Immanuel (7:1-17; 8:5-8; 9:2-7, 11:1-10). 

        Few who quote 7:14 as evidence for the virgin birth of Christ trouble to study the promise in its context. The sign promised by Isaiah cannot be our Lord in its primary fulfilment. Isaiah has offered Ahaz any sign he likes that he may trust God, but Ahaz in mock piety refuses (7:10-12). Isaiah then proclaims a sign. A virgin (almah) is about to conceive a son, who will be called Immanuel. Before he is about two (“Be­fore the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good ...” ver. 16) Rezin and Pekah shall be dead. Shortly after, however, Judah will have been wasted (ver. 15). Butter and honey are the food of a land where agriculture has ceased.

        While this interpretation and fulfilment cannot be escaped, it is clearly a superficial one. The sign is a threat not merely to Ahaz, but also to the house of David (“The Lord Himself shall give you (phi). a sign…” ver. 14). Immanuel is to be of the royal house (8:8), and it is impossible to dissociate the child of 9:6 from him. He cannot be Hezekiah, as claimed by Jewish tradition, for he was born some time earlier. Finally in 11:1 he is definitely moved into the future, for the tree of David has been cut down, the shoot is out of the stock of Jesse, the branch is out of his roots.

        While almah could mean a maiden, it is actually always used with the meaning of virgin in the Old Testament, and is therefore so translated in 7:14 by the LXX and so quoted in the New Testament. Betulah, which should mean virgin, on the other hand does not necessarily bear that meaning, e.g. Joel 1:8. So the use of an ambiguous word gives the sign a double meaning, one natural and immediate, the other super­natural and future (See Lukyn Williams: The Hebrew Christian Messiah, p. 21ff, and E. J-Young: Studies in Isaiah, chs. 6 and 7).