Chapter 7
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12/15/25 - After MUCH study on 7:14 last night, today's reading for J&C is 7:14 yet again. I did some more word study as I read it. The word translated "virgin" in this verse is transliterated "Alma". This note is from BLB under the outline of Biblical usage:
virgin, young woman
of marriageable age
maid or newly married
"There is no instance where it can be proved that 'almâ designates a young woman who is not a virgin. The fact of virginity is obvious in Gen 24:43 where 'almâ is used of one who was being sought as a bride for Isaac." (R. Laird Harris, et al. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, p. 672.)
What possible force could this prophecy have had in Ahaz's and Isaiah's day if it was about a young unmarried woman who was already NOT a virgin who was going to have a child called Immanuel? It is equally unlikely that a young woman who WAS a virgin but unmarried, was going to get pregnant and have a child called Immanuel. Even in Isaiah's time, it is quite likely that this prophecy - the near term fulfillement - was about the child of a well know, publicly recognized and prominent young woman who, quite soon after Isaiah's prophecy, gets married, pregnant and has a son who gains some notoriety during the coming days, rises to a leadership position over the course of his life, and because he is later connected back to Isaiah's prophecy, he is referred to by many as the proof that "God is with us". This makes perfect sense. This is what I'm going with.
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AFTER 2025:
BEFORE YOU EVEN START, remember these two summaries about 7:14 for a very long and involved ChatGPT Chat on 12/14/25 after church:
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10-second version
“Isaiah 7 gives Ahaz an Immanuel-sign in his own crisis; Matthew says Jesus is the ultimate Immanuel—God with us in the fullest sense.”
30-second version
“In Isaiah 7, the sign has to mean something on Ahaz’s timeline, so there’s an immediate sign-child framework. Matthew then identifies the climactic fulfillment: Jesus doesn’t merely echo the sign—he completes what ‘Immanuel’ ultimately meant.”
You can find the chat by following this link.
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In the days of Ahaz, Rezin of Syria and Pekah in Israel team up and attack Judah but are not completely successful. Ahaz, whom I have not yet read about, is very afraid of this prospect. God sends Ahaz a message through Isaiah that Ahaz and Rezin will be defeated, and that in fact within 65 years the northern kingdom will no longer be a kingdom. It will be gone.
Then there is a prophesy. Immanuel is mentioned, born of a virgin. This will be a sign from God. Seems to be a far prophecy of course. Then it goes into a long discourse about curds and honey. And about desolate land. So there is a "far" portion, foretelling the birth of Christ, and the near portion, where the only edible food there will be is curds, from milk, not from farming, and honey, which is found out in the wild. All will be devastated.
2021 - However, there is a lot more to this prophesy. From vs 14 through the end of the chapter is one long set of prophecies. I will put them below and discuss them as I can make sense of them:
[Isa 7:14 ESV] Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Surely this is universally accepted as a prophecy of the birth of Jesus. Here is the bigger thing, that you don't hear discussed. God used this sign of virgin birth because Ahaz refused to come up with his own sign. The virgin birth was to be proof of God's statement that the coalition of Syria and Ephraim - Israel in the north - would fail in its aims to overthrow Judah. So if we look at this virgin birth in context, it just about had to be a near prophecy - at least "also". It seems like there had to be TWO virgin births. (((THIS IS OBVIOUSLY WRONG IS WHAT IT IS. There is a much better explanation of this a couple of paragraphs down.))) There had to be a virgin birth in the days of Isaiah, too, and I've never heard that discussed, and even MSB does NOT discuss it. As we read on, we can make a really good case that it is ONLY THAT virgin birth that this prophecy is about. So many of the associated prophecies here just don't seem to apply to Jesus at all. There is nothing at all in MSB about who this child would have been in Isaiah's time. The only "door" he leaves open is that the term "refers to an unmarried woman and means "virgin"". This is quoted exactly from MSB. It could be that MacArthur is saying there was a birth in Isaiah's time that was to an unmarried woman, but not to a virgin. He doesn't come right out and say that, he says nothing at all. Surely this would make this little passage a huge problem.
