7:15,16
The “curds and honey” here has nothing to do with a “a land flowing with milk and honey”. The latter refers to prosperity, but the former is referring to a time when only the most basic food is available. This would be the result of the coming Assyrian invasion devastating the agricultural production. The reference to the boy reaching an age of knowing right from wrong (presumably about twelve years old), puts a time frame on this.
Ahaz feared Ephraim and Aram, but God tells him that before long these two nations will be devastated, and this happened in 732 BC. Ahaz did have something to fear, there was a situation that desperately needed attention, but it was not what Ahaz thought it was. He needed to fear the Lord, and the situation that needed urgent attention was Judah’s apostasy.
7:17
For just as Assyria would soon attack Ephraim and Aram, Judah would be next on the hit list. And this would be a more fearsome attack than anything Judah had experienced before. We need to be careful what we fear, and to make sure it is the Lord that we fear above all else. We can also be a bit squeamish at times about talking about the fear of the Lord, usually qualifying it as a “reverent fear”, or some such phrase. There is a good motive in doing this, but we should bear in mind that fear means fear! And look at the contexts where the Bible, including Jesus, speak of fear. Fear is something that we all know about, and when we fear something we do so because we believe it can do us serious harm, and so we take action and make decisions in our lives to mitigate that risk. The Bible tells us quite clearly that the one we need to fear above all else is the Lord. He has more capacity to do us harm than anything or anyone else. To put it bluntly we need to keep on the right side of God (which we do by having faith in the Lord Jesus Christ), if we do this then we are far more likely to make rational and righteous decisions in life.
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