Yesterday, we heard God's message to the young king - "trust me."
Today, we read of the consequences of what his majesty actually did.
Ahaz realised that Aram and Israel had come together because of their fear of Assyria, so he tried to outwit them by asking Assyria to intervene on his behalf. He actually invited them in!
Isaiah puts it like this: "you have rejected the gently flowing waters of Shiloah," (this was Jerusalem's water supply - see yesterday) and therefore "the mighty floodwaters of the Euphrates" are sweeping in, and you'll be up to your neck in it.
The Euphrates river, of course, flows through Assyria.
Mess with these powers at your peril, God is saying.
There's also another prophetic baby. Perhaps both of them are Isaiah's children. This second one is saddled with an embarrassing name. Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz means something like "swift to the plunder, swift to the spoil," which is exactly what the Assyrians were. I wonder what the lad was called by his playmates?
Hosea called his children by prophetic names as well. Makes me think my children didn't have it so bad after all. Both of them have met friends at uni who were also vicarage children, and shared stories of the strange life they led. There's even a hashtag: #vicaragelife
I think I'd still rather be them than Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz
No comments:
Post a Comment