Link > Chapter 1 ˙Commentary and Notes on vs. 22-23

Chapter 1 Text
Matthew 1:22-23 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

We read in Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. That is the King James Version.  In the Jewish Publication Society translation we have: Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: behold, the young woman shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.  The Hebrew is: לכן יתן אדני הוא לכם--אות  הנה העלמה הרה וילדת בן וקראת שמו עמנו אל ...  We are led to the following considerations:


Christian theology when clearly understood is not actually suggesting that the question of Yehoshua's divinity is the same question as the question of the virgin birth at all.  Clarifying this allows us to ask the question of what the miracle or sign actually is that Isaiah was prophesying to the House of David.  We will see that the sign that Isaiah spoke of in chapter 7 verse 14 actually did point to the King Messiah, but not in exactly the way that has been usually imagined.

The issue of the Virgin Birth has continued through all the centuries of Christianity.  In contention with the traditional Christian theology of the incarnation it is common to find in Judaism a simple and straight forward statement, something like, "When Mashiach comes he will be a human being born of human parents like every other human being."

Today, it is possible to point out that the real issue or issues to do with the Christian theology of the incarnation may not actually have to do with the question of the translation of Isaiah 7:14 at all.  This is because everyone should agree after fully considering the question that even where there is no father involved a child born of a woman is a human being like every other human being.  All orthodox Christian theology asserts this.  The modern science of cloning should clarify everyone's thinking about this.

The confusion only arises when people think that if there was no human father involved then God had to be the father, as it were.  If cloning can take place from a mother without a father then this notion is dismissed.  This is not to suggest that Yehoshua was a clone of Miriam with only the gender changed.  Rather, this is only to say that cloning shows that these kind of things are possible in the natural realm.

What was Isaiah saying, then, to King Ahaz and to the whole House of David? Hebrews 1:13 will help us to understand this.  We see there the understanding that Isaiah had in announcing to the House of David that God Himself would give them the sign of this child.  When Isaiah spoke to King Ahaz and said, "I and the children that God has given me," he understood that he was not only speaking in his own voice about himself and the prophetic significance of his literal children but that he was also speaking prophetically in the voice of Mashiach and the solidarity between him and his disciples as a prophetic testimony in Israel.

What was the sign of a child being born in a special prophetic way in Israel to say to King Ahaz and to the House of David?  In essence it was to say that they were not to depend on the power or might found in the order of this world but on the supernatural power of God in order to establish the throne of David in Jerusalem forever, for the power of the world to come is much greater than the power of this world and God is manifesting it in establishing the House of David.

Now this is the light in which the birth of Yehoshua is to be read in accordance with the Scripture, in accordance, specifically with the prophecy of Isaiah referred to in these verses.  Ultimately the divinity of Yehoshua will be revealed in this way but it will be the divinity of his humanity that is revealed and not his divinity despite his humanity.  Nor will it be revealed in this way to the logic of the natural religion of the human mind, which offends the Jewish mind taught by the Torah.  Rather it will be revealed in this way, in due time, according to the plan and purpose of the Scriptures, to Israel, and therefore in a way that converts the gentile imagination and religious logic rather than appealing to it.  We do not naturally have the ability to imagine the relationship of Mashiach with God as his Father, nor to understand it at all.  We can learn it but only from him as the Father makes it known.  And he has designed to fully make it known according to the Scriptures first to Jerusalem then to all Israel and then unto the ends of the earth.

It is because of this that Isaiah says of those, especially those of the House of David, who, when tested by the threat of King Sennacherib of Assyria turned to sorcery rather than to The Torah and the Testimony of God given to the fathers, that they possessed no light of dawn. (Isaiah 8:20)  By this poetic term of prophecy he referred to Mashiach.  We read in the Book of the Revelation of Yehoshua HaMashiach that he promises the Morning Star to those who overcome their trials.  This is not a mere reference to the first star of the morning.  It is a reference to the dawning of the light of eternity, of the world to come, that dawn to which Isaiah referred.  In Revelation 22:16 we read;

I Yehoshua have sent my angel to testify unto you these things in the assemblies. 

I am the root and the offspring of David, 

and the bright and morning star.

With this see Psalms 110:3 Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.

For further notes on this subjcet see my Evernote Covenant Files