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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "//www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="//www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width; initial-scale=1.0;"/><title>Isaiah 8 Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers</title><link rel="canonical" href="https://biblehub.com/commentaries/expositors/isaiah/8.htm" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/5001.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="../spec.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 4800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 4800px)" href="/4801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1550px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1550px)" href="/1551.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1250px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1250px)" href="/1251.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1050px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1050px)" href="/1051.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 900px), only screen and (max-device-width: 900px)" href="/901.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 800px)" href="/801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 575px), only screen and (max-device-width: 575px)" href="/501.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-height: 450px), only screen and (max-device-height: 450px)" href="/h451.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/print.css" type="text/css" media="Print" /></head><body><div id="fx"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" id="fx2"><tr><td><iframe width="100%" height="30" scrolling="no" src="../cmenus/isaiah/8.htm" align="left" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div><div id="blnk"></div><div align="center"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="maintable"><tr><td><div id="fx5"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" id="fx6"><tr><td><iframe width="100%" height="245" scrolling="no" src="//biblehu.com/bmcom/isaiah/8-1.htm" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div></td></tr></table></div><div align="center"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="maintable3"><tr><td><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center" id="announce"><tr><td><div id="l1"><div id="breadcrumbs"><a href="//biblehub.com">Bible</a> > <a href="/commentaries/">Commentary</a> > <a href="../">Ellicott</a> > <a href="../isaiah/">Isaiah</a></div><div id="anc"><iframe src="/anc.htm" width="100%" height="27" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></div><div id="anc2"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tr><td><iframe src="/anc2.htm" width="100%" height="27" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div></div></td></tr></table><div id="movebox2"><table border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td><div id="topheading"><a href="../isaiah/7.htm" title="Isaiah 7">◄</a> Isaiah 8 <a href="../isaiah/9.htm" title="Isaiah 9">►</a></div></td></tr></table></div><div align="center" class="maintable2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tr><td><div id="leftbox"><div class="padleft"><div class="vheading">Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers</div><div class="chap"> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/8-1.htm">Isaiah 8:1</a></div><div class="verse">Moreover the LORD said unto me, Take thee a great roll, and write in it with a man's pen concerning Mahershalalhashbaz.</div>VIII.</span><p>(1) <span class= "bld">Moreover the Lord said unto me . . .</span>—The prophecy that follows was clearly separated by an interval of some kind, probably about a year, from that in Isaiah 7. In the meantime much that had happened seemed to cast discredit on the prophet’s words. The child that was the type of the greater Immanuel had been born, but there were no signs as yet of the downfall of the northern kingdom. The attack of Rezin and Pekah, though Jerusalem had not been taken, had inflicted an almost irreparable blow on the kingdom of Judah. Multitudes had been carried captive to Damascus (<a href="/2_chronicles/28-5.htm" title="Why the LORD his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria; and they smote him, and carried away a great multitude of them captives, and brought them to Damascus. And he was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who smote him with a great slaughter.">2Chronicles 28:5</a>). Many thousands, but for the intercession of the prophet Oded, would have eaten the bread of exile and slavery. The Edomites were harassing the south-eastern frontier (<a href="/context/2_chronicles/28-15.htm" title="And the men which were expressed by name rose up, and took the captives, and with the spoil clothed all that were naked among them, and arrayed them, and shod them, and gave them to eat and to drink, and anointed them, and carried all the feeble of them on asses, and brought them to Jericho, the city of palm trees, to their brothers: then they returned to Samaria.">2Chronicles 28:15-17</a>). The commerce of the Red Sea was cut off by Rezin’s capture of Elath (<a href="/2_kings/16-6.htm" title="At that time Rezin king of Syria recovered Elath to Syria, and drove the Jews from Elath: and the Syrians came to Elath, and dwelled there to this day.">2Kings 16:6</a>). To the weak and faithless Ahaz and his counsellors, it might well seem that the prospect was darker than ever, that there was no hope but in the protection of Assyria. If such was the state of things when the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, was he to recant and confess that he had erred? Was he to shrink back into silence and obscurity? Far otherwise than that. He was to repeat all that he had said, more definitely, more demonstratively than ever.