Isaiah 7:10-17; Seeking A Sign From God This Year?

"Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, saying, 11 Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven. 12 But Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test. 13 Then Isaiah said: “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. 15 He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. 16 For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted. 17 The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on your ancestral house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah—the king of Assyria.”

I. Introduction

Isaiah was one person who believed in the reality of the living God. His call to be a prophet is described in the preceding chapter (Is. 6). Notice how spiritually "aware" he is. He stands in the temple, seeing artistic representations of the seraphim over the throne of God. Then, while meditating on this scene, he "hears" them begin to talk to each other. Then, he "feels" the temple shake. Then, he "sees" and "smells" the smoke around him. Finally, an angel "touches" his mouth. All of Isaiah's senses are engaged in God as he contemplates the scene before him. Did an angel really leap off the walls and come and touch his mouth with a coal from the altar? I don't know, but I kind of doubt it. Would a third-party listener have heard the seraphim talking to one another and praising God? I can't say, but I rather doubt it. Yet, Isaiah saw and felt all of these things. His senses were "hyper-aware," and he therefore was privy to happenings in another world. Or, to put it differently, he spoke and wrote of what he claimed to have seen in this other world, and somehow he was able to convince others of this other world. I believe that studies into human consciousness and adult learning theory in the future will increasingly show that there are practices we all can engage in to heighten our senses, to bring our awareness of this and other worlds into such high intensity that it is like creating a "high definition" view of life in our own brain. There are, I am convinced, people who have or are developing this "high definition" view of life. I believe I have it to a certain degree. But, as in the case of Isaiah, the question becomes how you use this gift. Isaiah was called to speak the word of God:

"Until cities lie waste without inhabitant,
and houses without people,
and the land is utterly desolate" (Is. 6:11).

So, in pursuit of his call, Isaiah is told to go and see the king of Judah, Ahaz (7:3). The occasion is that the Southern Kingdom, Judah, is being beset by a joint coalition of the King of Aram and the King of Israel--the Northern Kingdom. The fact that brother would ally against an outside against a brother was probably shocking enough; but the cold, hard political reality that confronted Judah now was that they were being ganged up on by their neighbors. Isaiah describes the scene with his typical brilliant literary gifts:

"When the house of David heard that Aram had allied itself with Ephraim, the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind" (7:2).

In this state Isaiah hies himself off to see the King, Ahaz. He delivers an improbable message about he conspiracy against Judah:

"It shall not stand,
and it shall not come to pass" (7:7).

But one word from God doesn't seem to be enough. Or, in fact, the text doesn't actually say that Ahaz is deficient in faith; it just says that God speaks to him a second time (7:10). In fact, in the Hebrew, the verb for "adding" begins v. 10. God decides to speak again in this situation. Thanks be to God that the divine words don't just come to us once in life. If they did, we would surely miss them. As it is, we probably tend to miss a lot of things that come our way from God.

For the rest of this exposition I will focus on three things that come out of Is. 7:10-17: (1) Ahaz's reluctance to ask for a sign (7:11-12) ; (2) the Commonness of the Sign Given (7:13-16); and (3) The Mixed Nature of Life as a Result of the Sign (7:17). Different denominations end the reading either at v. 16 or v. 17. I will exposit through v. 17 because in my Hebrew text, as well as the NRSV, it is all in the same paragraph. Indeed, the words of Isaiah to Ahaz are made more interestingly problematic if we include v. 17. Thus, let's get to it!

II. Asking for a Sign (7:11-12)

Even though a good word has just been delivered by Isaiah to Ahaz, to the effect that the attack on Judah "will not stand" (7:7), a second divine communication is envisioned. This time God requests of Ahaz that the King ask for a sign of the truth of what has just been said. Ahaz, being the magnanimous guy he is, refuses. He won't engage God in a "testing" game. Indeed, hadn't Moses said in Deuteronomy:

"Do not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah," (Deut. 6:16)?

The "Massah" reference is shorthand for the event described in Exodus 17:7. Indeed, Massah entered into the Israelite bloodstream as a sort of root metaphor for lack of faith, because when the Psalmist exhorts the people to be faithful, he first says:

"O that today you would listen to his voice!
Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
When your ancestors tested me,
and put me to the proof...." (Ps. 95:7-9).

The verb used in Is. 7:12 for "testing" is the same used in Deut 6, which connects the whole conversation with Ahaz to the faithlessness/judgment cycle of the story of Massah. Thus, of course Ahaz will not ask God for a sign. This would be a sign, indeed, of faithlessness, a returning to Massah, a desire to live life again in the fleshpots of Egypt, a reversion rather than a going forward.

That, it seems to me, is how Ahaz reasons in this situation. And, he is on very good grounds for reasoning in this way. Indeed, if we fast-forwarded this story to Christian times, a Christian would be justified in seconding Ahaz's opinion here based not simply on the authority of Deuteronomy but also on the example of Jesus! For in the temptation narrative, Jesus also quotes Deut. 6:16 to ward off the devil's challenge to him to throw himself down from the pinnacle of the temple (Matt. 4)

The only problem, however, with Ahaz's response is that God, in fact, is the one asking him to ask for a sign. So, is God contradicting the Divine Word? I don't know, but if so, I suppose God has the power to do that. It is like what sometimes happens in law: a Court or legislature tends to "trump" earlier words by later words, even on the same subject. So, Ahaz is asked to seek a sign from God--a sign that the dual threat of Aram and Israel will be repulsed.

I need one more essay to complete these thoughts.

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