Immanuel

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God with us
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary


IMMANUEL.—The name occurs in Isa_7:14; Isa_8:8, Mat_1:23, and is a Heb. word meaning ‘God is with us’; the spelling Emmanuel comes from the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] (see Mat_1:23 AV [Note: Authorized Version.] , RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] ). Its interpretation involves a discussion of Isa_7:1-25, esp. Isa_7:10-17.
1. Grammatical difficulties.—The RV [Note: Revised Version.] should be consulted throughout. The exact implication of the word ‘virgin’ or ‘maiden’ (RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] ) is doubtful (see art. Virgin); it is sufficient here to say that it ‘is not the word which would be naturally used for virgin, if that was the point which it was desired to emphasize’ (Kirkpatrick, Doctrine of the Prophets, p. 187). The definite article may either indicate that the prophet has some particular mother in mind, or be generic, referring to the class. In Isa_7:16 the renderings of RV [Note: Revised Version.] and RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] are both admissible, but the former is more probable; in Isa_7:16 RV [Note: Revised Version.] should be followed, AV [Note: Authorized Version.] being quite misleading. In Isa_8:8 there may be no reference to Immanuel at all; a very slight alteration of the vowel points would give the reading ‘… of the land; for God is with us’; the refrain occurs in Isa_8:10.
2. Historical situation.—In b.c. 735 the kings of Syria and Ephraim formed an alliance against Judah, with the object of setting Tabeel, a nominee of their own, on the throne of David, and forcing the Southern Kingdom to join in a confederacy against Assyria. Ahaz had only lately come to the throne, and the kingdom was weak and demoralized (2Ki_16:6). The purpose of Isaiah was to calm the terror of the people (Isa_7:2), and to restore faith in Jehovah (Isa_7:9). But the policy of Ahaz was to take the fatal step of Invoking the aid of Assyria itself. Hence, when the prophet offered him a sign from God, he refused to accept it, for fear of committing himself to the prophet’s policy of faith and independence. He cloaked his refusal in words of apparent piety. A sign is, however, given—the birth of a child, who shall eat butter and honey (i.e. poor pastoral fare; cf. Isa_7:22) till (?) he comes to years of discretion. Before that time, i.e. before he is four or five years old, Syria and Ephraim shall be ruined (Isa_7:16). But Ahaz and his own kingdom shall become the prey of Assyria (Isa_7:17); the rest of the chapter consists of pictures of desolation. The interpretation of the sign is by no means clear. Who is the child and what does his name imply? Is the sign a promise or a threat? It should be noticed, as probably an essential element in the problem, that it is the house or dynasty of David which is being attacked, and which is referred to throughout the chapter (Isa_7:2; Isa_7:13; Isa_7:17).
3. Who is the child? (see Driver, Isaiah, p. 40 ff.). (a) The traditional interpretation sees in the passage a direct prophecy of the Virgin-birth of Christ, and nothing else. In what sense, then, was it a sign to Ahaz? The view runs counter to the modern conception of prophecy, which rightly demands that its primary interpretation shall be brought into relation to the ideas and circumstances of its age. The rest of the chapter does not refer to Christ, but to the troubles of the reign of Ahaz; is it legitimate to tear half a dozen words from their context, and apply them arbitrarily to an event happening generations after? (b) It is suggested that the maiden is the wife of Ahaz and that her son is Hezekiah, the king of whom Isaiah rightly had such high hopes; or (c) that she is the ‘prophetess,’ the wife of Isaiah himself. In both cases we ask why the language is so needlessly ambiguous. The chronological difficulty would seem to be fatal to (b), Hezekiah being almost certainly several years old in 735; and (c) makes the sign merely a duplication of that given in Isa_8:3. It becomes a mere note of time (‘before the child grows up, certain things shall have happened’); it leaves unexplained the solemn way in which the birth is announced, the choice of the name, and its repetition in Isa_8:8 (if the usual reading be retained). It also separates this passage from Isa_9:1-7, Isa_11:1-9, which almost certainly stand in connexion with it. Similar objections may be urged against the view (d), which sees in the maiden any Jewish mother of marriageable age, who in spite of all appearances to the contrary may call her child, then about to be born, by a name indicating the Divine favour, in token of the coming deliverance. The point of the sign is then the mother’s faith and the period of time within which the deliverance shall be accomplished. (e) A more allegorical version of this interpretation explains the maiden as Zion personified, and her ‘son’ as the coming generation. But the invariable word for Zion and countries in such personifications is bethulah, not ‘almah (see art. Virgin). (f) There remains the view which sees in the passage a reference to a Messiah in the wider use of the term, as understood by Isaiah and his contemporaries. There probably already existed in Judah the expectation of an ideal king and deliverer, connected with the house of David (2Sa_7:12-16). Now at the moment when that house is attacked and its representative proves himself unworthy, Isaiah announces in oracular language the immediate coming of that king. The reference in 2Sa_8:8, and the passages in chs. 9, 11, will then fall into their place side by side with this. They show that the prophet’s thoughts were at this period dwelling much on the fate and the work of the ‘wondrous child,’ who will, in fact, be a scion of the house of David (2Sa_9:7, 2Sa_11:1). Strong support is given to this view by Mic_5:3 (‘until the time when she that beareth hath brought forth’); whether the passage belong to Micah himself, a contemporary of Isaiah, or be of later date, it is clearly a reference to Is 7, and is of great importance as an indication of the ideas current at the time. With regard to the beliefs of the time, evidence has been lately brought forward (esp. by Jeremias and Gressmann) showing that outside Israel (particularly in Egypt and Babylonia) there existed traditions and expectations of a semi-divine saviour-king, to be born of a divine, perhaps a virgin, mother, and to be wonderfully reared. That is to say, there was an already existing tradition to which the prophet could appeal, and which is presupposed by his words; note esp. ‘the virgin.’ How much the tradition included, we cannot say; e.g. did it include the name ‘Immanuel’? The ‘butter and honey’ seems to be a pre-existing feature, representing originally the Divine nourishment on which the child is reared; so, according to the Greek legend, the infant Zeus is fed on milk and honey in the cave on Ida. But in the prophecy, as it stands, it seems to be used of the hard fare which alone is left to the inhabitants of an invaded land. We must indeed distinguish throughout between the conceptions of the primitive myth, and the sense in which the prophet applies these conceptions. The value of the supposition that he was working on the lines of popular beliefs ready to his hand, is that it explains how his hearers would be prepared to understand his oracular language, and suggests that much that is obscure to us may have been clear to them. It confirms the view that the prophecy was intended to be Messianic, i.e. to predict the birth of a mysterious saviour.
4. Was the sign favourable or not? The text, as it stands, leaves it very obscure whether Isaiah gave Ahaz a promise or a threat. The fact that the king had hardened his heart may have turned the sign which should have been of good omen into something different. The name of the child and Isa_7:16 speak of deliverance; Isa_7:15-17 and the rest of the chapter, of judgment. It is perfectly true that Isaiah’s view of the future was that Ephraim and Syria should be destroyed, that Judah should also suffer from Assyrian invasion, but that salvation should come through the faithful remnant. The difficulty is to extract this sense from the passage. The simplest method is to follow the critics who omit Isa_7:16, or at least the words ‘whose two kings thou abhorrest’; ‘the land’ will then refer naturally to Judah; if referring, as it is usually understood, to Syria and Ephraim, the singular is very strange. The prophecy is then a consistent announcement of judgment. Immanuel shall be born, but owing to the unbelief of Ahaz, his future is mortgaged and he is born only to a ruined kingdom (cf. Isa_8:8); it is not stated in this passage whether the hope implied in his name will ever he realized. Others would omit Isa_8:17, and even Isa_8:15, making the sign a promise of the failure of the coalition. Whatever view be adopted, the inconsistencies of the text make it at least possible that it has suffered from interpolation, and that we have not got the prophecy in its original form. The real problem is not to account for the name ‘Immanuel,’ or for the promise of a saviour-king, but to understand what part he plays in the rest of the chapter. Connected with this is the further difficulty of explaining why the figure of the Messianic king disappears almost entirely from Isaiah’s later prophecies.
