Albert Barnes Commentary Isaiah 7:22

"and it shall come to pass, that because of the abundance of milk which they shall give he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the midst of the land." — Isaiah 7:22 (ASV)

For the abundance of milk ... - Meaning, on account of, or by means of, the great quantity of milk. This image also denotes that the land would be desolate and abandoned by its inhabitants. The cow and sheep would have such a range in the lands lying desolate and uncultivated that they would yield an abundance of milk.

For butter and honey - This will be the condition of all who are left in the land. Agriculture will be abandoned. The land will be desolate. The few remaining inhabitants will be dependent on what very few cows and sheep will produce, and on the subsistence that may be derived from honey obtained from the rocks where bees would lodge. Perhaps, also, the swarms of bees would be increased because the land would be forsaken and would produce an abundance of wildflowers for their subsistence. The general idea is plain: that the land would be desolate.

Butter and honey, that is, butter mingled with honey, is a common article of food in the East (see the note at Isaiah 7:15). D’Arvieux, while in the camp of an Arab prince who lived in great splendor and treated him with high regard, tells us he was entertained on the first morning of his visit with little loaves, honey, new-churned butter, and cream more delicate than any he had ever seen, along with coffee ("Voyages dans la Palestine," p. 24). In another place, he assures us that one of the principal things with which the Arabs regale themselves at breakfast is cream, or new butter mingled with honey (p. 197).

The prophet's statement here, that the poor of the land would eat butter and honey, is not inconsistent with D’Arvieux's account that it is regarded as an article of food with which even princes treat their guests. The prophet's idea is that when the land would be desolate and comparatively uninhabited, the natural luxuriant growth of the soil would produce an abundance to furnish milk, and honey would abound where the bees would be allowed to multiply almost without limit (see Harmer’s Observations, vol. ii, p. 55, London Edition, 1808).