Isaiah chapter seven has a wicked king on the throne of Judah, two enemy armies are marching on Jerusalem, and right in the middle of that crisis God gives a promise about a virgin conceiving and bearing a Son 700 years later.
The first time you read it, it feels out of place. Why put the greatest Messianic prophecy in the Old Testament right here, in the middle of a war, spoken to a king who did not even want to hear it?
Ahaz is king of Judah and he is not a good king. He walked in the way of the kings of Israel and even made his son pass through the fire to false gods. Two enemy kings had joined forces against him. Rezin was the king of Syria, and Pekah was the king of the northern kingdom of Israel. Their goal was to take Ahaz off the throne and put a puppet king in his place.
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.”
Notice Isaiah calls Judah “The house of David.”
God sends Isaiah to Ahaz with a message of peace and promise. The attack will fail and the plan of these two kings will not stand.
Isaiah 7:7 “Thus saith the Lord GOD, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.”
Isaiah 7:9 “…If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.”
God Offers Ahaz a Sign
Then God does something we do not see very often in Scripture. He tells the king to ask for a sign, and He gives him a blank check.
Isaiah 7:10-11 “Moreover the LORD spake again unto Ahaz, saying, Ask thee a sign of the LORD thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.”
Pick anything you want. Ask for something as deep as the grave or as high as heaven and Ahaz refuses.
Isaiah 7:12 “But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD.”
On the surface it sounds humble and spiritual. But Ahaz refused because he had already made up his mind to trust in the king of Assyria for help, and he did not want a sign that would corner him into obeying God. Ahaz was hiding his unbelief behind religious-sounding words.
2 Kings 16:7-8 tells us that Ahaz sent silver and gold from the temple of the Lord to the king of Assyria and begged him for help. Ahaz had already picked his savior, and it was not God.
God Speaks Past Ahaz to the House of David
Isaiah 7:13 “And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?”
Notice Isaiah stops speaking to Ahaz alone. He turns and speaks to the whole house of David. What comes next is for the whole royal line and for every Christian who will ever read these words.
Isaiah 7:14 “Therefore the LORD himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”
Immanuel means “God with us.”
Why God Put the Virgin Sign Right Here
The two enemy kings were not just after Jerusalem, they were attacking the Messiah.
They wanted to end the Davidic line. Isaiah 7:6 tells us their exact plan. Set up “the son of Tabeal” as king in Jerusalem and that would wipe out the throne of David, which Jesus would eventually come through.
But God had already made a covenant with David that his throne would stand forever.
2 Samuel 7:16 “And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.”
If the house of David falls, the promise fails. If the promise fails, the Messiah cannot come through David’s line. So the attack on Ahaz was really an attack on the coming Christ and behind two earthly kings was a spiritual war against the promise of God.
God answers the attack with the Messiah Himself.
Ahaz would not ask for a sign, so God gave the greatest sign He could ever give: The Messiah is coming, born of a virgin and He will be God with us.
No army can stop what God has promised, because the Son of God Himself is going to walk into human history through this very family.
The sign was given to assure the house of David that the family would be preserved, because out of that family the Messiah must come. No enemy king could destroy the line God had sworn to keep.
There is a near sign and a far sign.
God gave a sign with a short-range fulfillment and a long-range fulfillment.
Isaiah 7:16 “For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.”
Before a child could grow up to know right from wrong, both of these kings would be finished.
That happened when Assyria wiped out Syria within a couple years, and the northern kingdom of Israel fell not long after.
But the deeper sign, the virgin conceiving and bearing Immanuel, pointed 700 years down the road to Christ. The New Testament confirms this directly.
Matthew 1:22-23 “Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by 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.”
So the sign said two things at once. In the short term, God will keep this attack from destroying you. In the long term, God will keep His promise to David no matter what, and He will send His Son through this line even if every wicked king in between tries to burn it down.
God preached the gospel to a wicked king!
Ahaz did not want or deserve the sign. Ahaz had already decided to trust Assyria over the Lord. And God gave him a Christ-centered sign anyway.
God was saying, your unbelief cannot stop my plan. I will send my Son and I will keep my word. The house of David will stand because Immanuel is coming.
What This Means for Us Today?
There are four things I do not want us to miss.
1. God’s plan does not wait on our faith to keep going.
Ahaz was faithless and the Messiah still came. That is not permission for us to be faithless. It is comforting that God’s purposes are bigger than man’s shortcomings. When we are weak, God is still on His throne. When we drift, God is still keeping His word. His covenant does not rise and fall with our feelings.
Isaiah 55:11 “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”
2. God is willing to strengthen weak faith.
He offered Ahaz a sign as deep as the grave or as high as heaven. He did not scold Ahaz for being afraid. He offered to prop up his shaking faith. God still does that with us. He meets us where we are and gives us evidence to lean on when our knees are shaking. The problem is not that God will not help our unbelief. The problem is when we, like Ahaz, refuse help.
Mark 9:24 “…Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”
3. Christ is the answer to every real threat.
The threat that day was two kings. The threat behind the threat was the destruction of the promise. God’s answer was not a bigger army or a better treaty. His answer was His Son.
Whatever the enemy is aiming at in our lives, the deepest answer is always Christ. He is Immanuel; He is God with us. He is with us in the battle and with us at the end of it.
Matthew 28:20 “…and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”
If God kept His promise through the reign of a wicked king like Ahaz, He will keep His promise through whatever season we are walking through today. Christ has already come, and He is still with us, and He is still Immanuel.
