Hawkins wrote:
To me, Isaiah 9:6 is the strongest implication of who He is.
Is. 9:6 says –
“For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” - NASB.
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 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.
Just as “Lord” was applied to anyone in authority: angels, masters over servants, husbands, etc., so, too, could “god” be applied to anyone (good or bad) who was considered a mighty one or one appointed by God to do his will. Of course only one person could be called the “
Most High God,” or the “
Only True God,” or the “
Almighty God”!
Instead of “Mighty God,” Dr. James Moffatt translated this part of Is. 9:6 as “
a divine hero;” Byington has “
Divine Champion;”
The New English Bible has “
In Battle Godlike;” The Catholic
New American Bible (1970 and 1991 revision) renders it “
God-Hero;” and the REB says “
Mighty Hero.” Even that most-respected of Biblical Hebrew language experts, Gesenius, translated it “
mighty hero” - p. 45, Gesenius’
Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon.
Even most trinitarians do not confuse the two separate persons of the Father and the Son. They do not say the Son
is the Father. They say the Father and the Son are two separate individual persons who are equally “God”!
Therefore, since we obviously cannot take “Eternal Father” in the literal sense to mean that Jesus is the Father, we cannot take the rest of that same name (esp. ‘Mighty God’) in its literal highest sense and say that Jesus is Mighty
God, etc., either.
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 one receiving that name(as we can see with “Elijah,” [God Jehovah] “Abijah,” [Father Jehovah], etc.) but is, instead, a statement praising the Father, Jehovah God.
I haven’t found any scholar/translator who says the name of Elimelech, for example should be translated with its literal meaning of “God King.” And no scholar ever translates it to mean that Elimelech himself was "God King." But instead adds a word or words to praise God: E.g., "God is the King."
Those missing minor words that the translator must supply at his own discretion in
personal names 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 the] Exalted Father’).” - bracketed information is in the original.
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.) footnote.
This is to show that it is intended to praise the God of the Messiah who performs great things through the Messiah.
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 & 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."'"
Of course it could also be honestly translated:
“The 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 [a]“quick to the plunder;
swift to the spoil” - NIV footnote) but the very introduction to this Messianic name at Is. 9:6 is itself a parallelism:
[a]“For unto us a child is born;
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 couple of trinitarian scholars, that Is. 9:6 does not necessarily imply that Jesus is God.