<p><span class= "bld">Take thee a great roll . . .</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">a</span> <span class= "ital">large tablet. </span>The noun is the same as that used for “mirrors” or “glasses” in <a href="/isaiah/3-23.htm" title="The glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the veils.">Isaiah 3:23</a>. The writings of the prophet were commonly written on papyrus and placed in the hands of his disciples to be read aloud. For private and less permanent messages men used small wooden tablets smeared with wax, on which they wrote with an iron stylus. (Comp. <a href="/job/19-24.htm" title="That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!">Job 19:24</a>; <a href="/isaiah/30-8.htm" title="Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever:">Isaiah 30:8</a>.) Here the tablet was to be large, and the writing was not to be with the sharp point of the artist or learned scribe, but with a “man’s pen,” <span class= "ital">i.e., </span>such as the common workmen used for sign-boards, that might fix the gaze of the careless passer-by (<a href="/habakkuk/2-2.htm" title="And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain on tables, that he may run that reads it.">Habakkuk 2:2</a>), and on that tablet, as though it were the heading of a proclamation or dedication, he was to write TO MAHER-SHALAL-HASH-BAZ. That mysterious name, which we may render “<span class= "ital">Speed-plunder, haste-spoil,</span>” was, for at least nine months, to be the enigma of Jerusalem.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/8-2.htm">Isaiah 8:2</a></div><div class="verse">And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah.</div>(2) <span class= "bld">And I took unto me faithful witnesses.</span>—That the prophet’s challenge to his gainsayers might be made more emphatic, the setting-up of the tablet is to be formally attested. And the witnesses whom the prophet calls were probably men of high position, among those who had been foremost in advising the alliance with Assyria. Of Uriah or Urijah, the priest, we know that he complied with the king’s desire to introduce an altar after the pattern which he had seen at Damascus (<a href="/context/2_kings/16-10.htm" title="And king Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglathpileser king of Assyria, and saw an altar that was at Damascus: and king Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest the fashion of the altar, and the pattern of it, according to all the workmanship thereof.">2Kings 16:10-11</a>). Of Zechariah we know nothing; but the name was a priestly one (<a href="/2_chronicles/24-20.htm" title="And the Spirit of God came on Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, which stood above the people, and said to them, Thus said God, Why transgress you the commandments of the LORD, that you cannot prosper? because you have forsaken the LORD, he has also forsaken you.">2Chronicles 24:20</a>), and it has been conjectured, from his association with Isaiah, that he may have been the writer of a section of the book that bears the name of a later Zechariah (Zechariah 9-12), which bears traces of being of a much earlier date than the rest of the book. The combination of “Zachariah, son of Jeberechiah” reminds us of Zacharias, the son of Barachias, and points to a priestly family. (See Note on <a href="/matthew/23-35.htm" title="That on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom you slew between the temple and the altar.">Matthew 23:35</a>.) In <a href="/2_chronicles/29-13.htm" title="And of the sons of Elizaphan; Shimri, and Jeiel: and of the sons of Asaph; Zechariah, and Mattaniah:">2Chronicles 29:13</a> the name appears as belonging to the Asaph section of the Levites. A more probable view is that he was identical with the father of the queen then reigning, and was therefore the grandfather of Hezekiah (<a href="/2_chronicles/29-1.htm" title="Hezekiah began to reign when he was five and twenty years old, and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah.">2Chronicles 29:1</a>). Probably, looking to the prophet’s habit of tracing auguries in names, the two witnesses may have been partly chosen for the significance of those which they bore, Uriah, <span class= "ital">i.e., “</span>Jah is my light,” Zechariah, <span class= "ital">i.e., “</span>Jah will remember,” each of which comes in with a special appropriateness.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/8-3.htm">Isaiah 8:3</a></div><div class="verse">And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the LORD to me, Call his name Mahershalalhashbaz.</div>(3) <span class= "bld">I . . . the prophetess . . .</span>—The word may have been given by courtesy to a prophet’s wife as such. Elsewhere, however, as in the case of Deborah (<a href="/judges/4-4.htm" title="And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time.">Judges 4:4</a>) and Huldah (<a href="/2_chronicles/34-22.htm" title="And Hilkiah, and they that the king had appointed, went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvath, the son of Hasrah, keeper of the wardrobe; (now she dwelled in Jerusalem in the college:) and they spoke to her to that effect.">2Chronicles 34:22</a>), it implies prophetic gifts. Possibly, therefore, we may think of the prophet and his wife as having been drawn together by united thoughts and counsels, in contrast with the celibate life of Jeremiah (<a href="/jeremiah/16-2.htm" title="You shall not take you a wife, neither shall you have sons or daughters in this place.">Jeremiah 16:2</a>), the miseries of Hosea’s marriage (Hosea 1, 2), and the sudden bereavement of Ezekiel (<a href="/context/ezekiel/24-16.htm" title="Son of man, behold, I take away from you the desire of your eyes with a stroke: yet neither shall you mourn nor weep, neither shall your tears run down.">Ezekiel 24:16-18</a>). We may, perhaps, trace, on this view, the wife’s hand in the toilet inventory of <a href="/context/isaiah/3-16.htm" title="Moreover the LORD said, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet:">Isaiah 3:16-24</a>.