“Immanuel,” the name God uses to refer to the coming baby, directs attention to the real point of the miracle God announces in Isaiah. Though the birth of the baby may, indeed, be miraculous, the miracle to which God is pointing is that God is with Ahaz and the people of Judah, even when they feel alone and are wracked with worry about their own demise.
The proclamation of the miracle to come in the child’s birth is an imminent event, while also referring indirectly to the miracle of Jesus’s birth to come, as stated nearly word for word in the Gospel according to Matthew. Remember which Gospel we have this week? Got to love those biblical Easter eggs.
In the psalm, it’s not uncommon for us to see these sorts of “transactional” prayers, where the psalmist (in this case, David) is trying to strike a deal with God. Basically, he wants all of the conflict and related suffering that is besieging his kingdom to stop, and in exchange, the Israelites will stay faithful.
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