The Virgin Birth

Tishri 27, October 7, 2018: The Virgin Birth

Why is it that rabbinic anti-missionaries and liberal Christians easily deceive Christians into disbelieving the virgin birth of Messiah? The reason is that Pastors have so long taught their flocks a list of doctrines to be believed rather than teach them the biblical foundations for the doctrines. The chief support for the doctrine, therefore, becomes the authority of the Church in the mind of the Christian rather than the teaching of the Scripture. The teaching of Scripture is to an extent based on parable, the hidden concealment of Messiah in the text. If the Christian does not know how to unfold this, the Rabbis and liberals, for sure, will find superficial ways to contradict the truth. If the authority of the Church becomes diminished in the eyes of Christians, because the Church has erred in rejecting Torah, then those Christians without a foundation in Scripture who reject the Church’s authority for the sake of believing Torah may also be rejecting everything else they believed on the basis of Church authority and not Scripture.

For the anti-Law Church, the situation is a catch 22. If they teach the real tools of how to support correct doctrine and how to read Scripture to arrive at correct conclusions, then they also teach their flock to transfer their loyalty from Church authority to Scripture authority. Sooner or later the flock will wake up and realize which doctrines the Church is teaching incorrectly. And this is why the flock is not taught how to fish for themselves. The Churchmen are in effect saying. We will read and interpret Scripture for you, and we will tell you what to believe.

Now Havva (Eve) thought that Qayin was the appointed seed according to the prophecy in Gen. 3:15. Little did she realize that the seed was yet many generations to come. Likewise, Avraham was promised to be the father of the seed in whom all nations would be blessed, but it was not Isaac. But the seed was many generations to come. David’s son was promised to be the seed, and Solomon was a type of the seed, but Shelomo was not the seed. So we see here a pattern of a future seed vs. a more immediate seed who turns out not to be the Messiah. This is because the messianic theme is overlayed upon (or hidden in) the more immediate events.

So the liberals will tell us that Isa. 7:14 only speaks of a young woman who begets with a man, and not a virgin. So will the Rabbis. The Rabbis will argue that “Immanuel” was Isaiah’s son, or Hezekiah, or any other person except Messiah, conceived the normal way. They ignore the fact that “almah” is the clinical word for virgin by suggesting that “bethulah” is the word for virgin. This is incorrect. Bethulah is the word for maiden which is the non-clinical word for virgin. Maiden is the nicer word for an unmarried virgin. I should also point out that the promised sign is of no value if Isa. 7:14 does not mean virgin.

Word studies will prove that “almah” means virgin. To get around this the Rabbinic anti-missionaries proceed to argue that a future virginal birth interpretation of Isaiah 7:14 leads to contradicting the text. They simply sweep the meaning of “almah” aside, not investigating it, not discussing it, but only claiming it means a young woman who begets the normal way, (which they fortify with their claim to superior knowledge of Hebrew, which they may have over some, but not me, and in any case better knowledge does not keep anyone from perverting the text.) They might suggest the word means “maiden,” hoping its modern audience does not know that this word is a synonym for a virgin! After creating this lie out of nothing and against the underlying evidence, which they ignore, they then switch the focus of their argument to creating a contradiction out of Isaiah 7:15-16. But first let us translate the text:

1. And it is in the days of Aɦaz, son of Yotham, son of Uzziyahu, king of Yehudah [that] had gone up Retsin, king of Aram, and Peqaɦ, son of Remalyahu, king of Yisrael [to] Yerushalayim to war against her, and had not been able [yet] to fight against her.”

2. Then it is made plain to the house of David saying, “Aram has allied with Ephraim.” Then its heart is shaken, and the heart of its people, as the shaking of trees of a wood at the face of the wind.

3. Then says Yahweh to Yeshayahu, “Go please to meet Aɦaz, you and Shear-yashuv, your son, to the end of the aqueduct of the upper pool, by the road for the washer’s field.”

4. “And you will have said unto him. Watch yourself! And be at ease! You must not fear, and may your heart not be faint, because of these two tail ends of smoking fire-pokers in the burning anger of Retsin, even Aram and the son of Remalyahu, 5. since Aram has counseled evil against you, Ephraim and the son of Remalyahu saying, 6. ’We will go up into Yehudah, and we will make her vomitous and we will split her open for ourselves. And we will make reign [as] king in the midst of her, the son of Taveal.’

7. Thus has said Adonai Yahweh, “It will not stand, and it (this evil) will not be.”

8. “For the head of Aram is Dammeseq, and the head of Dammeseq [is] Retsin, and within sixty and five years Ephraim will be broken from [living as] a people.

9. “And the head of Ephraim is Shomron, and the head of Shomron [is] the son of Remalyahu. If ye will not give your support, surley you will not be supported. (If ye will not confirm your faithfulness, surley you will not be confirmed).

10. Then Yahweh added again to cause to be spoken unto Aɦaz, saying, “Ask for youself a sign from within [the power of] Yahweh your Almighty. Make deep the request, or make [it] high upward!”

12. Then says Aɦaz, “I will not ask. I will not make to be tested Yahweh.”

13. Then he says, “Listen please house of David...Is there a little sign beyond you, making weary men, that you can even make weary my Almighty?!”

14. For such, Adonai will give himself for ye a sign. Behold, the virgin is pregnant and birthing a son. And you will have called his name: Immanuel. 15. Curd and honey he will eat; according to his knowing to refuse in the bad, and choose in the good.”

16. Yea, before the lad knows refusing in the bad, and choosing in the good, will be forsaken the land which you are vomiting from the faces of her two kings.

Antimissionaries will argue that the person mentioned in vs. 16 is the same Immanuel mentioned in vs. 14. They will argue that the child must be born before the two kings disappear, and therefore they conclude that Messiah Yeshua cannot be Immanuel! But this tactic is like saying Qayin, Yitsɦaq, or Shlomo must be the full sense of the messianic prophecies, and therefore, there can be no later Messiah. The have to burn down their own house by this interpretation, and reject the principle that Messiah is concealed by literary means in Scripture.

The plain truth is that vs. 16 is not talking about Immanuel at all. Yeshayahu was told to bring his son Shear-yashuv to the meeting. Why? Because vs. 16 is talking about this son, and not the one born of a virgin in the future.

Furthermore, a more careful translation of the Hebrew text of vs. 15 shows us that the text hints at a transition from Immanuel to Shear-yashuv. The words in vs. 15 read: לְדַעְתֹּו, according to his knowing, or “as knowing he,” which express the fact that Immanuel knows right and wrong. The translations are all over the map on these words, “that he may know,” (KJ21), “when he knoweth,” (ASV), “by the time he knows enough” (CJB), “until he knows” (GW, NOG). All of these meanings are interpretations of a simple lamed (ל). This may be translated not at all, “knowing he” or as “according to” “concerning” “for” “to” “as.” The other translation, the bad one, is possible, but it is weaker than the one I have given above. Based on the sign value of a virgin, plus a non-sign value of conception the normal way, the instructed presence of Yeshayahu’s son, and the contrast between Immanuel knowing and Shear-yashuv not knowing, I conclude that vs. 15 and 16 speak of two different persons.

Now I know some are going to say that vs. 15 and 16 might appear to speak of the same person. But I am telling to suspect that the Scripture method of concealing the Messiah is to do this very thing. In order to see it we have to correct the translation so that it reads, “15. Curd and honey he will eat; according to his knowing to refuse in the bad, and choose in the good.”

There are, of course, many other things to talk about here, and other objections that anti-missionaries or liberals could raise, but I have been told by “she-who-must-be-obeyed” that I must keep my blogs focused on one point only, and readable at one sitting!