Isaiah 7:10-15 - Hawker's Poor Man's Commentary

Reader! do not forget again, in the perusal of this most blessed scripture, to observe how the Lord takes occasion from man's unworthiness to magnify the riches of his grace. So, indeed, the Lord hath done from the beginning. The fall of Adam made way for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh! what wonders are found in the subject of redeeming grace! How blessed is it to see God's graciousness! The Lord had sent his servant, the prophet, on a message to Ahaz, to comfort him, notwithstanding his transgressions, in the prospect of his enemies coming up against his kingdom; and though it doth not appear, that it had any effect upon the mind of Ahaz; yet the Lord will speak to him again; and, if possible, in a yet more endearing manner, bids him ask a sign, which might become the proof of divine faithfulness. But the king is deaf to all entreaty. Alas! what creatures we are, when void of grace; how lost and insensible, even to the goodness and long-suffering of God! But though Ahaz slights the Lord, the Lord will not slight his people; the sign shall not be lost to the Church, for it is a most blessed one! And though the king despised it, there were, no doubt, many of God's hidden ones to whom it proved, as the Lord designed it, a gracious support against the rapidly approaching afflictions of the church. Since Ahaz will not ask a sign, Jehovah will give the house of David a sign unasked: yea, the Lord himself will give both the sign, and the blessing veiled under the sign, from his own free, unmerited, unsought for goodness. Behold then the astonishing sign! A virgin shall conceive, without the use of the natural means of propagation; a son shall be born, without the intervention of a human father; and this wonderful child shall be called by a name significant of his nature, as God and man in one person, even Immanuel! And though so distinguished from all others, yet in the common circumstances of life he shall be as others are; butter and honey shall he eat; that is, he should be subject to all the natural wants, and infirmities of manhood, sin only excepted. Now all these marks and characters were signs indeed, which when fulfilled in one and the same person, left no question remaining as to whom the prophecy referred: and as they never were, nor ever could be fulfilled in any other but the Lord Jesus Christ; how blessed is it to trace the love of God, thus watching over the church, and thus opening to the church's view the coming of her Lord, at an age so distant and remote, as that in which the prophet Isaiah lived. I only detain the Reader, to remark with me, the grace of God in the sweet discoveries made of Jesus, from age to age: how, by gradual means, from the first dawn of revelation, down to the very moment of Christ's coming, the Lord unfolded the wonders of his person and character, like the light of the morning, shining more and more unto a perfect day! To Adam it was said, that the Redeemer should be of the seed of the woman; to Abraham, of his house and family; to Jacob, the tribe of which he should spring; in the time of David, many of his offices, in his prophetical, priestly, and kingly character, were foretold; and now in the days of the prophets, other features were given: Isaiah in this place declares, that he should be born of a virgin; Micah is commissioned to tell the place of his birth; Daniel the time: and thus the Lord prepared the church, by little and little, to have clear conceptions both of his person and character, that every soul, might be on the look-out to hail and welcome. the coming Saviour!