Children change everything, or at least they should. I loved having children. We thought nothing would change about us when we had kids. You know, we would still do what we did before kids. We can divide our lives into BC and AC, Before Children and After Children. Something happens to you when you hold your baby for the first time. I was so proud of our little girl. I walked around the mall holding our newborn as she slept with her head resting on my shoulder. I felt like I was the envy of every man.
Isaiah 7-9 is a text about a child who changes everything. Really, several children are in the text. They have names that have meaning, and they are signs (7:14; 8:18). There are Isaiah’s sons, and there is Immanuel, God’s Son. Isaiah’s sons are for the immediate. Shear-jashub’s name means a remnant shall return. He draws a line between the unbelieving and the believing. Maher-shalal-hash-baz is a sign for the unbelieving. His name means quick to plunder speed to spoil. Assyria was quick to plunder and spoil on the one side, and on the other side, the unbelief of Israel and Judah was hastening them to that plunder.
Immanuel is for the future. In this text, Isaiah tells us of Immanuel’s birth. We call that the incarnation of the Son of God. There is no greater miracle than the incarnation of the Son of God. Isaiah presents Immanuel as the one who changes everything. If you have no other reason to celebrate this Christmas, you can celebrate Immanuel. He is reason enough to celebrate, and without him we have nothing real and lasting to celebrate. He is the reason we give gifts and gather and feast and laugh and pray and hope.
Immanuel confronts us in this text and calls us to believe.
Jesus Christ is the dividing-line of history. I don’t mean just the move from BC to AD. I mean from the moment of the fall. Humanity is divided into believers and unbelievers. From the first prophetic word of the Bible forward, Jesus Christ is the dividing-line of history (Genesis 3:15).
In this text, Ahaz is called to believe God and not trust in alliances. The task of Davidic kings was to believe. To resort to human alliances was to reject the Davidic covenant, the promise that God would establish David’s throne forever (2 Sam 7:11-13). David testifies to us that we need something done for us that we cannot do for ourselves.
When the text opens, Ahaz is expecting siege is about to be laid against Jerusalem, so he is checking the water supply (3). He had been plagued by attacks from what history has called the Syro-Ephraimitic Alliance. Syria and the Northern kingdom of Israel were launching attacks on the Southern Kingdom but to this point were unable to take Jerusalem (1). When news of further attacks reached Ahaz and Jerusalem, their hearts shook in fear (2). The intention of Syria and Ephraim was to replace the son of David with the son of Tabeel, the son of nobody/nothing (6).1
If Syria and Ephraim’s plans had dynastic implications, so does Isaiah’s word to Ahaz. Don’t miss that Ahaz is referred to as the house of David (2a) because his response to Isaiah’s message will impact the Davidic Dynasty.
With his son, Shear-jashub, a remnant shall return, Isaiah went to Ahaz to tell him the Syro-Ephraimitic Alliance would not stand (3,7). Soon both Syria and Israel would cease to be peoples. All Ahaz and Judah need do is believe: If you (plural) are not firm in faith you will not be firm at all (9b).2
Isaiah told Ahaz to ask for a sign any sign as deep as Sheol or as high as heaven (11). Masking his unbelief in piety, Ahaz replied, I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test (12). The reality was he had already put his trust in Assyria (2Kgs 16:7). He rejected the Davidic covenant that called for faith that God would establish David’s throne forever and went about to establish his own throne by trusting Assyria. Someone said, That’s like a mouse trusting a cat to save him from a rat.
The divine answer to the unbelieving house of David (13 you-plural) was, Therefore the Lord himself will give you (plural) a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel (14). Again the dynastic implications come to the fore. What Immanuel meant for Ahaz and Judah was judgment on their unbelief.3 From Ahaz forward to the fall of the house of David every Davidic king was a puppet of either Assyria or Babylon.
Immanuel would be born into poverty and oppression as a longterm result of Ahaz’s unbelief (15). Further, in the space of time it takes for a child to know good and evil, the immediate threat against Judah would be over (16). A much larger threat, however, would be a reality, a threat worse than when the kingdom was divided. The source of it would be the very one in whom Ahaz had placed his trust, Assyria (17).
Why is the Immanuel text here at this point in history if he is not coming in Ahaz’s time? The promise of Immanuel is for the believing. He is for the remnant that Shear-jashub represents. Immanuel is a sign to direct the hope of the believing and sustain them in the trouble that lay ahead for the nation. The Immanuel prophecy is a direct messianic prophecy that signals to the believing that though the Davidic Dynasty would be lost to history, God would yet give his Son who is Immanuel.
