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Old Testament Reading - Emmanuel

¹⁰Not long after this, the Lord sent this further message to King Ahaz:

¹¹“Ask me for a sign, Ahaz, to prove that I will indeed crush your enemies as I have said. Ask anything you like, in heaven or on earth.”^a

¹²But the king refused. “No,” he said, “I’ll not bother the Lord with anything like that.”

¹³Then Isaiah said: O House of David, you aren’t satisfied to exhaust my patience; you exhaust the Lord’s as well! ¹⁴All right then, the Lord himself will choose the sign—a child shall be born to a virgin!^b And she shall call him Immanuel (meaning, “God is with us”).

1. Literally, “Let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.”
2. The controversial Hebrew word used here sometimes means “virgin” and sometimes “young woman.” Its immediate use here refers to Isaiah’s young wife and her newborn son (8:1-4). This, of course, was not a virgin birth. God’s sign was that before this child was old enough to talk (v. 4), the two invading kings would be destroyed. However, the Gospel of Matthew (1:23) tells us that there was a further fulfillment of this prophecy, in that a virgin (Mary) conceived and bore a son, Immanuel, the Christ. We have therefore properly used this higher meaning, “virgin,” in v. 14, as otherwise the Matthew account loses its significance.