t which is to be thereby made sure. The sign consists
only in this, that the idea is vividly called up and realized in the
mind, that the land would recover from the destruction; and this of
course, implies the destruction of the enemy. But in our chapter
itself,--the name of Shearjashub affords the example of a sign (comp.
chap. vii. 18), which is taken from the territory of the distant
future. It is time that _commonly_ [Hebrew: avt] is not used of future
things; but this has its reason not in the idea of [Hebrew: avt], but
solely in the circumstance that, ordinarily, the future cannot serve
as a sign of assurance. But it is quite obvious that, in the present
case, the Messianic announcement _could_ afford such a sign, and that
in a far higher degree than the future facts given as signs in Exod.
iii., and Isa. xxxvii. The kingdom of glory which has been promised
to us, forms to us also a sure pledge that in all the distresses of
the Church, the Lord will not withhold His help from her. But the
Covenant-people stood in the same relation to the first appearance of
Christ, as we do to the second.

(4.) "The passage, chap. viii. 3, 4, presents the most marked
resemblance to the one before us. If _there_ the Messianic explanation
be decidedly inadmissible, it must be so _here_ also. The name and
birth of a child serves, there as here, for a sign of the deliverance
from the Syrian dominion. If then _there_ the mother of the child be
the wife of the Prophet, and the child a son of his, the same must be
the case _here_ also." But it is _a priori_ improbable that the Prophet
should have given [Pg 53] to two of his sons names which had reference
to the same event. To this must be added the circumstance, that the
_time is wanting_ for the birth of two sons of the Prophet. Before
Immanuel knows to refuse the evil and choose the good, the country of
both the hostile kings shall be desolated, chap. vii. 15; before
Mahershalalhashbaz knows to cry My Father, My Mother, the riches of
Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be carried before the king of
Assyria, chap. viii. 4. The two births hence coincide. At all events,
it is impossible to find the time for a double birth by the same
mother. Several interpreters (_Gesenius_, _Hitzig_, _Hendewerk_,)
assume the identity of Immanuel and Mahershalalhashbaz; but this is
altogether inadmissible, even from the difference of the names. It is
the less admissible to assume a double name for th