The Sign of Immanuel (preaching resource for 12/21/25, Advent 4)

This post exegetes Isaiah 7:1-17, providing context for the Old Testament reading on 12/21/25, which this year is the 4th Sunday of Advent. Insights are drawn from commentary by Derek Kidner ("New Bible Commentary") and John A. Martin ("Bible Knowledge Commentary").

"Virgin with Child" by Bonsignori (public domain via Wikimedia Commons)

Introduction

Isaiah chapters 7 through 12 are often called “The book of Immanuel” given its focus on the promised child (Isa. 7:14; 8:8) whose nature and reign emerge in Isa. 9:1–7 and Isa. 11:1–10 against a background of local menace (Isa. 7:1–9) and world-wide dispersion (Isa. 11:11–16). Though these prophecies arose out of a contemporary crisis, they extend to the last days (Isa. 9:1) and the whole earth (Isa. 11:9–10; 12:4–5). In this post, we'll look at Isa. 7:1-17, which sepaks to the Sign of Immanuel.

Confrontation 

Isaiah 7:1-9

1 When Ahaz son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, was king of Judah, King Rezin of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel marched up to fight against Jerusalem, but they could not overpower it. 2 Now the house of David was told, "Aram has allied itself with Ephraim"; so the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind. 3 Then the LORD said to Isaiah, "Go out, you and your son Shear-Jashub, to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Washerman's Field. 4 Say to him, 'Be careful, keep calm and don't be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood-- because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah. 5 Aram, Ephraim and Remaliah's son have plotted your ruin, saying, 6 "Let us invade Judah; let us tear it apart and divide it among ourselves, and make the son of Tabeel king over it." 7 Yet this is what the Sovereign LORD says: "'It will not take place, it will not happen, 8 for the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is only Rezin. Within sixty-five years Ephraim will be too shattered to be a people. 9 The head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is only Remaliah's son. If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.'"

The first nine verses of Isaiah chapter 7 are a call to faith. The date is about 735 BC, and the situation is a desperate bid by Israel and Syria to unite their neighbors against the all-conquering Assyria. On Judah’s refusal to cooperate, they have arrived in force to replace her king with their own man, the son of Tabeel (6). Isaiah’s intervention, amid this general alarm, is impressive and significant. His son Shear-Jashub (meaning “A remnant will [re]turn”) was living portent of judgment and salvation. The very meeting-place would prove, one day, how fatal was the course the king was set on (Isa. 36:2). The injunction, keep calm and don’t be afraid, was the first of a lifelong series of appeals for trust instead of intrigue. The appeal was rational enough: Syria and Israel, the two smoldering stubs would soon be snuffed out. Syria was crushed in 732, while Israel lost her northern territories as early as 734 and her national existence in 722, and her racial identity through a series of re-peoplings that continued to at least the reign of Esarhaddon (see Ezra 4:2). By the end of this (669 BC) she was too shattered to be a people (8).

The force of vv7b–9a seems to be that whereas by implication Judah is under the only God, her enemies are inevitably under men. The call to faith (9b) is the essence of Isaiah’s preaching, with a slogan-like play on words that is more evident in Hebrew than English. It might be paraphrased: “If you hold God in doubt, you’ll not hold out!”

The sign 

Isaiah 7:10-17

10 Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, 11 "Ask the LORD your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights." 12 But Ahaz said, "I will not ask; I will not put the LORD to the test." 13 Then Isaiah said, "Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. 15 He will eat curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right. 16 But 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. 17 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."

Here Isaiah continues to warn Ahaz, calling the King to faith by offering him any sign that he might care to name. To wave aside that offer would be tantamount to rejecting God. Indeed, that is what Ahaz did—he had already made up his mind. Not being a man of faith he had already formulated a plan to outwit his enemies by making friends with Assyria (see 2 Kings 16:7–10). The kind of “friend” Assyria would prove to be is made clear in v17. Meanwhile, God had his own sign in mind—one he would give Ahaz and a much wider audience (“you” in vv13–14 is plural). This sign carried with it a meaning far richer than a mere show of power. The attendant details both reassure (15, 16) and warn (17). “Curds and honey” (15) are symbols of natural plenty, yet also of a land depopulated (22b) and untilled (23–25). But the heart of the sign is “Immanuel” himself (14b). Who he is remains unstated here—his identify emerges in Isa. 9:6–7 and Isa. 11:1–5. It is enough to know at this point that while the Ahaz is relying on calling in an army for help, God us looking to the birth of a child (see Gen. 17:19).

