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THE LIBRARY OF
j
BIBLICAL AND THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.
VOL.
EDITED BY
REV. GEORGE R. CROOKS, D.D., LL.D.,
AND
BISHOP JOHN F. HURST, D.D., LL.D.
II.
INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE HOLY
SCRIPTURES. By Rev. Henry M. Harman, D.D. $4 00
BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS. By Rev. Milton S.
Terry, D.D., LL.D 3 00
III. THEOLOGICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA AND METH
ODOLOGY. By Rev. George R. Crooks, D.D.,
LL.D., and Bishop John F. Hurst, D.D., LL.D., . 3 50
IV. CHRISTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY. By Rev. Charles W.
Bennett, D.D. With an Introductory Notice by Dr.
Ferdinand Piper. Revised by Rev. Amos William
Patton, D.D.,
V. SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY. Vol. I. By Rev. John
Miley, D.D., LL.D., 3 00
VI. SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY. Vol. II. By Rev. John
Miley, D.D., LL.D., 3 00
VII. HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Vol. I.
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VIII. HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Vol.11.
By Bishop John F. Hurst, D.D., LL.D., . . . 5 00
IX. THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN
FAITH. By Rev. Charles W. Rishell, Ph.D.. . 3 50
LIBRARY
OF
BIBLICAL AND THEOLOGICAL
LITERATURE.
EDITED BY
GEOKGE K. CKOOKS. D.D.,
AND
JOHN F. HUKST, D.D.
VOL. II.-BIBLICAL HERMENETJTICS.
NEW EDITION, THOROUGHLY REVISED.
NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS
CINCINNATI: CURTS & JENNINGS
PUBLISHERS' ANNOUNCEMENT.
THE design of the Publishers and Editors of the BIBLICAL AND
THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY was declared, before either volume of
the series had appeared, to be the furnishing of ministers and
laymen with a series of works which should constitute a compen
dious apparatus for advanced study on the great fundamental
themes of Christian Theology. While the doctrinal spirit of the
separate works was pledged to be in harmony with the accepted
standards of the Methodist Episcopal Church, it was promised that
the aim should be to make the entire Library acceptable to Chris
tians of all evangelical Churches. The following works have
already appeared :
Harman — INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE HOLY SCRIP
TURES.
Terry — BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS.
Bennett — CHRISTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY.
Miley — SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY. 2 vols.
Crooks and Hurst — THEOLOGICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA AND METH
ODOLOGY.
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Kishell — FOUNDATIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH.
A few other works will follow these, in order to complete the
circle of fundamental theological science as originally contem
plated by the Publishers and Editors.
The reception which has been accorded these works has been
BO prompt, cordial, and sympathetic that the Publishers are led
to believe that the Christian public is satisfied that the pledges
made at the outset have been faithfully kept.
In every treatise in the future, as in those of the past, the
latest literature will be recognized and its results incorporated.
May we not hope that the same generous favor with which mem
bers of all evangelical denominations have regarded the undertak
ing from the beginning will be continued throughout the series ?
BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS.
ON THE
INTERPRETATION
OP THE
OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.
BY
MILTON S. TERRY, S.T.D.,
PROFESSOR OF OLD TESTAMENT EXEGESIS IN GAKRETT BIBLICAL INSTITUTE
NEW EDITION, THOROUGHLY REVISED.
NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS
CINCINNATI : CURTS & JENNINGS
Copyright, 1890, by
HUNT & EATON,
NEW YORK.
1. 19
1PREKACE.
first edition of this work was published in the autumn of
1883, and has received such cordial and continued welcome as
to put beyond doubt that a treatise of its character is needed in
our English theological literature. The general plan of the volume has
been adapted to meet what appear to be the practical wants of most
theological students. Specialists and experts in exegetical learning
will push their way through all difficulties, and find delight in test
ing principles; but the ordinary student, if led at all into continued
and successful searching of the Scriptures, must become interested
in the practical work of exposition. The bare enunciation of prin
ciples, with brief references to texts in which they are exemplified,
is too dry and taxing to the mind to develop a taste for exegetical
study; it has a tendency rather to repel. Our plan is rather to
familiarize the student with correct methods by means of continuous
exercise in the actual work of exegesis. The statement of princi
ples is introduced gradually, and abundantly illustrated and verified
by a faithful application of them to such portions of the Holy Script
ures as are known to have peculiar difficulties, or to be of special
interest and value. It is not expected that all our interpretations
will command unqualified approval, but it is confidently believed
that a selection of the more difficult Scriptures for examples of ex
position will enhance the real value of the work, and save it from
the danger, too often common in such treatises, of running into life
less platitudes. With ample illustrations of this kind before him,
the student comes by a natural inductive process to grasp herme-
neutical principles, and learns by example and practice rather than
by abstract precept.
The larger portion of the volume is devoted to Special Herme-
neutics. This fact will, we believe, meet the approval of all biblical
scholars. They will acknowledge the propriety of passing more
rapidly over those general principles, on which there exists little or
<5 PREFACE.
no difference of opinion, and of allowing greater space for the treat
ment of parables, allegories, types, symbols, and apocalyptic proph
ecy. The necessity of sound principles is most deeply felt in the
study of these enigmatical portions of the Bible. Our constant aim
has been to abstain from all appearance of dogmatism, and to ad
here strictly to the method of scientific and conscientious inquiry.
If Special Hermeneutics serves any useful end, it must cultivate the
habit of searching for what the Scripture has to say for itself, not
of imposing upon its language the burden of whatever it is able to
bear.
Considerable space has been given to the subject of prophetic
symbolism. The apocalyptic books have ever been regarded as
most difficult to explain, but not a few of the difficulties have grown
out of the extravagant notion that we may expect to find in proph
ecy a detailed history of events from the advent of Christ to the
end of time. We have tried to show that the biblical symbols and
apocalypses are largely self -interpreting, and, if allowed to speak for
themselves, are not more difficult of exposition than the parables
of Jesus.
Profoundly grateful for the generous commendation of the former
editions, and profiting by the friendly criticism of numerous reviews,
the author has spared no pains to make this new edition more
worthy of general favour. The revision has extended to nearly
every page, and considerable portions have been rewritten. A num
ber of chapters, not strictly belonging to Hermeneutics, have been
omitted, and others have been condensed, so that the substance of
the original work of 782 pages now appears in a more convenient,
and, we trust, not less valuable, volume.
EVANSTON, May 15, 1890.
CONTENTS
AND
ANALYTICAL OUTLINE.
INTRODUCTION.
CHAPTER I.
Preliminary.
1. Hermeneutics defined, 17.
2. General and Special Hermeneutics, 17.
3. Biblical or Sacred Hermeneutics, 18. •
4. Old and New Testament Hermeneu
tics should not be separated, 18.
5. Hermeneutics distinguished from Intro
duction, Criticism, and Exegesis, 19.
6. Hermeneutics both a science and an
art, 20.
7. Necessity of Hermeneutics, 20, 21.
8. Rank and importance of Hermeneutics
in Theological Science, 21, 22.
CHAPTER II.
Qualifications of an Interpreter.
A. INTELLECTUAL QUALIFICATIONS: —
1. A sound, well-balanced mind, 23.
2. Quick and clear perception, 23.
3. Acuteness of intellect (Bengel and
De Wette), 24.
4. Imagination allowed but controlled,
24.
5. Sober judgment, 25.
6. Correctness and delicacy of taste, 25.
7. Right use of reason, 25, 26.
8. Aptness to teach, 26.
B. EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATIONS:—
1. Knowledge of geography and hia-s
tory, 26.
2. Knowledge of chronology and an
tiquities, 27.
3. Study of politics, law, and civil gov
ernment, 27.
4. Knowledge of natural science, 27.
5. Speculative philosophy and psychol-
°gy, 27.
6. Knowledge of biblical languages and
of comparative philology, 27.
7. Acquaintance with general litera
ture, 27,
C. SPIRITUAL QUALIFICATIONS:—
1. These partly a gift, partly acquired,
28.
2. Desire to know the truth, 28.
3. Deep and tender affection, 28, 29.
4. Enthusiasm for the "Word of God, 29.
5. Reverence for God and his laws, 29.
6. Communion with the Holy Spirit, 30.
CHAPTER IIL
Historical Sketch.
1. Value and importance of the history
of interpretation, 31.
2. Origin and variety of interpretations,
31.
3. Ezra the scribe, 32.
4. Public instruction in the law, 32.
5. Office and work of the scribes, 32, 33.
6. Progress of Jewish exegesis after
Ezra, 33.
>-7. Halachah and Hagadah, 33.
8. The Karaites, 34.
9. Methods of New Testament exegesis,
34, 35.
10. Allegorizing tendency of post-apostolio
time, 35.
11. School of Alexandria, 36. -^
12. School of Antioch, 37.
13. Theodore of Mopsuestia, 38.
14. John Chrysostom, 39.
15. Theodoret, 40.
16. Schools of Edessa and Nisibis, 40.
17. Ephraim Syrus, 41.
18. Barsumas and Ibas, 41.
CONTENTS AND ANAYLTICAL OUTLINE.
19. Hippolytus, 42.
20. Jerome, 42, 43.
21. Augustine, 44.
22. The Catenists, 45.
23. Nicholas de Lyra, 45.
24. John Reuchlin, 46.
25. Erasmus, 46.
26. Luther and the Reformation, 47.
27. Melanchthon, 48.
28. John Calvin, 49.
29. Theodore Beza, 50.
30. Tendencies of Lutheran and Reformed
parties, 50.
31. Polyglots and Critic! Sacri, 51.
32. Grotius, 51.
33. Yoetius, 51, 52.
34. Cocceius, 52.
35. Spener and Franke, 53,
36. Ernesti, 53, 54.
37. German rationalism, 55.
38. Mediation school, 55, 56.
39. Evangelical school, 56.
40. Biblical exegesis in America, 56, 57.
41. Modern exegesis, 57.
CHAPTER IV.
Methods of Interpretation.
1. Halachic and Hagadic methods, 58, 59. < .
2. Allegorical interpretation (Philo,Clem- <^
ent), 59, 60.
3. Mystical interpretation (Origen, Mau-.
rus, Swedenborg), 60, 61.
4. Pietistic interpretation (Quakers), 61,
62.
5. The accommodation theory (Semler), <-
62.
6. Moral interpretation (Kant), 63. *-
7. Naturalistic interpretation (Paulus)
64.
3. The mythical theory (Strauss), 64-66. \
9. Other rationalistic theories (Baur,
Renan), 66, 67.
10. Exegesis controlled by speculative
philosophy (Reuss), 67, 68.
11. Apologetic and dogmatic methods,
68, 69.
12. Grammatico-historical interpretation,^
70.
PART FIRST.
GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
CHAPTER I.
Preliminary.
1. General principles defined, 71.
2. The Bible to be interpreted like other
books, 71.
3. Importance of general principles, 72.
4. Ennobling tendency of hermeneutical
study, 72.
CHAPTER II.
The Primary Meaning of Words.
1. "Words the elements of language, 73.
2. Value and pleasure of etymological
studies, 73, 74.
(1) Illustrated by the word tKK/^cia,
74, 75.
(2) Illustrated by the \vordiQ3, 75, 76.
3. Value of comparative philology, 76.
4. Rare words and ana!- fayo/ieva, 77.
(1) Illustrated by eTriovaiof, 77.
(2) Illustrated by TUGTIK.^, 77, 78.
5. Study of compound words, 78.
CHAPTER III.
The Usus Loquendi. V
1. How the meaning of words becomes
changed, 79.
2. Importance of attending to the usus lo-
i, 79.
3. Means of ascertaining the usus 1oquen~
di:—
(1) By the writer's own definitions, 79.
(2) By the immediate context, 80.
(3) By the nature of the subject, 81.
(4) By antithesis or contrast, 82.
(5) By Hebrew parallelisms, 83.
(6) By relations of subject, predicate, ar<J
adjuncts, ,84.
(7) By comparison of parallel passages, 84.
(8) By common and familiar usage, 84.
(9) By help of ancient versions, 8&-S8.
(10) By ancient glossaries and scholia, 88.
CHAPTER IV.
Synonymes.
1. Some words have many meanings, 89.
2. Many different words have like mean
ing, 89.
3. Seven Hebrew words for putting to
death, 90-92.
4. Twelve Hebrew words for sin or evil,
92-95.
5. Divine names in Hebrew Scriptures, 95.
6. Synonymes of the New Testament: —
(1) Kaivoe and veof, 96, 97.
(2) Btof and fay, 97, 98.
(3) A-yandu and 0<2,£w, 98, 99.
(4) OZtSa and yivtJGKu, 99.
(5) 'Apvia, Trp6J3ara, and rrpo^a.Tiat 99.
(G) BOCT/CW and T?oi[j.aivu, 99, ] 00.
CONTENTS AND ANALYTICAL OUTLINE.
j CHAPTER V. / I
The Grammatico-Historical Sense.
1. Grammatico-historical sense defined,
101.
2. Observation of Davidson, 101, 102.
3. Same methods required as in ascer
taining meaning and usage of words,
102, 103.
4. Words and sentences can have but
one meaning in the same place and
connexion, 103.
5. Narratives of miracles to be explained
literally, 103.
6. Jephthah's daughter a burnt offering,
104, 105.
7. Jesus' resurrection an historical fact,
105, 106.
8. Grammatical accuracy of the New
Testament, 106.
9. Significance of Greek tenses, 106, 107.
10. Importance of careful critical study,
107, 108.
CHAPTER VL
* Context, Scope, and Plan.
1. Context, scope, and plan defined, 108.
2. Scope sometimes formally announced,
109.
3. Plan and scope of Genesis seen in a
study of its contents and structure,
109, 110.
4. Plan and scope of Exodus, 110, 111.
5. Subject and plan of the Epistle to the
Romans, 111, 112.
6. Context, near and remote :—
(1) Illustrated by Isa. Ill, 13-liii, 12, 112, 113.
(2) Illustrated by Matt, xl, 12, 113-116.
(3) Illustrated by Gal. v, 4, 116, 117.
7. Historical, dogmatic, logical, and psy
chological connexion, 117.
8. Importance of studying context, scope,
and plan, 117.
9. Need of critical tact, and ability, 118.
CHAPTER YII.
Comparison of Parallel Passages.
1. Some parts of Scripture without logical
connexion, 119.
2. Value of parallel passages, 119.
3. The Bible a self-interpreting book,
120.
4. Parallels verbal and real, 121.
5. Parallels must have real correspond
ency, 121.
6. The word hate in Luke xiv, 26 explained
by parallel passages, 122, 123.
7. Jesus' words to Peter in Matt xvi, 18
explained by parallel texts, 123-127.
8. Many parts of Scripture parallel, 128.
t CHAPTER VHL
The Historical Standpoint.
1. Importance of knowing the historical
standpoint of a writer, 129.
2. Historical and geographical knowledge
essential, 129.
3. Difficulty of transferring one's self into
a remote age, 130.
4. Personal sanctity of ancient worthies
sometimes unduly exalted, 130.
5. Historical occasions of the Psalms, 131,
132.
6. Places as well as times to be studied:—-
(1) Shown by Journeys and epistles of Paul,
133, 134.
(2) Historical and geographical accuracy of
Scripture proven by modern research,
134,135.
7. Historical standpoint of John's Apoc
alypse : —
fl) The external evidence, 135-137.
(2) John's own testimony, 137.
