Isaiah 8:8

And he shall pass through Judah Better as R.V., And he shall sweep onward into Judah. overflowand go overare rightly taken as synonyms (not as R.V.).

shall reach even to the neck (cf. Isaiah 30:28). Judah is in the utmost extremity of danger, yet is not wholly submerged.

shall fill … land lit. "shall be the filling (as in ch. Isaiah 6:3) of the breadth of thy land." "Wings" cannot mean "masses of water branching off from the main current"; nor is there any evidence that the Hebrews spoke of the "wings" of an army, as we do. The figure of the deluge seems abruptly changed to that of a huge bird of prey, overshadowing the whole land with its extended wings.

of thy land, O Immanuel Without any change of the original consonantal text we might read, as at the end of Isaiah 8:10, "… of the land. For with us is God!" The change is perhaps not imperatively required even if Immanuel be an ordinary child; whereas, on the view that he is the Messiah, the apostrophe becomes natural. Still there remains a suspicion that the last part may be a gloss introduced from Isaiah 8:10.