The reading ends with the well-known prophecy about the birth of the Son of God by a Virgin. And the described story itself shows that the Lord does not allow many things, and the Strong One saves from people`s judgment (conspiracy).
When the prophet asks to ask God for a sign, it indicates
encouragement, that the Lord is giving an answer now, and the actions
will have a symbolic meaning. Ahaz’s lack of desire is called lack of
courage
in Ukrainian, lack of дерзновения
(dare) in Slavic. The
normal state of a person who does not approach God resolutely.
The prophecy about the Virgin was especially mentioned on the Feast
of the Annunciation in connection with the righteous Simeon – see:
https://www.facebook.com/Oleksandr.S.Zhabenko/
— because according to Tradition, he doubted that it would be the
Virgin. It is also mentioned in other cases, it is mentioned during the
Sacrament of Priesthood.
https://parafia.org.ua/biblioteka/hrystyyanstvo-virovchennya-ta-tradytsiji/zakon-bozhyj/chastyna-tretya-svyaschenna-istoriya-staroho-ta-novoho-zavitu/#toc-–13
https://parafia.org.ua/biblioteka/hrystyyanstvo-virovchennya-ta-tradytsiji/zakon-bozhyj/chastyna-pyata-pro-viru-i-zhyttya-hrystyyanske/#toc—–5
The name Immanuel
is directly translated as God is with us
– it
has so many meanings that it is difficult to even just remember
everything. And they will call
– in the plural – just indicates that
people will have many different reasons to call so Jesus Christ, and
different people will have these reasons in different ways. Even more,
since the Incarnation of the Son of God is important not only for
people, and not only for their salvation, our salvation, but also for
all creation, as it is said in the Creed.
Researchers note that the issue of giants,
sons of God and human daughters
is also mysterious, there are
different approaches to interpretation. Two stand out the most – one
where some understood angels as sons of God (but this contradicts the
understanding of angels as spirits who do not perform miracles similar
to the Incarnation of the Son of God), which, in view of the words in
brackets here, I think is wrong. Also, this understanding contradicts
the words of Jesus about the resurrection of the dead – that angels do
not marry.
However, it must be remembered that demons (angels by nature) can,
with God’s permission, instill
evil thoughts in people, including
prodigal ones (tempt).
And the second, more widespread and logically more correct
understanding is that righteous men who tried to preserve faith and
godliness are called sons of God
, and women with earthly interests
who did not seek God completely sincerely are called daughters of men
.
Giants known from the ages
is a reference to legends about giants of
various peoples, about epic heroes. It does not actually confirm the
legends themselves, but it indicates a certain real basis for them, that
such special people existed.
The most difficult thing to understand are the Lord’s words about His
breath
(translated mostly as spirit
or Spirit
, but what kind of
Lord’s spirit
is this? Angels? And it is unlikely that it is the Holy
Spirit, because people were far from holiness (by the body
). The
parallel with the creation of a person is obvious – here, therefore, it
is most likely breathing
life into people. See more at the link:
22022023.html
That is, because of unholy life, the Lord allowed people to die faster and have less powerful offspring.
120 years – the age of death of Moses, who, due to despair, did not enter the Promised Land, but throughout the years he preserved both strength and clarity of mind, and most importantly, he was a God-seeer from the time of the prophet’s service.
But it must be remembered that Abraham, for example, lived longer,
that is, this is not a strict upper limit
of human age. Similarly,
these words cannot be fully understood correctly if the words about the
much longer age of the progenitors are unclear.
Again the actualization of the need for wisdom and commandments, and then a lengthy description of why adultery is bad to warn everyone against it.
The coal metaphor shows that you need to be careful in relationships with people of the opposite sex. This does not mean to be afraid of them (as a person is usually not afraid of fire, but knows how to control it), but indicates the danger present.
Caution, fire!
The second part of the reading explains the difference between
property and personal sins in view of the possibility of somehow making
amends
, compensating
them.
Sins against the individual have no material compensation
, so they
must be doubly avoided.
This does not mean that sins cannot be forgiven, but they cannot be materially (and it is difficult to say whether they can be in some other way) compensated.
The Lord warns us against that.
Glory be to Thee, our God, glory be to Thee!
Source:
10032023.html