And notice how the Virgin Birth is prophesied under the same figure, by which at the same time the prophecy says that the land that of old bore fruit worth a thousand shekels will be dry and thorny, and all the land because it is so dry and thorny will be delivered to those that attack it with (d) arrow and bow; while to every mountain the opposite will happen. They will be transformed from their previous dry and thorny state into a pasture of flocks and a place for cattle to tread, and no fear shall enter there. Whereby I think our Saviour's Virgin Birth is clearly meant, and all that happened after it both to the whole Jewish community and to the other nations. The prophecy plainly foretells the change of each of these divisions to the opposite of what they were before, the change of the Jewish nations from better to worse, and the change of the Gentile Church from its old desolation to a divine fruit-fulness, both of which are to be brought to pass according to the prophecy at the same time, that of the appearance of (327) Emmanuel, and are shewn to have actually been fulfilled after our Saviour's birth, and at no other time, both by the events in Jewish history which have been clearly told, and by the existence of the Gentile Church.