In all the well-loved pages of Isaiah, one of the best-loved pas sages must be, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isa. 7:14). Matthew confirms the prophetic connection to the con-ception and birth of our Lord Jesus Christ: “And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus.. .Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us” (Matt. 1:23).
There is, however, widely varying scholastic opinion, both within and without the brotherhood, as to whether there was a contemporary fulfillment. Some are adamant that it is purely messianic, while others are equally emphatic that there must have been meaning and application for the recipients of Isaiah’s message, Ahaz, king of Judah, and his subjects. The danger is that one may be so conditioned by the knowledge of the messianic application that one fails to see the prophecy in context. Giving credence to a contemporary fulfillment of the Immanuel prophecy is Isaiah’s use of the Hebrew present tense. The passage should read: “Behold the virgin is pregnant and shall bear a son…” (cf. Tanakh version by the Jewish Publication Society).
Historical setting
Obviously, as with all scriptural challenges, it is vital to put the scene in its historical setting. The year was around 735 BC, and this area of the Middle East was trembling under the threat of invasion from one of the most notoriously cruel nations the world has ever known, the Assyrian. Fear had made allies of traditional enemies in the hope that their combined strength would be a deterrent to Assyria. Among these opportunistic leaders were Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, who made an alliance.
Unfortunately for them, Ahaz, Judah’s king, refused to conform to their foreign policies with regard to Assyria and therefore constituted a threat to their plans. Not surprisingly, Rezin and Pekah attacked Judah, killing vast numbers and taking thousands of prisoners (II Chron. 28:5). The prime objective was to forcibly remove Ahaz and to replace him by the son of Tabeal (Isa. 7:6). Nothing is known about this character (not even his name) but the circumstances suggest he must have been a weak-minded man, who as a puppet king would be easily man-ipulated into allied resistance against the king of Assyria.
Although havoc had been wreaked on Judah, the first campaign failed in regard to the removal of the king. Now, to the consternation of the general populous, the Syrian army was still encamped upon the territory of Ephraim poised again for battle. A second onslaught seemed inevitable. No wonder Ahaz trembled! A less intransigent subject would have turned to the Lord for help, but not Ahaz: he was a notorious idol worshipper who had led his people far away from the God of Israel (II Chron. 28:19).
A remnant shall return
Nevertheless, there was opposition among a tiny element in Judah and the Lord recognized the potential of their turning back to Him. This factor is reflected in the name of the son of Isaiah: Shear-jashub, meaning “a remnant shall return.” In this case, the suffix s hub has the sense of spiritual restoration and the turning back to God in repentance, similar to the conversion theme in Psalm 80: “Turn (shub) us again, 0 God” (Psa. 80:3).
The name of Isaiah’s son was prophetic and hence when God commanded the prophet to go and meet king Ahaz, he was specifically told to take his son, for the name “Shear-jashub” was an integral part of the message of hope about to be relayed to the house of David (Isa. 7:3). The place of meeting was also integral to the message, for the king was to be found at the highway of the fuller’s field, not on his knees in supplication as the circumstances required, but inspecting the construction work on the conduit designed to ensure an adequate water supply during a siege of Jerusalem. Like so many self-reliant men, he failed to discern the only secure source of life-giving water is the Lord.
Intransigence of Ahaz
Next comes a supreme example of the compassion and love of God in contrast to the willful stupidity of man. In spite of the wickedness of Ahaz, the Lord reached out to 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 …have taken evil counsel against thee, saying, let us go up against Judah, and vex it …Thus saith the Lord GOD, it shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass, for the head of Syria is Damacus, 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 Ephriam is Samaria, and the head of of Samaria is Remaliah’s son (Isa. 7:4-9).
In the providence of Him who controls armies, Rezin and Pekah, the sons of Remaliah, were to be removed off the scene. Amazingly, Ahaz rejected the offer of an unlimited sign from God that was meant to serve as verification of the prediction. Feigning reverence, the hypocritical king replied, “I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD” (Isa. 7:12).
Herein is the caliber of the man revealed. Surrounded by hostile nations (Edom and Philistia were also on the warpath), he spurned help from the Lord of Hosts, because he had already determined his own policy of sending a bribe to procure aid from the king of Assyria (11 Chron. 28:16,21).
I fever there was a case of political suicide, this was it. Inviting the terrible Assyrian into the arena was courting disaster. Once Assyria had moved against the buffer countries of Syria and Israel to the north of Judah, the way south would be wide open for an invasion of Judah.
Isaiah’s response
Under such provocation Isaiah angrily responded: “0 house of David; is it a small thing for you to weary men’, but will ye weary my God also” (Isa.7:13). We must not miss the sad paradox: if Ahaz had been loyal to the conditions ofthe Davidic covenant and put his trust in God, no power on earth could remove him from the throne.
Anger is now turned to irony as Isaiah continues with what many commentators feel to be an ominous message of doom. Even though the wily king refused the proffered sign, a sign from God there would be.
