told to the house of David: "Aram is encamped in Ephraim." The position of Ahaz was, humanly considered, desperate. His enemies were far superior to him, and he could scarcely hope for help from heaven, for he had an evil conscience. The idea of seeking help from Asshur was natural. Isaiah received a commission to oppose this idea before it became a firm resolution. In doing so he, by no means, occupies the position of an ingenious politician. On the contrary, the whole commission is forced upon him. It can scarcely be doubted that the Assyrians would have penetrated to Western Asia, even if Ahaz had not called them to his assistance. The expedition of the Syrians and Ephraimites with the view of making conquests could not but turn their attention to that quarter. As the instruments of the judgment upon Damascus and Samaria, which Isaiah announced as impending under any circumstances, we can surely think of none but Asshur. But if once they came into these regions, in order to chastise the haughtiness of the Syrians and Ephraimites who would set up as a new conquering power, then was Judah too threatened by them. In a political point of view it did not make any great difference whether Ahaz sought help from the Assyrians, or not; on the contrary, the king of Asshur could not but be more favorably disposed towards him for so doing. Isaiah, throughout, rather occupies the position of the man of God. The kings of the people of God were, in general, not prevented from forming alliances; but such alliances must belong to the category of permitted human resources. Such, however, was not the case here. Asshur was a conquering power, altogether selfish. His help had to be purchased with dependence, and with the danger of entire destruction; to stay upon him was to stay upon their destroyer, Is. x. 20. Such an alliance was a de facto denial of the God of Israel, an insult to His omnipotence and grace. If Ahaz had obeyed Him; if he had limited himself to the use of the human means granted to him by the Lord without trusting in them, and had placed all his confidence in the Lord, He would have delivered him in the same manner as He afterwards delivered Hezekiah, in the first instance from Aram and Ephraim, and then from Asshur also. But although Ahaz did not follow the prophet, his mission was by no means in vain. Even before the mission, this result lay open before the Lord who

sent him. The great point was to establish, before the first conflict of Israel with the world's power, thus much, that this conflict had been brought about by the sin of the house of David, and that hence it did not afford any cause for doubting the omnipotence and mercy of the Lord whose help had been offered, but rejected.

The Prophet seeks out the king at a place to which he had been driven by his despairing disquietude which was clinging convulsively to human resources. He endeavours, first, to exert an influence upon him by taking with him his son, whose symbolical name, containing a prophecy of the future destinies of the people, indicated that the king's fear of a total destruction of the State was without foundation. After the king has thus been prepared, he endeavours to make a deeper impression upon him by the announcement, distinct and referring to the present case, that the enemies should not only entirely fail in their intention of conquering and dividing between themselves the kingdom of Judah; but that the kingdom of Ephraim was itself hastening towards that destruction which it was preparing for its brethren, and that after sixty-five years it should altogether lose its national independence and existence, ver. 1-9. But Ahaz makes no reply; and his whole deportment shows that he does not follow the Prophet's exhortation to "take heed and be quiet,” and that the words: "If ye do not believe, ye shall not be established," with which the Prophet closes his address, have not made any impression upon him. In order that the greatness of the king's hardness of heart may become manifest, the Prophet offers, in the commission of the Lord, to confirm the certainty of his statement by a miraculous sign, which the king himself is called upon to fix, without any restriction, in order that any suspicion of imposition may be removed. "But Ahaz, the unbeliever, is afraid of heavenly communications, has already chosen his help, wishes that every thing should go on in an easy human manner, and refuses the Lord's offer in a polite turn which even refers to the Law. A sign is then forced upon him, because, as the king of Judah, he must see and hear for all Judah that the Lord is faithful and good." The Prophet, in ver. 14, points to the

1 Meyer, Blätter für höhere Wahrheit, iii. S. 101.

birth of the Saviour by a Virgin. How then was it possible that in the present collision that people should be destroyed, among whom, according to former promises, He was to be born; that that family should be extinguished from which He was to be descended? The name "Immanuel," by which the future Saviour is designated as "He in whom the Lord is, in the truest manner, to be with His people," is a guarantee for His help in the present distress also. The Prophet then states the time in which the land shall be entirely delivered from its present enemies. The contemporaries, as the representative of whom the child appears (the Prophet, in the energy of his faith, has transferred the birth of this child from the future to the present), shall, after the short space of about two years, again obtain the full enjoyment of the products of the land, ver. 15. For, before this period has elapsed, destruction will fall upon the hostile kings in their own land, ver. 16. The danger, however—and this is pointed out in ver. 17-25-will come from just that quarter from which Ahaz expects help, viz., from Asshur. But the security for deliverance from this danger also, the conqueror of the world's power which was soon to begin its course in Asshur, is none other than Immanuel, whom the Prophet, in the beginning of the humiliation of the people of God, makes, so to say, to become man, in order that, during the impending deep humiliation of the people of God, He may accompany it in its history during all the stages of its existence, until He should really become man. He is, however, in this discourse, not yet pointed out as the deliverer from Asshur, and the world's power represented by him. The darkness of the misery to be inflicted by Asshur should not, and could not, in the meantime, be cleared up for Ahaz; the picture must end in night. But in the following discourse, chap. viii. 1, ix. 6 (7), which serves as a necessary supplement to the one before us, the Saviour is depicted before the eyes of those despairing in the sight of Asshur; and the twofold repetition of His name Immanuel, in chap. viii. 8, 10, serves to show that the two discourses are intimately connected, and form one whole.

