ISAIAH - DUEL PROPHECIES

ISAIAH - DUEL PROPHECIES

Hugh Fogelman

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14, KJV)

Some Christian commentators maintain that Isaiah 7:14 is a “Dual Prophecy.”

Behold, 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. (Matthew 1:23)

They attempt to explain away this alarming problem of Matthew’s complete indifference to the biblical context of Isaiah by claiming that Isaiah’s words to King Ahaz had two different applications. They agree that the first application of Isaiah’s prophecy must have been addressed to King Ahaz and his “immediate” crisis. That child, Hezekiah, that was born contemporaneously and the first leg of this dual prophesy was fulfilled at the time of Ahaz, 2,700 years ago.

But here is where they disagree. They maintain, however, that the second leg of this dual prophecy applied to Jesus’ virgin birth less than 2,000 years ago or 700 hundred years after the original prophecy fulfillment. In short, these Christians claim that Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled twice: once in 732 B.C.E., and a second time in the year 1 C.E.

Without realizing it, such a scenario creates an enormous amount of problems for these Christian apologists.

· First of all, the proposal of dual prophecy is entirely contrived and has no basis in the Bible. Nowhere in the seventh chapter of Isaiah does the text even hint of a second fulfillment. The notion of a dual prophecy is thoroughly unbiblical and was fashioned only to explain away a stunning theological problem caused when Matthew plucked this verse out of Isaiah.

· Secondarily, if, as some Christians maintain, the word ha’almah means a “virgin,” and, as they insist, if Isaiah 7:14 was fulfilled twice, then there had to be two virgin births. But we know Ahaz was the natural father of Hezekiah. Nothing virginal there!

· Thirdly, were “virgin” births common in biblical days? There can only be a yes or a no answer. If you answer yes, then Mary’s so-called “virgin” birth was no big deal. If you answered no, that “virgin” birth were a Godly special event, would not Isaiah have made it known just who this Virgin was?

QUESTION: If these Christians claim that the virgin birth of Isaiah 7:14 was fulfilled twice, who then was the first virgin having a baby boy in 732 B.C.E.?

QUESTION: Where is the record of that major event? Should it not have drawn some attention and be written in some record somewhere?

QUESTION: With the Hebrew Scriptures chronicling the many miracles worked by G-d for Israel, why isn’t this Godly event mentioned among the sacred Hebrew Scriptures, as are the many other miracles?

QUESTION: This is very important―Is Christianity by taking this “dual prophecy” approach claiming that Mary was not the first and only virgin to conceive and give birth to a child? Christianity cannot have it both ways. Were there 2 “virgin” births? If these births were so common, perhaps there were more!

Consider with me for a minute, that these Christians insist that the word ha’almah can only mean virgin. They are snared by the words of their mouth since they refuse to use the real meaning of the Hebrew word “almah” which does not mean “virgin” but only “young woman.” To force such a meaning to “almah” as meaning “virgin,” when it does not along with a proposed “dual prophecy,” means that there has to be two virgin births as well. History is completely silent as well as all of Jewish history on such an event.

· Fourthly, if Christianity claims the seventh chapter of Isaiah is a dual prophecy, how does Isaiah 7:15-16 apply to Jesus when these verses continue to speak of the lad, Hezekiah?

Remember, Isaiah 7:14-16 reads:

Therefore the Lord, of His own, shall give you a sign, “Behold the young woman is with child, and she shall bear a son, and she shall call his name Immanuel. Cream and honey he shall eat when he knows to reject bad and choose good; for, when the lad does not yet know to reject bad and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread, shall be abandoned.

· Answer for yourself: If Isaiah’s words are the substance of a dual prophecy, at what age did the baby Jesus mature?

· Answer for yourself: Which were the two kingdoms during Jesus’ lifetime that were abandoned?

· Answer for yourself: Who dreaded the Kingdom of Israel during the first century when there had not been a Kingdom of Israel in existence for over 700 years; since the seventh century B.C.E.? Surely it was not Rome with their military might!

· Answer for yourself: Besides the prophecy of the birth of a child when or where was Jesus ever called Immanuel as required also by this prophecy?

· Answer for yourself: When did Jesus eat cream and honey? Does any of this make any sense to you?

An honest person would never take one verse from a chapter ignoring the rest of the same chapter and claim that the author’s message was a duel message. That is not logical and not ethical. In fact it is outright stupid!

By now logic should be adding up in your mind. You should realize that Christianity and its hermeneutic [interpretation] of the Hebrew Scriptures are not just seriously flawed concerning Isaiah 7, but are only an invention of wishful thinking.

This as you have seen is not just “another rendering,” but a purposeful attempt to alter the Hebrew revelation to fit the theological agenda of the Christian church which did not want to live under the Law of God.

The essence of the Christian interpretation of Isaiah chapter 7 fails miserably when exposed to the light of day. It was born out of the desperation of Christianity when confronted by the Jewish people and their scholars who know their own Scriptures better than Rome or anyone else would ever know them.

All of the forged and altered translations of the Hebrew Scriptures found in our Christian Bibles that are nothing more than purposeful mistranslation, misquotations, creations, and verses purposefully taken out of context to foist upon the unsuspecting Gentile world of yesteryear a replacement religion. In so doing they destroyed much of the Divine revelation of the Hebrew Bible and many of the truths concerning the Jewish Messiah.

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