28. Isaiah's Son - Immanuel.

The Virgin

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel. Isa. 7:14.

Bible scholars are almost unanimous that this refers to Jesus Christ.  

That Isaiah was not speaking of the birth of Christ becomes obvious when one reads Isaiah 7:14 in the Hebrew language: The damsel, (the) pregnant one. http://www.scripture4all.org/.  

• At the time Isaiah wrote this, about 700 BCE, the damsel was already pregnant. 
• The same picture is given in The Jerusalem Bible, with these words, The maiden is with child and will soon give birth.  
• The Contemporary English Version writes A virgin is pregnant.  

When one considers the present tense of the situation in Isaiah's day, it is obvious that he was not referring to the birth of a future Christ. 

It is also noteworthy that neither TJB or the Hebrew text use the word, virgin, as the KJV does.  The reason for this is that the words, damsel, maiden and virgin are interchangeable in the Hebrew language.  Most newer translations use the word, maiden, as, of course, they should, because Isaiah was speaking of his own wife who was pregnant at the time.

In this context the difficult Hebrew word did not imply a virgin birth. However, in the Greek translation made about 200 B.C. and used by early Christians, the word parthenos (virgin) had a double meaning. While the translator took it to mean "young woman", Matthew understood it to mean "virgin" and quoted the passage (Matthew 1:23) because it was the appropriate description of Mary, the mother of Jesus. A footnote in the CEV.

Most of us who are familiar with the Christmas story, as it is recited annually in most churches, are so biased by the word, virgin, that our minds refuse to allow the various meaning of the word, maiden, to seep into our minds.

The fact that Isaiah's wife was not a virgin is made very clear in Isaiah 8:2, Then I slept with my wife, and she became pregnant and had a son. New Living Translation.  By saying that, Isaiah did not mean, virgin, when he said, maiden,.

I am not saying that Matthew also should have used the word, maiden.  Matthew, speaking of Mary, the mother of Jesus, was absolutely right in using the word, virgin, as we understand that word in our own time.  However, we must not, because of our theological beliefs, make the Old Testament say something that is not written there.

Immanuel

“Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.” Mat. 1:22-23.

When Matthew quoted the words of Isaiah, he was right to use the word, virgin, with its modern meaning, because the Bible clearly attests to the fact that Christ's conception was miraculous.  This facet of theology does not hang only on that one troublesome word.  The Gospel of Luke says, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby born to you will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. Luke 1:34-35.

The fact that Christ was called Immanuel does not at all mean that he was God. 

At the time Christ was born, Israel was downtrodden by the Roman government and the Jews were desperately looking for some encouragement.  That is why the angel said, call His name Immanuel because Jehovah has not forsaken His people, He is still with the descendants of David.

there may have been an initial fulfilment in the eighth century b.c. when Hezekiah was born to the wicked King Ahaz. When Hezekiah took over the throne, he did lead many moral reforms that brought the people of Judah closer to God. Some scholars believe this may have been the child Isaiah had in mind when he announced this prophecy. 
Nelson’s new illustrated Bible dictionary:

Then Isaiah writes: The Lord also spoke to me again, saying: ... The king of Assyria ... will pass through Judah, He will ... fill the breadth of Your land, O Immanuel. Since Isaiah was not speaking of the Messiah when he used the name Immanuel, this was a reference to Isaiah's second son, the one who is called, Immanuel.

In reference to the name Immanuel, the gist in many commentaries is that Israel belongs to Jesus, hence the words, Your land, O Immanuel, and that Jehovah is saying to Jesus that Assyria will invade Israel.  

This line of thinking is pushing common sense way out of shape. Because:

1. By the time Jesus was born this invasion by Assyria was history; why make a prophecy that is already history?

2. If Jesus knows everything, as we have been taught, why would Jehovah tell Him the obvious?

3. Till this point in the story, the name, Immanuel, has referred only to Isaiah's son, why the sudden shift from 700 BCE, to a future baby born circa 3 BCE, without any explanation of the time shift?

Notice, also, that in English the words are, Your land, and the word, Your is capitalized which infers that, Immanuel, refers to Christ.  However, in Hebrew, it reads, the land of you, in place of, Your land, and notice that the word, you is not capitalized as it erroneously is in English.  This again shows us that Isaiah was not speaking of the coming Messiah, but rather of his own son.  Judah was the land of Isaiah's second son - Immanuel.

It is so hard for us to let go of ideas that we have been taught for a lifetime.  Ideas that we thoughtlessly accepted because our teachers, priests and preachers taught them to us.  

However, we have our own brains and we are expected to use them to find the truth.  The Hebrew and the Greek texts of the Old and New Testaments are available in English to anyone with a computer and time to use it; we really are left without any excuse for blindly following what others tell us.

Most teachers believe their ideas to be true, and so we cannot blame them for fraud or dishonesty.  At the worst, maybe they are mentally lackadaisical.  Maybe they just cannot move forward to a place where they must do their own thinking.