These chapters of Isaiah are unique in their emphasis on male children. In fact, John Oswalt labels Isaiah 7:1-9:7 “Children, Signs of God's Presence.” This is appropriate since there are up to five different boys listed in these verses. He remarks on this fact by stating, “Over against the machinations of the nations stand a group of children, helpless and innocent. Yet in their innocence is a power which causes Isaiah to believe that right and justice are the great issues, not force and trickery.”
As an alternative and complementary view, the New English Bible calls this same extended passage “Prophecies during the Syro-Ephraimite War.” That points out the historical background during which the Jews were in fear of the alliance between the Syrians and Ephraimites. However, it would be crushed by the Assyrians, who would in turn attack Judah.
Despite these two commonalities, not every commentator concludes the unit beginning at 7:1 at the same place. For example, Wolf prefers to view Isaiah 7:1-12:6 as a discrete unit dealing with “The Rule of Assyria and the Messiah.” However, he also notes a “sharp break in thought between verses 7 and 8 [of ch. 9].”
Then there are those who truncate this literary unit earlier. Gold ends it at Isaiah 8:15, and David Dorsey terminates the section at 8:18. He justifies this decision with his symmetrical scheme shown below:
Figure 1: Dorsey's Organization of Isaiah 7:1-8:18
A. Introduction: Fear (7:1-2)
B. Prediction of a failed invasion (7:3-9)
C. Child Immanuel – sign of Syria-Samaria failure (7:10-16)
D. Coming of Assyrian invasion (7:17-25)
C'. Child Maher-shal-hash-baz – sign of Syria-Samaria failure (8:1-4)
B'. Prediction of a successful invasion (8:5-10)
A'. Conclusion: Fear (8:11-18)
In favor of Dorsey's proposed arrangement is the repetition of the word “fear” in A and A' as well as similar references to Rezin and Jerusalem's water supply in B and B'. But working against it are even more persuasive factors: (a) a rather lopsided pairing of the two verses in A with eight in A' (or 12 ½ if one considers Dorsey's alternative ending at 9:1a), (b) the by no means certain assumption that C and C' refer to the same historical event, (c) leaving out entirely the similar son described in 9:6-7, (d) failure to account for the parallels between the sealing of the documents in 8:1-2 and 8:16-17, and (e) splitting up the similar mentions of eating curds and honey at 7:15,22. In addition, I am always more than a little suspicious of Dorsey's seven-membered chiasms, such as in Figure 1, since he has a pronounced tendency to force-fit almost every passage in the OT into that same mold.
Instead of a mirror-image arrangement such as in Figure 1, I feel a much better fit for the data is to see these verses as three parallel cycles, which addresses all the problem areas above:
Figure 2: Organization of Isaiah 7:1-9:7
Cycle I: Isaiah 7:1-25
A. Isaiah's oldest son as a sign (7:1-9a)
B. Lesson: Stand firm by faith (7:9b)
C. Immanuel born, future disaster predicted (7:10-25)
Cycle II: Isaiah 8:1-17
D. Written prophecy witnessed (8:1-2)
A. Isaiah's second son as a sign (8:3-8a)
C. Immanuel born (8:8b)
B. Lesson: Be dismayed for the future; don't listen to people's counsel (9-10a)
C'. “God with us” (10b)
B'. Lesson: Don't walk in the way of the people; their fate is coming (8:11-15)
D'. Written prophecy sealed (8:16-17)
Cycle III: Isaiah 8:18-9:7
A. Isaiah and his two sons as signs (8:18)
B. Lesson: Don't follow the people in consulting spirits of the dead (8:19-22)
C. Royal child born; resulting blessings predicted (9:1-7)
You may note that this organization preserves almost all the parallels noted by Dorsey and well as providing some additional correspondences:
Each of the three sections mentions Isaiah's sons (A) before a reference to a royal or divine one (C).
Rezin and Jerusalem's water supply appear at 7:3-8; 8:5-8 (IA and IIA)
Avoidance of the attitudes and actions of the “people” is counseled in IIB, IIB', and IIIB.
Prophetic record-keeping is the subject of IID and IID'. Blenkinsopp explains that these two documents are not identical because they are written on different materials. But his opinion is that “they would presumably have contained a prediction against the Syrian-Samarian coalition.”
