It was at this point that Isaiah entered the scene. He encouraged Ahaz, reminding him that submission to the Assyrians was God’s will and that if he trusted totally in God all would be well. Ahaz was a hard sell. Fearful and anxious, he vacillated — then Isaiah offered him a sign, any sign at all, even an immense or spectacular one. A sign from heaven is something most of us would dearly love during times of confusion, doubt and anxiety. So fearful was Ahaz that he refused to ask for a sign — after all, the Scriptures insisted that we are not to put God to the test. An irritated Isaiah insisted that Ahaz was going to get a sign whether he wanted one or not. He prophesied that a young woman (the translation of almah in the Hebrew text) was already pregnant with a son, and his name would be Emmanuel — “God is with us.” Clearly this was meant to console and encourage Ahaz immediately — it was not a prophecy of some event centuries in the future. Elsewhere, Isaiah even insisted that the child would not even be grown before the promised deliverance of Jerusalem from her enemies.
The original or primary meaning of the text was clear: trust in God, not arms and alliances. Submit to the will of God, even if it seems distasteful or abhorrent — God has God’s own reasons. The Northern Kingdom probably wished it had heeded that advice. Not long after this incident, the Assyrians destroyed both the kingdoms of Israel and Syria. The Northern Kingdom of Israel disappeared from history.
We need to take care not to tear the prophecy away from its historical context or give it meanings that would not have been recognized or understood by the people of the time. As with all Scripture, Isaiah was a work of its time and its message was intended for the people for whom it was written. But as we will see, prophecy often has more than one life.
The prophets were alive in the mind and heart of Paul. In the prophets, he could see God’s grand plan for the redemption of humanity from the mists of Israel’s beginnings to his own day. The plan not only pointed to Jesus as the Messiah but to the inclusion of all the peoples of the Earth. Once again, God’s will brought with it the shock of the new and unfamiliar.
In Matthew’s Gospel, the prophecy from Isaiah was reborn. Matthew’s Gospel was clearly written from within and for a Jewish-Christian audience. He engaged in a common method of Jewish biblical interpretation — illuminating contemporary events with passages from the prophets. Matthew’s goal was to situate Jesus firmly in Jewish salvation history and traditions. The text from Isaiah found a second life — one that did not deny or diminish its first use in Isaiah, but amplified its meaning, opening it to new horizons and possibilities. Matthew’s use of the prophecy assured his audience that God was still active in Israel’s history and that the divine promises were fulfilled in Jesus.
Matthew’s quotation of Isaiah’s prophecy was taken from the Greek translation of the Old Testament, almah as parthenos or virgin. The name “Emmanuel” raises the question as to why Jesus was not given this name. It was the descriptive meaning of Emmanuel that was important — in Jesus God was truly present and with the people. At the end of the Gospel, as He took his leave of His disciples, Jesus said, “I will be with you always until the end of the age” — truly a fulfilment of what the name meant.
The Word of God — the divine message — never rests and is never depleted. It continues its saving and healing journey through human history. Will the prophecy have a second, third or fourth life? Only God knows, and for the moment God is silent.