Isaiah 7:15

These verses fall in the Syro-Ephraimite War, about 735 to 732 BC. Rezin king of Syria (Aram) and Pekah king of Israel (Ephraim) had formed an alliance against the growing power of Assyria and wanted Judah to join them. When Ahaz held back, they marched on Jerusalem to depose him and put a ruler of their own on David’s throne, the son of Tabeel (Isaiah 7:6). The chapter opens with that threat (Isaiah 7:1), and “his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind” (Isaiah 7:2). Here begins the part of Isaiah often called the Book of Immanuel, which runs from chapter 7 to the song of salvation in Isaiah 12.

God had already sent Isaiah to meet Ahaz with a clear word: “be quiet, fear not, neither be fainthearted” (Isaiah 7:4). Of the two kings’ plan he said, “It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass” (Isaiah 7:7–9), and he called Ahaz to believe, to stand firm on that word, so that he would be established. That whole first message is in Isaiah 7:1–9.

Ahaz remained afraid and unpersuaded. His mind was already turning to Assyria, the empire whose help he would soon buy with tribute (2 Kings 16:7–9). For a king of Judah, whose kingdom rested on the LORD’s covenant, that was a crisis of trust, because it put a foreign power where God should have been.

“Moreover the LORD spake again unto Ahaz.” The name is Yᵉhôvâh, the self-existent and eternal God, the God of Israel’s covenant who makes promises and keeps them in history. The verb dâbar is a root whose first sense is to arrange, and it is used for speaking, here for a deliberate word from God that carries his authority. “Again” is yâçaph, to add or to go on doing a thing, and the Hebrew phrase vayyoseph Yᵉhôvâh dabber says that the LORD continued to speak. “Moreover” ties this to all that came before. God had spoken once and been met with fear, and he comes back to the same frightened king with a further word and an offer.

That is his way with his people. Through Jeremiah he reminded Judah how he had sent his servants the prophets to them again and again in their disobedience (Jeremiah 7:25). Peter says that the Lord is longsuffering, “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). God’s patience with Ahaz is that same patience.

“Ask thee a sign of the LORD thy God.” God speaks of himself as the LORD thy God, Ahaz’s own God, which reminds the son of David of the covenant and of the faithfulness shown to his family through the generations. The verb shâʼal means to inquire or request, and it can go as far as to demand. It comes twice, “ask thee… ask it”, and both times it is God’s own invitation, freely given to a frightened king who had done nothing to earn it.

A sign, ʼôwth, comes probably from a root meaning to appear. It is a signal, a mark or a token, often a miracle, something that can be seen and that confirms a message or a promise. In Israel signs often went with a prophet’s word to confirm it. God gave Moses signs to confirm his word (Exodus 4:1–9), and Gideon, though he hesitated, humbly asked for the sign of the fleece and received it (Judges 6:36–40). The sign offered here was meant to strengthen Ahaz’s faltering faith and to give him proof that God would protect Judah.

What makes the offer remarkable is its size. “In the depth” uses ʻâmaq, to be deep, for the lowest place there is: the deepest parts of the earth, and the grave, Sheol, the realm of the dead. “In the height above” joins gâbahh, height, to maʻal, above, and reaches to the highest heavens. Naming two extremes in this way, a figure called a merism, takes in everything between them. Ahaz might have asked for a wonder in the sky or a wonder from under the earth. Either was his for the asking, because everything from the lowest depth to the highest heaven belongs to God and answers to his power.

“But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD.” His name, ʼÂchâz, means possessor, and the answer is his own, given in person to God’s offer. He refuses the very thing God told him to do, shâʼal, ask. And he gives a reason that sounds devout. The verb nâçâh means to test or prove, to try something out, and God had commanded Israel against tempting him as they had done at Massah, when they quarrelled with Moses in the wilderness (Exodus 17:2, Deuteronomy 6:16).

That command forbids testing God out of doubt or rebellion, demanding that he prove himself when he has already shown his power and faithfulness. Ahaz’s case was the opposite, because God himself had offered the test. Accepting a sign that God offers is simple obedience, and refusing it meant refusing the trust he was asking for. Ahaz took a true principle and used it as cover for a decision he had already made, to rely on Assyria. His words were reverent while his heart was set against God’s way, and so this verse warns us against unbelief that speaks the language of piety.

