Since the Trinity doctrine rejects the Son is the Father, why is the Son called "everlasting Father" in the verse below?
Isaiah 9:6
6For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
I've dealt with this question before in discussion with Mormons on the Debate Other Religions subforum, back when that was still open. Below is what I wrote then on this question.
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We can
look at the actual Hebrew:
כִּי־יֶ֣לֶד יֻלַּד־לָ֗נוּ בֵּ֚ן נִתַּן־לָ֔נוּ וַתְּהִ֥י הַמִּשְׂרָ֖ה עַל־שִׁכְמֹ֑ו וַיִּקְרָ֨א שְׁמֹ֜ו פֶּ֠לֶא יֹועֵץ֙ אֵ֣ל גִּבֹּ֔ור
אֲבִיעַ֖ד שַׂר־שָׁלֹֽום
Now I am by no means any kind of Hebrew scholar (can't read it), though I do know something of how Semitic languages tend to work, and I can use concordances as well as anyone, and it looks like what we have in the above is this word ’ă·ḇî·‘aḏ (אֲבִיעַ֖ד), which I have highlighted in the above text. Going to the definition as given at the above link, it gives the root as 'ad, which checks out with what
other concordances also show. But knowing something of how Semitic languages tend to work, and being able to read the concordance that I literally just linked to at the end of the previous sentence, I know that if we are going to have "Father" anywhere in the sentence (which the first concordance linked to just above the Hebrew text does not even include), it should be a form of
'ab, as this is a common Semitic root (found also in Arabic, the Ethiopian Semitic languages, etc. ; for instance, when we talk about the Father in Arabic, we say el-
'ab). Going to the roots list found in the second concordance, that is exactly what we find there for "Father" (which is included in the English translation there, as they use the KJV): אָב 'ab. Yet we don't find that in isolation anywhere in the Hebrew text, only as a part of this word ’ă·ḇî·‘aḏ (אֲבִיעַ֖ד). Why is this relevant? Because
abiad is defined as "everlasting" (see the first concordance). This is another form that we would expect, as it has cognates in other Semitic languages like Arabic, where to say "everlasting", you say أبدي 'abdi. Both contain the initial 'ab sequence (indeed, in Arabic, 'father' is written أب, which is the same as the first three letters of the word 'abdi), the difference apparently being that in Hebrew this is able to be broken down into two composite terms ('ab and 'ad), whereas I don't know if this is possible in Arabic ('ab clearly means 'father', but I don't know that 'ad means anything; I'd have to look it up in an Arabic dictionary or Semitic root list, and I am away from my books).
This is all to explain how it is that you can get some translations of the Hebrew that read "everlasting Father", as the KJV does, and some that read just "everlasting", as the translation at the first concordance does. Neither is wrong, so far as I can tell from this very basic analysis, but it depends on how you parse ’ă·ḇî·‘aḏ.
