with water, to “Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither let thy heart be faint, because of these two tails of smoking firebrands....  Because Syria hath counselled evil against thee, Ephraim also, and the son of Bemaliah, saying, Let us go up against Judah, hem it in, carry it by storm, and set up the son of Tabeel as king:  thus saith the Lord God, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.”  If, however, the course of the divine justice was to be disturbed by the intervention of a purely human agency, the city would doubtless be thereby saved, but the matter would not be allowed to rest there, and the people would suffer even more at the hands of their allies than they had formerly endured from their enemies.  “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel—­God with us....  For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings thou abhorrest shall be forsaken,” and yet “Jahveh shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father’s house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah."* And then, employing one of those daring apologues, common enough in his time, the prophet took a large tablet and wrote upon it in large letters two symbolical names—­Spoil-speedeth, Prey-hasteth—­and set it up in a prominent place, and with the knowledge of credible witnesses went in unto the prophetess his wife.  When the child was born in due course, Jahveh bade him call it Spoil-speedeth, Prey-hasteth, “for before he shall have knowledge to cry, My father and, My mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be carried away before the King of Assyria.”  But the Eternal added, “Forasmuch as this people hath refused the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son; now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river [the Euphrates], strong and many:* and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks:  and he shall sweep onward into Judah; he shall overflow and pass through; he shall reach even to the neck, and the stretching of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel [God-with-us]!"*** Finding that Egypt was in favour of his adversaries, Ahaz, in spite of the prophet’s warnings, turned to Assyria.****

     * Isa. vii. 10-17.

     ** A marginal gloss has here been inserted in the text,
     indicating that it was “the King of Assyria and all his
     glory " that the prophet referred to

     *** Isa. viii. 1-8.

**** The following portions of Isaiah are accepted as belonging to the period of this Syrian war:  in addition to chap, vii., chaps, viii.-ix 6. xi 1-9. xxii. 1-11; i. 4-9, 18-32; to these Kuenen adds chap, xxiii. 1-8

[Illustration:  282.jpg MAP THE KINGDOM OF DAMASCUS]