The prophet Isaiah confronted Ahaz and urged him to trust in God rather than seeking military assistance from Assyria.

Cross reference: 2 Kings 16:5; Matthew 1:9 The purpose of the war was to bring Judah into an anti-Assyrian coalition.

[5] According to the New Oxford Annotated Bible, the "upper pool" is the "reservoir south of Gihon Spring" (Isaiah 36:2).

[7] This was unlikely to be a regular meeting point: the Good News Translation calls the area "the road where the cloth makers work";[8] Ahaz may have gone there to undertake an engineering inspection, to ensure either that the water supplies for Jerusalem were secure, or that they would not be accessible to invading forces.

[9] Isaiah speaks God's word to Ahaz; apparently this is "received in silence, at any rate without acknowledgment".

The Pulpit Commentary suggests that "the choice of the terms 'bee' and 'fly' to represent respectively the hosts of Assyria and Egypt, is not without significance.

"[9] The King James Version of verse 14 from this chapter is cited as texts in the English-language oratorio "Messiah" by George Frideric Handel (HWV 56).