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Bible Dictionaries
Immanuel
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
or ("God with us".) Isaiah 7:10-16; Isaiah 8:8; Matthew 1:23. "Behold (arresting attention to the extraordinary prophecy) a (Hebrew: the) virgin (primarily the woman (the foreappointed mother of the Messiah is ultimately meant by the Spirit); then a virgin, soon to become the prophet's second wife) shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel .... Before the child (Isaiah's) shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good (i.e. before he reaches the age of discrimination, three years), the land (Syria and Israel then leagued in one) that thou abhorrest," etc. (rather, "the land before the face of whose two kings thou shrinkest shall be forsaken" or "desolate".) Ahaz, king of Judah, received this as a sign given by the Lord Himself, when the king refused to ask one, that Pekah of Israel and Rezin of Damascus, who had already "smitten him with a great slaughter," so that "his and his people's heart was moved as the trees of the wood with the wind" (2 Chronicles 28; Isaiah 7:1-2), should nevertheless not subdue Jerusalem, but be themselves and their land subdued.
Just two years after Pekah of Israel was slain by Hoshea, and Rezin of Damascus by Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria. Like many typical prophecies, having a primary and an ulterior fulfillment (the one mainly aimed at), this has only a partial realization in the circumstances of Isaiah's age; these are only suggestive of those which form the consummation of all prophecy (Revelation 19:10), Messiah's advent. Thus "the virgin" has its full meaning only in the virgin mother of whom Jesus was born, having been conceived by the Holy Spirit. Jeremiah 31:21-22; "O virgin of Israel ... the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth, a woman shall compass a man." Micah 5:3; Israel's and Judah's deliverance is ensured by the birth of Immanuel, "He will give them up, until ... she which travaileth hath brought forth." The New Testament application is not an "accommodation," for Matthew (Matthew 1:23) expressly states that Jesus' birth of the virgin "was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold," etc., "and they (no longer she) shall call His name Emmanuel."
When the prophecy received its full and exhaustive accomplishment, no longer is the sense of Immanuel restricted to the prophetess' view of it, in its partial fulfillment in her son; all then call or regard Him as peculiarly and exclusively characterized by the name "Immanuel." 1 Timothy 3:16; "God was manifest in the flesh" (Colossians 2:9). Matthew 28:20; "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." John 1:14; John 1:18. His full manifestation as "God with us" shal1 be in the "new heavens and new earth." Revelation 21:3; "behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them . . . and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God." Immanuel cannot in the strict sense apply to Isaiah's son, but only to the "CHILD ... SON ... Wonderful, the mighty God," as Isaiah expressly says Isaiah 9:6, declaring moreover that his children (Isaiah 7:3; Isaiah 7:14, etc.) are types of Him.
Isaiah 8:18; "behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs ... in Israel from the Lord of hosts," which Hebrews 2:13 quotes to prove the manhood of Messiah. Isaiah (i.e. Jehovah's salvation) typically represents Messiah as "the mighty (Hero) God," "the everlasting Father"; Isaiah's children represent Him as "Child" and "Son." Local and temporary features (as Isaiah 7:15-16) are added in every type, otherwise it would be no type, but the Antitype itself. Call His name Immanuel" means not mere appellation, for this was not the designation by which men ordinarily named Him, but His revealed character shall be what Immanuel means. Sin destroyed the faculty of intuitively perceiving, as Adam once did, the characteristics; hence the name is now generally arbitrary, and not expressive of the nature.
In the case of Jesus Christ, and many in Scripture, the Holy Spirit supplies this want. The promised birth of Messiah involved the preservation of Judah and of David's line, from which God said He should be sprung. Others explain Isaiah 7:14 to refer to the Messiah Immanuel, strictly born of the virgin. "The child" inIsaiah 7:15-16, refers to the child Shear-jashub at Isaiah's side (Isaiah 7:3). The purpose of the two smoking firebrands (Isaiah 7:4) shall come to nought, for before this child shall grow up, the two shall be extinguished. But God's purpose concerning the house of David shall stand, for the virgin shall bring forth Immanuel.
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Fausset, Andrew R. Entry for 'Immanuel'. Fausset's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/fbd/i/immanuel.html. 1949.
