FOR UNTO US A CHILD IS BORN

While I was reading The book of Isaiah 9:6 (KJV) I was very impressed with these descriptions of the prophesied Immanuel (Jesus Christ) to be born. My wife asked me if this is described in the Jewish Bible: The Tanakh. Well when I looked at first Isaiah 9:6 didn't even come close. Then I noticed that there is one less verse number in the Tanakh so we would want to look at Isaiah 9:5 in the Tanakh.

First, let's take a look at Isaiah 9:6 in the Bible (KJV)

Isaiah 9:6
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, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Here is what the modern JPS version of the Tanakh says in Isaiah 9:5:

Thnakh JPS
Isaiah 9:5
For a child has been born to us, A son has been given us, And authority has settled on his shoulders.
He has been named “The Mighty God is planning grace; The Eternal Father, a peaceable ruler”—

Well, this seemed to be pretty much in line with what the KJV Bible said, but I couldn't leave it there. I used the text from an older Tanakh (JPS 1917) to see how this Bible described this verse:

Isaiah 9:5 (JPS 1917)
For a child is born unto us, a son is given unto us; and the government is upon his shoulder; and his name is called Pele-joez-el-gibbor-Abi-ad-sar-shalom;

WOW, what does that description "Pele-joez-el-gibbor-Abi-ad-sar-shalom" mean? This is just the sort of thing that I have to sink my teeth into. Sometimes I bite off more than I can chew, but I got out all my reference material and worked to determine the meaning of this very interesting description.

Here is what I came up with:

HEBREW WORD
DEFINATION &
STRONG'S NUMBER
Pele wonderful (pele’ #6381)
joez counseller (ya’as #3289)
el-gibbor (two words) God (‘el #410) - mighty (gibbowr #1368)
ad-Abi (two words) everlasting ('ad #5703) - father (Aba #1)
sar-shalom (two words) the prince of (sarar OT:8323) - peace (shalowm #7965)

So with the exception of slight variations (acceptable considering the language differences, dialects.. etc.) this verse does say about the same thing as the King James version of Isaiah 9:6.

Main