I got into a conversation this past week about Matthew’s use of Isaiah 7.14. The author of this blog post said that the Jewish community saw Isaiah 7.14 as a messianic prophecy. I disagreed for two reasons: first, they didn’t. The only reference to Isaiah 7.14 in Jewish literature that can even be close to a “messianic” interpretation is that Hillel saw this prophecy as referring to the birth of Hezekiah, who was a messiah, i.e. God’s annointed king. To say that Hillel, writing centuries after the death of Hezekiah, saw Hezekiah as being the eschatological messiah is on par with saying that Eddie Whisenant was correct in predicting the rapture in 1988…even though it didn’t happen. Secondly, if you read Isaiah on its own terms, it is not messianic. Read the rest of this entry »
