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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 1:23

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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.

23. a virgin shall be with child ] Properly, according to the Greek text and to the original Hebrew, “ The virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they (Hebr. she) shall call his name God with us;” see Isa 7:14. The historical crisis was this, Ahaz is alarmed by the threatened invasion of Pekah and Rezin the confederate kings of Samaria and Damascus. Isaiah reassures Ahaz, who hypocritically refuses to ask for a sign. Yet a sign is given. She, who is now unmarried, shall bear a son, probably a scion of the royal house of David; he shall be called Emmanuel, and before he arrives at years of discretion the deliverance shall come, though a heavier distress is at hand.

The prophecy is distinctly Messianic, but the sign in Isaiah is not concerned with the manner of the child’s birth, but with the name and the deliverance which should happen in his infancy. Therefore, the weight of the reference is to the name “Emmanuel” and to the true Son of David, whose birth was the sign of His people’s deliverance.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Behold, a virgin shall be with child – Matthew clearly understands this as applying literally to a virgin. Compare Luk 1:34. It thus implies that the conception of Christ was miraculous, or that the body of the Messiah was created directly by the power of God, agreeably to the declaration in Heb 10:5; Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me.

And they shall call his name Emmanuel – That is, his name shall be so called. See the notes at Isa 7:14. The word Immanuel is a Hebrew word, immanu’el; cf. Emmanouel, and literally means God with us. Matthew doubtless understands it as denoting that the Messiah was really God with us, or that the divine nature was united with the human. He does not affirm that this was its meaning when used in reference to the child to whom it was first applied, but this is its signification as applicable to the Messiah. It was suitably expressive of his character; and in this sense it was fulfilled. When first used by Isaiah, it denoted simply that the birth of the child was a sign that God was with the Jews to deliver them. The Hebrews often incorporated the name of Yahweh, or God, into their proper names. Thus, Isaiah means the salvation of Yah; Eleazer, help of God: Eli, my God, etc. But Matthew evidently intends more than was denoted by the simple use of such names. He had just given an account of the miraculous conception of Jesus: of his being begotten by the Holy Spirit. God was therefore his Father. He was divine as well as human. His appropriate name, therefore, was God with us. And though the mere use of such a name would not prove that he had a divine nature, yet as Matthew uses it, and meant evidently to apply it, it does prove that Jesus was more than a man; that he was God as well as man. And it is this which gives glory to the plan of redemption. It is this which is the wonder of angels. It is this which makes the plan so vast, so grand, so full of instruction and comfort to Christians. See Phi 2:6-8. It is this which sheds such peace and joy into the sinners heart; which gives him such security of salvation, and which renders the condescension of God in the work of redemption so great and his character so lovely.

Till God in human flesh I see,

My thoughts no comfort find,

The holy, just, and sacred Three

Are terror to my mind.

But if immanuels face appears,

My hope, my joy, begins.

His grace removes my slavish fears.

His blood removes my sins.

For a full examination of the passage, see Barnes notes at Isa 7:14.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Mat 1:23-25

Child.

I. We remember that God came to us in that child. God with us. This should remove all dread of God.

II. That God can come to us in -the smallest things.

III. That the whole of life is sacred, and should be consecrated to God.

IV. That great endings have little beginnings. (B. Preece.)

Emmanuel.

Emmanuel

I. Christ came as god with man.

1. To live with man.

2. With man, to die for him.

3. With man, to rise from the dead for him.

4. With man, to ascend and intercede for him.

II. God is with his people.

1. He is with them in their lives.

2. In their labours.

3. In their trials and afflictions.

4. In their worship. In death and in glory. (C. H. Wetherbe.)

The birth of Christ

1. The importance of the event to which Isaiah looks forward, and which the evangelist describes as fulfilled.

1. The occurrence was of a preternatural character. To raise us from degradation Christ Himself must be sinless. Evil had descended. How was this fatal entail to be cut off? The virgin birth was the answer.

2. Christs birth marked the entrance into the sphere of sense and time of One who had existed from eternity.

3. No other birth has ever involved such important consequences to the human race.

II. The contrast between the real and the apparent importance of Christs birth. The kingdom of God had entered into history without observation. Caesars palace seemed to be more important to the world than the manger. The apparent is not always the real.

III. What is the practical meaning of this birth to us, and what relation have we to Him who, for the love of us, was born of the virgin? (Canon Liddon.)

Jesus Christ the centre of history

I. The world expected an Emmanuel.

II. God was preparing the world for the coming of Emmanuel.

III. The world could not produce the Emmanuel.

IV. As the Emmanuel was the goal of ancient, so He is the starting-point of modern history. (J. C. Jones)

At an earlier age the Incarnation would have been meaningless

The mariners compass has been known in China for thousands of years; nevertheless, for the most part of that time it was but little better than a toy-the Chinese mind was not educated enough to estimate its value. Only a few centuries ago the compass became a blessing to mankind, because only a few centuries ago we attained the intellectual state requisite to apprehend its usefulness. And did the Incarnation take place in the days of Abraham, or of Moses, or of David, it would have been an idle, purposeless miracle, so far as its human aspect is concerned, and Christ would have died in vain. (J. C. Jones.)

The Man Christ Jesus

1. Humanity needed a Saviour.

2. The Mediator was to come in the purity and the power of sinless human character.

3. We, as a part of the human world, must join in this longing of human hearts for a Christ.

4. When this yearning of mankind was taken up into the guidance and inspiration of God it became prophecy.

5. These things are a declaration of the one fact which lies, central and life-giving, at the heart of all our Christian thoughts and hopes.

6. We come short of the full grandeur of the gospel when we take the clause, God with us, as signifying only one among us-a Deity moving among individuals, outside of them all, and, however friendly and gracious, still an external Person, saving them only by a work wrought all above them.

7. Then, too, it will begin to appear what Christs own people may be, acknowledging their membership, confirmed and alive in His body. (Bishop Huntingdon,.)

Let Him be one of us, that we may be one in Him. (J. C. Jones.)

Emmanuel, God with us

I. We know, in consequence of the revelations made by Christ, that God is so with us, so near to us, that our very existence is every moment upheld by him. We exist not by chance, etc.; but whatever subordinate causes may be employed, they all derive their efficacy from Him.

II. We know, too, from the incarnation and doctrine of Christ, that God is with us, not as individuals merely, but with our world, and that also in the way of special grace. He is in the world, not to exhibit His power merely, but that the world of men may be redeemed, etc.

III. In Christ we see that God was with us, in our very nature, to accomplish our redemption.

IV. Though ascended into heaven, he is still god with us, by the invisible but mighty influence which He exerts.

V. God is with us, in condescension and special grace, during the whole course of discipline to which He subjects us. Is Christ our Emmanuel? (R. Watson.)

Influence gained by oneness of condition

A Moravian missionary once went to the West Indies, to preach to the slaves. He found it impossible for him to carry out his design so long as he bore to them the relation of a mere missionary. They were driven into the field very early in the morning, and returned late at night with scarcely strength to roll themselves into their cabins, and in no condition to be profited by instruction. They were savage toward all of the race and rank of their masters. He determined to reach the slaves by becoming himself a slave. He was sold, that he might have the privilege of working by their side, and preaching to them as he worked with them. Do you suppose the master or the pastor could have touched the hearts of those miserable slaves as did that man who placed himself in their condition, and went among them, and lived as they lived, suffered as they suffered, toiled as they toiled, that he might carry the gospel to them? This missionary was but following the example of the Lord Jesus Christ, who took on Him the nature of men, came among them, and lived as they lived, that He might save them from their sins. (Beecher.)

In what sense is Christ God with us? In His incarnation united to our nature-God with man-God in man. He is God with us to comfort, enlighten, protect, and defend us in time of temptation and trial, and in the hour of death, and God with us, and in us, and we with and in Him to all eternity. (A. Clarke. LL. D.)

Behold at once the deepest mystery and the richest mercy. By the light of nature we see the eternal as a God above us: by the light of the law we see Him as a God against us; but, by the light of the gospel, we see Him as a God with us, reconciled to us, at peace with us, interested for us, interceding in our behalf. Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift! (Dr. Hughes.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 23. Behold, a virgin shall be with child] We have already seen, from the preceding verse, that this prophecy is taken from Isa 7:14; but it may be necessary to consider the circumstances of the original promise more particularly. At the time referred to, the kingdom of Judah, under the government of Ahaz, was reduced very low. Pekah, king of Israel, had slain in Judea 120,000 persons in one day, and carried away captives 200,000, including women and children, together with much spoil. To add to their distress, Rezin, king of Syria, being confederate with Pekah, had taken Elath, a fortified city of Judah, and carried the inhabitants away captive to Damascus. In this critical conjuncture, need we wonder that Ahaz was afraid that the enemies who were now united against him must prevail, destroy Jerusalem, and the kingdom of Judah, and annihilate the family of David! To meet and remove this fear, apparently well grounded, Isaiah is sent from the Lord to Ahaz, swallowed up now both by sorrow and by unbelief, in order to assure him that the counsels of his enemies should not stand; and that they should be utterly discomfited. To encourage Ahaz, he commands him to ask a sign or miracle, which should be a pledge in hand, that God should, in due time, fulfil the predictions of his servant, as related in the context. On Ahaz humbly refusing to ask any sign, it is immediately added, Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign: Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son; and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, c. Both the Divine and human nature of our Lord, as well as the miraculous conception, appear to be pointed out in the prophecy quoted here by the evangelist: – He shall be called IM-MENU-EL literally, The STRONG GOD WITH US: similar to those words in the New Testament: – The Word which was God-was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth: Joh 1:1; Joh 1:14. And, God was manifested in the flesh: 1Ti 3:16. So that we are to understand, God with us, to imply God incarnated-God in human nature. This seems farther evident from the words of the prophet, Isa 7:15. Butter and honey shall he eat – he shall be truly man, grow up and be nourished in a human, natural way; which refers to his being WITH US, i.e. incarnated. To which the prophet adds, That he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good: – or rather, According to his knowledge, le-daato, reprobating the evil, and choosing the good. This refers to him as GOD; and is the same idea given by this prophet, Isa 53:11: By (or in) his knowledge (the knowledge of Christ crucified, be-dadto) shall my righteous servant sanctify many; for he shall bear their offences. Now this union of the Divine and human nature is termed a sign or miracle, oth, i.e. something which exceeds the power of nature to produce. And this miraculous union was to be brought about in a miraculous way: Behold a VIRGIN shall conceive: the word is very emphatic, ha-almah, THE virgin; the only one that ever was, or ever shall be, a mother in this way. But the Jews, and some called Christians, who have espoused their desperate cause, assert, that “the word almah does not signify a VIRGIN only; for it is applied, Pr 30:19, to signify a young married woman.” I answer, that this latter text is no proof of the contrary doctrine: the words derec geber be-almah, the way of a man with a maid, cannot be proved to mean that for which it is produced: beside, one of De Rossi’s MSS. reads be-almaiu, the way of a strong, or stout, man ( geber) IN HIS YOUTH; and in this reading the Syriac, Septuagint, Vulgate, and Arabic agree, which are followed by the first version in the English language, as it stands in a MS. in my own possession – the weie of a man in his waring youthe; so that this place, the only one that can with any probability of success be produced, were the interpretation contended for correct, which I am by no means disposed to admit, proves nothing. Beside, the consent of so many versions in the opposite meaning deprives it of much of its influence in this question.

