Was Jesus the Second Virgin Birth?

Isaiah 7 is the story of a failed king, the threat of a bloody conquest, and a powerful prophecy from one of Judah's greatest prophets. Before I dive into it, though, we should set the stage. The players are:

• Judah, the "house of David," the land of God's promise. It's being ruled by King Ahaz, a failed king from the line of King David. Ahaz's many sins include burning his son as an offering to the gods of the neighboring kingdoms.
• Israel, the "Northern Kingdom" that split off after King Solomon's rule, ruled by King Pekah. Sometimes also called Ephraim (after the most powerful tribe) or Samaria (after the capital city).
• Aram, also called Syria. It's ruled by King Rezin, and is sometimes referred to as Damascus (after their capital city).
• Assyria, ruled by King Tiglath-Pileser III. This is the most important superpower in the region, an expanding empire that no one can ignore. Sometimes called Nineveh (after their capital city).

So with Assyria threatening just about everyone in the region, Israel and Aram had formed an alliance for their mutual defense. This alliance then turned around and threatened Judah– many historians think that they wanted Judah to join their alliance, and Judah refused. In any case, the new plan was to conquer Judah and install a friendly king who would then stand with them against Assyria.

To Judah and its king, this impending invasion was absolutely terrifying. Short of God's intervention, they had no hope– and again, their current king wasn't on good terms with God.

When the house of David was told, “Syria is in league with Ephraim,” the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.

The Prophet Isaiah is then sent to comfort the king, to ease his fear and encourage him to look to God, who would destroy the two kingdoms threatening Judah.

Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands...

Now we arrive at the most famous part of the text: Isaiah offers the king a sign from God. The king doesn't want to ask for a sign, but Isaiah insists.

Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz: “Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.” But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.” And he said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the almah shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. ... before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted.

The meaning of "almah" here is the subject of much discussion among people more learned than I, but before we get to that, I'd like to draw your attention to something else. The sign is being sent to King Ahaz, to encourage him to trust God to solve his immediate problem. Ahaz is about to try to solve the problem himself by submitting to the rule of Assyria and begging for their protection, and Isaiah's prophecy is also a warning about what will happen if he does that.

You don't have to submit yourself to Assyria for protection, Isaiah tells the King. Very soon, this child named Immanuel will be born, and before he has lived even a few years, the kingdoms threatening you will be gone. Because this point is so important, let me emphasize it once more: whatever promise Isaiah is making here, it will happen very soon. He's promising the King a sign that will renew his trust in God, and the birth of humanity's savior 700 years later would not do that. He's also laying out a timeline: first this baby will be born, then he will grow into a young child, and then the two kingdoms threatening you will be gone– before they've had a chance to devastate you!

That brings me back to the meaning of "almah." As far as I can tell, and according to the best sources I've found, it simply means "young woman." Within the context of the prophecy, this makes sense to me: the important part here is the child, the mother is just described as a mother.

Fast forward ~700 years to Jesus's day, though, and we're now living in a very different time. Hebrew is rarely spoken or read, and the Greek Septuagint is the dominant form of the Hebrew texts. It translated "almah" into Greek as "parthanos" – again, there's a very complicated scholarly debate about the evolution of that word over the centuries, but by Jesus's day it pretty blatantly meant "virgin." Matthew took this and ran with it:

When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit... All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (Matthew 1)

Clearly, Matthew thinks that Isaiah's prophecy was fulfilled twice: once in his own time, and once again for Jesus. The only problem with this is that Isaiah never said anything about a virgin birth! Most likely, he was simply talking about a young woman giving birth (as they sometimes do). If he was promising King Ahaz a miraculous virgin birth as his sign, you'd think there would be an extra sentence or two of discussion about it.

There is, of course, anther possibility: Isaiah really did promise King Ahaz a virgin birth as his sign, which would make Jesus the second virgin birth, with the first one being an unknown baby, forgotten by history, offered as a sign to a rebellious king who would choose to ignore it anyway.