08/29/2026
Todays lesson- Prophets.
There are no prophets per se in the Old Testament. I’m not going into detail on this except to say the translation from Hebrew to Greek ended up with the word prophet but originally derived to mean “to prophesy” which means “to speak on behalf of someone.” That’s what a prophet does. This is what people do in the OT and as such are prophets.
It does not mean someone who forespeaks, i.e. someone who foretells the future.
In order for a prophet to be a prophet, the prophesy they speak on behalf of another (God) must occur while they are alive, i.e. come true during their lifetime. Otherwise, they are a “false prophet.”
Therefore, when you read Isaiah 7:14 and think it’s the foretelling of Jesus Christ- Immanuel, is incongruent with a prophesy. Additionally, and more important to this exercise, people/Christians completely disregard Jewish history and the fact the writer of 1st Isaiah was conveying in their time, that Isaiah who was of royal blood and served as a kind of adviser to the king; promised King Ahaz, a sign that God would deliver his nation from the threat of Rezin, king of Syria/Aram and Pekah, king of Israel during the Syro/Ephraimitic war.
His city was at the mercy of these two warring kings. The sign was that a young woman (almah) in the royal family would bear a son as a symbol of the continuity of the nation- in the time. That son would be Immanuel. The woman happened to be Isaiah’s wife (referred to as “the prophetess in 8:3 and the word used is almah which does NOT mean virgin but means “young woman”) and that two names given to the child, (Immanuel and Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz) are sequentially connected as signs. Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz means “the prey hastens” in reference to Judah attempting to avoid decimation and Immanuel- God is with us to protect Judah from the invading armies of Israel and Syria/Aram. Yahweh instructed Isaiah to give this name to his third son (8:1-3) as an object lesson to King Ahaz who was ready to turn to Assyria for help following the invasion of these two kings. Judah is ultimately laid waste and the term Immanuel becomes important for its survival in providing hope.
Otherwise, there wouldn’t be much hope for Ahaz if this event was to occur 730 years later in Bethlehem with the birth of Jesus where it’s repackaged in Matthew 1:23. For Jesus it is a descriptive use to help listeners (at the time) understand the embodiment of Immanuel as a reference to Jesus’ human/divine nature. It’s widely agreed it was not intended as a foretelling which subsumes Jewish history into Christianity making their stories of origination as a people moot, thus perpetuating the antisemitism widely dispensed by fundamentalists, Christian Nationalists, Evangelicals and other literalists.
References
New Interpreters Bible Commentary Volume VII
New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible Vol. 3 I-Ma
John Shelby Spong, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism
