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18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came to pass: when his mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, before they were married, she was found pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit. 19 Joseph was a just man and unwilling to shame her, so he decided to quietly break off the engagement. 20 This was his intention when, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for she has conceived by the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear and son, and you will name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this happened to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet who said, 23 “Behold, a virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call him Emmanuel,” (which translated means God-with-us). 24 After he woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord had instructed him and took Mary as his wife. 25 He had no relations with her during the time before she bore her son, and he named him Jesus.

Comments

Joseph, like his OT namesake, receives divine communications through dreams: an angel tells him that Mary is pregnant not by another man, but by the Holy Spirit. He is to marry her and help her raise her child.

Unlike in Lk’s version, in Mt it is Joseph rather than Mary who names Jesus. This is more plausible, as in first century Jewish culture it was the father who named children. Importantly, for a man the act of naming a child was a public symbol of his acceptance of the child as his own legitimate offspring. The very act of naming Mary’s son Jesus grafts the child into Joseph’s family tree, making him a descendant of David. The name Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebraic name Yeshua, a variant of Yehoshua (Joshua), which means Yahweh saves.

The prophet Mt quotes in 1.23 is the Septuagint (i.e. Greek) translation of Isaiah 7.14. In its original context, Isaiah’s Emmanuel figure likely referred to a child to be born in Isaiah’s own day, perhaps to King Ahaz, but later Jews developed the term into a messianic title. The virgin (Greek parthenos) translates the original Hebrew word almah (young woman). In other words, the Emmanuel prophecy originally referred to a son to be born, possibly to Ahaz through one of his young wives by ordinary, natural means. Mt is not unaware of this but is choosing to reinterpret the Isaian prophecy in light of the story of Christ’s life.