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Isaiah exhorts King Ahaz to be faithful and to trust in the Lord. He even predicts that “within sixty-five years Ephraim will be shattered” (Isa. 7:8). That is to say, Ahaz does not need to fear being attacked by these two kings, for their attack will not be successful; and the Northern Kingdom of Israel/Ephraim will be destroyed within sixty-five years. Ahaz is skeptical of Isaiah’s prophecy (Isa. 7:11-12), so Isaiah offers him a sign that what he has prophesied is true: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sing. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. . . . For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted” (Isa. 7:14-16).

Notice the immediate time frame of this prophecy. The child Immanuel is not going to be born 700 years in the future; Immanuel is going to be born shortly after Isaiah gives the prophecy; and before the child is even old enough to know right from wrong (“before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good”), both Israel and Aram will be defeated (“the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted”). The child Immanuel is meant as a sign to Ahaz and the Lord will protect him from this foreign invasion, though as we saw above, Isaiah is vague about whether this child also signifies the destruction of Judah at the hands of the Assyrians.

So did Isaiah foretell the coming of Jesus? His words can be applied to Jesus—a young woman giving birth to a child whose name signifies “God is with us”—but the prophecy does not apply equally well to both Ahaz and Jesus. If we want to say that this prophecy is about Jesus, we have to deliberately ignore the references to the king of Assyria, to the eating of curds and honey due to the desolation of the land, to the fall of Israel and Aram, and to the whole purpose of the sign in shoring up Ahaz’s resolve. But that is precisely what we do in Sunday school, quoting only the verse about Immanuel and never touching the rest. Saying that this is a prophecy about Jesus also does against everything we know about how prophecy worked in Israel and the Near East.

Everything we know about the Immanuel prophecy suggests that if we look at the Old Testament prophets for proof of Jesus or the latter-day Restoration, we do so at our own peril.

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