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The miraculous conception was in fulfillment of what prophecy?
Matthew: “Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel” ([i, 22, 23]).
This is esteemed the “Gem of the Prophecies,” and may be found in the seventh chapter of Isaiah. The facts are these: Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, king of Israel, had declared war against Ahaz, king of Judah. God assured Ahaz that they should not succeed, but that their own kingdoms should be destroyed by the Assyrians. To convince him of the truth of this he requested Ahaz to demand a sign. “But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord.... Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel.... Before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.”
In the succeeding chapter the fulfillment of this prophecy is recorded: “And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the Lord to me, Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz. For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus [the capital of Rezin’s kingdom] and the spoils of Samaria [the capital of Pekah’s kingdom] shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.” Rezin and Pekah were overthrown by the Assyrians about 720 B. C.
One of the most convincing proofs of Christ’s divinity, with many, is the supposed fact that he was born of a virgin and that his miraculous birth was foretold by a prophet seven hundred years before the event occurred. Now, there is not a passage in the Jewish Scriptures declaring that a child should be born of a virgin. The word translated “virgin” does not mean a virgin in the accepted sense of the term, but simply a young woman, either married or single. The whole passage is a mistranslation. The words rendered “a virgin shall conceive and bear a son” should read, “a young woman is with child and beareth a son.” In this so-called prophecy there is not the remotest reference to a miraculous conception and a virgin-born child. The Jews themselves did not regard this passage as a Messianic prophecy; neither did they believe that the Messiah was to be born of a virgin.
Next to the preceding the following is most frequently cited as a Messianic prophecy: “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, ... until Shiloh come” ([Genesis xlix, 10]).
If Shiloh refers to Christ the prophecy was not fulfilled, for the sceptre did depart from Judah 600 years before Christ came. But Shiloh does not refer to a Messiah, nor to any man. Shiloh was the seat of the national sanctuary before it was removed to Jerusalem. This so-called prophecy, like the preceding, is a mistranslation. The correct reading is as follows: “The preeminence shall not depart from Judah so long as the people resort to Shiloh.”
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be declared Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace” ([Isaiah ix, 6]).
Prof. Cheyne, the highest authority on Isaiah, pronounces this a forgery. Every honest Christian scholar must admit this. It is a self-evident forgery. No Jewish writer could have written it. To have declared even the Messiah to be “The mighty God, the everlasting Father” would have been the rankest blasphemy, a crime the punishment of which was death.
These alleged Messianic prophecies are, in their present form, Christian rather than Jewish. Christian translators and exegetists have altered their language and perverted their meaning to make them appear to refer to Christ. The following is an example:
“I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” ([Jeremiah xxiii, 5, 6]).
The correct rendering of this passage is as follows:
“I will raise unto David a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the land. In his days Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is the name whereby they shall call themselves: The Eternal is our righteousness.”
To make a Messianic prophecy of this passage and give it effect no less than eight pieces of deception were employed by the editors of our Authorized Version:
1. The word “branch” is made to begin with a capital letter.
2. The word “king” also begins with a capital.
3. “The name” is rendered “his name.”
4. The pronoun “they,” relating to the people of Judah and Israel, is changed to “he.”
5. The word “Eternal” is translated “Lord.”
6. “The Lord our righteousness” is printed in capitals.
7. In the table of contents, at the head of the chapter, are the words “Christ shall rule and save them.”
8. At the top of the page are the words “Christ promised.”
Another example of this Messianic prophecy making is the following:
“Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and three score and two weeks” ([Daniel ix, 25]).
The term “week,” it is claimed, means a period of seven years, and assumed that by Messiah is meant Christ. Seven weeks and three score and two weeks are sixty-nine weeks, or 483 years, the time that was to elapse from the command to rebuild Jerusalem to the coming of Christ, if the prophecy was fulfilled. The decree of Cyrus to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple was made 536 B. C. According to the accepted chronology Christ was born 4 B. C. From the decree of Cyrus, then, to the coming of Christ was 532 years instead of 483 years, a period of seven weeks, or forty-nine years, longer than that named by Daniel. Ezra, the priest, went to Jerusalem 457 B. C. This event, however, had nothing whatever to do with the decree for rebuilding Jerusalem and the temple. It occurred 79 years after the decree was issued, and 58 years after the temple was finished. But a searcher for Messianic prophecies found that from the time of Ezra to the beginning of Christ’s ministry was about 483 years, or sixty-nine prophetic weeks; and notwithstanding there was a deficiency of 79 years at one end of the period, and an excess of 30 years at the other, it was declared to fit exactly.
Christian theologians pretend to recognize in the Old Testament two kinds of Messianic prophecies: 1. Specific predictions concerning Christ which were literally fulfilled; 2. Passages in which the writer refers to other persons or events, but which God, without the writer’s knowledge, designed as types of Christ. The fallaciousness of the former having been exposed—it having been shown that there is not a text in the Jewish Scriptures predicting the coming of Christ—they now rely chiefly upon the latter to support their claims. These “prophecies” are almost limitless; for a firm believer in prophecy can, with a vivid imagination, take almost any passage and point out a fancied resemblance between the thing it refers to and the thing he wants confirmed; apparently oblivious to the fact that the passage is equally applicable to a thousand other things. Had the Mormons accepted Joe Smith as a Messiah instead of a prophet they would have no lack of prophecies to support their claims; and by translating and revising the Scriptures to suit their views, as Christians did, these prophecies would fit him as well as they do the Christ.