H5959

• {"n":"Isaiah 7:14","s":"Virgin or young woman. One Hebrew word, seven occurrences, and an argument that has run for two thousand years.","u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/#id=isaiah-7-14","r":"Isaiah 7:14","b":[{"l":"How modern translations read it","t":"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."},{"l":"First, in plain English","t":"**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."},{"l":"What you are seeing","t":"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."},{"l":"Why translators split","t":"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."},{"l":"The rule to carry away","t":"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."},{"l":"Choosing between them","t":"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."},{"l":"The word","t":"\u05e2\u05b7\u05dc\u05b0\u05de\u05b8\u05d4 almah \u00b7 H5959"}],"src":["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"]}