‘You will call His name Immanuel’: Heaven’s desire has always been to be with us

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“Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the LORD your God is the one who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you.”
Deuteronomy 31:6 NASB

In this study

God is our witness (Exodus 3–4)
- 'Sign for you that it was I Who sent you'
'His name will be Immanuel' (Isaiah 7–12)

God is our witness (Exodus 3–4)

The LORD remembers His people and walks with them in their suffering. He promised to be with His people through their suffering. God’s memory goes far beyond our own. When we put up a statute, pillar or memorial to a particular historical event or historical figure, those are set up so that the memory of the event or the person goes on after their death and that future generations will remember that event.

‘Sign for you that it was I Who sent you’

“And He said, “For I will be with you, and this is the sign for you that it was I Who sent you. When you take the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.” And Moses said to God, “Behold I come to the children of Israel, and I say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “Ehyeh asher ehyeh [I will be what I will be],” and He said, “So shall you say to the children of Israel, ‘Ehyeh [I will be] has sent me to you.'”
Exodus 3:12-14, The Judaica Press Translation

In Exodus 4, Moshe (Moses) was given three signs to show the leaders of Israel. Some commentators see parallels between Israel’s suffering in Mitzraim (Egypt) and deliverance and those signs.¹

Staff becomes a snake then a staff again

The Hebrew word for staff מַטֶּה matteh (H4294) can also mean tribe.² When Moshe throws the staff down to the ground, it turns into a snake, and that could represent when Yosef (Joseph) and Ya’akov (Jacob) led sons of Israel into Egypt. The nation became something detestable and scorned in Mitzraim.

When Moshe grabs the snakes tail and it becomes a staff again, that could represent the Exodus, when the people of Israel became their own nation again. The plagues and the destruction of the army of Mitzraim in the sea underscored that the people of scorn had become a people with power.

Leprous hand

What’s translated as “leprosy” in the Bible was not just a physical condition but also a spiritual malady. A key example is Miriam’s affliction as a מְצֹרַעַת metzor’at (leper). As punishment for her slander against her younger brother Moshe, she is described as being dead, like a still-born child (Num. 12:10–12).

The descendants of Israel were spiritually dead while they were captive in Egypt. They were like a stillborn baby, but when Moses put his hand back in and it’s restored to life, that is what God did for Israel when He took them out of Egypt. He brought them back to life.

Water turned to blood

When Pharaoh first became fearful of the population explosion of Israelites in Egypt, he ordered the midwives to kill the Hebrew newborn boys. When they refused the commanded that Pharaoh commanded all the people of Egypt kill the Hebrew boy infants by throwing them into the Nile.

The people of Egypt, from the great to the lowly obeyed the Pharaoh’s orders. If they found a Hebrew male infant, they cooperated the Pharaoh’s command and threw them into the Nile. They fully cooperated with this genocide against the Israelite people. When Moses turned the water into blood, he was showing Pharaoh and the Egyptians that the Nile itself was a witness to the genocide they committed against Israel.

These miracles were a symbol that God saw the sufferings of His people in Egypt.

This wasn’t the only time Moshe needed this encouragement from עִמָּנוּ אֵל Imannu El (Emmanuel, “God is with us”). Moshe within a few years of this meeting with Heaven at the burning bush would be back at Horeb again, seeking more assurance that Heaven would be with Israel after widespread rebellion with the golden calf (Exodus 33:14–16).

We see Egypt show up in prophecy, particularly in Zechariah 14, which shows us that God seems to have a strange fondness for Egypt, even though the people of Israel endured a lot of suffering there. There was a Pharaoh who knew Joseph, and therefore, knew the LORD. And there was a Pharaoh who did not know Joseph, or know the LORD. that dichotomy still rings true even now.

The sign Heaven gave Moshe of Immanu El was one that he wouldn’t see fully played out (Exodus 19) until after the turmoil of the plagues, freedom from then pursuit by Mitzraim, deliverance through the sea, provision of “daily bread” and water from “the rock.”

And Moshe wasn’t the only important leader of Israel who needed his faith strengthened by Immanu El. God is the one who was with them from the beginning, is with them in the present day and will be with them in the future.

Ya’akov needed encouragement that his blessings came from Heaven and not from Laban, and Ya’akov didn’t need Laban’s permission to return home (Gen. 31:1–3). Yehoshua needed encouragement that Heaven was with him shortly before and after leadership of Israel was handed off to him (Deut. 31:23; Josh. 1:5).