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/8-4.htm">Isaiah 8:4</a></div><div class="verse">For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.</div>(4) <span class= "bld">For before the child shall have knowledge to cry . . .</span>—Here then was another sign like that of <a href="/context/isaiah/7-14.htm" title="Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.">Isaiah 7:14-16</a>. The two witnesses of <a href="/isaiah/8-2.htm" title="And I took to me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah.">Isaiah 8:2</a> were probably summoned to the circumcision and naming of the child, and the mysterious name at which all Jerusalem had gazed with wonder was given to the new-born infant. The prediction is even more definite than before. Before the first cries of childhood (Heb. <span class= "ital">Abi, Ami</span>) should be uttered, i.e., within a year of its birth, the spoils of the two capitals of the kings of the confederate armies should be carried to the king of Assyria. The conclusion of the period thus defined would coincide more or less closely with the longer period assigned at an earlier date (<a href="/isaiah/7-16.htm" title="For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that you abhor shall be forsaken of both her kings.">Isaiah 7:16</a>). Historically the trans-Jordanic region and Damascus fell before Tiglath-pilneser; Samaria, besieged by Salmaneser, before his successor Sargon (<a href="/2_kings/15-29.htm" title="In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglathpileser king of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abelbethmaachah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria.">2Kings 15:29</a>; <a href="/2_kings/16-9.htm" title="And the king of Assyria listened to him: for the king of Assyria went up against Damascus, and took it, and carried the people of it captive to Kir, and slew Rezin.">2Kings 16:9</a>; <a href="/2_kings/17-6.htm" title="In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.">2Kings 17:6</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/8-6.htm">Isaiah 8:6</a></div><div class="verse">Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah's son;</div>(6) <span class= "bld">Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah . . .</span>—Grammatically, the words “this people” might seem to refer to Judah, and suggest the thought that the tyranny of Ahaz had made him so unpopular that his subjects welcomed the invaders. On this view Ahaz sought the alliance with Tiglath-pilneser as against his own subjects no less than against Syria or Ephraim. He was as a Ferdinand of Naples falling back on Austria to protect him against Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel. What line was the prophet to take? Was he to take the side of the king, or that of his rebellious subjects who were ready to sacrifice their independence? As it is, he sides with neither, and has a warning for each. Each is running blindly into destruction. The prophet could hardly have blamed the people of Syria and Israel for following their own kings; but it was for him a strange and monstrous thing that Judah should follow their example. We must remember, too, that in spite of the weakness and wickedness of Ahaz, the prophet’s hopes rested on the house of David (<a href="/isaiah/11-1.htm" title="And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:">Isaiah 11:1</a>), and that Hezekiah was already old enough to justify that hope. The “waters of Shiloah that go softly,” issuing from the slope between Moriah and Zion, “fast by the oracles of God” (<a href="/psalms/46-4.htm" title="There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.">Psalm 46:4</a>; <a href="/john/9-7.htm" title="And said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.">John 9:7</a>), presenting so striking a contrast to the great rivers, Nile, Euphrates, Hiddekel (Tigris), on which stood the capitals of great empires, or even to the Abana and Pharpar of Syria, and the Jordan of Ephraim, were a natural symbol of the ideal polity and religion of Judah. (Comp. <a href="/context/ezekiel/47-1.htm" title="Afterward he brought me again to the door of the house; and, behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward: for the forefront of the house stood toward the east, and the waters came down from under from the right side of the house, at the south side of the altar.">Ezekiel 47:1-5</a>.) In acting as they did the people were practically apostatising as much as “that king Ahaz” of <a href="/2_chronicles/28-22.htm" title="And in the time of his distress did he trespass yet more against the LORD: this is that king Ahaz.">2Chronicles 28:22</a>.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/8-7.htm">Isaiah 8:7</a></div><div class="verse">Now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, <i>even</i> the king of Assyria, and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks:</div>(7) <span class= "bld">The waters of the river . . .