Swift Is The Booty, Speedy Is The Prey

YHWH had told King Ahaz through Isaiah that Israel and Aram, his enemies, would be gone in less than 65 years. Then God updated that timeline to prove His point when He told Ahaz to ask Him for a sign. A virgin would bear a son and before he was old enough to choose between good and evil, those kings would be gone! God raises up kings and brings them low, so this would be simple for God to accomplish. Ahaz was left to his own decisions, to think about what God had told him.  Then God spoke to Isaiah, for he and his family would also be signs to Israel, Judah, and anyone who was watching.

"Take for yourself a large tablet and write on it in ordinary letters: 'Swift is the booty, speedy is the prey', the LORD told Isaiah. "And I will take to Myself faithful witnesses for testimony, Uriah the priest and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah." So Isaiah went to the Temple, wrote on this large tablet the words God had spoken, with Uriah the High Priest and Zechariah the prophet as witnesses. Then Isaiah went home to his wife. She conceived and 9 months later gave birth to a baby boy. The day came when Isaiah would present his son to God at the Temple, and he was named "Maher-shalal-hash-baz', which means "Swift is the booty, speedy is the prey."

Then God told Isaiah, "Before the boy knows how to cry out 'My father' or 'My mother,' the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carried away before the king of Assyria." And Tiglath-Pileser III, king of Assyria was at that moment devising plans to take down Damascus and Samaria. His armies were gathering strength to do that very thing, to fulfill the Word of God to Isaiah and many other prophets. Within 2 years from the birth of that son, this would happen. God had blessed Isaiah and his wife with another son who would be a sign to King Ahaz, a sign given by God since Ahaz had refused to ask God for one. 

King Ahaz had a choice to make. Would he trust God to protect him and Judah from his enemies? Or would he seek an alliance with Assyria? God spoke a warning against that, one which Ahaz unfortunately would ignore. "Inasmuch as these people have rejected the gently flowing water of Shiloah, and rejoice in Rezin and the son of Remaliah; so therefore, behold, the LORD is about to bring on them the strong and abundant waters of the Euphrates, the King of Assyria and all his glory. And it will rise up over all its channels and go over all its banks. Then it will sweep on into Judah, it will overflow and pass through, it will even reach to the neck; and the spread of its wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel." So these words connect the new son of Isaiah with the sign of Immanuel given to Ahaz. Assyria would come, conquer Aram and Israel, and even Judah would be affected, but not overthrown. All of that because Ahaz and Judah would not listen to the voice of God. 

The LORD spoke against the peoples who had rejected Him. "Devise a plan, but it will be thwarted,' God warned. And he told Isaiah to not walk in the ways of the wicked people of Israel and Judah. What God was going to do was not just a conspiracy theory, but it would surely come to pass. He needed to have a healthy fear of God, not the fear of man. Only as Isaiah trusted God would He then become a sanctuary of protection to Isaiah, but God would also be a stumbling stone for Israel and Judah. Then Isaiah called out to those who would listen in the Temple, 'Bind up the Testimony, seal the Law among my disciples. And I will wait for the LORD who is hiding His face from the house of Jacob; I will even look eagerly for Him. Behold, I and the children whom the LORD has given me are for signs and wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion.' 

Where Ahaz would run after the King of Assyria from protection instead of the LORD, Isaiah and his family would trust God for their protection. Where the men of Judah would go to mediums and spiritists who whisper and mutter, to seek the dead, Isaiah admonished them to seek God and consult the Law and Testimony. Because they people went after other gods and sought the dead through wizards and witches, God would bring down great calamity on them through the kings of Assyria. They would be driven away into darkness.