used to introduce an explanation, especially the application of an illustration. See Amos iii. 7, and Isaiah v. 7. It is here used in this sense. The second part, therefore, explains the first, and determines the main thought of the passage. Now it is only necessary to read verses 16 and 17 to see that, as was to be expected, it is not the overthrow of Syria and Samaria, but the subjugation of Judah, by foretelling which Isaiah wished to influence his sovereign.1

The importance of the results thus far obtained appears upon applying them to verse 14, whose meaning is in question. Of course, if this verse is really to be subordinated to the next, the seeming promise contained in it cannot be of so great significance as it has sometimes been regarded; and, if it is to be explained by verse 16, it must have some reference to the fate of Rezin and Pekah. In other words, the sign given is in some sense a sign of the overthrow of these two kings. It will be necessary to examine the verse more closely to learn in just what sense the sign was to be understood. I need not dwell on the meaning of 'almah (by), which the revisers render virgin in the text and maiden in the margin. Most scholars now admit that the word denotes simply a woman of marriageable age, whether married or single. In this passage, therefore, it may mean either a young wife or a young woman who was about to be married. The article () is variously understood. Some, like Professor Briggs (Messianic Prophecy, 195) take it to be a sign of the vocative; but as Dillmann suggests, if ha'almah (by) were vocative, it would naturally be followed by thou () as the subject of the next word. Others maintain that the article is here used in the strict sense of a demonstrative, directing attention to a person well known. To this view it is objected that a reference to a particular person was unnecessary, since the emphasis is on the name of the child, and not on the character of his mother, and that those who insist on such a reference cannot agree on the person intended. There is a third view, that the article here is generic, which relieves one from the necessity of taking either side of a question which can never be decided, and assists one in reaching a consistent idea of the entire passage. I prefer therefore, with Ewald (Propheten i. 344) to regard the young woman as an indefinite person belonging to the class properly called young women. If, however, ha'almah is generic, the young woman may not only be any one of her class, but first one and then another of that class, that is, the prophecy concerning the young woman may meet with more than one fulfillment. This possibility would be more plainly suggested by rendering the word, not the or a young woman, but young women.2

There is nothing to indicate which form of the copula is to be supplied before harah (~~~), pregnant, the present or the future. One might translate, The young woman is with child and shall bear, etc., that is, Young women now with child, when they bear, etc. This would bring the fulfillment of the prophecy nearer than the use of the future, and

1 If, as some maintain, the passage is a compilation, the introduction of verse 17 at the end of it shows that the compiler's view of Isaiah's meaning was that above stated.

2 It has been suggested that the article may be but an accidental repetition of the last letter of the preceding word (). Without it, the noun to which it is now prefixed would, of course, most naturally be interpreted as indefinite.

it would be authorized by the analogy of Genesis xvi. 11, but it would not be exact enough to suit the evident intention of the prophet. It is better to suppose even the conception of Immanuel yet future, and translate, The young woman will conceive and bear, etc., that is, Young women, who now become pregnant, when they bear, etc.

The form is rendered as if it were qaratha in the Greek versions, but unless, as Professor Toy (Quotations in the New Testament, p. 4) suggests, it is a mistake for the feminine participle, it is probably another form of the third sing. fem. of the perfect. In either case the sense is not affected: the mother will call her son Immanuel, that is, by the time she would name her son, the condition and prospects of the kingdom of Judah will be such that she will feel that Jehovah is directing its affairs, and give expression to this faith (or hope) by naming him Immanuel. I insist on the use of will instead of shall in this connection. Shall would seem to make the prophet teach that the temporary relief to Judah, which he foretold, was really an indication that God had interposed to save his people; but that is precisely what he does not wish to teach. What he means to say is, that, when the relief sought through Assyria comes, Ahaz and his people, in their blindness, will think that Jehovah has espoused their cause, and mothers will be influenced by this belief in giving names to their children, but that the inference is mistaken, since the Assyrians will prove worse than their former enemies.

The name Immanuel, or, more exactly, Immanu-El, properly understood, sustains the view above stated. Literally rendered it is, with us God. This phrase taken by itself might be regarded as a description of the character of the child, and it has, in fact, been so regarded. The passage is still interpreted as a direct prophecy of the birth of Jesus, and the name as a distinct statement of his divinity. But, in the first place, .with us God is not a correct translation of Immanuel. The name is formed after the analogy of, for example, Hephzibah, which means, not my delight in her, but my delight is in her. That the copula is to be supplied in the translation of Immanuel also is clear from Isaiah viii. 8, where the two words of which it is composed form a sentence not to be rendered into English without is. The revisers, therefore, have done well to translate this name, as they have in the margin, God is with us. But God is with us describes a state of things, not the nature of a person, as is shown by the use made of the expression in viii. 8. The name Immanuel, then, as Isaiah in this passage represents the future mother as applying it to her child, is a mistaken popular interpretation of her country's condition. Isaiah himself, in anticipation of the event which was to give occasion for the use of the name Immanuel, for the time being forgetting its effect upon Judah, named his own child Maher-shalal-hashbaz, because, before the child should know enough to cry My father, and My mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria should be carried away before the king of Assyria.

