Vers. 10, 11. "And the Lord spake farther unto Ahaz, saying, Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it from the depth, or above from the height."

Ahaz observed a dignified silence after those words of the Prophet; but his whole manner shews the Prophet that they

prophecy so very evidently and manifestly fulfilled. (2) "The words contain an unsuitable consolation, as Ahaz could not be benefitted by so late a destruction of his enemy." But, immediately afterwards, he is even expressly assured that this enemy will not be able to do him any immediate harm. Chrysostom remarks: "The king, hearing that they should be destroyed after sixty-five years, might say within himself: What about that? Although they be then overthrown, of what use is it to us, if they now take us? In order that the king might not speak thus, the Prophet says: Be of good cheer even as to the present. At that time they shall be utterly destroyed; but even now, they shall not have any more than their own land, for "the head of Ephraim" &c. The preceding distinct announcement of the last end of his enemy, however, was exceedingly well fitted to break in Ahaz the opinion of his invincibility, and to strengthen his faith in the God of Israel, who, with a firm hand, directs the destinies of nations, and, no less, the faith in His servant whom He raises to be privy to His secrets.-(3) "The use of numbers so exact is against the analogy of all oracles." But immediately afterwards (ver. 16 comp. with chap. viii. 4), the time of the defeat is as exactly fixed, although not in ciphers. In chap. xx. Isaiah announces that after three years the Egyptians and Ethiopians shall sustain a defeat; in chap. xxiii. 15, that Tyre would flourish anew seventy years after its fall; in chap. xxxviii. 5, he announces to Hezekiah, sick unto death, that God would add fifteen years to his life. According to Jeremiah, the Babylonish captivity is to last seventy years; and the fulfilment has shewn that this date is not to be understood as a round number. And farther, the year-weeks in Daniel.-But in opposition to this view, and positively in favor of the genuineness, are the following arguments: The words have not only, as is conceded by Ewald, " true old-Hebrew colouring," but in their emphatic and solemn brevity ("he shall be broken from [being] a people") they do not at all bear the character of an interpolation. If we blot them out, then the Prophet says less than from present circumstances, from ver. 4 where he calls the kings "ends of smoking firebrands," in opposition to ver. 6, and from the analogy of ver. 9, where the threatening is much more severe, he was bound to say. His saying merely that they would not get any more, was not sufficient. He could make the right impression only when he reduced that declaration to its foundation, i.e., their own destruction and overthrow. Ver. 16, too, would go far beyond what would be announced here, if we remove this clause. He announces destruction to the kings themselves. Finally, the symmetrical parallellism would be destroyed by striking out these words. The words: "If ye believe not, ye shall not be established," would, in that case,

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have not made any impression upon him.

If David's spirit had rested on Ahaz, he would surely, if he had wavered at all, have, on the word of the Prophet, thrown himself into the arms of his God. But in order that the depth of his apostacy, the greatness of his guilt, and the justice of the divine judgments may become manifest, God shows him even a deeper condescension. The Prophet offers to prove the truth of his announcement by any miraculous work which the king himself should determine, and from which he might, at the same time, see God's omnipotence, and the Divine mission of the Prophet. As Ahaz refused the offered sign, the word 2 Tim. ii. 12, 13 : εἰ ἀρνούμεθα, κἀκεῖνος ἀρνήσεται ἡμᾶς· εἰ ἀπιστοῦμεν, ἐκεῖνος πιστὸς μένει·—ἀρνήσασθαι γὰρ ἑαυτὸν οὐ Súvaraι came into application. According to Deut. vii. 9 ff. the truth and faithfulness of God must now manifest itself in the infliction of severe visitations upon the house of David.-The character of a sign is, in general, borne by everything which serves for certifying facts which belong to the territory of faith, and not to that of sight. 1. In some instances, the sign consists in a mere naked word; thus in Exod. iii. 12: "And this shall be the sign unto thee that I have sent thee: When thou has brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain." Moses' doubts of the truth of his Divine mission originated in the consciousness of his own unworthiness, and in the condition of those to whom he was sent. From these doubts he was delivered by the announcement that, at the place where he had been called, he, at the head of the delivered people, should serve his God. This was to him a sign that God was in earnest in calling him. 2. In other instances the assurance given by the sign consists in its perceptibility and corporeality; so that the word assumes, as it were, flesh and blood. A case of this kind it is, e.g., when, in chap. viii. 18, Isaiah calls his two sons, to whom, at the command of God, he had given symbolical names, expressive of the future salvation of the covenant-people, "Signs and wonders in Israel;" farther, chap. xx. 3, where the

be without the parallel members. They are connected with the clause under discussion so much the rather, that in them it is not specially Judah's deliverance from the Syrians and Ephraimites that is looked at, but its salvation in general.

