If I praise the name of Jesus, guess who I am worshiping...
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6 KJV)
God with us.
.
There are at least two other ways this personal name has been interpreted by reputable Bible scholars. (1) The titles within the name (e.g., “Mighty God”) are intended in their secondary, subordinate senses (e.g., “a mighty god”). (2) the titles within the name are meant to praise God the Father, not the Messiah.
....
And second, another way competent Bible scholars have interpreted the meaning of this name is with the understanding that it (as with many, if not most, of the other Israelites’ personal names) does not apply directly to the Messiah (as we can see with “Elijah,” “Abijah,” etc.) but is, instead, a statement praising the Father, Jehovah God.
Personal names in the ancient Hebrew and Greek are often somewhat cryptic to us today. The English Bible translator must fill in the missing minor words (especially in names composed of two or more Hebrew words) such as “my,” “is,” “of,” etc. in whatever way he thinks best in order to make sense for us today in English.
For instance, two of the best Bible concordances
(Young’s and
Strong’s) and a popular trinitarian Bible dictionary
(Today’s Dictionary of the Bible) differ greatly on the
exact meaning of many Biblical personal names because of those “minor” words which must be added to bring out the intended meaning.
Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, for example, says the name “Elimelech” (which is literally just “God King”) means “God
of (the) King.”
Young’s Analytical Concordance says it means “God
is King.”
Today’s Dictionary of the Bible says it means “ God
his king” - p. 206, Bethany House Publ., 1982.
Those missing minor words that the translator must supply at his own discretion can often make a vital difference! - For example, the footnote for Gen. 17:5 in
The NIV Study Bible: The name ‘Abram’ “means ‘Exalted Father,’ probably
in reference to God (i.e., ‘[
God is the] Exalted Father’).” - bracketed information is in the original.
This is why another name the Messiah is to be called by at Jer.
23:6 is rendered, `The LORD [YHWH]
IS Our Righteousness' in the following Bibles:
RSV; NRSV; NEB; NJB; JPS (Margolis, ed.);
Tanakh; Byington;
AT; and
ASV (footnote). Of course other translations render it more literally by calling the Messiah "The LORD [YHWH] Our Righteousness" to help support a `Jesus is God' doctrine. Some of these (such as the
NASB) actually render the very same name at Jer.
33:16 as "The LORD [or Jehovah]
is Our Righteousness"! - [bracketed information is mine].
(Unfortunately for "Jesus is Jehovah" advocates, the very same name given to the Messiah at Jer.
23:16 is given to a
city at Jer.
33:16.)
Therefore, the personal name at Is. 9:6 has been honestly translated in the footnote as:
“And his name is called: Wonderful in counsel
IS God the Mighty, the Everlasting Father, the Ruler of Peace” -
The Holy Scriptures, JPS Version (Margolis, ed.)
to show that it is intended to praise the God of the Messiah who performs great things
through the Messiah.
Also,
An American Translation (by trinitarians Smith & Goodspeed) says:
“Wonderful Counselor
IS God Almighty, Father forever, Prince of Peace.”
From the Is. 9:6 footnote in the trinity-supporting
NET Bible:
".... some have suggested that one to three of the titles that follow ['called']
refer to God, not the king. For example, the traditional punctuation of the Hebrew text suggests the translation, 'and the Extraordinary Strategist,
the Mighty God calls his name, "Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."'"
And
The Leeser Bible has:
“Wonderful, counsellor
of the mighty God,
of the everlasting Father, the prince of peace”
Of course it could also be honestly translated:
“The Wonderful Counselor and Mighty God
Is the Everlasting Father
of the Prince of Peace.”
And the
Tanakh by the JPS, 1985, translates it:
[a] “The Mighty God
is planning grace;
The Eternal Father
[is] a peaceable ruler
.”
This latter translation seems particularly appropriate since it is in the form of a parallelism. Not only was the previous symbolic personal name introduced by Isaiah at Is. 8:1 a parallelism (“Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz” means [a]“
quick to the plunder;
swift to the spoil” -
NIV footnote) but the very introduction to this Messianic name at Is. 9:6 is itself a parallelism: [a]“
For unto us a child is born;
unto us a son is given.” It would, therefore, be appropriate to find that this name, too, was in the form of a parallelism as translated by the
Tanakh above.
So it is clear, even to a number of
trinitarian scholars, that Is. 9:6 does not imply that Jesus is Jehovah God.