Immanuel

The perfect tense of the Greek verb ("has happened / has come to pass") is rendered here as a simple past, "took place," because English narrative rhythm reads more smoothly this way; a more literal "Now all this has happened" would sound stilted when read aloud. The Greek adjective meaning "whole, entire" is caught by the compact phrase "All this," which gathers up the whole angelic announcement of verses 20–21. The phrase "to fulfill" translates a purpose clause with a passive verb; some render it "so that what the Lord had spoken... might be fulfilled," but the shorter infinitive keeps the sentence moving toward the quotation that follows. The two different Greek prepositions are carefully distinguished: the Lord is the one who speaks ("by"), the prophet is the channel ("through"). Since "what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet" is heavy in English, the active "what the Lord had spoken through the prophet" is used, preserving both agents.

The verb translated "fulfill" (plēroō) means literally "to fill up, make full," and carries the sense of bringing something to its intended completion rather than merely matching a prediction. The passive form is a "divine passive," implying God as the one doing the fulfilling. Note also the deliberate distinction in agency: hypo (direct agent) for the Lord, dia (intermediate agent) for the prophet — a grammatical detail with real weight, since it makes the prophet a mouthpiece rather than the source. The participle "saying" (legontos) at the end is a Semitic-flavored introduction to a quotation and is normally left untranslated in English, represented instead by the colon.

This is the first of a series of "fulfillment formulas" that punctuate this Gospel, each introducing a passage from Israel's Scriptures as coming to completion in Jesus. Together they present his life not as a break with Israel's story but as its intended goal. The wording implies that Scripture's words are ultimately God's own speech, spoken through human prophets. Interpreters differ on how such fulfillment works: some read it as direct prediction, others as a typological correspondence in which an earlier event or word finds its fullest meaning in Christ; the Greek allows both, and the Gospel writer seems comfortable with a rich, layered sense.

At the marked point some witnesses read "through the Lord" rather than "by the Lord," flattening the distinction between the Lord as speaker and the prophet as instrument; the reading followed here, with the sharper distinction, has the stronger support. A few later witnesses also name the prophet explicitly as Isaiah, an understandable clarifying addition since the quotation that follows comes from Isaiah, but the unnamed "the prophet" is the earlier reading.

Citing Scripture with an introductory formula was a familiar practice in Jewish teaching of the period, seen also in the writings from Qumran, where texts are quoted with phrases such as "as it is written." Readers or hearers would recognize the pattern at once. Anonymous reference to "the prophet" was unremarkable when the passage quoted was well known.

This verse and the words that follow have long been read in Advent and Christmas services, where the fulfillment formula serves as the hinge between the angel's announcement and the ancient prophecy, tying the birth narrative to the promise it answers.

The quotation follows Isaiah 7:14 in its Greek form. The Greek reads literally "the virgin will have in the womb and will bear a son, and they will call his name Immanuel; which is, being translated, 'With us God.'" Two idioms have been smoothed for the ear: "have in the womb" becomes "conceive," and the Semitic "call his name X" becomes "call him X," which is how English naturally speaks. The definite article is retained — "the virgin," not "a virgin" — because the Greek has it and it points to a particular figure. "They will call" keeps the plural of the Greek rather than smoothing it to "you will call" or "his name will be called"; the unnamed "they" is the community that will come to know him by this name. The closing explanation is set off with a dash and quotation marks so a reader aloud can hear where the prophecy ends and the evangelist's comment begins.

The Greek παρθένος (parthenos) normally means "virgin," and it is the word the older Greek version of Isaiah used to render the Hebrew עַלְמָה ('almah), which denotes a young woman of marriageable age — a term that ordinarily implied virginity without being a technical word for it. Hebrew has a more precise term for virgin (בְּתוּלָה, bethulah), which Isaiah did not use; much discussion of this verse turns on that fact. ἐν γαστρὶ ἕξει is a stock idiom, literally "will have in the belly/womb," the ordinary way of saying "be pregnant." The name Ἐμμανουήλ transliterates Hebrew עִמָּנוּ אֵל, a two-word sentence: "with-us [is] God." The evangelist's rendering Μεθ' ἡμῶν ὁ θεός keeps the Hebrew word order, so the emphatic "with us" stands first — the emphasis is on the presence, not merely the deity.

This is the first of the evangelist's fulfillment quotations and the theological keystone of the birth narrative: the child conceived by the Spirit is God's own presence among his people. The name Immanuel functions as a title describing who Jesus is rather than as the name he was actually given (v. 25 records that he was called Jesus); Hebrew thought regularly used names to declare a person's role or significance. The theme forms a great arch across the Gospel: it opens with "God with us" and closes with the risen Jesus saying "I am with you always, to the end of the age" (28:20). Interpreters have long debated whether Isaiah's oracle had an immediate eighth-century referent, a messianic one, or both; the evangelist reads it as finding its full and intended depth in Jesus, a pattern of reading that sees earlier events as foreshadowings brought to completion. The verse has carried great doctrinal weight in the church's confession of the virginal conception and of the incarnation.

Isaiah spoke these words to King Ahaz of Judah around 734 BC, when Jerusalem was threatened by an alliance of Israel and Syria. The birth of a child named "God with us" was offered as a sign that the threat would pass. Reading such a text as pointing forward to the Messiah was a recognized practice among Jewish interpreters of the first century, who searched the Scriptures for patterns fulfilled in later deliverances. In that culture a name was public theology: parents named children to commemorate God's acts, to voice hope, or to mark circumstances of birth, so a name-bearing prophecy would have struck hearers as entirely natural.

The dominant reading is the plural καλέσουσιν, "they will call." Some witnesses, including an important early bilingual manuscript and several Old Latin and Syriac texts, read the singular καλέσεις, "you will call," harmonizing with the Greek form of Isaiah and with the angel's command in v. 21. The Hebrew of Isaiah has "she will call." The plural is almost certainly original here, and it broadens the horizon beyond Joseph or Mary to the whole people who will confess him by this name.

This verse is among the most frequently read texts of Advent and Christmas, appearing in the readings for the Sunday before Christmas and in the traditional Christmas cycle. The name Immanuel supplies the final of the ancient "O" antiphons sung in the days before Christmas — "O Emmanuel, our king and lawgiver, come and save us" — and through that antiphon it entered the beloved Advent hymn "O come, O come, Emmanuel." The phrase "God with us" also recurs in creeds, carols, and prayers of the season.