Behind the clouds, the sun is shining. Every attempt to assign the Immanuel to the lower sphere, must by this passage be rendered futile. For how, in that case, could Canaan be called _His_ land? The signification "native country" which ארץ, it is true, sometimes receives by the context, does not suit here. For the passage just points out the contrast of reality and idea, that the world's power takes possession of the land which _belongs_ to Immanuel, and hence prepares for the announcement contained in that which follows, viz., that this contrast shall be done away with, and that this shall be done as soon as the legitimate proprietor comes into His kingdom. Farther,--Decisive in favour of the Messianic explanation is also the passage Mic. v. 1, 2, (2, 3), where, in correspondence to _virgin_ here, we have, _she who is bearing_. The latter, indeed, is not expressly called a virgin; but it follows, as a matter of course, that she be so, as she is to bear the Hero of Divine origin ("_of eternity_"), who, hence, cannot have been begotten by any mortal. Both of the prophecies mutually illustrate one another. "Micah designates the Divine origin of the Promised One; Isaiah, the miraculous circumstances of His birth" (_Rosenmüller_) Just as Isaiah holds up the birth of Immanuel as the pledge that the covenant-people would not perish in their present catastrophe; just as he points to the shining form of Immanuel, announcing the victory over the [Pg 50] world, in order to comfort them in the impending severe oppression by the world's power (viii. 8);--so Micah makes the oppression by the world's power continue only until the time that she who is bearing brings forth. As Micah, in v. 1 (2), contrasts the divine dignity and nature with the birth in time, so, in Isaiah, Immanuel, He in whom God will most truly be with His people, is born by a virgin. The arguments which the Jews, and, following their example, the rationalistic interpreters, especially _Gesenius_, and with them _Olshausen_, have advanced against the Messianic explanation, prove nothing. They are these: