Isaiah 7 IMMANUEL IS THE SIGN
The next five chapters of Isaiah are prophetic messages about the promised Messiah who was coming in God’s time. It is plainly stated that the Messiah who would come is God and would be an Israelite. He would be truly human and yet would be a miracle person who would be born without sin. He would be born of a virgin, and we know that conception was by the Holy Spirit of God. He existed eternally but “was found in fashion as a man.” Even though He came to bless His own people, He was not received, but was despised and rejected of men, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”
Apparently, Isaiah had no written prophecy for Jotham the son of Uzziah. He was a good king who sought to lead the nation in the way the Lord wanted, but the people enjoyed their sin and didn’t respond well to his rule morally and spiritually. When evil is in a nation, it is very difficult to remove both the evil and the desire for it. There are unavoidable consequences that will have to be faced. Ahaz lived in defiance to God, so the prophecies of Isaiah to him were straightforward warnings of coming judgment.
There was an alliance between Syria and the northern tribes of Israel that was directed toward Jerusalem and Judah which created fear in Ahaz. The grandfather and father of Ahaz were basically good men, but because those before us fear God and give honor to Him, doesn’t mean our generation will, nor the generation that follows them. The threat from the united countries to the north moved Ahaz to seek out Assyria and bribe them to assist him. He and all Judah were afraid of what would happen if they were attacked. He was exhorted by Isaiah to be calm and put his trust in the Lord, because in a few years, the threat would be removed.
He was promised deliverance from God if he would put his faith in the Lord was Isaiah’s message. Within a few years the northern kingdom was broken up and dispersed through the Assyrian empire and Syria was defeated as well. To assure Ahaz, Isaiah told him to ask for a miraculous sign from God as to the reality of God’s promise. Along with the assurance of the promise was a warning that Judah would suffer the same fate as Israel if they did not turn to the Lord and put their faith in Him. But Ahaz had no faith in God. Under the guise of piety and false humility, in full-blown hypocrisy he refused to ask anything of the Lord.
Those who only respond to worldly wisdom will find themselves losers in the end. Human plans, and ingenuity; ideas people have that are not consistent with God’s will and word, will find they have no power to control events nor lead others in a good path to a safe place. In spite of Ahaz’s lack of faith in God, the will and word of God would be fulfilled anyway – only afterward, Ahaz was forever a lost soul. God’s promise of a miracle sign was rejected by Ahaz with a pious hypocritical pretext, but that did not interfere in the slightest with God’s promise of a Deliverer.
The promise of the “seed of the woman” was again given as a sign to confirm the prophecy Isaiah made. Ahaz likely was afraid of asking for a sign in case it wouldn’t come to pass. Doubting God and His word is a soul-damning sin. It implies that what God says is not necessarily going to happen. When we refuse to believe God, we have made Him out to be a liar, “because [we] believe not the record God gave of His Son.” No wonder unbelievers are going to be in hell. So, the Lord gave His own sign.
“A virgin shall conceive and bare a Son.” Immanuel was made like us so He could represent us as our Redeemer. The false signs of the Apocrypha are only imaginations of men that have no basis or proof of ever happening. That is in great contrast to the “many infallible proofs” we have in the scriptures of truth regarding our Lord. Immanuel is the name associated with the identity of the Lord Jesus Christ. “Thou shalt call His name Jesus,” is the name of His humanity. Because of the rejection of the Lord by the nation of Israel, they would become a poverty-stricken country to the extent that all they could find to eat would be butter and honey. No crops would grow and no fruit would be produced. All that could be found to eat would be what could be scavenged from the barren fields grown up with bushes and weeds.
By the time Ahaz’s son was twelve, Samaria and Syria had fallen to the Assyrians, and Judah was warned that the same thing would happen to them. Ahaz turned to foreign powers to aid him instead of turning in faith to God who had made a covenant with Israel long before. The attempt he made to stop Syria and the northern tribes was short-lived. The “hired razor,” Sennachrib of Assyria, occupied Judah instead and Assyria and Egypt cleaned the whole nation from its produce and ruined many of the cities. Conflict between powerful nations has a way of decimating all the land over which opposing armies travel. The faithless kings of the past could not deliver the people, but in a day yet to come, the Son who was born of a virgin, will reign as King of kings and Lord of lords.
Alliances between groups or persons, that form unequal yokes, may seem convenient and attractive at the time, but they will fail and leave people powerless and unhappy. The very ones Ahaz bribed to help him, would be the ones to ruin him. To attempt to guide God’s people without God’s guidance is an affront to God’s wisdom and power. Leaders must seek God’s will, apply the principles found in God’s word in order to conclude a matter in a good way. Division follows defiance. Defeat follows self-will. Failure and humiliation follow pride. “Vain is man who trusts in man, and maketh flesh his arm.”