When he foretold these things to King Ahaz, there can be no doubt that Ahaz despised them; for that wicked king, relying on his forces and on his league with the Assyrians, settled, as it were, on his lees, as soon as the siege of the city was raised. But Isaiah was bound to persevere in the discharge of his office, in order to show that there was no help but from God, and to inform the wretched hypocrite, that his destruction would come from that quarter from which he expected his preservation.