The Temporal Horizon of the Immanuel Oracle

[Jonathan Beck]

Karl,

I found this interesting - and correct - in reading what the New Interpreter's Bible says, which is an Evangelical Christian commentary series. From Gene M. Tucker's section on Isaiah concerning this verse:

"Texts such as this one, especially when read in the context of Christian worship, sharpen the tension between the historical meaning and the homiletical or theological interpretation of the Bible, and the Old Testament in particular. What Isa. 7:14 7:10-25 meant in its original contexts and what it means in the shadow of Matt 1:18-25 may be quite different. Matthew quotes Isa. 7:14 as a prophecy of the conception and birth of Jesus, while Isaiah almost certainly had in view a particular woman and child in his own time. Because the church's commitment to the Bible includes the Old Testament, Christian readers should seek to allow the words from Isaiah to be heard in their own terms first and to consider not only how the New Testament interprets the Old, but also how the Old Testament enriches the New Testament" (237).

For what it's worth, this is also my view.

Jonathan

[Jason Hare]

Karl,

I found this interesting - and correct - in reading what the New Interpreter's Bible says, which is an Evangelical Christian commentary series. From Gene M. Tucker's section on Isaiah concerning this verse:

"Texts such as this one, especially when read in the context of Christian worship, sharpen the tension between the historical meaning and the homiletical or theological interpretation of the Bible, and the Old Testament in particular. What Isa. 7:14 7:10-25 meant in its original contexts and what it means in the shadow of Matt 1:18-25 may be quite different. Matthew quotes Isa. 7:14 as a prophecy of the conception and birth of Jesus, while Isaiah almost certainly had in view a particular woman and child in his own time. Because the church's commitment to the Bible includes the Old Testament, Christian readers should seek to allow the words from Isaiah to be heard in their own terms first and to consider not only how the New Testament interprets the Old, but also how the Old Testament enriches the New Testament" (237).

For what it's worth, this is also my view.

Jonathan

Because interpreting it according to its context is not exclusive to non-Christians. It’s not a polemic against Christianity; it’s an attempt to understand the verse within its context.

[Jason Hare]

By the way, would you believe that the most recent article directly on the subject of Immanuel published in the Journal of Biblical Literature was from 1972?!

Wolf, Herbert M. “A Solution to the Immanuel Prophecy in Isaiah 7:14-8:22.” Journal of Biblical Literature, vol. 91, no. 4, Society of Biblical Literature, 1972, pp. 449–56, https://doi.org/10.2307/3263678.

I was sure that I’d see something more recent than that, but I haven’t found anything.

Do you have access to other journals that might have something more recent?

[Jason Hare]

Wolf, Herbert M. “A Solution to the Immanuel Prophecy in Isaiah 7:14-8:22.” Journal of Biblical Literature, vol. 91, no. 4, Society of Biblical Literature, 1972, pp. 449–56, https://doi.org/10.2307/3263678.

Here are some quotes from within this article.

In Hebrew ʿalmāh also appears where marriage is imminent. Rebekah is called ʿalmāh in Gen 24:43, just prior to becoming Isaac’s wife. Her family sent her away with the hope that she would become “the mother of thousands of ten thousands.” (vs. 60). Prov 30:19, which speaks of “the way of a man with a maiden” might refer to “the bride who has just been brought home,” or to a young man eager to secure a particular girl as his wife.

In his article, Wolf argues that the word really does mean “virgin” in each context in which it is found (I don’t think I can agree regarding Song of Solomon 6:8), and that this specific chapter is speaking about Isaiah’s soon-to-be wife. He says that Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz and Immanuel are names for the same child.

