Harmonizing Historical Context and Messianic Prophecy in Isaiah 7:14

The Gospel of Matthew (1:22-23) understood the famous prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 that the

virgin would conceive and give birth to Immanuel (meaning, “God with us”) as being

fulfilled in the birth of Christ Jesus. However, many would object that treating Isaiah’s

prophecy as purely predictive of the Messiah would not make sense to Isaiah’s own

literary historical context. On one hand, Christian interpreters need to do justice with

grammatico-historical exegesis that is relevant for the original readers of Isaiah. On the

other hand, they need to avoid unbridled allegories in affirming the predictive nature of

his Messianic prophecy. If the prophecy was ‘Messianic’, how would it be a divine

assurance to the contemporaries of Isaiah as they faced the threat of Syro-Ephraimite

invasion?

To begin with, we would do well to explore how Isaiah’s original readers would

understand the sign promised in Isaiah chapter 7. Around 733 BC, Aram and the northern

kingdom of Israel tried to pressure Ahaz king of Judah to join their alliance in opposing

the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III. It was a turbulent time as the Assyrian empire

expanded westward. Judah was at the crossroads in choosing where to place its security.

When diplomacy failed, Aram and Israel invaded Judah in order to replace Ahaz with a

puppet king and force its participation in their anti-Assyrian alliance (2 Chronicles 28:5-

18). The Davidic dynasty was under threat. In such a context, Isaiah opposed Ahaz’s

political submission to Assyria in order to counter the northern threat (Isaiah 7 and 2

Kings 16:5-18). Instead, Ahaz was counseled not to fear but to place his trust in the Lord

(7:4, 9). Within sixty-five years, the nations that plotted his destruction would no longer

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be a threat (7:8). The Lord challenged Ahaz to ask for a sign but he refused, ostensibly

because he did not want to put God to the test. However, he really did not want to obey

what God had revealed through Isaiah. A divine sign would be given nevertheless – a

virgin will give birth to a child called Immanuel and before he came to the age of

accountability, the land of the two kings who threatened Ahaz will be forsaken (7:16).

It is debated whether the word alma should be translated as ‘virgin’ or merely ‘young

woman’. The Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament) translated it as

parthenos (‘virgin’) instead of neanis (young woman) centuries before the Gospel writers

so the Christians could not be accused of linguistic sleight of hand. However, some

opponents of Christianity would object that if ‘virgin’ was intended, Isaiah would have

used the technical word betulah instead. After surveying the biblical usages of both

terms, Alec Motyer concluded that such a claim is groundless. For example, Rebekah

(Genesis 24:16) was described as female (nara) of marriageable age (betulah). It was

further qualified that she was single (‘no man had ever lain with her’) so the term in itself

is not sufficient to denote virginity. Motyer wrote, “Isaiah used the word which, among

those available to him, came nearest to expressing ‘virgin birth’ and which, in the event,

with linguistic propriety, accommodated that meaning. It is also worth noting that outside

the Bible, ‘so far as may be ascertained’, alma is ‘never used of a married woman’.”1

Scholars have proposed different theories about the identity of the young woman who

would bear this sign – the prophet’s wife, a group of Israelite women or the queen in

1
Alec Motyer, Isaiah, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, (ILeicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1999), page
79

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Ahaz’s household.2 However, the description of Immanuel as prince of the land (Isaiah

8:8, 10) and the definite article (the virgin) militate against the first two views.3 Since the

prophecy was addressed to the ‘house of David’, it seems more appropriate to understand

the prophecy as a divine assurance of the continuation of Davidic dynasty through the

birth of an heir, whose birth is a reminder of God’s presence with them. Isaiah’s

prophecy was indeed fulfilled with the miraculous survival of Judah in the days of the

Assyrian invasion. By abandoning the use of force and resistance, Ahaz would outlive

both Rezin and Pekah. His son would be placed on the throne of a small but independent

nation.4 At some point, the Davidic covenant of a perpetual dynasty originating in 2

Samuel 7 developed into the hope of a perfect King who would reign universally forever.

In that sense, the prophecy of the preservation of the royal lineage may be seen as

‘Messianic’.

If Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled during the time of Ahaz, was the writer of Matthew

mistaken in claiming that the prophecy was fulfilled in the birth of Jesus many centuries

later? Christian thinkers have proposed different approaches of harmonizing these two

passages that can be categorized as essentially historical, essentially Messianic, double

fulfillment and pesher interpretations.

Essentially Historical: Walter Kaiser, a proponent of single-meaning hermeneutic,

argued that the promised child was King Hezekiah and this partial fulfillment of a

2
For a case of Isaiah’s wife as the prophesied virgin, see R. E. Clements, Isaiah 1–39, New Century Bible
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), pp. 86–88.
3
Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Toward an Old Testament Theology, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991), page 209
4
John D.W. Watts, Isaiah 1 – 33, Word Biblical Commentary, (Waco: Word Books, 1985), page 102

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‘generic prophecy’ is linked to its final fulfillment in Christ.5 A generic prediction is

defined as “one which regards an event as occurring in a series of parts, separated by

intervals, and expresses itself in language that may apply indifferently to the nearest part,

or to the remoter parts, or the whole – in other words, a prediction which, in applying to

the whole of a complex event, also applies to some of its parts.6 For example, the

prophecy in Daniel 11 of Antiochus Epiphanes also looked forward to a final future

Antichrist (1 John 2:18). However, it may be objected that Hezekiah was not born of a

virgin. In reply, Kaiser would argue that neither did Antiochus Epiphanes fulfill every

detail that the final Antichrist will demonstrate. The critical thing is both the immediate

and final fulfillment are linked by a single meaning or common theme in Isaiah’s

prophecy in that both Hezekiah and the Messiah were from the Davidic royal lineage that

God had promised would never perish. Another objection to this interpretation of

identifying Hezekiah as the promised Immanuel was the chronological problem that he

was already ten years old at the time of the prophecy. John Watts responded to this

objection by questioning the accuracy of the prevailing chronologies “so no sure

statement can be made” while Kaiser hoped that further discoveries would shed more

light on the date of Syro-Ephraimite War and resolve the problem in synchronism.7

Essentially Messianic: Proponents of this approach understand the virgin in Isaiah 7:14

to be Mary and the child as reference to Jesus. Alec Motyer argued that the description in

verse 15 as predicting that the boy will grow up in poverty since curds and honey are the

5
Walter C. Kaiser Jr., The Promise of Isaiah 7:14 and the Single-Meaning Hermeneutic”, Evangelical
Journal 6 (1988), pages 55 – 70
6
Willis J. Beecher, The Prophets and the Promise, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1963), page 130
7
John D.W. Watts, Isaiah 1 – 33, page 99. See also Walter Kaiser, Hard Sayings of the Bible, (Downers
Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1996), page 302

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diet of those left in a devastated land (verse 22). Concerning the date of Immanuel’s

birth, Motyer observed that Isaiah 7-11 held in tension the expectations that he will be

born within the immediate threat (7:14-16, 10:27 – 11:1) and that he will be born in an

undated future “for before his birth Judah and Israel will be scattered and need

regathering (8:11-22, 11:12f)”.8 Isaiah did not resolve the tension in his words to Ahaz

because “at that moment this was the only way he could express the significance of what

Ahaz had done”. As a tragic result of Ahaz’s disobedience, his descendants would be

puppet kings to foreign powers such as Assyria and even the semblance of a monarchy

was extinguished with the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC so that when Jesus (Immanuel)

was born he would “share the poverty of his people, to inherit a non-existent throne and

to feel the full weight of the oppressor”.9 Although Isaiah would adjust the historical

perspective of Immanuel’s birth (9:1), he “uttered no lie when he made Immanuel the

immediate heir of the Ahaz-debacle”.10 Indeed, the fall of Aram and Israel would have

preceded the birth and ‘age of accountability’ of Jesus by centuries.

