ישעיהו, פרק ז׳, פסוק י׳

King Ahaz has just been promised that an enemy plot against him will fail. Instead of reacting with relief, the king remains completely silent. This silence does not come from quiet trust, but from a deep lack of faith. Ahaz does not believe the message, preferring instead to ask for military help from the King of Assyria. Because of this refusal to believe, God initiates another message to the doubting king [אברבנאל].

The story presents this new message as though God is communicating directly with the king. However, the primary approach among commentators is that God does not address Ahaz personally. Instead, the message is delivered through the prophet Isaiah. The narrative attributes the speech directly to God to strongly emphasize its divine origin. This is a recognized pattern in the Bible, where words spoken through a prophet are recorded as God speaking directly to a person [שד״ל, אבן עזרא].

Other perspectives offer different ways to understand this indirect communication. One approach suggests the text naturally implies the presence of a messenger, meaning it was the prophet of God who continued to speak [רש״י]. Another view proposes that God was actually continuing to speak to Isaiah, giving him further instructions regarding Ahaz [אברבנאל].