Isaiah Meets King Ahaz

In the days of King Ahaz, Rezin king of Syria and Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to fight against Jerusalem, but they could not overcome it. Then word came that Syria was allied with Ephraim, and Ahaz and his people trembled like trees shaking in the wind.

The Lord told Isaiah to go out with his son Shearjashub and meet Ahaz at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, on the road to the fuller’s field. There Isaiah was to tell the king to be careful, stay calm, and not be afraid because of Rezin, Syria, and the son of Remaliah.

Those enemies had planned to tear Judah apart, divide it among themselves, and set up the son of Tabeel as king there. But the Lord said their plan would not stand. Damascus would remain the head of Syria, and within sixty-five years Ephraim would be shattered so that it would no longer be a people. Ahaz was warned that if he would not believe, he would not be established.

Then the Lord told Ahaz to ask for a sign, whether in the depths below or in the heights above. Ahaz refused, saying he would not ask or test the Lord. Isaiah answered that the house of David was trying God’s patience. So the Lord himself would give a sign: a virgin would conceive, bear a son, and call his name Immanuel.

Isaiah said the child would eat butter and honey, and before he was old enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land of the two kings Ahaz feared would be forsaken. But Judah would also face hard days. The Lord would bring the king of Assyria, and the land would be stripped back. Places once full of vines would become briers and thorns, and people would live from only a little livestock and what the land still gave them.