</span>—“The river” is, as elsewhere (<a href="/joshua/24-2.htm" title="And Joshua said to all the people, Thus said the LORD God of Israel, Your fathers dwelled on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods.">Joshua 24:2</a>; <a href="/joshua/24-14.htm" title="Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve you the LORD.">Joshua 24:14</a>), the Euphrates; here used (1) as the symbol of the Assyrian monarchy, as Shiloah had been of that of Judah, and (2) of the Assyrian armies that were to pour down like that river in the time of its inundations. The “channels” and “banks<span class= "ital">” </span>describe the intended course of that army as invading Syria and Israel; but it was to overflow those banks and sweep over Judah. In the former case, the kingdoms were to be utterly submerged as by the violence of the current. In Judah, it was to reach only “to the neck,” <span class= "ital">i.e., </span>was not to work out so utter a destruction. Jeremiah (<a href="/jeremiah/47-2.htm" title="Thus said the LORD; Behold, waters rise up out of the north, and shall be an overflowing flood, and shall overflow the land, and all that is therein; the city, and them that dwell therein: then the men shall cry, and all the inhabitants of the land shall howl.">Jeremiah 47:2</a>) reproduces the image.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/8-8.htm">Isaiah 8:8</a></div><div class="verse">And he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach <i>even</i> to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel.</div>(8) <span class= "bld">The stretching out of his wings.</span>—The metaphor within a metaphor is quite after the manner of Isaiah. The armies of Assyria are like a river in flood; the outspread waters on either side of the main stream are like the expanded wings of a great bird sweeping down on its prey.<p><span class= "bld">Shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel.</span>—The prophet has not forgotten, however, the <span class= "ital">nomen et omen </span>of the earthly child, now growing towards the time when he would be able to “choose the good and refuse the evil.” The land over which the flood sweeps belongs to Him who is, in very deed, “God with us.” In <a href="/context/psalms/46-1.htm" title="God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.">Psalm 46:1-4</a> we have the prophecy turned into a hymn, or, less probably, the hymn which was the germ of the prophecy. The parallelism, in any case, is so clear as to make it certain that the two were contemporary, and refer to the same events. The same may be said, perhaps, of all the psalms of the sons of Korah. The hope of the psalmist fastens on the thought, “the Lord of hosts is <span class= "ital">with us”</span> (<a href="/psalms/46-7.htm" title="The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.">Psalm 46:7</a>; <a href="/psalms/46-11.htm" title="The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.">Psalm 46:11</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/8-9.htm">Isaiah 8:9</a></div><div class="verse">Associate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of far countries: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces.</div>(9) <span class= "bld">Associate yourselves, O ye people . . .</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">O ye peoples. </span>The words are not limited to the confederacy of Syria and Ephraim, but are, as it were, a challenge to all the peoples of the earth, far and near. No plan against the Divine kingdom, of which the earthly kingdom of the house of David was, for the time, the representative, shall prosper. The prophet falls back once more on the abiding promise of the name Immanuel (“with us is God”).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/8-11.htm">Isaiah 8:11</a></div><div class="verse">For the LORD spake thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying,</div>(11) <span class= "bld">For the Lord spake thus to me.</span>—We enter on a new section, separated, probably, by a short interval of time, but dealing with the same subject. In the “strong hand” we have an anthropomorphic phrase, implying a specially high degree of the intensity of inspiration (<a href="/1_kings/18-46.htm" title="And the hand of the LORD was on Elijah; and he girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.">1Kings 18:46</a>; <a href="/2_kings/3-15.htm" title="But now bring me a minstrel. And it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the LORD came on him.">2Kings 3:15</a>; <a href="/ezekiel/1-3.htm" title="The word of the LORD came expressly to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the LORD was there on him.">Ezekiel 1:3</a>; <a href="/ezekiel/3-14.htm" title="So the spirit lifted me up, and took me away, and I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit; but the hand of the LORD was strong on me.">Ezekiel 3:14</a>; <a href="/ezekiel/3-22.htm" title="And the hand of the LORD was there on me; and he said to me, Arise, go forth into the plain, and I will there talk with you.">Ezekiel 3:22</a>; <a href="/ezekiel/8-1.htm" title="And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord GOD fell there on me.">Ezekiel 8:1</a>; <a href="/ezekiel/37-1.htm" title="The hand of the LORD was on me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the middle of the valley which was full of bones,">Ezekiel 37:1</a>). Something had occurred which brought the prophet into a state like that of St. Paul in <a href="/acts/17-16.htm" title="Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.">Acts 17:16</a>; <a href="/acts/18-5.htm" title="And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ.">Acts 18:5</a>. Indignation and zeal were roused to their highest point, and were able to resist all human pressure from without. The result was a lesson which was to be specially impressed on the disciples who gathered round the prophet.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/8-12.htm">Isaiah 8:12</a></div><div class="verse">Say ye not, A confederacy, to all <i>them to</i> whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid.</div>(12) <span class= "bld">Say ye not, A confederacy . . .