Verse 1
One glorious chapter after another successively appears in this marvelous prophecy; and not even the Holy Scriptures contain anything exceeding the wonder and beauty of Isaiah's remarkable writings. The chapter before us details the prophecies that were delivered during the reign of Ahaz, the weak and unbelieving grandson of Uzziah. The occasion was apparently during the Syrian-Ephraimite war which developed somewhat early in Ahaz' reign. The monarchs of those two countries, through fear of Assyria, wanted to form a coalition against the power of that rapidly developing nation; and they believed that Ahaz could not be depended upon as a panner; therefore, their scheme was to attack Judah, the Southern Israel, depose Ahaz, and force the enthronement of a king of their own choice in Jerusalem and thus end the Davidic dynasty altogether.
What made the situation even more frightening from the standpoint of Ahaz was the fact that both Syria and Ephraim had already defeated Ahaz in battles that had inflicted heavy losses, resulting in the great fear and trembling that fell upon Ahaz when he learned of the coalition against him. Isaiah 7:1-9 record the prophetic instructions given by God through Isaiah to Ahaz, whose unbelief caused him to reject the instructions. He favored, instead, his own scheme of forming an alliance with Assyria, which of course would be, at last, the total and complete ruin, not only of the Northern Israel, but of Judah also. Isaiah 7:10-17 record the fantastically wonderful prophecy of The Virgin who would conceive a child who would bear a significant name with the meaning of "God with us!" Isaiah 7:18-25 are a prophetic revelation of just what the "hired razor," Assyria, would eventually do to the land and the people of Israel.
"And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel went up to 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 trembled, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the forest tremble with the wind."
"Pekah the son of Remaliah ..." Both here and in Isaiah 7:4,5,9, below, this mention of Pekah's father suggests that he was thus designated "in contempt, Remaliah having been a man of no distinction (2 Kings 15:25)."[1]
"His heart trembled, and the heart of his people ..." Each of the hostile powers mentioned here had already defeated Ahaz (See 2 Chronicles 28:5,6); and now both together were attacking Israel with the consequence that both Ahaz and his people were terrified. The date of this threatened disaster was placed at approximately 735 B.C. by Kidner.[2]
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