'Virgin' vs 'young woman' — Isaiah 7:14

Why it matters

Three layers of translation history converge on this verse. The Hebrew almah does not strictly require 'virgin' as its rendering; it can be read as 'young woman.' The Septuagint's parthenos does specifically mean 'virgin' in standard Greek. Matthew 1:23 cites the Septuagint version — explicitly applying the verse to Mary's conception of Jesus. So the question 'should almah be rendered virgin or young woman?' implicates the Septuagint's translation choice, the New Testament's use of the Septuagint, and the entire Christian doctrine of the virgin birth. Different translation choices reflect different views about which layer to follow.

The verse

Isaiah 7:14 in the BSB:

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call Him Immanuel.

The JPS Tanakh (the standard Jewish English translation, under copyright) renders the same verse in a way that turns on the Hebrew almah — using a “young woman” construction rather than “virgin,” and a “Look” or “Behold” attention-marker rather than the Christian-translation idiom. For the JPS Tanakh’s own wording, see the JPS edition or Sefaria’s online JPS text.

The two renderings differ on the single Hebrew word almah — rendered “virgin” by the BSB and with a young-woman construction by the JPS Tanakh.

Three layers of translation history

The translation question is not one decision but three.

1. The Hebrew

עַלְמָה (almah) appears seven times in the Hebrew Bible. The word designates a young woman of marriageable age. HALOT s.v. almah glosses it as “young woman who is sexually mature, marriageable, but not yet married” — without specifying virginity as a strict semantic component.

The Hebrew word that more specifically denotes virginity is בְּתוּלָה (betulah), which appears about 50 times in the Hebrew Bible. In several places almah and betulah are used of the same person in adjacent verses (Genesis 24:16 uses betulah of Rebekah; Genesis 24:43 uses almah of the same Rebekah). Some scholars argue this proves the words are near-synonyms; others argue betulah names virginity specifically while almah names the social-developmental category that overlaps with but is not identical to virginity.

On the strictly lexical question — what does almah mean in Hebrew? — the answer is “young woman of marriageable age.” The implication of virginity is contextual rather than built into the word.

2. The Septuagint

When the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek (the Septuagint, probably second century BC), the translator of Isaiah rendered almah at Isaiah 7:14 as παρθένος (parthenos). This is the standard Greek word for “virgin” — and it is also a more specific word than almah. The Septuagint translator made a translation choice that narrowed the word’s range.

Why the Septuagint translator made this choice is a long-debated question. Possibilities include: the translator understood almah to imply virginity in this context; the translator was harmonizing Isaiah 7:14 with messianic expectations already present in Second Temple Judaism; parthenos in Hellenistic Greek may itself have had a slightly broader range than classical “virgin.” All of these have been argued in scholarly literature.

3. The New Testament

Matthew 1:23 cites Isaiah 7:14 in connection with Jesus’s birth, quoting the Septuagint’s Greek parthenos. The citation reads:

“Behold, the virgin (parthenos) will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel” (which means, “God with us”).

Matthew applies the verse to Mary, whom the Gospel describes as a parthenos before Joseph “knew” her (Matthew 1:18, 1:25). The New Testament’s application is anchored to the Septuagint reading, not directly to the Hebrew.

What different traditions emphasize

Christian translation traditions, taking Matthew 1:23 as authoritative, generally render almah at Isaiah 7:14 as “virgin.” The KJV, BSB, NIV, NLT, NASB, ESV, and CSB all follow this approach. The reasoning: if Matthew (whom these traditions consider divinely inspired) reads the verse as referring to a virgin, the underlying almah must be understood that way.

The NRSV (1989) and the JPS Tanakh render the Hebrew as “young woman.” The reasoning: the lexical analysis of almah does not require virginity as the strict meaning, and the Hebrew text should be translated on its own terms in the Hebrew Bible context, regardless of the New Testament’s later application of the Septuagint.

The original historical setting of Isaiah 7:14 is also relevant. The chapter records Isaiah delivering a sign to King Ahaz of Judah during the Syro-Ephraimite war (c. 734 BC). The “sign” is given in Isaiah’s own time, in connection with that specific crisis. Verse 16 — “for before the boy knows enough to reject evil and choose good, the land of the two kings you dread will be deserted” — is part of the same prophecy and indicates that Ahaz himself will see the boy and the geopolitical developments. This original setting is what the Jewish interpretive tradition emphasises, and it is what informs the JPS Tanakh’s rendering.

What this site does not do

We do not adjudicate between the readings. The Greek-via-Septuagint reading and the direct-Hebrew reading both have substantial scholarly and traditional backing, and they reach different conclusions about what almah requires in this verse. We document the layers of translation history and the lexical situation. The choice between renderings is one of translation philosophy and theological commitment; the texts themselves do not adjudicate.