---
title: "Isaiah 9:6 and the Child Who Is Mighty God"
description: "Isaiah 9:6 gives a newborn child the title El Gibbor, “Mighty God,” the same title Isaiah uses for Yahweh one chapter later, and calls him “Everlasting Father.” This essay reads the Hebrew carefully, sets the Trinitarian and Oneness readings side by side, and follows the verse into the New Testament, where God was manifest in the flesh."
url: "https://onegodapologetics.com/library/isaiah-9-6-the-child-who-is-mighty-god/"
source: "One God Apologetics"
section: "The Library"
authors: ["Jonathan Mahaney"]
tags: ["godhead"]
published: "2026-09-17T05:43:40.550Z"
updated: "2026-09-17T05:43:40.764Z"
reading_minutes: 9
license: "Free to read and quote with attribution."
---

# Isaiah 9:6 and the Child Who Is Mighty God

> Isaiah 9:6 gives a newborn child the title El Gibbor, “Mighty God,” the same title Isaiah uses for Yahweh one chapter later, and calls him “Everlasting Father.” This essay reads the Hebrew carefully, sets the Trinitarian and Oneness readings side by side, and follows the verse into the New Testament, where God was manifest in the flesh.

*By Jonathan Mahaney · 9 minute read · https://onegodapologetics.com/library/isaiah-9-6-the-child-who-is-mighty-god/*

Few verses carry more weight in the Godhead debate than Isaiah 9:6. Trinitarian and Oneness believers both read it as a prophecy of Jesus, and both find in it a child who is God. The disagreement is over what the names mean together, and above all why a child is called “The everlasting Father.” This essay reads the verse once, carefully.

## The text

> 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)

The Hebrew Bible numbers the verse 9:5. In the Masoretic text it reads:

> כִּי־יֶלֶד יֻלַּד־לָנוּ בֵּן נִתַּן־לָנוּ וַתְּהִי הַמִּשְׂרָה עַל־שִׁכְמוֹ וַיִּקְרָא שְׁמוֹ פֶּלֶא יוֹעֵץ אֵל גִּבּוֹר אֲבִיעַד שַׂר־שָׁלוֹם (*Ki-yeled yullad-lanu, ben nittan-lanu, vattehi ha-misrah al-shikhmo, vayyiqra shemo Pele Yoets, El Gibbor, Avi-Ad, Sar-Shalom*)
>
> — Isaiah 9:5 in the Hebrew Bible (Leningrad Codex)

Two things matter before any theology. The four titles are the object of “his name shall be called” (וַיִּקְרָא שְׁמוֹ (*vayyiqra shemo*)): they are the child’s name. And the child is no passing figure: of his government “there shall be no end, upon the throne of David … for ever” (Isaiah 9:7). The same prophecy has already promised a son called Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14).

## The four names

The Hebrew gives four names of two words each. The KJV divides the first into “Wonderful, Counsellor.”

> **Hebrew:** פֶּלֶא יוֹעֵץ (*Pele Yoets*) [H6382] — a wonder of a counsellor; Wonderful Counsellor. פֶּלֶא (*pele*) (H6382) is a wonder; יוֹעֵץ (*yoets*) (H3289) is one who gives counsel.[^1] Isaiah joins the same two ideas for God himself: the LORD of hosts “is wonderful in counsel” (Isaiah 28:29).

> **Hebrew:** אֵל גִּבּוֹר (*El Gibbor*) [H410] — Mighty God. אֵל (*El*) (H410) is God; גִּבּוֹר (*gibbor*) (H1368) is mighty, and as a noun a mighty man or warrior.[^1][^2] The two-word phrase appears in the Hebrew Bible only here and in Isaiah 10:21.[^3]

> **Hebrew:** אֲבִיעַד (*Avi-Ad*) [H1] — Father of eternity; Everlasting Father. אֲבִי (*avi*) is the construct form, “father of,” of אָב (*av*) (H1); עַד (*ad*) (H5703) is perpetuity, “for ever.”[^1][^2] The name occurs only here. Leningrad-based editions print one word; Aleppo-based editions hyphenate it, אֲבִי־עַד.[^3]

> **Hebrew:** שַׂר־שָׁלוֹם (*Sar-Shalom*) [H8269] — Prince of Peace. שַׂר (*sar*) (H8269) is a prince, ruler or captain; שָׁלוֹם (*shalom*) (H7965) is peace, wholeness and welfare.[^1] Isaiah 9:7 spells the title out: of “his government and peace there shall be no end.”

## A title Isaiah keeps for Yahweh

The two words of El Gibbor are common on their own. אֵל (*El*) is an ordinary word for God, and גִּבּוֹר (*gibbor*) is used of human warriors: Gideon is a “mighty man of valour” (Judges 6:12), and 2 Samuel 23:8 lists “the mighty men whom David had.” Joined as a title, they behave differently.

