(4.) "The passage, chap. viii. 3, 4, presents the most marked resemblance to the one before us. If _there_ the Messianic explanation be decidedly inadmissible, it must be so _here_ also. The name and birth of a child serves, there as here, for a sign of the deliverance from the Syrian dominion. If then _there_ the mother of the child be the wife of the Prophet, and the child a son of his, the same must be the case _here_ also." But it is _a priori_ improbable that the Prophet should have given [Pg 53] to two of his sons names which had reference to the same event. To this must be added the circumstance, that the _time is wanting_ for the birth of two sons of the Prophet. Before Immanuel knows to refuse the evil and choose the good, the country of both the hostile kings shall be desolated, chap. vii. 15; before Mahershalalhashbaz knows to cry My Father, My Mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be carried before the king of Assyria, chap. viii. 4. The two births hence coincide. At all events, it is impossible to find the time for a double birth by the same mother. Several interpreters (_Gesenius_, _Hitzig_, _Hendewerk_,) assume the identity of Immanuel and Mahershalalhashbaz; but this is altogether inadmissible, even from the difference of the names. It is the less admissible to assume a double name for the child, as the name Shearjashub plainly enough shews that the Prophet was in earnest with the names of his children; and indeed, unless they had been real proper names, there would have existed no reason at all for giving them to them. To have assigned several names to one child would have weakened their power. The agreement must, therefore, rather be explained from the circumstance, that it was by the announcement in chap. vii. 14 that the Prophet was induced to the symbolical action in chap. viii. 3, 4. He has, in chap. vii. 14, given to the despairing people the birth of a child, who would bring the highest salvation for Israel, as a pledge of their deliverance. The birth of a child and its name were then required as an actual prophecy of help in the present distress,--a help which was to be granted with a view to that Child, who not only indicates, but grants deliverance from all distresses, and to whom the Prophet reverts in chap. ix., and even already in chap. viii. 8.--Moreover, besides the agreement there is found a thorough difference. In chap. vii. the mother of the child is called העלמה, whereby a virgin only can be designated; in chap. viii., "the prophetess." In chap. vii. there is not even the slightest allusion to the Prophet's being the father; while in chap. viii. this circumstance is expressly and emphatically pointed out. In chap. vii. it is the mother who gives the name to the child; in chap. viii. it is the Prophet. Far closer is the agreement of chap. ix. 5 (6) with chap. vii. 14. It especially appears in the circumstances that in neither of them [Pg 54] is the father of the