Isaiah 7:2

And it was told the house of David,.... Ahaz, and his family, the princes of the blood, his court and counsellors; who had intelligence of the designs and preparations of the Syrians and Israelites

And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.

The house of David; Ahaz, and his royal relations and courtiers. He calls them the house of David, to intimate that the following comfortable message was sent to Ahaz, not for his own sake, but only for the sake of his worthy progenitor, David, to whom God had promised an everlasting kingdom. Ephraim; the kingdom of the ten tribes, commonly called Ephraim, as , because that was far the most numerous and potent of’ all of them. Was moved with excessive fear, arising partly from the conscience of their own guilt, whereby they had put themselves out of God’ s protection; and partly from the consideration of the great strength and power of his enemies, who having prevailed against him severally, ,8, and having now united their threes, he, having no faith in God, nor confidence to desire or expect his help, concluded his case desperate and deplorable.

Isaiah 7:2 And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.Ver. 2. And it was told the house of David,] i.e., the king and chief officers of the crown and court. Ill news flieth swift, and filleth all places. Syria is confederate with Ephraim.] Though these two were oft at a deadly feud between themselves, yet they could combine for a mischief to God’ s people. So could the Herodians and Pharisees, Herod and Pilate, &c. The devil, doubtless, had a design by these two champions of his to have utterly rooted out the house of David (as he sought also afterwards to do by Herod, Caligula, and others), and so to have prevented Christ’ s being "made of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh"; but that could not be. And his heart was moved.] Concussum est et conquassatum, Impiety triumpheth in prosperity, trembleth in adversity. Tullus Hostilius, that godless King of Rome, set up Pavor and Pallor for gods to himself. Saul and Ahithophel in distress despaired and despatched themselves; so did Demosthenes, Cato, and other heathen sages, who were without God in the world, and therefore without comfort. Sin maketh men timorous, but righteousness bold. The Spirit of power and of a sound mind are fitly set together.

(2) The other interpretation sets out from an entirely different starting-point. The words of Mat 1:23 are taken as, once for all, deciding the entire meaning of the Immanuel prophecy. The prophet is supposed to have passed into a state of ecstasy in which he sees clearly, and with a full consciousness of its meaning, the history of the incarnation and the marvel of the travail-pangs of the Virgin mother. The vision of the future Christ thus presented to his mind, colours all his after-thoughts, and forms the basis of his whole work. The article emphasises the definiteness of his visions. He sees “the virgin mother” of the far-off future. And the prophet learns to connect the vision with the history of his own time. The growth of that Christ-child in the far-off future serves as a measure of time for the events that were passing, or about to pass, within the horizon of his earthly vision. Before the end of an interval not longer than that which separates youth from manhood, the Syro-Ephraiminitic confederacy should be broken up. So far, here also, we have a coherent and consistent view. It is attended, however, by some serious difficulties. A “sign,” in the language of Hebrew prophets, is that which proves to the person to whom it is offered that there is a supernatural power working with him who gives it. If a prediction, it is one which will speedily be tested by a personal experience, the very offer of which implies in the prophet the certainty of its fulfilment. He stakes, as it were, his reputation as a prophet on the issue. (Comp. Isaiah 37:30; Isaiah 38:7; Exodus 4:8-14; 1 Samuel 12:16.) But how could the prediction of a birth in the far-off distance, divided by several centuries from Isaiah’s time, be a sign to Ahaz or his people? And what would be the meaning, we may ask again, of the words “butter and honey shall he eat,” as applied to the Christ-child? Do not the words “Before the child shall know to refuse the evil . . .” point, not to a child seen as afar in vision, but to one who was to be born and grow up among the men of that generation? Should we not have expected, if the words had implied a clear revelation of the mystery of the virgin-birth, that Isaiah himself would have dwelt upon it elsewhere, that later prophets would have named it as one of the notes of the Messiah, that it would have become a tradition of the Jewish schools of interpretation? As a matter of fact, no such allusion is found in Isaiah, nor in the prophets that follow him (see Note on Jeremiah 31:22, for the only supposed, one cannot say even “apparent,” exception); the Jewish interpreters never include this among their notes of the Christ.

2. the house of David] (Cf. Isaiah 7:13; Isaiah 7:17) either the court (ch. Isaiah 22:22) or the royal family (1 Samuel 20:16, &c.), which must have formed a numerous and powerful caste, and must have exercised a considerable influence on the government under a weak king like Ahaz. This was probably the first time that the Davidic dynasty had been menaced by a serious danger. Syria is confederate with Ephraim] lit. Syria has alighted upon Ephraim (R.V. marg. “resteth”). The idea seems to be that the Syrian armies already occupy the Ephraimitish territory (settling there like a swarm of locusts, v. Isaiah 19 : 2 Samuel 17:12) preparatory to the joint attack. The fine simile at the end of the verse is enough to prove that Isaiah himself is the narrator.

And it was told the house of David - That is, the royal family; or the king and princes; the government. Ahaz was the descendant and successor of David.

2. Told the house of David — This signal phrase refers not to the court of Ahaz, but to the blood royal, the lineage; as in modern phrase, “the house of Bourbon,” “the house of Brunswick.” So always,