7:1 Now it came about in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Aram and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not conquer it.

We drop into the center of a dramatic scene. Judah, God’s chosen people and last remnant, is in big trouble. Ahaz (father of Hezekiah and grandson of Uzziah) is their king. But Pekah, king of Israel, and Rezin, king of Aram (Syria), have joined forces to try to conquer Judah. The reason: Judah won’t join their united league against the threatening Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria. Their plan: break a whole in Judah’s walls, conquer the nation, and set up the son of Tabeel on the throne so they can bring a three king league against the Assyrian tyrant.

But as the end of verse one indicates, their efforts were like batting the wind. God would not let it happen. That’s what happens when enemies come after God’s people. It’s a lost battle before it started.

But why would God protect a man like Ahaz? He worshipped false gods under every available green tree, crafted molten models of the Baal gods, and burned his children alive as ritual sacrifices (2 Kin 16:2-4; 2 Chr 28:1-4). Why would God protect a monster like that? Because God’s faithfulness to His people is not hindered by His people’s sin.

But in spite of the enemy’s failure to take Judah down, they refused to give up…

7:2 When it was reported to the house of David, saying, "The Arameans have camped in Ephraim," his heart and the hearts of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake with the wind.

The house of David is the people of the royal palace in the nation of Judah. Ephraim was the 2nd son of Joseph and now one of the tribes of Israel. King Pekah of Israel had welcomed this godless king Rezin into his own land, to turn the full brute of their military power against Judah. Ahaz and his people were so terrified that they shook like trees in the wind. But if the enemy could not conquer them, what were they afraid of?

The chronicler informs us that previous to this day, the king of Israel and Aram afflicted Judah with heavy casualties. The king of Israel slaughtered 120,000 men of Judah in one day and carried away 200,000 captives (2 Chr 28:5-8). In Israel, lived a warrior from the tribe of Ephraim who killed Maaseiah, King Ahaz’ son, Azrikam, the ruler of Judah’s royal house, and Elkanah, King Ahaz’ second in command. This alone would have been morally debilitating.

But here, in the hour of fear and at the peak of terror, God brings forth a message of comfort…

7:3 Then the Lord said to Isaiah, "Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway to the fuller's field…

In Ahaz’ day, if a king wanted to conquer another king, but could not break through his walls, he’d camp around the city, cutting off all food supply until the city weakened and finally caved in. This was called a “siege.” In Israel’s history, some sieges lasted for so long that parents cooked and ate their own children to keep themselves alive (2 Kin 6:28-29).

So what was Ahaz doing at the conduit of the upper pool? Probably stopping up streams of water around the city to make it more difficult for the kings of Aram and Israel to survive while they carried on their siege against Judah. Years later, Ahaz’ son, Hezekiah, would do the same thing (2 Chr 32:4; Isa 22:9).

In steps Isaiah, the prophet of God. But Isaiah is not alone. Beside him stands his son, Shear-jashub (pronounced shee-ahr-JAY-shuhb) a man who “carried a sermon in his name.”¹ His name meant, “A remnant shall return.”

God was not done with His people and Shear-jashub was a living object lesson of this fact. God would rescue a small remnant, and through that remnant, the Prince of Peace would some day come (Isa 10:21-22).

7:4 “…and say to him, 'Take care and be calm, have no fear and do not be fainthearted because of these two stubs of smoldering firebrands, on account of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and the son of Remaliah.

Isaiah uses four verbs to comfort King Ahaz: take care, be calm, have no fear, and do not be faint-hearted. The message could not be more direct: take comfort and fear not! To God, these two armies were smoldering stubs, two little smoking twigs.

7:5 “‘Because Aram, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has planned evil against you, saying…

Notice how God calls Pekah, “the son of Remaliah,” instead of by his personal name. “The easterners expressed contempt for a man by designating him not by his own name, but by the name of his father, especially when the father was not known for anything² (for example, see 1 Sam 20:27-31).”

7:6 “‘“Let us go up against Judah and terrorize it, and make for ourselves a breach in its walls and set up the son of Tabeel as king in the midst of it…"

Strong’s Dictionary translates terrorize as “to cause a sickening dread.” A breach in its walls refers to breaking a gap in the walls and marching into the city to take it over, much like Homer’s Trojan horse that brought down the city of Troy. A city’s walls were its greatest defense. Without walls, they were like shell-less turtle.

