A virgin shall conceive, and other stuff from Isaiah

Some background:

Isaiah is called the great prophet (Sirach 48:23ff) in part because he lived so long and had a prophetical career of about 50 years. The beginning of the book of Isaiah lists the kings he served under: Uzziah (783-742 B.C.), Jotham (742-735), Ahaz (735-715), and Hezekiah (715-686). If he started at the tail end of Uzziah's reign and dies at the beginning of Hezekiah's reign, that's close to 30 years -- and we know that from the first verse of the book and historians who know the reign-dates for all the kings. But we also know that Isaiah was serving during all the major events of Hezekiah's reign, which adds on another 20 years or so.

There's a Jewish tradition that Manasseh (686-642), the wicked successor to Hezekiah, had Isaiah publicly sawed to pieces for predicting Jerusalem's destruction and comparing it to Sodom and Gomorroah. This may be what St. Paul means in Hebrews 11:37, the prophet who was "cut asunder."

Isaiah was much younger than Amos and Hosea -- he may have overlapped with them if they were very old when Isaiah was very young. He was a contemporary of Micah, and the two may have known each other.

Some history:

During the reign of Ahaz, the Syrio-Ephraimite War breaks out. Ahaz is understandably terrified. Here's the beginning of Isaiah 7:

In the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, king of Judah, Rezin, the king of Syria, and Pekah, the son of Remaliah the king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but they could not conquer it. When the house of David [Ahaz] was told, "Syria is in league with Ephraim," his heart and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.

In case that was confusing, Rezin and Pekah are the subject of the sentence, and came up is the verb. Ahaz sits on the throne of David, so "the house of David" refers to him.

God sent Isaiah to Ahaz to console him and reassure him of God's promise that David's throne would last forever, but Ahaz would have none of it. God told Ahaz to ask for a sign, but Ahaz replies (7:12) "I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test." That's a nice excuse, but if God tells you to ask for a sign, you're not testing him by obeying him. So Isaiah responds (7:13ff):

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, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Or, look, Ahaz. If you're not going to pick a sign, I will. When the virgin bears a child, you will see that the House of David is everlasting.

Some language controversy:

The word virgin is contested by translators, and sometimes it's rendered young woman. Our professor told us it's because the Hebrew word (ha almah) is actually closer to our word maiden -- a mature woman who is unmarried and presumably is a virgin.

The pious Jews who translated the Old Testament into Greek for the library at Alexandria -- this is the Septuagint or the LXX -- used he parthenos, which more specifically means a woman who has not had sexual intercourse. This happened well before the birth of Christ. When Matthew and Luke quote this line, they quote the Septuagint version.

Another argument in favor of virgin translation: This is supposed to be God giving a sign, so we should expect something that doesn't happen normally. How often do young women conceive and bear children? All the time. About 2,700 years after Isaiah, Americans are arguing over whether abstinence or contraception is the best means to prevent this from happening. But when a virgin conceives and bears a child? That doesn't happen every day. So when it does, we suspect

Something divine: