O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
What is the meaning of Isaiah's prophecy: "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel"?
As we were singing the advent hymn “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” at church this past Sunday, I happened to notice that it was originally written over 1,200 years ago. I love singing hymns that have been in use for centuries, but Christians around the world have been singing this particular advent carol for over a millennium. Its words and haunting melody have apparently struck a chord with believers across the ages.
The opening words of this ancient hymn, along with the refrain, allude to the famous prophecy recorded in Isaiah chapter 7:
Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz: “Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.” But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test.” And he said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel” (v. 10-14).
According to Matthew, Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled by Jesus (cf. Mt 1:20-23), since he was born of a virgin, and the meaning of the Hebrew word Emmanuel is, “God with us.” But across the centuries, some have objected to the application of this prophecy to Jesus. The problem is that Ahaz reigned as king around 730 BC, but as the prophecy later makes clear in verse 16, the child referred to by Isaiah was to be born during the lifetime of Ahaz himself: “For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted.” This becomes even more clear in the early part of chapter 8, where Isaiah seems to identify the promised child as his very own son: “I went to the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son. Then the LORD said to me, “Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz; for before the boy knows how to cry ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carried away before the king of Assyria” (Is 8:3-4).
Isaiah refers to “Emmanuel” in this section of his prophecy as well: “[T]he king of Assyria…will sweep on into Judah…and its outspread wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Emmanuel.” In short, Isaiah appears to be speaking about something that was to take place in his own lifetime—in fact, it would happen before his youngest son became a young adult.
But if this is indeed the case, how then can Matthew apply the prophecy to Jesus? My own perspective is that Matthew is using the principle of “recapitulation.”1 A good example of this is the account we find in Mt 2:13-14 of the time Joseph was warned in a dream to move his family to Egypt for a few years. When the holy family returned, Matthew writes, “This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.’” The prophecy cited is from Hosea 11:1, but when we consult that passage, the larger context relates, not to the Messiah, but to the nation of Israel at the time of the Exodus, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.”
Matthew isn’t attempting to deceive his readers—essentially he’s arguing that Jesus is recapitulating the entire story of Exodus.2 As the nation was baptized “in the cloud and sea” (1 Cor 10:2) and wandered the desert 40 years (Num 32:13), so too Jesus was tempted 40 days in the wilderness immediately following his baptism (Mt 3:16–4:2). Not only is he the ultimate sacrificial lamb (Is 53:7, Jn 1:29), the temple of God’s presence (1Kgs 8:27, Jn 2:21), the true manna from heaven (Ex. 16, Jn 6:48-50), etc., but he also happens to be the second Adam (Rom 5:14), and the true Israel (Is 49:1-6), having twelve disciples, just as Jacob (whose name was later changed to Israel), had twelve sons.
I believe this is a good way to think about Matthew’s interpretation of Isaiah 7:14. As we saw above, the immediate fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy related to the birth of Isaiah’s own son (Is 8:3), but ultimately Jesus is the best and final expression of עִמָּנוּאֵל (Emmanuel / “God with us”), since he is “the Word made flesh who dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14). In Isaiah chapter 8, God fulfills his promise by coming to be with his people in both judgment and grace. Since his people had violated the terms of the Mosaic covenant, he came in judgment, but as we’ll see, he also came to rescue a remnant of his people out of sheer mercy and grace.
Here in Isaiah 8:7-8, the theme of judgment takes center stage:
[T]he Lord is bringing up against them the waters of the River, mighty and many, the king of Assyria and all his glory. And it will rise over all its channels and go over all its banks, and it will sweep on into Judah, it will overflow and pass on, reaching even to the neck, and its outspread wings will fill the breadth of your land, Emmanuel.”
When Isaiah wrote this, he was reminding his readers of the things that led up to their present situation. In other words, the events described above had already begun to happen. In fact, the Assyrian invasion of Judah is the very situation that Isaiah highlights at the opening of his prophecy. Here’s what he writes in chapter one:
Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged…Your country lies desolate; your cities are burned with fire; in your very presence foreigners devour your land; it is desolate, as overthrown by foreigners. And the daughter of Zion is left like a booth in a vineyard, like a lodge in a cucumber field, like a besieged city (Is 1:4, 7-8)
Because his people had essentially abandoned the Mosaic covenant, God allowed the Assyrian army to desolate the northern kingdom of Israel, and the southern kingdom of Judah. The only city left standing was Jerusalem itself. This was revealed in advance to Isaiah when in chapter 8 he was told that the Assyrian army would sweep into Judah, “reaching even to the neck.” In other words, the head would be spared. Yet, according to terms spelled out in the law of Moses, the people of Israel were to be vomited out of the land if and when they abandoned his covenant (Lev 20:22). In this case, however, the capital city, Jerusalem, had been spared—purely out of God’s mercy and grace.
