The Burden of Damascus

Syria has been front and center in the news these days, as the government of Bashar al-Assad has fallen to Islamist rebels while the power brokers who propped up his government for their own purposes sat on the sidelines and watched. As for Assad, he escaped from the capital Damascus and fled to Moscow, where he was welcomed with open arms by President Putin.

Not being as much of a political wonk as some in the watch community, it's still a bit too soon for me to try and sort through the situation in Syria with a high degree of clarity and scope out just how all this might play out. I'm pretty much like a lot of ordinary people right now, saddled with a case of "wait and see." So, that's not the point of this article—we'll have to wait and see.

Now, I may not be much of a political wonk, but I admit that I am a bit of a Scripture wonk. So, rather than a little geopolitical prognostication, what I want to do here is consider a hot topic that's been making the rounds in prophetic circles these days: the question of Damascus and its relationship to an oft-quoted prophecy in the book of Isaiah.

If you've been keeping up with things prophetic to any great degree, you have probably heard some excited buzz about the possibility of Damascus being utterly destroyed in the end times in fulfillment of Isaiah 17:1–2. And before we continue, here is the passage in question:

¹The burden of Damascus. "Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap.

²The cities of Aroer are forsaken. They will be for flocks, which shall lie down, and no one shall make them afraid."

(Isaiah 17:1–2)

Most are buzzing about Damascus being nuked...although, as is typically the case with biblical prophets, Isaiah doesn't offer much in the way of technical details on just how this destruction will come about.

For as long as I can remember, the idea of Damascus being destroyed has been routinely accepted by the great majority of the watch community as being part of the end-time scenario, right up there with the Rapture, the attack of Gog-Magog, the treaty of Daniel 9:27, the Tribulation, the rise of the Antichrist, the abomination of desolation, the battle of Armageddon, the Second Coming, and the establishment of the Millennial Kingdom.

It honestly never occurred to me to seriously question the idea of Isaiah's prophecy being fulfilled in the end times until I was working on an article in late 2023 entitled "Where Is This Going?"—an article prompted by the October 7 attack on Israel by terrorist group Hamas. As I worked on that article, I made what was for me a surprising discovery:

One of my favorite Bible teachers and watchman extraordinaire Mark Hitchcock had broken ranks with the Future Fulfillment battalion and joined the ranks of the Already Fulfilled squad in regard to this prophecy. Mark believes that Isaiah 17:1–2 was completely fulfilled in the eighth century BC and so there is (gasp) no compelling scriptural reason to look for a future fulfillment of it.

Of course, he is far from alone in that view—but he was literally the first person on my TWL (Trusted Watchman List) I had ever heard make such a statement. As always, I took Mark's opinion seriously due to the simple fact that he has earned my respect over the years as a top-notch teacher of Bible prophecy. I made a mental note of Mark's opinion about Isaiah's prophecy, but I never got around to digging into it more deeply.

But then the government of Bashar al-Assad fell to Islamist rebels.

Suddenly Damascus was in the headlines, and to the surprise of no one a whirlwind of speculation kicked up in the watch community over the topic of Damascus being destroyed as per Isaiah 17:1–2.

And before I knew it, the Scripture wonk within was awakened.

Now, I am the type of person who wants to know exactly what I believe and exactly why I believe it—and that's why I can come across as a bit dogmatic at times. But although I tend to go to great lengths to root out any trace of fence-sitting in my little world, I am pleased to report that there are exceptions. The simple truth is that we really don't always necessarily know the correct way to interpret certain things in Scripture with absolute certainty, and so far be it from me to presume I can.

The reason I want to emphasize this is because this happens to be one of those exceptions. I want to state up front that my goal in this article is not to imitate our boys at Iwo Jima and heroically take the hill of Isaiah's prophecy about Damascus and emphatically plant the Already Fulfilled flag while under fire from enemy Future Fulfillment troops—which, I'm sad to say, describes the sort of thing that goes on in the field of biblical interpretation far too often.

In other words, to quote the opening words of Isaiah 17:1...

The "burden of Damascus" these days is trying to determine whether or not the modern-day capital of Syria is due to go up in a mushroom cloud sometime in the near future in a pending fulfillment of Isaiah 17:1–2.

That said, what I want to do in this article is go into some detail as to why those who do see a future fulfillment of Isaiah 17:1–2 and believe Damascus will be destroyed in the end times may not have quite as strong a scriptural case for this view as they suppose. In other words, I want to go into some of the reasons why there are some outstanding watchmen (such as Mark Hitchcock) who fully support the Already Fulfilled view.

But I also want to touch base with the Future Fulfillment view and the fact that it's not entirely unreasonable to believe that Isaiah 17:1–2 may yet have a future fulfillment in the end times as most of the pre-mill/pre-trib watch community believes, in spite of the existence of a number of reasons that would seem to support the Already Fulfilled view.

In my opinion, this particular prophecy can be interpreted either way, and nothing absolutely precludes it from being interpreted either way. So in the end it's up to you to decide how you wish to interpret it. In other words:

The "burden of Damascus" is on you.

The Already Fulfilled view

The first thing I want to do is share a few things I learned recently in regard to the interpretation of Isaiah 17:1–2 that make some people see this prophecy as having been completely fulfilled in Old Testament times, and thus conclude that there is no reason to look forward to a pending future fulfillment of it.

There is a lot of material that I could delve into, but I'm not writing a book here. So, I am going to try and break this down into several key points in regard to verses 1 and 2 individually to keep things as clear and simple as reasonably possible.

First, let's consider a couple points regarding verse 1:

¹The burden of Damascus. "Behold, [used with a participle, this is either true now or about to happen (see comments below)] Damascus is taken away from [or "removed from"] being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap.

(Isaiah 17:1 / emphasis & [comments] added)

• Behold...coming soon!

This may seem like a little thing, but it still means something—every word in Scripture means something. The first thing to note is the use of "behold." Throughout the Old Testament, the Hebrew word translated "behold" is hinneh, which means "see, here, now, look," etc. Of course, "behold" is such a common, throw-away word we don't give it much thought. But be aware that when hinneh is used with a participle (a form like taken or removed that would be used with a form of have or be), it invariably suggests something is either true now or is just about to happen (Gen. 1:29; Exod. 7:16; Lev. 10:16; Num. 3:12; Deut. 26:10, and so on throughout the entire Old Testament).

This is one minor reason it strikes some as objectionable to dig up and re-plant this prophecy into the distant future: The use of hinneh with a participle always suggests that what follows has either just happened or is just about to happen. Thus, some feel that reading a distant future fulfillment into this verse actually constitutes an abuse of the plain text of Scripture.

• Removed from what?

Some people who disagree with the Future Fulfillment view point to the line "removed from being a city" and argue that this doesn't necessarily mean that Damascus will disappear—that is, be so totally annihilated that it will cease to exist forever, which is how those who hold to the Future Fulfillment view read it. The Future Fulfillment folks look at the fact that Damascus still exists as a city, and insist that verse 1 has not yet been fulfilled.

But is that what verse 1 is telling us? Is this verse telling us that Damascus must be completely obliterated and never again exist as a city? This is key, because if so, then since Damascus is still a city today, the Already Fulfilled view is in error and the popular Future Fulfillment view is the only game in town. But there are those who disagree with this take on verse 1.

David Nadali gives us a brief sketch of what transpired in the region of Syria in the eighth century BC, after King Rezin of Damascus and King Pekah of Israel (i.e. the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom) formed an alliance and attacked Judah (i.e. Judah and Benjamin, the two remaining tribes that formed the Southern Kingdom). Tiglath-Pileser III, the king of the powerful nation of Assyria to the northeast, came to Judah's defense after King Ahaz finally relented and agreed to pay Assyria the requisite tribute:

The conquest of Damascus by Tiglath-Pileser III (733–732 BC) is the final result of the Assyrian intervention against the anti-Assyrian coalition of Rezin of Damascus and Pekah of Israel against Ahaz of Judah. Rezin and Pekah tried to capture Jerusalem, capital city of the kingdom of Judah, but they failed (about 735–734 BC). Tiglath-Pileser III came to the aid of Ahaz of Judah, who promptly asked for the help of the Assyrian king. He finally destroyed the power of Damascus, by besieging the city, forcing king Rezin to surrender, as well as by conquering the whole region once under the control of Damascus. Rezin of Damascus died during the siege, according to the Bible (II Kings 16:9). [It is reasonable to conclude that what Damascus was "removed from" was not merely its status as a literal city, but its status as a powerful city that controlled a powerful kingdom.]

