Isaiah 7:17

17 Jehovah bringeth on thee, and on thy people, And on the house of thy father, Days that have not come, Even from the day of the turning aside of Ephraim from Judah, By the king of Asshur.

Isaiah 7:17 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 7:17

The Lord shall bring upon thee
These words are directed to Ahaz; and show, that though he and his kingdom would be safe from the two kings that conspired against him, yet evils should come upon him from another quarter, even from the Assyrians he sent to for help, and in whom he trusted; in which the Lord himself would have a hand, and permit them in his providence, in order to chastise him for his unbelief, stubbornness, and ingratitude in refusing the sign offered him, and for his other sins; and the calamities threatened began in his time; and therefore it is said, "upon thee"; for Tilgathpilneser, king of Assyria, to whom he sent for help, instead of helping and strengthening him, distressed him, ( 2 Chronicles 28:20 2 Chronicles 28:21 ) : and upon thy people, and upon thy father's house;
so in the reign of his son Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, invaded the land of Judah, took all its fenced cities, excepting Jerusalem, and came up even to that, ( 2 Kings 18:13-17 ) and in the times of Zedekiah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came up against Jerusalem, and destroyed it, and carried the people of Judah captive, ( 2 Kings 25:1-21 ) and these are the evil days, the days of affliction and adversity, here threatened: days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from
Judah:
meaning the revolt of the ten tribes from the house of David, in the times of Rehoboam, ( 1 Kings 12:16-20 ) which was a day of great adversity, a great affliction to the house of Judah; and there had been several evil days since, and that very lately; as when the king of Syria came into the land, and carried away great multitudes captives to Damascus; and when Pekah, king of Israel, slew in Judah, on one day, a hundred and twenty thousand valiant men, and carried captive two hundred thousand women, sons and daughters, with a great spoil, ( 2 Chronicles 28:5-8 ) and yet these were not to be compared with the calamitous times yet to come: [even] the king of Assyria;
or "with the king of Assyria", as the Vulgate Latin version renders it; rather the meaning is, that those days of trouble should come by the king of Assyria ^F9, as they did. The Septuagint version renders it, "from the day that Ephraim took away from Judah the king of the Assyrians"; and the Syriac and Arabic versions, just the reverse, "from the day that the king of the Assyrians", or "Assyria, carried away Ephraim from Judea"; neither of them right.

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FOOTNOTES:

F9 (rwva Klm ta) "per regem Assyriae", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; and which is preferred by Noldius, Ebr. Concord. Part. p. 120, No. 616.

Isaiah 7:17 In-Context

15 Butter and honey he doth eat, When he knoweth to refuse evil, and to fix on good.

16 For before the youth doth know To refuse evil, and to fix on good, Forsaken is the land thou art vexed with, because of her two kings.

17 Jehovah bringeth on thee, and on thy people, And on the house of thy father, Days that have not come, Even from the day of the turning aside of Ephraim from Judah, By the king of Asshur.

18 And it hath come to pass, in that day, Jehovah doth hiss for a fly that [is] in the extremity of the brooks of Egypt, And for a bee that [is] in the land of Asshur.

19 And they have come, and rested all of them in the desolate valleys, And in holes of the rocks, and on all the thorns, And on all the commendable things.