*El Gibbor and related phrases in the Hebrew Bible*

| Passage | Hebrew | Of whom | Observation |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Isaiah 9:6 (9:5 in Hebrew) | אֵל גִּבּוֹר (*El Gibbor*) | The child born, the son given | The exact phrase; one of two occurrences |
| Isaiah 10:21 | אֵל גִּבּוֹר (*El Gibbor*) | Yahweh, to whom the remnant returns | The exact phrase; Isaiah 10:20 has just named “the LORD, the Holy One of Israel” |
| Deuteronomy 10:17 | הָאֵל הַגָּדֹל הַגִּבֹּר (*ha-El ha-gadol ha-gibbor*) | “The LORD your God” | With the article, in a series: great, mighty, terrible |
| Jeremiah 32:18 | הָאֵל הַגָּדוֹל הַגִּבּוֹר (*ha-El ha-gadol ha-gibbor*) | “The LORD of hosts” | With the article: “the Great, the Mighty God” |
| Nehemiah 9:32 | הָאֵל הַגָּדוֹל הַגִּבּוֹר (*ha-El ha-gadol ha-gibbor*) | “Our God” | With the article, in a series: great, mighty, terrible |
| Ezekiel 32:21 | אֵלֵי גִבּוֹרִים (*elei gibborim*) | Fallen warriors in the grave | Plural and a different construction: “the strong among the mighty” |

The exact phrase occurs twice in the Masoretic text, both in Isaiah, one chapter apart.[^3] Wherever El and gibbor stand together as a singular title, the one named is Yahweh; Ezekiel’s plural phrase describes dead warriors and is no one’s name. So when Isaiah names the child El Gibbor and then says “the remnant shall return … unto the mighty God” (Isaiah 10:21), he uses one title for one referent, in a verse that plays on the name of his own son Shear-jashub, *a remnant shall return* (Isaiah 7:3). The rarity is the argument: Isaiah had many ways to call a king great, and he chose the title he keeps for God.

> **The strongest objection to “Mighty God”**
>
> Some translators render the phrase “mighty hero” or “godlike warrior,” taking אֵל (*El*) in its broader sense of “mighty one,” a sense the lexicons recognize for the plural in Ezekiel 32:21.[^2]
>
> Jewish interpreters usually read the names as a sentence about God spoken over a royal child, the way Elijah’s name means “my God is Yahweh.” Rashi reads the verse so that the Holy One, who is Wonderful in counsel, Mighty God and Everlasting Father, names the child (for Rashi, King Hezekiah) “Prince of Peace.”[^4] The Jewish Publication Society translation gives the name as “The Mighty God is planning grace; The Eternal Father, a peaceable ruler.”[^5] On this reading the child bears a name that speaks about God without being God.

## Grammar is identity, not role-play

Grammar alone does not settle everything, and Hebrew does have sentence-names. But three features of this text point the other way.

1. **The syntax names the child.** The titles are the object of “his name shall be called.” In Isaiah’s idiom, to be called something is to be declared what one is. Isaiah tells restored Jerusalem, “thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness” (Isaiah 1:26), because it will be righteous. The clause does not say the child will act for El Gibbor or resemble him.
2. **Isaiah defines the title.** The sentence-name reading needs El Gibbor to describe someone other than the child. But Isaiah 10:21 uses the same two words as a bare title for the God to whom Israel returns, with no sentence around them.
3. **The reign fits the names.** A herald who merely bears God’s name does not sit on David’s throne “for ever” (Isaiah 9:7). The prophecy that began with Immanuel, “God with us” (Matthew 1:23), arrives at a child whose kingdom has no end.

That is what Oneness teachers mean by “grammar is identity, not role-play”: the text does not cast the child in the part of God. It says who he is.

## Two readings of “Everlasting Father”

Trinitarian Christians agree that the child is fully God; the question is the second divine title. Here are both readings, the Trinitarian one first.

**Trinitarian reading**

The child is the eternal Son, the second person of the one Godhead, who shares the one divine essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit. El Gibbor names that full deity.

“Everlasting Father” does not make the Son the first person. Many Trinitarian commentators read it as the king’s character: he will be a father to his people for ever.[^6][^7] Isaiah uses “father” this way of the steward Eliakim, who “shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem” (Isaiah 22:21), and Job was “a father to the poor” (Job 29:16). Hebrew also uses “father of” for an originator, as Jabal “was the father of such as dwell in tents” (Genesis 4:20), so “Father of eternity” can mean the one who possesses or brings in the everlasting age.

On this reading the verse teaches the full deity of the Son without merging the persons, and other texts, such as the prayer of John 17:5, keep Father and Son distinct.

**Oneness reading**

God is absolutely one, not three persons. The child is the one God manifested in flesh, fully God and fully man. “Son” names the incarnation: “that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35).