The text continues with the mighty promise: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive…” which immediately sends our thoughts with delight to the New Testament. It takes will power, but we must pause and consider the question: if the delivered message was ominous, how could the sign to Ahaz possibly be the virgin birth for the Messiah more than 700 years later?
Thirty years ago, Bro. Elwyn Humphreys’ put forward the unique suggestion that the sign was not the virgin birth but rather the removal of If this scenario is correct, there is the problem as to why the statement about the virgin is placed before the actual sign of the removal of the two kings. The answer lies in the grammatical construction of the passage. In Hebrew, symmetry and balance are most important. God had said: “If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established”(Isa. 7:9); continuing disbelief would only reinforce the status quo, i.e. that God was no longer with them due to lack of faith and noncompliance to His covenant. Ahaz demonstrated his unbelief, so immediately there followed the prediction of regeneration. In effect, there was to be a spiritual rebirth —a faithful remnant that would be established. God would be with them. This counterbalance was given to show that God’s purpose cannot be thwarted and that under His direction the situation would soon be rectified. Then follows the important sign, the demise of the rulers of Israel and Syria whose very removal would serve to spell doom to Ahaz.
The virgin’s identity
As to the identity of the virgin, there is no problem. In the preface of his prophecy, Isaiah outlines the troubles and calamities destined to come upon Judah: “The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard…as a besieged city” (Isa. 1:8). And again in God’s message to the blasphemous Sennacherib, king of Assyria: “The virgin, the daughter of Zion, hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee” (Isa. 37:22).
Obviously the terms “a virgin,” “the virgin” and “the daughter of Zion,” are metaphoric titles for the inhabitants of Jerusalem out of whom, under the extreme travail of the Assyrian invasion, a spiritual remnant is “born” who turn back to their Maker in faith. This corporal “son” is called Immanuel, “God with us,” because responding to their change of heart, the Lord will once more dwell in their midst.
Conclusive proof that Immanuel can be used as a parallelism for Judah is seen in the following chapter of Isaiah, where the prophet speaks of the invasion of the Assyrian: “And he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and.. .shall fill the breadth of thy land, Oh Immanuel” (Isa. 8:8).
The birth is imminent
Led by Sennacherib, the dreaded invasion into Judah occurred when Hezekiah was on the throne (the northern kingdom of Israel had already been carried away into captivity). Cities fell with ease and were totally destroyed in accordance with the Assyrian policy. Refugees fled from the advancing enemy and poured into a Jerusalem already packed with a terrified populace.
Within the city was the remnant that would return to the Lord. Hezekiah referred to it in the desperate message to Isaiah: “Wherefore lift up thy prayer for the remnant that is left” (Isa. 37:4). Also God Himself uses the term when later on He replies to Sennacherib’s blasphemy: “And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward: for out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of Mount Zion: the zeal of the LORD of hosts shall do this” (Isa. 37:31-32).
The birth of the child of faith was imminent but the labor was proving to be difficult. Strength momentarily faltered after the blas-phemous taunting of the Rab-shakeh (Isa. 36:20). Hezekiah cried out in pain and anxiety: “For the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth” (Isa. 37:3). The analogy to childbirth is even more graphic in the Septuagint:3 “For the pangs are come upon the travailing woman, but she has not strength to bring forth.”
God’s word does not return to Him void; what He determines inevitably comes to pass, as can be seen from His declaration at the end of Isaiah when He echoes the analogy of Hezekiah:
Who hath heard such a thing? Who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? Or shall a nation be born at once? For as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children. Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? Saith the LORD (Isa. 66:9).
In summary
In order to arrive at a balanced interpretation of prophecy, it is important to recognize that it must be considered in context and with regard to the historic fulfillment. The Immanuel prophecy is a beautiful metaphor, declaring that the virgin daughter of Zion (Israel) was already pregnant with a few spiritually discerning souls whom God would deliver. Birth pangs, in the form of invasion, was the travail that brought about the delivery of this corporate son. Led by Hezekiah, the remnant put their trust in the Lord and came to the spiritual rebirth by choosing good instead of evil: (lsa. 7:16). The result was the annihilation of Sennacherib’s entire force.
The jubilant escapees in Jerusalem were the remnant of Israel who turned back to God as foretold by the name of Isaiah’s son, Shear-jashub (a remnant shall return). The sign of this rebirth was the removal of Judah’s enemies, the kings of Ephraim and Syria, which exposed Judah to attack from Assyria. Con-sequent upon this reformation, the conditions were then right for the Lord to dwell in the midst of His people once again, as predicted by the name Immanuel (God with us).
From our vantage point, we are privileged to see both the historic and the messianic fulfillment of this prophecy and are greatly reassured in the knowledge that yet again a spiritual nation is destined to be born out of the travail of Zion. We long for the day “when all Israel shall be saved” and “God shall be all in all.”
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One