Israel could not shake her addiction to idolatry during the period of the judges and the kings (roughly
seven centuries).
God repeatedly sent prophets to call Israel to forsake idolatry and worship Yahweh alone.
Eventually God decided to use the Babylonian empire to punish his people for their infidelity, carrying them away into exile.
Since they returned from exile God’s people have taken a strong stand against idolatry (roughly
twenty-five centuries).
To this day most Jewish people would rather die than worship anyone other than Yahweh, the one God over all.
Immanuel means “God is with us: and signals God had not abandoned his people in Isaiah’s time or Jesus’ time.
Isaiah 9:6 may also be a theophoric name. We will return to this later.
