He Knew Her Not Until

DEFENSE

This overtaxes the meaning of “until.”

The term “until” (Greek, heōs) commonly indicated a particular state existed to a certain point, as in “John worked at his desk until five o’clock.”

The existing state often changes when the point is reached (thus, at five o’clock, John may go home). But change is not always indicated.

In 2 Samuel 6:23, Saul’s daughter Michal scoffed at King David’s enthusiasm for the Lord, and we read that she had no child “until” the day of her death. The word in the Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament is heōs. The passage does not mean Michal had a child after the day of her death. It means she never had children.

We see the same in the New Testament. In Matthew 13:33, Jesus tells a parable in which he says, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.” The use of “till” (heōs) does not mean that the leaven was later taken out of the flour.

Similarly, in Matthew 14:22, Jesus is at the Sea of Galilee and “he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while [heōs] he dismissed the crowds.” This does not mean that the disciples turned around and returned to shore as soon as Jesus dismissed the crowds. They continued their journey to the other side, which resulted in their meeting Jesus as he was walking on the water (Matt. 14:25).

Similarly, in Matthew 1:25, the evangelist’s point is that Joseph did not have sex with Mary before Jesus was born. His concern is to emphasize the virgin birth, not to address what happened later. This is consistent with the uses of “until” (heōs) documented above.

TIP

Around the year A.D. 383, the Church Father Jerome wrote a work known as Against Helvidius, in which he defended the perpetual virginity of Mary. In the course of this work, he gave numerous additional examples where the Greek Bible uses heōs (“until”) without implying a change in the state of affairs.