Chapter 7

Isaiah 7:14 — Virgin or Young Woman?

The Most Contested Verse in the Old Testament

If you had to pick just one verse to show why the Septuagint matters — one verse that demonstrates, more clearly than any other, the difference between the Greek Old Testament and the Hebrew Masoretic Text — you could hardly do better than Isaiah 7:14. This single verse has sparked more heated debate, more scholarly ink, and more theological conflict than perhaps any other verse in the Old Testament. And the reason is simple: it touches directly on one of the most central claims of the Christian faith — the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.

In this chapter, we are going to dig deep into this extraordinary verse. We will look at it in the original Hebrew, in the Greek Septuagint (LXX), and in the New Testament. We will examine the key Hebrew and Greek words at the center of the controversy. We will trace the history of how this verse has been translated and debated over two thousand years. And I will argue that the evidence strongly supports the following thesis: the LXX's translation of Isaiah 7:14 using the Greek word parthenos (παρθένος, "virgin") preserves the original meaning of Isaiah's prophecy, while the Masoretic Text's almah (עַלְמָה, often translated "young woman") reflects a later tradition that — whether by accident or by design — weakened the Messianic and virginal force of the passage.

This is the chapter where we roll up our sleeves and do the hard work of comparing texts, examining words, and weighing the evidence. But I promise you: the payoff is worth it. When we're finished, I think you'll see why the Septuagint deserves a far more prominent place in the life and worship of the Christian church.

The Historical Setting: Isaiah and King Ahaz

Before we can understand the words of Isaiah 7:14, we need to understand the situation in which they were spoken. The year was approximately 735 BC. The kingdom of Judah was in grave danger. Two hostile nations — the northern kingdom of Israel (also called Ephraim) and Aram (Syria) — had formed an alliance against Judah. Their plan was to invade Jerusalem, depose King Ahaz, and install a puppet king who would join their coalition against the mighty Assyrian Empire.

Ahaz was terrified. And God, in His mercy, sent the prophet Isaiah to meet the king with a message of reassurance. Isaiah told Ahaz not to fear the two invading kings, because their plans would fail. And then God made an astonishing offer. Through Isaiah, God said to Ahaz: "Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven" (Isaiah 7:11, ESV). In other words, God was inviting Ahaz to ask for any miracle he wanted — no limits — as a guarantee that the promise was true.

But Ahaz refused. He said, with false piety, "I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test" (Isaiah 7:12, ESV). This wasn't humility. It was faithless stubbornness. Ahaz had already decided to rely on Assyria for help instead of trusting God. He didn't want a sign from God, because that would have obligated him to trust God's word.

Isaiah was not pleased. He responded: "Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also?" (Isaiah 7:13, ESV). And then Isaiah declared that God would give a sign anyway — whether Ahaz wanted one or not. That sign is the famous prophecy of Isaiah 7:14.

The Texts Compared: LXX, MT, and the New Testament

Let us now set the three key texts side by side so we can see exactly what each one says. This comparison is the foundation of everything that follows in this chapter.

The difference leaps off the page. The LXX says "virgin." The MT says "young woman." And Matthew, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, quotes the LXX form — parthenos, "virgin" — and applies it directly to the miraculous conception of Jesus in the womb of the Virgin Mary.¹

So which is the original meaning of Isaiah's prophecy? Did Isaiah predict a virgin birth — a miraculous, supernatural conception — or did he simply predict that a young woman would have a baby? The answer to that question depends largely on what we make of the Hebrew word almah and the Greek word parthenos. Let's examine each one carefully.

What Does Almah (עַלְמָה) Mean?

The Hebrew word almah (עַלְמָה) stands at the very center of the Isaiah 7:14 debate. Those who wish to deny the virgin birth often argue that almah simply means "young woman" and carries no connotation of virginity. They insist that if Isaiah had intended to say "virgin," he would have used a different Hebrew word — bethulah (בְּתוּלָה), which they claim is the technical Hebrew term for a virgin. On this reading, the LXX translators introduced the idea of virginity by choosing the Greek word parthenos, either through a mistranslation or a theological interpretation that went beyond what Isaiah actually said.

This argument sounds reasonable at first. But when we examine the evidence carefully, it falls apart. Let me show you why.

The Root of Almah

The word almah comes from the Hebrew root alam (עלם), which means "to hide" or "to conceal." This root gives us a clue about the word's meaning. In the culture of the ancient Near East, a young unmarried woman was "hidden" or "concealed" — that is, she was sexually secluded, kept apart from men, and protected by her family until marriage. The very word almah therefore carries an inherent suggestion of sexual purity and virginity. A woman who was "hidden" in this cultural sense was, by definition, a virgin.²

Every Almah in the Hebrew Bible

The word almah appears only nine times in the Hebrew Bible (including the plural form alamoth). Let us look at each occurrence and ask: does it refer to a woman who is a virgin?

