Isaiah 7:14–15

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.