Isaiah 6:1-9:7
The Voice
6 In the same year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a grand throne way up high with a flowing cape that filled the whole temple. 2 Bright flaming creatures waited on Him. Each had six wings: two covering its face, two covering its feet, and two for flying. 3 Like some fiery choir, they would call back and forth continually.
Flaming Creatures: Holy, holy, holy is the Eternal, the Commander of heavenly armies!
The earth is filled with His glorious presence!
4 They were so loud that the doorframes shook, and the holy house kept filling with smoke.
5 Isaiah: I am in so much trouble! I’m ruined!
I’m just a human being—fallible and stammering.
My lips are encrusted with filth;
and I live among people just like me.
But here I am, and I’ve seen with my very own eyes
none other than the King, the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies.
6 Then one of the flaming creatures flew to me holding a red-hot ember which it had taken from God’s table, the temple altar, with a pair of tongs. 7 The creature held it to my lips.
Flaming Creature: Look! With the touch of this burning ember on your lips,
your guilt is turned away;
All your faults and wrongdoings are forgiven.
8 Then I heard the Lord’s voice.
Eternal One: Whom shall I send? Who will go for Us?
Isaiah: Here I am! Send me.
Eternal One: 9 Go to this people and say,
“Keep listening, but do not comprehend;
Keep looking, but do not understand.”[a]
10 Make their hearts hard, their ears deaf, and their eyes blind.
Otherwise, they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears,
Understand with their hearts, and then turn and be healed.[b]
11 Isaiah: How long, Lord?
Eternal One: Until cities are in ruins, the houses sit empty,
and the land has become a wasteland.
12 You see, the Eternal has determined to move the people far away;
place after place will be completely abandoned.
13 And even if just a tenth survive, it will be burned again;
imagine a terebinth or an oak; once it is cut down, the stump remains.
The holy seed remains in the stump.
The stump remains: a testament to what the people used to be, a promise of what is to come.
7 When Ahaz (Uzziah’s grandson, Jotham’s son) was king here in the Southern Kingdom of Judah, a coalition of two other kings—Pekah (Remaliah’s son) from the Northern Kingdom (also called Israel and Ephraim) and Rezin from Aram (which is Syria)—determined to attack our capital Jerusalem. But they failed to take it. 2 This is what happened: When our royal house (descended from David) heard that Aram was in league with Ephraim against us, the king was terrified. The news shook the hearts of the people like trees in the wind. 3 So the Eternal told Isaiah to get involved.
Eternal One: Catch up with Ahaz at the end of the stream that comes out of the upper pool—you know, the one at the highway where they wash and bleach cloth. And bring your son who’s named Shear-jashub (which means “Returning Remnant”). 4-6 Tell Ahaz, “Keep your wits about you. Stay calm. Don’t panic just because those two angry northerners, Rezin of Aram and Pekah (Remaliah’s son), threaten you and say: ‘Let’s march against Judah, terrorize the people, overthrow it, and set up Tabeel’s son as our puppet king.’”
God promised that David’s dynasty would continue forever. Since Ahaz is of David’s line, he should be confident before the threat. But he needs the support of God’s prophet.
7 Here is what the Eternal Lord has to say.
Eternal One: It’s not going to work;
what they determine is not going to happen.
8-9 The head of Aram is Damascus, and its head is King Rezin;
Ephraim’s head is Samaria, and its king is Remaliah’s son.
Ephraim will fall apart as a nation and as a people within 65 years.
Now then, if you don’t hold firm, if you don’t believe, you will not remain firm.
10 The Eternal One also said this to our king, Ahaz:
Eternal One (to Ahaz): 11 Ask for proof, a sign from the Eternal your God. Go ahead, ask anything, anything at all; it can be high as heaven or as deep as the place of the dead.
Ahaz: 12 No way. I wouldn’t dare to ask, to test the Eternal One.
