Damascus and Samaria Fall
8 Then the Lord said to me, “Take for yourself a large tablet and write on it [a]in ordinary letters: [b]Swift is the booty, speedy is the prey. 2 And [c]I will take to Myself faithful witnesses for testimony, Uriah the priest and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah.” 3 So I approached the prophetess, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. Then the Lord said to me, “Name him [d]Maher-shalal-hash-baz; 4 for before the boy knows how to cry out ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carried away before the king of Assyria.”
5 Again the Lord spoke to me further, saying,
6 “Inasmuch as these people have rejected the gently flowing waters of Shiloah
And rejoice in Rezin and the son of Remaliah;
7 “Now therefore, behold, the Lord is about to bring on them the strong and abundant waters of the [e]Euphrates,
Even the king of Assyria and all his glory;
And it will rise up over all its channels and go over all its banks.
8 “Then it will sweep on into Judah, it will overflow and pass through,
It will reach even to the neck;
And the spread of its wings will [f]fill the breadth of [g]your land, O Immanuel.9 “Be broken, O peoples, and be [h]shattered;
And give ear, all remote places of the earth.
Gird yourselves, yet be [i]shattered;
Gird yourselves, yet be [j]shattered.
10 “Devise a plan, but it will be thwarted;
State a [k]proposal, but it will not stand,
For [l]God is with us.”
We see the birth of another child in this passage, named literally after the saying God told Isaiah to write on the tablet, “swift is the booty, speedy is the prey.” His birth signaled that the destruction of Samaria was imminent, to happen before he could even speak. That is, unless somehow his first words were not “mommy” or “daddy”.
This is a stark contrast with the name of the first child prophesied, Immanuel, or “God is with us”. It must have been strange for people to hear Isaiah’s words… First he says God is with us, and then he’s telling us that the Assyrians are going to sweep us away! How could both of those things be true.
In v. 9, he states it clearly, that the nations will be shattered. Not only that, he repeats it three times to make sure they get the idea. Then in v. 10, he speaks of the plans of men, that they will be thwarted and will not stand, “for God is with us (Immanuel)”.
Indeed, our plans and the plans of sometimes go awry, because God is with us, He is here, and very involved in our lives. He is not up in the sky somewhere, leaving us to our own devices. He wouldn’t be a very loving god if that were the case. The name Immanuel also reminds us of another child who was yet to be born, who would literally be “God with us”, that is, Jesus.
Many expected a ruling king and savior, to overthrow the Romans and restore their land. But God was interested in more than a piece of dirt, He was, and is, in the business of saving people and their souls. The plans of men didn’t pan out in the end, much like Isaiah’s day, and that still happens to us now. We think God should do this, or that, and then He comes up with something different, something better.
Don’t be dismayed when things don’t go the way you think they should, because God is with us. Indeed, don’t be surprised either, because we won’t always get it right, and God will make a better way instead. It’s a challenge to release our own expectations, but trading them for His plans is a deal we dare not pass up. Whatever happens in this life, know that God is with you, He has a plan, and it is good.