give up the Messianic explanation, and, along with it, the authority of the Apostle Matthew. But, on the other hand, they were puzzled by the sanctum artificium by which the Prophet, or rather the Holy Spirit speaking through him, represents Christ as being born even before His birth, places Him in the midst of the life of the people, and makes Him accompany the nation. through all the stages of its existence. In truth, if the real, or even the nearest fulfilment is sought for in the time of Ahaz, there is no reason whatever for supposing a higher reference to Christ. They is then one who was a virgin, who had nothing in common with the mother of Jesus, Mary, who remained a virgin even after her pregnancy. The name Immanuel then refers to the help which God is to afford in the present distress. 3. Many interpreters deny every reference to Christ. This interpretation remained for a long time the exclusive property of the Jews, until J. E. Faber (in his remarks on Harmar's observations on the East, i. S. 281), tried to transplant it into the Christian soil.1 He was followed by the Roman Catholic, Isenbiehl (Neuer Versuch über die Weissagung vom Immanuel, 1778) who, in consequence of it, was deposed from his theological professorship, and thrown into gaol. The principal tenets of his work he had borrowed from the lectures of J. D. Michaelis. In their views about the Almah, who is to bear Immanuel, these interpreters are very much at variance.

(a) The more ancient Jews maintained that the Almah was the wife of Ahaz, and Immanuel, his son Hezekiah. According to the Dialog. c. Tryph. 66, 68, 71, 77, this view prevailed among them as early as the time of Justin. But they were refuted by Jerome, who showed that Hezekiah must, at that time, have already been at least nine years old. Kimchi and Abarbanel then resorted to the hypothesis of a second wife of Ahaz.

1 Gesenius mentions Pellicanus as the first defender of the NonMessianic interpretation. But this statement seems to have proceeded from a cursory view of an annotation by Cramer on Richard Simon's Kritische Schriften i. S. 441, where the words: "this historical interpretation Pellicanus too has preferred," do not refer to Isaiah but to Daniel. Nor is there any more ground for the intimation that Theodorus a Mopsuesta rejected the Messianic interpretation.

(b) According to others, the Almah is some virgin who cannot be definitely determined by us, who was present at the place where the king and Isaiah were speaking to one another, and to whom the Prophet points with his finger. This view was held by Isenbiehl, Steudel (in a Programme, Tübingen, 1815), and others.

(c) According to the view of others, the Almah is not a real, but

only an ideal virgin. Thus J. D. Michaelis: "At the time when one, who at this moment is still a virgin, can bear," &c. Eichhorn, Paulus, Stähelin, and others. The sign is thus made to consist in a mere poetical figure.

(d) A composition of the two views last mentioned is the view of Umbreit. The virgin is, according to him, an actual virgin whom the Prophet perceived among those surrounding him; but the pregnancy and birth are imaginary merely, and the virgin is to suggest to the Prophet the idea of pregnancy. But this explanation would saddle the Prophet with something indecent. Farther: It is not a birth possible which is spoken of, but an actual birth. From chap. viii. 8, it likewise appears that Immanuel is a real individual, and He one of eminent dignity; and this passage is thus at once in strict opposition to both of the explanations, viz. that of any ordinary virgin, and that of the ideal virgin. It destroys also (e) The explanation of Meier, who by the virgin understands the people of Judah, and conceives of the pregnancy and birth likewise in a poetical manner. The fact, the acknowledgment of which has led Meier to get up this hypothesis, altogether unfounded, and undeserving of any minute refutation, is this: "The mother is, in the passage before us, called a virgin, and yet is designated as being with child. The words, when understood physically and outwardly, contain a contradiction." But this fact is rather in favour of the Messianic explanation. (f) Others, farther, conjecture that the wife of the Prophet is meant by the Almah. This view was advanced as early as by Abenezra and Jarchi. By the authority of Gesenius, this view became, for a time, the prevailing one. Against it, the following arguments are decisive; part of them being opposed to the other conjectures also. As designates

