Isaiah Chapter 8
ISAIAH PREDICTS THE INVASION BY ASSYRIA
Let’s suppose that you are ill and can’t work for quite a while. Unemployment insurance runs out and big medical bills are mounting up. Bill collectors call so often you stop answering the phone, but that soon won’t be a problem because your phone service is about to be disconnected. Your family just keeps yelling at you for laying in bed, and you are so discouraged and depressed you feel like giving up. What are you going to do?
When everything goes wrong and you need help of some sort, where do you turn? In today’s message, we will hear about three possible directions to turn and learn what God thinks of each of them. We will find that Israel turned to two of those sources, and that God offered them the third alternative.
Isaiah 8:1-4 NRSV:
1 Then the Lord said to me, Take a large tablet and write on it in common characters, “Belonging to Maher-shalal-hash-baz,”
2 and have it attested for me by reliable witnesses, the priest Uriah and Zechariah son of Jeberechiah.
3 And I went to the prophetess[fn], and she conceived and bore a son. Then the Lord said to me, Name him Maher-shalal-hash-baz;
4 for before the child knows how to call “My father” or “My mother,” the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carried away by the king of Assyria.
This is a very interesting story. God wants to be sure the people “get it“, that they understand His message. So He uses a dramatic way to communicate. God often used what we might think of as object lessons to get a point across to His people. For instance, Jeremiah once was instructed by God to hide a new linen garment in a hole in the rock. Another time he stood before an assembly of elders and priests and smashed a pot to demonstrate what would happen to Judah. God told Hosea to marry a prostitute and to take her back after she cheated on him as a way of demonstrating God’s love to the people.
So here in chapter eight God gives Isaiah several instructions, which are meant to serve as a visual demonstration to the people. If they cannot hear with words, maybe they will hear with symbols. First Isaiah is to write a message on a large tablet or scroll. He is to write it in “common characters” or “ordinary letters” which simply means “Letters that anyone can easily read.” That message reads “Maher-shalal-hash-baz” which means, “Swift is the booty, speedy is the prey.” After Isaiah writes this message he is to take it to the priests and have it certified as to the date and what it says. It would be like having something notarized today. After that Isaiah had relations with his wife, who is also a prophetess, and she conceived a child. When the son was born, nine months later, the Lord tells them to name him Maher-shalal-hash-baz and says that before the child is old enough to recognize his mother or father the king of Assyria will have invaded Damascus and carried off the wealth of Samaria. Children are usually able to recognize their parents and call them either “mama” or “dada” meaningfully somewhere between ten and twelve months of age. So we see that by the time this child is 12 months old, this invasion of Samaria will have occurred, just as was predicted in Isaiah 7:16.
God’s purpose here is for the people to realize and believe that Isaiah has the ability to foretell or predict the future. Isaiah needed to convince an unreceptive audience of his power and authority.
Isaiah 8:5-8 NRSV:
5 The Lord spoke to me again:
6 Because this people has refused the waters of Shiloah that flow gently, and melt in fear before Rezin and the son of Remaliah;
7 therefore, the Lord is bringing up against it the mighty flood waters of the River, the king of Assyria and all his glory; it will rise above all its channels and overflow all its banks;
8 it will sweep on into Judah as a flood, and, pouring over, it will reach up to the neck; and its outspread wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel.
Here we see another method God uses to try to get His people to understand the message. He uses the illustration of a flood to emphasize what will happen. God likens Himself to gentle flowing waters and contrasts that with the flood of judgment that is about to overtake them. Recently we’ve had a vivid illustration in New Orleans of the damage that a mighty flood can do, destroying everything in its path. In verse 6 God refers to “the waters of Shiloah” which was a pool associated with an important water source in Jerusalem. Throughout Scripture God often compares Himself with water in some way. Jeremiah called God, “the fountain of living water” (Jeremiah 17:13) and Jesus also offers living water to those who believe in Him (John 4:10). In Revelation 22:1 we are told that the river of life flows from the throne of God.
Verses 5-8 are a prophecy (prediction) of judgment. The people of Judah followed Ahaz and chose to seek help from Assyria for protection from Israel and Syria rather than rely on the help of God, which is symbolized by the gentle waters of the pool of Shiloah. In unbelief and worldly wisdom rejecting these quiet waters, the disobedient nation was to be inundated by the floodwaters of the Euphrates, symbolizing invading Assyrian armies. These armies would flow over their lands like a great river and would even reach into Judah, thus spreading over Immanuel’s land as well. This is the land promised to Abraham by a covenant (promise) of God. The promise of the covenant was to “Abraham and his seed,” the seed of course is Christ.
God always keeps His promises. So that promise made to Abraham contains the assurance that Judah would not be completely obliterated by this terrible flood. There would be a Messiah, Jesus, who is referred to as Immanuel, meaning “God with us,” and He would be born in the land as the prophets predicted.
Damascus, Syria fell in 732 BC and King Rezin was killed. As a result of Syria’s defeat by the Assyrians, the Northern Kingdom of Israel had to turn over its northern provinces to Assyria (2 Kings 15:29), and not many years later its capital city of Samaria fell (722 BC).
Immanuel, the promised virgin-born child (Isaiah 7:14), was to be the future glory of the nation and the world, and it is through Him that God’s grace would be made evident to the world and it is through Him that God would be glorified.
Isaiah 8:9,10 NRSV:
9 Band together, you peoples, and be dismayed; listen, all you far countries; gird yourselves and be dismayed; gird yourselves and be dismayed!
10 Take counsel together, but it shall be brought to naught; speak a word, but it will not stand, for God is with us.
Isaiah reminds Assyria and other foreign countries that if they think they conquered Israel by their own strength they are sadly mistaken. The prophet reminded them that they were only instruments for the Lord’s use and would eventually come to nothing.
Isaiah 8:11-15 NRSV:
11 For the Lord spoke thus to me while his hand was strong upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying:
12 Do not call conspiracy[fn] all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what it fears, or be in dread.
13 But the Lord of hosts, him you shall regard as holy; let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.
14 He will become a sanctuary, a stone one strikes against; for both houses of Israel he will become a rock one stumbles over—a trap and a snare for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
15 And many among them shall stumble; they shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken.
Isaiah states that the Lord’s word to him on these matters had come with mighty power. It had also been very specific: Don’t walk in the way of this people; don’t go along with them in thinking that what is happening is a conspiracy of their enemies; and do not fear the people around them. Rather, honor the Lord of hosts as holy and fear only Him because God is your refuge.
Instinctively in times of danger countries think of alliances with other countries as the best means of protecting themselves and their homeland. The people of Judah did it in the eighth century BC with Assyria and Christians do it today also. We look for alliances to preserve our status quo. Christians have various committees and associations, both of individuals and of churches, which we hope will promote the faith against the growing onslaught of evil in this world. We band together in hope of appearing like a large force against the sin, wickedness, and immorality all around us. Yet over the years all such associations formed by human beings tend to deteriorate as time goes by. Why? Because they gradually put more faith in the alliance than in their God. So subsequent generations give in to the evil that their fathers and grandfathers protested against.
Actually later in the book of Isaiah, we will see how God pronounces “woe” on those who make alliances that God has not directed. God will judge those who relied on other countries and who did not look to the Holy One of Israel for their help. It is a risky thing to make an ungodly alliance or to put our trust in anyone other than the Lord God of Heaven. The only consistently reliable source of help when tragedy strikes is the Lord God Himself. Verse 13 and 14 tell us that when God is given His rightful place He will be our sanctuary (a place where we can be protected). He will keep safe all who place their trust in Him.
But this same God, who is a rock of safety for those who trust in Him, will also be the stone that those who don’t trust in Him will stumble over. We see this prophecy come true in the New Testament also.
The Jews waited for the promised Messiah for 2000 years and when Jesus finally came, the Jews would not accept Him as that Messiah. Consequently they stumbled over Christ as over a stumbling stone.
So, as Isaiah predicted in verses 14 and 15, they were broken and scattered by the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD when the Jewish people fled to all parts of the world. Obedience to God’s Word is the only sure way to be protected.
Isaiah 8:16-18 NRSV:
16 Bind up the testimony, seal the teaching among my disciples.
17 I will wait for the Lord, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him.
18 See, I and the children whom the Lord has given me are signs and portents (indications)[fn] in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion.
Apparently, according to verse 16, Isaiah is no longer alone. He is accompanied by “disciples.” He sings a song expressing grief and faith at a time when that faith is being tested. Isaiah affirms that even though the Lord may be hiding His face, Isaiah will wait for Him and hope in Him.
In verse 18 Isaiah affirms that God has given him promises and so he is hoping in those promises.
We all struggle with that, don’t we? With the times when God seems distant or indifferent to our trials. Yet, God is never indifferent to the trials of His children. Psalm after Psalm in the Bible expresses the determination to believe in God and affirms that He will eventually act on behalf of His children. And that is what Isaiah is doing in these verses. In verse 16 we see the term “seal” For whatever reason, Isaiah is not to reveal certain information to anyone. It is to remain secret until Christ returns in the end times. We see this same term used in Daniel 9:24; 12:4, 9; and Revelation 10:4.
Isaiah 8:19-22 NAS:
19 And when they say to you, "Consult the mediums and the spiritists who whisper and mutter," should not a people consult their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living?
20 To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.
21 And they will pass through the land hard-pressed and famished, and it will turn out that when they are hungry, they will be enraged and curse their king and their God as they face upward.
22 Then they will look to the earth, and behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and they will be driven away into darkness.
It is always amazing to me to see how many Christians will consult the daily horoscope in the newspaper. They see no harm in it and apparently are not aware of the several places where God distinctly forbids such activities (Deuteronomy 18:9-12; Leviticus 20:27; 1 Samuel 15:23).
Looking to astrology, psychics and other such individuals is not only sinning, it is putting oneself in alliance with the devil and his evil ways.
Mediums, or those who claim they can communicate with the dead, are especially to be avoided. But apparently the Jewish leaders to whom Isaiah is writing were doing just that—contacting mediums and so-called spiritists in order to find out what was going to happen. Isaiah calls upon his people to consult God and God alone to find help.
[fn] A woman who serves as a channel of communication between the human and divine worlds. In their prophetic behavior and religious functions they are not distinguished from their male counterparts.
[fn] Planning and acting together secretly, especially for an unlawful or harmful purpose.