</span>—The words have been very differently interpreted. (1) The confederacy has been thought to be that between Syria or Ephraim, which had at first filled the people with terror, and then had seemed so powerful that men had been willing to join it (<a href="/isaiah/7-2.htm" title="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.">Isaiah 7:2</a>; <a href="/isaiah/8-6.htm" title="For as much as this people refuses the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah's son;">Isaiah 8:6</a>). (2) Translating the word as <span class= "ital">conspiracy </span>as in <a href="/2_kings/17-4.htm" title="And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea: for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and brought no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year: therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison.">2Kings 17:4</a>—it was the word used by Athaliah when she cried, “Treason, treason!” (<a href="/2_chronicles/23-13.htm" title="And she looked, and, behold, the king stood at his pillar at the entering in, and the princes and the trumpets by the king: and all the people of the land rejoiced, and sounded with trumpets, also the singers with instruments of music, and such as taught to sing praise. Then Athaliah rent her clothes, and said, Treason, Treason.">2Chronicles 23:13</a>)—interpreters have seen in it the cry of the Assyrian alliance party against the prophet and his followers, whom they accused of conspiracy against their country, such as was afterwards imputed to Jeremiah (<a href="/jeremiah/37-14.htm" title="Then said Jeremiah, It is false; I fall not away to the Chaldeans. But he listened not to him: so Irijah took Jeremiah, and brought him to the princes.">Jeremiah 37:14</a>). (3) Others, following a conjectural amendment of the text, have read, “Ye shall not call everything a holy thing which this people calleth a holy thing,” and find in the words a protest against the idolatrous reverence for that which has no real holiness, analogous to the warning against soothsayers or diviners in <a href="/isaiah/8-19.htm" title="And when they shall say to you, Seek to them that have familiar spirits, and to wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek to their God? for the living to the dead?">Isaiah 8:19</a>; or possibly an allusion to such an object of worship as the brazen serpent, which Hezekiah had destroyed by Isaiah’s advice (<a href="/2_kings/18-4.htm" title="He removed the high places, and broke the images, and cut down the groves, and broke in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made: for to those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.">2Kings 18:4</a>). Of these, (2) seems the most in harmony with the sequence of facts and thoughts.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/8-13.htm">Isaiah 8:13</a></div><div class="verse">Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself; and <i>let</i> him <i>be</i> your fear, and <i>let</i> him <i>be</i> your dread.</div>(13) <span class= "bld">Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself . . .</span>—The words contain an implicit appeal to the revelation of the Divine Name in <a href="/isaiah/6-3.htm" title="And one cried to another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.">Isaiah 6:3</a>. Had the prophet’s disciples entered into the meaning of that “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts?” Had they learnt to sanctify Jehovah Sabaoth, to recognise the power of that infinite holiness?<span class= "bld"><p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/8-14.htm">Isaiah 8:14</a></div><div class="verse">And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.</div>(14) <span class= "bld">And he shall be for a sanctuary</span> <span class= "bld">. . .</span>—Literally, <span class= "ital">he shall become a hallowed thing, </span>with the implied thought as in <a href="/ezekiel/11-16.htm" title="Therefore say, Thus said the Lord GOD; Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come.">Ezekiel 11:16</a>, that the sanctuary is also an asylum (<a href="/1_kings/1-50.htm" title="And Adonijah feared because of Solomon, and arose, and went, and caught hold on the horns of the altar.">1Kings 1:50</a>; <a href="/1_kings/2-28.htm" title="Then tidings came to Joab: for Joab had turned after Adonijah, though he turned not after Absalom. And Joab fled to the tabernacle of the LORD, and caught hold on the horns of the altar.">1Kings 2:28</a>). In that sanctuary, in the presence of Jehovah, there was a refuge from all terror, the answer to all misgivings (<a href="/psalms/73-17.htm" title="Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end.">Psalm 73:17</a>).<span class= "bld"><p>But for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence . . .</span>—The words have become so familiar to us through their Christian application (<a href="/matthew/21-44.htm" title="And whoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.">Matthew 21:44</a>; <a href="/romans/9-33.htm" title="As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumbling stone and rock of offense: and whoever believes on him shall not be ashamed.">Romans 9:33</a>; <a href="/1_peter/2-8.htm" title="And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.">1Peter 2:8</a>) that we find it hard to measure their force and meaning as they came from Isaiah’s lips. Are the contrasted clauses connected by any common link of imagery? To enter into fellowship with Jehovah, is to enter into the sanctuary. He who stands on the stone which forms the threshold of that sanctuary, has gained an asylum. But to do that requires the clear vision of faith. He who walks blindly (<a href="/isaiah/6-10.htm" title="Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.">Isaiah 6:10</a>; <a href="/john/11-10.htm" title="But if a man walk in the night, he stumbles, because there is no light in him.">John 11:10</a>), without faith, may stumble on that very stone of the threshold, and what was safety and