Isaiah's first significant acts as a prophet occurred when Judah, under king Ahaz, faced invasion from Israel and Aram Damascus ( Syria ) after refusing to join them in a revolt against Assyria, the dominant imperial power of the age.

Of notable importance is Isaiah 7: 14, where the prophet is assuring king Ahaz that God will save Judah from the invading armies of Israel and Syria ; the sign that will prove this is the forthcoming birth of a child called Emmanuel, " God With Us ".

In addition, Ahaz is specifically identified as " king of Judah.

Hezekiah (;, Ezekias, in the Septuagint ; ; also transliterated as Ḥizkiyyahu or Ḥizkiyyah ) was the son of Ahaz and the 14th king of Judah.

He ceased to pay the tribute imposed on his father, Ahaz, and " rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not ," but entered into a league with Egypt (; ).

So long as Ahaz reigned, the kingdom of Judah was unmolested by the Assyrian power ; but on his accession to the throne, Hezekiah, who was encouraged to rebel " against the king of Assyria " (), entered into an alliance with the king of Egypt ().

* Ahaz, king of Judah ( 735 BC – 715 BC )

* 729 BC — Hezekiah succeeds Ahaz as king of Judah ( or 726 BC ).

* 726 BC — Hezekiah succeeds Ahaz as king of Judah ( or 729 BC ).

* 724 BC — Ahaz, king of Judah ( 740 BC – 726 BC ) dies.

Ahaz (; Akhaz ; ; an abbreviation of Jehoahaz, " Yahweh has held ") was king of Judah, and the son and successor of Jotham.

Ahaz was twenty when he became king of Judah and reigned for sixteen years.

In c. 732 BCE, when Pekah, king of Israel, allied with Rezin, king of Aram, threatened Jerusalem, Ahaz appealed to Tiglath-Pileser III, the king of Assyria, for help.

It bears the seal of King Ahaz of Judah, who ruled from 732-716 BC. Another important source regarding the historicity of Ahaz comes from Tiglat Pileser III annals, mentioning tributes and payments he received from Ahaz, king of Judah and Menahem, king of Israel

In c. 732 BCE, Pekah allied with Rezin, king of Aram, threatened Jerusalem, and Ahaz, king of Judah, appealed to Tiglath-Pileser III, the king of Assyria, for help.

# Abijah ( queen ), the daughter of Zechariah ( 2 Chronicles 29: 1 ), who married King Ahaz of Judah.

Ahaz, against Isaiah's advice to seek the protection of God, invited the Assyrians to protect him, turning Judah into an Assyrian vassal.

" Thus declaring that the burnt offering of both animals and humans ( which may have been practiced in Judah under Kings Ahaz and Manasseh ) is not necessary for God.

Chapter 1: 1 identifies the prophet as " Micah of Moresheth " ( a town in southern Judah ), and states that he lived during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, roughly 750-700 BC.

King Ahaz's Seal which is a piece of reddish-brown clay that belonged to King Ahaz of Judah, who ruled from 732 to 716 BCE.

" The Hebrew inscription, which is set on three lines, reads as follows: " l ' hz * y / hwtm * mlk */ yhdh ", which translates as " belonging to Ahaz ( son of ) Yehotam, King of Judah.

It is stated in the first verse of the Book of Isaiah that he prophesied during the reigns of Uzziah ( or Azariah ), Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, the kings of Judah ().

The seal impression of Ahaz King of Judah

The inscription reads: “ Belonging to Ahaz ( son of ) Yehotam, King of Judah .” Given the process that created and preserved bullae, they are virtually impossible to forge.

Ahaz wishes to ask Assyria for help, but Isaiah, at God's command, takes his son Shear-jashub ( a symbolic name meaning " a remnant shall return ") and assures Ahaz that the two enemy kings will not succeed ( Isaiah 7: 3-9 ).

: Then said the LORD unto Isaiah: ' Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shear-jashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, in the highway of the fullers ' field.

