Sermon Tone Analysis

(Personal Note: Also read Lk. 1:26-38; 2: 1-7; 1:1-2, 14)

Here we have the accounting of Conception and birth of Jesus according to the Holy Spirit Inspired Matthew:

When Marry and Joseph were betrothed but Joseph didn’t knew Mary yet meant they haven’t had any intimate time together, she was found pregnant with a child of the Holy Ghost.

Keep in mind this situation happens early in Joseph and Mary’s relationship.

1:18 betrothed Refers to a permanent relationship nearly equivalent to marriage.

Came together Refers to cohabitation or physical union.

She was found to be pregnant Suggests that Mary pregnancy was beginning to show.

Betroth—to promise “by one’s truth.”

Men and women were betrothed when they were engaged to be married.

This usually took place a year or more before marriage.

From the time of betrothal the woman was regarded as the lawful wife of the man to whom she was betrothed (Deut.

28:30; Judg.

14:2, 8; Matt.

1:18–21).

The term is figuratively employed of the spiritual connection between God and his people (Hos.

2:19, 20).

Next we have a description of Joseph and it said he was a Just man or a righteous man.

(O.T.): Mt 1:19, Mt 5:20 Jesus talking about righteousness; Genesis 6:9 God saying Noah was a just men and perfect in his generation; Lk 2:25 Simeon was another just man.

notes.

To be just= Righteousness

The O.T just man or righteous.

This word use in all 4 text that I gave you was the Hebrew word “yashar” upright; “tsaddiq” just.

The righteous or just man is so called because he is right with God; and he is right with God because he has walked in all His commandments and ordinance (Lk 1:6 compare to Rom. 10:5, Phil 3.6).

The righteous man was not a sinless man (Ecc 7:20) but one who, because of his sin, trust on the coming of the Messiah and offered in faith a sacrifice (Lev.

4:27-35).

Compare to N.T.

Rom 10:10 and Paul’s contract Phil 3:4-9.

1:19 not wanting to disgrace her The law demanded that an adulteress receive the death penalty (Deut 22:21).

However, the Jewish community of this time often did not carry out the death penalty; instead, they punished adulteresses through public disgrace.

1:20 in a dream Angelic visitation and dreams are a common means of supernatural revelation in the sacred literature of this time.

Isaiah 55: 8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are my ways higher than your ways, And my thoughts than your thoughts.”

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.”

These features are common in the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke (see Matt 2:12, 13, 19, 22; Luke 1:11, 26; 2:9, 13).

In Matthew 27:19, Pilate’s wife urges him to not be involved in Jesus’ sentencing because of a dream she experienced the night before.

Other visions or dreams, such as those in Daniel and Revelation, often were mediated through angels (see Dan 7:16; 8:15–17; Rev 17:7 and note).

The Bible refers to dreams in three contexts: messages of impending misfortune or good fortune, warnings about false prophets, and nonoracular dreams.

All dreams in the New Testament are oracular dreams.

Numerous times in Matthew, God provides instructions to both Gentiles and Jews through dreams (ὄναρ, onar) (Matt 1:20; 2:12, 13, 19, 22; 27:19).

All other narrated dreams in the New Testament, which appear in only Matthew and Acts, are message dreams (see also Gnuse, “Dream Genre,” 115).

In these dreams, a deity, angel, spirit, or some other nonhuman speaker delivers direct instructions, which need no interpretation.

1:21 you will call his name A father was responsible for naming his son at the time of his circumcision (eight days after birth).

The angel’s words implicitly command that Joseph accept his role as father of the child.

In antiquity, names were often thought to be emblematic of the character or calling of the individual.

Jesus From the Hebrew name yeshua', which means “Yahweh saves.”

he will save his people from their sins Announces more than a royal or political Messiah.

Jesus saves, even from sin (compare Isa 53:12).

This declaration—which reflects the meaning of Jesus’ name—is programmatic for Matthew’s Gospel.

The remainder of the narrative justifies this statement, culminating in the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross.

The salvation of which the angel spoke differed vastly from Jewish expectations of the Messiah; Jesus brought forgiveness of sins, not expulsion of the occupying Roman army or political-religious restoration.

1:22–23 The angel’s message ends in Matt 1:21, making vv.

22–23 an editorial aside.

1:22 would be fulfilled Matthew often interprets events in Jesus’ life in terms of prophecies from the OT; this is the first instance of this type of interpretation.

1:23 virgin The Greek word used here, parthenos, reflects the Septuagint (ancient Greek translation of the OT) version of Isa 7:14, which Matthew drew from when quoting the Hebrew Bible (or OT).

Matthew appropriates this prophecy and applies it to the virgin birth of Jesus.

In the Septuagint version of Isa 7:14, the Greek word parthenos is used to translate the Hebrew word almah.