5. Its application to the Virgin-birth.—The full discussion of the quotation in Mat_1:23 is part of the larger subjects of Messianic prophecy, the Virgin-birth, and the Incarnation. The following points may be noticed here. (a) Though the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] (which has parthenos ‘virgin’) and the Alexandrian Jews apparently interpreted the passage in a Messianic sense and of a virgin-birth, there is no evidence to show that this interpretation was sufficiently prominent and definite to explain the rise of the belief in the miraculous conception. The text was applied to illustrate the fact or the belief in the fact; the fact was not imagined to meet the requirements of the text. The formula used in the quotation suggests that it belongs to a series of OT passages drawn up in the primitive Church to illustrate the life of Christ (see Allen, St. Matthew, p. lxii.). (b) The text would not now be used as a proof of the Incarnation. ‘Immanuel’ does not in itself imply that the child was regarded as God, but only that he was to be the pledge of the Divine presence, and endowed in a special sense with the spirit of Jehovah (cf. Isa_11:2). The Incarnation ‘fulfils’ such a prophecy, because Christ is the true realization of the vague and half-understood longings of the world, both heathen and Jewish.
C. W. Emmet.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

("God with us".) Isa_7:10-16; Isa_8:8; Mat_1:23. "Behold (arresting attention to the extraordinary prophecy) a (Hebrew: the) virgin (primarily the woman (the foreappointed mother of the Messiah is ultimately meant by the Spirit); then a virgin, soon to become the prophet's second wife) shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel .... Before the child (Isaiah's) shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good (i.e. before he reaches the age of discrimination, three years), the land (Syria and Israel then leagued in one) that thou abhorrest," etc. (rather, "the land before the face of whose two kings thou shrinkest shall be forsaken" or "desolate".) Ahaz, king of Judah, received this as a sign given by the Lord Himself, when the king refused to ask one, that Pekah of Israel and Rezin of Damascus, who had already "smitten him with a great slaughter," so that "his and his people's heart was moved as the trees of the wood with the wind" (2 Chronicles 28; Isa_7:1-2), should nevertheless not subdue Jerusalem, but be themselves and their land subdued.
Just two years after Pekah of Israel was slain by Hoshea, and Rezin of Damascus by Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria. Like many typical prophecies, having a primary and an ulterior fulfillment (the one mainly aimed at), this has only a partial realization in the circumstances of Isaiah's age; these are only suggestive of those which form the consummation of all prophecy (Rev_19:10), Messiah's advent. Thus "the virgin" has its full meaning only in the virgin mother of whom Jesus was born, having been conceived by the Holy Spirit. Jer_31:21-22; "O virgin of Israel ... the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth, a woman shall compass a man." Mic_5:3; Israel's and Judah's deliverance is ensured by the birth of Immanuel, "He will give them up, until ... she which travaileth hath brought forth." The New Testament application is not an "accommodation," for Matthew (Mat_1:23) expressly states that Jesus' birth of the virgin "was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold," etc., "and they (no longer she) shall call His name Emmanuel."
When the prophecy received its full and exhaustive accomplishment, no longer is the sense of Immanuel restricted to the prophetess' view of it, in its partial fulfillment in her son; all then call or regard Him as peculiarly and exclusively characterized by the name "Immanuel." 1Ti_3:16; "God was manifest in the flesh" (Col_2:9). Mat_28:20; "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Joh_1:14; Joh_1:18. His full manifestation as "God with us" shal1 be in the "new heavens and new earth." Rev_21:3; "behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them . . . and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God." Immanuel cannot in the strict sense apply to Isaiah's son, but only to the "CHILD ... SON ... Wonderful, the mighty God," as Isaiah expressly says Isa_9:6, declaring moreover that his children (Isa_7:3; Isa_7:14, etc.) are types of Him.