I have said that the name of the child, and not the title of his mother, is the important word in this prophecy, and also that Immanuel itself has merely a suggestive importance. Let me now make a further point, implied in the previous discussion, that Isaiah, when he uttered the prophecy concerning Immanuel, probably did not mean to predict that any child would actually bear this name, but that circumstances would be such as to suggest a name of this sort. If, therefore, any young mother, in her

gratitude to Jehovah for the deliverance of Judah from Syria and Israel, called her first-born (say) Jehoshua, Jehovah is help, or even if such a deliverance was wrought, whether the gratitude of the people expressed itself in this particular way or not, the prophecy was substantially fulfilled. Should one object to this view, let me remind him that, in the first place, no mention is made of any one in Isaiah's time called by this name, as there would have been had the name been of prime importance; and furthermore, that Matthew did not take the prophecy so literally, since he did not hesitate to say (i. 23) that the name Jesus was given to the son of Mary in fulfillment of this passage.

Isaiah foretold a speedy but temporary deliverance. If this prophecy was fulfilled, it was fulfilled soon after it was uttered. It is not certainly known when Ahaz came to the throne, but the date of his accession cannot be far from 735 B. C. It is probable that the attack upon him by Rezin and Pekah occurred at the beginning of his reign, and that, as soon as he found himself thus beset, he formed the alliance with Assyria which Isaiah sought to prevent. If the date given is correct, the Assyrian records furnish ample proof of the accuracy of Isaiah's prediction, for, according to the eponym canon, the principal event of the year 734 was an expedition to Gaza, of which Tiglath-pileser, in his annals, gives a detailed account. I translate what remains of this account from the text of Schrader (Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, ii. 30).

The city Ga-al (probably the first syllable of Galad, that is, Gilead) ・ ・ ・ bi-il (probably a fragment of the name of the Abel-beth maacah of 2 Kings xv. 29) above the land of Beth-Omri . . . the remote, I added, in its extent, to the territory of Assyria, placed my officers as governors over it. Hanno of Gaza, who fled before my arms, and escaped to Egypt, Gaza... his goods, gods.. my... and my royal image . . . in Beth... the gods of their land I counted . . . like a bird . . . I removed him to his land, and . . gold, silver, garments of birmi, wool (?) . . great . . . I received. The land of Beth-Omri . . . the whole of his people, their goods I removed to Assyria, Pekah, their king, I slew, and I placed Hosea as king over them. Ten talents of gold, a thousand talents of silver . . . I received and brought them to Assyria.

It is not probable that the deposition of Pekah occurred in 734 B. C. It is here mentioned as the final result of the interference of the Assyrian monarch in the affairs of Samaria. The expedition of 734, however, must have practically defeated the conspiracy against Judah. The next year Tiglath-pileser attacked and routed Rezin, and the next he renewed the attack and finished the conquest and devastation of Syria; the land whose two kings had filled Ahaz with terror was deserted, and the first part of Isaiah's prophecy fulfilled.

It may be objected to such an interpretation as I have given to this passage that, if it is correct, no sign was, after all, given to Ahaz. I reply that, in the first place, this objection has tenfold more force against the interpretation which makes the passage a prediction concerning the birth of Jesus than against that which I have proposed. How could the birth of our Lord be called a sign to the king of Judah, who lived and reigned more than seven centuries before his advent? But the supposed objector overlooks two things. The first is the change of treatment required by the refusal of Ahaz to receive a sign calculated to strengthen his faith in Jehovah. Isaiah was ready to give any pledge that was required for the fulfillment of his predictions. The king would not be

convinced. A sign such as was given to Hezekiah, therefore, would have been wasted upon him, or, if it had influenced his conduct, would have violated his moral freedom. It should, also, in the second place, be remembered that the word 'oth (1) means sign, not only in the sense of pledge, but in various other senses, for example, that of proof. There are several examples of this usage, but the one which best suits the purpose of an illustration is Exodus iii. 12, where Jehovah says to Moses, "I will surely be with thee, and this will be unto thee the sign that I myself sent thee; when thou bringest the people forth from Egypt, ye will serve God in this mountain." In this case, the sign is the worship of Jehovah in the holy mountain. The event is foretold, that, when it occurs, it may convince Moses that He who sent him on his mission to Egypt was none other than the God of his fathers. The sign actually given to Ahaz was of the same sort. It was, virtually, the relief from present danger. When it came, it would remind the king of his interview with Isaiah, and convince him that the prophet really came from God. This conviction would be reinforced by the fulfillment of the second part of the prophecy, when Ahaz saw that he had escaped his enemies only to be oppressed and devoured by his allies. Then and thereafter, any child born during the respite granted to Judah, whose name reflected the circumstances of his birth, would recall Isaiah's divinely inspired foresight and his own shortsighted obstinacy.

