Wednesday, May 24, 2023

Robert A. Sungenis on ‎הָעַלְמָ֗ה (ha-almah) in Isaiah 7:14 as a Reference to a Virgin

  

The Virgin Birth of Jesus

 

Matthew 1:23

 

Behold a virgin shall be with child, and bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which interpreted is, “God with us.”

 

Question: When compared with Isaiah 7:14, from which Matthew is quoting, does this lead to the conclusion that Jesus was born miraculously of the virgin Mary?

 

Answer: Yes, both Scripture and Tradition indicate that, despite any alleged ambiguities in the wording of Isaiah 7:14, Jesus was indeed born miraculously of a virgin, namely, the Blessed Virgin Mary. The word “virgin” in Mt 1:23 is the Greek παρθενος (parthenos). It is used 14 times in the NT (e.g., Lk 1:27; Ac 21:9; 2Co 11:2; Ap 14:4). When explained in Scripture, as it is in 1Co 7:28-37, it refers to an unmarried woman who has had no sexual relations with men. Thus from the New Testament understanding of “virgin,” it is clear that Mary was a virgin when she conceived and gave birth to Jesus.

 

Matthew uses parthenos to interpret the Hebrew word עלם (almah) appearing in Isaiah 7:14. Some Hebrew exegetes claim that almah refers only to a girl or young woman, not specifically to a “virgin,” and therefore Jesus was neither born of a virgin nor was the Messiah. Support for this conclusion is made by claiming that Isaiah would have used the word בתולה (bethulah), a more specific Hebrew term for “virgin,” if he had meant that the prophesied woman would not have engaged in sexual relations.

 

However, the word almah appears only seven times in the Hebrew Old Testament (cf., Gn 24:43; Ex 2:8; Ps 68:25; Pr 30:19; Sg 1:3; 6:8; Is 7:14), thus the evidence upon which to base such conclusions is rather limited. None of the above passages suggest that almah refers to a woman who is married or has had sexual relations. Conversely, there are explicit indications that almah refers to an unmarried woman who has had no sexual relations. First, in Gn 24:43, almah is used to refer to Rebecca before she is married to Isaac. Yet in the same context (Gn 24:16), Rebecca is referred to as bethulah (“An exceeding beautiful maid, a virgin, and not known to man...”). This interchange of terms means that almah could certainly be interchanged with bethulah, and was understood to designate a virgin. In addition, Rebecca is called a “maid” in the same passage (Gn 24:16), from the Hebrew נערה (naarah) which, similar to

almah, refers in Hebrew to a young woman, but also a virgin (see naarah in Dt 22:15-29 in which the husband suspects his wife was not a virgin when they married). Identical to the interchange of almah and bethulah contained in Gn 24:16, 43, again in Dt 22:23, 28; Jg 21:12; 1Kg 1:2; Es 2:3 naarah and bethulah are interchanged. Added to these is the use of bethulah in Ex 22:16, which, in a similar context to that of Dt 22, also refers to virginity before marriage.

 

The usage of almah in Pr 30:19 also refers to a virgin. In this passage, “the way of a man with a maid (almah),” who is assumed to be a virgin since she is unmarried, is contrasted in the next verse, Pr 30:20, with an “adulterous woman (isha)” who is understood as married but having sexual relations with other men.

 

The usage of almah in Sg 1:3 leads to the same conclusion, since in the context the maidens are attracted to the loving man of Solomon’s Song, implying they are refraining from sexual relations with him so that the loving man can be intimate with his one and only lover.

 

The above passages also show that almah refers to more than identifying a girl or young woman. Almah has procreative overtones, referring in the main to a young woman who has the potential of engaging in sexual relations but who has refrained for one reason or another. This connotation, of course, would also fit the Blessed Virgin Mary who, tradition holds, took a vow of celibacy.

 

The above analysis is confirmed by the fact that the LXX translates the Hebrew almah with the Greek parthenos (“virgin”) in both Gn 24:43 and Is 7:14, showing that the Alexandrian Jews understood the latter term to be identical with the former. Moreover, the LXX rendering includes the Greek article η in the phrase η παρθενος (he parthenos) as does Matthew, following the article ה in the Hebrew of Is 7:14 העלמה (ha-almah). Hence, the “sign” is not merely “a virgin,” that is, she is not any young woman who shall conceive by normal means, but “the virgin.” The stature engendered by the article coincides with the testimony of the greatness of her offspring (cf., Mc 5:3; Is 8:8; 9:5-6; 11:1-10). (Robert A. Sungenis, The Gospel According to St. Matthew: Exegetical Commentary (2d ed.; State Line, Pa: Catholic Apologetics International Inc., 2019], 165-67)