Genesis 24:43 — Rebekah. Abraham's servant is looking for a wife for Isaac. He prays that a young woman — an almah — will come to the well and offer him water. The woman who comes is Rebekah, who is explicitly described just a few verses earlier (Genesis 24:16) as a bethulah — a virgin — whom "no man had known." So the very first almah in the Bible is explicitly identified as a virgin.³

Exodus 2:8 — Miriam. When the baby Moses is found by Pharaoh's daughter, his sister goes to find a nurse. She is called an almah. Miriam was a young girl — certainly a virgin.⁴

Psalm 68:25 (Hebrew 68:26). This psalm describes a worship procession and mentions alamoth (the plural) playing tambourines. These are young women participating in worship — and in the context of ancient Israelite worship, these would have been young, unmarried women.⁵

Proverbs 30:19. This is the most interesting case for the debate. The author lists four things that are "too wonderful" for him, including "the way of a man with an almah." Some have argued this refers to sexual relations with a non-virgin. But many scholars read this differently. The point of the passage is mystery and wonder. The "way of a man with an almah" is wonderful precisely because it describes the mysterious process of courtship with a young virgin — something hidden, as the root of the word implies.⁶

Song of Solomon 1:3. The alamoth (plural) love the bridegroom. These are young maidens — the context strongly suggests unmarried young women.

Song of Solomon 6:8. The text lists "queens, concubines, and alamoth." Here the alamoth are distinguished from both married women (queens) and concubines. They are a separate category — young, unmarried women. The distinction only makes sense if the alamoth are virgins.⁷

1 Chronicles 15:20. This reference to alamoth appears in the context of music and worship and is not directly relevant to our question about sexual status.

Psalm 46:1 (superscription). Same as the above — a musical term.

Isaiah 7:14. Our passage under discussion.

But What about Bethulah?

The standard objection at this point is: "If Isaiah wanted to say 'virgin,' why didn't he use the word bethulah (בְּתוּלָה), which is the Hebrew word for virgin?"

This sounds like a strong argument, but it actually has a serious weakness. The word bethulah does not always mean "virgin" in the way we use the term in English. In Joel 1:8, for example, the prophet calls on a bethulah to "lament like a bride dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth." This bethulah has a husband — or at least had one. She may be widowed. But either way, she is called a bethulah even though she has been married. This means that bethulah is not a foolproof indicator of virginity either.¹⁰

In fact, scholars have noted that when the Hebrew Bible wants to make absolutely clear that a woman is a virgin, it often adds a clarifying phrase. In Genesis 24:16, Rebekah is described as "a bethulah, whom no man had known." If bethulah by itself always meant "virgin," why would the author need to add "whom no man had known"? The extra phrase suggests that bethulah alone was not always precise enough.¹¹

So the argument that Isaiah "should have" used bethulah if he meant "virgin" doesn't hold water. The word almah was a perfectly appropriate choice — and as we have seen, it consistently refers to young, unmarried, virgin women throughout the Hebrew Bible.

The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament

The respected Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, edited by R. Laird Harris, Gleason Archer, and Bruce Waltke — all conservative Protestant scholars — states plainly: "There is no instance where it can be proved that almah designates a young woman who is not a virgin. The fact of virginity is evident in Gen 24:43, where almah is used of one who was being sought as a bride for Isaac."¹² This is a strong statement from mainstream evangelical scholarship, and it deserves weight.

What Does Parthenos (παρθένος) Mean?

Now let's turn to the Greek side of the equation. The LXX translators, working sometime around the second century BC, chose the Greek word parthenos (παρθένος) to translate the Hebrew almah in Isaiah 7:14. What does parthenos mean?

The answer is straightforward: parthenos means "virgin." It is the standard Greek word for a woman who has never had sexual relations. This is the word used throughout Greek literature — from Homer to Hippocrates to the New Testament — to describe a woman who is sexually pure and intact. It is unambiguous.¹³

This is a crucial point. The LXX translators had other options available to them. If they had understood Isaiah to be speaking merely of a "young woman" without any particular emphasis on virginity, they could have chosen the Greek word neanis (νεᾶνις), which simply means "young woman" or "girl." They could have used korasion (κοράσιον), meaning "maiden" or "girl." But they did not. They chose parthenos — the most explicit, most unambiguous word for "virgin" available in the Greek language.¹⁴

Why Did the LXX Translators Choose Parthenos?

This is one of the most fascinating questions in Septuagint studies. We have two main possibilities, and both of them support the case for the virgin birth.

