Born of a virgin (almah)
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14Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
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11Ask thee a sign of the LORD thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.
12But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD.
13And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?
14Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
15Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.
16For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.
17The LORD shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father’s house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria.
22Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
23Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
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19Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily.
20But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
21And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.
22Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
23Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
24Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife:
25And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.
Isaiah's Hebrew has ha-almah, "the young woman", with the article. Almah means a young woman of marriageable age; Rebekah is called both almah and betulah, the Hebrew word for a virgin. Harah is an adjective, "is with child". The Septuagint, translated by Jews before Christianity, rendered almah as παρθένος, and Matthew quotes the Septuagint.
Matthew records that Jesus was conceived without a human father and sees Isaiah's sign fulfilled in him: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel" (). The Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament, translated by Jews before Christianity) had already rendered the Hebrew almah as παρθένος (LXX), the word Matthew quotes, and Matthew gives the child's name its meaning, "God with us" (). The sign is addressed to the "house of David" (), and two chapters later Isaiah hails a royal child whose kingdom will stand "upon the throne of David ... for ever" (). The belief itself is early: Matthew and Luke, whose birth stories share almost nothing else, both record the virginal conception, which places it before either Gospel was written. Luke tells the annunciation in the Septuagint's words of this verse, and Ignatius of Antioch (about 110) already affirms it.
In its own setting the sign was given to King Ahaz during a war crisis around 734 BCE, with a deadline inside his own time: before the boy could "know to refuse the evil, and choose the good" (), the two kings Ahaz feared would be gone. No reading of the verse as messianic, or as foretelling a virgin birth, is known from before Christianity. Matthew reads it as a pattern fulfilled in Jesus, as Evans and other Christian scholars also understand him. The miracle itself is a matter of faith and is not rated here.
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The Hebrew almah means a young woman of marriageable age and does not specify virginity: Rebekah is called both betulah (virgin) and almah (, 43). The Septuagint uses παρθένος loosely, even of Dinah after intercourse (), and the later Jewish translators Aquila and Theodotion used νεᾶνις, "young woman". The Hebrew says the young woman "is with child", and Isaiah's own son repeats the same pattern with the same kind of deadline (); Isaiah calls his children "for signs and for wonders in Israel" (). The earliest recorded Jewish reading (Trypho, about 160) takes it as a young woman and applies the child to Hezekiah. Mark, John and Paul do not mention the virginal conception. One well-known Christian argument, Origen's claim that almah means virgin in Deuteronomy 22, is mistaken: the Hebrew there is na'arah betulah.