"Almah" (Isaiah 7:14)

[Coder]

But if you’re doing a translation of Matthew it has to be a translation of the actual Greek manuscripts of his gospels, not “correcting” what you may see as inaccurate translations of quotes he used.

Hi Wesrock, yes, I’m no longer debating that point. I understand that Christians believe that the prophecy is more fully revealed in Matthew.

Matthew’s inspiration is a matter of religious faith that other religions (e.g. Jewish) don’t share. I’m just saying that different religions interpret “Almah” differently, that’s all. If there is evidence that some/all Jewish scholars supported the “virgin” interpretation centuries ago, many Jewish scholars today no longer have that interpretation (maybe they think “parthenos” was a mistranslation even by Jews - I don’t know). Jewish people today no longer use/support the LXX. For whatever reason, their theology has developed and they interpret the original Hebrew “almah” differently today.

I do see now that the Christian interpretation is valid based on Christian beliefs and Jewish interpretation is valid based on theirs.

 

[Wesrock]

Hi Wesrock, yes, I’m no longer debating that point. I understand that Christians believe that the prophecy is more fully revealed in Matthew.

Maybe I’m beating a dead horse, but this has nothing to do with believing Matthew is inspired. It has nothing to do with putting together a collection in f scripture. A translation of Matthew should be a translation of Matthew, not a translation of Matthew and Isaiah, separate manuscripts. If his quotation is a based on a surge that is a misconception, then add that in a footnote.

I mean, you see this in scholarly translations of anything. For example, some Church fathers quoted the old Vulgate. The modern translations don’t correct the quotation if the Vulgate doesn’t match the Greek, they translate the exact words, and then add a footnote that the author was quoting the Vulgate but that most Greek manuscripts render a verse differently, for example. But it would be the same if Aquinas was quoting Plato, or some ancient Roman quoting Homer. You translate the author you’re translating, and if their quotation or discussion is based off of a MI’s translation, you note that; you don’t change their quotation to match the original.

 

[Coder]

Maybe I’m beating a dead horse, but this has nothing to do with believing Matthew is inspired. You translate the author you’re translating, and if their quotation or discussion is based off of a MI’s translation, you note that; you don’t change their quotation to match the original.

Yes, very good point. Thank you.

What’s also fascinating is that Matthew 1:23 itself is quoting Isaiah. So Jewish scholarship today says that Matthew is claiming that Isaiah prophesied a virgin birth but the EWTN article (for example) agrees that Isaiah may not have had this in mind. Christians say that Isaiah may not have had the virgin birth in mind because he (Isaiah) may not have known the full revelation. Jewish scholars say that Isaiah didn’t have the virgin birth in mind because that’s not what God is saying.

Absolutely fascinating.

What I do think is very exciting today is that Jewish scholars are becoming familiar with and more openly discussing Christian Scriptures (even if only to enter the debate, as least they have entered the debate floor so we know have Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish scholars talking). Exciting!

 

[Wesrock]

It is fascinating. I have a Jewish annotated new testament I am waiting to read through.

Also, I want to apologize for poor spelling in my recent posts. My phone started enforcing an auto-correct recently and it’s not working too well.

 

[Coder]

No problem. I learned much from you and others. Great discussion.

 

[patrick457]

I won’t comment about the other posts since I’m too lazy, but my two cents.

I think people on both sides are making too much of a big deal about how the Greek Isaiah translated almah as parthenos. Parthenos is not a literal translation of almah, yes, but then again, Greek Isaiah isn’t a mechanical, word-for-word translation of the Hebrew text.

Greek Isaiah is not a paraphrase (it can be slavishly literal at times), but the translation can at times engage in interpretative renderings. That’s why we get “he is named angel of great counsel, for I will bring peace upon the rulers, peace and health to him” out of the Hebrew’s “his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6) or why “For the bed is too short to stretch oneself on, and the covering too narrow to wrap oneself in” (28:20) is rendered in the Greek as “We are in straits and unable to fight, and we ourselves are too weak to be mobilized.”

