40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Isaiah 6:8-7:9 (Episode 448)

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

Isaiah says he will go to the people for the Lord, and the message is hard. The King as his fear placed in the wrong person. And if you don't stand firm in faith, you won't stand at all. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: Bible in One Year with Chad Bird Broken Bonds: A Novel of the Reformation, Book 1 of 2 by Amy Mantravadi Junk Drawer Jesus By Matt Popovits More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. And while you're over there, make sure you check out everything else that 1517 is doing. All the things, all the articles, the other podcasts, videos, academies, events. I mean, all the things that we're doing. And if you want to support all those things, of course, you can click on the donate link and become a contributor. You can give a one-time gift, become a reoccurring supporter.

Thank you so much to those of you who do that. You keep us doing all this, and you keep it free for people all over the world to consume it. And so we are very appreciative of all that. We are in Isaiah chapter 6. Only made it through seven verses last episode, but Isaiah is giving you a little back story here. He's going to tell you how he came to be the one who was sent. Why you, Isaiah? He's saying, woe to me for this, and woe to this other guy for that.

And the judgment of the Lord is coming, and what makes you the person that speaks for God? And Isaiah says, well, let me tell you, I saw the Lord, and I was freaked out by it. And before I said, woe to you, I said, woe to me, because there I was, unclean lips and all, and I couldn't do anything, and then the Lord did what he does, which is forgave my sins, took away my iniquity, had my guilt all taken away. I was all atoned for, and that's kind of where we ended. Isaiah has been redeemed, as it were, in this situation, and we're going to start with Isaiah's next thing.

And then I heard God ask a question. Yeah. So we'll see if he's able to use that mouth now, right? Yeah. His mouth has been cleansed. He's a man of unclean lips, lived among all these folks with unclean lips. So at least his mouth is clean. And he becomes, as it were, an example of what the Lord can do, even with a person of unclean lips.

Well, God has his ways of taking care of that guilt and that uncleanness and that sin by means of atonement. He did that for Isaiah. He can do that for other people, too. The real question that faces us as we get ready to dive into these next few verses, especially verses 9 and 10, will be, do the people have ears to hear? Isaiah's lips are clean sin's been atoned for he's got the Lord's words to preach will there be anybody

who has ears to hear and hearts to understand and we're going to find out the answer to that question real quick so soon as the angel does his thing and speaks his words your sin's atoned for, your guilt's taken away

then Isaiah goes on in verse 8 to say this and I heard A lot of senses. He sees, he speaks, he feels, now he hears the voice of the Lord. And here's what he says. Whom shall I send and who will go for us? It's kind of a loaded question, especially given the fact that Isaiah is presumably alone when he hears these words. Hmm. Any ideas as to who we can send, who can go for us? and Isaiah raises his hand

and at this point you know it's not like he has a like he has a choice he says here am I send me I multiple times anytime I talk about this chapter joke

and say I wonder if after hearing the commissioning if Isaiah regretted if he'd have said well I know a guy that you could send it's this guy this you know he's really astute and the scriptures very pious i think he'd probably be open to this prophetic call let me uh let me get in contact with him you could send him he can go for you after reading uh the book of isaiah uh i do think that if i was in a situation

i might be tempted uh in this situation where god said hey um who am i gonna send who's gonna Who's going to go for us? What exactly are you going to have them do? Can we have more details? I mean, I might be down for it, but just what exactly does this job entail? Can I get a job description? Yeah. But Isaiah signs up, just says, hey, you just need someone to go?

I'll go. And God says, oh, it's not just about the going. It's about the saying. Anybody can go. But the hard part is going to be what I'm going to have you do with that mouth I just made clean. Isaiah is sort of the un-Moses. Moses comes up with a whole string of excuses. I can't do this.

What am I going to tell people? What signs are you going to give me? What about my brother Aaron? He's a lot more rhetorically skilled than I am. But Isaiah, maybe having known how Moses reacted, Isaiah's like, I'm not going to go down that road. I'm going to go ahead and just volunteer. So here I am, send me. And he said, okay, well, here's what I want you to go and say to this people.