We find a record of God’s promise to rescue Jerusalem at the time of the Assyrian invasion in Isaiah 37:
Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it. By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the LORD. For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David” (v. 33-35).
It’s clear from this that God’s intervention and rescue was by grace alone since he states that he delivered Jerusalem for “[his] own sake and for the sake of my servant David.” What’s in view here, is not the good works of a select few (cf. Dt 9:4-5), but God’s decision to intervene for his own good pleasure and purpose. The reference to David reminds us of the unconditional promise that was made in 2 Sam 7. One of his sons would, in the fullness of time, sit on David’s throne forever, and build a house for God’s name. Notice what else Isaiah goes on to say in chapter 8:
[T]he LORD…warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: “Do not…fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the LORD of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel… (v. 11-15).
It’s worth noting that the apostles frequently applied this language of “a stone of stumbling and rock of offense” to Jesus (Acts 4:11, Rom 9:32-33, 1 Pt 2:4-8), no doubt because Jesus had taught them to relate similar passages to himself (cf. Is 28:15-17, Ps 118:22; Mt 21:42, Mk 12:10-11, Lk 20:17-18). To put it succinctly, Jesus is a stone of offense to all who despise him, and a sanctuary to those who trust their souls to his care.
Was Isaiah’s Child Born of a Virgin?
In this article, I’ve been arguing that Isaiah 7:14 primarily refers to the prophet’s own son, and is applied to Jesus only in a kind of secondary way, since he is Israel’s ultimate Emmanuel. But this interpretation raises an important question. Was Isaiah’s child born of a virgin?
It should be noted that this interpretive approach was defended by Princeton scholar, J. Gresham Machen in his book, The Virgin Birth of Christ:
One may hold that in [Isaiah 7:14] some immediate birth of a child is in view, but that the event is to be taken as the foreshadowing of the greater event that was to come. Does an immediate reference to a child of the prophet’s own day really exclude the remoter and grander reference that determines the quotation in the first chapter of Matthew?…We think not.3
But how can people like Machen see this as a legitimate interpretive option in light of the questions it provokes? After all, if the sign to Ahaz pointed merely to the natural birth of Isaiah’s own child, what would be significant about that? I’ll deal with this objection in a moment, but first, it should be pointed out that according to Is 7:3, the LORD instructed Isaiah to bring his son Shear-jashub with him as he went to confront the rebellious king. Therefore at the time the prophecy was given, the prophet already had at least one son. Therefore, if the birth of Isaiah’s son (8:3) reflects the first-level fulfillment of the prophecy, then it seems clear that his wife was not a virgin. But if this is so, why does the prophecy state that “a virgin will conceive”?
The Hebrew word translated “virgin” is עַלְמָה (alma), which carries a few different meanings. It can refer to a “girl” (Ex 2:8), an “unmarried woman” (Gen 24:43), or even to a young woman who is “newly married.”4 In his dialog with Trypho, Justin Martyr acknowledges that even as far back as the middle of the second century, Jews commonly argued that Isaiah 7:14 should be translated, “Behold, the young woman shall conceive, and bear a son.”5 This is also the way the passage was rendered when it was translated from Hebrew to Aramaic: “Behold, the young woman is pregnant and will bear a son.”6
When the Old Testament was rendered into Greek, the translators used the word παρθένος (parthenos) as an equivalent for alma, and according to the various lexicons I consulted, this word can refer to a “girl,” an “unmarried woman,” and also a “newly married woman.”7 According to the information provided by Isaiah, the prophet’s wife appears to have been a young woman (but not a virgin) at the time of the original prophecy. In Mary’s case, she was an unmarried young woman who had recently been betrothed. Therefore, the Hebrew word alma, as well as the Greek word parthenos, can be applied to both women.
Now, if the first fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy has to do with the natural birth of the prophet’s second child, why should this be seen as a significant sign for Ahaz? I think this objection is easily answered. The main point of the prophecy is that God would soon be with his people, either in judgment or in grace. For unbelieving Ahaz, God came in judgment, which is why Isaiah was told to name his son “Maher-shalal-hash-baz,” meaning something to the effect of, “Quick to the plunder, swift to the spoil.” Every city in the kingdom of Ahaz was to be plundered—except Jerusalem.
Since Jesus is God-incarnate and “the Word made flesh,” he is the ultimate expression of “Emmanuel—God with us,” and when Matthew appealed to the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14, he was indicating that, as in the days of old, God had once again come to be with his people, either in judgment or in grace. And as Isaiah predicted elsewhere, Jesus was “despised and rejected” (Is 53:3), “pierced for our transgressions,” and “laid in the grave” (Is 53:5, 9). In his parable of the Wicked Tenants, after the vineyard owner’s son is killed by the tenants, Jesus rhetorically asks, “What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them?” The answer is that “He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” This took place in 70 AD, just as Jesus predicted (cf. Mt 24:2, Mk 13:14, Lk 21:20, 23:28).
