Isaiah 7:10–16

How touching is the patient grace God has toward this evil king! He reassures him instead of crushing him; He announces deliverance to him; He says to him, "Take heed and be quiet" — let Me act. He says, "Fear not" to him who on his part had everything to fear.

He looked for some response from the heart in front of Him — some faint "Amen" to His faithful word, one small link of faith, to allow Him, so to speak, to carry out all He had promised. But there was no response. So He would test this faithless man again.

God offers a sign to the feeble-hearted Ahaz and to the people seeking a prop apart from God. To the worldly man He would show all the grace and power He possibly could. And He would make His children feel that their unbelief and unfaithfulness have no excuse.

Faith would not ask for a sign, because it does not need one; faith walks alone with God.

How often the hypocrisy of unbelief tries in this way to hide its contempt for the Lord. Its presumption really despises the word of His grace, and yet it puts on the dress of greater reverence and humility.

Ahaz shrinks from coming too near God, and from having real proof that God was there. He is afraid he would then have to follow Him, drop the outward supports of his unbelief, and give up everything but God. Nothing frightens the people who belong to God only outwardly more than nearness to God. His nearness is a blessing without limit, yet the heart dreads it, because it will not give up what God condemns.

The Lord, wearied by his ways, told him to ask a sign, either in the depth or in the height above. What sign could he ask of the Lord? And what sign could any of us ask of the Lord? Surely our depth would be very shallow and our height very low.

Ahaz, of "the house of David," would not ask for the sign "either in the depth, or in the height." God therefore says, in effect: I will give the sign Myself without your asking! I will give it both in the depth and in the height; and, as we see from other Scriptures, in that very "house of David."

Was it not the most wonderful grace to make such a promise to such a man? Yet in truth grace condemns unbelief and all other sin as the law never did or could. If Ahaz had asked for any sign within his own reach on earth or in heaven, it would have fallen unimaginably short of God's! If man refuses to ask through unbelief, God still gives a sign for His own glory: the virgin's Son, the woman's Seed, Immanuel!

But how touching is the patient grace God has toward this evil king! He reassures him instead of crushing him; He announces deliverance to him; He says to him, "Be careful, be quiet" — let Me act. He says "Do not fear" to a man who, for his part, had everything to fear.

He would show the worldly man all the grace and power that He can possibly show. And He would make His children feel that their unbelief and unfaithfulness have no excuse.

We can truly say that faith never aims more rightly than when it aims high and draws with a bold hand. "Ask a sign of the LORD your God," says the prophet to the king, "ask it either in the depth, or in the height above" — range through the divine resources, and use them. What king Ahaz would not do, wearying the Lord by his reserve, unbelief, and slowness of heart, Abraham does and continues to do.

Ahaz was a hypocrite. In mock modesty he refused to ask for a sign. He used a pious phrase in his refusal, saying, "I will not tempt the Lord." But he was not asked to "tempt God." God Himself had told him to ask for a sign. Unbelief and self-will were at the bottom of his blank refusal, though covered under this pious phrase.

Ahaz shrinks from being too near God. He does not want real proof that God was there. He is afraid he would then have to follow Him, give up the outward supports of his unbelief, and let go of everything but God. Those who belong to God only outwardly dread nothing so much as nearness to God. His nearness is a blessing without limit, yet the heart dreads it, because it will not give up what God condemns.

Ahaz, of "the house of David," would not ask for the sign "either in the depth, or in the height." So God says, in effect: I will give the sign Myself, without your asking! I will give it both in the depth and in the height; and, as we see from other Scriptures, in that very "house of David."

We can imagine no greater height than God. Jesus was "God manifest in the flesh." And we can imagine no greater depth, in a way, than Immanuel — God with us. He came into this world for purposes that included His shameful death on the tree. God's throne is in the height; Christ's cross is in the depth.

Ahaz was a hypocrite. In mock modesty he refused to ask for a sign. He used a pious phrase in his refusal, saying, "I will not put the LORD to the test." But he was not asked to put God to the test. God Himself had told him to ask for a sign. Unbelief and self-will were at the bottom of his blank refusal, though covered under this pious phrase. And he was not the last of religious unbelievers to use the same expression, and for a like purpose.