The word almah, comes from alam, to lie hid, be concealed; and we are told that “virgins were so called, because they were concealed or closely kept up in their fathers’ houses, till the time of their marriage.” This is not correct: see the case of Rebecca, Ge 24:43, and my note there: that of Rachel, Ge 29:6; Ge 29:9, and the note there also: and see the case of Miriam, the sister of Moses, Ex 2:8, and also the Chaldee paraphrase on La 1:4, where the virgins are represented as going out in the dance. And see also the whole history of Ruth. This being concealed, or kept at home, on which so much stress is laid, is purely fanciful; for we find that young unmarried women drew water, kept sheep, gleaned publicly in the fields, c., c., and the same works they perform among the Turcomans to the present day. This reason, therefore, does not account for the radical meaning of the word and we must seek it elsewhere. Another well known and often used root in the Hebrew tongue will cast light on this subject. This is galah, which signifies to reveal, make manifest, or uncover, and is often applied to matrimonial connections, in different parts of the Mosaic law: alam, therefore, may be considered as implying the concealment of the virgin, as such, till lawful marriage had taken place. A virgin was not called almah, because she was concealed by being kept at home in her father’s house, which is not true, but literally and physically, because, as a woman, she had not been uncovered – she had not known man. This fully applies to the blessed virgin: see Lu 1:34. “How can this be, seeing I know no man?” and this text throws much light on the subject before us. This also is in perfect agreement with the ancient prophecy, “The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent,” Ge 3:15 for the person who was to destroy the work of the devil was to be the progeny of the woman, without any concurrence of the man. And, hence, the text in Genesis speaks as fully of the virgin state of the person, from whom Christ, according to the flesh, should come, as that in the prophet, or this in the evangelist. According to the original promise, there was to be a seed, a human being, who should destroy sin; but this seed or human being must come from the woman ALONE; and no woman ALONE, could produce such a human being, without being a virgin. Hence, A virgin shall bear a son, is the very spirit and meaning of the original text, independently of the illustration given by the prophet; and the fact recorded by the evangelist is the proof of the whole. But how could that be a sign to Ahaz, which was to take place so many hundreds of years after? I answer, the meaning of the prophet is plain: not only Rezin and Pekah should be unsuccessful against Jerusalem at that time, which was the fact; but Jerusalem, Judea, and the house of David, should be both preserved, notwithstanding their depressed state, and the multitude of their adversaries, till the time should come when a VIRGIN should bear a son. This is a most remarkable circumstance – the house of David could never fail, till a virgin should conceive and bear a son-nor did it: but when that incredible and miraculous fact did take place, the kingdom and house of David became extinct! This is an irrefragable confutation of every argument a Jew can offer in vindication of his opposition to the Gospel of Christ. Either the prophecy in Isaiah has been fulfilled, or the kingdom and house of David are yet standing. But the kingdom of David, we know, is destroyed: and where is the man, Jew or Gentile, that can show us a single descendant of David on the face of the earth? The prophecy could not fail-the kingdom and house of David have failed; the virgin, therefore, must have brought forth her son-and this son is Jesus, the Christ. Thus Moses, Isaiah, and Matthew concur; and facts, the most unequivocal, have confirmed the whole! Behold the wisdom and providence of God!

Notwithstanding what has been said above, it may be asked, In what sense could this name Immanuel be applied to Jesus Christ, if he be not truly and properly GOD? Could the Spirit of truth ever design that Christians should receive him as an angel or a mere man, and yet, in the very beginning of the Gospel history, apply a character to him which belongs only to the most high God? Surely no. In what sense, then, is Christ GOD WITH US? Jesus is called Immanuel, or God with us, in his incarnation. – God united to our nature – God with man – God in man. – God with us, by his continual protection. – God with us, by the influences of his Holy Spirit – in the holy sacrament – in the preaching of his word – in private prayer. And God with us, through every action of our life, that we begin, continue, and end in his name. He is God with us, to comfort, enlighten, protect, and defend us in every time of temptation and trial, in the hour of death, in the day of judgment; and God with us, and in us, and we with and in him, to all eternity.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

23. Behold, a virginIt shouldbe “the virgin” meaning that particular virgindestined to this unparalleled distinction.

shall be with child, andshall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel,which, being interpreted, is, God with usNot that He was tohave this for a proper name (like “Jesus”), but that Heshould come to be known in this character, as God manifestedin the flesh, and the living bond of holy and most intimatefellowship between God and men from henceforth and for ever.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Behold, a virgin shall be with child,…. These words are rightly applied to the virgin Mary and her son Jesus, for of no other can they be understood; not of Ahaz’s wife and his son Hezekiah, who was already born, and must be eleven or twelve years of age when these words were spoken; nor of any other son of Ahaz by her or any other person since no other was Lord of Judea; nor of the wife of Isaiah, and any son of his, who never had any that was king of Judah. The prophecy is introduced here as in Isaiah with a “behold!” not only to raise and fix the attention, but to denote that it was something wonderful and extraordinary which was about to be related; and is therefore called

a “sign”, wonder, or miracle; which lay not, as some Jewish writers g affirm, in this, that the person spoken of was unfit for conception at the time of the prophecy, since no such thing is intimated; or in this, that it should be a son and not a daughter h, which is foretold; for the wonder lies not in the truth of the prediction, but in the extraordinariness of the thing predicted; much less in this i, that the child should eat butter and honey as soon as born; since nothing is more natural and common with new born infants, than to take in any sort of liquids which are sweet and pleasant. But the sign or wonder lay in this, that a “virgin” should “conceive” or “be with child”; for the Evangelist is to be justified in rendering,

by “a virgin”; by the Septuagint having so rendered it some hundreds of years before him, by the sense of the word, which comes from and which signifies to “hide” or “cover”; virgins being such who are unknown to, and not uncovered by men, and in the Eastern countries were kept recluse from the company and conversation of men; and by the use of the word in all other places, Ge 24:43. The last of these texts the Jews triumph in, as making for them, and against us, but without any reason; since it does not appear that the “maid” and the “adulterous woman” are one and the same person; and if they were, the vitiated woman might be called a maid or virgin, according to her own account of herself, or in the esteem of others who knew her not, or as antecedent to her defilement; see De 22:28. Besides, could this be understood of any young woman married or unmarried, that had known a man, it would be no wonder, no surprising thing that she should “conceive” or “be with child”, and “bring forth a son”. It is added,

and they shall call his name Emmanuel. The difference between Isaiah and Matthew is very inconsiderable, it being in the one “thou shalt call”, that is, thou virgin shalt call him by this name; and in the other “they shall call”, that is, Joseph, Mary, and others; for, besides that some copies read the text in Matthew “thou shalt call”, the words both in the one and the other may be rendered impersonally, “and shall be called”; and the meaning is, not that he should be commonly known and called by such a name, any more than by any, or all of those mentioned in Isa 9:6, but only that he should be so, which is a frequent use of the word; or he should be that, and so accounted by others, which answers to the signification of this name, which the Evangelist says,

being interpreted is God with us: for it is a compound word of “God” and “with us”, and well agrees with Jesus, who is God in our nature, the word that was made flesh and dwelt among us. Joh 1:14, and is the one and only Mediator between God and us, 1Ti 2:5 k. So the Septuagint interpret the word in Isa 8:8.

g Jarchi. in Isa. vii. 14. h Gaon. in Aben Ezra, in ib. i Kimchi & Aben Ezra in ib. R. Isaac Chizuk. Emun. p. 1. c. 21. k See more of this in a book of mine, called “The Prophecies of the Old Testament concerning the Messiah, literally fulfilled in Jesus”, ch. 5. p. 92, 93, &c.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

They shall call (). Men, people, will call his name Immanuel, God with us. “The interest of the evangelist, as of all New Testament writers, in prophecy, was purely religious” (Bruce). But surely the language of Isaiah has had marvellous illustration in the Incarnation of Christ. This is Matthew’s explanation of the meaning of Immanuel, a descriptive appellation of Jesus Christ and more than a mere motto designation. God’s help, Jesus=the Help of God, is thus seen. One day Jesus will say to Philip: “He that has seen me has seen the Father” (Joh 14:9).

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

The virgin [ ] . Note the demonstrative force of the article, pointing to a particular person. Not, some virgin or other.

They shall call [] . In ver. 21, it is thou shalt call. The original of Isaiah (vii. 14) has she shall call; but Matthew generalized the singular into the plural, and quotes the prophecy in a form suited to its larger and final fulfilment : men shall call his name Immanuel, as they shall come to the practical knowledge that God will indeed dwell with men upon the earth.

Immanuel (Hebrew, God is with us). To protect and save. A comment is furnished by Isa 8:10, “Devise a device, but it shall come to naught; speak a word, but it shall not stand, for with us is God.” Some suppose Isaiah embodied the purport of his message in the names of his children : Mahershalal – hash – baz (speed – prey), a warning of the coming of the fierce Assyrians; Shear – Jashub (a remnant shall return), a reminder of God ‘s mercy to Israel in captivity, and Immanuel (God is with us), a promise of God ‘s presence and succor. However this may be, the promise of the name is fulfilled in Jesus (compare “Lo, I am with you always,” Mt 28:20) by his helpful and saving presence with his people in their sorrow, their conflict with sin, and their struggle with death.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “Behold, a virgin shall be with child,” (idou he parthenos en gastri eksei) “Behold the virgin (Mary) shall have, hold, possess, or be with a child,” in her womb, Isa 7:14. This is described by Paul as “made of a woman,” Gal 4:4-5, and the “mystery of Godliness,” here unveiled or disclosed, 1Ti 3:16.

2) “And shall bring forth a son,” (kai teksetai huion) “And (the virgin) will bear a son,” give birth to an heir, a son, not a daughter, an heir to the throne of David, to sit on David’s throne, the hope of Israel, a promise God made to David in what is known as the Davidic covenant, 2Sa 7:12-17; Psa 89:20; Psa 89:27-36; Luk 1:32-33.

3) “And they shall call his name Emmanuel,” (kai kalesousin to onoma autou Emmanouel) “And they will call him name Immanuel,” not as a proper name, like Jesus, but as a testimony of His life, character, and deeds, in His manifestation in the flesh among men.

4) “Which being interpreted, is, God with us.” (ho estin methermeneuomen meth’ hemon ho theos) “Which, when interpreted, means, God with us.” Such is a definitive fulfillment of Isa 9:6-7.

He brought God near to man in His life, near in His love, near in His compassion, and near in His continuing promise, “lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” and “I will never leave you nor forsake you,” Mat 28:20; Heb 13:5. Yes, as Emmanuel in these manifestations, he brought God down to man, Joh 3:16.

As Jesus He saves us. For He not only brought God down to man but also lifts man up to God, in and through His Redemptive restoration ministry, in regeneration of the soul-mind, spirit, and body to the glory of His own likeness, 1Jn 3:1-2.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

23. His name Immanuel The phrase, God is with us, is no doubt frequently employed in Scripture to denote, that he is present with us by his assistance and grace, and displays the power of his hand in our defense. But here we are instructed as to the manner in which God communicates with men. For out of Christ we are alienated from him; but through Christ we are not only received into his favor, but are made one with him. When Paul says, that the Jews under the law were nigh to God, (Eph 2:17,) and that a deadly enmity (Eph 2:15) subsisted between him and the Gentiles, he means only that, by shadows and figures, God then gave to the people whom he had adopted the tokens of his presence. That promise was still in force, “The Lord thy God is among you,” (Deu 7:21,) and, “This is my rest for ever,” (Psa 132:14.) But while the familiar intercourse between God and the people depended on a Mediator, what had not yet fully taken place was shadowed out by symbols. His seat and residence is placed “between the Cherubim,” (Psa 80:1,) because the ark was the figure and visible pledge of his glory.

But in Christ the actual presence of God with his people, and not, as before, his shadowy presence, has been exhibited. (111) This is the reason, why Paul says, that “in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,” (Col 2:9.) And certainly he would not be a properly qualified Mediator, if he did not unite both natures in his person, and thus bring men into an alliance with God. Nor is there any force in the objection, about which the Jews make a good deal of noise, that the name of God is frequently applied to those memorials, by which he testified that he was present with believers.

For it cannot be denied, that this name, Immanuel, contains an implied contrast between the presence of God, as exhibited in Christ, with every other kind of presence, which was manifested to the ancient people before his coming. If the reason of this name began to be actually true, when Christ appeared in the flesh, it follows that it was not completely, but only in part, that God was formerly united with the Fathers.

Hence arises another proof, that Christ is God manifested in the flesh, (1Ti 3:16.) He discharged, indeed, the office of Mediator from the beginning of the world; but as this depended wholly on the latest revelation, he is justly called Immanuel at that time, when clothed, as it were, with a new character, he appears in public as a Priest, to atone for the sins of men by the sacrifice of his body, to reconcile them to the Father by the price of his blood, and, in a word, to fulfill every part of the salvation of men. (112) The first thing which we ought to consider in this name is the divine majesty of Christ, so as to yield to him the reverence which is due to the only and eternal God. But we must not, at the same time, forget the fruit which God intended that we should collect and receive from this name. For whenever we contemplate the one person of Christ as God-man, we ought to hold it for certain that, if we are united to Christ by faith, we possess God.