Tabeel was probably an Aramean dignitary living in the land of Damascus whose son would be easy to control.

7:7 “‘Thus says the Lord God: “It shall not stand nor shall it come to pass.”

It won’t happen. Your plans will capsize like a building of glass in an earthquake. In the end, all of Pekah’s and Rezin’s plans turned to nothing.

7:8-9 “‘“For the head of Aram is Damascus and the head of Damascus is Rezin (now within another 65 years Ephraim will be shattered, so that it is no longer a people), and the head of Ephraim is Samaria and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If you will not believe, you surely shall not last."'"

King Rezin ruled Damascus, the capital of Aram, and King Pekah ruled Samaria, the capital of Israel. God’s point was this: here’s all you get and no more! God rules over every atom, plant, and molecule in the universe. No human, nation, devil, or saint can lift a finger or take a breath without the ultimate permission of God. Paul preached to the Athenians, “And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation” (Acts 17:26). God determined their times (that’s how long they get to live) and their boundaries (that’s where they get to live). Jeremiah’s rhetorical question is fitting, “Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?” (Lam 3:37).

Sixty-five years from this day, Shalmaneser, a future king of Assyria, would drag the northern kingdom of Israel into exile (see 2 Kin 17:24).

7:10-11 Then the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, "Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God; make it deep as Sheol or high as heaven."

It was not uncommon for God to accompany direct revelation with a sign.

God used signs to verify that God indeed was speaking through His prophet and that what was spoken was true. Moses’ staff turned into a serpent. Elijah raised the widow’s son back to life. Daniel interpreted dreams. The apostles healed the sick. The early church suddenly spoke languages they never heard before. Christ raised Himself from the dead (see also 1 Sam 2:34, 1 Sam 10:7-9). All through the ages, God has used signs to prove that He is speaking.

God encourages Ahaz to ask for any sign he wants: as high as heaven where God sits upon His throne or as low as Sheol where unbelievers and demons writhe in agony. You can’t get higher or lower than that. Years later, Jesus would exercise a sign as low as Sheol by dying on the cross and entering hell to proclaim victory over the imprisoned demons (1 Pet 3:18-19). And He would also fulfill a sign as high as heaven by ascending back into God’s presence, forty days after His resurrection (Rom 10:6-7).

In His infinite compassion, God condescends to Ahaz’ level to provide him with a sign—a visible picture—that God will deliver Judah. This is not unlike what God did with Gideon and the fleece (coat) of wool in Judges 6.  

7:12 But Ahaz said, "I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord!"

Using Scripture as a mask for his sin of unbelief, Ahaz mouths the principle of Deuteronomy 6:16 which says, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” Jesus would quote this same passage 700 years later when Satan tempted Jesus to cast Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple (Mat 4:7).

Ahaz feigned humility. If God encouraged Ahaz to ask for a sign, Ahaz would not be testing God by following God’s advice! But his deepest problem was that he would not believe God’s promise of protection, therefore, asking for a sign would only make him more accountable to God’s promise.

7:13 Then he said, "Listen now, O house of David! Is it too slight a thing for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God as well?

Ahaz had already irritated or antagonized other men—how, we don’t know. But now Ahaz tries the patience of God Himself, openly and publicly. Ironically, God says that Ahaz is now doing the very thing Ahaz claimed he would dare not venture to do: test God.

We now arrive at the theological gem of this entire chapter, and one of the great wonders of the Scriptures…

7:14 “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.

Behold! grabbed the hearer’s attention and warned him that an important announcement was coming (for other examples see Gen 1:29; Gen 15:12; Ex 3:2; Ex 34:11; 1 Sam 14:11). The NIV fails to reflect this expression.

For 700 years, no Jewish scholar or rabbi—so far as we know—wrestled with the meaning of this passage. But then something happened. Matthew, the former tax-collector, identified this passage as a prophecy of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ (Mat 1:23).

And now we encounter a theological controversy. Virgin (almah in the Hebrew) can be translated two ways: virgin, or young woman (typically, a young woman who has born no children yet). No other place in Scripture is this word used where so much theology rests on how it is translated.

Did Isaiah really mean a woman really would have a virgin conception and birth in his day? Or was it simply a regular birth? But if that is the case, then how is a woman having a regular birth a sign?