life for others, might for him bring pain and shame. He might be there sorely bruised (<a href="/matthew/21-44.htm" title="And whoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.">Matthew 21:44</a>) like the wild animals taken in a trap (synonyms are heaped one upon another to increase the force of the imagery), till a helper came to release him. So, Isaiah says, was Jehovah “to both the houses of Israel” (the phrase is peculiar, and implies a hope of the restored unity of the nation’s life) in their self-chosen blindness. So St. Peter says, even the head corner-stone is to those who “stumble at the word, being disobedient” a “stone of stumbling and a rock of offence” (<a href="/1_peter/2-8.htm" title="And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.">1Peter 2:8</a>). It lies in the nature of the case that the fall is not necessarily final and irretrievable. Men may be braised, but not “ground to powder;” may “stumble<span class= "ital">” </span>so that they may rise again (<a href="/matthew/21-44.htm" title="And whoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.">Matthew 21:44</a>; <a href="/luke/2-34.htm" title="And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against;">Luke 2:34</a>; <a href="/romans/11-11.htm" title="I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come to the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.">Romans 11:11</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/8-15.htm">Isaiah 8:15</a></div><div class="verse">And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.</div>(15) <span class= "bld">And many among them shall stumble, and fall . . .</span>—The accumulation of words more or less synonymous has obviously, as before, the emphasis of iteration. Possibly for the prophet and his disciples, each word had a distinct ethical significance, which we can only partially recover. Looking to the figure implied in <a href="/isaiah/8-14.htm" title="And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.">Isaiah 8:14</a>, they seem to describe the several stages of the capture of the animal for whom the trap has been laid. It first stumbles, then falls into the pit, and breaks its limbs, then is fastened in the trap, and is powerless to escape.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/8-16.htm">Isaiah 8:16</a></div><div class="verse">Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples.</div>(16) <span class= "bld">Bind up the testimony . . .</span>—The intensity of feeling in which the prophetic utterance of <a href="/context/isaiah/8-11.htm" title="For the LORD spoke thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying,">Isaiah 8:11-15</a> had its birth, is followed by a corresponding solemnity at its close. The words which had been so full of meaning for the prophet himself are to be impressed on the disciples of Jehovah (for it is He who speaks), <span class= "ital">i.e., </span>on those who looked to Isaiah as their guide and counsellor. They are to be written on a parchment roll, as men wrote the sacred Book of the Law; the roll is to be sealed up, partly as a security against its being tampered with, till the time came for its disclosure (<a href="/daniel/12-4.htm" title="But you, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.">Daniel 12:4</a>), partly as an attestation, like the seal of a king’s letter (<a href="/1_kings/21-8.htm" title="So she wrote letters in Ahab's name, and sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters to the elders and to the nobles that were in his city, dwelling with Naboth.">1Kings 21:8</a>; <a href="/esther/3-12.htm" title="Then were the king's scribes called on the thirteenth day of the first month, and there was written according to all that Haman had commanded to the king's lieutenants, and to the governors that were over every province, and to the rulers of every people of every province according to the writing thereof, and to every people after their language; in the name of king Ahasuerus was it written, and sealed with the king's ring.">Esther 3:12</a>), that it was authentic. The two terms “testimony” (<a href="/deuteronomy/8-19.htm" title="And it shall be, if you do at all forget the LORD your God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish.">Deuteronomy 8:19</a>; <a href="/psalms/50-7.htm" title="Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against you: I am God, even your God.">Psalm 50:7</a>; <a href="/psalms/119-2.htm" title="Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.">Psalm 119:2</a>) and “law” are here taken in their wider sense as applicable to any revelation of the mind of God. The “law of the Lord” of <a href="/psalms/19-7.htm" title="The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.">Psalm 19:7</a>; <a href="/psalms/119-1.htm" title="Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD.">Psalm 119:1</a> was wider and higher than the Pentateuchal code.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/8-17.htm">Isaiah 8:17</a></div><div class="verse">And I will wait upon the LORD, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.</div>(17) <span class= "bld">And I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth his face . . .</span>—The words come in somewhat abruptly, but not to the extent that justifies the assumption of some critics that a verse has been lost. The prophet enforces precept by example. He has learnt to conquer the feverish desire to know the future, which led men to trust in soothsayers and diviners, and from which even his own disciples were not altogether exempt. He is content to “wait,” even though Jehovah “hide His face,” though predictions seem to fail (see Note on <a href="/isaiah/8-1.htm" title="Moreover the LORD said to me, Take you a great roll, and write in it with a man's pen concerning Mahershalalhashbaz.">Isaiah 8:1</a>), and all seems dark and hopeless. There is, perhaps, a contrast between the fact that Jehovah hides His face from the house of Jacob, that all is dark for the nation’s life as such, while yet the prophet, in his own individuality, can “look for Him” with the eye of faith.