Immanuel

The name appears three times in Isaiah, all in the Syro-Ephraimite crisis context of chapters 7–8. Isaiah 7:14 is the primary verse: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel" — given to Ahaz as a sign during the threat from the kings of Israel and Syria. Matthew Henry hears in Isa 7 a doubled reference: an immediate sign that the threatened kings will fail before any contemporary child is old enough to choose, and a further reach to the virgin-born Messiah Matthew will later cite. Isaiah 8:8 lifts the name into a possessive form: "the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel" — the land belongs to the one whose name marks the divine presence in it. Isaiah 8:10 turns the name into an apologetic counter-cry against the nations: "Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought… for God is with us" — Hebrew literally Immanu El. Delitzsch, in his Isaiah commentary, treats the three occurrences as a deliberate sequence: announcement, possession, vindication — a name spread across a chapter to mark the presence of God across a crisis.

Matthew 1:23 is the only NT occurrence, and it is decisive: "Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us." Calvin, on Matthew 1, observes that Matthew's translation of the Hebrew name into Greek for his readers is itself a theological move — Matthew is not content to leave the name in foreign syllables; he wants the meaning forward in the reader's mind from the gospel's first chapter. Henry takes the citation as Matthew's rhetorical strategy: the gospel opens with an OT prophecy fulfilled in such a way that the entire incarnation is compressed into one name. The structure of Matthew's gospel itself bears the weight: the gospel that opens with "God with us" closes with the risen Christ's promise "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" (Mt 28:20). Delitzsch, working the Hebrew side, notes the deliberateness of Matthew's choice — Matthew could have simply named Jesus and moved on; the citation of Isa 7:14 is the gospel's first declaration of Christology.

The name is the entire doctrine of incarnation in two morphemes: Immanu (with us) joined to El (God). Henry's treatment is unusually concentrated for him: the gospel's good news is not merely that God exists or that God speaks but that God is with us in the person of his Son, and the name carries that weight without further explanation. Calvin, on Mt 1, draws out the implication for prayer and providence: when the church prays it does so to a God who has placed himself with his people, not at a distance from them. Delitzsch presses the Hebrew-grammatical force: the name takes a possessive — God is not merely with humanity in the abstract but with his covenant people, the immanu binding the divine presence to a people who can say "God with us." The theological work the name does is to fold the incarnation into a single utterance: the eternal God has come into our condition not as a visitor but as Immanuel — present, named, named in advance, and named forever.