After the conquest by Tiglath-Pileser III, Damascus was no longer the capital of the independent and rich kingdom of Aram. [The majority of Bible commentators are convinced that this destruction of Damascus by Tiglath-Pileser III is what Isaiah is prophesying in 17:1–2.] Even so, it became the main centre of an Assyrian province: as previously, Damascus maintained its central position in the trade routes for exchanges of goods and wares. [...as opposed to being completely destroyed forever.]

(emphasis & [comments] added)

— "Sieges and Similes of Sieges in the Royal Annals"

by Davide Nadali [Source]

As a result of the powerful, destructive campaign Tiglath-Pileser waged on the city of Damascus and the surrounding area in 732 BC, the majority of Bible commentators view this as the literal fulfillment of Isaiah 17:1—he reduced Damascus to a heap of rubble. (We'll get into the "forever" business shortly.)

On the other hand, some in the Future Fulfillment camp insist that although Tiglath-Pileser may have successfully conquered Damascus, he didn't really destroy it. Well, all I can say is that that's not exactly how Tiglath-Pileser recalls it in his Annals:

I took 800 people together with their property, their cattle and their sheep as spoil. I took 750 captives of the cities of Kurussa and Sama as well as 550 captives from the city of Metuna as spoil. I destroyed 591 cities from the 16 districts of Damascus like ruins from the Flood. ["Like ruins from the Flood" has "a heap of rubble" written all over it in the opinion of many.]

— "Neo-Assyrian and Syro-Palestinian Texts II," Ancient Near East: Historical Sources in Translation (Blackwell Sourcebooks in Ancient History, ed. Mark W. Chavalas)

So, what happens today in regard to Isaiah 17:1 is that people who see the need for a future fulfillment read the line "Damascus is taken/removed from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap" and interpret it in the most extreme, literal sense possible and conclude that Damascus must one day cease to exist forever, and never be rebuilt. But that's not necessarily the case, because it could be argued that they are reading things into this verse. That is, there is actually nothing in this verse requires that destruction to be forever.

Next, let's look at verse 2:

²The cities of Aroer are forsaken. [A few translations differ completely in their translation of this line.] They will be for flocks, which shall lie down, and no one shall make them afraid.

(Isaiah 17:2 / emphasis & [comments] added)

As I said, many people who adhere to the Future Fulfillment interpretation look at the line in verse 1 about how Damascus will be "removed from being a city" and assume this means that Damascus will cease to exist forever. And we have looked at a couple of points related to verse 1 that suggest this is not necessarily the case. But there's more.

If people don't read the idea of Damascus being destroyed forever into verse 1, they're liable to get it from an iffy translation of verse 2.

Specifically, the first phrase of verse 2, as I have noted above.

The great majority of English translations of the Old Testament follow the Masoretic Text (MT), which is generally considered the most detailed and most authoritative Hebrew text of the Old Testament canon used by Jews. Most English translations follow the MT, and over 90 percent of them render the line as it appears above in the World English Bible I quoted:

"The cities of Aroer are forsaken."

By the fourth century BC, thanks in large part to the extensive conquests of Alexander the Great, Greek had become the dominant language of pretty much the entire civilized world.

In the third century BC, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, son of Ptolemy I, a Greek general under Alexander who founded the Ptolemaic Kingdom after Alexander's death, arranged for the Old Testament to be translated into Greek. He gathered 72 Jewish rabbis, six from each of the 12 tribes (according to legend), and asked them to translate the Old Testament canon into Koine Greek. This translation is commonly referred to as the Septuagint, or simply by the Roman numerals LXX (i.e. 70).

