Immanuel

The name Immanuel is given as a sign during the Syro-Ephraimite crisis in the days of King Ahaz, then echoes twice more in the chapter that follows. UPDV preserves the Hebrew form across all three Isaiah passages and footnotes the meaning where the name is rendered into English.

The Sign Given to Ahaz

The name first appears as the content of a sign offered by Yahweh through Isaiah: "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 verse stands as a messianic promise and a sign confirming faith in the face of foreign threat.

The Land Belonging to Immanuel

In the next chapter the name returns as a vocative addressed to the threatened land. The Assyrian flood is described as reaching the neck of Judah, and the territory itself is called by the child's name: "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 is Immanuel's; the invader cannot possess it.

God Is With Us

A few verses later the same name is rendered into its English meaning, with a UPDV footnote tying the wording back: "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 clause — "God is with us" — is the Hebrew Immanuel translated. The plotting of the nations cannot stand because of what the name itself says.