1 And it cometh to pass in the days of Ahaz, son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, king of Judah, gone up hath Rezin king of Aram, and Pekah, son of Remaliah, king of Israel, to Jerusalem, to battle against it, and he is not able to fight against it.
2 And it is declared to the house of David, saying, `Aram hath been led towards Ephraim,' And his heart and the heart of his people is moved, like the moving of trees of a forest by the presence of wind.
3 And Jehovah saith unto Isaiah, `Go forth, I pray thee, to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shear-Jashub thy son, unto the end of the conduit of the upper pool, unto the highway of the fuller's field,
4 and thou hast said unto him: `Take heed, and be quiet, fear not, And let not thy heart be timid, Because of these two tails of smoking brands, For the fierceness of the anger of Rezin and Aram, And the son of Remaliah.
5 Because that Aram counselled against thee evil, Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, saying:
6 We go up into Judah, and we vex it, And we rend it unto ourselves, And we cause a king to reign in its midst -- The son of Tabeal.
7 Thus said the Lord Jehovah: It doth not stand, nor shall it be!
8 For the head of Aram `is' Damascus, And the head of Damascus `is' Rezin, And within sixty and five years Is Ephraim broken from `being' a people.
9 And the head of Ephraim `is' Samaria, And the head of Samaria `is' the son of Remaliah. If ye do not give credence, Surely ye are not stedfast.'
10 And Jehovah addeth to speak unto Ahaz, saying:
11 `Ask for thee a sign from Jehovah thy God, Make deep the request, or make `it' high upwards.'
12 And Ahaz saith, `I do not ask nor try Jehovah.'
13 And he saith, `Hear, I pray you, O house of David, Is it a little thing for you to weary men, That ye weary also my God?
14 Therefore the Lord Himself giveth to you a sign, Lo, the Virgin is conceiving, And is bringing forth a son, And hath called his name Immanuel,
15 Butter and honey he doth eat, When he knoweth to refuse evil, and to fix on good.
16 For before the youth doth know To refuse evil, and to fix on good, Forsaken is the land thou art vexed with, because of her two kings.
17 Jehovah bringeth on thee, and on thy people, And on the house of thy father, Days that have not come, Even from the day of the turning aside of Ephraim from Judah, By the king of Asshur.
18 And it hath come to pass, in that day, Jehovah doth hiss for a fly that `is' in the extremity of the brooks of Egypt, And for a bee that `is' in the land of Asshur.
19 And they have come, and rested all of them in the desolate valleys, And in holes of the rocks, and on all the thorns, And on all the commendable things.
20 In that day doth the Lord shave, By a razor that is hired beyond the river, By the king of Asshur, The head, and the hair of the feet, Yea, also the beard it consumeth.
21 And it hath come to pass, in that day, A man keepeth alive a heifer of the herd, And two of the flock,
22 And it hath come to pass, From the abundance of the yielding of milk he eateth butter, For butter and honey doth every one eat Who is left in the heart of the land.
23 And it hath come to pass, in that day, Every place where there are a thousand vines, At a thousand silverlings, Is for briers and for thorns.
24 With arrows and with bow he cometh thither, Because all the land is brier and thorn.
25 And all the hills that with a mattock are kept in order, Thither cometh not the fear of brier and thorn, And it hath been for the sending forth of ox, And for the treading of sheep!'
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Isaiah 7
Commentary on Isaiah 7 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 7
This chapter is an occasional sermon, in which the prophet sings both of mercy and judgment to those that did not perceive or understand either; he piped unto them, but they danced not, mourned unto them, but they wept not. Here is,
Isa 7:1-9
The prophet Isaiah had his commission renewed in the year that king Uzziah died, ch. 6:1. Jotham his son reigned, and reigned well, sixteen years. All that time, no doubt, Isaiah prophesied as he was commanded, and yet we have not in this book any of his prophecies dated in the reign of Jotham; but this, which is put first, was in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham. Many excellent useful sermons he preached which were not published and left upon record; for, if all that was memorable had been written, the world could not have contained the books, Jn. 21:25. Perhaps in the reign of Ahaz, a wicked king, he had not opportunity to preach so much at court as in Jotham's time, and therefore then he wrote the more, for a testimony against them. Here is,
Isa 7:10-16
Here,
Isa 7:17-25
After the comfortable promises made to Ahaz as a branch of the house of David, here follow terrible threatenings against him, as a degenerate branch of that house; for though the loving-kindness of God shall not be utterly taken away, for the sake of David and the covenant made with him, yet his iniquity shall be chastened with the rod, and his sin with stripes. Let those that will not mix faith with the promises of God expect to hear the alarms of his threatenings.