Possibility 1: The Translators Interpreted Almah as Implying Virginity

On this view, the Hebrew text that the LXX translators had before them read almah — just as our current Masoretic Text does. But the translators understood the word almah to imply virginity (as we have argued above), and they chose the Greek word parthenos to make that implicit meaning explicit. Karen Jobes and Moisés Silva, in their respected textbook Invitation to the Septuagint, suggest that the LXX translators may well have understood the passage as referring to a supernatural birth — and they chose their Greek word accordingly.¹⁵

If this is what happened, then the LXX translators were not mistranslating. They were making an interpretive judgment — a correct one — about the meaning of the Hebrew. They recognized that Isaiah's "sign" from God must be something extraordinary (after all, God had offered Ahaz a sign "deep as Sheol or high as heaven"), and the birth of an ordinary child to an ordinary young woman would hardly qualify as a divine sign. A virgin conceiving and bearing a son — now that would be a sign worthy of the God of Israel.

Possibility 2: The Translators' Hebrew Text Read Bethulah

A second possibility is even more interesting. Some scholars have argued that the Hebrew text the LXX translators were working from — their Vorlage, as scholars call it — may have actually read bethulah (בְּתוּלָה, "virgin") rather than almah. On this view, the word bethulah was later changed to the more ambiguous almah by the rabbinic tradition in the second century AD, precisely to weaken the Christological force of the passage.¹⁶

We know from the Dead Sea Scrolls that the Hebrew text of the Old Testament was far less standardized before the first century AD than later rabbinic tradition would have us believe. Multiple Hebrew text traditions existed side by side. It is entirely possible that one textual tradition preserved bethulah while another preserved almah — and that the rabbinic standardizers of the second century chose the reading that was least friendly to Christian claims.

I want to be honest: we cannot prove this second possibility with certainty. The Great Isaiah Scroll from the Dead Sea Scrolls (1QIsa^a) reads almah, which shows that this reading existed in at least one pre-Christian Hebrew manuscript. But the Dead Sea Scrolls also demonstrate that multiple textual traditions could exist simultaneously, and the absence of a particular reading from Qumran does not prove it never existed elsewhere.¹⁷

Whether the LXX translators were interpreting almah correctly or translating bethulah faithfully, the result is the same: their rendering of parthenos preserves the prophetic meaning of Isaiah 7:14 — a miraculous virginal conception as a sign from God.

The Context Demands a Miracle

One of the strongest arguments for reading Isaiah 7:14 as a prediction of a virgin birth comes from the context itself. Let's think about this carefully.

God told Ahaz to ask for a sign — and He specified that the sign could be "deep as Sheol or high as heaven." This language signals something extraordinary, something supernatural. God was offering a cosmic-level miracle as proof of His promise. When Ahaz refused, God said He would give a sign anyway.

Now ask yourself: If the "sign" was merely that a young woman would conceive and have a baby in the normal way, what kind of sign would that be? Young women conceive and bear children every day. There is nothing remarkable, nothing sign-like, about an ordinary birth. Justin Martyr made exactly this point in the second century:

If He was to be born of human intercourse like any other firstborn son, why did God solemnly announce that He would give a sign which is not common to all firstborn? What is truly a sign, and what was to be an irrefutable proof to all men, namely, that by means of a virgin's womb the Firstborn of all creatures took flesh and truly became man, was foreknown by the prophetic Spirit before it took place.¹⁸

Justin's logic is powerful and straightforward. A sign from God — especially one offered on the scale of heaven and earth — must be something extraordinary. An ordinary birth doesn't qualify. Only a virgin birth does.

The Dual Fulfillment Question

Before we go further, I want to address a question that will be on the minds of many thoughtful readers: Does Isaiah 7:14 have both an immediate historical fulfillment and an ultimate Messianic fulfillment?

Many evangelical scholars answer yes. They point out that Isaiah's prophecy was given in a specific historical context — the Syro-Ephraimite crisis of 735 BC — and that the immediate sign was meant to reassure Ahaz that the threat from Israel and Aram would be resolved quickly. On this reading, a young woman in Ahaz's own time would conceive and bear a son, and before that child was old enough to "know how to refuse the evil and choose the good" (Isaiah 7:16), the two threatening kings would be gone. This immediate fulfillment may have been Isaiah's own wife (the "prophetess" of Isaiah 8:3) or some other woman known to the court.

I think this "dual fulfillment" reading is reasonable, and I want to present it fairly. Many faithful, orthodox Christian scholars hold this view. The immediate fulfillment would involve a young woman (almah) conceiving and bearing a son in the natural way — which would still be a "sign" in the sense that God was attaching a prophetic timeline to a specific birth. The ultimate fulfillment would involve the Virgin Mary conceiving and bearing the Son of God — the true Immanuel, "God with us" — by the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit.¹⁹

Here is the important point: even on the dual fulfillment reading, the ultimate fulfillment involves a virgin. And it is the LXX's parthenos that preserves this Messianic, virginal reading, while the MT's almah can be (and has been) used to deny it. Whether Isaiah 7:14 has one fulfillment or two, the LXX reading points us toward Christ. The MT reading, taken by itself, does not necessarily do so.

