Immanuel in Imperial Context: Isaiah, God, and History Available to Purchase

This article investigates the implications of the Immanuel prophecy for the doctrine of God and the political idea of Israel that emerge from the book of Isaiah. It does this in conversation with both the Immanuel tradition elsewhere in the OT, as well as with an alternative ideology that Isaiah encountered through Assyria. I argue that Isaiah’s use of Immanuel in the context of the Syro-Ephraimite crisis and Assyrian aggression (Isa 6–12) allows him to avoid framing Zion theology as an Israelite version of Assyrian imperialism. But, in doing so, Isaiah also implies that the transcendent, high, and lofty God of Isa 6 will be willing to be “with” a people suffering his own judgment.