Double Fulfillment: Historically, many Christian thinkers would contend that the first

fulfillment os Isaiah’s prophecy took place in Ahaz’s time while the ultimate fulfillment

occurred in the birth of Jesus. Some would suggest that there are multiple meanings in the

biblical prophecy which even the original author (Isaiah) may not be aware of. Raymond

E. Brown defines sensus plenior as “that additional, deeper meaning, intended by God

but not clearly intended by the human author, which is seen to exist in the words of a

8
J. Alec Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity
Press, 1993), page 86
9
Ibid., page 84–87
10
Alec Motyer, Isaiah, page 78

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biblical text (or group of texts, or even a whole book) when they are studied in the light

of further revelation or development in the understanding of revelation.”11 In this view,

Matthew saw correctly a fuller and expanded meaning in Isaiah’s prophecy and applied it

to Jesus in light of new revelatory fulfillment in the coming of the Messiah.12 Unlike the

virgin in Isaiah’s day, Mary remained a virgin even after becoming pregnant.

Others would see a typology in that the initial fulfillment served as a pattern that points

beyond its immediate context and foreshadows its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus. Foulkes

defined a type as “an event, a series of circumstances, or an aspect of the life of an

individual or of the nation, which finds a parallel and a deeper realization in the incarnate

life of our Lord, in His provision for the needs of men, or in His judgments and future

reign.”13 A type presupposes that there is a pattern or model of God’s dealings with men

that culminates in Christ with finality and fullness. Therefore, even Old Testament

references to the exodus of Israel as a nation (Hosea 11:1) may be said to be fulfilled by

Christ’s sojourn in Egypt (Matthew 2:15).

Pesher Interpretation: Richard Longenecker proposed that Matthew’s quotation of

Isaiah 7:14 was more influenced by Jewish midrashic and pesher exegetical

presuppositions than by modern-day grammatico-historical exegesis. He observed that

“midrashic exegesis ostensibly takes its point of departure from the biblical text itself

(though psychologically it may be motivated by other factors) and seeks to explicate the
11
Raymond E. Brown, The Sensus Plenior of Sacred Scripture, (Baltimore: St. Mary’s University, 1955),
page 92
12
Herbert M. Wolf, Interpreting Isaiah: The Suffering and Glory of the Messiah, (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1985), pages 89 - 92
13
Francis Foulkes, The Acts of God: A Study of the Basis of Typology in the Old Testament, (London: The
Tyndale Press, 1955), page 35

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hidden meanings contained therein by means of agreed on hermeneutical rules in order to

contemporize the revelation of God. It may be characterized by the maxim “that has

relevance to this” – that is, what is written in Scripture has relevance to our present

situation.14 In that sense, Matthew began with the redemptive activity of Jesus in his

contemporary setting and saw its correspondence to what was written. The pesher

exegetical method understood Isaiah’s prophetic utterance as secondary to the fulfilment

by historical events.

In my evaluation of these broad approaches, I find that the essentially-historical position

made good sense to the immediate context even though it had to overcome significant

chronological problems if the promised son is identified as Hezekiah. The essentially-

Messianic position took seriously its prophetic fulfillment in Jesus but how could a child

born centuries later serve as a divine sign that the immediate Syro-Ephraimite threat

would be over soon?15 The sensus plenior position is open to the abuse of fanciful

allegorical interpretations influenced by tradition or personal preference. It was the New

Testament citations of Old Testament texts that led Origen to introduce his 3-level

hermeneutical method for allegorizing the Bible. The same objection may be raised

against the pesher method of handling Scripture.

14
Richard Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1999), page 22.
15
R. Bruce Crompton proposed a modified view where Isaiah 7:14 refers to Jesus but the prophet’s vision
carried an embedded assumption that had the child been born in the near future, the threat to Ahaz would
be removed before he reached the age of accountability. But it is difficult to see how that modification
resolve the problem that Jesus’ actual birth centuries later would serve as a precursor to Pekah and Rezin’s
demise in the 8th century B.C. See R. Bruce Crompton, The Immanuel Prophecy in Isaiah 7:14-16 and its
use in use in Matthew 1:23: Harmonizing Historical Context and Single Meaning, Detroit Baptist Seminary
Journal 12 (2007), page 3-15

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After weighing the different approaches, I believe a promising attempt at harmonizing the

historical context and Messianic prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 need to take on board the best

qualities found in each approach. Echoing Bruce Waltke’s canonical approach, we need

to look seriously at what Isaiah’s prophecy meant in its own literary context, then in the

context of canonical Scripture available up to his time and finally, in the context of the

entire completed canon.

