January 2, 2012: Did Isaiah Mean To Predict Jesus' Birth?

Writing around 730 BC the prophet Isaiah said, "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel." (Isaiah 7:14). Hundreds of years later St. Matthew called the birth of Jesus a fulfillment of these words (Matthew 1:22).

But did Isaiah intend to predict Messiah's birth?

If you read Isaiah 7:14 in context it is very hard to come to that conclusion. Read all of Isaiah chapters 7 and 8 and you will see what I mean. Here's a brief summary:

In chapter 7 King Ahaz of Judah is worried. Two kings, Rezin and Pekah, have formed an alliance and are getting ready to march against him. Isaiah approaches King Ahaz and tells him to trust God and not worry about Rezin and Pekah. Those two will never even make it to Jerusalem. Then Isaiah tells King Ahaz to ask for a sign to confirm this prediction - any sign at all.

Ahaz refuses. He will not "do business" with Isaiah, and he will not put his trust in God.

Isaiah bursts out in anger and says, "Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God also?" Then he tells Ahaz (in effect), OK you'll get your sign all right - but ultimately it won't be a good one. He says,

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. He will eat curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right. But before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste. The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah—he will bring the king of Assyria. (Isaiah 7:14-17)

In other words: "You see this young unmarried maiden here? Well she is going to get pregnant and have a baby boy and call him 'God is with us' [or, 'God's on our side']. By the time that baby is barely a toddler, the two kings you're so afraid of now will be history. (See, I told you not to be afraid of them!) Though now you're worried about a jackal and a hyena, pretty soon those two will be eaten up by an 800 pound lion - the king of Assyria. Then when he's done with them he will turn his attention to you, and he will bring devastation on the land of Judah the likes of which it has not seen before."

And that's exactly what happened.

In chapter 8 Isaiah marries the virgin he referred to in 7:14. She becomes Mrs. Prophet Isaiah. Verses 3 and 4 of chapter 8 read, "Then I went to the prophetess, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. And the Lord said to me, “Name him Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz ['quick to the plunder, swift to the spoil']. Before the boy knows how to say ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus [King Rezin] and the plunder of Samaria [King Pekah] will be carried off by the king of Assyria.”

Isaiah's prediction in chapter 7 is fulfilled in chapter 8. See 8:8,10 for references to "Immanuel" ("God is with us!"), which remains true of the faithful remnant in Judah even when Assyria is wreaking havoc and besieging the city of Jerusalem itself.

So, given the letter-perfect fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy in a few short years, how can Matthew say that Jesus' birth fulfilled it more than 700 years later? (Among other things, what's Assyria doing by then? Answer: nothing. At the time of Jesus' birth, Assyria's star has long faded and now it's all Rome.)

I'll tell you two answers I heard recently that I don't like at all.

A professor from a Bible institute recently told radio listeners that Isaiah's prophecy in 7:14 was not about events then current in Judah! He noted that while in the first part of the verse Isaiah is indeed addressing Ahaz, in the second part the "you" is plural rather than singular. The plurality of the addressee, the professor explained, constitutes evidence that, starting with the word "Therefore," Isaiah is no longer speaking to Ahaz about events in the immediate future but rather is addressing the nation about a Messianic birth many years later.

Anyone who finds this argument convincing may stop here. To the rest, your intuition is correct: this professor's evaluation is a disingenuous outrage against Reason. In order to believe it you must stick your fingers in your ears and sing while the rest of chapters 7 and 8 are read. Never has a poor plural been grabbed by the throat more violently and made to squawk more loudly. To respond: by the use of the plural Isaiah is simply addressing everyone present. That's all.

Then I heard a message at a church I visited a couple weeks ago where, thankfully, the preacher acknowledged the immediate fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy. But he also said that Isaiah was making two predictions - one short-term and one long-term. To illustrate, the pastor said, "Suppose I told you who would win the presidential election in 2012. That would be one thing, and if I were right you might think it was a lucky guess. But what if I then told you who was going to win the election in 2712? And I told you his name, his party affiliation, where he would be born, and the circumstances happening in the world at that time. That would be pretty incredible. Well, that's what Isaiah did."

No it isn't. When a preacher says that I wince and hope that no sincere doubting seeker will, after investigating the texts himself, give it all up and conclude that everything the preacher says lacks credibility. The fact is, nothing - nothing at all - in Isaiah 7 and 8 indicates a self-conscious attempt on Isaiah's part to predict an event that he knows will occur in the distant future.

There is a much better way to understand Matthew's use of Isaiah's words. It involves taking a cue from John 11:49-52 and 2 Peter 1:20-21. This approach takes seriously both divine inspiration and the prophet's intent.

In John 11 the enemies of Jesus convene a council in order to discuss what to do about him. Jesus has been gathering so many followers that there is fear that the Roman overlords will take notice, interpret the movement as a political rebellion, and respond by crushing not only Jesus and his followers but the whole Jewish nation. In this discussion the high priest Caiaphas recommends killing Jesus. This will solve the problem: if only this one man dies, the rest of their lives will be spared. Caiaphas says,

You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish. (verse 50)

It is very clear what Caiaphas meant. He literally meant that if Jesus would die, others could live. The sacrifice of this one man would save a multitude.

Caiaphas spoke better than he knew. Someone Else was speaking through Caiaphas, manipulating or hijacking his choice of words in order to make him the mouthpiece of a truth far beyond his imagination. In the next two verses John tells us,

He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. (verses 51-52).

I believe God did the same thing with Isaiah. Isaiah spoke better than he knew. When he said, "a virgin will conceive," he simply meant a woman who was a virgin at the time - his fiance, in fact. (By the time they got married and she got pregnant she would no longer be virginal.) But, like Caiaphas, "he did not say this on his own." God inspired, and Isaiah chose, words that would apply so literally to the birth of Jesus that, if you told Isaiah about it, he would drop to his knees in silent awe. One day, a true virgin - still a virgin! - would give birth to a baby boy.

And when Isaiah said the baby would be called "Immanuel" (God with us), to him and his wife that meant, "God's on our side, not theirs. In these upcoming days of conflict, God is with us, not them." But one day, "Immanuel" would be literal. The baby born of a virgin would be God of Very God dwelling in our midst.

Both Isaiah and Caiaphas were "carried along by the Holy Spirit," and, by God's decree, spoke deep truths that neither intended. This principal of prophecy is taught in 2 Peter 1:20-21: Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Though Isaiah was a child of God and Caiaphas was a child of the devil, God used them both to speak some of the most profound truths of our faith. Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, is God in our midst. He died so that we might live.