Isaiah 8:12

12 "You must not call conspiracy everything that this people calls conspiracy, and you must not {share its fear}, and you must not be in dread.

Isaiah 8:12 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 8:12

Say ye not, a confederacy
With the king of Assyria, or any other; do not cry it up as a right thing, and express pleasure and satisfaction in it, and encourage others to come into it, and vote for it, and declare an approbation of it; or a "rebellion", as the Targum, that is, against Ahaz; and so deliver up the kingdom of the house of David into the hands of its enemies: to all [them] to whom this people shall say, a confederacy:
who either were for entering into an alliance with the Assyrian monarch, and sending for him to help; or were for joining with their enemies, to the subversion of the present government. Jarchi interprets this of Shebna the Scribe, and his company; who, as he suggests, conspired against Hezekiah, and secretly made an agreement with Sennacherib king of Assyria; but the former sense is best: neither fear their fear, nor be afraid:
let not the same fear possess you as does them, on account of Syria and Israel combining together against Judah; nor be afraid of their two kings, as they were; since there was nothing to fear from them; it being impossible that the kingdom of Judah should fail until Shiloh came, or Immanuel was born of a virgin in it; nor does it become the people of God, and especially his prophets and ministers, to be afraid of men; since the fear of men brings a snare. See ( 1 Peter 3:14 ) .

Isaiah 8:12 In-Context

10 {Make a plan}, but it will be frustrated! Speak a word, but it will not stand, for God is with us!

11 For Yahweh said this to me {while his hand weighed heavily on me}, and he {warned me not to walk} in the way of this people, saying,

12 "You must not call conspiracy everything that this people calls conspiracy, and you must not {share its fear}, and you must not be in dread.

13 You shall regard Yahweh of hosts as holy, and he [is] your fear, and he [is] your dread.

14 And he will become like a sanctuary and a stumbling-stone, and like a stumbling-rock for the two houses of Israel, like a trap and a snare for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

Footnotes

• [a] Literally "fear its fear"