return during the Deluge, how much less afterwards? And to Jacob, I will not Gen. 28. 15 forsake thee, until I have performed that which I said unto thee; not that He would desert him afterwards; 2 Sam. 6. 23 and of Michal it is said, she had no child until she died. If she had no child while she lived, how would she have one after her death? Matt. 28. 20
f. 9 b
1 Cor. 15. 25
Acts 3. 21 And, behold, it is said, I am with you, until. Would He then desert them afterwards? And the Christ shall reign, until His enemies shall be put [under His feet]. And the heavens, it is said, must receive Him, until the fulfilment of the times; then afterwards will He be estranged from His kingdom or removed from the heavens? Therefore these expressions are used instead of without end; and this, p. ܒܗ until she brought forth her first born son; for it was not decorous, that anything human should touch the womb in which He had consecrated a temple of the Trinity; and the fears of Joseph were not allayed so that he should allow anything carnal, but it was rather due to the remembrance of that word, It is from the Holy Ghost, and on account of the glorious things that had been administered.
Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judæa, in the days of Herod; for he recalls the place and the time, in order to shew that all things took their fulfilment according to the voices of the Prophets. Bethlehem, on the one hand, according to what Mica had prophesied, And thou also Bethlehem of Judah, art not little, etc. He mentioned Herod, on the other hand, on account of the promise which the prophecy of Jacob delivered. Gen. 49. 10
See Africanus, Epistle to Aristides, IV. The sceptre, it said, shall not depart from Judah, etc.; and the kingdom remained to Herod a native of Ascalon; for he destroyed the genealogical books of the Jews, so as to make it appear that he came of the good stock of the Jews; and the robe of the priesthood was put beneath his seal.
