Tool Beta
Hebrew and Greek Without Learning Either
A walk through Genesis, the Psalms, and John, plus the key Hebrew and Greek words worth knowing. Each card is a place the English Bibles part company, and what in the Hebrew or Greek made them.
Isaiah 7:14
Virgin or young woman. One Hebrew word, seven occurrences, and an argument that has run for two thousand years.
Isaiah 7:14, in every translation this tool compares.
She is a maiden. In 1611 that told you her age and her household position and let you draw your own conclusion about the rest. Now the word barely exists and the conclusion has to be stated. Some words carry an implication instead of a fact, and English usually wants the fact.
Because Matthew quotes this verse to open his Gospel, and the argument between Judaism and Christianity over that quotation runs straight through one Hebrew noun. Nothing else in the verse is disputed. If you only ever learn one contested Old Testament word, this is the one people will actually ask you about.
Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Most English versions read virgin. The RSV read young woman and set off a decade of controversy. The NET reads young woman with a long note.
עַלְמָה almah · H5959
The word is almah. It appears seven times in the Hebrew Bible: Genesis 24:43, Exodus 2:8, Psalm 68:25, Proverbs 30:19, Song of Songs 1:3 and 6:8, and here. Hebrew has a second word, bethulah, which appears about fifty times and is the term that most directly means virgin. Isaiah knew that word and uses it four times elsewhere in his book.
English makes you declare a sexual status. Almah declares an age and a social position, unmarried and of childbearing years, from which a first century reader would ordinarily infer virginity without the word having to say it. There is no English word that carries the inference without stating the fact.
When translations split on a single noun, check how many times the word appears in the whole Bible. Seven is a small enough sample that every occurrence is part of the argument, and small samples are exactly where lexicons get stretched.
The case for young woman is that bethulah was available and was not used. The case for virgin is that wherever the context of almah is clear enough to judge, Genesis 24:43 and Exodus 2:8 and Song 6:8, the woman is in fact unmarried, and that the Septuagint translators, working two centuries before Christ with no stake in the question, chose parthenos. Both arguments are real. Neither is a knockout.
- J. A. Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah, on almah never being used of a married woman
- Septuagint Isaiah 7:14, parthenos
- Matthew 1:23 quotes the Greek, not the Hebrew
- All seven occurrences: Gen 24:43; Exod 2:8; Ps 68:25; Prov 30:19; Song 1:3, 6:8; Isa 7:14
