Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 8

Moreover the Lord said to me ... —The prophecy that follows was clearly separated by an interval of some kind, probably about a year, from that in Isaiah 7. In the meantime, much that had happened seemed to cast discredit on the prophet’s words. The child that was the type of the greater Immanuel had been born, but there were no signs as yet of the downfall of the northern kingdom. The attack of Rezin and Pekah, though Jerusalem had not been taken, had inflicted an almost irreparable blow on the kingdom of Judah. Multitudes had been carried captive to Damascus (2 Chronicles 28:5). Many thousands, but for the intercession of the prophet Oded, would have eaten the bread of exile and slavery.

The Edomites were harassing the south-eastern frontier (2 Chronicles 28:15–17). The commerce of the Red Sea was cut off by Rezin’s capture of Elath (2 Kings 16:6). To the weak and faithless Ahaz and his counsellors, it might well seem that the prospect was darker than ever, that there was no hope but in the protection of Assyria. If such was the state of things when the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, was he to recant and confess that he had erred? Was he to shrink back into silence and obscurity? Far from it. He was to repeat all that he had said, more definitely, more demonstratively than ever.

Take you a great roll ... —Better, a large tablet. The noun is the same as that used for “mirrors” or “glasses” in Isaiah 3:23. The writings of the prophet were commonly written on papyrus and placed in the hands of his disciples to be read aloud. For private and less permanent messages, men used small wooden tablets smeared with wax, on which they wrote with an iron stylus. (Isaiah 30:8.)

Here the tablet was to be large, and the writing was not to be with the sharp point of the artist or learned scribe, but with a man’s pen, i.e., such as the common workmen used for sign-boards, that might fix the gaze of the careless passer-by (Habakkuk 2:2). On that tablet, as though it were the heading of a proclamation or dedication, he was to write TO MAHER-SHALAL-HASH-BAZ. That mysterious name, which we may render “Speed-plunder, haste-spoil,” was, for at least nine months, to be the enigma of Jerusalem.

And I took unto me faithful witnesses. —So that the prophet’s challenge to his opponents might be made more emphatic, the setting-up of the tablet was to be formally attested. The witnesses whom the prophet called were probably men of high position, among those who had been foremost in advising the alliance with Assyria. Of Uriah or Urijah, the priest, we know that he complied with the king’s desire to introduce an altar according to the pattern he had seen at Damascus (2 Kings 16:10–11).

Of Zechariah we know nothing; but the name was a priestly one (2 Chronicles 24:20), and it has been conjectured, from his association with Isaiah, that he may have been the writer of a section of the book that bears the name of a later Zechariah (Zechariah 9-12), which bears traces of being of a much earlier date than the rest of the book.

The combination of “Zachariah, son of Jeberechiah” reminds us of Zacharias, the son of Barachias, and points to a priestly family (see Note on Matthew 23:35). In 2 Chronicles 29:13, the name appears as belonging to the Asaph section of the Levites. A more probable view is that he was identical with the father of the queen then reigning, and therefore the grandfather of Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 29:1).

Probably, considering the prophet’s habit of tracing significance in names, the two witnesses may have been partly chosen for the meaning of the names they bore: Uriah, i.e., “Jah is my light,” and Zechariah, i.e., “Jah will remember.” Each of these names possesses a special appropriateness.

I ... the prophetess ... —The word may have been given by courtesy to a prophet’s wife as such. Elsewhere, however, as in the case of Deborah (Judges 4:4) and Huldah (2 Chronicles 34:22), it implies prophetic gifts. Possibly, therefore, we may think of the prophet and his wife as having been drawn together by united thoughts and counsels, in contrast with the celibate life of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 16:2), the miseries of Hosea’s marriage (Hosea 1:2), and the sudden bereavement of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 24:16–18). We may, perhaps, trace, on this view, the wife’s hand in the toilet inventory of Isaiah 3:16-24.

For before the child shall have knowledge to cry ... —Here then was another sign like that of Isaiah 7:14-16. The two witnesses of Isaiah 8:2 were probably summoned to the circumcision and naming of the child, and the mysterious name at which all Jerusalem had gazed with wonder was given to the new-born infant. The prediction is even more definite than before.

Before the first cries of childhood (Heb. Abi, Ami) would be uttered, i.e., within a year of its birth, the spoils of the two capitals of the kings of the confederate armies would be carried to the king of Assyria. The conclusion of the period thus defined would coincide more or less closely with the longer period assigned at an earlier date (Isaiah 7:16). Historically the trans-Jordanic region and Damascus fell before Tiglath-pileser; Samaria, besieged by Shalmaneser, before his successor Sargon (2 Kings 15:29; 2 Kings 16:9; 2 Kings 17:6).

Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah ... — Grammatically, the words “this people” might seem to refer to Judah and suggest that the tyranny of Ahaz had made him so unpopular that his subjects welcomed the invaders. On this view, Ahaz sought the alliance with Tiglath-Pileser against his own subjects no less than against Syria or Ephraim. He was like Ferdinand of Naples, falling back on Austria to protect him against Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel.

What course was the prophet to take? Was he to side with the king, or with his rebellious subjects who were ready to sacrifice their independence? As it is, he sides with neither and has a warning for each. Each is running blindly into destruction. The prophet could hardly have blamed the people of Syria and Israel for following their own kings; but it was, for him, a strange and monstrous thing that Judah should follow their example.

We must remember, too, that despite the weakness and wickedness of Ahaz, the prophet’s hopes rested on the house of David (Isaiah 11:1), and that Hezekiah was already old enough to justify that hope. The waters of Shiloah that go softly, issuing from the slope between Moriah and Zion, “fast by the oracles of God” (Psalms 46:4; John 9:7), presenting so striking a contrast to the great rivers, Nile, Euphrates, Hiddekel (Tigris), on which stood the capitals of great empires, or even to the Abana and Pharpar of Syria, and the Jordan of Ephraim, were a natural symbol of the ideal polity and religion of Judah. (Compare Ezekiel 47:1-5.) In acting as they did, the people were practically apostasizing as much as that king Ahaz of 2 Chronicles 28:22.