Week 7: The Sign Ahaz Refused

It's around 735 BC, and Jerusalem is scared. Rezin of Damascus and Pekah of Israel have joined forces to remove Ahaz and put a puppet king of their own choosing on David's throne. The king and his people shake "as trees of the forest shake in the wind." God sends Isaiah out to meet Ahaz at the conduit of the upper pool, and he brings along his son Shear-jashub, whose name means "a remnant will return." The message is simple: calm down, and don't be afraid of these two smoldering stubs of firewood, because their plan won't stand. Then comes the line the whole chapter hangs on: "If you do not stand firm in your faith, then you will not stand at all." God even lets Ahaz name his own sign, as deep as Sheol or as high as heaven.

Ahaz answers piously that he won't test the Lord, but he has already decided to seek Assyria's help (2 Kings 16:7). So the Lord gives a sign of His own choosing. A virgin will conceive and bear a son and call him Immanuel, "God with us," and before that child is old enough to know right from wrong, both enemy kings will be gone. The irony is painful, though. The Assyria that Ahaz paid for will turn out to be the razor God uses to shave Judah bare. Matthew shows us where the sign finally came to rest (Matthew 1:23), and the lesson asks each of us where we run when we're afraid.