The name Immanuel is given in IIC and translated in IIC' as “God is with us.”
IIB and IIIB both contain commands about “not speaking.”
The bounds of Cycle III are clearly drawn by use of the designation “LORD of hosts” at 8:18 and 9:7.
Although there is a substantial critical opinion that Isaiah 7:18-25 was a later addition to the text, one piece of literary evidence against that view is provided by the fact that Cycle I has a four-fold repetition of the key word “head” in the first section balanced by the four-fold phrase “on that day” which characterizes the end of the cycle in verses 18-25. An even stronger indication comes from the reference to eating curds and honey in both 7:15 and 7:22, firmly tying verses 18-25 together with the earlier portion of the section.
“A” Sections
There is a clear progression in which the names of Isaiah's family members acts as a sign:
IA involves Isaiah's oldest son Shear-jashub (“a remnant will return”). Oswalt says, “Evidently that name was to have significance for Ahaz, but it is never signified what that significance was.”
Blenkinsopp states that it was “clearly one of good omen, but only in the sense of a few people barely surviving a major devastation.” Alternatively, he feels it may mean that “there will not occur a deportation or displacement from which a remnant might eventually hope to return.”
IIA involves Isaiah's youngest son Maher-shal-hash-baz (“spoil speeds, the prey hastes”). Gold simply states that this is an assurance to King Ahaz.
IIIA involves both sons as well as Isaiah (“God saves”) himself.
“B” Sections
As to the messages themselves, much depends on when one feels these various prophecies were fulfilled. Although much is uncertain here, it is likely that the message of Cycle I predicts good news for Judah in that their enemies in Syria and Samaria will be soon defeated by the forces of Assyria. As Oswalt says, “From Ahaz's point of view Syria and Ephraim constitute a major threat, but from God's point of view they are negligible and need not occupy the king's time.”
This is followed by the bad news in Cycle II that the Assyrians in turn will then attack Judah. But finally, at some time in the more distant future the glorious kingdom of Israel will be wholly restored to its former glory (Cycle III). If this reading is correct, then it would fit perfectly with the overall organization of the Book of Isaiah as composed of triads on every level of structure, each group of three moving forward in time (see my post “Isaiah: Introduction to the Structural Analysis”).
“C” Sections
There is quite a bit of controversy regarding the references to the birth of a son named Immanuel.
IC, in its Old Testament context, has to refer to someone born in the near future, before the Syrian-Samarian coalition collapsed. Thus, one possibility is that he is the second of three sons born to Isaiah and his wife (as Wolf tentatively believes). However, although Blenkinsopp mentions this as an option, he prefers to see it as a prophecy of King Hezekiah's birth since “the latter is strongly suggested by the reference to Immanuel's land” in Isaiah 8:8,10 (i.e. IIC and IIC'). This, of course, assumes that those Isaiah 8 references to Immanuel apply to the same person.
IIC and C' are also problematic in themselves since they may not even apply to a person at all, other than God Himself. Here is a summary of the various ways English translations deal with the text:
Translation Isaiah 8:5-8a Isaiah 8:8b Isaiah 8:9-10a Isaiah 8:10b
JB,NIV poetry Immanuel poetry God is with us
New English Bible poetry God is with us poetry God is with us
RSV, NRSV, AB,ESV prose Immanuel poetry God is with us
TEV prose God is with us prose God is with us
KJV,Living Bible prose Immanuel prose God is with us
The Message poetry Immanuel poetry Immanuel-
God with us
IIIC, finally, caps off this series. Whereas Immanuel in IC is clearly a human being (perhaps a royal one) and the same word appears to apply to God in Section II, this last reference is to a person who is both a human being (8:6a) and “mighty God, everlasting Father” himself (8:6c). He inherits the throne of David (8:7a) but it will be over an everlasting kingdom (8:7b).
No wonder NT authors such as Matthew felt that they could point to this passage with impunity as predicting Jesus as the promised God-man. In that regard, I find it very enlightening that Matthew's Gospel begins in his first chapter by quoting from this passage in order to identify Jesus with Immanuel and then concludes with an allusion to the translation of the meaning of that name (“I am with you always”) in Matt. 28:20. This is identical to the usage to the majority readings of Isaiah 8:8-10 above which start with “Immanuel” and conclude with “God is with us.”
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