(e) The explanation of _Meier_, who by the virgin understands the people of Judah, and conceives of the pregnancy and birth likewise in a poetical manner. The fact, the acknowledgment of which has led _Meier_ to get up this hypothesis, altogether unfounded, and undeserving of any minute refutation, is this: "_The mother is, in the passage before us, called a virgin, and yet is designated as being with child._ The words, when understood physically and outwardly, contain a contradiction." But this fact is rather in favour of the Messianic explanation.
(f) Others, farther, conjecture that the wife of the Prophet is meant by the _Almah_. This view was advanced as early as by _Abenezra_ and _Jarchi_. By the authority of _Gesenius_, this view became, for a time, the prevailing one. Against it, the following arguments are decisive; part of them being opposed to the other conjectures also. As עלמה designates "virgin" only, and never a young woman, and, far less, an older woman, it is quite impossible that the wife of the Prophet, the mother of Shearjashub could be so designated, inasmuch as the latter was already old enough to be able to accompany his father. Gesenius could not avoid acknowledging the weight of this argument, and declared himself disposed to assume that the Prophet's former wife had died, and that he had thereupon betrothed himself to a virgin. _Olshausen_, _Maurer_, _Hendewerk_, and others, have followed him in this. But this is a story entirely without foundation. In chap. viii. 13, the wife of the Prophet is called simply "the prophetess." Nor could one well see how the Prophet could expect to be understood, if, by the general expression: "the virgin" he wished to signify his presumptive betrothed. _There_ [Pg 65] _is an entire absence of every intimation whatsoever of a nearer relation of the Almah to the Prophet_; and such an intimation could not by any means be wanting if such a relation really existed. One would, in that case at least, be obliged to suppose, as _Plüschke_ does, that the Prophet took his betrothed with him, and pointed to her with his finger,--a supposition which too plainly exhibits the sign of embarrassment, just as is the case with the remark of _Hendewerk_: "Only that, in that case, we must also suppose that his second wife was sufficiently known at court even then, when she was his betrothed only, although her relation to Isaiah might be unknown; so that, for this very reason, we could not think of a frustration of the sign on the part of the king." _Hitzig_ remarks: "The supposition of a former wife of the Prophet is altogether destitute of any foundation." He then, however, falls back upon the hypothesis which _Gesenius_ himself admitted to be untenable, that עלמה, "virgin" might not only denote a young woman, but sometimes also an older woman. Not even the semblance of a proof can be advanced in support of this. It is just the juvenile age which forms the fundamental signification of the word. In the wife of the Prophet we can the less think of such a juvenile age, that he himself had already exercised his prophetic office for about twenty years. _Hitzig_ has indeed altogether declined to lead any such proof. A son of the Prophet, as, in general, every subject except the Messiah, is excluded by the circumstance that in chap viii. 8, Canaan is called the land of Immanuel.--_Farther_,--In all these suppositions, אות is understood in an inadmissible signification. It can here denote a fact only, whereby those who were really susceptible were made decidedly certain of the impending deliverance. This appears clearly enough from the relation of this sign to that which Ahaz had before refused, according to which the difference must not be too great, and must not refer to the substance. To this may be added the solemn tone which induces us to expect something grand and important. A mere poetical image, such as would be before us according to the hypothesis of the ideal virgin, or of the real virgin and the ideal birth, does [Pg 66] surely not come up to the demand which in this context must be made in reference to this _sign_. And if the Prophet had announced so solemnly, and in words so sublime, the birth _of his own_ child, he would have made himself ridiculous. _Farther_,--How then did the Prophet know that after nine months a child would be born to him, or, if the pregnancy be considered as having already commenced, how did he know that just a son would be born to him? That is a question to which most of these Rationalistic interpreters take good care not to give any reply. _Plüschke_, indeed, is of opinion that, upon a bold conjecture, the Prophet had ventured this statement.