Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 7:6

"Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set up a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeel;" — Isaiah 7:6 (ASV)

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.