The Name "Immanuel" and Its Theological Significance

Before we turn to the evidence for deliberate textual alteration, I want to pause and consider the name "Immanuel" (עִמָּנוּ אֵל) — because this name is itself an argument for a miraculous reading of the prophecy. Immanuel means "God with us." It is not merely a pious name or a theological slogan. In the broader context of Isaiah's prophecy, it is a statement about the identity of the child who will be born.

We need to remember that Isaiah 7:14 does not stand alone. It is part of a larger Messianic tapestry woven throughout the book of Isaiah. Just two chapters later, in Isaiah 9:6–7, we read one of the most spectacular Messianic prophecies in all of Scripture: "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" (ESV). Notice that this child is called "Mighty God" (El Gibbor, אֵל גִּבּוֹר) — a divine title. The connection to "Immanuel" ("God with us") is unmistakable. Isaiah is painting a picture of a child who is not merely a human ruler but who is God Himself, coming to dwell among His people.⁴⁰

And that is precisely what happened when Jesus was born. Matthew understood this. After quoting Isaiah 7:14 with the word parthenos, he adds the interpretive note: "which means, God with us" (Matthew 1:23). For Matthew, the virgin birth is not an isolated miracle. It is the means by which God became incarnate — the mechanism by which "God with us" became a literal, physical reality. The baby in Mary's womb was God in human flesh.

When we see the name Immanuel in this light, the idea that Isaiah 7:14 is merely about an ordinary young woman having an ordinary baby becomes even less persuasive. The name itself points to something extraordinary — something divine — happening in and through this birth. And the LXX's parthenos preserves the miraculous character of the event in a way that the MT's more ambiguous almah does not.

Isaiah 7:14 in the Broader Messianic Hope of Second Temple Judaism

It is worth stepping back and considering the place of Isaiah 7:14 within the broader Messianic expectations of Second Temple Judaism — the period between roughly 500 BC and AD 70. This was the world in which the LXX was produced, in which the Targums were composed, and in which Jesus was born. What did Jews of this period expect from the Messiah?

The evidence suggests that many Jews in this period expected the Messiah to have a miraculous or even supernatural origin. The Dead Sea Scrolls contain fragments that speak of a coming figure who would be called "the Son of God" and "the Son of the Most High" (4Q246). The Similitudes of Enoch (1 Enoch 37–71) describe a pre-existent, heavenly figure called the "Son of Man" who would execute divine judgment. The Jewish messianic expectation was not limited to a merely human king. There was a strong strand of expectation — attested in multiple sources — that the Messiah would have a special, perhaps supernatural, relationship to God.⁴¹

In this context, the LXX translators' decision to render almah as parthenos makes perfect sense. They were not importing a foreign concept into the text. They were drawing out an implication that was already present in the broader theological context of Isaiah's prophecy and in the wider Messianic expectations of their time. The idea that the Messiah would come through a miraculous, virginal birth was not a Christian invention. It was a development of Jewish Messianic theology that the Christians inherited and confirmed.

After Jesus was born, however, this strand of Jewish expectation became deeply uncomfortable for the rabbinic establishment. If the Messiah was expected to have a miraculous origin, and if Jesus of Nazareth — born of a virgin — claimed to be that Messiah, then the connection was dangerously obvious. The solution? Reinterpret Isaiah 7:14 to remove the virginal element. Replace parthenos with neanis. Insist that almah means merely "young woman." This is precisely what happened in the second century AD.

The Evidence for Deliberate Alteration

Now we come to what I consider the most compelling part of this chapter. We have seen that almah can mean "virgin" and that the LXX translators rendered it faithfully with parthenos. But there is more to the story. There is strong evidence — from multiple independent sources — that the Jewish leadership in the second century AD deliberately worked to undermine the LXX's reading of Isaiah 7:14.

The Replacement Translations

In the second century AD, three new Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible were produced: by Aquila (c. AD 130), Symmachus (late second century), and Theodotion (late second century). These translations are discussed in detail in Chapter 13 of this book, but I need to mention them here because of what they did with Isaiah 7:14.

All three translators — independently — replaced the LXX's parthenos (παρθένος, "virgin") with neanis (νεᾶνις, "young woman") in Isaiah 7:14.²⁰

Think about the significance of this. Three different translators, working within a generation of one another, all made the same change to the same verse in the same direction. This is not a coincidence. It is a coordinated effort to remove the virgin-birth prophecy from the Greek text of Isaiah.

