Isaiah 9 is talking about someone who is already born, not some future messianic figure. It’s only later that Christians, convinced of Jesus’ Messiahship, sought to reinterpret these verses to support their theology.
Here is Ehrman regarding Isaiah 9:
“That this is referring to the king of Israel is obvious by the final line. This is a king from the line of David. Most scholars think it is a reference to the king at the time of Isaiah’s prophecy: King Hezekiah. He is acclaimed as the ‘son’ of God, one with great authority and one who will bring endless peace. Clearly this person is not God Almighty himself, since his authority is said to ‘grow continually,’ and one can hardly imagine God not having final, ultimate, and complete authority from the outset.”
Even Justin Martyr was talking about this particular verse with another person, he gets disproven and goes on with his conclusion that this verse is a “symbol” of Christ, but not a direct prophecy.
It’s very likely Hezekiah is the intended referent, at least by the final redactor of the book. The passage uses a unique idiom found only three times in the Hebrew Bible: here as part of the Book of Isaiah’s unit concerning the Assyrian threat, and the 2 Kings account of Hezekiah receiving a prophecy from Isaiah regarding the Assyrian threat, which account was appended into the Book of Isaiah (possibly to spell out the connection).
Isaiah 9:
For a child has been born for us, a son given to us […] His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onwards and for evermore. The zeal of Yahweh of hosts will do this.
Isaiah 37.21-22,31-32 // 2 Kings 19.21-22,30-31:
Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying: ‘Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel: Because you have prayed to me concerning King Sennacherib of Assyria, this is the word that Yahweh has spoken concerning him […] The surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downwards, and bear fruit upwards; for from Jerusalem a remnant shall go out, and from Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of Yahweh of hosts will do this.’
Ehrman states again on this:
Later Christians interpreted Isaiah as making a prediction about the coming messiah, and that he was looking forward to a virgin birth. So on this point let me be clear. I am NOT saying that it is illegitimate to read Isaiah that way if you want to approach Isaiah theologically. What I AM saying is that if you want to know what Isaiah himself was talking about, you need to approach him historically, not theologically. Once you have established his historical meaning, if you then want to say “And IN ADDITION, I read this text as looking forward to the messiah, even thought that is not what Isaiah was himself talking about” then that is a perfectly traditional Christian way of reading Isaiah.
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Why is Isaiah 9:6 “King Hezekiah”?
Note parallels between Isaiah 7-9 and 36-39.
This parallel could explain why some have thought of Hezekiah as a messianic figure:
The Holy One, blessed be He, wished to appoint Hezekiah as the Messiah, and Sennacherib as Gog and Magog; whereupon the Attribute of Justice said before the Holy One, blessed be He: ‘Sovereign of the Universe! If Thou didst not make David the Messiah, who uttered so many hymns and psalms before Thee, wilt Thou appoint Hezekiah as such, who did not hymn Thee in spite of all these miracles which Thou wroughtest for him?’ .b. Sanh 94a.
Even though the term “messiah” does not occur in Isaiah 7-9, it is still widely acknowledged that the mere absence of the term does not categorically disqualify the passages from being a messianic reference, though some will argue that very point. Essentially, the word doesn’t have to occur in order for the reality to be spoken of.
JPS Study Bible: Isaiah describes liberation from some form of adversity (perhaps the Assyrian conquests of Israelite territory described in the previous vv., or Syro-Ephraimite pressures on Judah). The verbs are in the past tense. Some interpreters view them as examples of the “prophetic past,” which predicts future events using the past tense because they are as good as done. Thus it is not clear whether the Davidic king whose birth and rule are described (vv. 5-6) has already been born (if the verbs are a regular past tense) or will be born in the future (prophetic past). If the former, the v. probably refers to Ahaz’s son Hezekiah, as many modern and rabbinic commentators believe (though other possibilities exist depending on the date of the passage). Most later readers (both Jewish and Christian) understood the passage to describe an ideal future ruler, i.e., the Messiah.// “The Mighty God … ruler”: This long sentence is the throne name of the royal child. Semitic names often consist of sentences that describe God; thus the name Isaiah in Hebrew means “The LORD saves’; Hezekiah, “The LORD strengthens”; in Akkadian, the name of the Babylonianking Merodach-baladan (Isa. 39.1) means “the god Marduk has provided an heir.” These names do not describe that person who holds them but the god whom the parents worship. Similarly, the name given to the child in this v. does not describe that child or attribute divinity to him, contrary to classical Christian readings of this messianic verse.
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