"God with us"--NOBISCUM is a compound of the ablative of the pronoun NOS
with the preposition CUM ('with') attached to it, just as in such
comparable liturgical phrases as DOMINUS VOBISCUM/TECUM ('the Lord be with
you'). More specifically DEUS NOBISCUM is the Latin translation of the
Hebrew compound name IMMANUEL, where EL = DEUS and IMMANU = NOBISCUM.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/