Text: Moreover the Lord said unto me, Take thee a great roll, and write in it with a man’s pen concerning Mahershalalhashbaz. And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah. And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the Lord to me, Call his name Mahershalalhashbaz. 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. (Isaiah 8:1-4)
Tweet: Isaiah was told by God to name his son Mahershalalhashbaz, which means “swift to the spoil and swift to the prey.†The name, the longest in the Bible, was a sign of God’s impending judgment upon Syria and Israel, who were threatening the prophet’s homeland of Judah. God promised the prophet that by the time the child could say “dada†or “mama,†the dreaded Assyrians would raze and carry off the spoils from Damascus and Samaria, the respective capitals of Israel and Syria. The fulfillment of this prophecy also served as a warning to Judah to repent of its sins, lest a similar fate befall them in the form of a foreign evader, a fate that did befall an unrepentant Judah in 587 BC, when the Babylonians razed and spoiled Jerusalem, the capital of Judah.