Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

352 Hebrews II. 11-13.
to God.* For, before the time arrives when the promised one can
as a grown up man bring the Messianic salvation, Judea shall he
laid tvaste (ver. 15, comp. ver. 22). An unprecedented calamity
shall first befall both kingdoms, Ephraim and Judah (ver. 17), before
the promised period of glory, and that from tbe same Assyrian
power on which the foolish Ahaz relied for help (vers. 18 and 20).
—After this revelation had been made to Ahaz, Isaiah receives the
command from God to write upon a roll the symbolical name " haste
to the spoil, speed to the prey." He does this taking two men as
witnesses. After this, he begets a child, when the child is bom it
is a boy, and he receives the command to give to this boy the name
" haste to the spoil, speed to the prey ;" the boy was to be a living
witness and pledge, that the pro2:)hccy given to Isaiah nine months
before would in its first part (that Samaria and Damascus should be
laid waste by the Assyrians) be soon fulfilled (ver. 4); with like certainty,
also, would the other part be fulfilled, that Judah should be
oppressed by the Euphrateau power (which must here still be regarded
as the " Assyrian," as it was first under Hezckiah revealed to
the prophet that Babylon should take the place of Assyria). That
the prophet, immediately after having written on the roll, goes in to
the prophetess, leaves us to conclude that he did this according to
Divine direction. Thus we have here a series of signs, of which one
always points to the other. His writing on the roll is a sign that a
boij should be born to him, to whom he is to assign that name written
on the roU. That the boy is in reality bom, and receives that
name, is a sign that Samaria and Damascus are to be laid waste by
the Assyrians ; the overthrow of Samaria is a sign that the after
part of the threatening also, chap. vii. 17, that conceming Judah,
shall be fulfilled, and with this the coming of the promised Son of
David rendered possible.
The " haste to the spoil, speed to the prey" was, however, not
the first son of Isaiah who bore a symbolical prophetical name. In
chap. vii. 3 it is purposely mentioned that already an older boy
existed with such a name, the " Shcarjashub." The younger son
was a living prophecy of the judgments which were to come upon
Juda ; the elder, a living prophecy of the future salvation, of the
conversion in which these judgments were to issue (comp. Is. x. 21).
But it is not merely on the (.-xistence of these sons who were prophetic
in their names that Isaiah, in his address viii. 18, rests that
trust which bears him up amid all the agitations of the people, for
he goes on to say, " Behold I and the chililren whom thou hast
given me." In like manner as his trust rests upon his sons does it
rest also upon himself. His sons give liim faith and hope by the
* We see then the house of David, purifled by affliction, matured in the person of
the Virgin Mary to a purely womanly receptivity for the promised salvation.