ANUEL ; Sept. 'EktjuavoirA), oc curring in forty-three NISS., and thirty-nine printed editions. as Dr. Henderson informs us, as two words, ntu, is literally translated God with us.' As, however, the precise character and significancy of the name is closely bound up with the interpretation of the principal passage in which it occurs—viz., Is. vii. 14., cited by Matthew in his Gospel, ch. i. vers. 22, 23—the latter demands our first consideration.
Perhaps there is no other portion of O. T. pro phecy on which so much has been written, and in regard to which there has been, and still exists, so great a diversity of opinion, as the one we have now to do with. Following Dr. Henderson's arrangement, there are-1st, The Jewish interpre ters, who of coutw ignore altogether the authority of the N. T., and are yet divided among them selves ; the earlier rabbins explaining the passage of the queen of Ahaz, the later, as Jarchi and Aben-Ezra, of the wife of the prophet, but others, as Kiinchi and Abarbanel, of a. second spouse of the king. 2dly, • The great body of Christian inter preters, who have held it to be a'irectly and exclu sively a prophecy of our Saviour, and have con sidered themselves fully borne out by the inspired authority of die evangelist Matthew.' 3dly, Those scholars who, not content to stop short here, havt applied themselves to the study of the passagt. taken in its connection, in other words, to its historical exegesis, and have perceived the difticul ties which in this view attach to the use made of it in the N. T. Of these (r), ' Grotius, Faber, Isenbiehl, Hezel, Bolten, Fitsche, Pluschke, Ge senius, IIitzig, suppose either the then present or a future wife of Isaiah to be meant by the re ferred to. (2) Eichhorn, Paulus, Hensler,. Am nion,' to whom may be added J. D. Michaelis, are of opinion that the prophet had nothina more in view than an ideal virgin, and that both she and her son were purely imaginary persons, introduced for the purpose of prophetic illustration. (3) Bauer, Cube, Steudel, and some others,' including E. F. Rosenmiiller in the 1st edition of his Scholia, think that the prophet pointed to a young woman in the presence of the king and his courtiers.' cRichard Simon, Le Clerc, Koppe, Lowth, Oathe, \Williams, Von Meyer, Olshausen, Dr. J. Pye Smith,' with Dr. S. Davidson, adopt the hypothesis of a double sense ; one, in width the words apply primarily to some female living in the time of the prophet, and giving birth to a son ac cording to the ordinary laws of nature, or, as Dathe holds, to some virgin who should miracu lously conceive ; and the other, in which they received a secondary and plenary fulfilment in the miraculous conception and birth of Cl,rist.' Lastly, there are those who, with much learning and ability, have striven to vindicate what Gesenius calls the Messianic interpretation,' or the exclu sive reference of the prediction to Christ ; among whom may be mentioned, in addition to Dr. Hen derson himself, Vitringa, Crusius, Dereser, Rosen mfiller (in his Scholia in Comp. ramie?), Heng stenberg, apparently Ewald, Dr. W. L. Alexander, and Dr. P. Fairbairn, who, however, are by no
means agreed among themselves as to the way in which Alatthew and Isaiah are to be reconciled.
One cannot avoid the suspicion that such a diversity, even among those who are at one as to fundamental principles, and most fully recognise the canon that the N. T. is to be considered as the key to the Old, has its source in something more than the idiosyncracies of different minds, and that, to use a 'familiar phrase, interpreters may have set out on the wrong scent. Now it is observable that it has been almost universally assumed at the outset, that the immediate and direct object of the prophet, speaking as the messenger of Jehovah, was to convince tlizaz by a striking sign that Goa' wonld shortly deliver him from the enemies by whom zvas threatened. 'The design of the prophet (they say) was to show to the distressed and dis trustful king, that, in the extremity of his affairs, theretvas no reason to despair, and that the coun by should not be subdued' (Doederlein, in /oc.) It seems to be as clear as words can make it,' says Dr. J. P. Smith, that the son promised was born within a year aftet the giving of the }medic tion ; that his being so born, at the assigned period, was the sigm or pledge that the political deliverance announced to Ahaz should certainly take place ; and that such deliverance would arrive before this child should have reached the age in which children are commonly able to discriminate the different kinds of food' (Script. Test., vol. i. p. 237). In like manner Gesenius complains that the defenders of the immediate application of the prediction to Christ do not meet the numerous objections which arise out of the context, especially this, that it was necessary to give to the incredulous Ahaz a sign that was speedily fulfilled, and that lay as it were before his eyes ' (Conzmentar iiber Yesaia, zur stelle). And so, some maintain that the pro mised child was Hezekiah ; others a son of the prophet, called Immanuel ; Dr. Davidson that Maher-shalal-hash-baz was primarily intended ; while others, as Dr. Kennicott, refer the first part of the prediction to Messiah, and the latter (ver. 16) to Shear-Jashub : some will have it that the 'Almah was really present, and her son born shortly after wards ; others, as Hengstenberg, that the whole scene was merely beheld in visthn, the child being ideally present, in his birth and growth to man hood, before the spiritual eye of the prophet, and constituting, as so present, the sign of a speedy deliverance of Judah from Israel and Syria ;' while Rosenmiiller, after an able defence of the Messianic interpretation, is constrained to admit that the prophet was mistaken about the period of the child's nativity : Dathe and others hold that the Evangelist quotes the passage as a tyticae prophecy ; Isenbiehl, that he cites it by way of accommodation (for which sentiment the pro fessor was cruelly subjected to chains and a dungeon); while Dr. Williams of Sydenham goes so far as to question the authenticity of the first two chapters of his gospel altogether.