In some of his renderings, the translator appears to be slavishly literal, but it is clear that, as a whole, he felt free to vary his vocabulary and restructure the syntax if it served his purposes. That sense of freedom allowed him at times to go off on tangents that have little connection with the Hebrew. Indeed, on occasions the meaning of his translation is patently contrary to that of the original (cf. the negative he introduces at 8.14 “you will not encounter him as a stumbling caused by a stone”). What may have been going on in his mind at those times is an intriguing question, but we would be wrong to infer that he was unconcerned about being faithful to the text. There can be no doubt that he struggled mightily to make sense of difficult passages, and that even when he seems to go beyond the text, he is sensitive to the thrust of the book as a whole and seeks to come up with teachings that are up-building (note that at the beginning of 8.14 the addition of the clause “if you trust in him” effectively links this verse with a recurring theme in the book).

• The New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS) preface to Isaiah

So I don’t think that the translator engaging in creative interpretation is a cause of concern. From our (Christian) perspective, the translator just happened to render almah using the ‘right’ word.

 

[patrick457]

Another thing to point out.

The biblical / Jewish notion of ‘prophecy’ is a little different from how modern Western Christians tend to think of it. Often, many people think of prophecy as a prediction: having a very specific and literal fulfillment. One future event per one prophecy.

But in reality, prophecy in the biblical sense is actually more of a thematic, cyclical pattern of historical recapitulation. You might say, ‘typological’. See, people in that time and culture were present-oriented. People were more concerned about the here and now rather than the days ahead. (That’s why Jesus taught to worry about today and not tomorrow.) A present-oriented society, when faced with a problem, would root their solution in the present. The secondary preference for orientation would be the past (because you can learn from what happened and what people did); the unknown future is but a distant third.

When Matthew quotes Isaiah 7 and says that Jesus’ conception was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s statement, it’s probably not so much like Isaiah being a sort of fortune-teller predicting that in the distant future, so-and-so would happen at a specific date, but rather Isaiah’s words having enough relevance that Matthew from generations later could see his words about the birth of a boy who is ‘God-with-us’ being most relevant in this particular situation, when God really came down with us in the form of Jesus. (In this sense, the birth of Jesus is its ‘fulfillment’ par excellence.) In other words, it’s not so much a prediction by a past writer of the ‘future’ as it is of a present writer seeing the past being echoed right here and now. ‘Applicability’ might be a good term to use here.

In other words, Isaiah’s (or rather, God’s) words are ‘alive’ that even across the centuries, people could still find it echoing. In other words, it stays relevant. (Of course, one has to remember that ‘prophecy’ in the biblical sense doesn’t specifically mean ‘predictions of the future’ - that’s just one subset of it - but more like ‘the words of God’ in general.) That’s the rationale behind Jewish midrash: what is written in Scripture, what was spoken by God in the past via His prophets, has relevance for our present situation just as it did during the prophets’ time, and doubtless, future generations will also see these prophecies as being relevant for their time. That’s why a ‘prophecy’ can have multiple ‘fulfillments’.

 

[Coder]

When Matthew quotes Isaiah 7 and says that Jesus’ conception was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s statement, it’s probably not so much like Isaiah being a sort of fortune-teller predicting that in the distant future, so-and-so would happen at a specific date, but rather Isaiah’s words having enough relevance that Matthew from generations later could see his words about the birth of a boy who is ‘God-with-us’ being most relevant in this particular situation, when God really came down with us in the form of Jesus. (In this sense, the birth of Jesus is its ‘fulfillment’ par excellence.) In other words, it’s not so much a prediction by a past writer of the ‘future’ as it is of a present writer seeing the past being echoed right here and now. ‘Applicability’ might be a good term to use here.

Yes, very interesting! I think that you are referring to what Jewish people would call Midrash. It’s a very good point that it needn’t be so black and white.

