Questions From Readers

● Can you please give me information pertaining to the translation of “young woman” in Isaiah 7:14 (Leeser translation)? Can you tell me if in the old translation it means “virgin”?—A. G., United States.

Not only does Isaac Leeser use “young woman” at Isaiah 7:14, but also the Revised Standard Version Bible that was published in 1952. The Hebrew word there rendered “young woman” is, as you may already know, ‘al·mahʹ, and in the sacred Hebrew Scriptures this word occurs only seven times, namely, at Genesis 24:43, Exodus 2:8, Proverbs 30:19, Psalm 68:25, Song of Solomon 1:3 and Ca 6:8, and Isaiah 7:14 now under discussion. If you will personally examine these Scripture texts you will see that in at least a number of cases ‘al·mahʹ is applied to virgins, and it is possible that in all seven Scripture verses the application is to virgins, but we shall not be dogmatic. The oldest written translation of the Hebrew Scriptures is the Greek Septuagint (LXX), and this Greek translation was begun in the third century B.C. by Greek-speaking Jews. They admitted that ‘al·mahʹ could mean a virgin by rendering this Hebrew word as “virgin” at Genesis 24:43 and at Isaiah 7:14, using the Greek word par·thenʹos, meaning “virgin.” Thus it was the Jews themselves that gave the meaning of “virgin” to the Hebrew word ‘al·mahʹ at Isaiah 7:14.

It is true that ‘al·mahʹ does not necessarily mean “virgin” the way the Hebrew word b^ethu·lahʹ does, but it can be rightly applied to virgins and is so applied, and in such cases it becomes synonymous with virgin. The Compendious Hebrew-English Dictionary, published at Tel Aviv, Israel, defines ‘al·mahʹ as “maiden, young woman.” Wilhelm Gesenius’ Hebrew and Aramaic Dictionary (in German) says ‘al·mahʹ means “a marriageable girl, a mature virgin; the word designates simply the girl as marriageable, not as a virgin, also neither as married or unmarried; according to Soncino, the woman (wife) until she had a child.” With this the recent Lexicon, by L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner, agrees, saying the Hebrew word means “marriageable girl, young woman (until the birth of her first child).” The Hebrew and English Lexicon, by Brown, Driver and Briggs, defines ‘al·mahʹ as meaning “young woman (ripe sexually; maid or newly married).” And even the Roman Catholic Hebrew-Spanish Lexicon, by Segundo M. Rodriguez, defines the word as “virgin; adult woman; marriageable.” The word is understood by some to be drawn from the Hebrew verb meaning “to conceal,” and hence means ‘concealed woman,’ that is, a woman that has not yet uncovered and exposed herself to a husband for the sexual act.

The divine Author of the Hebrew Scriptures doubtless had a purpose in using the Hebrew word ‘al·mahʹ at Isaiah 7:14 instead of b^ethu·lahʹ (“virgin”). Her son was to be named Immanuel, meaning “God is with us.” For instance, our magazine, The Watchtower, in its issue of October 15, 1946, pages 312, 313, referred to this prophecy and its fulfillment, and then on page 315, paragraph 38, it said: “They will thus be like Isaiah and his sons, Shear-jashub and Maher-shalal-hash-baz, and possibly a third son named ‘Immanuel’.” In other words, the prophecy of Isaiah 7:11 may have had a first fulfillment in the case of the prophet Isaiah himself, through his having a child by a young woman or maiden. The birth of this child named Immanuel would, of course, not be a virgin birth. The reasonableness of this is grasped when we see that the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 concerning the birth of Immanuel by a maiden was to be a sign for the benefit of King Ahaz to whom the prophet Isaiah was then speaking. The virgin birth of a child seven hundred years later could hardly be a sign to wicked King Ahaz during his lifetime. In Isaiah’s case, therefore, the mother of the son Immanuel would be an ‘al·mahʹ or young woman sexually ripe. But the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 was given under such solemn circumstances and amid such prophetical developments that prefigured the future that this prophecy of the birth of Immanuel by the ‘al·mahʹ must have a fulfillment future from the days of King Ahaz. This is especially so since Isaiah said under inspiration: “Behold, I and the children whom Jehovah hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from Jehovah of hosts, who dwelleth in Mount Zion.” (Isaiah 8:18, AS) So this child Immanuel back there in his peculiar birth and meaning of his name would be a wonderful sign of something to occur future. Hence Isaiah 7:14 would have a major, complete fulfillment after Isaiah’s time and at God’s own appointed time.

The Jewish historian Matthew, the writer of the book bearing his own name, wrote also in Greek. He quoted Isaiah 7:14 from the Jewish-made Greek Septuagint which uses the Greek word par·thenʹos, meaning “virgin.” Describing the fulfillment of this prophecy, Matthew wrote: “All this actually came about for that to be fulfilled which was spoken by Jehovah through his prophet, saying, ‘Look! the virgin will become pregnant and will give birth to a son, and they will call his name “Immanuel”,’ which means, when translated, ‘With us is God.’” (Matthew 1:22, 23, NW) Then Matthew applies this prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 to the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem by a Jewish virgin, Mary of the line of King David. How the virgin birth came about Matthew himself explains, as well as his fellow Christian writer Luke. The man Joseph whom she came to marry did not have relations with her till she had fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14. After that she uncovered or exposed herself to him and he had relations with her and she ceased to be a virgin. Thus we see how Isaiah 7:14 in its Hebrew original as well as in its Jewish-made Greek translation had fulfillment in vindication of the infallible truth of God’s sacred Word.