Matthew 1:21 is the twenty-second verse of the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew

Gospel of Matthew

The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...

 in the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

. Joseph

Saint Joseph

Saint Joseph is a figure in the Gospels, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the earthly father of Jesus Christ ....

 has just been spoken to in a dream by an angel

Angel

Angels are mythical beings often depicted as messengers of God in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles along with the Quran. The English word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, a translation of in the Hebrew Bible ; a similar term, ملائكة , is used in the Qur'an...

.

The original Koine Greek

Koine Greek

Koine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....

, according to Westcott and Hort

The New Testament in the Original Greek

The New Testament in the Original Greek is the name of a Greek language version of the New Testament published in 1881. It is also known as the Westcott and Hort text, after its editors Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort...

, reads:

τουτο δε ολον γεγονεν ινα πληρωθη το ρηθεν

υπο κυριου δια του προφητου λεγοντος

In the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:

Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which

was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,

The World English Bible

World English Bible

The World English Bible is a public domain translation of the Bible that is currently in draft form. Work on the World English Bible began in 1997 and was known as the American Standard Version 1997...

 translates the passage as:

Now all this has happened, that it might be fulfilled

which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying,

For a collection of other versions see BibRef Matthew 1:22

This verse sets up a quote from Isaiah 7:14

Isaiah 7:14

Isaiah 7:14 is a verse of the Book of Isaiah in which the prophet Isaiah, addressing king Ahaz of Judah , promises the king a sign that his oracle is a true one...

 that appears in the following verse. Brown notes that in some alternate manuscripts this verse actually contains Isaiah

Isaiah

Isaiah ; Greek: ', Ēsaïās ; "Yahu is salvation") was a prophet in the 8th-century BC Kingdom of Judah.Jews and Christians consider the Book of Isaiah a part of their Biblical canon; he is the first listed of the neviim akharonim, the later prophets. Many of the New Testament teachings of Jesus...

's name. This is the first of ten quotes from the Old Testament

Old Testament

The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...

that appear in Matthew to illustrate how Jesus was foretold by the prophets. The Gospel of Matthew is far more concerned than the others in proving that Jesus is the Messiah spoken of in the Old Testament. The phrase "that it might be fulfilled" is Matthew's standard introduction to these quotes. Boring notes that this verse is also the first of many times that a narrator takes an active role in the Gospel, something that will also continue throughout.

That the name of the prophet in question is not mentioned is generally considered because its irrelevance to Christiology. Carter disagrees with this and argues that it is because the intended audience of the verse would have immediately known which prophet the quote came from and would need no extra information.