The destruction of Jerusalem was also predicted in chapter 9 of Daniel’s prophecy. In fact, this particular prophet said these things would take place after “an anointed one” (i.e., Messiah) was “cut off.”8 Following this, “the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.” (Dan 9:26). The prince who came was Titus, son of Emperor Vespasian. As prince of the Roman Empire, he’s the one who oversaw the destruction of Jerusalem a mere forty years after Jesus’ crucifixion.
In an earlier prophecy, Daniel spoke of “a stone, cut by no human hand” that would end up changing the course of world history (Dan 2:34). This passage goes on to say,
[T]here shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things…And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand… (2:40-45).
Most scholars agree that Daniel’s fourth kingdom represents the rise of the Roman Empire, and just as he predicted, Jesus was born in the days of Caesar Augustus and was crucified in the days of Tiberius. The apostles proclaimed the gospel throughout the Roman Empire up to the days of Nero, and Jerusalem was sacked by the tenth Emperor Vespasian, along with his son Titus. In other words, Jesus is the “stone cut from no human hand” who shattered empires and set up a new kingdom of his own. Even now, some two thousand years later, Christ’s kingdom continues to expand, and Jesus is widely acknowledged to be the most important person in all of human history.
You see, just as in the time of Ahaz, Jesus came in judgment and grace. He came to do away with the old order of things and to inaugurate something new—just as the prophets predicted. He is both a sanctuary and a rock of offense (Is 8:14). He’s the precious cornerstone of a new temple (1 Pet 2:4-8), which if it falls on anyone, will crush him (Mt 21:44). According to the prophet Zephaniah, his goal wasn’t merely to fix the problems out there in the Gentile world, but in Israel as well: “On that day…I will remove from your midst your proudly exultant ones, and you shall no longer be haughty in my holy mountain. But I will leave in your midst a people humble and lowly” (3:11-12). “O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.”
Jesus’ primary mission, of course, was to rescue and redeem fallen sinners, whether Jew or Gentile. In Isaiah 49:6, God says to his coming messianic servant, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” To accomplish this, however, God’s servant had to be “numbered with the transgressors” so that his people could be “accounted as righteous” (53:11-12). This is the world’s most amazing gift, which one early church writer referred to as the “sweet exchange.”9 It’s a gift that is so profound and unbelievable that it almost can’t be comprehended.
Soon after his birth, Jesus was brought to the Temple to fulfill the laws of purification. According to Luke’s account, a devout man named Simeon took Jesus into his arms and said, “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” Luke then tells his readers that Joseph and Mary “marveled at what was said” (Lk 2:22-33). But Simeon then turned to Mary and said, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed” (Lk 2:34-35).
Simeon said this, not only because he had carefully studied and meditated on all the ancient prophecies, but also because he too was inspired by the Spirit and received his own revelatory hint related to the Messiah’s coming (Lk 2:26-27). Therefore, the moment he received Jesus into his arms, he immediately knew that this child was appointed for the rise and fall of many and that his mission was to dispense both judgment and grace.
Shane Rosenthal is the founder and host of The Humble Skeptic podcast and the author of Is Faith Blind? (due in 2024). Shane was one of the creators of the White Horse Inn radio broadcast which he also hosted from 2019-2021, and has written numerous articles for various sites and publications, including TableTalk, Core Christianity, Modern Reformation, and others.
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“Recapitulation” is a way of restating or summarizing things. In the case of Jesus, his entire life serves as a kind of summation of Israel’s history, as things that were hinted at in type and shadow, find their ultimate fulfillment in him.
The same can be said of other Gospel writers as well. According to Lk 9:31, at the Mt of Transfiguration, Jesus spoke with Moses and Elijah about his ἔξοδος (exodus), and in John’s Gospel, again and again Jesus is presented with imagery from the story of Exodus. For example, he is the ultimate tabernacle (1:14, 2:21), manna from heaven (6:31-50), the source of living water (7:37), the light of the world (8:12), etc.
J. Gresham Machen, The Virgin Birth of Christ (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1930), 292
The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew & English Lexicon (Altamonte Springs, FL: Oaktree Software / Accordance), p. 761.
Justin’s Dialog with Trypho, in The Apologists module (Altamonte Springs, FL: Oaktree Software / Accordance), chapter 43
See the Aramaic Targum of Isaiah 7:14
Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, p 1586; BDAG, p. 777; LSJ, 1339. For the reference to the “newly married woman,” Thayer’s Lexicon (entry 3933) cites Homer’s Iliad 2.514.
See also Is 53:8 where this same language is used to refer to the death of the Suffering Servant.
Epistle to Diognetus 9:5. The name of this author is unknown, which is why some editions use the name Mathetes (meaning “anonymous disciple”). You can find the passage here: https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01/anf01.iii.ii.ix.html