อิสยาห์ 7:23 วิจารณ์

This chapter is an occasional sermon, in which the prophet sings both of mercy and judgment to those that did not perceive or understand either; he piped unto them, but they danced not, mourned unto them, but they wept not. Here is, I. The consternation that Ahaz was in upon an attempt of the confederate forces of Syria and Israel against Jerusalem (Isa 7:1, Isa 7:2). II. The assurance which God, by the prophet, sent him for his encouragement, that the attempt should be defeated and Jerusalem should be preserved (Isa 7:3-9). III. The confirmation of this by a sign which God gave to Ahaz, when he refused to ask one, referring to Christ, and our redemption by him (Isa 7:10-16). IV. A threatening of the great desolation that God would bring upon Ahaz and his kingdom by the Assyrians, notwithstanding their escape from this present storm, because they went on still in their wickedness (Isa 7:17-25). And this is written both for our comfort and for our admonition.

INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 7 This chapter contains a prophecy of the preservation of the kingdom of Judah, from its enemies; a confirmation of it by a sign; and a prediction of various calamities that should come upon it, antecedent to the accomplishment of that sign. The enemies of Judea are named, and the besieging of Jerusalem by them, and the date of it, which was without effect, are mentioned, Isa 7:1 the fear and dread which seized the house of David upon the news of this confederacy, Isa 7:2 the orders given by the Lord to the Prophet Isaiah, to take with him his son, and meet Ahaz, at a certain place pointed at, Isa 7:3 whose errand was to comfort him, and exhort him to be quiet and easy; since the conspiracy formed against him should be fruitless, and the kingdom of Israel should be broken to pieces, Isa 7:4 after which the king is put upon asking a sign of the Lord, for the confirmation of it; which he refusing to do, under a pretence of tempting the Lord, is reproved; and a sign nevertheless is given; which is that of the birth of the Messiah of a virgin, who would be truly God, as his name Immanuel shows, and truly man, as his birth, his food, and gradual knowledge of good and evil, prove, Isa 7:10 yea, it is suggested that the deliverance of Judea from the two kings of Syria and Israel should be very speedy; even before the young child Isaiah had with him was capable of knowing to refuse evil, and chose good, Isa 7:16 but as a chastisement of the house of David for their incredulity in this matter, and slight of the divine goodness, various things are threatened to befall them, before the birth of the Messiah; even such as had not been since the revolt of the ten tribes; as that their enemies, the Assyrians and others, should come upon them in great numbers, and fill all places, so that they would be in the utmost distress, and not be able to escape, Isa 7:17 there would be a great consumption of men of all sorts, high and low, signified by shaving off the hair of the head, beard, and feet; so that the few that remained would enjoy plenty, Isa 7:20 and for want of men to till the land, it would be covered with thorns and briers; and because of wild beasts, the few men in it would be obliged to defend themselves with bows and arrows, Isa 7:23 and yet, after this, the land should become fruitful again, before the Messiah's coming, Isa 7:25, as some interpret it.

And it shall come to pass in that day; that every place shall be,.... Barren and unfruitful, for want of men to till the ground: where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings; which were so good, as to be sold or let out for so many silver shekels (m); or the fruit of them came to such a price; see Sol 8:11, it shall even be for briers and thorns; for want of persons to stock the ground and cultivate it. (m) Which was about two shillings and sixpence of our money.