Here's your mission statement, Isaiah. Keep on hearing, but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy and blind their eyes. and now we have the reverse order, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn and be healed. At this point, I'm thinking Isaiah is wondering, well, he goes on to say how long, but he's probably thinking, oh, this is not probably what I had envisioned as my mission statement. So yeah, there's so many things you

talk about here. Just on the surface, as I just mentioned, notice how there's reverse. We go from heart, ears, eyes, to eyes, ears, hearts. So kind of a nice little chiasm there, envelope structure that's going on here. But once you get beyond the literary fashioning of these words into what they entail, then at least initially, and I think probably still for a lot of people, they're pretty disturbing what are you talking about lest lest they see with their eyes and lest they hear with their ears and lest they understand with their hearts and turn and be healed um what's what's going on here so let me you know i don't usually uh put out resources just on the podcast but i will i'll make an exception now i read this book uh i don't know

several years ago, and I have often recommended it to folks. It's by G.K. Beale, B-E-A-L-E. I've read a lot of stuff by him and have always been impressed by his work. But this book in particular was helpful for me in understanding not just Isaiah 6, but a whole lot of other texts that are like it. The title is We Become What We Worship. And it's basically a biblical theology of idolatry and one of the opening chapters is isaiah 6 and one of his just kind of summarize his argument which i find to be convincing is in using this language of the ears not hearing in the eyes not seeing and uh you know the heart's not understanding what isaiah is doing is what or what god is doing as he speaks to isaiah he's drawing upon a uh a very prevalent theme that you

find throughout the Old Testament where idols have eyes, but they do not see ears, but they do not hear a mouth, but they do not speak hands, but they do not feel feet, but they cannot walk. It'll go through this list of the anatomy of these idols that people's hands have made and point out that they may have all of these body parts that are supposed to do certain functions, but they don't. They have unhearing ears and unseeing eyes. And what's happening here with this use of that kind of language here in reference to the people is that, to use the title of G.K. Beale's book, they have become what they worship. So because they have

worshiped idols, their own ears do not hear. Because they worshiped idols, their own eyes do not see, so on and so forth. So as one, I don't know if this is Psalm 115. Anyway, one of the passages about idolatry says that they had become like them. So we resemble what we revere. We become what we worship. And so they had become dead in their trespasses and sins because they have worshiped that which is lifeless that which is which is dead so by the inclusion of this kind of language what is happening in these couple of verses 9 and 10 of isaiah 6 is that the people have become like the idols which they worship which we heard about in those opening five chapters and as a result of that they're not hearing they're not seeing their hearts or their hearts

are dull and to kind of to build on that therefore what isaiah is going to do is he preaches these words from god is that he's going to put the truth in front of these people he's going to speak the truth of god he's going to say whatever words that god has given him to say and the people who have already gone the way of idolatry and harden their hearts and close their eyes and everything else become like the idols they worship they will as it were double down on their rejection of the Word of God, so that they are basically given what they already want to have. They've already chosen this way, they've already gone this route, and Isaiah's preaching to them is going to double down that effect upon them that they have already chosen because of

their idolatry. That's at least the initial way of thinking about these. There's a New Testament background that we can get to as well i think one of the things that's that's sort of uh jarring about it is that it doesn't seem as though god's uh goal for isaiah is to go and sort of initially bring these people to repentance it's just not and so uh what you'd maybe expect to hear is that well these people like they keep hearing but they don't understand and they see but they don't perceive, because their hearts are dull, and so I'm going to have you go and change that. I'm going to go have you preach a word that fixes that. But that's not what it is. This is what's going on, and I'm going to have you go and speak the truest words that could be spoken. They're going to,

in order, the purpose of those words is to increase the condemnation. So, you know, when Paul says that the law was given to increase the trespass, and people were like, oh, I don't like that. That makes me think bad things about the law or whatever. But this is what it is. And so what is Isaiah going to go preach? Well, I mean, we've seen him preach some promise, but it's sort of just sandwiched in between all of this judgment and law language. And what that preaching is going to do is that you're going to to hear the law that isaiah preaches and you're you're going to reject it you're going to disregard it and what this does is it increases the trespass it's it's like your god is interested in um sort of increasing the evidence against the people

Right. So a judgment is coming. He he has already decided. Right. And so when God decides that he's going to judge that this is what judgment is coming in, it's coming hard. And what he's doing is he's going to use Isaiah initially to just pile up the evidence against the people. This is his job as a preacher of the law. And that's every preacher of the law's job is to say, when you have on the hat of the law, your goal is not to try to make the people better or to do any kind of improvements here. It's to pile up evidence. That's what it is. And that's what Isaiah is going to do.