In the words, they shall call, there is a change of the number. But this is not at all at variance with what I have already said. True, the prophet addresses the virgin alone, and therefore uses the second person, Thou shalt call But from the time that this name was published, all the godly have an equal right to make this confession, that God has given himself to us to be enjoyed in Christ. (113)

(111) “ Mais quand Christ est apparu en sa personne, le peuple a eu une presence de Dieu veritable, et non pas ombratile comme paravant.”— “But when Christ appeared in his person, the people had a real presence of God, and not shadowy, as before.”

(112) “ Somme, pour faire et accomplir toutes choses requises au salut du genre humain;” — “in a word, to do and accomplish all things requisite for the salvation of the human race.”

(113) “ Il appartient a tous fideles d’advouer et confesser que Dieu s’est communique et baille a nous en Christ;” — “it belongs to all believers to own and confess that God has communicated and made over himself to us in Christ.”

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(23) Behold, a virgin shall be with child.It is not so easy for us, as it seemed to St. Matthew, to trace in Isaiahs words the meaning which he assigns to them. As we find them in a literal translation from the Hebrew, the words of Isa. 7:14 run thus:Behold, the maiden conceives and bears a son, and calls his name Immanuel. If we read these words in connection with the facts recorded in that chapterthe alliance of the kings of Syria and Israel against Judah, Isaiahs promise of deliverance, and his offer of a sign in attestation of his promise, the hypocritical refusal of that offer by Ahaz, who preferred resting on his plan of an alliance with Assyriatheir natural meaning seems to be this:The prophet either points to some maiden of marriageable years, or speaks as if he saw one in his vision of the future, and says that the sign shall be that she shall conceive and bear a son (the fulfilment of this prediction constituting the sign, without assuming a supernatural conception), and that she should give to that son a name which would embody the true hope of IsraelGod is with us. The early years of that child should be nourished, not on the ordinary food of a civilised and settled population, but on the clotted milk and wild honey, which were (as we see in the case of the Baptist) the food of the dwellers in the wilderness, and which appear in Mat. 1:21-22, as part of the picture of the desolation to which the country would be reduced by the Assyrian invasion. But in spite of that misery, even before the child should attain to the age at which he could refuse the evil and choose the good, the land of those whom Ahaz and his people were then dreading should be forsaken of both her kings. So understood, all is natural and coherent. It must be added, however, that this child was associated by Isaiah with no common hopes. The land of Israel was to be his land (8:8). It is hardly possible not to connect his name with the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father of Isa. 9:6; with the Rod and Branch of the Stem of Jesse that was to grow up and present the picture of an ideal king (Isa. 11:1-9). All that we speak of as the Messianic hopes of the prophet clustered round the child Immanuel. Those hopes were, as we know, not fulfilled as he had expected. They remained for a later generation to feed on with yearning desire. But, so far as we know, they did not suggest to any Jewish interpreter the thought of a birth altogether supernatural. That thought did not enter into the popular expectations of the Messiah. It was indeed foreign to the prevailing feeling of the Jews as to the holiness of marriage and all that it involved, and would have commended itself to none but a small section of the more austere Essenes. St. Matthew, however, having to record the facts of our Lords birth, and reading Isaiah with a mind full of the new truths which rested on the Incarnation, could not fail to be struck with the correspondence between the facts and the words which he here quotes, and which in the Greek translation were even more emphatic than in the Hebrew, and saw in them a prophecy that had at last been fulfilled. He does not say whether he looked on it as a conscious or unconscious prophecy. He was sure that the coincidence was not casual.

The view thus given deals, it is believed fairly, with both parts of the problem. If to some extent it modifies what till lately was the current view as to the meaning of Isaiahs prediction, it meets by anticipation the objection that the narrative was a mythical outgrowth of the prophecy as popularly received. It would be truer to say that it was the facts narrated that first gave occasion to this interpretation of the prophecy. St. Luke, who narrates the facts with far greater fulness than St. Matthew, does so without any reference to the words of the prophet.

Emmanuel.As spoken by Isaiah, the name, like that of The Lord our Righteousness, applied by Jeremiah not only to the future Christ (Jer. 23:6), but to Jerusalem (Jer. 33:16), did not necessarily mean more than that God was with His people, protecting, guiding, ruling them. The Church of Christ has, however, rightly followed the Evangelist in seeing in it the witness to a Presence more direct, personal, immediate than any that had been known before. It was more than a watchword and a hopemore than a nomen et omenand had become a divine reality.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

23. Behold, a virgin Isa 7:14. This memorable prophecy was delivered by Isaiah, under the following circumstances: Ahaz, king of Judah, was invaded by the combined hosts of the kings of Israel and of Syria. He was reduced to the last extremity. Jehovah then sent Isaiah the prophet to offer him a SIGN that God would bring deliverance. The object of the command was to bring Ahaz to repose his faith in Jehovah. But though the prophet offered him a sign either in heaven or in earth, yet the idolatrous king refused to accept any sign. Whereupon the prophet, rebuking the king for wearying God, declares that God will give a sign, whether the king ask it or not, and whether it should be to him a sign or not. That sign is the standing sign for Israel for all ages, the future MESSIAH. As that Messiah should come, so Judah should be preserved until his coming. And when he should be born of the virgin, he should not grow to years of intelligence in a shorter time than would be required to sweep away those two invading kings from their power.

The words of the prophet, in our translation, are as follows: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call him Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.”

To this we will append the elegant and exact version of Bishop Lowth: And Jehovah spake yet again to Ahaz, saying:

Ask thee a SIGN from Jehovah thy God:

Go deep to the grave, or high to the heaven above.

And Ahaz said: I will not ask; neither will I tempt Jehovah.

And he said: Hear ye now, O house of David:

Is it a small thing for you to weary men,

That you should weary my God also?

Therefore Jehovah himself shall give you a sign:

Behold, the virgin conceiveth, and beareth a son;

And she shall call his name Immanuel.

Butter and honey shall he eat,

When he shall know to refuse what is evil, and to choose what is good:

For before this child shall know

To refuse the evil, and to choose the good;

The land shall become desolate,

By whose two kings thou art distressed.

Upon this memorable passage we remark:

1 . The word virgin has, in the original Hebrew, the definite article the, THE virgin. This implies that a particular and known virgin is predicted, (specially recognized by the mind of the prophet,)* who, though a virgin, should bring forth an Immanuel; that is, a God-with-us, a God-man. Now we have already remarked (on Mat 1:18) that a Virgo Deipara is truly predicted in the first promise in Eden; and that the expectation was familiar to the ancient world. Melkarth, so near as in Syria, was fabled to be such a god-man. The virgin, then, of Isaiah, was THE virgin of prophetic foresight. 2. The tenses of the Hebrew in this passage are not all future.

Hengstenberg renders it thus: “Behold THE virgin has conceived and bears a son, and she calls his name Immanuel.” All this shows that Hengstenberg’s view of prophetic vision is correct. The powerful conceptions of the prophet’s mind become as a present reality. His mind’s eye sees the panorama of future objects and events now standing and moving before him. Time is dropped out of the account. 3. This explains what to many commentators has been a great difficulty in the following verse, Isa 7:16.

Before this ideal child, beheld in vision as now being born, is able to know good from evil, these two invading kings shall disappear. Isaiah takes the growth of the infant, conceptually present, as the measure of the continuance of the invading kings. That Immanuel, the predicted seed of the woman, the prophet sees as already being born; he is being fed on nourishing food, namely, butter and honey, to bring him to early maturity; but in a briefer period than his growth to intelligence shall require, these invading kings shall be overthrown, and Israel be rescued. Thus was the Messiah, yet to be born, a sign, not indeed to unwilling Ahaz, but to Israel, of her speedy deliverance and permanent preservation. Well and wisely, therefore, does the inspired evangelist, now that the Messiah is born, adduce this prophecy to show its fulfilment in him. The amount of the whole is, that the spirit of prophecy availed itself of the occasion of Ahaz’s unbelief, to utter and leave on record a striking prediction of the Incarnation.

(*Prof. Nordheimer, in his Hebrew Grammar, gives the following rule of syntax in regard to the Hebrew article: “The article is subjectively prefixed to a common noun by way of emphasis, and to point it out as one which, although neither previously or subsequently described, is still viewed as definite in the mind of the writer.” In Biblical Repository, October, 1841, Prof. Nordheimer showed the express application of the rule to this passage.)

They shall call his name Emmanuel This name they are directed by God to give him; and there could be no reason with God to select this name but because (as noted on Mat 1:21) its meaning denoted a reality. The person bears the name because he is what the name signifies. As the Lord was called Jesus, saviour, because he is Saviour; and as he is called Christ, anointed, because he is the Anointed, so is he called Emmanuel, God-with-us, because he is God with us. He is God with man; he is Divinity with humanity. And he is called God with us because he is virgin-born, for the prophet conjoins these two facts as antecedent and result. That is, because he has only a human mother, and so a divine Father, therefore he is in name, and thereby in reality, God with us. No Jewish or Unitarian gloss can evade this. It demonstrates that Messiah is by birth, God with us; and therefore that he is so by person, by nature, and by substance.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

“Behold, the virgin will be with child, and will bring forth a son, and they will call his name Immanuel,” which is, being interpreted, God with us.’

This quotation is taken from Isa 7:14. There the birth of an heir to the throne of David (Isa 9:6-7) was to be by a virgin (in LXX, translating ‘almah – an unmarried woman of marriageable age who can be assumed to be a virgin (see Excursus below)). The reason for this was that God had rejected the house of David in His rejection of Ahaz because of his refusal to ask for the miraculous sign that God had offered him, which was simply because he did not want to have to do what God required. Ahaz wanted rather to trust in Assyria (with no real conception of what it would involve). Thus because of his refusal a miraculous sign was thrust on him, one that he did not want, and one which would signal the doom of his house. And that was that he must now recognise that the future hopes of the house of David would no longer rest in his seed, because the Coming One would be born of a virgin. God would by-pass the then current house of David.

(‘God Himself will give you a sign’ (Isa 7:14) meant, ‘God will now give you a sign which is expressed in the words that He now declares to you concerning a great wonder to occur in the future, a wonder which will indicate your rejection. It will be a wonder greater even than any you could ask for in Heaven and earth, and it will later be accomplished as a result of His miraculous power and be the end of the hopes of your house, for by it the Coming King will be born of no seed of man’. It was not intended to be a sign like the one that God had originally promised. Ahaz had forfeited that).

The virgin would bear a son without human father, thus supplanting the house of Ahaz, and this son would then be called ‘GOD WITH US’, a reminder to Ahaz that, while God had by Him come among His people, He would no longer be with him. The child would bring about what by his unbelief he had lost. So the point behind the sign is not as something from which Ahaz could take hope, something for Ahaz to believe in, but as something by which he would be made to recognise his own failure and rejection. When it actually took place would therefore not be important. What mattered was Gods’ emphasis on the fact that it would take place on the basis of His word, and that it could feasibly be sufficiently imminent for lessons to be drawn from it.

Now, says Matthew, we see that prophecy being filled to the full. It is being brought to completion in that now a virgin will produce a child who will truly be the indication that ‘God is with us’ in a unique sense.

‘They will call.’ When ‘they’ is used as a vague subject, as it is here in Matthew’s version of the quotation, it is a regular Semitic generalisation indicating ‘Many will call Him’. (MT has ‘she will call’. LXX has ‘you will call’).

The names applied to the coming babe are important in Matthew, and are emphasised. Here He is Immanu-el, an indication of ‘God with us’. This is His prophetic name, a prophetic declaration of what He is. His given name, given by both God and man, will be ‘Jesus’, an indication that He is the Saviour from sin. In these two names are summed up the Christian message. He is God, He is with us, He is our Saviour.

EXCURSUS on Isa 7:14 .

This is a prophecy concerning Immanuel, the expected Chosen One of God. The ‘prophecy’ (forth-telling) which is cited here in Matthew is, “Behold a virgin will be with child and will bring forth a son, and they will call His name Immanuel” which is being interpreted, ‘God with us’. As we have seen this is especially emphasised by Matthew as having been spoken by ‘the Lord’ and it is taken from Isa 7:14. It need hardly be pointed out that huge discussions have resulted from a study of this verse. To examine all those views is, however, beyond the scope of what we are trying to do here and we must therefore limit ourselves to what we see as the main points that come out of it.