McLaughlin argues that Matthew recognizes that the prophecy Isaiah gave to King Ahaz in the referenced Old Testament passage concerned a virgin living at that time ( namely, Isaiah's wife ) and a child ( namely, Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz ), who was born as a sign to Ahaz ( Isaiah 8: 1 ), and he argues that Matthew saw the act of salvation of which Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz's birth was a sign as a " type " ( or pre-figuring ) of the salvation that would come through the virgin and child he was describing ( namely, Mary and Jesus ).

Some writers have proposed that Hezekiah served as coregent with his father Ahaz for about 14 years, beginning during 729 BC.

Ahaz, thus humbled, sided with Assyria, and sought the aid of Tiglath-Pileser against Israel and Syria.

Edwin Thiele concluded that Ahaz was coregent with Jotham from 736 / 735 BC, and that his sole reign began in 732 / 731 and ended in 716 / 715 BC.

For Ahaz, the Scriptural data allow dating the beginning of his coregency with Jotham to some time in the six-month interval beginning of Nisan 1 of 735 BC.

Ahaz is given sixteen years in these annals, measuring from the start of his sole reign, instead of the twenty or twenty-one years that he would be credited with if the counting started from 736t 736 / 735 BC, when he deposed Jotham.

When Pekah allied with Rezin, king of Aram to attack Ahaz, the king of Judah, Ahaz appealed to Tiglath-Pileser III, the king of Assyria, for help.

This date is consistent with the statement that Jotham of Judah began to reign in Pekah's second year, 750 BC (), and that Jotham's successor Ahaz began to reign in his 17th year, 735 BC ().

In this passage from the book of Isaiah the prophet predicts to king Ahaz that a young woman will give birth to a child who will be called " Immanuel ", meaning " God with us ", and that Ahaz's enemies will be destroyed before this child learns the difference between good and evil, i. e., before it reaches maturity.

Immanuel ( or Emmanuel or Imanu ' el, Hebrew ע ִ מ ָּ נו ּ א ֵ ל meaning " God is with us ") is a symbolic name which appears in chapters 7 and 8 of the Book of Isaiah as part of a prophecy assuring king Ahaz of Judah of God's protection against enemy kings ; it is quoted in the Gospel of Matthew as a sign verifying the divine status of Jesus.

Isaiah tells Ahaz of the sign by which he will know that this is a true prophecy: a young woman will give birth to a child whom she will name Immanuel ( another symbolic name, meaning " God is with us "), and the lands of the enemy will be laid waste before the child is old enough to " reject the wrong and chose the right " ( Isaiah 7: 13-16 ).

Isaiah 7: 1-8: 15, although set in the time of king Ahaz, apparently dates from the reign of Ahaz's son Hezekiah some thirty years later, and its purpose was to persuade Hezekiah not to join with other kings who intended to rebel against their joint overlord, Assyria.

A century later, in the time of Josiah, the prophecy was revised to present Ahaz as the faithless king who rejected God's promise of protection for Jerusalem and the house of David, with the result that God brought Assyria to devastate the land until a new and faithful king ( presumably Josiah ) would arise.

As for Immanuel, " God is with us ", Isaiah might mean simply that any young pregnant woman in 734 BCE would be able to name her child " God is with us " by the time he is born ; but if a specific child is meant, then it might be a son of Ahaz, possibly his successor Hezekiah ( which is the traditional Jewish understanding ); or, since the other symbolic children are Isaiah's, Immanuel might be the prophet's own son.

This is what Matthew has done with Isaiah 7: 14: the Hebrew has the child being given the name Immanuel by " she " ( presumably its mother ), while the commonly-used Greek translation of the time ( the Septuagint ) has " you " ( presumably king Ahaz, to whom the prophecy was addressed ).

Traditionally Jotham is the man in green on the left and the child with him is his son Ahaz.

In c. 732 BCE, he allied himself with Pekah, the king of Israel, to attack Ahaz, the king of Judah.

And he was also delivered into the hand of the King of Israel, who smote him with a great slaughter ". In the prophet says clearly that a prerequisite for the fulfillment of the prophecy is that Ahaz stands firm in his faith.