(3) Internal evidence ; six points, 138, 139.
(4) Great delicacy of discrimination neces
sary, 140.
10
CONTENTS AND ANALYTICAL OUTLINE.
PART SECOND.
SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
CHAPTER I.
Preliminary.
1. Special qualities of the Bible, 141.
2. A text-book of religion, 141.
3. Yariety of subject matter and style, 142.
4. Distinction between substance and
form, 142, 143.
5. Special Hermeneutics calls for larger
space, 143.
6. The Bible its own best interpreter, 143.
CHAPTER II.
Hebrew Poetry.
1. Old Testament largely poetical, 144.
2. Parallelism the distinguishing feature,
145.
3. The speeches of Laban and Jacob,
145, 148.
4. Form essential to poetry, 146, 147.
5. Hebrew spirit and form may be
largely preserved in translation, 148.
6. Structure of Hebrew parallelism, 149.
7. Synonymous parallelism : —
a. Identical, 150.
ft. Similar, 150.
c. Inverted, 150, 151.
8. Antithetic parallelism : —
a. Simple, 151.
ft. Compound, 151.
9. Synthetic parallelism : —
a. Correspondent, 152.
b. Cumulative, 152.
10. Irregular structure of impassioned
utterances, 153.
11. Alphabetical poems and rhymes, 154.
12. Vividness of Hebrew expression, 155.
13. Force of ellipsis, 155.
14. Special Hermeneutics must recognize
rhetorical form and figures of
speech, 156.
CHAPTER III.
Figurative Language.
1. Tropes many and various, 157.
2. Origin and necessity of figurative
language, 157, 158.
3. Sources of scriptural imagery, 158,
159.
4. Specific rnles for determining when
language is figurative, impractical,
and unnecessary, 159, 160.
5. Figures of words and figures of
thought, 160.
6. Metonymy: —
(1) Of cause and effect, 160, 161.
(2) Of subject and adjunct, 161, 162.
(3) Of sign and thing signified, 162.
7. Synecdoche, 162, 163.
8. Personification, 163.
9. Apostrophe, 164.
10. Interrogation, 164.
11. Hyperbole, 165.
12. Irony, 165, 166.
CHAPTER IY.
Simile and Metaphor.'**/
A. SIMILE :—
1. Definition and illustration, 166.
2. Crowding of similes together, 1 67.
3. Similes are naturally self-interpret"
ing, 167, 168.
4. Pleasure afforded by similes, 168.
5. Assumed comparisons, or illustra
tions, 168-170.
B. METAPHOK:—
1. Definition and illustration, 170.
2. Sources of Scripture metaphors :—
(1) Natural scenery, 171.
(2) Ancient customs, 171.
(3) Habits of animals, 171, 172.
(4) Hebrew ceremonies, 172.
3. Elaborated and mixed metaphors,
173.
4. Uncertain metaphorical allusions: —
(1) Loosing of locks, in Judg. v. 2, 174, 175.
(2) Boiling of heart (Psa. xlv, 1), 175.
(3) Buried in baptism (Rom. vi, 4; Col.
ii, 12), 175, 176.
CHAPTER T.
Fables, Riddles, and Enigmas. ^
1. More notable figures of Scripture, 177.
2. Characteristics of the fable, 178.
(1) Jotham's fable, 178.
(2) Jehoash's fable, 178, 179,
3. Characteristics of the riddle, 180.
(1) Samson's riddle, 180, 181.
(2) Number of the beast, 181.
(3) Obscure proverbs, 181.
(4) Lamech's song, 182.
4. Enigma distinguished and defined, 182,
183.
(1) Enigmatical element in Jesus' discourse
with Nicodemus, 183.
(2) In his discourse with the woman of Sa
maria, 184.
(3) Enigma of the sword In Luke xxii,33, 185.
(4) Enigmatical language addressed to Peter
in John xxi, 18, 185, 186.
(5) Figure of the two eagles in Ezek. xvii, 186,
187.
CONTENTS AND ANALYTICAL OUTLINE.
11
CHAPTER VI.
i Interpretation of Parables.
1. Pre-eminence of parabolic teaching,
188.
2. Parable defined, 188, 189.
3. General use of parables, 189, 190.
4. Special purpose and reason of Jesus'
parables, 190, 191.
5. Parables a test of character, 192.
6. Superior beauty of the parables of
Scripture, 192.
7. Three essential elements of a parable,
193.
8. Three principal rules for the interpre
tation of parables, 193, 194.
9. Principles illustrated in the parable of
the sower, 194, 195.
10. Parable of the tares and its interpre
tation, 195.
(1) Things explained and things unnoticed in
modal expositions of Jesus, 196.
(2) We may notice some things which Jesus
did not emphasize, 196, 197.
(3) Suggestive words and allusions deserve
comment, 197.
(4) Not specific rules, but sound and discrim
inating judgment, must guide the in
terpreter, 198.
11. Isaiah's parable of the vineyard, 199.
12. Parable of the wicked husbandmen,
200.
13. Comparison of analogous parables: —
(1) Marriage of King's Son, and wicked hus
bandmen, 201, 202.
(2) Marriage of king's son, and great supper,
202, 203.
14. Old Testament parables, 204.
15. All Jesus' parables in the Synoptic
Gospels, 205.
16. Parable of the labourers in the vine
yard: —
(1) Mistakes of interpreters, 205, 206.
(2) Occasion and scope, 206, 207.
(3) Prominent points in the parable, 208.
(4) Primarily an admonition to the disciples,
208, 209.
17. Parable of the unjust steward: —
(1) Occasion and aim, 209.
(2) Unauthorized additions, 210.
(3) Jesus' own application, 210.
(4) The rich man Mammon, 211, 212.
(5) Gelkle's Comment, 212, 213.
CHAPTER VII.
Interpretation of Allegories.
1. Allegory distinguished from parable,
214.
2. Allegory a continued metaphor, 214,
215.
3. Same hermeneutical principles as ap
ply to parables, 216.
4. Allegory of old age in Eccles. xii,
3-7:—
(1) Various interpretations, 216.
(2) Old age of a sensualist, 217,
(3) Uncertain allusions, 217, 218.
(4) Blending of meaning and Imagery, 218,
219.
(5) Hermeneutical principles Involved, 219,
220.
5. Allegory of false prophets in Ezek.
xiii, 10-15, 220.
6. Allegory of wise and unwise building
in 1 Cor. iii, 10-15: —
(1) Are the materials persons or doctrines?
221.
(2) Both views allowable, 221, 222.
(3) The passage paraphrased, 223.
(4) A warning rather than a prophecy, 223,
224.
7. Allegory of the leaven in 1 Cor. v,
6-8:—
(1) The context, 225.
(2) The passage paraphrased, 225,
(3) Study of the more important allusions,
226.
8. Allegory of the Christian armour,
226, 227.
9. Allegory of the door and the shep
herd: —
(1) Occasion and scope, 227, 228.
(2) Import of particular parts, 228, 229.
(3) Jesus' explanation enigmatical, 229, 230.
10. Paul's allegory of the covenants: —
(1) It is peculiar and exceptional, 231.
(2) The historical allusions accepted as true,
231.
(3) The correspondent clauses, 232.
(4) Paul's example as an allegorist, 232, 2.33.
(5) Such methods to be sparingly employed,
234.
11. Interpretation of Canticles: —
(1) The allegorical method, 234, 235.
(2) Objections to this method, 235.
(3) Canticles a dramatic parable, 236.
(4) Literal basis under oriental poetry, 237.
(5) Details not to be pressed Into mystical
significance, 237.
CHAPTER VIII.
Proverbs and Gnomic Poetry.
1. Proverbs defined and described, 238.
2. Their use among most nations, 239.
3. Hermeneutical principles to be ob
served: — •
(1) Discrimination of form and figure, 240.
(2) Critical and practical sagacity, 241.
(3) Attention to context and parallelism, 243.
(4) Common sense and sound judgment, 242,
243.
CHAPTER IX.
Interpretation of Types.
1. Types and symbols defined and dis
tinguished, 244.
2. Examples of types and symbols, 244.
3. Analogy with several figures of speech,
245.
4. Principal distinction between types and
symbols, 246.
5. Essential characteristics of the type :—
(1) Notable points of resemblance between
type and antitype, 247.
(2) Must be divinely appointed, 247.
(3) Must prefigure something future, 248.
12
CONTENTS AND ANALYTICAL OUTLINE.
6. Five classes of Old Testament types : —
(1) Typical persons, 248.
(2) Typical institutions, 249.
(3) Typical offices, 349.
(4) Typical events, 249.
(5) Typical actions, 249, 250.
7. Hermeneutical principles to be ob
served : —
(1) All real correspondencies to be noted, 250.
1. The brazen serpent, 251.
2. Melchizedek and Christ, 251, 252.
(2) Notable differences and contrasts to be
observed, 252.
1. Moses and Christ, 253.
2. Adam and Christ, 253.
(3) Old Testament types apprehended only by
the Gospel revelation, 254.
8. Limitation of types: —
(1) Statement of Marsh, 355.
(2) Too restrictive a rule, 255.
(3) A broader principle allowable, 256.
(4) Qualifying observation, 256.
CHAPTER X.
Interpretation of Symbols.
' 1. Difficulties of the subject, 257.
2. Principles of procedure, 257.
3. Classification of symbols, 257, 258.
4. Examples of visional symbols: —
(1) The almond rod (Jer. i, 11), 258.
(2) The seething pot (Jer. 1, 13), 259.
(3) The good and bad flgs (Jer. xxiv), 259.
(4) The summer fruit (Amos viii, 1), 259.
(5) Resurrection of bones (Ezek. xxxvii,) 260.
(6) Golden candlestick, 260.
(7) The two olive trees (Zech. iv), 260-262.
(8) Image of Nebuchadnezzar's dream (Dan.
ii), 262.
(9) The four beasts of Dan. vii, 263.
(10) Riders, horns, and smiths (Zech, i), 263,
264.
(11) Flying roll and ephah (Zech. v), 264,265.
(12) The four chariots (Zech. vi), 265.
6. These examples, largely explained by
the sacred writers, authorize three
fundamental principles: —
(1) The names of symbols are to be literally
understood, 266.
(2) Symbols always represent something dif
ferent from themselves, 266.
(3) A resemblance is always traceable between
the symbol and the thing symbolized,
266.
6. No minute set of rules practicable,
266, 267.
7. Fairbairn's statement of principles,267.
8. Same principles apply to material
symbols, 267.
9. Symbolism of blood, 268, 269.
JO. Symbolism of the Mosaic tabernacle: —
8) Import of the names employed, 269, 270.
) A divine-human relationship symbolized,
270, 271.
(3) The most holy place and its symbols : —
1. The ark, 271, 272.
2. The capporeth, or mercyseat, 272.
3. The cherubim, 272, 273.
(4) The holy place and its symbols :—
1. The table of showbread, 373.
2. The golden candlestick, 274.
3. The altar of incense, 274.
(5) Great altar and laver in the court, 274.
(6) The graduated sanctity of the holy places,
275.
(7) Symbolico-typioal action of the high priest
on the day of atonement, 275, 276.
CHAPTER XI.
Symbolico-Typical Actions. •
1. Actions performed in vision, 277.
2. Symbolico-typical acts of Ezek. iv and
v: —
(1) The acts outward and real, 278, 279.
(2) Five objections considered, 379, 280.
?>. Other symbolical acts, 281.
4. Hosea's marriage: —
(1) The language implies a real event, 281.
282.
(2) Supposed impossibility based on misap
prehension, 282.
(3) Gomer and Diblaim not symbolical names,
(4) Hengstenberg's unwarrantable assertion,
283.
(5) The facts as stated perfectly supposable,
(6) Scope of the passage indicated, 285.
(7) The symbolical names (Jezreel, Lo-ruha-
mah, and Lo-ammi), 285.
(8) The marriage of Hos. iii to be similarly
explained, 386.
5. Our Lord's miracles have symbolical
import, 287.
CHAPTER XII.
Symbolical Numbers, Names, and Colours.
Process of ascertaining symbolism of
numbers, names, and colours, 288.
A. SYMBOLICAL NUMBERS: —
1. The numbers one and three, 288,
289.
2. The number four, 290.
3. The number seven, 290.
4. The number ten, 291.
5. The number twelve, 291.
6. Symbolical does not always exclude
literal significance, 292.
7. Time, times, and half a time, 292.
8. Forty-two months, 292.
9. The number forty, 293.
10. The number seventy, 293.
11. Prophetical designations of time,
293.
12. The year-day theory : —
(1) Has no support in Num. xiv and Ezek.
iv, 294, 395.
(2) Not sustained by prophetic analogy, 295,
296.
(3) Daniel's seventy weeks not parallel, 296.
(4) Days nowhere means years, 296, 297.
(5) The theory disproved by repeated fail
ures, 297, 298.
13. The thousand years of Rev. xx, 298.
B. SYMBOLICAL NAMES :—
1. Sodom and Egypt, 299.
2. Babylon and Jerusalem, 299.
3. Returning to Egypt, 300.
4. David and Elijah, 300.
5. Ariel, 300.
6. Leviathan, 300.
C. SYMBOLISM OF COLOURS: —
1. Rainbow and tabernacle colours,
301.
2. Import and association of blue. 301 .
3. Purple and scarlet, 301.
CONTENTS AND ANALYTICAL OUTLINE.
13
4. "White a symbol of purity, 302.
5. Black and red, 302.
Symbolical import of metals and jewels,
303.
CHAPTER XIIL
,*> Dreams and Prophetic Ecstasy.
1. Methods of divine revelation, 304.
2. Dreams recorded in the Scriptures,
304, 305.
3. Evince latent powers of the soul, 305.
4. Jacob's dream at Bethel, 305, 306.
5. Interpretation of dreams, 306.
6. Repetition of dreams and visions, 307.
7. Prophetic ecstasy : —
(1) David's Messianic revelation, 307.
(2) Ezekiel's visional rapture, 308.
(3) Other examples of ecstasy, 808, 309.
(4) The prophet personating God, 310.
8. New Testament glossolaly, or speaking
with tongues: —
(1) The facts as recorded, 310, 311.
(2) The miracle of Pentecost symbolical, 311.
(3.) A mysterious exhibition of soul-powers,
312.
CHAPTER XIV.
Prophecy and its Interpretation.
1. Magnitude and scope of Scripture
prophecy, 313.
2. Xot prediction merely, but utterance
of God's truth, 314.
3. Prophecies of the futuro require
special hermeneutics, 315.
4. History and prediction not to be con
fused, 315.
A. ORGANIC RELATIONS OF PROPHECY:—
1. Progressive character of Messianic
\propbecy, 316.
2. Repetition of oracles against heathen
nations, 317.
3. Daniel's two great prophecies
(chaps, ii and vii) compared,
317, 318.
4. The little horn of Dan. vii, 8, and
viii, 9 the same king seen from
different points of view, 318, 319.
5. Other prophetic repetitions, 319.
B. FIGURATIVE AND SYMBOLICAL STYLE OF
PROPHECY : —
1. Imagery the most natural form for
expressing revelations obtained
by dreams and visions, 320, 321.
2. Poetic form and style of several
prophecies adduced, 321, 322.
3. Prominence of symbols in the apoc
alyptic books, 323.
4. The hermeneutical principles to be
observed :—
(1) Clear discrimination of symbols,
323.
(2) Their most striking aspects to be
noted, 323.
(3) Ample and self-consistent compari
son. 323.
2
0. ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON OF SIMILAR
PROPHECIES : —
1. Verbal analogies, 324.
2. Twofold presentation of prophetic
revelations, 324.
3. Analogies of imagery, 325.
4. Similar imagery applied to different
subjects, 325.
5. General summary, 326.
CHAPTER XV.
Messianic Prophecy. ^
1. Messianic prophecy defined, 327.
2. To be studied on its divine and human
sides. 327.
3. Two schools of extremists to be dis
carded, 327, 328.
4. Five Messiainc prophecies adduced for
illustration, 328.
A. THE MOUNTAIN OF JEHOVAH'S HOUSE (Isa.
ii, 2-4): —
1. Translation, 328, 329.
2. Absurdity of a literal interpreta
tion, 329.
3. The four essential prophetic
thoughts, 329, 330.
B. THE BRANCH OF JEHOVAH (Isa. Iv, 2-6) :—
1. Translation, 330.
2. Two possible interpretations, 330,
331.
3. The four essential prophetic
thoughts, 331.
C. IMMANUEL (Isa. vii, 14-16):—
1. The prophecy difficult and enig
matical. 331.
2. Translation, 331, 332.
3. The various expositions, 332.
4. The most simple explanation iden
tifies the virgin with the prophet's
wife, and the child Immanuel with
the Maher-shalal-hash-baz of chap
ter viii, 1-3, 333, 334.
D. THE GALILEAN KING (Isa. ix, 1-7} :—
1. Translation, 334.
2. The essential prophetic thoughts,
335.
E. THE SHOOT OF JESSE AND THE FINAL EX
ODUS (Isa. xi, xii) :—
Ten notable Messianic ideals, 335.
5. Messianic prophecy an organic series,
336.
6. Prompted by the times in which the
prophet lived, 336.
7. Cast in metaphorical forms, 336, 337.
8. Not to be literally interpreted, 337.
CHAPTER XVI.
Old Testament Apocalyptics.
1. Apocalyptics defined, 338.
2. Distinguished from prophecy, 338, 339.
3. Scope of biblical apocalyptics, 339.
4. Formal elements of apocalyptics, 339,
340.
5. Hermeneutical principles to be ob
served, 340.
CONTENTS AND ANALYTICAL OUTLINE.
A. REVELATION OF JOEL:—
1. Analysis of Joel's prophecy, 340,
341.
2. First Part: Jehovah's judgments,
341, 342.
3. Second Part: Jehovah's triumph and
glory 342.
4. Joel's prophecy a generic apocalypse,
343.
B. EZEKIEL'S VISIONS:—
L Peculiarities of Ezekiel, 343.
2. Analysis of Ezekiel's prophecies,
3. The vision of new temple, land, and
city, 344.
4. The three different interpretations,
344, 345.
C. REVELATION OF DANIEL:—
1. Principles illustrated by Daniel's
double revelation of empires, 345.
2. Three current errors touching the
exposition of Daniel, 346.
3. All dogmatism and a priori as
sumptions fatal to sound interpre
tation, 346, 347.
4. Three prevalent interpretations,
347
5. Arguments in favor of Roman
theory : —
(1) Importance of Rome, 348.
(2) Iron strength and violence of Rome,
848,349.
(3) Set up in "days of those kings,"
349.
(4) Unsatisfactory character of the ar
guments, 349.
6. Daniel's historical standpoint, 350.
7. Prominence of the Modes in Scrip
ture, 350.
8. The varied but parallel descriptions,
350, 351.
9. The prophet should be allowed to
explain himself, 351, 352.
10. The prophet's point of view in
chap, viii, 352.
11. Inner harmony of all the visions to
be sought, 352, 353.
12. Alexander and his successors not
viewed as two different world-
powers, 353, 354.
13. Conclusion: Daniel recognized a
Median dominion as succeeding
the Chaldean, 354.
14. Prophecy of the seventy weeks,
354, 355.
15. Revelation of Dan. xi, 2-xii, 3, 355.
CHAPTER XVII.
The Apocalypse of John.
1. Systems of interpretation, 356.
2. Historical standpoint of the writer,
356.
3. Plan of the Apocalypse, 357.
4. Artificial form of the Apocalypse, 358;
5. The great theme announced, 358.
A. REVELATION OF THE LAMB: —
1. In the epistles to the seven Churches,
359.
2. By the opening of the seven seals,
359, 360.
3. By the sounding of the seven trump
ets, 361.
(1) The plague from the abyss, 361, 362.
(2) The armies of the Euphrates, 362.
(.3) The mighty angel arrayed with cloud
and rainbow, 363.
(4) The last trumpet, 364, 365.
B. REVELATION OF THE BRIDE, THE LAMB'S
WIFE :—
1. Vision of the woman and the dragon,
365.
2. Vision of the two beasts, 366.
3. Vision of Mount Zion, 367.
4. Vision of the seven last plagues, 368.
5. Vision of the mystic Babylon, 368.
(1) Mystery of the woman and beast, 369.
(2) The beast from the abyss, 370-372.
(3) Fall of the mystic Babylon, 372, 373.
6. Vision of parousia, millennium, and,
judgment : —
(1) It is a sevenfold vision, 373.
(2) The millennium is the gospel period, 374
(3) The chiliastic interpretation without
sufficient warrant, 374, 375.
(4) The last judgment, 376.
(5) Visions transcending time-limit of the
book, 377.
(6) Millennium of chap, xx now in progress,
377, 378.
7. Vision of the New Jerusalem : —
(1) Meaning of the vision; three views,
378, 379.
(2) Comparison of Hag. ii, 6, 7 and Heb. xii,
26-28, 379, 380.
(3) Allusion of Heb. xii, 22, 23, 380, 381.
(4) New Jerusalem a heavenly picture of
what the tabernacle symbolized, 381,
382.
Conclusions touching biblical apocalyptics,
382.
CHAPTER XVIII.
No Double Sense in Prophecy. <,
1. Theory of double sense unsettles alt
sound interpretation, 383.
2. Typology and double sense not to be
confounded, 384.
3. Suggestive fulness of prophetic Scrip
ture no proof of double sense, 385.
4. No misleading designations of time in
prophecy, 385.
5. Misuse of the phrase " a thousand
years as one day," 386.
6. Bengel's fallacious treatment of Matt.
xxiv, 39, 387, 388.
7. Practical applications of prophecy may
be many, 388.
8. False prophetic interpretation some
times due to mistaken notions of
the Bible itself, 389.
CONTENTS AND ANALYTICAL OUTLINE.
15
CHAPTER XIX.
Scripture Quotations in the Scripture.
1. Four classes of quotations :
(1) Old Testament quotations in Old Testa
ment, 390.
(2) New Testament quotations from Old Testa
ment, 390.
(3) New Testament quotations from New Test
ament sources, 391.
(4) Quotations from apocryphal sources, 391.
2. Only Old Testament quotations in the
New Testament call for special her-
meneutical study, 392.
A. SOURCES OF NEW TESTAMENT QUOTATION :—
1. Septuagint version the principal
source, 392.
2. No uniform manner of quotation,
392, 393.
3. Currency of inaccurate quotation,
393.
B. FORMULAS AND METHODS OF QUOTATION:—
1. The verbal formulas employed, 394.
2. Appropriation of sentiment without
formal quotation, 394.
3. Furnish no law of general herme-
neutics, 395.
4. Not necessarily decisive of questions
of literary criticism, 395.
5. The formula Iva Tr/.ripw&i) : —
(1) Peculiar to Matthew and John, 395.
(2) Views of Bengel and Meyer, 396.
(3) The telic force of Iva generally to be
maintained, 396, 397.
(4) The ecbatic sense need not in all
cases be denied, 397.
(5) The telic sense in formulas of prophetic
citation, 398.
(6) Hosea xi, 1, as cited in Matt, ii, 15, 398,
399.
C. PURPOSES OF SCRIPTURE QUOTATION :—
1. For showing its fulfilment, 399.
2. For establishing doctrine, 400.
3. For confuting opponents, 400.
4. For authority, rhetorical purposes,
and illustration, 400.
CHAPTER XX.
The False and the True Accommodation.
1. The rationalistic theory, 401.
2. Such a theory to be repudiated, 401.
3. The true idea of accommodation, 402.
4. Illustrated by Matthew's citation of
Jer. xxxi, 15, 402, 403.
CHAPTER XXI.
Alleged Discrepancies of the Scriptures.
1. General character of the discrepancies,
404
2. Causes of discrepancies : —
(1) Errors of copyists, 404, 405.
(2) Various names of one person, 404.
(3) Different methods of reckoning time, 404.
(4) Different point of view and aim, 404.
3. Discrepancies in genealogical tables : —
(1) Jacob's family record, 405.
1. The different lists compared, 406-107.
2. The historical standpoint of each list,
407, 408.
3. Hebrew style and usage, 408.
4. Substitution of names, 409.
5. Desire to have a definite and suggest
ive number, 410.
(2) The two genealogies of Jesus :—
1. Different hypotheses. 411.
2. Views of Jerome and Africanus, 412.
3. No hypothesis can claim absolute cer
tainty. 413.
4. Hervey's theory, 413.
4. Genealogies not useless Scripture, 414.
5. Numerical discrepancies, 415.
6. Doctrinal and ethical discrepancies : —
(1) Supposed conflict between Law and Gos
pel, 416.
(2) Civil rights maintained by Jesus and Paul,
417-
(3) Avenging of blood. 418.
(4) Difference between Paul and James on
justification : —
1. Different personal experience, 419.
2. Different modes of apprehending and
expressing great truths, 420.
3. Different aim of each writer, 421.
4. Individual freedom of each writer, 421.
7. Value of biblical discrepancies : —
(1) To stimulate mental effort, 422.
(2) To illustrate harmony of Bible and nature,
422.
(3) To prove absence of collusion, 422.
(4) To show the spirit above the letter, 442.
(5) To serve as a test of moral character, 422.
CHAPTER XXII.
Harmony and Diversity of the Gospels.
1. The life of Jesus a turningpoint in the
history of the world, 423.
2. The Gospels a chief ground of conflict
between faith and unbelief, 423, 424.
3. Attempts at constructing Gospel Har
monies, 424.
4. Use of such harmonies, 425.
A. THE ORIGIN OF THE GOSPELS:—
1. An original oral Gospel, 426.
2. No absolute certaiuty as to the par
ticular origin of each Gospel, 427.
3. Probable suppositions, 427, 428.
B. DISTINCT PLAN AND PURPOSE OF EACH
GOSPEL :—
1. Tradition of the early Church, 428,429.
2. Matthew's Gospel adapted to Jewish
readers, 429.
3. Mark's Gospel adapted to Roman
taste, 429.
4. Luke's the Pauline Gospel to the
Gentiles, 430.
5. John's the spiritual Gospel of th«
Christian life, 430, 431.
C. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SEVERAL EVAN
GELISTS :—
1. Noticeable characteristics of Mat
thew's Gospel, 421.
2. Omissions of earlier Gospels may
have had a purpose. 432.
3. Harmony of the Gospels enhanced
by their diversity, 433, 434.
5. Unreasonableness of magnifying the
alleged discrepancies of the Gospels,
435.
CONTENTS AND ANALYTICAL OUTLINE.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Progress of Doctrine and Analogy of
Faith.
1. The Holy Scriptures a growth, 436.
2. Genesis a series of evolutions and rev
elations, 437.
3. The Mosaic legislation a new era of
revelation, 437, 438.
(1) Doctrine of God, 438, 439.
(2) Superior ethical and civil code, 439.
(3) Pentateuch fundamental to Old Testa
ment revelation, 440.
4. Divine revelation continued after
Moses, 440.
5. Theology of the Psalter, 440, 441.
6. The Solomonic proverbial philosophy,
441.
7. Old Testament revelation reached
highest spirituality in the great
prophets, 442-444.
8. Prophetic link between the Old and
New Testaments, 445.
9. Christ's teaching the substance but
not the finality of Christian doc
trine, 445.
10. Revelation continued after Jesus' as
cension, 446.
11. The New Testament epistles contain
the elaborated teaching of the apos
tles, 446, 447.
12. The Apocalypse a fitting conclusion of
the New Testament Canon, 447, 448.
13. Attention to progress of doctrine a
help to interpretation, 448.
14. THE ANALOGY OF FAITH: —
1. Progress of doctrine explains anal
ogy of faith, 449.
2. Two degrees of analogy of faith: —
(1) Positive, 450.
(2) General, 450.
3. Limitation and vise of analogy of
faith as a principle of interpretation,
451.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Doctrinal and Practical Use of Scripture.
1. Paul's statement of the uses of Scrip
ture, 452.
2. Romish doctrine of authoritative in
terpretation, 452.
3. Protestant principle of the use of rea
son, 453.
4. Statement and defence of Scripture
doctrine must accord with correct
herrneneutics, 453.
5. Biblical and historical theology dis
tinguished, 454.
6. Human tendency to be wise above
what is written, 455.
7. True and false methods of ascertain
ing biblical doctrine: —
(1) The doctrine of God, 456-459.
(2) The doctrine of Vicarious Atonement, 460,
461.
(3) The doctrine of Eternal Punishment : —
1. Absence of scriptural hope for the
wicked, 461, 462.
2. Import of Matt, xii, 32 and Mark iii,
29, 462.
3. Preaching to the spirits in prison, 462.
(4) Doctrine not confined to one portion,
class, or style of Scripture, 463.
(5) Eschatology taught mainly in figurative
language, 464.
(6) Doctrine of the resurrection, 464.
(7) Freedom from prepossession and.presump-
tion, 465.
(8) Texts not to be cited ad libitum, 465, 466.
8. New Testament doctrine not clear
without the help of the Old, and vice
versd,_ 466, 467.
9. Confusion of Hebrew and Aryan modes
of thought, 467.
10. Practical and homiletical use of Scrip-
ture : —
(1) Must be based on true grammatical inter
pretation, 468.
(2) Personal experiences, promises, admoni
tions, and warnings have lessons for all
time, 468, 469.
(3) No true application of Scripture without
correct interpretation, 409, 4~0.
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY OP HERMENEUTICS 471
2. SUPPLEMENT TO BIBLIOGRAPHY 485
3. INDEX OF HEBREW WORDS , 487
4. INDEX OF GREEK WORDS 489
5. INDEX OF SCRIPTURE TEXTS t 491
6. GENERAL INDEX . . , , . , „ 507
,p. INTRODUCTION.
*;<
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY.
HERMENEUTICS is the science of interpretation. The word is usu
ally applied to the explanation of written documents, and may
therefore be more specifically defined as the science of Hermeneutics
interpreting an author's language.1 This science as- defined.
sumes that there are divers modes of thought and ambiguities of
expression among men, and, accordingly, it aims to remove the
supposable differences between a writer and his readers, so that the
meaning of the one may be truly and accurately apprehended by
the others.
It is common to distinguish between General and Special Her
meneutics. General Hermeneutics is devoted to the ,
General and
general principles which are applicable to the interpre- special Her-
tation of all languages and writing. It may appropri- r
ately take cognizance of the logical operations of the human mind,
and the philosophy of human speech. Special Hermeneutics is de
voted rather to the explanation of particular books and classes of
writings. Thus, historical, poetical, philosophical, and prophetical
writings differ from each other in numerous particulars, and each
class requires for its proper exposition the application of principles
and methods adapted to its own peculiar character and style.
