Yesaya 7:11

7:11 “Ask for a confirming sign from the Lord your God. You can even ask for something miraculous.” ¹ 

Yesaya 8:10

8:10 Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted!

Issue your orders, but they will not be executed! ² 

For God is with us! ³ 

Yesaya 25:11

25:11 Moab ⁴  will spread out its hands in the middle of it, ⁵ 

just as a swimmer spreads his hands to swim;

the Lord ⁶  will bring down Moab’s ⁷  pride as it spreads its hands. ⁸ 

Yesaya 28:29

28:29 This also comes from the Lord who commands armies,

who gives supernatural guidance and imparts great wisdom. ⁹ 

[7:11]  ¹ tn Heb “Make it as deep as Sheol or make it high upwards.” These words suggest that Ahaz can feel free to go beyond the bounds of ordinary human experience.

[8:10]  ² tn Heb “speak a word, but it will not stand.”

[8:10]  ³ sn In these vv. 9-10 the tone shifts abruptly from judgment to hope. Hostile nations like Assyria may attack God’s people, but eventually they will be destroyed, for God is with his people, sometimes to punish, but ultimately to vindicate. In addition to being a reminder of God’s presence in the immediate crisis faced by Ahaz and Judah, Immanuel (whose name is echoed in this concluding statement) was a guarantee of the nation’s future greatness in fulfillment of God’s covenantal promises. Eventually God would deliver his people from the hostile nations (vv. 9-10) through another child, an ideal Davidic ruler who would embody God’s presence in a special way (see 9:6-7). Jesus the Messiah is the fulfillment of the Davidic ideal prophesied by Isaiah, the one whom Immanuel foreshadowed. Through the miracle of the incarnation he is literally “God with us.” Matthew realized this and applied Isaiah’s ancient prophecy of Immanuel’s birth to Jesus (Matt 1:22-23). The first Immanuel was a reminder to the people of God’s presence and a guarantee of a greater child to come who would manifest God’s presence in an even greater way. The second Immanuel is “God with us” in a heightened and infinitely superior sense. He “fulfills” Isaiah’s Immanuel prophecy by bringing the typology intended by God to realization and by filling out or completing the pattern designed by God. Of course, in the ultimate fulfillment of the type, the incarnate Immanuel’s mother must be a virgin, so Matthew uses a Greek term (παρθένος, parqenos), which carries that technical meaning (in contrast to the Hebrew word עַלְמָה [’almah], which has the more general meaning “young woman”). Matthew draws similar analogies between NT and OT events in 2:15, 18. The linking of these passages by analogy is termed “fulfillment.” In 2:15 God calls Jesus, his perfect Son, out of Egypt, just as he did his son Israel in the days of Moses, an historical event referred to in Hos 11:1. In so doing he makes it clear that Jesus is the ideal Israel prophesied by Isaiah (see Isa 49:3), sent to restore wayward Israel (see Isa 49:5, cf. Matt 1:21). In 2:18 Herod’s slaughter of the infants is another illustration of the oppressive treatment of God’s people by foreign tyrants. Herod’s actions are analogous to those of the Assyrians, who deported the Israelites, causing the personified land to lament as inconsolably as a mother robbed of her little ones (Jer 31:15).

[25:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Moab) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[25:11]  ⁵ tn The antecedent of the third masculine singular pronominal suffix is probably the masculine noun מַתְבֵּן (matben, “heap of straw”) in v. 10 rather than the feminine noun מַדְמֵנָה (madmenah, “manure pile”), also in v. 10.

[25:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[25:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Moab) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[25:11]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew text has, “he will bring down his pride along with the [?] of his hands.” The meaning of אָרְבּוֹת (’arbot), which occurs only here in the OT, is unknown. Some (see BDB 70 s.v. אָרְבָּה) translate “artifice, cleverness,” relating the form to the verbal root אָרָב (’arav, “to lie in wait, ambush”), but this requires some convoluted semantic reasoning. HALOT 83 s.v. *אָרְבָּה suggests the meaning “[nimble] movements.” The translation above, which attempts to relate the form to the preceding context, is purely speculative.

[28:29]  ⁹ sn Verses 23-29 emphasize that God possesses great wisdom and has established a natural order. Evidence of this can be seen in the way farmers utilize divinely imparted wisdom to grow and harvest crops. God’s dealings with his people will exhibit this same kind of wisdom and order. Judgment will be accomplished according to a divinely ordered timetable and, while severe enough, will not be excessive. Judgment must come, just as planting inevitably follows plowing. God will, as it were, thresh his people, but he will not crush them to the point where they will be of no use to him.