8Then Yahweh said to me, “Take yourself a large tablet and write on it with a common stylus pen: Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. ²And I will require reliable witnesses as a witness for me: Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberekiah.” ³And I approached the prophetess, and she conceived, and she gave birth to a son. And Yahweh said to me, “Call his name Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. ⁴For before the boy knows to call ‘my father’ and ‘my mother,’ one will carry away the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria in the presence of the king of Assyria.”

Shiloah Waters and Euphrates Flood

⁵And Yahweh continued to speak to me again, saying,

⁶“Because this people has refused the gently flowing waters of Shiloah and rejoices over Rezin and the son of Remaliah, ⁷therefore look! The Lord is bringing up the waters of the great and mighty river against them, the king of Assyria and all his glory.

And he will rise above all his channels,

and he will flow over all his banks.

⁸And he will sweep into Judah;

he will overflow and he will flood up to the neck.

He will reach, and he will spread his wings out over your entire land,^a God with us.”

⁹Be broken, you peoples, and be dismayed.

And listen, all distant parts of the earth;

gird yourselves and be dismayed;

gird yourselves and be dismayed!

¹⁰Make a plan,^b but it will be frustrated!

Speak a word, but it will not stand,

for God is with us!

Wait for Yahweh

¹¹For Yahweh said this to me while his hand weighed heavily on me,^c

and he warned me not to walk^d in the way of this people, saying,

¹²“You must not call conspiracy everything that this people calls conspiracy,

and you must not share its fear,^e and you must not be in dread.

¹³You shall regard Yahweh of hosts as holy,

and he is your^f fear, and he is your dread.

¹⁴And he will become like a sanctuary and a stumbling-stone,

and like a stumbling-rock for the two houses of Israel,

like a trap and a snare for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

¹⁵And many shall stumble among them,

and they shall fall and they shall be broken,

and they shall be ensnared and they shall be caught.”

¹⁶Bind up the testimony;

seal the teaching among my disciples.

¹⁷And I will wait for Yahweh,

who hides his face from the house of Jacob,

and I will await him.

¹⁸Look! I and the children whom Yahweh has given to me are like signs and portents in Israel from Yahweh of hosts, the one who dwells on the mountain of Zion. ¹⁹Now if they tell you, “Consult the ghosts and the spirits, those who chirp and those who mutter. Should not a people consult its gods, the dead on behalf of the living, ²⁰for teaching and for testimony?” surely they who speak like this have no dawn.^g

²¹And it^h will pass through itⁱ distressed and hungry, and this shall happen: when it is hungry, it will be enraged, and it will curse its king and its gods,^j and it will face upward ²²or look to the earth. But look! Distress and darkness, the gloom of affliction! And it will be thrust into darkness!

New Light: The Birth of a King

9^a But there will be no gloom for those who were in distress.^b

In former times he^c treated the land of Zebulun and Naphtali with contempt, but in the future he will honor the way of the sea beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

²The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;

light has shined on those who lived in a land of darkness.

³You have made the nation numerous;

you have not^d made the joy great.

They rejoice in your presence as with joy at the harvest,

as they rejoice when they divide plunder.

⁴For you have shattered the yoke of its burden

and the stick of its shoulder,

the rod of its oppressor, on^e the day of Midian.

⁵For every boot that marches and shakes the earth^f

and garment rolled in blood

will^g be for burning—fire fuel.

⁶For a child has been born for us;

a son has been given to us.

And the dominion will be on his shoulder,

and his name is called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

⁷His dominion will grow continually,

and to peace there will be no end^h

onⁱ the throne of David and over^j his kingdom,

to establish it^k and sustain it

with justice and righteousness

now and forever.

The zeal of Yahweh of hosts will do this.

Yahweh’s Anger against Arrogance

⁸The Lord has sent out a word against Jacob,

and it fell on Israel.

⁹And all of the people knew it,

Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria

in pride and arrogance of heart, saying,

¹⁰“The bricks have fallen, but we will build with dressed stone.

The sycamore-fig trees were felled, but we will replace them with cedars.”

¹¹So Yahweh strengthened the adversaries of Rezin^l against him,

and he provoked his enemies—

¹²Aram from the east

and Philistines^m from the west—

and they devoured Israel with the whole mouth.

He has not turned away his anger in all of this,

and his hand is still stretched out.

¹³And the people did not turn to the one who struck it,ⁿ

and they did not seek Yahweh of hosts.

¹⁴So Yahweh cut off head and tail from Israel,

palm branch and reed in one day.

¹⁵Elders^o and the respectable^p are the head,

and prophets^q who teach lies^r are the tail.

¹⁶And the leaders of this people were misleading them,

and those who were led were confused.

¹⁷Therefore the Lord did not rejoice over its young men,

and he did not have compassion on its orphans and widows,

for everyone was godless and an evildoer,

and every mouth was speaking folly.

In all of this his anger did not turn away,

and still his hand is stretched out.

¹⁸For wickedness burned like fire;

it consumed brier and thorn.

And it kindled the thickets of the forest,

and they swirled upward in a column of smoke.

¹⁹The land was burned through the wrath of Yahweh of hosts,

and the people became like fire fuel.

People had no compassion toward each other.^s

²⁰They devoured on the right but still were hungry

and devoured on the left but they were not satisfied.

Each one devoured the flesh of his arm,

²¹Manasseh devoured Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasseh;

together they were against Judah.

In all of this his anger has not turned away,

and still his hand is stretched out.

Woes on the Wicked

10Ah! Those who decree decrees of evil,

and writers who have written harm,

²to guide the needy away from legal claims,^a

and to rob the justice from the poor of my people,

to make widows their spoil;

and they plunder orphans.

