Immanuel

The word "Immanuel" occurs only twice, in Isa.7:14 and 8:8. It is not really a name originally intended to be applicable to Jesus but is so applied by Matthew (1:23). The meaning of the word is actually "God is with us" and it has its basis in a term which indicates a coming together for communion or kinship. Hence the idea is that of kinship or communion with God. The background in Isaiah chapter 7 is the threat to Judah in the days of King Ahaz posed by a joint invasion of the northern kingdom of Israel with Syria. The ungodly Ahaz refused to ask the Lord for guidance and Isaiah thereupon told him that the Lord would nevertheless give him a sign. A young woman ("virgin" in v.14 is "almah," a young woman, whether married or not, not "bethulah" a virgin in the normal sense) was to bear a son who would hardly attain the power of speech before the threat to Ahaz was removed. That child’s name was to be "Immanuel" in token of God’s presence with and abiding care over his people. As far as the Old Testament goes that was all there was in it.

A little later Isaiah himself was to have a son with another symbolic name which was to denote a further exhibition of Divine power in the affairs of the Kingdom of Judah.

Matthew, however, in writing his Gospel, uses this incident as an illustration of the circumstances surrounding the birth of Jesus. After recounting the story of the angel’s interview with Joseph, in which he was told that Mary, while still a virgin, would bear a son whose name was to be called "Jesus"—meaning "God is our Deliverer"—"for he shall save his people from their sins," Matthew comments "all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us." (Matt.1:21‑23) This type of allusion is characteristic of Matthew. He sees in these Old Testament prophecies illustrations of the matters with which he is dealing and quotes them as such without necessarily implying that the particular passage in the O.T. is a definite prophecy of things to come. A perusal of Isa.7 and 8 makes it abundantly clear that there is nothing there in the nature of a prophecy of distant future events. It is a purely historical narrative containing a sign given by the Lord relative to contemporary matters. But Matthew saw in the narrative a parallel. Just as God was intervening in human affairs in the days of Ahaz to save his people Israel from their enemies and ensure their deliverance, and the birth of this child was to those who would accept it the earnest of that intervention, so now, says Matthew, God is intervening again to save his people, and the birth of the Christ child was the earnest of that intervention. God is with us, again, he insists, for deliverance, just as He was in the days of Ahaz and Isaiah. In that sense he took the O.T. incident as a foreview picture of that which was to come but there is no reason for suggesting that the Isaiah incident was a case of a miraculous virgin birth as is sometimes claimed. The setting of that story demands only the birth of a particular child at that particular time in the normal way and the bestowment of a particular name. (It is sometimes suggested that the young woman here was Isaiah’s own wife and Immanuel his own child although there is no evidence in the text either way).

It is true that Matthew employs the Greek "parthenos" which does mean a virgin but the N.T. text shows that he was quoting, not from the Hebrew O.T. but the Greek Septuagint, which was in common use in his day, and here the word "parthenos" is used in Isa.7:14. A much more likely supposition is that the "young woman" of Isa.7:14 was Ahaz’ own wife and that "Immanuel" was in fact his own son Hezekiah who reigned after him. In such case local prophecy was fulfilled in the fact that the faith of good King Hezekiah was the means of Judah’s deliverance when Sennacherib’s Assyrian army laid siege to the city in after days, and the angel of the Lord went forth and decimated the Assyrian host. The meaning of the name "Hezekiah" is "Jehovah is my strength" and there are many cases in the O.T. where kings and sometimes others bore two names.

March April 1984