Gavin
September 30th 2003, 01:17 AM
This is an essay for my religion class (the same one I earlier alluded to).
According to the narrative of Isaiah 7, the king of Aram allied with the kind of Israel and marched out to attack Ahaz, king of Judah, in about 730 B.C. The prophet Isaiah’s words of reassurance to the fretting King Ahaz, particularly the “sign” described in verse 14, have sparked a long history of debate among Jews, Christian, and secular scholars. The controversial verse, quoted by Matthew and applied to Mary’s conception of baby Jesus in Matthew 1:23, reads, “therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall
call his name Immanuel" (ESV). Of the possible identities for Immanuel, three interpretations are most popular. Many Christians, following the tradition of Matthew, accept Isaiah 7:14 as messianic prophecy referring to Jesus. Hezekiah, Ahaz’s and one of Judah’s greatest kings, and Maher-Shalal-Hash-Bez, one of Isaiah’s children mentioned in Isaiah 8:1-8, are two other possible candidates. It is the argument of this paper that Isaiah 7:14, though doubtless referring to either Isaiah’s son or some other seventh century child in its immediate and contemporary meaning, nevertheless foreshadowed the virgin birth of Jesus Christ in its broader and messianic meaning. For the purposes of Matthew and contemporary Scriptural interpretation, the passage may indeed be taken as a messianic prophecy.
First of all, it is necessary to eliminate Hezekiah as a hermeneutical candidate. The child of Isaiah 7:14 cannot be Hezekiah for two reasons. First, the term used to denote the child’s mother in verse 14, “almah”, although not exclusively tied to any concept of virginity, regularly denotes a young woman who has not yet borne a child and is of marriageable age. The best translation for the word is, “young woman”, or, better, “maiden”. Old Testament (Tanach) scholar John Walton writes, “the term [almah] refers to one who has not yet borne a child and as an abstraction refers to the adolescent expectation of motherhood. This would be captured in Eng. by a combination
of the terms “nubility” and “fertility”—a woman so described is full of childbearing potential.” Such a word would hardly befit Ahaz’s wife, who was already married and had already bore Ahaz children (one of whom he had sacrificed in fire [II Kings 16:3]). Secondly, Hezekiah would likely have already been borne by the time that this prophecy was given. Isaac Troki writes, “when Ahaz ascended the throne, Hezekiah had already attained his ninth year.” Therefore Hezekiah cannot reasonably be considered the Immanuel of Isaiah 7:14.
It is possible that Immanuel was either Isaiah’s son Maher-Shalal-Hash-Bez or some other unmentioned child in the royal house. One strength of the interpretation that sees Isaiah’s son as the child is its close historical proximity to the events surrounding 7:14. Maher-Shalal-Hash-Bez is born only one chapter later when Isaiah sleeps with his wife based on a word from the Lord (Isaiah 8:1-2), and would have thus been old enough to fulfill Isaiah’s prediction in 7:15ff. Moreover, a strikingly similar prophecy is mdae of Maher-Shalal-Hash-Bez in 8:4 as is made of the child in 7:15ff. – that Assyria would destroy Judah’s enemies before this child reaches a certain age. One weakness of the Maher-Shalal-Hash-Bez interpretation is, again, the word “almah” would probably not have been the best wordto denote the prophetess of Isaiah 8:2, Isaiah’s wife. Nevertheless, whether Isaiah 7:14’s literal and historical meaning referred to Maher-Shalal-Hash-Bez or some other unknown child in that historical context is irrelevant to the purposes of this essay, since it is granted that this kind of meaning of the passage does not
refer to Jesus.
However, this is not the only meaning of the passage, especially as it pertains to Matthew and other readers of the text after Isaiah’s time. What is often missed in debate over Isaiah 7:14 is Matthew’s understanding of the nature of Old Testament prophecy and fulfillment. Anyone at all familiar with Matthew’s use of the Old Testament knows that a loose association between the prophecy and the fulfillment is often all that is required. See Matthew 2:15, 18, 23, for instance. Matthew is not concerned exclusively with finding overt references to Jesus himself in the Old Testament (although he arguably does). Matthew is far more interested in detecting the spiritual and often unintended connections in the language and events of the Old Testament. So the question of whether Matthew is taking Isaiah 7:14 out of context is moot: Matthew never pretends that Old Testament prophetic fulfillment need be in context in the first place. As G.W. Grogen writes, “Matthew's concept of fulfillment is very wide-ranging and flexible and embraces many different kinds of correspondence between an OT passage and a NT event.”
It is true that the Hebrew word, “almah”, does not necessarily denote virginity. But does it need to? What it does denote – a young, marriageable female who has not borne a child – is very similar to “virgin”, especially considering that in the moral and social standards of those times, being a young and unmarried girl was practically synonymous with being a virgin. Moreover, Matthew was quoting from the Septuagint, the Jewish translation of the Old Testament into Greek in Hellenistic Judaism in the second or third century B.C., which uses the Greek word “parthenos”, which is much closer to “virgin” (though not exclusively used as “virgin”, see Genesis 34:3). The word was doubtless sufficient to convey Matthew’s intended meaning.
Although Isaiah 7:14 does not constitute a very forceful argument for Jesus’ messiahship in and of itself, the interpretation which sees Jesus as foreshadowed in this verse is certainly a plausible and internally consistent one. Christians are in no way wrong to accept this verse as a foreshadowing of Jesus on the basis that they are committed to the authority of the New Testament, specifically Matthew 1:23. And there are arguably separate and strong reasons for accepting the authority of the New Testament and messiahship of Jesus which corroborate this interpretation.
