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About Jesus Steve Sweetman Isaiah 7 The
Sign Of Immanuel (ch. 7:1 - 25)
In
verse 1 we see Ahaz, the king of Judah. He was king of
The
northern kingdom of Israel
and Syria
were enemies. The northern
kingdom and Syria
joined forces in order to fight the Assyrians.
They wanted the southern kingdom to join in the fight.
The south refused. Therefore
the north and To
get the historical setting here you should read 2 Kings 16 and 2
Chronicles 28. In
verse 2 we see the term "house of David".
This refers to the southern Anyway,
in verse two we note that Ahaz, king of In
verses 3 to 6 we see that
Isaiah takes his son, whose name means "a remnant will
return", goes to visit king Ahaz who is in fear of the northern
kingdom and the Syrians. Isaiah
wants to calm the king down. In
his words these two enemies are just "smoldering stubs".
In other words, they're not worth worrying about. From
2 Kings 16 we note that Ahaz wants to form an alliance with Assyria,
another traditional enemy of both the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom
of In
verses 7 through 9 the Lord speaks to the king through Isaiah by saying
that he should not worry. Both
Syria
and the northern kingdom are way to weak to cause any harm.
There
is mention of the northern kingdom being next to nothing in 65 years.
Most commentators struggle to understand this.
The northern kingdom was defeated by The
last part of verse 9 was not only important for Ahaz, it's important for
us today. "If you don't
stand firm in your faith, you won't stand at all".
When considering the days ahead for those of us in the western
world, and really, for those in all the world, we will not stand unless
we stand firm in the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It's that simple. It's
time to find the strength now before it's too late. In
verse 10 God challenges Ahaz. God
says, "ask for a sign". Ahaz
replies in verse 12. His
answer shows his stupidity. He
refuses to ask for a sign from God Almighty.
In verse 13 God replies to Ahaz through Isaiah again.
He basically says, "you try the patience of men, don't try
the patience of God". It's
a bit of a slap in the face to Ahaz. Trying
the patience of God is something that man is doing more and more as this
age comes to an end. This
trying of God's patience reaches its heights in the book of Revelation
as we see man's futile and stupid attempt
to fight against God. In
verse 14 we see that it didn't matter if Ahaz was going to ask for a
sign or not. God would give
him a sign, and not only him, but the whole world would be given this
sign. The
sign is one of the most famous verses in the Bible.
"The virgin will be with child and give birth to a son, and
will call him Immanuel". Of
course, we all know these words from the Christmas story found in the
gospel accounts of the New Testament.
Note
the word "the" in verse 14.
It's not "a" as some versions say.
You normally don't make a big deal over words like
"the", but in this case we will.
The virgin is one particular virgin as we know well.
There
are two Hebrew words that can be translated as virgin.
"Almah" is a Hebrew word used of a young virgin who is
of marriageable age. This is
the word used here. "Bethulah"
is a Hebrew word for virgin who is too young to marry.
It can also be translated as state or country. Immanuel
means "God with us". This is a Messianic verse.Immanuel suggests the Deity of Christ. Now,
to understand what is going on here, verse 14 speaks of two babies being
born. The one is Jesus, who
was born of a virgin, through the power of the Holy Spirit and the other
was a baby to be born in Ahaz's day.
We do not know the mother or the father of this baby. Some
believe this baby was a child of Ahaz.
Verses
15 and 16 speak to this second baby, who by the time he grows up and
knows the difference between right and wrong, both the northern kingdom
of Verse
17 causes us some problems. It
is clearly directed to We
have a couple of possibilities here.
Isaiah could be predicting the Assyrian attempt to conquer Judah. The problem with this
thinking is that From
verse 18 to the end of the chapter speaks of a day after the rule of
Ahaz when Judah
will become desolate. It has
been desolate for much of the last two centuries.
In symbolic terms, verse 18 states that God will whistle for the
Assyrians and the Egyptians to come in and ravage the land.
Again, we have a similar problem
Is this speaking of the last days, or the time when this land was
ravaged. It's probably
speaking of both. We do need
to realize that in many cases, prophecies of the Bible have a double
fulfillment.
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