Scholars come to a minimum of five different positions on this passage (for a full article on this topic, see Did a Virgin Birth Happen in Isaiah’s Day?

• A virgin gave birth to a child in Isaiah’s day. Challenge: If this really happened then one would think the Jews would have written about this event, or at least interpreted this passage as referring to an actual virgin birth in Isaiah’s day—but none of their writings imply anything of the sort. And more importantly, if a virgin birth really did happen in Isaiah’s day, we have bigger theological hurdles to master than we began with. Is not the virgin birth of Jesus a distinct miracle that points to His godhood? If the baby was born of a virgin, who was the father? God? Then would the child not be divine?

• No virgin gave birth to a child in Isaiah’s day, this prophecy pointed only to Christ’s birth. The sign would be fulfilled in the future. Challenge: Isaiah says, “The Lord Himself will give you a sign” (Isa 7:14). How can a sign happening over 700 years after Ahaz dies be a sign to Ahaz? Additionally, Isaiah prophesies that before this child knows the difference between good and evil (probably around the age of three or four), Ahaz’ two enemies will be wiped out (see Isa 7:15-16). This prophecy required that a child be born in Ahaz’ day.

• The virgin is a young woman who, still a virgin, marries Ahaz and the Immanuel child is Hezekiah. Challenge: King Hezekiah was already ten years old at the time of this prophecy. I think the temptation here for many students of the Scriptures is to attach the prophecy to someone already named in Scripture instead of being silent where the Bible is silent.

• “Virgin” refers to Isaiah’s wife. Challenge: At the least, virgin (almah) refers to a young woman who has had no children, but Isaiah’s wife had already given birth to Shear-jashub as a child (Isa 7:3).
• The prophecy points to a woman who was a virgin during the time the prophecy was made, but who would no longer be a virgin when she conceived the child. Challenge: Then what is so miraculous about this birth? How is it a “sign”? Counter-challenge: There was nothing miraculous about the birth of Isaiah’s two other sons, Shear-jashub and Maher-shalal-hash-baz (Isa 7:3; Is 8:3) who were also signs to the nation of Judah, so why must Isaiah 7:14 point to a miraculous birth? Not all of God’s signs that accompanied direct revelation were miraculous in nature. In Isaiah 20:2-3, Isaiah is commanded to walk around naked for three years as a sign—there is nothing miraculous about walking around in the buff—though a little shocking!

My conclusion is the last view mentioned above: a woman who was a virgin during the time of Isaiah’s prophecy, got married, gave birth to a child, named him “Immanuel,” and before he was old enough to know the difference between good and evil, Ahaz’ two enemy kings would be wiped out.

Every time Ahaz heard this child’s name: Immanuel, he was reminded: God is with us! But instead of believing God’s Word, he took God’s silver and God’s gold from God’s house and gave them to Tiglath-pileser as payment for the Assyrian king to protect him from the kings of Israel and Aram (2 Kin 16:7-9; 2 Chr 28:16-18).

7:15-16 “He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good. For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken.

Curds are coagulated goat’s milk that turns into a cottage cheese-like substance. Both curds and honey were staple foods for the Israelites, especially when the vegetation was low and crops were weak. It was traditional custom for mothers to feed their newborns curds and honey before they tasted their first breast milk.

At the time of this prophecy, the siege against Judah had brought food supply so low that they were completely out of two of their most basic foods. Isaiah predicts that by the time the child is old enough to distinguish good from evil (likely at the age of three), the child would be eating curds and honey (an indication that the siege would be over). And even before that, the land these two kings occupied would be forsaken. The Hebrew word forsaken, can be translated as abandoned or left to rot.

And that’s exactly what happened. In less than three years,³ Pekah was assassinated by one of his own men (2 Kin 15:30) and Rezin was put to death by Tiglath-Pileser, King of Assyria (2 Kin 16:5-9). Sixty-five years later, King Shalmaneser of Assyria dragged the nation of Israel into exile, and they would never return again (2 Kin 17).

Endnotes

1. Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1996, c1991), Isa 7:1.

2. Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, electronic ed. (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), Isa 7:4.

3. It can be no more than 3 years because Pekah was in his 17th year as king when Ahaz would become king of Judah (2 Kin 16:1). Pekah had only 3 more years before he would die (he reigned a total of 20 yrs, 2 Kin 15:27), so his death came very soon after he opposed King Ahaz. Rezin was killed around the same time.