Recall to mind what was said in a previous letter concerning the importance attached by the earliest Christians to the argument from prophecy. Now there is a prophecy in Isaiah which, _if separated from its context_, might seem to point to nothing but the Miraculous Conception of the Messiah: “The Lord himself shall give you a sign: behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel.” But a careful study of the context puts the matter in a quite different light. Isaiah (vii. 10-viii. 4) is promising to King Ahaz deliverance from the kings of Syria and Samaria. As the king will not ask for a sign, the prophet promises that the Lord will give him one; a virgin shall conceive and bring forth a child and shall call his name Immanuel (“God with us”): he shall “eat butter and honey” when he arrives at the age of distinction between good and evil; for before he arrives at that age, the land abhorred by Ahaz shall be “forsaken by both her kings.” The meaning appears to be that, within the time necessary for the conception and birth of a child, that is to say, in less than a year, the prospects of deliverance for Judah from her present enemies (Syria and Samaria) shall so brighten that a child shall be born and called by a name implying the favour of God; afterwards, before that child shall grow up to childhood, the two aggressive countries of Syria and Samaria shall be themselves desolated, as well as Judah, by the “razor” of Assyria which shall shave the country clean from all cultivated crops. Amid the general desolation, the fruit trees will be cut down, the corn will not be sown; bread there will be none; there will be nothing to eat but “butter and honey;” it is not the new-born child alone who shall eat “butter and honey;” “butter and honey shall _every one eat that is left in the land_” (vii. 22).
In all this, even though we may suppose that there may have been some Messianic reference, there is no prediction at all of a conception from a virgin or of a miracle of any kind. Indeed, the prophecy appears to find some sort of fulfilment in what happens immediately afterwards (Isaiah viii. 1-4), when the prophet contracts a marriage, and calls the son who springs from it by a name implying the vengeance imminent on Samaria and Assyria: “Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz (_i.e._ booty, quick, spoil, speedy): for before the boy shall have knowledge to cry my father! my mother! the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.” No doubt it may be said that this son was not called “Immanuel,” so that the prophecy was not fulfilled in him. But the same argument might be urged against the application to our Lord; for He also was not called “Immanuel,” but received the old national name of “Joshua,” “Jeshua,” or “Jesus.” Reviewing all the circumstances of the prophecy, I think we may say, without exaggeration, first, that there are no grounds for seeing in it any reference to a Miraculous Conception; secondly, that, when isolated, it might easily be misinterpreted so as to convey such a reference.[33]