God's Judgment Upon Ahaz and Judah (Isaiah 7:20-25).
God now declares certain judgment on Ahaz. Not only is his seed permanently rejected, but, having rejected the authority of Yahweh, he will now come under another authority, an authority that will strip Judah of its wealth and bring it to poverty, and will result in oppressors throughout the land.
Analysis.
a And it shall come about in that day that Yahweh will whistle (literally ‘hiss') 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, and they will come, and settle all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and on all thorns and on all pastures (Isaiah 7:18-19).
b In that day the Lord will shave with a razor which is hired, which is in the parts beyond the River, even with the king of Assyria, the head and the hair of the feet, and it will also consume the beard (Isaiah 7:20).
b And it will come about in that day that a man will keep alive a young cow and two sheep, and it will come about that for the abundance of milk that they will give he will eat curds, for curds and wild honey will everyone eat who is left in the midst of the land (Isaiah 7:21-22).
a And it will come about in that day that every place where there were a thousand vines at a thousand pieces of silver, shall even be for briars and for thorns. With arrows and with bow shall one come there, because all the land will be briars and thorns. And all the hills that were dug with the mattock, you shall not come there for fear of briars and thorns, but it shall be for the sending out of oxen and the treading of sheep (Isaiah 7:23-25).
Each paragraph commences with ‘in that day. In ‘a' the land is wholly occupied and its thorns are described, and in the parallel it is wholly desolate and its thorns are emphasised. In ‘b' it is shaved with Yahweh's razor, the king of Assyria and in the parallel is so shorn that minimum requirements are required in order to maintain its few inhabitants.
‘And it shall come about in that day that Yahweh will whistle (literally ‘hiss') 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, and they will come, and settle all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and on all thorns and on all pastures.'
The phrase ‘in that day' always refers to whatever day of Yahweh's judgment is in mind, sometimes near, sometimes far. Here it is the soon-coming consequences of what Ahaz has chosen to do that are in mind. Both Egypt and Assyria are going to be finally involved, for that is what Yahweh has decided to do. Judah will be just a pawn in the middle unable to do anything about either.
The picture is vivid (compare Isaiah 5:26 where the identity of the nations is not revealed). It begins with Yahweh signalling to the Egyptian fly. Egypt was noted for its flies, swarming when the Nile was flooded. The uttermost part of the rivers (including irrigation canals) covers the whole inhabited land. Like a fly it would buzz in and out of Judah's affairs in the future, always active, ever a nuisance, never reliable (e.g. Isaiah 18:1-7; Isaiah 30:1-5; Isaiah 31:1-3; Isaiah 36:6; 2 Kings 17:4).
And he would signal for the Assyrian bee. Bees were well known to proliferate in the Assyrian hills. It is possibly significant that flies cause a nuisance, but bees sting and take the nectar, and in swarms can kill. So the major impact would be from Assyria. And like fly and bee these two nations would move in and out and settle all over the land, in desolate valleys, in holes in the rocks, on thorns and pastures, just like the insects they were. Judah would never be rid of them and their nuisance. Thanks to Ahaz.
‘In that day the Lord will shave with a razor which is hired, which is in the parts beyond the River, even with the king of Assyria, the head and the hair of the feet, and it will also consume the beard.'
But it was the king of Assyria, from the parts beyond the Euphrates, that God would use like a hired razor to totally fleece them and humiliate them. And the payment for His hire would be the treasures of Judah. The consuming of the beard was a special insult. In Judah the beard was a sign of manliness and virility. A man whose beard was shaved off felt ashamed until it had grown again (2 Samuel 10:4-5). Whereas in the previous verse the judgment had been on the land, here it is on the people.
‘Shaving the hair of the feet' may be a euphemism for shaving the private parts, for to ‘cover the feet', was to relieve oneself (Judges 3:24; 1 Samuel 24:3), and ‘waters of the feet' meant urine (Isaiah 36:12). If so it was a double humiliation, both privy parts and beard.
There is here a reference to the fact that just as Ahaz had thought in terms of hiring the king of Assyria to rid him of his foes (2 Kings 16:8), so now Yahweh would hire the king of Assyria to shame and humiliate Ahaz and his people. The difference was that Ahaz had made a fool of himself, and had, by his act, subjected himself to bondage, when he could have been Yahweh's servant, while Yahweh was in complete control. The king of Assyria may become Ahaz's taskmaster, but he was only Yahweh's tool. Ahaz would suffer under the tool of Yahweh.
‘And it will come about in that day that a man will keep alive a young cow and two sheep, and it will come about that for the abundance of milk that they will give he will eat curds, for curds and wild honey will everyone eat who is left in the midst of the land.'
The picture is one of poverty and scarcity. Instead of many cattle and large flocks a man is only able to ‘keep alive' one young cow and two sheep alive. The milk that they will produce is minimal and he will keep the animals alive so as to provide a meagre diet of curds. The reference to ‘abundance' is ironic. The reader will recognise the kind of abundance that can be obtained from so few beasts. And all will be in the same situation. All will eat curds and wild honey.
The word translated ‘keep/save alive' is elsewhere used to denote the preservation of life in danger (Psalms 30:4), which emphasises here the difficulties that the man has in even preserving these. Hungry armies do not usually care too much if they leave the local population without food and necessities.
Alternately the thought might be that there will be so few people in the land that the equivalent of one cow and two sheep are enough, so that those who remain can be satisfied with their supply and some wild honey. But the following verses suggest shortage, and Assyria would empty the land of its leaders, not of its common people.
‘And it will come about in that day that every place where there were a thousand vines at a thousand pieces of silver, shall even be for briars and for thorns. With arrows and with bow shall one come there, because all the land will be briars and thorns. And all the hills that were dug with the mattock, you shall not come there for fear of briars and thorns, but it shall be for the sending out of oxen and the treading of sheep.'
All the places which were once prosperous, producing vines worth a silver piece each, will be wilderness. They will grow briars and thorns. So much so that the hunter will come into that wilderness with his bow and arrows to shoot the wild game, for it will not be recognisable as someone's land, because it is all briars and thorns (or the thought might have been of the need for defence against wild beasts). And the hills which were once prepared for seeding will be so no longer because the briars and thorns are so fearful. Instead they will be made available for oxen and sheep to graze there.
‘Dug with the mattock.' This has in mind the terraced land inaccessible to the plough, which has now simply become pasturage.
Note the threefold repetition of briars and thorns (compare Isaiah 5:6). The land has gone back completely to its primitive state. Man has fallen once again (compare Genesis 3:18-19). So the final picture is one of scarcity and shortage with the land turned into a wilderness, and the people struggling for survival and surviving on a basic diet. And all this will be the result of the failure of Ahaz, along with his people, to trust Yahweh.
If we do not respond to God's prompting when it comes clearly to us, we must not be surprised if our disobedience results in briars and thorns.