Isaiah: 13 Listen then. You are none other than the house of David, the one who inherited God’s promise of permanent kingship for David’s descendants. Is it so easy to be a bore to people that you would exhaust God’s patience too? 14 Suit yourself. The Lord will give you a proof-sign anyway: See, a young maiden[c] will conceive. She will give birth to a son and name Him Immanuel, that is, “God with us.”[d] 15 There will indeed be something Godlike about Him. He’ll be eating curds and honey when he knows to choose what is right and good and refuse what is not. 16 But before the boy has the wisdom to refuse evil and choose good the territory of the two kings you now dread will be abandoned.
17 But it’s not all rosy for you, either. The Eternal will bring against you, against this population, this blessed kingdom, such trouble as hasn’t been seen since the 10 northern tribes, led by Ephraim, seceded from Judah—trouble in the form of the Assyrian king. 18 At that time, the Eternal will summon the Egyptian flies and the stinging pests of Assyria, calling them 19 to settle into every crack and crevice of the country, every place high and low—mountains, fields, deserts, and cities—every thornbush and watering hole. 20 In that day, the Lord will hire the Assyrian king from beyond the Euphrates River to shave every part of you, humbling you like slaves. 21 Each person will hang onto only what he or she absolutely needs—a heifer and two sheep—in order to survive. 22 But some will survive because those who are left will eat curds and honey, for their animals will produce plenty of milk. 23 They will no longer live off the land because wherever there had been flourishing vineyards with 1,000 vines, worth 1,000 pieces of silver, they will produce nothing but briars and thorns. 24 No one will venture into this wasteland of briars and thorns without bow and arrow. 25 No one will dare to cultivate the hills that once were tilled for fear of what is out there; only the hardiest animals—cattle and sheep—are released to graze the ragged slopes.
8 The Eternal told me to take a large tablet and write—“Swift the Spoils of War and Speedy Comes the Attacker”— 2 and to get believable witnesses, both the priest Uriah and Zechariah (Jeberechiah’s son), to watch me do it. 3 I approached the prophetess—a woman who, like me, speaks for God—and she became pregnant and had a son, whom the Eternal said I should name Maher-shalal-hash-baz (Swift-the-Spoils-of-War-and-Speedy-Comes-the-Attacker); 4 because before he is old enough to say “My father” or “My mother” the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carted off to become the property of their enemy, the king of Assyria.
Prophets like Isaiah not only speak their messages, but they sometimes act them out. Isaiah is a master of both prophetic speech and prophetic acts. It is common for God to ask prophets to expose important aspects of their families’ lives to demonstrate a message He wants to convey. Perhaps it is because the prophet speaks for God and Israel is God’s family. In this case, God tells Isaiah to embed His message into the name of his child. And what is that message? “Ahaz, the two countries currently threatening you will soon be conquered by a greater power—Assyria. It will attack quickly, defeat soundly, and carry off the spoils of war from Damascus and Samaria. So there is no need to fear them; instead, trust in your God.”
5 The Eternal One explained to me,
6 Eternal One: This disaster will happen because this people have rejected the stream of Shiloah
that flows gently to Zion.
Instead they rejoice over Rezin and Remaliah’s son.
7 Just watch—the Lord will overwhelm them
with great waves of the Euphrates River.
Like a river, Assyrian might and glory will bear down on them;
it will rise over its banks as unstoppable as a raging flood.
8 This Mesopotamian power will pour into Judah, rise and pass through,
wreaking near-fatal havoc.
And its reach will extend over all your land.
God, be with us.
9 Go ahead, make your alliances, you peoples, yet you’ll be crushed.
Listen closely, even if you’re far away:
Get ready for battle—get ready to be battered;
get ready for battle—get ready to be shattered.
10 Go ahead, devise your plans, but they will fail;
your proclamations won’t matter because God is with us.
No one wants to believe that God would use foreign power to wreak destruction on other lands and peoples. Yet, as God is holy, so God’s place must be holy. He simply cannot dwell where holiness is not. He cannot make a larger-than-life Zion out of an earthly Jerusalem, unless that place (and its people, of course) are right. At best, these people seem to think that paying lip service to God is enough; at worst, they don’t even care about God. A simple explanation is the people must be clean and holy. And this condition of rightness, holiness, and cleanliness is a product of how they are—in relation not only to God, but also to each other and the very land itself; these things are inseparable. The consequences of their failure to ensure the holiness of this sacred place by being right with God, land, and others are dire indeed. God must cleanse His people and place because He determines to be represented within and by them. So, better days will come again, and His covenant people will be set right and be happy and prosperous again.
