Theological Commentary: Click Here
In this
chapter, we hear about two kings who desire to come up and challenge Israel.
Naturally, it is not at the request of God.
Therefore, God plans to thwart them.
This chapter is about reassuring the king of Judah that he doesn’t have
anything to fear.
God is not
often in favor of fearing the unknown.
God tells His people to fear Him all the time, but that is a fear in awe
of what the Lord has shown He can do.
There is no point fearing the unknown.
There is no point worrying about what might happen. God is a God of hope who drive away
fear. He wants us to live in the surety
of His promise, not in fear of what might be.
In fact,
look at the promise that God gives. In
the time that it takes for a virgin to conceive and give birth and to know
right from wrong, the kings who have come against Judah will themselves be enslaved! There s some debate as to how much time this
is, but a fair estimate is between two and four years. If done quickly, conception and birth can
happen in under a year. Then it takes a
year or two for the child to begin to know right from wrong. If done properly, Hebrew engagements often
lasted a year if not two years. Then
there would be conception, birth and the time required to take for the child to
grow old enough to know right from wrong.
The actual
time isn’t as important as what God is promising. God knows that it is easy to fear in this
situation. There are armies marching
towards the land of Judah and they are an imminent threat! God knows differently, though. There is no reason to fear. Assyria will come along and take both of
these rebellious nations into captivity.
What God is
telling the people of Judah, though, is that they will need to be a little
patient. There isn’t going to be any instant
gratification. The people will have to
defend themselves, which they will be able to do. Then, they will have to wait for Assyria to
come onto the scene and fight the other nations. We aren’t told this in Isaiah 7, but the
Hebrew people will need to endure Assyria quite literally coming all the way to
the threshold of Jerusalem before turning back and leaving the people of Judah
alone. But God knows that the people of
Judah will be safe from both this imminent threat as well as the threat from Assyria. God knows; we simply need to trust Him.
There’s one
more point that is fun to bring out in passages like this. What’s good for the goose is also good for
the gander. Here are these two nations
that come together and desire to take over Judah. Because they attack, they weaken their own
nation’s ability to put up a good defense.
Their men are weary from the campaign.
When Assyria comes, the toll of their petty wars will mean that they won’t
be able to resist Assyria. They come in
war, not realizing that they are simply inviting Assyria in to their backside
in doing so. Sometimes our own
aggressive selfishness sets us up for loss instead of gain.
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