Biblion Bible Commentary
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The Day Yahweh Brings the King of Assyria
Isaiah 7:17-25
17 Yahweh will bring on you, on your people, and on your father’s house days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah, even the king of Assyria. · WEB
The ally Ahaz hired arrives, and the razor he paid for shaves the country he was protecting.
Yahweh will bring on you, on your people, and on your father's house days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah, even the king of Assyria Isaiah 7:17.
The worst days since the kingdom split two centuries earlier, and the last four words name their cause. The Assyrian is not an enemy Judah failed to keep out. He is the ally Ahaz sent for.
Yahweh will whistle for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria Isaiah 7:18.
The two great powers are summoned like insects, with a whistle — the noise a beekeeper makes. And the choice of creatures is deliberate: a fly is filthy and everywhere, a bee stings and comes in swarms. Neither is impressive and neither can be kept out of a house.
They shall come, and shall all rest in the desolate valleys, in the clefts of the rocks, on all thorn hedges Isaiah 7:19.
The picture is of insects settling over an entire landscape, into every crack. Occupation described as infestation.
In that day the Lord will shave with a razor that is hired in the parts beyond the River, even with the king of Assyria, the head and the hair of the feet; and it shall also consume the beard Isaiah 7:20.
The sharpest image in the chapter, and its force is in one word. The razor is hired — Ahaz paid for it, out of the temple treasury 2 Kings 16:8 — and God takes the instrument the king bought and uses it on him.
Shaving a man's head and beard was the standard humiliation of a prisoner of war. Doing it with his own purchase is the chapter's judgment on foreign policy conducted by cheque.
It shall happen in that day that a man shall keep alive a young cow, and two sheep Isaiah 7:21.
The economy after the invasion, measured in livestock. Not a herd — one cow and two sheep, which is what is left when an army has passed through.
He shall eat butter, for everyone will eat butter and honey that is left within the land Isaiah 7:22.
Curds and honey sound like abundance and are the opposite. They are what a country produces when nobody is farming it: milk from the animals that survived, and honey from wild bees in the ruins. The same diet was attached to the child of the sign Isaiah 7:15, and it means the same thing in both places.
Every place where there were a thousand vines worth a thousand silver shekels, will be for briers and thorns Isaiah 7:23.
The premium vineyard of the fifth chapter, gone back to scrub, and the land is now hunted over rather than worked — people will go there with arrows and with bow Isaiah 7:24. Cultivated hillsides become grazing for whatever wanders onto them.
Every detail is the withdrawal of the vineyard's hedge Isaiah 5:5, carried out by the army the king invited.
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