Special Hermeneutics, according to Cellerier, is a science practical
and almost empirical, and searches after rules and solutions ; while
General Hermeneutics is methodical and philosophical, and searches
for principles and methods.11
1 The word hcrmeneutics is of Greek origin, from tpptjvevu, to interpret, to ex
plain ; thence the adjective r/ ^pfirjvevriKT) (sc. TE^VJ/), that is, the hermeneutical art,
and thence our word hcrmeneutics, the science or art of interpretation. Closely kin
dred is also the name 'Ep/u/f, Hermes, or Mercury, who, bearing a golden rod of magic
power, figures in Grecian mythology as the messenger of the gods, the tutelary deity
of speech, of writing, of arts and sciences, and of all skill and accomplishments.
"Manuel d'Hermeneutique Biblique, p. 6. Geneva, 1852.
18 INTRODUCTION.
Biblical or Sacred Ilermeneutics is the science of interpreting the
Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Ac-
cred Herme- cording to the order of books in the Christian Canon,
we have, first, the five Books of Moses, commonly called
the Pentateuch; next follow twelve Historical Books, recording the
history of the Israelites from the death of Moses to the restoration
from Babylonian exile, and covering a period of a thousand years.
Then follow five Poetical Books — a drama, a psalter, two books of
proverbial philosophy, and a song of love; and after these are seven
teen Prophetical Books, among which are some of the most magnfi-
cent monuments of all literature. In the New Testament we have,
first, the four Gospels, a record of the life and words of Jesus Christ;
then the Acts of the Apostles, a history of the beginning of the
Christian Church; then the thirteen Pauline Epistles, followed by
the Epistle to the Hebrews and the seven General Epistles; and,
finally, the Apocalypse of John.
Inasmuch as these two Testaments differ in form, language, and
Old and New historical conditions, many writers have deemed it pref-
Test. Herme- erable to treat the hermeneutics of each Testament
not be sepa- separately. And as the New Testament is the later and
rated, fuller revelation, its interpretation has received the fuller
and more frequent attention. But it may be questioned whether
such a separate treatment of the Old and New Testaments is the
better course. It is of the first importance to observe that, from a
Christian point of view, the Old Testament cannot be fully appre
hended without the help of the New. The mystery of Christ, which
in other generations was not made known unto men, was revealed
unto the apostles and prophets of the New Testament (Eph. iii, 5),
and that revelation sheds a flood of light upon numerous portions
of the Hebrew Scriptures. On the other hand, it is equally true
that a scientific interpretation of the New Testament is impossible
without a thorough knowledge of the older Scriptures. The
very language of the New Testament, though belonging to
another family of human tongues, is notably Hebraic. The
style, diction, and spirit of many parts of the Greek Testament
cannot be properly appreciated without acquaintance with the style
and spirit of the Hebrew prophets. »• The Old Testament also abounds
in testimony of the Christ (Luke xxiv, 27, 44; John v, 39; Acts
x, 43), the illustration and fulfillment of which can be seen only in
the light of the Christian revelation. In short, the whole Bible is
a divinely constructed unity, and there is danger that, in studying
one part to the comparative neglect of the other, we may fall into
one-sided and erroneous methods of exposition. The Holy Scrip-
DEFINITIONS. 19
tures should be studied as a whole, for their several parts were giv
en in manifold portions and modes (-n-oAviuepu^ itai TroAvrpoTrwf, Heb.
i, 1), and, taken all together, they constitute a remarkably self -in
terpreting volume.
Biblical Hermeneutics, having a specific field of its own, should
be carefully distinguished from other branches of theo- Distinguished
logical science with which it is often and quite naturally tto^criTicfs^i
associated. It is to be distinguished from Biblical In- and Exegesis.
troduction, Textual Criticism, and Exegesis. Biblical Introduction,
or Isagogics, is devoted to the historico-critical examination of the
different books of the Bible. It inquires after their age, author
ship, genuineness, and canonical authority, tracing at the same time
their origin, preservation, and integrity, and exhibiting their con"
tents, relative rank, and general character and value. The scien
tific treatment of these several subjects is often called the " Higher
Criticism." Textual Criticism has for its special object Textual cnti-
the ascertaining of .the.jexactjwords of the original texts cism'
of the sacred books. Its method of procedure is to collate and
compare ancient manuscripts, ancient versions, and ancient scripture
quotations, and, by careful and discriminating judgment, sift con
flicting testimony, weigh the evidences of all kinds, and thus en
deavour to determine the true reading of every doubtful text.
This science is often called the "Lower Criticism." Where such
criticism ends, Hermeneutics properly begins, and aims to establish
the principles, methods, and rules which are needful to unfold the
sense of what is written. Its object is to elucidate whatever may
be obscure or ill-defined, so that every reader may be able, by an
intelligent process, to obtain the exact ideas intended by the author.
Exegesis is the application of these principles and laws, Exegesis and
the actual bringing out into formal statement, and by Exposition.
other terms, the meaning of the author's words. Exegesis is re
lated to hermeneutics as preaching is to homiletics, or, in general,
as practice is to theory. Exposition is another word often used
synonymously with exegesis, and has essentially the same significa
tion ; and yet, perhaps, in common usage, exposition denotes a more
extended development and illustration of the sense, dealing more
largely with other scriptures by comparison and contrast. We
observe, accordingly, that the writer on Biblical Introduction ex
amines the historical foundations and canonical authority of the
books of Scripture. The textual critic detects interpolations, emends
false readings, and aims to give us the very words which the sacred
writers used. The exegete takes up these words, and by means of
the principles of hermeneutics, defines their meaning, elucidates the
20 INTRODUCTION.
scope and plan of each writer, and brings forth the grammatico
historical sense of what each book contains. The expositor builds
upon the labours both of critics and exegetes, and sets forth in fuller
form, and by ample illustration, the ideas, doctrines, and moral
lessons of the Scripture.1
But while we are careful to distinguish hermeneutics from these
kindred branches of exegetical theology, we should not fail to note
that a science of interpretation must essentially depend on exegesis
for the maintenance and illustration of its principles and rules. As
the full grammar of a language establishes its principles by sufficient
examples and by formal praxis, so a science of hermeneutics must
needs verify and illustrate its principles by examples of their prac
tical application. Its province is not merely to define principles
and methods, but also to exemplify and illustrate them. Herme-
„ .. neutics, therefore, is both a science and an art. As a
Hermeneutics ...
both a science science, it enunciates principles, investigates the laws
in ' of thought and language, and classifies its facts and
results. As an art, it teaches what application these principles
should have, and establishes their soundness by showing their prac
tical value in the elucidation of the more difficult scriptures. The
hermeneutical art thus cultivates and establishes a valid exegetical
procedure.
The necessity of a science of interpretation is apparent from the
Necessity of diversities of mind and culture among men. Personal
Hermeneutics. intercourse between individuals of the same nation and
language is often difficult and embarrassing by reason of their dif
ferent styles of thought and expression. Even the Apostle Peter
found in Paul's epistles things which were difficult to understand
(6vovo?]Ta, 2 Pet. iii, 16). The man of broad and liberal culture
lives and moves in a different world from the unlettered peasant,
so much so that sometimes the ordinary conversation of the one is
scarcely intelligible to the other. Different schools of metaphysics
and opposing systems of theology have often led their several ad
vocates into strange misunderstandings. The speculative philoso
pher, who ponders long on abstract themes, and by deep study
1 Doedes thus discriminates between explaining and interpreting : " To explain,
properly signifies the unfolding of what is contained in the words, and to interpret,
the making clear of what is not clear by casting light on that which is obscure. Very
often one interprets by means of explaining, namely, when, by unfolding the sense of
the words, light is reflected on what is said or written ; but it cannot be said that one
explains by interpreting. While explaining generally is interpreting, interpreting,
properly speaking, is not explaining. But we do not usually observe this distinction
in making use of these terms, and may without harm use them promiscuous! v."
Manual of Hermeneutics, p. 4.
NEED OF HERMENEUTICS. 21
constructs a doctrine or system clear to his own mind, may find it
difficult to set forth his views to others so as to prevent all miscon
ception. His whole subject matter lies beyond the range of com
mon thought. The hearers or readers, in such a case, must, like
the philosopher himself, dwell long upon the subject. They must
have terms defined, and ideas illustrated, until, step by step, they
come to imbibe the genius and spirit of the new philosophy. But
especially great and manifold are the difficulties of understanding
the writings of those who differ from us in language and national
ity. The learned themselves become divided in their essays to
decipher and interpret the records of the past. Volumes and li
braries have been written to elucidate the obscurities of the Greek
and Roman classics. The foremost scholars and linguists of the pres
ent generation are busied in the study and exposition of the sacred
books of the Chinese, the Hindus, the Parsees, and the Egyptians,
and, after all their learned labours, they disagree in the translation
and solution of many a passage. How much more might we ex
pect great differences of opinion in the interpretation of a book
like the Bible, composed at sundry times and in many parts and
modes, and ranging through many departments of literature!
What obstacles might reasonably be expected in the interpretation
of a record of divine revelation, in which heavenly thoughts, un
known to men before, were made to express themselves in the im
perfect formulas of human speech! The most contradictory rules
of interpretation have been propounded, and expositions have been
made to suit the peculiar tastes and prejudices of writers or to main
tain preconceived opinions, until all scientific method has been set
at nought, and each interpreter became a law unto himself. Hence
the necessity of well-defined and self -consistent principles of Script
ure interpretation. Only as exegetes come to adopt common prin
ciples and methods of procedure, will the interpretation of the
Bible attain the dignity and certainty of an established science.
The rank and importance of Biblical Hermeneutics among the
various studies embraced in Theological Encyclopedia j^^ and lm_
and Methodology is apparent from the fundamental re- portance of
,. i • i •, ,• ,1 11 -n J.T CI-.L Hermeneutics
lation which it sustains to them all. r or the Scripture in Theological
revelation is itself essentially the centre and substance
of all theological science. It contains the clearest and fullest exhi
bition of the person and character of God, and of the spiritual needs
and possibilities of man. A sound and trustworthy interpretation of
the scripture records, therefore, is the root and basis of all revealed
theology. Without it Systematic Theology, or Dogmatics, could
not be legitimately constructed, and would, in fact, be essentially
32 INTRODUCTION.
impossible. For the doctrines of revelation can only be learned
from a correct understanding of the oracles of God. Historical
Theology, also, tracing as it does the thought and life of the Church,
must needs take cognizance of the principles and methods of script
ure interpretation which have so largely controlled in the develop
ment of that thought and life. The creeds of Christendom assume
to rest upon the teachings of the inspired Scriptures. Apologetics,
polemics, ethics, and all that is embraced in Practical Theology, are
ever making appeal to the authoritative records of the Christian
faith. The great work of the Christian ministry is to preach the
word ; and that most important labour cannot be effectually done
without a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures and skill in the
interpretation and application of the same. Personal piety and
practical godliness are nourished by the study of this written word.
The psalmist sings (Psa. cxix, 105, 111) :
A lamp to my foot is thy word,
And a light to my pathway.
I have taken possession of thy testimonies forever,
For the joy of my heart are they.1
The Apostle Paul admonished Timothy that the Holy Scriptures
were able to make him wise unto salvation through faith in Jesus
Christ (2 Tim. iii, 15). And Jesus himself, interceding for his own
chosen followers, prayed, " Sanctify them in the truth ; thy word is
truth" (John xvii, 17). Accordingly, the Lord's ambassador must
not adulterate (2 Cor. ii, 17), but rightly divide, the word of the
truth (2 Tim. ii, 15). For if ever the divinely appointed ministry
of reconciliation accomplish the perfecting of the saints, and the
building up of the body of Christ, so as to bring all to the attain
ment of the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of
God (Eph. iv, 12, 13), it must be done by a correct interpreta
tion and efficient use of the word of God. The interpretation
and application of that word must rest upon a sound and self -evi
dencing science of hermeneutics.
1 All scripture quotations in the present work have been made by translating direct
ly from the Hebrew, Chaldee, and Greek originals. To have followed the Authorized
Version would have necessitated a large amount of circumlocution. In many instances
the citation of a text is designed to illustrate a process as well as a principle of her
meneutics. It is often desirable to bring out, either incidentally or prominently,
some noticeable emphasis, and this can be done best by giving the exact order of the
words of the original. The observance of such order in translation may sometimes
violate the usage and idiom of the best English, but, in many cases, it yields the
best possible translation.
QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED. 23
CHAPTER II.
QUALIFICATIONS OF AN INTERPRETER.
IN order to be a capable' and correct interpreter of the Holy
Scriptures, one needs a variety of qualifications, both natural and
acquired. For though a large proportion of the sacred volume is
sufficiently simple for the child to understand, and the common
people and the unlearned may find on every page much that is
profitable for instruction in righteousness, there is also much that
requires, for its proper apprehension and exposition, the noblest
powers of intellect and the most ample learning. The several
qualifications of a competent interpreter may be classified as Intel
lectual, Educational, and Spiritual. The first are largely native to
the soul ; the second are acquired by study and research ; the third
may be regarded both as native and acquired.
INTELLECTUAL QUALIFICATIONS.
First of all, the interpreter of Scripture, and, indeed, of any other
book, should have a sound, well-balanced mind. For Defectivemen.
dulness of apprehension, defective judgment, and an tai powers dis-
extravagant fancy will pervert one's reason, and quallfy-
lead to many vain and foolish notions. The faculties of the mind
are capable of discipline, and may be trained to a very high degree
of perfection ; but some men inherit peculiar tendencies of intellect.
Some are gifted with rare powers of imagination, but are utterly
wanting in the critical faculty. A lifetime of discipline will scarce
ly restrain their exuberant fancy. Others are naturally given to
form hasty judgments, and will rush to the wildest extremes. In
others, peculiar tastes and passions warp the judgment, and some
seem to be constitutionally destitute of common sense. Any and
all such mental defects disqualify one for the interpretation of the
word of God.
A ready perception is specially requisite in the interpreter. He
must have the power to grasp the thought of his au- Quick and clear
thor, and take in at a glance its full force and bearing, perception.
With such ready perception there must be united a breadth of view
and clearness of understanding which will be quick to catch, not
only the import of words and phrases, but also the drift of the
1 Comp. the import of inavoi, iKavoTtjf, and iKavuaev in 2 Cor. iii, 6, 6.
24 INTRODUCTION.
argument. Thus, for example, in attempting to explain the Epistle
to the Galatians, a quick perception will note the apologetic tone
of the first two chapters, the bold earnestness of Paul in asserting
the divine authority of his apostleship, and the far-reaching conse
quences of his claim. It will also note how forcibly the personal
incidents referred to in Paul's life and ministry enter into his argu
ment. It will keenly appreciate the impassioned appeal to the
" foolish Galatians " at the beginning of chapter third, and the nat
ural transition from thence to the doctrine of Justification. The
variety of argument and illustration in the third and fourth chap
ters, and the hortatory application and practical counsels of the two
concluding chapters will also be clearly discerned ; and then the
unity, scope, and directness of the whole Epistle will lie pictured
before the mind's eye as a perfect whole, to be appreciated more
and more fully as additional attention and study are given to min
uter details.
