Isaiah 7:10-16 Commentary

Backs Against the Wall

The text of Isaiah 7:10-16 (well, really, verse 14) is embedded in the Christian imagination as a prophecy of the birth of Jesus Christ from the Virgin Mary.  But, before it served that purpose, it had another.  Taking in the context of the first 9 verses of chapter 7, here’s the situation:

In the 8th century BCE the kings of Aram/Syria and Israel ganged up on Judah. In particular, they were after regime change.  The current King of Judah, Ahaz, was unwilling to compromise his people’s sovereignty in order to make an alliance with Israel and Syria. The leaders of these two countries could not understand Ahaz’ refusal, given the mighty Assyrian Empire was breathing down their necks.  Shouldn’t all the “little guys” stick together? So the beginning of chapter 7 gives us details of Israel and Aram’s Siege of Jerusalem.  Although the attack did not, ultimately succeed, Judah and her leader were worried. “So the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind.” (7:2)

God sends Isaiah with a message for Ahaz.  “Say to him, ‘Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart…” While it’s true these two nations are out for your blood (or at least your resignation) “this is what the Sovereign Lord says: ‘It will not take place, it will not happen.”  The only thing left for Ahaz to do is to believe it.  Verse 9 concludes with a kind of play on words: “If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.”

Over and against the terror of military conquest, an encroaching army and threats to him personally, Ahaz is told to trust.  When his back is against the wall, he is just supposed to believe God’s Word revealed by God’s prophet?

The Lectionary pairs this text with Matthew 1:18-24, the story of another man with his back against the wall.  Mary tells her fiancé, Joseph, that she is pregnant.  This is a huge shock for one and betrayal for another and upend-er of life plans for a third.  One might very easily imagine that Joseph’s heart was “shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind.”

Trusting Anyway, In Spite of Yourself

Although we know from the earlier text that God sends the message for Ahaz through Isaiah, by the time we get to this week’s Lectionary text, the intermediary has dropped away and the narrator speaks as though God is speaking directly to Ahaz. “Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz…” Knowing the difficulty of trust in precarious circumstances, God offers Ahaz a sign, a gentle accommodation: How can I help you trust my character and, therefore, my word?”  Ahaz demures. While the act appears pious: Ahaz refusing to put God to the test, it is, in a way, a slight.  God is willing to accommodate God’s will and plan to human comprehension and Ahaz responds: “Nah. I’m good.”

Robert Alter summarizes the interaction with great pith and wit: “The development of the dialogue appears to be as follows: Isaiah invites Ahaz to ask for a sign, however extravagant (verse 11); Ahaz is afraid to put God to the test (verse 12); Isaiah answers that Ahaz is exasperating God by his unwillingness to ask for a sign (verse 13); Isaiah further says that Ahaz will get a sign whether he likes it or not (verse 14.)

I wonder, again, at the correlation between this text and the story of Joseph in Matthew 1 who either cares for Mary enough or intends to have good character regardless of the circumstances he finds himself in—maybe both—to divorce her quietly.  He will not demand capital punishment. He will not go to the press. Just, quietly resolving to do his best in impossible circumstances.  And, to this, the angel appears to Joseph as though to say he is getting a sign “whether he likes it or not.” Based on the angel’s message, Joseph takes Mary as his wife, caring for her and her child as his own kin.

Baby Names

Of course, for those of us reading this text in a Christian context in Advent, verse 16 is the bold, italicized and underlined point of the whole reading. In Isaiah: a virgin will be with child! In the gospels: a virgin is with child!  Clearly, we are talking about the same thing here. Maybe so.  Centuries of Christian Biblical scholarship would say so.  But a Jewish scholar, like Robert Alter, is more inclined to point to the name as the miraculous sign.  The Hebrew word for “virgin” is contested as it can just as easily mean “young woman.”  What to Alter and others is remarkable about the sign is the name.  “The ‘sign’ here is the name she gives the child, which means ‘God is with us.’  The CEB Study Bible lends credence to the importance of this name when it writes, “Her faith will serve as a sign to Ahaz of God’s protection.” In this way, whether we accept a strict Jewish translation: “the young woman is about to conceive and bear a son” or prefer the Christian and Christological interpretation of it, the young woman’s trust as demonstrated by the name she gives her baby has to be a part of the story we tell.  Otherwise, Matthew wouldn’t have needed to include the whole verse: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”(italics mine.)

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Illustration

History and literature are replete with the faith of the young, the unlikely, the marginalized showing up and/or shoring up the faith of the powerful and the ones straight out of central casting as heroic leading men. I’ll not venture out of Hebrew Scripture to provide one such example.

II Kings 5 begins with a vision of that heroic leading man: a commander in the army, a great man, highly respected for his military victories. But when he is stricken with leprosy and all seemed lost, the fate of the man, his household and, perhaps, even his nation hinges on a young woman’s trust. Naaman’s servant girl offers her faith as a sign. When she declares, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”