The first is that the verse in Matthew refers to a ‘virgin’ (parthenos) who will bring forth a son, ‘conceived by the Holy Spirit’ (Mat 1:20). And we should note in this regard that Mat 1:24-25 in Matthew certainly affirm that Mary had had no sexual intercourse with her husband until after the birth. So however sceptical some readers might be about his conclusion, there is no doubt that Matthew is indicating by this a ‘virgin conception and birth’, and moreover is indicating by it a supernatural birth in which only one party has been involved. This last fact is important. It demonstrates that it bears no resemblance to other so-called ‘virgin births’ in extant literature which are often cited as parallels. In those cases a god in the form of a man had had intercourse with a human maiden. But that idea is excluded here. It has therefore to be considered as coming from a totally different sphere and environment. Here this unique birth is seen to be the result of the working of the Holy Spirit producing a child ‘miraculously’ without any hint of sexual activity whether human or divine. It is not modelled on a pagan myth.

More likely parallels than pagan myths are ‘and the Lord visited Sarah as He had said’ (Gen 21:1); and ‘and it came about that Hannah conceived and bore a son’ (1Sa 1:20), in both cases with divine assistance. But these are more parallel with the birth of John the Baptiser than with that of Jesus, for in those cases intercourse is assumed to have taken place.

But how then can the birth of Jesus be seen as the ‘fulfilment’ or ‘filling full’ or ‘bringing to completion’ of the words taken from Isaiah, which are seen as specifically the words of YHWH?

In Isaiah the promise was of an unmarried young woman of marriageable age (‘almah in Hebrew, parthenos in LXX) who would bear a child which would reveal to Israel that God was with them, and would be a sign to Ahaz that God had rejected him and his house.

The Hebrew word used for young woman in Isa 7:14 (‘almah) is never, as far as is known, used of a non-virgin or a married woman. It refers to a young woman of marriageable age, with growing sexual desires, who is not yet married, and thus is assumed to be a virgin. The use of ‘almah in Son 6:8-9 especially confirms this. There it is contrasted with queens and concubines and clearly describes those who are in the same situation as the loved one also being described, unmarried and virginal, and in Mat 1:9 is associated with ‘the daughters’ of their mothers, (they have not yet left their own households), the many compared with the one. It is a word containing the idea of sexual purity, without the taint that had come on the often cited word bethulah (often translated ‘virgin’). Bethulah was specifically linked with pagan deities of doubtful morality at Ugarit, and could be used to describe fertility goddesses, who were certainly not virgins. It did not strictly mean a pure virgin at the time of the prophecy, whatever it came to mean later. Compare Joe 1:8 where a bethulah mourning the husband of her youth is described where there are no grounds at all for considering that they had only been betrothed.

Some have used Pro 30:19 as an example of ‘almah being used of a non-virgin, when it speaks of ‘the way of a man with a maid’. But there are no real grounds at all for suggesting that that indicates sexual activity. Indeed it is the opposite that is more clearly indicated. There the writer is dealing with the movements of different creatures. Using sexual movements as an example of someone’s movements, as being watched by others, would, with an innocent couple in view, have been heavily frowned on. And we only have to look at what it is being compared with to recognise that it is being paralleled with flight and directional movement which is watched by others. The thought is thus more of a couple on the move in their flirtatious activity, or even of the man’s behaviour of which the young woman is not so much aware, the observers being the amused onlookers as he trails her and tries to be noticed by her. It thus rather supports the use of ‘almah for an unmarried maiden than the opposite.

We can therefore understand why here the LXX translators translated ‘almah by the word ‘virgin’ (parthenos), just as they did in Gen 24:43. They recognised the emphasis that Isaiah was placing on this woman as being unmarried and pure.

It is true that the word used for ‘virgin’ (parthenos) does not always refer to what is today indicated by the term virgin, an intact virgin who has not had relations with a man, but there is nevertheless always behind it the thought of a kind of underlying purity. The term could, for example, be applied to sacred prostitutes in Greek temples, who were by no means intact virgins. But these were seen as having their own kind of ‘purity’ by those who wrote of them, for they were seen as daughters of the temples and of the gods, not as common prostitutes. They were ‘holy’. On the other hand, they were certainly not technically virgins. Furthermore after Dinah had been raped in Gen 34:2 she was still called a parthenos in Mat 1:3 (LXX). She was seen as pure at heart even though she had been violated and was no longer an intact virgin. And in Isaiah 47 the ‘virgin daughter of Babylon’ could lose her children and be brought to widowhood (Isa 47:1; Isa 47:9). In none of these cases then are parthenoi seen as intact virgins. On the other hand, the idea of purity might be seen as lying behind them all.

Nor did Hebrew at this time have a word for ‘intact virgin’. Virginity was assumed for all unmarried young women, unless there was reason to think otherwise, and then it was a shame to speak of it. The often cited ‘bethulah’ did not indicate that at that time. Nor did it necessarily indicate purity. As we have seen above it was specifically linked with pagan deities of doubtful morality at Ugarit, and could be used to describe fertility goddesses, who were certainly not virgins, or even pure. They were far more lascivious and lustful than human beings. And in Joe 1:8 a bethulah mourning the husband of her youth is described. There are no grounds for thinking that she was a virgin. Indeed if she had had a husband for even one night she would not have been. (It is true that a betrothed man could be called a husband, but in a general statement like that in Joel it would not be the obvious meaning). Furthermore the word bethulah sometimes has to be accompanied by the words, ‘neither had any man known her’ (Gen 24:16; compare also Lev 21:3; Jdg 11:39; Jdg 21:12). That comparison would have been unnecessary if bethulah had specifically indicated a virgin. So a bethulah is a young woman, whether married or not, with no indication of her virginal state. An ‘alma is an unmarried young woman of marriageable age, who if pure (which she would be assumed to be) could in Israel be called a parthenos, a pure woman.

The next thing we note is that this unmarried and pure woman who is to bring forth a child is to be a sign to Ahaz of the rejection of him and his house (demonstrated by the coming of Assyria on them – Isa 7:17), and an indication that he will shortly see that God can really do what He says and can empty the lands of both his enemies, something which will also be a warning to him, for what can be done to them can also be done to him.

Who then was this son who would act as a sign in this way? A number of suggestions have been made of which we will select the three most prominent.

1) It was a child to be born of the royal house, or of Isaiah’s wife, whose very birth and weaning would act as a sign.

2) It was any child born at the time, the emphasis being on the fact that before it was weaned what God had said would happen.

3) It was the child described in Mat 9:6-7, the coming One Who would be greater than David, Who would be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, and would rule over the whole world.

In order to decide which one was meant we must consider the context. In context God had offered to keep Ahaz safe under his protection, and in order to give him assurance in the face of what lay before him, had offered to give him a sign of miraculous proportions (an example of which we find later on when the sun goes back ten degrees under Hezekiah – Isa 38:5-8). God says, ‘Ask a sign of YHWH, whether it be as high as Heaven or as deep as Sheol’ (Isa 7:11). This was an offer which Ahaz suavely rejected, because he preferred to look to the King of Assyria. But if only he had accepted it in faith this sign once given would have been the sign that Ahaz would be ‘established’. It was thus related not only to the deliverance from the current problem, but also to the guaranteeing of the future establishment of the house of David through the line of Ahaz, protecting him from all comers.

And it is on his refusal to respond to God’s offer that God says that He will nevertheless give him a sign, but that this time it will be a sign that he will not like. Rather than being a sign of God’s help and protection, it will be the sign of the king of Assyria coming on him, (thus he will not be established). And the sign will be ‘that the coming child will be born of an ‘almah’.

The first thing that must be said about these words is that it suggests in context that God intends to bring before him a sign that will indeed be one of miraculous proportions, ‘as high as Heaven or as deep as Sheol’, in accordance with what He has previously described, even though it is one which will not be of benefit to him at all. For only such a sign could demonstrate the certainty that the future of the house of Ahaz was no longer ensured. And if that was to be so then only a virgin birth would fit the bill. It was the virgin birth of the Coming One that guaranteed that He would not be of Ahaz’ house, and that, instead of that being so, God Himself would have stepped in, in the production of a royal child.

1) The suggestion that it refers to a child to be born of the royal house, or of Isaiah’s wife, whose very birth would act as a sign.

The birth of a son to the royal house in the normal course of events (Hezekiah had already been born) or to the prophetess could hardly have been such a sign as the Lord has described above. For one thing no one would have believed that the child was born of a virgin. And indeed it was not possible for the prophetess who was no longer a ‘virgin’ to produce a child in this way. It is true the prophetess bears two sons, both of whom by their names will be signs to Judah/Israel, as would their father (Isa 8:18), but note that while the prophetess was mentioned earlier in respect of one of the sons (Isa 8:3), she is not mentioned in Isa 8:18 where we have the mention of the ‘signs and portents’ referring to both sons and their father. There is therefore no emphasis on it being the prophetess who bears both sons who were ‘signs and portents in Israel’ (along with their father) even though she had in fact done so. The emphasis here is on the father.

However, the argument is often that that is the point. The emphasis is in fact on her bearing one of the sons, Maher-shalal-hash-baz (Isa 8:3), who will be a sign of the devastation of the two kings, something which in Isa 7:16 was to be gathered from the sign of the ‘almah with child. But here we should note that in Isa 8:3 this is not in fact specifically described as a sign. It is rather seen as a prophetic acting out of what was to be, which is not quite the same thing. Of course we may accept that it was an indication of what was to be, and in that sense a sign. But it was equally certainly not the kind of sign that the Lord had originally spoken of, a sign of startling proportions. Nor is it said to relate to the now greater matters that were involved, that Ahaz’s house would no longer be established, and that the king of Assyria was about to descend on him and his land because he had forfeited the Lord’s protection.

We may therefore justifiably see the birth of Maher-shalal-hash-baz as a partial sign, but not as the great sign. The child’s birth, through the name given to him, was indeed a sign that the kings would be destroyed from their lands within a short while, but that was all that he is described as being. But he was not born of an ‘almah, and he is not said to be a sign of the larger matter in hand, the rejection of the house of Ahaz as manifested by the coming of Assyria and devastation of Judah. Nor is he said to be the sign of the coming of a king who would achieve what Ahaz has failed to achieve (Isa 9:7), that is, of the fulfilment of the promises to the house of David. (A fact that will later be made even clearer by the rejection of his son Hezekiah and his seed – Isa 39:5-7). The same problems as these lie with any attempt to relate the birth of the child to the birth of any child in the house of Ahaz. The birth of such a child would hardly rank as an unusual sign, and would be even less significant than that born to the prophetess. For we must remember that the heir, Hezekiah, had already been born before this happened.

2) The suggestion that it refers to any child born at the time the emphasis being on the fact that before it was weaned what God had said would happen.

This suffers from even more disadvantages than the first, for it does not even have the partial support in context that the first interpretation has when related to the prophetess. It is fine as an evidence of how short a time it will be before both of Ahaz’s opponents are devastated, but it has nothing to say about the non-establishment of the house of Ahaz or of the coming of the king of Assyria, nor could it possibly be seen as in any way parallel with the kind of sign that the Lord had spoken about. For the truth is that if the Lord made His great declaration about ‘a sign almost as beyond the conception of man as it could possibly be’, and then gave one which was merely a birth in the usual run of things, it would appear to all that all that He had offered was a damp squib.

And this is especially so because in the past He had specialised in special births in that a number of past ‘greats’ had been born miraculously (even though not from an ‘almah), and almost with the same words. Thus Isaac was born ‘miraculously’ (Gen 18:10-11; Gen 18:14; Gen 21:2 – ‘conceived and bore a son’), Samson was born ‘miraculously’ (Jdg 13:3 – ‘will conceive and bear a son’), Samuel was born ‘miraculously’ (1Sa 1:5; 1Sa 1:20 – ‘conceived and bore a son’). And all these births would be engraved on Israelite hearts. But there is no suggestion that they were born of ‘almah’s, nor was the child of the prophetess in fact born ‘miraculously’, even though she ‘conceived and bore a son’. Indeed she had already previously had another son. It will be noted that the only exact parallel to ‘ will conceive and bear a son’ in the whole of the Old Testament is Jdg 13:3; Jdg 13:5; Jdg 13:7, and that of a birth that was certainly unusual and unexpected.

3) The suggestion that it refers to the child described in Isa 9:6-7, the coming One Who would be greater than David, Who would be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, and would rule over the whole world, thus indicating that He would be miraculously born of an ‘almah (parthenos, virgin).