(Verse 21 onwards) And it shall come to pass on that day, a man shall nurture a cow of oxen, and two sheep, and because of the abundance of milk, he shall eat butter; for everyone who is left in the midst of the land shall eat butter and honey. And it shall come to pass on that day, every place where a thousand vines were worth a thousand silver shekels, there shall be thorns and briers. With arrows and bows they shall come there, for thorns and briers shall cover the whole land. And all the hills that were once cultivated with a hoe shall no longer be afraid of thistles and thorns; and they shall become pastures for cattle and a trampling ground for livestock. After the subversion of Jerusalem, the captivity of the people, and the burning of the Temple, Nabuzardan, the prince of the army whom the Seventy called the chief cook, left a few of the people, and those poor, in the land to till the vineyards and fields. Finally, Godolias, who had been appointed over them from the royal line, encourages them and says: Do not be afraid of the Chaldeans; dwell in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it will be well with you (2 Kings 25:24). Therefore, at that time when all the wealth of the Jews had been transferred to Chaldea, there will be such a great desolation in the land of Judaea and such incredible devastation that they will by no means have herds of cattle or flocks of sheep as they used to have before: but scarcely a rare inhabitant will be able to support one cow and two sheep; not for plowing, but for food and clothing of milk and wool. Indeed, because of the scarcity of wheat and everything that the land produces for eating, they will subsist on milk, butter, and wild honey. And what he says: He will eat butter from the abundance of milk, signifies that the land will be more fertile due to the scarcity of farmers and more suitable for grazing. In that time, due to the scarcity of people, there will be such a shortage of wine from deserted vineyards, which will not be considered a concern for hostile fear, that each vine will barely be bought with silver sickles. For all the land will be reduced to brambles and thorns: and there will be such fear, with swords raging everywhere, that no one will dare to visit their own field without a bow and arrows, and abandoning the open fields, they will seek refuge in the mountains, and there, fortified by the difficulty of the location, they will barely dig rough mountains by hand: because they will not have oxen, plows, and plowshares. Therefore, if a rare inhabitant were found in the mountains, they would sustain a miserable life from there. The rest, however, will be open to pasture, and without any guardian, they will be trampled by wild animals. These things are accustomed to happen after captivity, would that we did not know! But now a large part of the Roman world is similar to once Judea: which we do not think was done without the anger of God, who avenges not at all the contempt of himself through the Assyrians and the Chaldeans; but through savage nations, and once unknown to us, whose faces and speech are terrifying, and they have feminine and cut faces (he means the Goths who shaved their beards), they pierce the fleeing backs of men, well-bearded. I have read in these places an extensive and intricate tropology: that everything, which we have discussed according to history, happened spiritually to the Jews, who barely had one cow and two sheep, namely clean animals: so that they might be nourished not with solid food, but with milk, like infants, and consume the honey of words, which drip from the lips of a prostitute; and they do not have wine, which gladdens the heart of man: but all their works are turned into thorns, so that they may be wounded by adversaries, who strike at the upright of heart (Psalm 10). But if at any time they desire to know something more deeply, and, exerting excessive effort, they seek to discover something mystical from the Holy Scriptures, nevertheless, they bring forth no fruits of doctrine, but rather their minds are filled with thorns and thistles, which arise in the hands of the drunk. And their land and doctrine are in no way cultivated by rational beings, but by cattle, of which God has no care, and are trampled upon by brute animals.

Third, from the scarcity of men. First, in the worthlessness of their property: every place where there were a thousand vines: buy a field for money, and take witnesses, whereas the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans (Jer 32:25); I passed by the field of the slothful man, and by the vineyard of the foolish man: and behold it was all filled with nettles, and thorns had covered the face thereof (Prov 24:30–31).

Mere begins another section of prophecy, ending with the ninth chapter. It opens with exhorting to amendment of life, without which the confidence of the Jews in their temple is declared vain, Jer 7:1-11. God bids them take warning from the fate of their brethren the Israelites, who had been carried away captive on account of their sins without any regard to that sacred place, (Shiloh), where the ark of God once resided, Jer 7:12-15. The iniquities of Judah are so great in the sight of God that the prophet is commanded not to intercede for the people, Jer 7:16; the more especially as they persisted in provoking God by their idolatrous practices, Jer 7:17-20. The Jewish sacrifices, if not accompanied with obedience to the moral law, are of no avail, Jer 7:21-24. Notwithstanding the numerous messages of mercy from the time of the exodus, the people revolted more and more; and have added to their other sins this horrible evil, the setting up of their abominations in the temple of Jehovah; or, in other words, they have encumbered the Mosaic economy, which shadowed forth the glorious truths of Christianity, with a heterogeneous admixture of the idolatrous, impure, and cruel rites of heathenism; consequently, the whole land shall be utterly desolated, Jer 7:25-34.

PREDICTION OF THE ILL SUCCESS OF THE SYRO-ISRAELITISH INVASION OF JUDAH--AHAZ'S ALLIANCE WITH ASSYRIA, AND ITS FATAL RESULTS TO JUDEA--YET THE CERTAINTY OF FINAL PRESERVATION AND OF THE COMING OF MESSIAH. (Isa. 7:1-9:7) Ahaz--In the first years of his reign the design of the two kings against Judah was carried out, which was formed in Jotham's reign (Kg2 15:37). Syria--Hebrew, Aram (Gen 10:22-23), originally the whole region between the Euphrates and Mediterranean, including Assyria, of which Syria is an abbreviation; here the region round Damascus, and along Mount Libanus. Jerusalem--An actual siege of it took place, but was foiled (Kg2 16:5).

where there were, &c.--where up to that time there was so valuable a vineyard as to have in it a 1000 vines, worth a silverling (shekel, about 2s. 3d.; a large price) each, there shall be only briers (Sol 8:11). Vineyards are estimated by the number of the vines, and the goodness of the kind of vine. Judea admits of a high state of cultivation, and requires it, in order to be productive; its present barrenness is due to neglect.

