Matthew 1

²² Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, ²³ Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

Isaiah 7

¹⁴ Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. ¹⁵ Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.

I was reading Matthew and came across this verse that quoted from Isaiah. The verse in Isaiah says that he shall eat butter and honey that he may know to refuse evil and choose good. For some reason, this intrigued me. So, I meditated on this for a bit, and it took me back to Genesis.

Genesis is the first mention of good and evil. It first tells us that God made the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Then He gave man the job of caring for the garden and told him that he might eat from any tree except for the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God told man that if he did that, he would surely die.

Genesis 2

⁹ And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

…

¹⁵ And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. ¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: ¹⁷ But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Then, later on, we get the prophet speaking about Emmanuel and how he will eat butter and honey and know to refuse evil and choose good.

So, God made man and told him how to live right, but God didn’t force man. God allowed man to choose. Man chose to know good and evil. Even today, we see how humans choose evil all the time. Even us in the kingdom can find ourselves choosing evil. By ourselves, we do not know how to refuse evil.

But Jesus came and showed us that man can choose good and reject evil. How did he do it? The prophet said that he would eat butter and honey and know. But what is this butter and honey? In the Bible, the word of God is often compared to honey.

How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth! (Psalm 119:103)

Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, eat that thou findest; eat this roll, and go speak unto the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that roll. And he said unto me, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness. (Ezekiel 3:1-3)

My son, eat thou honey, because it is good; and the honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste: So shall the knowledge of wisdom be unto thy soul: when thou hast found it, then there shall be a reward, and thy expectation shall not be cut off. (Proverbs 24:13-14)

And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. (Deuteronomy 8:3)

Deuteronomy tells us that we do not live by bread alone but by the word of God. We can also find references to the word of God being something we eat. So based on this, I would say that the passage refers to the word of God. Jesus demonstrated refusing evil when satan tested him in the wilderness. What did he use? Jesus used the word of God to refuse evil. When you read about Jesus in the New Testament, it is clear that he knew the word of God. So, this butter and honey is the word of God.

So, God made us pure where we didn’t know good and evil, but we chose to find it, and today we cannot make it right by ourselves. But God sent his son, who has shown us that we can refuse evil and choose good. We need to repent and accept Jesus’ gift and eat that word of God so that we too, can succeed and choose good.