According to the narrative of Isaiah 7, the king of Aram allied with the kind of Israel and marched out to attack Ahaz, king of Judah, in about 730 B.C. The prophet Isaiah’s words of reassurance to the fretting King Ahaz, particularly the “sign” described in verse 14, have sparked a long history of debate among Jews, Christian, and secular scholars. The controversial verse, quoted by Matthew and applied to Mary’s conception of baby Jesus in Matthew 1:23, reads, “therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall
call his name Immanuel" (ESV). Of the possible identities for Immanuel, three interpretations are most popular. Many Christians, following the tradition of Matthew, accept Isaiah 7:14 as messianic prophecy referring to Jesus. Hezekiah, Ahaz’s and one of Judah’s greatest kings, and Maher-Shalal-Hash-Bez, one of Isaiah’s children mentioned in Isaiah 8:1-8, are two other possible candidates. It is the argument of this paper that Isaiah 7:14, though doubtless referring to either Isaiah’s son or some other seventh century child in its immediate and contemporary meaning, nevertheless foreshadowed the virgin birth of Jesus Christ in its broader and messianic meaning. For the purposes of Matthew and contemporary Scriptural interpretation, the passage may indeed be taken as a messianic prophecy.
First of all, it is necessary to eliminate Hezekiah as a hermeneutical candidate. The child of Isaiah 7:14 cannot be Hezekiah for two reasons. First, the term used to denote the child’s mother in verse 14, “almah”, although not exclusively tied to any concept of virginity, regularly denotes a young woman who has not yet borne a child and is of marriageable age. The best translation for the word is, “young woman”, or, better, “maiden”. Old Testament (Tanach) scholar John Walton writes, “the term [almah] refers to one who has not yet borne a child and as an abstraction refers to the adolescent expectation of motherhood. This would be captured in Eng. by a combination
of the terms “nubility” and “fertility”—a woman so described is full of childbearing potential.” Such a word would hardly befit Ahaz’s wife, who was already married and had already bore Ahaz children (one of whom he had sacrificed in fire [II Kings 16:3]). Secondly, Hezekiah would likely have already been borne by the time that this prophecy was given. Isaac Troki writes, “when Ahaz ascended the throne, Hezekiah had already attained his ninth year.” Therefore Hezekiah cannot reasonably be considered the Immanuel of Isaiah 7:14.
It is possible that Immanuel was either Isaiah’s son Maher-Shalal-Hash-Bez or some other unmentioned child in the royal house. One strength of the interpretation that sees Isaiah’s son as the child is its close historical proximity to the events surrounding 7:14. Maher-Shalal-Hash-Bez is born only one chapter later when Isaiah sleeps with his wife based on a word from the Lord (Isaiah 8:1-2), and would have thus been old enough to fulfill Isaiah’s prediction in 7:15ff. Moreover, a strikingly similar prophecy is mdae of Maher-Shalal-Hash-Bez in 8:4 as is made of the child in 7:15ff. – that Assyria would destroy Judah’s enemies before this child reaches a certain age. One weakness of the Maher-Shalal-Hash-Bez interpretation is, again, the word “almah” would probably not have been the best wordto denote the prophetess of Isaiah 8:2, Isaiah’s wife. Nevertheless, whether Isaiah 7:14’s literal and historical meaning referred to Maher-Shalal-Hash-Bez or some other unknown child in that historical context is irrelevant to the purposes of this essay, since it is granted that this kind of meaning of the passage does not
refer to Jesus.
However, this is not the only meaning of the passage, especially as it pertains to Matthew and other readers of the text after Isaiah’s time. What is often missed in debate over Isaiah 7:14 is Matthew’s understanding of the nature of Old Testament prophecy and fulfillment. Anyone at all familiar with Matthew’s use of the Old Testament knows that a loose association between the prophecy and the fulfillment is often all that is required. See Matthew 2:15, 18, 23, for instance. Matthew is not concerned exclusively with finding overt references to Jesus himself in the Old Testament (although he arguably does). Matthew is far more interested in detecting the spiritual and often unintended connections in the language and events of the Old Testament. So the question of whether Matthew is taking Isaiah 7:14 out of context is moot: Matthew never pretends that Old Testament prophetic fulfillment need be in context in the first place. As G.W. Grogen writes, “Matthew's concept of fulfillment is very wide-ranging and flexible and embraces many different kinds of correspondence between an OT passage and a NT event.”
It is true that the Hebrew word, “almah”, does not necessarily denote virginity. But does it need to? What it does denote – a young, marriageable female who has not borne a child – is very similar to “virgin”, especially considering that in the moral and social standards of those times, being a young and unmarried girl was practically synonymous with being a virgin. Moreover, Matthew was quoting from the Septuagint, the Jewish translation of the Old Testament into Greek in Hellenistic Judaism in the second or third century B.C., which uses the Greek word “parthenos”, which is much closer to “virgin” (though not exclusively used as “virgin”, see Genesis 34:3). The word was doubtless sufficient to convey Matthew’s intended meaning.
Although Isaiah 7:14 does not constitute a very forceful argument for Jesus’ messiahship in and of itself, the interpretation which sees Jesus as foreshadowed in this verse is certainly a plausible and internally consistent one. Christians are in no way wrong to accept this verse as a foreshadowing of Jesus on the basis that they are committed to the authority of the New Testament, specifically Matthew 1:23. And there are arguably separate and strong reasons for accepting the authority of the New Testament and messiahship of Jesus which corroborate this interpretation.