Folks who know me here, know, that although Christian, I give great value to Jewish understandings, you might say “I try to see the other side” somewhat in my search for truth. Also, as the Church can sometimes indicate (e.g. Vatican articles), it is actually helpful to Christians to understand spiritual exegesis methods of Judaism as you show here. This is very much in line with St. Paul teaching us that Jews have an advantage in every way. So, a Jewish scholar might say that Christians are “making up too much Midrash” Not to say that I agree with them necessarily but this prophecy is known as an area of misalignment between Christians and Jews.

You bring out an excellent point if I may say. Thank you.

 

[patrick457]

Yes, very interesting! I think that you are referring to what Jewish people would call Midrash. It’s a very good point that it needn’t be so black and white.

Folks who know me here, know, that although Christian, I give great value to Jewish understandings, you might say “I try to see the other side” somewhat in my search for truth. Also, as the Church can sometimes indicate (e.g. Vatican articles), it is actually helpful to Christians to understand spiritual exegesis methods of Judaism as you show here. This is very much in line with St. Paul teaching us that Jews have an advantage in every way. So, a Jewish scholar might say that Christians are “making up too much Midrash” Not to say that I agree with them necessarily but this prophecy is known as an area of misalignment between Christians and Jews.

You bring out an excellent point if I may say. Thank you.

Here’s an interesting thing. When you compare it to other contemporary (and later) Jewish modes of interpretation, early Christian interpretation of Scripture tended to lean more on the literalist side. You might even say that they tended to read Scripture in a very plain, straightforward way - even when they were engaged in say, allegory or midrash - that their exegesis comes out as boringly unoriginal and uncreative when compared to their contemporaries (and some later Jews), who could be more creative in the way they handled the text.

I personally think that explains why Greek Isaiah is translated the way it is (parthenos and syntax restructuring and all): the translator is not so much concerned with making a mechanically-literal translation of the Hebrew text but engaging in a mode of interpretation. Just look at the Aramaic translations of OT books (the Targumim): from our perspective, many of them don’t look so much like translations as interpretative paraphrases.

Though the several Targums display certain common features, there are also many differences of rendering among them, ranging from literalistic to paraphrastic, incorporating a variety of kinds of explanatory comments. (…) As was mentioned earlier, besides providing an Aramaic rendering of the Scripture text, the Targumist also sometimes provided interpretive expansions. (…) Despite their self-professed purpose to be a translation and/or explanatory paraphrase of Scripture, here and there the Targums also present instances of what is termed converse translation, in which the Aramaic text contradicts what is said in the Hebrew.

Apparently, ancient Jews have a more broader idea about what constitutes a ‘translation’.

That’s why I wouldn’t really say that parthenos is a ‘mistranslation’ of almah as it is an interpretative (as opposed to a literal) rendering of the word.

 

[Coder]

Yep, right. And that’s why it’s so helpful for Protestants to understand these “Judeo-Catholic” concepts (to coin a term ). These Scriptures don’t stand by themselves, they are very much part of a community with deep history and ways of understanding things - almost a language in itself.

 

[Cathoholic]

Coder.

I may have missed it earlier in this thread, but WHY do think a young woman conceiving and bearing a son would be a “great sign”?

God bless.

Cathoholic

 

[patrick457]

Coder.

I may have missed it earlier in this thread, but WHY do think a young woman conceiving and bearing a son would be a “great sign”?

God bless.

Cathoholic

In the original context, the sign is not so much the boy himself or his birth but what will happen at the time when this boy is born. Before the child is old enough “to refuse evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you dread (= the kingdoms of Aram and Israel) will be deserted.” (7:16) And, the desertion of these two lands (cf. 2 Kings 18:9-12) is a sign that the kingdom of Judah will in turn be invaded by the empire that conquered them: Assyria. (7:17 “The LORD will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father’s house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah: the king of Assyria.”)

