seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Isaiah 8:1 The Lord said to me, “Take a large scroll and write on it with an ordinary pen: Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.”[a] 2 So I called in Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberekiah as reliable witnesses for me. 3 Then I made love to the prophetess, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. And the Lord said to me, “Name him Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. 4 For before the boy knows how to say ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried off by the king of Assyria.”
5 The Lord spoke to me again:
6 “Because this people has rejected
the gently flowing waters of Shiloah
and rejoices over Rezin
and the son of Remaliah,
7 therefore the Lord is about to bring against them
the mighty floodwaters of the Euphrates—
the king of Assyria with all his pomp.
It will overflow all its channels,
run over all its banks
8 and sweep on into Judah, swirling over it,
passing through it and reaching up to the neck.
Its outspread wings will cover the breadth of your land,
Immanuel[b]!”
the gently flowing waters of Shiloah
and rejoices over Rezin
and the son of Remaliah,
7 therefore the Lord is about to bring against them
the mighty floodwaters of the Euphrates—
the king of Assyria with all his pomp.
It will overflow all its channels,
run over all its banks
8 and sweep on into Judah, swirling over it,
passing through it and reaching up to the neck.
Its outspread wings will cover the breadth of your land,
Immanuel[b]!”
9 Raise the war cry,[c] you nations, and be shattered!
Listen, all you distant lands.
Prepare for battle, and be shattered!
Prepare for battle, and be shattered!
10 Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted;
propose your plan, but it will not stand,
for God is with us.[d]
Listen, all you distant lands.
Prepare for battle, and be shattered!
Prepare for battle, and be shattered!
10 Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted;
propose your plan, but it will not stand,
for God is with us.[d]
11 This is what the Lord says to me with his strong hand upon me, warning me not to follow the way of this people:
12 “Do not call conspiracy
everything this people calls a conspiracy;
do not fear what they fear,
and do not dread it.
13 The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy,
he is the one you are to fear,
he is the one you are to dread.
14 He will be a holy place;
for both Israel and Judah he will be
a stone that causes people to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall.
And for the people of Jerusalem he will be
a trap and a snare.
15 Many of them will stumble;
they will fall and be broken,
they will be snared and captured.”
everything this people calls a conspiracy;
do not fear what they fear,
and do not dread it.
13 The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy,
he is the one you are to fear,
he is the one you are to dread.
14 He will be a holy place;
for both Israel and Judah he will be
a stone that causes people to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall.
And for the people of Jerusalem he will be
a trap and a snare.
15 Many of them will stumble;
they will fall and be broken,
they will be snared and captured.”
16 Bind up this testimony of warning
and seal up God’s instruction among my disciples.
17 I will wait for the Lord,
who is hiding his face from the descendants of Jacob.
I will put my trust in him.
and seal up God’s instruction among my disciples.
17 I will wait for the Lord,
who is hiding his face from the descendants of Jacob.
I will put my trust in him.
18 Here am I, and the children the Lord has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the Lord Almighty, who dwells on Mount Zion.
19 When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? 20 Consult God’s instruction and the testimony of warning. If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. 21 Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. 22 Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.
a. Isaiah 8:1 Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz means quick to the plunder, swift to the spoil; also in verse 3.
b. Isaiah 8:8 Immanuel means God with us.
c. Isaiah 8:9 Or Do your worst
d. Isaiah 8:10 Hebrew Immanuel
This is from gotquestions.org. I think it made the historic picture clearer for me.
Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz was a son of the prophet Isaiah. The son’s name is a mouthful, but it’s also full of meaning. Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz is mentioned in this passage: “The Lord said to me, ‘Take a large scroll and write on it with an ordinary pen: Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.’ So I called in Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberekiah as reliable witnesses for me. Then I went to the prophetess, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. And the Lord said to me, ‘Name him Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. For before the boy knows how to say “My father” or “My mother,” the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried off by the king of Assyria’” (Isaiah 8:1–4).
Scripture records the names of two sons of the prophet Isaiah. Both names were symbolic, containing messages from God to Judah’s king Ahaz and to us today (see Romans 15:4). Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz can be translated “Speed the spoil and hasten the booty.”