How often the hypocrisy of unbelief tries in this way to hide its contempt for the LORD. Through presumption, which despises the word of His grace, it dresses itself up in superior reverence and humility.

God tells the king to ask a sign below or above (vv. 10, 11); but Ahaz (v. 12) shrinks from being too near God, and from having real proof that God was there. He is afraid that he would then have to follow Him, to give up the outward supports of his unbelief, and to give up everything but God. There is nothing that the outward people of God dread so much as nearness to God. His nearness is a blessing without limit, yet the heart dreads it, because it will not give up what God condemns.

Hezekiah acted in the opposite way to his father Ahaz. Isaiah had warned Ahaz not to fear the attack of Rezin, king of Syria, and of Pekah, son of Remaliah. The prophet urged him to ask the LORD for a sign that His promise would be kept. But Ahaz preferred to turn to the Assyrian.

Ahaz coloured his unbelief and his disobedience with an appearance of piety. To put the LORD to the test would be to distrust Him. In fact Ahaz did much more than distrust Him: he did not believe the word of the LORD.

We learn from Kings and Chronicles that King Ahaz did not walk in the steps of his father David, but acted according to the abominations of the nations around. The Lord, wearied by his ways, told him to ask a sign, either in the depth or in the height above. What sign could he ask of the Lord? And what sign could any of us ask of the Lord? Surely our depth would be very shallow and our height of very small elevation.

The heart of Ahaz had turned to false gods. Hardened in this way, he refused the offered help, though under the pretence of piety. He could not deceive the Searcher of hearts. After a solemn warning the prophet announced that the Lord Himself would give a sign. "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." … David's house might fail in their responsibility, as they seriously did, and forfeit everything. But on that very ground God could step in, acting from His own heart and according to His purposes.

How we read in this, on the one hand, man's utter inability to please God or reach up to His thoughts. On the other hand, despite all that man is, God is set on blessing him, and Christ is His Resource in doing so.

The wicked king Ahaz has rejected God's gracious offer of a sign. His pious excuse was that asking would be tempting God. Jehovah then turns from him and speaks to the house of David. He looks beyond the present trouble, which was really a small matter. In that chapter and the two that follow, He gives a magnificent promise of the coming of Immanuel... In verse 11 God speaks to Ahaz: "Ask for yourself." He refuses. Then He addresses the house of David in verses 13 and 14, in the plural. In verses 16 and 17 He addresses Ahaz again, in the singular.

How often the hypocrisy of unbelief tries in this way to hide its contempt for Jehovah! Its presumption really despises the word of His grace, yet it puts on the clothing of superior reverence and humility. The prophet, however, sees through the trick put forward by an evil heart of unbelief. He now calls the house of David to hear. They must hear not only his reproof, but what the Lord Himself was going to give. Ahaz shrank from God even in His goodness. Flesh never trusts God. It is bent on its own will and instinctively avoids grace, which must assert and give effect to the will of God.

But the unbelieving king refused the offer. His wicked heart dreaded the consequences of such a sign. He did not want to be near to God and get a sign that God was near to him. He felt that in such a case he would have to abandon what God condemns and give up the alliance with the Assyrian.

The house of David had not only wearied men, but had wearied God also. Ahaz feels God coming near, and shrinks back from the offered sign under a form of piety. God then takes up the matter in grace, as to Messiah, but in the revelation of judgment.

In the person of Ahaz the family of David completely abandons its faithfulness... The family of David itself fails in this way, and every hope is ruined. At that point prophecy brings in the promise of Christ to be the support of the faithful. This sign was to be in the family of David itself.

Was it not the most wonderful grace so to promise to such a man? Yet in truth grace condemns unbelief and all other sin as the law never did and never could. Had Ahaz asked any sign within his range of earth and heaven, how immeasurably short of God's it would have been! If man refuses to ask through unbelief, God does not fail to give a sign for His own glory: the virgin's Son, Immanuel!