MSB goes on to say that this could not have referred to Isaiah's own son, who was with him when he went and talked to Ahaz here. So he eliminates the most obvious candidate for the job, without giving us anyone else, any other possibility even, for who this might have been about. MSB, so far, has said not one word about the "near" fulfillment of this prophecy of Isaiah. Another way to look at it - one that I don't like, but one that seems to be the only possibility left to us here - indeed seems to be the only way for us to understand these verses at all - is to divide the prophecies in such a way as to say that each verse is stand alone in the time it references and the fulfillment that occurs. SO, looking at it that way, we would pull vs 14 out all by itself and say that God is talking about the future birth of Jesus only, and not at all about Isaiah's time. This "fact" could only have been recognized at the birth of Christ. Only then would they stop looking for it in Isaiah's time. So unsatisfactory...but what else is there?
2022 - Could be that since Ahaz wouldn't name a sign, that God decided the sign would not be presented to him at all. And instead of foretelling the doom of Israel, the sign would foretell the light of the whole world. I think this makes really good sense.
(((2022 - See 2022 note at the end of Chapter 8 for what I think is the best explanation.)))
2023 - God speaks directly to Ahaz, and Ahaz refuses to do what God asked. We need to note that vs 10 starts with "again". Isaiah has just finished delivering the prophecy that Ahaz need not fear Rezin and Pekah. But God continues, and either speaks directly to Ahaz, or Isaiah is inspired to ask Ahaz for a sign. NOT JUST ANY SIGN, NOT JUST A SIGN that Rezin and Pekah won't be a problem, but a sign deep as Sheol or high as heaven. This is asking for a sign that shows God's majesty, power, and sovereignty in all the earth. Ahaz is to ask for a huge, impossible to be mistaken for coincidence sign of the power of God. IF Ahaz had named one, I think it would have happened right then and there. But Ahaz does not have the kind of mind that can conceive of such a sign. To save face, he comes up with this excuse that he does not want to test God. Isaiah probably rolled his eyes. Isaiah is a little perturbed at Ahaz feigning arrogance to cover his ignorance. So Isaiah looks Ahaz in the eye, and accuses him of wearying God also. And then Isaiah says "Here, I will tell you what the unmistakable sign will be that THIS event is from God because ONLY God could bring such a thing about!" And then vs 14. A virgin shall conceive. A unique, singular sign, not a "two time sign", once for Ahaz and once for the birth of Christ. This event, a virgin birth, that cannot occur except by supernatural means, so a sign that can only come from God, is promised to the world. It means exactly what we have always thought it means. And then, Isaiah looks back at the son HE brought to this meeting, who's name means "A remnant shall return", and says that THIS son of his is going to eat curds and wild honey, and so on through the end of the chapter. God names his own irrefutable sign, and then Isaiah goes on with the prophecy to Ahaz concerning Rezin and Pekah, using his son as the "solid" in the prophecy.
2024 - Yes, absolutely. When Ahaz refuses to name a sign that Israel will return, God names a sign, and that sign is Jesus. But even here, Isaiah does not see the church age. To Isaiah, the first advent and the second follow each other so immediately that neither he nor the other OT prophets distinguished them from each other. They are so close in time that they are the same event for them. When Ahaz refuses, God decides to "go big" with the sign, and not just talk about the paltry return from Babylon, but the return of all Israel to Jerusalem just before the Millennial.
