Isaiah [Part 7] - The Virgin Birth

Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.

Shalom. We've already done several teachings on Isaiah, and we have arrived at Isaiah chapter 7. It’s a very important chapter for everybody, but especially for Christians, because in it there is the prophecy and the prediction of a virgin birth: a young lady, unmarried, giving birth to a very special child. But in order to understand what's going on there, we've got to go back and deal with the historical context of the words of Isaiah, the prophet, given to him by God as a revelation.

The Kingdom of Israel was split after Solomon by his son. An enmity developed between the 10 northern tribes, led by Ephraim, one of the largest northern tribes, against Judah and Judah and Benjamin, that were in the south side of the country. Now, the Middle East has been a mess from the dawn of history, and in fact, it’s still a mess now in the 21st century. The problems of the Middle East are geopolitical. The reason is that Israel sits in the middle of the two most important highways of the ancient world: the highways that connected by land three continents—Europe, Asia, and Africa. I always wonder, why did God choose to send Abraham to this piece of land that was a mess in his days? It was a mess in the days of Isaiah; it's still a mess today. If we were a chicken, it would be that God asked us to lay the egg in the middle of a four-lane highway during rush hour. That’s how serious our geopolitical situation is. We've always been the hot dog in between the two halves of the bun, with a lot of mustard and hot pepper in it. And that's the situation that we see in Isaiah chapter 7.

In the days of Ahaz, the son of Yotam, the son of Uziah, King of Judah, Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, the son of Ramaliah, king of Israel, went up to fight against Jerusalem but were unable to win decisive victory against it. When the House of David was told that Syria had prevailed on Ephraim to join them, its resolve and the resolve of its people was shaken as the trees in the forest shake in the wind. And the Lord, in Hebrew, of course, is Jahwe/ Jehovah—any way you want to pronounce it—said to Isaiah:

That’s an interesting statement. Why? The upper pool still exists in the same place that it was in the days of Isaiah. The problem is that most tourists don't know how to get to it because the old city has been built and rebuilt and restored and rebuilt several times in history. And that pool still exists, but it's surrounded with buildings, hotels, right near the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem. You have to go up to Hotel Petra, ask permission to get on the roof to be able to see this magnificent ancient water reservoir pool that served as an emergency supply for the inhabitants of Jerusalem. So, the King of Judah has taken some of his dignitaries with him to inspect the water supply of the city because they were expecting the King of Israel from the tribe of Ephraim and the Assyrian King Rezin to attack Jerusalem.

One of the main tactics of attacking a city that is fortified is cutting off the water supplies, because the city is usually up on a hill and the water from the water sources is down in the valley. The springs of the water also come at the bottom of the hill, not at the top of the hill. Water doesn’t climb up; it goes down. And so, they had built, I think, Hezekiah built the Pool of Siloam, and he also built the upper pool, which is up on top of the hill that received water from rain, from the collection of rainwater, no spring. And so, the King and his entourage are going up to the upper pool to inspect the water supplies, preparing for the attack of Rezin, King of Syria, and the Pekah the son of Remailiah, the King of Israel and their coalition. And God sends Isaiah there to calm down the King Ahaz, the son of Yotam, to tell him, “Don’t worry; the House of David is secure. It’s in the hands of God. And these two firebrands, in other words, pieces of wood that were in the fire and they’re smoldering now, they could do nothing against you. And I’ll give you a sign.”

What is the sign? In verse 11 we encounter a discussion. God continues to tell Isaiah, the prophet, to talk to Ahaz, to tell him in verse 11,

You can ask any sign you want; God will give you a sign. Ahaz replied in a very self-righteous, religious form:

That’s the prophecy of the Virgin birth. That’s the prophecy that is brought in the Gospel to predict the birth of Yeshua.

Now, it’s not so simple because the sign itself was for King Ahaz in his day, in his time. Before the king of Syria, Rezin, and the king of Israel, Pekah, the son of Ramalia, attacked Jerusalem. The sign was supposed to be: "Mr. Ahaz, the king, Relax. The House of David is secure. God is with the House of David, not with the house of the king of the ten northern tribes, Pekah the son of Remaliah, (that was appointed by the Syrians, by the way, to be the king.) Don’t worry; trust God. Everything will be fine." That’s the message that Isaiah, by Revelation from God, is trying to pass on and to inspire Ahaz not to be afraid.

Which means that the young lady, unmarried, had to be there in the time when Isaiah spoke, and she had to give birth to a child, and his name would be Immanuel in the days of Ahaz, King of Judea, not 800 years later in the First Century A.D. Yep, complicated, but not so complicated. What we have here, and it’s common in the Hebrew Prophets, is a double fulfillment. We have the fulfillment of a young lady that, probably according to the text, lived in the days of Ahaz the king and Isaiah the prophet. I mean, the text indicates that very clearly.

