would be Immanuel, which means "God with us." All this had reference
to things of a reasonably near future and had no reference to the
birth of Jesus _some seven hundred years after_, who _was not a
prince_ sitting upon the throne of Israel, and who did not bring
national glory and renown to Israel, for such was not his mission.
Hebrew scholars and churchmen have often claimed that Isaiah's
prophecy was fulfilled by the birth of Hezekiah.

There is no evidence whatever in the Jewish history of the seven
hundred years between Isaiah and Jesus, that the Hebrews regarded
Isaiah's prophecy as relating to the expected Messiah, but on the
contrary it was thought to relate to a minor event in their history.
As a Jewish writer has truly said, "Throughout the wide extent of
Jewish literature there is not a single passage which can bear the
construction that the Messiah should be miraculously conceived." Other
writers along this line have stated the same thing, showing that the
idea of a Virgin Birth was foreign to the Jewish mind, the Hebrews
having always respected and highly honored married life and human
parentage, regarding their children as blessings and gifts from God.

Another writer in the Church has said, "Such a fable as the birth of
the Messiah from a _virgin_ could have arisen anywhere else easier
than among the Jews; their doctrine of the divine unity placed an
impassable gulf between God and the world; their high regard for the
marriage relation," etc., would have rendered the idea obnoxious.
Other authorities agree with this idea, and insist that the idea of
the Virgin Birth never originated in Hebrew prophecy, but was injected
into the Christian Doctrine from pagan sources, toward the end of the
first century, and received credence owing to the influx of converts
from the "heathen" peoples who found in the idea a correspondence with