Isaiah Chapter 8 verse 18 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 18. - I and the children... are for signs. Isaiah's children seem to have been "for signs," especially in respect of their names. Shear-Jashub meant "A remnant shall return" (Isaiah 10:21), and thus held out two hopes; one that a remnant of Israel would return to God and become his true servants, another that a remnant would return from the captivity that had been prophesied (Isaiah 5:13). Maher-shalal-hash-baz - "Plunder speeds, spoil hastens" - was a "sign" of a different kind. Primarily, his name referred to the spoiling of Damascus and Samaria (vers. 3, 4); but it may further have indicated a time of general disturbance, plunder, and ravage. It is not quite clear in what respects Isaiah was a "sign." Perhaps he, too, in his name, which meant "(Our) salvation is Jehovah" - certainly also in his symbolical acts (Isaiah 20:3), and possibly in the firmness of his faith, which never wavered. From the Lord of hosts; literally, from by the Lord of hosts - an expression like the French de chez. God had supernaturally appointed the sign in one case (vers. 1-4), but in the other two had merely brought them about by the secret working of his providence. But the prophet treats all three as coming equally from him. Which dwelleth in Mount Zion. Hero, again, is encouragement. God has not quitted Zion. The Shechinah still rests between the cherubim in the holy of holies. While this is so, God is still with his people (Immanuel).

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(18) Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me . . .--In the mystic significance of his own name (Isaiah--Salvation of Jehovah) and of the names of his sons: Remnant shall return. and Speed-plunder, Haste-spoil, possibly also in that of Immanuel, the prophet finds a sufficient revelation of the future. Each was a nomen et omen for those who had ears to hear. Could the disciples of Isaiah complain that they had no light thrown upon the future, when, so to say, they had those embodied prophecies? The children disappear from the scene, and we know nothing of their after-history, but all their life long, even with or without a special prophetic work, they must have been, by virtue of their names, witnesses to a later generation, of what Isaiah had predicted. In Isaiah's own life, as including symbolic acts as well as prophetic words (Isaiah 20:2), we have a further development of the thought that he was "a sign and a wonder." (Comp. Ezekiel 12:11.) The citation of the words, "I and the children whom thou hast given me," in Hebrews 2:13, is noticeable here chiefly as showing how little the writer of that Epistle cared in this and other quotations for the original meaning of the words as determined by the context. It was enough for him that the Christ, like the prophet, did not stand alone, but claimed a fellowship with the children whom the Father had given him (John 17:6; John 17:12), as being alike servants and children of God, called to do His will.