SEV Biblia, Chapter 1:23
He aquí una Virgen concebir y dar a luz un hijo, y llamars su nombre Emmanuel, que es, si lo declaras: Dios con nosotros.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Matthew 1:23
Verse 23. Behold, a virgin shall be with child] We have already seen, from the preceding verse, that this prophecy is taken from Isa. vii. 14; but it may be necessary to consider the circumstances of the original promise more particularly. At the time referred to, the kingdom of Judah, under the government of Ahaz, was reduced very low. Pekah, king of Israel, had slain in Judea 120,000 persons in one day, and carried away captives 200,000, including women and children, together with much spoil. To add to their distress, Rezin, king of Syria, being confederate with Pekah, had taken Elath, a fortified city of Judah, and carried the inhabitants away captive to Damascus. In this critical conjuncture, need we wonder that Ahaz was afraid that the enemies who were now united against him must prevail, destroy Jerusalem, and the kingdom of Judah, and annihilate the family of David! To meet and remove this fear, apparently well grounded, Isaiah is sent from the Lord to Ahaz, swallowed up now both by sorrow and by unbelief, in order to assure him that the counsels of his enemies should not stand; and that they should be utterly discomfited. To encourage Ahaz, he commands him to ask a sign or miracle, which should be a pledge in hand, that God should, in due time, fulfill the predictions of his servant, as related in the context. On Ahaz humbly refusing to ask any sign, it is immediately added, Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign: Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son; and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, &c. Both the Divine and human nature of our Lord, as well as the miraculous conception, appear to be pointed out in the prophecy quoted here by the evangelist:-He shall be called la-wnm[ IM-MENU-EL; literally, The STRONG GOD WITH US: similar to those words in the New Testament:-The Word which was God-was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth: John i. 1, 14. And, God was manifested in the flesh: 1 Tim. iii. 16. So that we are to understand, God with us, to imply God incarnated-God in human nature. This seems farther evident from the words of the prophet, Isa. vii. 15. Butter and honey shall he eat-he shall be truly man, grow up and be nourished in a human, natural way; which refers to his being WITH US, i.e. incarnated. To which the prophet adds, That he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good:-or rather, According to his knowledge, wt[dl le- daato, reprobating the evil, and choosing the good. This refers to him as GOD; and is the same idea given by this prophet, Isa. liii. 11: By (or in) his knowledge (the knowledge of Christ crucified, wt[db be-dadto) shall my righteous servant sanctify many; for he shall bear their offenses. Now this union of the Divine and human nature is termed a sign or miracle, twa oth, i.e. something which exceeds the power of nature to produce. And this miraculous union was to be brought about in a miraculous way: Behold a VIRGIN shall conceive: the word is very emphatic, hml[h ha- almah, THE virgin; the only one that ever was, or ever shall be, a mother in this way. But the Jews, and some called Christians, who have espoused their desperate cause, assert, that "the word hml[ almah does not signify a VIRGIN only; for it is applied, Prov. xxx. 19, to signify a young married woman." I answer, that this latter text is no proof of the contrary doctrine: the words hml[b rbg rd derec geber be-almah, the way of a man with a maid, cannot be proved to mean that for which it is produced: beside, one of Deuteronomy Rossi's MSS. reads wyml[b be- almaiu, the way of a strong, or stout, man ( rbg geber) IN HIS YOUTH; and in this reading the Syriac, Septuagint, Vulgate, and Arabic agree, which are followed by the first version in the English language, as it stands in a MS. in my own possession-the weie of a man in his waring youthe; so that this place, the only one that can with any probability of success be produced, were the interpretation contended for correct, which I am by no means disposed to admit, proves nothing. Beside, the consent of so many versions in the opposite meaning deprives it of much of its influence in this question.
