Before that, indeed, from the time of their return from the Babylonish captivity and the rebuilding of the temple, they had not kings, but generals or principes.Although a king himself may be called a prince, from his principality in governing, and a leader, because he leads the army, but it does not follow that all who are princes and leaders may also be called kings, as that Aristobulus was.He was succeeded by Alexander, also both king and pontiff, who is reported to have reigned over them cruelly.After him his wife Alexandra was queen of the Jews, and from her time downwards more grievous evils pursued them;for this Alexandra's sons, Aristobulus and Hyrcanus, when contending with each other for the kingdom, called in the Roman forces against the nation of Israel.For Hyrcanus asked assistance from them against his brother.At that time Rome had already subdued Africa and Greece, and ruled extensively in other parts of the world also, and yet, as if unable to bear her own weight, had, in a manner, broken herself by her own size.
For indeed she had come to grave domestic seditions, and from that to social wars, and by and by to civil wars, and had enfeebled and worn herself out so much, that the changed state of the republic, in which she should be governed by kings, was now imminent.Pompey then, a most illustrious prince of the Roman people, having entered Judea with an army, took the city, threw open the temple, not with the devotion of a suppliant, but with the authority of a conqueror, and went, not reverently, but profanely, into the holy of holies, where it was lawful for none but the pontiff to enter.Having established Hyrcanus in the pontificate, and set Antipater over the subjugated nation as guardian or procurator, as they were then called, he led Aristobulus with him bound.From that time the Jews also began to be Roman tributaries.
Afterward Cassius plundered the very temple.
Then after a few years it was their desert to have Herod, a king of foreign birth, in whose reign Christ was born.For the time had now come signified by the prophetic Spirit through the mouth of the patriarch Jacob, when he says, "There shall not be lacking a prince out of Judah, nor a teacher from his loins, until He shall come for whom it is reserved; and He is the expectation of the nations."(1) There lacked not therefore a Jewish prince of the Jews until that Herod, who was the first king of a foreign race received by them.THerefore it was now the time when He should come for whom that was reserved which is promised in the New Testament, that He should be the expectation of the nations.But it was not possible that the nations should expect He would come, as we see they did, to do judgment in the splendor of power, unless they should first believe in Him when He came to suffer judgment in the humility of patience.
CHAP.46.--OF THE BIRTH OF OUR SAVIOUR, WHEREBY THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH;AND OF
THE DISPERSION OF THE JEWS AMONG ALL NATIONS, AS HAD BEEN PROPHESIED.
While Herod, therefore, reigned in Judea, and Caesar Augustus was emperor at Rome, the state of the republic being already changed, and the world being set at peace by him, Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judah, man manifest out of a human virgin, God hidden out of God the Father.For so had the prophet foretold: