First off, it wasn’t even predicting a virgin birth to begin with. The original Hebrew word used was almah (עלמה) meaning “young woman” or “maiden” and does not necessarily mean virgin (referring to virgins is an obscure usage of almah). The specific Hebrew word for virgin is betulah (בתולה) and if Isaiah had intended to predict a miraculous Virgin Birth, he would have used betulah instead of almah to avoid any ambiguity. Even in the Septuagint, the Greek word that almah was translated to, parthénos (παρθένος), a word which is often translated to English as “virgin”, did not originally refer to virgins specifically, rather just like the Hebrew almah it referred to young women in general (especially since several of Solomon’s queens and concubines are called parthénoi even though they obviously weren’t virgins and in Genesis 34:3, Dinah is referred to as a parthénos even though she wasn’t a virgin by that point). The word was only used to specifically refer to virgins centuries after the Hebrew Bible was translated to Greek and the interpretation of Isaiah 7:14 referring to a virgin was likely a result of this linguistic shift, especially since the author of the Gospel of Matthew quoted the Greek version and not the Hebrew original.(Cont)
>>18532989Secondly, this prophecy wasn’t even related to the messiah and was already fulfilled 700 years before Jesus. Read the full passage for once, the prophecy was referring to contemporary young woman or almah in King Ahaz’s time (Isaiah’s wife) who would bear a son named Immanuel as a sign that the kingdoms of Aram and Israel would be defeated before the child grew up.The verses immediately following Isaiah 7:14 explain the timeframe:>"He will be eating curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste."The sign meant that within a few years, by the time a child born right then was old enough to know right from wrong, the military alliance threatening Jerusalem would be completely obliterated. This was already fulfilled before Jesus as when Isaiah’s wife gave birth, both Aram and Israel were completely obliterated by the Neo-Assyrian Empire. If Immanuel were a prophecy about Jesus, that would mean that Aram and Israel were still standing in the 1st century AD which is clearly an impossibility. The prophecy was about a contemporary event, not a messianic prediction.
