Matthew Henry on Isaiah 7:1-9
The prophet Isaiah had his commission renewed in the year that king Uzziah died, Isa 6:1. Jotham his son reigned, and reigned well, sixteen years. All that time, no doubt, Isaiah prophesied as he was commanded, and yet we have not in this book any of his prophecies dated in the reign of Jotham; but this, which is put first, was in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham. Many excellent useful sermons he preached which were not published and left upon record; for, if all that was memorable had been written, the world could not have contained the books, Joh 21:25. Perhaps in the reign of Ahaz, a wicked king, he had not opportunity to preach so much at court as in Jotham's time, and therefore then h…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Isaiah 7:8
head--that is, in both Syria and Israel the capital shall remain as it is; they shall not conquer Judah, but each shall possess only his own dominions.
threescore and five . . . not a people--As these words break the symmetry of the parallelism in this verse, either they ought to be placed after "Remaliah's son," in Isa 7:9, or else they refer to some older prophecy of Isaiah, or of Amos (as the Jewish writers represent), parenthetically; to which, in Isa 7:8, the words, "If ye will not believe . . . not be established," correspond in parallelism. One deportation of Israel happened within one or two years from this time, under Tiglath-pileser (Kg2 15:29). Another in the reign of Hoshea, un…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Gill on Isaiah 7:8
For the head of Syria is Damascus,.... Damascus was the metropolis of Syria, the chief city in it, where the king had his palace, and kept his court; of which See Gill on Genesis 15:2, Acts 9:2,
and the head of Damascus is Rezin; he was king of it, as of all Syria; the meaning is, that Syria, of which Damascus was the principal city, was the only country that Rezin should govern, his dominion should not be enlarged; and Ahaz, king of Judah, might assure himself that Rezin should never possess his kingdom, or be able to depose him, and set up another; and as for Ephraim or Israel, the ten tribes, they should be so far from succeeding in such a design against him, that it should befall them a…