God says, yeah, you're going to go speak these words. And the plan is for them to keep on hearing and not perceiving. The heart is supposed to grow more dull, not less. Well, everything you said is a perfect transition to how this comes up in the New Testament, too, then. You're talking about piling up of evidence. You work your way through Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the evidence keeps on piling up and piling up until you finally, uh you get to the ultimate rejection of god's will and ways and words and not just that but god himself like hey let's just kill this guy so that's it all leads directly to to the crucifixion

that's why in matthew 13 in mark 4 in luke 8 and in john 12 as well as in acts 28 isaiah 6 is quoted to that effect yeah so it's a it's taking what was fitting during isaiah's ministry and saying this continues to apply isaiah's ministry is like the ministry of jesus and paul and quoting it in acts 28 is saying what happened in isaiah's ministry and what happened in jesus ministry continues to happen in the apostolic ministry as well so there's a an ongoing application of these verses from Isaiah 6, because, of course, there's an ongoing preaching of the law, which is intended to pile up these sins. Yeah, you've got to think about it like this.

I mean, you've got to think about the intent of God as he's commissioned someone out there. Isaiah is being sent as a prosecutor, not a defense attorney. Yeah, yeah, that's a good way to think about that. That's what he's going to go do. Yeah, his goal is not to exonerate the accused, but to pile up the accusations against the accused yeah oh you think things are bad well they're about to get worse let me show you how this is going to happen so uh with this commissioning this mission given to isaiah he uh naturally asked how long oh lord i mean is this like a temporary deal uh what's what's the

goal do i have a time frame in which to preach this message and here's god's response until cities lay waste without inhabitant and houses without people and the land is a desolate waste and the Lord removes people far away and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land and though a tenth remain in it it will be burned again like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains when it is felled the holy seed is its stump now there's your answer that's that's how long yeah how long is until there's a there's a whole lot of destruction that takes place that's that's how long isaiah is going to be cities laid away houses desolate people removed the whole land That's going to be just one big forsaken space.

All you're going to have left is a remnant. And this remnant at the end, the Holy Seat is in its stump, or a tenth remain in it, that's taken a couple different ways. G.K. Bill, that I just mentioned a few minutes ago, he argues that this is like a, even the remnant are going to be ruined and destroyed. I tend to gravitate more to the idea of there's going to be a remnant that remains. There's going to be at least some who continue to hold fast to the truth. People like Isaiah and others that you meet throughout the history of 1 and 2 Kings. Yeah, I do like that. You have to think, Isaiah is a guy that just had his sins forgiven.

He knows that this is something that God does. He just did it. He's like, well, this is the word that I'm giving you. I'm going to have you go out there, and I'm going to have you pile up so much evidence that the legitimacy of my judgment cannot even be questioned. And Isaiah's like, okay, how long am I doing that? Surely there is an end to that. I mean, I am a sinner, after all, who just had all his sins forgiven.

So certainly I'll do that, and I'm going to do that for surely just a period of time. And God says, oh, well, let me tell you how long. I'm not going to give you a time frame. I'm going to tell you you're going to do it until this happens, and it's just cities lying waste, and there's no inhabitants left, and there's a tenth of the people are left, and then it's going to happen again. Something's going to be burned again.

But then you have this one little, I mean, it's just a little glimmer. it's like it's going to be reduced down to this stump it's all that's left it's just a stuff you like well that okay well that's basically nothing then so you mean nothing he's like no no not nothing a stump and that that holy seed is going to that's going to come from that stump there is going to be something that something that looks like nothing something that is just dead uh but that's what's going to remain and like this is going to happen until that's all this left and And this is how God works, that he's going to work his salvation from what only he could work it from, right? Which is like, I'm going to remove everything else, and then it's just going to be this stump that's left,

and then that's where I'm going to bring salvation in. Then he has something he can work with. Yeah. Got to have nothing before God starts working, right? Yeah. It's Martin Luther on the Magnificat. You know, God began the world by creating everything from nothing, and he proceeds in that same way still today.

Nothing is his favorite material with which to work. The less he has, then the more he has to work with. So I'll give him a stump and he can work his divine work by giving life from that stump. So that's the commissioning. That's what Isaiah has cut out for him. And we'll see, of course, as we work our way through the rest of the book, how this works out.

