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The majestic divine calm of these utterances, their lofty defiance of man's seeming
power, their grand certitude, and the withering irony with which what seemed the
irresistible might of these two "smoking friebrands" is treated - all find their illustration
in the history of this war. Such prophecies warrant is in climbing the heights of faith,
from which Isaiah bids us to look, to where, in the dim distance the morning glow of the
new Messianic day is seen to fill the sky with glory.
But in Damascus the conquered did Tiglath-pileser gather, as for an Eastern durbar, the
vanquished and subject priunces. Thither also did King Ahaz go "to meet" the king of
Assyria; and thence, as the outcome of what he had learned from prophecy and seen as its
fulfillment in history, did this king of Judah send the pattern of the heathen altar to
Jerusalem (2 Kings 16:10, 11). On the Assyrian monuments he is called Joachaz (Ja-u-
ha- zi). But scared history would not join the name of the Lord with that of the apostate
descendent of David. For all time it points at him the finger, "This is that King Ahaz" (2
Chronicles 28:22); and he sinks into an unhonored grave, "not into the sepulchers of the
kings of Israel" (ver. 27). And yet other and still wider-reaching lessons come to us from
this history.
(^)