But deliverance is to come from Bethlehem Ephratah--words which sufficiently indicate from what quarter the deliverer was to come; and to give a false direction the word Ephratah is omitted in the text in Matthew. Bethlehem in Judea is surely not intended, but the country watered by the river Euphrates. A little poetic license to create obscurity--a peculiarity of the Jewish prophets--does not at all render the meaning doubtful. Cyrus was king of all the country watered by the Euphrates; and the Assyrian empire ceased to exist when he restored the Jews to their own country. Cyrus was a ruler in Israel. He took the direction of their affairs, ordered the temple to be rebuilt, and directed how the means were to be provided to pay the expense. (Letter of Cyrus to Sisinnes and Sathrabouzanes. Josephus, Antiq., book xi. chap. 1, sec. 3.) Cyrus is the ruler alluded to, and not Christ. The deliverer was to be at the head of a very ancient people--the Medes and Persians--who "have been from old--from everlasting." When did Christ rule over Israel? Never. That Jesus lived at Nazareth until he grew to be a young man could not be disputed, and no doubt the fact was stated in the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew. He might live there, but he must be born in Bethlehem, and some excuse must be had to get Mary there at the precise time when his birth took place. The device of the tax to take her there at the time is weak and puerile, and proves that those who got it up were neither wise nor learned. Matthew barely alludes to Bethlehem as the place of Christ's birth. "Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem." Luke is more specific. "And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed." (_Luke_ ii. 1.) "And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, into the city of David, which is called Bethlehem (because he was of the house and lineage of David), to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child." (Luke ii. 3, 4, 5.) The Jews were taxed at the place where their property, real or personal, was at the time of taxing, and not where their ancestors happened to be born. A law or decree of the kind mentioned would involve a movement of almost the entire population of Judea, and for no reason, unless it was to give the people a chance to defraud the tax-gatherer by concealing their effects.