and instead of a triumphant cry it is a word of judgment. This is therefore, rather a third sign following that of Sheerjashub and Immanuel. The threefold sign confirms the completeness of the prophecies, the coming of judgment ‘with haste’, the need for the return of a remnant, the appearance of Immanuel Whose promised birth has doomed the house of Ahaz.
‘The prophetess.’ We do not know whether the prophetess was a prophetess in her own right, a prophetess because married to a prophet, or a ‘prophetess’ because her period of childbearing proclaimed Yahweh’s word. It was at least the second for the description is primarily in order to indicate that she was Isaiah’s wife. But it may well be all three.
It should be noted that here the birth of the child is confirming, and making permanent, the previous sign of the publicised tablet and is therefore being used to indicate the nearness of its fulfilment. The child is not the prophecy. That was given on the tablet. This naming of the new born child with the same words rather confirms the prophecy already made, and demonstrates its soon fulfilment.
The inference seems to be that this was slightly closer in time to the event than chapter 7 because here it is before the child can say ‘Dada’ and ‘Mama’ that the events will happen, a shorter period than the period of growing up to discernment (Isa 7:16).
However while we do not see this as the fulfilment of Isa 7:14, it was certainly intended to be in parallel with it, and confirmation of Ahaz’s rejection, although in this case in terms of the coming judgment. On the one hand ‘God is with us’, but not with Ahaz, on the other ‘haste the spoil, speed the prey’ which will directly affect Ahaz. It could not be a more emphatic choice. While not the son described in Isa 7:14, this was the birth of a son whose birth was indeed a kind of sign, even though of an inferior nature (as was the birth of Isaiah’s first son). It confirmed the second part of the previous prophecy, and actually acted as a reminder to all of that previous prophecy. But this was not the one promised. They must continue to look for the rise of a greater, miraculously born, son of David.
The birth of this son would increase the apprehension in Ahaz’s mind that he himself was shortly to be replaced by Immanuel, for he had no knowledge of when he would be born.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Isa 8:3 And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the LORD to me, Call his name Mahershalalhashbaz.
Isa 8:3
1. Hebrew ( ) (H4118) Strong says the Hebrew word means, “hurrying, in a hurry.” The Enhanced Strong says it is used 18 times in the Old Testament, being translated in the KJV as “quickly 8, speedily 4, hastily 3, soon 1, suddenly 1, at once 1.”
2. Hebrew ( ) (H7998) Strong says the Hebrew word means, “booty, prey, spoil.” The Enhanced Strong says it is used 73 times in the Old Testament, being translated in the KJV as “spoil 63, prey 10.”
3. Hebrew ( ) (H2363) Strong says the Hebrew word means, “to hurry, to be eager.” The Enhanced Strong says it is used 20 times in the Old Testament, being translated in the KJV as “haste 19, ready 1.”
4. Hebrew ( ) (H957) Strong says the Hebrew word means, “to plunder.” The Enhanced Strong says it is used 25 times in the Old Testament, being translated in the KJV as “prey 18, spoil 4, spoiled 2, booty 1.”
Isa 8:10 Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us.
Isa 8:10
Mat 1:23, “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.”
The phrase “for God is with us” (Isa 8:10) stands parallel to “O Immanuel” (Isa 8:8).
Isa 8:19 And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead?
Isa 8:19
Comments – Note that this word is used within the context of a bird twice (Isa 10:14; Isa 38:14) and within the context of familiar spirits twice (Isa 8:19; Isa 29:4).
Isa 10:14, “And my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people: and as one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped .”
Isa 29:4, “And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust.”
Isa 38:14, “Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter : I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward: O LORD, I am oppressed; undertake for me.”
Note other translations of Isa 8:19 that support the definition of a bird chirping:
ASV, “And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits and unto the wizards, that chirp and that mutter : should not a people seek unto their God? on behalf of the living should they seek unto the dead?”
JPS, “And when they shall say unto you: ‘Seek unto the ghosts and the familiar spirits, that chirp and that mutter ; should not a people seek unto their God? on behalf of the living unto the dead
RSV, “And when they say to you, ‘Consult the mediums and the wizards who chirp and mutter ,’ should not a people consult their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living?”
WEB, “When they shall tell you, Seek to those who have familiar spirits and to the wizards, who chirp and who mutter : should not a people seek to their God? on behalf of the living should they seek to the dead?”
Therefore, Bob Larson referred to Isaiah in order to give Scriptural support to the fact that people who are demon possessed often manifest behavior and sounds similar to animals. [26] In his television program he showed a video of a woman who was flapping her arms and contorting her face like a bird during the deliverance process. He learned that she had been involved in the demonic game of Dungeons and Dragons, where she had become involved with a bird-like character named Raven. [27]
[26] Bob Larson, Bob Larson in Action, on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California), September 23, 2002, television program.
[27] Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is one of the most popular role-playing, social game for hobbies today. Wikipedia says that it was “originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson , and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TSR).” In this game individuals play the roles of fantasy characters and interact with one other as they embark upon imaginary adventures. One player becomes the game’s referee and guides the others along the adventure, as the other players earn “experience points” through participation. Because of the satanic characters and figurines used in this game, many Christian leaders have spoken out against this game as a dangerous ploy of Satan to influence and even possession the game players. (see “Dungeons and Dragons,” Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia (San Francisco, California: Wikipedia Foundation, Inc.) [on-line]; accessed 20 December 2008; available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_&_Dragons; Internet.)
Isa 8:19 Comments The prophet Isaiah exposes the ridiculous idea of a people turning away from the divine counsel of the living God regarding the affairs of life and seeking those who are dead. How can the dead know about the affairs of the living? Yet, this people sought the dead as they embraced the cultic religions of their neighbours in the blindness of a hardened heart that had turned from God.
Isa 8:21 And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward.
Isa 8:21
“and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward” Comments – As a result of their distress, the Israelites will look at their weakened king and blame him and cursing him. They will look up and curse the God of Israel, whom they believe has unjustly allowed their destruction.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Prophecies Against Israel Isa 1:2 to Isa 12:6 contains a collection of prophecies against the nation of Israel. The phrase, “for all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still,” is repeated five times within this passage of Scripture (Isa 5:25; Isa 9:12; Isa 9:17; Isa 9:21; Isa 10:4).
Also found within this first major section of Isaiah are three prophecies of the Messiah’s birth. These prophecies reflect three characteristics of the Messiah. He will be born of a virgin as the Son of God dwelling with mankind (Isa 7:14-15). He will rule over Israel in the Davidic lineage (Isa 9:6-7). He will come from the seed of David and be anointed as was David (Isa 11:1-5).
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
A Double Prophetic Sign
v. 1. Moreover the Lord said unto me, v. 2. And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record, v. 3. And I went unto the prophetess, v. 4. For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, “My father,” and, “My mother,”
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Isa 8:1-4
THE SIGN OF MAHER–SHALAL–HASH–BAZ. The sign of Immanuel was recondite. In its more spiritual sense it appealed to faith in an event far distant. Even in its literal import, it was not calculated to cheer and encourage more than a few, since neither the maiden nor the child was pointed out with any distinctness. A fresh sign was therefore given by God’s goodness to reassure the mass of the peoplea sign about which there was nothing obscure or difficult. Isaiah himself should have a son born to him almost immediately, to whom he should give a name indicating the rapid approach of the spoiler, and before this child should be able to utter the first words which childhood ordinarily pronounces, “Father,” “Mother,” Damascus and Samaria should be despoiled.
Isa 8:1
Take thee a great roll; rather, a large tablet. The word is the same as that used for “mirror” in Isa 3:23. Write in it with a man’s pen; i.e. “write upon it with the pen used by ordinary men”in opposition to the implements of an engraver. The tablet was probably to be hung up to view in a public place (comp. Isa 30:8), so that all might read, and the writing was therefore to be such as was in ordinary use. Concerning Maher-shalal-hash-baz. These were the words which were to be written on the tablet, which was to be otherwise left blank. They would naturally excite curiosity, like the strange names placarded in modern streets. The name is literally, “Plunder speeds, spoil hastens.” It has been imitated by Goethe in his “Habebald-Eilebeute” (‘Faust,’ act 4. sc. 3).
Isa 8:2
And I took unto me; rather, and I will have taken for me. It is still God who is speaking. Uriah the priest. Probably the high priest of the time, mentioned in 2Ki 16:10-16, as the ready tool of Ahaz at a later date. Though a bad man, he may have been a trustworthy witness to a fact. Zechariah. Perhaps the father of Abi or Abijah, Ahaz’s queen (2Ki 18:2; 2Ch 29:1). It would serve to call public attention still more to the tablet, if it bore the names of two such eminent persons as witnesses.
Isa 8:3
The prophetess. It is not necessary to suppose that the wife of Isaiah must have uttered prophecies because she is called “the prophetess.” Titles were given in the East to the wives, daughters, etc; of officials, which merely reflected the dignity of their husbands, fathers, etc. Even Miriam seems to be called a “prophetess” (Exo 15:20) from her close relationship to Moses, rather than from any supernatural power that she had. In the Mishna, a priest’s wife or daughter is called “priestess” (Cheyne). Call his name. There is no reason for doubting that the name was actually given. Other Israelites had such names as Jushab-hosed (1Ch 3:20), Haah-ashtari (1Ch 4:6), Romamti-ezer (1Ch 25:4), Machnadebai (Ezr 10:40), and the like. Assyrian names were even longer; e.g. As-shur-bel-nisi-su, Asshur-kinat-ili-kain, etc. In ordinary parlance, names of this type were commonly shortened, “Shalman-eser’ becoming “Shalmau” (Hos 10:14), “Sennacherib Jareb” (Hos 10:6), and the like.
Isa 8:4
My father my mother. “Abi,” “Immi,” would have been among the first utterances of childhoodsimple sounds, combinations of primary vowels with labials, corresponding in easiness of utterance to “Pappy,” “Mammy,” rather than to the expressions of the text. A child commonly utters such sounds when it is about a year old. The riches of Damascus. The position of Damascus lay in the direct path of the main trade that was carried on between the West and East, which was conducted by the merchants of Tyro chiefly, and passed from the Syrian coast by way of Damascus and Tadmor to Nineveh and Babylon. This commerce greatly enriched the cities lying upon its route. “Damascus,” says Ezekiel, addressing Tyre, “was thy merchant in the multitude of the wares of thy making, for the multitude of all riches; in the wine of Helbon, and white wool” (Eze 27:18). The “palaces of Benhadad” seem to have been noted for their magnificence (Jer 49:27; Amo 1:4). The spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the King of Assyria. Scripture does not record the fulfillment of this prophecy, which makes the same Assyrian king carry off the spoil of Samaria and the spoil of Damascus, fixing also the time of the carrying off as within a few years of the time when the prophecy was given. But the inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser himself supply the deficiency. They state that this monarch “sent the population, the goods of the people of Beth-Omri, and their furniture to the land of Assyria;” after which he “appointed Husih (Hoshea) to the dominion ever them,” and fixed their annual tribute at two talents of gold and a thousand talents of silver.
Isa 8:5-10
THE FLOOD OF ASSYRIAN INVASION WILL PASS FROM SYRIA AND SAMARIA INTO JUDAEA, BUT WILL THERE BE ARRESTED. Syria and Samaria were barriers, breakwaters, so placed as to stem the tide of invasion, and be a defense to Judaea against Assyrian attack. When once they were overwhelmed, the waters would have free course, and the submersion of Judaea was certain. It might be delayed by the Divine favor, and would be, so long as the people, or even a remnant of them, remained faithful, but only through the might of the name Immanuel, “God with us.”
Isa 8:6
Forasmuch as this people. It is a question which people is intended, Judah or Israel. Ewald supposes Judah, and draws the conclusion that there was a strong party in Jerusalem which favored “the son of Tabeal.” Dr. Kay does the same, but understands the charge against Judah to be, not that it sympathized with Rezin, but that it fell into the same sins. Other commentators suggest that Israel is the people intended (as in Isa 9:16), the sense being carried on from Isa 8:4, where the word “Samaria” is suggestive of the Israelite people. Refuseth the waters of Shiloah. The “pool of Siloah” (Neh 3:15) was the tank or reservoir at the southwestern foot of Ophel, which is supplied with water by a narrow conduit cut through the limestone rock for a distance of 1750 feet from the “Pool of the Virgin” on the opposite side of Ophel, in the Kedron valley. This pool itself is fed from reservoirs under the temple area, which have not yet been fully explored. It is probable that Isaiah uses the expression “waters of Shiloah” in a general sense for the streams, springs, reservoirs, conduits, which supplied the temple, and were connected with its service. “Refusing the waters of Shiloah” would then be, without any violent metaphor, refusing the temple service and worship, which was exactly what the Israelites had done from the time of Jeroboam. That go softly. In contrast with the “waters of the river, strong and many,” of the next verse. They who refused the mild and gentle government of Jehovah should experience the impetuous and torrent-like rush of the Assyrian armies. Rejoice in Rezin; rather, rejoice with Rezin; i.e. sympathize with him, rejoice when he rejoices.
Isa 8:7
The waters of the river, strong and many. “The river” is, of course, the Euphrates, as in Isa 7:20. In its lower course the Euphrates often overflows its banks, and inundates the adjacent districts, causing vast damage to crops, and some-limes threatening to break down the walls of cities. It is scarcely likely, however, that Isaiah had any acquaintance with this fact. His experience would probably have been limited to the “swellings of Jordan” (Jer 12:5; comp. Jos 3:15). All his glory (comp. Isa 10:12, Isa 10:16, Isa 10:18, etc.). He shall come up over all his channels. A graphic description of the swelling of rivers in the East. These, when they are low, contract their waters from the many channels, in which they ordinarily flow, into some one or two, leaving the others dry. The first effect of a flood is to fill all the channels, after which it may proceed further and overflow the banks.
Isa 8:8
And he shall pass through Judah; rather, he shall pass on into Judah (“He shall sweep onward into Judah,” Revised Version). The Assyrians will not be content with invading Syria and Samaria; they will “pass on into Judaea.” It is not clear whether this is to be done immediately by Tiglath-Pileser, or by one of his successors at a later date. There is reason to believe from Tiglath-Pileser’s inscriptions that he used the territory of Ahaz for the passage of his armies as those of a vassal king, but did not ravage them. He shall reach even to the neck. The Assyrian attacks on Judaea shall stop short of destroying it. The flood shall not submerge the head, but only rise as high as the neck. This prophecy was fulfilled, since it was not Assyria, but Babylon, which destroyed the Jewish kingdom. The stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land. The Assyrian armies shall visit every part of the land. The sudden change of metaphor is in the manner of Isaiah (see Isa 1:30, Isa 1:31; Isa 5:24, Isa 5:30, etc.). O Immanuel. On the importance of this address, as indicating the kingly, and so (probably) the Divine character of Immanuel, see the notes on Isa 7:14. Isaiah could not speak of the land as belonging to his own infant son.
Isa 8:9
Associate yourselves. It is impossible to obtain this meaning from the existing Hebrew text, which must be translated, “Be angry,” or “Rage” (“Make an uproar,” Revised Version). The prophet passes from the consideration of the opposition offered to Jehovah by Israel, Syria, and Assyria, to a general consideration of all the nations of the earth. He challenges them to the combat against Jehovah, and confidently predicts their defeat. O ye people; rather, O ye peoples (compare the corresponding expression in the next clause, “All ye of far countries”).
Isa 8:10
Take counsel together; literally, devise a device; i.e. form some plan, even the cleverest possible, against God’s people, and the result will be utter failure. It shall not stand (comp. Isa 7:7). For God is with us. In the Hebrew, ki ‘immanu-El, “for with us (is) God” words declarative of the true meaning of the name which God had made a sign to his people (Isa 7:14). It was his being “with them” that could alone save them from their enemies.
Isa 8:11-16
THE GROUNDS OF ISAIAH‘S CONFIDENCE. Having declared his absolute confidence, not only that the attack of Pekah and Rezin will fail (Isa 8:1-4), but that Assyria also (Isa 8:8), nay, that all the nations of the earth (Isa 8:9) will fail, and bring destruction upon themselves, if they “devise devices” against God’s true people, the prophet explains the ground of his confidence by relating a special “instruction” which he had received from God some time previously, he had been bidden to separate himself from the mass of his countrymen in thought and feeling, and to cling only to Jehovah, who would “be for a Sanctuary” (Isa 8:14) to his own, but “for a Stone of stumbling and a Rock of offence” to all others.
Isa 8:11
For the Lord. Mr. Cheyne regards this passage as “a short oracle, complete in itself,” and entirely unconnected with what has preceded. But the initial ki, “for,” is in that case inexplicable. Spake thus to me with a strong hand; literally, with strength of handi.e. laying a strong grasp upon him; and, as it were, constraining him to attend (comp. Eze 1:3; Eze 3:14, Eze 3:22, etc.). That I should not walk in the way of this people. Isaiah was bidden not to “follow a multitude to evil” (Exo 23:2). It was not merely idolatry against which he was warned, but the whole spirit and tone of the society of his day. He was not to entertain their suspicions, or to hope their hopes, or to fear their fears. He was to take a line of his own, to fear God and him only; then God would be “for a Sanctuary” to him.
Isa 8:12
Say ye not. The transition from the singular to the plural is noticeable. It implies that Isaiah did not stand alone, but had followersa “little flock,” it may bebut still enough to give him the support of sympathy (comp. verse 16). A confederacy; rather, treason, or conspiracy (see 2Sa 15:12; 1Ki 16:20; 2Ki 11:12; 2Ki 12:20; Jer 11:9; Eze 22:25, etc.). The command is, not to call a course of conduct treasonable simply because the people generally so call it. Jeremiah was charged with treason for preaching the hopelessness of offering resistance to Nebuchadnezzar (Jer 20:1; Jer 26:8-11). Those who opposed an Assyrian alliance were probably now taxed with treason. To all them to whom; rather, everything which. Translate the entire clause thus: Call ye not conspiracy everything which this people shall call conspiracy. Neither fear ye their fear. They feared man (Isa 7:2). Isaiah and his disciples are commanded to fear no one but God.
Isa 8:13
Sanctify the Lord of hosts. God was sanctified by being believed in (Num 20:12). They who feared Rezin and Pekah, despite of God’s assurances that their design should fail, did not believe in him, and so did not “sanctify” him.
Isa 8:14
He shall be for a Sanctuary (comp. Eze 11:16, “Yet will I be to them as a little Sanctuary”). A sanctuary is “a refuge” (Psa 90:1; Psa 91:9), and something more. It is a holy refuge, a place which is a refuge because of its holiness. Its material counterpart in the Mosaic system is, not “the city of refuge,” but the altar (1Ki 1:50; 1Ki 2:28). Both the houses of Israel; i.e. “the two reigning houses of Samaria and Judaea,” both of which were Israelite. Both the “houses” would ultimately forsake Jehovah, and find in him a “Snare” and a “Rock of offense.”
Isa 8:15
Many among them (so the Vulgate, Ewald, Delitzsch, and Knobel). But most others translate, “Many shall stumble thereon,”i.e. on the stone and the rock (Rosenmller, Gesenius, Vance Smith, Kay, Cheyne). Fall, and be broken. The effect of stumbling against a stone (Mat 21:44; Luk 20:18). Be snared, and be taken. The effect of being caught in a gin (Psa 9:15, Psa 9:16).
Isa 8:16
Bind up the testimony, etc. The words are still those of Jehovah, addressed to his servant Isaiah. God commands that the prophecy shall be written in a roll, which is then to be carefully tied with a string and sealed, for future use. Seal the Law; rather, the instructionthe advice given in verses 12-15 (comp. Dan 12:4).
Isa 8:17, Isa 8:18
ISAIAH DEFINES HIS OWN ATTITUDE AND THAT OF HIS CHILDREN. It is questioned whether something has not fallen out between Isa 8:16 and Isa 8:17. The transition is exceedingly abrupt, undoubtedly; but perhaps not more abrupt than elsewhere in Isaiah and the prophets contemporary with him. The Divine “instruction” comes to an end in verse 16; and Isaiah might have been expected to comment on it, or enforce its teaching; but he does neither. He simply states what his own attitude will be under the coming calamity (verse 8). He will “wait for the Lord and look to him” (verse 17), and consider himself and his children as doing a work for God in being “signs” (verse 18)signs to which the rest of Israel may look, and from which they may derive sufficient hope and confidence to carry them through the dark time which is approaching.
Isa 8:17
I will wait upon the Lord; rather, I will wait for the Lord; i.e. “await the time of his relenting” (see Isa 30:18; Isa 64:4, etc.). That hideth his face from the house of Jacob (compare the threats in Deu 31:17; Deu 32:20). The light of God’s countenance is to the spiritual what that of the sun is to the material world. All life, health, joy, happiness, proceed from it. This light was now to be withdrawn for a time on account of the people’s sins. But Isaiah would “wait” for its reappearance.
Isa 8:18
I and the children are for signs. Isaiah’s children seem to have been “for signs,” especially in respect of their names. Shear-Jashub meant “A remnant shall return” (Isa 10:21), and thus held out two hopes; one that a remnant of Israel would return to God and become his true servants, another that a remnant would return from the captivity that had been prophesied (Isa 5:13). Maher-shalal-hash-baz”Plunder speeds, spoil hastens”was a “sign” of a different kind. Primarily, his name referred to the spoiling of Damascus and Samaria (verses 3, 4); but it may further have indicated a time of general disturbance, plunder, and ravage. It is not quite clear in what respects Isaiah was a “sign.” Perhaps he, too, in his name, which meant “(Our) salvation is Jehovah”certainly also in his symbolical acts (Isa 20:3), and possibly in the firmness of his faith, which never wavered. From the Lord of hosts; literally, from by the Lord of hostsan expression like the French de chez. God had supernaturally appointed the sign in one case (verses 1-4), but in the other two had merely brought them about by the secret working of his providence. But the prophet treats all three as coming equally from him. Which dwelleth in Mount Zion. Hero, again, is encouragement. God has not quitted Zion. The Shechinah still rests between the cherubim in the holy of holies. While this is so, God is still with his people (Immanuel).
Isa 8:19-22
ISAIAH RECOMMENDS LOOKING TO GOD AND THE REVEALED WORD RATHER THAN TO NECROMANCY. AFFLICTION WILL BRING ISRAEL TO GOD. Isaiah returns, in verse 19, to the consideration of his disciples. In the terrible times impending, they will be recommended to have recourse to necromancy; he urges that they should look to God and the Law. He then further suggests that, in the coming affliction which he describes (verses 21, 22), men will generally turn for relief to the same quarter (verse 20).
Isa 8:19
Seek unto them that have familiar spirits. In times of great distress the Israelites seem always to have been tempted to consult those among them who pretended to magic and divination. So Saul in the Philistine war resorted to the witch of Endor (1Sa 28:7-20); Manasseh, threatened by Esar-haddon, “used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards” (2Ki 21:6). Israel generally, oppressed by Syria and Assyria, “used divination and enchantments” (2Ki 17:17). There was the same inclination now on the part of many Jews. The vexed question of the actual powers possessed by such persons cannot be discussed within the limits of a footnote. It has, moreover, already been treated in the present Commentary, in connection with Le 19:31. Wizards that peep, and that mutter; rather, that chirp and mutter. Tricks of the ventriloquists, probably, who disguised their voices, and represented that they were the voices of ghosts (comp. Isa 29:4). The natural speech of some tribes has been compared to the “chirping of birds”. Should not a people, etc.? Very abrupt and elliptical Isaiah means to say, “Do not attend to them; but answer, Should not a people,” etc.? For the living. This may either mean “instead of the living,” or “on behalf of the living seek to the dead?” or, Would not that be plainly preposterous?
Isa 8:20
To the Law and to the testimony. A sort of watchword or battle-cry, to be used by the faithful when God’s enemies assailed them. Compare Gideon’s cry (Jdg 7:18), “For the Lord and for Gideon.” If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them; rather, Surely they will speak according to this word, when there is no dawn for them; i.e. when they are plunged in darkness (Isa 8:22) and distress, and see no prospect of better days, surely theythe people generallywill rally to this cry, and repeat it, “For the Law and for the testimony.” They will not always trust in necromancy.
Isa 8:21, Isa 8:22
are supposed by some to be cut of place, and to belong properly to the description of the Assyrian invasion, given in Isa 8:7, Isa 8:8. But this bold solution of a difficulty is scarcely to be commended, there being no limit to its use. An order followed in all the manuscripts should not be disturbed, if it gives any tolerable sense. Such a sense can, it is thought, be found here by regarding the two verses as exegetical of the last clause of Isa 8:20“when there is no dawn for them.”
Isa 8:21
They shall pass through it. “It,” which is feminine, must mean “the land.” The Jews left in it shall wander about it (comp. Isa 7:21-25), seeking pasture for the remnant of their cattle. They shall fret themselves; rather, they shall be deeply angered (Cheyne). And curse their king and their God. As the causes of their sufferings. And look upward. Not in hope, but in rage and defiance.
Isa 8:22
They shall look unto the earth. For necessary nutriment, or simply as the place to which downcast and despairing eyes are turned naturally. They shall be driven to darkness. So Kay, who thinks the Captivity is meant; but it seems better to render the whole passage, with Mr. Cheyne, “They shall look to earth, and behold, distress and darkness, gloom of affliction, and thick darkness driven (upon them).” The darkness is spoken of as if it were a thing palpable, like rain or snow (comp. Exo 10:21).
HOMILETICS
Isa 8:6
Waters of Shiloah.
The waters of Shiloah issued from the rock where God had set his Name and fixed the symbol of his presence. They were a copious supply, ever welling forth from an inscrutable source for the refreshment and delectation of Israel. Their overplus irrigated numerous gardens in the valley at the base of the temple bill, and made the desert “blossom like the rose.” Shiloah is the same as “Shiloh” (Gen 49:10), and “Shiloh“ means “sent,” or “he who is sent.” Hence we may view as “waters of Shiloah”
I. THE TEACHING OF THE TEMPLE AND ITS RITES, which God sent to Israel by the hard of his servant Moses for their refreshment and delighta stream of living water to those who accepted the truths which the temple rites embodied or symbolized; a “river“ which “made glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High (Psa 46:4).
II. THE TEACHING OF THE PROPHETS, whom God continually sent, “rising up betimes and sending“ (2Ch 36:15), of which Isaiah said primarily, “Lo, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters” (Isa 55:1)these waters representing the truth of God which he was commissioned to preach. This teaching welled forth from the true “Rock;” for it was “the Spirit of Christ” which inspired the prophets, and made them ever approximate more and more toward the standard of evangelical teaching which was to be set up later. The prophets’ doctrine was for the refreshment and comfort of the Jews primarily; but its influence was felt beyond the limits of Judaism. In many a pagan wilderness the superfluous waters flowing, from this source created gardens, where blossoms bloomed, which, without the “living water” of revealed truth, could never have come into being.
III. THE TEACHING OF THE EVER–BLESSED SON, the true “Shiloh”sent by the almighty and most merciful Father to redeem the world and reconcile it to him. He is “the Fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness” (Zec 13:1); “the Well-spring of wisdom” (Pro 18:4); the inexhaustible and inscrutable Source, to whom all may come freely and drink (Joh 7:37). His doctrine doth “drop as the rain,” and his speech doth “distil as the dew” (Deu 32:2); he gives to all men to “take the water of life freely” (Rev 22:17). From depths unsearchable in the nature of him who is “the Rock of our salvation” flow forth rivers of living water, cleansing, purifying, refreshing, satisfying the soul. He washes us once, in a material way, in baptism; he washes us ten thousand times spiritually, as often as he cleanses us from sin; he gives us to drink of a water that is henceforth to us “a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (Joh 4:14). True “waters of Shiloh” are these. All may “take of them freely.” The fountain is absolutely inexhaustible. Nor are its benefits confined to those only for whose sake especially it was givenbaptized members of the Church; they flow on to others also. Great are the uncovenanted mercies of God. The child Christ was proclaimed to be “a Light to lighten the Gentiles,” no less than “the Glory of his people Israel” (Luk 2:32). And so it is. The stream of Christian teaching flows on from the Church into the world, if not with sufficient force to create a garden, at any rate so as to bring forth amid the arid wastes many a green plant, many a blooming flower. The washing of atonement is extended, we confidently believe, to thousands who are not formally within the covenant. And the flow of the water will never cease. Even in heaven there will be “a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God, and of the Lamb” (Rev 22:1), of which the saints of God will drink eternally (Rev 22:17).
Isa 8:12, Isa 8:13
The fear of man and the fear of God contrasted.
These two fears may be compared
(1) in respect of their grounds;
(2) in respect of their results.
I. IN THEIR GROUNDS. Our fear of man rests upon our apprehension of the power of man to do us hurt. Men may injure us
(1) in our reputation,
(2) in our property,
(3) in respect of those who are near and dear to us,
(4) in respect of our persons.
A certain fear of the supreme civil power in the state under which we live is natural and proper; it is one of the elements which bind society together, and could not cease to exist without disadvantage. Malefactors are restrained by it (Rom 13:4); and even the mass of well-meaning men are strengthened in their good intentions by the knowledge that there is a human authority above them which notes their conduct and will punish any serious departure from the rules of right behavior. So far, then, the fear of man has a sound basis. We also naturally, and almost necessarily, fear our enemies, if they are powerful, whether public or private, our fear being proportional to our belief in their power and malignity. It is this ground of fear which is apt to be unduly influential upon us, from our exaggerated notions of what man is able to effect. We too often forget that man can do nothing but what God permits (Joh 19:11), that he is absolutely impotent against God, who can shatter his designs, or strike him with sudden death at any moment. Again, we do not always bear in mind the fact that man can only injure us in respect of temporal things, his utmost punishment being to “kill the body,” whereas God’s power extends beyond the grave. The fear of God has for its ground a double apprehension or conviction:
(1) our belief in his power, and
(2) our conception of his absolute holiness.
These grounds are unassailable, and admit of no exaggeration, so that we cannot fear God too much, though we may fear him in a wrong way. If God’s character be misconceived, if he be viewed as malignant or even as revengeful, then our fear of him, being based upon a Wrong ground, may lead us astray. Such was the of too many in the ancient world, whose deities were objects of fear, but not of love.
II. IN THEIR RESULTS. The fear of man has no good effect except upon evil-doers, and upon those who but for such fear might become evil-doers. These it may in some degree restrain. But if, so far, it may have a good result, it is apt in other ways to have results that are anything but good.