For relevance to its immediate setting, Isaiah’s prophecy addressed the Syro-Ephraimite

threat by promising a royal son to King Ahaz born of his young wife. Before the son

reached the age of accountability, both invading nations were removed by Assyria.

However, even within the prophecy of Isaiah, there was heightened expectation that this

child would be more than ordinary. Isaiah 9:6-7 further ascribed to him titles like

“Mighty God”, “Prince of Peace” and “Everlasting Father” and predicted his eternal reign

with justice and righteousness. Even within the prophecy of Isaiah, we could find clues

that this partial fulfillment awaits a fuller culmination in the future. Not even Hezekiah or

any other merely human babies could fit the bill. From the revelation available at the time

of Isaiah, we could confirm this understanding based on the prior Davidic covenant of a

perpetual dynasty and the repeated failure of his heirs like Ahaz to live up to their calling,

which intensified expectations of a Messianic figure who would rule justly forever.

For Matthew, what has happened in the past for King Ahaz served as a typological

pattern for the historical events that took place in his own setting. A child would be born,

continuing the royal line of David, but in a fuller sense, his mother is a virgin and his

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birth personifies God’s presence with us. Matthew did not go through a list of proof-text

checklist to see if Jesus or other Messiah claimants met all those criteria. Rather he had

first encountered Christ and understood Him to be the fulfillment of the entire Old

Testament. For example, the author of Numbers 21 is probably not aware of proposing a

type for Christ when he narrated about the bronze serpent. We come to this realization

only from the New Testament perspective when Jesus uses the event to proclaim his

saving work (John 3:14-15).

The proper interpretation of Isaiah’s prophecy requires the exegete to take seriously its

canonical context or the meaning of Scripture read as a whole. While allegorical flights

of fancy leave us without any objective foundation, modern historical-critical

hermeneutics leave us without a ‘single vision of redemptive history’ by leaving God’s

sovereign action in history out of the picture.16 Looking at Isaiah’s prophecy from its

redemptive-historical context, we could also see how God’s dealings in the 8th century

BC would set a pattern and reach a fuller fulfillment in Christ. Understood from a

canonical context, a biblical passage may contain more meaning than its human author

intended.

Such an interpretation should not be construed as having three different conflicting

meanings. It is more accurate described as different depths of complementary meaning

we can derive from reading a chapter of a book after reading the entire book from start

until the end. It does not mean that our earlier understanding of the chapter was mistaken,

16
Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutical Method
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), page 233

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but it gained deeper meaning when understood in light of the whole book.17 Rather than

promoting subjective allegories, this approach would have objective controls in what the

human authors meant in their respective contexts. In contrast with modernistic

historiography, Isaiah’s prophecy would not be restricted in its meaning to the time of

Ahaz only without any significance to God’s people today. In light of Christ and

redemptive history, we can appreciate that Isaiah 7:14 pointed beyond itself to the birth

of a royal son of Davidic lineage who would be born of a virgin. These depths of

meaning not apparent to the original readers emerge when we found out where the story

leads – its ultimate fulfillment in the birth, life, death, resurrection and eschatological

reign of Christ.

In conclusion, the problem of harmonizing Isaiah 7:14 with its usage in Matthew 1:22-23

is exacerbated by modern expectations that the former constitutes a rationalistic,

predictive proof-text on the basis of grammatico-historical exegesis alone. At one level,

such exegesis is helpful to understand how Isaiah’s prophecy made sense to its original

readers and set controls on overly imaginative allegories. But we cannot stop there with

all its significance stuck in the 8th century BC. In light of its canonical context which

presupposes God’s sovereign dealings in history with the ultimate purpose of redemption

in Christ, we could discern greater depths of meaning that Isaiah 7:14 served as a type

which finds its final fulfillment in Jesus. Matthew had an encounter with Christ that

changed his hermeneutics. Similarly, our interpretation needs to be Christ-centered as

well after encountering Him through the progressive revelations in New Testament.

17
Vern S. Poythress, Divine Meaning of Scripture, Westminster Theological Journal 48 (1986), pages 241-
279

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