Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 7

We may deal with it as though the Gospel of Saint Matthew had never been written, as though the facts which it records had no place in the history of mankind. From this point of view, we get what seems at first a comparatively simple exposition.

The prophet offers a sign to the faithless king, and the sign is this: he points to some young bride, in either sense of that word, and says that she will conceive and bear a son. The fulfilment of that prediction, in a matter which lay outside the range of human knowledge, was to be the sign for Ahaz and his court, and she would give that son a name which would rebuke the faithlessness of the king. Immanuel, “God with us,” would be a nomen et omen, witnessing not of an incarnate Deity, but of His living and abiding presence.

On this theory, we have no data for deciding who the mother of the child was. As the prophet's two other children bore mysterious and prophetic names, like Hosea’s (Isaiah 7:3; Isaiah 8:3), the most probable conjecture seems to be that it was Isaiah’s own wife—still young and, as it were, still a bride—or possibly a second wife whom he had married, or was about to marry, after the death of his first. Other guesses have pointed to one of the women of Ahaz's harem who may have been with him when Isaiah spoke. The hypothesis of some critics that such a woman became the mother of Hezekiah, and that he was the Immanuel of the prophet’s thoughts, breaks down under the test of dates.

Hezekiah, at the time the prophecy was uttered, was a boy of at least nine years of age (2 Kings 16:2; 2 Kings 18:2). Of this child so born, Isaiah predicts that he will grow up in a time of suffering and privation (Isaiah 7:15), and that before he attains manhood, the confederacy of Rezin and Remaliah will come to a disastrous end. So far, all is at least coherent. Immanuel, as a person, stands on the same level as Shear-jashub, representing a great idea to which Isaiah again appeals in Isaiah 8:8; Isaiah 8:10, but not identified with the Christ, or even with any expectations of the Christ. On the other hand, there are phenomena in Isaiah’s prophetic work at large which this explanation does not adequately include.

The land of Israel, at least, appears to be described as in some peculiar sense the land of Immanuel (Isaiah 8:10). Isaiah is clearly expecting—even in the first volume that bears his name (not to speak of Isaiah 40-66)—the arrival, at some undefined point in the future, of one whose nature, work, and character will be represented by the marvellous series of names in Isaiah 9:6, in whom the spirit of Jehovah and the fear of Jehovah will dwell in their fullness—who will be of the stem of Jesse, and whose reign will be as the realised ideal of a golden age (Isaiah 11:1–10).

That expectation connects itself with a similar prophecy in Micah 5:3-5, associated as this is with the childbirth of a woman in labor. In what relation, we ask, did Immanuel stand to these confessedly Messianic predictions?

The other interpretation sets out from an entirely different starting point. The words of Matthew 1:23 are taken as, once for all, deciding the entire meaning of the Immanuel prophecy. The prophet is supposed to have passed into a state of ecstasy in which he sees clearly, and with a full consciousness of its meaning, the history of the incarnation and the marvel of the birth pangs of the Virgin mother. The vision of the future Christ thus presented to his mind colors all his later thoughts and forms the basis of his whole work. The article emphasizes the definiteness of his visions. He sees “the virgin mother” of the far-off future. And the prophet learns to connect the vision with the history of his own time.

The growth of that Christ-child in the far-off future serves as a measure of time for the events that were passing, or about to pass, within the horizon of his earthly vision. Before the end of an interval not longer than that which separates youth from manhood, the Syro-Ephraimite confederacy would be broken up. So far, here also, we have a coherent and consistent view. It is accompanied, however, by some serious difficulties. A “sign,” in the language of Hebrew prophets, is that which proves to the person to whom it is offered that there is a supernatural power working with the one who gives it. If a prediction, it is one which will speedily be tested by a personal experience, the very offer of which implies in the prophet the certainty of its fulfillment.

He stakes, as it were, his reputation as a prophet on the issue. (Isaiah 38:7; Exodus 4:8–14; 1 Samuel 12:16.) But how could the prediction of a birth in the far-off distance, separated by several centuries from Isaiah’s time, be a sign to Ahaz or his people? And what would be the meaning, we may ask again, of the words “butter and honey shall he eat,” as applied to the Christ-child? Do not the words “Before the child shall know to refuse the evil ... ” point, not to a child seen as far off in vision, but to one who was to be born and grow up among the people of that generation?

Should we not have expected, if the words had implied a clear revelation of the mystery of the virgin birth, that Isaiah himself would have dwelled on it elsewhere, that later prophets would have named it as one of the identifying marks of the Messiah, and that it would have become a tradition of the Jewish schools of interpretation?

As a matter of fact, no such allusion is found in Isaiah, nor in the prophets that follow him (see Note on Jeremiah 31:22, for the only supposed—one cannot even call it 'apparent'—exception); the Jewish interpreters never include this among their identifying marks of the Christ. It is indeed, as has been said in the New Testament portion of this Commentary, one of the strongest arguments for the historical, non-mythical character of the series of events in Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2, that they were contrary to prevailing expectation. (See Note on Matthew 1:23.)

