More than seven hundred years before Bethlehem, Isaiah gave King Ahaz a sign: a virgin would conceive and bear a son called Immanuel — "God with us." Matthew opens his Gospel by declaring it fulfilled in the birth of Jesus. Here is the text, the fulfillment, the honest Hebrew debate, and what the name means.
The text (Isaiah 7:14)
“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”
Fulfilled in Jesus
“Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, 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.” — Matthew 1:22–23
The honest debate: does "almah" mean virgin?
The Hebrew word is almah — a young woman of marriageable age, presumed unmarried and chaste. Jewish interpreters note that the precise word for virgin is betulah, and that the sign had a near-term meaning in Ahaz's own day (often tied to Hezekiah's birth). That is a fair and ancient reading. The Christian response rests on a striking fact: the pre-Christian Jewish translators of the Septuagint (c. 200 BC) chose the Greek word parthenos — which unambiguously means virgin. Jewish scholars centuries before Jesus already read it that way, and Matthew quotes that reading. Many see a dual horizon: a sign to Ahaz, and its full, divinely intended fulfillment in the virgin birth of Christ.
"God with us" — the Apostolic reading
The name Immanuel is the heart of the prophecy. Scripture does not say the child would merely be accompanied by God, but that He would be God with us — "the Word was made flesh" (John 1:14), "God was manifest in the flesh" (1 Timothy 3:16). The Apostolic (Oneness) Pentecostal reading takes the name at full weight: the one born of the virgin is the one true God revealed in the Son — not a second divine person beside the Father, but the Father's own self-disclosure in flesh (Isaiah 9:6; Colossians 2:9).
Why it matters
If Isaiah 7:14 is fulfilled in Jesus, then the incarnation was promised centuries in advance: God Himself stepped into our world as one of us. The response He asks is the gospel the apostles preached: repent, be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost (Acts 2:38).