2024 - Note also this difference between vs 10 and vs 13. To see it clearly, we must go all the way back to vs 4. There, it is plain that God is speaking THROUGH Isaiah because God says "and say to him"... "Say" is in the sequential perfect, telling us that Isaiah is to share these words from God AFTER he meets Ahaz at the appointed place. In vs 7, we get "thus says the LORD GOD (Adonai Jehovah). Here, "says" is of type perfect, indicating that this is a done deal - even though it is yet future. Since God has said it, it MUST come to pass. Now, with those two in mind, look how much differently vs 10 begins: "Then the LORD spoke to Ahaz..." If we take a look at the Hebrew text, we see that it is clearly and indisputably Jehovah speaking in vs 10, NOT Isaiah speaking FOR Jehovah. "Spoke" and "saying" are both "infinitive constructs", a completely different verb for than we saw in either 4 or 7. This form, IN MY OPINION, sets the source in vs 10 apart from the source in 4 or 7. But....it says "again" in the NASB95, and also in pretty much all the other translations, from KJV to NIV. BUT, looking at the ways this word translated "again" is used in other places, we find it can mean "to cause to add, increase", or "to do more, do again". I think a better translation, one that conveys what is really going on here, would be to start this verse "Then the LORD spoke MORE to Ahaz..." I believe that God himself is adding to what Isaiah has said by telling Ahaz that He will send a sign - an absolutely unmistakable sign - of Ahaz's choosing. I expect Ahaz was scared to death at this point, having heard directly from God, and he sort of "hides" behind some false piety and says he won't do it. Then Isaiah's reaction to this confirms that God had spoken, because in 13, we get "Then, he said..." and later in the verse the term "my God". God would not refer to "my God", so this is now Isaiah talking again, and referring to God in the second person - He.
Why is this important? Because beginning in vs 13 we are back to a man standing and talking to another man, on planet earth. So we need to visualize these two having a conversation. Isaiah first deals with the sign that God has asked them to choose, and he names the virgin birth. We know that isn't about today, but was about something a long way in the future. "Will give" is type imperfect, meaning that this may or may not happen right away. It leaves open the possibility that this prophecy is somewhat open ended. The prophecy itself - the grammar of the prophecy itself - is over my head. I suspect you have to be understand Hebrew on a gut level to truly appreciate how this is stated. It defies my ability to put it into English in the say it seems to be written. It is like "behold, a pregnant virgin delivers a son and names him Immanuel. Except there's really no verb, just a participle - a verbal adjective. So you don't get the things a verb usually gives you that define how and when the action occurs...you the properties of an adjective that modifies a noun. I think that forces the translators to "insert" a verb, in this case "will be", that isn't technically there. Virgin is the noun...and "will be" does not describe virgin...or does it. Enough on this...too much time again on this whole prophecy...but I think a lot more info and understanding this year. And already used up all the time allotted to read 7,8 and Eph 2. I have to get moving. There is never enough time to do this right.
Then the next verse:
[Isa 7:15 ESV] He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. John the Baptist ate locust and wild honey. That's about as close as the NT gets to this prophecy. We have nothing at all in the NT saying Jesus was out eating curds and honey before he reached 14 years old, which would have been his bar-mitzvah, which is, I believe when young Jewish boys are considered to be "of age" to recognize good from evil. We just don't have that. (((And we don't need it, as detailed above.))) But doesn't the NT quote this verse from Isaiah in reference to Jesus? Who does it exactly? Only in Matthew, here. And I note also that the word virgin only appears six times in the NT, ESV, and only this one is about Jesus' birth. I note also that an angel had appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him that Mary's child was conceived of the Holy Spirit, so he should go ahead and marry her. Then these next two quoted verses are Matthew's commentary on that story of the angel appearing to Joseph. Matthew says it is to fulfill Isaiah's prophecy. But Matthew ONLY mentions the virgin birth portion of the prophecy. Look below at how much more there was...
[Mat 1:22 ESV] All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
[Mat 1:23 ESV] "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel" (which means, God with us).
Continuing with the "each verse is its own" strategy of interpretation (((Which also does not work, and at this point, 2024, I think it is a really bad way to look at prophecy anyway. It certainly leaves a lot to be desired with the virgin birth prophecy.))) this make vs 15 ONLY a near prophecy, and again that can only be recognized after the fact - 700 years after! All MSB tells us here is what curds are, and that they were eaten in desperate times, after invasion of your country, because the war had wiped out all the agricultural crops, and all that was left was curds - made from milk instead of grown - and honey, scattered here and there.
