Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Kevin Riley" <klriley AT alphalink.com.au>]

-------Original Message------- 
 
From: JAMES CHRISTIAN READ 
Date: 20/07/2007 4:19:15 PM 
 
I have to say I'm still not all that impressed. How 
Impressed would you have been in 1939 if a local lad 
Claiming to be a prophet said 'here is a sign. An Essex 
Lass will get knocked up and have a wee lad called John . 
He'll eat Kellogs crunchy nut corn flakes and before 
And before he's old enough to down a pint of Boddington's 
Bitter Hitler and Mussolini will have lost the war.'? 
 
Surely your average local critic will say something 
Like 'but John's are born every year. What does that 
Prove?'. Surely there must have been something special 
About the birth of the boy in order to make the 
Prophecy spectacular. 
 
**************************
Why?  Isn't the point rather that God is in control and Ahaz's concerns are
about to be taken care of within a certain time?  I believe the identity of
the young woman was known and she was already pregnant, and therefore the
end point of the prophecy could be calculated fairly precisely.  The sign
has to relate to the concern, not be spectacular.  Personally, if such a
prophecy as you posit above were given in 1943 when things looked bad in
England - as they did in Judah at the time of the prophecy - I would have
been more than satisfied with the ordinary birth of an ordinary child to an
ordinary young woman *because of what it signified*.
 
Kevin Riley