Isa_8:18; "behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs ... in Israel from the Lord of hosts," which Heb_2:13 quotes to prove the manhood of Messiah. Isaiah (i.e. Jehovah's salvation) typically represents Messiah as "the mighty (Hero) God," "the everlasting Father"; Isaiah's children represent Him as "Child" and "Son." Local and temporary features (as Isa_7:15-16) are added in every type, otherwise it would be no type, but the Antitype itself. Call His name Immanuel" means not mere appellation, for this was not the designation by which men ordinarily named Him, but His revealed character shall be what Immanuel means. Sin destroyed the faculty of intuitively perceiving, as Adam once did, the characteristics; hence the name is now generally arbitrary, and not expressive of the nature.
In the case of Jesus Christ, and many in Scripture, the Holy Spirit supplies this want. The promised birth of Messiah involved the preservation of Judah and of David's line, from which God said He should be sprung. Others explain Isa_7:14 to refer to the Messiah Immanuel, strictly born of the virgin. "The child" inIsa_7:15-16, refers to the child Shear-jashub at Isaiah's side (Isa_7:3). The purpose of the two smoking firebrands (Isa_7:4) shall come to nought, for before this child shall grow up, the two shall be extinguished. But God's purpose concerning the house of David shall stand, for the virgin shall bring forth Immanuel.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.

Imman'uel. That is, God with us, the title applied by the apostle Matthew, to the Messiah, born of the Virgin, Mat_1:23; Isa_7:14, because Jesus was God united with man, and showed that God was dwelling with men.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863

Meaning ‘God with us’, the name ‘Immanuel’ was given at first to a child born in the time of Ahaz, king of Judah (735-716 BC). The birth and naming of the child was a sign of assurance to the king and his people that God was with them to protect them during an enemy attack (Isa_7:10-16; see AHAZ).
The promise given to Ahaz was quoted in the New Testament by Matthew in relation to the birth of Jesus Christ. The virgin Mary also would conceive and give birth to a son named Immanuel, but in this case ‘God with us’ meant much more. In Jesus Christ, God actually came and lived as a man among the inhabitants of earth (Mat_1:18-23; Joh_1:14). (For fuller discussion see VIRGIN.)
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.

i-man?ū̇-el (עמּנוּ אל, ‛immānū'ēl): The name occurs but 3 times, twice in the Old Testament (Isa_7:14; Isa_8:8), and once in the New Testament (Mat_1:23). It is a Hebrew word signifying ?God is with us.? The form ?Emmanuel? appears in Septuagint (Ἐμμανουήλ, Emmanouḗl).
1. Isaiah Rebukes Ahaz
In 735 bc Ahaz was king of Judah. The kingdom of Israel was already tributary to Assyria (2Ki_15:19, 2Ki_15:20). Pekah, king of Israel, a bold and ambitious usurper, and Rezin, king of Syria, formed an alliance, the dual object of which was, first, to organize a resistance against Assyria, and second, to force Ahaz to cooperate in their designs against the common tyrant. In the event of Ahaz' refusal, they planned to depose him, and to set the son of Tabeel, a choice of their own, upon the throne of David. To this end they waged war against Judah, advancing as far as Jerusalem itself, but without complete success (Isa_7:1). Ahaz, a weak king, and now panic-stricken, determined to invoke the aid of Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria (2Ki_16:7). This he actually did at a later stage in the war (2Ki_6:9; 2Ki_15:29). Such a course would involve the loss of national independence and the payment of a heavy tribute. At this period of crisis, Isaiah, gathering his disciples around him (Isa_8:16), is told to deliver a message to the king. Ahaz, though making a show of resistance against the coalition, is in reality neither depending upon the help of Yahweh nor upon the courage of his people. Isaiah, in an effort to calm his fears and prevent the fatal alliance with Assyria, offers him a sign. This method is specially characteristic of this prophet. Fearing to commit himself to the policy of Divine dependence, but with a pretense at religious scruples, ?Neither will I tempt Yahweh,? the king refuses (Isa_7:12). The prophet then chides him bitterly for his lack of faith, which, he says, not only wearies men, but God also (Isa_7:13).
