The Temporal Horizon of the Immanuel Oracle

[Kenneth Greifer]

Kenneth,

You seem to have a problem if one just follows the plain meaning of the text. The child is eating curds and honey at the time he reaches age of accountability (i.e. Bar Mitzvah age). As I explain, he is eating curds and honey because the land is in exile. So the next statement says that before he reaches this age, the land will go into exile. It doesn't specify how long before. It just says "before." The author could have meant for the oracle to be fulfilled from 100 to, as you seemed keen on, 700 years in the future (or whatever) because it just isn't specific enough temporally speaking. My argument, to keep things consistent, is just that Isaiah meant for the fulfillment to be beyond his lifetime or beyond the imminent future.

Ethan,
Technically, what you are saying satisfies the prophesy and the sign sort of. I think you are saying that the child could be born one hundred years after the land with two kings (Judah and Israel?) goes into exile because it would happen before the child eats curd and honey at age 13 or whatever age a person chooses.

I think that literally your explanation would be ok, but if the child is born 100 years after the prophecy takes place, then the sign is happening after the prophecy takes place, which defeats the purpose of having a sign really. Usually, or maybe in every example, the sign happens before the prophecy takes place because the sign is the proof that the prophecy will happen.

Also, it doesn't make sense to say that the prophecy of the land going into exile will happen before the child is 13 or whatever age, if the prophecy takes place 100 years before the child is born because the prophecy will take place before every event of the child's life. Why point out the eating curd and honey as the sign when it could be any event from saying "goo goo ga ga" to climbing a tree or to building a house. It seems silly to point out that particular event of the child's life.

The sign only makes sense as a sign if it happens before the prophecy. You have to have a child who will be born and before the child reaches the age that you think like 13, the prophecy will happen. Otherwise, it is a sign that happens too late to confirm the prophecy will happen. Is there any other partial or full prophecy in the Hebrew Bible that takes place after the prophecy is fulfilled? I doubt it because that is what a sign is for.

If a prophet said to people such and such is going to happen and this is the sign that it will happen, and such and such happens, and then the sign takes place one hundred years later, it would seem out of order.

Actually, I should say:

If a prophet said to people such and such is going to happen before a certain sign that it will happen, and such and such happens, and then the sign takes place one hundred years later, it would seem a little late compared to the prophecy. It is confusing because the sign in Isaiah 7:14-16 is about the prophecy happening before a certain event, but it is still the same basic idea that the sign has to take place at the time that the prophecy is fulfilled or it doesn't make sense.

[kwrandolph]

One thing that might clarify things is an analysis of the words used.

The young woman is an עלמה which comes from the root עלם, which, like “to act” in English, has several derivatives, all centered on the idea of being unknown. When it refers to a young male עלם or female עלמה it refers to a person who has not had, or expected not to have had, sexual relations (contrast to Genesis 4:1). As such, it is the technical term for “virgin”. (The same feminine form עלמה follows the pattern that a feminine form can refer to an abstract idea, so in Proverbs 30:19 the reference is to a person as he faces the future, the “unknown”.)

The argument that עלמה refers merely to a “young woman” and that בתולה refers to “virgin” ignores both the usages of the terms and how noun derivations were treated in Biblical Hebrew. In Isaiah 62:5 and Joel 1:8 בתולה referred to a young woman of marriageable age who was married or a young widow. A בתולה who was never married was expected to be a virgin. Hence בתולה is not the technical term “virgin” even though the usual expectation is that she is a virgin.

The next word הרה is either a noun or an adjective, referring to the status of the עלמה, a pregnant virgin. The ancients were not dumb, they knew that a virgin couldn’t be pregnant. So when Isaiah referred to “the pregnant virgin” this had to be something special.

The word ילדת is again a noun, “the one bringing forth (a son)”. The same with קראת “the one calling”.

The word שם had a wider meaning than just “name”, referring also to one’s status or reputation. So here the pregnant virgin refers to the status of the son as עמנו אל God is with us.

The timeline is not specified in the passage, other than that it would happen sometime in the future. The important thing is that the house of David was to watch for “the pregnant virgin”.

This is my take, my 2¢ on this issue.

[Kenneth Greifer]

Karl,
Do you think that signs come before or after the prophecy is fulfilled? Does it matter that it mentions the land with two kings being abandoned? You ignored the rest of the sign.

[kwrandolph]

Karl,
Do you think that signs come before or after the prophecy is fulfilled?

What do you mean by that?

The prophecy comes first, the fulfillment, which is often also a sign, comes afterwards.

Does it matter that it mentions the land with two kings being abandoned? You ignored the rest of the sign.

My purpose was merely to analyze the linguistics of verse 14. That’s why I didn’t mention the rest of the sign. There are presuppositions being argued about that I thought are not really useful in a linguistic analysis.

