After the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel, the prophet turned to the fate of Judah. Water is life in the land of Shiloah (or Shiloh, the Messiah), and the people of Judah rejected their source of life. Jerusalem’s water supply was the Gihon Spring, and the waters “that go softly” may refer to the channel that flows from that spring and waters the Kidron Valley. Instead of rejoicing in the Lord, Judah rejoiced only in the defeat of her two enemies to the north.
Contrast the “waters of Shiloah that go softly” (the blessings of the Lord) with the “strong and many waters”(the flooding Euphrates, which symbolizes the destructions of the Assyrian army)
After the flooding waters reach to the neck, the image abruptly changes to the outspread wings of a bird of prey.
Calling the land by the name of Immanuel amounts to calling it the land of Jehovah or the land of the Lord, who is Jesus. Immanuel means “God with us