2. The Sign of ?Immanuel?
He then proceeds to give him a sign from God Himself, the sign of ?Immanuel? (Isa_7:14). The interpretation of this sign is not clear, even apart from its New Testament application to Christ. The Hebrew word translated ?virgin? in English Versions of the Bible means, more correctly, ?bride,? in the Old English sense of one who is about to become a wife, or is still a young wife. Psa_68:25 English Versions of the Bible gives ?damsels.?
Isaiah predicts that a young bride shall conceive and bear a son. The miracle of virgin-conception, therefore, is not implied. The use of the definite article before ?virgin? (hā-‛almāh) does not of itself indicate that the prophet had any particular young woman in his mind, as the Hebrew idiom often uses the definite article indefinitely. The fact that two other children of the prophet, like Hosea's, bore prophetic and mysterious names, invites the conjecture that the bride referred to was his own wife. The hypothesis of some critics that a woman of the harem of Ahaz became the mother of Hezekiah, and that he was the Immanuel of the prophet's thought is not feasible. Hezekiah was at least 9 years of age when the prophecy was given (2Ki_16:2).
Immanuel, in the prophetic economy, evidently stands on the same level with Shear-jashub (Isa_7:3) as the embodiment of a great idea, to which Isaiah again appeals in Isa_8:8 (see ISAIAH, VII).
3. Was It a Promise or a Threat?
The question as to whether the sign given to Ahaz was favorable or not presents many difficulties. Was it a promise of good or a threat of judgment? It is evident that the prophet had first intended an omen of deliverance and blessing (Isa_7:4, Isa_7:7). Did the king's lack of faith alter the nature of the sign? Isa_7:9, ?If ye will not believe,? etc., implies that it might have done so. The omission of Isa_7:16, and especially the words ?whose two kings thou abhorrest,? greatly simplifies this theory, as ?the land,? singular, would more naturally refer to Judah than to Syria and Ephraim collectively. The omen would then become an easily interpreted threat, referring to the overthrow of Judah rather than that of her enemies. Immanuel should eat curdled milk and honey (Isa_7:15), devastation reducing the land from an agricultural to a pastoral one. The obscure nature of the passage as it stands suggests strongly that it has suffered from interpolation. The contrary theory that the sign was a promise and not a prediction of disaster, has much to commend it, though it necessitates greater freedom with the text. The name ?Immanuel? implies the faith of the young mother of the child in the early deliverance of her country, and a rebuke to the lack of that quality in Ahaz. It is certain also that Isaiah looked for the destruction of Syria and Ephraim, and that, subsequent to the Assyrian invasion, salvation should come to Judah through the remnant that had been faithful (Isa_11:11). The fact that the prophet later gave the name of Maher-shalal-hash-baz to his new-born son, a name of good omen to his country, further strengthens this position. The omission of Isa_7:15, Isa_7:17 would make the sign a prophecy of the failure of the coalition. It is plain, whichever theory be accepted, that something must be eliminated from the passage to insure a consistent reading.
4. Its Relation to the Messianic Hope
The question now presents itself as to what was the relation of Immanuel to the Messianic prophecies. Should the emphasis be laid upon ?a virgin,? the son, or the name itself? For traditional interpretation the sign lay in the virgin birth, but the uncertainty of implied virginity in the Hebrew noun makes this interpretation improbable. The identification of the young mother as Zion personified, and of the ?son? as the future generation, is suggested by Whitehouse and other scholars. But there is no evidence that the term ‛almāh was used at that time for personification. The third alternative makes Immanuel a Messiah in the wider use of the term, as anticipated by Isaiah and his contemporaries. There can be little doubt but that there existed in Judah the Messianic hope of a national saviour (2Sa_7:12). Isaiah is expecting the arrival of one whose character and work shall entitle him to the great names of Isa_9:6. In him should dwell all the fullness of God. He was to be ?of the stem of Jesse,? the bringer of the Golden Age. The house of David is now beset by enemies, and its reigning representative is weak in faith. The prophet therefore announces the immediate coming of the deliverer. If he had intended the virgin-conception of Christ in the distant future, the sign of ?Immanuel? would have possessed no immediate significance, nor would it have been an omen to Ahaz. With regard to the Messianic idea, Mic_5:3 (?until the time that she who travaileth hath brought forth?) is of importance as indicating the prevalent thought of the time. Recent evidence shows that even in Babylonia and Egypt there existed expectations of a divinely born and wonderful saviour. To this popular tradition the prophet probably appealed, his hearers being easily able to appreciate the force of oracular language that is to us obscure. There is much to confirm the view, therefore, that the prophecy is Messianic.
5. The Virgin Birth
The use of the word as it relates to the virgin birth of Christ and the incarnation cannot be dealt with here (see PERSON OF CHRIST). These facts, however, may be noted. The Septuagint (which has parthénos, ?virgin?) and the Alexandrian Jews interpreted the passage as referring to the virgin birth and the Messianic ministry. This interpretation does not seem to have been sufficiently prominent to explain the rise of the idea of miraculous virgin conception and the large place it has occupied in Christological thought. See VIRGIN BIRTH.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.

Imman?uel, or Emmanuel. This word, meaning 'God with us,' occurs in the celebrated verse of Isaiah (Isa_7:14), 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.' In the name itself there is no difficulty; but the verse, as a whole, has been variously interpreted. From the manner in which the word God, and even Jehovah, is used in the composition of Hebrew names, there is no such peculiarity in that of Immanuel as in itself requires us to understand that he who bore it should be in fact God. Indeed, it is used as a proper name among the Jews at this day. This high sense has, however, been assigned to it in consequence of the application of the whole verse by the Evangelist Matthew (Mat_1:23) to our Divine Savior. Even if this reference did not exist, the history of the Nativity would irresistibly lead us to the conclusion that the verse?whatever may have been its intermediate signification?had an ultimate reference to Christ.
The state of opinion on this point has been thus neatly summed up by Dr. Henderson, in his note on the text:?'This verse has long been a subject of dispute between Jews and professedly Christian writers, and among the latter mutually. While the former reject its application to the Messiah altogether?the earlier Rabbins explaining it of the queen of Ahaz and the birth of his son Hezekiah; and the later, as Kimchi and Abarbanel, of the prophet's own wife?the great body of Christian interpreters have held it to be directly and exclusively in prophecy of our Savior, and have considered themselves fully borne out by the inspired testimony of the Evangelist Matthew. Others, however, have departed from this construction of the passage, and have invented or adopted various hypotheses in support of such dissent. Grotius and others suppose either the then present or a future wife of Isaiah to be the 'virgin' referred to. A second class are of opinion that the prophet had nothing more in view than an ideal virgin, and that both she and her son are merely imaginary personages, introduced for the purpose of prophetic illustration. A third think that the prophet pointed to a young woman in the presence of the king and his courtiers. A fourth class admit the hypothesis of a double sense: one in which the words apply primarily to some female living in the time of the prophet, and her giving birth to a son according to the ordinary laws of nature; or, as Dathe holds, to some virgin, who at that time should miraculously conceive; and the other, in which they received a secondary and plenary fulfillment in the miraculous conception and birth of Jesus Christ.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.

