Emmanuel

Emmanuel is the older English spelling of the Hebrew name Immanuel — "God is with us" — given as a sign-name in the book of Isaiah. The UPDV consistently spells the name Immanuel in the prophetic text, while the form Emmanuel survives in English usage from earlier translations of the same name.

The Sign-Name in Isaiah

The name first appears as part of a sign delivered to the house of David during the Syro-Ephraimite crisis. Isaiah announces, "Therefore the Lord himself will give you⁺ a sign: look, the young woman will be pregnant, and give birth to a son, and will call his name Immanuel" (Isa 7:14). The sign is addressed in the plural-you (⁺) — given to the royal house, not to Ahaz alone — and the child's name embeds a promise about Yahweh's presence with the people.

"God With Us" Over the Land

Two chapters later the name reappears, this time as a vocative addressed to the land of Judah itself as the Assyrian flood sweeps southward: "and it will sweep onward into Judah; it will overflow and pass through; it will reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of its wings will fill the width of your land, O Immanuel" (Isa 8:8). The land belongs to Immanuel; the invasion does not unmake that ownership even as it nearly drowns the country.

The name's meaning is then stated in plain Hebrew a few verses later, when the prophet declares to the conspiring nations, "Take counsel together, and it will be brought to nothing; speak the word, and it will not stand: for God is with us" (Isa 8:10). The closing phrase — "God is with us" — is the same Hebrew word rendered as the name Immanuel elsewhere; the UPDV footnote at 8:10 makes the identification explicit. The name and the sentence are one.