Now, before I get to the point I want to make, it is important to understand one thing that many believers seem largely unaware of (as was I until I started working on this article):

Say what?! According to Wikipedia, the Septuagint has been long been rejected as being scripturally untrustworthy by mainstream Rabbinic Judaism. Many in the Jewish rabbinical community claim this Greek translation of their Scripture appears to "demonstrate an ignorance of Hebrew idiomatic usage," and point to numerous examples they consider blatant errors.

According to some Bible commentators, one such example of the Septuagint's unacceptable degree of variance from the Hebrew text appears in Isaiah 17:2. As I indicated, the Hebrew in this line is nearly always rendered into English as it appears above:

"The cities of Aroer are forsaken..."

But along come the translators of the Septuagint, who for some reason rendered the exact same phrase as:

"Abandoned forever..."

Which begs the obvious question:

How on earth did "the cities of Aroer"

get turned into "abandoned forever"?

Although only an exceedingly small handful of English translations of the Bible follow the Septuagint's lead on this verse, the effects of this differing translation seem to have reverberated through the prophetic community. As a result, it has become quite common to see competent teachers and students of Bible prophecy quoting Isaiah 17:2 under the influence of the Septuagint's highly questionable translation:

"Hey, Isaiah 17:1–2 says Damascus will be destroyed forever, and it's still standing! That means this was never fulfilled in history, and that means the fulfillment of this prophecy must obviously be in the future!"

End of conversation. But the simple fact of the matter is clear:

That's not what the passage actually says.

And I have a feeling that if it were not for the Septuagint's highly questionable rendering of verse 2, there might not be quite as many people in the Future Fulfillment cadre, and I might not be writing this article.

• The ABCs of Hebrew

One issue that is closely related to this extremely questionable translation of the first part of Isaiah 17:2 is one possible reason why it may have occurred in the first place. According to some experts, part of the problem may lie with the subtleties of the Hebrew alphabet—especially in its handwritten form.

In Hebrew, the name of the city Aroer (ah-ro-air) appears (sans diacritics for simplicity) as follows:

ערער

Words and phrases like "forever," "forever and ever," and so on are frequently rendered in Hebrew as follows:

עדי עד

This is pronounced ah-de ad, and note the obvious similarity between the Hebrew letters ר (resh) and ד (dalet), which represent an "r" and a "d" sound, respectively. (Things make a bit more sense if you recall that Hebrew is read from right to left). Notice that ר has a rounded corner, and ד has a sharp corner. Now, while this may be reasonably clear in printed text, it may not always be quite as clear in handwritten Hebrew, which is obviously what the translators of the Septuagint had to work with in the third century BC.

The point is that some experts believe, based on the existence of a variety of other translation errors, that it is not outside the realm of possibility that the translators of the Septuagint simply misread the original Hebrew letters in the handwritten text and as a result were misled and mistranslated the Hebrew for Aroer as εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα (eis ton aiona, or "into the ages").

In other words, "forever."

• The burden of Babylon?

OK, so people with the Future Fulfillment view read in Isaiah 17:1 that Damascus will be "removed from being a city," and they read into this the idea that Damascus will never again be a city after some point in time—and that point in time must still be future since Damascus is still a city now.

Those with the Already Fulfilled view point out that Isaiah 17:1 doesn't mean that Damascus will literally cease to exist, but that it would never again enjoy the same status as the controlling city of a powerful kingdom—and that was fulfilled in the eighth century BC and has remained so ever since.

However, those who assume the words "removed from being a city" mean that Damascus will be destroyed forever might do well to read what Isaiah wrote about Babylon several chapters earlier:

¹⁹Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans' pride, will be like when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. [That is, utter decimation. But will it remain that way forever? That's the question.]

²⁰It will never be inhabited, neither will it be lived in from generation to generation. [Yep...forever. Isaiah couldn't possibly be any clearer.] The Arabian will not pitch a tent there, neither will shepherds make their flocks lie down there. [No people, no sheep, nothing.]

