Discovery BoxIsaiah 8:17-18 
Context8:17 I will wait patiently for the Lord,
who has rejected the family of Jacob; 1
I will wait for him.
8:18 Look, I and the sons whom the Lord has given me 2 are reminders and object lessons 3 in Israel, sent from the Lord who commands armies, who lives on Mount Zion.
1 tn Heb “who hides his face from the house of Jacob.”
2 sn This refers to Shear-jashub (7:3) and Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz (8:1, 3).
3 tn Or “signs and portents” (NAB, NRSV). The names of all three individuals has symbolic value. Isaiah’s name (which meant “the Lord delivers”) was a reminder that the Lord was the nation’s only source of protection; Shear-jashub’s name was meant, at least originally, to encourage Ahaz (see the note at 7:3), and Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz’s name was a guarantee that God would defeat Israel and Syria (see the note at 8:4). The word מוֹפֶת (mofet, “portent”) can often refer to some miraculous event, but in 20:3 it is used, along with its synonym אוֹת (’ot, “sign”) of Isaiah’s walking around half-naked as an object lesson of what would soon happen to the Egyptians.