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/8-18.htm">Isaiah 8:18</a></div><div class="verse">Behold, I and the children whom the LORD hath given me <i>are</i> for signs and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion.</div>(18) <span class= "bld">Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me . . .</span>—In the mystic significance of his own name (Isaiah—<span class= "ital">Salvation of Jehovah</span>) and of the names of his sons: <span class= "ital">Remnant shall return. </span>and <span class= "ital">Speed-plunder, Haste-spoil, </span>possibly also in that of Immanuel, the prophet finds a sufficient revelation of the future. Each was a <span class= "ital">nomen et omen </span>for those who had ears to hear. Could the disciples of Isaiah complain that they had no light thrown upon the future, when, so to say, they had those embodied prophecies? The children disappear from the scene, and we know nothing of their after-history, but all their life long, even with or without a special prophetic work, they must have been, by virtue of their names, witnesses to a later generation, of what Isaiah had predicted. In Isaiah’s own life, as including symbolic acts as well as prophetic words (<a href="/isaiah/20-2.htm" title="At the same time spoke the LORD by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go and loose the sackcloth from off your loins, and put off your shoe from your foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot.">Isaiah 20:2</a>), we have a further development of the thought that he was “a sign and a wonder.” (Comp. <a href="/ezekiel/12-11.htm" title="Say, I am your sign: like as I have done, so shall it be done to them: they shall remove and go into captivity.">Ezekiel 12:11</a>.) The citation of the words, “I and the children whom thou hast given me,” in <a href="/hebrews/2-13.htm" title="And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children which God has given me.">Hebrews 2:13</a>, is noticeable here chiefly as showing how little the writer of that Epistle cared in this and other quotations for the original meaning of the words as determined by the context. It was enough for him that the Christ, like the prophet, did not stand alone, but claimed a fellowship with the children whom the Father had given him (<a href="/john/17-6.htm" title="I have manifested your name to the men which you gave me out of the world: your they were, and you gave them me; and they have kept your word.">John 17:6</a>; <a href="/john/17-12.htm" title="While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name: those that you gave me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.">John 17:12</a>), as being alike servants and children of God, called to do His will.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/8-19.htm">Isaiah 8:19</a></div><div class="verse">And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead?</div>(19) <span class= "bld">And when they shall say unto you . . .</span>—This then was the temptation to which the disciples of Isaiah were exposed, and to which they were all but yielding. Why should not they do as others did, and consult the soothsayers, who were in such great demand (<a href="/isaiah/2-6.htm" title="Therefore you have forsaken your people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers.">Isaiah 2:6</a>), as to the anxious secrets of the coming years. The words point to some of the many forms of such soothsaying (<a href="/deuteronomy/18-10.htm" title="There shall not be found among you any one that makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that uses divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch.">Deuteronomy 18:10</a>). The “familiar spirit” (the English term being a happy paraphrase rather than a translation), is closely connected, as in the case of the witch of Endor (<a href="/context/1_samuel/28-1.htm" title="And it came to pass in those days, that the Philistines gathered their armies together for warfare, to fight with Israel. And Achish said to David, Know you assuredly, that you shall go out with me to battle, you and your men.">1Samuel 28:1-20</a>), with the idea of necromancy, i.e., with the claim to have a demon or spirit of divination (<a href="/acts/16-16.htm" title="And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying:">Acts 16:16</a>), on the part of the wizards (comp. Hom. <span class= "ital">Il. </span>xxiii. 10; Virg. <span class= "ital">Ӕn</span>., vi. 492) that “peep” (old English for “pipe,” “chirp,” “whisper”) “and mutter.” This peculiar intonation, thrilling each nerve with a sense of expectant awe, seems to have been characteristic of the soothsayers of Isaiah’s time (<a href="/isaiah/29-4.htm" title="And you shall be brought down, and shall speak out of the ground, and your speech shall be low out of the dust, and your voice shall be, as of one that has a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and your speech shall whisper out of the dust.">Isaiah 29:4</a>).<p><span class= "bld">Should not a people seek unto their God? . . .</span>—That, the prophet says, is the only true pathway to such knowledge as is good for man. The latter part of the question is abruptly elliptical: <span class= "ital">Are men to seek on behalf of the living to the dead? </span>What ground, he seems to ask, have we for thinking that the spirits of the dead can be recalled to earth, or, if that were possible, that they know more than the living do? May it not even be that they know less? The prophet views the state of the departed as Hezekiah views it (<a href="/isaiah/38-18.htm" title="For the grave cannot praise you, death can not celebrate you: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for your truth.">Isaiah 38:18</a>), as one, not of annihilation, but of dormant or weakened powers.