(Isaiah 13:19–20 / emphasis & [comments] added)

Isaiah doesn't mince words about Babylon's future, and he spells it out in plain language about as clearly as it can be spelled out that Babylon would cease to exist as a city, and its destruction would in fact be permanent. Nobody would ever live there again. We don't have to read anything into this passage: Isaiah makes it 100 percent crystal clear. An absolute no-doubter.

And anyone familiar with the history of Babylon knows for a fact that this prophecy has been fulfilled to the letter and remains so to this day.

An end-times Babylon? Some people believe Babylon will be rebuilt in the end times due to references to it in Revelation 17 and 18. Many Bible commentators are convinced, however, that rather than references to the literal city of Babylon, these are references to religious, political, and/or commercial aspects of the kingdom of the Antichrist. You be the judge.

My point is that the question that could be put to those who are convinced that Isaiah prophesied an equally permanent destruction for Damascus is this:

If Isaiah intended to prophesy essentially the

same fate for Damascus that he did for Babylon,

then why on earth didn't he spell it out as clearly?

Why did Isaiah speak in far more graphic, literal terms in regard to Babylon than he did for Damascus if the fate of these two cities is the same?

• A matter of style

Although the Holy Spirit is the Author of all Scripture, the characteristic writing style of each of the 40 or so men who penned its words still shines through. One item that makes it seem unlikely that Isaiah actually did mean to write "forever" in verse 2 has to do with elements of his style.

Note that when Isaiah means "forever" in regard to the destruction of an enemy or a city, he has a distinct preference for the word עולם (olam), rather than עדי עד (ah-de ad) (see the Hebrew for Isa. 14:20; 25:2; 32:14). So due to the absence of olam in verse 2, it strikes some as unlikely that he meant "forever" in regard to what was going to happen to Damascus due to stylistic considerations. Of course, this doesn't prove anything, but still...

It makes reading "forever" into verse 2 stick out like a sore thumb.

• A play on words

Another reason why many Bible scholars believe the form ערער used by the Masoretic Text for the name Aroer in verse 2 is correct is due to the fact that it creates some deeply meaningful word play that the Septuagint's apparent misreading as עדי עד completely bypasses.

According to the Keil and Delitsch Commentary on the Old Testament, the Hebrew used for the word Aroer in Isaiah 17:2 forms a stunning play on words that is completely absent in the Septuagint's questionable translation as "into the ages." Note that the Hebrew word ערער used for Aroer is derived from the root ערר, which means "to strip, to make bare, to pull down." And one could hardly come up with a more appropriate description of what Tiglath-Pileser did to Damascus and other related cities in the area.

Damascus and the surrounding cities certainly got stripped, made bare, and pulled down, just as the word Aroer suggests. The only question is whether or not that condition would last forever. That's the crux of the matter.

The Holy Spirit frequently uses word play throughout the text of Scripture, and it is certainly present in the rendering of Isaiah 17:2 in the Masoretic Text—but this highly apropos word play is conspicuously absent in the Septuagint's questionable translation of the verse.

These are a few of the reasons why the majority of Bible commentators agree with the Already Fulfilled view of Isaiah 17:1–2, and do not see any compelling scriptural reason to anticipate a yet future fulfillment. They see Damascus being removed from its position as a powerful city that was the center of a powerful kingdom reduced to rubble by the even more powerful Assyrians, who had a well-earned reputation for being vicious, cruel, and destructive in their military offensives on places they decided to attack.

Not only that, but they see nothing in these two verses that would require Damascus to remain destroyed forever. Damascus was obviously rebuilt, but never regained its status as the powerful hub of a powerful kingdom.

OK, so what about the view of people who are convinced that these two verses have not been completely fulfilled because they believe such a fulfillment requires a permanent destruction of Damascus, which clearly still stands as a city today? Such people, the great majority of whom are pre-mill, pre-trib, dispensationalist believers who generally possess a reasonable degree of familiarity with the major aspects of end-time prophecy, are anxiously anticipating what they consider a requisite future fulfillment of this prophecy concerning the destruction of Damascus in the end times.