A truer way of interpretation than either of those that have been thus set forth is, it is believed, open to us. We may remember:

1. As regards Saint Matthew’s interpretation of Isaiah’s prophecy, that two other predictions cited, as by the Evangelist himself, in the history of the Nativity, in Matthew 1:2, are, as it were, detached from their position, in which they had a distinct historical meaning, and a new meaning given to them (see Notes on Matthew 2:15; Matthew 2:18), and that this holds good of other prophecies cited by him elsewhere (see Notes on Matthew 21:5; Matthew 27:9). It was not, as some have thought, that facts were invented or imagined so that prophecies might appear to be fulfilled, but that the facts being given, prophecies were shown to have a meaning that was fulfilled in them, though that meaning may not have been present to the prophet’s own mind. In this case, the use of the word for “virgin” in the Septuagint version may have determined Saint Matthew’s interpretation of the words. Here, in the history that had come to him attested by evidence that satisfied him, he found One who, in the truest and highest sense, was the “Immanuel” of Isaiah’s prophecy.
2. We must not forget the limits within which the prophets lived and moved, as they are stated in 1 Peter 1:10.

   They “enquired and searched diligently” as to the time and manner of the fulfillment of their hopes; but their normal state (the exceptions being only enough to prove the rule) is one of inquiry and not of definite assurance.

   They had before them the ideal of a righteous king, a righteous sufferer, of victory over enemies and sin and death, but the “times and the seasons” were hidden from them, as they were afterwards from the apostles. They thought of that ideal king as near, about to burst in upon the stage that was filled with the forms of Assyria, Syria, Ephraim, and Judah, just as the apostles appear to have thought afterwards that the advent of the Lord would come upon the stage of the world’s history that was filled with the forms of Emperors, rebellious Jews, perverse heretics, and false prophets (1 Thessalonians 4:15; 1 Corinthians 15:51; 2 Thessalonians 2:3–4; 1 Peter 4:7; 1 Timothy 4:1–3; 1 John 2:18).

   And neither prophets nor apostles, though left to the limitations of imperfect knowledge, were altogether wrong. Prophecy has, in Bacon’s words, its “springing and germinant accomplishments.” The natural birth of the child Immanuel was, to the prophet and his generation, a pledge and earnest of the abiding presence of God with His people. The overthrow of Assyria, Babylon, and Jerusalem were alike forerunners of the great day of the Lord in which the ultimate and true Immanuel—the name at last fulfilled to the uttermost—shall be at once the Deliverer and the Judge.

Go forth now to meet Ahaz... — At this crisis the prophet, already recognized as such, and gathering his disciples around him (Isaiah 8:16), is told to deliver a message to the king. He finds him hesitating between two opinions. He is making a show of resistance, but in reality he is not depending either on the protection of Jehovah, or the courage of his people, but on a plan of his own. Why should he not continue to pay tribute to Assyria, as Uzziah and Menahem (2 Kings 15:19) had done, and write to Tiglath-pileser to attack the territories of the invading kings, as he actually did at a later stage in the war (2 Kings 15:29)?

You and Shear-jashub your son. — Assuming Isaiah 6:0 to give the first revelation of the idea of the “remnant,” it would follow that the birth of the son whose name (Remnant returns —the return being both literal and spiritual— i.e., “is converted”), embodied a prophecy, must have followed on that revelation, and he was probably, therefore, at the time a youth of sixteen or eighteen. It may be noted that Isaiah had in the history of Hosea 1:2 the example of a prophet who, as his children were born, gave them names which were terribly or hopefully significant. Each child was, as it were, a sign and portent (Isaiah 8:18). The fact that the mother of his children was herself a prophetess (Isaiah 8:3), sharing his hopes and fears, gives a yet deeper interest to the fact.

At the end of the conduit... — The king was apparently superintending the defensive operations of the siege, probably cutting off the supply of water outside the walls, as Hezekiah afterwards did (2 Chronicles 32:3–4). The “upper pool” has been identified with the Upper Gihon pool (Birket-el-Mamilla) or the “dragon’s well” of Nehemiah 2:13. A lower pool meets us in Isaiah 22:9. The “fuller’s field” was near En-rogelim (Isaiah 36:2; 2 Samuel 17:17).

Take heed, and be quiet ... —The prophet meets the fears of the king by words of comfort. The right temper for such a time was one of calm courage, waiting on the Lord (Isaiah 30:15).

Neither be fainthearted. —Literally, let not your heart be soft.

For the two tails of these smoking firebrands. —The two powers that Ahaz dreaded were, in the prophet’s eyes, but as the stumps of two smoking torches. Their flame was nearly out. It would soon be extinguished.

The son of Remaliah. —There is a touch of scorn in the omission of the king’s name. So men spoke scornfully of Saul as the son of Kish (1 Samuel 10:11), and Saul himself of David as the son of Jesse (1 Samuel 20:30). It pointed out the fact that Pekah was after all but an upstart adventurer, who had made his way to the throne by rebellion and murder.

Let us make a breach therein for us ... —These words imply an assault on the line of fortresses that defended Judah (2 Chronicles 26:9–10; 2 Chronicles 32:1). If these fortresses were captured, the outcome of the war would be practically decided. Jerusalem itself does not appear to have been actually besieged.

The son of Tabeal. —The mode of description, as in the previous verse, indicates that the man was of low origin. The name, meaning “good is God,” is Aramaic and indicates he was an officer in Rezin’s army. It appears again in Ezra 4:7 among the Aramean adversaries of Israel, and appears in the term Tibil in Assyrian inscriptions, which give us his actual name as Ashariah (Schrader, Keil Inschrift., p. 118).

Tubaal appears in an inscription of Sennacherib as appointed by him as governor of Sidon (Records of the Past, i. 35).

Dr. Kay, connecting the name with Tab-rimmon (meaning “Rimmon is good”), conjectures that the substitution of El (“God”) for the name of the Syrian deity might indicate that Tabeal was the representative of Naaman’s family and, like Naaman, a proselyte to the faith of Israel.