Keil-Delitszch Hebrew Commentary - Moreover, the condition of pregnancy, which is here designated by the participial adjective
הָרָה (cf., 2Sa_11:5), was not an already existing one in this instance, but (as in all probability also in Jdg_13:5, cf., Jdg_13:4) something future, as well as the act of bearing, since hinnēh is always used by Isaiah to introduce a future occurrence. This use of hinneh in Isaiah is a sufficient answer to Gesenius, Knobel, and others, who understand hâ‛almâh as referring to the young wife of the prophet himself, who was at that very time with child. But it is altogether improbable that the wife of the prophet himself should be intended. For if it were to her that he referred, he could hardly have expressed himself in a more ambiguous and unintelligible manner; and we cannot see why he should not much rather have said
אִשְׁתִּי or
הַנְּבִיאָה, to say nothing of the fact that there is no further allusion made to any son of the prophet of that name, and that a sign of this kind founded upon the prophet's own family affairs would have been one of a very precarious nature.
And the meaning and use of the word ‛almâh are also at variance with this. For whilst bethulâh (from bâtthal, related to bâdal, to separate, sejungere) signifies a maiden living in seclusion in her parents' house and still a long way from matrimony, ‛almâh (from ‛âlam, related to Châlam, and possibly also to
אָלַם, to be strong, full of vigour, or arrived at the age of puberty) is applied to one fully mature, and approaching the time of her marriage.
(Note: On the development of the meanings of ‛âlam and Châlam, see Ges. Thes., and my Psychol. p. 282 (see also the commentary on Job_39:4). According to Jerome, alma was Punic also. In Arabic and Aramaean the diminutive form guleime, ‛alleimtah, was the favourite one, but in Syriac ‛alīmto (the ripened).)
The two terms could both be applied to persons who were betrothed, and even to such as were married (Joe_2:16; Pro_30:19 : see Hitzig on these passages). It is also admitted that the idea of spotless virginity was not necessarily connected with ‛almâh (as in Gen_24:43, cf., Gen_24:16), since there are passages - such, for example, as Son_6:8 - where it can hardly be distinguished from the Arabic surrīje; and a person who had a very young-looking wife might be said to have an ‛almah for his wife. But it is inconceivable that in a well-considered style, and one of religious earnestness, a woman who had been long married, like the prophet's own wife, could be called hâ‛almâh without any reserve.
(Note: A young and newly-married wife might be called Callâh (as in Homer νύμφη = nubilis and nupta; Eng. bride); and even in Homer a married woman, if young, is sometimes called κουριδίη ἄλοχος, but neither κούρη nor νεῆνις.)
H5959
עלמה ‛almâh
BDB Definition:
1) virgin, young woman
1a) of marriageable age
1b) maid or newly married
Part of Speech: noun feminine
A Related Word by BDB/Strong’s Number: from H5958
Same Word by TWOT Number: 1630b
