."--We answer: What they, at that time, feared, was the
total destruction of state and people. This appears sufficiently from
the circumstance that the prophet takes his son Shearjashub with him;
and indeed the intentions of the enemy in this respect are expressed
with sufficient clearness in ver. 6. It is this _extreme_ of fear which
the Prophet here first opposes. Just as, according to the preceding
verses, he met the fear of entire destruction by taking with him his
son Shearjashub, "the remnant will be converted," without thereby
excluding a temporary carrying away, so he there also prepares the mind
for the announcement contained in vers. 15, 16, of the near deliverance
from the present danger, by first representing the fear of an entire
destruction to be unfounded. A people, moreover, to whom, at some
future period, although it may be at a very remote future, a divine
_Saviour_ is to be sent, must, in the present also, be under special
divine protection. They may be visited by severe sufferings, they may
be brought to the very verge of destruction,--whether that shall be the
case the Prophet does not, as yet, declare,--but one thing is sure,
that to them all things must work together for good; and that is the
main point. He who is convinced of this, may calmly and quietly look at
the course of events.

3. "The sense in which [Hebrew: avt] is elsewhere used in Scripture, is
altogether disregarded by this interpretation. For, according to it,
[Hebrew: avt] would refer to a future event; but according to the _usus
loquendi_ elsewhere observed, [Hebrew: avt] 'is a prophesied second
event, the earlier fulfilment of which is to afford a sure guarantee
for the fulfilment of the first, which is really the point at issue.'"
But, in opposition to this, it is sufficient to [Pg 52] refer to Exod.
iii. 12, where Moses receives this as a sign of his Divine mission, and
of the deliverance of the people to be effected by him: "When thou hast
brought forth my people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this
mountain." In chap. xxxvii. 30, our Prophet himself, as a confirmation
of the word spoken in reference to the king of Asshur: "I make thee
return by the way by which thou earnest," gives this sign, that, in the
third year after this, agriculture should already have altogether
returned into its old tracks, and the cultivation of the country should
have been altogether restored.[4] The fact here given as a sign is
later than tha