Karl W. Randolph.

[Kenneth Greifer]

Karl,
If you look at 1 Kings 13:1-5, for example, the prophet gives a prophecy about bones being burned on the altar, and then he gives a sign about the altar spilling ashes that takes place right away, and then later on in the future the prophecy about the bones on the altar being burned takes place and the prophecy is fulfilled. I think signs are usually before the prophecy. In Isaiah 7:14, the sign is partly before because the child is born, then the land is forsaken before the child reaches a certain age. The sign is a little different, but it would not make sense to have the sign happen long after the prophecy is fulfilled. I don't think there are any other examples like that.

[kwrandolph]

Karl,
If you look at 1 Kings 13:1-5, for example, the prophet gives a prophecy about bones being burned on the altar, and then he gives a sign about the altar spilling ashes that takes place right away, and then later on in the future the prophecy about the bones on the altar being burned takes place and the prophecy is fulfilled. I think signs are usually before the prophecy.

Go back and reread that passage. The prophecy was given first. Then the sign was prophesied. Only after the sign was prophesied did the sign happen.

In Isaiah 7:14, the sign is partly before because the child is born, then the land is forsaken before the child reaches a certain age. The sign is a little different, but it would not make sense to have the sign happen long after the prophecy is fulfilled. I don't think there are any other examples like that.

The sign is that the virgin is the pregnant one, the rest are details connected with that sign. There is no rule that all the details of a prophecy are to be fulfilled at the same time, nor even in the order that they were given.

You do realize that a “prophecy” are the prophet’s words that tell what will happen, right?

Karl W. Randolph.

[Kenneth Greifer]

Karl,
In 1 KIngs 13, the prophecy was given first, then the sign was announced, and then the sign which was to confirm the first prophecy took place, and then the actual prophecy was fulfilled many years later. The sign was fulfilled before the prophecy it confirmed was fulfilled. The sign did not happen hundreds of years after the first prophecy took place because it was meant to confirm that it would actually take place. The sign was the proof for the future fulfillment of the first prophecy. Why give the proof that a prophecy will happen if the proof (the sign) happens after the prophecy is fulfilled?

[kwrandolph]

Karl,
In 1 KIngs 13, the prophecy was given first, then the sign was announced, and then the sign which was to confirm the first prophecy took place, and then the actual prophecy was fulfilled many years later. The sign was fulfilled before the prophecy it confirmed was fulfilled. The sign did not happen hundreds of years after the first prophecy took place because it was meant to confirm that it would actually take place. The sign was the proof for the future fulfillment of the first prophecy. Why give the proof that a prophecy will happen if the proof (the sign) happens after the prophecy is fulfilled?

Kenneth:

I don’t understand what you are trying to say. The sign is that there will be a pregnant virgin. But the sign also includes verses 15 and 16. That’s all one sign. So what do you mean a prophecy is fulfilled before the sign happens?

Karl W. Randolph.

[Jason Hare]

I think it’s a temporal sign. The child born to a young woman who was pregnant at the time of the speaking of the prophecy would not grow old enough to distinguish between good and bad by the time that the two kings that אָחָז ʾĀḥāz feared had fallen. It wasn’t about a pregnant virgin in any way.

[Kenneth Greifer]

Karl,
In 1 KIngs 13, the prophecy was given first, then the sign was announced, and then the sign which was to confirm the first prophecy took place, and then the actual prophecy was fulfilled many years later. The sign was fulfilled before the prophecy it confirmed was fulfilled. The sign did not happen hundreds of years after the first prophecy took place because it was meant to confirm that it would actually take place. The sign was the proof for the future fulfillment of the first prophecy. Why give the proof that a prophecy will happen if the proof (the sign) happens after the prophecy is fulfilled?

Kenneth:

I don’t understand what you are trying to say. The sign is that there will be a pregnant virgin. But the sign also includes verses 15 and 16. That’s all one sign. So what do you mean a prophecy is fulfilled before the sign happens?

Karl W. Randolph.

Karl,
Isaiah 7:14-16 seems to be a time frame. First, there is a birth of a child. Then the land has to be forsaken before the end of the time frame which is that the child will be able to choose between good and evil represented by curd and honey, I assume.
If the land is forsaken before the child is born, then that is not in the time frame, even if it is forsaken before the child knows to choose between curd and honey or good and bad.
If the child is born hundreds of years later, then what is the point of mentioning the child being able to tell good from bad as the time limit for when the land will be forsaken because the land will be forsaken before every event of the child's life. Technically, the land will be forsaken before the child knows good from bad, but also for every other thing in the child's life because it will happen before the child is born. It could say before the child is born or before the child first sneezes, or runs a distance. Whatever. Everything could be the time limit for the sign to take place.