He further writes:

Immanuel’s mother gave him the positive name, “God is with us,” but his father called him by the more ambiguous term, “Speeding to the spoil, hurrying to the plunder.” Another example of a mother and father giving a child opposite names occurs in Gen 35:18, where “Benjamin,“ the “son of the right hand,” was Jacob’s choice in contrast to Rachel’s “son of my bad fortune,” or “Ben-oni.” Jeremiah gave Pashhur the second name of “Magor-missabib” and Nathan called Solomon “Jedidiah.” Therefore, “Immanuel” denoted the promise that God would be there to defeat Samaria and Damascus, and “Maher-shalal-hash-baz” meant that Assyria would soon carry off the wealth of those two nations before turning to devastate Judah. The references to the child knowing the difference between good and evil (7:15-16), and knowing how to say “my father” or “my mother” (8:4), thus explain each other and refer to the same period of time. Stamm has already outlined the similarity of form between 7:10-17 and 8:1-4.

Overall, it’s a worthwhile article.

[Jason Hare]

I just ran across the following article, which I intend to read tonight.

Carter, Warren. “Evoking Isaiah: Matthean Soteriology and an Intertextual Reading of Isaiah 7-9 and Matthew 1:23 and 4:15-16.” Journal of Biblical Literature, vol. 119, no. 3, Society of Biblical Literature, 2000, pp. 503–20, https://doi.org/10.2307/3268411.

[Kenneth Greifer]

You might be interested in this article about why the word betulah does not mean virgin.
"Betulah, A girl of Marriageable Age" by Gordon Wenham Vetus Testamentum volume 22, July 1972 pages 326-348. I tried to read it, but it was your typical arguments, so I could not take it.

[Jason Hare]

You might be interested in this article about why the word betulah does not mean virgin.
"Betulah, A girl of Marriageable Age" by Gordon Wenham Vetus Testamentum volume 22, July 1972 pages 326-348. I tried to read it, but it was your typical arguments, so I could not take it.

Thanks for the reference. I’ve downloaded the article from JSTOR. I’ll get to it later tonight.

[Kenneth Greifer]

Jason,
This is a little off-topic, but I remember you study koine Greek, so I found a site https://www.koinegreek.com/
You might like it.

[Jonathan Beck]

dang. Jason arguing with Gentry and Williamson!

[Jason Hare]

Jason,
This is a little off-topic, but I remember you study koine Greek, so I found a site https://www.koinegreek.com/
You might like it.

Yeah, I’m aware of the site. They put together some good materials. I wish that my Greek were conversational. By the way, I wrote a blog post recently about whether to consider biblical and modern Hebrew the same language and what the whole idea of “language” and “dialect” is. It seems clear to me that using Koinḗ for conversation will always be somewhat forced and unnatural, at least for most people.

Yesterday, I pulled up some videos on YouTube that people made for the Athḗnaze (Ἀθήναζε) course materials, and the introductory slides were their own compositions that were clearly just bad Greek. One of them begins with ἡ εἰσαγωγὴ εἰς τὴν Ἑλληνικὴν Ἀρχαίαν, which obviously has a problem with the lack of article before an attributive adjective in a definite noun phrase. I’d think that εἰς τὴν ἑλληνικὴν γλῶσσαν τὴν ἀρχαίαν would be better Greek. Then again, I don’t think that this makes the best sense as “the introduction to ancient Greek,” which is what I think he meant to say. In another video, they wrote τὸ βιβλίον δύο for “book 2” instead of τὸ δεύτερον βιβλίον “the second book.” These things are just unnatural to Greek, and it’s the result of people trying to learn to speak a language that they’ve never spoken before without immersion in the language environment. I worry about spreading around mistakes like these myself, which keeps me from taking a step into “speaking” when I have no complete language model.

I’m spending a lot of time in Greek recently, hoping to work through both Athḗnaze books quickly. I don’t come to this with the illusion that my Greek will be conversational, but I at least want to be able to read without too much trouble.

By the way, have you heard of the Facebook group Greek & Hebrew One-Year Bible Reading Group? Each year, a group makes a commitment to reading through the Bible in Hebrew and/or Greek and using the group to keep each other motivated, accountable, and interested. It’s also for discussions of things that you find interesting in your reading. Some people read through the Septuagint in Greek and the New Testament in Greek. I tend to read through the Hebrew Bible and the Hebrew New Testament. I think I might read the Greek New Testament one of these times. Does it sound like something that might interest you?