Isaiah began his ministry in Judah in 740 BC, the end of the long, relatively prosperous reign of King Uzziah (Isaiah 6:1). The years that immediately followed were the most turbulent in the history of the divided kingdom of Judah and Israel. Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BC) was conquering much of the Middle East, including the nations surrounding Israel. The Assyrian Empire stretched well over 1,500 miles, from the Persian Gulf to deep into Egypt. Assyrian military strategy combined huge numbers of troops, advanced siege technology, shocking savagery, and mass deportation to terrify and subdue conquered peoples.
About 735 or 734 BC, the kings of Syria (Damascus) and Israel (Samaria) asked Judah’s King Ahaz to ally with them against Assyria. When Ahaz refused, the two kings attacked Judah, launching the Syro-Ephraimite War (Ephraim was the dominant tribe of the northern kingdom of Israel and therefore identified with that kingdom). The two kings quickly overran much of Judah, inflicting great slaughter (2 Chronicles 28:5–8), then besieged Jerusalem (2 Kings 16:5).
Ahaz and all Judah were terrified (Isaiah 7:2). But rather than trusting in the Lord as Isaiah counseled, the apostate Ahaz sought protection through an alliance with Assyria. He sent the silver and gold from the temple and his own royal treasury, offering Judah as another vassal state of the growing empire (2 Kings 16:7–8).
It was during this national crisis that Isaiah’s second son was born as prophesied as a sign to Ahaz and Judah. Before the boy was conceived God had Isaiah draw up a legal document with the four words of his future son’s name, Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz (Isaiah 8:1–2). The name literally means “Speed-spoil-hasten-plunder” or “Swift to the spoil, quick to the plunder.” God’s message to Ahaz was that both of Judah’s enemies would be defeated and plundered. Judah would be saved. The document containing the name Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz symbolized a property deed transferring the wealth of Damascus and Israel to the king of Assyria.
Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, Isaiah’s future son, named with the same four words of the document, revealed the time frame of Israel’s and Syria’s defeat: sometime between the conception of Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz to “before the boy knows how to say ‘My father’ or ‘My mother’” (Isaiah 8:3–4). That is, Judah would be saved before Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz reached age 2, a total of less than three years, counting the child’s time in the womb.
The prophecy was fulfilled in 732 BC when both Syria and Israel were conquered by Assyria. A decade later Assyria removed Israel’s wealth and many of her people, obliterating their national identity. Those Israelites who remained in the land intermarried with a variety of foreign occupiers sent by their conquerors (2 Kings 17:24), eventually giving rise to the despised race of Samaritans (see John 4:9; 8:48).
At first, it seemed that King Ahaz’s plan to ally with Assyria was a great success for Judah. But the terrible unintended consequences of solving his problems his own way rather than God’s soon followed, as Isaiah had prophesied (Isaiah 7:17–25). Judah became a vassal state from which Assyria demanded heavy annual tribute—completely unnecessary, because God had already intended to use Assyria to save Judah without Ahaz asking for their help (Isaiah 8:4). Within thirty years, this “ally” would lay waste to Judah and place its mighty siege engines before the walls of Jerusalem (Isaiah 36).
The first commandment was this..... Exodus 20:2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
In 2 Chronicles 28, I read that Ahaz was such an idiot.... he sacrificed his own son to a fake god. I am having a hard time understanding why he did this.... He was a total disruption from the norm. What was going through Ahaz's mind when he murdered his own son???? Now I admit.... Abraham got pretty close to murdering Isaac [Genesis 22] but God stepped in and told him he didn't have to do that. God doesn't want us to dispose of our babies in His name.
I have to admit, though, I think Isaiah's baby was a little slow.... My kids were calling me mom before they learned to walk.... and my babies were all walking at about a year old. If it took him two years to say "mom" and "dad" ..... that baby gave Judah an extra bit of time.
IMHO.... Ahaz raised two big signs for Isaiah to protest.
The first big sign was defiling the Temple..... Ahaz took the materials that David and Solomon gathered and installed, according to God's instruction, and turned them over to the Assyrians.... and then he had a custom altar built for himself and plopped that in the Temple instead.
The second sign Ahaz raised was abortion.... He had his own son murdered in the name of a fake god. I guess his son was "inconvenient" or "a reminder" or "imperfect".
Isn't it interesting that Isaiah used a baby in the warning.
