For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.
Before this child is old enough to say 'daddy' and 'mommy,' the wealth of Damascus and the treasures of Samaria will be carried away by the king of Assyria.
God is promising that within just a few years, before a baby can even talk, two enemy kingdoms will be destroyed by Assyria.
📚 Historical Context
During the 8th century BC, the prophet Isaiah was delivering messages to the people of Judah amid political tensions, as the Assyrian Empire was rising as a dominant military power threatening nearby nations. This verse refers to a child, likely Isaiah's son Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, whose name symbolized the swift plunder by Assyria, and it predicts that Damascus (the capital of Syria) and Samaria (the capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel) would fall to Assyrian forces before the child could even call out to his parents. This prophecy was part of God's warning to Judah about the consequences of alliances with unfaithful nations during the Syro-Ephraimite War.
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