Isaiah 7

This happened in the days of Ahaz, king of Judah. Ahaz was the son of Jotham and the grandson of Uzziah. Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, marched up to attack Jerusalem, but they could not defeat it.

1And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it.

NoteThe setting is about 735–734 BC. Two neighboring kings (Rezin of Syria (Aram, whose capital was Damascus) and Pekah of Israel, the northern kingdom) had allied against the growing empire of Assyria and were trying to force Judah, the southern kingdom, to join them; when Ahaz refused, they attacked Jerusalem to replace him with a king of their own. Israel and Judah had been one kingdom under David and Solomon, then split in two about two hundred years earlier.

2Word came to the royal family of David: "Syria has joined forces with Ephraim." Then the king's heart shook, and so did the hearts of his people, the way trees in a forest shake in the wind.

2And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.

Note"Ephraim" was the largest tribe of the northern kingdom, and its name is used throughout these chapters as another name for that whole kingdom, the same state called Israel in verse 1. "The house of David" means the ruling dynasty descended from King David, of which Ahaz was the current holder.

3Then the LORD said to Isaiah, "Go out now to meet Ahaz. Take your son Shear-jashub with you. Meet him at the end of the channel that carries water to the upper pool, on the road to the field where cloth is washed.

3Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field;

Note"Shear-jashub" is a Hebrew sentence used as a name: "A remnant will return." Isaiah's children were given names that carried messages (compare chapter 8), so bringing the boy along was itself part of what the prophet was saying. The meeting place is the point where Jerusalem's water supply entered the city, the natural spot to inspect defenses under siege, beside the open ground where cloth was pounded and bleached.

4Say to him: Be careful, and stay calm. Do not be afraid, and do not lose heart over these two smoking stubs of burnt wood. Do not fear the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria, or of the son of Remaliah.

4And say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah.

NoteA "firebrand" is a stick pulled from a fire. Two of them still smoking but no longer burning is a dismissive image: these two kings look alarming but are nearly burnt out.

5Syria, together with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has made an evil plan against you. They have said,

5Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying,

6'Let us march up against Judah and terrify it. Let us break it open and take it for ourselves, and put the son of Tabeal on the throne there.'

6Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal:

NoteWho the "son of Tabeal" was is unknown; the name is Aramean in form, so he was probably a candidate the two kings could control. The point of the plan was to end the line of David on Judah's throne and install a puppet ruler.

7This is what the Lord GOD says: It will not stand. It will not happen.

7Thus saith the Lord GOD, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.

8For the head of Syria is the city of Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin. And within sixty-five years Ephraim will be shattered and will no longer be a people.

8For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people.

Note"The head of" here means the capital city, and then the man who rules it, the argument being that each of these enemies is only a man in a city, not more. The sixty-five years is difficult and has been explained in several ways; the northern kingdom fell to Assyria within about fifteen years, but deportations and the resettling of foreigners in its territory continued for decades afterwards.

9The head of Ephraim is the city of Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If you will not believe, you will not stand at all."

9And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah’s son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.

NoteThe two verbs are forms of a single Hebrew root meaning "to be firm, reliable", the root behind the word "amen." The line plays on that: roughly, "if you will not hold firm, you will not be held firm." English cannot easily keep the pun.

10The LORD spoke to Ahaz again. He said,

10Moreover the LORD spake again unto Ahaz, saying,

11"Ask the LORD your God for a sign. Ask for one from the depths below or from the heights above."

11Ask thee a sign of the LORD thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.

Note"The depths below" translates a reference to Sheol, the underworld of the dead; "the heights above" is the sky. Together they mean the whole of reality: ask for any sign at all, anywhere.

12But Ahaz said, "I will not ask. I will not put the LORD to the test."

12But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD.

NoteAhaz answers with the language of the law, which forbade putting God to the test: that is, demanding proof of him (Deuteronomy 6:16). The refusal is phrased as piety.

13Then Isaiah said, "Listen now, royal family of David. Is it a small thing to you to wear out the patience of people? Will you wear out my God's patience too?

13And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?

14So the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look: the virgin will be pregnant and will give birth to a son, and she will call his name Immanuel.

14Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

NoteThe Hebrew word here, *almah*, means a young woman of marriageable age; it does not by itself state whether she has had sexual relations, though it would normally be assumed of an unmarried girl. The ancient Greek translation of Isaiah made about two centuries before Christ rendered it *parthenos*, "virgin," and that is the reading the King James follows and the New Testament quotes. Hebrew also has the definite article, "the young woman", which may point to someone the hearers could identify. "Immanuel" is Hebrew for "God is with us."

15He will be eating curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse what is evil and choose what is good.

15Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.

Note"Curds" are the thick soured milk of a herding people, not butter in the modern sense. Knowing to refuse evil and choose good means reaching the age at which a child can tell one from the other, a few years old. What the diet signifies is left open by the wording: curds and honey can be the rich food of a good land, or, as verses 21–22 suggest, all that is left when the farms are gone and the country has reverted to pasture and wild growth.

16For before the boy knows how to refuse what is evil and choose what is good, the land of the two kings you hate will be left without them.

16For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.

NoteThe two kings Ahaz dreads are Rezin of Syria and Pekah of Israel, named in verse 1. Both were dead within a few years: Assyria took Damascus and killed Rezin in 732 BC, and Pekah was assassinated at about the same time.

17The LORD will bring on you, on your people, and on your father's family days unlike any that have come since Ephraim broke away from Judah. He will bring the king of Assyria.

17The LORD shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father’s house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria.

NoteEphraim broke away from Judah after Solomon's death, around 930 BC, when the ten northern tribes rejected his son Rehoboam. That split was remembered as the worst disaster in the nation's history, the measure against which this coming trouble is set.

18On that day the LORD will whistle for the fly that lives at the far streams of Egypt, and for the bee that lives in the land of Assyria.

18And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.

NoteWhistling or hissing was how beekeepers were said to call a swarm out to settle. Egypt to the south, at the far branches of the Nile, and Assyria to the north-east are the two great powers that will be summoned onto Judah's land like insects.

19They will all come and settle in the steep, empty valleys and in the cracks in the rocks, on every thornbush and on every patch of brush.

19And they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all bushes.

20On that day the Lord will shave you with a razor he has hired from beyond the Euphrates River, that is, with the king of Assyria. He will shave your head and the hair on your legs, and he will take off your beard as well.

20In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired, namely, by them beyond the river, by the king of Assyria, the head, and the hair of the feet: and it shall also consume the beard.

NoteShaving a man's head, body and beard was a standard humiliation of prisoners and mourners; a full beard was a mark of adult dignity, and "the hair of the feet" is a polite Hebrew way of saying the hair of the lower body. "A razor he has hired" is pointed: Ahaz had in fact paid Assyria to come to his aid, stripping the temple and palace treasuries to do it (2 Kings 16:7–8). The river beyond which the razor is hired is the Euphrates, the far edge of the known world from Judah.

21On that day a man will keep alive one young cow and two sheep.

21And it shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep;

NoteA household that once ran flocks and herds is reduced to a single heifer and two sheep, the picture is not of plenty but of a countryside emptied of people and stock.

22They will give so much milk that he will have curds to eat. In fact, everyone left in the land will eat curds and honey.

22And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they shall give he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land.

23On that day, every place where a thousand grapevines once grew, worth a thousand pieces of silver, will be nothing but briers and thorns.

23And it shall come to pass in that day, that every place shall be, where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings, it shall even be for briers and thorns.

NoteThe King James "silverling" stands for a shekel of silver, a weight of roughly two fifths of an ounce (about 11.5 grams); silver was weighed out rather than struck as coins in this period. A thousand vines at a shekel each was a first-class vineyard and a very large sum, such land now left to scrub.

24People will go out there carrying bows and arrows, because the whole land will be briers and thorns.

24With arrows and with bows shall men come thither; because all the land shall become briers and thorns.

25As for all the hills that were once worked with a hoe, you will not go there, because you will be afraid of the briers and thorns. Those hills will be places to turn oxen loose, and for sheep to walk over.

25And on all hills that shall be digged with the mattock, there shall not come thither the fear of briers and thorns: but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen, and for the treading of lesser cattle.

NoteA mattock is a heavy hand hoe. Hillsides too steep for a plow were terraced and worked by hand, so these were the most carefully tended fields of all; letting them go back to grazing land marks a total collapse of settled farming. "Lesser cattle" in the King James means sheep and goats, as opposed to oxen.