Isaiah's Hebrew word ʿalmâ means a young woman of marriageable age; the Greek Septuagint rendered it parthenos ("virgin"), and Matthew 1:23 quotes that Greek to read the sign as fulfilled in Mary. The sign was first given to King Ahaz, with a timeline in his own day (7:16), so Christian readers speak of its fullest fulfilment in Christ. Older and many Christian Bibles say "virgin"; Jewish and several modern versions, including the Catholic NABRE, "young woman".
The verse
Text
BSBTherefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call Him Immanuel.
KJVTherefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
JPSTherefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: behold, the young woman shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
הָעַלְמָה (hāʿalmâ, 'the ʿalmâ'); Septuagint ἡ παρθένος (hē parthenos); Matthew 1:23 ἡ παρθένος
The Hebrew has the definite article, "the ʿalmâ". BDB defines ʿalmâ as "young woman (ripe sexually; maid or newly married)"; the usual Hebrew word for "virgin" is a different one, bĕtûlâ, which BDB glosses simply "virgin". ʿalmâ occurs in seven verses (not counting the musical term ʿălāmôt in 1 Chr 15:20, which the database tags as a separate word). In Gen 24:43 it is Abraham's servant's word for the girl who will come to draw water, who turns out to be Rebekah, whom the same chapter has just called a bĕtûlâ whom "no man had known" (Gen 24:16): so the word can be used of a virgin, but it does not itself state that she is one. The medieval Jewish commentators Ibn Ezra and Radak make the same point, both citing "the way of a man with an ʿalmâ" (Prov 30:19): an ʿalmâ may be a virgin or not. Christian defenders of "virgin" reply that the word is in fact often used of girls who are virgins (Calvin, Chrysostom), and rest their main case on the context, which calls the birth a "sign" (see the fourth note below). The Septuagint, a Jewish translation that both sides in the 2nd-century debate traced to the elders sent to King Ptolemy, is not uniform: it renders ʿalmâ as parthenos in Gen 24:43 and Isa 7:14, as neanis ("young woman") in Exod 2:8, Ps 68:25 (LXX 67:26), Song 1:3 and 6:8, and with "youth" in Prov 30:19. The Septuagint also calls Dinah a parthenos (Gen 34:3) right after Shechem has lain with her (34:2), so in that translation parthenos does not always carry the technical sense either. Matthew 1:23 quotes the Septuagint's parthenos. In the second century the Jewish revisers Aquila and Theodotion put neanis in Isa 7:14; Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. III.21.1) and Justin's Dialogue with Trypho record that Jewish teachers of the time said the verse should read "young woman". English translations follow one side or the other: KJV, ASV, Douay-Rheims and Brenton's Septuagint have "a virgin"; BSB, WEB and Darby "the virgin" (BSB with the footnote "Or young woman"); JPS 1917, the NRSV and the current Catholic NABRE (2011) "the young woman". The 1970 NAB, also Catholic, had read "the virgin": the change happened inside one tradition.1234567891011121314151617
Neither Hebrew word has a tense. hārâ is an adjective, "pregnant" (BDB), and yōledet is a participle; the database's morphology codes are HAafsa (adjective) and Vqrfsa (participle). Whether the woman is already pregnant or will become pregnant has to be decided from context, which is exactly what the debate is about. The same announcement formula (the NABRE note cites Gen 16:11 and Judg 13:3) is spoken to Hagar, who has already conceived (Gen 16:4, 16:11), and to Manoah's wife, who is still barren (Judg 13:2–3, 13:5, 13:7). Translations split accordingly: KJV, ASV, JPS 1917 "shall conceive" and BSB "will be with child" (future); NRSV "is with child", JPS 2023 "is with child", NABRE "pregnant and about to bear", YLT and LSV "is conceiving" (present). The Jewish commentators also read it differently: Rashi argues that hārâ "is actually the future", citing Manoah's wife; Radak does not discuss the tense, but his paraphrase is in the present ("now she is pregnant, and now she is bearing a son"). Note on this site's own word-by-word line: the STEPBible glosses "[will be] pregnant" and "and/ [will] bear" put the future in square brackets because the glossers supplied it; the same glossers give "[are] pregnant" for the identical form in Gen 16:11. Treat the bracketed tense as an editorial choice, not as part of the Hebrew.18192021152223