How the sign of Immanuel fits the immediate crisis has been much debated. As a prophecy of Christ (Mat. 1:22–23) it may seem too remote to speak in any meaningful way to Ahaz’s situation; yet the sign was for the whole threatened house of David (vv6, 13), and the vision of a coming prince was itself a form of reassurance. What God seems to be doing here is to confirm faith rather than to compel it (Isa. 8:10; 37:30; Ex. 3:12; Romans 4:11). Also, God may have been unveiling the distant future by way of the near. Some suggest that this sign had immediate value in:

• the time it indicated (the few years from the conception of a child—any child—now, to his reaching the age of conscious choice; 16)
• the name Immanuel, meaning “God [is] with us,” which a contemporary mother would be moved to give her son—the opposite of Ichabod (1 Sa. 4:21)
• the rank, if it announced a royal birth, which tends to be a harbinger of hope. 

These three possibilities are not necessarily in conflict with each other, nor with the long-term prediction of Christ. The term “virgin” (v14) is supported by the LXX as quoted in Mat. 1:23. The nearest English equivalent is “girl.” The Hebrew word describes a potential bride in Gen. 24:43, and the young Miriam in Ex. 2:8; it presumes rather than states virginity and is a term outgrown at marriage. Before its New Testament fulfilment, its miraculous implications would pass unnoticed, over-shadowed by those mentioned above. The tenses of “will be with child” and “will give birth” are indeterminate; the Hebrew participles do not distinguish between present and future. “When” (15) should probably be “until” or “in order that.” Most Bible scholars hold one of three views on the virgin mentioned in vv14–16: 

• The boy of whom Isaiah wrote was conceived shortly after Isaiah spoke this message. A young woman, a virgin, married and then had a baby. Before he would be old enough to tell the difference between good and evil the northern Aram-Israel alliance would be destroyed. According to this view the woman was a virgin when Isaiah spoke his prophecy but was not when the boy was born because he was conceived by sexual relations with her husband. 

• A second view sees the predicted birth as exclusively messianic and the virgin as Mary, Jesus’ mother. It is argued that in Isaiah 7:14 the virgin is said to be with child (lit., “the virgin is or will be pregnant”). It is also argued that Matthew, stressing the fact that Joseph and Mary’s marriage was not consummated till after Jesus’ birth (Matt. 1:18, 25), affirmed that Jesus’ birth fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy (Matt. 1:21–23). Proponents of this view point out that since Isaiah spoke this prophecy to the house of David (Isa. 7:13) and not just to Ahaz himself, the sign was given not just to the king but to the entire kingly line and the entire nation. However, if the fulfillment did not occur until Joseph and Mary’s day, how does the prophecy relate to Isaiah’s point that the Aram-Israel confederacy would soon be defeated? And how does the birth of the Lord Jesus relate to the eating of curds and honey (v15) and to the breaking of the alliance before the boy was old enough to know good and evil? (v16) Proponents of this view answer that the time is similar: the two years of Jesus’ babyhood (before he would know between right and wrong) point to the same time segment, two years, within which the Aram-Israel threat would be gone.

• A third view, a combination of the first two, sees the prophecy as directed primarily to Ahaz regarding the breaking of the alliance. The ‘almâh was a virgin when Isaiah spoke his message, but then she would marry and have a baby. When the Aram-Israel alliance was broken the boy would still be young. Centuries later the Holy Spirit led Matthew to quote Isaiah 7:14 as a statement that was also true of a virgin birth (i.e., a birth to a woman who was still a virgin). This is the first of many prophecies about the Messiah given by Isaiah.

Conclusion

Clearly, the sign must have had significance for the historical situation in which it was given. It involved not only the birth and the boy’s name (Immanuel), but also a designated length of time: before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings would be laid waste. Within about three years (nine months for the pregnancy and two or three years until the boy would know the difference between good and evil) the alliance would be broken. And indeed it was in 732 B.C., when Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria destroyed Damascus. After Tiglath-Pileser had defeated Aram and put Rezin to death Ahaz went to Damascus to meet the Assyrian monarch (2 Kings 16:7–10). Ahaz liked an altar he saw there and had a sketch drawn so a similar one could be set up in Jerusalem. No wonder Isaiah and God were angry with Ahaz! Even after the alliance had been broken by Tiglath-Pileser, Judah had no peace. Though Assyria did not defeat Judah, she had to pay Assyria heavy tribute. Isaiah foretold the consequences of Ahaz’s attitude in Isa. 7:17–25.