2025 - Reading through the BLB interlinear, vs 15 might ought to be translated "When he comes to know to refuse evil and to choose good, he will eat curds and honey." Phrased this way, it seems to be saying that someone - in some time - when he reaches the age where he can recognize good and evil and can make his own internal choice of which he will do, the country will be in such a shambles that agriculture is impossible, and this person will eat curds and wild honey.
2025 - I have never heard, and I do not believe the Bible ever says - as in I'm pretty sure about what I'm about to say - that Jesus is ever recorded as eating curds and honey. I do not believe that the Roman occupation was such that agriculture was impossible. We know Jesus and the 12 went through the fields harvesting corn to eat.
2025 - The ONLY CONCLUSION we can reach is that either the virgin birth and the eating curds guy are different people in these successive verses - with the first being about Jesus and the second being about someone back in Isaiah's time - and we will need to pull out the clues that tell us this is so without resort to hindsight. It should be in the grammar.
2025 - In vs 14 there are three verbs. The first is where Isaiah says that God "will give" the sign. This is an imperfect verb, telling us we don't really know when it happens. We would interpret it as a verb describing an incomplete action, as in the sign has not yet been given. This certainly leaves open the possibility that the sign will come when Jesus is born.
2025 - Then we go within the "sign" and see that a virgin will "bear", a participle. "she will call him Immanuel" is a sequential perfect. After the child is born, he will be named. Sequential in this obvious sense.
2025 - The key takeaway is that the main verb we are concerned with is the imperfect verb, and the others are "within the sign". So what about the verbs in 15?
2025 - See the GTP rephrasing at the beginning of this section. There are four verbs. Three are infinitives - to know, to refuse, and to choose. They don't really tell us about time. The fourth verb is an imperfect - something that has not yet happened. It is "he will eat". We can see this as going with the imperfect back in 14. If he has not yet been born he cannot yet be eating. So imperfect is required. That means that to the end of 15, we have no basis at all to separate in time the virgin birth and the curds and honey. None. We most certainly have no reason to conclude that 15 occurs before 14 and is about a completely different person.
2025 - On to 16...BEFORE he knows to refuse evil and choose good, that is before he is making his own moral decisions, Damascus and Samaria will be deserted. "Knows" is an imperfect, we get the tow infinitives once again about refusing and choosing, dread is a participle, and "forsaken" is an imperfect verb. Hmm...three imperfects? 1. Will give the sign. 2. he will eat 3. before he knows. God will give a future sign, the son will eat curds and honey, the land will be deserted while he is still quite young. I see no timeline that backs us up based on these verbs. (It is Sunday morning and I am using a lot of time here...).
2025 - Vs 17 seems pretty obviously to bring us back to Isaiah's present. Bad days are coming - when Assyria invades. Not a lot to quibble with here.
2025 - Speeding up here...vs 21 seems to make it clear, at least as the NASB95 translates it, that the whole "curds and honey" time period will be after the Assyrian invasion, after Ephraim and Aram have fallen. But...that invasion is still 65 years in the future! We were told that in vs 8, though it was inside parentheses. Even so, if the second person in these prophecies is Isaiah's son Shear-Jashub, he is going to be far beyond knowing to refuse evil and choose good by the time Assyria invades. So it CANNOT BE ABOUT HIM AT ALL!!!
2025 -I am going to read on out so I can get to church on time. This is progress. Apparently you have to get more confused before you get less confused on this one. I see no obvious way to read any of the predictions on to the end of Chapter 7 as applying to any time but the time following the Syrian invasion.
2025 - As of now, I cannot find a basis to separate the virgin birth and the curds and honey into different time periods, and reversed at that, other than the New Testament saying Jesus was born of a virgin. As of now, you just have to "know" that these two prophecies are about different times, and do not overlap in fact or in description.