Immanuel
(Heb. Immanuel', עַמָּנוּאֵל, sometimes separately עַמָּנוּ אֵל, God with us, as it is interpreted Mat_1:23, where it is written Εμμανουήλ, as in the Sept.. and Anglicized “Emmanuel;” the Sept. however, in Isa_8:8. translates it μεθ᾿ ἡμῶν ὁ θεός; Vulg. Enmmanuel), a figurative name prescribed through the prophet for a child that should be born as a sign to Ahaz of the speedy downfall of Syria (B.C. cir. 739; see 2Ki_16:9) and violent interregnum of the kingdom of Israel (B.C. 737-728; see 2Ki_15:30; comp. 17:1), before the infant should become capable of distinguishing between wholesome and improper kinds of food. The name occurs only in the celebrated verse of Isaiah (vii, 14), “Behold, a [rather the] virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel,” and in another passage of the same prophet (Isa_8:8), where the ravaging army of the Assyrians is described as ere long to “fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel,” i.e. Judaea, with evident allusion to the former declaration. SEE AHAZ.
In the name itself there is no difficulty; but the verse, as a whole, has been variously interpreted. From the manner in which the word God, and even Jehovah, is used in the composition of Hebrew names, there is no such peculiarity in that of Immanuel as in itself requires us to understand that he who bore it must be in fact God. Indeed, it is used as a proper name among the Jews at this day. This high sense has, however, been assigned to it in consequence of the application of the whole verse, by the evangelist Matthew (Mat_1:23), to our divine Savior. Even if this reference did not exist, the history of the Nativity would irresistibly lead us to the conclusion that the verse-whatever may have been its intermediate signification-had an ultimate reference to Christ. SEE ISAIAH.
The state of opinion on this point has been thus concisely summed up by Dr. Henderson in his note on the text: “This verse has long been a subject of dispute between Jews and professedly Christian writers, and among the latter mutually. While the former reject its application to the Messiah altogether-the earlier Rabbins explaining it of the queen of Ahaz and the birth of his son Hezekiah, and the later, as Kimchi and Abarbanel, of the prophet's own wife--the great body of Christian interpreters have held it to be directly and exclusively a prophecy of our Savior, and have considered themselves fully borne out by the inspired testimony of the evangelist Matthew. Others, however, have departed from this construction of the passage, and have invented or adopted various hypotheses in support of such dissent. Grotius, Faber, Isenbiehl, Hezel, Bolten, Fritzsche, Pluschke, Gesenius, and Hitzig, suppose either the then present or a future wife of Isaiah to be the , almah [rendered ‘virgin'], referred to. Eichhorn, Paulus, Hensler, and Ammon are of opinion that the prophet had nothing more in view than an ideal virgin, and that both she and her son are merely imaginary personages, introduced for the purpose of prophetic illustration. Bauer, Cube, Steudel, and some others, think that the prophet pointed to a young woman in the presence of-the king and his courtiers. A fourth class, among whom are Richard Simon, Lowth, Koppe, Dathe, Williams, Vou Meyer, Olshausen, and Dr. J. Pye Smith, admit the hypothesis of a double sense (q.v.): one, in which the words apply primarily to some female living in the time of the prophet, and her giving birth to a son according to the ordinary laws of nature; or, as Dathe holds, to some virgin, who at that time should miraculously conceive; and the other, in which they received a secondary and plenary fulfillment in the miraculous conception and birth of Jesus Christ.” (See the monographs enumerated by Volbeding, Index, p. 14; and Furst, Bib. Jud. 2, 60; also Hengstenberg, Christol. des A. T. 2, 69, and the commentators in general; compare the Stud. u. Krif. 1830, 3:538.) This last seems to us the only consistent interpretation. That the child to be so designated was one soon to be born and already spoken of is clear from the entire context and drift of the prophecy. It can be no other than the Maher-shalal-hash-baz (q.v.), the offspring of the prophet's own marriage with the virgin prophetess, who thus became an eminent type of the Messiah's mother (Isa_8:18). SEE VIRGIN.

CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

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