Jesus used the same command rightly. When Satan tempted him in the wilderness to presume on God for a miracle, Jesus answered with these words from Deuteronomy (Matthew 4:7). His refusal to tempt the Lord came from perfect trust in his Father, and Ahaz’s came from unbelief, though the words were the same.

Ahaz went his own way. He appealed to the king of Assyria and paid him tribute (2 Kings 16:7–9, 2 Chronicles 28:16–21). The record of his reign in 2 Kings 16 and 2 Chronicles 28 tells how he adopted idolatrous practices and even sacrificed his own son, and how the help he bought from Assyria brought Judah great distress. Jeremiah would later declare a curse on the one who trusts in man and a blessing on the one who trusts in the LORD (Jeremiah 17:5–8), and Isaiah himself returned to the same warning when Judah looked again to human strength (Isaiah 30).

“And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David.” The speaker is Isaiah, bringing God’s word, and “hear ye now” demands the full attention of the king and his court. The address widens from Ahaz to his whole line. The word for house, bayith, comes from a root meaning to build, and here it means the royal family, David’s dynasty, and through it the kingdom of Judah. God had promised David that his house, his kingdom and his throne would be established for ever (2 Samuel 7:16), in the covenant set out in 2 Samuel 7. The heirs of that promise were meant to lead the people in trusting the God who made it, and Ahaz, a son of David, was betraying that trust.

The rebuke comes as two questions. “Is it a small thing for you to weary men” points to what Ahaz had already done. The verb lâʼâh means to be tired out, exhausted, even disgusted, and his fearful policies and political scheming had already worn out the people around him, his advisers and his subjects alike. “But will ye weary my God also?” lifts the charge as high as it can go. If wearing out men is serious, wearing out God while he is offering help is far worse. The word for God is ʼĕlôhîym, plural in form and used with a singular verb, the supreme God and Creator, and Isaiah calls him “my God”.

The almighty God has strength without limit, so “weary” is said of him in human terms. It means that persistent unbelief, in the face of his plain offers of help, grieves him and tries his patience, the way a loving parent is grieved when a child he is trying to help keeps turning him away. God cares how his people answer him. Psalm 78 remembers how often Israel grieved him in the wilderness and tested him (Psalm 78:40–41), the letter to the Hebrews warns us against hardening our hearts as they did (Hebrews 3:7–11), and Paul writes that “whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). Unbelief is an offence against God’s character, because it treats his word as unreliable.

“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign.” Because Ahaz refused to ask, God gives a sign of his own choosing. Here the word for Lord is ʼĂdônây, an emphatic form of ʼâdôn, master, used as a name for God that stresses his sovereign authority. “The Lord himself” makes it plain that this sign comes from the supreme God, acting on his own initiative against a king’s resistance. The sign, ʼôwth, is the same word as in verse 11, and it carries both a promise of deliverance for Judah and a rebuke for Ahaz’s lack of faith. God’s own sign proves greater than anything Ahaz could have asked.

“Behold” (hinnēh) calls for attention. “A virgin shall conceive, and bear a son” uses hâreh, to conceive, yâlad, to bear, and bên, a son. A child with a meaningful name was a familiar way for a prophet to give a sign, since the name could carry a message and the child’s age could mark a length of time, and verses 15 and 16 use this child’s age in just that way.

“Butter and honey shall he eat.” The word for butter, chemʼâh, from a root suggesting something thick, means curdled milk, curds or cheese, and so butter. Honey, dᵉbash, from a root meaning to be gummy, is honey. These are foods from the herds and from the wild, the food people could still find when war had stopped the farming of the fields. Elsewhere milk and honey stand for plenty, as in the promise of “a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8). In the setting of Isaiah 7, where the coming Assyrian invasion will leave Judah itself desolate, they point to a land gone back to a simple life of herding and gathering. So the diet speaks of hardship and provision together. Even in a ruined land God would keep his people fed, and the old words about milk and honey hold out a hope of restoration beyond the judgment.

