Isaiah 7:1 - Meaning and Application

The prophet Isaiah received his commission again in the year King Uzziah died (Isaiah 6:1). Jotham, Uzziah’s son, then ruled for sixteen years, and he ruled well. During that whole time, Isaiah no doubt preached as God commanded, yet this book does not record any messages from Jotham’s reign. The prophecy here comes from the days of Ahaz, Jotham’s son. Many useful sermons Isaiah preached were never written down. If everything worth remembering had been recorded, the world could not have held the books (John 21:25).

Perhaps Ahaz was so wicked that Isaiah did not have much chance to speak at court, as he had in Jotham’s day. So he wrote more during Ahaz’s reign, as a witness against the people. Here we see, first, a very threatening plan against Jerusalem. Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, king of Israel, joined forces against Judah. They were neighboring rulers who had already attacked Judah separately. Near the end of Jotham’s reign, the Lord began to send Rezin and Pekah against Judah (2 Kings 15:37). Now, in the second or third year of Ahaz, they were encouraged by earlier successes and made an alliance against Judah. Because Ahaz began his reign with idolatry, even though danger was already near, God handed him over to the king of Syria and the king of Israel (2 Chronicles 28:5). They caused great slaughter in his kingdom (Isaiah 7:6-7).

Buoyed by that victory, they marched toward Jerusalem, the royal city, to fight against it, surround it, and take it for themselves. In the end, they did not succeed. Sin in a land often brings foreign invasions and leaves its strongest places open to the enemy. God sometimes uses one wicked nation to punish another. Yet judgment usually begins with God’s own people.

Second, Ahaz and his court were deeply shaken when they heard this plan. News came to the house of David, the royal family descended from David, that Syria and Ephraim had made a pact against Judah (Isaiah 7:2). This fallen royal family is still called the house of David to remind us of God’s covenant with David (Psalm 89:30-33). God had said that if David’s children broke his law, he would punish their sin with the rod, but he would not take away his steadfast love. That promise is clearly shown in this chapter.

When word came that the armies of Syria and Israel had joined together and were in the field, the court, the city, and the countryside were thrown into panic. The heart of Ahaz was moved with fear, and then it is no surprise that his people were terrified too, like trees shaken by the wind. They were tossed about, confused, and unable to settle on any wise course. They gave in to the storm and acted as if all were lost, thinking resistance was useless. What drove this fear was guilt and weak faith. They had made God their enemy and did not know how to make peace with him again, so fear ruled them. But those whose consciences are clear and whose hearts trust in God do not need to be frightened by bad news. Even if the earth is removed, they need not fear. The wicked, by contrast, run at the rustle of a leaf (Leviticus 26:36).

Third, God gave Isaiah instructions to go and encourage Ahaz in his trouble. God did not do this for Ahaz’s own sake, because he deserved only words of judgment, which would have added to his grief. Rather, God acted because Ahaz was David’s son and king of Judah. God still had kindness for him because of David, whom he had not forgotten, and because of the people, who should not be abandoned. If Ahaz were encouraged, they would be encouraged too.

Notice that God sent the prophet to meet Ahaz, even though Ahaz did not ask for him or seek the Lord through him (Isaiah 7:3). God is often found by those who are not looking for him. He is much more likely to be found by those who seek him earnestly. He speaks comfort to many people who do not deserve it and do not even ask for it.

God also told Isaiah to take his little son with him, because the child carried a message in his name, Shear-jashub, which means, “A remnant will return.” The prophets sometimes recorded their message in the names of their children (Hosea 1:4, Hosea 1:6, Hosea 1:9). That is why Isaiah’s children are called signs (Isaiah 8:18). This son’s name was meant to encourage God’s people who would be taken captive, assuring them that at least a remnant would come back. That was more mercy than they had any right to expect. Yet at this time God was even better than his word, because he not only ensured that a remnant would return, but also brought back the full number of prisoners taken by the combined armies of Syria and Israel (2 Chronicles 28:15).

God also told Isaiah where to find Ahaz. He was not to meet him in the temple, the synagogue, or the royal chapel. He was to find him at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, where Ahaz was likely busy with servants, planning the city’s water supply so the enemy could not use it, or could be cut off from it (Isaiah 22:9-11; 2 Chronicles 32:3-4). He may also have been giving orders to strengthen the city as best he could. If he found everything in poor repair, including the waterworks, his fear would only grow, and he would be even more troubled. So God said, Go meet him there. God often sends comfort to his people at the very best time, just when they are most afraid, and encourages them to trust in him.

God also put the words into Isaiah’s mouth, because the prophet would not have known how to bring good news to such a bad man, a sinner in Zion who deserved to be afraid. Yet God intended the message to strengthen faithful Israelites. First, Isaiah was to rebuke their fear and tell them not to give in to it, but to keep calm and steady their hearts (Isaiah 7:4). To comfort someone, caution is needed. If we want to be quiet in spirit, we must be careful and watchful against the things that disturb us. “Do not fear” means do not let fear weaken you and fill you with torment. Do not let your heart melt inside you. Instead, gather your courage, be brave, and do not let fear block the help that reason and faith provide.