The great exegetes have been noted for acuteness of intellect, a
Acuteness of critical sharpness to discern at once the connexion of
intellect. thought, and the association of ideas. This qualifica
tion is of great importance to every interpreter. He must be quick
to see what a passage does not teach, as well as to comprehend its
real import. His critical acumen should be associated with a mas
terly power of analysis, in order that he may clearly discern all the
parts and relations of a given whole. Bengel and De Wette, in
their works on the New Testament, excel in this particular. They
evince an intellectual sagacity, which is to be regarded as a special
gift, an inborn endowment, rather than a result of scientific culture.
The strong intellect will not be destitute of imaginative power,
imagination Many things in narrative description must be left to be
mast be con- supplied, and many of the finest passages of Holy Writ
cannot be appreciated by an unimaginative mind. The
true interpreter must often transport himself into the past, and
picture in his soul the scenes of ancient time. He must have an in
tuition of nature and of human life by which to put himself in the
place of the biblical writers and see and feel as they did. But it
has usually happened that men of powerful imagination have been
unsafe expositors. An exuberant fancy is apt to run away with
the judgment, and introduce conjecture and speculation in place of
valid exegesis. The chastened and disciplined imagination will as
sociate with itself the power of conception and of abstract thought,
and be able to construct, if called for, working hypotheses to be
used in illustration or in argument. Sometimes it may be expe
dient to form a concept, or adopt a theory, merely for the purpose
INTELLECTUAL QUALIFICATIONS. 25
of pursuing some special line of discussion ; and every expositor
should be competent for this when needed.
But, above all things, an interpreter of Scripture needs a sound
and sober judgment. His mind must be competent to g^r judg-
analyze, examine, and compare. He must not allow ment-
himself to be influenced by hidden meanings, and spiritualizing
processes, and plausible conjectures. He must weigh reasons for
and against a given interpretation; he must judge whether his
principles are tenable and self-consistent; he must often balance
probabilities, and reach conclusions with the greatest caution. Such
a discriminating judgment may be trained and strengthened, and
no pains should be spared to render it a safe and reliable habit of
the mind.
Correctness and delicacy of taste will be the result of a discrimi
nating judgment. The interpreter of the inspired vol- correct and dei-
ume will find the need of this qualification in discerning lcate ^sle-
the manifold beauties and excellences scattered in rich profusion
through its pages. But his taste, as well as his judgment, must be
trained to discern between the true and the false ideals. Many a
modern whim of shallow refinement is offended with the straight
forward honesty and simplicity of the ancient world. Prurient
sensitiveness often blushes before expressions in the Scriptures
which are as far as possible removed from impurity. Correct taste
in such cases will pronounce according to the real spirit of the
writer and his age.
The use of reason in the interpretation of Scripture is every
where to be assumed. The Bible comes to us in the
.. , Use of reason,
forms of human language, and appeals to our reason
and judgment; it invites investigation, and condemns a blind cre
dulity. It is to be interpreted as we interpret any other volume,
by a rigid application of the same laws of language, and the same
grammatical analysis. Even in passages which may be said to lie
beyond the province of reason, in the realm of supernatural revela
tion, it is still competent for the rational judgment to say whether,
indeed, the revelation be supernatural. In matters beyond its range
of vision, reason may, by valid argument, explain its own incom-
petency, and by analogy and manifold suggestion show that there
are many things beyond its province which are nevertheless true
and righteous altogether, and to be accepted without dispute.
Reason itself may thus become efficient in strengthening faith in
the unseen and eternal.
But it behooves the expounder of God's word to see that all his
principles and processes of reasoning are sound and self-consistent.
28 INTRODUCTION.
He must not commit himself to false premises ; he must abstain
from confusing dilemmas ; he must especially refrain from rushing
to unwarranted conclusions. Nor must he ever take for granted
things which are doubtful, or open to serious question. All such
logical fallacies will necessarily vitiate his expositions, and make
him a dangerous guide. The right use of reason in biblical exposi
tion is seen in the cautious procedure, the sound principles adopted,
the valid and conclusive argumentation, the sober sense displayed,
and the honest integrity and self-consistency everywhere main
tained. Such exercise of reason will always commend itself to the
godly conscience and the pure heart.
In addition to the above-mentioned qualifications, the interpreter
should be "apt to teach" (didaKTticoc;, 2 Tim. ii, 24).
He must not only be able to understand the Scriptures,,
but also to set forth in clear and lively form to others what he
himself comprehends. Without such aptness in teaching, all his
other gifts and qualities will avail little or nothing. Accordingly,
the interpreter should cultivate a clear and simple style, and study
to bring out the truth and force of the inspired oracles so that
others will readily understand.
EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATIONS.
The professional interpreter of Scripture needs more than a well-
balanced mind, discreet sense, and acuteness of intellect. He needs
stores of information in the broad and varied fields of history,
science, and philosophy. By many liberal studies will his faculties
become disciplined and strong for practical use ; and extensive and
accurate knowledge will furnish and fit him to be the teacher of
others. The biblical interpreter should be minutely acquainted with
the geography of Palestine and the adjacent regions.
Geography. -, -. J
In order to be properly versed in this, he will need to
understand the physical character of the world outside of Bible
lands. For, though the sacred writers may have known nothing of
countries foreign to Asia, Africa, and Europe, the modern student
will find an advantage in having information, as full as possible, of
the entire surface of the globe. With such geographical knowledge
he should also unite a familiar acquaintance with uni
versal history. The records of many peoples, both an
cient and modern, will often be of value in testing the accuracy of
the sacred writers, and illustrating their excellence and worth.
AVhat a vast amount of light have ancient authors, and the deci
phered inscriptions of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and Persia, shed
upon the narratives of the Bible !
KNOWLEDGE TO BE ACQUIRED. 27
The science of chronology is also indispensable to the proper in
terpretation of the Scriptures. The succession of events,
the division of the ages into great eras, the scope of gen
ealogical tables, and the fixing of dates, are important, and call
for patient study and laborious care. Nor can the interpreter dis
pense with the study of antiquities, the habits, customs,
and arts of the ancients. He should inquire into the an
tiquities of all the ancient nations and races of whom any records
remain, for the customs of other nations may often throw light
upon those of the Hebrews. The study of politics, in-
,r ,. . ^ .' Politics,
eluding international law and the various theories and
systems of civil government, will add greatly to the other accom
plishments of the exegete, and enable him the better to appreciate
the Mosaic legislation, and the great principles of civil government
set forth in the New Testament. Many a passage, also, can be illus
trated and made more impressive by a thorough knowledge of natu
ral science. Geology, mineralogy, and astronomy, are Natural set-
incidentally touched by statements or allusions of the sa- ence-
cred writers, and whatever the knowledge of the ancients on these
subjects, the modern interpreter ought to be familiar with what
modern science has demonstrated. The same may be said of the
history and systems of speculative thought, the various
schools of philosophy and psychology. Many of these
philosophical discussions have become involved in theological dog
ma, and have led to peculiar principles and methods of interpreta
tion, and, to cope fairly with them, the professional exegete should
be familiar with all their subtleties. It is also of the first impor
tance that the interpreter possess a profound and accu- The
rate knowledge of the sacred tongues. No one can be a
master in biblical exposition without such knowledge. To a thor
ough acquaintance with Hebrew, Chaldee, and Greek, he should
add some proficiency in the science of comparative phi- comparative
lology. Especially will a knowledge of Syriac, Arabic, pwioiogy.
and other Semitic languages help one to understand the Hebrew
and the Chaldee, and acquaintance with Sanskrit and Latin and
other Indo-European tongues will deepen and enlarge one's knowl
edge of the Greek. To all these acquirements the interpreter of
God's word should add a familiar acquaintance with gen- General lit
eral literature. The great productions of human genius, eratuie.
the world-renowned epics, the classics of all the great nations, and
the bibles of all religions, will be of value in estimating the oracles
of God.
It is not denied that there have been able and excellent exposi-
28 INTRODUCTION.
tors who were wanting in many of these literary qualifications.
But he who excels as a master can regard no literary attainments
as superfluous; and, in maintaining and defending against scepti
cism and infidelity the faith once delivered to the saints, the
Christian apologist and exegete will find all these qualifications in
dispensable.
SPIRITUAL QUALIFICATIONS.
Intellectual qualities, though capable of development and disci-
Partly a gift, pline, are to be regarded as natural endowments; edu-
partiy acquired. cational or literary acquirements are to be had only by
diligent and faithful study; but those qualifications of an inter
preter which we call spiritual are to be regarded as partly a gift,
and partly acquired by personal effort and proper discipline. Under
this head we place all moral and religious qualities, dispositions,
and attainments. The spirit is that higher moral nature which
especially distinguishes man from the brute, and renders him capa
ble of knowing and loving God. To meet the wants of this spirit
ual nature the Bible is admirably adapted; but the perverse heart
and carnal mind may refuse to entertain the thoughts of God.
" The natural man," says Paul, " does not receive the things of the
Spirit of God, for they are a folly to him, and he is not able to
know, because they are spiritually discerned " (1 Cor. ii, 14).
First of all, the true interpreter needs a disposition to seek and
Desire to know know the truth. No man can properly enter upon the
the truth. study and exposition of what purports to be the reve
lation of God while his heart is influenced by any prejudice against
it, or hesitates for a moment to accept what commends itself to his
conscience and his judgment. There must be a sincere desire and
purpose to attain the truth, and cordially accept it when attained.
Such a disposition of heart, which may be more or less strong in
early childhood, is then easily encouraged and developed, or as
easily perverted. Early prejudices and the natural tendency of
the human soul to run after that which is evil, rapidly beget habits
and dispositions unfriendly to godliness. " For the carnal mind is
enmity against God " (Rom. viii, 7), and readily cleaves to that
which seems to remove moral obligation. " Every one that does
evil hates the light, and comes not to the light lest his deeds should
be reproved" (John iii, 20). A soul thus perverted is incompetent
to love and search the Scriptures.
Tender aflec- A pure desire to know the truth is enhanced by a ten-
tion- der affection for whatever is morally ennobling. The
writings of John abound in passages of tender feeling, and suggest
SPIRITUAL ENDOWMENTS. 29
how deep natures like his possess an intuition of godliness. Their
souls yearn for the pure and the good, and they exult to find it all
in God. Such tender affection is the seat of all pure love, whether
of God or of man. The characteristic utterance of such a soul is:
"Beloved, let us love one another; because love is of God, and
every one that loves has been begotten of God, and knows God.
. . . God is love; and he that abides in love abides in God, and God
in him" (1 John iv, 7, 16).
The love of the truth should be fervent and glowing, so as to be
get in the soul an enthusiasm for the word of God. Enthusiasm for
The mind that truly appreciates the Homeric poems theword-
must imbibe the spirit of Homer. The same is true of him who
delights in the magnificent periods of Demosthenes, the easy num
bers and burning thoughts of Shakspeare, or the lofty verse of Mil
ton. What fellowship with such lofty natures can he have whose
soul never kindles with enthusiasm in the study of their works?
So the profound and able exegete is he whose spirit God has
touched, and whose soul is enlivened by the revelations of heaven.
Such hallowed fervour should be chastened and controlled by a
true reverence. "The fear of Jehovah is the begin- Reverence for
ning of knowledge " (Prov. i, 7). There must be the God-
devout frame of mind, as well as the pure desire to know the
truth. "God is a Spirit; and they that worship him must worship
him in spirit and in truth " (John iv, 24). Therefore, they who
would attain the true knowledge of God must possess the rever
ent, truth-loving spirit; and, having attained this, God will seek
them (John iv, 23) and reveal himself to them as he does not unto
the world. Comp. Matt, xi, 25; xvi, 17. Nor should we allow
ourselves to be deluded by the idea that the human mind must be a
tabula rasa in order to arrive at sound conclusions. To conform to
such an assumption is well pronounced by Neander to be impracti
cable. "The very attempt," he observes, "contradicts the sacred
laws of our being. We cannot entirely free ourselves from presup
positions, which are born with our nature, and which attach to the
fixed course of progress in which we ourselves are involved. They
control our consciousness, whether we will or no; and the supposed
freedom from them is, in fact, nothing else but the exchange of one set
for another. Some of these prepossessions, springing from a higher
necessity, founded in the moral order of the universe, and derived
from the eternal laws of the Creator, constitute the very ground
and support of our nature. From them we must not free our
selves." *
' Life of Jesus Christ. Translated by McClintock and Blumenthal ; p. 1. N. Y., 1848.
3
30 INTRODUCTION.
Finally, the expounder of the Holy Scriptures needs to have liv
ing fellowship and communion with the Holy Spirit.
Communion a J i
with the Holy Inasmuch as "all Scripture is God-breathed" (2 Tim.
iii, 16), and the sacred writers spoke from God as they
were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. i, 21), the interpreter of
Scripture must be a partaker of the same Holy Spirit. He must,
by a profound experience of the soul, attain the saving knowledge
of Christ, and in proportion to the depth and fulness of that expe
rience he will know the life and peace of the " mind of the Spirit "
(Rom. vi, G). " We speak God's wisdom in a mystery," says
Paul (1 Cor. ii, 7-11), the hidden spiritual wisdom of a divinely
illuminated heart, which none of the princes of this world have
known, but (as it is in substance written in Isa. Ixiv, 4), a wisdom
relating to " what things (a) eye did not see, and ear did not hear,
and into man's heart did not enter — whatever things (oaa) God
prepared for them that love him; for1 to us God revealed them
through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the
depths of God. For who of men knows the things of the man
except the spirit of the man which is in him ? So also the things
of God no one knows except the Spirit of God." He, then, who
would know and explain to others " the mysteries of the kingdom
of heaven " (Matt, xiii, 11) must enter into blessed communion and
fellowship with the Holy One. He should never cease to pray
(Eph. i, 17, 18) "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father
of glory, would give him the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in
the full knowledge (kmy vuoi <; ) of him, the eyes of his heart being
enlightened for the purpose of knowing what is the hope of his call
ing, what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and
what the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe."
1 We follow here the reading of "Westcott and Hort, who receive -yap into the text.
This reading has the strong support of Codex B, and would have been quite liable to
be changed to the more numerously supported reading 6s by reason of a failure to
apprehend the somewhat involved connection of thought. The yap gives the reason
why we speak God's mysterious wisdom, for to us God revealed it through the Spirit.
'• Is it in truth the word of God," says T. Lewis, " is it really God speaking to us?
Then the feeling and the conclusion which it necessitates are no hyperboles. We
cannot go too far in our reverence, or in our expectation of knowledge surpassing in
kind, if not in extent. The wisdom of the earth, of the seas, of the treasures hid
den in the rocks, and all deep places, or of the stars afar off, brings us not so nigh the
central truth of the heavens, the very mind and the thought of God, as one parable
of Christ." The Divine Human in the Scriptures, pp. 25, 26. New York, 1859.
CAUSES OF VARIOUS INTERPRETATIONS. 31
CHAPTER III.
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
A KNOWLEDGE of the history of biblical interpretation is of ines
timable value to the student of the Holy Scriptures, value and im-
rlt serves to guard against errors and exhibits the portanceofnis-
. . ° ° . tory of inter
activity and efforts of the human mind in its search pretation.
after truth and in relation to noblest themes. It shows what influ
ences have led to the misunderstanding of God's word, and how-
acute minds, carried away by a misconception of the nature of the
Bible, have sought mystic and manifold meanings in its contents.
