ALMAH, עלמה, a Hebrew word signifying properly _a virgin_, a young woman unacquainted with man. In this sense it occurs in the famous passage of Isaiah, vii, 14: “Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son.” The Hebrew has no term that more properly signifies a virgin than _almah_. St. Jerom, in his commentary on this passage, observes, that the Prophet declined using the word _bethaul_ which signifies any young woman, or young person, but employed the term _almah_, which denotes a virgin never seen by man. This is the import of the word _almah_, which is derived from a root which signifies _to conceal_. It is very well known, that young women in the east do not appear in public, but are shut up in their houses, and their mothers’ apartments, like nuns. The Chaldee paraphrast and the Septuagint translate _almah_ “a virgin;” and Akiba, the famous rabbin, who was a great enemy to Christ and Christians, and lived in the second century, understands it in the same manner. The Apostles and Evangelists, and the Jews of our Saviour’s time, explained it in the same sense, and expected a Messiah born of a virgin. The Jews, that they may obscure this plain text, and weaken this proof of the truth of the Christian religion, pretend that the Hebrew word signifies a young woman, and not a virgin. But this corrupt translation is easily confuted. 1. Because this word constantly denotes a virgin in all other passages of Scripture in which it is used. 2. From the intent of the passage, which was to confirm their faith by a strange and wonderful sign. It surely could be no wonder, that a young woman should conceive a child; but it was a very extraordinary circumstance that a virgin should conceive and bear a son. ALMIGHTY, an attribute of the Deity, Gen. xvii, 1. The Hebrew name, שדי, _Shaddai_, signifies also _all-sufficient_, or _all-bountiful_. See Gen. xxviii, 3; xxxv, 11; xliii, 14; xlix, 25. Of the omnipotence of God, we have a most ample revelation in the Scriptures, expressed in the most sublime language. From the annunciation by Moses of a divine existence who was “in the beginning,” before all things, the very first step is to the display of his almighty power in the creation out of nothing, and the immediate arrangement in order and perfection, of the “_heaven and the earth_;” by which is meant, not this globe only with its atmosphere, or even with its own celestial system, but the universe itself; for “_he made the stars also_.” We are thus at once placed in the presence of an agent of unbounded power; for we must all feel that a being which could create such a world as this, must, beyond all comparison, possess a power greater than any which we experience in ourselves, than any which we observe in other visible agents, and to which we are not authorized by our observation or knowledge to assign any limits of space or duration.