Paraphrase of the Hard Texts of Scripture, Scripture 19 · Chapter 7
CAP. VII.
2 And it was told the house of David, saying; Syria is confederate with Ephraim, and his heart was moved, & the heart of his people as the trees of the wood are moved with the winde.IT was told to some of the family of Achaz, the King of Judah, saying; The King of Assyria is confederate with Israel, to make a second warre upon Judah. And the heart of Achaz, and his subjects were moved, and shaken with feare, as the trees of the wood are moved with a strong winde.
Feare not these two Kings of Assyria, and Israel; for they are but as two short ends of fire brands,4 Feare not, neither be faint hearted, for the two tailes of these smoaking fire-brands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the sonne of Remaliah. not burning but smoaking, which may threaten, but can worke no combustion amongst you; I meane Rezin the King of Syria, and Pekah the sonne of Remaliah.
Let us, in stead of Achaz, set up a King in Jerusalem,6 —and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a King in the midst of it, even, &c. one of the most renouned peeres of Syria.
Damascus is the head city of Syria, and Rezin is the head or King of Damascus; so let him still bee, and content himselfe with his owne territories;8 For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin and within threescore and five yeares shall Ephraim be broken, &c. but as for Ephraim, which joynes with Syria against thee, ere threescore yeares be expired, it shall be wasted and dispeopled.
In the meane time, as Samaria is the head city of Israel, so let Pekah the sonne of Remaliah content himselfe to be the head, or King of Samaria:9 And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliahs son: if ye will not beleeve, surely ye shall not be established. These things I have fore-told you from God, O ye men of Jerusalem; if yee will not give credit unto them, the fault and the punishment shall be yours, ye shall faile of that protection, and stability which you expect.
I will demand no signe; for why should I?12 But Ahaz said, I will not aske, neither will I tempt the Lord. since I doe already beleeve the promise of God made to me; and why should I tempt God, by urging him to give proofe and evidence of that whereof I am sufficiently assured?
Heare me now,13 And he said, Heare ye now, O house of David; is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also? O yee of the house of my deare and faithfull servant David; whose sinne is therefore aggravated by the holinesse of your fore-fathers; Is it a small thing for you, to reject and contemne me, that am a man like your selves, but yee will with your hypocrisie, and disobedience provoke, and abuse my God also, whose message I beare? are ye not ashamed, and afraid, under a pretence of piety to refuse the gracious offer and command of God that sent me?
Therefore, the Lord shall, without your will,14 Therefore the Lord himselfe shall give you a signe: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and beare a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. or assent give you a signe; which shall be no other, then that ancient ingagement of his, to his Church: Behold, in the fulnesse of time, a virgin shall miraculously conceive, and beare a sonne; and she shall, by the appointment of God himselfe, call his name, God with us.
He shall have a true humane body,15 Butter & hony shall he eate, that he may know to refuse the evill, & chuse the good. and shall be sustained with that ordinary nourishment, wherewith children are wont to be fed; and shall grow up in experimentall knowledge, as well, as in stature; and shall thus inable himself (like us) to refuse the evill, & choose the good.
But,16 For before the child shall know to refuse the evill, and chuse the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her Kings. because you may plead that it will be long ere this promise be effected, behold, before this child of mine, Shear-jashub, shall come to the age of discretion, this land of Israel and of Syria shall be forsaken of both these Kings, Rezin, and Pekah; for they shall both, ere long, be swept away by an untimely death.
17 From the day that Ephraim departed from Iudah, even the King of Assyria.It was an heavie day to you, when the ten tribes departed away from Judah; but this judgement which I will bring upon you, shall be rather worse then that; even the sword of the King of Assyria.
18 That the Lord shall hisse for the flie that is in the uttermost parts of the rivers of Aegypt, and for the Bee that is in the land of Assyria.The Lord shall call for, and excite mighty enemies against thee, out from the further coasts of the river of Nilus, and out of Assyria; even Aethiopians, Edomites, and other puissant nations, which shall come, as thick as swarmes of flyes, or bees.
20 In the same day shall the Lord shave with a rasor that is hired, namely by them beyond the river, by the King of Assyria, the head and the haire of the feet, and it shall also consume the beard.In that day, the Lord shall, by the hand of the Assyrians and their associates, make utter strip, & waste of Judah, by the cruelty of those hired forces, which they shall bring up; even as if a man should be hired with his rasour to shave off all the haire of the head, and the whole body, even to the very stumpes, so as there shall bee no mention where it grew.
21 And it shall come to passe in that day, that a man shall nourish a yong cow, and two sheepe.And it shall come to passe in those daies, that a man which had formerly wont to keep whole flocks, & droves shall now be glad to take up with one yong cow, and two sheepe.
22 And it shall come to passe for the abundance of milke that they shall give, he shall eate butter: For butter and hony shall every one eate that is left in the land.And though this proportion be very small, yet it shall be answerable to the persons, which shall be left alive to spend it; who shall be so few, that this poore stocke of cattle shall be able to feed them: A small quantity of butter and hony shall be enough to sustaine that small remainder of men.
24 With arrowes and with bowes shall men come thither, because all the land shall become briars and thornes.So desolate shall the country be, that where before were townes inhabited, and fields tilled, there shall bee now solitary deserts, the dens of wilde beasts, so as the hunters shall come thither with arrowes, and bowes to pursue their game.
25 And on all hils that shall be digged with the mattocke, there shall not come thither the feare of briars and thornes; but it shall bee for the sending forth of oxen, and for the treading of lesser cattel.And men shall be glad to betake themselves into waste wildernesses, for their hiding places; and there shall bee glad to plant themselves, and imploy their husbandry upon the desert mountaines; which they shall digge with their mattocks, instead of plowing; in so much as there shall be no place for briars, and thornes to grow in those desolate hils, but they shall be improved to the use of their oxen, and lesser cattell.