O my people... be not afraid of the Assyrian. — The practical conclusion of all that has been said is, that the people should not give way to panic as they had done in the days of Ahaz (Isaiah 7:2), but should abide the march of Sargon, or his successor, with the tranquillity of faith. They were not to faint beneath the blows of the “rod” and “staff,” even though it were to reproduce the tyranny of Egypt. In that very phrase, “after the manner of Egypt,” there was a ground of hope, for the cruelty of Pharaoh was followed by the Exodus. As the later Jewish proverb had it, “When the tale of bricks is doubled, then Moses is born.”

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