ce not Samaria [Pg 37] and the son of Remaliah that you have to
fear; the enemy whom you have to dread, whom you have to contend
against with prayer and supplication, is in yourselves. Take heed lest
a similar cause produce a similar effect, as in the last clause of ver.
8 it has been threatened against Ephraim.--This prophecy and warning,
one would have expected to have produced an effect so much the deeper,
because they were not uttered by some obscure fanatic, but by a worthy
member of a class which had in its favour the sanction of the Lawgiver,
and which in the course of centuries had been so often and so
gloriously owned and acknowledged by God.[3]

[Pg 38]

Vers. 10, 11. "_And the Lord spoke farther unto Ahaz, saying, Ask thee
a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it from the depth, or above from the
height._"

Ahaz observed a dignified silence after those words of the Prophet;
but his whole manner shews the Prophet that they have not made any
impression upon him. If David's spirit had rested on Ahaz, he would
surely, if he had wavered at all, have, on the word of the Prophet,
thrown himself into the arras of his God. But in order that the
depth of his apostacy, the greatness of his guilt, and the justice
of the divine judgments may become manifest, God shows him even a
deeper condescension. The Prophet offers to prove the truth of his
announcement by any miraculous work which the king himself should
determine, and from which he might, at the same time, see God's
omnipotence, and the Divine mission of the Prophet. As Ahaz refused
the offered sign, the word 2 Tim. ii. 12, 13: [Greek: ei arnoumetha,
kakeinos arnesetai hemas. ei apistoumen, ekeinos pistos
menei--arnesasthai gar heauton ou dunatai] came into application.
According to Deut. vii. 9 ff. the truth and faithfulness of God must
now manifest itself in the [Pg 39] infliction of severe visitations
upon the house of David.--The character of a _sign_ is, in general,
borne by everything which serves for certifying facts which belong to
the territory of faith, and not to that of sight. 1. In some instances,
the sign consists in a mere naked word; thus in Exod. iii. 12: "And
this shall be the sign unto thee that I have sent thee: When thou hast
brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this
mountain." Moses'doubts of the truth of his Divine mission originated
in the consciousness of his own unworthiness, and in the condition of
those to whom he