There can be no question that this suggestion of the virgin birth of the coming hope of the house of David has the most going for it from an Israelite’s point of view and from the point of view of the context. It would tie in with the past history of conceiving and bearing a ‘miraculous child’ as being signs to Israel. It would tie in with the Lord’s promise that He would give a remarkable miraculous sign. It would tie in with the following description of the ‘birth of a child’ in Isa 9:6. It would give full weight to the use of ‘almah. It would explain why it demonstrated that ‘God is with us’. It would confirm that the hope of the house of David was indeed coming, in spite of present appearances, even though Ahaz’ house would be excluded. And in the context of Matthew it would explain why He would be able to save His people from their sins.

And as no one knew when the child would be born (it could be at any time) the indication that both kings would be devastated before the child could possibly grow to boyhood was a sufficient indicator of time, especially when associated with the actual example of the birth of the son to the prophetess. Indeed the only question that it might raise is, how could such a birth in the future possibly be a sign to Ahaz?

The answer to this question lies in the nature of the sign. It should be noted that it was no longer intended to be a sign to Ahaz that he was to be established (Isa 7:9). But what it certainly was, was a sign of the fact that he would not be established, and while that did not really require a great present miracle at the time then current, God was determined that the one who had refused a miraculous sign would be given a miraculous sign which would demonstrate the fact in an inescapable way. Ahaz lived at a time when all hopes were on the coming of the future triumphant son of David, who would be of the line of David, and who would rule the world (Psalms 2). And Ahaz would pride himself in the fact that it would be of his seed. Thus to inform Ahaz that he was now receiving God’s words as a sign that this coming David would actually in fact be born of a virgin, and not be of his seed, was indeed a sign that he would not be established, and was an unwelcome sign indeed. It was an indication vouchsafed by the word of YHWH that the future throne would go to one not born of Ahaz’s seed. The sign was thus now not a matter of when the child would be born, but of what his birth would signify as regards the hopes for the future. Furthermore we have a good example in the past of precisely such an idea of a sign that was given as a sign to its recipient, with the actual working out of the sign being a future event. For such an example see Exo 3:12. There the sign that Moses had been sent would be the fact that the people to whom he went would one day ‘serve God on this mountain’. The sign was a promise of a better future that had to be believed in, and that they could hold on to, and in which they had to continue to believe. It was a sign that had to be accepted on the basis of God’s promise. It was a sign of a future which would actually be the result of their response of faith, just as this sign in Isa 7:14 was a similar promise of a better future in which the people were called on to believe, in contrast to Ahaz (Isa 7:9).

Strictly speaking in fact Ahaz did not want or merit a sign. He had refused it. He had already made up his mind to look to Assyria. Thus the point here is that he was now to receive a verbal sign that he did not want, which demonstrated the very opposite of what the original promised sign would have indicated. And that sign was God’s own word that the Coming One would now be born of a virgin, and not of the seed of Ahaz. It demonstrated his rejection by God. Meanwhile Israel could indeed be confident that one day it would receive its promised king Whose coming would prove that God was with them, but they would now know that He would not be born of the seed of Ahaz, but would rather be born of a virgin. We should also note that while this might cause problems to our scientific age, it would have caused no problems to Israelites, nor indeed to Matthew. They would not be looking for some interpretation that avoided the ‘miraculous’. They would have seen no difficulty in the idea of the Creator bringing about a virgin birth.

This being so it is quite reasonable to see that to Matthew Isaiah was seen as promising that the great Son of David would be born of a virgin, and that it therefore directly related to what had happened in the case of Jesus, Who, as that Son of David had indeed been born of a virgin. He thus saw His birth from a virgin as ‘filling in full’ the prophecy which had only partly been fulfilled by Maher-shalal-hash-baz.

End of EXCURSUS.

EXCURSUS on Isa 7:14 .

Who then was this son who would act as a sign in this way? A number of suggestions have been made of which we will select the three most prominent.

1) It was a child to be born of the royal house, or of Isaiah’s wife, whose very birth and weaning would act as a sign.

2) It was any child born at the time, the emphasis being on the fact that before it was weaned what God had said would happen.

In order to decide which one was meant we must consider the context. In context God had offered to keep Ahaz safe under his protection, and in order to give him assurance in the face of what lay before him, had offered to give him a sign of miraculous proportions (an example of which we find later on when the sun goes back ten degrees under Hezekiah – Isa 38:5-8). God says, ‘Ask a sign of YHWH, whether it be as high as Heaven or as deep as Sheol’ (Mat 7:11). This was an offer which Ahaz suavely rejected, because he preferred to look to the King of Assyria. But if only he had accepted it in faith this sign once given would have been the sign that Ahaz would be ‘established’. It was thus related not only to the deliverance from the current problem, but also to the guaranteeing of the future establishment of the house of David through the line of Ahaz, protecting him from all comers.

1) The suggestion that it refers to a child to be born of the royal house, or of Isaiah’s wife, whose very birth would act as a sign.

The birth of a son to the royal house in the normal course of events (Hezekiah had already been born) or to the prophetess could hardly have been such a sign as the Lord has described above. For one thing no one would have believed that the child was born of a virgin. And indeed it was not possible for the prophetess who was no longer a ‘virgin’ to produce a child in this way. It is true the prophetess bears two sons, both of whom by their names will be signs to Judah/Israel, as would their father (Mat 8:18), but note that while the prophetess was mentioned earlier in respect of one of the sons (Mat 8:3), she is not mentioned in Mat 1:18 where we have the mention of the ‘signs and portents’ referring to both sons and their father. There is therefore no emphasis on it being the prophetess who bears both sons who were ‘signs and portents in Israel’ (along with their father) even though she had in fact done so. The emphasis here is on the father.

However, the argument is often that that is the point. The emphasis is in fact on her bearing one of the sons, Maher-shalal-hash-baz (Mat 8:3), who will be a sign of the devastation of the two kings, something which in Mat 7:16 was to be gathered from the sign of the ‘almah with child. But here we should note that in Mat 8:3 this is not in fact specifically described as a sign. It is rather seen as a prophetic acting out of what was to be, which is not quite the same thing. Of course we may accept that it was an indication of what was to be, and in that sense a sign. But it was equally certainly not the kind of sign that the Lord had originally spoken of, a sign of startling proportions. Nor is it said to relate to the now greater matters that were involved, that Ahaz’s house would no longer be established, and that the king of Assyria was about to descend on him and his land because he had forfeited the Lord’s protection.

2) The suggestion that it refers to any child born at the time the emphasis being on the fact that before it was weaned what God had said would happen.

There can be no question that this suggestion of the virgin birth of the coming hope of the house of David has the most going for it from an Israelite’s point of view and from the point of view of the context. It would tie in with the past history of conceiving and bearing a ‘miraculous child’ as being signs to Israel. It would tie in with the Lord’s promise that He would give a remarkable miraculous sign. It would tie in with the following description of the ‘birth of a child’ in Mat 9:6. It would give full weight to the use of ‘almah. It would explain why it demonstrated that ‘God is with us’. It would confirm that the hope of the house of David was indeed coming, in spite of present appearances, even though Ahaz’ house would be excluded. And in the context of Matthew it would explain why He would be able to save His people from their sins.

The answer to this question lies in the nature of the sign. It should be noted that it was no longer intended to be a sign to Ahaz that he was to be established (Mat 7:9). But what it certainly was, was a sign of the fact that he would not be established, and while that did not really require a great present miracle at the time then current, God was determined that the one who had refused a miraculous sign would be given a miraculous sign which would demonstrate the fact in an inescapable way. Ahaz lived at a time when all hopes were on the coming of the future triumphant son of David, who would be of the line of David, and who would rule the world (Psalms 2). And Ahaz would pride himself in the fact that it would be of his seed. Thus to inform Ahaz that he was now receiving God’s words as a sign that this coming David would actually in fact be born of a virgin, and not be of his seed, was indeed a sign that he would not be established, and was an unwelcome sign indeed. It was an indication vouchsafed by the word of YHWH that the future throne would go to one not born of Ahaz’s seed. The sign was thus now not a matter of when the child would be born, but of what his birth would signify as regards the hopes for the future. Furthermore we have a good example in the past of precisely such an idea of a sign that was given as a sign to its recipient, with the actual working out of the sign being a future event. For such an example see Exo 3:12. There the sign that Moses had been sent would be the fact that the people to whom he went would one day ‘serve God on this mountain’. The sign was a promise of a better future that had to be believed in, and that they could hold on to, and in which they had to continue to believe. It was a sign that had to be accepted on the basis of God’s promise. It was a sign of a future which would actually be the result of their response of faith, just as this sign in Isa 7:14 was a similar promise of a better future in which the people were called on to believe, in contrast to Ahaz (Isa 7:9).

End of EXCURSUS.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Mat 1:23. Behold, a virgin, &c. To what we have said on this prophesy in its proper place, Isa 7:14 may now be added, that it is not possible to understand it of any other persons than of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin, in whom alone it is completely and literally fulfilled: but Bishop Chandler has, with so much learning and ability, explained this text to the satisfaction of all rational persons, that I have nothing more to do than to refer my readers to the 237th and following pages of his Defence of Christianity. See also Green’s fourth letter to Mr. Collins, and Usher’s Annals, A.M. 3262. The last clause of this verse seems to supply us with a full proof that St. Matthew wrote his Gospel in Greek, and not in Hebrew or Syriac, as many writers have supposed.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

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.

It is always blessed when we are enabled by the Spirit’s teaching, to find out the beautiful correspondence between one scripture and another, upon the same subject; for then we behold how one explains the other. Thus, as in this instance. The Prophet Isaiah, more than seven hundred years before the coming of Christ, declared the miraculous impregnation of a virgin: and at the same time told what the name of the son she should conceive and bring forth, should be called, in proof of the mysterious union of his nature, of GOD and man, in one person. See Isa 7:14 . Now here the event is accomplished, and the Evangelist refers back to that scripture in proof. Think, Reader, of the wonderful correspondence! Who but GOD could have foretold? What power less than God, could have brought it to pass? And I beg the Reader to remark yet further; everything in the prediction was mysterious. That a virgin should conceive; and that a virgin should bring forth a Son. For the mysterious part was that she continued in both still a virgin. For there would have been nothing mysterious or uncommon, that a virgin should conceive, if the ordinary means for conception had been used. But the very prophecy implied what the fact proved, that it was without human means the virgin conceived; and when she brought forth her son, still she remained a virgin. And hence the grand infinite importance of the whole design; to accomplish redemption. And here I beg the Reader to ponder well the subject, and then let him with me humbly enquire, (for I do not presume to speak decidedly upon the subject) was not all this preached by the Holy GHOST to the Church, in that law of Moses: Whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and beast, it is mine. Exo 13:2 . I humbly ask this question; was not this preaching CHRIST, at every birth of the first-born? And was not this law enjoined wholly on CHRIST’s account? See then, Reader, if so, how JEHOVAH had an eye all along to this one great and glorious event. And then think, how precious the event of CHRIST’S incarnation ought to be in our eye! But I beg to make one observation more on this interesting passage. Though the LORD commanded the first-born, both of man and beast, to be sanctified to him, as a type of Jesus; yet, strictly and properly speaking, the opening of the womb at the birth cannot be called the first opening, either in man or beast. This must have taken place before. But, in the instance of Christ, and him only, it was strictly and properly so. He, and he alone, opened the womb. So that here, as in all other points, Jesus must have the pre-eminence. The types of Him could come no nearer in resemblance, than what is said of them. But CHRIST, miraculously conceived and miraculously born, truly and properly, in both acts, conception and birth, opened the womb of the virgin; as in the great work of redemption afterwards by his resurrection, he opened the womb of the earth. So that it was CHRIST, and CHRIST only, of whom JEHOVAH spake in all those scriptures, which declared, that whatsoever opened the womb, should be sanctified to the Lord. Hence He, and He only, became the true Nazarite to GOD. Oh! what beauties are there in the scriptures of our GOD! And what sweet, soul satisfying evidences do they bring with them, at the same time of the truth of our most holy faith. Reader! I pray you to be very cheery of them, in the present day of rebuke and blasphemy; and beg of GOD the HOLY GHOST, to enable you to bind them as frontlets between your eyes. They are always precious to a believer. And they will be eminently so, if I greatly mistake not, to the rising generation, in proportion as those glorious truths, in this land, will be less and less regarded. See Joh 17:19 ; Luk 1:35 ; Lev 27:26 ; Num 3:13 ; Luk 2:23 , etc. Luk 18:8 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

23 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.

