Five-minute study · Day 27 · Isaiah 7
Isaiah 7:14
A word worth stopping on: virgin עַלְמָה almah
735 BC. King Ahaz of Judah is panicking. Two enemy armies are marching toward Jerusalem. God sends Isaiah to tell Ahaz: ask for a sign, anything, as deep as Sheol or as high as heaven. Ahaz refuses, hiding his cowardice behind piety. So God gives the sign anyway. 'Behold, an almah shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.' The word almah has launched more arguments than almost any other term in the Hebrew Bible. Two hundred years before Christ was born, Jewish translators in Alexandria made a choice about that word that still reverberates.
Word study: virgin
- Hebrew
- עַלְמָה
- Pronounced
- almah
- Strong's
- H5959
- Definition
- A young woman of marriageable age. Used seven times in the Old Testament, always of a young, unmarried woman.
Almah appears seven times in the Hebrew Bible. Genesis 24:43 uses it for Rebekah before her marriage. Exodus 2:8 uses it for Miriam, Moses' young sister. Proverbs 30:19 uses it in a context of youthful mystery. Song of Solomon 1:3 and 6:8 use it for young women in the royal court. In every occurrence, the woman is young and unmarried.
Hebrew also has betulah, often translated 'virgin.' But betulah has a wider range than English assumes. Joel 1:8 calls a betulah a woman mourning 'the husband of her youth,' a married woman. Almah, by contrast, consistently points to an unmarried young woman.
Around 250 BC, Jewish scholars in Alexandria translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek, producing the Septuagint. For almah in Isaiah 7:14, they chose parthenos, a Greek word that unambiguously means virgin. Two centuries before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Jewish translators made an interpretive decision that aligned with what Matthew would later quote in his Gospel (Matthew 1:23). They had the Hebrew in front of them. They chose the stronger word.
Historical context · 250 BC to first century AD
The Translation That Lit the Fuse
The Septuagint was produced in Alexandria, Egypt, where a large Jewish community needed Scripture in their daily language, Greek. The Letter of Aristeas, a second-century BC document, claims seventy-two scholars produced the translation. Modern historians treat the letter's details with caution, but the translation itself is real and datable.
The Ugaritic texts, discovered at Ras Shamra in Syria beginning in 1929, contain the cognate word glmt. Ugaritic is a Semitic language closely related to Hebrew. Cyrus Gordon argued in 'Ugaritic Textbook' that glmt refers specifically to a virgin goddess in Ugaritic mythology, supporting a reading of almah that includes virginity in its semantic range.
The debate has never settled. What is settled: Jewish translators working two hundred years before the birth of Jesus, with access to Hebrew linguistic traditions we no longer have, read almah and reached for parthenos. They did not have a Christian agenda. They had no New Testament to harmonize with. They read the Hebrew and chose the word that meant virgin. Matthew, writing decades later, quoted their translation as fulfilled.
For reflection
A sign was offered to a frightened king who refused to ask for it. God gave it anyway. Where have you refused to ask God for something out of false humility or fear of what the answer might require? What if the sign has already been given, and you are the one looking away?
Ahaz dressed his refusal as reverence. Examine whether any of your spiritual hesitations are doing the same.
Sources: BDB Lexicon; Gordon, 'Ugaritic Textbook'; Motyer, 'The Prophecy of Isaiah'