Isaiah 7:14

14. The Lord himself Ahaz has refused to choose, and Jehovah will now present a “sign” of his own choosing. It will not be for Ahaz alone, but for the “house of David” and all believers in Judah. It will not be present and visible to the bodily eye, but will be vividly present to the eye of faith. It is the permanent “sign” of all past prophecy, type, and sacrifice furnished to God’s Israel the MESSIAH. And the permanent consolation of that “sign” is, that the “house of David” is indestructible until that “sign” is verified. And so Simeon styles the Messiah, “A sign which shall be spoken against.” Luke 1:34. To those who ask how the future Messiah could be a present sign of the failure of the invaders of Judah we answer, such a sign was offered to Ahaz and refused. This does not claim to be such a sign; but it presents the standing sign of Messianic salvation to the “house of David,” brought out with a most resplendent clearness for the consolation of the faithful, and on it is based a prediction of the speedy overthrow of the enemy, the fulfilment of which will soon be another confirmation of a future Messianic salvation. Of that Messiah we have now these four predicates: that he is virgin-born, that he is incarnate, that his being born is now visionally present, and that his present advent is envisioned to form a measure and token of immediate salvation from these enemies of the theocracy.

[Our interpretation of this prophecy in Matthew 1:23 (where see notes) was written near two decades ago, and remains essentially unchanged. Rejecting all different or secondary applications we affirm it as designating the Messiah alone.

Behold Contemplate this sign with the eye of faith.

A virgin Here comes the first misfortune, the substitution by our translators of “a” for THE. The “virgin!” What THE “virgin?” The virgin well known and notable to the “house of David” as predicted in the Edenic promise (Genesis 3:5) to the woman that “her seed,” and not the man’s, should bruise the serpent’s head; “her seed” solely, because clearly his father is to be divine. And secondly, Isaiah’s contemporary prophet, Micah, says of Bethlehem:” Out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting; therefore will he give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath bought forth.” Micah 5:2-3. This bearer brings forth a divine offspring, and consequently not begotten by man, but the son of the virgin mother. And so a virgin birth is supposed wherever a divine paternity is supposed, as in Psalms 2:7; Isaiah 9:6. The Hebrew word for “virgin,” here, is not indeed the specific word for a virgin in that language. The word signifies a girl of marriageable age, but unmarried. It sustains about the same relation as our word maiden does to “virgin.” But that a chaste and unmarried maiden is meant is plain from the fact that it is of this maiden that the conceiving and bringing forth are predicated. The prophet need not emphasize the virginity of the maiden mother of a divine Son. It is not a married woman once a maiden, but the unmarried maiden, that conceives. To have predicated the conceiving of a maiden, and yet omit the fact that she would be married before conceiving, would convey an offensive implication. The fact that the Septuagint translators rendered the word η παρθενος , the virgin, indicates that they knew that while the Hebrew word was not precisely “virgin,” yet what the prophet meant was “virgin,” and clearly evinces that what virgin was meant was matter of public notoriety.

Shall conceive, and bear Here is the second misfortune, that the present is rendered in the future, the real rendering being, a virgin conceives and bears a son. And that the prophet consciously meant a present tense is clear from the fact that the next verb is truly future: shall call. The virgin now bears, afterward she will call his name. That is, the conceiving and bearing are ideally present; so present that the child’s birth and growth are easy measure of fulfilling of passing events. So the similar prophecy, in chap. Isaiah 9:6, may be brought into parallel:

The virgin conceives and bears a SON And shall call his name IMMANUEL.

Unto us a Child is born, unto us a SON is given… shall be called…The mighty GOD.

Here are presented in both passages the virgin maternity, the present being born, the incarnate offspring.

Shall call his name Immanuel God with us. That this expresses a true incarnation is evident from the virgin birth. For reciprocally as the birth of a divine Son implies, as above shown, a virgin mother, so a virgin mother implies and is, for the very purpose of an incarnation a God-man. To those who accept Matthew as a conclusive interpreter, this meaning is of course decided. Those who think that Matthew simply reads into the words a desired meaning, may be reminded that the parallel passage (Isaiah 9:6) styles him “the mighty God.” The two passages read together are an unanswerable proof of a described incarnation. It confirms all this reasoning that, in Isaiah 8:8, Judah is called, “Thy land, O Immanuel,” as if he were even now its divine proprietor, by whom it is prevented from being completely deluged by its foes.