1. And it happened. As the text moves into narrative, it shifts from poetry to prose.

Rezin king of Aram with Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel went up to Jerusalem to do battle against it. The northern kingdom of Israel entered into an alliance with Aram to oppose Assyria, which was conducting a campaign (734–732 B.C.E.) in trans-Jordan, the eastern Galilee, and along the Mediterranean coast. Their purpose in attacking Ahaz was to force him to join their alliance.

but he was not able to do battle against it. The obvious sense is that the invading forces were unable to secure a decisive victory.

2. made its heart . . . sway. That is, struck terror in their hearts.

3. Shear-Jashub. Like other prophetic progeny, Isaiah’s son has a symbolic name: it means “a remnant shall come back.”

4. the blazing wrath. The Hebrew ḥori-ʾaf is a term for anger that suggests burning and thus picks up the image of the smoking firebrands.

6. son of Tabeel as king. This would clearly be a puppet king. His patronymic suggests that he was probably an Aramean.

7. Thus said Master, the LORD. As one would expect in a move to formal prophecy, the language now switches from prose to poetry.

8. And in another sixty-five years / Ephraim as a people shall be smashed. This prophecy of the destruction of the northern kingdom, which occurred in 721 B.C.E., looks very much like a later interpellation, invited by the momentum of the prophecy of the interruption of the reign of Rezin and of Pekah. The sixty-five-year span is nevertheless puzzling because this prophecy would have been enunciated perhaps a dozen years before Assyria overwhelmed the northern kingdom.

9. If you trust not, / you shall not hold firm. This cryptic declaration (the Hebrew involves wordplay) is a little enigmatic, though it probably means that if Ahaz does not trust Isaiah and hold out against Rezin and Pekah, he will come to a bad end.

13. Isaiah said. The Hebrew merely says “he said.” The name has been substituted in order to avoid confusion.

to weary. The Hebrew verb sometimes means this, though it also means “to incapacitate,” which is not appropriate in this context. The development of the dialogue appears to be as follows: Isaiah invites Ahaz to ask for a sign, however extravagant (verse 11); Ahaz is afraid to put God to the test (verse 12); Isaiah answers that Ahaz is exasperating God by his unwillingness to ask for a sign (verse 13); Isaiah further says that Ahaz will get a sign whether he likes it or not (verse 14).

14. the young woman. Although this verse generated many centuries of Christological readings emphasizing the virgin birth, the Hebrew ʿalmah does not mean “virgin,” but rather “young woman,” and in Proverbs the ʿalmah is represented engaged in sex. The “sign” here is the name she gives the child, which means “God is with us.” Nevertheless, the identity of the young woman is unclear and has been much debated. She might be the prophet’s wife because there is precedent for prophets begetting symbolic sons, or she might be a woman in the house of David.

15. Curds and honey he shall eat. From infancy, the child will be raised in sumptuous abundance, which, however, will be interrupted by the disaster that will sweep over the land.

17. the king of Assyria. This specification at the end of the sentence is syntactically awkward and may have been added as an explanatory gloss. In any case, the prophecy of an Assyrian onslaught that is an unprecedented disaster for the nation much better suits Sennacherib’s campaign against Judah in 701 B.C.E. than the events of 734–732 B.C.E. with which this segment began.

18. the flies / that are on the edge of Egypt’s rivers / and to the bees that are in the land of Assyria. The swarms of insects—perhaps killer bees in the case of Assyria—are metaphors for the invading armies. There were moments of Egyptian alliance with Assyria, but not in 701 B.C.E.

20. with the king of Assyria. This translation construes the king as the “hired razor” God uses to wreak destruction.

the head and the pubic hair / and the beard. “Pubic hair” is literally “hair of the legs,” but in this case “legs” does appear to be a euphemism for the genitals. Shaving of the head, beard, and pubic area is a way of humiliating prisoners, but here it also serves as a metaphor for destruction that is brutal and shaming but not total.

22. for all who are left in midst of the land / shall eat curds and honey. This sounds as though they are enjoying plenty, like the child Immanuel, but given the dire content of the three verses that follow, it probably means, in what may be an ironic twist, that they will live off the produce of their remaining livestock and what honey they can gather but will be unable to grow crops.

24. With bow and arrow one would come there. Vineyards will turn to brambles, and wild beasts will roam there—hence the need for bow and arrow.

25. there the fear of thornbush and thistle shall not come. Though some understand this to mean “you shall not come because of the fear of thornbush and thistle,” the Hebrew lacks any proposition that could be construed as “because of.” The more likely sense would be: unlike the flatlands, which will be covered with thornbushes and thistles, the mountain slopes, while not amenable to cultivation, will provide pasture for free-roaming cattle.