From the first, the Scriptures, like other writings, were liable to be
understood in different ways. The Old Testament prophets com
plained of the slowness of the people to apprehend spiritual things
(Isa. vi, 10; Jer. v, 21; Ezek. xii, 2). The apostolical epistles were
not always clear to those who first received them (comp. 2 Thess.
ii, 2; 2 Pet. iii, 16). When the Old and New Testaments assumed
canonical form and authority, and became the subject of devout
study and a means of spiritual discipline, they furnished a most in
viting field for literary research and theological controversy. On
the one hand, there were those who made light of what _
' Origin and va-
the prophets had written, attacked the sacred books, riety or inter-
and perverted their meaning; on the other, there arose prel
apologists and defenders of the holy volume, and among them not
a few who searched for hidden treasures, and manifold meanings in
every word. Besides assailants and apologists there were also
many who, withdrawing from the field of controversy, searched
the Scriptures on account of their religious value, and found in
them wholesome food for the soul. The public teachers of religion,
in oral and written discourses, expounded and applied the oracles
of God to the people. Hence, in the course of ages, a great variety
of expositions and a vast amount of biblical literature have appeared.
The student who acquaints himself with the various methods of ex
position, and with the works of the great exegetes of ancient and
modern times, is often saved thereby from following new develop
ments of error, and is guarded against the novelties of a restless
fancy. He observes how learned men, yielding to subtle specula
tion and fanciful analogies, have become the founders of schools
32 INTRODUCTION.
and systems of interpretation. At the same time he becomes more
fully qualified to maintain and defend the faith once delivered to the
saints.
It was the distinguishing advantage of the Jewish people that
they were entrusted with the oracles of God (Rom. iii, 1, 2). But
during the long period between Moses and the Babylonian captivity
they showed little appreciation of their heavenly treasure. The
law was ignored, the prophets were persecuted, the people turned
to idolatry, and the penalty of exile and dispersion, foreannounced
by Jehovah himself (Deut. xxviii, 63, 64), followed at last with
terrible severity. In the land of exile, a descendant of Aaron the
high priest, hopeless of Israel's rise by worldly prow-
Ezra the scribe. • , . ' ,, , , J , ,, J L .
ess, set his heart upon the devout study of the ancient
Scriptures. " Ezra prepared his heart to seek the law of Jehovah
and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments " (Ezra
vii, 10). Possibly the one hundred and nineteenth psalm was the
result of that study, and shows the impression the law made upon
that studious priest while yet a young man. A profound apprecia
tion of God's law, such as this psalm evinces, would prompt a man
like Ezra to seek the reformation of Israel by calling them to a rigid
obedience of the commandments. We may, accordingly, date the
beginning of formal exposition of the Scriptures in the time of
Ezra. A need was then felt, as not before, of appealing to the
oracles of God. The Book of the Law was recognized as funda
mental in the records of divine revelation. The noblest Israelite
was he who delighted in Jehovah's law, and meditated therein by
night and by day (Psa. i, 2; comp. Psa. cxix, 34, 35, 97). The
loss of temple, throne, palace, and regal splendour turned the heart
of the devout Jew to a more diligent inquiry after the words of
Jehovah.
Ezra, accordingly, led a company of exiles back to Jerusalem and
instituted numerous reforms. The commandments forbidding in-
Pnbiic instruc- termarriage with the heathen were rigidly enforced, and
tion in the law. ^he legal f easts and fasts were observed. The public
instruction of the people, as recorded in Neh. viii, 1-8, was a meas
ure designed to make known the will of Jehovah, and to develop a
purer religious sentiment among the people. Thenceforth the office
and work of the scribe became important. He was no longer the
ffl d mere recorder of passing events, the secretary, clerk, or
work of the registrar of the king (2 Sam. viii, 17; 1 Kings iv, 3),
but the copyist and authorized expounder of the sacred
books. Their devotion to the study and interpretation of the law
brought to the scribes after a time the title of lawyers
JEWISH EXEGESIS. 33
At an early period they became known as a distinct class, and were
spoken of as families or guilds (1 Chron. ii, 55). Ezra is to be re
garded as a distinguished representative of his class. He was not
the only scribe who returned from Babylon (Ezra viii, 16). On the
occasion of the public reading of the law he had the assistance of
learned Levites, who were able to explain the ancient Scriptures to
the people. Constant searching of these holy writings led to the
various reforms narrated in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah.
The progress of Jewish exegesis from the time of Ezra to the
beginning of the Christian era may be dimly traced in
0 * ^ . Progressof
scattered notices of the learned Jews of that period. Jewish exegesis
in the pre-Christian apocryphal and pseudepigraphal a
literature, in the works of Philo Judseus and Josephus, and in the
Talmud. The rigid measures adopted by Ezra, Nehemiah, and their
associates would seem to have prepared the way for Pharisaism.
The scribes of the period succeeding that of Nehemiah not only
copied the sacred books, and explained their general import, but
took measures to make a hedge about the law. They set a value
on the very letters of the law, and counted their number.1 They
scrupulously guarded against interpolations and changes, but, at
the same time, they gathered up traditions and constructed an oral
law which in time came to have with them an authority Haiachah and
equal to that of the sacred books. Thus originated Hagadah.
the Jewish Haiachah and Hagadah, the legal and homiletic exege
sis. These expositions constitute the Midrashim, or most ancient
Jewish commentary. The Halachic, or legal exegesis, was confined
to the Pentateuch, and aimed, by analogy and combina-
. . ' . , * , ,&J , The Midrashim.
nation of specific written laws, to deduce precepts and
rules on subjects which had not been formally treated in the Mosaic
Code. This was, in the main, a reading into the laws of Moses a
great variety of things which they could not, by any fair interpre
tation, be made to teach. The Hagadic exegesis, on the other hand,
was extended over the entire Old Testament Scriptures, and was of
a more practical and homiletical character. It aimed, by means of
memorable sayings of illustrious men, parables, allegories, marvel
lous legends, witty proverbs, and mystic interpretations of Scripture
events, to stimulate the Jewish people to pious activity and obe
dience. The Midrashim thus became a vast treasury of Hebrew
national lore. It was developed gradually, by public lectures and
homilies, and became more and more comprehensive and compli
cated as new legends, secret meanings, hidden wisdom, and allegor
ical expositions were added by one great teacher after another. We
1 See Ginsburg, article Scribes, in Kitto's Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature.
34 INTRODUCTION.
have the substance of the Midrashim preserved in the Talmud and
the Hagadic literature of the first three centuries of the Christian era.1
The later Jewish exegesis was influenced by controversies with
Christians, and by the sect of the synagogue known as the Karaites
(D^£, readers, or literalists), who rejected the authority of the oral
law, and all the traditions and precepts of Hagadic literature. The
strict methods of these literalists tended to restrain the extrava
gance of the rabbinical schools, and to promote a more rational study
of the Hebrew Scriptures.
AVe naturally look to the New Testament for the earliest indica-
Methods of tions of the spirit and methods of Christian exegesis.
Christian exe- The divine Founder of Christianity constantly appealed
gesis indicated
in the New to the bcnptures of the Old lestament as to a sacred
Testament. authority, and declared that they bore testimony of him
self (John v, 39; comp. Luke xxiv, 27). With equal emphasis did
he condemn the current Halachic and Hagadic tradition of the
O
elders, which in some instances nullified the commandments of God
(Matt, xv, 1-9; Mark vii, 1-13). He reproved the Sadducees also
for not understanding the Scriptures and the power of God (Matt.
xxii, 29). The error of the disciples in construing the prophecy of
the coming of Elijah (Mai. iv, 5) to mean a literal return of the
ancient Tishbite — an error which they had received from the scribes
— was exposed by showing that the " spirit and power of Elijah "
(Luke i, 17) had reappeared in John the Baptist (Matt, xi, 14; xvii,
10-13). Paul makes mention of his proficiency in Judaism (KV T£>
'lovdataftco), and his excessive zeal for the traditions of his fathers,
for which he was noted before his conversion (Gal. i, 13, 14); but
after it pleased God to give him the revelation of his grace in Jesus
Christ, he denounced "Jewish fables and commandments of men
who turn away from the truth" (Titus i, 14), and also "foolish
questionings and genealogies and strife and fightings (or controver
sies) about the law " (Titus iii, 9). He counselled Timothy to " turn
away from the profane babblings and oppositions of the falsely
named knowledge " (rf/f ipEvduvvftov yvdaeuc;, 1 Tim. vi, 20), and
wai'ned the Colossians against the spoiling tendencies of " philoso-
1 Ishmael Ben-Elisa's Commentary on Exodus xii-xxiii, called Mechilta
an allegorical treatment of various Mosaic ceremonies, and is one of the oldest speci
mens of formal Jewish exposition. Ishmael Ben-Elisa flourished about the close of
the first and the beginning of the second century of our era, and was the author of
several mystic treatises which are still extant. His Mechilta with a Latin translation
is given by Ugolino in the Thesaurus Antiquitatum Sacrarum, vol. xiv, Venice, 1752.
A German translation of numerous ancient Midrashim is given by "Wiinsche, Biblio-
theca Rabbinica ; eine Sammlung alter Midrashim zum ersten Male ins Deutsche
•ubcrtragen, Lpz., 1880-1881, 12 thin vols., 8vo.
NEW TESTAMENT METHODS. '65
phy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments
of the world, and not after Christ" (Col. ii, 8; comp. 1 Tim. i, 4;
iv, 7; 2 Tim. ii, 14-16, 23). In these admonitions and warnings
there is a manifest reference to the Jewish Midrashim and the spec
ulative tendencies of that age. It was a time of intense mental
activity throughout the Roman world, especially in the more east
ern cities, where Greek philosophy and oriental mysticism met and
blended, as in the case of Philo of Alexandria. The Hagadic meth-
endless genealogies and the falsely named knowledge odscondemned.
indicate the beginnings of heretical Gnosticism, already disturbing
the faith and practice of the Christian Church. From all which it
appears that neither the Hagadic exegesis and ancestral traditions
of the Jews, nor the allegorizing and speculative habit of Hellenists
like Philo, received encouragement from Christ or his apostles.
Paul's single instance of allegorizing the history of Hagar and Sarah
was essentially an argumentum ad hominem, professedly put as a
special plea to those "who desire to be under law" (Gal. iv, 21).
Its exceptional character only serves to set in stronger light Paul's
constant habit elsewhere of construing the Scriptures according to
the simple and natural import of the words. Our Lord's answer to
the Sadducees, in Matt, xxii, 31-33, is also to be regarded as an ex
ceptional and peculiar argument, designed to confound and silence
captious assailants, not to encourage or sanction subtle uses of the
Scriptures.
But though the New Testament exhibits in itself the principles
and methods of a sound and trustworthy exegesis, the Allegorizing
widely prevalent Hellenistic habit of allegorizing what tendency of the
J 1 _ _& . post-apostolic
seemed offensive to philosophic taste carried along with age.
its strong tide many of the Christian writers of the post-apostolic
age. The Church of this early period was too much engaged in
struggles for life to develop an accurate or scientific interpretation
of Scripture. There was great intellectual activity, and the early
forms of heresy which disturbed the Church developed by contro
versy great strength and subtlety of reasoning. But the tone and
style of the earlier writers were apologetical and polemical rather
than exegetical. Harassed by persecution, distracted by occasional
factions, and exposed to manifold dangers, the early Christian prop
agandists had no opportunities to cultivate those habits of careful
study which lead to broad generalization and impartial decisions. In
the hurry and pressure of exciting times men take readily what first
comes to hand, or serves an immediate purpose, and it was very natural
that many of the early Christian writers should make use of methods
of Scripture interpretation which were widely prevalent at the time. *
36 INTRODUCTION.
After the beginning of the third century biblical interpretation
school of Alex- was notably influenced by the famous schools of Alex
andria, andria and Antioch. Long before the time of Christ
Alexandria had become a great literary centre. The Asiatic mystic,
the Jewish rabbi, and the Greek and Roman philosopher there came
together and interchanged their thoughts. In the writings of Philo
JudaMis we trace the development of the Halachic and Hagadic
principles as they became coloured by Hellenic culture. This philo
sophical Jew united a deep reverence for the Mosaic revelation with
an absorbing fondness for Grecian metaphysics. In his writings he
appears at times to allow the literal sense of a passage, but his great
aim is to exhibit the mystic depths of significance which lie con
cealed beneath the sacred words. He shows no conception of the
historical standpoint of his author, no appreciation of the truthful
ness or accuracy of the statements of Moses, but often writes as if
he really thought the Hellenic philosophy was a natural and neces
sary part of the laws of the Pentateuch. But Philo was not the
author of this system of exegesis, nor did it end with him. The
mingling of diverse religionists and philosophies in that great
metropolis encouraged all manner of speculation, and we need not
wonder that the great lights of the Alexandrian Church fell into
habits of mystical and allegorical exposition. One of the earliest
representatives of this school whose works have come down to us
was Titus Flavins Clement. He was preceded by Pantrenus and
others, who, like Apollos, had profited by Alexandrian culture and
were "mighty in the Scriptures" (Acts xviii, 24). But Clement
was a fanciful interpreter. He was charmed with the Greek phi
losophy, read Philo's work with avidity, and adopted his allegorical
methods of exposition. He was succeeded at Alexandria by a pupil
greater than himself, a man of purest character, who, while yet a
little child disclosed a remarkable insight into the depth and fulness
of the Scriptures, and later, by his untiring devotion to multifarious
studies, and his indomitable firmness through bitter trials, acquired
the name of Man of Adamant. This man was Origen, the most
distinguished biblical critic of the ancient Church. His veneration
for the Scriptures led him to ascribe a sort of magical value to the
original text, and he accordingly sought to establish it by the widest
possible collation and comparison of existing versions. In his Hex-
apla he arranged, in six parallel columns, the Hebrew text, a Greek
transliteration of the same, the Septuagint, and the Greek versions of
Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion. Some pages, which contained
books of which other versions were extant, were arranged in seven,
eight, or nine columns, according to the number of the versions. On
SCHOOL OF ANTIOCH. 37
this immense work, which extended to nearly fifty volumes, he was
engaged for twenty-eight years.1 But with all his devotion to the
interests of truth, and the enormous magnitude of his labors, he was
a mystico-allegorical interpreter. He followed in the path of Philo
the Jew, and Clement the Christian, and, assuming that many por
tions of the Bible are unreasonable and absurd when taken literally,
he maintained a threefold sense — the corporeal, the physical, and
the spiritual. But he protests against being supposed to teach that
no history is real, and no laws are to be literally observed, because
some narratives and laws, literally understood, are absurd or impos
sible. " For," he says, " the passages that are true in their histori
cal sense are much more numerous than those which have a purely
spiritual signification." 2
Driven by persecution from Alexandria, he resorted to Csesarea,
in Palestine, and there established a school which for a time sur
passed that of the Egyptian metropolis. The magnetism of his per
son, and his wide-spread fame as an expounder of the Scriptures,
attracted great multitudes to him. His pernicious habit of explain
ing the sacred records as the Platonists explained the heathen myths,
and his peculiar views touching the pre-existence of souls, a new
probation after death, and some other doctrines, were so far offset
by his pure zeal for God, and his many and great virtues, that he
has been quite generally acknowledged as pre-eminently the father
of biblical science, and one of the greatest prodigies of learning and
industry among men.3
To Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians (Acts
xi, 26), belongs the honor of introducing a more scien- The gc^i Of
tific and profitable system of biblical study. Its founder Antioch.
was Lucian, who in early life studied at Edessa, and laid the founda
tion of his thorough scholarship under the training of Macarius, an
eminent teacher of that city. He afterward removed to Antioch,
where he was ordained presbyter, and acquired great fame as a
critical student and expounder of the Holy Scriptures. His stricter
methods put a check to the allegorical and mystical interpretation
1 The remains of this great work were collected and published in two folio volumes
by Montfaucon, Paris, 1713. Revised edition by Bahrdt, Lpz., 1769-70, 2 vols. 8vo.
It is also published in vols. xv and xvi of Migne's Greek Patrologiae Cursus Completus,
and in two tine quartos by Field, Oxford, 1875.
5De Principiis. book iv, chap, i, 11.
3 Origen's works have been printed in many editions. The best is that of the
Benedictines De la Rue, Paris, 1733-59, 4 vols. fol. It is reprinted in Migne's Greek
Patrologise Cursus Completus, Paris, 9 vols. English translations of the De Prin
cipiis, the Contra Celsum, and several of his epistles are given in vols. x and xxiii of
the Edinburgh Ante-Nicene Christian Library.
38 INTRODUCTION.
so popular at the time, and which had received great strength and
currency by the influence of Origen. This sounder method of exe
gesis was further promoted by Diodorus, who was also for some
time a distinguished presbyter of Antioch, but afterward became
bishop of Tarsus. The church historian, Socrates, speaks of him as
president of a monastery and author of " many treatises, in which
he limited his expositions to the literal sense of Scripture, without
attempting to explain what was mystical." ' He is said to have
written commentaries on all the books of the Old Testament, and
also on considerable portions of the New.5 Some do not hesitate
to make him the real founder of the school of Antioch.
The two most distinguished disciples of Diodorus were Theodore
Theodore of of Mopsuestia, and John Chrysostom of Constantinople.
Mopsuestia. Both of them studied philosophy and rhetoric in the
school of the celebrated sophist Libanius, the friend of the Emperor
Julian. Theodore was made a presbyter at Antioch, but rapidly
acquired reputation, and was made bishop of Mopsuestia in Cilicia,
about A. D. 390. His long life and incessant labour as a Christian
teacher, the extent of his learning, the vigour and acuteness of his
intellect, and the force of his personal character, won for him the
title of Master of the Orient. He was a prolific author, and com
posed commentaries on various books of Scripture, of which only
his exposition of the Minor Prophets has been preserved intact until
the present time. His commentaries on Philippians, Colossians,
and Thessalonians are preserved in a Latin version.3 He was an
independent critic, and a straightforward, sober, historical inter
preter. He had no sympathy with the mystical methods of the
Alexandrian school, and repudiated their extravagant notions of
inspiration; but he went to an opposite extreme of denying the in
spiration of many portions of the Scriptures, and furnished speci
mens of rationalistic exposition quite barren and unsatisfactory.
Nevertheless the Syrian Nestorians regarded him as the greatest of
exegetes. His method of teaching the subjects of Christology and
anthropology were severely condemned after his decease, especially
1 Eccl. Hist., book vi, chap. iii.
5 So stated by Theodore the Reader, as cited in Stiidas' Lexicon (Kiister's ed. vol., i,
p. 593. Cambr., 1705), under the name Diodorus. Fragments of the commentaries of
Diodorus are given in vol xxxiii of Migne's Greek Patrologire Cursus Completus.
3 Theodore's Commentary on the Minor Prophets was published by Mai, in vol. vii
of his Patrum Nova Bibliotheca (Rome, 1854), and by "Wegner (Berol., 1834). Frag
ments of his other works are given by Fritzsche, Theod. Mops., in N. Test. Comm.
(Turici, 1847), and Pitra, Spicil. Solesm. (Par.. 1854). See also Sieffert, Theod. Mops.
V. T. sobre interpretandi vindex, (Regiom., 1827), and Kihn, Theod. Mops, und J.
Africanus als Exegeten (Freib., 1880).
CHRYSOSTOM. 39
because the Nestorians appealed to them as identical with their
own.
While Theodore represented the more independent aud rational
istic spirit of the Antiochian school, Chrysostom exhib-
. , , ,-,, Chrysostom.
ited its more conservative and practical tendency. Ihe
tender devotion of a pious Christian mother, the rhetorical polish
acquired in the school of Libanius, and the assiduous study of the
Scriptures at the monastery of the learned Diodorus, were all to
gether admirably adapted to develop the profound exegete and the
eloquent preacher of the word of God. " Through a rich inward
experience," says Neander, " he lived into the understanding of the
Holy Scriptures; and a prudent method of interpretation, on logical
and grammatical principles, kept him in the right track in deriving
the spirit from the letter of the sacred volume. His profound and
simple, yet fruitful, homiletic method of treating the Scriptures,
show to what extent he was indebted to both, and how, in his case,
both co-operated together." '
Chrysostom wrote more than six hundred homilies on the Scrip
tures. They consist of expository discourses on Genesis, the Psalms,
and most of the New Testament. Those on the Gospel of Matthew
and the Pauline epistles are specially valuable, and such modern
exegetes as Tholuck and Alford have enriched their pages by
numerous quotations from this father. The least valuable of his
expository discourses are those upon the prophets, only a few of
which remain. His ignorance of Hebrew, and his failure to appre
hend the spirit of the Old Testament prophets, are apparent. The
homilies on the Psalms, however, though without critical merit,
furnish a rich banquet, for Chrysostom's deep religious experience
brought him into complete sympathy with the psalmist. Although
his credulous nature yielded to many superstitions of his age, and
his pious feeling inclined him to asceticism and the self-mortifica
tions of monastic life, John Chrysostom is unquestionably the great
est commentator among the early fathers of the Church. Theodore
of Mopsuestia may have been more sharply critical, Origen was
more encyclopedic in his learning, and others were more original
and profound in apprehending some of the doctrines of the Christian
faith, but he surpassed them all in the general good judgment which
appears in his expositions, in the richness of his suggestions, and the
practical value of what he said or wrote. He is the greatest orna
ment and noblest representative of the exegetical school of Antioch..2
1 History of the Christian Religion and Church, vol. ii, p. 693.
2 The best edition of Chrysostom's works is that of Montfaticon, Greek and Latin,
13 vols., Paris, 1718-38. Reprinted 1834-39, and also in Migne's Greek Patrology.
40 INTRODUCTION.
In this connexion we should also notice the works of Theodoret,
who was trained at the monastery near Antioch, where
Theodoret. n , , ., • i • ,/.
he abode tor twenty years, devoting himself to theolog
ical studies. The teachings of Diodorus, Theodore, and Chrysos-
tom, who were identified with this same monastery, exerted great
influence over the mind of Theodoret, and he followed substantially
their system of biblical interpretation. In his Preface to the Psalms
he says : " When I happened upon various commentaries, and found
some expositors pursuing allegories with great superabundance,
others adapting prophecy to certain histories so as to produce an
interpretation accommodated to the Jews rather than to the nurse
lings of faith, I considered it the part of a wise man to avoid the
excess of both, and to connect now with ancient histories whatever
things belonged to them." Most of his remaining works are exposi
tory, but often mixed with that which is apologetic and controver
sial.1 They cover most of the books of the Old Testament, and the
epistles of Paul.2
The churches of Syria early developed into two main divisions,
schools of Edes- those of ,the eastern and the western provinces. As
sa and Nisibis. Antioch was the chief center of the western cities, so
were Edessa and Nisibis of the more eastern, and when, after the
days of Chrysostom and Theodoret, the school of Antioch declined,
those chief centres of Christian activity in Mesopotamia became
more famous as seats of literary culture and exegetical learning.
The appearance of the Syriac version of the New Testament as
early as the middle of the second century, and the Diatessaron of
Tatian, indicates the interest of the Syrian mind in the study of the
Scriptures. Lucian, the founder of the Antiochian school, received
his early training in the Scriptures from Macarius of Edessa. The
Ignatian epistles appear also to have exerted great influence in
Eastern Syria, and they were early translated into the Syriac
tongue. " The school of Eastern Syria," says Dorner, " was distin
guished by its vivid fancy, by its religious spirit, at once fiery and
practical, by fervour, and, in part, depth of thought. It exhibited,
also, a tendency to the impassioned style and too gorgeous imagery
of the East, to mysticism and asceticism. . . . The Church of
Western Syria displayed, at an early period, that sober, judicious,
vols. xlvii-lxiv. An English translation of many of the Homilies is given in the Ox
ford Library of the Fathers, 1842-53.
1 Comp. Rosenmuller, Historia Interpretationis Librorum Sacrorum vol. iv, pp.
35-142.
2 The best edition of Theodoret's works is that of Schulze and Nosselt, 5 vols., Halle,
1169-74. See also Migoe's Greek Patrologife Cursus Completus, vols. Ixxx-lxxxiv-
SCHOOLS OF EDESSA AND NISIBIS. 41
and critical spirit for which it became renowned, and by which it
was especially distinguished from the third to the fifth century.
The eastern school inclined to theosophy, and thus had a certain
affinity with the religious systems which prevailed in the East ; the
western, on the other hand, took its stand on the firm basis of ex
perience and history. In a word, the contrast between the two
divisions of the Syrian Church bore a not inconsiderable resemblance
to that which exists between the Lutheran and Reformed Confes
sions in Germany." '
One of the greatest fathers of the Syrian Church was Ephraem,
commonly called Ephraem Syrus, who flourished at
Edessa about A. D. 370. He spent most of his life in
writing and preaching, and was a vigorous opponent of Arianism.
His learning and piety were the admiration of his contemporaries,
and he was often designated as the prophet of the Syrians. He was
a voluminous writer, and has left numerous commentaries, homilies,
and poems. Many of his exegetical discourses and polemical and
practical homilies are written in poetical form. His commentaries on
the historical books of the Old Testament and the Book of Job are
extant in Syriac, and those of the Pauline epistles in an Armenian
translation. It is doubtful whether he understood or used the
Greek language. His method of exposition is mainly that of the
allegorists, his style is brilliant and glowing, often running into
bombast, and his interpretations are often fanciful, farfetched, and
extravagant."
The school of Nisibis maintained itself longer than that of Edes
sa, and continued until the ninth century. The Canon Barsumas and
of Nisibis prescribed a three years' course of exegetical Ibas-
study in the Old and New Testaments. Barsumas, who was ejected
from the school of Edessa, became bishop of Nisibis in A. D. 435,
and founded there the theological seminary which served to main
tain and propagate Nestorianism in various countries of the East.
The works of Diodorus of Tarsus, and Theodore of Mopsuestia,
translated into Syric by Ibas, contributed much toward the cultiva
tion of biblical and theological study throughout Eastern Syria.
The fathers of the Western Church were, as a class, much infe
rior to those of the Eastern in their expositions of the Scriptures.
1 History of the Development of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, div. ii,vol. i, p. 29.
9 The best edition of the works of ?]phraem Syrus is that of Assemanni in six vols.,
Rome, 1732-46. Nine of the metrical homilies and thirty-five of the Syriac hymns
have been translated into English by Burgess: Select Metrical Hymns and Homilies
of Ephraem Syrus, London, 1853. See also Lengerke, De Ephraemi Syri arte herme-
neutica, Konigsb., 1831.
42 INTRODUCTION.
One chief reason for this fact was their comparative ignorance of
the original languages of the Bible. A notable excep
tion is that of Hippolytus, bishop of Portus, at the
mouth of the Tiber, near Rome. It is doubtful whether he should
be claimed more by the West than the East, for he was a disciple
of Irenoeus, and a friend and admirer of Origen, and, according to
Baronius, a disciple of Clement of Alexandria. Nevertheless, it is
quite certain that he spent the greater portion of his life in Rome
and its vicinity. His great work, recently discovered, on the Refu
tation of all Heresies, contains numerous expositions of different
passages of Scripture, and shows that he was an extreme allegorist.
He appears to have written commentaries on most of the Bible, and
numerous fragments remain. His exegetical method is substantially
that of Philo, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, and in some
things, if possible, even more extravagant. Nevertheless, his writ
ings are of great value as exhibiting the heresies and disputes of
his time, and some of his Scripture expositions are thoughtful and
suggestive.1
In the later part of the fourth and the earlier part of the fifth
century there flourished, contemporaneously, the great
est biblical scholar, the greatest theologian, and the
most distinguished heretic, of the ancient Western Church. These
were Jerome, Augustine, and Pelagius. Jerome was born at Stri-
don, on the borders of Pannonia, but early in life removed to Rome,
where he diligently prosecuted his studies under the best masters.
He afterward travelled through Gaul, and transcribed Hilary's com
mentary on the Psalms. About A. D. 372 he visited the East, pass
ing through the most interesting provinces of Asia Minor, and
pausing for a time at Antioch in Syria. Here he was prostrated by
a severe fever, and in a dream received strong condemnation for
his devotion to the heathen classics, which he thereupon vowed to
renounce forever. He betook himself to monastic life, and thought
to crucify his taste for Roman literature by the study of Hebrew.
He afterward visited Constantinople, and pursued his studies, espec
ially in Greek, under Gregory of Nazianzum. Here he translated
Eusebius' Chronicle, and the commentaries of Origen on Jeremiah
and Ezekiel. About A. D. 386 he settled in Bethlehem of Judasa,
and there, in monkish seclusion and assiduous study, spent the rest
of his life. He wrote commentaries npon most of the books of the
Bible, revised the old Latin version, and made a new translation of
1 The extant works of Hippolytus have been published in many editions, the best
of which is, perhaps, that of Lagarde, Lps., 1858. An English translation is given in
vols. vi and ix of the Edinburgh Ante-Nicene Christian Library.
JEROME AS AN EXEGETE. 43
the Old Testament from the original Hebrew text. His generation
was not competent to appreciate these literary labours, and not a
few regarded it as an impious presumption to assume that the Sep-
tuagint version could be improved by an appeal to the Hebrew.
That seemed like preferring Barabbas to Jesus. Nevertheless, the
Vulgate speedily took rank with the great versions of the Bible,
and became the authorized translation used in the Western Church.
It is more faithful to the Hebrew than the Septuagint, and was
probably made with the help of Origen's Hexapla, which was then
accessible in the library of Caesarea.
"As a commentator," writes Osgood, " Jerome deserves less hon
our than as a translator, so hasty his comments gen- .
• , , Osgood on Je-
erally are, and so frequently consisting of fragments, rome as a corn-
gathered from previous writers. His merit however is — n
and this was by no means a common one in his day — that he gener
ally aims to give the literal sense of the passages in question. He
read apparently all that had been written by the leading interpreters
before him, and then wrote his own commentaries in great haste
without stopping to distinguish his own views from those of the
authorities consulted. He dashed through a thousand lines of the
text in a single day, and went through the Gospel of Matthew in a
fortnight. He sometimes yielded to the allegorical methods of in
terpretation, and showed frequent traces of the influence of his study
of Origen. Yet he seems not to have inclined to this method so
much from his own taste as from the habit of his time. And if, of
the four doctors of the Church particularized by some writers, to
Gregory belongs excellence in tropology, to Ambrose in allegory,
to Augustine in anagoge, to Jerome is given the palm in the literal
and grammatical sense. . . . Rich and elegant as his style frequently
is, he does not appear to have had very good taste as a critic. He
had not that delicate appreciation of an author's meaning that en
ables one to seize hold of the main idea or sentiment, and through
this interpret the language and illustrations. He could not repro
duce the t 'noughts of the prophets and poets of the Old Testament
in his own mind, and throw himself into their position. Their
poetic figures he sometimes treats as logical propositions, and finds
grave dogmas in casual illustrations." '
1 Jerome and his Times; article in the Bibliotheca Sacra for Feb., 1848, pp. 138,
139. The works of Jerome have been published in many forms ; best edition, by Val-
larsi and Maffei in 11 vols., Verona, 1734-42; reprinted, with some revision, Venice,
1766-7 1. See also Migne's Latin Patrologiae Cursus Completns, vols. xxii-xxx, Paris,
1845, 1846. The best treatise on Jerome is that of Zockler, Hieronymus, sein Leben
und Werkeu aus seinen Schriften dargestellt, Gotha, 1865.
