"Immanuel" in Isaiah

The Meaning of the Immanuel Sign

(Isa 7:14)

This document [including the words in Hebrew] can be found here as a pdf.

"Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign,

Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son,

and shall call his name Immanuel."

Few passages in the book of Isaiah have attracted as much attention among biblical scholars and, consequently, elicited as many varied interpretations, as 7:14. Nevertheless, as one reads the literature on this verse, it is evident that, for all their differences, commentators realize that any understanding of the text must identify the person called Immanuel and explain the purpose of the prophecy.

The Person Called Immanuel

Exegetes have offered four major alternatives for identifying the person called Immanuel: (1) He is the son of Ahaz, usually considered Hezekiah; (2) he is the son of Isaiah, usually considered Maher-shalal-hash-baz; (3) he is the messiah, usually considered Jesus; or (4) he is no one in particular. As with any passage, the controlling factor in choosing between interpretive options is context. So here, 7:14 and the verses around it provide information that enables the reader at least to narrow the field if not to arrive at a clear decision. V. 14 gives the terminus a quo and v. 16 the terminus ad quem. The sign is to Ahaz, thus the event of the birth must occur within his lifetime. Although the child has not yet been born when Isaiah utters this prediction (sometime after the king's ascension in 736), his advent cannot be far off, because he will not have reached the maturity necessary to make certain decisions before Assyria conquers Syria and Israel (722/721). Given these temporal parameters, the predicted son can be neither Hezekiah, who had been born several years previous (2 Kgs 16:18:1-2), nor Jesus, who would not be born until hundreds of years later.¹

A decision between the two remaining options depends, in part, on the significance of the definite article (v. 14).² According to Gray (1912:125; followed by Kaiser 1972:103), the grammatical ambiguity attending this form allows one to read "the damsel, or a damsel, or even damsels," and it is the latter two meanings that he adopts (ibid., p. 124):

[W]ithin a few months at most, and perhaps immediately, a child (or children) now in the womb will be receiving the name Immanuel, God is with us: for the present popular tension will be relieved; and mothers will express the general feeling of relief at the favorable turn in public events.., when they name their children. Such children with their names will be a reminder that the terror of the King and of the people (v. 2) was groundless, and the confidence of the prophet justified.

As Gray admits, however, this use of the article is rare (ibid., p. 132). A safer course is to assign to the article its most common sense, that of pointing to a specific girl known to both Isaiah and Ahaz. Although some commentators argue that the prophet is referring to another son of Ahaz by the king's wife or concubine (Brown 1890:125; and perhaps Kimhi, Finkelstein 1926:49), the context offers little support for this position.

The best solution, therefore, seems to be the one first proposed by Ibn Ezra (Friedlander 1873:41-42), that [_] is Isaiah's wife, and the promised son is Maher-shalal-hash-baz. Several aspects in the passage lend credence to this view. First, the terminus a quo of 7:14 is satisfied, for soon after Isaiah's prediction that a young girl would conceive and bear a son, he has intercourse with the prophetess (8:3, assumed to be his wife, Wolf 1972:454), who conceives and gives birth to a son. Second, the terminus ad quem of 7:16, that the Syro-Ephraimite coalition will be crushed before the child reaches maturity, is repeated with reference to Isaiah's son (8:4). Third, the child of 7:14 is to bear the title Immanuel, an appellation also linked to Isaiah's son (8:8; ibid., pp. 454455)³ Fourth, the child mentioned in 7:14 is said to be a sign, as are Isaiah's children (8:18).

The Purpose of the Prophecy

The second aspect of the Immanuel sign is not as divisive as the first. Exegetes have offered two major alternatives for explaining the purpose of the prophecy: (1) It is a promise of deliverance, or (2) it is both a promise of deliverance and a pronouncement of destruction.

Context is again the determinant. Judah is facing possible invasion from Israel and Syria (7:1-2). Ahaz is under considerable pressure either to join their coalition against Assyria or to appeal to Assyria for help against Judah's most immediate northern neighbors. Isaiah challenges the king to trust in God's faithfulness rather than to seek outside help. But Ahaz, under the guise of piety, rebuffs the prophet's offer for proof of divine commitment. Isaiah's response is the Immanuel sign, not a miracle that confirms both the inevitability of the prediction and the faith of the one to whom that prediction is made (as is the sign given to Hezekiah in Isa 38:48), but a common event, a process, the progress of which will mark the fulfillment of the prediction: The young maid will bear a son and, before he reaches a certain age, Israel and Syria will no longer pose a threat to Judah.

The description of the child's experiences and, indeed, those of the people in general at the time when all this will happen, serves to specify the purpose of the sign. Vv. 15-16 give the chronology of the child's development as it relates to the fate of Israel and Syria. He will eventually mature to the point where he will know enough to choose what is good over what is bad.⁴ By that time, his diet will consist of curds and honey. Before that time, however, the two northern kingdoms will be destroyed.

Those who hold the first position, that the sign is meant as a promise of deliverance, focus on the child's diet. They see therein an echo of the description of the land of promise (Exod 3:8, 17) and conclude that the period following the demise of the coalition will be characterized by a return to prosperity in Judah (Gray 1912:129-131). But while Isaiah does indeed promise relief from the threat of Israel and Syria, the verses that follow suggest that this deliverance will be short-lived.

The prophet states that Assyria will not stop when it has conquered those threatening the Southern Kingdom; its armies will continue their advance and will inundate Judah (vv, 17-19). Formerly cultivated land will become overgrown (vv. 23-25), and a man will subsist on the milk produced from the few head of cattle he is able to keep and on wild honey (vv. 21-22). Therefore, if the choice of vv. 15-16 is culinary, between good and bad food (see note 4), the meaning may be that before the child has the ability to select what he does and does not eat, his diet will already be fixed (Delitsch 1965:op cit). That is, his options will be severely limited because the Assyrians will have devastated the land. So Kaiser observes (1972:104) that although "milk and honey may have seemed splendid and desirable food for those who lived in the desert.. . they would not have been so to anything like the same extent for children who had grown up in a cultivated region."

Therefore, the purpose of the Immanuel sign is mixed, serving to affirm the duel aspect of the prophet's message. He calls on Ahaz to trust in God rather than in Assyria for deliverance from the two northern kingdoms, but the king refuses to heed Isaiah's plea. Nevertheless, the LORD is faithful to Judah and will remove the threat by Israel and Syria. The people will yet say, "God is with us." Nevertheless, the LORD is displeased with the unbelief of Ahaz and will bring judgment against Judah using the very nation the king thought would save him.

Bibliography

• Brown, C.R., 1890 "Exegesis of Isaiah vii. 10-17." JBL. 9:118-127
• Delitsch, Franz, 1965, Isaiah. Translated by J. Martin. Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament. Vol. 7. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, reprint.
• Delling, Gerhard, 1967 "irapevoç." TDNT. 5:826-837.
• Finkelstein, Louis, 1926 The Commentary of David Kimhi on Isaiah. Columbia University Oriental Series. Vol. 19. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Friedlander, M., ed., 1873, The Commentary of Ibn Ezra on Isaiah. New York: Philipp Feidheirn, Inc.
• Gordon, Cyrus, 1953, "rtth in Isaiah 7:14" JBL. 21:106,240-241.
• Gray, George Buchanan, 1912, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Isaiah: I-XX VII. ICC. Edinburgh: T & T Clark.
• Gundry, Robert Horton, 1967, The Use of the Old Testament in St. Matthew's Gospel. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
• Kaiser, Otto, 1972, Isaiah 1-12. Translated by R.A. Wilson. OTL. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press.
• Oswalt, John N., 1986, The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 1-39. NICOT. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Endnotes

(1) Gressmann's proposal that Isaiah is simply citing as well-known prophecy about the birth of the messianic deliverer (so Mic 5:2) finds no support in Isa 7, especially as v. 16 implies that the child will have nothing to do with the actual deliverance of Judah (Gray 1912:125-126).

(2) [see the pdf for the Hebrew omitted in this note] Many Christians exegetes attempt to find [here] a reference to Mary, or at least they try to justify the supposition that this word could include a woman who would otherwise be called in order to explain Matthew's use in 1:23 of LXX Isa 7:14 (where [_] translates [_]. Such interpretation is strained, however, and may be wholly unnecessary. The term simply denotes a young woman who has reached sexual maturity (with virginity perhaps implicit, but not necessarily assumed) and, in this regard, may overlap with the earliest use of [_] (Delling 1967 5:831-832). Furthermore, Matthew does not take his OT quotations from the LXX alone, rather he employs material from a number of textual traditions (Gundry 1967:127), and it is entirely possible that the apostle bases his selection as much on literary as on theological grounds. Although [_] of the LXX serves to link the opening and closing verses in this section (1:18, 25), had Matthew simply wanted to present Mary's virginity as a fulfillment of prophecy, he could easily have excluded the reference to Immanuel. Moreover, as Gordon notes (1953:240-241), the virginity of Mary is not dependent on Isa 7:14, but is clearly stated in Matt 1:18-25. Yet the fact that the apostle not only includes this title, but translates it as well suggests that the term is important, perhaps central to his use of Isa 7:14. In other words, Matthew may introduce this Isaianic reference "without any intention of specifically matching the virginity of Mary with the prediction: the primary point [is] the identification of Jesus and Immanuel" (Gray 1912:34).

(3) Wolf (ibid., p. 455) offers a solution to the objection that the mother's name for the child (Immanuel, 7:14) is different from what Isaiah calls him (Maher-shalal-hash-baz, 8:3). The assigning of antithetical names is not unique to this passage. In Gen 35:18 Rachel calls her son Benoni ("son of my sorrow"), but Jacob calls him Benyamin ("son of my right hand"). Furthermore, the two names of Isaiah's son depict the duel aspect of that sign (see below): "Immanuel denoted the promise that God would be there to defeat Samaria and Damascus, and Maher-shalal-hash-baz meant that Assyria would soon carry off the wealth of these two nations—before turning to devastate Judah."

(4)The precise age here is uncertain, and commentators differ widely. Ibn Ezra (Friedlander 1873:43) suggests that the choice mentioned in these verses may be moral, between good and evil, thereby making Immanuel twenty years old (cf. Exod 30:14). As the context speaks of food, however, Gray's proposal (1912:131, following another suggestion by Ibn Ezra; ibid., p. 42) is more likely correct, that the child's choice is between what is palatable and what is unpalatable, thus making the child two or three years old.