Yesaya 10:23

10:23 The sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, is certainly ready to carry out the decreed destruction throughout the land. ¹ 

Yesaya 46:10-11

46:10 who announces the end from the beginning

and reveals beforehand ²  what has not yet occurred,

who says, ‘My plan will be realized,

I will accomplish what I desire,’

46:11 who summons an eagle ³  from the east,

from a distant land, one who carries out my plan.

Yes, I have decreed, ⁴ 

yes, I will bring it to pass;

I have formulated a plan,

yes, I will carry it out.

Yesaya 8:10

8:10 Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted!

Issue your orders, but they will not be executed! ⁵ 

For God is with us! ⁶ 

[10:23]  ¹ tn Heb “Indeed (or perhaps “for”) destruction and what is decreed the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, is about to accomplish in the middle of all the land.” The phrase כָלָא וְנֶחֱרָצָה (khala’ venekheratsah, “destruction and what is decreed”) is a hendiadys; the two terms express one idea, with the second qualifying the first.

[46:10]  ² tn Or “from long ago”; KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV “from ancient times.”

[46:11]  ³ tn Or, more generally, “a bird of prey” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV; see 18:6).

[46:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “spoken”; KJV “I have spoken it.”

[8:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “speak a word, but it will not stand.”

[8:10]  ⁶ sn In these vv. 9-10 the tone shifts abruptly from judgment to hope. Hostile nations like Assyria may attack God’s people, but eventually they will be destroyed, for God is with his people, sometimes to punish, but ultimately to vindicate. In addition to being a reminder of God’s presence in the immediate crisis faced by Ahaz and Judah, Immanuel (whose name is echoed in this concluding statement) was a guarantee of the nation’s future greatness in fulfillment of God’s covenantal promises. Eventually God would deliver his people from the hostile nations (vv. 9-10) through another child, an ideal Davidic ruler who would embody God’s presence in a special way (see 9:6-7). Jesus the Messiah is the fulfillment of the Davidic ideal prophesied by Isaiah, the one whom Immanuel foreshadowed. Through the miracle of the incarnation he is literally “God with us.” Matthew realized this and applied Isaiah’s ancient prophecy of Immanuel’s birth to Jesus (Matt 1:22-23). The first Immanuel was a reminder to the people of God’s presence and a guarantee of a greater child to come who would manifest God’s presence in an even greater way. The second Immanuel is “God with us” in a heightened and infinitely superior sense. He “fulfills” Isaiah’s Immanuel prophecy by bringing the typology intended by God to realization and by filling out or completing the pattern designed by God. Of course, in the ultimate fulfillment of the type, the incarnate Immanuel’s mother must be a virgin, so Matthew uses a Greek term (παρθένος, parqenos), which carries that technical meaning (in contrast to the Hebrew word עַלְמָה [’almah], which has the more general meaning “young woman”). Matthew draws similar analogies between NT and OT events in 2:15, 18. The linking of these passages by analogy is termed “fulfillment.” In 2:15 God calls Jesus, his perfect Son, out of Egypt, just as he did his son Israel in the days of Moses, an historical event referred to in Hos 11:1. In so doing he makes it clear that Jesus is the ideal Israel prophesied by Isaiah (see Isa 49:3), sent to restore wayward Israel (see Isa 49:5, cf. Matt 1:21). In 2:18 Herod’s slaughter of the infants is another illustration of the oppressive treatment of God’s people by foreign tyrants. Herod’s actions are analogous to those of the Assyrians, who deported the Israelites, causing the personified land to lament as inconsolably as a mother robbed of her little ones (Jer 31:15).