2025 - It gets worse. A son is born to a prophetess, Before he is old enough to cry "my father", Damascus and Samaria will be sacked. What about that 65 years? If this kid will be a baby still when Assyria comes, this prophecy, and Isaiah's relationship with this prophetess, comes much much later. I suppose that is possible...and then this child, Maher-shalal-hash-baz, would be the child who won't be old enough to choose when the Assyrians conquer. So what about the one that is old enough to choose? Perhaps that is the son already standing there with Isaiah - Shear-jashub?
2025 - This in 8:18: 18 Behold, I and the children whom the LORD has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the LORD of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion. [Isa 8:18 ESV]. Lends credibility to at least some of the sons being the ones of whom the prophecies speak. Go back and LOOK UP THE MEANING OF THEIR NAMES!
[Isa 7:16 ESV] For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted.
This part can ONLY be associated with the near prophecy. Jesus lived and walked in Ephraim during much/most of his life. It was not deserted. Syria wasn't deserted either at that time, as Paul was converted on the way to Damascus, a teeming bustling city of the time. So this verse should be interpreted as a near prophecy only. (So what was the virgin birth of Isaiah's time? This vs 16 restricts it factually to that time, in that it is NOT true of Jesus' time. So now two verses in a row refer only to Isaiah's time. MSB says that this verse is about Isaiah's yet unborn son - doesn't give a name[[[Maher-shalal-hash-baz, and his story begins in Chapter 8. This is the son of Isaiah that MSB makes sure to disqualify from being born of a virgin. That prophecy is only about Jesus.]]] - and says that before this son was able to make moral choices, Syria and Ephraim would meet their doom at the hands of Assyria.
So the sign God chose was the virgin birth 7 centuries in the future. Note that when God tells Ahaz He will give him a sign, he tells him to make it "deep as Sheol or high as heaven". God says make it a spectacular sign that cannot ever be mistaken. It doesn't really even say that the sign should occur immediately to prove that God is going to save Judah from Rezin and Uzziah. In hindsight, we see that the promise of God to Ahaz was confirmed by a great sign, 700 years after that sign was predicted. Since Ahaz had angered God by refusing to ask for a sign, as evidenced by these words: [Isa 7:13 ESV] And he said, "Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also?" So God decides to give the sign Himself, but disdains to show the sign to Ahaz. Instead, God shows it 700 years later, a greater sign indeed. SO IF we understand it this way, which is a lot easier to accept than the whole this verse/that verse way I have been looking at it up to now, then it would make sense that the single vs about the sign, vs 14, DOES stand alone - because God is disdainful of Ahaz's posturing and makes such an "only God could make this happen" kind of sign that it can only herald a God only event - the return of the Jews from all over the world to the Promised Land, for all time. And then 15 on bring everything back to Isaiah's time and the things that are going to occur in the next few decades rather than centuries. So continue these verses, and see if this analysis holds up.
2022 - Continuing with the "if you won't name a sign then I'll name one" idea, we could see that the sign God gave was "far" and about something else entirely and the rest were near prophecies. But that still leaves us with a problem on the "curds and honey" part. I wonder if we ought to make something of the similarity between curds and honey and milk and honey. After all, the promised land was flowing with milk and honey and in that case these were not signs of desolation but of plenty. Curds are not just a whole lot different. Maybe this is how we tied the virgin birth predicted not only to Jesus 1st appearance, but also to his second, when he sets up his earthly kingdom for the Millennial Reign. He will be in the promised land, he could very well prefer curds and honey, and as King, he will determine both good and evil. Kind of starting to feel a little bit stretched here, but I still like this better than any other interpretation I've been able to come up with.
[Isa 7:17 ESV] The LORD will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father's house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah--the king of Assyria!"
Surely this is about near fulfillment when first Syria and then Israel fall to Assyria. Pretty specific, pretty local, wholly verifiable, wholly fulfilled. We need not look for still future aspects of this. MSB says that this verse also indicates that Assyria will invade the land Ahaz rules, and we know that this was the beginning of the end for Judah also, which was ultimately conquered by Babylon. But the weakening of Judah militarily began with the invasion of Assyria.
