The People Must Now Make Their Choice Between the Occult and the Word of Yahweh (Isaiah 8:19-20).
It may be that like Saul before him (1 Samuel 28), Ahaz, recognising his rejection by Yahweh, had begun to seek to mediums and spirits. Or it may be that that was what some of his advisers were suggesting. When people do not like what God says to them they often turn to such alternatives, especially when they have no faith and do not know what to do. But whoever is in mind Isaiah's instruction is clear. Let them rather look to God's Law, and His testimony through the prophets, including his own.
Analysis.
a And when they shall say to you, “Seek to those who have familiar spirits, and the wizards, that chirp and mutter” (Isaiah 8:19 a).
b Should not a people seek to their God? Should we seek on behalf of the living to the dead? (Isaiah 8:19 b).
b To the Instruction (the Law) and to the testimony! (Isaiah 8:20 a).
a If they speak not according to this word, surely there is no morning (approach of light, dawning) for them (Isaiah 8:20 b).
Note that in ‘a' they are warned against seeking the occult, and in the parallel are warned that to do so is to enter darkness, without the hope of light. In ‘b' they should rather seek to their God, and in the parallel are to look to His Instruction and testimony.
‘And when they shall say to you, “Seek to those who have familiar spirits, and the wizards, that chirp and mutter”, should not a people seek to their God? Should we seek on behalf of the living to the dead? To the Instruction (the Law) and to the testimony! If they speak not according to this word, surely there is no morning (approach of light, dawning) for them.'
Isaiah now draws attention to where many of the leaders and the people are looking for guidance in their desperation, they are looking to mediums and to necromancers, to fortune-telling and spiritualism, and he urges his followers not to listen to those who encourage such things, but to turn to the only place where truth can be found, God's Instruction (Law) and His testimony through Isaiah and the prophets. He expresses the folly of seeking to the dead about the living. They see not neither do they know anything. How then can they advise the living?
Those who seek to familiar spirits, mediums and spiritists, are like the medium of Endor (1 Samuel 28:7-25), who sought to call up her familiar spirit only to be thwarted by God. Such doings are strictly condemned in God's Instruction (Law) for they are seen as defiling (Leviticus 19:31; Leviticus 20:6; Deuteronomy 18:11 compare 2 Kings 21:6; 2 Kings 23:24). Rather they are to look to God's prophets (Deuteronomy 18:15). It was because Saul had sinned grievously and was rejected that he had no word from a prophet (1 Samuel 28:6) and had to look to such sources. Such familiar spirits are therefore looked on as evil.
The wizards (necromancers), those possessed by spirits, who seek to the dead, who ‘chirp and mutter (moan)', are aptly described with their mutterings and strange sounds. But they seek to those who know nothing of the land of the living. They are condemned along with mediums in the above Biblical references.
All must be tested by God's Instruction as given in His written word, and by Isaiah's testimony which is in accordance with that word. If ‘they', those who seek to mediums and necromancers, do not speak in accordance with that word then it is because they have no light, there is for them no dawning. They have exchanged light for darkness.
Alternatively ‘no morning' might signify no future, no dawning of a new day. If they turn from God's word they have no future.