Those who expect God to help them must also do what they can themselves (Psalm 27:14). Isaiah was also to teach them to look down on their enemies, not with pride, carelessness, or foolishness, because nothing is more dangerous than that. He was to despise them in faith and in trust in God. Ahaz’s fear had made those two kings seem like powerful and shrewd rulers, too strong for him to face alone. If they were united, he dared not even look at them, much less stand against them.

“No,” says the prophet, “they are only two tails of smoking firebrands. They are angry, fierce, and raging like firebrands or fireballs, and by joining together they only make each other worse, like sticks thrown on a fire that burn more strongly together. Yet they are only smoking firebrands. Where there is smoke, there is some fire, but not as much as people fear. Their threats will disappear like smoke. Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is just noise (Jeremiah 46:17), and Rezin, king of Syria, is just smoke. So it is with all the enemies of God’s church, like smoldering flax that will soon go out. More than that, they are only the ends of firebrands that have almost burned out already. Their strength is spent. They have consumed themselves with the heat of their own anger. You could put your foot on them and stamp them out.”

The two kingdoms of Syria and Israel were now close to collapse. The more we look to God as a consuming fire, the less reason we have to fear people, even when they are very angry. In fact, we can come to see them as only smoking firebrands.

He must also assure Ahaz and Judah that the present plan of these powerful allies, as they thought themselves to be, against Jerusalem would surely fail and come to nothing (Isaiah 7:5-7). The very thing Ahaz feared most is made the reason for their defeat, because the depth of their planning and the height of their hopes only make their downfall greater. “Therefore they will be defeated and sent back in shame, because they have plotted evil against you, which offends God. These firebrands are smoke in his nose (Isaiah 65:5), and so they must be put out.”

First, they were very spiteful and malicious, and so they would not succeed. Judah had done them no wrong. They had no real cause to quarrel with Ahaz. Yet, without reason, they said, “Let us go up against Judah and trouble it.” Those who love to cause trouble cannot expect good success. Those who delight in doing harm cannot expect things to go well for them.

Second, they were very confident that they would win. They meant not only to trouble Judah, but to break open the wall of Jerusalem wide enough for their army to march in. Or they expected to divide the kingdom into two parts, one for the king of Israel and one for the king of Syria, who had agreed on one ruler, a king to be set in the middle, the son of Tabeal, some unknown man, perhaps a Syrian or perhaps an Israelite. They were so sure of victory that they divided the spoils before they had even taken them. People who are most proud are usually least successful, because God surely brings down the proud.

God himself gives his promise that their attack would not succeed (Isaiah 7:7): “This is what the Lord God says, the sovereign Lord over all, who brings the plans of the nations to nothing (Psalm 33:10): It will not stand, and it will not happen. Their plans will be broken, and they will not be able to carry out their purpose.” Whatever stands against God, or tries to stand without him, cannot stand for long. People make plans, but God decides what happens. Who can speak and make it happen if the Lord has not commanded it, or has not changed it? (Lamentations 3:37; Proverbs 19:21)

He must also give them a view of the destruction of these enemies, who were now such a terror to them. Neither of the two would enlarge his land or push his conquests farther. The chief city of Syria is Damascus, and the chief man of Damascus is Rezin. Let him be content with that, for that is his place (Isaiah 7:8). The chief city of Ephraim has long been Samaria, and the chief man in Samaria is now Pekah son of Remaliah. These men would be forced to know their limits. Their borders were set, and they would not pass them to seize the cities of Judah, much less to make Jerusalem their prey. Just as God has set the bounds of where people live (Acts 17:26), so he has set the limits of rulers’ power, and they should stay within those limits and not take what belongs to their neighbors.

Ephraim, who was likely the more malicious and eager enemy of the two, would soon be completely uprooted. They would not only fail to take other people’s land, they would not even be able to keep their own. Commentators have struggled to calculate the sixty-five years after which Ephraim would no longer be a people. The captivity of the ten tribes came only eleven years after this, and some think a copying error is involved, reading “six and five years,” which would make eleven. But that is hard to accept. Others count sixty-five years from the time the prophet Amos first foretold the fall of the ten tribes’ kingdom. Some later interpreters take it to point as far ahead as the final devastation of that land by Esarhaddon, which was about sixty-five years later. Then Ephraim was so broken that it was no longer a people. It was the height of folly for those who were themselves marked for ruin, and so near to it, to be destroying their neighbors.

See what a prophet told them at this time, when they were celebrating over Judah: “Are there not with you, even with you, sins against the Lord your God?” (2 Chronicles 28:10)

He must also urge them to join faith to the promises he had given them (Isaiah 7:9): “If you will not believe what is said to you, then you will not be established.” Your shaken and troubled condition will not be made firm, and your restless, unsettled spirit will not be settled. Even though the things told to you are very encouraging, they will do you no good unless you believe them and are willing to trust God’s word. Faith is absolutely necessary if the mind is to be quiet and steady in the middle of the troubles of this present time (2 Chronicles 20:20).