'Almah (The Hebrew word)

In Biblical Hebrew, the words almah (sing; עַלְמָה ‘almā) and alamot (plur; עֲלָמוֹת ‘ălāmōṯ), drawn from a Semitic root implying the vigour of puberty, refer to a young woman who is sexually ripe for marriage. Although the concept is central to the account of the virgin birth of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, the scholarly consensus is that the words denote a woman's fertility without concern for her virginity. They occur nine times in the Hebrew Bible. In the ancient Near East, many spiritual and cultural traditions centred on women were tied to their ability to bear children, and this particular focus on motherhood remains present in the Abrahamic religions today.