The Scripture behind the Scripture

Behold, a Virgin Shall Conceive

Isaiah 7:14 promises a sign, that a young woman shall conceive and bear a son called Immanuel. Matthew 1:23 takes this up to announce the virgin birth of Jesus, and the wording deserves honest attention.

“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”Isaiah 7:14

“Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.”Matthew 1:23

In its own place

In its own place. Isaiah spoke this word in the eighth century before Christ to King Ahaz of Judah, during a military crisis. Two enemy kings, from Israel and Syria, had allied to threaten Jerusalem, and Ahaz was terrified. Isaiah told him to ask for a sign that God would deliver Judah, but Ahaz refused under a show of piety. So the Lord gave a sign anyway, that a young woman, in Hebrew almah, would conceive and bear a son and call his name Immanuel, meaning God with us, and before the child was old enough to know right from wrong, the two threatening kings would be destroyed. In its original setting the sign functioned within Ahaz's own crisis, a child whose growth would mark the timetable of God's near deliverance of Judah from its immediate enemies. The Hebrew word almah refers to a young woman of marriageable age, often unmarried, but it does not by itself technically specify virginity, for which Hebrew has a more precise word. So in Isaiah's day the sign concerned a child born in the ordinary course whose name and infancy would testify that God was with his people to save them.

Where the New Testament takes it up

This is a direct quotation, and honesty about the language matters. Matthew 1:23 quotes Isaiah 7:14 to interpret the miraculous conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, God with us. Matthew follows the ancient Greek Septuagint, which had already translated the Hebrew almah with the Greek word parthenos, which more definitely means virgin. This is often noted as a point of discussion. Critics observe that the Hebrew almah means young woman rather than specifically virgin, while Christians note that the Greek translators, working before Christ, chose parthenos, and that almah is nowhere used of a married woman and is fitting for a virgin. Matthew is not manufacturing a meaning, he is following an existing Jewish Greek rendering and seeing that the sign given to Ahaz reaches a fuller depth in the birth of Jesus. He reads Isaiah's Immanuel prophecy as having a near horizon in Isaiah's own day and a far, greater horizon in a child truly born of a virgin who is God with us in the fullest sense. The honest position acknowledges the Hebrew and Greek distinction while affirming Matthew's inspired, typological reading.