[Isa 7:18 ESV] In that day the LORD will whistle for the fly that is at the end of the streams of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.
Hmmm...Egypt was known for flies, Assyria for bees. MSB says Isaiah is using these insects to represent the armies of these nations that come upon Israel and Judah and take the people captive. This would continue the idea that vs 14 was the sign, and all the verses following were near prophecies. It is really working well looking at it that way, and it makes sense to look at it that way.
[Isa 7:19 ESV] And they will all come and settle in the steep ravines, and in the clefts of the rocks, and on all the thornbushes, and on all the pastures.
The invaders will be everywhere - covering even the remote portions of the land - as flies and bees tend to do.
[Isa 7:20 ESV] In that day the Lord will shave with a razor that is hired beyond the River--with the king of Assyria--the head and the hair of the feet, and it will sweep away the beard also.
Complete conquest is coming. Even the hair and beards of Israel and Damascus will be taken as spoil. The invaders will make Israel naked, even of the hair that covers their bodies. Complete and total conquest. And still, all these are near fulfillments.
[Isa 7:21 ESV] In that day a man will keep alive a young cow and two sheep,
Only these possessions will be allowed. No land to farm. Live off livestock.
[Isa 7:22 ESV] and because of the abundance of milk that they give, he will eat curds, for everyone who is left in the land will eat curds and honey.
More of the same. No crops. Nomadic, living off the produce of animals. Bedouins would be a good example. Or the people on the steppes of Mongolia. They don't stay in one place, they don't grow anything. They survive off their animals only. A wandering existence is coming to Israel and Judah, like the wandering in the wilderness but without the manna! Wow!
2022 - Could there be a "far" portion of this that is about the time of Jacob's trouble? About the Jews hiding from the Antichrist during tgt and having only this meager resource to keep them alive? It is during this time that Jesus will arrive. It still seems overly difficult to resolve all these prophecies...or is it? Perhaps what we really need to do is separate the "sign", which is the far future virgin birth, from the prophecies of what is going to happen near term. God changed the implication of the sign from near to far because evil Ahaz would not choose. But that did NOT change what was about to happen. So there is no need to make everything in the chapter near/far, we just have to divide things correctly.
[Isa 7:23 ESV] In that day every place where there used to be a thousand vines, worth a thousand shekels of silver, will become briers and thorns.
[Isa 7:24 ESV] With bow and arrows a man will come there, for all the land will be briers and thorns.
[Isa 7:25 ESV] And as for all the hills that used to be hoed with a hoe, you will not come there for fear of briers and thorns, but they will become a place where cattle are let loose and where sheep tread.
These last three verses continue the near fulfillment of the prophecy. Makes perfect sense now. There was no virgin birth in Isaiah's time, there's no need to substitute "unmarried" for "virgin". That is not what was going on at all, and the uniqueness of the virgin birth of Christ remains, and is even more spectacular now that the background is understood. I call that a good morning's reading!
2024 - The phrase "In that day is used four times from vs 18 to the end of the chapter. Next year, I will try to skip past all the stuff about the virgin birth and look closely at these four prophecies. Are they separate or combined? Do sequential verbs help at all in making that determination? Surely none of them seem to be about the Millennial because they al include briars and thorns. But...next year we will see....
AND THE YEAR AFTER THAT, if I am still alive, it is high time to spend some time on Chapter 8!!! It looks pretty rich in prophecy also!
NOTE: There is a table of the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecies of Christ during his first advent on p. 946 of the MSB, which is where Chapter 7 is. It has two columns. The left says "Fulfilled Literally", and the right says "Fulfilled Typically". It is an interesting and very helpful chart. But I note also that the difficult verse above - Vs 15, is not in the chart, in either column. BUT...see 8:1-3 comment below!