Evidence · Case 12 · Jehovah’s Witnesses
The Book of Isaiah, chapter 9 verse 6 and chapter 10 verse 21
One exhibit from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
Isaiah 9:6 calls the child “Mighty God.” Isaiah 10:20-21 uses the same phrase, el gibbor, of the remnant returning to “the mighty God,” meaning Jehovah.
Sources
Objections & responses
- Many critical scholars read Isaiah 9:6 as a royal accession oracle about a Davidic king, with throne names in Near Eastern court style. On that reading it isn’t a prophecy of a divine child at all.
The critical reading is worth knowing, and two replies apply. The claim here is narrow, that the title is not a lesser rank of deity, which holds whoever the oracle originally addressed. And the New Testament and the Jewish targum both read the passage messianically, so the question of its ultimate referent is separate from the meaning of the title. The Witnesses, who accept it as a prophecy of Jesus, are the audience for this argument, and for them the critical reading is not available.
- Witnesses grant that Jesus is “a mighty god” and reserve “Almighty” for Jehovah. That Jehovah is also called mighty doesn’t stop a lesser being from being mighty too. Doesn’t this show the title is compatible with full deity, not that it requires it?
That is a fair statement of the logic, and precision helps. The argument removes the Witnesses’ claim that Mighty God is a title reserved for a lesser rank, since Isaiah applies it to Jehovah himself. It does not by itself prove the child is Jehovah. What it shows is that the two-tier reading has no support in Isaiah’s own usage, and that the child also receives the title Everlasting Father (or Father of eternity) in the same verse, which is harder to fit to a creature.