The Baby in the Manger #8: Immanuel
Immanuel (Heb = 'God with us')
‘Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. He will be eating curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste.
‘Because this people has rejected
the gently flowing waters of Shiloah
and rejoices over Rezin
and the son of Remaliah,
therefore the Lord is about to bring against them
the mighty floodwaters of the Euphrates –
the king of Assyria with all his pomp.
It will overflow all its channels,
run over all its banks
‘Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. He will be eating curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste.
The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah – he will bring the king of Assyria.’ (Isaiah 7:13-17)
All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ (which means ‘God with us’). (Matthew 1:22-23)
The footnotes in any Bible, and indeed most Sunday school children, will tell us that Immanuel means 'God with us'. The great hymn 'O Come, O come Immanuel' is brought out to herald advent, and we all think about how God himself came down to be with us. This is, of course, wonderful and glorious. However, we need to look at where this name for Jesus comes from.
'Immanuel' only appears three times in the Bible. The 'sign of Immanuel' is the subject of Isaiah 7-8. The year is 735 B.C. and King Ahaz of Judah (the southern part of the divided Kingdom of Israel), having refused to unite with Israel (the remaining northern part) and Syria, faces the threat of invasion from those two parties. Rather than trusting in God, King Ahaz attempts to turn to the other great power of Assyria (as described in Kings 16).
All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ (which means ‘God with us’). (Matthew 1:22-23)
The footnotes in any Bible, and indeed most Sunday school children, will tell us that Immanuel means 'God with us'. The great hymn 'O Come, O come Immanuel' is brought out to herald advent, and we all think about how God himself came down to be with us. This is, of course, wonderful and glorious. However, we need to look at where this name for Jesus comes from.
'Immanuel' only appears three times in the Bible. The 'sign of Immanuel' is the subject of Isaiah 7-8. The year is 735 B.C. and King Ahaz of Judah (the southern part of the divided Kingdom of Israel), having refused to unite with Israel (the remaining northern part) and Syria, faces the threat of invasion from those two parties. Rather than trusting in God, King Ahaz attempts to turn to the other great power of Assyria (as described in Kings 16).
When the threat of invasion looms and Ahaz and the people are fearful, God sends Isaiah. Be careful, keep calm, and don't be afraid, he says. Do not lose heart because of these two smouldering stubs of firewood (Isaiah 7:4). Through Isaiah, God speaks of the weakness and futility of these two threats and encourages Ahaz to stand firm. He then goes onto say: Ask the Lord your God for a sign (Isaiah 7:10). Here we have God stooping to the level of human doubt in order to offer a sign to vouchsafe his words.
However, Ahaz is not at all inclined to ask for a sign (we know from elsewhere that he is a King who has walked away from God). And so, we come to the crucial passage - describing the sign of Immanuel:
‘Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. He will be eating curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste. The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah – he will bring the king of Assyria.’ (Isaiah 7:13-17)
Unaware of this prophecy, a woman somewhere who is at that time a virgin, probably within the royal household (so that it will come to the ears of Ahaz), is going to give birth to a son called Immanuel. By the time that boy is eating solid food, Isaiah says, those two kingdoms will be deserted. (n.b. there seems to be no suggestion that this a miraculous 'virgin birth'). This will be a proof that God's word is true, and that he is ruler over all.
But for Ahaz these are not entirely words of comfort. Ahaz rejects the sign that God gives him, but God gives it anyway. And the word of God through Isaiah continues: The Lord will bring on you and your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah - he will bring the king of Assyria (Isaiah 7:17). The verses that follow describe God's judgement on Judah, at the hands of Assyria - the very nation they had been trying to put their trust in.
The sign of Immanuel is an encouragement or a judgement. As one commentator writes: If you stand firm in faith, then "God is with us" in blessing. If you do not stand firm in faith, then "God is with us" in judgement (Ashbury Bible Commentary, 1992). The words continue in Isaiah 8, where we see that when the nations rejected God's providence, it turned to judgement:
the gently flowing waters of Shiloah
and rejoices over Rezin
and the son of Remaliah,
therefore the Lord is about to bring against them
the mighty floodwaters of the Euphrates –
the king of Assyria with all his pomp.
It will overflow all its channels,
run over all its banks
and sweep on into Judah, swirling over it,
passing through it and reaching up to the neck.
Its outspread wings will cover the breadth of your land,
Immanuel!’
passing through it and reaching up to the neck.
Its outspread wings will cover the breadth of your land,
Immanuel!’
(Isaiah 8:6-8)
And so, we must finally turn to how these words are fulfilled in Jesus. There is nothing explicit in the original Isaiah passage which points to anything more than an immediate series of events relating to a specific political situation. However, some 400 years later, Matthew writes:
All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ (which means ‘God with us’). (Matthew 1:22-23)
Whether because it was told to his disciples by incarnate Jesus himself or through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Matthew tells us that the sign of Immanuel, like so much of the rest of the Old Testament, is ultimately fulfilled in Jesus. Like the original Immanuel, Jesus heralds the defeat of enemies - in this case the enemies of sin and death. However, whether the defeat of sin and death is something that is welcome to us depends on what we've aligned ourselves with.
I once read somewhere that the most commonly prayed prayer is 'don't look at me now, God!' We all may sing 'O Come Immanuel', but sometimes our hearts say otherwise. The times when we seek the devices and desires of our own hearts - when we seek to put our own will above that which is right and just - are when a flood of justice and pure goodness, restoring the universe and revealing us for who we really are, would be shear terror and destruction.
In the sign of Immanuel - the birth of a baby boy to a young woman - God says: I am here - whether you like it or not! Like Ahaz, we can no longer put our fingers in our ears whilst making up some excuse about not wanting to put God to the test. God is with us, he is here, active in the universe, bringing about his plan. Is that welcome news?
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