And the most telling detail is this: Aquila was a student of Rabbi Akiba himself. According to the church historian Epiphanius, Aquila was a proselyte to Judaism who studied directly under Akiba — the most powerful and influential rabbi of the early second century. As we will see in Chapter 12, Akiba is the central figure in this book's argument about the deliberate alteration of the Hebrew text. Aquila was not an independent scholar making a neutral judgment. He was a member of Akiba's inner circle, and his translation reflected Akiba's theological agenda.²¹

Irenaeus Defends the LXX

The early Church Father Irenaeus of Lyons (c. AD 130–202) was one of the most important defenders of the LXX's reading of Isaiah 7:14. In his great work Against Heresies (Book 3, chapter 21), Irenaeus directly confronted the Jewish replacement translations and defended the LXX's parthenos.

Irenaeus's argument ran along two lines. First, he pointed to the great antiquity of the LXX. The Septuagint translation of Isaiah was made centuries before the replacement translations. It was produced by Jewish scholars who had no Christian axe to grind — they were simply translating the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek for the Jewish community of Alexandria. Their rendering of parthenos predated any Christian influence. The replacement translations, by contrast, were produced after Christianity had arisen and the passage had become theologically controversial. Which translation is more likely to be unbiased?²²

Second, Irenaeus argued that the apostles themselves confirmed the LXX reading. Matthew quoted Isaiah 7:14 using parthenos (Matthew 1:23), and this apostolic witness — given under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit — settled the question. As Irenaeus put it, "the apostles agree with the above mentioned translation, and the translation agrees with the tradition of the apostles." In other words, the LXX and the New Testament confirm each other.²³

Irenaeus was writing in the late second century — close enough to the events in question to know what was happening in the Jewish community. His testimony is historically valuable. He was not speculating about the motivations behind the replacement translations. He was witnessing an active campaign to undermine the church's Scriptures.

Justin Martyr Accuses the Jews of Textual Tampering

Even earlier than Irenaeus, the Christian apologist Justin Martyr (c. AD 100–165) made the same charge. In his Dialogue with Trypho — a record of a debate between Justin and a Jewish interlocutor named Trypho — Justin repeatedly accused the Jewish teachers of his day of altering their Scriptures to undercut Christian claims about Jesus.

Justin specifically attacked the rendering "young woman" in Isaiah 7:14. He argued that the Jewish teachers were deliberately distorting the translation that their own elders had made for King Ptolemy — that is, the Septuagint. Justin pointed out the absurdity of the "young woman" reading: if God was giving a sign, it had to be something extraordinary, not an ordinary birth. He wrote:

You dare to distort the translation of this passage made by your elders at the court of Ptolemy, the Egyptian king, asserting that the real meaning of the Scriptures is not as they translated it, but should read, "Behold a young woman shall conceive," as though something of extraordinary importance was signified by a woman conceiving after sexual intercourse, as all young women, except the barren, can do.²⁴

Justin also accused the Jewish teachers of deleting entire passages from their Scriptures — passages that pointed to Christ as God and man, to His suffering and death on a cross. He told Trypho:

I certainly do not trust your teachers when they refuse to admit that the translation of the Scriptures made by the seventy elders at the court of King Ptolemy of Egypt is a correct one and attempt to make their own translation. You should also know that they have deleted entire passages from the version composed by those elders at the court of Ptolemy, in which it is clearly indicated that the Crucified One was foretold as God and man, and as about to suffer death on the cross.²⁵

Now, we should be fair here. Justin was an apologist in a heated debate, and we should not accept everything he says uncritically. Some of his specific charges may be exaggerated. But the general picture he paints — of a Jewish establishment that was actively revising its texts and translations to counter Christian claims — is confirmed by the independent existence of the replacement translations (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion) and by the testimony of other early Christian writers. Justin was not making this up.²⁶

The Authority of the Septuagint on Isaiah 7:14

The editors of The Authority of the Septuagint, Gregory Lanier and William Ross, note that the early patristic defense of parthenos in Isaiah 7:14 was one of the most significant instances of Christians appealing to the LXX's authority against the newer Jewish translations. Justin relied on the great antiquity of the LXX translation. Irenaeus went further, arguing both from the translation's antiquity and from the agreement between the LXX and the apostles. Justin was aware of Jewish teachers who proposed a different translation of Isaiah 7:14, while Irenaeus specifically mentions Theodotion and Aquila as producing alternative renderings.²⁷

Timothy Michael Law, in his important study When God Spoke Greek, observes that whatever the Septuagint translator of Isaiah intended by choosing parthenos, the choice had enormous consequences for Christian theology. Without the Septuagint's rendering, Matthew would not have been able to ground the virgin birth tradition in a prophetic text from the Jewish Scriptures. Law writes that Matthew may well have already known a tradition of the virgin birth of Jesus, but having a text from the Jewish Scriptures — provided by the Septuagint — meant that he could anchor that tradition in a genuine prophetic utterance.²⁸

Pre-Mosaic Evidence: The Ugaritic Tablets

One of the most fascinating pieces of evidence in this debate comes from ancient clay tablets discovered at the site of Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra, in Syria). These tablets predate Moses and contain texts in a Semitic language closely related to Hebrew.

