The stretching out of his wings. — The metaphor within a metaphor is quite after the manner of Isaiah. The armies of Assyria are like a river in flood; the outspread waters on either side of the main stream are like the expanded wings of a great bird sweeping down on its prey.
Shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel. — The prophet has not forgotten, however, the nomen et omen of the earthly child, now growing towards the time when he would be able to “choose the good and refuse the evil.” The land over which the flood sweeps belongs to Him who is, in very deed, “God with us.” In Psalms 46:1-4 we have the prophecy turned into a hymn, or, less probably, the hymn which was the germ of the prophecy. The parallelism, in any case, is so clear as to make it certain that the two were contemporary, and refer to the same events. The same may be said, perhaps, of all the psalms of the sons of Korah. The hope of the psalmist fastens on the thought, “the Lord of hosts is with us” (Psalms 46:7; Psalms 46:11).