Zachariah and Elizabeth celebrate her perpetual virginity as the very means by which God –contrary to all expectation– blesses Israel with a wonderchild. Perpetual virginity, once considered a perpetual curse for blocking production of the seed of promise, is no longer the curse of Jephthah but the very blessing of Israel![79] Instead of bewailing perpetual virginity every year among the kinsmen of Jephthah, Elizabeth, Mary’s kinswoman cries out: “Blessed are you among women!” (Luke 1:28) and Mary notes that all generation will call her blessed! This is quite a reversal of the lot of perpetual
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