Ahaz observed a dignified silence after those words of the Prophet; but his whole manner shews the Prophet that they have not made any impression upon him. If David's spirit had rested on Ahaz, he would surely, if he had wavered at all, have, on the word of the Prophet, thrown himself into the arras of his God. But in order that the depth of his apostacy, the greatness of his guilt, and the justice of the divine judgments may become manifest, God shows him even a deeper condescension. The Prophet offers to prove the truth of his announcement by any miraculous work which the king himself should determine, and from which he might, at the same time, see God's omnipotence, and the Divine mission of the Prophet. As Ahaz refused the offered sign, the word 2 Tim. ii. 12, 13: εἰ ἀρνούμεθα, κἀκεῖνος ἀρνήσεται ἡμᾶς· εἰ ἀπιστοῦμεν, ἐκεῖνος πιστὸς μένει·--ἀρνήσασθαι γὰρ ἑαυτὸν οὐ δύναται came into application. According to Deut. vii. 9 ff. the truth and faithfulness of God must now manifest itself in the infliction of severe visitations upon the house of David.--The character of a sign is, in general, borne by everything which serves for certifying facts which belong to the territory of faith, and not to that of sight. 1. In some instances, the sign consists in a mere naked word; thus in Exod. iii. 12: "And this shall be the sign unto thee that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain." Moses' doubts of the truth of his Divine mission originated in the consciousness of his own unworthiness, and in the condition of those to whom he was sent. From these doubts he was delivered by the announcement that, at the place where he had been called, he, at the head of the delivered people, should serve his God. This was to him a sign that God was in earnest in calling him. 2. In other instances the assurance given by the sign consists in its perceptibility and corporeality; so that the word assumes, as it were, flesh and blood. A case of this kind it is, e.g., when, in chap. viii. 18, Isaiah calls his two sons, to whom, at the command of God, he had given symbolical names, expressive of the future salvation of the covenant-people, "Signs and wonders in Israel;" farther, chap. xx. 3, where the Prophet walks naked and barefoot for a sign of the calamity impending over Egypt and Ethiopia in three years. 3. In another class of signs, a fact is announced which is, in itself, natural, but not to be foreseen by any human combination, the coming to pass of which, in the immediate future, furnishes the proof that, at a distant future, that will be fulfilled which was foretold as impending. The wonderful element, and the demonstrative power do not, in such a case, lie in the matter of the sign, but in the telling of it beforehand. It is in this sense that, in 1 Sam. x., Samuel gives several signs to Saul, that God had destined him to be king, e.g., that in a place exactly fixed, he would meet two men who would bring him the intelligence that the lost asses were found; that, farther onwards, he would meet with three men, one of whom would be carrying three kids, another, three loaves of bread, and another, a bottle of wine, &c. In 1 Sam. ii. 34, the sudden death of his two sons is given to Eli as a sign that all the calamities threatened against his family should certainly come to pass. In Jer. xliv. 29, 30, the impending defeat of Pharaoh-Hophras is given as a sign of the divine vengeance breaking in upon the Jews in Egypt. Even before the thing came to pass, it could not in such a case, be otherwise than that the previous condition and foundation brought before the eyes in a lively manner (Jer. xliv. 30:
"Behold, I give Pharaoh-Hophras into the hands of his enemies") gave a powerful shock to the doubts as to whether the fact in question would come to pass. 4. In other cases, the assurance was given in such a manner, that all doubts as to the truth of the announcement were set at rest by the immediate performance of a miraculous work going beyond the ordinary laws of nature. Thus, e.g., Isaiah says to Hezekiah, in chap. xxviii. 7: "And this shall be the sign unto thee from the Lord, that the Lord will do this thing which He has spoken," and, as a sign that the Lord would add fifteen years to the life of the King, who was sick unto death, he makes the shadow on the sun-dial of Ahaz to go back ten degrees. Of this description were also the signs granted to Gideon, and, in many respects, the plagues in Egypt also. In the passage before us, no other sign can possibly be spoken of than one of the two last classes. For it was a real, miraculous sign only which could possibly exert any influence on a mind so darkened as was that of Ahaz, and it was the vain offer of such an one only which was fitted to bring to light his obduracy. If, then, the Prophet was willing and able to give a real, miraculous sign, why, then, is the