Isaiah 7:14
What does Isaiah 7:14 mean?
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
The short answer
Isaiah 7:14 may be the most familiar verse in Isaiah—most of us meet it every December, read alongside the story of Jesus' birth. But before it was an Advent text, it was a word spoken into a political emergency. King Ahaz of Judah is terrified: two neighboring kingdoms have allied against him, and Jerusalem's future looks bleak. Through Isaiah, God invites Ahaz to ask for a sign of reassurance. When the king refuses, God gives one anyway: a young woman will conceive and bear a son, and his name will be Immanuel—Hebrew for "God with us." The point, in that moment, is timing and trust. Before this child grows very old, the threat Ahaz fears will have passed. The name itself is the message: God is present with his people, even when a king cannot bring himself to believe it.
Then there is the famous translation question. The Hebrew word here, almah, most naturally means a young woman of marriageable age. The ancient Greek translation rendered it with a word meaning "virgin," and that is the version Matthew quotes when he tells of Jesus' birth. This is not a modern quibble—readers have argued about it since at least the second century, when a Jewish interlocutor named Trypho insisted the verse described an ordinary birth, perhaps of King Hezekiah, not a miraculous one.
Christian readers do not have to choose between history and faith here. The verse can be heard twice, honestly: first as a concrete sign to a frightened king in the eighth century BC, and then—as Matthew hears it—as a promise that finds its fullest expression in Jesus, in whom the church confesses that "God with us" became flesh. Holding both readings together lets the verse keep its original force and its later hope.
What scholars say
These excerpts answer two questions readers often bring to this verse: why a passage from Isaiah is so familiar to Christians at Advent, and why its translation has been disputed—as Brown notes, at least since Trypho argued in the second century that the Hebrew word means "young woman" and refers to Hezekiah's birth.
“"God-with-Us" and the "Virgin" (Isaiah 7:14) Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. Scripture Passages for Reference Isaiah 7:10–17, 20–25 Isaiah 8:1–10 Matthew 1:18–25 Luke 1:26–38 As with Isaiah 6, chapter 7 also contains more than one pivotal passage. In the case of the present verse, it must be admitted that it is probably the most familiar text to Christians who may otherwise know little of Isaiah. This is, of course, because our verse is used in the birth account of Matthew's Gospel, which is so important in Advent. The importance of Matthew's birth account, in turn, has no doubt led to the wide use of Isaiah during the Advent season.”
“Various groups may share the same sacred texts but have widely differing interpretations of them. Each side appeals to the Bible and argues that it cannot mean what others take it to mean. Against, for example, the Christian understanding of Isaiah 7:14 as a prediction of Christ’s virgin birth, the Jew Trypho, in the second century CE, insisted that the Hebrew word alma means “young woman,” that no virgin birth was involved, and that the reference is to the natural birth of King Hezekiah. The religious conflicts and disagreements that most stimulated the rise of modern biblical criticism were initially the Catholic-Protestant disagreements and later the disputes among the different groups within Protestantism. These debates emphasized the distinctive role of Scripture and the implications of reading it for and from itself.”
What it means for you
The name Immanuel is a promise addressed to people in crisis, not people at ease. Ahaz heard it while bracing for invasion; you might hear it in a hospital waiting room, a job loss, or a season of doubt. The sign was not that trouble would vanish instantly, but that God was already present within it—and that the danger had an end date the king could not yet see.
This verse also invites a little humility about how we read Scripture. Faithful people have wrestled over its words for nearly two thousand years. Careful reading, attention to context, and honest questions are not threats to faith; they are part of taking a text this rich seriously.
Isaiah 7 in context
Isaiah 7 opens with Judah under threat: the kings of Aram and Israel have marched against Jerusalem, and Ahaz and his people are shaking with fear. God sends Isaiah to meet the king with a message of calm—the plot will fail—and then invites Ahaz to request any sign he likes. Ahaz refuses under a show of piety, and verse 14 is God's answer: a sign given anyway. The rest of chapter 7 and into chapter 8 traces both the promise and the coming judgment, with the Immanuel theme echoing forward as Assyria looms.