Who this child, and who his mother, really were, are questions wholly unconnected with the present argument. As the _date_, and not the _person_, was the chief subject of the Prophet’s declaration, any son of Jerusalem, arriving at years of discretion within the stated time, would fulfil the main conditions of the announcement; and as a sign of Divine deliverance, might receive the name Emmanuel. In fact, however, the child, in the view of Isaiah, seems to have been no other than the King’s own son, Hezekiah; and the Virgin Mother to have been, in conformity with a phraseology familiar to every careful reader of the Old Testament, the royal and holy city of Jerusalem. Amos, speaking of the city, says, “The virgin of Israel is fallen,”[184] Jeremiah, lamenting over its desolation, exclaims, “Let mine eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease; for the virgin daughter of my people is broken, with a great breach, with a very grievous blow.”[185] Micah, apostrophizing the citadel, bursts out, “O tower,”—“stronghold of the daughter of Zion,”—“is there no king in thee? Is thy counsellor perished? For pangs have taken thee, as a woman in travail.”[186] The fact that Hezekiah was already born, seems to confirm rather than to invalidate this interpretation. A living child to his parents, he was yet the city’s embryo king. What sign more fitted to reassure the terrified and faithless monarch than this; that, ere his own first-born should reach the years of judgment, his twofold enemy should be cast down? What language, indeed, could be more natural respecting an heir to the throne, of whom great expectations were excited in grievous times? The royal city dreamt of his promised life with gladness; he was the child of Jerusalem, in the hour of her anguish given to her hopes; in after years of peace fulfilling them.[187]