The Virgin and Immanuel

 

by

Damien F. Mackey

 

“All this took place to fulfill 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

  

It is incorrect, so I believe, to insist that this famous and much discussed text refers only and entirely to Jesus the Messiah. For that is what some Christians can argue, and can even berate those who say otherwise. I know this from personal experience.

 

Matthew’s verse here is a reference to a well-known and oft-quoted text of Isaiah, 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel”. 

 

In terms purely of the Old Testament, the prophet Isaiah was referring directly to the fact that he and his pregnant young wife, would - during the Syro-Ephraïmite war raging in the reign of King Ahaz of Judah - have a boy child whom they would name Immanuel.

 

Regarding the Hebrew term used here for the young woman, almah (עַלְמָה), “the scholarly consensus is that the word denotes a woman’s fertility without concern for her virginity”: Almah - Wikipedia

 

In terms of the New Testament (Matthew), though, the Evangelist has, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, taken this ancient text and enlarged upon it with Jesus the Messiah and his Mother firmly in mind.

 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church well explains what happens (# 129):

 

Christians therefore read the Old Testament in the light of Christ crucified and risen. Such typological reading discloses the inexhaustible content of the Old Testament; but it must not make us forget that the Old Testament retains its own intrinsic value as Revelation reaffirmed by our Lord himself. ¹⁰⁵ Besides, the New Testament has to be read in the light of the Old. Early Christian catechesis made constant use of the Old Testament. ¹⁰⁶ As an old saying put it, the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New. ¹⁰⁷

 

The Jewish Matthew is clearly using a pesher mode of interpretation here.

While the text of Isaiah is complete in itself, “retains its own intrinsic value as Revelation”, it, in light of the Divine plan, has a far deeper meaning, for Matthew has recognised that “something greater than” Isaiah is here (cf. Matthew 12:6; 41, 42).

 

Jesus Christ did not literally fulfil Isaiah 7:14’s typological text.

 

Only Isaiah’s wife and son, Immanuel, did.

 

For one, the Messiah was not called by the personal name of “Immanuel”, but “Jesus” (Matthew 1:21 and Luke 1:31).

 

Yet, the Messiah, a Divine Person, was far more perfectly the fulfilment of the name, Immanuel, “God is with us”, than any Old Testament, or even New Testament character could possibly hope to have been.

 

15^th August, 2026

Feast of Our Lady’s Assumption