Matthew picks up not simply Isaiah 7:14 but all that is being addressed regarding the Davidic Dynasty in Isaiah’s text. Isaiah had gone to great lengths in his prophecy to say what is at stake is the house of David (7:2,13). The opening words of the angel to Joseph were, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife … (Mt. 1:20).
Isaiah addressed the house of David. The angel addressed Joseph as son of David. Don’t be afraid sounds strangely like Isaiah’s call to Ahaz not to fear the Syro-Ephraimitic Alliance (Isa 7:4). The angel is calling Joseph to believe in the same way Isaiah called Ahaz to believe. In Isaiah 7 a reigning king is called to trust God’s word and given a blank check to ask for a sign. In Matthew 1 a carpenter is called to believe and given a Son. At last, in Joseph, we have a son of David who believes. And in Jesus, we have Immanuel, God with us.4
God calls you not to fear this world and all that is in it, but to trust Immanuel. You will be established in faith or you will not be established at all. If you trust Immanuel today, you have every reason to go home and celebrate!
Ahaz placed his faith in Assyria rather than God, and Assyria proved to be a poor savior. This section is dominated by Assyria (7:18,20; 8:4,7). Assyria is what Ahaz trusted, Assyria is what Ahaz will get, and it will be his ruin.
A. Because they are agents of God’s anger (7:18-25)
In that day is repeated 4 times (18,20,21,23) and is always a reference to divine visitation. It shows Assyria is the agent divine visitation. This is the irony of the text. Assyria was an instrument in God’s hand, the bee he whistled for (18) and the razor they hired, but God would use to shave them (20). The reality is God raised Assyria up as his agent of judgment on Israel and as the beginnings of his judgment on Judah, a precursor for what Babylon will finish (Isa.39).
We must not miss what is being communicated. Ahaz of his own freewill, entered into an alliance with Assyria. God sent Isaiah to call Ahaz to trust him and abandon human alliances. Yet, Assyria is the rod of God’s anger (10:5).
All other trusts will fail you because those trusts are the agents of God’s anger! Whatever you trust other than God will be your downfall.
B. Because God turns us over to them (8:1-8)
In 8:1-8, Then the LORD said/spoke is repeated three times (8:1,3b,5) to give a timeline of what Ahaz would get for his unbelief. He would not ask for a sign (7:12), but he will get the sign of Maher-shalal-hash-baz. When you reject Immanuel, you get Maher-shalal-hash-baz, quick to plunder speed to spoil.
The LORD told Isaiah to write Belonging to Maher-shalal-hash-baz on a tablet in the presence of reliable witnesses (8:1-2). The sign was meant to raise questions, What does Isaiah mean?
Then Isaiah went to his wife, and she conceived and had a son. The LORD directed Isaiah to call his son Maher-shalal-hash-baz, and gives the reason, for before the boy knows how to cry, “My father” or “My mother,” the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carried away before the king of Assyria (4).
Isaiah wants us to notice the repetition of the language used regarding the signs God is giving in Immanuel and in Maher-shalal-hash-baz to underscore the difference between them. Of both the phrase for before the boy knows (7:16 cf. 8:4) is repeated. Maher-shalal-hash-baz is not Immanuel, but the opposite. He is the sign of God giving Ahaz and Judah over to their trusts. They do not want God with us, so they will get quick to plunder speed to spoil.
They rejected the gentle waters of Shiloah (6), they will get the flood of Assyria all the way up to their necks (7-8). Assyria would fill the land of Immanuel. God would turn them over to their trusts.
When you choose this world, you will get more of this world than you want. All other trusts will fail because they are agents of God’s anger to whom God turns you over.
In verses 9-10, we hear the response of the believing remnant as invaders decimate Immanuel’s land. Their hope is firmly fixed in the Immanuel. They know that Immanuel will shatter their enemies. They know the purpose of their enemies will not stand. This is the same message Isaiah called Ahaz to believe in 7:7, It will not stand. It shall not come to pass. No purpose of the enemy and no purpose of the evil one will stand. The reason the remnant can stand firm in confident faith is the last line of verse 10, for God is with us or simply, Immanuel.
The promise of Immanuel will sustain us in life’s darkest circumstances. Immanuel is a truth to live by.
