Isaiah 7:11

7:11 “Ask for a confirming sign from the Lord your God. You can even ask for something miraculous.” ¹ 

Isaiah 28:29

28:29 This also comes from the Lord who commands armies,

who gives supernatural guidance and imparts great wisdom. ² 

Isaiah 7:8

7:8 For Syria’s leader is Damascus,

and the leader of Damascus is Rezin.

Within sixty-five years Ephraim will no longer exist as a nation. ³ 

Isaiah 8:18

8:18 Look, I and the sons whom the Lord has given me ⁴  are reminders and object lessons ⁵  in Israel, sent from the Lord who commands armies, who lives on Mount Zion.

Isaiah 29:6

29:6 Judgment will come from the Lord who commands armies, ⁶ 

accompanied by thunder, earthquake, and a loud noise,

by a strong gale, a windstorm, and a consuming flame of fire.

[7:11]  ¹ tn Heb “Make it as deep as Sheol or make it high upwards.” These words suggest that Ahaz can feel free to go beyond the bounds of ordinary human experience.

[28:29]  ² sn Verses 23-29 emphasize that God possesses great wisdom and has established a natural order. Evidence of this can be seen in the way farmers utilize divinely imparted wisdom to grow and harvest crops. God’s dealings with his people will exhibit this same kind of wisdom and order. Judgment will be accomplished according to a divinely ordered timetable and, while severe enough, will not be excessive. Judgment must come, just as planting inevitably follows plowing. God will, as it were, thresh his people, but he will not crush them to the point where they will be of no use to him.

[7:8]  ³ tn Heb “Ephraim will be too shattered to be a nation”; NIV “to be a people.”

[8:18]  ⁴ sn This refers to Shear-jashub (7:3) and Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz (8:1, 3).

[8:18]  ⁵ tn Or “signs and portents” (NAB, NRSV). The names of all three individuals has symbolic value. Isaiah’s name (which meant “the Lord delivers”) was a reminder that the Lord was the nation’s only source of protection; Shear-jashub’s name was meant, at least originally, to encourage Ahaz (see the note at 7:3), and Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz’s name was a guarantee that God would defeat Israel and Syria (see the note at 8:4). The word מוֹפֶת (mofet, “portent”) can often refer to some miraculous event, but in 20:3 it is used, along with its synonym אוֹת (’ot, “sign”) of Isaiah’s walking around half-naked as an object lesson of what would soon happen to the Egyptians.

[29:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “from the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts] there will be visitation.” The third feminine singular passive verb form תִּפָּקֵד (tippaqed, “she/it will be visited”) is used here in an impersonal sense. See GKC 459 §144.b.