So are they wrong? Have they been misled? Have they misinterpreted these two verses? Has anything I've said so far in this article proven conclusively that they have an errant view of Isaiah 17:1–2? As I said at the outset:

I may have a tendency to come across as a bit dogmatic in my views at times, but this is one of those exceptions.

The Future Fulfillment view

Relax...this part is going to be mercifully short and sweet, because I'm just going to cut to the chase:

Nothing I have said in this article proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Already Fulfilled view is absolutely right and the Future Fulfillment view is absolutely wrong. Nothing I have said here gives me the right to accuse those who hold to the Future Fulfillment view of misinterpreting Scripture, and I am certainly not doing so.

All I am saying is that there is a stronger case for the Already Fulfilled view than I previously imagined—strong enough that it should at least be given thoughtful consideration, even by those who have long adhered to the Future Fulfillment view (as did I for many years).

Now, I'm sure that no one who subscribes to the Future Fulfillment view denies or diminishes what Tiglath-Pileser did to Damascus and other area cities in the eighth century BC. These events are verifiable historical fact. It's just that they believe there is a clear suggestion in Isaiah 17:1–2 that this destruction will occur again in the end times, only with a degree of finality we have yet to see (perhaps with a nuclear weapon). And it could—that's the point.

The bottom line is this:

I can't prove them wrong, so I'm not going to waste my time trying.

I am officially on the fence, and I am likely to remain so. In spite of everything I have said here, those who adhere to the Future Fulfillment view might be right. The way things are going in the Middle East these days, Damascus could go up in a mushroom cloud next week—and much more importantly...

It would in no way violate, contradict, or compromise one single jot or tittle of God's inerrant, prophetically confirmed Word.

If it helps, think of it this way: No matter what happens in regard to Damascus and Isaiah 17:1–2, it's going to prove one group of people right and one group of people wrong. And since the trumpet could sound to call us home tomorrow, it's eminently possible that neither group will be here to find out who's right and who's wrong anyway.

Dual fulfillment

One of the saddest aspects of Bible prophecy today is the fact that the concept of the dual fulfillment of certain Old Testament prophecies has become a bitter bone of contention between groups like dispensationalists and preterists. This contention, which can become rancorous to the point of dishonoring the name of Christ, shakes out as follows:

• Dispensationalists view a number of Old Testament prophecies as having a dual fulfillment: a partial, near-term fulfillment that serves to confirm the validity of the prophecy as well as the prophet, and a fuller, long-term fulfillment occurring in the distant future. They see the re-establishment of the nation of Israel in 1948 as the bellwether prophetic fulfillment of the end times, and they see a number of important prophetic events coming on the horizon, such as the Rapture, the seven-year Tribulation, the reign of the Antichrist, the return of Christ to establish His kingdom, and so on.

• Preterists view all or most Bible prophecy as having already been fulfilled. They balk at the idea of dual fulfillment, and believe the events described in sections of Scripture such as the Olivet Discourse and the book of Revelation were fulfilled before the end of the first century, culminating with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70. They see no end-time role for the modern nation of Israel, and subscribe to replacement theology. Many preterists believe Nero was the biblical Antichrist, the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 was God's final judgment on the Jews, and so on.

A-n-d it's off to the races:

• Dispensationalists tend to regard preterists as biblical dim bulbs with their heads buried in the sand, unable or unwilling to perceive the obvious fulfillment of key end-time prophecies given in the Old Testament. They see preterists as force-fitting lame, historical substitutes to shield themselves from the stunning reality of the rapid congealing of the end-time scenario.

• Preterists tend to regard dispensationalists as a gaggle of drooling tinfoil hatters who have been duped into believing that every single prophecy in the entire Old Testament must be attached to some loopy end-time theory they've dreamed up or read about in the latest prophecy best-seller, rather than face the cold, hard fact that it's all clearly been fulfilled according to God's Word.

And on and on it goes.

Well, with all due respect to our preterist friends, regardless of how anyone interprets Isaiah 17:1–2, the simple truth is that there are in fact a number of Old Testament prophecies (maybe not quite as many as some people assume, but some) that do indeed have a dual fulfillment, which features a near-term partial fulfillment that points to a more complete future fulfillment.