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/8-20.htm">Isaiah 8:20</a></div><div class="verse">To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, <i>it is</i> because <i>there is</i> no light in them.</div>(20) <span class= "bld">To the law and to the testimony</span>.—The words are only remotely and by analogy an exhortation to the study of Scripture in general, or even to that of the Law of Moses in particular. “The law and the testimony” are obviously here, as in <a href="/isaiah/8-16.htm" title="Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples.">Isaiah 8:16</a>, the “word of Jehovah,” spoken to the prophet himself, the revelation which had come to him with such an intensity of power.<p><span class= "bld">If they speak not according to this word . . .</span>—The personal pronoun refers to the people of <a href="/isaiah/8-19.htm" title="And when they shall say to you, Seek to them that have familiar spirits, and to wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek to their God? for the living to the dead?">Isaiah 8:19</a> who were hunting after soothsayers. The second clause should be rendered, <span class= "ital">for them there is no light of morning. </span>The light here is that of hope rather than of knowledge. No morning dawn should shine on those who haunted the caves and darkened rooms of the diviners, the <span class= "ital">séances </span>of the spiritualists of Jerusalem. The verse admits, however, of a different construction. As the Hebrew idiom, “If they shall <span class= "bld">. . .</span>” stands, as in <a href="/psalms/95-11.htm" title="To whom I swore in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.">Psalm 95:11</a>; <a href="/hebrews/4-3.htm" title="For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.">Hebrews 4:3</a>; <a href="/hebrews/4-5.htm" title="And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest.">Hebrews 4:5</a>, for the strongest form of negative prediction, so “if they shall not <span class= "bld">. . .</span>” may stand here for the strongest form of positive. So taken the verse would read, <span class= "ital">Surely they will speak according to this word. </span>(<span class= "ital">i.e., </span>will have recourse to the true Revelation) <span class= "ital">when there is no morning-dawn for them, </span>when they look above and around, and see nothing but darkness.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/8-21.htm">Isaiah 8:21</a></div><div class="verse">And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward.</div>(21) <span class= "bld">And they shall pass through it . . .</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e., </span>through the land over which hangs the sunless gloom. The abruptness with which the verse opens, the absence of any noun to which the pronoun “it” may refer, has led some critics (Cheyne) to transpose the two verses. So arranged, the thought of the people for whom there is no dawning passes naturally into the picture of their groping in that thick darkness. and then the misery of that midnight wandering is aggravated by the horrors of starvation. The words may point to the horrors of a literal famine (<a href="/isaiah/2-11.htm" title="The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.">Isaiah 2:11</a>); but as the darkness is clearly figurative, so probably is the hunger—not a famine of bread, but of hearing the word of the Lord. The Authorised version rightly translates the indefinite singular by the plural.<p><span class= "bld">When they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves.</span>—The faithful who waited for the Lord might bear even that darkness and that hunger, as soldiers bear their night-march fasting before the battle. Not so with the panic-stricken and superstitious crowd. With them despair would show itself in curses. (Comp. <a href="/revelation/16-11.htm" title="And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.">Revelation 16:11</a>; <a href="/revelation/16-21.htm" title="And there fell on men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.">Revelation 16:21</a>.) They would curse at once the king who had led them to destruction, and the God whom they had neglected. Possibly the words may mean, “the king who is also their God,” as in <a href="/amos/5-26.htm" title="But you have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which you made to yourselves.">Amos 5:26</a> (Heb.) and <a href="/zephaniah/1-5.htm" title="And them that worship the host of heaven on the housetops; and them that worship and that swear by the LORD, and that swear by Malcham;">Zephaniah 1:5</a>; but the analogy of <a href="/1_kings/21-13.htm" title="And there came in two men, children of Belial, and sat before him: and the men of Belial witnessed against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, Naboth did blaspheme God and the king. Then they carried him forth out of the city, and stoned him with stones, that he died.">1Kings 21:13</a> is in favour of the more literal meaning. The “upward” look is, we must remember, that of despair and defiance, not of hope. Upwards, downwards, behind, before, there is nothing for them but the darkness in which they are driven, or drifting onward. All seems utterly hopeless. Like Dante, they find themselves in a land “where silent is the sun.”<p> <div id="botbox"><div class="padbot"><div align="center">Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers<br /><br />Text Courtesy of <a href="//biblesupport.com" target="_top">BibleSupport.com</a>. 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