Isaiah 7:11

Ask thee a sign. God made this offer to strengthen Ahaz’ faith. Signs such as these are often given to establish the faith of weak or prejudiced minds.

Ask it either in the depth. The Masoretes (see Vol. I, pp. 34, 35) understood the consonantal Hebrew h‘mq sh’lh to stand for ha‘emeq she’alah, literally, “[in] the depth ask.” Late revisions of the LXX and Greek translators several centuries earlier than the Masoretes, however, took h‘mq sh’lh to read ha‘emeq she’olah, “[to] the depth of Sheol.” There is no way of knowing which is correct, though the grammatical balance of the words in Hebrew favors the reading “[to] the depth of Sheol.” For the meaning of Sheol, see on 2 Sam. 12:23; 22:6; Prov. 15:11. For other instances where a contrast is drawn between the height of heaven and the depth of Sheol, see Deut. 32:22; Job 11:8; Ps. 86:13; 139:8.