Yesaya 8:10

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

Issue your orders, but they will not be executed! ¹ 

For God is with us! ² 

Yesaya 17:5

17:5 It will be as when one gathers the grain harvest,

and his hand gleans the ear of grain.

It will be like one gathering the ears of grain

in the Valley of Rephaim.

Yesaya 19:15

19:15 Egypt will not be able to do a thing,

head or tail, shoots and stalk. ³ 

Yesaya 20:1

20:1 The Lord revealed the following message during the year in which King Sargon of Assyria sent his commanding general to Ashdod, and he fought against it and captured it. ⁴ 

Yesaya 28:29

28:29 This also comes from the Lord who commands armies,

who gives supernatural guidance and imparts great wisdom. ⁵ 

Yesaya 33:7

33:7 Look, ambassadors ⁶  cry out in the streets;

messengers sent to make peace ⁷  weep bitterly.

Yesaya 36:1

Sennacherib Invades Judah

36:1 In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, ⁸  King Sennacherib of Assyria marched up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.

Yesaya 37:1

37:1 When King Hezekiah heard this, ⁹  he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and went to the Lord’s temple.

[8:10]  ¹ tn Heb “speak a word, but it will not stand.”

[8:10]  ² 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).

[19:15]  ³ tn Heb “And there will not be for Egypt a deed, which head and tail, shoot and stalk can do.” In 9:14-15 the phrase “head or tail” refers to leaders and prophets, respectively. This interpretation makes good sense in this context, where both leaders and advisers (probably including prophets and diviners) are mentioned (vv. 11-14). Here, as in 9:14, “shoots and stalk” picture a reed, which symbolizes the leadership of the nation in its entirety.

[20:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “In the year the commanding general came to Ashdod, when Sargon king of Assyria sent him, and he fought against Ashdod and captured it.”

[20:1]  sn This probably refers to the Assyrian campaign against Philistia in 712 or 711 b.c.

[28:29]  ⁵ sn Verses 23-29 emphasize that God possesses great wisdom and has established a natural order. Evidence of this can be seen in the way farmers utilize divinely imparted wisdom to grow and harvest crops. God’s dealings with his people will exhibit this same kind of wisdom and order. Judgment will be accomplished according to a divinely ordered timetable and, while severe enough, will not be excessive. Judgment must come, just as planting inevitably follows plowing. God will, as it were, thresh his people, but he will not crush them to the point where they will be of no use to him.

[33:7]  ⁶ tn The meaning of the Hebrew word is unknown. Proposals include “heroes” (cf. KJV, ASV “valiant ones”; NASB, NIV “brave men”); “priests,” “residents [of Jerusalem].” The present translation assumes that the term is synonymous with “messengers of peace,” with which it corresponds in the parallel structure of the verse.

[33:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “messengers of peace,” apparently those responsible for negotiating the agreements that have been broken (see v. 8).

[36:1]  ⁸ tn The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[37:1]  ⁹ tn The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.