This is a tough call, by the way, too. I'm just going to go say all these things. By the way, it's going to end disastrously. This is how it is with the prophets so often, where it's like, hey, what's my job here? It's like, well, you're going to go preach the law, okay? And then everyone's going to repent, and I'm going to live to see the restoration of all things, right? No. It's going to go awful.

Yeah, I mean, even in Jeremiah, I mean, at least Jeremiah has, Jeremiah arguably has a more depressing ministry than Isaiah does. But even in Jeremiah, I was trying to find the reference here, you know, where God tells him, you know, he's going to tear down, but here it is. He says, you're going to pluck up and break down, destroy and overthrow, but also to build and to plant, you know. There's not much building and planting going on in this commissioning to Isaiah. But that is the prophetic calling. I mean, man, of all the vocations in the history of humanity that God has given to people, the prophetic calling was rough. I mean, you're speaking hard truths.

You're often, more often than not, martyred as a result of it. That's why Jesus says, you know, oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that stone the prophets and kill those that God sends to you. That was the prophetic calling. Yeah, this is the call to, what you want to be called to is, can I be part of the building process? And you're like, no, no, no. Sorry, you're only a part of the clearing the land process. Which explains too, if people wonder why John the Baptist was so rough

and in your face and you brood of vipers and all of this real raw, destructive, fiery language. Well, he was a prophet. That's what they did. He prepared the way for the Lord by destroying. He had some pretty rough preaching that he had to do, and he was getting things ready for the Messiah. But when you make a highway,

there's a lot of destruction that takes place. You've got to tear some stuff up. You've got to make those paths straight, man. That's dirty work. I mean, when you're making the path straight, that's not the building process. That is the clearing process. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, it was like almost, did John have to die?

Well, he was a prophet. I mean, that's what happens to prophets. You know, they lose their heads. You can't be the greatest prophet and not have that happen to you, of course, right? I mean, Jesus says he's the last and the greatest. Like, of course it was going to go that way. no prophet retired to florida and spent his final days on the beach did not uh didn't happen that way okay so uh chapter six done one episode and a half not not too bad not too bad now uh

we got a major shift that goes on here so we are done with the call of isaiah this great vision he sees of christ in his glory we're done with the commissioning as to what he's to preach So we're going to move now from the death of one king. Of course, Isaiah 6 begins in the year that King Uzziah died. And in chapter 7, we're going to skip ahead to the next king, not the next king in sequence, but another king. This is the final king under which Isaiah was preaching, which also underscores the fact that these chapters are not structured chronologically.

It's not like one day Isaiah decided to sit down and write a book in which he chronologically recorded his various episodes and sermons to the people of Israel. There's back and forth chronologically as you work your way through the book. So this is the days of Ahaz. Now, if you don't remember anything about Ahaz, Ahaz received a big fat F on his kingly report card. He was not a great, wonderful Josiah or Hezekiah kind of king, quite the opposite. So we're going to, I'll talk more about him in just a minute, but let me kind of set this up here by reading the first three verses, first two verses, rather, of Isaiah 7. In the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, king of Judah, Rezin, the king of Syria, and Pekah, the son of Ramaliah, the king of Israel. So we've got three kings here.

We've got Ahaz, he's the king of Judah. You've got Rezin, he's the king of Aram or Syria. And then you have Pekah, who's the son, who's the king of the northern kingdom of Israel. So these three kings in those days, Rezan and Pekah came up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not yet mount an attack against it. When the house of David was told Syria is in league with Ephraim, the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind. Now, someone who lives in the midst of pine trees, when a windstorm comes up and I see

those trees blowing around. This is a pretty memorable image for me. So what's going on here historically? Well, you can read all about this if you simply look up sometime the Syro-Ephraimitic Wars. That's the wars of Syria, or also known as Aram, and Ephraim, which is the northern part of israel the northern kingdom they pair up they ally themselves one to another syria and israel in order to have at least a chance against the assyrians who are coming in hot and heavy into now their part of the world so this is when syria begins to dominate the whole region and as they push westward closer and closer to syria as well as to the northern kingdom then these guys are like man we got to do something you know so rather than fighting each other why don't we team up and

