Isaiah 9:6 and 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

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 שְׁמוֹvayyiqra shemo (vayyiqra shemo) (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.”

A title Isaiah keeps for Yahweh

The two words of El Gibbor are common on their own. אֵלEl (El) (El) is an ordinary word for God, and גִּבּוֹרgibbor (gibbor) (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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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, θεότηςtheotēs (theotēs) (theotēs), “deity,” dwells in him bodily.⁸ That is El Gibbor with a body.

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).

The KJV follows the majority of Greek manuscripts, which read θεόςtheos (theos) (theos), “God”; the leading critical editions read ὅςhos (hos) (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, or read YHWH in the Flesh: An Old Testament Map.