וְקָרָאת שְׁמוֹ (wəqārāʾt šəmô); LXX καλέσεις (you, singular, will call); Matt 1:23 καλέσουσιν (they will call)
The form qārāʾt can be read as "she will call" (the reading the database's glosses and most translations take: KJV, ASV, JPS 1917 "shall call", Geneva "she shall call") or as "you (feminine) will call"; the KJV margin notes "or, thou, O virgin, shalt call". The identical form in the announcement to Hagar (Gen 16:11) is second person, "thou shalt call his name Ishmael". Ibn Ezra takes the ʿalmâ as the subject ("she", comparing the form in Exod 5:16); Radak takes the verb as addressed to the mother, a command from the prophet. The Septuagint has "you will call" (singular), Matthew 1:23 has "they will call", and the BSB footnote reports that the Dead Sea Isaiah scroll has "his name will be called" or "he will call". The Douay-Rheims, following the Vulgate, has "his name shall be called". Calvin made a theological argument from the feminine: naming was a father's right, so a mother naming the child points to a child with no earthly father. Against that, mothers do name children elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible (Leah in Gen 29:32–35, Hannah in 1 Sam 1:20; and Hagar is told to name Ishmael), and Radak says outright that "it was their custom that mothers named their sons". So the feminine verb alone does not imply a missing father; this is a question of interpretation, not grammar.24252616271415
אוֹת (ʾôt, 'sign'), given to the 'house of David' (7:13) in the reign of Ahaz
The sign is announced to King Ahaz during the Syro-Ephraimite threat, and 7:16 sets a timeline: before the child knows to refuse evil and choose good, the land of the two kings Ahaz dreads will be deserted. The readings divide on who the child is. (1) A child of Isaiah's own day: Trypho (2nd c.) said Hezekiah; Rashi says the prophet's wife and rejects Hezekiah because, counting the regnal years (2 Kgs 16:2; 18:2), Hezekiah was born about nine years before Ahaz began to reign; Ibn Ezra says a son of Isaiah, citing 8:3 and 8:18 ("I and the children ... are for signs"); Radak prefers Ahaz's wife, arguing that the prophet would have called his own wife "the prophetess" (8:3) and that 8:8 ("thy land, O Immanuel") implies a king's son. Ibn Ezra and Radak both add that a sign meant to reassure Ahaz cannot be an event centuries later. Rashi also records a minority view that the sign was that the ʿalmâ was too young to bear a child. (2) The Messiah only: Calvin argues a young woman conceiving naturally would be no sign at all, so the verse must mean a virgin conceiving by the Spirit, an argument already made by Justin (Dialogue 84) and Chrysostom. (3) Both: the 1970 Catholic NAB says "some Catholic writers" saw a "preliminary and partial fulfillment" in Hezekiah, while "the Church has always followed St. Matthew" in seeing the "transcendent fulfillment" in Christ. The 2011 NABRE reads the oracle as a reassurance to Ahaz in the setting of God's promise to David, and calls the Christian reading "understandable". In the Greek East, John Chrysostom defends the Septuagint's parthenos, answering the "young woman" objection by arguing that the Seventy translated long before Christ and so could not be suspected of bias, unlike the later Jewish translators. What the evidence settles: the Hebrew word does not by itself say "virgin", and 7:16 ties the sign to Ahaz's time. What it cannot settle: whether a text may have a further, fuller sense beyond its first setting. That is a question about how prophecy and the New Testament's use of it work, not about vocabulary.282930312114323316342317
Checked in this site's verse database: BDB entries for עַלְמָה, בְּתוּלָה and הָרָה (Open Scriptures digitisation) — The printed BDB article for עַלְמָה is longer; only the digitised summary was read.↩How this was derivedlexicon_articles: lexicon='BDB' id='p.cy.ac' (עַלְמָה, p. 761) → 'young woman (ripe sexually; maid or newly married)'; id='b.dn.ab' (בְּתוּלָה, p. 143) → 'virgin'; id='e.cd.ab' (הָרָה adj., p. 248) → 'pregnant'. Entries are status 'base' (summary digitisation, not the full printed article).
