Language Studies

Hebrew Thoughts

‘al''mâh - עַלְמָה (Strong's #5959)
Maiden, virgin

The word עַלְמָה ‘al'mâh (Strong's #5959, x7) is best known for its disputed meaning in Isaiah 7:14:

"Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel." (Isaiah 7:14)

Certainly the Jewish Greek Septuagint, written several centuries before Christ and not a few after Isaiah wrote, thought it meant "virgin" for it rendered it by the Greek παρθενος parthenos which explicitly means "virgin". But in all עַלְמָה ‘al'mâh's other instances the Greek version uses a form of νεανις neanis "young woman" or νεοτης neotês "youth", emphasizing the woman's young age, except the Isaiah passage and also its first use in Genesis.

The first of עַלְמָה ‘al'mâh's seven occurrences is actually in Genesis 24, the story of Isaac and Rebekah. In verse 43, when Abraham's servant is relating his errand to Laban, he describes his prayer for a sign, "when the virgin comes out to draw water, and I say to her, 'Please give me a little water from your pitcher to drink'" (Genesis 24:43). Clearly, young woman or maiden might be more appropriate as one cannot tell whether a woman is a virgin just from outer appearance. However, the word is considered to mean someone of marriageable age, of obvious but early puberty.

Curiously, the Greek version seems to be following a different original text for it has "and the daughters of the men of the city come forth to draw water, and it shall be that the virgin to whom I shall say,...". In this version the young woman is one amongst many but is highlighted as a virgin by the use of παρθενος parthenos as in the Septuagint of Isaiah 7:14. This is contextually justified bythe fact that earlier in the narrative we have the following description:

"Now the young woman was very beautiful to behold, a virgin; no man had known her. And he went down to the well, filled her pitcher, and came up." (Genesis 24:16)

The word for "young woman" is na‘arâh (Strong's #5291) and covers the whole range from little girl to maid or concubine so we can't draw many assumptions there but the verse expands on her description and pictures her beauty and the fact that she was a "virgin, no man had known her". The word used to describe this latter fact is בְּתוּלָה bethûwlâh (Strong's #1330), a more common word for virginity deriving from the idea of being "separated" and secreted away and not yet joined to a man or society proper through marriage. So from the beginning of this story we already have the context that Rebekah is a virgin which helps to interpret the use of עַלְמָה ‘al'mâh in verse 43. Furthermore, the Greek Septuagint uses παρθενος parthenos of both na‘arâh and בְּתוּלָה bethûwlâh in this instance.

This helps us in that the very first use of עַלְמָה ‘al'mâh in the Bible is that of describing a virgin, about which there is no dispute for "no man had known her", so those critics that semi-legitmately complain against the translation "virgin" in Isaiah 7:14 lose some of the strength of their argument when they say that the word was never used of a virgin proper. Equally, it is said that to avoid confusion Isaiah could have used the more commonly occuring בְּתוּלָה bethûwlâh, however, even this word has its exceptions among its 50 uses. For instance, in Joel 1:8, "Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth", the text clearly implies a married woman!

Hebrew has a whole range of words for woman including specific ones to cover pregnancy (הָרֶה hâreh, Strong's #2030), youthfulness (see נַעֲרָה na‘arâh mentioned above), and for a new bride (כַּלָּה kallâh, Strong's #3618). It is, therefore, significant when a rare word such as עַלְמָה ‘al'mâh is used.

Of the remaining five instances of עַלְמָה ‘al'mâh Exodus 2:8 speaks of Pharaoh's daughter's maid (cf. v.5) summoning a nurse from amongst the Hebrew slaves, whether Egyptian maids were all virgins or single I do not know, but it seems likely since many of Pharaoh's servants would have been eunuchs. Psalm 68:25 describes "maidens playing timbrels" who may have been married but would perhaps be unlikely. Proverbs 30:19 is translated variously by the different versions but the NKJV chooses "virgin" in the phrase "... the way of a man with a virgin". Finally Song of Songs uses עַלְמָה ‘al'mâh twice: to describe the Shulamite's presumably unmarried companions in 1:3, and, later of the "virgins without number" who accompany "the sixty queens And eighty concubines" (6:8).

So, whilst עַלְמָה ‘al'mâh is not explicitly a "virgin" it was commonly used for such and certainly described a young unmarried woman who in Israeli society ought to have been a virgin. The supposed root verb means "that which is hidden" and/or "young but come to puberty", according to Gesenius, and this would seem appropriate for its occasional use as "virgin". There is also some room for justifying limited interchangeablility between עַלְמָה ‘al'mâh and בְּתוּלָה bethûwlâh on the basis of Genesis 24:16 and 43 with both words indicating a young woman, ordinarily a virgin, of marriageable age. Finally, it is significant that of its seven occurrences only in Isaiah 7:14 and Genesis 24:43 does the Jewish Greek Septuagint translate the word by παρθενος parthenos "virgin" and this is a hint that Matthew (1:23) may have picked up on.

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