Hi there. I was part of this conversation earlier in this thread and I found your reply interesting. I looked up the word “until” in the dictionary to see if I could understand your point and here’s what comes up:
un⋅til [uhn-til]
Use until in a Sentence
–conjunction
- up to the time that or when; till: He read until his guests arrived.
- before (usually used in negative constructions): They did not come until the meeting was half over.
–preposition
- onward to or till (a specified time or occurrence): She worked until 6 p.m.
- before (usually used in negative constructions): He did not go until night.
- Scot. and North England. to; unto.
Origin:
1150–1200; ME untill, equiv. to un- (< ON unz up to, as far as) + till till 1
Usage note:
Till1 and until are both old in the language and are interchangeable as both prepositions and conjunctions: It rained till (or until) nearly midnight. The savannah remained brown and lifeless until (or till) the rains began. Till is not a shortened form of until and is not spelled 'till. 'Til is usually considered a spelling error, though widely used in advertising: Open 'til ten.
In all seriousness we are speaking English and reading English bibles and references and I would think that if the word “until” didn’t mean what we’re all reading in the dictionary, the bible translators would have given us a different term (or footnote) to have a better understanding.
When you say “until” doesn’t mean what it says in English dictionary, what else could it mean? I looked online in a few Catholic dictionary to see if there was a specific mention to the meaning of this word. Couldn’t find it.
Anyway, thanks for reading this lengthy post and thanks in advance for your reply.