Rightly Understanding God’s Word: Learning Context, Part 2, by Craig S. Keener

Although the Greek text of Matthew 1:23 clearly refers to Jesus being born of a virgin, scholars dispute whether Isaiah refers merely to a “virgin” or to a “young woman.” For the sake of argument, we will avoid this point and examine the context only. The king of Assyria was encroaching on the boundaries of Israel (the kingdom of Samaria) and Syria (Aram, the kingdom of Damascus). Realizing that they were in trouble, they tried to get the king of Judah (the kingdom of Jerusalem) to join them in fighting the Assyrians. When he proved uncooperative, they sought to force him to join their coalition. At this time, God sent the prophet Isaiah to Ahaz, king of Judah, to warn him not to join the coalition of Israel and Syria. (Keep in mind that Judah and Israel were two separate countries by this point in their history.) Syria or Aram (represented by its capital Damascus) and Israel or Ephraim (represented by Samaria) would be crushed shortly (7:4-9).

Isaiah even offered the Judean king Ahaz a sign to confirm that Aram and Israel would quickly fall (7:10-13). The sign was one that would get Ahaz’s attention: a woman would bear a son and name him Immanuel, “God is with us” (7:14). Before the son would know right from wrong, while still eating curds (7:15; this was in Isaiah’s day, 7:21-25), the Assyrian king would devastate Aram and Israel (7:16-20). In other words, the child would be born in Ahaz’s generation! But then, why was the son named, “God is with us”? Perhaps for the same reason that all Isaiah’s children bore symbolic names (8:18), just as Hosea’s children were prophetic signs to the northern kingdom of Israel in roughly the same period (Hosea 2:4-9).

After offering this prophecy to Ahaz, Isaiah was sent in to “the prophetess” (presumably his young, new wife, who may have also had the gift of prophecy) and she got pregnant. They named the son “Mahershalalhashbaz”—“Swift is the booty, speedy is the prey.” God said to name the child this as a sign to Judah that God would quickly give Judah’s enemies into the hands of the Assyrian army. Before the boy was old enough to utter the most childish form of, “Mother” or “Father,” Assyria would plunder Aram and Israel (8:1-10). In other words, Isaiah’s own son would be the sign to Ahaz: his birth would be quickly followed by the devastation of the lands to the north that had sought to force Judah into their coalition. Judah needed to know that “God is with us,” and that Aram’s and Israel’s “booty” would be carried away “speedily,” and its “prey…swiftly” (7:14; 8:3).

Tags: context, craig, gods, keener, learning, part, rightly, understanding, word

Category: Biblical Studies, Fall 2003