d Testament, such as have a name
little known are spoken of as being without a name.

Ver. 2, "_And it was told to the house of David, saying: Aram rests
upon Ephraim. Then his heart trembled, and the heart of his people,
like as the trembling of the trees of the wood before the wind._"

The representative of the house of David was, according to [Pg 33] ver.
1, Ahaz, to whom the suffix in [Hebrew: lbbv] refers. It is thereby
intimated that Ahaz does not come into consideration as an individual,
but as a representative of the whole Davidic family, of which the
members were responsible, conjunctly and severally, and which in Ahaz
denied their God, and gave themselves up to the world's power,--a deed
of the family from the consequences of which a heroic faith only, like
that of Hezekiah, could deliver, but in such a manner only that it at
once became valid again when this faith ceased, until at length in
Christ the house of David was raised to glory. Ver. 19 shows that
[Hebrew: nvH] must be taken in the signification "to let oneself down,"
"to sit down," "to encamp." The anguish of the natural man, who has not
his strength in God at the breaking in of danger, is most graphically
described.

Ver. 3. "_And the Lord said to Isaiah: Go out to meet Ahaz, thou and
Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, in
the highway of the fuller's field._"

Why is the Prophet to seek out the king just at this place? The answer
is given by chap. xxii. 2. "And a reservoir you make between the two
walls for the waters of the old pool: and not do ye look unto him who
makes it (viz., the impending calamity), and not do ye regard him who
fashioned it long ago." When a siege of Jerusalem was imminent, in the
lower territory, the first task was to cut off the water from the
hostile army. This measure Hezekiah, according to 2 Chron. xxxii. 3,
took against Sennacherib: "And he took counsel with his princes and his
mighty men, to stop the waters of the fountains which were without the
city, and they helped him." That might be done in faith; but he who,
like Ahaz, did not stand in the faith, sought in it, _per se_, his
safety; his despairing heart clung to such measures. The stopping of
the fountains was, in his case, on a level with seeking help from the
Assyrians. It is thus in the midst of his sin that the Prophet seeks
out the king, and recalls to his conscience: "take heed and be quiet."
But why did the Prophet take his