The other six occurrences of almah in the OT refer to young women of marriageable age with no direct indication of whether they are virgins or not (Gen 24:43; Exod 2:8; Psa 68:25; Prov 30:19; Song 1:3; 6:8); in contrast, parthenos normally indicates a virgin, though not exclusively (in the Septuagint version of Gen 34:3 parthenos is used to describe Dinah following intercourse).

However, women of marriageable age in ancient patriarchal culture like Matthew’s were expected to be virgins.

While the Hebrew word used most often to indicate a virgin is bethulah (Lev 21:3; Judg 21:12; Deut 22:23, 28; Exod 22:16), almah is used as a synonym for bethulah (Gen 24:16, 43; compare Gen 24:14).

In addition, Song 6:8 lists queens, concubines, and alamoth (the plural form of almah)—this last group, the alamoth, seems to be a group of women who do not have a sexual relationship with the king.

This same distinction between the queen, concubines, and virgins occurs in the book of Esther (Esth 2:3, 8, 14), but in Esther, the virgins are described as na’arah bethulah (“young virgins”).

This parallel suggests Song 6:8 is using the same language as the book of Esther but using alamoth in place of na’arah bethulah—indicating that both terms can describe virgins.

These connections explain Matthew’s use of Isa 7:14 to reference the virgin birth (see Isa 7:14 and note).

Two word use for virgin:

Betulah HAL

Almah HAL

The Virgin Shall Conceive: The Vocabulary of Virginity

Isaiah 7:14 reads: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.

Look! the virgin (almah) is with child and she is about to give birth to a son, and she shall call his name ‘God with us.’ ”

Biblical Hebrew primarily uses two words to speak of a woman’s sexual virginity: betulah and almah.

Betulah occurs 50 times in the Old Testament, almah occurs only rarely.

Of the two, betulah most clearly conveys the idea that a woman has never been sexually active, while almah is more ambiguous.

This becomes an interpretive issue for Christian theology since it is the latter that is used in Isaiah 7:14, the passage referenced in Matthew 1:23 to describe the virgin birth of Jesus.

Those critical of the virgin birth use the ambiguity of almah to argue that Matthew misunderstood Isaiah 7:14 and Jesus was not actually born of a virgin.

A closer look at the use of both words shows that the evidence does not support these criticisms.

Betulah

The following examples illustrates that betulah clearly denotes a woman who has never had sexual relations:

Leviticus 21:3: “… his sister, a virgin (betulah), who is closest to him, who has not had a husband …”

Judges 21:12: “And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead four hundred young virgins (betulah) who had not had sex with a man …”

Genesis 24:16 (speaking of Rebekah): “Now the girl was very pleasing in appearance.

She was a virgin (betulah); no man had known her.”

To “know” a woman is a common biblical Hebrew euphemism for “have sexual relations” (e.g., Gen 4:1, 17, 25; 1 Kgs 1:4).

It is obvious that men intellectually knew Rebekah (e.g., her brother and Abraham’s servant in the passage).

The text is making the explicit claim that she had never had sexual relations with a man.

Almah

By way of comparison, the instances of almah do not provide clear clues regarding the sexual connotations associated with the term.

Genesis 24:43: “Behold, I am standing by the spring of water.

Let it be that the young woman (almah) who comes out to draw water and to whom I shall say, ‘Please give me a little water to drink from your jar’ …”

Exodus 2:8 “And the daughter of Pharaoh said to her, ‘Go.’

And the girl (almah) went, and she called the mother of the boy.”

Proverbs 30:18–19: “Three of these are too wonderful for me, and four, I do not understand them: the way of the eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock, the way of a ship in the heart of the sea, and the way of a man with a young woman (almah).”

Song of Songs 1:3: “… your perfumes are delightful; your name is poured out perfume; therefore young women (alamot—the plural of almah) love you.”

Song of Songs 6:8 “Sixty queens there are, eighty concubines, and maidens (alamot—the plural of almah) beyond number.”

None of these occurrences bears the sort of qualification (e.g., “who had not known a man”) that betulah does.

The argument often made is that Isaiah would have used betulah had he wanted to convey that the woman in Isaiah 7:14 was never sexually active, and that since Matthew should have known the difference, he must have wanted to import this theology into his Gospel.

Matthew and the Virgin Mary

However, the argument against Matthew using Isaiah 7:14 to speak of a virgin fails to consider that Isaiah may not have originally intended to speak of a woman who had never been sexually active.

The point of the prophecy was not the woman—it was the child.

The prophecy was originally given to King Ahaz and was fulfilled in his own lifetime, as Isaiah 6–8 makes clear (see Isa 7:16).

Matthew saw an analogy with the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14—a supernatural birth, and used it to tell the story of Jesus.

But does this mean that Matthew misused almah?

Is the virgin birth mistaken?

The answer is “no” on both counts.