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Is. 9:6
All Christians, I believe, accept this son as being the Christ. Some will tell you that since the
meaning of this symbolic name includes the words "Mighty God, Eternal Father," then Jesus
is the Mighty God and the Eternal Father."
But there are at least two other ways this personal name has been interpreted by reputable Bible scholars.
(1) The titles found within the name (e.g., "Mighty God") are intended in their secondary, subordinate senses.
(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 have already seen 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.
I haven’t found any scholar/translator who says the name of Elimelech should be translated with its
literal meaning of “
God King.”
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] Exalted Father')."- Brackets in original.
But perhaps most instructive of all is the name given to the prophet’s child in Isaiah 8:3 shortly before his giving the name found in Is. 9:6.
Is. 8:3
Maher-shalal-hash-baz: Literally, “spoil speeds prey hastes” or “swift booty speedy prey.” Translated by various Bible scholars as: “
In making speed
to the spoil
he hasteneth
the prey” - - “swift [
is] booty, speedy [
is] prey” - - “
the spoil speeded,
the prey hasteth” - - “Speeding
for spoil, hastening
for plunder” - - “
There will soon
be looting
and stealing”- - “Speeding
is the spoil, Hastening
is the prey” - - “
The Looting
Will Come Quickly;
the Prey
Will Be Easy” - - “
Take sway the spoils
with speed, quickly
take the prey” - - “Swift
is the booty, speedy
is the prey” - - “Swift
the Spoils
of War and Speedy
Comes the Attacker” - - “
Make haste
to plunder! Hurry
to the spoil!” - - “
Make haste
to the spoil;
fall upon the prey.”
And John Gill wrote:
“‘hasten
to seize the prey,
and to take away the spoil.’ Some translate it, ‘
in hasten
ing the prey,
the spoil
er hastens’; perhaps it may be better rendered, ‘hasten to the spoil, hasten to the prey.’”
Therefore, the personal name at Is. 9:6 has been honestly translated 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.
‘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, Counselor [
IS] The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.’ The two letter word ‘is,’ is usually not stated in Hebrew. Rather, the ‘is’ is understood.” -
https://edward-t-babinski.blogspot.com/2016/04/prophecy-about-jesus-mighty-god.html
The Leeser Bible also translates it:
“Wonderful, counsellor
of the mighty God,
of the everlasting Father, the prince of peace”
Also,
An American Translation (by trinitarians Smith and 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,
‘Wonderful in counsel
is God the mighty, the Everlasting Father, the Ruler of Peace’ (Hertz 1968).
Of course it could also be honestly translated: "Wonderful Counselor and Mighty God
is the Eternal Father
of the Prince of Peace."
And the
Tanakh by the JPS, 1985, translates it:
[1]"The Mighty God is planning grace;
[2] 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 [1]"quick to the plunder; [2] swift to the spoil" -
NIV footnote) but the very introduction to this Messianic name at Is. 9:6 is itself a parallelism: [1]"For unto us a child is born; [2] 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.
