What Does Isaiah 7:14 Mean?
Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Look, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.THE KEY
The child’s name is the sign’s meaning spoken plainly: God with us.
THE MEANING
The Lord gives a sign, and the child’s name speaks its meaning: God with us. This promise meets you now as presence taking form in a life. Immanuel names the reality that surrounds the moment you are reading this.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that God is absent from the moment in front of you meets the name Immanuel: “God with us.”
THE ROOT
וְקָרָאת שְׁמוֹ
veqara't shemo
GROWS FROM
ק־ר־א
Call out, proclaim, summon, or name; in other forms, read.
“shall call his name” in this verse is veqara't shemo. The verb for naming is qara, a call or proclamation; the phrase frames the name as something spoken into the open. Immanuel (עִמָּנוּאֵל, Immanu’el) is the proclamation’s content, “with us is God”, so the sign bears its meaning in the child’s name.
ALSO GROWS
miqra: Reading, proclamation, or assembly.
מִקְרָא
This branch shows how a call can become a shared declaration, as the child’s name makes the sign’s meaning heard.
qeri'ah: A call, reading, or summons.
קְרִיאָה
The name is called aloud as a declaration of the presence it names.
וְיֹלֶדֶת
veyoledet
GROWS FROM
י־ל־ד
Beget, bear, or give birth.
“bear” in this verse is veyoledet. This root links bearing a child with the child and with generations. The sign therefore carries its declaration forward through a life that begins here.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: Child.
יֶלֶד
The root joins the act of birth directly to the child who bears the name Immanuel.
toledot: Generations or genealogies.
תּוֹלְדוֹת
This branch opens the birth into a continuing line, carrying the name’s declaration into what follows.
THE PATTERN
A name can announce divine presence as the defining reality of a life and moment.
And behold, I am with you, and I will guard you in every place you go, and I will bring you back into this land; for I will not leave you until I have done the word I have spoken to you.Take counsel together, and it shall be broken; speak the word, and it shall not stand, for God is with us.Look, the virgin will carry in her womb, and will bring forth a son, and they will call his name Emmanuel, God with us.THE THREAD
Take counsel together, and it shall be broken; speak the word, and it shall not stand, for God is with us.Isaiah 8:10 speaks the name Immanuel as the plain sentence “God is with us.” The repeated name lets you hear the sign’s content: presence remains its message even amid threat.
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