What Does Matthew 1:23 Mean in the King James?
Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Emmanuel is more than a label: the name gives the child’s nature in three words, God with us.
THE MEANING
Emmanuel speaks into your present: God is with us within embodied, vulnerable human life. Divine nearness takes form among us, meeting life from within it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that God is absent from embodied, vulnerable human life.
THE ROOT
τέξεται
téxetai
GROWS FROM
τεκ-
To beget; to bring forth by birth.
“bring forth” in this verse is téxetai. The verse’s verb τέξεται (téxetai, she will bear) belongs to the Greek birth family of τεκ- (tek-, begetting and birth). That family also gives words for a child and for birth itself, joining the act of bringing forth to the life that comes forth.
ALSO GROWS
téknon: child
τέκνον
This child-word belongs to the same τεκ- birth family, linking birth with the life brought forth.
tókos: birth; offspring
τόκος
This word from the τίκτω (tíktō, give birth or beget) family names birth and its result from the same consonantal seed.
ὄνομα
ónoma
GROWS FROM
ὀνομα-
Name; designation.
The verse itself gives the meaning of Ἐμμανουήλ (Emmanouēl, Emmanuel: God with us), so ὄνομα (ónoma, name) carries the child’s nature as a spoken identity. The Hebrew parallel שֵׁם (shem, name) also carries character, and here that nature is made explicit as God’s presence with us.
ALSO GROWS
onomázō: to name; to call
ὀνομάζω
This verb grows from the same ὀνομα- family, turning a name into the act of naming or calling.
onomasía: naming; designation
ὀνομασία
This noun shares the ὀνομα- family and names the act or result of giving a name.
THE PATTERN
God’s presence meets human vulnerability as companionship and sustaining nearness.
Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.THE THREAD
A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.Both verses use forms of τίκτω (tíktō, to give birth or beget), the birth-root behind Matthew’s τέξεται (téxetai, she will bear). Matthew joins the name Emmanuel to a birth; John uses the same root for the arrival of a human life through travail.
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