Isaiah 7:7

7:7 For this reason the sovereign master, ¹  the Lord, says:

“It will not take place;

it will not happen.

Isaiah 8:10

8:10 Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted!

Issue your orders, but they will not be executed! ² 

For God is with us! ³ 

Jeremiah 44:28

44:28 Some who survive in battle will return to the land of Judah from the land of Egypt. But they will be very few indeed! ⁴  Then the Judean remnant who have come to live in the land of Egypt will know whose word proves true, ⁵  mine or theirs.’

Ezekiel 17:15

17:15 But this one from Israel’s royal family ⁶  rebelled against the king of Babylon ⁷  by sending his emissaries to Egypt to obtain horses and a large army. Will he prosper? Will the one doing these things escape? Can he break the covenant and escape?

Zechariah 1:6

1:6 But have my words and statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, not outlived your fathers? ⁸  Then they paid attention ⁹  and confessed, ‘The Lord who rules over all has indeed done what he said he would do to us, because of our sinful ways.’”

[7:7]  ¹ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here and in vv. 14, 19 is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[8:10]  ² tn Heb “speak a word, but it will not stand.”

[8:10]  ³ sn In these vv. 9-10 the tone shifts abruptly from judgment to hope. Hostile nations like Assyria may attack God’s people, but eventually they will be destroyed, for God is with his people, sometimes to punish, but ultimately to vindicate. In addition to being a reminder of God’s presence in the immediate crisis faced by Ahaz and Judah, Immanuel (whose name is echoed in this concluding statement) was a guarantee of the nation’s future greatness in fulfillment of God’s covenantal promises. Eventually God would deliver his people from the hostile nations (vv. 9-10) through another child, an ideal Davidic ruler who would embody God’s presence in a special way (see 9:6-7). Jesus the Messiah is the fulfillment of the Davidic ideal prophesied by Isaiah, the one whom Immanuel foreshadowed. Through the miracle of the incarnation he is literally “God with us.” Matthew realized this and applied Isaiah’s ancient prophecy of Immanuel’s birth to Jesus (Matt 1:22-23). The first Immanuel was a reminder to the people of God’s presence and a guarantee of a greater child to come who would manifest God’s presence in an even greater way. The second Immanuel is “God with us” in a heightened and infinitely superior sense. He “fulfills” Isaiah’s Immanuel prophecy by bringing the typology intended by God to realization and by filling out or completing the pattern designed by God. Of course, in the ultimate fulfillment of the type, the incarnate Immanuel’s mother must be a virgin, so Matthew uses a Greek term (παρθένος, parqenos), which carries that technical meaning (in contrast to the Hebrew word עַלְמָה [’almah], which has the more general meaning “young woman”). Matthew draws similar analogies between NT and OT events in 2:15, 18. The linking of these passages by analogy is termed “fulfillment.” In 2:15 God calls Jesus, his perfect Son, out of Egypt, just as he did his son Israel in the days of Moses, an historical event referred to in Hos 11:1. In so doing he makes it clear that Jesus is the ideal Israel prophesied by Isaiah (see Isa 49:3), sent to restore wayward Israel (see Isa 49:5, cf. Matt 1:21). In 2:18 Herod’s slaughter of the infants is another illustration of the oppressive treatment of God’s people by foreign tyrants. Herod’s actions are analogous to those of the Assyrians, who deported the Israelites, causing the personified land to lament as inconsolably as a mother robbed of her little ones (Jer 31:15).

[44:28]  ⁴ tn Heb “The survivors of the sword will return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah few in number [more literally, “men of number”; for the idiom see BDB 709 s.v. מִסְפָּר 1.a].” The term “survivors of the sword” may be intended to represent both those who survive death in war or death by starvation or disease, a synecdoche of species for all three genera.

[44:28]  ⁵ tn Heb “will stand,” i.e., in the sense of being fulfilled, proving to be true, or succeeding (see BDB 878 s.v. קוּם 7.g).

[17:15]  ⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the member of the royal family, v. 13) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[17:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “him”; the referent (the king of Babylon) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:6]  ⁸ tc BHS suggests אֶתְכֶם (’etkhem, “you”) for the MT אֲבֹתֵיכֶם (’avotekhem, “your fathers”) to harmonize with v. 4. In v. 4 the ancestors would not turn but in v. 6 they appear to have done so. The subject in v. 6, however, is to be construed as Zechariah’s own listeners.

[1:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “they turned” (so ASV). Many English versions have “they repented” here; cf. CEV “they turned back to me.”