Rightly Understanding God’s Word: Learning Context, Part 2, by Craig S. Keener
So why did Matthew think Isaiah 7:14 could be applied to Jesus?
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).
Category: Biblical Studies, Fall 2003