I need not dwell longer on this passage. The next in which the name Immanuel occurs is Isaiah viii. 8. This passage is even simpler than the preceding, yet so learned a commentator as Cheyne has thoroughly misunderstood it. He, like many others, regards thy land as denoting the lordship of Immanuel over Judah, and explains O Immanuel as “an ejaculatory prayer for the Deliverer's advent." One has only to glance at the context to see that both of these interpretations are mistaken. O Immanuel is not a prayer, but a warning. Isaiah, in the eighth chapter, begins by describing the birth of his son, Maher-shalal-hash-baz, to whom this name was given that he might be a sign of the forthcoming destruction of the northern kingdom. With the fifth verse he begins a repetition of this prophecy against Israel, to which he attaches a prediction of the invasion of Judah by the Assyrians. There, then, as in vii. 14–17, the gist of what he says is that Israel will first be destroyed, and Judah thus delivered, but that after a brief respite Judah in its turn will be invaded and oppressed by the Assyrians. Who, then, is Immanuel? Not a deliverer of high or low degree, but a child, any child, to whom his mother, in excess of faith, had given such a name as Immanuel, addressed as the representative of a generation to whom the promise of their birth was soon to be cruelly broken. It is as if the prophet had said, When Israel has been destroyed Judah's turn will come, and ye who began life when peace blessed your country will soon see it all but ruined by war.1 All but, for Israel did not expect that the Assyrian invasion would be the end of the kingdom of Judah. Perhaps he intended to hint at his hopes in verse 8, where he said that the flood, which typifies the Assyrians, would reach unto the neck, but not completely overwhelm the land and its inhabitants. Whether there is any intimation what was to follow the Assyrian invasion in that verse or not, there certainly is in the next

1 It is taken for granted that O Immanuel belongs to the text. If, as some suppose, it is an exegetical addition, it is interesting as showing how early the prediction to which it evidently refers was misunderstood.

proof that he did not despair of the nation. He defies Assyria and all the rest of the peoples to do their worst, for he knows that, though they may be permitted to chastise, they will not be allowed to destroy it; that there will remain a remnant, who, in the midst of desolation and oppression, will have only not the faith but the right to say, God is with us; and that Jehovah will one day manifest himself as their deliverer.

Isaiah does not at first explain by what means Jehovah will accomplish his purpose, but in the ninth chapter he breaks forth into the joyful proclamation, Unto us a child is born, etc.

The question at once arises, What is the relation between this prophecy and those concerning Immanuel? Some have asserted that the two children are one, and, to the superficial reader, the form of expression used in the ninth chapter might seem to favor this opinion. This interpretation, however, cannot be defended In the first place, as every Hebrew scholar knows, the tense used does not necessarily imply past time. The prophets constantly use the perfect when they wish to show their confidence in their predictions. It is so used in the preceding verses of this chapter. Nothing, therefore, would be more natural than its use in this exultant outburst. Moreover, in the eleventh chapter, where the advent of the same Prince is described, the imperfect, the proper tense for events yet future, is employed.

These considerations show that ix. 5 ff. refers to a child not yet born when the prophecy was uttered. If, now, it could be shown that this prophecy is a year or two later than vii. 14 ff., one could thus prove that Isaiah did not have the same child in mind in both passages. This method, for the present, seems impossible, but the same conclusion is forced upon one by a comparison of the two prophecies. If I have correctly interpreted vii. 14 ff., Immanuel has neither character nor mission; is, in fact, a mere name, the creation of a thoughtless and misguided people. The other child is a definite person, with a definite origin, a successor to Ahaz on the throne of David. He has miraculous if not divine attributes, as denoted by the names given to him. He has a career to fulfill, that of a restorer of the kingdom of his father David to more than its ancient glory and prosperity; for this root of Jesse, as he is called in the eleventh chapter,- Unto him will the nations seek, and his resting place will be glory. He is, in short, the ideal king, the manifestation of the power, wisdom, and goodness of Jehovah to and for Israel; the Messiah. Can these two be one and the same child? To me it seems impossible.

Two other questions suggest themselves, namely: How did Isaiah picture to himself the nature of the child of the ninth chapter? and, When did he expect him to appear? It would be very interesting to discuss these questions, but they lie beyond the limits of the present paper, and therefore must, for the time being, be ignored, while we pursue the proper object of our investigations; and since there are no other passages in the Old Testament that refer to Immanuel, we may proceed at once to the one in the New in which Matthew quotes the words of Isaiah to Ahaz. Matthew says (i. 22 f.): All this has come to pass that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Behold, the virgin will conceive, and bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted is, with us God.

The first thing that strikes one upon reading this quotation is its variation from the original. There are at least two cases. One, the use of