And this threat of invasion was fulfilled: “In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.” (36:1)

 

[AmbroseSJ]

In the original context, the sign is not so much the boy himself or his birth but what will happen at the time when this boy is born. Before the child is old enough “to refuse evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you dread (= the kingdoms of Aram and Israel) will be deserted.” (7:16) And, the desertion of these two lands (cf. 2 Kings 18:9-12) is a sign that the kingdom of Judah will in turn be invaded by the empire that conquered them: Assyria. (7:17 “The LORD will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father’s house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah: the king of Assyria.”)

And this threat of invasion was fulfilled: “In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.” (36:1)

Although it may have some tangential relevance, overall, it is a very forced interpretation of this sign. In fact, no one yet has found a truly satisfying contemporary interpretation of this sign.

 

[patrick457]

Although it may have some tangential relevance, overall, it is a very forced interpretation of this sign. In fact, no one yet has found a truly satisfying contemporary interpretation of this sign.

I think the ‘sign’ is not just the sentence describing the birth of the child, but the whole passage that comes after it:

"Behold, the almah shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted. The LORD will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father’s house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah—the king of Assyria!
"In that day the LORD will whistle for the fly that is at the end of the streams of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. And they will all come and settle in the steep ravines, and min the clefts of the rocks, and on all the thornbushes, and on all the pastures.
"In that day the LORD will shave with a razor that is hired beyond the River—with the king of Assyria—the head and the hair of the feet, and it will sweep away the beard also.
In that day a man will keep alive a young cow and two sheep, and because of the abundance of milk that they give, he will eat curds, for everyone who is left in the land will eat curds and honey.
“In that day every place where there used to be a thousand vines, worth a thousand shekels of silver, will become briers and thorns. With bow and arrows a man will come there, for all the land will be briers and thorns. And as for all the hills that used to be hoed with a hoe, you will not come there for fear of briers and thorns, but they will become a place where cattle are let loose and where sheep tread.”

The birth of the boy is just one facet of the sign, the catalyst if you will. A boy (‘Immanuel’) is born, which will signal the conquest and desertion of Israel and Aram, which in turn will signal the invasion of Judah by Assyria.

Then the LORD said to me, “Take a large tablet and write on it in common characters, ‘Belonging to Maher-shalal-hash-baz.’ And I will get reliable witnesses, Uriah the priest and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah, to attest for me.”
And I went to the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son. Then the LORD said to me, “Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz; for before the boy knows how to cry ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carried away before the king of Assyria.”
The LORD spoke to me again: “Because this people has refused the waters of Shiloah that flow gently, and rejoice over Rezin and the son of Remaliah, therefore, behold, the LORD is bringing up against them the waters of fthe River, mighty and many, the king of Assyria and all his glory. And it will rise over all its channels and go over all its banks, and it will sweep on into Judah, it will overflow and pass on, reaching even to the neck, and its outspread wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel.”

Be broken, you peoples, and be shattered;
give ear, all you far countries;
strap on your armor and be shattered;
strap on your armor and be shattered.
Take counsel together, but it will come to nothing;
speak a word, but it will not stand,
for God is with us.

 

[Cathoholic]

Thanks Patrick 457 for your opinion on what you think the great sign is.

I think the ‘sign’ is not just the sentence describing the birth of the child, but the whole passage that comes after it

Coder. Now I want to know what YOU think the “great sign” is.

 

[AmbroseSJ]

patrick457:

The birth of the boy is just one facet of the sign, the catalyst if you will. A boy (‘Immanuel’) is born, which will signal the conquest and desertion of Israel and Aram, which in turn will signal the invasion of Judah by Assyria.

I agree it has some relevance. However it is just as predictable. There is no great sign here, just some mile markers posting the final (easily forseen) invasion of Israel and Juda.

Therefore it CAN be interpreted in a contemporary sense, but it just doesn’t have a satisfying “greatness” to the sign.

Notice the child’s name “God with us.” Prophecies can and often do shimmer between many different fulfillments.

I think Matthew 1:23 is still the best interpretation, and at last we have our Great Sign given by God.

 

[patrick457]

I agree it has some relevance. However it is just as predictable. There is no great sign here, just some mile markers posting the final (easily forseen) invasion of Israel and Juda.

Therefore it CAN be interpreted in a contemporary sense, but it just doesn’t have a satisfying “greatness” to the sign.

Notice the child’s name “God with us.” Prophecies can and often do shimmer between many different fulfillments.

I think Matthew 1:23 is still the best interpretation, and at last we have our Great Sign given by God.

I don’t think it was easily foreseen yet when the time Isaiah made this declaration. At least, if you’re Ahaz.

See, from 2 Kings we know that Ahaz turned for help to Assyria against the Syro-Ephraimite coalition. (Essentially, what happened is, the kings of Israel and Aram, Pekah and Rezin, were trying to coerce Judah to join them in their alliance against the Assyrian Empire. When Judah refused, the alliance mounted an invasion, bent on either forcing Ahaz to join them or overthrowing and replacing him with a puppet government.)

For Assyria to invade Judah as well would have been the last thing to cross Ahaz’s mind. Essentially, what Isaiah is telling Ahaz is that he shouldn’t be lulled into a false sense of security: Assyria will deal with Israel and Syria, but it will also ultimately turn against Judah. And all this because Ahaz decided to place his trust in the king of Assyria instead of the God of Judah.

Then Rezin king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to wage war on Jerusalem, and they besieged Ahaz but could not conquer him. At that time Rezin the king of Syria recovered Elath for Syria and drove the men of Judah from Elath, and the Edomites came to Elath, where they dwell to this day. So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are attacking me.” Ahaz also took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasures of the king’s house and sent a present to the king of Assyria. And the king of Assyria listened to him. The king of Assyria marched up against Damascus and took it, carrying its people captive to Kir, and he killed Rezin.

This is apparently why Ahaz refused to ask for a sign even though God Himself commanded him to do so: he thought he had the situation under control. He had just entered into an alliance with the bigger fish (Assyria).

So what God told him in reply essentially is, “Yeah, Assyria is going to thrash Aram and Israel, but it will come after you too.” That might be the explanation of the name Immanuel (‘God is with us’) in the original context: it’s a kind of warning to Ahaz. God is right here - why then does Ahaz and the people act as if He’s not? (Needlessly fearing the Syro-Ephraimite alliance and then entering a false sense of security once the alliance with Assyria was made.)

The Lord spoke to me again: “Because this people has refused the waters of Shiloah that flow gently, and rejoice over Rezin and the son of Remaliah, therefore, behold, the Lord is bringing up against them the waters of the River, mighty and many, the king of Assyria and all his glory. And it will rise over all its channels and go over all its banks, and it will sweep on into Judah, it will overflow and pass on, reaching even to the neck, and its outspread wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel.”

Be broken, you peoples, and be shattered;
give ear, all you far countries;
strap on your armor and be shattered;
strap on your armor and be shattered.
Take counsel together, but it will come to nothing;
speak a word, but it will not stand,
for God is with us. (kî ‘immānû ’ēl)

For the LORD spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the LORD of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many shall stumble on it. They shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken.”

“Bind up the testimony; seal the teaching among my disciples. I will wait for the LORD, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him. Behold, I and the children whom the Lord has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the LORD of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion. And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn. They will pass through the land, greatly distressed and hungry. And when they are hungry, they will be enraged and will speak contemptuously against their king and their God, and turn their faces upward. And they will look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish. And they will be thrust into thick darkness.”

 

[AmbroseSJ]

patrick457:

I don’t think it was easily foreseen yet when the time Isaiah made this declaration. At least, if you’re Ahaz.

I think we’re so lost in the trees we can’t see the forest. All of this explanation continues to have some relevance and merit. However, it is still not a satisfying explanation for a GREAT sign given by God. IOW, SO MUCH has been brought into play that the great sign is buried under speculative details. That is why most contemporary explanations continue to sound forced. After all, God is using this situation to announce a Great Sign that will be fulfilled in God’s own time, not Ahaz’s, since he refused to ask a sign himself. That sign will be of far greater significance than Ahaz could ever have conceived (perhaps Isaiah himself too.)