1. Fear of man causes the morally weak to follow the bad example of the wicked, who would otherwise ridicule or even persecute them.
2. Fear of man makes feeble and oppressed classes servile, untruthful, cowardly.
3. Fear of man induces many to keep back their honest convictions, and even applaud the evil courses which in their heart they condemn and dislike.
4. Fear of man has in some cases led to an absolute denial of God and of Christ, making men renegades to their religion, and professors of a creed which they detest.
5. On the other hand, fear of man may sometimes cause men to be hypocrites, to pretend to a faith and a piety which they do not possess, if those who have power over them require it. Hence the fear of man is so often condemned in Scripture (Isa 35:4; Isa 51:7; Jer 1:8; Eze 3:9; Mat 10:28; Luk 12:4; 1Pe 3:14, etc.).
The fear of God, if it be of the kind called above , may harden men in sin, or lead them to despair of God’s mercy; but if it be the true fear of God, that is to say, if it have an element of love in it, the results cannot but be excellent.
1. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psa 111:10); it restrains from evil in early life (Pro 16:6); it deepens into awe as time goes on; it produces hatred of sin (Pro 8:13); it becomes “a fountain of life” (Pro 14:27).
2. They who grow up in the fear of God acquire a solidity and strength of character that nothing else can give; they have a firm foundation on which to rest; they “do not fear what flesh can do unto them” (Psa 56:4); they are truthful, manly, brave. And, further, they are reverent. The fear of God checks over-familiarity, begets reserve, produces silence. “Keep thy foot when thou goest into the house of God,” etc. (Ecc 5:1, Ecc 5:2).
3. Though “perfect love casteth out fear” (1Jn 4:18), yet “the fear of the Lord endureth forever” (Psa 19:9). There is no age, however advanced, that can dispense with it; for no man in this life is ever “perfect in love.” The beloved apostle even represents the fear of God as continuing in heaven. They that stood on the sea of glass, having the harps of God, and sang the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, before God’s throne, exclaimed, “Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy Name?” (Rev 15:2-4); and again, when the “great voice of much people was heard in heaven, saying, Salvation, and glory, and honor, and power, unto the Lord our God, and the four and twenty elders and the four beasts fell down and worshipped God that sat on the throne, saying, Amen, Alleluia, a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, all ye saints, and ye that fear him, both small and great” (Rev 19:1-5).
Isa 8:17
Waiting for God.
“Waiting for God” is submitting ourselves to his good pleasure in respect of time, being content that he should settle the question, “How long?” and looking still to him from first to last, however extended the term during which our “waiting” has to continue. It is important that we wait
I. PATIENTLY. “I waited patiently for the Lord,” says holy David, “and he inclined unto me, and heard my calling” (Psa 40:1). A thousand years are with God as one day, and one day as a thousand years”our age is even as nothing in respect of him” (Psa 39:5). It is, no doubt, hard for man to be patient, not to weary in well-doing, not to fret at what seems to him useless and unnecessary delay, not to desire to expedite matters and bring about the accomplishment of any end which seems to him good at once. But God’s ways are not as our ways. God is never in a hurry. God tries his people by delay, and forms in them the temper of patience, and “lets it have its perfect work” (Jas 1:4). God knows that we “have need of patience” (Heb 10:36), and makes our life a discipline of patience, that so we may be the more conformed to his image.
II. CHEERFULLY. It is not enough to wait patiently, unless we also wait cheerfully. “Rejoice in the Lord always,” says the apostle; “and again I say, Rejoice” (Php 4:4). We should do the will of God “from the heart.” If he makes our cross to be one of waiting, we should feel that waiting is what we need, what is best for us; and we should be thankful that God deals with us so lovingly as to lay this burden upon us.
III. FAITHFULLY. All waiting is a trial of faith. God “hides his face from us.” Will he ever cease to do so? Will he ever again cheer us with the light of his countenance? He does not grant our petitions. Will he ever grant them? Our ghostly enemy continually suggests these questions, endeavoring to undermine and destroy our faith and trust in God. It is our part, with Isaiah, to defeat him by continually “looking for God” and resting upon him. We must “have him always before our face;” hold fast by him, cling to him, look to him, and pray to him “without ceasing” for support and strength during the whole weary time of waiting, or our faith may fail, and our trial prove too much for us. We must, therefore, also wait
IV. PRAYERFULLY; i.e; with continued earnest supplication to God, both for the end that we desire and for his help while he keeps us waiting. His help alone will keep us patient, cheerful, and faithful during the time that our trial lasts, and render it the blessing that he intends it to be to us.
Isa 8:19
Seeking for the living to the dead.
The necromancy of ancient times was a system of appeal to the dead on behalf of the living. The shades or ghosts of dead men were supposed to be brought up from Hades by the necromancer, who compelled them to answer his questions, and was supposed to make their answers useful to the living. A system not very dissimilar has prevailed of recent years in many parts both of England and of America, whereby “spirits” are believed to be brought into communication with living men for the presumed benefit of the latter. To all such cases the reproach of the prophet would seem to apply: “Should men seek for the living to the dead?” What help is it likely that the dead can give more than the living, even if they can be communicated with, which must always be doubtful? Why appeal to them when we do not know whether they can hear, nor whether, if they hear, they can render aid? We can usually appeal for the living to the living, who can certainly hear, and in most instances can help to some extent. And there is one living One on whom it is always possible to call, who always hears, and can always help if he sees fit. Thus every form of necromancy is folly, since
(1) we have no assured ground for believing that any good can result from it, and
(2) we can resort to One who is certainly able to do all and more than all that we require.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON
Isa 8:1-4
Symbolic utterances.
THE PROPHET‘S POPULAR METHOD. He wished to inspire hope in the people as well as in the kingto expel the panic fear of the two northern kings, and impress the expectation that the two capitals of these kings would themselves be taken and sacked. The way in which he set about this was simple yet remarkable.
1. He took a large tablet, and wrote therein in “popular characters,” i.e. in large text, distinct from the literary character, perhaps a character half pictorial, the words “Hasten-booty, Speed-spoil,” or “Booty-quick, Spoil-speed.” In those days there were no newspapers, no puffing placards staring from the walls, and books were only for the learned. This was suggestive to write up a sentiment or suggestion like this for the public eye. To this day in the East, if you ask the people their reason for believing this or that, their answer will be, “Is it not written? Men did not write books to deceive us.” To write this pregnant phrase was, then, to impress it on the popular imagination. “Go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come forever and ever” (Isa 30:8). “Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it” (Heb 2:2). Then, to fix the solemn act of putting up the tablet in memory, he takes two witnessesUriah the high priest (2Ki 16:10), and Zechariah, perhaps “mayor of Jerusalem” at the time.
2. Next, he gave this same mystic name to a son born about the same time, so that the boy might be, as it were, a “living epistle” by means of his significant name, “known and read of all men,” and keeping alive in their hearts the hopeful prophecy of his father. Before the boy can lisp his parents’ names, that prophecy will be fulfilled, and the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carried away before the Assyrian king.
(1) The lessons of the teacher need to be addressed to the senses of the multitude. The sign for the eye, the parable for the imagination, the illustration which “strikes,” the epigram and “winged word” which fastens in the memory,all may be pressed into the service.
(2) Pith and condensation should be studied. A sermon is not wasted if the text sticks, or if a single pregnant saying has lodged itself in the mind, as a seed to stir and quicken thought to purpose.J.
Isa 8:5-15
God with us.
The prophet looks out on the troubled prospect as on a deluge, amidst which the ark of promise carrying the elect, the remnant, the Church of the faithful and chosen, is seen riding.
I. TEMPORAL ALLUSIONS.
1. The foreign sympathies of the people. Tired of the inefficient reign of Ahaz, they watch for the approach of the two northern kings with interest. They have forgotten their patriotism, which once rallied round the house of David as a political and spiritual center. The “softly flowing brook of Siloah” by Jerusalem was symbolic of that house. ‘Twas the river that made glad the city of God, the holy place of the Highest’s dwelling (Psa 46:1-11.). Small was it compared with the great flood of Nile or Euphrates, but mild and gentle. “Nile, with its monstrous crocodile and behemah, might be the image of the cruel Egyptian rule; and mighty Euphrates, with its frequent overflowings, that of the Assyrian power and of its swift extension.” As in ancient folk-lore dragons were supposed to haunt the waters, so the Assyrian power was like the daemon of the great river (cf. Isa 27:1).
2. The wave of Assyrian conquest. Onward it will come, a magnificent flood, to punish, to purify. The Assyrian king, with all the “pomp and circumstance of war,” an awful array, will, as the river breaking its bounds and overflowing all banks, rush into Judah, overflowing and rolling, till the flood reaches to men’s necks; or, as with the outspread wings of the flying dragon, the foe will cover all the breadth of the landland of the passionately hoped-for Immanuel.
II. VICTORIOUS SPIRITUAL HOPES. The name of the Messiah, “God with us,” acts like a charm on the troubled spirit of the seer. His discourse suddenly becomes a bold menace against all heathendom.
1. Material power defied. Let the nations rage and let themdespair! Let them fit out their armaments anddespair! exclaims the prophet. Let them form their plansthey shall be broken; speak their wordsthey shall not stand. For “with us is God!” What magic in a name, in a phrase! Carrying our thought forward through the centuries, we recall what powers were defied, what wonders wrought, what force reduced to impotence, what counsels reduced to folly, by the magic of the Name of Jesus. Yet it is not the mere name, but the reality denoted by the name, believed and felt to he operating through the human spirit, which is the source of energy.
2. Personal inspiration Idle had been these defiances, if the prophet did not know of a secret warranty for them in his own breast, in his own spiritual record. “Thus said Jehovah unto me in the ecstasy.” He had heard a voice which all could not hear, and had cleared his vision in a light not vouchsafed to the vulgar. It was a discriminating light. He was taught to see that not all the multitude called rebellious was really such, nor all that it feared was really to be dreaded. The allusion is somewhat obscure. Probably under the guise of fear the people were secretly rejoicing, and meditating the dethronement of Ahaz. The language strikes a side-blow at the pusillanimity of the time. The prophet has learned that Jehovah is the true Object of fear; that noble and steadfast reverence which, a mighter passion, expels the feebler and baser.
“Fear him, ye saints, and you will then
Have nothing else to fear.”
If this condition be fulfilled, Jehovah will be found an inviolable Sanctuary, a Shelter from all coming trials. We find the same thought in Eze 11:16. He will be a “little Sanctuary” to the fugitive and dispersed among the nations. Fleeing from the pursuer, men laid hold of the “horns of the altar.” These things are to us a parable. Religion is the spirit’s asylum from all distress. In times when the newspaper teems with war, revolution, rumors of dread, or the evils of social life seem intolerable, we may go into our chamber, shut to the door, pray to our Father in secret, flee to the steps of the altar that slopes through darkness up to God, and lo! a new scenery unfolds, and from the secret place of the Most High fear vanishes, and reverential contemplation reigns in the spirit.
III. SOLEMN WARNINGS. He who will ever prove an Asylum to the faithful and an Altar of refuge, will be to the faithless a Stone of stumbling, a Rock of offence, a Trap, and a Snare. We know how these thoughts were applied to the coming Christ, and how they were fulfilled. Set “for the fall and rising again of many in Israel,” and for the “revealing of the thoughts of many hearts,” he is to them that believe precious “a Stone, a tried Stone; and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.”
1. The Name of God is an object of dread or of delight to us according to the state of our own affections.
2. Truth is a touchstone. Either we recognize in it the “pearl of great price,” and are willing to sacrifice all to possess it, or it is like a certain stone of which Plutarch tells, found in the river Inachos, which turned black in the hand of the false witness. Truth seems like falsehood to the debased imagination and depraved will.J.
Isa 8:16-22
The helplessness of superstition.
Here a mass of thought is found, struggling for expression as the new-lighted fuel struggles into flame.
I. THE ORACLE SEALED. ‘Tis time to make an end. Let what has been written remain, rolled up and sealed and kept, until the day when those taciturn letters shall find their tongue and burst into flame. And, indeed, every true thing may be said to be “written down for the time to come, forever and ever.” It may be lost sight of for a time, but only to be recovered. For though the records of human thought, nay, the human mind itself, is a palimpsest, oft scribbled over, the eternal writing of God upon the conscience is indelible, and will be seen, despite willful blindness and pedantic glosses. The testimony we bear is first and last for the eyes of God. The Roman poet (Hor; ‘Ep.,’ Eph 1:20) seems to dread the fate of oblivion for his verse at certain momentscannot brook the thought that his roll shall be packed into its case and left unread. But such was not to be the fate of the poetry of Horace, nor of any true poetry. God can read through the closed pages of true lives, and faithful utterances find audience in the court of angels, in the hails of eternity.
II. PLEDGES OF FUTURE GOOD. “I and the children whom Jehovah hath given me are signs and omens in Israel on the part of Jehovah of hosts, who dwelleth on the Zion-mount.” His own name meant “God’s salvation;” those of his children, as we have seen, “The remnant will return” (or, “be converted”), and “Hasten-booty, Speed-spoil.” For the soul that is strong in faith is also strong in hope, and it makes its own omens, or finds omens where others can see none.
III. MAGICAL SUGGESTIONS REPUDIATED. The wizard, the magician, the “medium,” as he is now called, was in great vogue in the days of Ahaz. Just as at modern sances, these media would imitate the supposed voices of ghosts in some low chirping or muttering tone. What keener satire could be launched against such practices than that of the prophet! It is indeed turning to the dead, instead of to the living and the true God. Where the taste for truth is spoiled, the appetite for the extraordinary and marvelous springs up; and men will fall headlong into the greatest follies, provided they flatter their self-conceit, though wide awake to their interest, and keen to detect the impositions of others in general.
IV. TOO–LATE REPENTANCE. The language is condensed, the thought fused in a mass. But the meaning seems to betoo late will the weak and wicked apply to the true oracles they had forsaken for the false. “In extreme distress, and afflicted with the pangs of starvation, the man rushes as a maniac through the land, curses in the moment of his terrible distress and exasperation his god and lord whom he vainly and slavishly served, and directs his eyes upwards to the true God. But when he looks down to the earth again because he had discerned no light above, he sees there the most dreadful darkness and distress, without any ray of light, without any hope breaking through it, and thus he is hunted forth again into the darkness to perish therein (cf. Job 15:22, Job 15:23; Job 18:5, Job 18:13)” (Ewald).J.
HOMILIES BY W.M. STATHAM
Isa 8:17
Waiting and looking.
“And I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.” There is life in a look. It is so true that the eye is the window of the soul, even as speech is the door of the soul. “Look unto him, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth,” teaches us how the whole nature of man can concentrate itself in a look.
I. DARK HOURS. The Lord “hides his face.” This expression is used, because the face is the expression of character and feeling. It reveals our emotions of love and anger, of confidence and distrust. To hide it, is to turn away in disgust, in sorrow, in shame. God is ashamed of his people Israel, whom he had set apart for his glory. A hidden face is a terrible punishment. The child feels that, and longs for the returning smile of approval and love. How beautiful is the prayer, “God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us!”
II. DIVINE SUPPLICATION. “I will wait upon the Lord.” Not with hurried petition does the prophet come, but with an attitude of soul that shall show depth of desire and earnestness of purpose. Prayer is a sign of renewed life. We cannot long continue to ask for blessings that we do not really desire. Hypocrisy soon fatigues, even where it is not found out; and our poor human nature, sinful as it is, wearies of subterfuges. In waiting upon God we have the surest evidence that our penitence is sincere and our faith vital.
III. UPLIFTED VISION. “I will look for him.” Men look for so much, and not for God. For human approval, for earthly success, for ambition’s tinsel crown. In looking for God his Savior, the prophet is looking for all that the house of Jacob needs. It is a wistful eye that we read of here. Anxious, but yet hopeful. Some had “sought unto familiar spirits, and wizards that peep and mutter;” and it seems as if the world had not yet grown wise enough to forsake all that kind of seeking today! “Should not a people seek unto their God?” asks the prophet; and in every age those who look alone unto him have never been disappointed. When the eyes are opened, and the heart is full, even if the lips be not eloquent, God can read deep meaning in the earnest gaze of faith; and he will return and bless his people Israel, according to his Word.W.M.S.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON
Isa 8:1-4
Orders of service.
We may serve God in more ways than one. There is
I. UNWILLING SERVICE. We may conclude, from 2Ki 16:10, 2Ki 16:11, that Uriah the priest (2Ki 16:2) had no real interest in the service of Jehovah; that he did what Isaiah requested of him with an indifferent, if not a positively reluctant mind. We may be “requisitioned” by the great King in the long warfare he is conducting. He who is rebelliously refusing to place his intelligence, his spiritual nature, his resources, at the command of the Divine Savior, need not be surprised if he finds himself constrained to serve his generation against his will. By violent excesses sinful men have made their own cause odious; by shameful cruelty, calling out heroic endurance, they have made the cause of truth most honorable in the eyes of men. God can make the wrath and the foolishness and even the stubbornness (e.g. Pharaoh) of men to praise him.
II. UNCONSCIOUS SERVICE. The little infant was a “sign” to the prophet and the people; it rendered a service in its own way, but it must have been an entirely unconscious one. It is a painful, and should be a preserving thought, that when we do wrong we “know not what we do,”how heinous is our offence, or how large and long will prove to be its issues. On the other hand, it is a pleasant and inspiring thought, that when we are doing right, in our several spheres and according to our various powers and opportunities, we do not know what service we are rendering. It may be one much more highly esteemed than we imagine at the time (see Mat 25:37-40). It may be one that has far more valuable and lasting results than we could possibly calculate. Especially is it true of the little child, that he is unconsciously serving his kind. The infant in the family has a softening, sweetening, humanizing influence of which it knows nothing, but which is very beautiful and valuable. Ever and everywhere will it be found that “the little child shall lead them whom no other force will either draw or drive.”
III. ACCEPTABLE SERVICE. This is:
1. Intelligent. Whatever the exact significance of “writing with a man’s pen” (verse 1), it is suggestive of the double truth that, in working for God, we should
(1) put out all our powers in their fullness and in their maturity, and should
(2) speak (or write) words adapted to the capacity of those whom we address. Many who seek to serve throw away their opportunity, because they do not the fitting as well as the excellent thing; only too often “the best is the enemy of the good.”
2. Prudent. (Verse 2.) The prophet placed his prophecy beyond reach of cavil by securing two unexceptionable witnesses, one of them being the more convincing because his sympathies were on the other side; his testimony, therefore, none could challenge. Though conscious of the most complete integrity, it is often wise and well to be fortified by the evidence of others. Prudence as well as zeal has its place in the catalogue of Christian graces.
3. Faithful. It was no smooth message which the prophet was to deliver (verse 4). The very name of the child was to be a standing threat of impending evil (verse 3). Not only he who now speaks for God, but every Christian man, is bound to render this faithful service; his words and his life are to testify against the vice, the levity, the worldliness, the ungodliness, of his age; they are also to bear witness to the excellency and beauty of unselfish and loyal service.C.
Isa 8:5-8
The false standard and the fatal issue.
The cardinal error into which Israel fell was that of judging by appearances instead of by the reality. The “softly flowing waters” of the Davidic kingdom seemed far less reliable than the “strong and many waters” of Syria and of Assyria, and therefore Ephraim trusted in the one and Judah in the other of these great “powers.” But they were utterly misplacing their confidence. Those waters that “went softly” and seemed so strengthless, were the river of God, and held healing virtues in their waves; these strong, tumultuous rivers which seemed so mighty contained no remedy for the stricken and declining nation. Often has it been proved that it is not the apparently insufficient which is to be despised, and as often that it is not the apparently irresistible which is to be trusted.
I. THE FALSE STANDARD. The world has always been witnessing illustrations of this error. The history of the Hebrew nation supplied many such: Noah and the mocking world that laughed at him; Abraham and the Canaanites; Moses and Pharaoh; David and Goliath; Joseph and his persecuting brethren; Elijah and Ahab, etc. The apparently weak man (or nation)had the strength of the Divine arm to sustain him (it); the apparently strong one was essentially weak and unreliable. We may see the same thing in:
1. Christianity itself, which in its first beginnings was a “softly going” stream as compared with the strong tumultuous waters of Jewish fanaticism and Roman militarism.
2. Divine truth, which sometimes goes so softly that it may almost be said of it that “there is no speech nor language, its voice is not heard;” that it “does not strive nor cry,” etc; as compared with the complicated organizations of men.
3. Holy love, which flows on unseen, unheard, “like subterranean rivers,” as compared with noisy vehemence and untempered zeal.
4. The promises of God, which flow so quietly and graciously through the sacred Scriptures from the beginning even to the end, as compared with the pretentious securities of worldly wisdom. If we wish to know whether we may commit the keeping of our soul, or even of our earthly interests, to those men who (or those things which) offer themselves to our choice, we must not be satisfied with the shows and semblances; we must look to the heart of things; we must ask whether there is soundness, rectitude, within; we must ask, above all other questionsHave they the approval of God with them, and the power of God behind them? For without that the strong river is to be shunned, and with that the softly going stream is to be sought.
II. THE FATAL ISSUE.
1. Roman imperialism passed away, dragging down many thousands with it in its fall.
2. Splendid but corrupt organizations have overflowed the land, even as the “waters of the strong river” were to cover Immanuel’s land, and beneath their deathful influence multitudes have perished.
3. Rampant zealotry has slain its thousands, not only of those whom it ruthlessly assailed, but of those who wielded its weapon, and were partakers of its evil spirit.
4. Earthly properties and possessions have buried innumerable souls beneath their destructive weight. It is a fatal thing to trust that which is not worthy of our confidence: for that on which we lean falls on us and slays us; the river to whose waters we resort, instead of fertilizing and saving, floods and drowns us. The peril here is one which threatens the Church as well as the world. The overflowing river “fills the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel.”C.
Isa 8:9, Isa 8:10
The impotence of ungodliness.
We learn
I. THAT SIN SOMETIMES APPEARS IN IMPOSING ASPECTS. There were four aspects, not to say elements, of power in these world-kingdomsconfederation, preparation (gird yourselves), consultation (take counsel together), authority (speak the word). Sin, which is the great enemy conducting a long campaign against the Church of Christ, certainly seems as superior in strength to its present foe as did these great kingdoms of the East to Judah and to Israel; indeed, far more so. Sin has on its side:
1. Vastly preponderating numbers.
2. Rank and authority.
3. The greater material resources, including military power and money.
4. Ancient tradition and inveterate habit.
5. An apparently impregnable seat; it is defended by the strong fortresses of worldly interests, animal appetite, spiritual pride, moral indifference.
II. THAT THE PROPHETIC EYE SEES ITS UTTER OVERTHROW. “Ye shall be broken in pieces;” “it shall come to naught;” “it shall not stand.” Under the shadow of the first promise we see the head of the serpent bruised (Gen 3:15). At the feet of the prophet we see the “little stone” “break in pieces and consume all these (earthly) kingdoms,” itself “standing forever” (Dan 2:44). Standing at our Master’s side, we “behold Satan as lightning fall from heaven” (Luk 10:18). With apostolic hope, we look on the time when Christ “will have put down all rule, and all authority, and power,” all his enemies being “under his feet” (1Co 15:24, 1Co 15:25). The world-power shall be utterly broken, and on its ruins shall rise “the kingdom which cannot be moved.”
III. THAT OUR CONFIDENCE IS IN THE PRESENCE OF THE INVINCIBLE SAVIOR. “For God is with us.” We may rejoice to reckon our trophies already gained; we may point, with congratulation, to the growing intelligence and enthusiasm of the army of the Lord; we may hail signs of decay in ancient, enfeebled systems; but this is our confidence: we have with us, working m us and for us, the Holy Spirit of the Divine Redeemer: “For Immanuel”C.
Isa 8:11-15
Our personal relation to God.
It is clearly insufficient to know that we are on the same side as that of the majority of the good. The voice of God’s people is not always his voice; their way not always his way (Isa 8:11). They may call for “a confederacy” when he disapproves of it. They may cry “peace” when he sees only present confusion and future disaster. They may be shaken with fear when they ought to be calm and trustful (Isa 8:12). They may be full of complacency when they ought to be overwhelmed with shame. We shall not be to God that which he demands of us, except we come into distinct, direct relation to himself.
I. THAT GOD SOMETIMES ACTS UPON US WITH CONSTRAINING POWER. “The Lord spake with a strong hand” (Isa 8:11; see Eze 3:14). The Divine impulse was one that the prophet felt he must not resist. Not that it was absolutely irresistible, but one that a faithful man knew that he must not hesitate to obey. God often acts upon the soul of men with strong and urgent power to constrain or to restrain. He approaches and influences us thus by
(1) his Divine providence;
(2) one or other of the privileges he has provided for us;
(3) his Holy Spirit.
II. THAT GOD HIMSELF IS THE TRUE REFUGE OF THE HUMAN SOUL. (Isa 8:13, Isa 8:14.) Here is:
1. Our duty. We are to fear God, to pay a reverential regard to his will, to shrink from that which grieves him, to “dread“ his wrath.
2. Its recompense. “He shall be for a Sanctuary.” In him, as in a pavilion, we shall hide. He will either deliver us from trouble by saving US from our enemies or in trouble, by granting us the sustaining grace which makes us “more than conquerors” in the midst of it. If we who are his “saints” will but “fear him” with obedient reverence, we shall then “have nothing else to fear.”
“How was it, lovers of your kind,
Though ye were mocked and hated,
That ye, with clear and patient mind,
Truth’s holy doctrine stated?
In God as in an ark ye kept;
Around, and not above you, swept
The flood till it abated.”
III. THAT TO RESIST GOD IS TO WALK IN THE WAY OF WRONG AND RUIN. God is, to the perverse and the rebellious, “a Stone of stumbling and a Rock of offense” (Isa 8:14). God must be everything to us, for life or death. If our relation to him is not to us the fountain of everlasting joy, then it will be to us the source of unspeakable sorrow. The rejection of his truth and of himself will be our sin on earth, our condemnation in judgment, the subject and source of our remorse and retribution in the long hereafter. Our God is One whom it is infinitely worth while to make our Friend, and One whom we must not make our Enemy, if we have any love for ourselves, any interest in our own destiny.C.
Isa 8:16-18
The teacher’s distress and his consolation.
Those who have taken positions of prominence or of influence in the Church of Christ have to bear their own peculiar burdens as they are gladdened with their own especial joys. The teacher of Divine truth, in whatever particular sphere he may be engaged, whether it be a high or a humble one, is subject to his own discouragements and encouragements. If we ask what are
I. HIS SPECIAL TRIALS, the answer to that question is this: Apparent failure in his work, with all the sorrows such discomfiture involves. It is an intensely bitter experience for a human soul to pass through. What can be more distressing to one who earnestly longs for, and is striving to promote, “the kingdom of God,” than to look on and see faithful labors break down and issue in nothing? Such was the keen sorrow of Isaiah. It seemed to him as if God were “hiding his face from the house of Jacob” (verse 17); for the people would not welcome his truth, would not walk in his ways, would not trust in his mighty power. So was it with the preacher of righteousness (2Pe 2:5-8), and with the psalmist (Psa 119:136), and with Elijah (1Ki 19:10), and with Paul (Gal 1:6; Gal 3:1; Php 2:21; Act 20:29, Act 20:30); and so was it with the Master himself (Joh 6:66, Joh 6:67). The human teacher at such times is grievously troubled, for he is apt to conclude
(1) that God may be dissatisfied with his testimony; or
(2) that he himself has not been as wise or as faithful as he might have been; or
(3) that those whom he has been addressing have incurred serious guilt. But let us ask what are
II. HIS CONSOLATIONS. They are such as these:
1. There are disciples who learn the truth and love it. “Bind up the testimony among my disciples” (verse 16). Isaiah was not without some who received his word, and for whom he could pray that it would be engraven on their hearts. Elijah and Paul had their disciples; the Master, we know, had his. If we will look further, we shall find that there are fruits, on the bough, though many branches be barren; good results are not invisible, though they are not so apparent as we could wish.
2. The God of all truth is with us, and his ear is open to our appeal. “I will wait upon the Lord” (verse 17). All hearts are in his hand; he is earnestly desirous of blessing his children; his promised aid is a strong assurance.
3. The human teacher is the organ of Divine truth. “I and the children are for signs and wonders from the Lord of hosts” (verse 18). Even their very names were significant of some truth which came from Jehovah himself. Everything about the prophet, down to his children’s names, was ordered from above. The prophet only taught that which he was inspired to teach, and the truth of the everlasting God must ultimately prevail. God will not let the words of him who speaks faithfully “fall to the ground” (1Sa 3:19). Even as the word of him who was “the Truth” should never pass away, so shall the words of his faithful disciples abide, doing their work in unsuspected places and in unimagined ways. The truth we have received from the Lord of hosts may long be hidden, but it will not be lost.C.
Isa 8:19-22
The confession of ungodliness, etc.
The prevalence of the evil and sinister arts of necromancy is exceedingly significant. The attempt to supply knowledge for the living by appealing to the dead (Isa 8:19) has been made in every latitude and longitude, in every age, in every condition of society. What is the significance of this fact? We have here
I. THE CONFESSION OF UNGODLINESS AND ITS DEGRADATION. When men have thrown off their allegiance to God, when they have denied the existence of their Creator, when they have explicitly refused to seek and to serve him “in whom they live and move and have their being,” they may imagine themselves to be free from all spiritual bonds; but they are miserably mistaken. They forsake a homage which is honorable and a service which is ennobling, to fall into a superstition which is contemptible and degrading. So closely, so inseparably is man associated with the spiritual world, that, try how he may, he cannot escape from it. He that will not serve God must honor demons or consult spirits, or engage in some “cultus” which is discreditable to his intelligence and injurious to his moral nature. It is notorious that Rome never sank so low as when, losing its faith in the gods, it sank into debasing superstitions of this kind. And in this respect a corrupted civilization and an unredeemed barbarism “meet together.” The penalty of ungodliness is terrible. Corruptio optimi pessima.
II. THE DEMAND OF INTELLIGENT PIETY. “Should not a people seek unto their God? To the Law and to the testimony” (Isa 8:19, Isa 8:20). A right-minded, rational people, possessed of that fear of God which is the beginning and also the end of wisdom, wilt askWhat does God say? For they will consider that:
1. He who made them knows, as they cannot know, what are the capacities of their nature, and what is the purpose of their life.
2. He who has all power in his hand, and who makes large requirements of his creatures, both can anal will bless those whom he approves, and ban those whom he condemns.
3. Therefore it is infinitely desirable to secure his approbation and his help. Such a people will, consequently, askWhat does his Word state? What can we gather from his “Law” as to his will concerning us? An intelligent piety will resort to “the Law and to the testimony,” not that it may find minute correspondences and detailed injunctions, but that it may light on living principles which it may itself apply to all new forms and changing conditions.
III. THE HOPELESSNESS OF SIN. If we read the prophet thus, “There is no light in them,” we reach the truth that sin brings men down to a condition in which the light that has shone from reason, conscience, revelation, has gone out; in that ease the sources of enlightenment are stopped, and our Lord’s graphic and painful picture is realized (Mat 6:22, Mat 6:23). But if we take the words of the text thus, “They are a people for whom no morning dawns,” then we arrive at another, though a kindred truth, that sin leads down to utter spiritual hopelessness, to evil without prospect of amendment, to death without hope of life, to darkness without gleam of morning light. Men do, by the path of refusal and delay, reach a moral condition in which:
1. Privilege does not benefit them; additional services only add to their accountability without touching their soul.
2. Chastisement does not awaken, but only aggravate them (see Isa 1:5).
3. Direct Divine influence fails to lead them into the path of life. The night of spiritual death only deepens and darkens; there dawns no morning of the eternal life which is in Christ Jesus.C.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK
Isa 8:1, Isa 8:3
Prophecy in a name.
The interpretation of this name demands some acquaintance with the history of the times, and with the views of political parties in the city of Jerusalem. The great danger immediately pressing was the combined attack of Rezin and Pekah, representing the neighbor-kingdoms of Syria and Israel. Isaiah had prophesied the fall of these nations, and, so, encouraged Judah to hold on, and keep trust in Jehovah’s protection. But time passed on, and there were no signs of calamity overtaking Rezin and Pekah. On the other hand, they seemed to be only too successful. They had overrun the country, taking many away captive. Rezin had captured Elath, the Red Sea port. And, taking advantage of Judah’s time of weakness, the Edomites were harassing the north-eastern frontier. To politicians the state of affairs was hopelessly dark; and they could see no way out of the difficulty, save by seeking alliance with the growing power of Assyria, which was pressing its conquests toward the Mediterranean. But to do this was to declare their unbelief in Isaiah’s assurances, and to put public dishonor upon him as the servant of Jehovah. So he repeats his prophecy. In order that the people might know it and understand it, he puts it into one word, one name; he writes it in large letters, sets it up in a public place, and so testifies against the perilous policy which fear of the national enemies was dictating. “The tablet was to be large, and the writing was not to be with the sharp point of the artist, or learned scribe, but with a ‘man’s pen,’ i.e. such as the common workmen used for sign-boards, that might fix the gaze of the careless passer-by, and on that tablet, as though it were the heading of a proclamation or dedication, he was to write ‘to Maher-shalal-hashobaz.'” This name recalls the prophecy which Isaiah had already given (Isa 7:14-16). The word actually and precisely means “Speed plunder, haste spoil.” It refers to the Assyrians whom Isaiah sees hurrying to spoil both Syria and Samaria. First the public sign, and then the child, bearing the prophetic name, were to be a constant testimony to the truth of Isaiah’s words, and a means of keeping the cheering prophecy ever before the people. The passage reminds us of the value attached to, and the use made of, Old Testament names. On this subject F. W. Robertson has a very suggestive passage (vol. 1.41, 42): “In the Hebrew history are discernible three periods distinctly marked, in which names and words bore very different characters. These three, it has been observed by acute philologists, correspond to the periods in which the nation bore the three different appellations of Hebrews, Israelites, and Jews. In the first of these periods names meant truths, and words were the symbols of realities. The characteristics of the names given then were simplicity and sincerity. The second period begins about the time of the departure from Egypt, and it is characterized by unabated simplicity, with the addition of sublimer thought, and feeling more intensely religious. Words mean realities, but they are impregnated with deeper religious thought. The third period was at its zenith in the time of Christ; words had lost their meaning, and shared the hollow unreal state of all things.” Keeping in mind how conveniently and efficiently Isaiah wraps up his prophecy into a name which will at once arrest attention, this use of names may be illustrated:
1. In relation to families. We recall to mind loved relatives, or acts of kindness done to us, or persons whose heroic lives we admire, by giving to our children some significant name.
2. In relation to the sale of articles. The skill of the advertiser is shown in the discovery of some taking name, which will draw public attention to the article offered.
3. In relation to science and invention. The results of research and discovery do not become public property until they can be fixed in a name; even men’s theorizings getting thus labeled for use.
4. In relation to doctrines. Statements of Divine revelation do not become public property until they get a name, which is a sort of handle, by which the ordinary mind may grasp them. By such illustrations the practical wisdom of Isaiah’s act may be shown, and then the truth which he sought thus to keep before the minds of the people may be impressed, The staring name, calling the attention of all the passers-by, said plainly, “Trust God, not man.” “Fear nobody but God; nothing but God.” “His word is surely true: though you see it not, it is hurrying even now to its accomplishment.” That name said, “Trust in the Lord forever.” “He maketh the wrath of man praise him, and restrains the remainder of wrath.”R.T.
Isa 8:6
Jehovah like the waters of Shiloah.
The fountain of Siloam, at the mouth of the Tyropaean valley, and so at the roots of both Zion and Moriah, is fed with water which flows through a narrow subterranean conduit from the “Pool of the Virgin.” The point of the comparison presented by Isaiah cannot be better stated than in the following passage: “These waters of Shiloah, the sacred waters that came forth from the holy mountain, seemed poor and ignoble in comparison with the Abana and Pharpar of Syria, or the Jordan of Ephraim; how much more, then, with the Euphrates and Tigris! Calm and tranquil faith in the prophetic word which God sent them, in the gently flowing current of his providential dealings (springing out of the depths of his eternal wisdom and goodness),this was not to their mind. They must have something that appealed to eye and ear, that gratified the fancy with its ambitious cravings” (Dr. Kay). Henderson applies the figure of the text to the house of David, but Cheyne properly argues that it is better to take the phrase as symbolizing the temple, and its almighty and gracious Lord; and he remarks that the figure is not an unfamiliar one. The psalmist says (Psa 46:4, Psa 46:5), “There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God. God is in the midst of her.” And Jeremiah speaks of the people having “forsaken the Lord, the Fountain of living waters” (Jer 16:13). Taking these waters of Shiloah as the figure for Jehovah, they may be shown to illustrate
I. THE GENTLENESS OF JEHOVAH. His kingdom “cometh not with observation.” There is no cry, no lifting up of voice. He never rolleth like a desolating flood, save in times of special judgment. He bubbleth gently as a fountain; and those who read their lives aright learn to say, “Thy gentleness hath made me great.” This characteristic comes out strongly in the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, which was a gentle persuasion of truth, and a gentle example of righteousness. And still it is true that the regenerative force, in individual life and in society, “flows softly,” like the waters of Shiloah.
II. THE CONSTANCY OF JEHOVAH. A fountain is fed from unfailing sources; it is always flowing, ready with its supplies at all times; no enemies can limit it or cut it off; in the secret places of the earth it has its storehouse, and it is ready with its help for every time of need. These suggest what God ever has been and is to his people. We have never to search for him; he is always here. We have never to force him; he is always ready”A very present Help;” “A Refuge and Strength.”
III. THE SUITABILITY OF JEHOVAH. This may not be the best term for the thought, which is, that the perennial fountain, at constant command, was better adapted to the circumstances of Judah than the river of Euphrates, which, if turned towards them, could only rush over them in desolating flood. Jehovah was more precisely adapted to their conditions. He could more fittingly meet their demands than any “arm of flesh,” however strong it might seem to be. The thought may be enlarged upon under the guidance of the following passage (2Co 9:8): “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.”
IV. THE SUFFICIENCY OF JEHOVAH. The fountain flows on, day and night, pouring forth its fullness of blessing; whosoever will may drink and live. We are never “straitened in God.” He can do abundantly for us, above all that we ask or think. Judah could only be dissatisfied with Jehovah because they did not prove his faithfulness and mercy; they did not cast themselves upon him. “Trust in the Lord forever; for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.” Advance to show how this figure of the waters of Shiloah gained new form in the teachings of the Lord Jesus, who said, “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”R.T.
Isa 8:8
Immanuel’s land.
The figure used in this text is that of an overflowing river, sweeping along in desolating flood, and the great stretches of water, covering the cultivated lands on either side of the stream, are poetically likened to the outspread wings of a flying bird. The first reference of the expression, “Thy land, O Immanuel,” may be to the prophetic child that was to be born in the land (Isa 7:14). The distant reference may be to the coming of the Lord Jesus, as Immanuel, to the land of Judah, or rather of Canaan. But probably the name should be translated, and used as a succinct description of Palestine. This is its great and characteristic peculiarity; it is the “God with us” land. This may be illustrated, and the lesson from it enforced, under the following divisions.
I. IT IS THE LAND PREPARED FOR IMMANUEL. It was selected, and other countries were set in relation to it, so that it might be the “God with us,” land, in which a special manifestation and relationship of God might be tried, in the face of the whole world. The country was remarkably isolated geographically. And it was as remarkably centered. These corrected each other. Israel had the best opportunities for preserving the great truths of the unity and spirituality of God which were entrusted to it. And at the same time it was set in the “eye of the world,” so that all nations could watch the singular experiment of the theocracy.
II. IT IS THE LAND HONORED BY THE ABIDING OF IMMANUEL. That direct and sensible presence of God which was the condition of the covenant was indicated by the Shechinah-symbol in tabernacle and temple. The glory of Israel wandering was God present. The glory of Israel settled was God abiding and ruling. The presence of God with us, as we know it, is Christ, the Temple-body, apprehended by our senses; and the Holy Ghost, the Temple-spirit, apprehended as witnessing and working within us.
III. IT IS THE LAND THAT MUST BE WORTHY OF IMMANUEL. It was the fundamental idea of Judaism that the land was holy, because God walked to and fro in it; and, therefore, the people must be holy. And still this is the persuasion, “Be ye holy; for I am holy.” The figure may stand for the land of each man‘s life. That ought to be a “God with us” land.R.T.
Isa 8:14
God’s twofold relations with men.
To some, a “Sanctuary;” to others. a “Rock of offense.” For the Christian form of the same truth, comp. 2Co 2:1, 2Co 2:6. “To the one we are the savor of death unto death, and to the other the savor of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?” God is to men as men are to him (see Psa 18:25, Psa 18:26), But is this saying anything strange? Surely it is the secret of good motherhood and fatherhood. They who order their households well are wisely responsive to the various states of the children, adapting and adjusting conduct to the dispositions and circumstances of each member of the home. No skillful parent treats all the children alike, and differing modes of treatment are no indications of varying degrees of love. He who loves us all must deal with each upon his perfect understanding of each one. He must be, he had better be, a “Rock of offense” to some. To the trustful child he can be a “Sanctuary;” but to the willful child he must be a Severity. His dealings will, at first, cause offense. There is a very deep and searching truth indicated here, which may be illustrated from God’s dealings with his people, and with individuals from among his people, through all the ages. It is that a man may compel God to be otherwise towards him than he would be. The passage which clearly states this, and will be a key to many other passages and illustrations, is the following: “Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God” (Eze 18:23). It is difficult to realize, but it is not beyond belief, that the same infinite goodness makes God both a “Sanctuary” and a “Rock of offence.” In very grave measuressometimes we feel in overwhelming measuresthe responsibilities of our life-issues, and even the character of Divine relations with us, rests upon ourselves. After the willful ones, hurrying to their doom, God, hastening, pleads thus: “Why will ye die? O house of Israel, why will ye die?”R.T.
Isa 8:17
The hiding of God’s face.
Jehovah is here spoken of as “the Lord, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob;” and Jeremiah uses a similar figure in one of his prayers: “Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through” (Lam 3:44). Aside from the historical associations of the text, the expression itself is a suggestive one, and may be made the basis of meditation. Whatever may be the fact concerning God, this at least is the fact of the pious man’s experienceit feels to him as if God had hidden his face and covered himself with a cloud. Two thoughts are suggested by the figure.
I. THE TWILIGHT GLOOM OF THE CHRISTIAN OFTEN ARISES FROM THE SENSE OF CHANGE IN HIMSELF. There are more twilight-times than night-times in the circle of the year, and in the circle of a religious life. Isaac Taylor reminds us that, in a whole year, there are only two or three absolutely dark nights. Nature gets a great blessing out of those two or three, but could not bear more. And in a religious life there are many things large enough to dim the rays of hope, and cast long and dark shadows over the spirit, but very few things strong enough to blot out the sun and stars, and make a midnight for the soul. Now, we need to see clearly that the gloom of spirit we feel usually comes from changes in ourselves. We are so ready to settle our twilight glooms upon God, as though in his sovereignty he had thus dealt with us; and then we fail to see our own mistakes, and we make no efforts to remedy the evils which are the immediate occasion of our fears.
1. Much inward trouble comes from the state of our bodies. The action and reaction of body and mind are exceedingly subtle.
2. Much of our inward distress comes from unwatchfulness. We may easily pass through most important changes of circumstances unheedingly. We often are in new circumstances before we are at all prepared for them, and then their influence may prove depressing or overwhelming. Life is to be for us all a succession of surprises, and yet we are never to be taken unawares. Our bodily weakness, our unwatchfulness, our indulgence in sin, hides God’s face from us by putting a cloud across it. It is hidden, but we must see that we ourselves are the occasion and cause of the hiding. It lies with us to get the cloud away.
II. THE MIDNIGHT GLOOM OF THE CHRISTIAN OFTEN ARISES FROM THE IDEA OF CHANGE IN GOD. Christian joy comes from a clear consciousness of the Divine nearness”the face of God shining upon his servant.” Christian woe comes when God seems to be afar off, hidden; it is as though the sun had passed in behind a cloud; the face that made heaven for us shows frowns. It may well he called midnight darkness when the soul has conceived the idea of changed relations in God. One or two comforting considerations may be dwelt on.
1. Change in God only comes as a consequence of change in the Christian. He is the unchangeable One; but in his role he adjusts relations to those whom he would bless. To the sinner, he is a God of holy indignations. To the penitent, he is a God of saving mercies. To the earth-child, trying to live a godly life, he is a watching, guiding Father. To the Christian in trouble or pain, he is a tender, comforting Mother. He is not varying and uncertain; that would make him untrustworthy. He is adapting himself to us, so that if ever God seems to have changed towards us, we may be quite sure that the truth is we have changed towards him. If he hides himself, there must be some cherished wrong in us, as certainly as there was in the Israel of Isaiah’s times.
2. Change in God is never change in his feelings, only in sensible relations. It should be settled, as one of our immovable truths, that there can be no real change in God, whatever appearances we may discern. Look long with our human eyes, and the firmest steeple will seem to be trembling and tottering to a fall; but the trembling is only in our vision. For a “little moment God may hide his face from you, but with great loving-kindness he will gather you.” Change in sensible relations there may be. The joy of his love we may lose, not his love. The impulse of his grace we may lose, not the grace. The comfort of his presence we may lose, not the presence. It should, indeed, humble us that we may lose so much, but even in our soul’s midnight hours we need not despair. As the child in the dark whispers “Father!” and is at peace when the father-arms press closer, so we, in the night, may find that if our Father’s face is hidden, our Father himself is near.R.T.
Isa 8:18
Man every way God’s instrument.
“Behold, I and the children whom Jehovah hath given me are for signs and for omens in Israel from Jehovah Sabaoth, who dwelleth on Mount Zion” (Cheyne’s translation). The thought here is very simple and very familiar, and no more than the statement of divisions, for the ordering of thought, can be necessary. Take St. Paul’s figure of the “living sacrifice,” as including body, soul, spirit, and relationships, all consecrated to God’s service, and illustrate
I. How a man’s body may be consecrated to God.
II. How a man’s health may be consecrated to God.
III. How a man’s gifts may be consecrated to God.
IV. How a man’s possessions may be consecrated to God.
V. How a man’s personal friendships may be consecrated to God.
VI. How a man’s family life may be consecrated to God.
VII. How a man’s social influences may be consecrated to God.R.T.
Isa 8:20
The standard of truth and morals.
This text is not merely a Divine declaration. It rests upon the great fact that man can never be satisfied until he gets a standard of truth and duty outside of and apart from himself. No man anywhere can reach an intelligent satisfaction by becoming wholly a law unto himself. The moral sense in every man is vitiated, and its attestations are uncertain. The testimony of conscience is variable; it is not now always prompt, decided, and faithful in its judgments. It may appear at first sight as if there were many men who are living entirely according to their own will, following wholly the “devices and desires of their own hearts.” But, if we look a little deeper, we shall find that they are all striving after conformity to some standard, bad or good, that is outside them. It is often custom, etiquette, society, the moral level of the age in which they happen to live. There are common fallacies which tone the lives of some, and multitudes are content to make a standard of the teachings of an authoritative priesthood. Even the hermit, dwelling apart, separated from the associations of his fellow-men, cannot be satisfied with his own standard; he even finds an ideal outside himself, in the life, endurance, and suffering of some more saintly fellow-creature. God has graciously considered this common human necessity. He has not left his creatures to search for such a standard in their blindness. In every age, in forms and terms such as at the time they could understand, God has given models of truth and duty. He has never left men to mere abstract speculations; in some kind of ordinarily understood human teaching, by word, or act, or example, God has always set forth a standard; and so in every age he can make his appeal and say, “To the Law and to the testimony.” In the first ages of the world the standard was given in personal characters, such as Enoch, Methuselah, Noah, Abraham. To this was by-and-by added the revelation of the Divine will in written and spoken words, for which advancing civilization and culture prepared men. At the very beginning, as the written revelation could not get into the hands and use of all men, it was presented for a time in the pictures of an elaborate ceremonial. Later on it was expressed in the free speech of prophets and teachers, and then the pictured ceremonials might fade away. At the very last the Divine standard of truth and morals for humanity was exhibited, in its completeness and perfection, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Truth, duty, virtue, were here among men. Christ was the perfect realization of God’s idea of a moral being. The standard man is not on earth now, but his record remains. That record is in all our hands; it is as if we lived our daily life in the presence of the Divine ideal. We have in our Bible God’s great rule of truth and duty. Consciously of unconsciously we do test every action by our standard; all the questions arising in connection with our moral life are brought to the test of the “Law and the testimony.”
I. THE BIBLE EXERTS ITS MORAL FORCE UPON US BY THE TRUTHS WHICH IT CONTAINS AND REVEALS. These truths test all received opinions. Each man really is according to his opinions and beliefs; the whole temper and conduct are toned by the truths received. If they are according to the “Law and testimony,” their fruit will be righteousness and mercy. The Bible does not, indeed, contain any formulated system of theology or of morals, but it does contain such an harmonious setting forth of all necessary truth as, in fact, constitutes a complete system both of doctrine and of duty. The Bible has its own sphere; within this it is infallible. It is the sphere of character; it is no standard of appeal for geographers, or arithmeticians, or astronomers, or ethnologists, or literati, or philosophers. For all such the Bible is a book of the age in which it was written, and it embodies the thought which was the common property of the men of the time. Man does not want a written revelation of science, for he has not lost the key which enables him to unlock its mysteries for himself. Man does need a written revelation of standard morals, because he flung away his key in Eden, and, with ages of painful searching, he has failed to find it again.
II. THE BIBLE EXERTS ITS MORAL FORCE BY THE PRINCIPLES WHICH IT EMBODIES. The structure of the Bible compels us to search out its principles. They do not lie on the surface, like seeds on beaten paths, ready for every passing bird to pick up. They are given to us embodied in history, illustrated in incidents of individual lives, and in phases of personal experience. Nothing seems to be said in the New Testament about ecclesiastical politics, or orders of Church government; but there are to be found great principles, which can be wisely adapted in their practical expression to the varying conditions of men in different ages. There are no announcements concerning social manners; there is nothing taught in a direct way concerning monarchy or slavery, for instance; but the Bible gives principles which, gradually gaining sway over the minds of men, constitutionally attemper monarchy, and will after a while banish slavery from the earth. A principle is more searching than a maxim. Men may think they could have done better with a Bible like the books of Confucius, full of maxims, shaping into order the whole minutiae of life. Such a Bible could only make automata, not living men. God gives a Bible full of quick effective principles; these, getting into the soul, are the seeds whence come flowerings and fruitings of righteousness. A maxim will guide us in one case, a principle will put us right in ten thousand. Circumstances may always limit the application of an express commandment; a principle fits and shapes itself to every new occasion, as the rising tide into every bay and nook and creek of the winding stream.
III. THE BIBLE EXERTS ITS MORAL FORCE BY THE EXAMPLE WHICH IT PRESENTS. Its men, except the Lord Christ, are fallible, struggling men. Their wrongdoing is never covered over. You never get the impression of a character painted rose-color. The moral quality of a man’s action is never confused. Evil is always evil. Wrongdoing in a good man is only worse wrongdoing in view of his goodness; and it is never palliated. There is found in the Bible virtue to incite us and evil to warn us; a great “cloud of witnesses” putting to shame our meaner lives. But the great standard example is the earthly life of our Lord Jesus Christ. He “tries every man that cometh into the world.” The final test of moral conduct for us all is the Lord Jesus Christ. Full acceptance with God can come only from being perfectly like Christ. And if the suggestion makes us feel that we are far down below him, only just climbing the first ridge of the mountain-side, this is our encouraging assurance, “Then shall ye know, if ye follow on to know the Lord.”R.T.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Isa 8:1. Moreover, the Lord said The other section of this discourse, which reaches to the 7th verse of the next chapter, is nearly of the same argument with that preceding: it is prophetical, and contains matter of comfort and reproof. It may be divided into two parts; the first part, in the four first verses, contains a confirmation and a sign of the promise concerning the sudden subversion of the kingdoms of Syria and Ephraim. The first part more fully and distinctly explains the purpose of God, with respect both to the Israelites and the Jews, for the consolation of the pious, and the terror of the impious and carnal Jews; and it contains, first, a prophetical enarration of the events which should happen in the times immediately preceding those of the Messiah, from Isa 8:5-11. Secondly, a redargutory, as well as prophetic instruction, in which the prophet teaches the people by his own example, as one immediately taught by God, with what dispositions they should receive all the attempts of their enemies to subvert the kingdom of God in their land, even to the time of the manifestation of Christ; and this instruction contains a repeated prophesy concerning Jesus, most certainly to be manifested for the consolation of the righteous, as a public teacher: Isa 8:11 to ch. Isa 9:7. See Vitringa, who leaves out the word concerning in this verse.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
2. ISAIAH GIVING THE WHOLE NATION A SIGN BY THE BIRTH OF HIS SON MAHER-SHALAL-HASH -BAZ
CHAPTER Isa 8:1-4
1MOREOVER the LORD said unto me, Take thee a great roll, and write in it with 2a mans pen concerning1 Maher-shalal-hash-baz. And I took unto me faithful witnesses 3to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah. 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. 4For 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
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
On Isa 9:1. (found only here and Exo 32:4), is an instrument for cutting in, engraving in wood, metal, wax, etc., the chisel, style. It stands here as stylus, metonymically as efficiens pro effecto, i. e., the writing instrument stands for the writing. seems to me not to mean writing of the common man in distinction from that of men of higher degree, say, a popular as distinguished from priestly writing. [In an ordinary and familiar hand, J. A. ALEXANDER, BARNES.] For in the first place it is very doubtful if has this meaning. The word is distinguished from (comp. Psa 73:5) but only by its poetic use. It occurs in Isaiah six times, here, and Isa 13:7; Isa 13:12; Isa 24:6; Isa 33:8; Isa 51:7; Isa 56:2. In the second place we have no trace of there being two sorts of writing in use among the Hebrews before the exile. The passages Hab 2:2; Psa 45:2, cited by some in support of the notion, prove nothing. I much rather believe that a contrast of human and superhuman writing is meant. For as Paul distinguishes between human and angel tongues (1Co 13:1) so we may distinguish between human and angel writing. Of the latter, Dan 5:5 sqq. offers us an example. Comp. Exo 32:32; Psa 69:29; Psa 139:16; Dan 12:1; Rev 19:12; Rev 20:12; Rev 20:15; Rev 21:12; Rev 21:27. For the prophets were not merely hearers of the words of God, but also men whose eyes were open, who saw the vision of the Almighty (Num 24:3-4). The is variously explained. It is taken as constructio periphrastica (acceleratura sunt spolia or accelerationi spolia, comp. Gen 15:12; Jos 2:5; Isa 10:32; Isa 37:26; Isa 38:20, etc.), as depending on in the sense of commanding (1Ch 21:17), as sign of dedication, or as stating the object. The first two explanations are inadmissible, because would then fit only the first member ( as infinitive), not the second ( particip.). can thus be taken only as a dedication or as stating the aim. Both these ways of explaining it agree in not taking as infin., but as a verbal adjective like Zep 1:14 (comp. ). But they differ in sense. This can be no dedication in the common sense. For there is no gift to be presented to Maher-shalal, only the attention of the nation is directed to him. The can define therefore only the reference or the destiny, the aim. It is thereby said that this tablet with its inscription concerns a Maher-shalal-hash-baz, but of whom absolutely nothing is known, not even whether a person or a thing. Comp. Eze 37:16. The case is different with Jer 46:2; Jer 48:1; Jer 49:1. Comp. on Jeremiah 46. sqq.
On Isa 9:2. the LXX. translates as if stood in the text. So, too, the SYR., CHALD. and ARAB. in the London Polyglotte, which HITZIG follows. The VULG. translates: et adhibui; it therefore read ; and so, too, would EICHHORN, DE WETTE, ROORDA, KNOBEL, and others read. But, after mature consideration, I find there is no ground for departing from the reading of the text. It is perfectly supported by testimony. First of all it is the more difficult reading, and both the others give evidence of being attempts to relieve the difficulty by correction. Then, too, Isaiah never uses the cohortative form with the weakened sense, as it occurs elsewhere with the Vav consec. imperf. in the first pers., especially in Dan., Ezra, and Neh. Thus the form especially occurs Neh 13:21 (along with ibid. Isa 9:15). Why did not Isaiah write as Jeremiah did in precisely the same sense, Isa 32:10? Comp. 1Ki 2:42. The form is found Deu 31:28; Psa 50:7; Psa 81:9; Jer 6:10, everywhere as cohortative. like Jer 32:10; Jer 32:25; Jer 32:44.
On Isa 9:4. = one will bear. in the sense of possession, riches, treasures is found beside here Isa 10:14; Isa 60:5; Isa 60:11; Isa 61:6.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Moreover the Lord saidthe king of Assyria.
Vers 1-4. A compound token! First, Isaiah is to take a large tablet (only found beside Isa 3:23; here is meant certainly a tablet coated with smooth wax), and write on it with human handwriting some words. It is therefore assumed here that there is a superhuman handwriting (see Text. and Gram.) and that the Prophet could understand and make use of it (comp. Dan 5:5 sqq.). But Isaiah must not employ this superhuman, but common, human writing. Isaiah must write on the tablet Maher-shalal-hash-baz. It is clear that when he wrote these words they were not designated as the name of a son to be expected. For, first, there is nothing of this in the text. Second, there is a two-fold gradation of the prophecy wherein the first stage gives a pledge of the second. The words on the tablet are the prophecy of a Maher-shalal-hash-baz to be looked for; the appearance of the latter is therefore the fulfilment of this prophecy, and so the guaranty that the event, to which the significant name itself in turn refers, shall certainly come to pass.
The Lord commands the Prophet therefore to set up a tablet with the inscription mentioned, and at the same time makes known his will, that Uriah and Zechariah shall act as witnesses. What they are to witness is as little stated as that Isaiah shall accomplish the will of the LORD in regard to the witnesses and that he actually did this. The latter is assumed as being a matter of course. This scantiness is too common in the prophetic manner of narrating to cause us any surprise. The former is to be obtained from the context. For when we read immediately after: And I went unto the Prophetess, etc., it is plain that the witnesses should testify that Isaiah, at the time he set up the tablet, had communicated to them that he would approach his wife, and that she, in consequence, would become pregnant and bear a son. But why, it may be asked, did not the Prophet declare this publicly? Not out of regard for propriety certainly; for there would not have been anything the least offensive in doing so. But why must then the witnesses receive this announcement? I can think of no other reason than the enmity and vindictiveness of Ahaz. He was, we may be sure, only half rejoiced at the quieting of his fears in regard to the impending danger from Rezin and Pekah. The way in which he, according to Isa 7:10 sqq., received that reassuring announcement, and what was connected with it as a further finger-board for the remote future (Isa 7:17 sqq.), all this was calculated to embitter him and his against the Prophet. Had, therefore, the Prophet announced publicly the pregnancy of his wife, the mother and child might have incurred danger. This was easiest avoided by imparting the announcement only to witnesses, who, however, were in such esteem with the nation, that their assurance that they had at the proper time received such a communication from the Prophet was universally credited. Then we obtain the following chain of events. First, the tablet. This, makes known in general that the LORD purposes a great crisis of war, and that it is to be looked for shortly. Immediately thereupon the witnesses receive the announcement of the pregnancy of the Prophetess, The son is born, and thereby, on the authority of the witnesses, is given to all, the pledge that the event to which the inscription of the tablet and the corresponding name of the child pointed, shall really come to pass.
Whether Uriah is the priest mentioned, 2Ki 16:10 sqq. [BARNES, J. A. ALEXANDER], who, out of regard for Ahaz, placed in the temple the altar made after the heathen pattern, is just as doubtful as whether Zechariah is identical with the one said to be the author of Zechariah 9-11, or with the son of Asaph (2Ch 29:13).
Isaiahs wife is hardly called Prophetess, because she was the wife of a Prophet, but because she herself was a prophetic woman. We do not indeed know of prophecies of which she was the authoress, but she, along with other things of the Prophets family, was set for a sign and wonder (Isa 9:18).
Our exposition of Isa 7:14 of itself shows that the present history is not coincident with Isa 7:10 sqq., and therefore that Maher-shalal is not identical with Immanuel. Yet the present narrative is nearly related to Isa 7:10 sqq. In both, pregnancy and the birth of a son are pledges of deliverance. In both, a stage of development in the child is made the measure that defines the period of the deliverance. But a child can say father and mother, sooner than it can distinguish between good and evil. If then, as also the place of the passage in the book, indicates, what is now narrated, took place somewhat later than the events Isa 7:10 sqq., it agrees very well. Both have the same objective end, viz., the rendering harmless Syria and Ephraim. Therefore the later one must use the shorter time measure. As Pekah and Rezin lived during the events prophesied here, yet the former died B. C. 739, so the transactions related here must fall between B. C. 743 and 739. The king of Assyria did not at that time destroy Samaria. He only desolated a few border regions (2Ki 15:29). But as we showed at Isa 7:17, that the prophecy contemplated two events, inwardly related, but separated as to time, so it is here. That first, preliminary devastation of the region of Ephraim bears the later one (2Ki 17:6) so really in it, that the Prophet is justified in comprehending both together.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Isa 7:1. Hierosolyma oppugnatur, etc. Jerusalem is assaulted but not conquered. The church is pressed but not oppressed.Foerster.
2. On Isa 7:2. Quando ecclesia, etc. When the Church is assaulted and Christ crucified over again in His elect, Rezin and Pekah, Herod and Pilate are wont to form alliance and enter into friendly relations. There are, so to speak, the foxes of Samson, joined indeed by the tails, but their heads are disconnected.Foerster.He that believes flees not (Isa 28:16). The righteous is bold as a lion (Pro 28:1). Hypocrites and those that trust in works (work-saints) have neither reason nor faith. Therefore they cannot by any means quiet their heart. In prosperity they are, indeed, overweening, but in adversity they fall away (Jer 17:9). Cramer.
3. On Isa 7:9. (If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.) Insignis sententia, etc. A striking sentiment that may be adapted generally to all temptation, because all earnest endeavor after anything, as you know, beguiles us in temptation. But only faith in the word of promise makes us abide and makes sure whatever we would execute. He warns Ahaz, therefore, as if he said: I now promise you by the word, it shall be that those two kings shall not hurt you. Believe this word! For if you do not, whatever you afterwards devise will deceive you: because all confidence is vain which is not supported by the word of God.Luther.
4. On Isa 7:10-12. Wicked Ahaz pretends to great sanctity in abstaining from asking a sign through fear of God. Thus hypocrites are most conscientious where there is no need for it: on the other hand, when they ought to be humble, they are the most insolent. But where God commands to be bold, one must be bold. For to be obedient to the word is not tempting God. That is rather tempting God when one proposes something without having the word for it. It is, indeed, the greatest virtue to rest only in the word, and desire nothing more. But where God would add something more than the word, then it must not be thought a virtue to reject it as superfluous. We must therefore exercise such a faith in the word of God that we will not despise the helps that are given in addition to it as aids to faith. For example the Lord offers us in the gospel all that is necessary to salvation. Why then Baptism and the Lords Supper? Are they to be treated as superfluous? By no means. For if one believes the word he will at the same time exhibit an entire obedience toward God. We ought therefore to learn to join the sign with the word, for no man has the power to sever the two.
But do you ask: is it permitted to ask God for a sign? We have an example of this in Gideon. Answer: Although Gideon was not told of God to ask a sign, yet he did it by the impulse of the Holy Spirit, and not according to his own fancy. We must not therefore abuse his example, and must be content with the sign that is offered by the Lord. But there are extraordinary signs or miracles, like that of the text, and ordinary ones like Baptism and the Lords Supper. Yet both have the same object and use. For as Gideon was strengthened by that miraculous event, so, too, are we strengthened by Baptism and the Lords Supper, although no miracle appears before our eyes. Heim and Hoffmann after Luther. Eliezer, the servant of Abraham, also asked the Lord to show him the right wife for Isaac by means of a sign of His own choosing, (Gen 24:14).
It ought to be said that this asking a sign (opening the Bible at a venture, or any other book) does not suit Christian perfection (Heb 6:1). A Christian ought to be inwardly sensible of the divine will. He ought to content himself with the guarantees that God Himself offers. Only one must have open eyes and ears for them. This thing of demanding a sign, if it is not directly an effect of superstition (Mat 12:39; Mat 16:4; 1Co 1:22), is certainly childish, and, because it easily leads to superstitious abuses, it is dangerous.
5. On Isa 7:13. Non caret, etc. That the Prophet calls God his God is not without a peculiar emphasis. In Zec 2:12 it is said, that whoever touches the servants of God touches the pupil of Gods eye. Whoever opposes teacher and preacher will have to deal with God in heaven or with the Lord who has put them into office.Foerster.
6. On Isa 7:14. The name Immanuel is one of the most beautiful and richest in contents of all the Holy Scripture. God with us comprises Gods entire plan of salvation with sinful humanity. In a narrower sense it means God-man (Mat 1:23), and points to the personal union of divinity and humanity, in the double nature of the Son of God become man. Jesus Christ was a God-with-us, however, in this, that for about 33 years He dwelt among us sinners (Joh 1:11; Joh 1:14). In a deeper and wider sense still He was such by the Immanuels work of the atonement (2Co 5:19; 1Ti 2:3). He will also be such to every one that believes on Him by the work of regeneration and sanctification and the daily renewal of His holy and divine communion of the Spirit (Joh 17:23; Joh 17:26; Joh 14:19-21; Joh 14:23). He is such now by His high-priestly and royal administration and government for His whole Church (Mat 28:20; Heb 7:25). He will be snch in the present time of the Church in a still more glorious fashion (Joh 10:16). The entire and complete meaning of the name Immanuel, however, will only come to light in the new earth, and in the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev 21:3; Rev 21:23; Rev 22:5).Wilh. Fried. Roos.
Isa 8:7. On Isa 8:5 sqq. Like boastful swimmers despise small and quiet waters, and on the other hand, for the better display of their skill, boast of the great sea and master it, but often are lost in it,thus, too, did the hypocrites that despised the small kingdom of Judah, and bragged much and great things of the power and splendor of the kingdom of Israel and of the Syrians; such hypocrites are still to be found now-a-dayssuch that bear in their eye the admiranda Romae, the splendor, riches, power, ceremonies and pomp of the Romish church, and thereupon set their bushel by the bigger-heap. It is but the devils temptation over again: I will give all this to thee.Cramer.Fons Siloa, etc. The fountain of Siloam, near the temple, daily reminded the Jews that Christ was coming.Calvin on Joh 9:7.
8. On Isa 8:10. When the great Superlatives sit in their council chambers and have determined everything, how it ought to be, and especially how they will extinguish the gospel, then God sends the angel Gabriel to them, who must look through the window and say: nothing will come of it.Luther.Christ, who is our Immanuel, is with us by His becoming man, for us by His office of Mediator, in us by the work of His sanctification, by us by His personal, gracious presence.Cramer.
9. On Isa 8:14-15. Christ alone is set by God to be a stone by which we are raised up. That He is, however, an occasion of offence to many is because of their purpose, petulance and contempt (1Pe 2:8). Therefore we ought to fear lest we take offence at Him. For whoever falls on this stone will shatter to pieces (Mat 21:44). Cramer.
10. On Isa 8:16 sqq. He warns His disciples against heathenish superstition, and exhorts them to show respect themselves always to law and testimony. They must not think that God must answer them by visions and signs, therefore He refers them to the written word, that they may not become altogether too spiritual, like those now-a-days who cry: spirit! spirit! Christ says, Luke 16 : They have Moses and the prophets, and again Joh 5:39 : Search the Scriptures. So Paul says, 2Ti 3:16 : The Scripture is profitable for doctrine. So says Peter, 2Pe 1:9 : We have a sure word of prophecy. It is the word that changes hearts and moves them. But revelations puff people up and make them insolent. Heim and Hoffmann after Luther.
Chap. 911. On Isa 9:1 sqq. (2). Postrema pars, etc. The latter part of chap. 8 was (legal and threatening) so, on the other hand, the first and best part of chap. 9 is , (evangelical and comforting). Thus must ever law and gospel, preaching wrath and grace, words of reproof and words of comfort, a voice of alarm and a voice of peace follow one another in the church. Foerster.
12. On Isa 9:1 (2). Both in the Old Testament and New Testament Christ is often called light. Thus Isaiah calls Him a light to the gentiles, Isa 42:6; Isa 49:6. The same Prophet says: Arise, shine (make thyself light), for thy light is come, Isa 60:1. And again Isa 9:19 : The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light. In the New Testament it is principally John that makes use of this expression: The life was the light of men, Joh 1:4, and the light shined in the darkness, Joh 9:5. John was not that light, but bore testimony to the light, Joh 9:8. That was the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, Joh 9:9. And further: And this is the condemnation that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, Joh 3:19. I am the light of the world, (Joh 8:12; Joh 9:5; comp. Joh 12:35).
13. On Isa 9:1 (2). The people that sit in darkness may be understood to comprise three grades. First, the inhabitants of Zebulon and Naphtali are called so (Isaiah 8:23), for the Prophets gaze is fixed first on that region lying in the extreme end of Palestine, which was neighbor to the heathen and mixed with them, and on this account was held in low esteem by the dwellers in Judah. The night that spreads over Israel in general is darkest there. But all Israel partakes of this night, therefore all Israel, too, may be understood, as among the people sitting in darkness. Finally, no one can deny that this night extends over the borders of Israel to the whole human race. For far as men dwell extends the night which Christ, as light of the world, came to dispel, Luk 1:76 sqq.
14. On Isa 9:5 (6). Many lay stress on the notion child, inasmuch as they see in that the reason for the reign of peace spoken of afterwards. It is not said a man, a king, a giant is given to us. But this is erroneous. For the child does not remain a child. He becomes a man: and the six names that are ascribed to Him and also the things predicted of His kingdom apply to Him, not as a child, but as a man. That His birth as a child is made prominent, has its reason in this, that thereby His relation to human kind should be designated as an organic one. He does not enter into humanity as a man, i.e. as one whose origin was outside of it, but He was born from it, and especially from the race of David. He is Son of man and Son of David. He is a natural offshoot, but also the crowning bloom of both. Precisely because He was to be conceived, carried and born of a human mother, and indeed of a virgin, this prophecy belongs here as the completion and definition of the two prophetic pictures Isa 7:10 sqq.; Isa 8:1 sqq.He came down from heaven for the sake of us men, and for our bliss (1Ti 1:15; Luk 2:7). For our advantage: for He undertook not for the seed of angels, but for the seed of Abraham (Heb 2:16). Not sold to us by God out of great love, but given (Rom 5:15; Joh 3:16). Therefore every one ought to make an application of the word to us to himself, and to learn to say: this child was given to me, conceived for me, born to me.Cramer.Cur oportuit, etc. Why did it become the Redeemer of human kind to be not merely man nor merely God, but God and man conjoined or ? Anselm replies briefly, indeed, but pithily: Deum qui posset, hominem, qui deberet. Foerster.
15. On Isa 9:5 (6). You must not suppose here that He is to be named and called according to His person, as one usually calls another by his name; but these are names that one must preach, praise and celebrate on account of His act, works and office. Luther.
16. On Isa 9:6. Verba pauca, etc. A few words, but to be esteemed great, not for their number but for their weight. Augustine. Admirabilis in, etc. Wonderful in birth, counsellor in what He preaches, God in working, strong in suffering, father of the world to come in resurrection, Prince of peace in bliss perpetual. Bernard of Clairvaux. In reference to a child is born, and a son is given, Joh. Cocceius remarks in his Heb. Lex. s. v. : respectu, etc., in respect to His human nature He is said to be born, and in respect to His divine nature and eternal generation not indeed born, but given, as, Joh 3:16, it reads God gave His only begotten Son.
In the application of this language all depends on the words is born to us, is given to us. The angels are, in this matter, far from being as blessed as we are. They do not say: To us a Saviour is born this day, but; to you. As long as we do not regard Christ as ours, so long we shall have little joy in Him. But when we know Him as our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption, as a gift that our heavenly Father designed for us, we will appropriate Him to ourselves in humble faith, and take possession of all His redeeming effects that He has acquired. For giving and taking go together. The Son is given to us; we must in faith receive Him. J. J. Rambach, Betracht. ber das Ev. Esaj., Halle, 1724.
On Isa 9:6 (7). The government is on His shoulders. It is further shown how Christ differs in this respect from worldly kings. They remove from themselves the burden of government and lay it on the shoulders of the privy counsellors. But He does not lay His dominion as a burden on any other; He needs no prime minister and vicegerent to help Him bear the burden of administration, but He bears all by the word of His power as He to whom all things are given of the Father. Therefore He says to the house of Jacob (Isa 46:3 sq.): Hearken unto me ye who were laid on my shoulders from your mothers womb. I will carry you to old age. I will do it, I will lift, and carry and deliver,on the contrary the heathen must bear and lift up their idols, (Isa 46:1; Isa 46:7).Rambach. In the first place we must keep in mind His first name: He is called Wonderful. This name affects all the following. All is wonderful that belongs to this king: wonderfully does He counsel and comfort; wonderfully He helps to acquire and conquer, and all this in suffering and want of strength. (Luther, Jen. germ. Tom. III. Fol. 184 b.). He uses weakness as a means of subduing all things to Himself. A wretched reed, a crown of thorns and an infamous cross, are the weapons of this almighty God, by means of which He achieves such great things. In the second place, He was a hero and conqueror in that just by death, He robbed him of his might who had the power of death, i.e., the devil (Heb 2:14); in that He, like Samson, buried His enemies with Himself, yea, became poison to death itself, and a plague to hell (Hos 13:14) and more gloriously resumed His life so freely laid down, which none of the greatest heroes can emulate.Rambach.
17. On Isa 9:18 (19) sqq. True friendship can never exist among the wicked. For every one loves only himself. Therefore they are enemies one of another; and they are in any case friends to each other, only as long as it concerns making war on a third party.
Isaiah 10-18. On Isa 10:4. (Comp. the same expression in chap. 10). Gods quiver is well filled. If one arrow does not attain His object, He takes another, and so on, until the rights of God, and justice have conquered.
19. On Isa 10:5-7. God works through men in a threefold way. First, we all live, move and have our being in Him, in that all activity is an outflow of His power. Then, He uses the services of the wicked so that they mutually destroy each other, or He chastises His people by their hand. Of this sort the Prophet speaks here. In the third place, by governing His people by the Spirit of sanctification: and this takes place only in the elect.Heim and Hoffmann.
20. On Isa 10:5 sqq. Ad hunc, etc. Such places are to be turned to uses of comfort. Although the objects of temptation vary and enemies differ, yet the effects are the same, and the same spirit works in the pious. We are therefore to learn not to regard the power of the enemy nor our own weakness, but to look steadily and simply into the word, that will assuredly establish our minds that they despair not, but expect help of God. For God will not subdue our enemies, either spiritual or corporal, by might and power, but by weakness, as says the text: my strength is made perfect in weakness. (2Co 12:9).Luther.
21. On Isa 10:15. Efficacia agendi penes Deum est, homines ministerium tantum praebent. Quare nunc sibilo suo se illos evocaturum minabatur (cap. Isa 5:26; Isa 7:18); nunc instar sagenae sibi fore ad irretiendos, nunc mallei instar ad feriendos Israelitas. Sed praecipue tum declaravit, quod non sit otiosus in illis, dum Sennacherib securim vocat, quae ad secandum manu sua et destinata fuit et impacta. Non male alicubi Augustinus ita definit, quod ipsi peccant, eorum esse; quod peccando hoc vel illud agant, ex virtute Dei esse, tenebras prout visum est dividentis (De praedest Sanctt.).Calvin Inst. II. 4, 4.
22. On Isa 10:20-27. In time of need one ought to look back to the earlier great deliverances of the children of God, as to the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt, or later, from the hand of the Midianites. Israel shall again grow out of the yoke.Diedrich.
Isaiah 11-23. On Isa 11:4. The staff of His mouth. Evidence that the kingdom of Christ will not be like an earthly kingdom, but consist in the power of the word and of the sacraments; not in leathern, golden or silver girdles, but in girdles of righteousness and faith.Cramer.
24. On Isa 11:10 sqq. If the Prophet honors the heathen in saying that they will come to Christ before Israel, he may be the more readily believed, when Isa 11:11 sqq., he gives the assurance that the return out of the first, the Egyptian exile, shall be succeeded by a return out of the second, the Assyrian exile, (taking this word in the wider sense of Isaiah). It is manifest that the return that took place under Zerubbabel and Ezra was only an imperfect beginning of that promised return. For according to our passage this second return can only take place after the Messiah has appeared. Farthermore, all Israelites that belong to the remnant of Israel, in whatever land they may dwell, shall take part in it. It will be, therefore, a universal, not a partial return. If now the Prophet paints this return too with the colors of the present (Isa 11:13 sqq.), still that is no reason for questioning the reality of the matter. Israel will certainly not disappear, but arise to view in the church of the new covenant. But if the nation is to be known among the nations as a whole, though no more as a hostile contrast, but in fraternal harmony, why then shall not the land, too, assume a like position among the lands? But the nation can neither assume its place among nations, nor the land its place among lands, if they are not both united: the people Israel in the land of their fathers.
25. On Isaiah 11 We may here recall briefly the older, so-called spiritual interpretation. Isa 11:1-5 were understood of Christs prophetic office that He exercised in the days of His flesh, then of the overthrow of the Roman Empire and of Antichrist, who was taken to be the Pope. But the most thorough-going of those old expositors must acknowledge, at Isa 11:4, that the Antichrist is not yet enough overthrown, and must be yet more overthrown. If such is the state of the case, then this interpretation is certainly false, for Isa 11:4 describes not a gradual judgment, but one accomplished at once. There have been many Antichrists, and among the Popes too, but the genuine Antichrist described 2 Thessalonians 2, is yet to be expected, and also the fulfillment of Isa 11:4 of our chapter. Thereby is proved at the same time that the peaceful state of things in the brute world and the return of the Jews to their native land are still things of the future, for they must happen in that period when the Antichristian world, and its head shall be judged by Christ. But then, too, the dwelling together of tame and wild beasts is not the entrance of the heathen into the church, to which they were heretofore hostile, and the return of the Jews is not the conversion of a small part of Israel that took place at Pentecost and after. The miracles and signs too, contained in Isa 11:15-16 did not take place then. We see just here how one must do violence to the word if he will not take it as it stands. But if we take it as we have done, then the whole chapter belongs to the doctrine of hope (Hoffnungslehre) of the Scripture, and constitutes an important member of it. The Lord procures right and room for His church. He overthrows the world-kingdom, together with Antichrist. He makes of the remnant of Israel a congregation of believers filled with the Spirit, to whom He is near in an unusual way, and from it causes His knowledge to go out into all the world. He creates peace in the restless creatures, and shows us here in advance what more glorious things we may look for in the new earth. He presents to the world a church which, united in itself, unmolested by neighbors, stands under Gods mighty protection. All these facts are parts of a chain of hope that must be valuable and dear to our hearts. The light of this future illumines the obscurity of the present; the comfort of that day makes the heart fresh. Weber, der Prophet Jesaja, 1875.
Chap. 1226. On Isa 12:4 sq. These will not be the works of the New Testament: sacrificing and slaying, and make pilgrimage to Jerusalem and to the Holy Sepulchre, but praising God and giving thanks, preaching and hearing, believing with the heart and confessing with the mouth. For to praise our God is good; such praise is pleasant and lovely (Psa 147:1). Cramer.
27. On Chap. 12 With these words conclude the prophetic discourses on Immanuel. Through what obscurity of history have we not had to go, until we came to the bright light of the kingdom of Christ! How Israel and the nations had to pass through the fire of judgment before the sun arises in Israel and the entire gentile world is illumined! It is the, same way that every Christian has to travel. In and through the fire we become blessed. Much must be burnt up in us, before we press to the full knowledge of God and of His Son, before we become entirely one with Him, entirely glad and joyful in Him. Israel was brought up and is still brought up for glory, and we too. O that our end too were such a psalm of praise as this psalm! Weber, Der Pr. Jes. 1875.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
The prophet is in this chapter opening a subject, concerning the future troubles of Israel and Judah, by reason of their sins, and in a spirit of prophecy pointing out the destruction of both kingdoms, which should be accomplished. But the loving-kindness and grace of God mingles great promises of mercy, in the midst of judgment; and all in allusion to Christ.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
The prophet is commanded to commit to writing what he had to deliver. We have reason to bless God for this appointment, by which scripture records have been handed down to us. We find several prophets speaking of it, Jer 36:28Jer 36:28 ; Hos 8:12 ; and he that seems to have represented the Prince of the prophets, is said to have had a writer’s inkhorn by his side, to mark his people, Eze 9:2 . Precious Jesus! may it be found, that thou hast written my name in thy book of life; Luk 10:20 . No doubt, this scripture record of Isaiah was very weighty; for the Lord gave a name to it, and commanded the prophet to call his son by the same name, Maher-shalalhash-baz; which in the nearest sense of the words signifies, a making speed to the spoil; like one that hastens to lay hold of his prey in battle. And thus doubled as it were to the prophet’s mind, Isaiah was taught himself the certainty that the Lord would accomplish what he had pronounced. His child should never be named without bringing with him a fresh memorandum. Concerning those witnesses he took with him, to record what he had written at the Lord’s command in the roll, the Prophet calls them faithful witnesses; by which presume he meant, men in office, who could not afterwards depart from what they had subscribed their hands to; for one of those men, Uriah the priest, as we read 2Ki 16:10-16 , proved very unfaithful to the Lord, in setting up an altar after the pattern of the idolatrous altar which Ahaz brought from Damascus. But probably this act of Uriah was after this prophecy of Isaiah. The same scripture gives an account of the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, 2Ki 16:9 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Panics and Answers
Isaiah 7-8
These chapters are, for popular purposes, practically sealed books. It would be difficult to say with definiteness what they mean. The instances referred to are all of high antiquity, and the immediate local reference would be of little interest to the majority of men, even if it could be determined specifically and finally. We must, therefore, study the two chapters with the view of discovering what we may that is applicable to our own experience, that falls into harmony with our own consciousness; and with a desire to apply what we may find with a strong and fearless hand to all the necessities which may arise in our own lives and experience.
It is wonderful how amongst the most ancient writings we come ever and anon upon words which we seem to know words which are quite modern in their meaning, and immediate in all their significance and application. For example, we have an instance ( Isa 7:1 ) which fairly typifies the many threatenings which have been directed against the city of God. We hear of men, be their names what they may, who “went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it.” The sentence thus divides itself easily into the two parts which are always making themselves so obvious to our own inspection and perusal of history. The men went up to Jerusalem “to war against it.” Had the statement ended there we should have said, They were strong men, they were confederated men; they had studied the problem well from a military point of view, and no doubt Jerusalem was crushed by their oppressive hand. How many persons do really terminate a report at a comma, and say, Have you heard what an attack has been made upon Christian doctrine, upon the Christian Church, upon the very idea of God? But that is a poor report to give; the inquiry is wholly misleading. Yet how often the sentence terminates in the inquiry! A new book is issued which is supposed to be very able in its argument, and most copious in its references; and people say in alarm, Have you heard that another assault has been made upon a Christian stronghold? What of it? The stronghold is still there; the men who inhabit it are looking quietly out of the windows, and wondering at the poor fools who are bruising their hands against the eternal granite. State the whole case. What vital Christian doctrine has been successfully assailed? The most brilliant lectures have been directed against the theological Jerusalem; men of riotous genius and power of expression have come up to laugh at God’s Jerusalem; but that must not be the whole statement which we make. Continue the verse as we find it, and we shall read, “but could not prevail against it.” Now we have a complete history. And this exactly represents the whole course of assault as directed against the Jerusalem of truth. This must be always so. “We can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth”: clever arguments, witty retorts, brilliant repartees, criticisms that dazzle by their brightness and exasperate by their acerbity, come and go, and Jerusalem stands, sunlit, fair, invincible.
Then, proceeding to the second verse, we have an instance of the many panics into which the city of God has been needlessly thrown. When the news was told to the house of David, saying, Syria leans upon Ephraim, or Syria is confederated with Ephraim, the two are one, the heart of Ahaz “was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.” And yet the true Davidic spirit that was within Jerusalem felt no flutter of panic. The Spirit of the indwelling God is not represented even by the men who inhabit Jerusalem: they are of the flesh, their days are a handful, they are quailing under great infirmity, they are disturbed by something within themselves, and all this concurring with an outward untowardness of circumstance, eventuates in panic, in heart-fluttering, in heart-melting, so that even strong men say, Alas! what shall we do in face of this tremendous confederacy? God is the keeper of Jerusalem. The battle is not yours, but God’s. It is sad indeed when standard-bearers faint, and when those who keep look-out from the city towers begin to announce what they see in a voice of trembling, as if their hearts had been smitten with dismay; but God is King in Zion, the Lord reigneth; these men themselves are better than their fears; when they come really to reflect upon all the circumstances, they will say, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea’: the panic is for a moment, the fluttering is a passing spasm; but the faith the deep, solemn, living confidence asserts itself in the long-run, and there is great quietness even though Rezin and Pekah thunder at the gates of the city. It is pitiful to see how many men give way under panic. There is only need to publish a book of blatant heterodoxy, and some persons will begin to fear that the ark of the Lord has been taken, and that the altar has been torn down stone by stone, so that not even the foundation is left. Such people have no true grasp of God; they have never known the mysterious joy of identification with God, such as is suggested by the words: We live, and move, and have our being in God. The Church, in her true conception of election and vocation, can be no more troubled than God himself can be distressed. When she detaches herself from the sovereignty of God, and looks upon herself as a merely human institution, subsisting upon covenants that are frangible and that admit of many different interpretations, she will be the sport of every wind, the laughing-stock of every new folly; but when the Church says, I am in God, I live in God, without him I have no life, I can do nothing of myself, I am as the branch in the living vine, I look to God, then she can no more be disconcerted, driven back, and ruined, than the eternal throne can shake because of the little winds that scourge themselves into gales, and disturb the brickwork of our common civilisation. Do we live in God? Are we enclosed with him in his sanctuary? Are the everlasting arms around us?
Then, proceeding further, we find an instance in which the only comforting answer could come from God:
“Then said the Lord unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shear-jashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field; and 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. Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying, Let 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: thus saith the Lord God, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass. For 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. And 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.” ( Isa 7:3-9 )
There is a point in human history at which God comes in, takes up the whole occasion, and rules it himself, saying, as it were, with ineffable gentleness, You cannot imagine this; a business so complicated is too hard for you; stand back, I will undertake for thee, O threatened Zion. So, “Then said the Lord unto Isaiah——” There is always some man to send, some man of purged lips, some man fire-touched, who will face the occasion under the inspiration and comfort of the Paraclete. Here, as ever, human ministry is employed to carry out divine purposes. Then here is a man sent of God so confident that he becomes contemptuous of the opposition. Isaiah said unto the king: “Be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands.” The figure is that of two torches that have been burned down to the root, and nothing is left of them but smoke; the fire is nearly out, and a little wreath of smoke expresses the strength of these two firebrands. The contempt which Righteousness can assume is a terrible sarcasm. When Judgment laughs, the laugh is spectral and heartshaking; it sends a sense of dismay into the innermost parts of the spirit: when God laughs at our calamity, our calamity is multiplied by infinity.
“… for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah.” Here is another touch of irony or scorn. Why was Pekah not mentioned by name? Because he was an upstart, an adventurer, a man who had no right to the throne; therefore he is shaken off the prophet’s hand as “the son of Remaliah.” Contempt of this kind is common in the Holy Scriptures: Saul is sometimes spoken of as “the son of Kish”; David himself was spoken of sometimes unrighteously and cruelly simply as “the son of Jesse”; and now Pekah is not even mentioned by name, some ancestor is brought up to lend him a moment’s respectability, and he is spat upon under his father’s name. God will have those in derision who set their shoulders against his throne for the purpose of overturning it. An awful expression is that “The Lord shall have them in derision”; he will say to them, Do your utmost: let me see your fine writhing; show me the trick of your white agony; what can you do against the Eternal? Then will he laugh, and they cannot answer; he will deride, and they shall be burned by the heat of his scorn.
Then there is a divine counterblast “It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass” ( Isa 7:7 ). That is the word upon which the Church relies. The Church does not expect to meet those who oppose it in the strength of her own genius, or because of the abundance and exactness of her own erudition; she hands the case over to God; she says, The heathen have raged, and the people have imagined a vain thing: send thou thy reply from the sanctuary; yea, answer them out of Zion. When we say, “The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh see it together,” we must continue, and say, “for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” We are living upon a divine assurance, standing upon a divine promise; if we are deceived, we have been deceived by the name of God; we have not yielded to some cunningly-devised fable; our humanity has been victimised by the false use of the only glorious Name. But until that has been proved, we abide in the covenant; we refer to the letter and to the testimony, and our proofs are a thousand strong to every enemy that assails Jerusalem.
Ahaz, however, was a mixed character. He has been convicted in history of being an idolater as well as a professor of the true religion. He was therefore the representative of double-mindedness, a halting between two opinions, that double-minded-ness which is unstable, and which cannot excel. Probably Isaiah, marking the workings of his countenance under the delivery of this communication, saw signs of fear, doubt, hesitancy: the king did not spring at the word with access of energy and with the confidence of inspiration; so the prophet, quick to detect all facial signs, blessed with the insight that follows the spirit in all its withdrawment, said instantly, “If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.” God works through human faith. The Saviour himself said again and again, “What wilt thou?” “Believest thou that I am able to do this?” Miracles are not thrown away upon unbelief, or are not worked for the purpose of gratifying curiosity; they are the answers to faith: if the age of miracles has ceased it is because the age of faith has vanished. Isaiah thus delivered his prophecy and acquitted his conscience. This is, indeed, all that men can sometimes do. The preacher must retire from his position with a cold heart, saying, My only solace is that I have delivered thy word; as for its music, it has been lost upon deaf ears; the dead have not heard it, and the living have been as dead men.
This is all generic, common to human history in some form or relation; now let us notice two or three remarkable expressions that probably occur nowhere else but in connection with this period of Biblical antiquity.
In Isa 8:14 there is one announced whose name is to be called “Immanuel.” The prophets made history by anticipating it; they projected themselves across the centuries and sunned themselves in the dawn of a new day. It would be altogether forcing the immediate prophecy beyond its meaning if we considered that Isaiah saw nothing but the day of Christ looming in the distant tuture. There have always been men in society who have represented the coming One shall we say, sub-Christs; Christs in type, symbol, shadow; peculiarly-minded men, partly of earth, mainly of heaven; mysterious men, who have had power of prayer, who have worsted angels in the night-time, and wrung from them victories expressed in new names and larger titles; singular, eccentric men, not to be enumerated with others or classified in plurals; solitary men. One of these Isaiah saw. It might have been his own son. But the larger meaning is only to be found in Christ. The article itself is definite; we are entitled to read not, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive,” but “Behold, the virgin shall conceive,” the Virgin Mother: the beginning of a new history; the second Adam; the larger Paradise never to be forfeited. All these ideas in some form or under some colour are in the passage, though its immediate meaning must not be unduly forced.
Then, according to Isa 7:18 , “the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt.” The hosts of Egypt were represented by the flies which all but darkened the air of that country at times, and the Lord should blow upon them make a kind of whistling noise in their ears. “… And for the bee that is in the land of Assyria” the innumerable bees that swarm in the forests and on the hills of Assyria: the Lord should whistle, or make a sibilant sound, as if calling the bees away to swarm elsewhere. He would not lift up his hand to smite: a hiss, a sibilance, a whisper behold, they have all fled! Commit thy way unto the Lord; let him treat your enemies: though an host should encamp against thee, in this be confident, that God is on thy side; that his word is, “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper.” “When a man’s ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.” Live in that confidence, and when Egypt and Assyria come as swarming flies and innumerable bees, God will make a sound in his heaven that will alarm them, or withdraw them, or cause them to die of fear.
More than this:
“In the same day shall the Lord shave with a rasor that is hired” ( Isa 7:20 ).
Ahaz thought by paying tribute to Assyria he was hiring an ally; the Lord said, You are not by your tribute engaging an ally, you are hiring a rasor, and that rasor shall shave you from head to foot, yea it shall not spare the beard; and to touch with a rasor the beard of the Oriental was to consummate all outrage, was to render reconciliation impossible. Have we not sometimes thought we were hiring allies when we have only been hiring a rasor? Can Israel have dealings with the uncongenial, the unfraternal, the spiritually alien, without suffering for the false contact, the vicious alliance, at some time or in some way? You thought you were buying an ally when you were only hiring a rasor by which you were to be rendered naked and made contemptible.
More
“It shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep” ( Isa 7:21 ).
Two ewes and a heifer shall be the property of him who was once a flockmaster! He who had a thousand heifers, and ewes without number, shall have to number his property as “a young cow and two sheep.”
More! The irony grows:
“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” ( Isa 7:22 ).
So does God make our poverty an irony. Our flocks shall be reduced, and yet so miserable shall be the general state of affairs that to have two ewes and one heifer will be to have plenty of milk and plenty of butter. How the Lord can change the face of society!
More still:
“And 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” ( Isa 7:23 ).
The vines were so abundant that men had scarcely to be at the trouble of gathering the fruit which was grown; they had but to put out their hands to fill them; and the time shall come when a thousand vines shall be for a thousand silverlings, and the vineyard shall be knotted, and entangled, and debased by briers and thorns; the ground once so fruitful shall be taken possession of by the meanest growths, and they shall so entwist themselves into the ground and into one another that ploughing shall be rendered impossible, and the fruitful hill shall be as a heap of stones! “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” “I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree. Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not; yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.” When thou, O Lord, dost arise to shake terribly the earth, what are our vines against thine anger? and as for our flocks, do they not fly before God’s thunder? Our only riches are spiritual; our only confidence is moral; if we are right with God, then we shall be right with nature, and our joy shall be full, because we have accepted the reconciliation which has been wrought out for us by the Son of God.
Still the promise lies in the distance:
“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” ( Isa 8:1 ).
Write it in no minute microscopical hand which only the learned can read, but take plenty of parchment, let the scroll be broad, and take up a workman’s pencil, broad at the point, and write, “Maher-shalal-hash-baz,” big enough that almost the blind can see it. God hath large print in some of his books. Verily, he can write a small hand too, which men only can see through the microscope of tears. Sometimes the Lord’s judgments are “abroad” in the earth, and sometimes they work with subtlety that cannot be valued by human criticism. What does Mahershalal-hash-baz mean? Speed-plunder, haste-spoil: the man shall arise who will do God’s judgments, and do them with earnestness, alacrity, precision, completeness. How the prophet lives in the future! There is always a Child to be born who will advance the kingdom of God. Do not believe that the ages have seen their greatest birth. Even Jesus Christ when he went away said: If I go away, I will send a Comforter, even the Paraclete, who shall abide with you for ever. The greatest births will be found by-and-by to be spiritual births new conceptions of God; new in the sense of being larger, juster, more pregnant with joy and promise. Christianity has to deal with the future. The Lord Jesus Christ made but few references to the past, but he did make some, and they were distinct and solid; but his eyes were set towards the coming Sun, the coming Kingdom, his own return, not as a man that could be seen, but as an inspiration and a sovereignty felt in every mind and heart, and owned by all who should come under its gracious and redeeming and sanctifying touch. But if we refuse we shall have to answer for it in judgment:
“Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son; now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria, and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels and go over all his banks: and he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel” ( Isa 8:6-8 ).
The choice is with ourselves. If we refuse gracious ministries we must encounter judicial judgment; if we will not allow the goodness of God to lead us to repentance, we must accept the criticism of God in anger, and yet in holy justice; if we cannot be lured we shall be driven; if we will not fall upon the stone and be broken, the stone will fall upon us and grind us to powder. God first tries gentle ministries, kind words, and loving speeches, entreating, importuning gospels; but there will come a time when his Spirit will no longer strive with men then cometh the judgment; and then human speech had better halt, for it has no words worthy of that visitation.
Then comes the grand appeal:
“To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” ( Isa 8:20 ).
A very singular expression this. The reference is not to some written book, as is generally supposed; the passage is often quoted as an authority for resting everything upon Scripture; there is no doubt that the words may be used in that sense by express accommodation, but not by literal criticism. The appeal is to the law and to the testimony written in our own hearts by the finger of God: let conscience speak; let reason, unprejudiced and unperverted, utter her voice; let human consciousness be a divine witness. How this enlarges the scope of God’s claim upon mankind! Not only is there a Book written with pen and ink, which we delight to believe to be the work of inspiration, but there is a book written within the human heart, upon the human heart. Even the heathen are a law unto themselves. God hath not left himself without witness in any land. This is the appeal which the Christian minister must make to all people in all countries, namely, Let your hearts speak; let your innermost, uppermost reason utter its verdict; be solemn, be true to your own best instincts, and answer this appeal from the Book of God. The image is beautiful, yea, exquisite. The Book speaks broadly and lovingly; and having ceased it would seem to wait for human consciousness, as expressed in conscience, reason, judgment, experience, to give its verdict. Take the case of Jesus Christ. Some one asked him: “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?” And he answered him; and one in the crowd said, “Well, Master, thou hast said the truth; for to love God and to love your neighbour is the whole law:” that is the voice, so to say, of independent judgment, reason, even of moral instinct. So the appeal must be addressed to every man’s own innermost nature. Come, what say you? Are you right? or are you wrong? Can you defend yourselves completely, and defy God to prove you to be wicked? Or do your hearts condemn themselves? Do you put your hand upon your mouth, and lay your head upon your sobbing breast, and say, The law of the Lord is right; I am born in sin, and shapen in iniquity; in sin my mother conceived me; I am not righteous, no, not in one point: God be merciful to me, a sinner? That would be the right answer to the divine appeal. Blessed is he who gives it, and works it out in practical piety!
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
XXVII
THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST IN ISAIAH
The relation between the New Testament Christ and prophecy is that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. To him give all the prophets witness. All the scriptures, the law, the prophets, and the psalms, testify of him. And we are fools, and slow of heart to credit adequate testimony when we distrust any part of the inspired evidence.
Of the ancient prophets Isaiah was perhaps the most notable witness of the coming Messiah. An orderly combination of his many messianic utterances amounts to more than a mere sketch, indeed, rather to a series of almost life-sized portraits. As a striking background for these successive portraits the prophet discloses the world’s need of a Saviour, and across this horrible background of gloom the prophet sketches in startling strokes of light the image of a coming Redeemer.
In Isa 2:2-4 we have the first picture of him in Isaiah, that of the effect of his work, rather than of the Messiah himself. This is the establishment of the mountain of the Lord’s house on the top of the mountains, the coming of the nations to it and the resultant millennial glory.
In Isa 4:2-6 is another gleam from the messianic age in which the person of the Messiah comes more into view in the figure of a branch of Jehovah, beautiful and glorious. In sketching the effects of his work here the prophet adds a few strokes of millennial glory as a consummation of his ministry.
In Isa 7:14 he delineates him as a little child born of a virgin, whose coming is the light of the world. He is outlined on the canvas in lowest humanity and highest divinity, “God with us.” In this incarnation he is the seed of the woman and not of the man.
The prophet sees him as a child upon whom the government shall rest and whose name is “Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isa 9:6 ). This passage shows the divinity of Christ and the universal peace he is to bring to the world. In these names we have the divine wisdom, the divine power, the divine fatherhood, and the divine peace.
In Isa 11:1-9 the prophet sees the Messiah as a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, i.e., of lowly origin, but possessing the Holy Spirit without measure who equips him for his work, and his administration wrought with skill and justice, the result of which is the introduction of universal and perfect peace. Here the child is presented as a teacher. And such a teacher! On him rests the seven spirits of God. The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge, and the fear of the Lord. He judges not according to appearances and reproves not according to rumors. With righteousness he judges the poor and reproves with equality in behalf of the meek. His words smite a guilty world like thunderbolts and his very breath slays iniquity. Righteousness and faithfulness are his girdle. He uplifts an infallible standard of morals.
In Isa 40:3-8 appears John the Baptist, whom Isaiah saw as a voice crying in the wilderness, preparing the way for the coming King.
In Isa 11:2 ; Isa 42:1 ; Isa 61:1-3 the prophet saw the Messiah as a worker in the power of the Spirit, in whom he was anointed at his baptism. This was the beginning of his ministry which was wrought through the power of the Holy Spirit. At no time in his ministry did our Lord claim that he wrought except in the power of the Holy Spirit who was given to him without measure.
In Isa 35:1-10 the Messiah is described as a miracle worker. In his presence the desert blossoms as a rose and springs burst out of dry ground. The banks of the Jordan rejoice. The lame man leaps like a hart, the dumb sing and the blind behold visions. The New Testament abounds in illustrations of fulfilment. These signs Christ presented to John the Baptist as his messianic credentials (Mat 11:1-4 ).
The passage (Isa 42:1-4 ) gives us a flashlight on the character of the Messiah. In the New Testament it is expressly applied to Christ whom the prophet sees as the meek and lowly Saviour, dealing gently with the blacksliding child of his grace. In Isa 22:22 we have him presented as bearing the key of the house of David, with full power to open and shut. This refers to his authority over all things in heaven and upon earth. By this authority he gave the keys of the kingdom to Peter one for the Jews and the other for the Gentiles who used one on the day of Pentecost and the other at the house of Cornelius, declaring in each case the terms of entrance into the kingdom of God. This authority of the Messiah is referred to again in Revelation:
And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as one dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying. Fear not: I am the first and the last, and the Living one; and I was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore and I have the keys of death and of Hades. Rev 7:17
And to the angel of the church in Philadelphis write: These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth and none shall shut, and shutteth and none openeth. Rev 3:7
In Isa 32:1-8 we have a great messianic passage portraying the work of Christ as a king ruling in righteousness, in whom men find a hiding place from the wind and the tempest. He is a stream in a dry place and the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
In Isa 28:14-18 the Messiah is presented to w as a foundation stone in a threefold idea:
1. A tried foundation stone. This is the work of the master mason and indicates the preparation of the atone for its particular function.
2. An elect or precious foundation stone. This indicates that the stone was selected and appointed. It was not self-appointed but divinely appointed and is therefore safe.
3. A cornerstone, or sure foundation stone. Here it is a foundation of salvation, as presented in Mat 16:18 . It is Christ the Rock, and not Peter. See Paul’s foundation in 1 Corinthians:
According to the grace of God which was given unto me; as a wise masterbuilder I laid a foundation; and another buildeth thereon. But let each man take heed how he buildeth thereon. For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 1Co 3:10-11 .
In Isa 49:1-6 he is presented as a polished shaft, kept close in the quiver. The idea is that he is a mighty sword. In Revelation, Christ is presented to John as having a sharp, twoedged sword proceeding out of his mouth.
In Isa 50:2 ; Isa 52:9 f.; Isa 59:16-21 ; Isa 62:11 we have the idea of the salvation of Jehovah. The idea is that salvation originated with God and that man in his impotency could neither devise the plan of salvation nor aid in securing it. These passages are expressions of the pity with which God looks down on a lost world. The redemption, or salvation, here means both temporal and spiritual salvation salvation from enemies and salvation from sin.
In Isa 9:1 f. we have him presented as a great light to the people of Zebulun and Naphtali. In Isa 49:6 we have him presented as a light to the Gentiles and salvation to the end of the earth: “Yea, he saith, It is too light a thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.”
In Isa 8:14-15 Isaiah presents him as a stone of stumbling: “And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many shall stumble thereon, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.”
The prophet’s vision of his maltreatment and rejection are found in Isa 50:4-9 ; Isa 52:13-53:12 . In this we have the vision of him giving his “back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair.” We see a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. His visage is so marred it startled all nations. He is a vicarious sacrifice. The chastisement of the peace of others is on him. The iniquity of others is put on him. It pleases the Father to bruise him until he has poured out his soul unto death as an offering for sin.
The teaching of Isaiah on the election of the Jews is his teaching concerning the “holy remnant,” a favorite expression of the prophet. See Isa 1:9 ; Isa 10:20-22 ; Isa 11:11 ; Isa 11:16 ; Isa 37:4 ; Isa 37:31-32 ; Isa 46:3 . This coincides with Paul’s teaching in Romans 9-11.
In Isa 32:15 we find Isaiah’s teaching on the pouring out of the Holy Spirit: “Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be esteemed as a forest,” and in Isa 44:3 : “For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and streams upon the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring.”
In Isa 11:10 he is said to be the ensign of the nations: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the root of Jesse, that standeth for an ensign of the peoples unto him shall the nations seek; and his resting place shall be glorious.”
Isa 19:18-25 ; Isa 54:1-3 ; Isa 60:1-22 teach the enlargement of the church. The great invitation and promise are found in Isa 55 .
The Messiah in judgments is found in Isa 63:1-6 . Here we behold an avenger. He comes up out of Edom with dyed garments from Bozra. All his raiment is stained with the blood of his enemies whom he has trampled in his vengeance as grapes are crushed in the winevat and the restoration of the Jews is set forth in Isa 11:11-12 ; Isa 60:9-15 ; Isa 66:20 . Under the prophet’s graphic pencil or glowing brush we behold the establishment and growth of his kingdom unlike all other kingdoms, a kingdom within men, a kingdom whose principles are justice, righteousness, and equity and whose graces are faith, hope, love, and joy, an undying and ever-growing kingdom. Its prevalence is like the rising waters of Noah’s flood; “And the waters prevailed and increased mightily upon the earth. And the water prevailed mightily, mightily upon the earth; and all the high mountains, that are under the whole heavens, were covered.”
So this kingdom grows under the brush of the prophetic limner until its shores are illimitable. War ceases. Gannenta rolled in the blood of battle become fuel for fire. Conflagration is quenched. Famine outlawed. Pestilence banished. None are left to molest or make afraid. Peace flows like a river. The wolf dwells with the lamb. The leopard lies down with the kid. The calf and the young lion walk forth together and a little child is leading them. The cow and the bear feed in one pasture and their young ones are bedfellows. The sucking child safely plays over the hole of the asp, and weaned children put their hands in the adder’s den. In all the holy realms none hurt nor destroy, because the earth is as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the fathomless ocean is full of water. Rapturous vision! Sublime and ineffable consummation! Was it only a dream?
In many passages the prophet turns in the gleams from the millennial age, but one of the clearest and best on the millennium, which is in line with the preceding paragraph, Isa 11:6-9 : “And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together: and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea.”
The prophet’s vision of the destruction of death is given in Isa 25:8 : “He hath swallowed up death for ever; and the Lord Jehovah will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the reproach of his people will he take away from all the earth: for Jehovah hath spoken it,” and in Isa 26:19 : “Thy dead shall live; my dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast forth the dead.”
The clearest outlines of the prophet’s vision of “Paradise Regained” are to be found in Isa 25:8 , and in two passages in chapter Isa 66 : Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn over her; that ye may suck and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory. For thus saith Jehovah, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream: and ye shall suck thereof; ye shall be borne upon the side, and shall be dandled upon the knees, as one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And ye shall see it, and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like the tender grass: and the hands of Jehovah shall be known toward his servants ; and he will have indignation against his enemies. Isa 66:10-14
For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make shall remain before me, saith Jehovah, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith Jehovah. Isa 66:22-23
QUESTIONS
1. What is the relation between the New Testament Christ and prophecy?
2. What can you say of Isaiah as a witness of the Messiah?
3. What can you say of Isaiah’s pictures of the Messiah and their background?
4. Following in the order of Christ’s manifestation, what is the first picture of him in Isaiah?
5. What is the second messianic glimpse in Isaiah?
6. What is Isaiah’s picture of the incarnation?
7. What is Isaiah’s picture of the divine child?
8. What is Isaiah’s vision of his descent, his relation to the Holy Spirit, his administration of justice, and the results of his reign?
9. What is Isaiah’s vision of the Messiah’s herald?
10. What is the prophet’s vision of his anointing?
11. What is the prophet’s vision of him as a miracle worker?
12. What is the prophet’s vision of the character of the Messiah?
13. What is the prophet’s vision of him as the key bearer?
14. What is the prophet’s vision of him as a king and a hiding place?
15. What is the prophet’s vision of the Messiah as a foundation stone?
16. What is the prophet’s vision of him as a polished shaft?
17. In what passages do we find the idea of the salvation of Jehovah, and what the significance of the idea?
18. What is Isaiah’s vision of the Messiah as a light?
19. Where does Isaiah present him as a stone of stumbling?
20. What is the prophet’s vision of his maltreatment and rejection?
21. What is the teaching of Isaiah on the election of the Jews?
22. Where do we find Isaiah’s teaching on the pouring out of the Holy Spirit?
23. Where is he said to be the ensign of the nations?
24. What passages teach the enlargement of the church?
25. Where is the great invitation and promise?
26. Where is the Messiah in judgment?
27. What passages show the restoration of the Jews?
28. What is the prophet’s vision of the Messiah’s kingdom?
29. What is the prophet’s vision of the millennium?
30. What is the prophet’s vision of the destruction of death?
31. What is the prophet’s vision of “Paradise Regained?”
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
XII
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH PART 4
Isa 7:1-10:14
In the outline the section, Isaiah 7-13, is called the book of Immanuel, because the name, “Immanuel,” occurs in it twice and it is largely messianic. There are four main divisions of this section preceded by a historical introduction, as follows: Historical introduction (Isa 7:1-2 )
I. Two interviews with Ahaz and their messages (Isa 7:3-25 )
II. Desolating judgments followed by salvation (Isa 8:1-9:7 III. Jehovah’s hand of judgments (Isa 9:8-10:4 IV. The debasement of the Assyrians and the salvation of true Israel (Isa 10:5-12:6
There are certain items of information in the historical introduction, as follows:
1. That the date of this section is the “days of Ahaz,” king of Judah.
2. That, during this reign, Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, king of Israel, attempted to take Jerusalem but failed.
3. That the confederacy between Syria and Ephraim caused great fear in Judah on the part of both the king and the people. By the command of Jehovah Isaiah, with his son, Shearjashub, went forth to meet Ahaz, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, in the highway of the fuller’s field to quiet his fear respecting the confederacy of Rezin and Pekah, assuring him that their proposed capture of Jerusalem and enthronement of Tabeel, an Assyrian, should not come to pass because Damascus and Samaria had only human heads, while Jerusalem had a divine head who was able to and would destroy their confederacy within sixty-five years, which included the work of Tiglath-pileser III, Shalmaneser IV, Sargon, Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon. The last named completed the destruction of the power of the ten tribes by placing heathen colonists in the cities of Samaria (2Ki 17:24 ; Eze 4:2 ). Then the prophet rested Ahaz’s case on his faith in Jehovah’s word and promise. This challenge of faith to Ahaz is beautifully expressed by the poet, thus: Happiest they of human race To whom our God has granted grace To read, to fear, to hope, to pray; To lift the latch and force the way.
It seems that Ahaz silently rejected Jehovah’s proposition of faith. So Jehovah, to give him another chance and to leave him without excuse, offers, through his prophet, to strengthen Ahaz’s faith by means of a sign, allowing him to name the sign to be given. But Ahaz made “a pious dodge” because of his contemplated alliance with Assyria, saying that he would not tempt Jehovah. Then the prophet upbraids the house of David for trying the patience of Jehovah and announces that Jehovah will give a sign anyway, which was the child to be born of a virgin, after which he goes on to show that the whole land shall be made desolate. Jehovah will summons the nations to devastate the land. Then he gives four pictures of its desolation as follows: (1) Flies and bees; (2) the hired razor; (3) one cow and two sheep; (4) briers and thorns.
Signs were of various kinds. They might be actual miracles performed to attest a divine commission (Exo 4:3-9 ), or judgments of God, significant of his power of justice (Exo 10:2 ), or memorials of something in the past (Exo 13:9 ; Exo 13:16 ), or pledges of something still future, such as are found in Jdg 6:36-40 ; 2Ki 20:8-11 et al. The sign here was a pledge of God’s promise to Ahaz of the destruction of Damascus, and Samaria and comes under the last named class. But as to its fulfilment there is much discussion, the most of which we may brush aside as altogether unprofitable. The radical critics contend that Isaiah expected a remarkable deliverer to arise in connection with the Assyrian war and deny that this refers at all to our Lord Jesus Christ. There seems to be no certain or common ground for mediating and conservative critics themselves. There are two main views held: (1) That a child was to be born in the days of Isaiah who was to be a type of the great Immanuel. They say that verses 15-16 favor this view. Now if the birth was to be natural, it seems to have a double sense, or else a very poor type. If there were a miraculous conception of a type of Christ in those days all records have been lost. At least, it is impossible to locate definitely the wonderful person who was to prefigure the real Immanuel. (2) That the reference is solely to the birth of Jesus Christ. But how could this be a sign unto Ahaz? Here we note the fact that this language respecting the sign is addressed to the “house of David” and therefore becomes a sign to the nation rather than to Ahaz alone. The time element of the prophecy hinges on the word, “before.” It is literally true that before this child grew to discern good and evil, the land of Damascus and the land of Israel had been laid waste. The text does not say how long before but the word, “before,” is used to express the order of events, rather than time immediately before. A good paraphrase of the prophecy would be, “O house of David, I will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel, but before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, Syria and Israel shall be forsaken and Jehovah will bring upon thee, and upon thy people, days unlike any that have come since Ephraim rebelled in the days of Jeroboam.” All this took place before the child was born who was to be the sign unto all people, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the idea of Gen 3:15 : “The seed of the woman [not of the man] shall bruise the serpent’s head,” and forecasts the doctrine of the incarnation, a doctrine essential to the redemption of the world. Of one thing we may be assured, viz: Never was this prophecy fulfilled until Jesus Christ was born of the virgin Mary. Of him old Simeon said, “He shall be set for a sign which is spoken against.” So we can plant ourselves squarely on Mat 1:23 and say, “Here is the fulfilment of Isa 7:14 .”
The significance of “the fly,” “the bee,” “the razor,” “the cow and two sheep,” and “briers and thorns” is important. The fly is here used to designate the Egyptian army which was loosely organized, something like the looseness with which flies swarm. The bee refers to Assyria whose armies were much better and more compactly organized than the Egyptian army, something like the order with which bees work. The hired razor refers to the king of Assyria, who had been hired, as it were, by Samaria to help them, meaning that this was to be the power by which Jehovah was going to accomplish his work of destruction upon Samaria and Damascus. The “cow and two sheep” signifies the scanty supply of animals left in the land after this desolation which was so clearly foretold. The “briers and thorns” represent the deserted condition of the country, in which the lands that were once tilled and valuable, would then become overgrown with briers and thorns.
There are three subdivisions of the section, Isa 8:1-9:7 , as follows:
1. The twofold sign of the punishment about to fall upon Damascus and Samaria.
2. The invasion of Judah.
3. Jehovah’s light dispels the darkness.
The twofold sign was the sign of the great tablet and the child’s name, which was intended especially for the doubters and unbelievers in the nation, as the sign, in the preceding chapter, of Immanuel, “God with us,” was sufficient for the reassurance of the faithful. This was a sign that would be verified in two or three years and at once placed the king and people on probation, forcing them to raise the question, “Shall we continue to look to Assyria for help, or shall we trust the prophet’s word about Assyria, Rezin, and Pekah?” The writing on the tablet and the child’s name were identical, meaning “Plunder speedeth, spoil hasteth,” from which sign and the obligations involved in its verification there was no escape. It was fulfilled in three or four years when Pekah was assassinated and Rezin slain by the king of Assyria.
The prophet describes this invasion as the waters of the Euphrates coming first against Damascus and Samaria because they looked to Rezin and Pekah rather than to Jehovah’s resources for relief, and bursting through them, who had been the breakwater for Judah against this flood, it would sweep on into Judah and overflow it.
Then the prophet (Isa 8:9-10 ) invites the people of the East to make an uproar and to devise all means possible for the destruction of Judah, but it would all come to nought, for God was with his people. Immanuel was their hope and is our hope. As Paul says in Rom 8:31 , “If God is for us, who is against us?”
As shown in Isa 8:11-15 , their real danger was not in invading armies, but in unbelief. Jehovah was to be their dread. He would be their sanctuary, their refuge, if they only believed on him. If not, he became a stone of stumbling or a snare unto them. This thought is amplified in the New Testament in many places (see Luk 2:34 ; Rom 9:33 ; 1Pe 2:8 , et al). The meaning of Isa 8:16-18 , “Bind thou up the testimony, etc.,” is Jehovah’s order to Israel to write the prophecy and to tie it up in the roll for the generations of his people to follow. Isaiah then expresses his abiding confidence in his and his children’s mission in being signs in Israel, looking to him for his favor.
The warning and exhortation (Isa 8:19-22 ) were given them in view of their coming troublous times when they would be tempted to turn to other sources of information rather than God’s revelations, which would lead them into greater darkness and confusion. A case of its violation is that of King Saul. When God refused to hear him because of his sin, he sought the witch of Endor, which in the light of this passage illustrates the operations of modern spiritualists.
Across the horrible background of Isa 8 the prophet sketches, in startling strokes of light, the image of a coming Redeemer, who brought light, liberty, peace, and joy to his subjects. The New Testament in Mat 4:15-16 , tells us that the light, liberty, peace, and joy of the prophecy were fulfilled in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali when Jesus and his disciples came among the people dwelling around the Sea of Galilee and preached his gospel and healed their sick and delivered their demoniacs. That his gospel was light, a great light. All knowledge is light. Whatsoever maketh manifest is light. And this gospel brought the knowledge of salvation in the remission of their sins. It revealed their relations toward God. It revealed God himself in the face of Jesus Christ. It discovered their sins and brought contrition and repentance. It revealed a sin-cleansing and sin-pardoning Saviour. Its reception brought peace by justification and brought liberty by dispossession of Satan. And with light, liberty, and peace came joy unspeakable.
The central text of this passage is, “For unto us a child is born and unto us a son is given.” The “for” refers to the preceding context, which tells us that she who was under gloom shall have no more anguish. That the people who walk in darkness behold a great light. That the land of Zebulun and Naphtali on which divine contempt had been poured is now overflowed with blessings. That with light has come liberty, and with liberty peace, and with peace joy and the joy of harvest and of victory, for this child is born. The coming of this child is assigned as the reason or cause for all this light, this liberty, this peace, this joy. Marvelous child to be the author of such blessings. Humanity is unquestionably here. It is a child, born of an earthly mother. But mere humanity cannot account for such glorious and eternal results. A mere child could not bear up under the government of the world and establish a kingdom of whose increase there should be no end.
The names ascribed to our Lord in Isa 9:6 cannot be Alexander, Caesar, or Bonaparte. Their kingdoms were not of peace, light, joy, and liberty. Their kingdoms perished with themselves. But what is this child’s name? It staggers us to call it: His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace! If this be not divinity, words cannot express it. And if it be divinity as certainly as a “child born” expresses humanity, then well may his name be “Wonderful,” for he is God-man. Earth, indeed, furnished his mother, but heaven furnished the sire. And if doubt inquire, how can these things be, it must be literally true as revealed and fulfilled later: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee, therefore, also the Holy One who shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”
In particular these names give us the following ideas of him:
1. “Wonderful, Counsellor” indicates the matchless wisdom with which he taught and lived among men. In all that concerns the glory of Jehovah and the welfare of his people, we may rely implicitly on the purposes and plans of this Deliverer.
2. “Mighty God” means the living and true God and refers to his omnipotence in carrying out his plans and purposes. He is not only God, but he is Almighty God, at whose command were the powers of the universe, “head over all things unto the church,” making “all things work together for good to them that love God.”
3. “Everlasting Father” means “Father of eternity” and refers to his divinity, whose “goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.”
4. “Prince of Peace” refers to his mission in the nature of his kingdom. He is not only a mighty hero but his kingdom is a kingdom of peace.
The promise here concerning his kingdom is that it is to be an everlasting kingdom, administered in peace and righteousness (Isa 9:6 ).
The title of section Isa 9:8-10:4 is “Jehovah’s hand of judgment,” and is suggested from the fact that this section is divided into four paragraphs, or strophes, each one ending with the sad refrain, “For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still,” i.e., for further chastisement. The special themes of these four paragraphs, respectively, are as follows:
1.Isa 9:8-12 , The loss of wealth, followed by repeated invasion.
2.Isa 9:13-17 , The loss of rulers.
3.Isa 9:18-21 , The devouring fire of their own sinfulness.
4.Isa 10:1-4 , A woe unto perverters and their utter helplessness.
