Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

I think that Kevin's comment is right to the point. The "prophecy" involved 
is not about the birth of the boy, but about the fact that within a fairly 
short time God will make the threat posed by the kings of Israel and Aram go 
away. The message is really, "have faith, life will go on as usual, all will 
be okay". And as part of the normalcy, I would assume that the 'almah in 
question was one of the (young) women of the court, whose pregnancy was not 
to be considered out of the ordinary: "See, that there girl is pregnant and 
will have a boy...". That considered, I would assume that she would have 
been married, although if someone WAS to show that the term 'almah always 
refers to an unmarried young woman (I don't think that this has yet been 
proven) that would be fine with me as well.

Yigal Levin

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kevin Riley" <klriley AT alphalink.com.au>

> 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
> _______________________________________________