Isaiah 7:14

Verse in the seventh chapter of the Book of Isaiah
Isaiah 7:14 is a verse in the seventh chapter of the Book of Isaiah in which the prophet Isaiah, addressing king Ahaz of Judah, promises that God will destroy the king's enemies before a child born to an almah is weaned. The Hebrew word עַלְמָה ‘almāh refers to a "young woman of childbearing age", but it was translated in the Koine Greek Septuagint as παρθένος parthenos, meaning virgin, and was subsequently picked up by the gospel of Matthew and used as a messianic prophecy of the Virgin birth of Jesus. Isaiah 7:14 continues to be one of the most controversial Bible verses.

The Book of Isaiah was assembled over several centuries, beginning in the 8th century BCE. Chapters 1 39 refer mostly to events of the 8th century, but Isaiah 7:1 25 are the product of a 7th century Josianic redaction (i. e., an editing in the reign of King Josiah, c. 640–609 BCE). They present the 8th century King Ahaz (reigned c. 732–716 BC) as a faithless monarch who rejects God's promise of protection for his dynasty and city, but the purpose of the original 8th century narrative was to dissuade Ahaz' son, Hezekiah, from entering into alliance with other kingdoms to oppose the Assyrian Empire, the regional hegemon of the day.

Isaiah 7:18:15 deals with the prophet Isaiah's attempt to persuade King Ahaz not to join the kings of Israel (also called Ephraim) and Syria (Aram Damascus) in their rebellion against their Assyrian overlord. Isaiah 7:1 8 make up a prologue explaining that Israel and Syria have laid siege to Jerusalem in an effort to replace him with a non Davidic king who will join them. When Ahaz was king of Judah, Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah king of Israel, marched on Jerusalem, they were unable to prevail against it. When the House of David was told that Syria had allied itself with Ephraim, their hearts and the hearts of their people trembled But the Lord said to Isaiah, "Go out to meet Ahaz, you and Shearjashub your son, and say to him, 'Be firm and keep calm ' In the face of the threat God announces to Ahaz: 'It will not succeed, it will not happen.'

Ahaz turned to Assyria to fend off the threat from Israel and Syria, but the price he paid was to become an Assyrian vassal. His son and successor Hezekiah (ruled c. 715 686) rebelled, but the Assyrians devastated his kingdom and put Jerusalem under siege, and Hezekiah was able to save himself only by paying tribute. A century later, in the time of King Josiah, the prophecy of Isaiah was revised to present Ahaz as a faithless king who rejected God's promise of protection, with the result that God brought Assyria to devastate the land until a new and faithful king (presumably Josiah) would arise to restore peace. The added prophesy, describing the devastation that would come upon Judah at some unspecified future date (future, that is, from the perspective of Isaiah and Ahaz) when God would call up Assyria, is given in verses 7:17–25: "In that day every place where there used to be a thousand vines will be turned over to thorns and briars".

The Gospel of Matthew presents Jesus's ministry as largely the fulfilment of prophecies from Isaiah, but in the time of Jesus the Israelite Jews no longer spoke Hebrew, and Isaiah had to be translated into Greek and Aramaic, the two commonly used languages. The Greek translation, the Septuagint, translated the word almah, meaning a young woman of childbearing age who had not yet given birth, as parthenos in the Greek, which means virgin. This gave the author of Matthew the opportunity to interpret Jesus as the fulfilment of prophecy: he makes Jesus Immanuel, God is with us (Matthew 1:23), the divine representative on earth, and underlines Jesus' status as "Son of God" by asserting that Joseph did not have sexual intercourse with Mary before she gave birth (Matthew 1:25).

When the Revised Standard Version translators rendered "almah" as "young woman" in 1952 it immediately became a center of controversy for conservative Christians, who believed that this passage predicted the virgin birth of Jesus. The RSV quickly replaced the KJV in many churches across America, but fundamentalist American Christians argued that nowhere in the Old Testament was an almah anything other than a young unmarried girl, and one pastor publicly burned a copy of the RSV. Isaiah 7:14 became a litmus test of orthodoxy among conservatives, but most modern Bible translations use "young woman".

The King James Version of this verse is cited as texts in the English language oratorio "Messiah" by George Frideric Handel (HWV 56).