As the following prophecies could not be understood apart from the historical circumstances to which they refer, the prophet commences with a historical announcement."It came to pass, in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah (Uziyhu), king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Aramaea, and Pekah (Pekach) the son of Remaliah (Remalyhu), king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, and (he) could not make war upon it." We have the same words, with only slight variations, in the history of the reign of Ahaz in Kg2 16:5. That the author of the book of Kings copied them from the book of Isaiah, will be very apparent when we come to examine the historical chapters (36-39) in their relation to the parallel sections of the book of Kings. In the passage before us, the want of independence on the part of the author of the book of Kings is confirmed by the fact that he not only repeats, but also interprets, the words of Isaiah. Instead of saying, "And (he) could not make war upon it," he says, "And they besieged Ahaz, and could not make war." The singular yâcol (he could) of Isaiah is changed into the simpler plural, whilst the statement that the two allies could not assault or storm Jerusalem (which must be the meaning of nilcham ‛al in the passage before us), is more clearly defined by the additional information that they did besiege Ahaz, but to no purpose (tzur ‛al, the usual expression for obsidione claudere; cf., Deu 20:19). The statement that "they besieged Ahaz" cannot merely signify that "they attempted to besiege him," although nothing further is known about this siege. But happily we have two accounts of the Syro-Ephraimitish war (2 Kings 16 and 2 Chron 28). The two historical books complete one another. The book of Kings relates that the invasion of Judah by the two allies commenced at the end of Jotham's reign (Kg2 15:37); and in addition to the statement taken from Isa 7:1, it also mentions that Rezin conquered the seaport town of Elath, which then belonged to the kingdom of Judah; whilst the Chronicles notice the fact that Rezin brought a number of Judaean captives to Damascus, and that Pekah conquered Ahaz in a bloody and destructive battle. Indisputable as the credibility of these events may be, it is nevertheless very difficult to connect them together, either substantially or chronologically, in a certain and reliable manner, as Caspari has attempted to do in his monograph on the Syro-Ephraimitish war (1849). We may refer here to our own manner of dovetailing the historical accounts of Ahaz and the Syro-Ephraimitish war in the introduction to the present work (p. 23ff.). If we could assume that יכל (not יכלוּ) was the authentic reading, and that the failure of the attempt to take Jerusalem, which is mentioned here, was occasioned by the strength of the city itself, and not by the intervention of Assyria - so that Isa 7:1 did not contain such an anticipation as we have supposed, although summary anticipations of this kind were customary with biblical historians, and more especially with Isaiah - the course of events might be arranged in the following manner, viz., that whilst Rezin was on his way to Elath, Pekah resolved to attack Jerusalem, but failed in his attempt; but that Rezin was more successful in his expedition, which was a much easier one, and after the conquest of Elath united his forces with those of his allies.