Ahaz, the king of Judah, feared for Jerusalem and the royal line. He had no cause to fear, for God had promised David a son to come from his own body — the one King David called his Lord, the root and offspring of David. The house of David was perfectly secure. So the unbelief of Ahaz became the occasion for this great prediction.

Rezin, King of Syria, and Pekah, King of Israel, had joined forces against Judah and Jerusalem. They meant to set aside the royal line of David, and with it the Messiah, and to put the son of Tabeal on the throne (v. 6). Even so, "thus says the Lord God: It shall not stand, and it shall not come to pass" (v. 7).

Ahaz did not like God to draw too near. God answered it with Immanuel — God with us… Was it not the most wonderful grace to promise this to such a man? Yet grace condemns unbelief and every other sin as the law never did and never could. If Ahaz had asked for any sign he could imagine on earth or in heaven, it would have fallen far short of God's sign. If man refuses to ask through unbelief, God does not fail to give a sign for His own glory: the virgin's Son, the woman's Seed, Immanuel!

The Virgin's Son becomes THE SIGN, given by God in "the depth" and in "the height" too. Who but the blessed God, infinite in wisdom, could have thought of such a sign or given it? Look at "the depth" of human weakness: that wonderful baby held on the virgin's lap. Yet even there His name tells us of "the height" of His glory — "Immanuel," "God with us."

Here the context needs the word to mean virgin, and nothing less. There is no sign or wonder in a young married woman bearing a son. People knew from the very start that the One who would rescue mankind from the serpent, our enemy, must be born of a woman in some unusual way… The virgin's Son is Immanuel, the Lord Jehovah.

Christ came, and the prophecy was fulfilled. After that, the Jews worked hard to deny that the Hebrew word means virgin. They said it meant only a young woman, and unbelievers still follow them today. But the Greek version of the Old Testament was made by Jews long before that prejudice arose. They translated the word by the Greek word that can only mean virgin. That one fact undoes the whole attack on the prophecy.

The idea that Hezekiah was the virgin's son cannot stand. Ahaz reigned sixteen years, and Hezekiah was twenty-five when he began to reign. So Hezekiah was already a boy of at least eight before his father's reign began. Isaiah could not have foretold his birth to Ahaz, who was on the throne by then.

The royal line of David's house was to continue until the Messiah came, but how much further the sign goes! He would be not only the virgin's son, the woman's seed of Genesis 3:15, but "Immanuel." Matthew's Gospel opens by showing Him to be the son of David (v. 1). Then this first quotation from the Old Testament shows Him to be more than a man born by a miracle. He is God Himself come down in grace.

This was enough. God had promised that the Messiah would come from David's line. So God kept the house of David safe until the appointed hour, unworthy as it was… My whole aim is to point to one fact, so full of comfort to the believing heart: God's purposes never fail, however great man's sin may be.

Man would have counted it enough to promise that his son Hezekiah, and then his son, and so on, would succeed him... So for the Jew everything centres on the Messiah. Not only will a remnant return; the promised Seed, the virgin's Son, will be born. Put this birth as far off from Ahaz's day as you please — that only makes the voice of God in prophecy, and the sure mercies promised to David, stand out more clearly... But Immanuel was an assurance that could not fail: no alliance of enemies could ever put down David's house.

Verse 15 is hard to make out, but we believe it means this. The coming One, though "GOD with us," was born of the virgin. So He would grow up in body and in mind by the laws that govern human life. This we see to be the case in Luke 2:40-52.

The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was once a little baby. And as He grew up, He learned the taste of things in the same way you have. He ate "butter and honey." He learned to "refuse the evil," and to "choose the good" (Isa. 7:14-16). He had the feelings of a child. He was tempted in every way as we are, yet He was without sin... He was holy; the only holy child, the only holy man, that ever walked this earth.

His lowliness. He who was rich became poor for our sake. This poverty seems to be shown in Isaiah 7:15, "butter and honey shall He eat."