11 See, this is what the Eternal told me. God leaned in close—His strong hand on me—to keep me from following these people.
12 Eternal One: Don’t call for an alliance, like all the rest of this people do.
Don’t fear what they fear, or dread what they dread.
13 After all, only the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, should terrify you.
Only God is holy. Only God should leave you trembling.
14 Look what I’m going to do in Zion:
The Eternal will be for you a sacred place,
But for both houses of Israel I’ll also be a stone that blocks their way
and a rock that trips them up;
For those who live in Jerusalem, I’ll be a trap and a snare.
15 Many will stumble over them. They will trip and be broken;
they’ll succumb to capture and be grabbed up.
God who provides a place of safety and security for those who trust in Him is the same God who puts obstacles in the way of those who disregard Him.
16 Now take care to keep this message as it is.
Seal up this teaching
and hand it over to my disciples.
17 As for me, I will wait for the Eternal, even though He feels absent, even though He has hidden His face from the family of Jacob. I will put all hope in Him. 18 You see, I and my children whom the Eternal One gave to me, we personify the promise. We are signs of what God intends and will do in Israel, what amazing things the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies has in mind, the One who is indeed present in Zion, this heaven on earth.
19 People might tell you to ask the fortune-tellers, consult the babbling astrologers, conjure the dead to tell the living what’s to come, but shouldn’t they ask their God? 20 Go to God’s teaching and His testimony to guide your thoughts and behavior! If any response disagrees with the word of God, then it’s muddling and wrong and not the least bit illuminating. 21 It leaves the people bedraggled and desperate, drifting here and there. In their hunger, the people are bound to be infuriated and curse their king and God. They’ll look up to the heavens 22 and down to the earth, yet see nothing but trouble, gloom, anguish, and darkness. They will be driven out into the darkness.
When God’s people haven’t seen a hint of light or hope of day, God will do something new.
9 But there will be no more gloom for those who knew such hardship. In times past, God humbled the land of Zebulun and Naphtali; later, He will restore the honor and glory to the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee, home of the nations.
2 The people who had been living in darkness
have seen a great light.
The light of life has shined on those who dwelt
in the shadowy darkness of death.
3 And You, God, will make it happen. You bolstered the nation,
making it great again. You have saturated it with joy.
Everyone in it is full of delight in Your presence,
like the joy they experience at the harvest,
like the thrill of dividing up the spoils of war.
4 For as You did back in the day when Midian oppressed us,
You will shatter the yoke that burdens them,
You will lift the load that weighs them down,
You will break the rod of their oppressor.
5 It’s true. All the fabric of war will go up in flames:
the troops’ heavy boots that stamped us down and their blood-soaked garb
Will all be burned beyond recognition or use.
There will be a new time, a fresh start.
6 Hope of all hopes, dream of our dreams,
a child is born, sweet-breathed; a son is given to us: a living gift.
And even now, with tiny features and dewy hair, He is great.
The power of leadership, and the weight of authority, will rest on His shoulders.
His name? His name we’ll know in many ways—
He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Dear Father everlasting, ever-present never-failing,
Master of Wholeness, Prince of Peace.
7 His leadership will bring such prosperity as you’ve never seen before—
sustainable peace for all time.
This child: God’s promise to David—a throne forever, among us,
to restore sound leadership that cannot be perverted or shaken.
He will ensure justice without fail and absolute equity. Always.
The intense passion of the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies,
will carry this to completion.
Footnotes
- 6:9 Luke 8:10
- 6:9–10 Matthew 13:14–15; Mark 4:12; John 12:40; Acts 28:26–27
- 7:14 Greek manuscripts read, “virgin.”
- 7:14 Matthew 1:23
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