The renowned scholar Cyrus H. Gordon of Brandeis University argued that the Ugaritic texts use the cognate word corresponding to Hebrew almah in contexts where the meaning is clearly "virgin." Gordon published his findings in an influential 1953 article in The Journal of Bible and Religion. His conclusion was striking:

The commonly held view that "virgin" is Christian, whereas "young woman" is Jewish is not quite true. The fact is that the Septuagint, which is the Jewish translation made in pre-Christian Alexandria, takes almah to mean "virgin" here. Accordingly, the New Testament follows Jewish interpretation in Isaiah 7:14. Therefore, the New Testament rendering of almah as "virgin" for Isaiah 7:14 rests on the older Jewish interpretation, which in turn is now borne out for precisely this annunciation formula by a text that is not only pre-Isaianic but is pre-Mosaic in the form that we now have it on a clay tablet.²⁹

Gordon's argument is significant for several reasons. First, it demolishes the claim that reading almah as "virgin" is a Christian invention. The pre-Mosaic Ugaritic evidence shows that the Semitic word behind almah carried virginal connotations long before Christianity existed. Second, it confirms that the LXX translators were following an ancient and well-established understanding of the word. Third, it means that the modern scholarly trend toward translating almah as merely "young woman" actually represents a departure from the older linguistic evidence, not a recovery of it.

The Targum Jonathan: Additional Jewish Evidence for Virginity

There is yet another piece of evidence that confirms the pre-Christian Jewish understanding of Isaiah 7:14 as referring to a virgin. The Targum Jonathan — the traditional Aramaic paraphrase of the Prophets — renders Isaiah 7:14 with a reference to "a virgin" using the Aramaic word ulimta.³⁰

This is extremely significant. The Targum Jonathan is a Jewish text. It was composed by Jewish scholars for use in Jewish synagogues. It has no Christian motivation whatsoever. And yet it preserves the virginal reading of Isaiah 7:14. This tells us that the understanding of the passage as referring to a virgin birth was part of mainstream Jewish interpretation — an interpretation that was later abandoned by the rabbinic establishment precisely because Jesus of Nazareth had fulfilled it.

Let me put this as clearly as I can. Before Jesus was born, Jewish scholars — both in Alexandria (the LXX translators) and in Palestine (the Targum tradition) — understood Isaiah 7:14 as predicting a miraculous virginal conception. After Jesus was born, and after Christians began using this very passage to prove that Jesus was the promised Messiah, the rabbinic establishment changed its interpretation. The new translations (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion) replaced "virgin" with "young woman." And eventually the interpretation of almah as merely "young woman" became the dominant Jewish reading.

The timing of this change is not a coincidence. It is evidence of a deliberate reaction against the Christian use of the passage.

The RSV Controversy and Its Aftermath

This ancient debate erupted again in the twentieth century in a dramatic way. When the Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Bible was published in 1952, its translation of Isaiah 7:14 caused an enormous controversy among American evangelicals. The RSV translated the verse: "Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son." The word "virgin" was gone — replaced with "young woman," following the MT's almah rather than the LXX's parthenos.

The backlash was fierce. Many conservative Christians saw this as a deliberate attack on the doctrine of the virgin birth. Some pastors publicly burned copies of the RSV. The controversy became a defining moment in the evangelical-liberal divide of the mid-twentieth century.³¹

Now, I want to be fair to the RSV translators. From a strictly technical standpoint, "young woman" is a defensible translation of almah if we look only at the MT. The RSV translators were not trying to deny the virgin birth — the New Testament clearly teaches it, regardless of how one translates Isaiah 7:14. But the controversy illustrates something important for our purposes: Protestant Christians have been fighting over the translation of Isaiah 7:14 for decades, often without realizing that the Septuagint had already settled the question two thousand years ago.

Think about the irony. The LXX says parthenos — "virgin" — in Isaiah 7:14. This is a pre-Christian Jewish translation. It was the Bible of the apostles. It was the text that Matthew quoted when he applied Isaiah's prophecy to Mary. If Protestants had taken the Septuagint seriously all along, the RSV controversy might never have happened. The answer was already there, in the church's oldest Old Testament.