answer of Ahaz so unsuitable? And we can surely not suppose, as Meier does, that he should have intentionally misunderstood the Prophet. The temptation of the Lord by the children of Israel, to which the word of the Lord, Deut. vi. 16, quoted by Ahaz, refers, consisted, according to Exod. xvii., in their having asked water, as a miraculous sign that the Lord was truly in the midst of them. How could the Prophet reproach Ahaz with having offended, not men merely, but God, unless he had offered to prove, by a fact which lay absolutely beyond the limits of nature, the truth of his announcement, the divinity of Him who gave it, the divinity of his own mission, and the soundness of his advice? Hendewerk is of opinion that "it is difficult to say what the author would have made to be the sign in the heavens; probably, a very simple thing." But in making this objection it is forgotten that Isaiah gives free choice to the king. Hitzig says: "Without knowing it, Isaiah here plays a very dangerous game. For if Ahaz had accepted his proposition, Jehovah would probably have left His servant in the lurch, and he would have begun to doubt of his God and of himself." In these words, at all events, it is conceded that the prophets themselves would not be what people in modern times would have them to be. If such was their position towards miracles, then, in their own convictions, prophecies, too, must be something else than general descriptions, and indefinite forebodings. But how should it have been possible that an order could have maintained itself for centuries, the most prominent members of which gave themselves up to such enthusiastic imprudence and rashness? Moreover, it is overlooked that afterwards, to Hezekiah, our Prophet grants that in reality which here he offers to Ahaz in vain,--העמק and הגבה are Infin. absol. "going high," "going low." The Imperat. שאלה must be understood after הגבה also. Some explain שאלה by "to hell," "down to hell;" but this is against the form of the word, which it would be arbitrary to change. Nor does one exactly see how, if we except, perhaps, the apparition of one dead, Isaiah could have given to the king a sign from the Sheol; and in other passages, too (comp. Joel iii. 3 [ii. 30]), signs in the heavens and in the earth are contrasted with one another. Theodoret remarks that both kinds of miracles, among which the Lord here allowed a choice to Ahaz, were granted by Him to his pious son, Hezekiah, inasmuch as He wrought a phenomenon in heaven which affected the going back of the shadow on the sun-dial of Ahaz; and on earth, inasmuch as He, in a wonderful manner, destroyed the Assyrians, and restored the king to health. Jerome farther remarks, that, from among the plagues in Egypt, the lice, frogs, &c., were signs on earth; the hail, fire, and three day's darkness, were signs in the heaven. It is on the passage before us that the Pharisees take their stand, when in Matt. xvi. 1 they ask from the Lord that He should grant them a sign from heaven. If even the Prophet Isaiah offered to prove in such a manner his divine mission, then, according to their opinion, Christ was much more bound to do this, inasmuch as He set up far higher claims. But they overlooked the circumstance that enough had already been granted for convincing those who were well disposed, and that it can never be a duty to convince obstinate unbelief in a manner so palpable.
Ver. 12. "And Ahaz said: I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord."
Ahaz declines the offer by referring to Deut. vi. 16., and thus assuming the guise of reverence for God and His commandment. "He pretends," says Calvin, "to have faith in the words of the Prophet, and not to require anything besides the word." The same declarations of the Law, the Lord opposes to Satan, when the latter would induce Him to do something for which he had no word of God, Matt. iv. 7. That would really have been a tempting of God. Ahaz had no doubt that the miracle would really be performed; but he had a dislike to enter within the mystical sphere. Who knows whether the God who grants the miracle is really the highest God? comp. Is. x. 10, 11, xxxvi. 18–20, xxxvii. 10–12. Who knows whether He is not laying for him a trap; whether, by preventing him from seeking the help of man. He is not to bring upon him the destruction which his conscience tells him he has so richly deserved? At all events the affording of His help is clogged with a condition which he is resolved not to fulfil, viz., his conversion. A better and easier bargain, he thought, could be struck with the Assyrians; how insatiable soever they might be, they did not ask the heart. How many do even now-a-days rather perish in sin and misery, than be converted!
Ver. 13. "And he said: Hear ye now, O house of David: Is it too little for you to provoke man, that you provoke also my God?"
