Lecture #9

Question 1

What are the 14 points of Davidic typology referenced by Hugenberger?

Answer 1

1. ) Jesus’ genealogical connection to David
2. ) Jesus so much like David, Lk parallels gospel to 1,2Sam [NT Wright]
3. ) Born in Bethlehem
4. ) Jesus is anointed by Samuel-like prophet
5. ) Goliath and Golgotha (1 Sam 17) – the place where Jesus defeats his enemy, destroying him with his own weapon (death), in a battle of champions
6. ) Unique ministry to demonized
7. ) Special relationship to the blind and lame (2 Sam 5)
8. ) Covenant with David (2 Sam 7)
9. ) David has his Judas, Ahithophel
10. ) David’s Via Dolorosa (escaping city, weeping up mount of olives)
11. ) David is the good shepherd, ready to lay down life for sheep at Moriah (2 Sam 24)
12. ) Psalm 110
13. ) For David’s sake [cf. for Abraham’s sake] – where the representatives’ obedience of the leader secures blessing for subsequent generations (patriarchal merit)
14. ) David’s unfulfilled aspirations point to the predicted accomplishments of the Escalated Second David

Question 2

What are the four ways in which Isaiah is a Theocratic (i.e. Moses-like) Prophet?

Answer 2

1. ) Dependence on the Torah
2. ) Call experience (Isa 6)
3. ) Isaiah among the first writing prophets
4. ) “Thus says the LORD” (formula)

Question 3

The Sign of Isa 7: Is this Immanuel a reference to the next child of Isaiah (Mahershalalhashbaz)? Give 3 considerations in favor.

Answer 3

1. If Ha’alma = “young woman”
2. Some immediate relevance for Ahaz/Isaiah
3. Many parallels between the birth of this child and that of mahershalalhashbaz in Isa 8

Question 4

The Sign of Isa 7: Is this Immanuel a reference to the next child of Isaiah (Mahershalalhashbaz)? Give 9 considerations against this view.

Answer 4

1. ) Even if ha’alma is young woman, there is no evidence that it can refer to a woman, like Isaiah’s wife, who is already a mother
2. ) No explanation for why the boy is given a different and very ominous name is Isa 8: Mahershalalhasbaz [=’quick to the plunder, swift to the spoil”]
3. ) Why bother mention the wife? Why not “I will have a son…”?
4. ) Every other prophetic birth announcement involves a miraculous conception, as is required here (“a sign”)
5. ) It would be unparalleled in Scrip for God to announce the birth of a child and then have that child turn our to be someone who had no particular role in the unfolding of redemptive history [Isaac, Samson, Samuel, John the Baptist]. Mahershalalhasbaz, as also Shear-jashub, was merely a sign
6. ) In his lament over Sennacherib’s impending destruction of the land, Isa describes the land as belonging to Immanuel (Isa 8:8). This would be inapplicable to his Isaiah’s son.
7. ) If Immanuel is Mahehshalalhashbaz, why change the time span for the countdown for the Syro-Ephraimite coalition as one goes from Isa 7 to Isa 8? (Isa 7:16; 8:4)
8. ) If Immanuel were Mahershalalhasbaz, how would this have any significance for Ahaz? This was not his child!
9. ) If Immanuel is the same child as is predicted in Isa 9 and 11, as seems likely, these latter chapters imply that he is a kinlgly figure and of the line of David, whereas Isa is the ‘son of Amoz’ (2 kgs 19:2, Isa 2:1, etc. – note Isa 7:13 he refers to ‘you house of David”).

Question 5

The Sign of Isa 7: Is this Immanuel a reference to the next child of Ahaz (Hezekiah)? Give 4 considerations in favor of this view.

Answer 5

i. If ha’alma is young woman
ii. Some immediate relevance for Ahaz/Isa/the house of David (Isa 7:2, 13)
iii. Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, was a godly king, and so perhaps someone who could seem to deserve the name ‘Immanuel’
iv. The description of the Promised Land in Isa 8:8 a ‘yours land, O Immanuel” is plausible if Hezekiah is Immanuel

Question 6

The Sign of Isa 7: Is this Immanuel a reference to the next child of Ahaz (Hezekiah)? Give 6 considerations against this view.

Answer 6

i. Even if ha’alma is young woman, there is no evidence that it can refer to a woman, like Ahaz’s wife, who is already a mother (they sacrificed their first child)
ii. If Isaiah 7 predicts the birth of a son to Ahaz, this renders unnecessary and redundant the prediction of the birth of M in Isa 8
iii. Why bother mention the wife? Why no “you will have a son…”?
iv. Every other prophetic birth announcement is miraculous, as is required here (“a sign”)
v. There is no evidence that the name Immanuel was ever applied to Hezekiah
vi. As pointed out already by Jerome, Hezekiah was already 6 years old at the time of Isa 7 (734 BC)

Question 7

The Sign of Isa 7: Immanuel as a reference to Jesus, the virgin-born son of Mary? Give 7 considerations in favor of this view.

Answer 7

i. Distant future predictions not out of place in Isaiah (7:8; 46:10; 44:6-8; 41:22f; 45:21)
ii. The meaning of alma = “an unmarried woman of marriageable age” ~ “a virgin”
iii. The significance elsewhere of prophetic pre-conceptual birth announcement
iv. The significance of the name Immanuel (cf. Isa 8:10) and its relation to the one predicted in Isa 9, 11
v. Parallels in pagan myths (God speaks Ahaz’s heart language)
vi. The predicted diet of curds and honey and its effects in 7:15
vii. If this one to be born is God, then this echoes Isa’s insistent warning against trusting in man

Question 8

The Sign of Isa 7: Immanuel as a reference to Jesus, the virgin-born son of Mary? Give the 1 consideration against this view.

Answer 8

i. The relevance to house of David and Ahaz: Answer to problem
1. The unbreakable covenant of dynastic succession (2 Sam 7; Gen 49:10)
2. More immediate relevance: within 12 years the coalition will be decimated