Fourth Sunday of Advent 2025: Isaiah

Isaiah 7:10-16 

The sign of Immanuel 

7:10 Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, saying, 

7:11 "Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven." 

7:12 But Ahaz said, "I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test." 

7:13 Then Isaiah said, "Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals that you weary my God also? 

7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son and shall name him Immanuel. 

7:15 He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. 

7:16 For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.  

We should take the four selections together, this time. But I stop, already, with Isaiah’s expostulation to the king: “Is it too little to you to weary mortals that you weary my God also?” It echoes a common challenge from God that I want to say originates in the last chapter of Job, and becomes a trope among the major prophets as God calls Israel into “court” to hear their argument against God, and for God to put the argument to Israel. The “argument” being: who breached the covenant of Abraham? Israel? Or God? Except this time the prophet puts the question (a significant shift from God speaking through Isaiah as recently as three verses earlier)., and not to the children of Abraham, but to the House of David. In contemporary terms, the House of Windsor. The monarchy, not the people.

Technically, a distinction without a difference. The Fisher King is wounded, which makes his kingdom a waste land. The idea is that the state of the king and the state of the nation are one. I just want to be clear there is no nascent democratic analysis here. Isaiah isn’t relieving Israel of res; he is only placing some of the blame on the king. A king who has just played the humble inferior before God. Compare, if you like, the response of Mary to Gabriel in the Annunciation. First, she asks how she will bear a child if she is still a virgin. How ; not “how is that even possible?” Then, having heard what Gabriel has to say, she says she is a handmaid to the Lord. Ahaz, by comparison, clearly knows when to keep his eyes down. But the sincerity of his humility is, at best, questionable. So Isaiah upbraids him. To put the whole thing in context:

When Ahaz son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, was king of Judah, King Rezin of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel marched up to fight against Jerusalem, but they could not overpower it.

2 Now the house of David was told, “Aram has allied itself with[a] Ephraim”; so the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind.

3 Then the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out, you and your son Shear-Jashub, to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field. 4 Say to him, ‘Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood—because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah. 5 Aram, Ephraim and Remaliah’s son have plotted your ruin, saying, 6 “Let us invade Judah; let us tear it apart and divide it among ourselves, and make the son of Tabeel king over it.” 7 Yet this is what the Sovereign Lord says:

“‘It will not take place,
it will not happen,
8 for the head of Aram is Damascus,
and the head of Damascus is only Rezin.
Within sixty-five years
Ephraim will be too shattered to be a people.
9 The head of Ephraim is Samaria,
and the head of Samaria is only Remaliah’s son.
If you do not stand firm in your faith,
you will not stand at all.’”

9b is the key. Ahaz trembled, rather than stood firm in his faith. So Isaiah gives Ahaz a sign. It’s a continuation of the promise that Jerusalem will not fall to the two kingdoms. The child be named “God is with us” as a reminder God is with Judah. And before the child is mature, the two kingdoms will be abandoned.

And when will that happen? It isn’t exactly clear.

Matthew applies the words to Jesus. Which is so long after the time of Ahaz as to be cold comfort to him, indeed. Perhaps a warning about taking prophecy too literally. Perhaps all Isaiah meant was that God was still with Judah, and with God there is always hope.

Which could be what Matthew meant, too.