“Everlasting Father” is a title of the one God, given to the child. In Isaiah, Israel’s Father is Yahweh himself: “thou, O LORD, art our father, our redeemer” (Isaiah 63:16; see Isaiah 64:8). The child is Father to his people for ever because he is the God who made them his people.

The fatherly-care reading gets something right: Isaiah 22:21 shows that “father” can describe a ruler’s care. But in Isaiah the one who is Father to his people for ever is Yahweh (Isaiah 63:16), just as the one who is El Gibbor is Yahweh (Isaiah 10:21). Oneness does not need “Everlasting Father” to mean “the first person of the Trinity,” since it does not divide God into persons. It needs only what the verse says: the child bears the names of the one God. The Trinitarian reading must hold that the Son is named Father yet is eternally not the Father. The Oneness reading has no such tension.

**Objection:** [What glory did Jesus have before the world was?](https://onegodapologetics.com/academy/lab/glory-before-the-world-was) — “In John 17:5 Jesus speaks of the glory He had with the Father before the world was, so the Son existed as a distinct person before creation.”

## The New Testament hinge

Isaiah said a child would be born who is Mighty God and Everlasting Father. The apostles say the same thing in their own words.

> For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
>
> — Colossians 2:9 (KJV)

Paul does not say that a share of deity dwells in Christ, or one of three who hold it. He says all the fullness of the Godhead, θεότης (*theotēs*), “deity,” dwells in him bodily.[^8] That is El Gibbor with a body.

> Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?
>
> — John 14:9 (KJV)

Philip asked to see the Father, and Jesus did not point away from himself. The child Isaiah called Everlasting Father says that to see him is to see the Father, for “the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works” (John 14:10).

> And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
>
> — 1 Timothy 3:16 (KJV)

The KJV follows the majority of Greek manuscripts, which read θεός (*theos*), “God”; the leading critical editions read ὅς (*hos*), “he who.”[^9] Either way, the hymn speaks of one who “was manifest in the flesh” and so existed before appearing in it, and the verse before names “the living God” (1 Timothy 3:15).

### The Shepherd and the I AM

Two more titles run the same way. “The LORD is my shepherd” (Psalm 23:1), and the Lord GOD says, “I will feed my flock” (Ezekiel 34:15); Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11). God gave Moses the name “I AM THAT I AM” (Exodus 3:14) and said through Isaiah, “I am he” (Isaiah 43:10); Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58), and his hearers took up stones (John 8:59). The child who is Mighty God grew up to speak as Israel’s Shepherd and its I AM.

## Conclusion

Isaiah 9:6 is not a verse to shout; it is a name to read. The child is called El Gibbor, the title Isaiah keeps for Yahweh, and Avi-Ad, Father of eternity, a title that in Isaiah belongs to Yahweh as Israel’s Father. Christians on both sides agree that the child is God. The Oneness reading takes the step the names invite: the one God who is Father did not send a second divine person to be born. He came himself, “manifest in the flesh.”

To trace this verse through the rest of the Old Testament, open Isaiah 9:6 on the [Scripture Map](https://onegodapologetics.com/academy/map), or read [YHWH in the Flesh: An Old Testament Map](https://onegodapologetics.com/library/yhwh-in-the-flesh-an-old-testament-map).

## Notes

[^1]: James Strong, Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary. 1890; entries H1, H410, H1368, H3289, H5703, H6382, H7965, H8269
[^2]: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906; s.v. אֵל, גִּבּוֹר, אָב, עַד
[^3]: The Leningrad Codex (Westminster Leningrad Codex / UXLC), Isaiah 9:5 and 10:21. Phrase search for אל גבור across the Hebrew Bible, cross-checked against the Aleppo-based edition Miqra according to the Masorah. Leningrad prints אֲבִיעַד as one word; the Aleppo-based edition prints אֲבִי־עַד.
[^4]: Rashi (Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac), Commentary on Isaiah, at 9:5. 11th century; the Holy One, who is Wonderful in counsel, Mighty God and Everlasting Father, names Hezekiah “Prince of Peace” (citing b. Sanhedrin 94a)
[^5]: Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures (New JPS translation). Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985; Isaiah 9:5
[^6]: John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 1–39. New International Commentary on the Old Testament; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986; on Isaiah 9:6
[^7]: J. Alec Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993; on Isaiah 9:6
[^8]: Walter Bauer and Frederick W. Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (BDAG). 3rd ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000; s.v. θεότης
[^9]: Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament. 2nd ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994; on 1 Timothy 3:16

## Objections this essay answers

- [Is God one being in three persons?](https://onegodapologetics.com/academy/lab/being-and-person/) — “You’re confusing being and person: God is one being in three persons, so “one God” doesn’t mean “one person.””
- [What glory did Jesus have before the world was?](https://onegodapologetics.com/academy/lab/glory-before-the-world-was/) — “In John 17:5 Jesus speaks of the glory He had with the Father before the world was, so the Son existed as a distinct person before creation.”