Advent Day 2: Isaiah 7:10-17

Read & Journal

Read Isaiah 7:10-17 and Matthew 1:20-23. Use any or all of these journal prompts to guide your study:

• What does Isaiah’s prophecy say about Jesus? Why is that important?

• Mull over the name Immanuel, which means “God with us.” What does it mean for you, today, in your current situation in life that Jesus is Immanuel?

• Consider the angel’s words to Joseph in Matthew 1. How does Jesus fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy?

• How would these verses have ignited hope in the hearts of those waiting for the Messiah? How do they ignite hope in your own heart?

Ponder

As is often true of prophecy, scholars believe the prophet’s words to Ahaz in Isaiah 7 had some sort of immediate fulfillment in the king’s lifetime, but was only completely fulfilled in Jesus. As Max Anders put it in the Holman Old Testament Commentary on Isaiah, “The child of Ahaz’s day, born by normal means, represented only a sign of God’s presence with the people. Jesus, born in a miraculous, virginal way, was literally Immanuel, God with us in the flesh, God incarnate.”1

In the Old Testament, God used symbols of His presence. The ark, the tabernacle, the temple. But in Jesus’ incarnation, God didn’t just use a symbol of His presence; He walked among the people. As believers, we no longer have to depend on a symbol of God’s presence in our lives because His Spirit lives within us. He is indeed Immanuel, God with us. The prophecy has been fulfilled. The light has come.

The name Immanuel reveals so much about the kind of relationship God wants to have with us, hearkening back to the garden of Eden, before the Fall when God apparently walked with Adam and Eve in the evenings (Gen. 3). In Jesus, He has drawn near to us—to restore us, redeem us, to be with us. He knows us, cares about us and is with us. Let that light of truth come into the darkness you’re dealing with today. Immanuel has come.

1 Max Anders. Holman Old Testament Bible Commentary. (Broadman & Holman Publishers: Nashville, Tenn., 2002). Accessed 8 May 2021.