Ver. 23. Behold, a virgin, &c. ] , that Virgin, , that famous Virgin foretold, Isa 7:14 . That he should be the seed of the woman was made known to Adam; but not of what nation till Abraham, nor of what tribe till Jacob, nor of what sex till David, nor whether born of a Virgin till Isaiah. Thus by degrees was that great mystery of godliness revealed to mankind. If any Jew object, saith Chrysostom, how could a Virgin bring forth Dic ei, quomodo peperit sterilis et vetula? Ask him, how could Sarah, when old and barren, bear a child? The bees have young, yet know not marriage. The Phoenix, they say, hath no parents. This headstone of the corner was cut out of the mountain without hands; Dan 2:34 this flower of the field, this rose of Sharon, Son 2:1 hath Heaven for his father, and earth for his mother. Was it not as easy to frame this second Adam in the womb, as that first Adam out of the mire? Herein see a miracle of mercy, that the incomprehensible God, that circle (whose centre is everywhere, whose circumference nowhere), should be circled and cooped up for nine months together in the narrow womb of a pure Virgin.

And shall bring forth a Son ] Who in the birth opened the womb, Luk 2:21-22 , and so put her to pain likely, as other women. He hid the glory of his eternal nativity under a mean and temporary birth to purchase for us a heavenly and eternal birth. Whether the blessed Virgin were Deipara, the Mother of God, raised great storms in the Council of Ephesus, and came to commotions in the secular part, and excommunications among the Bishops-inasmuch as the Emperor declared both sides heretics, -but forasmuch as she brought forth a Son that was God, we doubt not to style her the Mother of God; not Moll, God’s maid, as one hath lately slandered some of us in print. At Rome (it is said) was seen, at the same time, about the sun, the likeness of a woman carrying a child in her arms: and a voice heard, Pan, the great god, is now about to be born, &c.

And they shall call his name Immanuel, &c. ] By a wonderful and unsearchable union: the manner whereof is to be believed, not discussed; admired, not pried into: personal it is, yet not of persons: of natures, and yet not natural. As a soul and body are one man; so God and man are one person, saith Athanasius. And as every believer that is born of God, saith another, remains the same entire person that he was before, receiving nevertheless into him a divine nature which before he had not; so Immanuel, continuing the same perfect person which he had been from eternity, assumeth nevertheless a human nature which before he had not, to be born within his person for ever. This is so much the more wonderful, because the very angels (which are far greater in glory than man) are not able to abide the presence of God,Isa 6:2Isa 6:2 . But this is our ladder of ascension to God, Joh 3:13 . Faith first lays hold upon Christ as a man; and thereby, as by a mean, makes way to God, and embraceth the Godhead, which is of itself a consuming fire. And whereas sin is a partition wall of our own making, denying us access, Eph 2:14 ; God is now with us: and in Christ “we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.” Christ’s humanity serves as a screen to save us from those everlasting burnings; and as a conduit to derive upon us from the Godhead all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, Eph 1:3 : if any Assyrian invade us, we may cry, as they of old, “The stretching out of his wings doth fill thy land, O Immanuel,” Isa 8:8 , and we shall have help.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

23. ] Such is the rendering of the LXX. The Hebrew word is the more general term . and is translated by Aquil., Symm., and Theodot. . De Wette cites the LXX rendering as a proof that the prophecy was then understood of the Messiah. But is it not much more probable that Aquila and the others rendered it to avoid this application? Can it be shewn that the birth of the Messiah from a was matter of previous expectation? Certainly Pearson (on the Creed, art. iii.) fails to substantiate this.

] This indefinite plural is surely not without meaning here. Men shall call i.e. it shall be a name by which He shall be called one of his appellations. The change of person from , which could not well have been cited here, seems to shew, both that the prophecy had a literal fulfilment at the time, and that it is here quoted in a form suited to its greater and final fulfilment. The Hebrew has , ‘ thou shalt call ’ (fem.).

] = , God ( is ) with us. In Isaiah, prophetic primarily of deliverance from the then impending war; but also of final and glorious deliverance by the manifestation of God in the flesh.

. ] This addition is by some used to shew that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Greek, not in Hebrew, in which it would not be likely to occur. On the other hand, it is said, it might have been inserted by the person who translated the Gospel into Greek. See Prolegomena, and Joh 4:25 .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

a virgin. Quoted from Isa 7:13-15. See the notes there. Greek. parthenos, which settles the meaning of the word in Isa 7:14. See

Emmanuel. Occurs only in Matt. See App-98.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

23. ] Such is the rendering of the LXX. The Hebrew word is the more general term . and is translated by Aquil., Symm., and Theodot. . De Wette cites the LXX rendering as a proof that the prophecy was then understood of the Messiah. But is it not much more probable that Aquila and the others rendered it to avoid this application? Can it be shewn that the birth of the Messiah from a was matter of previous expectation? Certainly Pearson (on the Creed, art. iii.) fails to substantiate this.

] This indefinite plural is surely not without meaning here. Men shall call-i.e. it shall be a name by which He shall be called-one of his appellations. The change of person from , which could not well have been cited here, seems to shew, both that the prophecy had a literal fulfilment at the time, and that it is here quoted in a form suited to its greater and final fulfilment. The Hebrew has , thou shalt call (fem.).

] = , God (is) with us. In Isaiah, prophetic primarily of deliverance from the then impending war; but also of final and glorious deliverance by the manifestation of God in the flesh.

.] This addition is by some used to shew that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Greek, not in Hebrew, in which it would not be likely to occur. On the other hand, it is said, it might have been inserted by the person who translated the Gospel into Greek. See Prolegomena, and Joh 4:25.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Mat 1:23. , -Behold the virgin shall have in her womb [or conceive], and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel.-The LXX. render Isa 7:14, thus- , …-Behold the virgin shall conceive in her womb a Son, and thou shalt call, etc.-, Behold!)-a particle especially adapted for pointing out a Sign.-See Isa 7:14.- , the virgin) In the original Hebrew, the word employed is ;[63] and denotes a virgin;[64] whether you derive it from ,[65] so that it may be one who has escaped the notice of man,[66] who has not been known by man (cf. Mat 1:25, and Luk 1:34), for (to be hidden, to lie hid, to escape the notice of), and (to know, etc.), are opposed to each other, both in their general signification, as in Lev 5:3-4, and also in this special one: or whether (the verb cognate with which the Syriac translator has employed to represent [67] in Rev 14:18), signify , in the flower of her age. The Hebrew article (the), prefixed in the original to the word under consideration (concerning which article cf. Gnomon on ch. Mat 18:17), points out a particular individual visible on the mirror of Divine prescience. For the prophet is speaking of a Sign, and introduces it by the word Behold, and then immediately addresses the Virgin herself, with the words, THOU shalt call, etc. Isaiah indicates, in the first instance, some woman who lived at the time, and whose natural fecundity was considered doubtful, who, from a virgin, was to become a mother, and that of a son: she, however, as the sublimity of the prophets words clearly show, was a type of that Virgin, who, still a virgin, brought forth the Messiah; so that the force of the Sign was twofold, applying to that which was close at hand, and to that which was far distant in the future.-See Alexander More.[68] The virginity of our Lords Mother is not fully proved by the words of the prophet taken alone; but the manifestation of its fulfilment casts a radiance back on the prophecy, and discloses its full meaning.-, a Son) sc. the Messiah, to whom the land of Israel belongs.-See Isa 8:8.-, THEY shall call) Both the Hebrew and the LXX. have Thou shalt call, i.e., THOU Virgin-Mother-THOU shalt call, occurs also in Mat 1:21, addressed to Joseph: whence is now substituted THEY shall call, i.e., all, thenceforth. The angel says to Mary, in Luk 1:28, The Lord is with THEE. Not one or the other of His parents however, but all who call upon His name, say, with us.-Cf. Luk 1:54.-Those words deserve particular attention in which the writers of the New Testament differ from the LXX., or even from the Hebrew.- , the name) This does not mean the name actually given at circumcision, but yet the true name (cf. Isa 9:5), aye, the proper name too, by which he is called, even by his parents (cf. Isa 8:8), and which is even especially proper to Him, inasmuch as it is synonymous with the name Jesus.-See an example of synonymous names in the note on Mat 1:8. Many of the faithful actually address the Saviour by the name of EMMANUEL, as a proper name, though it would have been less suitable in Jesus to call Himself God-with-us.- , -which is, being interpreted, God with us). This interpretation of a Hebrew name shows, that St Matthew wrote in Greek. Such interpretations subjoined to Hebrew words show that, the writers of the New Testament do not absolutely require that the reader of Holy Scripture should be acquainted with Hebrew. The Son of Sirach also uses the word (to interpret) in his preface. The name God-with-us, in itself, so far as it involves an entire assertion, is not necessarily a Divine name (See Hiller Onomasticon Sacrum, p. 848); and it was, therefore, given also to a boy who was born in the time of Isaiah; and the same is the case with the name Jesus: but in the sense in which each of them applies exclusively to Christ, it signifies or God-Man. For the union of the Divine and human natures in Christ is the foundation of the union of God with men, nor can any one consider the latter apart from the former, especially when treating of the birth of Christ.

[63] is with the article prefixed.-(I. B.)

[64] The ancient version, which gave a different rendering, did so for party purposes, while the LXX., who could have no such motive, render it virgin in the very passage where it must, to their minds, have occasioned a difficulty. S. P. TREGELLES.-(I. B.)

[65] to hide, to conceal: the Niphal of which is -to be hidden, to lie hid.-(I. B.)

[66] Qu latuit virum.-(I. B.)

[67] , is fully ripe.-(I. B.)

[68] ALEXANDER MORE (or MORUS) was born A.D. 1616, at Castres, in the south of France, where his father, a Scotchman by birth, was Principal of a Protestant college. He was a man of considerable talents and great attainments. He became professor of Greek at Geneva when only twenty years of age, and successively occupied other professorial chairs there and else where. He died at Paris in 1670.-(I. B.)

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

a virgin: Isa 7:14

they shall call his name: or, his name shall be called

Emmanuel: Isa 7:14, Isa 8:8, Immanuel

God: Mat 28:20, Psa 46:7, Psa 46:11, Isa 8:8-10, Isa 9:6, Isa 9:7, Isa 12:2, Joh 1:14, Act 18:9, Rom 1:3, Rom 1:4, Rom 9:5, 2Co 5:19, 1Ti 3:16, 2Ti 4:17, 2Ti 4:22

Reciprocal: Gen 3:15 – her seed Gen 3:20 – Adam Gen 21:22 – God Gen 39:2 – the Lord Exo 3:13 – What is his name Exo 23:21 – my name Exo 33:16 – in that Num 14:9 – the Lord Num 23:21 – the Lord Deu 32:3 – Because Jos 22:31 – the Lord is Jdg 1:19 – the Lord Jdg 6:12 – The Lord 1Sa 3:19 – the Lord 1Sa 10:7 – God 1Sa 16:18 – the Lord 1Sa 18:14 – the Lord 1Ki 1:37 – As the 1Ki 8:57 – General 2Ki 18:7 – And the Lord 1Ch 22:11 – the Lord 2Ch 17:3 – the Lord 2Ch 20:17 – for the Lord Psa 14:5 – God Psa 23:4 – for thou Psa 42:5 – for the help Psa 72:17 – His name Psa 73:23 – Nevertheless Psa 119:151 – near Pro 18:10 – name Isa 8:10 – for God Isa 35:8 – but it shall be for those Isa 41:4 – with the Isa 43:2 – I will be Isa 45:15 – O God Jer 30:11 – I am Jer 46:28 – for I am Eze 34:30 – General Amo 5:14 – and so Hag 1:13 – I am Zec 12:8 – the house Zec 13:7 – the man Zec 14:9 – and Mar 12:6 – one Mar 12:37 – and whence Luk 1:27 – General Luk 1:31 – thou Luk 20:44 – how Joh 3:17 – but Act 18:10 – I am Rom 15:33 – be 1Co 15:47 – the Lord 2Co 13:11 – with Gal 4:4 – of a Phi 2:6 – in Phi 4:9 – with Col 2:9 – in 2Th 3:16 – The Lord be 1Ti 2:5 – the man Heb 1:8 – O God Jam 2:7 – worthy

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

THE DIVINE PRESENCE

They shall call His Name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

Mat 1:23

This glorious statement is made on the basis of a glorious prophecy which Isaiah uttered at an important era in Jewish history (Isa 7:14). The name of Jesus was exceedingly wonderfulEmmanuel, God with us.