The loss of wealth is described in Isa 9:8-12 . The prophet introduces this section by saying that the Lord had sent word to Jacob and it had lighted up Israel, i.e., this message of destruction was mainly for Israel, who were standing stoutly in the face of God’s chastisements, by substituting one thing for another destroyed by Jehovah. The prophet assures them that God has not exhausted all his means and that he will use Syria and Philistia to complete the work of desolation.
Then the loss of their rulers is described in Isa 9:13-17 . The prophet introduces this strophe with a complaint that Jehovah’s chastisements had been ineffective in turning Samaria to himself. Then he goes on to show that Jehovah would cut off from Israel the head, i.e., the elder, and the tail, i.e., the lying prophet; that he would destroy all without mercy because they were all profane.
The devouring fire of their own sinfulness follows in Isa 9:18-21 . The prophet here likens wickedness unto a devouring fire, which devours briers and thorns, then breaks out in the forests and rolls up its column of smoke. A very impressive picture of the course and penalty of wickedness, as it goes on to full fruitage in its destruction of those who practice it, until without discrimination it devours alike the neighbor and the kinsman.
In Isa 10:1-4 the prophet brings a heavy charge against this class, that they rob the poor and needy, and devour widows’ houses, making them their prey. What a picture of perverted justice! Because of this awful corruption there will be no hope for them before the enemy in the day of Jehovah’s visitation and desolation. They shall bow down under the prisoners and fall under the slain. A graphic description of their humiliation is this, yet, “For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.” A sad wail and a gloomy picture from which we joyfully turn to another section of the book, in which we have the enemies of Jehovah’s people brought low and the true Israel of God exalted. But this will follow in the next chapter.
QUESTIONS
1. What is the title of Isaiah 7-12 in the outline and why is it so called?
2. What is the outline of this division?
3. What is the items of information in the historical introduction?
4. Give an account of the first meeting with Ahaz and the message of the prophet in connection with it.
5. Give an account of the second meeting with Ahaz and the message of the prophet in connection with it.
6. What is the meaning of Jehovah’s sign to Ahaz and when was the prophecy of this sign fulfilled?
7. What is the significance of “the fly,” “the bee,” “the razor,” “the cow and two sheep,” and “briers and thorns”?
8. What are the three subdivisions of Isa 8:1-9:7 ?
9. What is the twofold sign of the punishment about to fall upon Damascus and Samaria and what the significance of it?
10. Describe the picture of the Assyrian invasion as given here by the prophet in Isa 8:5-8 .
11. What hope of defense against this invading power does the prophet hold out to Judah in Isa 8:9-10 ?
12. In what was their real danger as shown in Isa 8:11-15 ?
13. What was the meaning of Isa 8:16-18 , “Bind thou up the testimony, etc.”?
14. What is the special pertinency of the exhortation of’ Isaiah respecting familiar spirits in Isa 8:19-22 and what Old Testament example of the violation of its teaching?
15. What is the fulfilment and interpretation of the great messianic prophecy in Isa 9:1-7 ?
16. What are the names ascribed to our Lord in Isa 9:6 and what the significance of them in general and in particular?
17. What promise here concerning his kingdom?
18. What is the title of section Isa 9:8-10:4 and what suggests it?
19. What are the special themes of each of these four paragraphs?
20. How is the loss of wealth in Isa 9:8-12 described?
21. How is the loss of their rulers in Isa 9:13-17 described?
22. How is the devouring fire of their own sinfulness in Isa 9:18-21 described?
23. How is the woe against perverters of righteousness in Isa 10:1-4 here described?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Isa 8:1 Moreover the LORD said unto me, Take thee a great roll, and write in it with a man’s pen concerning Mahershalalhashbaz.
Ver. 1. Take thee a great roll. ] Or, Volume; so called either because it was rolled up together like the web upon the pin; or, as others, because it revealeth that unto us which otherwise we knew not. Blasphemous was that jeer of the Jews who called the evangel or gospel Aven gillaion, a volume of vanity. And no better was that of Bishop Bonner’s chaplain, who called the Bible, that blessed book, in scorn, his “little pretty God’s book.” This one small piece of it is here styled grande volumen, a great roll, for the fulness of the matter in fewness of words.
And write in it with a man’s pen.] That is, plainly and clearly, a that when it shall be fastened to the gate of the temple, or some way else be exposed to public view, “he that runneth may read it,” Hab 2:2 and he that readeth may understand it. And not be so written as that was, Dan 5:5 ; Dan 5:7 which none could read and unriddle but the prophet himself. Nor be, as Aristotle’s Acroamatics, published and yet unpublished. b
Concerning Maher-shalal-hash-baz.
a Chald. vertit Scripturam claram see Isa 30:8
b E
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Isaiah Chapter 8
We have already the two great parties of which the prophecy treats, Immanuel and the Assyrian. The virgin should conceive a Son – Messiah, Immanuel; Jehovah should bring upon the unworthy son of David the king of Assyria, to whom alone he had looked for succour. The humblest Jew ought to have cried to Jehovah.
In the chapter before us now we have other and fuller information vouchsafed of Jehovah. “And Jehovah said unto me, Take thee a great tablet, and write upon it with the pen of man, for Maher-shalal-hash-baz. And I took (or will take) unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah. And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said Jehovah unto me, Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz” (vv. 1-3). This is explained to Isaiah and by him, “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” (v. 4). And all this, as the inspired history proves, was fulfilled to the letter.
But there is more, “And Jehovah spoke again unto me, saying, Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that flow softly, even rejoicing in Rezin and in Remaliah’s son, therefore behold the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, the king of Assyria and all his glory. And he shall mount up over all his channels, and go over all his banks; and he shall sweep on into Judah; and he shall overflow and go farther, he shall reach [even] to the neck; and the out-stretching of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Emmanuel” (vv.5-8). We are here in the presence of the scenes of the latter day, whatever type in the measure of accomplishment near at hand. The water of Shiloah being despised, there must come the far different waters of the Assyrian and these all but overwhelmingly, when He (whose Incarnation had been announced to the unbelieving Ahaz as God’s sign in mercy) shall at length appear to vindicate His land. The Assyrian proudly fills the land, reaching even “to the neck”; yet he is not merely checked and put to shame, but utterly and for ever broken in Immanuel’s land. Compare Mic 5:3-6 ; for the mind of the Spirit is one, and scripture cannot be in vain.
The people here had no faith, any more than the king in the preceding scene. Both of them despised the ways and the promises of God. Their confidence, as their fear, was man. If Ahaz cowered before the two tails of the smoking firebrands, as Jehovah contemptuously designated the fierce anger of the combined kings of Israel and Syria, the people refused the softly flowing streams of Shiloah. Just would be their retribution. The impetuous river, the Assyrian, should rise to overflowing and well-nigh overwhelm the land.
But is it not “Thy land, O Immanuel”? Assuredly; and whatever be the king, whatever the people, whatever the needed humbling of them both, will not God avenge the insult to Him Who, when reviled, reviled not again? He is not deaf to the cry of His elect: how does He feel for Immanuel and Immanuel’s land? Did the people associate themselves? They might spare themselves the trouble; they shall be broken. Did all they of far countries gird themselves? If they fear not, let them hear their sentence of Jehovah. “Rage, ye peoples, and ye shall be broken in pieces. And give ear, all ye distant parts of the earth. Gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces. Take counsel together, and it shall come to naught; speak a word, and it shall not stand; for God [is] with us [Immanuel]” (vv. 9, 10). Immanuel is far more and other than Shear-jashub.
This opens the door for pointing out the path of faith for the godly, Jehovah Himself the sole and sure resource, the one object of reverence and fear in a day of manifold evil and thickening danger. “For Jehovah spoke thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me not to walk in the way of this people, saying, Say ye not, Confederacy (or conspiracy), of everything of which this people shall say, Confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be in dread. Jehovah of hosts, him shall ye sanctify; and [let] him [be] your fear, and [let] him [be] your dread. And he will be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken and snared and taken. Bind thou up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. And I will wait for Jehovah that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him. Behold, I and the children whom Jehovah hath given me [are] for signs and for wonders in Israel from Jehovah of hosts who dwelleth in mount Zion” (vv 11-18).
Now it is certain that those “disciples,” who had pre-trusted in the Christ (Eph 1:12 ), while the mass of the Jews rejected Him, as alas! they do still, became at Pentecost the nucleus of Christianity, and were “added together daily” by the Lord, and formed “their own company” (Act 4:23 ), distinctly called “the church” (Act 5:11 ) thenceforward. But this heavenly transformation is quite omitted here, and left as a secret to be made known in the New Testament. The prophet looks onward to the accomplishment of their hopes as Israel for the earth under the Messiah in the latter day. In neither the Old Testament is it Israel transferred to the church, nor in the New Testament the church incorporating Israel by-and-by. But the church itself, as Christ’s body, is in no way revealed here. It is left as a heavenly secret to be revealed to the holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit in the New Testament. And we pass over from the godly remnant at our Lord’s first advent to the troublous and dark scene which precedes the day of His appearing at the end of this age. This, which is the evident and simple truth of the passage, cuts up by the root the allegorizing fancy that Judah or Israel means the church. In fact, they never mean it but the ancient people of Jehovah reserved, through the just chastisement of their sins, to be His people blessed in sovereign mercy in His day of blessing for all the families of the earth. The church is called out of the world for heavenly glory. To identify two bodies so distinct and contrasted is to lose the definite truth of each and of both.
Meanwhile the prophet believes in what Jehovah made known, whether in judgement of the mass, or in mercy to the remnant. It is a Gentile thought, deserving of all reprobation, that prophecy was given only to be believed and understood when, being fulfilled, it then became history. There is a remnant always that believes; and they gather thereby present cheer in the midst of sorrow. In truth, to be thus in felt and confessed weakness, to be cast therefore on “Jehovah of hosts Himself,” is really, spite of all appearance to the eyes and reasonings of men, to be master of the situation. Even in a still more blessed way the apostle could take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake. “Most gladly (as he had said before) will I rather glory in mine infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” But here we listen to the prophet, who assures us of the final triumphant deliverance of Israel. There is connection with present facts, and looking onward through the dreary circumstances of the desolate remnant, till Jehovah rises up and settles all for their deliverance in the destruction of every foe. The united strength of their enemies should be vain. What those who feared Jehovah needed was neither a confederacy nor alarm at such as trusted in it, but to sanctify Jehovah, and make Him their sanctuary. Yet He should be a stone of stumbling, even to both the houses of Israel, yea, a gin and snare to Jerusalem itself.
It is clear, then, that here we have not only the nations who would have swallowed up Israel doomed to a total overthrow, but the truth so strange and unpalatable (save to Gentile conceit) long after, of Israel too in all its extent stumbling at the stone of stumbling – their own Jehovah-Messiah. And withal, in the midst are seen a feeble few cleaving to His testimony, and owned as His disciples, while Jehovah hid His face from the people as a whole. They become a separate remnant, when the mass stumble, fall, and are broken, snared and taken. Hence, in Heb 2:12 , Heb 2:13 , the Holy Spirit does not hesitate to cite v. 18 with other scriptures (Psa 16 ; Psa 22 ), to prove the sanctified and the Sanctifier “all of one.” For indeed He is not ashamed to call them brethren; and this, now in Christianity, while the nation is given over to blindness and unbelief.
Surely in presence of such a prophecy, more than seven centuries before it began to be fulfilled, men ought to be ashamed of their cavils. How overlook so plain a key to the light of God with Christ’s disciples, while the Jews have stumbled at the stumbling-stone, and Jehovah hides His face from the house of Jacob? Yet the Jews shall yet understand these signs and wonders when they bow their stiff neck to their rejected Messiah.
The closing verses show their exceeding iniquity and their impious recourse to the powers of darkness in their own evident want of light, as they despised and departed from the law and the testimony of Jehovah. The effect is intense misery, audacious rage, and blasphemy of their King and their God, in all the agony of despair. “And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits and unto the wizards, that chirp and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? on behalf of the living [should they seek] unto the dead? To the law and to the testimony! if they speak not according to this word, surely there is no morning for them. And they shall pass through it, hardly distressed and hungry: and it shall come to pass that, when they shall be hungry, they will fret themselves, and curse (or by) their king and their God, and turn their faces upward: and they will look unto the earth, and behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and into thick darkness they shall be driven away” (vv. 19-22).
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Isa 8:1-4
1Then the LORD said to me, Take for yourself a large tablet and write on it in ordinary letters: Swift is the booty, speedy is the prey. 2And I will take to Myself faithful witnesses for testimony, Uriah the priest and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah. 3So I approached the prophetess, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. Then the LORD said to me, Name him Maher-shalal-hash-baz; 4for before the boy knows how to cry out ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carried away before the king of Assyria.
Isa 8:1-4 Isaiah’s second son (cf. Isa 8:3) is a prophecy about the destruction of Judah’s main invader (i.e., Syro-Ephraimite war), Syria (capital of Damascus). Damascus was captured by Assyria in 732 B.C. and the inhabitants of the land were exiled. In some ways Isaiah’s second son parallels the promised child of Isa 7:14-16.
Isa 8:1 Take for yourself a large tablet and write on it YHWH gives Isaiah two commands.
1. take, BDB 542, KB 534, Qal IMPERATIVE
2. write, BDB 507, KB 503, Qal IMPERATIVE, often used of an engraving tool, cf. Exo 32:4; Exo 32:16
Notice that what YHWH will reveal must be written for contemporary, as well as future, readers and that it will take a large (BDB 152) piece of writing material or clay tablet or seal (cf. Isa 30:8). The Hebrew word (BDB 163) does not designate what kind of material (notice its use in Isa 3:23, where it could refer to cylindrical seals worn around the neck, cf. JB footnote, p. 1155, and the IVP Bible Background Commentary, p. 594). It is not certain from the text if the message is long or that it is just a phrase written in large letters!
NASBin ordinary letters
NKJV, LXX with a man’s pen
NRSV, REB,
JPSOAin common characters
TEVin large letters
NJBwith an ordinary stylus
PESHITTAon it plainly
This is obviously an ambiguous phrase because it is the only place with this word for man (BDB 60) is used for an inanimate object. YHWH wants His message recorded so that all His people can easily understand His message.
NASBSwift is the booty, speedy is the pray
NKJV, NRSVMaher-shalal-hash-baz
TEVQuick loot, fast plunder
PESHITTAto hasten the captivity, and to record the spoil
JB footnoteSpeed-spoil-quick-booty
REB footnoteSpeedy for spoil, hastening for plunder
This is the name of Isaiah’s second son, Maher-shalal-hash-baz (cf. Isa 8:3). The same two VERBS are in the sarcastic statement of Isa 5:19. It may be YHWH’s reaction to that Judean arrogance. It had (as all Isaiah’s sons’ names) a prophetic meaning for the people of his day. It seems to refer to Assyrian invasion because of Ahaz’s unbelief. This invasion overwhelms Judah as well as Syria and Israel.
In Hab 1:6-8 the same two VERBS describe the Babylonian invasion of Judah.
Isa 8:2
NASBI will take to Myself
NKJVI will take for Myself
NRSVhave it attested for me
NJBtake
LXXmake me
PESHITTAI took to me
JBfind me
REBI had it witnessed for me
JPSOAcall
The VERB in the MT is bear witness (BDB 729, KB 795, Hiphil COHORTATIVE). The Dead Sea Scrolls, LXX, and Peshitta change the VERB to an IMPERATIVE and are followed by NRSV, REB. In context God is looking for two faithful witnesses (cf. Deu 4:26; Deu 30:19; Deu 31:28) to corroborate His message (i.e., heaven and earth, see note at Isa 1:2).
The first named witness, Uriah the priest, is mentioned in 2Ki 16:10-16 (in a rather poor light). The other witness (Zechariah, son of Jeberechiah) is not known unless it refers to the Zechariah of Uzziah’s day in 2 Chronicles 26.
The NIDOTTE, vol. 3, p. 336, thinks it is Isaiah himself who wants the two witnesses to be present when he names his second son.
Isa 8:3
NASBI approached
NKJV, NRSV,
LXXI went to
NJBI had intercourse with
REBI lay with
The VERB (BDB 897, KB 1132, Qal IMPERFECT) denotes sexual contact (cf. Gen 20:4; Lev 18:6; Lev 18:14; Lev 18:19; Deu 22:14; Eze 18:6).
Again the question of who is pregnant in Isa 7:14 arises. There are two main possibilities.
1. the special child reflects an ideal Davidic king and, therefore, probably Hezekiah, Ahaz’s son
2. Isaiah may have been related to Ahaz, if so, his child could also be a Davidic king. The proximity of Isa 8:3 to Isa 7:14 makes Isaiah’s second child a possible near term fulfillment.
the prophetess This is obviously a reference to Isaiah’s wife. She was (1) also a prophet (BDB 612, FEMININE SINGULAR) or (2) was married to a prophet.
SPECIAL TOPIC: WOMEN IN THE BIBLE
Isa 8:4 This seems to parallel the time frame and message of Isa 7:15-16 (and Isa 8:4).
Isaiah’s son’s name depicts this very event by Assyria (cf. Isa 10:5-7).
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Moreover. There is no break in the prophecy.
roll = tablet. Elsewhere only in Isa 3:23.
in it = on it.
a man’s pen = the carving tool of the people. The writing was to be legible, in the language of the common people (not in the language of the priests or educated classes). Eastern languages have these two, down to the present day. Compare Hab 2:2. “Pen” is put by Figure of speech Metonymy, for the writing written by it.
man’s = a common man’s. Hebrew. ‘enosh. concerning = “for Maher, &c. “
Maher-shalal-hash-baz = haste, spoil, speed, prey. (Note the Alternation.) These words are explained in Isa 8:4, and may be connected thus: he hasteneth [to take the] spoil, he speeds [to seize] the prey. This child was a sign, as also the child in Isa 7:14.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 8
So in chapter 8 he continues in this prediction of the Assyrian invasion.
Moreover the LORD said unto me, Take thee a great roll, and write in it with a man’s pen concerning Mahershalalhashbaz ( Isa 8:1 ).
And that is interpreted, it’s a Hebrew name that means, or word that means, “Haste ye, haste ye to the spoil.” Quite a name.
And I took me a faithful witness to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah. And I went unto the prophetess [that is his wife]; and she conceived, and she bore a son. Then said the LORD unto me, Call his name Mahershalalhashbaz. 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 ( Isa 8:2-4 ).
So he went out unto his wife and she conceived, bore a son. God said, “Call him Mahershalalhashbaz because before this kid is three years old, can say Mama and Daddy, Syria is going to get wiped out by Assyria. Damascus will be overrun by the Assyrians.”
The LORD spake also unto me again, saying, Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and they rejoice in Rezin and in Remaliah’s son [who is Pekah]: Now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria, and all of his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks ( Isa 8:5-8 ):
So it’s speaking figuratively. It’s going to be like a flood. Assyrians are going to come and they’re going to take both Syria and the Northern Kingdom of Israel, which indeed did happen.
And he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel. Associate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be broken to pieces; and give ear, all ye of far countries: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces. Take counsel together, it shall come to nothing; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us ( Isa 8:8-10 ).
So he is challenging now this confederacy. You think that you’re going to join together and wipe out God’s people? Not going to make it. God isn’t going to let it stand, for God is with us.
For the LORD spake thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying, Say ye not, A confederacy, to all of those to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear ye, nor be afraid ( Isa 8:11-12 ).
The idea of two nations getting together to fight against one was an awesome thing indeed. And so that word, “Oh, there’s a confederacy,” just really struck terror into the hearts of the people. Really was wiping them out. And so the Lord said, “Hey, just forget that stuff, because it’s not going to stand.”
Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself; let him be your fear, let him be your dread ( Isa 8:13 ).
Don’t be afraid of what man can do or what a confederacy might do. You better be afraid of what God is going to do. Jesus said, “Don’t be fearful of those who can kill your body, and after that have no power. But rather fear Him who after the body is dead is able to cast both soul and spirit into hell. Yea, I say unto you, fear ye Him” ( Luk 12:4-5 ). For God shall be for a sanctuary.
And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel, a gin [or a trap] and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem ( Isa 8:14 ).
Now, here again is one of those prophecies that suddenly just flashes the flash of the Messiah again. Even as Jesus became a stumbling stone to the Jew, a rock of offense. And Paul the apostle refers how that Jesus, “We preach unto you Christ crucified. To the Jew a stumbling stone, to the Greek foolishness. But unto us who are saved, the power of God unto salvation” ( 1Co 1:23-24 ). So Christ became a stumbling stone to the Jew. And even as it is prophesied here.
And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken. Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. And I will wait upon the LORD, that hides his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him. Behold, I and the children whom the LORD hath given me are for signs ( Isa 8:15-18 )
Now this is Isaiah. He and his children, their names especially were to be for signs.
and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwells in mount Zion. And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto the wizards those that peep, and mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them ( Isa 8:18-20 ).
Now people were looking to the spiritists to guide them. They were looking to a communication with the dead for guidance, for instruction, for wisdom. And God speaks out against this. Should you not actually seek a living God rather than the spirit of a departed dead person? And yet, it’s amazing how many people today are involved in spiritism, who are seeking to communicate with spirits, the spirits of the dead. And how many feel that they have actually come into contact with the spirits of dead people. So many people into this who are writers and all who have guides who direct them in their writings. Some famous author of the past, and they feel that they are guiding them and so forth, spirit guides. And people are looking to the dead for advice and for counsel. But should you not be seeking the living God for counsel? And to the law of God and to His testimony? “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Isa 8:1-8
Isa 8:1-4
The great sign of Immanuel given in Isaiah 7 indicated that the wonderful child foretold in Isa 7:14 would not come to an age of knowledge until after the current crisis was past; but significantly, the actual time of the birth of Immanuel was not disclosed. We agree that Isaiah might have expected that birth centuries before it occurred; but, as we noted earlier, what Isaiah thought was not the key consideration. In any case, some other sign was needed with regard to the present crisis in Judah. This new sign pertained to the birth of Isaiah’s own son, Maher-shalal-hash-baz. This is recounted in Isa 8:1-4. Isa 8:5-8 record Judah’s rejection of the gentle waters of Shiloah and the prophecy of God’s bringing against them the flood waters of the king of Assyria and all his glory. Isa 8:9-15 develop the thought that God is either our refuge or our ruin. The theme of the final paragraph in the chapter, Isa 8:16-22, is “The gathering darkness to fall upon Israel.”
Isa 8:1-4
“And Jehovah said unto me, take thee a great tablet, and write upon it with the pen of a man, For Maher-shalal-hash-baz; and I will take unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeber-e-chiah. And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said Jehovah unto me, Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz. 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 carried away before the king of Assyria.”
Note that this child shall be of ordinary birth; and “This sign deals only with the contemporary crisis and its darker aspect.”
“Maher-shalal-hash-baz …” This seems such a terrible name to give a precious child; but, much like the prophet Hosea who received prophetic names for his children, Isaiah also received Divine instructions on the names for his children. The detail given here is the primary reason for our belief that Shear-Jashub had received his symbolical name in the same manner. Maher-shalal-hash-baz means “Speed the spoil; hasten the prey” or, as J. B. Phillips has it, “Quick pickings – Easy prey.” The terrible meaning is evident enough; God will punish Israel at once, shaving the land with the hired razor, the king of Assyria. God called him a “hired razor” (Isa 7:20), because Ahaz had foolishly bribed Assyria to come into Israel as a “protector” against Samaria and Damascus. What is comforting about this sign for Ahaz? It must be admitted that there is no comfort of any kind in it. If there was ever a message of doom, here it is; and in this we can more fully understand that the great sign of The Virgin and Immanuel in the previous chapter could not possibly have been designed to comfort Ahaz. The sign given here is the only sign Ahaz deserved; and it was the only sign he received. The rapidity with which the destruction of Syria and Samaria would be accomplished was certified by the prophecy that the destruction would come very early in the life of Maher-shalal-hash-baz.
“The pen of a man …” This means the kind of pen that would be used by an ordinary person, one that would make large letters easy to read. “The object of this was, that after the event, all might see that it had been predicted by Isaiah.”
“Uriah and Zechariah …” It would appear that both of these men were part of the establishment and therefore hostile toward Isaiah. This is based upon the assumption that, “Uriah is probably the priest who built a replica of the Damascene altar for Ahaz (2Ki 16:10-13); Zechariah is unknown.” These hostile witnesses made the proof of Isaiah’s prophecy more difficult to deny.
“The prophetess …” This woman was Isaiah’s wife and not a virgin, for she was doubtless the mother of their older son, Shear-Jashub. That this was Isaiah’s second wife and that she was a virgin at this point in time are false interpretations, rather guesses, based upon a misunderstanding of Isa 7:14, as we noted in the Introduction. Why was she called a prophetess? It was due to courtesy, given because of her relationship with Isaiah. This seems to have been customary in the Mid-East; and at a later time, “The third wife of Muhammed, Ayesha, was called a prophetess.” It is this same courtesy that speaks of a king’s wife as “queen.”
“Before the child shall … cry My father …” This was dramatically fulfilled in 732 B.C. when Damascus fell to Assyria; and, even when Samaria fell ten years later, “the child” of this passage had not reached the age of accountability.
Isa 8:5-8
“And Jehovah spake unto me yet again, saying, Forasmuch as this people have refused the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son; now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth upon them the waters of the River, strong and mighty, even the king of Assyria and all his glory: and it shall come up over all its channels, and go over all its banks; and it shall sweep onward into Judah; it shall overflow and pass through; it shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of its wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel.”
“This people …” This usually refers to the Ten Tribes; but in Isaiah’s era it also included rebellious and unbelieving Judah, whom God did not call “my people” during their apostasy, but “this people.”
The outstanding thing in this paragraph is the contrast between the “waters that go softly” and the rampaging flood waters of the Euphrates River, these metaphors standing here for the benign and quiet government of the Lord and for the violent, cruel and ruthless domination of the king of Assyria.
“The waters that go softly …” These were the waters that fed the pool of Siloam at which pool Jesus gave eyesight to the man born blind (John 9). (See our discussion of this in Vol. 4 of the New Testament Series of Commentaries, p. 252.) A careful study of Gen 49:10; Isa 8:6, and Joh 9:7 reveals that Shiloh, Shiloah, and Siloam are actually the same word gradually changed through the ages. Shiloh in Genesis is a poetic name for Messiah, but the Septuagint (LXX) in Isa 8:6 rendered the word Siloam, and Christ revealed through John that the word means “one sent,” an obvious reference to Messiah. Thus, Shiloh and Siloam are the same. Such a metamorphosis in words is not uncommon. For example, within the brief history of our country, the Indian name “Powtowmack” was give to the river in Washington D.C., but this spelling, in time, became Potomac. This is proved by a glance at early maps of that area.
It was once believed the waters mentioned here (that went softly) were so-called because they fed through an underground conduit leading into the pool of Siloam from the bottom, enabling the waters to rise silently; but current scholarship denies that this was the case when Isaiah wrote, because Hezekiah built that underground conduit at a later date. We might question the accuracy of that finding, for it leaves unanswered the question of what Ahaz was doing in the fuller’s field where the conduit crossed it when Isaiah went to meet him. Did he plan and initiate the underground waterway? and did Hezekiah who finished it merely, claim that he built it? Like many other disputed things with reference to Biblical texts, it does not make the slightest bit of difference. The waters ofthat little stream which initiated under the temple area were the waters “that flowed softly,” whether because of the underground conduit or because, “The aqueduct that carried it fell only one-quarter of an inch in 300 yards!” Right here is most probably the correct answer.
The waters from this stream were still further connected with Jesus Christ; because in the midst of the Feast of Tabernacles, “According to the Talmud, waters were drawn from Siloam’s pool and carried in a golden vessel to be carried to the Temple on the Feast of Tabernacles.” It was on that very day, “Jesus stood and cried, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink” (Joh 7:37). How appropriate, therefore, it was for the prophet to have made the waters of Siloam a metaphor of God’s government and teaching.
“(They) rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son …” This does not mean that the people of Judah were at that time in harmony with Rezin and Remaliah’s son; “For they were terrified of them;” and the rejoicing would appear to have been in the approaching destruction of Damascus and the Northern Israel.
The great flood of the River, a metaphorical reference to the invasion and destruction of Damascus and Northern Israel (Ephraim), is further revealed here as being an invasion of Judah also. There would be this difference. Although the invasion would be very destructive, it would not reach to the destruction of Jerusalem. “We can hardly miss the application of this to the invasion that culminated in the siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib in 701 B.C.
“O Immanuel …” These are the two most important words in the paragraph, the emphasis being that Assyria has actually dared to attack and devastate the land that belongs to Immanuel, God with us! “This identifies Palestine as the land to which the divine pledge has been given, and embodied in the Immanuel of Isa 7:14. From the assurance derived from this profound truth, Isaiah proceeded to denounce all of God’s enemies immediately in the next verses. These words are applicable only to Messiah there being no connection whatever between Immanuel and the son of Isaiah. The flood would indeed come up to the neck, but the head would escape. Neither the land (Immanuel’s land), nor Jerusalem, nor the people (of whom a remnant would remain) could be destroyed; for, “God had promised Immanuel (the Messiah) would be born (Isa 7:14); and Assyria could never thwart God’s promise.
Isa 8:1-4 PLEDGE OF GODS DELIVERANCE: It appears as if Isaiah turns away from his ministry to the general public and concentrates his teaching upon an inner circle of loyal believers in the kingdom. He lets the nation with its stubborn rulers and fat-hearted people go their way. They have rejected his message. It seems that what immediately follows is for the understanding and edification of the remnant that will remain faithful. It begins with a pledge of Gods faithfulness to be symbolized in Isaiahs children. The sign of Immanuel was abstruse and hidden. In its more spiritual sense it appealed to faith in an event far distant. Even in its contemporary fulfillment it would not do much to cheer and encourage more than a few since neither the almah nor her child was pointed out with any distinctness. A fresh sign therefore was given by Gods goodness to reassure those of the people who would accept the sign-the sign of the son of Isaiah himself. This son was to be born immediately. His name signified the rapid approach of the spoiler. Maher-shalal-hash-baz means literally, Plunder speeds, Spoil hastens. Men could verify the prophecy concerning Isaiahs son; they could check the fulfillment against the written statement. The tablet was probably a large wooden or ivory slab (customary signboards of that day). Besides the written statement the fact of the prediction was verified by two men who were evidently chosen for their acceptability to the people.