so we'll maybe have a chance against the the assyrians well of course the more allies you have in your little league then the more powerful you're going to be so what they wanted to do what the Syrians under Rezin and what the Israelites under Pekah wanted to do was to bring Judah into this as well. So they wanted to bring Ahaz into their little league of nations so they have more power to withstand the Assyrians. But Ahaz was having nothing to do with it. He didn't want to be part of this league. In fact, what he's going to do, this is not part of Isaiah seven but what he's going to do is actually turn on them and he's going to go to the assyrians and say hey uh if i pay you a lot of money will you protect me from these guys so he has is actually

going to turn his back on the northern kingdom of israel he's going to turn his back on the syrians the arameans and he's going to join force he's going to become a he's going to trade it to his own country in which he is going to finally ask the the biggest dog on the block the assyrians to protect him but that's that's getting but that's kind of the historical background that we're that we're looking at here so uh they come up to jerusalem to wage war against it and their idea was i mean that the goal of this was to force the hand of the judeans to join them in this league against the assyrians and they're shaken in the wind when they hear that they're in league these other nations are in league against them. Now, the question is, kind of with all this historical

setup, what does God want Ahaz to do? So what would he have the king do? Well, he's going to tell him because he's going to use Isaiah to be his spokesperson. So verse three, the Lord said to Isaiah, go out to meet Ahaz. You and Sha'ar Yashuv, that's his son's name, means a remnant shall return. The prophet's children often had these symbolic names. And of course, this is one of those. Hosea had his strangely named three children with Gomer. And Isaiah also has his strangely named kids as well so you and a remnant shall return shaar yashuv you two go out to the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the washer's field that's kind of a long description basically saying that where the king is at is where they're no doubt making

preparations for the siege which is to come so they they know that these guys are are going to be attacking them and so they want to make sure as as every city did of course when there was a the possibility of a siege is coming two of the things you definitely wanted to stock up on or have access to is food and water and at this point so maybe you've read about hezekiah's tunnel Hezekiah is not around yet, so the tunnel has not yet been dug. There is still ways in which to get water into the city, especially from the spring Gihon. And so that's what they're working on here to make sure there's going to be access to water when this siege happens. So he goes out to meet him, and here's what he says to him.

Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint. Because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands. What is he talking about with these firebrands? He goes on to say, at the fierce anger of Rezan and Syria and the son of Remaliah. Because Syria, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has devised evil against you, saying, let us go against Judah and terrify it. And let us conquer it for ourselves. And let us set up the son of Tabeel as king in the midst of it.

So this is God's way of saying, basically, listen, Ahaz, I know that you're thinking you need to do something. I know that, you know, you're the king and the king's, one of the king's responsibilities, of course, is to make sure that his nation is safe, secure from the threats of any enemies. And I know that you're plotting as to what you might do in order to ensure the ongoing safety of the people of Judah. you got ideas. Of course, God already knows this, but he's saying to him, basically all those political plans that you have, I want you to drop them, trash them. Here's what I want you to do instead. Be careful, be quiet, don't be afraid, and don't let your heart be faint because these, these leaders of Syria and the Israelites in the order of kingdom that you're so threatened by so that you're you and your people's hearts are shaking like the trees in the forest shake before

the wind you know what these guys are they're nothing more than a couple of smoldering stumps of firebrands they're nothing more than you know a couple of pieces of wood yeah they they were they were on fire but the fire has gone out and all they're doing now is smoldering they devised an evil against you and they're gonna you know set up a puppet king whoever the son of tabil is Nobody knows who that son of Tabeel is. But anyway, someone that they've picked out is going to be a yes-sir man to them, just a puppet king. They're going to set him up in your place.

Well, don't be afraid of any of that. Yeah, which is weird. It's so strange to come off of, hey, Isaiah, here's what I'm going to have you say. It's all going to be horrible. And then just be like, oh, don't be afraid of these guys. you're like what uh this is almost like uh uh you know when jesus says in luke i don't be afraid of men like because they you know they can kill the body but do nothing to soul but you should fear god you can destroy both body and soul in hell or whatever and uh and it is it is interesting that

like if your fear is in the right place uh this would be like your your all your your reverence all this stuff your worship uh what then you don't need to be afraid of men right and and wouldn't you know it that of course i meant like even even kings and the people of god they always fear the wrong thing you know like it's like well if you just fear the lord you just worship the lord then you wouldn't need to be afraid of any of these things but since you don't you are and uh and that's what that's the i think the way to sort of like smooth that out where you're like oh if the Judgment is coming, and we know God uses other peoples to bring about that judgment, and this is not going to be an exception to that.