I. With us in human form.This is a mystery which no created mind can explain; yet it is no myth soever: it is a fact as sublime as it is mysterious. Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh. And there was absolute necessity for this. Man naturally craves for a God. In Emmanuel there is all that man yearns for (Exo 33:18; St. Joh 14:8-9). Thus the infinite Jehovah has subjected Himself to finite laws for this essential purpose. This is life eternal, to know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent.

II. With us in Divine sympathy.And sympathy is that which man needs next to God Himself. This also is to be found in Jesus; indeed, this was one prime reason why He became incarnate (Heb 2:16-18). His path in life was accordingly made as rough as ours; His foes were as many as ours; His temptations were as fierce as ours; and for three-and-thirty years His cup of sorrow was as full and bitter as ours. All this became Him (Heb 2:10-13).

III. With us in redeeming love.All men are sinners, and no man can redeem his own soul. God must provide Himself a lamb for a burnt-offering; and He did this by sending Jesus, and Jesus was willing to do His Fathers will.

IV. With us in Heavenly glory.His own words overflow with consolation and hope: Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me; for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world. Whatever He is in person, and whatever in bliss, His redeemed will share with Him.

Illustrations

(1) In Legh Richmonds story of The Young Cottager, in his Annals of the Poor, he tells how, when he visited the dying girl, he said to her: My child Where is your hope? She lifted up her finger, pointed to heaven, and then directed the same downward to her own heart, saying successively as she did so, Christ there, and Christ here. These words, accompanied by the action, spoke her meaning more solemnly than can easily be conceived. She realised the abiding Presence of Christ.

(2) Simonides, a heathen poet, being asked by Hiero, King of Syracuse, What is God? desired a day to think upon it. At its end, he desired two. Then begged for four. The king inquired the reason. The poet replied, The more I think of God, He is still the more unknown to me. But Christ is Emmanuel, God with us.

(SECOND OUTLINE)

A NAME OF COMFORT

If we know anything of Jesus and His love, it is not by chance such knowledge has come. When we were enrolled under Christs banner at the Font, it was Gods hand that led us there. When we knelt at a mothers knee, and lisped our earliest petitions to the throne of grace, it was Gods voice that prompted those prayers. In the hour of Confirmationor the sacred season of our first Communionit was not chance, but God who was leading us on. And it is the same all through life. The word Emmanuel is a Hebrew one, and expresses the double nature of Christ. What a comforting word! An ever-present God always with us.

I. In poverty and obscurity.When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, what humble surroundings were His! Christs coming down to earth has sanctified poverty and obscurity. Though He was rich yet for our sakes He became poor, and He has thus taught us that earthly position and wealth are as nothing in His sight, unless there be true goodness as well.

II. In our work and labour.When Jesus lived on earth, His was a hard and busy life. Christs coming has also sanctified toil. He is with us in our labour, whatever it may be. And there is no disgrace in being a working-manwhether we toil with our hands or our head. The busiest workers are always the happiest.

III. In our joys and sorrows.When Jesus dwelt among us, we know how ready He was to rejoice with mankind in their happiness, and to weep with them in their sorrow. The Saviours life on earth teaches us that religion need not make us grave and gloomy. There is such a thing as innocent Christian enjoyment, and Christ has given the sanction of His presence to every pleasure and happiness that is without sin. There are enough dark days in life without increasing their number, and Christ meant His followers to get all the sunshine and brightness possible.

IV. In our Christian warfare.As a man Jesus knew what temptation meant. Nowas GodHe looks down from above, and ever liveth to make intercession for us. How cheering this is, to have God with us in all our struggles and difficulties.

Rev. Philip Neale.

Illustrations

(1) There is a touching incident recorded of a Highland chief who was fighting bravely in the battle of Prestonpans. In the midst of the struggle he fell mortally wounded. And when his soldiers saw what had happened and that their chief had fallen, the clan began to waver and gave the enemy an advantage. Badly wounded though he was, the old chieftain noticed this, and raising himself up, exclaimed, I am not dead, but looking on to see my warriors do their duty. And these stirring words from the dying man revived the sinking courage of the brave Highlanders. There is a more powerful charm than this on the great battlefield of life. It is Emmanuel, God with us, an ever-present Saviour, watching over us as we fight under His banner, looking on to see His warriors do their duty.

(2) The fact of our Lords abiding presence ought to make us good to each other. Look on your fellow-men, and learn from the Incarnation to respect man, every man, as wearing the flesh which Jesus wears. Learn to look upon all men as brethren, who have a claim upon us in their need. There is a noble family in Italy whose name of Frangipanni means breakers of bread, that is, for the poor. We who are bound together in one family with Him who gives us our daily bread, not only bread for the body, but bread for the soul, should all be breakers of bread with our brethren, helping those who have need to a share of our blessings; for thus alone can we give something to Him who freely giveth all thingsour Emmanuel, God with us.

(THIRD OUTLINE)

TRUTH STATED AND APPLIED

I. The truth stated.The word Godwhat does it mean? God is; He exists, and God is good; His power is good, His righteousness is good, all He does is goodsupremely good. Even when He gives sorrows His chastisements are blessings in disguise. Let men say what they will, there is a God; and we are not mistaken about it. It is the fool who pleads the contrary. Everything that God has made speaks and says there is a God. At night, looking at the awful lightnings flashing and at all the heavenly host, can you in your hearts say there is no God? And this God is with us. It does not simply mean that God is present with us; it means more than that: it means God is with us to share with us, to partake with us in the closest way. Strength is with us, love is with us, happiness is with us, for God is with us. To bring out the full meaning and truth of these words we need to look at the prophecy (Isaiah 7). Butter and honey shall He eat, that He may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. That expression is intended to point out the fact that it shall be a real, human Child, not a child of an angels nature, not a child that can live on angels food, but a Child that shall be fed on butter and honey. All this was fulfilled when Jesus Christ was born. What a wonderful illustration of Gods condescending grace that He should come thus to live with us!

II. The truth applied.It is a truth that will apply to seekers, if they really seek and want to understand with all their heart. They have this truth for their own. They have been seeking for years, and yet they have not found it. How strange it is! There are some whom God loves with an everlasting love and who love Christ; but they do not feel as if they can grasp such a wonderful truth as thisthat God is with us. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus wept and lamented that Jesus Christ was gone, and all the while He was talking to them. You say, Where is God? He is with us. Open, O God, the eyes of Thy blind children! Let every one believe and take hold of the fact that God is with us. The same truth of the abiding Presence of Christ can be applied to all missionary workers, whether (a) in the foreign field or (b) amongst the slums of our own homeland.

Illustrations

(1) When Napoleon was on one of his voyages to Egypt, as he was pacing up and down the deck one night, he overheard two men discussing about Gods existence. One affirmed that there was a God; the other denied it. Napoleon addressed them and, pointing to the firmament of heaven, said, Who made that? John Duncan, one of the most original thinkers the world ever saw, at one time thought there was no God, thinking that which was, to be a mystery. Ah, this thought takes away all the meaning from history, from creation, from man, and even from morality. When a man feels that sin offends nobody, that there is no Being above him called God, that he is answerable to no human tribunal about it, then that man will not think much about sin. Oh, it is a dismal creed, but even John Duncan had it. Sometimes God makes men pray before they believe in a God! And so John Duncan prayed and prayed, and suddenly the thought came like a flash of electricity, and he tells us that on the night when he thus thought he danced with delight. He said, There is a God! There is a God! There is a God!

(2) There is a passage in Livingstones journal about the doctrine of Christ and Gods presence with missionaries. How soon I shall be called before God I know not. O Jesus, grant me resignation to Thy will. On Thy word I lean. Wilt Thou permit me to plead for Africa, because it is Thine? See, O God, how the heathen rise up against me as they used to do against Thy Son. I trust in Thee. Thou givest wisdom to all who ask; give it to me, my Father! Oh, be gracious, and all our sins do Thou blot out. I cast myself and all my cares down at Thy feet. They will not furnish me with more than two guns. I leave all my friends in the hands of Christ.Evening: Felt much turmoil of spirit in having all my plans knocked on the head by savages; but I know that Jesus came and spoke to His disciples, saying, All power is given unto Me, in heaven and in earth; go ye, therefore, and teach all nations. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. I am with youit is the word of a gentleman. I will not cross furtively by night; it will appear like flight, and shall I fly? I will take observations of longitude and latitude. I feel calm in the Lord God. Could we find a grander statement in the whole annals of Christian heroism than this statement, which he never knew anybody would read?

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

1:23

Verse 23. The angel then quoted the prophecy to which he had referred which is in Isa 7:14, The thing of special Importance is that the child was to be born of a virgin, an event that could not occur by the laws of natural reproduction alone. God with us. This signifies that since the body of this child was both divine and human, it meant that It would be virtually the presence of God with man, hence he was to be called by the name of Emmanuel which has that meaning.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

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.

[Behold, a virgin shall be with child.] That the word virgin, in the prophet, denotes an untouched virgin; sufficiently appears from the sense of the place, Isa 7:14. King Ahaz there was afraid, lest the enemies that were now upon him might destroy Jerusalem, and utterly consume the house of David. The Lord meets this fear by a signal and most remarkable promise, namely, ‘that sooner should a pure virgin bring forth a child, than the family of David perish.’ And the promise yields a double comfort: namely, of Christ hereafter to be born of a virgin; and of their security from the imminent danger of the city and house of David. So that, although that prophecy, of a virgin’s bringing forth a son, should not be fulfilled till many hundreds of years after, yet, at that present time, when the prophecy was made, Ahaz had a certain and notable sign, that the house of David should be safe and secure from the danger that hung over it. As much as if the prophet had said, “Be no so troubled, O Ahaz; does it not seem an impossible thing to thee, and that never will happen, that a pure virgin should become a mother? But I tell thee, a pure virgin shall bring forth a son, before the house of David perish.”

Hear this, O unbelieving Jew! And shew us now some remainders of the house of David: or confess this prophecy fulfilled in the Virgin’s bringing forth: or deny that a sign was given, when a sign is given.

In what language Matthew wrote his Gospel.

[Which is, being interpreted.] I. All confess that the Syriac language was the mother-tongue to the Jewish nation dwelling in Judea; and that the Hebrew was not at all understood by the common people may especially appear from two things:

1. That, in the synagogues, when the law and the prophets were read in the original Hebrew, an interpreter was always present to the reader, who rendered into the mother-tongue that which was read, that it might be understood by the common people. Hence those rules of the office of an interpreter, and of some places which were not to be rendered into the mother-tongue.

2. That Jonathan the son of Uzziel, a scholar of Hillel, about the time of Christ’s birth, rendered all the prophets (that is, as the Jews number them, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, the Books of the Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve lesser prophets) into the Chaldee language; that is, into a language much more known to the people than the Hebrew, and more acceptable than the mother-tongue. For if it be asked why he translated them at all, and why he translated not rather into the mother-tongue, which was known to all? And if it be objected concerning St. Matthew and St. Paul, that, writing to the Jews, one his Gospel, the other his Epistle (to the Hebrews), they must have written in the Syriac tongue (if so be they wrote not in Hebrew), that they might be understood by all: — we answer,

First, It was not without reason that the paraphrast Jonathan translated out of the Hebrew original into the Chaldee tongue, because this tongue was much more known and familiar to all the people than the Hebrew. The holy text had need of an interpreter into a more known tongue, because it was now in a tongue not known at all to the vulgar. For none knew the Hebrew but such as learned it by study. However, therefore, all the Jews inhabiting the land of Canaan, did not so readily understand the Chaldee language as the Syriac, which was their mother-language, yet they much more readily understood that than the Hebrew, which, to the unlearned, was not known at all. Hence it was not without necessity that the prophets were turned into the Chaldee language by Jonathan, and the law, not much after, by Onkelos, that they might a little be understood by the common people, by whom the Hebrew original was not understood at all. We read also that the Book of Job had its Targum in the time of Gamaliel the Elder; that is, Paul’s master.

Secondly, it is no impertinent question, Why Jonathan and Onkelos did not rather translate into the Syriac language, which was the mother-language to all the people, when both they themselves were in Judea, while they were employed about this work, and laboured in it for the use of the Jews that dwelt there? To which we give this double answer; 1. That, by turning it into the Chaldee language, they did a thing that might be of use to both them that dwelt in Judea, and in Babylon also. 2. The Syriac language was not so grateful unto the Jews, who used it for their mother-tongue, as the Chaldee was; as being a language more neat and polite, and the mother-tongue to the brethren in Babylon, and which they that came up out of Babylon, carried thence with them into Judea. You may wonder, reader, when you hear that canon which permits a single man “to say his prayers in any language, when he asks those things that are needful for him, except only the Syriac: While he asketh necessaries for himself, let him use any language but the Syriac.” But you will laugh when you hear the reason: “Therefore, by all means, because the angels do not understand the Syriac language.”