The promise was that before this son of Isaiah could utter the first words that a child is supposed to be able to speak, Damascus and Samaria would be despoiled. The scripture does not record fulfillment of this prophecy, but archaeology does. Inscriptions of Tiglath Pileser state that he sent population, goods of the people of Beth-Omri and their furniture to the land of Assyria. That he appointed Husih (Hoshea) to the dominion over them and fixed their annual tribute at two talents of gold and a thou-sand talents of silver. (Cf. Records of The Past, Vol. 5, pg. 52). King Sargon also wrote, Samaria I besieged, I captured. 27,290 people from its midst I carried captive. Tributes and taxes I imposed upon them after the Assyrian manner.
Isa 8:5-8 PREDICTION OF GODS JUDGMENT: Waters of Shiloah referred in a general sense to the streams, springs, reservoirs (pools) and conduits which supplied the temple service and wor-, ship in Jerusalem. This then would be the same as refusing the temple service and worship which is exactly what Israel had done from the time of Jereboam. The gentle and soft persuasion of God through His priests and prophets the people had rejected. They set up their own priesthood and hired their own false prophets in Israel. God was going to send upon them the raging flood of the River-the king of Assyria and his massive horde of soldiers. That mass of Assyrian humanity would completely inundate the northern kingdom of Israel and sweep it away like a great flood. The flood would overflow even into Judah, the southern kingdom, up to its neck. Assyria did sweep into the land of Judah and occupy all that territory except the city of Jerusalem and its immediate invirons in the days of Hezekiah (son of Ahaz). God preserved Jerusalem and slew 185,000 Assyrian troops in one night and sent the Assyrians back to their land (Cf. Isaiah ch. 36-39; II Kings ch. 18-20).
The Immanuel of Isa 8:8 is, we believe, the land or nation which is a type of the Messiah. Centuries later the Messiah is attacked by the god of this world and almost overwhelmed, but the Messiah is delivered by the omnipotent and miraculous act of God when He raised Him from the dead. Here the land or nation is almost overwhelmed but delivered by the omnipotent miraculous act of God-all in type. Later, in the book of Isaiah the nation of Israel is made to be a type of the Servant-Messiah (Cf. Isa 44:1 ff).
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
In this section we have the account of how the prophet turns from his more public ministry to devote himself to a small circle of believing souls. This departure was signalized by his writing on a tablet the ominous word, Maher-shulal-hash-baz, which means “the spoil speedeth, the prey hasteth.”
The prophet then turns to his children, the spiritual children who are faithful witnesses, and his own children. Jehovah declares to him that as the people have refused the gentle method of His persuasion, they are now to be dealt with by the overwhelming method of judgment. In the midst of the uproar Jehovah is to be a sanctuary for those who trust Him, and a rock of offense for the disobedient. The prophet is instructed to bind the testimony and seal the law, and his children are to be for signs and wonders. He then turns to the instruction of this small group of disciples, first describing the false way of seeking familiar spirits and wizards, with disastrous results, and then delivering to them the message of hope.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
a Foreign Foe-Gods Instrument
Isa 7:18-25; Isa 8:1-4
Ahaz, as we have seen, summoned the king of Assyria to his aid. This policy, dictated by human prudence, was fraught with vast peril. He and his advisers would rue their choice, and would have to pay dearly for introducing Assyria into the complicated politics of these minor states. Though this policy might effect a temporary success, like that which Isaiah indicated in the naming of his newborn child, yet ultimately it would work out disastrously, in the depopulation and desolation of the country. The impoverished peasants would have one cow instead of a herd, and two sheep instead of a flock. Is not this true of all the expedients which we substitute for faith in God? At first they promise well but they disappoint and fail. It is the old lesson: Lean not to thine own understanding, Pro 3:5.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
EXPOSITORY NOTES ON
THE PROPHET ISAIAH
By
Harry A. Ironside, Litt.D.
Copyright @ 1952
edited for 3BSB by Baptist Bible Believer in the spirit of the Colportage ministry of a century ago
ISAIAH CHAPTER EIGHT –
MAHER-SHALAL-HASH-BAZ
THIS chapter is remarkable because of the long and, to our ears, outlandish name of another of the prophet’s sons. We have met Shear-jashub already and noted his name’s significance, “the remnant shall return.” Now we are introduced to Maher-shalal-hash-baz, the interpretation of which is, “In making speed to the spoil he hasteneth the prey.” The name was given him for a sign but must have caused him no end of annoyance when he mingled with other lads.
“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. And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah. 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. 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” (verses 1-4).
Some critics have insisted that this was the maiden’s son referred to in the previous chapter, and that the young woman was the prophet’s wife. But there is no possible identification between Immanuel and Maher-shalal-hash-baz. The one denotes, “God dwelleth among men in the Person of His Son” (and this is confirmed in chapter nine), but this young lad with the long name was so called in view of something of an altogether different character.
For this purpose the name was given and recorded in the temple records before the child was born. The significance of the name was this: Damascus, the Syrian capital, which had been at enmity with Judah and confederate with Israel was about to be spoiled by the Assyrians, and at the same time Israel was to fall a prey to this great and mighty power. All this would transpire before the child was well grown.
“The Lord spake also unto me again, saying, Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son; Now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria, and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his
banks: And he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel” (verses 5-8).
The allied peoples of Syria and Samaria (or Israel, the northern kingdom) had refused to recognize the value of association with Judah, and so had spurned the waters of Shiloah (that is “peace”), and had joined forces under Rezin the Syrian king, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, the upstart king of Israel, in order to destroy Judah. Therefore the Lord was bringing against them the armies of the king of Assyria which would flow over their lands like a great river and would even reach into Judah also, as we have seen already, thus overspreading Immanuel’s land: that is, the land promised by covenant to Abraham and his seed, which seed, as we know, is CHRIST.
We, as Christians, delight to use the term “Immanuel’s land” in a spiritual sense, and we are justified in doing this, but actually, “Thy land, O Immanuel,” refers to the land of Palestine, the land the Lord had claimed as His own when He declared, “The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is Mine.”
To ward off this danger, Ahaz sought an alliance with Egypt, but no such association would avail to avert the threatened judgment. So we read,
“Associate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of far countries: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces. Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought: speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us. For the Lord spake thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying, Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid. Sanctify the Lord or hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken” (verses 9-15).
Instinctively in times of stress and danger men think of confederacies and associations of some kind as the best means of preserving the traditions and conditions which they hold dear. It was so in Judah. It is so in Christendom today. So we have various associations and federations of individuals and of churches which it is hoped will prove to be bulwarks against the onrushing tide of evil. But again and again it has been demonstrated that all such confederacies tend to deteriorate as time goes by, and afterward the children of those who formed these associations revert to the evils against which their fathers protested.
The only real recourse in a day of evil is to cleave to the Lord Himself with purpose of heart. No matter what failure may come in, He remains unchanged and unchangeable. So the prophet exhorts, “Sanctify the Lord of hosts Himself; and let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread” (verse 13).
When He is given His rightful place He will be as a sanctuary to those who put their trust in
Him, but He will ever be a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense as He was when He appeared in human form to both the houses of Israel, and for a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem (verse 14). These words are applied definitely to our blessed Lord in the New Testament; when He, the long-looked-for Messiah came in lowly grace, the nation stumbled over Him as over a stumbling stone, and so was broken and scattered as predicted in verse 15.
GOD’s Word is the sure resource for His obedient people, and so we read,
“Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. And I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him. Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion. And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward. And they shall look unto the earth: and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness” (verses 16-22).
Just as Paul, after predicting the coming apostasy in the Ephesian church, said, “I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace” (Act 20:32), so here Isaiah, speaking in GOD’s behalf exclaims, “Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples.” To those who are willing to be taught of GOD, the Word becomes increasingly precious as the days grow darker.
Verse 17 is the voice of him who takes the place of dependence upon GOD: “I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth His face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for Him.” He may seem to be indifferent to the trials His people are passing through, but actually it is not so. His face may be hidden but His heart is ever toward them.
Isaiah and his family were called to be a testimony to a11 Israel. “Behold,” he says, “I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion” (verse 18). Part of this verse is quoted in Heb 2:13, and is applied to the Lord JESUS and to those who receive life through believing in His Name.
The remaining part of the chapter gives us a solemn warning against what is now known as Spiritualism or any form of necromancy. When urged to seek unto spirit-mediums for light and help, the answer is, Should not a people seek unto their God? Should the living seek unto the dead? All such attempts to get into contact with the spirits of the dead are forbidden in Scripture. (See Deu 18:9-12 and Lev 20:27).
It is a grievous offence in the eyes of God for anyone to turn from His revealed Word to those who profess to have power to summon the spirits of the departed in order to give light and help. Such are either charlatans deceiving those who go to them or else possessed by impersonating demons misleading all who follow them.
God’s sure Word abides and if any speak contrary to it, it is because they are in darkness themselves and there is no morning for them. That is, when the day dawns for the eternal blessing of the redeemed, there will be outer darkness for those who spurned the light of truth only to be misled by falsehood.
Such will be exposed at last for what they really are, blind leaders of the blind, who will look in vain for help when those who obeyed the Word of GOD find light and blessing.
Spiritism is a satanic cult which can only disappoint those who follow the will-o’-the-wisp of its direction and shall at last be driven into the darkness.
~ end of chapter 8 ~
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Isa 8:13-14
I. The whole subject of Godhead is one of awe, and if of awe, then “dread.” The more you know of God, the more you feel the unfathomableness of the mystery of Godhead. And all mystery is awe. It is a rule of our being, that we must tremble when we stand on the margin of the unknown. Therefore they who know most of God will most “fear,” not His anger, but simply His amazing greatness.
II. The sense of mercy and benefits heaped upon us has an overwhelming influence upon the mind. Do not you know what it is to tremble at a danger when you have escaped it, much more than you did when you encountered it? That is exactly the “fear” and the “dread” of a pardoned sinner. It is the contemplation of a thunder-cloud which has rolled over your head.
III. Reverence is the great lesson which our age has to learn. Be suspicious of the love which is without awe. Remember that our best acquaintance with God only shows us more the immensity of the fields of thought which no mind can traverse.
IV. “He shall be for a sanctuary.” Do you recoil at the idea of dreading God? That which makes the dread makes the hiding-place. To those who fear, He shall be for a sanctuary. (1) To a Jewish mind, the first idea of the sanctuary would be refuge. (2) The sanctuary of safety becomes the home of peace. “Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations.” (3) God is the fountain of your holiness. The Shechinah shines within the veil; but as you become familiar with the precincts of that holy place, you catch some of its rays, and reflect its glory.
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 9th series; p. 245.
References: Isa 8:14.-W. M. Statham, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii., p. 131. 8:16-9:7.-J. J. S. Perowne, Sermons, p. 365.
Isa 8:17
I. “I will wait upon the Lord.” At all times we are to be like servants who are standing in the presence of their master, and who are ready, the very moment He shall give His orders, to go to any place, to do any work. If, when you should be waiting for what God may call you to do, you are so taken up with your own worldly concerns that you cannot hear, what then? Will that be waiting upon the Lord? And see what is the promise attached to this. “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength “-that is, whatever He calls them to do, they shall have strength, time after time, to carry it on; the more work He gives them, the more power will He give them to do it with.
II. “That hideth His face from the house of Jacob.” The house of Jacob means the Church militant; the house of Israel, the Church in heaven. When it seems as if we could not stand against temptation, when there is some besetting sin which overthrows us again and again, then it seems as if God were hiding His face from us. And David might well say, “Thou didst hide Thy face from me, and I was troubled.” For then we are troubled indeed: when we have to cry out, “Save me, O God; for the waters are come in, even unto my soul.” And what are we to do then? The text tells us-we are to wait.
III. Of all difficult things, waiting is the most difficult. If we may only do something, if we may only exert ourselves, then it is so much easier, then we seem so much more content. Only be willing to wait; only fix your eyes on that cross where Christ hung, as the poor Israelite bitten by the fiery serpent looked with his whole might on the serpent of brass, and then the time shall come when you will see Him indeed.
J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College Chapel, vol. i., p. 4.
Isa 8:18
I. Faithfulness. Always when we try to do good to others we are thrown back upon ourselves; we are reminded that high work must have fit instruments, and that our influence is likely to be as our character is. This is peculiarly the case as between us and our children. They know us much better than others; are much nearer to us, see us more clearly. They will know inevitably whether we mean all we say, desire all we pray for, and are all we profess. We must love Christ dearly ourselves if we are to show His loveliness to them. This sincerity on our part ought to take as one of its forms a firm, steady family rule, an exercise of wise parental authority. Be ruler in your own house, not by checks and shocks, by pull and strain, by collision of wills and trial of strengths; but gently, as the moon draws the tides up the shores, or as the sun lifts the ocean exhalations into the rain-clouds of the sky.
II. Tenderness. Here is ground where one almost fears to tread. Think of the great interests at stake; of the principles now being formed; of the habits that will result from them; of the characters you are moulding; of the gladness or the grief, the light or the dark, that will be in future homes the result of what you are doing now in yours; and of the issues to be revealed in the eternal world: and walk tenderly, as you would among flowers in early spring.
III. Such feelings will lead to prayer. In prayer for our children we are putting ourselves in the line of God’s laws. We work as He works. Our nurture of our children is soon over. His nurture never ends. They are children in His hands all their days, and we do well to cast them on their Father’s care, on the tenderness of His nurture and wisdom of His admonition.
IV. Hopefulness. We ought to cherish a feeling of cheerful confidence in God as to the result of our endeavours for our children’s good. Surety if there is a field in all the world where we may look with confidence to the springing of the seed sown in faith, that field is the Christian family. If promises are fulfilled anywhere, they will be fulfilled there.
A. Raleigh, From Dawn to the Perfect Day, p. 34.
References: Isa 8:18.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xx., No. 1194. Isa 8:19.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v., p. 318. Isa 8:19, Isa 8:20.-W. J. Friel. Penny Pulpit, No. 468. Isa 8:20.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv., No. 172, Isa 9:1-7.-F. D. Maurice, Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament, p. 254. Isa 9:1-8.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. v., p. 333.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
CHAPTER 8
Jehovahs Word Through Isaiah and the Assyrian Announced
1. The divine instruction and Maher-shalal-hash-baz (Isa 8:1-4) 2. The Assyrian to come (Isa 8:5-8) 3. The answer of faith (Isa 8:9-10) 4. A word to the faithful remnant (Isa 8:11-20) 5. The coming great distress (Isa 8:21-22)The names are significant. Isaiah heard the word Maher-shalal-hash-baz, and then is told to call his newborn son by this name. The name means swift for spoil, hasty for prey. Isaiahs other son was named Shear-Jashub, which means a remnant shall return. The names of the sure witnesses are equally full of meaning. Urijah (Jehovah is light), Zechariah (Jehovah remembers), and Jeberechiah (Blessed of Jehovah).
Isa 8:14 and Isa 8:15 are deeply interesting. It is the rejection of Immanuel, Christ. Compare with Isa 28:16 and read the following passages: Luk 2:34; Luk 20:18; Mat 21:44; Rom 9:32-33;1Pe 2:8.
Also note the quotation of Isa 8:18 in Heb 2:13. The great distress is a description of what awaits apostate Israel.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Take thee: Jer 36:2, Jer 36:28, Jer 36:32
write: Isa 30:8, Job 19:23, Job 19:24, Hab 2:2, Hab 2:3
a man’s pen: Rev 13:18, Rev 21:17, Maher-shalal-hash-baz, Heb. in making speed to the spoil, he hasteneth the prey, Or, Make speed, etc. hasten, etc
Reciprocal: Isa 8:3 – Call his name Jer 30:2 – General Jer 32:10 – and took Jer 36:4 – upon Jer 51:60 – General Eze 24:2 – write Dan 7:1 – he wrote Hos 1:3 – General Zec 5:1 – roll Rev 10:4 – I was Rev 19:9 – Write
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Isa 8:1. Moreover, the Lord said unto me Here begins the second section of this discourse, which reaches to the seventh verse of the next chapter, and is nearly of the same argument with the preceding; being prophetical, and containing matter both of comfort and reproof. It may be divided into two parts. The first part, in the first four verses, contains a confirmation and sign of the prediction concerning the sudden subversion of the kingdoms of Syria and Israel. The second part more fully and distinctly explains the purpose of God with respect both to the Israelites and Jews, for the consolation of the pious, and the terror of the impious and carnal, among them. Take thee a great roll Or, a great volume, because the prophecy to be written in it was large: and God would have it written in very large and legible characters; and write in it with a mans pen With such a pen as writers use, that so all may read and understand it. Bishop Lowth, deriving the word , here rendered roll, from , to show, to reveal, rather than from , to roll, translates it, a large mirror, or polished tablet of metal, like those which were anciently used for mirrors, and also for engraving on. Accordingly, he renders the word , which we translate a pen, a graving tool. In this manner, says he, the prophet was to record the prophecy of the destruction of Damascus and Samaria by the Assyrians: the subject and sum of which prophecy are here expressed, with great brevity, in four words, maher, shalal, hash, baz; that is, to hasten the spoil, to take quickly the prey: which was afterward applied as the name of the prophets son, who was made a sign of the speedy completion of it; Haste-to-the-spoil, Quick-to-the-prey. And that it might be done with the greater solemnity, and to preclude all doubt of the real delivery of the prophecy before the event, he calls witnesses to attest the recording of it. Concerning Maher-shalal-hash-baz Concerning that thing which is signified by the name of the child, which is here mentioned by way of anticipation, as not being given him till Isa 8:3; that is, concerning that which God is making haste to do, the giving up Syria and Israel for a prey to the Assyrians.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 8:1. Take thee a great roll. Lowth reads, a large mirror. The Chaldaic has scripturam claram, a fair writing, which might be on a polished plate; but the Versions read as the English.
Isa 8:3. I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived and bare a son. There is much variation here among the critics. But the childs name, Maher-shalal-hash-baz, that is, to hasten to the spoil, to take quickly the prey, designates the king of Assyria. The whole is a vision, for Isaiah had no such son that we know of.
Isa 8:6. The waters of Shiloah that go softly. The Gihon at the foot of mount Zion, 1Ki 1:33; the great spring that flowed into the lower city. This gently flowing stream, as the Chaldaic reads, designated the kingdom of the house of David. Therefore, as they set aside the Lord from being their king, he would justly expose them to the overflowing waters of the Euphrates, and suffer the Chaldeans to rule over them. Virgil, by the like figure of a gentile government, represents the Euphrates as flowing more softly, after the Roman power was established in Asia.
Euphrates ibat jam mollior undis. N. 8:726.
Isa 8:18. Behold I, [the Lord of Hosts] as one manuscript reads, and the children whom the Lord hath given me. If these words in any sense refer to Isaiah, they must regard him as a figure of Christ, to whom they are applied by St. Paul. Heb 2:13.
Isa 8:19. Wizards that peep and that mutter, in the dark places of the earth, as he says in Isa 45:19. Strabo also says, lib. 9., that the oracle in the far-famed temple of Delphos, was a hollow place, from which the voice of the pythoness was disguised. Herodotus delicately accuses those oracles of ambiguity. In opposition to these, the Lord says, I have not spoken in secret from the beginning. Isa 48:16; Isa 45:19. See also Exo 28:30.
Isa 8:21. They shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God. We read in Rev 16:10; Rev 16:21, that men blasphemed God because of their pain; and again, because of the hail. At the battle of Borodina, in the year 1814, when about seventy thousand men lay dead and dying on the field, the number of Russians and French being nearly equal, an English surgeon reports, that he found wounded officers cursing their fate, and cursing their stars. The state of man is desperate, when he must die, and is resolved not to die. They are like the desperate Midianites, who cut their way through their own ranks.
REFLECTIONS.
Let us reflect with pleasure on the care which the prophets took to prove their prophecies authentic. They did not merely speak them, and commit them to memory or tradition, but wrote them in a plain legible manner; and did it before witnesses, who probably subscribed the same, and were ready to declare upon oath that they saw the prophet write or attest it, that it might be read and appealed to in order to support the faith of the people in what they foretold. This remark tends to confirm our faith in the prophecies; and the same remark, in some measure, is applicable to the whole scripture.
There is need of great resolution not to be led away by popular panic or common errors. The prophet himself seems to have been in danger of catching the fears of the people, therefore it was that God warned him against it with a strong hand, and a considerable force on his mind. We are ready to catch the groundless terrors of others, to imitate their example, and walk in the way of the people around us. We ought to watch against this, and labour after a sober singularity; earnestly praying that God would secure us against ill examples, and preserve us in the way of holiness and peace.
A holy fear of God is the best remedy against the fear of men. 1Pe 3:14. Sanctify the Lord of hosts in your hearts; make him your fear and your dread; give him the glory of his power, providence, and promises; reverence his universal dominion, fear his displeasure, and acquiesce in his disposals. This will keep our minds in peace, will preserve us from that fear which hath torment; and he will be our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble.
Let us be thankful for the law and the testimony, and keep close to them. What is sealed up from the blinded Jews is open to us, the disciples of Christ, who have seen many of these prophecies fulfilled. Let us reverence and study the scriptures, and learn to abhor the wicked practices of those who use spells and charms, who pretend to discover secrets and tell fortunes: this is heinous wickedness, and ought never to be encouraged by any that believe in the providence and word of God. It is our duty to seek direction from him by prayer, and consult his word to conform to it in sentiment and in practice: otherwise we shall displease him, and wander in the paths of error and sin.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 8:1-4. The Sign of Maher-shalal-hash-baz.The date of the incidents is some time before the fall of Damascus in 732 B.C. The writing of the tablet may be as early as 735 B.C., the birth of the child as 734. The prophet is bidden take a large tablet, since it is to be used as a public placard, and write on it in common characters that all may read, For Maher-shalal-hash-baz. He is to take responsible witnesses, that when the prediction is fulfilled they may be able to assure the people that by this enigmatic inscription Isaiah foretold the speedy downfall of Syria and Ephraim. He is bidden call his son, born some time later, by the name on the placard, for before he utters a childs first words, Damascus and Samaria will be despoiled by the Assyrians.
Isa 8:1. pen of a man: mg., in common characters, is perhaps correct. The name means Swift is the spoil, speedy the prey, i.e. the spoliation of Damascus and Samaria will speedily take place.
Isa 8:2. Read and take (LXX).
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
8:1 Moreover the LORD said to me, Take thee a {a} great roll, and write in it {b} with a man’s pen concerning Mahershalalhashbaz.
(a) That you may write in great letters to the intent that it may be more easily read.
(b) Meaning, after the common fashion, because all men might read it.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The sign of Maher-shalal-hash-baz 8:1-4
Whereas the sign of Immanuel was for Ahaz primarily, the sign of Maher-shalal-hash-baz was for all the people of Judah. The preceding prophecies to Ahaz (Isa 7:10-25) are generally negative, but the following prophecies to the Judahites (Isa 8:1-10) are more positive. These instructions from the Lord evidently came to Isaiah in the midst of the Syro-Ephraimitic war. [Note: Ibid., 1:228.]
Robert Chisholm Jr. believed Maher-shalal-hash-baz was the immediate fulfillment of the Immanuel prophecy of Isa 7:14.
"The juxtaposition of the birth report narrative (Isa 8:1-8) with the birth announcement narrative (Isa 7:14-25) suggests a close relationship between the prophecy and the birth. The pattern of events (initial deliverance followed by punitive judgment) associated with the growth pattern of the child is the same in both chapters. Also, Immanuel is addressed in the conclusion of the prophecy in chapter 9 (cf. Isa 8:8) as if He were already present on the scene. This address makes excellent sense if one understands the introduction of the same message (Isa 8:1-3) as describing his birth.
"The differing names present a problem (which, by the way, one also faces in Matthew’s application of the Immanuel prophecy to the birth of Jesus). Perhaps Immanuel, understood as a symbolic name, focuses on God’s involvement in Judah’s history, whereas Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, the child’s actual name, alludes to the specific purpose or effect of His involvement. (In the same way, when applied to Jesus, ’Immanuel’ attests to God’s personal intervention in history through the Incarnation, whereas the Lord’s actual name, Jesus, indicates the specific purpose or effect of that intervention.)" [Note: Chisholm, A Theology . . ., p. 315. See also p. 316.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Yahweh instructed Isaiah to take a large flat surface (Heb. gillayon) appropriate for posting as a placard. He was to write clearly on it Maher-shalal-hash-baz ("speeding to the plunder, hurrying to the spoil").
"Soldiers would shout these words to their comrades as they defeated and plundered their foes." [Note: J. Martin, p. 1050.]
This public notice had a double purpose: to announce a coming attack on Syria and Israel and to announce the birth of Isaiah’s son.
"Isaiah was to make his message as public and eye-catching as possible." [Note: Motyer, p. 90. Cf. Habakkuk 2:2.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
CHAPTER VI
KING AND MESSIAH; PEOPLE AND CHURCH
735-732 B.C.
Isaiah 7, 8, 9:1-8
THIS section of the book of Isaiah (chapters 7-9:7) consists of a number of separate prophecies uttered during a period of at least three years: 735-732 B.C. By 735 Ahaz had ascended the throne; Tiglath-pileser had been occupied in the far east for two years. Taking advantage of the weakness of the former and the distance of the later, Rezin, king of Damascus, and Pekah, king of Samaria, planned an invasion of Judah. It was a venture they would not have dared had Uzziah been alive. While Rezin marched down the east of the Jordan and overturned the Jewish supremacy in Edom, Pekah threw himself into Judah, defeated the armies of Ahaz in one great battle, and besieged Jerusalem, with the object of deposing Ahaz and setting a Syrian, Ben-Tabeel, in his stead. Simultaneously the Philistines attacked Judah from the southwest. The motive of the confederates was in all probability anger with Ahaz for refusing to enter with them into a Pan-Syrian alliance against Assyria. In his distress Ahaz appealed to Tiglath-pileser, and the Assyrian swiftly responded. In 734-it must have been less than a year since Ahaz was attacked-the hosts of the north had overrun Samaria and swept as far south as the cities of the Philistines. Then, withdrawing his troops again, Tiglath-pileser left Hoshea as his vassal on Pekahs throne, and sending the population of Israel east of the Jordan into distant captivity, completed a two years siege of Damascus (734-732) by its capture. At Damascus Ahaz met the conqueror, and having paid him tribute, took out a further policy of insurance in the altar-pattern, which he brought back with him to Jerusalem. Such were the three years, whose rapid changes unfolded themselves in parallel with these prophecies of Isaiah. The details are not given by the prophet, but we must keep in touch with them while we listen to him. Especially must we remember their central point, the decision of Ahaz to call in the help of Assyria, a decision which affected the whole course of politics for the next thirty years. Some of the oracles of this section were plainly delivered by Isaiah before that event, and simply seek to inspire Ahaz with a courage which should feel Assyrian help to be needless; others, again, imply that Ahaz has already called in the Assyrian: they taunt him with hankering after foreign strength, and depict the woes which the Assyrian will bring upon the land; while others {for example, the passage Isa 9:1-7} mean that the Assyrian has already come, and that the Galilean provinces of Israel have been depopulated, and promise a Deliverer. If we do not keep in mind the decision of Ahaz, we shall not understand these seemingly contradictory utterances, which it thoroughly explains. Let us now begin at the beginning of chapter 7. It opens with a bare statement, by way of title, of the invasion of Judah and the futile result; and then proceeds to tell us how Isaiah acted from the first rumour of the confederacy onward.
I. THE KING
(chapter 7)
“And 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 to Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it.” This is a summary of the whole adventure and issue of the war, given by way of introduction. The narrative proper begins in Isa 7:2, with the effect of the first news of the league upon Ahaz and his people. Their hearts were moved like the trees of the forest before the wind. The league was aimed so evidently against the two things most essential to the national existence and the honour of Jehovah; the dynasty of David, namely, and the inviolability of Jerusalem. Judah had frequently before suffered the loss of her territory; never till now were the throne and city of David in actual peril. But that, which bent both king and people by its novel terror, was the test Isaiah expected for the prophecies he had already uttered. Taking with him, as a summary of them, his boy with the name Shear-Jashub-“A-remnant-shall-return”-Isaiah faced Ahaz and his court in the midst of their preparation for the siege. They were examining-but more in panic than in prudence-the water supply of the city, when Isaiah delivered to them a message from the Lord, which may be paraphrased as follows: “Take heed and be quiet,” keep your eyes open and your heart still; “fear not, neither be fainthearted, for the fierce anger of Rezin and Remaliahs son.” They have no power to set you on fire. They are “but stumps of expiring firebrands,” almost burnt out. While you wisely look after your water supply, do so in hope. This purpose of deposing, you is vain. “Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.” Of whom are you afraid? Look those foes of yours in the face. “The head of Syria is Damascus, and Damascus head is Rezin”: is he worth fearing? “The head of Ephraim is Samaria, and Samarias head is Reinallahs son”: is he worth fearing? Within a few years they will certainly be destroyed. But whatever estimate you make of your foes, whatever their future may be, for yourself have faith in God; for you that is the essential thing. “If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.”
This paraphrase seeks to bring out the meaning of a passage confessedly obscure. It seems as if we had only bits of Isaiahs speech to Ahaz and must supply the gaps. No one need hesitate, however, to recognise the conspicuous personal qualities-the combination of political sagacity with religious fear, of common-sense and courage rooted in faith. In a word, this is what Isaiah will say to the king, clever in his alliances, religious and secular, and busy about his material defences: “Take unto you the shield of faith. You have lost your head among all these things. Hold it up like a man behind that shield; take a rational view of affairs. Rate your enemies at their proper value. But for this you must believe in God. Faith in Him is the essential condition of a calm mind and a rational appreciation of affairs.”