The King James Translators and Isaiah 7:14

It is worth noting that even the King James Version (1611), which was officially translated from the Masoretic Hebrew text, rendered Isaiah 7:14 as "virgin" — following the Septuagint and Christian tradition rather than the most natural reading of the MT's almah. As S. Douglas Woodward points out, the KJV translators essentially could not bring themselves to follow the MT on this point. They knew that the Christian tradition — grounded in the LXX and confirmed by Matthew 1:23 — demanded "virgin," and they translated accordingly.³²

Woodward notes the pressure this created: "No doubt pressure from Christians through the ages served an ultimatum to Bible manufacturers: 'Translate almah as virgin and not maiden; or else!'" While Woodward's tone is lighthearted, his point is serious. The very fact that the KJV translators felt compelled to depart from a strict rendering of the MT demonstrates the power of the LXX tradition. Even those who officially translated from the Hebrew found themselves drawn back to the Septuagint's reading.³³

Matthew's Use of Isaiah 7:14

We have been building our case from the Hebrew text, the Greek Septuagint, the Ugaritic tablets, the Targum Jonathan, and the early Church Fathers. But now we come to the most important witness of all: the New Testament itself.

In Matthew 1:18–25, the angel of the Lord appears to Joseph in a dream and tells him that Mary's child has been conceived by the Holy Spirit. Matthew then explains:

"All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: 'Behold, the virgin [parthenos, παρθένος] shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel' (which means, God with us)." (Matthew 1:22–23, ESV)

Matthew is quoting Isaiah 7:14, and he is quoting it in the form of the Septuagint. He uses the word parthenos. He applies the prophecy to the miraculous virginal conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit. And he does so under the inspiration of God.

This is the decisive evidence. Whatever we might think about the semantic range of almah, whatever position we take on the textual history of the Hebrew manuscript tradition, the Holy Spirit — speaking through the apostle Matthew — tells us what Isaiah 7:14 means. It means that a virgin will conceive and bear a son. The LXX got it right. Matthew confirms it.³⁴

As Timothy Law observes, it is worth pondering how Matthew would have introduced the prophecy of the virgin birth had it not been for the Septuagint. It is quite likely that Matthew already knew a tradition of the virgin birth of Jesus. But having a text from the Jewish Scriptures — provided by the Septuagint — meant that he could ground that tradition in a genuine prophetic utterance. "It would have been one thing for Matthew to say, 'This Jesus was born of a virgin according to an oral tradition,'" Law notes, "but for him to have had a text from the Jewish scriptures, provided by the Septuagint, meant that he could ground the tradition of the virgin birth in a real prophetic utterance."³⁵

The Broader Pattern: Isaiah 7:14 in Context

Isaiah 7:14 is not an isolated case. It is part of a much larger pattern of passages where the LXX and the MT diverge in theologically significant ways — and where the New Testament consistently follows the LXX. We will examine this pattern in great detail in Chapters 8, 9, and 10. But let me give just a few examples here to show that Isaiah 7:14 fits into a larger picture.

In Deuteronomy 32:43, the LXX includes the phrase "let all God's angels worship him," which is missing from the MT. The author of Hebrews quotes this LXX reading in Hebrews 1:6 to prove the superiority of the Son over the angels (see Chapter 8 for the full discussion). In Amos 9:11–12, the LXX reads "that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord," while the MT reads "that they may possess the remnant of Edom." James quotes the LXX form at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15:16–17, and it becomes the theological basis for the Gentile mission (see Chapter 9). In Psalm 40:6 (LXX 39:7), the LXX reads "a body you have prepared for me," while the MT reads "my ears you have opened." The author of Hebrews quotes the LXX form in Hebrews 10:5 and builds a major argument about Christ's incarnation upon it (see Chapter 10).

In each of these cases, the pattern is the same: the LXX preserves a reading that supports a key Christian doctrine, the MT preserves a reading that weakens or eliminates that support, and the New Testament follows the LXX. Isaiah 7:14 is the most famous example of this pattern, but it is far from the only one.

Objections and Responses

I want to take the time to address the strongest objections to the argument I've been making. If we are going to be honest scholars, we need to deal with the best arguments against our position — not just the easy ones.

Objection 1: "The Dead Sea Scrolls Confirm Almah"

It is true that the Great Isaiah Scroll from Qumran (1QIsa^a) reads almah, not bethulah. This shows that the reading almah existed in at least one pre-Christian Hebrew manuscript. Doesn't this undermine the case for the LXX?

