Biblion Bible Commentary
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Swift Is the Booty, Speedy Is the Prey
Isaiah 8:1-10
1 Yahweh said to me, “Take a large tablet, and write on it with a man’s pen, ‘For Maher Shalal Hash Baz’; · WEB
A prophet's son is named for a plunder that has not happened, and a gentle stream is refused in favor of a river.
Take a large tablet, and write on it with a man's pen, "For Maher Shalal Hash Baz" Isaiah 8:1.
A public notice, written large and in ordinary script so that anyone could read it, and the four words mean something like hurrying to the plunder, hastening to the spoil. Nobody would have known what it referred to.
And I will take for myself faithful witnesses to testify: Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah Isaiah 8:2.
The sign is notarized. Two named men of standing witness the writing, so that when the event arrives the date of the prediction cannot be disputed — and one of them is the priest who built Ahaz an Assyrian altar 2 Kings 16:11, which makes him a hostile witness.
I went to the prophetess, and she conceived, and bore a son Isaiah 8:3.
Only then is the tablet explained. The words are the child's name, and the deadline runs from his birth: before the child knows how to say, "My father" and "My mother," the riches of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried away by the king of Assyria Isaiah 8:4.
Two or three years. The two kings whose alliance had terrified Jerusalem would be stripped inside the time it takes an infant to speak.
Because this people has refused the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah's son Isaiah 8:6.
Shiloah is the channel that carried water from the Gihon spring into the city — the whole of Jerusalem's supply, and it moved quietly and slowly. It is the perfect figure for what the chapter is about: the unimpressive provision the city actually lived on.
Now therefore, behold, the Lord brings upon them the mighty flood waters of the River: the king of Assyria and all his glory. It will come up over all its channels, and go over all its banks Isaiah 8:7.
A people who found a quiet conduit inadequate are given the Euphrates. The judgment is that they get the scale they wanted.
It will sweep onward into Judah. It will overflow and pass through. It will reach even to the neck Isaiah 8:8.
Up to the neck, and no further. The Assyrian flood covers the country and stops short of drowning it, which is exactly what happened in 701 — every fortified city taken and the capital left standing.
The stretching out of its wings will fill the width of your land, O Immanuel.
The metaphor changes mid-sentence from a river to a bird of prey, and the verse is addressed to the child of the earlier sign. The land being covered is his.
Take counsel together, and it will be brought to nothing; speak the word, and it will not stand, for God is with us Isaiah 8:10.
The name is now translated rather than transliterated, and it closes the passage as a defiance. The same three words that were a sign to a frightened king are shouted at the nations planning against him.
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