And that's not tinfoil hattery:

That's a verifiable historical fact.

And it is none other than the prophet Isaiah who gives us one of the most precious examples of a prophecy with such a dual fulfillment—and although it's not the prophecy we have been discussing, it is closely connected to it. And as luck would have it, it concerns what believers all over the world celebrate around this time of year: the birth of Christ—a prophecy that was fulfilled two thousand years ago in a stable in Bethlehem.

In all honesty, until I sat down to work on this article, I had somehow managed to miss the fact that in reality this is a wonderful example of an Old Testament prophecy with a dual fulfillment.

Follow along closely, because you're gonna love this.

In Isaiah 7:1–9 (as we saw earlier), King Rezin of Damascus and King Pekah of Israel tried to pressure King Ahaz of Judah to join their anti-Assyrian coalition, but Ahaz refused to go along with it. So, Rezin and Pekah attacked Jerusalem in the hopes of removing Ahaz and installing a king who would be more amenable to their plans. But the prophet Isaiah came to Ahaz and told him this attack would fail and the kings leading it would fall.

In Isaiah 7:10–13, God tells Ahaz to ask Him for a sign to confirm the words of Isaiah, but Ahaz refuses, not wanting to "tempt" Yaweh. Although this tries God's patience, God goes ahead and gives Ahaz a prophecy concerning that soon coming sign anyway:

¹⁴Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. [Although it's not obvious in this one particular verse, the previous several verses make it clear that it is God speaking here.] Behold, the virgin [Hebrew: almah] will conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. [Note that "behold" is not being used with a participle here.]

(Isaiah 7:14 / emphasis & [comments] added)

"Yo, Mr. Grammar Dude...there's your word 'behold' and you're about to regale us with how this verse has a future fulfillment. Tsk tsk tsk...so I guess that point of your article crashed and burned, huh?"

Yo, Mr. Grammar Challenged...my point applied to when "behold" is used with a participle, and that means with the past perfect, present perfect, or future perfect verb tenses, or the passive voice with a form of BE. For the grammar challenged like you, that would be has conceived, had conceived, will have conceived, or is conceived. This is simple future (will conceive)—no participle used. So go crash and burn.

Oh, I'm sorry...you weren't finished yet:

"OK, wait a second. Christ was born over 700 years later, so...how on earth can this be a sign that's supposed to mean something to King Ahaz of Judah in the eighth century BC?!"

Let's keep reading, shall we?

¹⁵Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. ¹⁶For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that you abhor shall be forsaken of both her kings. [In other words, Rezin and Pekah would be removed from power.]

(Isaiah 7:15–16 AKJV / emphasis & [comments] added)

Loosely paraphrased:

"That baby that I just mentioned? You know, the one who will be born of an almah? Well, you can relax, because before that kid knows right from wrong, both of the kings who are attacking you will fall."

So Scripture makes it plain that God is talking about a baby that would be born very soon; and while that baby was still a young child, the attack on Judah would fail and both Rezin and Pekah would be removed from power. And removed they were within just a few years.

Many commentators agree that the literal child God is referring to is in fact the son of Isaiah, born to his young wife not long after the prophecy was given (the story continues in the next chapter, with Isaiah's wife referred to as the "prophetess," since she was the wife of a prophet).

"OK, wait a second. So...Isaiah's wife was a virgin? What's up with that?"

Not likely, and there's no reason to assume that. The word almah refers to a young woman, possibly unmarried, and if so presumably a virgin. That is, it doesn't expressly translate as "virgin." In verse 14 the word almah refers to the young wife of Isaiah, not some unspecified female who is a literal virgin.

"OK, wait a second. 'Almah' is almost always translated 'virgin' in this verse, and we all know it points to the birth of Christ. And we all know Christ's mother Mary was a virgin so that Jesus—while being fully human through Mary—wouldn't have a human father and as a result wouldn't inherit a sin nature from the first Adam. Isn't that the whole point?!"

