Isaiah 8:18

Behold, I, and the children whom the Lord hath given me,.... These are the words of Christ, as is clear from Hebrews 2:13 who, upon the prophet's declaring his resolution to look and wait for him,

Behold, I and the children whom the LORD hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion.

Behold; it is worthy of your observation and admiration. These words are literally spoken by Isaiah concerning himself, but withal mystically concerning Christ, of whom he speaks more frequently and fully than any other prophet, and of whom he was an evident type; and therefore they are fitly applied to Christ, . Children; either, 1. His natural children, whose very names were prophetical, and signs of future events, 8:3,4; or, 2. His spiritual children, whom he had either begotten or brought up by his ministry. For the prophets were called fathers not only with respect to the young prophets, who were commonly called the sons of the prophets, but also in relation to others, as 13:14. And this sense seems more probable than the former, because it agrees best, 1. With the following words, which seem to be too lofty and emphatical to be used concerning his natural children; for their prophetical names, which, if they were signs, could not properly be called wonders. 2. With the context and scope of the place, which is to set forth the incredulity of the Israelites, and their contempt and rejection of Christ, and of all his faithful messengers, both the prophets, who were sent as harbingers before his coming, and the apostles, who were witnesses of his coming. 3. With , where they are expounded of spiritual children. Are for signs and for wonders in Israel; are a gazingstock to and admired by them, for our folly in believing God’ s promises. For so the believing Jews now were to Ahaz and the generality of the people, who thought it their wisdom and interest to procure aid from Assyria, and esteemed those fools who, upon pretence of relying upon God, would neglect so great an advantage. And so the prophet foretells that they should be when the Messiah did come; which is the mystical, as the other is the literal sense; and so both of them may be meant in this place. In Israel; even amongst the Israelites, who have been taught and do profess better things. From the Lord of hosts; which come to pass by the wise counsel and providence of God, in which I willingly acquiesce. Which dwelleth in Mount Zion; where the temple now was, and where the Messiah was to set up his kingdom.

Isaiah 8:18 Behold, I and the children whom the LORD hath given me [are] for signs and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion.Ver. 18. Behold, I and the children whom the Lord.] That is, my disciples and converts, who have the same conflict with me. Are for signs and for wonders.] Hissed and hooted at as so many monsters by the mad world, even beside itself in point of salvation; and accounting the saints, as the Spaniards were wont to say of the Portuguese, Pocos et focos, few and foolish; and as the Turks count all fools to be saints, so the most count all saints to be fools. These shall one day cry, Nos insensati. We are fools.

(18) Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me . . .—In the mystic significance of his own name (Isaiah—Salvation of Jehovah) and of the names of his sons: Remnant shall return. and Speed-plunder, Haste-spoil, possibly also in that of Immanuel, the prophet finds a sufficient revelation of the future. Each was a nomen et omen for those who had ears to hear. Could the disciples of Isaiah complain that they had no light thrown upon the future, when, so to say, they had those embodied prophecies? The children disappear from the scene, and we know nothing of their after-history, but all their life long, even with or without a special prophetic work, they must have been, by virtue of their names, witnesses to a later generation, of what Isaiah had predicted. In Isaiah’s own life, as including symbolic acts as well as prophetic words (Isaiah 20:2), we have a further development of the thought that he was “a sign and a wonder.” (Comp. Ezekiel 12:11.) The citation of the words, “I and the children whom thou hast given me,” in Hebrews 2:13, is noticeable here chiefly as showing how little the writer of that Epistle cared in this and other quotations for the original meaning of the words as determined by the context. It was enough for him that the Christ, like the prophet, did not stand alone, but claimed a fellowship with the children whom the Father had given him (John 17:6; John 17:12), as being alike servants and children of God, called to do His will.

Verse 18. Lord of hosts] One MS. reads אלהי צבאות Elohey tsebaoth, God of hosts.

18. I and the children whom the Lord hath given me] Like Hosea, Isaiah had been directed to embody leading ideas of his teaching in the names of at least two of his children, Shear-jashub and Maher-shalal-hash-baz. His own name, also, though not an uncommon one, expresses what we may regard as the most comprehensive idea of his theology—“Jehovah saves.” He and they are thus for signs and portents (cf. ch. Isaiah 20:3 and see on Isaiah 7:11) in Israel; the children especially cannot be seen or named without recalling to mind prophetic utterances of profound import. which dwelleth in mount Zion] This conception seems to have first emerged in Isaiah’s teaching at the time of the Syro-Ephraimite war, when Jerusalem was threatened by a foreign army. We have here perhaps the earliest anticipation of what became afterwards a fixed element of his prophecy—the inviolability of Jerusalem, the earthly seat of Jehovah’s throne.

Behold, I... - By ‘signs and wonders,’ here, it is meant that they, by the names given them, were intended to teach important lessons to the Jewish people.

18. The prophet points to himself and family as signs of the rightfulness of relying on Jehovah rather than looking to Assyria.