I’m going back to chapter 7, verse 13:

There was a woman there that was young and maybe unmarried, because the word Alma can mean an unmarried woman; in other words, virgin, as it’s translated in the Septuagint. She was there, they could see her. The text indicates that. And she will have a son, give birth to a son, and his name will be Immanuel, 'God is with us'.

So how does that relate to the New Testament? It relates to the New Testament in the continuation of the text of Isaiah about Emmanuel. This Immanuel is not only a baby that would be born from an unmarried woman in the days of Isaiah and King Ahaz, but this Emmanuel has an additional reappearance in history. It’s not the same person; it’s the same name—an additional reappearance in history. And that is in the first century with another woman that was not yet married or her marriage was not yet, you know, activated, because marriage, according to the word of God, to the Torah, has three parts. It has the document; it’s called k'tuba. It’s called in the Gospel the document of divorcement/ paper of divorcement. It’s the ceremony itself, and then the final step is the consummation of the marriage.

So this woman is called Alma in Hebrew, not virgin parthenos in Greek. In Greek, it’s virgin, but in the Hebrew Bible, it’s Alma, and Alma normally mentioned is a woman that is not yet married and therefore a virgin. If she was not yet married and not a virgin, she could have been executed by stoning, according to the Torah. So this child named Immanuel, God With Us. And this virgin that was a sign for the kings of that day, the Assyrian, the Israelite, and the Judean King Ahaz, is repeated in history in the First Century A.D. It’s repeated in history in the first century AD under similar circumstances I suppose. That a woman got pregnant, and not from her betrothed husband, and gives birth to a child whose name is Yeshua but also Immanuel, God With Us.

And I personally don’t have a problem with it. And you shouldn’t have a problem with it either because every leader in Israel’s history, whether it’s Isaac or Jacob or Moses or King David, had problems in their birth. Sarah gave birth to Isaac as a part of Revelation from God, from the three angels, among them Jehovah himself, that visited Abraham in Genesis chapter 18. Rachel was barren; Rebecca was barren and gave birth miraculously to two boys, Jacob and Esau. Moses’ birth was tenuous, and by miracles, he was saved. David was not counted among the brothers, sons of Jesse, when Samuel came to the house of Jesse in Bethlehem to anoint the king. Jesse never called him. And then in Psalm 51, David says, “In sin did my mother conceive me.” So, yes, all those characters and women that were barren and gave miraculous births to people—Miriam, Maria, Mary the mother of Yeshua—is counted with them. A miraculous birth.

I’m not a gynecologist. I’m not a doctor that deals with fertility and fertilizing eggs for birth in the womb of a woman, but I know the doctors can do it, and they do it all the time. In vitro fertilization happens every day in our hospitals in Israel to more than one woman and all over the world. So if doctors can do it, I don’t have a problem at all believing that the Almighty God, who created the Heaven and the Earth, can do it also. And the story of Emmanuel continues in Isaiah. It’s not only here. Immanuel exists also in the later chapters of Isaiah and is a real child. I believe that the same thing, truly, becomes fully fulfilled in the New Testament in Yeshua. How is it fully fulfilled this way? The name Emmanuel indicates something that is physical, that God is with us. And even if a child is called Emmanuel, then in the Old Testament, miraculously, you know, predicted by the prophet Isaiah for the days of Ahaz, the same phenomena can reoccur in the New Testament in its fullest form, and fulfill the other promises that the prophets give about Yeshua’s birth, that this Immanuel doesn’t fulfill.

The Messiah is supposed to be born in Bethlehem, according to the Hebrew prophets. Yeshua was born in Bethlehem, according to the Hebrew Prophets. This Emmanuel here in Chapter 7, we don’t know where he was born. Probably, since he lived in Jerusalem, his mother lived in Jerusalem, probably born in Jerusalem. And it doesn’t fulfill the other stamps of recognition of the identity card of the Messiah the way Yeshua does, neither from his birth in Bethlehem. This child that was born in the 8th Century B.C., doesn’t fulfill being born in Bethlehem. Doesn’t fulfill being the Son of God. Doesn’t fulfill being the Messiah. Doesn’t fulfill dying for our remission of sins. Doesn’t fulfill the resurrection from the dead. Doesn’t fulfill all the other characteristics, and we have a lot that the prophets have prophesied. And we have double fulfillment, from a smaller set to a large national set, which is what happened with Yeshua’s birth by a young woman that repeats the same formula, the same paradigm, as the one that Isaiah predicts for Ahaz in the upper pool of Jerusalem in his day to secure the House of David. And Yeshua is the ultimate proof that the House of David is secure, even if it happened hundreds of years later as a total fulfillment of Isaiah’s prediction.

God bless all of you.