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LXX Isaiah

Septuagint

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Chapter 7

1 And it happened in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, there came up Rezin king of Aram, and Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, against Jerusalem to war against it, but they could not take it. 2 And a message was brought to the house of David, saying, Aram has conspired with Ephraim. And his soul was amazed, and the soul of his people, as in a wood a tree is moved by the wind. 3 And the Lord said to Isaiah, Go forth to meet Ahaz, you, and your son Jashub who is left, to the pool of the upper way of the fuller's field. 4 And you shall say to him, Take care to be quiet, and do not fear, neither let your soul be disheartened because of these two smoking firebrands: for when my fierce anger is over, I will heal again. 5 And as for the son of Aram, and the son of Remaliah, since they have devised an evil counsel concerning you, saying, 6 We will go up against Judea, and having conferred with them we will turn them away to our side, and we will make the son of Tabeel king of it; 7 thus says the Lord of hosts, This counsel shall not stand, nor come to pass. 8 But the head of Aram is Damascus; and yet within sixty and five years the kingdom of Ephraim shall cease from being a people. 9 And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria the son of Remaliah: but if you do not believe, neither will you at all understand. 10 And the Lord again spoke to Ahaz, saying, 11 Ask for yourself a sign of the Lord your God, in the depth or in the height. 12 And Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I test the Lord. 13 And he said, Hear now, house of David; is it a little thing for you to contend with men? and how do you contend against the Lord? 14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; look, the virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a son,⁠ and you shall call his name Immanuel.⁠ 15 Butter and honey he will eat; before he knows or prefers evil, he shall choose the good.⁠ 16 For before the child shall know good or evil,⁠ he refuses evil, to choose the good; and the land shall be forsaken which you are afraid of because of the two kings. 17 But God shall bring upon you, and upon your people, and upon the house of your father, days which have never come, from the day that Ephraim took away from Judah the king of the Assyrians. 18 And it will happen in that day that the Lord shall hiss for the flies, which insect shall rule over a part of the river of Egypt, and for the bee which is in the land of the Assyrians. 19 And they all shall enter into the clefts of the land, and into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves, and into every ravine, and into every tree. 20 In that day the Lord shall shave with the great and drunken razor which is beyond the river, of the king of Assyria, the head, and the hairs of the feet, and will remove the beard. 21 And it will happen in that day, that a man shall rear a heifer, and two sheep. 22 And it will happen from their yielding an abundance of milk, that every one that is left on the land shall eat butter and honey. 23 And it will happen in that day, for every place where there shall be a thousand vines at a thousand shekels, they shall become barren land and thorns. 24 Men shall enter there with arrow and bow; for all the land shall be barren ground and thorns. 25 And every mountain shall be certainly plowed: no fear shall come there: for there shall be from among the barren ground and thorns that on which cattle shall feed and oxen shall tread.

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Compare Isaiah 7:14 and LXX Isaiah 7:14

Hebrew Bible · Septuagint

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Summary

Isaiah 7:14 suggests that the young woman is already pregnant and about to give birth, but the Greek Septuagint changes it so the conception and birth become future events. The ambiguity between “young woman” and “virgin” is also difficult to resolve.
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Passages

Isaiah 7:14

Hebrew Bible
13 So Isaiah replied, “Pay attention, family of David. Do you consider it too insignificant to try the patience of men? Is that why you are also trying the patience of my God? 14 For this reason the Lord himself will give you a confirming sign. Look, this young woman is pregnant and will give birth to a son. You, young woman, will name him Immanuel. 15 He will eat sour milk and honey, which will help him know how to reject evil and choose what is right.
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

LXX Isaiah 7:14

Septuagint
13 And he said, Hear now, house of David; is it a little thing for you to contend with men? and how do you contend against the Lord? 14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; look, the virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Immanuel. 15 Butter and honey he will eat; before he knows or prefers evil, he shall choose the good.
100–1 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Isaiah