I mean, he's going to do that in Isaiah's day for sure. But God's still – Abidjan is still just like, why are you afraid of people? The only reason you would have to be afraid of people is if you didn't fear me. Because if you feared me, you wouldn't have any reason to be afraid of people. yeah the you know people love the quote there's nothing to fear but fear itself and it's actually not it's not biblical it's not that's not the way the bible addresses these situations uh you you're not fearing fear it's fearing fear itself is is nothing i mean that's not the solution is to stop fearing uh it's to fear god that's that's a solution because you know like

You have some jealous God stuff going on here. I feel like we're – they're all concerned about these people. And God's like, man, are you afraid of these burning stumps over here? And you're – you have all your attention paid to this. This is what you're talking about. This is what you're worrying about. Meanwhile, you disregard me all the time. you know and like there you could you could see like the um that uh when god says he's a jealous

god you could you kind of see some of that where you're like you're out you're out here uh thinking these these things are so awesome and so terrifying but somehow you can turn your back on me like it's nothing what is that we talked before about the the uh spiritual insanity of human beings and this is another example of that you've got i mean to use it to use a negative image you know it's like this guy standing behind you with a baseball bat ready to swing it and you're worried about an ant crawling on your toe your fear is directed to the wrong place here's here's god uh to put a positive spin on it you know who's right behind you who's bigger and better than anything and is able to do for you what he promises to do for you.

And you're sitting there worrying about all of these minor things, fearing, loving, and trusting in everything except him. So be careful instead and be quiet and stop being afraid of these smoldering stumps because I'm on your side. I'm right here. And he goes on. uh that was i read through verse six verse seven is gonna it's gonna shift from prose to poetry

god is gonna go on to say thus says the lord god it shall not stand it shall not come to pass for the head of syria is damascus that's the capital city and the head of damascus is resin So we have country, we have capital, we have king. And within 65 years, he goes on, within 65 years, Ephraim will be shattered from being a people. Ephraim is just another name for the northern kingdom. And the head of Ephraim is Samaria. That's the capital.

And the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. So we got countries, Syria, Ephraim. We have capitals, Damascus, Samaria. And then we have kings, Rezan and the son of Ramaliah. So within 65 years, these guys are gone. In fact, it's going to be even less than 65 years. But yeah, these guys that you're so worried about that you think are just, you know, a great threat to your well-being and even your life itself, they are about to pass out of existence. Country, capital, and king, they're all going to be destroyed.

And having kind of said all of that, we now shift to one of these beautiful word plays that you have going on in Isaiah. I'll just read it to you. So in ESV, it is, if you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all, which is a pretty good translation to kind of capture the word play that's going on here. It's even better in the Hebrew. It is, if you do not ta'aminu, then you will not te'amenu. If you will not ta'aminu, then you will not te'amenu. Now, the root of both of those words in Hebrew is the root from which we get amen. It's the idea of stability, of faithfulness, of security, all these sorts of things.

So if you won't trust, then if you're not firm in faith, then you're not going to be firm at all. It's basically God's way of calling the king and really the whole household of David, really the whole people of Judah, to direct their trust in him, direct their fear in him, rather than directing it toward all the threats which are around them. So it's a call to actually know that the Lord who's speaking to him is trustworthy and will fulfill what he has, what he's promised. Yeah, I mean, the idea here, right, is, and I think that you there is plural, right? So this is all the peoples. So, hey, if you're not going to be firm in faith, you're not going to be, right? Like, you will just cease. So these are the options, right?

So the options are to trust in me or just not exist. There's no other options. It's a pretty stark contrast. Yeah, that's it. It's almost like you've got to be firm in faith, or you won't need to worry about being firm in anything else, because you won't be around. Yeah, it's the stark contrast we have often in the Scriptures.

You build your house on the rock, or you build your house on the sand. It's one or the other. It's either a house built on the trustworthy promises of God and your faith in those promises, therefore, or it's a house on sand, which is, of course, going to be washed away when the storms come. So that is the stark contrast that's put in front of King Ahaz. And when we come back in the next episode,

we'll see how he responds to that. We'll talk about the famous Isaiah 714 passage, the virgin shall conceive, and then talk about the context of that that follows in the rest of the chapter. So good stuff to get to next time. Yeah, going to get a little messianic prophecy going on next episode, so make sure you come back for that. All right, Chad, I'll see you then. All right, see you then. We'll see you next time.