Behold, a virgin shall be with child
These words are rightly applied to the virgin Mary and her son
Jesus, for of no other can they be understood; not of Ahaz's wife
and his son Hezekiah, who was already born, and must be eleven or
twelve years of age when these words were spoken; nor of any
other son of Ahaz by her or any other person since no other was
Lord of Judea; nor of the wife of Isaiah, and any son of his, who
never had any that was king of Judah. The prophecy is introduced
here as in Isaiah with a "behold!" not only to raise and fix the
attention, but to denote that it was something wonderful and
extraordinary which was about to be related; and is therefore
called (twa) a "sign",
wonder, or miracle; which lay not, as some Jewish writers
F7 affirm, in this, that the person
spoken of was unfit for conception at the time of the prophecy,
since no such thing is intimated; or in this, that it should be a
son and not a daughter F8, which is foretold; for the wonder
lies not in the truth of the prediction, but in the
extraordinariness of the thing predicted; much less in this
F9, that the child should eat butter
and honey as soon as born; since nothing is more natural and
common with new born infants, than to take in any sort of liquids
which are sweet and pleasant. But the sign or wonder lay in this,
that a "virgin" should "conceive" or "be with child"; for the
Evangelist is to be justified in rendering, (hmle) by (paryenov) "a virgin"; by the Septuagint having so
rendered it some hundreds of years before him, by the sense of
the word, which comes from (Mle) and which signifies to "hide" or "cover"; virgins
being such who are unknown to, and not uncovered by men, and in
the Eastern countries were kept recluse from the company and
conversation of men; and by the use of the word in all other
places, ( Genesis
24:43 ) ( Exodus 2:8 ) ( Psalms 68:25
) ( Song of
Solomon 1:3 ) ( 6:8 )
( Proverbs
30:19 ) . The last of these texts the Jews triumph in, as
making for them, and against us, but without any reason; since it
does not appear that the "maid" and the "adulterous woman" are
one and the same person; and if they were, the vitiated woman
might be called a maid or virgin, according to her own account of
herself, or in the esteem of others who knew her not, or as
antecedent to her defilement; see ( Deuteronomy
22:28 ) . Besides, could this be understood of any young
woman married or unmarried, that had known a man, it would be no
wonder, no surprising thing that she should "conceive" or "be
with child", and "bring forth a son". It is added,
and they shall call his name Emmanuel.
The difference between Isaiah and Matthew is very inconsiderable,
it being in the one "thou shalt call", that is, thou virgin shalt
call him by this name; and in the other "they shall call", that
is, Joseph, Mary, and others; for, besides that some copies read
the text in Matthew (caleseiv) "thou shalt call", the words both in the one
and the other may be rendered impersonally, "and shall be
called"; and the meaning is, not that he should be commonly known
and called by such a name, any more than by any, or all of those
mentioned in ( Isaiah 9:6 ) , but only
that he should be so, which is a frequent use of the word; or he
should be that, and so accounted by others, which answers to the
signification of this name, which the Evangelist says,
being interpreted is God with us:
for it is a compound word of (la) "God" and (wnme) "with us", and well agrees with Jesus, who is
God in our nature, the word that was made flesh and dwelt among
us. ( John 1:14
) , and is the one and only Mediator between God and us, (
1 Timothy
2:5 ) F11. So the Septuagint interpret the
word in ( Isaiah 8:8 ) .