When Ahaz had before refused to believe in the simple announcement of the Prophet, his sin was more pardonable; for, inasmuch as Isaiah had not proved himself outwardly as a divine ambassador, Ahaz sinned to a certain degree against man only, against the Prophet only, by unjustly suspecting him of a deceitful pretension to a divine revelation. Hence, Isaiah continues mild and gentle. But when Ahaz declined the offered sign, God himself was provoked by him, and his wickedness came evidently to light. It is substantially the same difference as that between the sin against the Son of Man, the Christ coming outwardly and as a man only (Bengel: quo statu conspicu, quatenus aequo tum loco cum hominibus conversabatur), and the sin against the Holy Ghost who powerfully glorifies Him outwardly and inwardly. It is the antithesis of the relative ignorance of what one is doing, and of the absolute unwillingness which purposely hardens itself to the truth known, or easy to be known. We say relative ignorance; for an element of obduracy and hardening already existed, if he did not believe the Prophet, even without a sign. For the fact that the Prophet was sent by God, and spoke God's word, was testified to all who would hear it, even by the inner voice, just as in every sin against the Son of Man there is always already an element of the sin against the Holy Ghost.--The truth that godlessness is the highest folly is here seen in a very evident manner. The same Ahaz who rejects the offer of the living God, who palpably wishes to reveal to him that He is a living God, sacrifices his son to the dead idol Moloch, who never yet gave the smallest sign of life! In this mirror we may see the condition of human nature.--The circumstance that it is not Ahaz, but the house of David that is addressed, indicates that the deed is a deed of the whole house.--The Prophet says, "My God," i.e., the God whose faithful servant I am, and in whom ye hypocrites have no more any share. In Ver. 11, the Prophet had still called Him the God of Ahaz.
Ver. 14. "Therefore the Lord himself giveth you a sign: Behold the Virgin is with child, and heareth a Son, and thou callest his name Immanuel."
Ahaz had refused the proffered sign; the whole depth of his apostacy had become manifest; no further regard was to be had to him. But it was necessary to strengthen those who feared God, in their confidence in the Lord, and in their hope in him. For this reason, the Prophet gives a sign, even against the will of Ahaz, by which the announcement of the deliverance from the two kings was confirmed. Your weak, prostrate faith, he says, may erect itself on the certain fact that, in the Son of the Virgin, the Lord will some day be with us in the truest manner, and may perceive therein a guarantee and a pledge of the lower help in the present danger also.--"Therefore"--because ye will not fix upon a sign. Reinke, in the ably written Monograph on this passage, assigns to לכן the signification, "nevertheless," which is not supported by the usus loquendi.--יתן must be translated as a Present; for the pregnancy of the Virgin and birth of Immanuel are present to the Prophet; and the fact cannot serve as a sign, in so far as it manifests itself outwardly, but only in so far as, by being foretold, it is realized as present.--הוא He, i.e., of His own accord without any co-operation, such as would have taken place if Ahaz had asked the sign.--לכם refers by its form to the house of David; but in determining the sign, it is not the real condition of its representative at that time which is regarded, but as he ought to be. In substance, the sign given to ungodly Ahaz is destined for believers only.--הנה "behold" indicates the energy with which the Prophet anticipates the future; in his spirit it becomes to him the immediate present. Thus it was understood as early as by Chrysostom: μόνον γὰρ οὐκ ὁρῶντος ἦν τὰ γινόμενα καὶ φανταζομένου καὶ πολλὴν ἔχοντος ὑπερ τῶν εἰρημένων πληροφορίαν, τῶν γὰρ ἡμετέρων ὀφθαλμῶν ἐκεῖνοι σαφέστερον τὰ μὴ ὁρώμενα ἔβλεπον.--The article in העלמה cannot refer to the virgin known as the mother of the Saviour; for, besides the passage before us, it is only Micah v. 2 (3) which mentions the mother of the Saviour, and it is our passage only which speaks of her as a virgin. In harmony with הנה, the article in העלמה might be explained from the circumstance that the Virgin is present to the inward perception of the Prophet--equivalent to "the virgin there." But since the use of the article in the generic sense is so general, it is most natural to understand "the virgin"
as forming a contrast to the married or old woman, and hence, in substance, as here equivalent to a virgin. To this view we are led also by the circumstance that, in the parallel passage, Mic. v. 2 (3) יולדה "a bearing woman" is used without the article.--עלמה is, by old expositors, commonly derived from עלם in the signification "to conceal" A virgin, they assume, is called a concealed one, with reference to the customs of the East, where the virgins are obliged to lead a concealed life. Thus it was understood by Jerome also:
"Almah is not applied to girls or virgins generally, but is used emphatically of a hidden and concealed virgin, who is never accessible to the look of males, but who is with great care watched by the parents." But all parties now rightly agree that the word is to be derived from עלם, in the signification, "to grow up." To offer here any arguments in proof would be a work of supererogation, as they are offered by all dictionaries. But with all that, Luther's remark is even now in full force: "If a Jew or a Christian can prove to me that in any passage of Scripture Almah means