Isaiah 7:17 - Meaning and Application

After the comforting promises made to Ahaz, as a branch of David’s family, come serious warnings against him as a worthless branch of that house. God’s faithful love would not be completely removed, because of David and the covenant made with him, but his sin would still be disciplined with the rod and with blows. Those who will not trust God’s promises should expect to hear his warnings as well.

The judgment threatened here is very great, because it reaches everyone. It will come on the prince himself, even though he is high in rank, and on the people, the whole nation, and the royal family, all of his father’s house. It will also last into the next generations and remain with the royal line. It is also great because it will be unlike anything they had seen before, days that had not come, so dark and sorrowful that nothing like them had happened since the split of the ten tribes, when Ephraim left Judah. The longer people keep on in sin, the heavier the punishment they have reason to expect. It is the Lord who will bring these days on them, because our times are in his hand, and no one can resist or escape the judgments he sends.

The enemy God would use as his instrument was the king of Assyria. Ahaz had put great trust in that king for help against Israel and Syria, and so he paid less attention to what God said through the prophet for his comfort. He relied on Assyria instead, and even promised to serve that king if he would send help. He also gave him silver and gold, emptying both the temple and the kingdom treasuries (2 Kings 16:7-8). Now God warns that the same king of Assyria, whom Ahaz treated as his support instead of God, would become a scourge to him. That happened quickly, because when he came to Ahaz, he distressed him and did not strengthen him (2 Chronicles 28:20). The reed not only broke under Ahaz, but cut into his hand and pierced it. From then on, the kings of Assyria would be painful thorns to Judah for a long time.

This is a warning that what we make our hope often becomes our harm. Soon after this, the king of Assyria overpowered the ten tribes, carried them away as captives, and ruined their land, fully matching this prophecy. It may even point to that event as a fuller explanation of the earlier promise that Ephraim would be broken so that it would not remain a people (Isaiah 7:8). Some think the prophet then turns directly to the king of Israel and announces God’s judgment on him for attacking Judah. But most interpreters understand this as being spoken about Ahaz and his kingdom.

Now notice the summons given to the invaders. The Lord would whistle for the fly and the bee (Isaiah 5:26). Enemies that seem as weak and harmless as flies or bees, and can be crushed so easily, can still do God’s work as fully as lions when he chooses. Though they are as far apart as the rivers of Egypt and the land of Assyria, they will come together exactly when God calls them. When God has work to do, he is never short of workers.

Then comes the taking of the land. It seems the country would be unable to resist. The invaders would find no difficulty forcing their way in, and they would settle in the barren valleys, which the people had abandoned at the first alarm. The land would become easy prey. They would come and rest in the low places like swarms of flies and bees, and they would make themselves hard to dislodge by sheltering in the holes of the rocks, as bees often do. They would also become a threat by spreading openly over all the thorns and bushes, so that the whole land would be covered with them.

Then comes the great ruin and depopulation of the country. The Lord would shave the hair of the head, beard, and feet, sweeping everything away, as a cleansed leper shaved off all his hair (Leviticus 14:8-9). This is pictured with a razor that is hired, either one God has hired, as if he had none of his own, though he pays all whom he uses in his service (Ezekiel 29:18-19), or one that Ahaz himself hired to help him. God will make the very tool hired for help into an instrument of destruction. Many people are struck by the arm of flesh they trusted in most, the very arm they spent heavily on, when faith and prayer could have given them easy help from God.

The results of this depopulation would be severe. The cattle would be almost all destroyed, so that a man who once had large flocks and herds would keep only a young cow and two sheep, and even that would seem like a great mercy (Isaiah 7:21). The few animals left would have so much land to graze on that they would give plentiful milk, good enough to make butter in abundance (Isaiah 7:22). There would also be so few people left that the milk from one cow and two sheep would be enough for a whole family, where once there had been many servants and much use. The cattle would no longer multiply, and those who had once eaten meat, as the Jews usually did, would be forced to live on butter and honey, because there would be no meat. The land would be so emptied out that there would be more than enough butter and honey for the few who remained.

Good land that once produced much profit would be covered with briers and thorns (Isaiah 7:23). Where there had once been a thousand vines, and tenants had paid a thousand shekels of silver in yearly rent, there would now be only thorns, with no profit for landlord or tenant, because the invading army had laid everything waste. God can quickly turn a fruitful land into a barren one. It is only right for him to turn vines into briers if we do not bring forth grapes for him, but wild grapes instead (Isaiah 5:4).

Even the tools of farming would become tools of war (Isaiah 7:24). Since the whole land would be covered with briers and thorns, people would no longer come with sickles and pruning hooks to gather crops. They would come with arrows and bows, either to hunt wild animals in the thick brush, to defend themselves from robbers hiding there, or to kill snakes and other dangerous creatures. This shows how completely the pleasant land would be changed.

But what a sad change sin can make in a people? Where briers and thorns were once useful, even serving as hedges to protect enclosed land, they will be pulled up and the land left open to all. There will be briers and thorns in places where they should not be, but none where they should be (Isaiah 7:25). The hills that were once dug and cared for, and from which cattle were kept out by hedges of thorns, will be left exposed. The fences will be broken down, and the wild boar from the forest will spoil it (Psalm 80:12-13). The land will be left open for oxen and smaller livestock to roam.

See how sin and God’s curse affect the world. They have turned the earth into a field of thorns and thistles, except where human work keeps things in order. This also shows how foolish it is to set our hearts on land and property, no matter how rich or pleasant they may seem. If land is left a little neglected, or if a wasteful and careless heir or tenant misuses it, or if war lays a country waste, it will quickly become a frightening wilderness. Heaven, by contrast, is a paradise that cannot be spoiled by such changes.