Whether they distinguish the Syriac language here from the pure Chaldee, is not of great moment solicitously to inquire: we shall only produce these things of the Glosser upon Beracoth, which make to our purpose: — “There are some (saith he) who say, that that prayer which begins ‘sermon,’ is therefore to be made in the Syriac language, because it is a noble prayer, and that deserves the highest praise; and therefore it is framed in the Targumistical language, that the angels may not understand it, and envy it to us,” etc. And a little after; “It was the custom to recite that prayer after sermon; and the common people were there present, who understood not the Hebrew language at all; and therefore they appointed it to be framed in the Targumistical language, that it might be understood by all; for this is their tongue.”

Mark, the Hebrew was altogether unknown to the common people: no wonder, therefore, if the evangelists and apostles wrote not in Hebrew when there were none who understood things so written, but learned men only.

That also must not be passed over, which, at first sight, seems to hint that the Syriac language was not understood even by learned men. “Samuel the Little, at the point of death, said, Simeon and Ismael to the sword; and all the other people to the spoil: and there shall be very great calamities.” And because he spoke these things in the Syriac language, they understood not what he had said. This story you have repeated in the Babylonian Gemara, where the words of the dying man are thus related; Let the Glosser upon the place be the interpreter: “Simeon and Ismael to the sword [that is, Rabban Simeon the prince, and R. Ismael Ben Elisha the high-priest, were slain with the sword], and his fellows to slaughter [that is, R. Akibah and R. Chananiah Ben Teradion were slain by other deaths; namely R. Akibah by iron teeth, and R. Chananiah by burning alive before idols]; and the other people for a prey: and very many calamities shall fall upon the world.”

Now where it is said that, “They understood not what he said, because he spake in the Syrian tongue,” we also do not easily understand. What! For the Jerusalem doctors not to understand the Chaldee language! For Samuel the Little died before the destruction of the city; and he spake of the death of Rabban Simeon, who perished in the siege of the city; and he spake these things when some of the learnedest Rabbins were by: and yet that they understood not these words, which even a smatterer in the oriental tongues would very easily understand!

Therefore, perhaps, you may beat out the sense of the matter from the words of the author of Juchasin, who saith, He prophesied in the Syriac language; But now, when prophecies were spoken only in the Hebrew language, however they understood the sense of the words, yet they reputed it not for a prophecy, because it was not uttered in the language that was proper for prophetical predictions. But we tarry not here. That which we would have is this, that Matthew wrote not in Hebrew (which is proved sufficiently by what is spoken before), if so be we suppose him to have written in a language vulgarly known and understood; which, certainly, we ought to suppose: not that he, or the other writers of the New Testament, wrote in the Syriac language, unless we suppose them to have written in the ungrateful language of an ungrateful nation, which, certainly, we ought not to suppose. For when the Jewish people were now to be cast off, and to be doomed to eternal cursing, it was very improper, certainly, to extol their language, whether it were the Syriac mother-tongue, or the Chaldee, its cousin language, unto that degree of honour; that it should be the original language of the New Testament. Improper, certainly, it was, to write the Gospel in their tongue, who, above all the inhabitants of the world, most despised and opposed it.

II. Since, therefore, the Gentiles were to be called to the faith, and to embrace the Gospel by the preaching of it, the New Testament was written very congruously in the Gentile language, and in that which, among the Gentile languages, was the most noble; viz. The Greek. Let us see what the Jews say of this language, envious enough against all languages besides their own.

“Rabban Simeon Ben Gamaliel saith, Even concerning the holy books, the wise men permitted not that they should be written in any other language than Greek. R. Abhu saith that R. Jochanan said, The tradition is according to Rabban Simeon; that R. Jochanan said, moreover, Whence is that of Rabban Simeon proved? From thence, that the Scripture saith, ‘The Lord shall persuade Japhet, and he shall dwell in the tents of Sem’: the words of Japhet shall be in the tents of Sem”: and a little after, God shall persuade Japhet; i.e. The grace of Japhet shall be in the tents of Sem.” Where the Gloss speaks thus; “‘The grace of Japhet’ is the Greek language; the fairest of those tongues which belonged to the sons of Japhet.”

“Rabban Simeon Ben Gamaliel saith, Even concerning the sacred books, they permitted not that they should be written in any other language than Greek. They searched seriously, and found, that the law could not be translated according to what was needful for it, but in Greek.” You have this latter clause cut off in Massecheth Sopherim, where this story also is added: “The five elders wrote the law in Greek for Ptolemy the king: and that day was bitter to Israel, as the day wherein the golden calf was made, because the law could not be translated according to what was needful for it.” This story of the ‘five interpreters’ of the law is worthy of consideration, which you find seldom mentioned, or scarce anywhere else. The tradition next following after this, in the place cited, recites the story of the Seventy. Look at it.

When, therefore, the common use of the Hebrew language had perished, and when the mother Syriac or Chaldee tongue of a cursed nation could not be blessed, our very enemies being judges, no other language could be found, which might be fit to write the (new) divine law, besides the Greek tongue. That this language was scattered, and in use among all the eastern nations almost, and was in a manner the mother tongue, and that it was planted every where by the conquests of Alexander, and the empire of the Greeks, we need not many words to prove; since it is every where to be seen in the historians. The Jews do well near acknowledge it for their mother-tongue even in Judea.

“R. Jochanan of Beth Gubrin said, There are four noble languages which the world useth; the mother-tongue, for singing; the Roman, for war; the Syriac, for mourning; and the Hebrew, for elocution: and there are some who say, the Assyrian for writing.” What is that which he calls the mother-tongue? It is very easily answered, the Greek, from those encomiums added to it, mentioned before: and that may more confidently be affirmed from the words of Midras Tillin, respecting this saying of R. Jochanan, and mentioning the Greek language by name. “R. Jochanan said, There are three languages; the Roman, for war; the Greek, for speech; the Assyrian, for prayer.” To this also belongs that, that occurs once and again in Babylonian Megillah, In the Greek mother tongue. You have an instance of the thing; “R. Levi, coming to Caesarea, heard some reciting the phylacteries in the Hellenistical language.” This is worthy to be marked. At Caesarea flourished the famous schools of the Rabbins. The Rabbins of Caesarea are mentioned in both Talmuds most frequently, and with great praise, but especially in that of Jerusalem. But yet among these, the Greek is used as the mother-tongue, and that in reciting the phylacteries, which, you may well think, above all other things, in Judea were to be said in Hebrew.

In that very Caesarea, Jerome mentions the Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew, to be laid up in the library of Pamphilus, in these words: “Matthew, who was also called Levi, from a publican made an apostle, first of all in Judea composed the Gospel of Christ in Hebrew letters and words, for their sakes, who were of the circumcision and believed. Which Gospel, who he was that afterward translated it into Greek, it is not sufficiently know. Moreover, that very Hebrew Gospel is reserved to this day in the library at Caesarea, which Pamphilus the martyr, with much care, collected. I also had leave given me by the Nazarenes, who use this book in Berea, a city of Syria, to write it out.”

It is not at all to be doubted, that this Gospel was found in Hebrew; but that which deceived the good man was not the very handwriting of Matthew, nor, indeed, did Matthew write the Gospel in that language: but it was turned by somebody out of the original Greek into Hebrew, that so, if possible, the learned Jews might read it. For since they had little kindness for foreign books, that is, heathen books, or such as were written in a language different from their own, which might be illustrated from various canons, concerning this matter; some person converted to the gospel, excited with a good zeal, seems to have translated this Gospel of St. Matthew out of the Greek original into the Hebrew language, that learned men among the Jews, who as yet believed not, might perhaps read it, being now published in their language: which was rejected by them while it remained in a foreign speech. Thus, I suppose, this gospel was written in Greek by St. Matthew, for the sake of those that believed in Judea, and turned into Hebrew by somebody else, for the sake of those that did not believe.

The same is to be resolved concerning the original language of the Epistle to the Hebrews. That Epistle was written to the Jews inhabiting Judea, to whom the Syriac was the mother-tongue; but yet it was writ in Greek, for the reasons above named. For the same reasons, also, the same apostle writ in Greek to the Romans, although in that church there were Romans, to whom it might seem more agreeable to have written in Latin; and there were Jews, to whom it might seem more proper to have written in Syriac.

Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels

Mat 1:23. The virgin, not a virgin. The prophetic spirit of Isaiah had in view a particular virgin, the mother of the true Emmanuel. The quotation is but slightly varied from the text of the Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint, in common use among the Jews at that time. All the variations are merely in form. Evidently the Evangelist considered these occurrences to be the first complete fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah. There had probably been a previous fulfilment in the days of Ahaz, viz., a sign given to him respecting the temporal deliverance of the kingdom of Judah. Some refer it to the wife of the prophet. But a higher reference is clearly involved. The language of the prophet (Isa 7:13) indicates something more important, and what then occurred presents in many points a type of what is now spoken of. The Old and New Testaments are related to each other as type and antitype, prophecy and fulfilment, preparation and consummation. The New Testament writers do not, however, use the Scriptures by way of accommodation; whenever a passage is explained by them as having a second fulfilment, as in the present case, that fulfilment is in accordance with the first, only fuller, broader, more spiritual. Whether the prophets themselves were conscious of this fuller sense is immaterial; for our passage tells of what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet

Which is, being interpreted. This indicates that the whole explanation is that of the Evangelist, not of the angel.

God with us. Applied to Christ in the highest and most glorious sense: God incarnate among us, He is still Immanuel, God with us; once He came among men and identified himself with them; now He saves men and identifies them with Himself.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Mat 1:23. Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth, &c. Some have unhappily supposed that this famous prophecy immediately related to the birth of a child of Isaiahs in a natural way, and that it only referred to Christ in a secondary sense. But surely a sons being born of one then a virgin, when she was married, was no such extraordinary event as to answer such a pompous introduction as we meet with in the viith of Isaiah. Had this been all, what need was there of these words, The Lord himself shall give you a sign? What need of that solemn notice, Behold! there being nothing new or strange in all this. Besides, the promise, A virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel, is made as a sign or miracle, to confirm the house of David in Gods promise made to him, respecting the perpetuity of his kingdom. But what sign or miracle could it be, that a woman should be with child after the ordinary manner? what wonder was there in this? As to Isa 7:16, Before the child (or, as it is in the Hebrew, this child,) shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings, it seems most reasonable to interpret it as referring to Shear-jashub, whom Isaiah was ordered to take in his hand for no other imaginable reason but that something remarkable was to be said of him. So that their deliverance from the two kings of Syria and Israel, before Isaiahs son, (whom he had taken in his hand,) should be able to distinguish between good and evil, was to be considered by them as typical of a much greater deliverance by the Messiah, in due time to be born of a future virgin. See notes on Isa 7:11-16. Thus, according to the usual manner of the prophets, the people of God, in their present distress, are comforted with the promise of the Messiah hereafter to appear. They shall call his name That is, his name shall be called; a personal verb being put for an impersonal, as is frequently the case; or, as some copies read it, Thou shalt call, or, he shall be owned and accounted; Emmanuel, God with us God in our nature, by whose incarnation, God is united to our nature; and by whose mediation, God is reconciled to us and is present with us. The names of Christ, it must be observed, are of two kinds: 1st, proper and distinguishing, pointing out his person; 2dly, descriptive, either of his person or offices, such as there are many in Scripture, as David, the Branch, Wonderful, Counsellor. It is to be observed, that in the Scripture language, to be called, and to be, are the same thing. It is, therefore, no objection against the application of these words to Christ, that he did not bear the name Emmanuel, if he really was God with us, which is the import of it. And that he was, is sufficiently proved from his being entitled the mighty God by Isaiah, ch. Mat 9:6. Now, he who is properly called El, God, and is also emmanu, with us, must infallibly be that Emmanuel, who is God with us.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

1:23 Behold, a {k} 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.

(k) There is an article added in the Hebrew and Greek text, to point out the woman and set her forth plainly: as we would say, the virgin, or a certain virgin.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

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