The Fundamentals.
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THE IMMANUEL PROPHECY. The idea of the Messiah, gradually gathering to itself the attributes of a divine King, reaches one of its clearest ex pressions in the great Immanuel prophecy, extending from Isaiah 7 to 9:7, and centering in the declaration: “The Lord Himself will give you [the unbelieving Ahaz] a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isa. 7 :14; Cf. 8:8, 10). This is none other than the child of-wonder extolled in chapter 9:6, 7: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Won derful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, [Father of Eternity], The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom,” etc. This is the prophecy quoted as fulfilled in Christ’s birth in Matt. 1 :23, and it seems also alluded to in the glowing promises to Mary in Luke 1 :32, 33. It is pointed out in objection that the term rendered “virgin” in Isaiah does not necessarily bear this meaning ; it denotes properly only a young unmarried woman.! The context, however, seems clearly to lay an emphasis on the unmarried state, and the translators of the Greek version of the Old Testament (the Septuagint) plainly so understood it when they rendered it by parthenos, a word which does mean “virgin.” The tendency in many quarters now is to ad mit this (Dr. Cheyne, etc.), and even to seek an explanation of it in alleged Babylonian beliefs in a virgin-birth. This last, however, is quite illusory.1 It is, on the other hand, singular that the Jews themselves do not seem to have applied this prophecy at any time to the Messiah—a fact which disproves the theory that it was this text which suggested the story of a Virgin birth to the early disciples. 1For the evidence, see my volume on “The Virgin Birth,” Lecture VII.
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