"virgin" only, and never a young woman, and, far less, an older woman, it is quite impossible that the wife of the Prophet, the mother of Shearjashub could be so designated, inasmuch as the latter was already old enough to be able to accompany his father. Gesenius could not avoid acknowledging the weight of this argument, and declared himself disposed to assume that the Prophet's former wife had died, and that he had thereupon betrothed himself to a virgin. Olshausen, Maurer, Hendewerk, and others, have followed him in this. But this is a story entirely without foundation. In chap. viii. 13, the wife of the Prophet is called simply "the prophetess." Nor could one well see how the Prophet could expect to be understood, if, by the general expression: "the virgin" he wished to signify his presumptive betrothed. There is an entire absence of every intimation whatsoever of a nearer relation of the Almah to the Prophet; and such an intimation could not by any means be wanting if such a relation really existed. One would, in that case at least, be obliged to suppose, as Plüschke does, that the Prophet took his betrothed with him, and pointed to her with his finger,— a supposition which too plainly exhibits the sign of embarrassment, just as is the case with the remark of Hendewerk: "Only that, in that case, we must also suppose that his second wife was sufficiently known at court even then, when she was his betrothed only, although her relation to Isaiah might be unknown; so that, for this very reason, we could not think of a frustration of the sign on the part of the king." Hitzig remarks: "The supposition of a former wife of the Prophet is altogether destitute of any foundation." He then, however, falls back upon the hypothesis which Gesenius himself admitted to be untenable, that, "virgin" might not only denote a young woman, but sometimes also an older woman. Not even the semblance of a proof can be advanced in support of this. It is just the juvenile age which forms the fundamental signification of the word. In the wife of the Prophet we can the less think of such a juvenile age, that he himself had already exercised his prophetic office for about twenty years. Hitzig has indeed altogether declined to lead any such proof.

A son of the Prophet, as, in general, every subject except the Messiah, is excluded by the circumstance that in chap. viii. 8, Canaan is called the land of Immanuel.-Farther,—In all these suppositions, is understood in an inadmissible signification. It can here denote a fact only, whereby those who were really susceptible were made decidedly certain of the impending deliverance. This appears clearly enough from the relation of this sign to that which Ahaz had before refused, according to which the difference must not be too great, and must not refer to the substance. To this may be added the solemn tone which induces us to expect something grand and important. A mere poetical image, such as would be before us according to the hypothesis of the ideal virgin, or of the real virgin and the ideal birth, does surely not come up to the demand which in this context must be made in reference to this sign. And if the Prophet had announced so solemnly, and in words so sublime, the birth of his own child, he would have made himself ridiculous. Farther, -How then did the Prophet know that after nine months a child would be born to him, or, if the pregnancy be considered as having already commenced, how did he know that just a son would be born to him? That is a question to which most of these Rationalistic interpreters take good care not to give any reply. Plüschke, indeed, is of opinion that, upon a bold conjecture, the Prophet had ventured this statement. But in that case it might easily have fared with him as in that well known story in Worms, (Eisenmenger, entdecktes Judenthum ii. S. 664 ff), and his whole authority would have been forfeited if his conjecture had proved false. And this argument holds true in reference to those also who do not share in the Rationalistic view of Prophetism. Predictions of such a kind may belong to the territory of foretelling, but not to that of Prophecy.

THE PROPHECY, CHAP. VIII. 23-IX. 6.

(Chap. ix. 1-7.)

UNTO US A CHILD IS BORN.

In the view of the Assyrian catastrophe, the Prophet is anxious to bring it home to the consciences of the people that, by their own guilt, they have brought down upon themselves this calamity, and, at the same time, to prevent them from despairing. Hence it is that, soon after the prophecy in chap. vii., he reverts once more to the subject of it. The circumstances in chap. viii. 1-ix. 6 (7) are identical with those in chap. vii. Judah is hard pressed by Ephraim and Aram. Still, some time will elapse before the destruction of their territories. The term in chap. vii. 16: "Before the boy shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good," and in chap. viii. 4: "Before the boy shall know to cry, My father and my mother," is quite the same. This is the less to be doubted when it is kept in mind that, in the former passage, evil and good must be taken in a physical sense. The sense for the difference of food is, in a child, developed at nearly the same time as the ability for speaking. If it had not been the intention of the Prophet to designate one and the same period, he ought to have fixed more distinctly the limits between the two termini. It might, indeed, from chap. viii. 3, appear as if at least the nine months must intervene between the two prophecies of the conception of the son of the Prophet, and his birth. As, however, it cannot be denied that there is a connection between the giving of the name, and the drawing up of the document in vers. 1 and 2, we should be obliged to suppose that, in reference to the first two futures with Vav convers. the same rule applies as in reference to, in Gen. ii. 19. The progress lies first in ; the event falling into that time is the birth.

Chap. viii. 1-ix. 6 (7), forms the necessary supplement to chap. vii., the germ of which is contained already in chap. vii. 21, 22. The Prophet saw, by the light of the Spirit of God, that the fear of Aram and Ephraim was unfounded; the enemy truly