and Rezin king of Syria but a smoke; (and such are all the enemies of God's church, smoking flax, that will soon be quenched;) nay, they are but tails of smoking firebrands, in a manner burnt out already; their force is spent, they have consumed themselves with the heat of their own anger, you may put your foot on them, and tread them out." The two kingdoms of Syria and Israel were now near expiring. Note, The more we have an eye to God as a consuming Fire, the less reason we shall have to fear men, though they are ever so furious, nay, we shall be able to despise them as smoking firebrands.
(3.) He must assure them that the present design of these high allies (so they thought themselves) against Jerusalem, should certainly be defeated, and come to nothing, v. 5—7.
[1.] That very thing which Ahaz thought most formidable, is made the ground of their defeat—and that was the depth of their designs and the height of their hopes; "Therefore they shall be baffled and sent back with shame, because they have taken evil counsel against thee, which is an offence to God; these firebrands are a smoke in his nose, (ch. lxv. 5.) and therefore must be extinguished." First, They are very spiteful and malicious, and therefore they shall not prosper. Judah had done them no wrong, they had no pretence to quarrel with Ahaz; but, without any reason, Let us go up against Judah, and vex it. Note, Those that are vexatious, cannot expect to be prosperous; they say, Those that love to do mischief, cannot expect to do well. Secondly, They are very secure, and confident of success; they will vex Judah by going up against it; yet that is not all, they do not doubt but to make a breach in the wall of Jerusalem, wide enough for them to march their army in at; or they count upon dissecting or dividing the kingdom into two parts, one for the king of Israel, the other for the king of Syria, who had agreed in one viceroy; a king to be set in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal; some obscure person; it is uncertain whether a Syrian or an Israelite: so sure were they of gaining their point, that they divided the prey before they had caught it. Note, Those that are most scornful, are commonly less successful, for surely God scorns the scorners.
[2.] God himself gives them his word that the attempt should not take effect; (v. 7.) Thus saith the Lord God, the sovereign Lord of all, who brings the counsel of the heathen to nought, Ps. xxxiii. 10. He saith, "It shall not stand, neither shall come to pass: their measures shall all be broken, and they shall not be able to bring to pass their enterprise." Note, whatever stands against God, or thinks to stand without him, cannot stand long. Man purposes, but God disposes; and who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, if the Lord command it not, or countermand it? Lam. iii. 37. See Prov. xix. 21.
(4.) He must give them a prospect of the destruction of these enemies, at last, that were now such a terror to them. [1.] They should neither of them enlarge their dominions, nor push their conquests any further. The head city of Syria is Damascus, and the head man of Damascus is Rezin; this he glories in, and this let him be content with, v. 8. The head city of Ephraim has long been Samaria, and the head man in Samaria is now Pekah the son of Remaliah; these shall be made to know their own, their bounds are fixed, and they shall not pass them, to make themselves masters of the cities of Judah, much less to make Jerusalem their prey. Note, As God has appointed men the bounds of their habitation, (Acts xvii. 26.) so he has appointed princes the bounds of their dominion, within which they ought to confine themselves, and not encroach upon their neighbours' rights. (2.) Ephraim, which perhaps was the more malicious and forward enemy of the two, should shortly be quite rooted out, and should be so far from seizing other people's lands, that they should not be able to hold their own. Interpreters are much at a loss how to contemplate the sixty-five years within which Ephraim shall cease to be a people; for the captivity of the ten tribes was but eleven years after this; and some make it a mistake of the transcriber, and think it should be read, within six and five years, just eleven. But it is hard to allow that. Others make it to be sixty-five years from the time that the prophet Amos first foretold the ruin of the kingdom of the ten tribes: and some late interpreters make it to look as far forward as the last desolation of that country by Esarhaddon, which was about sixty-five years after this; then Ephraim was so broken, that it was no more a people. Now it was the greatest folly in the world for them to be ruining their neighbours, who were themselves marked for ruin, and so near to it. See what a prophet told them at this time, when they were triumphing over Judah, (2 Chron. xxviii. 10.) Are there not with you, even with you, sins against the Lord your God?
(5.) He must urge them to mix faith with those assurances which he had given them; (v. 9.) "If ye will not believe what is said to you, surely ye shall not be established; your shaken and disordered state shall not be established, your unquiet unsettled spirit shall not; though the things told you are very encouraging, yet they will not be so to you, unless you believe them, and be willing to take God's word." Note, The grace of faith is absolutely necessary to the quieting and composing of the mind in the midst of all the tosses of this present time, 2 Chron. xx. 20.
10. Moreover, the Lord spake again unto Ahaz, saying, 11. Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God: ask it either in the depth, or in the height above. 12. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord. 13. And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also? 14. Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a Virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. 15. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good: 16. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.
Here,
I. God, by the prophet, makes a gracious offer to Ahaz, to confirm the foregoing predictions, and his faith in them, by such sign or miracle as he should choose; (v. 10, 11.) Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God. See here the divine faithfulness and veracity; God tells us nothing but what he is able and ready to prove. See his wonderful condescension to the children of men, in that he is so willing to show to the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, Heb. vi. 17. He considers our frame, and that, living in a world of sense, we are apt to require sensible proofs, which therefore he has favoured us with in sacramental signs and seals. Ahaz was a bad man, yet God is called the Lord his God, because he was a child of Abraham and David, and of the covenants made with them. See
