Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 34 · February 3
God With Us
“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.”
"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."
That name has a long history before it reaches the manger, so follow it backward.
It begins with a refusal. After Israel's sin at Sinai, God says He will send an angel ahead of His people, but He will not go up among them Himself. Moses will not accept the substitute: "If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence." Then he gives his reason, and the reason is who they are: "For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? is it not in that thou goest with us?" For Moses, everything that makes Israel different comes down to one fact: God walks with them.
Centuries later, Isaiah gives the name to a king who has just refused a sign. King Ahaz is told to ask God for one, "either in the depth, or in the height above." He answers with words that sound holy and are not: "I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD." He is given a sign anyway, and the name in it is Immanuel. In the next chapter, an invading army is pictured as a flood rising up to the neck, and Isaiah answers the invaders with the same name: "speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us." So the name carries a warning as well as a comfort, and it was first spoken over people who did not want it.
Then Matthew does something that is easy to miss. "They shall call his name Emmanuel," he writes, yet in his Gospel nobody ever calls Jesus by that name. Two verses earlier the angel's command is "thou shalt call his name JESUS," and Joseph does exactly that. Emmanuel describes who the child is. Matthew prints it once, at the very start of his book.
Near the end of the Bible, John hears the same promise in a great voice: "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them."
Moses would not go anywhere without God's presence. Ahaz did not want it. It is offered to you today on the same terms it was offered then. You are welcome to have Him near you before anything about your situation gets better.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 34 is Before You Began (Jeremiah 1:5).