³And what will you do at the day of punishment,

and at calamity? It comes from afar!

To whom will you flee for help,

and where will you leave your wealth,

⁴save that they bow down under the prisoners

and fall under the slain?^b

In all of this his anger has not turned away,

and still his hand is stretched out.

Judgment on Assyria’s Arrogance

⁵Ah! Assyria, the rod of my anger,

and a staff is in their hand: my wrath!

⁶I send him against a godless nation,

and I command him against the people of my wrath,

to capture spoil

and to carry off plunder,

and to make them^c a trampling place,

like the clay of the streets.

⁷But he does not think this,^d

and his heart does not plan this.

For it is in his heart to destroy

and to cut off not a few nations.

⁸For he says, “Are not my commanders altogether kings?

⁹Is not Calno like Carchemish?

Is not Hamath like Arpad?

Is not Samaria like Damascus?

¹⁰As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols^e

—and their images were greater than those of^f Jerusalem and Samaria—

¹¹shall I not do to Jerusalem and its idols

what I have done to Samaria and her idols?”

¹²And this shall happen: when the Lord has finished all his work against Mount Zion^g and Jerusalem, “I will punish the arrogance^h of the king of Assyria and his haughtiness.”ⁱ

¹³For he says,

“I have done it by the strength of my hand

and by my wisdom, for I have understanding,

and I have removed the boundaries of peoples,

and I have plundered their stores,

and like a bull I have brought down the inhabitants.^j

¹⁴And my hand has found, like a nest, the wealth of the peoples,

and like the gathering of forsaken eggs, I myself have gathered all the earth.

And there was no fluttering wing or open mouth or chirp.”

¹⁵Does the ax boast against the one who cuts with it,

or the saw magnify itself against the one who moves it to and fro?

As if a rod should move the one who lifts it!^k

As if a staff should lift up that which is not wood!^l

¹⁶Therefore the Lord, Yahweh of hosts, will send leanness among his sturdy warriors,

and a burning like the burning of fire will burn under his glory.

¹⁷And the light of Israel will become like a fire,

and his holy one like a flame,

and it will burn and devour his thorns^m and briersⁿ in one day.

¹⁸And he will destroy the glory of his forest and orchard completely,^o

and it will be like the wasting away of one who is sick.

¹⁹And the rest of the trees^p of his forest will be a small number,

and a boy can write them down.

The Return of the Remnant

²⁰And this shall happen: on that day, the remnant of Israel and the survivors^q of the house of Jacob will not continue to lean on the one who struck it

but will lean on Yahweh, the holy one of Israel, in truth.

²¹A remnant will return—

the remnant of Jacob—to the mighty God.

²²For though your people Israel was like the sand of the sea,

only a remnant of it will return.

Annihilation is determined,

overflowing with righteousness.

²³For the Lord Yahweh of hosts is about to make a complete destruction

and a determined end in the midst of all the earth.

²⁴Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh of hosts:

“My people who live in Zion,

you must not be afraid of Assyria.

It beats you with the rod,

and it lifts up its staff against you as the Egyptians did.^r

²⁵My indignation will come to an end in just a very little while,^s

and my anger will be directed to their destruction.”

²⁶And Yahweh of hosts is going to swing a whip against him,

as when Midian was defeated at the rock of Oreb;

and his staff will be over the sea,

and he will lift him up as he did in Egypt.^t

²⁷And this shall happen: on that day,

he will remove his…

Read in Logos

This passage has been shortened. Keep reading Isaiah 8–10 in Logos

Footnotes

aLiterally “the outspreading of his wings will be the fullness of the breadth of your land”
bLiterally “Plan counsel”
cLiterally “with the strength of the hand”
dLiterally “instructed me from walking”
eLiterally “fear its fear”
fThe Hebrew is plural
gLiterally “if not, they say like this word that there is no dawn for him,” which could also mean “if not, let them say a word like this: that there is no dawn for him”
hThat is, the nation
iThat is, the land
jOr “God”
a Isaiah 9:1–21 in the English Bible is 8:23–9:20 in the Hebrew Bible
bLiterally “Indeed there is no gloom for the one to whom there was anxiety for her”
cThat is, Yahweh
dThe written text (Kethib) is “not,” but the reading tradition (Qere) is “for it”
eHebrew “like”; the Hebrew letters for “like” and “on” look alike
fLiterally “marching with shaking,” which might mean “marching is with shaking”
gLiterally “and it will”
hLiterally “There is no end to the increase of the dominion and to peace”
iOr “for”
jOr “for”
kThat is, the kingdom
lOr “his adversaries” if a copyist added “of Rezin” in error
mHebrew “Philistine”
nThat is, the people
oHebrew “Elder”
pLiterally “one lifted up of face”
qHebrew “prophet”
rHebrew “lie”
sLiterally “A man does not have compassion toward his brother”
aHebrew “claim”
bLiterally “except he will bow down under a prisoner and under slain they will fall”; “under” could also mean “in the place of”
cHebrew “him”
dOr “so”
eHebrew “idol”
fLiterally “from”
gLiterally “the mountain of Zion”
hLiterally “fruit of the greatness of the heart”
iLiterally “the pride of the height of his eyes”
jOr, “those sitting,” that is, rulers sitting on thrones
kLiterally “As a rod waving even the one who lifts it up”
lLiterally “As a staff lifting up not wood”
mHebrew “thorn”
nHebrew “brier”
oLiterally “from soul and to body”
pHebrew “tree”
qHebrew “survivor”
rLiterally “in the way of Egypt”
sLiterally “for still a little a trifle”
tLiterally “in the way of Egypt”