“If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.” (Isaiah 7:9b NIV)
God’s first word through Isaiah tells Ahaz not what to do, but how to do it: “Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid.” (7:4) God knows that Ahaz is square in the crosshairs of the Syria-Israel alliance. Isaiah predicts that, within 65 years, Israel “will be too shattered to be a people.” (7:8)
God’s word for Ahaz concludes with a message that practically rhymes in Hebrew: If you do not “ṯa·’ă·mî·nū” (believe), you will not “ṯê·’ā·mê·nū” (stand). Because Hebrew is written down without vowels, on the page these words look nearly identical. The NIV echoes this poetry with its rhythmic repetition of “stand firm in your faith” and “stand at all.”
I have a feeling Ahaz was a “numbers guy,” but the only numerical prediction in this section is 65 years in the future. God speaks more to the attitude of Ahaz, not his actions. The only action Ahaz is given is, “stand firm in faith.” And I have a feeling he wasn’t happy with that kind of general prophecy.
As we saw in 2 Kings 16, Ahaz was unable to stand firm. Instead, he colluded with and copied the Assyrian Empire. His imperial affinity grew so deep that he even brought a sundial, an Assyrian device, back to Judah. This is how Ahaz’s son Hezekiah was able to measure the precise angle of the sun in 2 Kings 20:11 and Isaiah 38. (Today, I’m sure Ahaz would be in line for each new smartphone on release day.) In stained glass windows, if you see a king holding a sundial, it’s either Ahaz or Hekekiah. The sundial is the family trait – they’re smart folks.
But prophecy isn’t really about precise numbers or dates, it’s about what God wants. No one knows the day or hour when God will move. God will always surprise mere mortals’ expectations. When Jesus spoke parables or proverbs, they were also different from what people expected. Jesus also isn’t about precise numbers or dates but wants to draw your heart and will to him, freely.
Life is about making wise decisions, not gathering more information. Both Jesus’s parables and Isaiah’s message in chapter 7 are about this. They are “addressed to the conscience and not to the intellect, to the will and not to the imagination,” as George MacDonald said in “The Last Farthing.” Ahaz’s mind was strong but his will was weak; his spirit was willing but his flesh was weak.
Isaiah told Ahaz all he had to do was stand there (note that this was not the easiest thing to do when you’re literally besieged). This message is repeated by Paul when he writes to the early church. In letter after letter, after his arguments are done, Paul tells the church to “stand firm”: at the end of 1 Corithians (16:13), Ephesians (three times in 6:,11, 13, and 14), Galatians (5:1), and Philippians (4:1). After mind-spinning theological discourses on the resurrection of the dead, or detailing the many pieces of the armor of God, or passionately defending the sufficiency of faith over works, when the church turns to Paul and says (probably slightly dazed by Paul’s own dense arguments), “after all that, what do we do?” Paul turns to the church and says, “Stand firm.”
Paul’s best statement of this is, as usual, in Romans, again near the end: “Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand.” (14:4)
Before Paul but after Isaiah, we have another example of standing firm on Good Friday: “But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.” (Luke 23:49) They were standing in shock, probably, and their faith was hanging on by a thread, but they were standing firm, and that was enough. God was able to make them stand.
The women who followed Jesus knew they could do nothing but stand and wait during Holy Saturday. It’s the kings among us who have the most problem with standing and waiting. Powerful folks have a powerful urge to engage the nations and change the world. Sometimes that’s not the job God has for us.
God seems to know that King Ahaz needs something more at this point, so God makes Ahaz a remarkable offer. After telling Ahaz what not to do, God tells Ahaz what to do: “Ask me anything.”
And, yeah, Ahaz messes this up, too. When Satan tempts Jesus, Jesus replies that you shouldn’t test God. Ahaz says the same thing here. But the crucial difference is that God is asking to be tested.
If God told you to do something, wouldn’t you do it? But wait — God has indeed told you what to do. You should do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly. You should love your enemy, pray in secret, stop calling your brother a fool, and turn the other cheek. When it comes down to it, I haven’t done these simple things, not because I don’t understand them with my mind, but because I don’t choose to do them with my will. I don’t really believe, so I don’t really stand firm on these simple but hard commands.
Jesus spoke to this in the parables, too. How many parables are about the simple task of continuing to ask and persisting in prayer? Jesus turns to us, like Isaiah turned to Ahaz, and says, “Ask God.” It’s not God who says “No.” It’s Ahaz.
Yet for all this, God isn’t done yet. God is the good father who lets his children say “No.” When the prodigal son asks for money and leaves for a foreign land, the Prodigal Father grants his request, and waits at home for his return. God also acts as a good father in Isaiah, and he gives his answer not just as words (which can be lies), but as children, not one but three children named in chapters 7, 8, and 9.
Children are God’s own speech, living signs of hope in the future, answers to the questions we don’t dare to ask. To this day, God continues to give, and we each stand in the place of Ahaz, kings of our own little kingdoms listening to this prophet Isaiah’s words, able to listen, and able to turn away.
After saying “stand firm,” God does give Ahaz something to do. Of course, Ahaz won’t do it. And double of course, God responds anyway, with a well-known prophecy that is given to everyone today: a child will be born.
(Image 12th c Canterbury Cathedral window of Hezekiah with Ahaz’s sundial: https://www.artbible.info/art/large/672.html)