Prophet walks naked and barefoot for a sign of the calamity impending over Egypt and Ethiopia in three years. 3. In another class of signs, a fact is announced which is, in itself, natural, but not to be foreseen by any human combination, the coming to pass of which, in the immediate future, furnishes the proof that, at a distant future, that will be fulfilled which was foretold as impending. The wonderful element, and the demonstrative power do not, in such a case, lie in the matter of the sign, but in the telling of it beforehand. It is in this sense that, in 1 Sam. x., Samuel gives several signs to Saul, that God had destined him to be king, e.g., that, in a place exactly fixed, he would meet two men who would bring him the intelligence that the lost asses were found; that, farther onwards, he would meet with three men, one of whom would be carrying three kids, another, three loaves of bread, and another, a bottle of wine, &c. In 1 Sam. ii. 34, the sudden death of his two sons is given to Eli as a sign that all the calamities threatened against his family should certainly come to pass. In Jer. xliv. 29, 30, the impending defeat of Pharaoh-Hophras is given as a sign of the divine vengeance breaking in upon the Jews in Egypt. Even before the thing came to pass, it could not, in such a case, be otherwise than that the previous condition and foundation brought before the eyes in a lively manner (Jer. xliv. 30: Behold, I give PharaohHophras into the hands of his enemies") gave a powerful shock to the doubts as to whether the fact in question would come to pass. 4. In other cases, the assurance was given in such a manner, that all doubts as to the truth of the announcement were set at rest by the immediate performance of a miraculous work going beyond the ordinary laws of nature. Thus, e.g., Isaiah says to Hezekiah, in chap. xxviii. 7: "And this shall be the sign unto thee from the Lord, that the Lord will do this thing which He has spoken," and, as a sign that the Lord would add fifteen years to the life of the King, who was sick unto death, he makes the shadow on the sun-dial of Ahaz to go back ten degrees. Of this description were also the signs granted to Gideon, and, in many respects, the plagues in Egypt also. In the passage before us, no other sign can possibly be spoken of than one of the two last classes. For it was a real, miraculous sign only which could possibly exert any influence on a mind so

darkened as was that of Ahaz, and it was the vain offer of such an one only which was fitted to bring to light his obduracy. If, then, the Prophet was willing and able to give a real, miraculous sign, why, then, is the answer of Ahaz so unsuitable? And we can surely not suppose, as Meier does, that he should have intentionally misunderstood the Prophet. The temptation of the Lord by the children of Israel, to which the word of the Lord, Deut. vi. 16, quoted by Ahaz, refers, consisted, according to Exod. xvii., in their having asked water, as a miraculous sign that the Lord was truly in the midst of them. How could the Prophet reproach Ahaz with having offended, not men merely, but God, unless he had offered to prove, by a fact which lay absolutely beyond the limits of nature, the truth of his announcement, the divinity of Him who gave it, the divinity of his own mission, and the soundness of his advice? Hendewerk is of opinion that "it is difficult to say what the author would have made to be the sign in the heavens; probably, a very simple thing." But in making this objection, it is forgotten that Isaiah gives free choice to the king. Hitzig says: "Without knowing it, Isaiah here plays a very dangerous game. For if Ahaz had accepted his proposition, Jehovah would probably have left His servant in the lurch, and he would have begun to doubt of his God and of himself." In these words, at all events, it is conceded that the prophets themselves would not be what people in modern times would have them to be. If such was their position towards miracles, then, in their own convictions, prophecies, too, must be something else than general descriptions, and indefinite forebodings. But how should it have been possible that an order could have maintained itself for centuries, the most prominent members of which gave themselves up to such enthusiastic imprudence and rashness? Moreover, it is overlooked that afterwards, to Hezekiah, our Prophet grants that in reality which here he offers to Ahaz in vain. Ayn and are Infin. absol. "going high," "going low." The Imperat.

also. Some explain הגבה must be understood after שאלה

baby" to hell," "down to hell;" but this is against the form of the word, which it would be arbitrary to change. Nor does one exactly see how, if we except, perhaps, the apparition of one dead, Isaiah could have given to the king a sign from the

Sheol; and in other passages, too (comp. Joel iii. 3 [ii. 30] ), signs in the heavens and in the earth are contrasted with one another. Theodoret remarks that both kinds of miracles, among which the Lord here allowed a choice to Ahaz, were granted by Him to his pious son, Hezekiah, inasmuch as He wrought a phenomenon in heaven which effected the going back of the shadow on the sun-dial of Ahaz; and on earth, inasmuch as He, in a wonderful manner, destroyed the Assyrians, and restored the king to health. Jerome farther remarks, that, from among the plagues in Egypt, the lice, frogs, &c., were signs on earth; the hail, fire, and three days' darkness, were signs in the heaven. It is on the passage before us that the Pharisees take their stand, when in Matt. xvi. 1 they ask from the Lord that He should grant them a sign from heaven. If even the Prophet Isaiah offered to prove in such a manner his divine mission, then, according to their opinion, Christ was much more bound to do this, inasmuch as He set up far higher claims. But they overlooked the circumstance that enough had already been granted for convincing those who were well disposed, and that it can never be a duty to convince obstinate unbelief in a manner so palpable.

Ver. 12. "And Ahaz said: I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord."

ment.

Ahaz declines the offer by referring to Deut. vi. 16, and thus assuming the guise of reverence for God and His command"He pretends," says Calvin, "to have faith in the words of the Prophet, and not to require anything besides the word." The same declarations of the Law the Lord opposes to Satan, when the latter would induce Him to do something for which He had no word of God, Matt. iv. 7. That would really have been a tempting of God. Ahaz had no doubt that the miracle would really be performed; but he had a dislike to enter within the mystical sphere. Who knows whether the God who grants the miracle is really the highest God? comp. Is. x. 10, 11, xxxvi. 18-20, xxxvii. 10-12. Who knows whether He is not laying for him a trap; whether, by preventing him from seeking the help of man, He is not to bring upon him the destruction which his conscience tells him he has so richly deserved? At all events the affording of His help is clogged with a condition which he is resolved not to fulfil, viz., his conversion. A better