Immanuel

(God with us) — the Hebrew name of the Lord Jesus, occurring for the first time in Isaiah’s prophecy concerning the birth of the Savior from a Virgin (7:14). The occasion on which this prophecy was uttered by the prophet Isaiah was as follows. Two kings allied themselves against Ahaz, king of Judah — Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, king of Israel — with the aim of conquering Judah, deposing Ahaz from the throne, destroying the entire royal house of David, and setting up a new dynasty.

In this difficult situation Ahaz resolved to seek help from the Assyrians (2 Kings 16:7). Then the prophet Isaiah came to Ahaz and, in the name of God, offered him the choice of any sign he wished, as confirmation that the designs of the allied kings would fail and their plan come to nothing. But when Ahaz refused to ask for a sign, the prophet, turning to the whole house of David, foretold: “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” When the prophet Isaiah foretold the birth of Christ the Savior from a Virgin — something natural human reason could never have conceived — and when, several hundred years after this prophecy, our Lord Jesus Christ was indeed born of the Most Holy Virgin, one cannot fail to see that the prophecy was the word of the all-knowing God, and its fulfillment the work of the almighty God. For this reason St. Matthew the Evangelist, in relating the birth of Christ, cites this prophecy in the following words: “Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us” (Matt. 1:22–23). See Ahaz.