‘His name will be Immanuel’ (Isaiah 7–12)

The name Immanu El is explicitly mentioned in Isa. 7:14; 8:8, 10. Those passages are quoted by Heaven’s angel who convinced Yosef that Miriam’s pregnancy was the work of the Holy One and not impropriety (Matthew 1:19–25). Just as Yehoshua ben Nun — and by extension, Israel — was strengthened by the promise of Immanu El, so too, Immanu El would strengthen Israel by the Word Made Flesh named Yehoshua/Yeshua ben Elohim.

Critics of the Gospels have been quick to assert that the apostles played fast and loose with quotations from the TaNaKh in tying Messianic import to them and in insisting that Yeshua fulfilled them. An oft-referenced refutation by medieval Karaite Jewish polemicist Isaac ben Abraham of Troki zeroed in on apostle Matthew’s account that applies Isa. 7:14 to what’s commonly called “the virgin birth.”

Impending Assyrian invasion (Isaiah 8:1–18)

While Yitzkhak of Troki is correct that the immediate context of Yeshiyahu’s passage is a message for King Ahaz, we can see from a closer look at the larger passage of Isa. 7:1–12:6, what scholars call the Book of Immanuel, that it is a clear focus on the “now and not yet” prophecy. It’s the revelation of the present and of the future: a deliverer of Israel Who transcends any sent before.

The punchline of this prophecy is that the people are suffering under a moral decline because their leaders are corrupt and have turned their hearts away from God.

Isaiah was speaking to a separated kingdom. In the North (aka Ephraim and Israel), the vast majority of the kings were very evil and their corruption filtered down into the culture of the north. In the South (aka Yehudah (Judah)), the descendants of David were on the throne, but even in Judah, we read about how some kings were good, and some were really bad. That rollercoaster of good kings to bad kings also have a detrimental effect on Judah’s culture.

What we are reading about in Isaiah 7–8 is what is commonly called the Syro-Ephraimite War. For several kings leading up to this time, there was an alliance between Ephraim and Aram to try to push back against the juggernaut of Assyria. You can read about this in 2Kings 16:1–20 and 1Chronicles 28 to get more of a historical backdrop.

Pekah, a usurper king of Ephraim (Israel, northern kingdom), allied with Rezin, king of former foe Aram (modern-day Syria) to throw off the rule of the Assyrian empire (modern Iraq). Pekah and Rezin wanted to get Assyrian ally Ahaz, king of Yehudah (Judah, southern kingdom), to join with them, but Ahaz refused to pick a fight with Assyria.

So Pekah and Rezim led an attack on Ahaz’s Yehudah from the north through the Galil and east, while Edom attacked the south and Philistia the middle from the west. Ephraimite warriors wanted to haul off hundreds of thousands of slaves from Yehudah. But a prophet reminded them of how the LORD had rescued them from slavery in Mitraim, so the warriors of Ephraim sent the would-be captives home.

The Philistines were also pushing into Judah from the west, Ammon from the East and the Edomites from the southeast. Five different nations were coming against Judah to box it in, but Isaiah was sent by God to give King Ahaz a special message of encouragement that these attacks will not be successful.

However, Ahaz disregarded Yeshiyahu’s sign, plundering the Temple and his own treasury for tribute for Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III to end the invasion.

King Ahaz of Judah was a vassal king of Assyria so the Assyrians came in and wiped out Aram and then about 10 years later, Assyria wiped out Samaria/Ephraim, too. The problem was that King Ahaz’s trust was in Assyria, not in God.

The punchline of this prophecy is that the people are suffering under a moral decline because their leaders are corrupt and have turned their hearts away from God.

Judah didn’t just call in Assyria as a lifeline. When Assyria conquered Aram, King Ahaz visited Aram after it has been conquered by the Assyrians. Ahaz while visiting also became enamored with a bronze pagan altar in Damascus and instructed the then-high priest to duplicate it in the Temple, while at the same time altering the architecture, furniture and later access to the Temple.

By doing this, Ahaz was causing the hearts of his people to turn further away from God and planted the seeds of the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem about a century later. The syncretism that Ahaz brought in with him ended up chopping down the Davidic dynasty of Judah.

Then the LORD spoke again to Ahaz, saying, “Ask a sign for yourself from the LORD your God; make it deep as Sheol or high as heaven.” But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, nor will I test the LORD!”
Isaiah 7:10–12 NASB

Ahaz said he didn’t want to “test the LORD,” but Ahaz’s plan to look to Assyria for protection rather than the LORD put the LORD to the test. God saw through his hypocritical and false piety. God gave Ahaz the sign anyway, because the sign wasn’t just for him but for the future too. Who do we look toward for protection? Do we look to the strength of the empires around us ,or do we look to the God who lifts up empires and takes them down?

“Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good. For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken.”
Isaiah 7:14–16 NASB

The “time he knows to refuse evil and choose good” is around the age of 12-13 years old, and that equates to around 722/721 B.C. When Isaiah says that the lad will “eat curds and honey” and that “the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken” is a prophesy to Ahaz that by this time, agriculture will have been destroyed with the destruction of Ephraim/Israel by Assyria.

When you’re in an agricultural area and you’re eating curds in honey, that’s a bad thing. It means you’re not really getting a lot out of your dairy, your crops are toast, and you’re scrambling around for honey — whatever, wherever you can find it. They didn’t have bee apiaries like we do now. People had to scavenge for wild bee hives to get honey.

‘To us a child is born’ (Isaiah 8:19–9:7)

Immanu El is not just about an individual, it’s about community. The Tabernacle, the Temple, was meant to be in the midst of the people, but when the people’s hearts turned away from God, God eventually left the Temple. Once God left the Temple, then the next step was an invasion that would destroy the Temple. This “abomination of desolation” occurred five times in Israel’s history.

“For every boot of the booted warrior in the battle tumult, And cloak rolled in blood, will be for burning, fuel for the fire.
For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.”
Isaiah 9:5–6 NASB

The Targums, which were Aramaic dynamic and explanatory translations of the TaNaKh³ for synagogue study dating back to the first century A.D., took a clear Messianic view of the Book of Immanuel.

“The prophet said to the house of David that a boy has been born to us, a son has been given to us, and he has received the Torah upon himself to keep it. And his name has been called from before the One Who Causes Wonderful Counsel, God the Warrior, the Eternally Existing One — the Messiah who will increase peace upon us in his days. Much is the greatness for the doers of the Torah, and there is no end to those who keep peace — upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom — to establish it and to build it in justice and in merit from now and forever. This will be done by the Memra of the Lord of Hosts.”
Isaiah 9:5–6 Targum Jonathan

God has always desired to live in the midst of His people, from Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:8–9) to the Tabernacle (Ex. 25:8; 29:45–46; Lev. 26:11) to today (John 14:16–17) and to the Day of the LORD (Rev. 21:2–4). The Messiah and the Word of God are one and the same (John 1), and it’s in the Messiah Yeshua that God and man come together. With these Messianic prophesies, there was the “right now” but also the “not yet” that would come in the future.

The history recorded in Isaiah 7–12 had its “second verse” in the Hasmonean period. After the spiritual revival under Judah Maccabee, the Hasmoneans skidded morally to the point that repeated the mistakes of the civil war between Judah and Ephraim. The Hasmoneans called in the Romans to “save” them, just as Ahaz of Judah had called in Assyria to “save” them centuries before. They couldn’t see that they were coasting spiritually toward a cliff.

Mercy of the remnant

Isaiah pulls from the Torah (e.g., references to the exodus) to help the people to understand what God is saying to them. The mercy of the LORD is exercised through a remnant. He would have saved Sodom and Gomorrah if only 10 righteous people lived there. Imagine that! If 10 righteous people had lived in Sodom, the entire metropolitan area of the wickedest region in the known world would have been spared destruction. But because there were fewer than 10 righteous there, He plucked out the remnant to safety and destroyed the wicked in their sins.

Isaiah was warning Ahaz then, just as he warns us now, not to throw our lot in with those who cannot save. We are to trust in God, the One who proved His power by saving Israel out of Mitzraim — out of the house of bondage — just as He promised he would to Avraham a long time ago (Gen. 15:13–14).

Branch of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1–12:6)

“Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, And a branch from his roots will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and strength, The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
And He will delight in the fear of the LORD, And He will not judge by what His eyes see, Nor make a decision by what His ears hear…”
Isaiah 11:1–3 NASB

Those who set themselves up as great were destroyed by Assyria, but out of that destruction, the “shoot from the stem of Jesse,” the true King of Israel will come. This is a promise that the lineage of Jesse, through Solomon will live on for eternity (2Samuel 7). Our Messiah Yeshua is the remnant of the house of Jesse.

God always uses a small remnant to accomplish great feats of courage for His people. Israel was not created to come to nothing but they were created to bring the greatness of God to earth, through the Messiah Yeshua.

Yeshua is the Holy One dwelling in our midst. Even along the way, no matter what troubles and trials we face, our High Priest Yeshua understands our struggles and suffering, because Yeshua, the most precious Immanu El — God with us.

Summary: Tammy