FUNCTION OF Isaiah 7, 17 IN ITS IMMEDIATE CONTEXT AND THE AMBIGUOUS SIGN OF IMMANUEL

Abstract

The content of the verse Isaiah 7, 17 and its relationship with the previous prophecy (7: 10-16) and with the additional prophecy (7:18-25) demands a detailed study both of the verse in question, as well as of the two prophecies. Such a study allows us to identify the careful structure of the composition of the verse, its function as a link between the two segments and the impossibility of dispensing with it, despite it being treated as an inserted gloss between the two units. The attention to syntactic, seman-tic and thematic phenomena allows us to conclude that the sign Immanuel promised to Ahaz has an openly ambiguous nature. The verse under study reinforces the am-biguity of the sign: between the punishment and the salvation of humankind. The richness of Isaiah 7, presumably composed during the Syro-Ephraimite war, invites us to go beyond a unilateral interpretation of the chapter, to respect the ambiguities that it presents and to be attentive to the questions that continue to go unanswered.