The word hml[ almah, comes from ml[ alam, to lie hid, be concealed; and we are told that "virgins were so called, because they were concealed or closely kept up in their fathers' houses, till the time of their marriage." This is not correct: see the case of Rebecca, Gen. xxiv. 43, and my note there: that of Rachel, Gen. xxix. 6, 9, and the note there also: and see the case of Miriam, the sister of Moses, Exod. ii. 8, and also the Chaldee paraphrase on La i. 4, where the virgins are represented as going out in the dance. And see also the whole history of Ruth. This being concealed, or kept at home, on which so much stress is laid, is purely fanciful; for we find that young unmarried women drew water, kept sheep, gleaned publicly in the fields, &c., &c., and the same works they perform among the Turcomans to the present day. This reason, therefore, does not account for the radical meaning of the word; and we must seek it elsewhere. Another well known and often used root in the Hebrew tongue will cast light on this subject. This is hlg galah, which signifies to reveal, make manifest, or uncover, and is often applied to matrimonial connections, in different parts of the Mosaic law: ml[ alam, therefore, may be considered as implying the concealment of the virgin, as such, till lawful marriage had taken place. A virgin was not called hml[ almah, because she was concealed by being kept at home in her father's house, which is not true, but literally and physically, because, as a woman, she had not been uncovered-she had not known man. This fully applies to the blessed virgin: see Luke i. 34. "How can this be, seeing I know no man?" and this text throws much light on the subject before us. This also is in perfect agreement with the ancient prophecy, "The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent," Gen. iii. 15; for the person who was to destroy the work of the devil was to be the progeny of the woman, without any concurrence of the man. And, hence, the text in Genesis speaks as fully of the virgin state of the person, from whom Christ, according to the flesh, should come, as that in the prophet, or this in the evangelist. According to the original promise, there was to be a seed, a human being, who should destroy sin; but this seed or human being must come from the woman ALONE; and no woman ALONE, could produce such a human being, without being a virgin. Hence, A virgin shall bear a son, is the very spirit and meaning of the original text, independently of the illustration given by the prophet; and the fact recorded by the evangelist is the proof of the whole. But how could that be a sign to Ahaz, which was to take place so many hundreds of years after? I answer, the meaning of the prophet is plain: not only Rezin and Pekah should be unsuccessful against Jerusalem at that time, which was the fact; but Jerusalem, Judea, and the house of David, should be both preserved, notwithstanding their depressed state, and the multitude of their adversaries, till the time should come when a VIRGIN should bear a son. This is a most remarkable circumstance-the house of David could never fail, till a virgin should conceive and bear a son-nor did it: but when that incredible and miraculous fact did take place, the kingdom and house of David became extinct! This is an irrefragable confutation of every argument a Jew can offer in vindication of his opposition to the Gospel of Christ. Either the prophecy in Isaiah has been fulfilled, or the kingdom and house of David are yet standing. But the kingdom of David, we know, is destroyed: and where is the man, Jew or Gentile, that can show us a single descendant of David on the face of the earth? The prophecy could not fail-the kingdom and house of David have failed; the virgin, therefore, must have brought forth her son-and this son is Jesus, the Christ. Thus Moses, Isaiah, and Matthew concur; and facts, the most unequivocal, have confirmed the whole! Behold the wisdom and providence of God! Notwithstanding what has been said above, it may be asked, In what sense could this name Immanuel be applied to Jesus Christ, if he be not truly and properly GOD? Could the Spirit of truth ever design that Christians should receive him as an angel or a mere man, and yet, in the very beginning of the Gospel history, apply a character to him which belongs only to the most high God? Surely no. In what sense, then, is Christ GOD WITH US? Jesus is called Immanuel, or God with us, in his incarnation.-God united to our nature- God with man-God in man.-God with us, by his continual protection.-God with us, by the influences of his Holy Spirit-in the holy sacrament-in the preaching of his word-in private prayer. And God with us, through every action of our life, that we begin, continue, and end in his name. He is God with us, to comfort, enlighten, protect, and defend us in every time of temptation and trial, in the hour of death, in the day of judgment; and God with us, and in us, and we with and in him, to all eternity.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 23. Behold, a virgin shall be with child , etc.] These words are rightly applied to the virgin Mary and her son Jesus, for of no other can they be understood; not of Ahazs wife and his son Hezekiah, who was already born, and must be eleven or twelve years of age when these words were spoken; nor of any other son of Ahaz by her or any other person since no other was Lord of Judea; nor of the wife of Isaiah, and any son of his, who never had any that was king of Judah. The prophecy is introduced here as in Isaiah with a behold! not only to raise and fix the attention, but to denote that it was something wonderful and extraordinary which was about to be related; and is therefore called twa a sign, wonder, or miracle; which lay not, as some Jewish writers affirm, in this, that the person spoken of was unfit for conception at the time of the prophecy, since no such thing is intimated; or in this, that it should be a son and not a daughter f56 , which is foretold; for the wonder lies not in the truth of the prediction, but in the extraordinariness of the thing predicted; much less in this f57 , that the child should eat butter and honey as soon as born; since nothing is more natural and common with new born infants, than to take in any sort of liquids which are sweet and pleasant. But the sign or wonder lay in this, that a virgin should conceive or be with child; for the Evangelist is to be justified in rendering, hml[ by paryenov a virgin; by the Septuagint having so rendered it some hundreds of years before him, by the sense of the word, which comes from l[ and which signifies to hide or cover; virgins being such who are unknown to, and not uncovered by men, and in the Eastern countries were kept recluse from the company and conversation of men; and by the use of the word in all other places, ( Genesis 24:43 Exodus 2:8 Psalm 68:25 Song of Solomon 1:3 6:8 Proverbs 30:19). The last of these texts the Jews triumph in, as making for them, and against us, but without any reason; since it does not appear that the maid and the adulterous woman are one and the same person; and if they were, the vitiated woman might be called a maid or virgin, according to her own account of herself, or in the esteem of others who knew her not, or as antecedent to her defilement; (see Deuteronomy 22:28). Besides, could this be understood of any young woman married or unmarried, that had known a man, it would be no wonder, no surprising thing that she should conceive or be with child, and bring forth a son. It is added, and they shall call his name Emmanuel . The difference between Isaiah and Matthew is very inconsiderable, it being in the one thou shalt call, that is, thou virgin shalt call him by this name; and in the other they shall call, that is, Joseph, Mary, and others; for, besides that some copies read the text in Matthew caleseiv thou shalt call, the words both in the one and the other may be rendered impersonally, and shall be called; and the meaning is, not that he should be commonly known and called by such a name, any more than by any, or all of those mentioned in ( Isaiah 9:6), but only that he should be so, which is a frequent use of the word; or he should be that, and so accounted by others, which answers to the signification of this name, which the Evangelist says, being interpreted is God with us : for it is a compound word of la God and wnm[ with us, and well agrees with Jesus, who is God in our nature, the word that was made flesh and dwelt among us. ( John 1:14), and is the one and only Mediator between God and us, ( 1 Timothy 2:5) f58 . So the Septuagint interpret the word in ( Isaiah 8:8).
