Theotokos: In Prophecy

As mentioned before, any privileges or special honors given to Mary are direct results of her role as mother of Jesus Christ – as such she has an intimate, inseparable connection to Christ – an eternal connection in the sense that God’s plan of Salvation is eternal.   Now because Jesus Christ is the Son of God – God incarnate, Mary can be properly called the Mother of God – not in the sense of causing God’s existence or contributing anything to the Godhead – but because she contributed human nature to the Incarnated Son of God – because God entered her womb and from her assumed human nature – she may indeed be called the Mother of God (Theotokos).

Because of her inseparable connection to her Divine Son, Mary, then, is foretold or foreshadowed in the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament, sometimes directly and sometimes implicitly, but always in relation to the Messiah.

Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Isaiah 7:14

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace

Isaiah 9:6

The Messiah is to be of royal lineage.

Turn again, O God of hosts! Look down from heaven, and see; have regard for this vine,the stock which thy right hand planted.They have burned it with fire, they have cut it down; may they perish at the rebuke of thy countenance!But let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, the son of man whom thou hast made strong for thyself!Then we will never turn back from thee; give us life, and we will call on thy name!

Psalm 80:14-18

Your divine throne endures forever and ever. Your royal scepter is a scepter of equity;you love righteousness and hate wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows

Psalm 45:6-7

God personally identifies Himself with the Messiah.

For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out

Ezeckial 34:11

Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply

Jer 23:3

For I am with you to save you, says the LORD

Jer 30:11

The Messiah must suffer and die.

As many were astonished at him -- his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the sons of men --  so shall he startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which has not been told them they shall see, and that which they have not heard they shall understand.
Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.  Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.  By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?  And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.  Yet it was the will of the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief; when he makes himself an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand;  he shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities.  Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out his soul to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12

when they look on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a first-born.

Zechariah 12:10

they have pierced my hands and feet

Psalm 22:16

Jesus is the Suffering Royal Messiah.

And again another scripture says, "They shall look on him whom they have pierced

John 19:37

Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, every one who pierced him; and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him.

Rev 1:7

Mary was a devout Jewish girl.  She would have heard these scripture references in the synagogue throughout her life.  She too was waiting for the coming of the Messiah.

When the angel told her that her Son would reign over the house of Jacob forever, she would have surely known that the angel was referring to the Messiah.  Even the Name to be given to the child, Jesus, meant that “God Saves”.  Knowing that her child was to be the Messiah would have opened up the prophecies to her.  She would understand that she was seeing them fulfilled in herself and her life.