Isaiah 8:12

Say ye not. Although God is speaking to Isaiah personally, He addresses “this people” (v. 11). In the Hebrew, “ye” is plural, and God continues speaking to the people through v. 15. In v. 16 He again addresses Isaiah personally.

A confederacy. Heb. qesher, “conspiracy,” as the word is rendered in more than half the instances where it occurs (2 Sam. 15:12; 2 Kings 15:15, 30; Eze. 22:25; etc.). In 2 Chron. 23:13 and elsewhere it is translated “treason.” Only in Isa. 8:12 is it rendered “confederacy.” In this sense it denotes a “confederacy” formed for the purpose of conspiring against someone. Today the word “confederacy” is generally used in the favorable sense of “alliance,” though it still means also “a combination of persons for unlawful purposes,” a usage more general when the KJV was translated. It is in this latter sense that the word is here used. Syria and Israel had conspired together, or were “confederate,” against Judah (ch. 7:2, 5, 6), and Ahaz, on his part, had formed an alliance with Assyria against Israel and Syria (2 Kings 16:7-9). Ahaz and the people of Judah feared the Israelite-Syrian conspiracy, or confederacy, and had united with the heathen in an effort to counteract it. It was because he trusted in the heathen for help rather than trusting God, that Ahaz was rebuked by the Lord. It was a reproach to the God of heaven for His professed people to enter into a “confederacy” with idolaters. God would have His people stand by themselves, distinct from the world. We are to counsel with God and to find our strength in Him. Only thus can we have the presence of the Lord with us; only thus can we accomplish His work in His way. When the people of God form alliances of any kind with those who know Him not, then the policies of men will inevitably supplant the principles of Heaven, and the work of the Lord will suffer. Our strength lies, not in close association with the world, but in a complete separation from it.