It is indeed, but here's what most people miss. This prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 applied literally to Isaiah's own son, born through his young wife (the almah or young woman of verse 14). In other words, the near-term fulfillment of Isaiah 14 did not involve a miraculous virgin birth. It involved a young woman—not explicitly a virgin, which is normally expressed using the word betula in Old Testament Hebrew (Gen. 24:16; Deut. 22:19; Est. 2:2; Isa. 23:4 and over 40 others). But that was only the partial, near-term fulfillment. But hang on:

Here's where things get interesting.

In the Greek Septuagint, they translated the word almah in Isaiah 7:14 as parthenos. At the time (i.e. the third century BC), the Greek word parthenos was normally taken to mean "a young woman of marriageable age, presumably a virgin"—in other words, it was basically a synonym of almah.

But by the first century AD when Matthew wrote his Gospel, the usage of the Greek word parthenos had shifted somewhat. By that time, parthenos was most commonly used in a literal, sexual manner to mean "one who has never engaged in sexual intercourse" (and it could also refer to a male).

In the opening verses of his Gospel, Matthew writes...

²²Now all this has happened, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet [i.e. Isaiah], saying, ²³"Behold, the virgin [Greek: parthenos, as in the Septuagint...only this time with the explicit, fully intended meaning of "virgin"] shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son. They shall call his name Immanuel;" which is, being interpreted, "God with us."

(Matthew 1:22–23 / emphasis & [comments] added)

So when Matthew wrote parthenos in verse 23 in the first century during the early days of the Church, he didn't just mean "young woman." Due to the shifting sands of semantic change in the Greek language that had occurred over the previous three centuries, when Matthew wrote this verse he fully, consciously intended to communicate the literal meaning of "virgin." Not just a young woman. Not just a lass of marriageable age. Oh no. He intended to convey the idea of "a woman who had never had sexual intercourse"—nothing more, nothing less. And make no mistake:

That's precisely what Matthew meant,

that's precisely what Mary was, and

that's precisely how it had to be to

fulfill God's plan of redemption.

The words Matthew wrote in his Gospel under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit tell us in no uncertain terms that Isaiah's prophecy had a dual fulfillment. That prophecy's near-term fulfillment involved Isaiah's son by his young wife, and it was given by God in the eighth century BC as a sign that the attack on Judah would fail and its perpetrators would fall.

But its full, future fulfillment occurred in that stable in Bethlehem 700 years later when a literal virgin gave birth to our Lord and Savior.

Complete or incomplete? And there lies a key point: What happened in the eighth century BC wasn't the complete fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14. It's clear that what occurred 700 years later in Bethlehem was its complete fulfillment. And that's the basic argument in regard to Isaiah's prophecy about Damacus: It's easy and natural to view what occurred to Damascus in the eighth century BC as the complete fulfillment of Isaiah 17:1–2, and as a result we're not necessarily forced to go off in search of something more.

So pardon me while I shout "Hallelujah!" And even though I know for a fact that Jesus wasn't born on December 25, let me add to that a hearty (albeit belated) "Merry Christmas!"

Burden? What burden?

As I said, in regard to whether or not there is a future fulfillment of Isaiah 17:1–2 heading our way, I am officially on the fence and perfectly content to remain there. All I want people to take away from this article is the simple fact that the popular Future Fulfillment view of this prophecy is not necessarily the "solid-rock Bible lock" many good people have long assumed it is, and as I did for many years. But that doesn't mean it's wrong.

The bottom line is that the "burden of Damascus" is not a burden I bear, nor should you—regardless of your opinion on the topic. And if you happen to adhere to the Future Fulfillment view of this prophecy, that's fine. You'll get no argument from me.

But whatever you do—no matter what your opinion concerning Isaiah 17:1–2 and the fate of Damascus may be, please...just make absolutely sure to keep one critical truth uppermost in your mind:

Our blessed hope is the Rapture, and there is nothing that has to happen before that incredible event takes place.

And that would certainly include a

mushroom cloud over Damascus.

From Greg Lauer @ A Little Strength—JAN '25

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