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 [Pg 29] 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."[1] The Prophet, in ver. 14, points to the 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