Isaiah 7:15

Butter and honey shall he eat..... As the Messiah Jesus no doubt did; since he was born in a land flowing with milk and honey, and in a time of plenty, being a time of general peace; so that this

Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. Butter (Hebrew: chem'aah (H2529)) - rather, Curdled milk, the acid of which is grateful in the heat of the East (Job 20:17).

Butter and honey; the common food of children in that Country, where they were in great abundance, and of the best sort. He; the virgin’ s Son last mentioned, who, though he be God blessed for ever, yet shall become man, and, to show the truth of his humanity, shall not only be conceived and brought forth, but also shall be nourished and brought up, by the same means and steps as other children; which is justly mentioned here as a stupendous and miraculous work of God. That he may know; that by this food he may grow up, and so may know, &c. Or, until he know, as it is rendered by divers learned men, and, among others, by the Chaldee interpreter, who best knew the use of this particle among the Hebrews. To refuse the evil, and choose the good; to discern between things morally good and evil; which children are capable of doing, in some measure, when they are five or six years old. Compare , where young children are described by this character, that they had no knowledge between good and evil.

Isaiah 7:15 Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.Ver. 15. Butter and honey shall he eat,] i.e., He shall be fed with children’ s meat, after the manner of other infants; for, as he shall take upon him our nature, so shall he also partake with us in our natural infirmities, feeding, as other children there did, on "butter and honey," not able to discern good from evil, through want of judgment, till he came to be of discretion, that he might be in all things like unto us, and that we might once come "unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ"; that we might become "strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might"; able to "do all things through Christ, that strengtheneth us" Stumble not at his weakness, but gather assurance of his love who so sweetly joined his majesty to our meanness - his might to our weakness, abasing himself to the shape and state of a feeble, weak, and helpless child. Noematica periphrasis.

(15) Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know . . .—Better, till he know, or, when he shall know. . . .—By a strange inversion of the familiar associations of the phrase (Exodus 3:17; Deuteronomy 31:20), probably, as the prophet spoke them, not without a certain touch of the irony of paradox, the words describe a time, not of plenty, but of scarcity. (Comp. Isaiah 7:22.) Fields and vineyards should be left uncultivated (Isaiah 5:9), and instead of bread and meat, and wine and oil, the people, flying from their cities and taking refuge in caves and mountains, should be left to the food of a nomadic tribe, such, e.g., as the Kenites (Judges 5:25; 1 Samuel 14:26; Matthew 3:4). The “butter” of the Bible here, as in Judges 5:25, is the clotted milk which has always been a delicacy with Arabs.

Verse 15. That he may know - "When he shall know"] "Though so much has been written on this important passage, there is an obscurity and inconsequence which still attends it, in the general run of all the interpretations given to it by the most learned. And this obscure incoherence is given to it by the false rendering of a Hebrew particle, viz., ל le, in לדעתו ledato. This has been generally rendered, either 'that he may know,' or 'till he know.' It is capable of either version, without doubt; but either of these versions makes Isaiah 7:15 incoherent and inconsistent with Isaiah 7:16. For Isaiah 7:16 plainly means to give a reason for the assertion in Isaiah 7:15, because it is subjoined to it by the particle כי ki, for. But it is no reason why a child should eat butter and honey till he was at an age to distinguish, that before that time the land of his nativity should be free from its enemies. This latter supposition indeed implies, what is inconsistent with the preceding assertion. For it implies, that in part of that time of the infancy spoken of the land should not be free from enemies, and consequently these species of delicate food could not be attainable, as they are in times of peace. The other version, 'that he may know,' has no meaning at all; for what sense is there in asserting, that a child shall eat butter and honey that he may know to refuse evil and choose good? Is there any such effect in this food? Surely not. Besides, the child is thus represented to eat those things, which only a state of peace produces, during its whole infancy, inconsistently with Isaiah 7:16, which promises a relief from enemies only before the end of this infancy: implying plainly, that part of it would be passed in distressful times of war and siege, which was the state of things when the prophecy was delivered. "But all these objections are cut off, and a clear, coherent sense is given to this passage, by giving another sense to the particle ל le. which never occurred to me till I saw it in Harmer's Observat., vol. i., p. 299. See how coherent the words of the prophet run, with how natural a connection one clause follows another, by properly rendering this one particle: 'Behold this Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and thou shalt call his name Immanuel; butter and honey, shall he eat, when he shall know to refuse evil, and choose good. For before this child shall know to refuse evil and choose good, the land shall be desolate, by whose two kings thou art distressed.' Thus Isaiah 7:16 subjoins a plain reason why the child should eat butter and honey, the food of plentiful times, when he came to a distinguishing age; viz., because before that time the country of the two kings, who now distressed Judea, should be desolated; and so Judea should recover that plenty which attends peace.

15. Butter and honey shall he eat] This has to be explained by Isaiah 7:22, where the eating of butter (lit. “thick milk”) and (wild) honey is a symptom of the primitive simplicity to which human life is reduced by the cessation of agriculture. The meaning is that the youth of Immanuel will be spent amidst the privations of a land laid waste by foreign invaders. that he may know] This is the rendering of the Vulgate and other ancient versions, and is maintained still by a few scholars. But the idea that eating butter and honey promotes the formation of ethical character is somewhat bizarre. Translate with R.V. when he knoweth (more precisely “towards the time when, &c.”). It must be admitted, however, that exact parallels to this use of the preposition cannot be produced (though cf. Genesis 24:63; Exodus 14:27). But what lapse of time is here indicated? The expression “refuse the evil and choose the good” must bear the same sense as in Isaiah 7:16, and from ch. Isaiah 8:4 we see that the event predicted in Isaiah 7:16 was expected to happen in a very short time,—within two or three years from the date of the interview with Ahaz. It would seem, therefore, that the phrase denotes the age at which a child begins to exercise intelligent choice between the pleasant and the painful (cf. 2 Samuel 19:35). Most commentators, it is true, explain it of the development of moral consciousness, and think of a period of 10 or 12 years or even longer. But this introduces a needless discrepancy between this sign and that of Isa 8:4. There is nothing improbable in the supposition that Isaiah expected the Assyrian invasion of Judah (which of course is presupposed by Isaiah 7:15) to happen simultaneously with the destruction of Samaria and Damascus.

Butter and honey - The word rendered “butter” (חמאה chem'âh), denotes not butter, but thick and curdled milk. This was the common mode of using milk as an article of food in the East, and is still.

15. Butter and honey shall he eat — The “butter” of the Old Testament was simply curdled milk.