Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy
Welcome to Day 936 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
I am Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
Immanuel's Mother: Virgin or Not? - Wisdom Wednesday


Thank you for joining us for our five days per week wisdom and legacy building podcast. We are broadcasting from our studio at ‘The Big House’ in Marietta, OH.  Today is Day 936 of our Trek, and it is Wisdom Wednesday.  Creating a Biblical Worldview is important to have a proper perspective on today’s current events.  To establish a Biblical Worldview, it is required that you also have a proper understanding of God’s Word.  Especially in our western cultures, we do not fully understand the Scriptures from the mindset and culture of the authors.  In order to help us all have a better understanding of some of the more obscure passages in God’s Word, we are investing Wisdom Wednesday reviewing a series of essays from one of today’s most prominent Hebrew Scholars Dr. Micheal S. Heiser.  He has compiled these essays into a book titled  ’I Dare You Not to Bore Me With the Bible.’

Words are important.  As part of creating a solid Biblical Worldview, it is important to study some key and maybe controversial words within the Bible.  While the human authors of God’s Word had a specific meaning in mind when they chose certain words, translating them can cause us to have questions.  Especially those who want to try and dispute the Bible.  So today’s essay explores
Immanuel’s Mother: Virgin or Not?
The prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 is among the most well-known passages in the book of Isaiah. It's also one of the most controversial, for many reasons.

All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin (almah) will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).

It's difficult to get through the Christmas or Easter season without seeing one of the major news periodicals or educational television networks cast doubt about the meaning of almah in Isaiah 7:14 which is usually translated as virgin.

A favorite argument is that the Hebrew word almah cannot mean "virgin” but instead refers to a young woman of marriageable age, without respect to prior sexual activity. The more precise word for "virgin" is betulah a word not used in Isaiah 7:14. The New Testament author Matthew, we are so often told, mistakenly assumed the term meant “virgin.”  The argument is that his ignorance of the original Hebrew word led to the doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus. But are these assertions correct?

It's true that betulah refers to someone who has been sexually inactive but does that mean almah never means virgin? (Leviticus 21:3; Judges 21:12; Deuteronomy 22:23&28; Exodus 22:15). Outside of Isaiah 7:14, the word almah occurs only six times in the Old Testament. In all but one of those occurrences, the context provides no clue as to the sexual status of the young woman or women (Genesis 24:43; Exodus 2:8; Psalms 68:25; Song of Solomon 1:3&6:8: Proverbs 30:10). Virginity is suggested, however, in Song of Solomon 6:8 where almah occurs in the plural alamot:  “Even among sixty queens and eighty concubines and countless young women.”

The distinction between queens, concubines, and alamot is important. A queen was a royal wife, which obviously entails a sexual relationship with the king. A concubine was a sexual partner who held certain privileges, but not to the level of a wife. This would suggest that the third group, the alamot, had no sexual relationship with the king. An almah in this text is a candidate to become a concubine or a wife.

This is precisely what we see in the book of Esther. Esther 2:3 Let the king appoint agents in each province to bring these beautiful young women into the royal harem at the fortress of Susa.