sign confirming Yahweh’s deliverance, Judah will be devastated. But in a twist, Isaiah goes ahead and gives Ahaz the sign that he had refused in 7:12—the prophecy of the young woman and the child, Immanuel. Christian readers are accustomed to hearing this prophecy in connection with Christmas, so, for example, the reference in Matt 1:23. But in the original context here in the book of Isaiah, its primary message is one of timing and chronology. The message of this oracle is that the king of Israel