Isaiah 7:14: Misconceptions and False Assumptions…and What that Means for Jesus (Part 1)

It’s Christmas, and if you have grown up in church (and probably even if you haven’t), no doubt you are familiar with Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel.” Matthew 1:23 quotes this verse and claims that Isaiah 7:14 was fulfilled in the birth of Jesus. Matthew also goes out of his way to emphasize the importance of the name “Emmanuel”—it means “God is with us.”

Unfortunately, I think too many Christians (and virtually everybody, for that matter) don’t fully understand what Matthew is doing when he quotes Isaiah 7:14. If you are like me, chances are you grew up essentially being told that (A) Isaiah predicted the virgin birth of Christ 750 years earlier, (B) Matthew was claiming that Isaiah’s prediction finally came true when Mary miraculously conceived, and eventually Jesus was born, and (C) this “proved” Jesus was God because, after all, that’s what “Emmanuel” means; Jesus couldn’t have been conceived the “natural” way, because then that would mean he wasn’t God.

And if you have been involved in any arguments regarding Isaiah 7:14, perhaps you are familiar with the dust-up over the word in question: almah in Hebrew (the one that’s used in Isaiah 7:14), and parthenos in Greek (the word that’s used in Matthew 1:23). Does almah mean “virgin” or does it mean “young woman”?

Let Me Make You A Bit Uncomfortable
Well, let me state up front that I am not going to go that route in this post. But I do want to say that there are a host of assumptions in the typical understanding regarding Isaiah 7:14 that are simply misguided. Let me throw out a few things that might made you step back and feel slightly uncomfortable:

1. In the Old Testament, what determined whether or not a prophet was a true prophet or a false prophet was whether or not what he said would happen actually happened, either in the prophet’s lifetime or shortly after. If it didn’t happen, the prophet would be considered a false prophet, and the Jews would certainly not preserve his writings and prophecies. So, why would the Jews have kept Isaiah’s prophecy of 7:14 for 750 years? If it didn’t come true during Isaiah’s lifetime, wouldn’t he have been considered a false prophet? [Spoiler alert: Yes, that’s exactly what he would be considered!]
2. For that matter, is it correct to assume that the proper understanding of “prophecy” is simply “prediction of far off future events”? [Spoiler alert: No, it’s not correct to assume that!]
3. Is Matthew just trying to “prove” that Jesus is God by claiming a 750-year-old prediction (one that the Jews would not have kept that long) finally came true? [Spoiler alert: No, that’s not what he’s trying to do!]
4. Today, we are aware of how conception works: a man’s sperm gets into a woman’s egg. Therefore, to make sense of Matthew 1:23 (and Isaiah 7:14), we assume Matthew is claiming that man’s sperm wasn’t involved in Jesus’ conception, and that God somehow did something miraculous to Mary’s egg in order to conceive Jesus. Therefore, on a mysterious level, somehow God the Father is really Jesus’ “biological father.” But Matthew, as all people back then, had no notion of sperm and eggs—so are our assumption as to what Matthew is claiming correct? In other words, is Matthew saying what we think he’s saying? [Spoiler alert: I don’t think he is!]

Now That You’re Uncomfortable…
Don’t worry, I’m not going to argue that Jesus was not born of a virgin. I do want to suggest, though, that by assuming that Matthew’s primary concern is about predictions and modes of procreation, we might not be really listening to what Matthew is actually saying. We might be reading Matthew’s infancy narrative (and by extension Isaiah 7:14) through modern lenses that are actually the wrong prescription, and therefore are blurring the message that Matthew is trying to clarify.

You see, like Mark and John, Matthew is telling the story of Jesus and His Gospel of the Kingdom of God against the backdrop of the larger story of Israel’s history. That’s why they are constantly quoting or referring to so many passages and prophecies in the Old Testament. They aren’t saying, “Hey, these predictions from hundreds of years ago are now coming true in Jesus!” For that matter, many of those prophecies were never even considered by Jews to be messianic in the first place.

The reason Matthew, Mark, and John aren’t saying that is because they didn’t view those prophecies as far off predictions. [Just for clarification’s sake, the reason I’m not including Luke is because Luke was writing to a Gentile audience, and therefore purposely left out most of the quotes and references to the Old Testament—his Gentile audience wouldn’t have understood them.]

Instead, Matthew, Mark, and John, by quoting or referring to so many Old Testament passages and prophecies, were purposely trying to get their readers to understand Jesus in light of Israel’s story in the Old Testament. Or, as I tell my students, they are saying, “You know that passage in the Old Testament (like Isaiah 7:14)? Well, this episode in Jesus’ life is like that…but bigger!” Therefore, if you want to really understand what Matthew, or Mark, or John is saying about Jesus, you have to take the time to look back at the passage or prophecy to which they are referring, and understand what it originally was about. Only then will you be able to understand what they are trying to say about Jesus.

Trying to Come to a Fuller Understanding of the Gospel Narrative
So if you’re up for a challenge, come with me on a brief tour back in time to an event in Israel’s history that you probably have little or no idea about. Trust me, it will have the effect of deepening your understanding of the New Testament story.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t learn about this event until I was 32 years old. I grew up in church, went to a Christian high school, went through an entire master’s program in the New Testament, and I had no idea this event ever took place. Well, let’s put it another way: I never really paid attention to it. After all, it was the Old Testament—and the only thing the Old Testament is really good for was to point out those “prophecy-predictions” and show how they “prove” Jesus is God!

Needless to say, I don’t feel that way anymore. That’s not the way to understand the New Testament’s use of the Old Testament; that’s certainly short-changing the value of the Old Testament itself; and by extension, that ends up presenting a rather anemic and shallow understanding of Jesus and the Gospel.

I often tell my students that if you don’t know your Old Testament, you’ll never fully get the New Testament. In this Christmas season, therefore, over the next couple of days, allow me to take you on a short journey in three stages: (A) to an extremely important event in Israel’s history, (B) to Matthew’s story of Christ’s birth, and then (C) to a personal story of my own involving Emmanuel. What more can you ask for? A little bit of Old Testament, a little bit of New Testament, and a personal story of my own.