What does Isaias Chapter 8 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

The chapter’s images and exact conditions retain their admitted wording. Prophetic words and separately labeled edition material remain distinct. The account preserves sequence without invented scenes or universal outcome guarantees.

Chapter breakdown

Isaias 8 records a command to take a great book and write with man's pen, taking spoils quickly. Faithful witnesses are Urias priest and Zacharias Barachias's son. Prophetess conceives son; Lord commands the spoil/prey-hastening name. Before he calls father/mother, Damascus strength and Samaria spoils go before Assyrian king. Parchment, legal certification, public performance and imported Hebrew spelling are not substituted for local wording.

People reject silent Siloe waters for Rasin and Romelia's son. Lord sends strong abundant river waters, Assyrian king and glory, overflowing channels/banks, through Juda to neck, wings spanning Emmanuel's land. Peoples gather, strengthen and gird but are overcome; counsel defeated and word undone because God is with us. Euphrates naming and universal guarantee against every coalition are not stated.

Strong-arm divine teaching forbids walking people's way, calling conspiracy as they do or fearing their fear; sanctify and dread Lord. He is sanctification, yet stumblingstone/offense to two Israel houses and snare/ruin Jerusalem, many falling/breaking/taken. Bind testimony and seal law among disciples; speaker waits for hidden-face Lord and offers self/children as divine signs in Israel from Sion-dwelling Lord.

Against requests for muttering pythons/diviners, people should seek God. Separate edition annotation explains pretended prophetic spirits and dead-in-sin fortune-tellers rather than praying to them for living health. Law/testimony rather: contrary speakers lack morning light. They pass, fall, hunger, grow angry, curse king/God and look upward, then earthward at trouble, dark, weakness, distress and pursuing mist without escape. Ending hunger and curses are retained, without added demon diagnosis or public hysteria.

The story inside

Opening: The chapter’s images and exact conditions retain their admitted wording. Development: Prophetic words and separately labeled edition material remain distinct. Conclusion: The account preserves sequence without invented scenes or universal outcome guarantees.

Lessons worth keeping

1
The chapter’s images and exact conditions retain their admitted wording.
2
Prophetic words and separately labeled edition material remain distinct.
3
The account preserves sequence without invented scenes or universal outcome guarantees.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 79154–79156
8:1. And the Lord said to me: Take thee a great book, and write in it with a man’s pen. Take away the spoils with speed, quickly take the prey.
Lines 79165–79167
8:4. For before the child know to call his father and his mother, the strength of Damascus, and the spoils of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of the Assyrians.
Lines 79171–79172
8:6. Forasmuch as this people hath cast away the waters of Siloe, that go with silence, and hath rather taken Rasin, and the son of Romelia:
Lines 79179–79181
8:8. And shall pass through Juda, overflowing, and going over shall reach even to the neck. And the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy, land, O Emmanuel.
Lines 79187–79188
8:10. Take counsel together, and it shall be defeated: speak a word, and it shall not be done: because God is with us.
Lines 79196–79197
8:13. Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself: and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.
Lines 79199–79201
8:14. And he shall be a sanctification to you. But for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offence to the two houses of Israel, for a snare and a ruin to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Lines 79211–79213
8:18. Behold I and my children, whom the Lord hath given me for a sign, and for a wonder in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwelleth in mount Sion.
Lines 79225–79226
8:20. To the law rather, and to the testimony. And if they speak not according to this word, they shall not have the morning light.