Isaiah 7:6

6 "Let us go up against Judah and let us tear her apart, {and let us lay it open and so bring it unto ourselves}, and let us install the son of Tabeel [as] king in her midst."

Isaiah 7:6 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 7:6

Let us go up against Judah, and vex it
By besieging or distressing it; or "stir it up" to war, as Jarchi interprets it: and let us make a breach therein for us;
in the walls of the city of Jerusalem, and enter in at it; the Targum is,

``let us join, and put it to us;''

and so Jarchi, let us level it with us, as this valley, which is even: the sense may be, let us make a breach and division among them, and then part the kingdom between us ^F3; or if we cannot agree on that, let us set up a king of our own, as follows: and set a king in the midst of it, [even] the son of Tabeal;
which Jarchi, by a situation of the alphabet the Jews call "albam", makes it to be the same with Remala, that is, Remaliah; and so supposes, that the intention was to set Pekah, son of Remaliah, king of Israel, over Judah; but it is not reasonable to think that the king of Syria should join in such a design; and besides, the method of interpretation, Aben Ezra says, is mere vanity; and whose sense of the words is much preferable, taking Tabeal to be the name of some great prince, either of Israel or of Syria; and so Kimchi thinks that he was a man of the children of Ephraim, whom they thought to make king in Jerusalem. The Targum understands not any particular person, but anyone that should be thought proper; and paraphrases it thus,

``let us appoint a king in the midst of it, who is right for us,''

or pleases us; the name seems to be Syriac, see ( Ezra 4:7 ) ( 1 Kings 15:18 ) . Dr. Lightfoot thinks it is the same with Tabrimmon, the name of some famous family in Syria. One signifies "good God": and the other "good Rimmon", which was the name of the idol of the Syrians, ( 2 Kings 5:18 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F3 So Noldius, Elr. Concord. Part. p. 62. renders its "let us divide it among us".

Isaiah 7:6 In-Context

4 And you must say to him, 'Take heed and be quiet! You must not fear, and your heart must not be faint because of these two stumps of smoldering firebrands, {because of the fierce anger of} Rezin and Aram and the son of Remaliah.

5 Because Aram has plotted evil against you [with] Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, saying,

6 "Let us go up against Judah and let us tear her apart, {and let us lay it open and so bring it unto ourselves}, and let us install the son of Tabeel [as] king in her midst."

7 Thus says the Lord Yahweh, "It shall not stand, and it shall not come to pass.

8 For the head of Aram [is] Damascus, and the head of Damascus [is] Rezin, and in sixty-five years from now Ephraim will be too shattered to be a people.

Footnotes

• [a] Literally "and let us break through her to us"