article in the _generic_ sense is so general, it is most natural to understand "the virgin" as forming a contrast to the married or old woman, and hence, in substance, as here equivalent to _a_ virgin. To this view we are led also by the circumstance that, in the parallel passage, Mic. v. 2 (3) יולדה "a bearing woman" is used without the article.--עלמה is, by old expositors, commonly derived from עלם in the signification "to conceal" A virgin, they assume, is called a _concealed_ one, with reference to the customs of the East, where the virgins are obliged to lead a concealed life. Thus it was understood by _Jerome_ also: "_Almah_ is not applied to girls or virgins generally, but is used emphatically of a hidden and concealed virgin, who is never accessible to the look of males, but who is with great care watched by the parents." But all parties now rightly agree that the word is to be derived from עלם, in the signification, "to grow up." To offer here any arguments in proof would be a work of supererogation, as they are offered by all dictionaries. But with all that, _Luther's_ remark is even now in full force: "If [Pg 45] a Jew or a Christian can prove to me that in any passage of Scripture _Almah_ means 'a married woman,' I will give him a hundred florins, although God alone knows where I may find them." It is true that עלמה is distinguished from בתולה, which designates the virgin state as such, and in this signification occurs in Joel i. 8. also where the bride laments over her bridegroom whom she has lost by death. Inviolate chastity is, in itself, not implied in the word. But certain it is that עלמה designates an unmarried person in the first years of youth; and if this be the case, un violated chastity is a matter of course in this context; for if the mother of the Saviour was to be an _unmarried_ person, she could be a virgin only; and, in general, it is inconceivable that the Prophet should have brought forward a relation of impure love. In favour of "an unmarried person" is, in the first instance, the derivation. Being derived from עלם, "to grow up," "to become marriageable," עלמה can denote nothing else than _puella nubilis_. But still more decisive is the _usus loquendi_. In Arabic and Syriac the corresponding words are never used of married women, and _Jerome_ remarks, that in the Punic dialect also a virgin proper is called עלמה. Besides in the passage before us, the word occurs in Hebrew six times (Gen. xxiv. 43; Exod. ii. 8; Ps. lxviii. 26; Song of Sol. i. 3, vi. 8; Prov. xxx. 19); but in all these passages the word is undeniably used of unmarried persons. In the two passages of the Song of Solomon, the עלמות designate the nations which have not yet attained to an union with the heavenly Solomon, but are destined for this union. In chap. vi. 8, they are, as _brides_, expressly contrasted with the _wives_ of the first and second class. Marriage forms the boundary; the _Almah_ appears here distinctly as the anti-thesis to a