BOOK 23 OF 66 · MAJOR PROPHETS · KING JAMES BIBLE

Isaiah 7

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Isaiah 7 Overview

During the Syro-Ephraimite crisis, Isaiah tells fearful King Ahaz to trust the LORD rather than political calculation; Ahaz refuses a sign, and God gives the sign of Immanuel while also warning that Assyria will bring severe trouble.

IsaiahBook

7Chapter

25Verses

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Before you read Isaiah 7

Coming from

Isaiah sees the LORD high and lifted up, confesses his uncleanness, receives cleansing, and is commissioned to preach to a people whose persistent hardness will continue until devastating judgment leaves only a remnant.

In this chapter

Leads into

Isaiah’s son Maher-shalal-hash-baz embodies the speed of Assyria’s coming conquest, while Judah is warned not to fear conspiracies but to fear the LORD; darkness deepens for those who seek occult guidance instead of God’s word.

Key understandingExplore deeper

Judah is threatened by Syria and the northern kingdom of Israel, whose kings want to replace Ahaz. The immediate political crisis is real, but the Immanuel sign also becomes part of Isaiah’s larger messianic horizon.

The interpretive center of Isaiah 7 is the chapter’s own movement: fear can drive rulers toward unbelieving alliances. Read its poetry, signs, historical references, and later biblical connections from that center rather than treating isolated phrases as detached slogans.

Major truths in this chapterExplore deeper

Fear can drive rulers toward unbelieving alliances

Ahaz is called to stand firm in faith rather than panic before hostile kings.

God’s word controls the crisis

The threatened coalition will not finally establish its plan against David’s house.

Immanuel joins promise and judgment

God-with-us is a sign of preservation for the Davidic line even as Assyria becomes a chastening instrument.

Connections to the rest of ScriptureExplore deeper

2 Kings 16

Kings supplies historical detail about Ahaz’s appeal to Assyria and his unfaithful policies.

Matthew 1:22-23

Matthew explicitly cites Isaiah 7:14 in connection with the virgin conception and birth of Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 8:8-10

The Immanuel theme continues immediately as Assyria floods Judah yet cannot cancel God’s purpose.

What is clear, and where care is neededExplore deeper

Do not ignore the eighth-century crisis when reading Isaiah 7:14.

The sign is spoken into Ahaz’s immediate political situation even though Matthew gives its climactic fulfillment in Christ.

Do not present Ahaz’s pious-sounding refusal as humility.

Isaiah treats it as wearying God after Ahaz was directly invited to ask for a sign.

Read Isaiah 7 watching for…

Ahaz’s fear

the two smoking firebrands

the call to believe

Ahaz’s refusal of a sign

Immanuel and the coming Assyrian pressure

Chapter outline3 sections

1-9Isaiah tells Ahaz not to fear Syria and Ephraim 10-16The LORD gives the sign of Immanuel 17-25Assyria will bring severe desolation upon Judah

And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it.

And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.

Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field;

And say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah.

Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying,

Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal:

Thus saith the Lord GOD, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.

For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people.

And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.

Moreover the LORD spake again unto Ahaz, saying,

Ask thee a sign of the LORD thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.

But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD.

And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.

For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.

The LORD shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father's house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria.

And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.

And they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all bushes.

In the same day shall the Lord shave with a rasor that is hired, namely, by them beyond the river, by the king of Assyria, the head, and the hair of the feet: and it shall also consume the beard.

And it shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep;

And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they shall give he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land.

And it shall come to pass in that day, that every place shall be, where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings, it shall even be for briers and thorns.

With arrows and with bows shall men come thither; because all the land shall become briers and thorns.

And on all hills that shall be digged with the mattock, there shall not come thither the fear of briers and thorns: but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen, and for the treading of lesser cattle.

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Isaiah 7:13

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