The prophet repeats this three times in Isa 7:23-25 : "And it will come to pass in that day, every place, where a thousand vines stood at a thousand silverlings, will have become thorns and thistles. With arrows and with bows will men go, for the whole land will have become thorns and thistles. And all the hills that were accustomed to be hoed with the hoe, thou wilt not go to them for fear of thorns and thistles; and it has become a gathering-place for oxen, and a treading-place for sheep." The "thousand silverlings" ('eleph ceseph, i.e., a thousand shekels of silver) recall to mind Sol 8:11, though there it is the value of the yearly produce, whereas here the thousand shekels are the value of a thousand vines, the sign of a peculiarly valuable piece of a vineyard. At the present time they reckon the worth of a vineyard in Lebanon and Syria according to the value of the separate vines, and generally take the vines at one piastre (from 2nd to 3rd) each; just as in Germany a Johannisberg vine is reckoned at a ducat. Every piece of ground, where such valuable vines were standing, would have fallen a prey to the briers. People would go there with bow and arrow, because the whole land had become thorns and thistles (see at Isa 5:12), and therefore wild animals had made their homes there. And thou (the prophet addresses the countryman thus) comest not to all the hills, which were formerly cultivated in the most careful manner; thou comest not thither to make them arable again, because thorns and thistles deter thee from reclaiming such a fallow. They would therefore give the oxen freedom to rove where they would, and let sheep and goats tread down whatever grew there. The description is intentionally thoroughly tautological and pleonastic, heavy and slow in movement. The writer's intention is to produce the impression of a waste heath, or tedious monotony. Hence the repetitions of hâyâh and yihyeh. Observe how great the variations are in the use of the future and perfect, and how the meaning is always determined by the context. In Isa 7:21, Isa 7:22, the futures have a really future sense; in Isa 7:23 the first and third yihyeh signify "will have become" (factus erit omnis locus), and the second "was" (erat); in Isa 7:24 יבוא means "will come" (veniet), and tihyeh "will have become" (facta erit terra); in Isa 7:25 we must render yē‛âdērūn, sarciebantur (they used to be hoed). And in Isa 7:21, Isa 7:22, and Isa 7:23, hâyâh is equivalent to fiet (it will become); whilst in Isa 7:25 it means factum est (it has become). Looked at from a western point of view, therefore, the future tense is sometimes a simple future, sometimes a future perfect, and sometimes an imperfect or synchronistic preterite; and the perfect sometimes a prophetic preterite, sometimes an actual preterite, but the sphere of an ideal past, or what is the same thing, of a predicted future. This ends Isaiah's address to king Ahaz. He does not expressly say when Immanuel is to be born, but only what will take place before he has reached the riper age of boyhood - namely, first, the devastation of Israel and Syria, and then the devastation of Judah itself, by the Assyrians. From the fact that the prophet says no more than this, we may see that his spirit and his tongue were under the direction of the Spirit of God, who does not descend within the historical and temporal range of vision, without at the same time remaining exalted above it. On the other hand, however, we may see from what he says, that the prophecy has its human side as well. When Isaiah speaks of Immanuel as eating thickened milk and honey, like all who survived the Assyrian troubles in the Holy Land; he evidently looks upon and thinks of the childhood of Immanuel as connected with the time of the Assyrian calamities. And it was in such a perspective combination of events lying far apart, that the complex character of prophecy consisted. The reason for this complex character was a double one, viz., the human limits associated with the prophet's telescopic view of distant times, and the pedagogical wisdom of God, in accordance with which He entered into these limits instead of removing them. If, therefore, we adhere to the letter of prophecy, we may easily throw doubt upon its veracity; but if we look at the substance of the prophecy, we soon find that the complex character by no means invalidates its truth. For the things which the prophet saw in combination were essentially connected, even though chronologically separated. When, for example, in the case before us (chapters 7-12), Isaiah saw Asshur only, standing out as the imperial kingdom; this was so far true, that the four imperial kingdoms from the Babylonian to the Roman were really nothing more than the full development of the commencement made in Assyria. And when he spoke of the son of the virgin (chapter 7) as growing up in the midst of the Assyrian oppressions; this also was so far true, that Jesus was really born at a time when the Holy Land, deprived of its previous abundance, was under the dominion of the imperial power, and in a condition whose primary cause was to be traced to the unbelief of Ahaz. Moreover, He who became flesh in the fulness of time, did really lead an ideal life in the Old Testament history. He was in the midst of it in a pre-existent presence, moving on towards the covenant goal. The fact that the house and nation of David did not perish in the Assyrian calamities, was actually to be attributed, as chapter 8 presupposes, to His real though not His bodily presence. In this way the apparent discrepancy between the prophecy and the history of the fulfilment may be solved. We do not require the solution proposed by Vitringa, and recently appropriate by Haneberg - namely, that the prophet takes the stages of the Messiah's life out of the distant future, to make them the measure of events about to take place in the immediate future; nor that of Bengel, Schegg, Schmieder, and others - namely, that the sign consisted in an event belonging to the immediate future, which pointed typically to the birth of the true Immanuel; nor that of Hofmann, who regards the words of the prophet as an emblematical prediction of the rise of a new Israel, which would come to the possession of spiritual intelligence in the midst of troublous times, occasioned by the want of intelligence in the Israel of his own time. The prophecy, as will be more fully confirmed as we proceed, is directly Messianic; it is a divine prophecy within human limits.