 

[Cathoholic]

Coder. Still wanting know what YOU think the “great sign” is.

I will proverbially tap you on the shoulder (PM you) in case you are not seeing this thread activity.

 

[patrick457]

I think we’re so lost in the trees we can’t see the forest. All of this explanation continues to have some relevance and merit. However, it is still not a satisfying explanation for a GREAT sign given by God. IOW, SO MUCH has been brought into play that the great sign is buried under speculative details. That is why most contemporary explanations continue to sound forced. After all, God is using this situation to announce a Great Sign that will be fulfilled in God’s own time, not Ahaz’s, since he refused to ask a sign himself. That sign will be of far greater significance than Ahaz could ever have conceived (perhaps Isaiah himself too.)

I’ll go back to what I said in my first post here about ancient Israelite / Jewish culture being present-oriented, being people of the here and now. That’s why many biblical ‘prophecies’ in the original context actually don’t speak so much directly about the distant future (there are prophecies which are predictions about the distant future, but not every prophecy fits in this category), but about the present and the immediate future (often about the consequences of the present situation).

You would notice that the Immanuel passage appears in the context of the threat posed by the Syro-Ephraimite coalition and Ahaz’s asking for help from the Assyrian Empire (7:1-9). Therefore, it follows that the original sense - the original ‘fulfilment’ - must be read in the context of that situation. To you contemporary interpretations of the sign might sound forced, but I think the immediate context of the passage requires a contemporary understanding of it. I mean, really, read through chapters 7 to 8: you will see that the main topic is the Syro-Ephraimite alliance and Assyria. IMHO it’s more natural to assume that verse 13-14 in the original context must also be talking about the* immediate* future just like verses 4-9 and 16-24 rather than assume that Isaiah, for that one particular verse, skipped across centuries.

"Behold, the almah shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted. The Lord will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father’s house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah—the king of Assyria!

…] “In that day a man will keep alive a young cow and two sheep, and because of the abundance of milk that they give, he will eat curds, for everyone who is left in the land will eat curds and honey. In that day every place where there used to be a thousand vines, worth a thousand shekels of silver, will become briers and thorns.”

Of course I’m not denying that Isaiah’s words have a relevance (have their ultimate relevance) in the birth of Jesus. But the way I see it, I just feel that a few Christians seem to talk about Isaiah 7:14 as if it couldn’t be anything other than the birth of Jesus. They just make it appear as if that particular verse isn’t about anything in Isaiah’s time; he instead is speaking about an event that will happen centuries later. They make it appear as if it’s an either-or issue. I say it’s both. Quoting myself:

When Matthew quotes Isaiah 7 and says that Jesus’ conception was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s statement, it’s probably not so much like Isaiah being a sort of fortune-teller predicting that in the distant future, so-and-so would happen at a specific date, but rather Isaiah’s words having enough relevance that Matthew from generations later could see his words about the birth of a boy who is ‘God-with-us’ being most relevant in this particular situation, when God really came down with us in the form of Jesus. (In this sense, the birth of Jesus is its ‘fulfillment’ par excellence.) In other words, it’s not so much a prediction by a past writer of the ‘future’ as it is of a present writer seeing the past being echoed right here and now. ‘Applicability’ might be a good term to use here.

In other words, Isaiah’s (or rather, God’s) words are ‘alive’ that even across the centuries, people could still find it echoing. In other words, it stays relevant. (Of course, one has to remember that ‘prophecy’ in the biblical sense doesn’t specifically mean ‘predictions of the future’ - that’s just one subset of it - but more like ‘the words of God’ in general.) That’s the rationale behind Jewish midrash: what is written in Scripture, what was spoken by God in the past via His prophets, has relevance for our present situation just as it did during the prophets’ time, and doubtless, future generations will also see these prophecies as being relevant for their time. That’s why a ‘prophecy’ can have multiple ‘fulfillments’.