Isaiah 8:18

8:18 Look, I and the sons whom the Lord has given me ¹  are reminders and object lessons ²  in Israel, sent from the Lord who commands armies, who lives on Mount Zion.

Isaiah 20:3

20:3 Later the Lord explained, “In the same way that my servant Isaiah has walked around in undergarments and barefoot for the past three years, as an object lesson and omen pertaining to Egypt and Cush,

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

[8:18]  ² 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.