Anti-Missionary Arguments

Tampering with the Text: Isaiah 7:14

The Anti-missionary’s charge:

2) The Jewish Tanakh says “Therefore, the Lord, of His own, shall give you a sign; behold, the young woman (alma) is with child, and she will bear a son and she shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14) – written in the present tense. The Greek Septuagint changed “alma”, saying “ Behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel (Matthew 1:22-23) – all in the future tense and changed the Hebrew alma, meaning a young woman to virgin, painting a Christian slant on this.

HaDavar’s response:

Jacob, you are absolutely correct. The sign that is promised to Israel is worded in the present, but the sign has not been given yet. “The Lord … shall give” is imperfect, uncompleted action, future, as you have supplied the translation above. The sign is promised for the future grammatically and contextually.

So what is the sign? The text uses the Hebrew definite article. This indicates that a specific virgin is in view. “The virgin” is pregnant, bearing a son and calling him “God with us.” Yes, Isaiah does word this section of his comments in the present tense because he is seeing this from a prophet’s point of view—unlimited by space or time. I strongly doubt that he is, at that moment, viewing the actual birth of a child “at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway to the fuller’s field,” with Ahaz and his entourage looking on (Isaiah 7:3). The context indicates some sort of a public scene, probably Ahaz inspecting Jerusalem’s water supply in preparation for the expected conflict with Aram and Israel (Isaiah 7:1-2). I really don’t think a woman would be there giving birth in that kind of a situation. This is a future event that Isaiah can see occurring in the future in his “minds eye” or that he can see occurring in the future from his prophet’s perspective.

In addition, this birth has to be a “sign.” The word “sign” either signifies the unusual event itself or in someway points to that unusual event. Or it may point backward to a historical event such as the stones in the Jordan (Josh 4:6), or even forward to such a promise as a thornless future world (Isa 55:13).[1] The point of the text is that this birth has to be unusual. A non-virgin girl, a young woman, giving birth is hardly and unusual event. It happens every day. This is not a reference to a young woman giving birth in a public place. This sign is a virgin giving birth. The physical state of the woman is the sign, not the physical location of the birth. The physical location will be covered in Micah 5:2—Bethlehem, but that’s not the point here. A woman, in her virginity, giving birth would be a sign. That does not happen very day.

You claim that the Septuagint tampered with the text by changing the tense to future. If that is tampering, then it was done by Jewish Rabbis. The Septuagint was in place before Jesus came on the scene. There was no “Christian slant” possible at the time the Septuagint was written. The Rabbis who translated the Septuagint apparently understood the text to speak of the future and that it spoke of a virgin. They translated according to their understanding of the Hebrew text. They did not translate the text in agreement with a non-existent “Christian” understanding.

In addition, we do not need the Septuagint to determine if the Hebrew word “alma” means virgin, a word study will do that. In Biblical Hebrew “alma” exclusively means virgin with no clarifying information needed. The Septuagint simply supports that conclusion.

The word "alma" clearly means "virgin" in spite of the objections of the Rabbis. In contrast to the vast majority of Rabbis today, who will not admit that "alma" means virgin, the respected Biblical commentator Rashi (Rabbi Shelomoh Ben Yitzhaki) states that "alma" means virgin in his commentary on Song of Solomon 1:3. Specifically, Rashi states that "alma" is synonymous with another Hebrew word that means virgin, the word "betulah." (The Rabbis unequivocally state that "betulah" means virgin as well.)

Again, Matthew simply uses the Jewish textual resources available to him in the 1st century CE/AD. As he compares the text and his experience with Jesus he sees a literal prophecy uttered by Isaiah and literal fulfillment in the life of Jesus. He then passes that understanding on to the reader. The reader can then decide for himself if Matthew is correct or not. It appears to me that Matthew is absolutely correct.

[1]Harris, R. Laird, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, (Chicago: Moody Press) 1999, c1980.