Ahaz persevered in his unbelief, according to 2 Kings xvi. 7, 8. He sent messengers with large presents to Tiglath-pileser, King of Assyria, saying: "I am thy servant and thy son (a

word as ominous as that: "We have no king but Cæsar," in John xix. 35); come up and save me out of the hand of the King of Aram, and out of the hand of the King of Israel which rise up against me." But before the asked-for help came, king and people had to endure very severe sufferings from Aram and Ephraim. Ahaz, after having first made preparations to secure Jersusalem against the impending siege, sent out his armies. They met with a twofold heavy defeat from the divided armies of the allied kings,' from which he might have been spared by being still, and hoping. The hostile armies then came up to Jerusalem, and laid siege to it. It was probably by the intelligence of the advance of Asshur that they were induced to raise the siege. It was now confirmed that the Prophet had been right in designating the two hostile kings as mere tails of smoking firebrands. Damascus was taken by the king of Ophir; the inhabitants were carried away into exile to Kir; Rezin was slain, 2 Kings xvi. 9; the land of Israel was devastated; a portion of its inhabitants was carried away into exile; the king was made tributary, 2 Kings xv. 29. Exactly at the time fixed by the Prophet, the overthrow of the two hostile kingdoms took place; but the deliverance which, without any farther sacrifice, Ahaz would have obtained, if he had believed the Prophet, had now to be purchased by very heavy sacrifices; and with perfect justice is it said in 2 Chron. xxviii. 20, 21, that the King of Asshur did not help him, but rather, by coming unto him, distressed him. Ahaz purchased this help at the price of his independence, and had probably to submit to very hard claims being made upon him. (Caspari, S. 60.) The world's power, to which Ahaz had offered a finger, seized, more and more, the whole hand, and held it by a firm grasp. Under Hezekiah, faith broke through the consequences of the sin of the family; but this interruption lasted as long only as did the faith. In addition to

1 Caspari very justly remarks: "Nothing can be clearer than that 2 Chron. xxviii. 5 ff. comes in between 2 Kings xvi. 5 a. b. ; that the author of the books of the Kings gives a report of the beginning and end; the author of the Chronicles, of the middle of the campaign." But we cannot agree with Caspari in his transferring to Idumea the victory of Rezin. According to Is. vii. 2, Aram was encamped in Ephraim. According to 2 Kings xvi. 5, both of the kings came up to Jerusalem and besieged her. The expedition against Elath, 2 Kings xvi. 6, was secondary, and by the way only.

that which Ahaz had, for his unbelief, to suffer from Aram, Ephraim, and Asshur, came the rebellion of the neighbouring nations, of the Edomites, according to 2 Chron. xxviii. 17, and of the Philistines, according to ver. 18.

Ver. 1. "And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, that Rezin, the king of Aram, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, the king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem, to war against it, and could not fight against it."

In thus tracing back the pedigree of Ahaz to Uzziah, there is a reference to chap. vi. 1: "In the year that King Uzziah died,” &c. These two chapters stand related to each other as prophecy and fulfilment. It was in the year of Uzziah's death that the Prophet had been seized with fearful forebodings; and by the divine word these fearful forebodings had soon been raised into a clear knowledge of the threatening judgments which were impending. Under Ahaz, the second successor of Uzziah, this knowledge began to be realized, keeping pace with the hardening which in Ahaz had become personified. He, the type of the unbelieving Jewish people, did not hear and understand, did not see and perceive; and the announcement of the Prophet served merely to increase his hardening. Even as early as that, the germ of the carrying away of the people, announced by the Prophet in chap. vi., was formed.—The circumstance of the hostile kings being introduced as going up implies the spiritual elevation of Jerusalem; comp. remarks on Ps. xlviii. 3; xlviii. 17. The city of God is unconquerable unless her inhabitants and, above all, the anointed one of God, make, by their unbelief, their glorious privilege of no avail. In the last words: "And could not fight against it," (the singular, because Rezin is the chief person, Rezin and Pekah being identical with Rezin with Pekah, and comp. Esth. iv. 16), the result of the siege is anticipated; this is easily accounted for by the consideration that ver. 1 serves as an introduction to the whole account, stating, in general terms, the circumstances which induced the Prophet to come publicly forward. In the following verses, the share only is mentioned which the Prophet took in the matter; and the account is closed after he has discharged his commission. The apparent contradiction to 2 Kings xvi. 5, according to which Jerusalem was really besieged,-a contradiction which occurs