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Checked in this site's verse database: Where ʿalmâ occurs, and how the Septuagint renders it↩How this was derivedtokens: SELECT DISTINCT std_ref FROM tokens WHERE root_strong='H5959' → Gen.24.43, Exod.2.8, Ps.68.25, Prov.30.19, Song.1.3, Song.6.8, Isa.7.14. verses (work_id='lxx-brenton-gr'): Gen.24.43 ἡ παρθένος; Isa.7.14 ἡ παρθένος; Exod.2.8 νεᾶνις; Ps.68.25 (native Ps.67.26) νεανίδων; Song.1.3 νεάνιδες; Song.6.8 νεάνιδες; Prov.30.19 = LXX native Prov.24.39 'ἐν νεότητι' (that row is stored with std_ref Prov.24.39, a versification-mapping gap).
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, New American Bible (1970 OT), Isaiah 7, Libreria Editrice Vaticana (1970) — Text: 'the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.'↩
Checked in this site's verse database: Morphology and editions' footnotes for the naming verb↩How this was derivedtokens: Isa.7.14 word 12 וְ/קָרָ֥את gloss 'and/ she will call' morph Hc/Vqq3fs. verse_notes: kjv Isa.7.14 footnote 'shall call: or, thou, O virgin, shalt call'; bsb Isa.7.14 footnote '...literally and she will call His name Immanuel; DSS and His name will be called Immanuel or and he will call His name Immanuel; LXX you will call His name Immanuel; cited in Matthew 1:23.' tokens: Matt.1.23 word 11 καλέσουσιν 'they will call' V-FAI-3P.
Checked in this site's verse database: The same verb form in Gen 16:11↩How this was derivedtokens: Gen.16.11 word 9 וְ/קָרָ֤את gloss 'and/ you will call' morph Hc/Vqq2fs (Isa.7.14 word 12 has the same consonants and vowels, tagged Vqq3fs). verses: kjv Gen.16.11 'and shalt call his name Ishmael'.
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, New American Bible (1970 OT), note on Isaiah 7:14, Libreria Editrice Vaticana (1970) — 'The Church has always followed St. Matthew in seeing the transcendent fulfillment of this verse in Christ and his Virgin Mother. The prophet need not have known the full force latent in his own words; and some Catholic writers have sought a preliminary and partial fulfillment in the conception and birth of the future King Hezekiah, whose mother, at the time Isaiah spoke, would have been a young, unmarried woman (Hebrew, almah).'↩
Source 1
Checked in this site's verse database: BDB entries for עַלְמָה, בְּתוּלָה and הָרָה (Open Scriptures digitisation) — The printed BDB article for עַלְמָה is longer; only the digitised summary was read.
Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies III.21.1 — ANF tr.: 'But not as some allege, among those now presuming to expound the Scripture, [thus:] Behold, a young woman shall conceive, and bring forth a son, as Theodotion the Ephesian has interpreted, and Aquila of Pontus, both Jewish proselytes.'
Henry Barclay Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, Part I, ch. II 'Later Greek Versions', §2 — 'The crucial instance was the rendering of [ʿalmâ] by παρθένος in Isa. vii. 14, where νεᾶνις, it was contended, would have given the true meaning of the Hebrew word (ib. 71, 84; Iren. iii. 21. 1).' (The CCEL text misprints the Hebrew word as צַלְטָה.)
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 43, 67, 71, 84 — Ch. 84 (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/01286.htm), Justin to Trypho: 'you in these matters venture to pervert the expositions which your elders that were with Ptolemy king of Egypt gave forth, since you assert that the Scripture is not so as they have expounded it, but says, 'Behold, the young woman shall conceive''. Ch. 67 (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/01285.htm), Trypho: 'The Scripture has not, 'Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,' but, 'Behold, the young woman shall conceive, and bear a son,' and so on, as you quoted. But the whole prophecy refers to Hezekiah'. Ch. 71 (01286.htm): 'you contradict the statement, 'Behold, the virgin shall conceive,' and say it ought to be read, 'Behold, the young woman shall conceive.''
“New American Bible, Revised Edition (2011), Isaiah 7 with notes”, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops — Text: 'the young woman, pregnant and about to bear a son, shall name him Emmanuel.' Note [7:14]: 'The young woman : Hebrew ‘almah designates a young woman of marriageable age without specific reference to virginity. The Septuagint translated the Hebrew term as parthenos , which normally does mean virgin, and this translation underlies Mt 1:23 .'
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, New American Bible (1970 OT), Isaiah 7, Libreria Editrice Vaticana (1970) — Text: 'the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.'
“The JPS Tanakh: Gender-Sensitive Edition (2023), Isaiah 7:14”, Sefaria — 'Look, the young woman is with child and about to give birth to a son. Let her name him Immanuel.'
