Many people get stuck on the virgin/maiden controversy in Isaiah 7, but that’s not really the focus of the chapter. The focus is whether you trust in God for your well being or in your own arrangements.
King Ahaz was the grandson of King Uzziah, whom we met in chapter 6. Ahaz’s father Jotham had ruled in Jerusalem for sixteen years, during which time he did what was pleasing to the LORD (2 Chron. 27:2). Ahaz himself was just 20 years old when he became king, and he made a mess of it!
Just a little historical context: The Assyrian empire was breathing down the throats of the whole region, so Syria and Israel wanted Judah to ally itself with them against the greater threat. When Ahaz refused and put out feelers to the Assyrians themselves to protect him from Israel and Syria, those same countries invaded and killed and carried off hundreds of thousands of Judeans—so massively that they had a bad conscience about it and returned many of the people and plunder.
Ahaz thought that the gods of these pagan countries had overwhelmed his God and that’s why he closed the temple, built altars to Baal, and “encouraged his people to sin” (2Chron:28:19). Big mistake! He had already shown a lack of confidence in God’s ability to protect his country and now he blames God for the consequences of his own faithlessness.
Chapter 7 opens with Ahaz’s court hearing about another conspiratorial plot by Israel and Syria to overthrow him in favor of a puppet king who will do what they want.
Isaiah’s word from God is: “Don’t worry! It’s not going to happen!” That word of assurance should have been enough for Ahaz, but when you have lost faith in your God because you think He let you down before, you may not feel so assured.
God understood Ahaz’s doubts! That’s a pretty important lesson for us to learn. God knows that His ways are not our ways. We often misinterpret the events of our lives. Ahaz had experienced the wrath of God for leading his people into sin, but even that expression of wrath did not mean that God had abandoned him—or that the LORD was powerless—or was not real!
God’s graciousness goes so far as to even offer Ahaz a reassuring sign. God had given men signs from early on—I’m thinking of the rainbow sign to Noah and all humankind—but the NT expression is that people asking for signs was wearisome to Him (John 4:48). Yet, here he tells Ahaz to ask for a sign of his own choosing.
Ahaz’s says the right words, but his heart was in the wrong place: “I will not ask; I will not put the Lord to the test” (v.12). Right words, wrong heart—sounds familiar, doesn’t it!
Now comes the verses that are mildly significant to Ahaz and immensely significant to the gospel writer Matthew some 700 years later: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. “ You can find plenty of scholars who debate whether the Hebrew word means virgin or maiden. I find it easy to believe that it had a simple meaning for Ahaz and a miraculous meaning when applied to Jesus.
Isaiah prophesies a moment of relief for Ahaz—no need to fear Israel and Syria—but that just around the corner, greater destruction would come because he continued to seek security from armies other than those of the LORD of Hosts!
Whether we talk in the context of nations and regions, or whether we come down to the level of families and individuals, the story of Ahaz in chapter 7 reminds us that only faith in the Sovereign God can assure us security.
Ahaz, as a member of the covenant family of David and as the son of a faithful king of Judah, had every opportunity to enjoy the favor and blessing of God. But in his youth, he decided to go his own way, to make his own allies, to fight his own battles, and to worship his own gods, and even the Word from the Lord accompanied by physical signs could not move him to faithfulness : “Even during this time of trouble, King Ahaz continued to reject the Lord” (2Chron. 28:22).
If you think you are the cause of your own pleasure in life and that God is the source of all your troubles, you have your glasses on backwards!
And the sign God offers to you is that a virgin DID conceive and bear a son whose name is Immanuel: God with us!
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