Not at all. As we have argued above, almah itself carries strong virginal connotations — so even if the original Hebrew was almah, the LXX translators were correct to render it parthenos. The fact that one Qumran scroll reads almah does not tell us what all Hebrew manuscripts read. The Dead Sea Scrolls have shown us conclusively that multiple text types existed simultaneously in the Second Temple period. The LXX translators may have had a different Hebrew text before them, or they may have correctly interpreted almah as implying virginity.³⁶

Objection 2: "The LXX Translators Were Wrong"

Some scholars argue that the LXX translators simply made a mistake — they chose parthenos when they should have chosen neanis. This is possible in theory, but it faces serious problems. The LXX translators of Isaiah were skilled and educated. They were well aware of the difference between parthenos and neanis. Elsewhere in their translation of Isaiah, they demonstrate competence and care. It strains credulity to suggest that they accidentally chose the wrong word in one of the most important verses in the book — especially when the context (a divine sign of cosmic proportions) strongly supports a virginal reading.³⁷

Objection 3: "The Early Church Invented the Virgin Birth to Match the LXX"

Some skeptical scholars have suggested that the early Christians invented the doctrine of the virgin birth to match the LXX reading of Isaiah 7:14. On this view, the LXX's parthenos came first, and the birth narrative of Matthew and Luke was created to "fulfill" it.

This argument has serious problems. First, the virgin birth tradition appears in two independent Gospel sources — Matthew and Luke — which suggests that it was not a late invention but an early and widely known tradition. Second, if the early Christians were inventing a virgin birth story to match Isaiah 7:14, they would have used the verse much more prominently. In fact, Luke does not even cite Isaiah 7:14 in his birth narrative — which suggests that his account of the virgin birth is based on historical tradition, not on a desire to "fulfill" the LXX text.³⁸

Objection 4: "Parthenos Doesn't Always Mean 'Virgin'"

Some scholars point out that parthenos is occasionally used in Greek literature for women who are not virgins — for example, in some references to temple prostitutes or in certain mythological contexts. This is technically true. But these are exceptional uses. In the overwhelming majority of cases — and in all standard Greek usage — parthenos means "virgin." The LXX translators, who were producing a translation of Scripture for use in Jewish worship and study, would have understood and intended the standard meaning. And Matthew certainly understood it that way.³⁹

Philo of Alexandria: A Jewish Witness to the LXX's Authority

There is one more witness worth mentioning before we close this chapter. Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BC – AD 50) was a Jewish philosopher and theologian who lived in the very city where the Septuagint was produced. Philo deeply revered the LXX translation. He regarded the translators as divinely inspired — he believed that they had been guided by God to produce a translation that faithfully reflected the meaning of the Hebrew originals.

Philo did not, of course, comment specifically on the parthenos/almah question in Isaiah 7:14. But his testimony matters because it shows us the esteem in which the LXX was held by educated, devout Jews in the first century — the very century in which the New Testament was written. When Matthew quoted the LXX form of Isaiah 7:14, he was citing a translation that the Jewish community itself had regarded as authoritative for centuries. He was not reaching for an obscure or disputed text. He was quoting the standard Jewish Bible of the Greek-speaking world — a translation that Jewish scholars like Philo considered to be divinely guided.⁴²

This point matters because critics sometimes suggest that the early Christians cherry-picked the LXX version of Isaiah 7:14 because it happened to suit their theological purposes. But the LXX was not a Christian document. It was a Jewish document, produced by Jews, for Jews, and regarded by Jews as a faithful and authoritative rendering of their Scriptures. The Christians did not create the LXX reading. They received it from the Jewish community. And they believed — rightly, I would argue — that the Holy Spirit had guided the LXX translators to preserve the true meaning of Isaiah's prophecy.

What This Means for Protestants

I want to close this chapter by drawing out the implications of what we've learned — particularly for Protestant Christians, who are the primary audience of this book.

Most Protestants have been taught — explicitly or implicitly — that the Hebrew Masoretic Text is the authoritative text of the Old Testament. The Septuagint is often treated as a secondary source, a mere translation, and not always a reliable one. When there is a conflict between the MT and the LXX, the default assumption is usually that the MT is right and the LXX is wrong.

But Isaiah 7:14 challenges that assumption in the most dramatic way possible. Here we have a verse where the LXX preserves a reading that supports one of the most central doctrines of the Christian faith — the virgin birth of Christ. The New Testament explicitly quotes the LXX form of this verse. The early Church Fathers defended the LXX reading against the Jewish replacement translations. The pre-Christian Jewish tradition — in both the Septuagint and the Targum — understood this verse as referring to a virgin. And the broader context of Isaiah 7 demands a miraculous sign, not an ordinary birth.

If the LXX is right about Isaiah 7:14, then we need to ask: What else might the LXX be right about? What other passages might the LXX preserve more faithfully than the MT? And what have we been missing by building our Old Testament exclusively on the Masoretic Text?

These are the questions we will explore throughout the rest of this book. But Isaiah 7:14 is where the journey begins. This single verse — perhaps more than any other — shows us why the Septuagint matters, why it deserves to be taken seriously, and why the Protestant church cannot afford to ignore it any longer.