“That he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.” The verb yâdaʻ, to know, at root means to ascertain by seeing, and it covers experience and recognition as well as understanding. The phrase is a Hebrew idiom for reaching the age of moral discernment, when a child can tell right from wrong and make his own choices. Moses spoke of the little children of Israel in the same terms, as too young yet to know good from evil (Deuteronomy 1:39). The point of the clause is the time it marks, as the next verse makes clear.

Scripture values that growth in discernment. Proverbs promises that wisdom brings understanding of righteousness, judgment and equity (Proverbs 2:9), and Hebrews says that the mature, by long practice, are trained to discern both good and evil (Hebrews 5:14). Growing in faith means learning to refuse evil and choose good in the choices of daily life, with the help of God’s Spirit and his word.

The verse also points to Christ, the true Immanuel, in his humble beginnings and his true humanity. He was born and laid in a manger (Luke 2:7), and as a boy he grew in wisdom and stature (Luke 2:52). He was tempted as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15), and his whole life was a choosing of the good, most of all in Gethsemane, where he chose his Father’s will over his own in the face of terrible suffering (Matthew 26:39).

“For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.” The word for child, naʻar, means a boy anywhere from infancy to youth, and it can also mean a servant. Here it is a young child, and the measure is short. The age when a child first tells good from bad comes at around two to five years old, so Ahaz is being told that the danger will be over within a few years. A child’s growth was an everyday measure that anyone in his generation could watch.

“The land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.” The word for land, ʼădâmâh, often means soil or ground, and here it means a country or territory. The land Ahaz dreaded is Syria and Israel, the home of the two kings who had come against him, and “forsaken of both her kings” means that both thrones would be emptied and their power broken.

It happened as God said. Tiglath-pileser III, king of Assyria, took Damascus, the capital of Syria, and killed Rezin around 732 BC (2 Kings 16:9). Assyria took cities of Israel and carried many Israelites away captive (2 Kings 15:29), and Pekah was killed in a conspiracy at about the same time (2 Kings 15:29–30). Isaiah sets the same kind of timetable at the birth of his own son, before the Assyrian conquest (Isaiah 8:3–4). A near promise kept so exactly was meant to build trust, because the God who foretold events a few years off would surely keep his far greater promise of Immanuel.

Christ, the true Immanuel, triumphs over enemies far greater than Rezin and Pekah, which are sin, death and the devil. He is the King of whom the angel said, “of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:33).

The God who spoke again to Ahaz has spoken his fullest word in his Son. Hebrews says that God, who spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by his Son (Hebrews 1:1–2), and John calls Jesus the Word who was with God and was God (John 1:1), the Word made flesh (John 1:14).

The offer of a sign as deep as the grave or as high as heaven finds its answer in him. Paul writes that Christ descended into the lower parts of the earth and ascended far above all heavens (Ephesians 4:9–10). He went down into death and the grave, and he was raised and exalted to the right hand of the Father, so that God’s saving power reaches from the lowest depth to the highest height.

Where Ahaz, a son of David, wearied God, Jesus, the true Son of David, could say that he always does what pleases the Father (John 8:29). He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). God gave the sign of Immanuel to an unbelieving king, and he gives his Son to sinners: “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Through Christ we are called to enter God’s rest by faith, where Israel in the wilderness hardened their hearts and fell short of it (Hebrews 4:1–11). The call of the gospel is simple: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31).

Ahaz’s story comes close to home for anyone who has been afraid. He had God’s promise, and when God offered to confirm it he chose the help he could see and arrange for himself, and he said so in religious words. We can do the same, calling our caution humility when it is really distrust. The LORD’s patience with Ahaz shows that he speaks again to people who are slow to trust him, and today he speaks to us in his written word.

We also have the sign. Ahaz was offered any wonder from the depth to the height, and we have been given more than he could have asked: God himself with us in his Son, born of a virgin, crucified, risen and reigning. When the threats around you shake you like trees in the wind, you can rest on the word Ahaz was given, “be quiet, fear not”, because the Lord who promised Immanuel kept that promise, and he keeps his promise to be with his people always.