Especially for Younger Students: Food for Babies

Learning Goal: Students will examine God’s intentional plan for sending His Son to be Immanuel, God with us.

Read Isaiah 7:15 again. Point out the phrase “curds and honey.” Explain that the use of this phrase provides information about the type of upbringing the promised Immanuel would receive. Encourage students to look up “curds and honey” on their smartphones to see what they can find. After a minute, lead students to share their findings. As needed, provide this additional information as well:

• “Curds and honey” can be translated as “yogurt and honey” and refers to the Arab tradition of mixing honey with different forms of milk and then spreading the mixture on bread.
• Because honey could be placed in leather containers, it was easily transportable.
• Children especially enjoyed the taste and were often fed the mixture throughout childhood.
• Honey was a wild, natural product that was found by hunters in hollow trees, making it available to the poor. (Freeman, p. 255)
• The fact that the child would receive this food of the poor rather than something that was intentionally planted and harvested pointed to the destruction Israel would face. (NIV Archaeological Study Bible, p. 1067)

Ask: What do these facts suggest about the coming Immanuel? (He would be of humble birth; the child would be transported to several places; the coming of the child would not change the coming destruction of Israel, but did show that God would never take His attention away from His people.)