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 18-25 - Let us look to the circumstances under which the Son of God entere into this lower world, till we learn to despise the vain honours of this world, when compared with piety and holiness. The mystery of Christ's becoming man is to be adored, not curiously inquired into. It was so ordered that Christ should partake of our nature, yet that he should be pure from the defilement of original sin, which has bee communicated to all the race of Adam. Observe, it is the thoughtful not the unthinking, whom God will guide. God's time to come with instruction to his people, is when they are at a loss. Divine comfort most delight the soul when under the pressure of perplexed thoughts Joseph is told that Mary should bring forth the Saviour of the world He was to call his name Jesus, a Saviour. Jesus is the same name with Joshua. And the reason of that name is clear, for those whom Chris saves, he saves from their sins; from the guilt of sin by the merit of his death, and from the power of sin by the Spirit of his grace. I saving them from sin, he saves them from wrath and the curse, and all misery, here and hereafter. Christ came to save his people, not in their sins, but from their sins; and so to redeem them from among men to himself, who is separate from sinners. Joseph did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, speedily, without delay, and cheerfully without dispute. By applying the general rules of the written word, we should in all the steps of our lives, particularly the great turns of them, take direction from God, and we shall find this safe an comfortable __________________________________________________________________
Greek Textus Receptus
ιδου 2400 5628 V-2AAM-2S η 3588 T-NSF παρθενος 3933 N-NSF εν 1722 PREP γαστρι 1064 N-DSF εξει 2192 5692 V-FAI-3S και 2532 CONJ τεξεται 5088 5695 V-FDI-3S υιον 5207 N-ASM και 2532 CONJ καλεσουσιν 2564 5692 V-FAI-3P το 3588 T-ASN ονομα 3686 N-ASN αυτου 846 P-GSM εμμανουηλ 1694 N-PRI ο 3739 R-NSN εστιν 2076 5748 V-PXI-3S μεθερμηνευομενον 3177 5746 V-PPP-NSN μεθ 3326 PREP ημων 2257 P-1GP ο 3588 T-NSM θεος 2316 N-NSM
Vincent's NT Word Studies
23. The virgin (h parqenov). Note the demonstrative force of the article, pointing to a particular person. Not, some virgin or other.They shall call (kalesousin). In ver. 21, it is thou shalt call. The original of Isaiah (vii. 14) has she shall call; but Matthew generalized the singular into the plural, and quotes the prophecy in a form suited to its larger and final fulfilment: men shall call his name Immanuel, as they shall come to the practical knowledge that God will indeed dwell with men upon the earth.
Immanuel (Hebrew, God is with us). To protect and save. A comment is furnished by Isa. viii. 10, "Devise a device, but it shall come to naught; speak a word, but it shall not stand, for with us is God." Some suppose Isaiah embodied the purport of his message in the names of his children: Mahershalal-hash-baz (speed-prey), a warning of the coming of the fierce Assyrians; Shear-Jashub (a remnant shall return), a reminder of God's mercy to Israel in captivity, and Immanuel (God is with us), a promise of God's presence and succor. However this may be, the promise of the name is fulfilled in Jesus (compare "Lo, I am with you always," Matthew xxviii. 20) by his helpful and saving presence with his people in their sorrow, their conflict with sin, and their struggle with death.
Robertson's NT Word Studies
1:23 {They shall call} (kalesousin). Men, people, will call his name Immanuel, God with us. "The interest of the evangelist, as of all New Testament writers, in prophecy, was purely religious" (Bruce). But surely the language of Isaiah has had marvellous illustration in the Incarnation of Christ. this is Matthew's explanation of the meaning of Immanuel, a descriptive appellation of Jesus Christ and more than a mere motto designation. God's help, Jesus=the Help of God, is thus seen. One day Jesus will say to Philip: "He that has seen me has seen the Father" (#Joh 14:9).