It is, no doubt, difficult for us to realise that the truth which Isaiah thus enforced, on King Ahaz-the government of the world and human history by one supreme God-was ever a truth of which the race stood in ignorance. A generation like ours cannot be expected to put its mind in the attitude of those of Isaiahs contemporaries who believed in the real existence of many gods with limited sovereignties. To us, who are full of the instincts of Divine Providence and of the presence in history of law and progress, it is extremely hard even to admit the fact-far less fully to realise what it means-that our race had ever to receive these truths as fresh additions to their stock of intellectual ideas. Yet, without prejudice to the claims of earlier prophets, this may be confidently affirmed: that Isaiah where we now meet him stood on one side believing in one supreme God, Lord of heaven and earth, and his generation stood on the other side, believing that there were many gods. Isaiah, however, does not pose as the discoverer of the truth he preaches; he does not present it as a new revelation, nor put it in a formula. He takes it for granted, and proceeds to bring its moral influence to bear. He will infect men with his own utter conviction of it, in order that he may strengthen their character and guide them by paths of safety. His speech to Ahaz is an exhibition of the moral and rational effects of believing in Providence. Ahaz is a sample of the character polytheism produced; the state of mind and heart to which Isaiah exhorts him is that induced by belief in one righteous and almighty God. We can make the contrast clear to ourselves by a very definite figure.
The difference, which is made to the character and habits of men if the country they live in has a powerful government or not, is well-known. If there be no such central authority, it is a case of every mans hand against his neighbour. Men walk armed to the teeth. A constant attitude of fear and suspicion warps the whole nature. The passions are excited and magnified; the intelligence and judgment are dwarfed. Just the same after its kind is life to the man or tribe, who believe that the world in which they dwell and the life they share with others have no central authority. They walk armed with prejudices, superstitions, and selfishnesses. They create, like Ahaz, their own providences, and still, like him, feel insecure. Everything is exaggerated by them; in each evil there lurks to their imagination unlimited hostility. They are without breadth of view or length of patience. But let men believe that life has a central authority, that God is supreme, and they will fling their prejudices and superstitions to the winds, now no more needed than the antiquated fortresses and weapons by which our forefathers, in days when the government was weak, were forced to defend their private interests. When we know that God reigns, how quiet and free it makes us! When things and men are part of His scheme and working out His ends, when we understand that they are not monsters but ministers, how reasonably we can look at them! Were we afraid of Syria and Ephraim? Why, the head of Syria is this fellow Rezin, the head of Ephraim this son of Remaliah! They cannot last long; Gods engine stands behind to smite them. By the reasonable government of God, let us be reasonable! Let us take heed and be quiet. Have faith in God, and to faith will come her proper consequent of common sense.
For the higher a man looks, the farther he sees: to us that is the practical lesson of these first nine verses of the seventh chapter. The very gesture of faith bestows upon the mind a breadth of view. The man, who lifts his face to God in heaven, is he whose eyes sweep simultaneously the farthest prospect of earth, and bring to him a sense of the proportion of things. Ahaz, facing his nearest enemies, does not see over their heads, and in his consternation at their appearance prepares to embark upon any policy that suggests itself, even though it be so rash as the summoning of the Assyrian. Isaiah, on the other hand, with his vision fixed on God as the Governor of the world, is enabled to overlook the dust that darkens Judahs frontier, to see behind it the inevitable advance of the Assyrians, and to be assured that, whether Ahaz calls them to his quarrel or no, they will very soon of their own motion overwhelm both of his enemies. From these “two smoking firebrands” there is then no real danger. But from the Assyrian, if once Judah entangle herself in his toils, there is the most extreme danger.
Isaiahs advice is therefore not mere religious quietism; it is prudent policy. It is the best political advice that could have been offered at that crisis, as we have already been able to gather from a survey of the geographical and political dispositions of Western Asia, apart altogether from religious considerations. But to Isaiah the calmness requisite for this sagacity sprang from his faith. Mr. Bagehot might have appealed to Isaiahs whole policy in illustration of what he has so well described as the military and political benefits of religion. Monotheism is of advantage to men not only by reason of “the high concentration of steady feeling” which it produces, but also for the mental calmness and sagacity which surely spring from a pure and vivid conviction that the Lord reigneth.
One other thing it is well we should emphasise, before we pass from Isaiahs speech to Ahaz. Nothing can be plainer than that Isaiah, though advocating so absolutely a quiescent belief in God, is no fatalist. Now other prophets there have been, insisting just as absolutely as Isaiah upon resignation to God the supreme, and the evident practical effect of their doctrine of the Divine sovereignty has been to make their followers, not shrewd political observers, but blind and apathetic fatalists. The difference between them and Isaiah has lain in the kind of character, which they and he have respectively attributed to the Deity, before exalting Him to the throne of absolute power and resigning themselves to His will. Isaiah, though as disciplined a believer in Gods sovereignty and mans duty of obedience as any prophet that ever preached these doctrines, was preserved from the fatalism to which they so often lead by the conviction he had previously received of Gods righteousness. Fatalism means resignation to fate, and fate means an omnipotence either without character, or (which is the same thing) of whose character we are ignorant. Fate is God minus character, and fatalism is the characterless condition to which belief in such a God reduces man. History presents it to our view amid the most diverse surroundings. The Greek mind, so free and sunny, was bewildered and benumbed by belief in an inscrutable Nemesis: In the East how frequently is a temper of apathy or despair bred in men, to whom God is nothing but a despot! Even within Christianity we have had fanatics, so inordinately possessed with belief in Gods sovereignty of election, to the exclusion of all other Divine truths, as to profess themselves, with impious audacity, willing to be damned for His glory. Such instances are enough to prove to us the extreme danger of making the sovereignty of God the first article of our creed. It is not safe for men to exalt a deity to the throne of the supreme providence, till they are certified of his character. The vision of mere power intoxicates and brutalises, no less when it is hallowed by the name of religion, than when, as in modern materialism, it is blindly interpreted as physical force. Only the people who have first learned to know their Deity intimately in the private matters of life, where heart touches heart, and the delicate arguments of conscience are not overborne by the presence of vast natural forces or the intricate movements of the worlds history, can be trusted afterwards to enter these larger theatres of religion, without risk of losing their faith, their sensibility, or their conscience.
The whole course of revelation has been bent upon this: to render men familiarly and experimentally acquainted with the character of God, before laying upon them the duty of homage to His creative power or submission to His will. In the Old Testament God is the Friend, the Guide, the Redeemer of men, or ever He is their Monarch and Lawgiver. The Divine name which the Hebrew sees “excellent through all the earth” is the name that he has learned to know at home as “Jehovah, our Lord”. {Psa 8:1-9} Jehovah trains His people to trust His personal truth and lovingkindness within their own courts, before He tests their allegiance and discipline upon the high places of the world. And when, amid the strange terrors of these and the novel magnitudes with which Israel, facing the world, had to reckon, the people lost their presence Of mind, His elegy over them was, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” Even when their temple is full and their sacrifices of homage to His power most frequent, it is still their want of moral acquaintance with Himself of which He complains: “Israel doth not know; My people doth not consider.” What else was the tragedy in which Jewish history closed, than just the failure to perceive this lesson: that to have and to communicate the knowledge of the Almightys character is of infinitely more value than the attempt to vindicate in any outward fashion Jehovahs supremacy over the world? This latter, this forlorn, hope was what Israel exhausted the evening of their day in attempting. The former-to communicate to the lives and philosophies of mankind a knowledge of the Divine heart and will, gained throughout a history of unique grace and miracle-was the destiny which they resigned to the followers of the crucified Messiah.
For under the New Testament this also is the method of revelation. What our King desires before He ascends the throne of the world is that the world should know Him; and so He comes down among us, to be heard, and seen, and handled of us, that our hearts may learn His heart and know His love, unbewildered by His majesty. And for our part, when we ascribe to our King the glory and the dominion, it is as unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His blood. For the chief thing for individuals, as for nations, is not to believe that God reigneth so much as to know what kind of God He is who reigneth.
But Ahaz would not be persuaded. He had a policy of his own, and was determined to pursue it. He insisted on appealing to Assyria. Before he did so, Isaiah made one more attempt on his obduracy. With a vehemence, which reveals how critical he felt the kings decision to be, the prophet returned as if this time the very voice of Jehovah. “And Jehovah spake to Ahaz, saying, Ask thee a sign of Jehovah thy God; ask it either in Sheol below or in the height above. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord.”
Isaiahs offer of a sign was one which the prophets of Israel used to make when some crisis demanded the immediate acceptance of. their word by men, and men were more than usually hard to convince-a miracle such as the thunder that Samuel called out of a clear sky to impress Israel with Gods opinion of their folly in asking for a king; {1Sa 12:17} or as the rending of the altar which the man of God brought to pass to convict the sullen Jeroboam; {1Ki 13:3} or as the regress of the shadow on the sun-dial, which Isaiah himself gave in assurance of recovery to the sick Hezekiah. (chapter 38) Such signs are offered only to weak or prejudiced persons. The most real faith, as Isaiah himself tells us, is unforced, the purest natures those which need no signs and wonders. But there are certain crises at which faith must be immediately forced, and Ahaz stood now at such a crisis; and there are certain characters who, unable to read a writ from the court of conscience and reason, must be served with one from a court-even though it be inferior-whose language they understand; and Ahaz was such a character. Isaiah knew his man, and prepared a pretty dilemma for him. By offering him whatever sign he chose to ask, Isaiah knew that the king would be committed before his own honour and the public conscience to refrain from calling in the Assyrians, and so Judah would be saved; or if the king refused the sign, the refusal would unmask him. Ahaz refused, and at once Isaiah denounced him and all his house. They were mere shufflers, playing fast and loose with God as well as men. “Hear ye now, O house of David. Is it a small thing for you to weary men, that ye must weary my God also?” You have evaded God; therefore God Himself will take you in hand: “the Lord Himself shall give you a sign.” In order to follow intelligently the rest of Isaiahs address, we must clearly understand how the sign which he now promises differs in nature from the sign he had implored Ahaz to select, of whatever sort he may have expected that selection to be. The kings determination to call in Assyria has come between. Therefore, while the sign Isaiah first offered upon the spot was intended for an immediate pledge that God would establish Ahaz, if only he did not appeal to the foreigner, the sign Isaiah now offers shall come as a future proof of how criminal and disastrous the appeal to the foreigner has been. The first sign would have been an earnest of salvation; the second is to be an exposure of the fatal evil of Ahazs choice. The first would have given some assurance of the swift overthrow of Ephraim and Syria; the second shall be some painful illustration of the fact that not only Syria and Ephraim, but Judah herself, shall be overwhelmed by the advance of the northern power. This second sign is one, therefore, which only time can bring round. Isaiah identifies it with a life not yet born.
A Child, he says, shall shortly be born to whom his mother shall give the name Immanu-El-“God-with-us.” By the time this Child comes to years of discretion, “he shall eat butter and honey.” Isaiah then explains the riddle. He does not, however, explain who the mother is, having described her vaguely as “a”-or “the young woman of marriageable age”; for that is not necessary to the sign, which is to consist in the Childs own experience. To this latter he limits his explanation. Butter and honey are the food of privation, the food of a people, whose land, depopulated by the enemy, has been turned into pasture. Before this Child shall arrive at years of discretion not only shall Syria and Ephraim be laid waste, but the Lord Himself will have laid waste Judah. “Jehovah shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people and upon thy fathers house days, that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria.” Nothing more is said of Immanuel, but the rest of the chapter is taken up with the details of Judahs devastation.
Now this sign and its explanation would have presented little difficulty but for the name of the Child-Immanuel. Erase that, and the passage reads forcibly enough. Before a certain Child, whose birth is vaguely but solemnly intimated in the near future, shall have come to years of discretion, the results of the choice of Ahaz shall be manifest. Judah shall be devastated, and her people have sunk to the most rudimentary means of living. All this is plain. It is a form which Isaiah used more than once to measure the near future. And in other literatures, too, we have felt the pathos of realising the future results of crime and the length to which disaster lingers, by their effect upon the lives of another generation:-
“The child that is unborn shall rue
The hunting of that day!”
But why call the Child Immanuel? The name is evidently part of the sign, and has to be explained in connection with it. Why call a Child “God-with-us” who is not going to act greatly or to be highly honoured, who is only going to suffer, for whom to come to years of intelligence shall only be to come to a sense of his countrys disaster and his peoples poverty. This Child who is used so pathetically to measure the flow of time and the return of its revenges, about whom we are told neither how he shall behave himself in the period of privation, nor whether he shall survive it-why is he called Immanuel? or why, being called Immanuel, has he so sordid a fate to contrast with so splendid a name?
It seems to the present expositor quite impossible to dissociate so solemn an announcement by Jehovah to the house of David of the birth of a Child, so highly named, from that expectation of the coming of a glorious Prince which was current in this royal family since the days of its founder. Mysterious and abrupt as the intimation of Immanuels birth may seem to us at this juncture, we cannot forget that it fell from Isaiahs lips on hearts which cherished as their dearest hope the appearance of a glorious descendant of David, and were just now the more sensitive to this hope that both Davids city and Davids dynasty were in peril. Could Ahaz possibly understand by Immanuel any other child than that Prince whose coming was the inalienable hope of his house? But if we are right in supposing that Ahaz made this identification, or had even the dimmest presage of it, then we understand the full force of the sign. Ahaz by his unbelief had not only disestablished himself (Isa 7:9): he had mortgaged the hope of Israel. In the flood of disaster, which his fatal resolution would bring upon the land, it mattered little what was to happen to himself. Isaiah does not trouble now to mention any penalty for Ahaz. But his resolves exceeding pregnancy of peril is borne home to the king by the assurance that it will devastate all the golden future, and must disinherit the promised King. The Child, who is Israels hope, is born; he receives the Divine name, and that is all of salvation or glory suggested. He grows up not to a throne or the majesty which the seventy-second Psalm pictures the offerings of Shebas and Sebas kings, the corn of his land shaking like the fruit of Lebanon, while they of the city flourish like the grass of the earth-but to the food of privation, to the sight of his country razed by his enemies into one vast common fit only for pasture, to loneliness and suffering. Amid the general desolation his figure vanishes from our sight, and only his name remains to haunt, with its infinite melancholy of what might have been, the thorn-choked vineyards and grass-grown courts of Judah.
But even if it were to prove too fine a point, to identify Immanuel with the promised Messiah of Davids house, and we had to fall back on some vaguer theory of him, finding him to be a personification, -either a representative of the coming generation of Gods people, or a type of the promised tomorrow, -the moral effect of the sign would remain the same; and it is with this alone that we have here to do. Be this an individual, or a generation, or an age, -by the Name bestowed upon it, it was to have been a glorious, God-inhabited age, generation, or individual, and Ahaz has prematurely spoiled everything about it but the Name. The future shall be like a boy cursed by his fathers, brought into the world with glorious rights that are stamped in his title, but only to find his kingdom and estates no longer in existence, and all the circumstances dissipated in which he might have realised the glorious meaning of his name. Type of innocent suffering, he is born to an empty title, his name the vestige of a great opportunity, the ironical monument of an irreparable crime.
If Ahaz had any conscience left, we can imagine the effect of this upon him. To be punished for sin in ones own body and fortune, this is sore enough; but to see heaven itself blackened and all the gracious future frustrate, this is unspeakably terrible.
Ahaz is thus the Judas of the Old Testament, if that conception of Judas character be the right one which makes his wilful desire to bring about the kingdom of God in his own violent fashion the motive of his betrayal of Jesus. Of his own obduracy Ahaz has betrayed the Messiah and Deliverer of his people. The assurance of this betrayal is the sign of his obduracy, a signal and terrible proof of his irretrievable sin in calling upon the Assyrians. The king has been found wanting.
II. THE PEOPLE
(chapter 8)
The king has been found wanting; but Isaiah will appeal to the people. Chapter 8 is a collection of addresses to them, as chapter 7 was an expostulation with their sovereign. The two chapters are contemporary. In Isa 8:1, the narrative goes back upon itself, and returns to the situation as it was before Ahaz made his final resolution of reliance on Assyria. Isa 8:1-4 imply that the Assyrian has not yet been summoned by Ahaz to his assistance, and therefore run parallel to Isa 7:3-9; but Isa 8:5 and following verses sketch the evils that are to come upon Judah and Israel, consequent upon the arrival of the Assyrians in Palestine, in answer to the appeal of Ahaz. These evils for land and nation are threatened as absolutely to the people as they had been to the king. And then the people are thrown over, {Isa 8:14} as the king had been; and Isaiah limits himself to his disciples (Isa 8:16)-the remnant that was foretold in chapter 6.
This appeal from monarch to people is one of the most characteristic features of Isaiahs ministry. Whatever be the matter committed to him, Isaiah is not allowed to rest till he has brought it home to the popular conscience; and however much he may be able to charge national disaster upon the folly of politicians or the obduracy of a king, it is the people whom he holds ultimately responsible. The statesman, according to Isaiah, cannot rise far above the level of his generation; the people set the fashion to their most autocratic rulers. This instinct for the popular conscience, this belief in the moral solidarity of a nation and their governors, was the motive of the most picturesque passages in Isaiahs career, and inspired some of the keenest epigrams in which he conveyed the Divine truth. We have here a case in illustration. Isaiah had met Ahaz and his court “at the conduit of the upper pool, in the highway of the fullers field,” preparing for the expected siege of the city, and had delivered to them the Lords message not to fear, for that Syria-Ephraim would certainly be destroyed. But that was not enough. It was now laid upon the prophet to make public and popular advertisement of the same truth.
Isaiah was told to take a large, smooth board, and write thereon in the character used by the common people-“with the pen of a man”-as if it were the title to a prophecy, the compound word “Maher-shalal-hash-baz.” This was not only an intelligibly written, but a significantly sonorous, word-one of those popular cries in which the liveliest sensations are struck forth by the crowded, clashing letters, full to the dullest ears of rumours of war: “speed-spoil-hurry-prey.” The interpretation of it was postponed, the prophet meantime taking two faithful witnesses to its publication. In a little a son was born to Isaiah, and to this child he transferred the noisy name. Then its explanation was given. The double word was the alarm of a couple of invasions. “Before the boy shall have knowledge to cry, My father, my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be carried away before the king of Assyria.” So far nothing was told the people that had not been told their king; only the time of the overthrow of their two enemies was fixed with greater precision. At the most in a year, Damascus and Samaria would have fallen. The ground was already vibrating to the footfall of the northern hosts.
The rapid political changes, which ensued in Palestine, are reflected on the broken surface of this eighth chapter. We shall not understand these abrupt and dislocated oracles, uttered at short intervals during the two years of the Assyrian campaign, unless we realise that northern shadow passing and repassing over Judah and Israel, and the quick alternations of pride and penitence in the peoples beneath it. We need not try to thread the verses on any line of thought. Logical connection among them there is none. Let us at once get down into the currents of popular feeling, in which Isaiah, having left Ahaz, is now labouring, and casting forth these cries.
It is a period of powerful currents, a people wholly in drift, and the strongest man of them arrested only by a firm pressure of the Lords hand. “For Jehovah spake thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me, that I should not walk in the way of this people.” The character of the popular movement, “the way of this people,” which nearly lifted Isaiah off his feet, is evident. It is that into which every nation drifts, who have just been loosened from a primitive faith in God, and by fear or ambition have been brought under the fascination of the great world. On the one hand, such a generation is apt to seek the security of its outward life in things materially large and splendid, to despise as paltry its old religious forms, national aspirations and achievements, and be very desirous to follow foreign fashion and rival foreign wealth. On the other hand, the religious spirit of such an age, withdrawn from its legitimate objects, seeks satisfaction in petty and puerile practices, demeaning itself spiritually, in a way that absurdly contrasts with the grandeur of its material ambitions. Such a stage in the life of a people has its analogy in the growth of the individual, when the boy, new to the world, by affecting the grandest companions and models, assumes an ambitious manner, with contempt for his former circumstances, yet inwardly remains credulous, timid, and liable to panic. Isaiah reveals that it was such a stage which both the kingdoms of Israel had now reached. “This people hath refused the waters of Shiloah, that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliahs son.”
It was natural, that when the people of Judah contrasted their own estate with that of Assyria, or even of Damascus, they should despise themselves. For what was Judah? A petty principality, no larger than three of our own counties. And what was Jerusalem? A mere mountain village, some sixty or seventy acres of barren rock, cut into tongues by three insignificant valleys, down which there sometimes struggled tiny threads of water, though the beds were oftener dry, giving the town a withered and squalid look-no great river to nourish, ennoble, or protect. What were such a country and capital to compare with the empire of Assyria?-the empire of the two rivers, whose powerful streams washed the ramparts, wharves, and palace stairs of mighty cities! What was Jerusalem even to the capital of Rezin? Were not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel, let alone these waterless wadys, whose bleached beds made the Jewish capital so squalid? It was the Assyrians vast water system – canals, embankments, sluices, and the wealth of water moving through them-that most impressed the poor Jew, whose streams failed him in summer, and who had to treasure up his scanty stores of rainwater in the cisterns, with which the rocky surface of his territory is still so thickly indented. There had, indeed, been at Jerusalem some attempt to conduct water. It was called “The Shiloah-conduit or aqueduct,” or literally “emissary” in the old sense of the word-a rough, narrow tunnel of some thousand feet in length, hewn through the living rock from the only considerable spring on the east side of Jerusalem, to a reservoir within the walls. To this day “The Shiloah” presents itself as not by any means a first-class piece of engineering. Ahaz had either just made the tunnel or repaired it; but if the water went no faster than it travels now, the results were indeed ridiculous. Well might “this people despise the waters of the Shiloah, that go trickling,” when they thought upon the rivers of Damascus or the broad streams of Mesopotamia. Certainly it was enough to dry up the patriotism of the Judean, if he was capable of appreciating only material value, to look upon this bare, riverless capital, with its bungled aqueduct and trickling water supply. On merely material grounds, Judah was about the last country at that time in which her inhabitants might be expected to show pride or confidence.
But woe to the people whose attachment to their land is based upon its material advantages, who have lost their sense for those spiritual presences, from an appreciation of which springs all true love of country, with warriors courage in her defence and statesmans faith in her destiny!, The greatest calamity, which can befall any people, is to forfeit their enthusiasm for the soil, on which their history has been achieved and their hearths and altars lie, by suffering their faith in the presence of God, of which these are but the tokens, to pass away. With this loss Isaiah now reproaches Judah. The people are utterly materialised; their delights have been in gold and silver, chariots and horses, fenced cities and broad streams, and their faith has now followed their delights. But these things to which they flee will only prove their destruction. The great foreign river, whose waters they covet, will overflow them: “even the king of Assyria and all his glory, and he shall come up over all his channels and go over all his banks; and he shall sweep onward into Judah; he shall overflow and pass through; he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel,” thou who art “God-with-us.” At the sound of the Name, which floats in upon the floods of invasion like the Ark on the waters of old, Isaiah pulls together his distraught faith in his country, and forgetting her faults, flings defiance at her foes. “Associate yourselves, ye peoples, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of far-off countries, gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces. Take counsel together, it shall be brought to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for Immanu-El”-“With us is God.” The challenge was made good. The prophets faith prevailed over the peoples materialism, and Jerusalem remained inviolable till Isaiahs death.
Meantime the Assyrian came on. But the infatuated people of Judah continued to tremble rather before the doomed conspirators, Rezin and Pekah. It must have been a time of huge excitement. The prophet tells us how he was steadied by the pressure of the Lords hand, and how, being steadied, the meaning of the word “Immanuel” was opened out to him. “God-with-us” is the one great fact of life. Amid all the possible alliances and all the possible fears of a complex political situation, He remains the one certain alliance, the one real fear: “Say ye not, A conspiracy, concerning all whereof this people say, A conspiracy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be in dread thereof. Jehovah of hosts, Him shall ye sanctify; and let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread.” God is the one great fact of life, but what a double-edged fact-“a sanctuary to all who put their trust in Him, but a rock of offence to both houses of Israel!” The figure is very picturesque. An altar, a common stone on steps, one of those which covered the land in large numbers-it is easy to see what a double purpose that might serve. What a joy the sight would be to the weary wanderer or refugee who sought it, what a comfort as he leant his weariness upon it, and knew he was safe! But those who were flying over the land, not seeking Jehovah, not knowing indeed what they sought, blind and panic-stricken-for them what could that altar do but trip them up like any other common rock in their way? “In fact, Divine justice is something which is either, observed, desired, or attained, and is then mens weal, or, on the other hand, is overlooked. rejected, or sought after in a wild, unintelligent spirit, and only in the hour of need, and is then their lasting ruin.”
The Assyrian came on, and the temper of the Jews grew worse. Samaria was indeed doomed from the first, but for some time Isaiah had been excepting Judah from a judgment for which the guilt of Northern Israel was certainly riper. He foresaw, of course, that the impetus of invasion might sweep the Assyrians into Judah, but he had triumphed in this: that Judah was Immanuels land, and that all who arrayed themselves against her must certainly come to naught. But now his ideas have changed, as Judah has persisted in evil. He knows now that God is for a stumbling-block to both houses of Israel; nay, that upon Jerusalem herself He will fall as a gin and a snare. Only for a little group of individuals, separate from both States, and gathered round the prophet and the word of God given to him, is salvation certain. People, as well as king, have been found wanting. There remains only this remnant.
Isaiah then at last sees his remnant. But the point we have reached is significant for more than the fulfilment of his expectations. This is the first appearance in history of a religious community, apart from the forms of domestic or national life. “Till then no one had dreamed of a fellowship of faith dissociated from all national forms, bound together by faith in the Divine word alone. It was the birth of a new era in religion, for it was the birth of the conception of the Church, the first step in the emancipation of spiritual religion from the forms of political life.”
The plan of the seventh and eighth chapters is now fully disclosed. As the king for his unworthiness has to give place to the Messiah, so the nation for theirs have to give place to the Church. In the seventh chapter the king was found wanting, and the Messiah promised. In the eighth chapter the people are found wanting; and the prophet, turning from them, proceeds to form the Church among those who accept the Word, which king and people have refused. “Bind thou up the testimony, and seal the teaching among my disciples. And I will wait on Jehovah, who hideth His face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for Him. Behold, I and the children Jehovah hath given me are for signs and wonders in Israel from Jehovah of hosts, Him that dwelleth in Mount Zion.”
This, then, is the situation: revelation concluded, the Church formed upon it, and the nation abandoned. But is that situation final? The words just quoted betray the prophets hope that it is not. He says: “I will wait.” He says again: The Lord is only “hiding His face from the house of Jacob.” I will expect again the shining of His countenance. I will hope for Divine grace and the nation being once more conterminous. The rest of the section {to Isa 9:7} is the development of this hope, which stirs in the prophets heart after he has closed the record of revelation.
The darkness deepened across Israel. The Assyrian had come. The northern floods kept surging among the little states of Palestine, and none knew what might be left standing. We can well understand Isaiah pausing, as he did, in face of such rapid and incontrollable movements. When Tiglath-pileser swept over the plain of Esdraelon, casting down the king of Samaria and the Philistine cities, and then swept back again, carrying off upon his ebb the populations east of the Jordan, it looked very like as if both the houses of Israel should fall. In their panic, the people betook themselves to morbid forms of religion; and at first Isaiah was obliged to quench the hope and pity he had betrayed for them in indignation at the utter contrariety of their religious practices to the word of God. There can be no Divine grace for the people as long as they “seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto the wizards that chirp and that mutter.” For such a disposition the prophet has nothing but scorn, “Should not a people seek unto their God? On behalf of the living should they seek unto the dead?” They must come back to the prophets own word before hope may dawn. “To the revelation and the testimony! If they speak not according to this word, surely there is no morning for them.”
The night, however, grew too awful for scorn. There had been no part of the land so given to the idolatrous practices, which the prophet scathed, as “the land of Zebulon and the land of Naphtali, by the sea beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles.” But all the horrors of captivity had now fallen upon it, and it had received at the Lords hand double for all its sins. The night had been torn enough by lightning; was there no dawn? The darkness of these provinces fills the prophets silenced thoughts. He sees a people “hardly bestead and hungry, fretting themselves, cursing their king,” who had betrayed them, “and their God,” who had abandoned them, “turning their faces upwards” to heaven and “downwards” to the sacred soil from which they were being dragged, “but, behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and into thick darkness they are driven away.” It is a murky picture, yet through the smoke of it we are able to discern a weird procession of Israelites departing into captivity. We date it, therefore, about 732 B.C., the night of Israels first great captivity. The shock and the pity of this rouse the prophets great heart. He cannot continue to say that there is no morning for those benighted provinces. He will venture a great hope for their people.
Over how many months the crowded verses, Isa 8:21-22; Isa 9:1-7, must be spread, it is useless now to inquire-whether the revulsion they mark arose all at once in the prophets mind, or hope grew gradually brighter as the smoke of war died away on Israels northern frontier during 731 B.C. It is enough that we can mark the change. The prophets tones pass from sarcasm to pity; {Isa 8:20-21} from pity to hope; {Isa 8:22; Isa 9:1} from hope to triumph in the vision of salvation actually achieved. {Isa 9:2} “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, on them hath the light shined.” For a mutilated, we see a multiplied, nation; for the fret of hunger and the curses of defeat, we hear the joy of harvest and of spoil after victory. “For the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, Thou hast broken as in the day of Midian.” War has rolled away forever over that northern horizon, and all the relies of war in the land are swept together into the fire. “For all the armour of the armed man in the tumult, and the garments rolled in blood, shall even be for burning, and for fuel of fire.” In the midday splendour of this peace, which, after the fashion of Hebrew prophecy, is described as already realised, Isaiah hails the Author of it all in that gracious and marvellous Child whose birth he had already intimated, Heir to the throne of David, but entitled by a fourfold name, too generous, perhaps, for a mere mortal, “Wonderful-Counsellor, Hero-God, Father-Everlasting, Prince-of-peace,” who shall redeem the realms of his great forerunner and maintain “Israel with justice and righteousness from henceforth, even forever.”
When, finally, the prophet inquires what has led his thoughts through this rapid change from satisfaction {Isa 8:16} with the salvation of small “remnant” of believers in the word of God-a little kernel of patience in the midst of a godless and abandoned people-to the daring vision of a whole nation redeemed and established in peace under a Godlike King, he says: “The zeal of the Lord of hosts hath performed this.”
“The zeal,” translates our English version, but no one English word will give it. It is that mixture of hot honour and affection to which “jealousy” in its good sense comes near. It is that overflow of the love that cannot keep still, which, when men think God has surely done all He will or can do for an ungrateful race, visits “them in their distress, and carries them forward into unconceived dispensations of grace and glory. It is the Spirit of God, which yearns after the lost, speaks to the self-despairing of hope, and surprises rebel and prophet alike with new revelations of love. We have our systems representing Gods work up to the limits of our experience, and we settle upon them; but the Almighty is ever greater than His promise or than His revelation of Himself.”