A SIGN

Isaiah 7:10–25 NKJV

Moreover the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, “Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God; ask it either in the depth or in the height above.” But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord!” Then he said, “Hear now, O house of David! Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel. Curds and honey He shall eat, that He may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the Child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread will be forsaken by both her kings. The Lord will bring the king of Assyria upon you and your people and your father’s house—days that have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah.” And it shall come to pass in that day That the Lord will whistle for the fly That is in the farthest part of the rivers of Egypt, And for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. They will come, and all of them will rest In the desolate valleys and in the clefts of the rocks, And on all thorns and in all pastures. In the same day the Lord will shave with a hired razor, With those from beyond the River, with the king of Assyria, The head and the hair of the legs, And will also remove the beard. It shall be in that day That a man will keep alive a young cow and two sheep; So it shall be, from the abundance of milk they give, That he will eat curds; For curds and honey everyone will eat who is left in the land. It shall happen in that day, That wherever there could be a thousand vines Worth a thousand shekels of silver, It will be for briers and thorns. With arrows and bows men will come there, Because all the land will become briers and thorns. And to any hill which could be dug with the hoe, You will not go there for fear of briers and thorns; But it will become a range for oxen And a place for sheep to roam.

I. A SIGN REJECTED

God had instructed Isaiah to command Ahaz to ask for a sign. However, the request was for Ahaz to make at his own thought.

Yet, Ahaz refused to ask for a sign.

Deuteronomy 6:16 NKJV

“You shall not tempt the Lord your God as you tempted Him in Massah.

At face value it seems as though Ahaz is acting piously towards God.

However, he is not trusting God and asking for a sign after he had been commanded to do so would not have been sinful. Rather, it would haver been an act of obedience.

However, Ahaz rejected the command because he did not desire to hear from God. He had already determined to go against God.

2 Kings 16:7 ESV

So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are attacking me.”

II. A SIGN RECIEVED

A present sign.

The Bible Knowledge Commentary 7:14–16

(3) A third view, a combination of the first two, sees the prophecy as directed primarily to Ahaz regarding the breaking of the alliance. The ‘almâh was a virgin when Isaiah spoke his message, but then she would marry and have a baby. When the Aram-Israel alliance was broken the boy would still be young. Centuries later the Holy Spirit led Matthew to quote Isaiah 7:14 as a statement that was also true of a virgin birth (i.e., a birth to a woman who was still a virgin). This is the first of many prophecies about the Messiah given by Isaiah. (See the chart “Messianic Prophecies in the Book of Isaiah.”)

The sign must have had some significance for the historical situation in which it was given. The sign involved not only the birth and the boy’s name (Immanuel, “God [is] with us,” would assure the people of God’s presence), but also a designated length of time: before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings … will be laid waste.

Within about three years (nine months for the pregnancy and two or three years until the boy would know the difference between good and evil) the alliance would be broken. It was broken in 732 B.C. when Tiglath-Pileser III destroyed Damascus. After Tiglath-Pileser had defeated Aram and put Rezin to death Ahaz went to Damascus to meet the Assyrian monarch (2 Kings 16:7–10). Ahaz liked an altar he saw in Damascus, and had a sketch of it drawn so a similar altar could be set up in Jerusalem. No wonder Isaiah and God were angry with Ahaz.

A sign to come.

Luke 1:27 NKJV

to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.

III. A SIGN REVEALED

Virgin –Almah (Young girl)

Immanuel

Imman-el= with us God. The new child would be a ruler that God was with.

Matthew 1:23 ESV

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).

The sign was both for the immediate future and the distant.

In the immediate future, a son would be born. His name would be immanuel