Not only was this heathen altar built, but it replaced the ancient one, which was set aside. Ahaz even went further. When he returned from Damascus, he himself, instead of the regularly appointed priest, offered the sacrifices upon the new altar, as he had seen Tiglath-Pileser do. To cap the climax, Ahaz introduced certain pagan religious ideas, copied from the Assyrian worship, into the cult of the Temple, simply to please and gratify his Assyrian master.
With so base a king, Isaiah could hope nothing for the nation. Truly could he cry out in the anguish of his spirit:
"My people—a boy is their leader!"
"My people—thy guides lead thee astray."
Of one thing, however, Isaiah was positive. When messengers came to him from various parts of the country to inquire what to do in this national crisis he answered them all alike: "God hath founded Zion, and in her shall the afflicted of His people take refuge."
He was certain that neither a weakling like Ahaz nor a terror like Tiglath-Pileser could bring destruction upon the city that God had selected as the center of His worship, or upon the people whom God had chosen, to reveal Himself to them and to entrust them with His law.
The patriotic and religious backsliding of Ahaz and his counselors, however, seemed to point to the destruction of both. But Isaiah was not dismayed. Trusting faithfully in God's protecting hand over His people, he could not conceive that God would desert them for long. God would not permit a backboneless king to reign over His people. The successor to Ahaz would be a different type of man—an ideal prince in the sight of God and men:
"And there shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse,
And a branch of his roots shall bear fruit.
And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
The spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The spirit of counsel and might,
The spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.
And he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes,
Neither arbitrate after the hearing of his ears;
But with righteousness shall he judge the poor,
And arbitrate with equity for the afflicted of the land:
And he shall smite the tyrannous with the rod of his mouth,
And with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked,
And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins,
And faithfulness the girdle of his reins,
And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
And the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
The calf and the young lion shall feed together;
And a little child shall lead them.
And the cow and the bear shall make friends;
Their young ones shall lie down together;
And the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp,
And the weaned child shall stretch out his hand to the serpent's eye.
None shall do evil or act corruptly in all my holy mountain,
For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the
waters cover the sea."
In all literature there is no more beautiful and meaningful description of what an ideal ruler should be and of the peaceful and happy state to which such a ruler could bring his country.
But Isaiah did not lose sight of the fact that just as little as an Ahaz could accomplish the destruction of the nation, so little could an ideal king, even if his fond dream would come true, accomplish the reconstruction of the nation, single-handed and alone.
What was necessary, therefore, was the raising and educating of a new generation of citizens in Judah; a just, patriotic, God-fearing company of men who, when the hoped-for king shall have come to the throne, would support him, with their valor and their lives, in building up the entire nation to walk in God's way.