References

"... Besides the translator's insertion of καί in Isaiah 7:16 and ἀλλά in verse 17, we also noted earlier that the Greek sentence in verse 14 is constructed differently from its Hebrew counterpart. The Masoretic text successively contains a term (הָעַלְמָה‎) which can be read either as a verb or an adjective, a finite verb (הָרָה‎), and a participle (יֹלֶדֶת‎). If הָעַלְמָה‎ is taken as a verb, then it should be translated as “is pregnant.” This meaning will make more sense by taking into account the present aspect provided by the participle (יֹלֶדֶת‎). If one considers הָעַלְמָה‎ as an adjective, then it would still bear a present connotation as it is governed by the meaning of the participle (יֹלֶדֶת‎). In either case, the sentence structure seems to describe the situation of the woman in question: at the moment the statement is made, she is already pregnant and in fact on the point of giving birth. However, in the LXX, three coordinate verbs are used, all of them in the future tense (ἐλεύσεται ... καλέσεις ... καλέσει), thus constructing the sentence to refer to the near future. Even if “the presence of הִנֵּה‎ at the opening of the verse would call for a futuristic interpretation of [the copula],” as de Sousa has argued, it is worth noting, as Brown has correctly pointed out, that “while ... the Hebrew is vague about whether the conception had already taken place or would take place in the future, the Greek is not vague and the conception is definitely future” ..."
Abi T. Ngunga, Messianism in the Old Greek of Isaiah: An Intertextual Analysis, FRLANT 245 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 80–81.
"... Much of the discussion over Isaiah 7:14 has to do with whether certain translations are justifiable. Is παρθένος (Parthenos) a reasonable translation of העלמה (almah)? Yes, Genesis 24:43 provides a precedent. Is “virgin” a reasonable translation of παρθένος? Yes, Revelation 14:4 associates παρθένος with sexual inexperience. But although these translations are reasonable, there is reason to think that sexual inexperience is not the prototypical characteristic of a παρθένος, even in G’s mind. Lincoln adduced many examples of παρθένος with the more general meaning of a woman who has not yet borne a child: Pausanias 8.20.4; Diodorus Siculus 20.84.3; Lycophron, Alexandra 1141,1175; Sophocles, Oedipus Rex 1462, and most clearly Sophocles, Women of Trachis 1216–1229, “where the dying Heracles implores his son to marry a παρθένος who has already been his own lover”. Similarly, the Septuagint has non-virginal uses of the word in Genesis 34:3 and Joel 1:8, and even in Isaiah 62:5 we encounter the phrase συνοικῶν νεανίσκος παρθένῳ, where the cohabitation (notably in the present tense) implies that not sexual inexperience but age appears to be what G had in mind ..."
Ken M. Penner, Septuagint Commentary Series: Isaiah (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 398.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Comments

  • The author wrongly says "ha'almah" is a verb. It is absolutely not a verb, it is a noun. It means "the young woman". "Hineh ha-alma harah means "here is the pregnant young woman". The Greek LXX is badly incorrect, as is proven by the Qumran Isaiah scroll (just as is used in the later Masoretic ...

    Alan Silverman, December 27, 2025

  • Further to my prior comment, the LXX uses "parthenos" where the Qumran and Masoretic texts for Isaiah 7:14 have "almah". The Hebrew for "virgin" is always "betulah", never "almah". Where "almah" is given, "virgin" is not a correct rendering. Parthenos is not correct, the mistake is in the LXX.

    Alan Silverman, December 27, 2025

  • Yet further, "hineh ha'almah" means "here is the young woman". It does not mean "behold the young woman" in the sense intended. Hineh means "here". Otherwise, when God calls Abraham, Abraham, Abe would have answered "behold me", which is nonsense. The answer was "here I am".

    Alan Silverman, December 27, 2025

Isaiah 7:14 and LXX Isaiah 7:14

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