Butter is the cream of the milk in solid form. It pictures the Word of God made good to the soul through exercise (churning). It is the Word itself. Honey pictures the ministry of the Word... What the teachers of the law gave that was truly from God was honey, and the Lord received it. But the butter came first — God's own Word made good to the soul in personal exercise. If the blessed Son of Man needed this, how much more do we need both the Word itself and the ministry of the Word, so that we can tell good from evil and choose the good.

Here Emmanuel is present, refusing the evil and choosing the good, just as this prophecy said He would. In this we do not have the glories He will inherit as the son of David and Abraham. We have what He is in Himself and in character — He is God with us. God revealed in human flesh, a man among men. Unlike every name in the family line, His name stays untarnished by any evil thing. He chose the good and refused the evil. He loved righteousness and hated wickedness, as Hebrews 1 puts it, and so He drew out the full and delighted approval of God.

It has been noticed that the "son" Immanuel of verse 14 does not appear to be "the youth" of verse 16. That second one refers rather to Shear-jashub, the prophet's own child, who seems to have come with him for this reason... It is worth noting that the Hebrew word here is not strictly "son" or "child," but "the youth" or "lad"... From verse 16 the king was to learn that before the youth (almost certainly Shear-jashub) was old enough to tell right from wrong, the allied kings must disappear from the scene. And so they did.

Isaiah 7 takes us into some historical details of the reign of Ahaz, which 2 Kings 15 and 16 record. Ahaz did much evil. Now an alliance threatened him: Pekah, who had seized the throne of the ten tribes of Israel, and Rezin of Syria. If they had killed or removed Ahaz, they would have broken the line of descent through which Christ came as a man, as Matthew 1:9 shows. God was not going to allow this. So He told Isaiah to take his young son, Shear-Jashub, which means "The remnant shall return," and intercept Ahaz.

The "son" Immanuel in verse 14 appears not to be "the youth" of verse 16. Those words refer rather to Shear-jashub, who for this reason seems to have come with the prophet. It is worth noting that the Hebrew here is not strictly "son" or "child," but "the youth" or "lad"… From verse 16 the king was to learn this: before the youth (almost certainly Shear-jashub) was old enough to tell right from wrong, the allied kings must disappear from the scene.

But before the second son to be born to the prophet would know how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings Ahaz dreaded would be deserted… This prophecy came true literally, and the plan of these kings to make "the son of Tabeal" king over Judah came to nothing.

People have asked: how could this be a sign to Ahaz, since this event did not take place until centuries later? The announcement of such a child's birth was present evidence to faith. Whatever schemes men might make, the remnant could count on God… There are two prophetic children: one (Shear-jashub) a figure of the remnant, and Immanuel… Isaiah 7:16 doubtless refers to Shear-jashub. Before this child could have grown up, Hoshea had killed Pekah, and the king of Assyria had taken Damascus and killed Rezin. 2 Kings 15:30; 2 Kings 16:9.

Verse 11 is spoken to Ahaz — "Ask." He refuses. Then God speaks to the house of David in verses 13 and 14: "Ye, you, ye, you," in the plural. In verses 16 and 17 He speaks to Ahaz again: "Thou, thee, thy," singular. So verses 16 and 17 contain a different prophecy from verses 13, 14, 15; and "the child" of verse 16 is not the same as "the son" of verse 14.

It is only fair to add that some Christians, who clearly see God becoming man here, take all the verses (14-16) to refer to Immanuel… Others take the youth or lad of verse 16 to mean any young child, not one in particular. But whatever the small differences of detail, the one great fact stands out, clear and majestic.

As to Isaiah 7:16… I fully believe it to be a prophecy of Christ, as Matthew has declared it. What set this prophecy going was the attack of Rezin and Pekah.

Emmanuel is present here, refusing the evil and choosing the good, just as this prophecy said He would. In this we do not see the glories He will inherit as the son of David and Abraham. We see what He is in Himself and in character — He is God with us. God shown in human flesh, a man among men. Unlike every name in the family line, His name stays untouched by any evil thing.

How touching is the patient grace God has toward this evil king! He reassures him instead of crushing him; He announces deliverance to him; He says to him, "Take heed and be quiet" — let Me act. He says "Fear not" to the man who had everything to fear.