Arthur Cushman McGiffert, Notes to Eusebius, Church History V.8 (NPNF 2nd ser. vol. 1) (1890), note 1493 — A 19th-century critical view, stated bluntly: 'The original Hebrew has עַלְמָה, which means simply a “young woman,” not distinctively a “virgin.” The LXX, followed by Matt. i. 23, wrongly translated by παρθένος' and 'Theodotion and Aquila translated the Hebrew word by νεᾶνις, which is the correct rendering, in spite of what Irenæus says.'
Abraham ibn Ezra, Commentary on Isaiah 7:14 (tr. M. Friedländer, 1873) — 'We know that a male child is called נער, a female child נערה or עלמה ... whether she be a virgin or not; for עלמה signifies a person of a certain age ... and in דרך גבר בעלמה the way of a man with a young woman (Prov. 30:19) עלמה is certainly not a virgin'.
David Kimhi (Radak), Radak on Isaiah 7:14 (Hebrew) — 'העלמה אינה בתולה אלא עלמה כמו נערה תהיה בתולה או בעולה, והנה דרך גבר בעלמה היא בעולה' ('the ʿalmâ is not [the word] bĕtûlâ but ʿalmâ, like naʿărâ: she may be a virgin or a woman who has had relations; and see, "the way of a man with an ʿalmâ" — she has had relations'). Our translation; Sefaria has no English for this commentary.
John Calvin, Commentary on Isaiah, vol. 1 (tr. William Pringle), on Isa 7:14 — 'Though we should admit what they say, that עלמה (gnalmah) sometimes denotes a young woman ... (yet it is frequently used in Scripture when the subject relates to a virgin,) the nature of the case sufficiently refutes all their slanders.'
John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 5.4 (NPNF 1st ser. vol. 10) — 'Because the Scripture is wont to put the word youth, for virginity; and this with respect not to women only, but also to men.'
3The angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her, “It is true that you are barren and have no children; but you will conceive and give birth to a son.
Rashi, Rashi on Isaiah 7:14 (tr. A. J. Rosenberg, Judaica Press) — 'is with child This is actually the future, as we find concerning Manoah’s wife'. Hebrew: 'הָרָה. לְשׁוֹן עָתִיד הוּא'.
“New American Bible, Revised Edition (2011), note on Isaiah 7:14”, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops — 'The oracle follows a traditional announcement formula by which the birth and sometimes naming of a child is promised to particular individuals ( Gn 16:11 ; Jgs 13:3 ).'
32And Leah conceived and gave birth to a son, and she named him Reuben, for she said, “The LORD has seen my affliction. Surely my husband will love me now.”
2Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years. And unlike David his father, he did not do what was right in the eyes of the LORD his God.
2He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abi, the daughter of Zechariah.
David Kimhi (Radak), Radak on Isaiah 7:14–15 (Hebrew) — On 7:14: 'והעלמה הזאת היא אשת הנביא או אשת אחז, והוא הנכון, כי אם היתה אשת הנביא היה אומר הנביאה ... ועוד שאמר מלא רחב ארצך עמנואל, משמע כי בן מלך היה' ('this ʿalmâ is the prophet's wife or Ahaz's wife, and the latter is correct, for if she were the prophet's wife he would have said "the prophetess" ... and he also said "filling the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel", which implies he was a king's son'). On 7:15 (https://www.sefaria.org/Radak_on_Isaiah.7.15), citing his father's Sefer ha-Berit against Christian readers: 'מה אות היה זה לאחז דבר שהיה אחר כן ליותר מארבע מאות שנה' ('what sign would this be for Ahaz, a thing that happened more than four hundred years afterwards?'). Our translations.
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 84 — '... but says, 'Behold, the young woman shall conceive,' as if great events were to be inferred if a woman should beget from sexual intercourse: which indeed all young women, with the exception of the barren, do'.
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, New American Bible (1970 OT), note on Isaiah 7:14, Libreria Editrice Vaticana (1970) — 'The Church has always followed St. Matthew in seeing the transcendent fulfillment of this verse in Christ and his Virgin Mother. The prophet need not have known the full force latent in his own words; and some Catholic writers have sought a preliminary and partial fulfillment in the conception and birth of the future King Hezekiah, whose mother, at the time Isaiah spoke, would have been a young, unmarried woman (Hebrew, almah).'