[1] In the first chapter of Hosea occurs a like instance of symbolic names given by a prophet to his children, and in Habakkuk ii. 2, we have mention of the practice of writing a prophecy on a tablet in easily legible characters, and hanging it up in the Temple, market-place, or other public resort. And most modern commentators prefer to think that Isaiah now merely inscribed “haste plunder, speed spoil,” in large letters on a metal or waxed tablet, the לִ which the Authorised Version translates “concerning,” being the Lamed inscription is, in Jerem. xlix. 1, 7, 23, 28; Ezek. xxxvii. 16; though it may be observed that the direction to “tie up and seal the testimony,” in ver. 16, is in favour of the older version, which understands him to have made a record of his expectation of the birth of the child, and of the significance of that birth, at some length. He wrote “with a man’s pen,” or “style,”—a phrase not unlike our “common hand” or “popular style;” and he took as credible witnesses that the record had preceded the event, Uriah the high priest at the time (2 Kings xvi. 10), and Zechariah, who was not improbably the father-in-law of Ahaz and a Levite (2 Kings xxviii. 2; 2 Chron. xxix. 1, 18). He calls his wife “the prophetess,” as the wife of a king is called a queen (says Vitringa), though she does not reign, and in some old ecclesiastical canons the wife of a bishop “episcopa,” and of a presbyter “presbytera;” and he thus claims for her a place with her husband and children (see ver. 18) in the holy and symbolic family, who are for “a sign in Israel.” She gave birth to a child, and his name was called, in accordance with the writing, “Haste-plunder, Speed-spoil,” that the people might understand that before he was old enough to utter the words “father” and “mother,”—that is, within a short but somewhat indefinite period such as we should express by “in a year or two from his birth,”—the spoils of the plundered cities of Samaria and Damascus, the capitals of the nations now invading Judah, shall have been carried before the Assyrian conqueror in triumph.
In order to realise the practical impressiveness of such symbolic acts and names upon Isaiah’s contemporaries, we must remember that Jerusalem was a very small town for size and population compared with the notion we insensibly get of a capital from our own vast London; and also that there was as little in the ways of thinking and living of that age and country as in the extent of the city to effect such a separation between a public man’s political and private life as exists in England. We respect the domestic reserve of our neighbours, and we fortify ourselves in the like reserve, by our habit of learning what they are doing that concerns us through the newspaper which we read by our own fireside. With no newspapers, and a climate which encouraged an out-of-door life, the people of Jerusalem would become as familiar with that personal demeanour of Isaiah in the market-place or elsewhere which he made a part of his public ministry, as we are with the mental habits and political conduct of Mr. Gladstone or Mr. Disraeli, though the greater part of us would recognise neither of them by sight, and still fewer know anything of their personal and private life.—Strachey.
[2] A great roll. Rather, a large tablet: of wood or metal, covered with a smooth surface of wax; which, when written upon, was hung up in public for all to read (cf. Jer. xxxii. 11, 14).—Kay.
[3] Faithful witnesses. Or, sure witnesses; whose testimony none would be able to gainsay: partly, because of their rank, but still more, it would seem, from their being adherents of Ahaz. For “Uriah the priest” can scarcely be any other than the one who made the Syrian altar after the description sent him from Damascus by Ahaz (2 Kings xvi. 10–16); thereby (as Mr. Birks notices) furnishing incontrovertible evidence of the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prediction. Zechariah may have been Ahaz’s own father-in-law (2 Chron. xxix. 1).—Kay.
[4] Isaiah’s interview with Ahaz (chap. vii.), the preparation of the tablet, the birth of Isaiah’s child, and the conquest of Syria and Israel by the Assyrians under Tiglath-pileser all took place within the year 743–739 b.c.
Alexander remarks on ver. 4:—“Samaria is here put for the kingdom, and not for the capital city. But even if the name be strictly understood, there is no reason to doubt that Samaria was plundered by Tiglath-pileser (2 Kings xv. 29), although not destroyed. . . . The carrying away of its wealth does not necessarily imply anything more than such a spoiling of the capital as might be expected in the course of a brief but successful invasion.”
[5] See Dr. Kennicott’s remarks on Shear-jashub in preceding paper: [The Virgin’s Son.]
The Stream Rejected for the River.
viii. 5–8. Forasmuch as this people refuseth, &c.
For “rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son,” read “rejoice concerning Rezin and Remaliah’s son,” i.e., rejoice in the disaster which had befallen the allied powers who had inflicted such disasters upon Judah, and had threatened it with utter destruction.