Immanuel
I recommend an article by Rikki Watts called “Immanuel: Virgin Birth Proof Text or Programmatic Warning of Things to Come (Isa. 7:14 in Matt. 1:23)?” in From Prophecy to Testament edited by Craig Evans (Massachusetts: Hendrickson Pub. Inc., 2004) . It is a very thought-provoking article as he discusses the background of Isaiah concerning Immanuel and the different approaches to understanding the function of the name. Is Immanuel, “God with Us,” primarily a good or bad thing? Blessing or judgment? Although Watts recognizes that the term certainly can be used for salvation and blessing, “God with Us” is also used in contexts where judgment is in view. And it is judgment that makes more sense in the Isaiah passage. What Matthew does by citing Isa. 7:14 is to prepare the reader for the Immanuel citation. So “both names – Immanuel and Jesus – set the agenda for the gospel” and “they evoke different aspects of [the original Isaianic setting] – salvation and judgment” (113).
For this, Watts considers three arguments for why Matthew uses Isa. 7:14, namely, a) that the virgin birth of was in keeping with Scripture, b) Immanuel provides an additional Christological title and c) apologetic reasons. He rejects all these arguments and gives reasons for why he does. Plus, he shows that the structure of Matthew itself supports thinking of Immanuel as judgment, and that Matthew was thinking of the context of Isaiah when he quoted those passages.
I like Watts’ approach because it takes seriously the context of Isaiah and explains quite nicely how other aspects of the book hang together. However, I think that Watts dismissed option a) and c) too quickly. Although it was not the purpose of the article, I think that at least the possibility of Midrash in Matthew has to be taken seriously. I think there must be a dialog between Watts’ method, which sees the NT writer honoring the context of the OT passage, with the hermeneutics of second Temple Judaism which takes the hermeneutical practices of the people back then into consideration. For they believed that, by their hermeneutical methods, they were taking the biblical text seriously. So which one is more biblical?
This is complicated. I need to see if I can consistently apply Watts’ method to the whole book of Matthew. As for this pericope, I admit that this interpretation looks promising but without looking at other methods more closely, especially Midrash, I am not fully convinced.