A. Fear God not conspiracies (11-15)
Therefore, we must fear God not the popular fears of the day. The hand of the LORD was heavy on Isaiah warning him not to walk in the way of this people (11). The conspiracy5 they feared seems to have been that the Syro-Ephraimitic Alliance would stand, so that Assyria was their only hope. You can’t fear God and conspiracy. Whatever we fear we give a god-like place in our lives. Rather our lives are to be directed by the fear of the LORD (13).
God providentially rules his world not conspiracies. What the people were calling conspiracy, God was calling a razor they hired, but he was using to shave them (7:20); He was the one who whistled for the flies and the bees (7:18). If Judah had trusted God, they would not have had to resort to believing conspiracy.
God will either be a sanctuary (cf. Ex 25:8 miqdas) or a stone of stumbling, a sanctuary or a snare (14-15).6 Here we see more of the meticulous providence of God. In one and the same event, He was a sanctuary for the believing and snare for the unbelieving.
Believing people must dare to treat God as God and not respond to life in a way that makes God look helpless and weak.7
B. Believe his word not superstitions (16-22).
We will be guided by the Word of God or by superstitions. If God says, “Syria and Ephraim will not stand.” They will not stand. It does not matter if you are surrounded by them. If God says, “You will be up to you neck in Assyrians, but I will be with you.” Then he is with you with Assyrians up to your neck. So bind up (safeguard) the testimony; seal the teaching (16). Isaiah is holding to the word of God and waiting for the LORD in hope (17).
Rejecting the word, Judah turned to mediums and necromancers. Ironically, people who thought the word was absurd were inquiring of the dead (19). They rejected the word of God and, thus, had no light (20), only distress and darkness and gloom (22).
When we reject the word, we embrace the absurd. We tend to sanitize our rejection of the word with prayer. I’ll pray about it. We hear counsel from the word as if it is a take it or leave proposition. To the believing the watchword is always and ever to the teaching to the testimony (20).8 All else is darkness and gloom.
C. Look to Immanuel (9:1-7)
The incarnation will not simply let us look backward and say, How cute! It compels us to look forward to the coming of the Son of God to putdown evil and rule in justice. The faithful in Isaiah’s day persevered in faith the same way we persevere by looking to the promise of Immanuel. By faith, they laid hold of the firm conviction that nothing would stop the redemptive purpose of God in the world. God’s purpose is so sure, Isaiah writes of future events in past tense. He covers the whole course of redemptive history.
The last line of this text captures how God’s purpose will prevail, The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this (7c). God’s zeal is his passion driving history toward the eternal reign of his Son. His zeal for his glory and our salvation will cause the triumph of his grace.9
While this text was all future for Isaiah’s hearers, it is both past and future for us. In the former time, the land of Zebulun and Naphtali (9:1 cf. 2Kgs. 15:29) were the first areas to be rolled over by the Assyrian war-machine.
But in the latter time, in the eschaton, the light of Immanuel exploded on the scene as Jesus launched his public ministry from the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali. Matthew grabs this Isaiah text and says,
And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what was spoken by the prophet might be fulfilled: “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region of the shadow of death, on them a light has dawned” (Matt. 4:13-16).
God’s passion for his redemptive glory brought the light of salvation first to those farthest from the light (2). From there the light of redemptive glory has multiplied believers of every nation and increased joy and gladness over the world (3).
How could Immanuel bring such multiplied joy and gladness to the world? Isaiah gives us three reasons each building on the other signaled by the word for (4,5,6,). He has brought to us liberation we did not win for ourselves but was won for us (4).
How do you enter a victory you did not win? Immanuel will bring all his enemies and ours into subjection (5 cf. Ps 110:1).
How will the LORD accomplish that? Isaiah says, For unto us a child is born, to us a Son is given (6). God’s answer to everything that has ever terrorized us is a child.10 The empire (government—misrah) of God’s grace is on his shoulder because of who he is. All of his names are divine. He is Wonderful Counselor. His counsel is supernatural.11 No one ever spoke like Jesus. He is Mighty God. He has no rivals, no threats to his position. He is Everlasting Father. This is not to confuse the persons of the Godhead, but to highlight the loving care of Jesus. No one loves you like him. He is Prince of Peace. In him, we are have peace with God.(6)
The empire of grace will increase forever. He will reign forever, and forever with each passing moment better, more thrilling, more filled with joy than the last.12 He is both the Ideal Davidic King establishing the throne of David forever in justice and righteousness, and he is God.
Immanuel has come and is coming. This is why we can celebrate. We are called to be established in faith, to forsake all other trusts, and to persevere in faith until he appears.