44 INTRODUCTION.
In learning and general culture Jerome was much superior to
Augustine, but in depth and penetration, in originality
Augustine. . ° . , * . . ' . ,?, Jf
or genius and power or thought, Augustine, bishop of
Hippo, in Africa, was by far the greatest man of his age. If it be
any evidence of greatness for one mind to shape and direct the
theological studies and speculations of more than a thousand years,
and after all the enlightenment of modern times to maintain his
hold upon men of the deepest piety and the highest intellectual
power, then must it be conceded that few if any Christian writers
of all the ages have equalled Augustine. But of his doctrines and
his rank as a theologian it is not in our way to speak. Only as an
interpreter of Scripture do we here consider him, and as such we
cannot in justice award him a place correspondent with his theo
logical fame. His conceptions of divine truth were comprehensive
and profound, but having no knowledge of Hebrew and a very im
perfect acquaintance with Greek, he was incapacitated for thorough
and independent study of the sacred books. He was dependent on
the current faulty Latin version, and not a few of his theological
arguments are built upon an erroneous interpretation of the Scrip
ture text. In his work on Christian Doctrine he lays down a num
ber of very excellent rules for the exposition of the Bible, but in
practice he forsakes his own hermeneutical principles, and often
runs into excessive allegorizing. He allows four different kinds of
interpretation, the historical, the aetiological, the analogical, and
the allegorical, but he treats these methods as traditional, and gives
them no extended or uniform application. His commentaries on
Genesis and Job are of little value. His exposition of the Psalms
contains many rich thoughts, together with much that is vague and
mystical. The treatise in four books on the Consensus of the
Evangelists is one of the best of the ancient attempts to construct
a Gospel harmony, but his Evangelical Inquiries (Quaestiones Evan-
gelicae) are full of fanciful interpretation. His best expositions are
of those passages on which his own rich experience and profound
acquaintance Avith the operations of the human heart enabled him
to comment with surpassing beauty. His exegetical treatises are
the least valuable of his multifarious writings, but through all his
works are scattered many brilliant and precious gems of thought.1
1 Augustine's works have been printed in very many editions, the latest of which is
that of Migne, in 15 vols. Paris, 1842. More sumptuous is the Benedictine edition,
in 11 folio vols. Venice, 1729-35. An English translation of his exposition of the
Psalms and Gospels is given in the Oxford Library of the Fathers, and his com
mentary on John, the work on Christian Doctrine, the Enchiridion, and numerous
other treatises arc published in Clark's Foreign Theological Library, Edinburgh.
THE CATENISTS. 45
During the long period known as the Middle Ages, the true exe-
eetical spirit could scarcely be expected. To this period
The Catenists
belong the so-called Catenists, or compilers of exposi
tions from the more ancient fathers. It was not an age of original
research, but of imitation and appropriation from the treasures of
the past. Among the most noted of these compilers are Procopius
of Gaza, Andreas, and Arethas. The venerable Bede, one of the most
eminent fathers of the English Church, made himself familiar with
all the learning of his age, and wrote commentaries on the entire
New Testament, and a large portion of the Old. But they are
compilations from the works of Augustine, Basil, and Ambrose.
Other names of note are Alcuin, Hay mo, and Theophylact. The
notes of the last named on the New Testament have always been
held in high estimation. Although the works of Chrysostom are
the chief source of his extracts, he occasionally expresses his dissent
from him, and shows more independence than most of the Catenists.
Nicholas de Lyra flourished at the beginning of the fourteenth
century. In addition to the usual studies of his age he Nicholas de
acquired a thorough knowledge of Hebrew, a rare ac- Lyra-
complishment for a Christian, and his great learning and useful
writings secured him the friendship of the most illustrious men of
his times, and the title of the " plain and useful doctor." His great
est work is entitled Continuous Comments, or Brief Annotations on
the whole Bible (Postillje perpetute, seu brevia commentaria in uni-
vcrsa Biblia), and exhibits a great advance upon most of the exege
sis of the Middle Ages. For although he recognises a fourfold
sense, as shown in the well-known lines,
Litera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria,
Moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia,
he gives decided preference to the literal sense, and in his exposi
tions shows comparatively little regard for any other. He frankly
acknowledges his indebtedness to the learned Hebrew exegetes, es
pecially Rabbi Solomon Isaac (Rashi), whose sober methods of in
terpretation he generally followed. The influence his writings had
on Luther and other reformers is celebrated in the familiar couplet:
Si Lyra non lyrasset,
Lutherus non saltasset.
His comments on the New Testament are less valuable than those
on the Old, and follow closely Augustine and Aquinas. He was ig
norant of the Greek language, and based his expositions on the text
of the Vulgate.1 But his great Postillae perpetuae accomplished
1 Comp. Meyer, Geschichte der Schrifterklarung seit der Wiederherstellung der
Wissenscbaften, vol. i, pp. 109-120.
4
46 INTRODUCTION.
much in preparing the way of a more thorough grammatical inter
pretation of the Bible.1
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, but hardly to be
classed with the great reformers, flourished two cele
brated scholars to whom biblical literature is greatly
indebted, Reuchlin and Erasmus. John Reuchlin was recognised
' O
as a leader of the German Humanists, and was particularly famous
for his devotion to the study of Hebrew. He justly deserves the
title of father of Hebrew learning in the Christian Church. He
far surpassed the Jews of his time in the knowledge of their own
language, and published, besides many other works, a treatise on
the Rudiments of Hebrew, another on the Accents and Orthography
of the Hebrew Language, and a Grammatical Interpretation of the
Seven Penitential Psalms. He was also acknowledged everywhere
as an authority in Latin and Greek, as well as in Hebrew, and the
most learned men of his age sought his instruction and counsel. His
great services in the cause of biblical learning led men to say of
him, " Jerome is born again."
Desiderius Erasmus was by his wit, wisdom, culture, and varied
erudition, the foremost representative, and, one might
say, the embodiment, of Humanism. He and Reuchlin
tvere called the " Eyes of Germany." Erasmus became early fas
cinated with the ancient classics, translated several Greek authors
into Latin, and edited numerous editions of their works. He also
edited a number of the Greek and Latin fathers. Without any
euch deep religious experience and profound convictions as Luther,
and possessed of no such massive intellect as Melanchthon, he was
noted rather for versatility of genius and prodigious literary indus
try. Nevertheless, he was one of the most distinguished precursors
of the Reformation, and it was truly said: " Erasmus laid the egg;
Luther hatched it." He appears to have turned his attention to
biblical studies about the beginning of the sixteenth century, and
published in 1505 a new edition of Lorenzo Valla's Remarks on the
New Testament. He edited and published in 1516 the first edition
of the Greek Testament. It was printed in folio, accompanied with
an elegant Latin version, and various readings from several manu
scripts, the works of the fathers, and the Vulgate. The first edi
tion was hastily prepared, precipitated rather than edited, as Eras
mus himself wrote, in order to bring it out in advance of Cardinal
Ximenes' Conplutensian Polyglot, which did not appear until 1520.
Erasmus afterward wrote and published Annotations on the New
Testament, and also Paraphrases on the whole New Testament ex-
1 The best edition of Lyra's Postillse is that published at Antwerp, 1634, 6 vols. fol.
REFORMATION PERIOD. 47
cept the Book of Revelation, which were so highly esteemed in
England that it was required of every parish church to possess a
copy of the English translation. These publications introduced a
new era in biblical learning, and went far toward supplanting the
scholasticism of the previous ages by better methods of theological
study.1
With the Reformation of the sixteenth century the mind of Ger
many and of other European states broke away from The Reforma-
the ignorance and superstition of the Middle Ages, the ^
Holy Scriptures were appealed to as the written reve- day.
lation of God, containing all things necessary to salvation, and the
doctrine of justification by faith was magnified against priestly
absolution and the saving meritoriousness of works. The great
commanding mind and leader of this remarkable movement was
Martin Luther, who, in October, 1517, published the famous theses
which were like the voice of a trumpet sounding forth the begin
ning of a better day. Five years later he put forth his German
translation of the New Testament. This was one of the most valu
able services of his life, for it gave to his people the holy oracles in
the simple, idiomatic, and racy language of common life, and enabled
them to read for themselves the teachings of Christ and Luther's Ger-
the apostles. It was followed by successive portions of man BIble-
the Old Testament until, in 1534, the whole Bible was completed
and became of incalculable influence in effecting the triumph of
Protestantism. The arduous effort of Luther to make his transla
tion of the Bible as accurate as possible went far toward the estab
lishing of sound methods of criticism and exegesis. His helps in
this great enterprise consisted of Erasmus' edition of the New
Testament, the Sepuagint, the Vulgate, a few of the Latin fathers,
and an imperfect knowledge of the Hebrew. He also received val
uable assistance from Melanchthon, Bugenhagen, Jonas, Cruciger,
and several learned rabbis. He spent twelve of the best years of
his life upon this monumental work. Portions of the original auto
graph are still preserved in the royal library of Berlin, and show
with what anxious care he sought to make the version as faithful
as possible. Sometimes three or four different forms His exegeticai
of expression were written down before he determined works.
which one to adopt. Luther's commentary on the Galatians, which
has been translated into English, and published in many editions,
was characterized by himself as being very "plentiful in words."
It is an elaborate treatise adapted for use as public lectures and devo-
1 Erasmus1 works have been printed in many forms. The best edition is that of
Le Clerc, in 11 vols. folio. Leyden, 1703.
48 INTRODUCTION.
tional reading, and is particularly notable for its ample exposition
of the doctrine of justification by faith. Luther also prepared notes
on Genesis, the Psalms, the Sermon on the Mount, the Gospel of
John, and other portions of the New Testament.1 His knowledge
of Hebrew and Greek was limited, and he sometimes mistook the
meaning of the sacred writer, but his religious intuitions and deep
devotional spirit enabled him generally to apprehend the true sense
of Scripture.
Although Luther occupies the foremost place among the reform
ers, he was far surpassed in scholarship and learning by
Melanchthon. ' _r l . . , ,
Philip Melanchthon, in whom he found an indispensable
friend and helper, in temperament and manners the counterpart of
himself. Luther may be compared with Paul, whose bold and fear
less spirit he admirably represented ; Melanchthon exhibited rather
the tender and loving spirit of John. Melanchthon appears to have
been favoured with every opportunity and means of education
which that age afforded. He was regarded as a prodigy of ancient
learning, especially skilled in the knowledge of Greek, a pupil of
Reuchlin, and a friend of Erasmus, both of whom extolled his
remarkable talents and ripe scholarship. His thorough acquaint
ance with the original languages of the Scriptures, his calm judg
ment and cautious methods of procedure, qualified him for pre
eminence in biblical exegesis. He clearly perceived the Hebraic
character of the New Testament Greek, and showed the importance
of the study of Hebrew even for the exposition of the Christian
Scriptures. As an aid in this line of study he published an edition
of the Septuagint. Luther listened with delight to his expository
lectures on Romans and Corinthians, obtained his manuscript, and
sent it without his knowledge to the printer. On its appearance he
wrote to his modest friend thus characteristically: " It is I who pub
lish this commentary of yours, and I send yourself to you. If you
are not satisfied with yourself you do right ; it is enough that you
please us. Yours is the fault, if there be any. Why did you not
publish them yourself ? Why did you let me ask, command, and
urge vou to publish to no purpose? This is my defence against
you. For I am willing to rob you and to bear the name of a thief.
I fear not your complaints or accusations." a
Melanchthon's exegetical lectures embrace Genesis, the Psalms,
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Daniel, Hag-
1 Luther's exegetical works in Latin, edited by Elspcrger, Schmid, and Irrnischer,
were published at Erlangen, in 23 vols. 12mo, 1729—14 ; in German, in vols. xxxiii-lii
of his collected works as edited by Irrnischer, 1843-53.
2 Luther's Briefe, Seudschreibeu it. Bcdenken, ed. De \Vette, ii, 238. Comp. ii, 303.
JOHN CALVIN. 40
gai, Zechariah, and Malachi, of the Old Testament; and Matthew,
John, Romans, Corinthians, Colossians, Timothy, and Titus of tho
New Testament. Luther's German Bible was greatly Hls exej?eticai
indebted to the careful revision of Melanchthon, who lectures,
himself translated the Books of Maccabees. Although his quiet,
meditative tendencies led him at times into allegorical methods of
exegesis, which he found so generally adopted by the fathers, he
followed in the main the grammatical historical method, was care
ful to trace the connexion and course of thought, and aimed to as
certain the mind of the Spirit in the written word.1
Of all the exegetes of the period of the Reformation the first
place must unquestionably be given to John Calvin,
whose learning was ample, whose Latin style surpassed
in purity and elegance that of any writer of his time, and whose
intellect was at once acute and penetrating, profound and compre
hensive. His stern views on predestination are too often offensively
prominent, and he at times indulges in harsh words against those
who differ from him in opinion. In textual and philological criti
cism he was not equal to Erasmus, Melanchthon, OZcolampadius, or
his intimate friend Beza, and he occasionally falls into notably in
correct interpretation of words and phrases; but as a whole, his
commentaries are justly celebrated for clearness, good sense, and
masterly apprehension of the meaning and spirit of the sacred
writers. With the exception of Judges, Ruth, Kings, Esther, Ezra,
Nehemiah, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Solomon's Song, and the Apoca
lypse, his comments, expository lectures, and homilies extend over
the whole Bible. In his Preface to the Epistle to the Romans he
maintains that the chief excellence of an interpreter is a perspicu
ous brevity which does not divert the reader's thoughts by long and
prolix discussions, but directly lays open the mind of the sacred
writer. His commentaries, accordingly, while not altogether free
from blemishes, exhibit a happy exegetical tact, a ready grasp of
the more obvious meaning of words, and an admirable regard to
the context, scope, and plan of the author. He seldom quotes from
other commentators, and is conspicuously free from mystical, alle
gorical, and forced methods of exposition. His exegesis breathes
everywhere — especially in the Psalms — a most lively religious feel
ing, indicating that his own personal experience enabled him to
penetrate as by intuition into the depths of meaning treasured in
the oracles of God.*
'Melanchthon's works, edited by Bretschneider and Bindseil, form 28 vols. of the
Corpus Reformatorum. Halle and Brunswick. 18o4—GO.
"Calvin's works were published in 9 folio vols., Amsterdam, 1G71 (best edition).
50 INTRODUCTION.
Next to Calvin we may appropriately notice his intimate friend
and fellow reformer, Theodore Beza, who early enjoyed
the instruction of such masters as Faber (Stapulensis),
Budaeus, and John Lascaris, and became so distinguished as an apt
and brilliant scholar that of one hundred, who with him received
the master's degree, he stood first. He lived to the great age of
eighty-six, and was the author of many useful works. The princi
pal monument of his exegetical skill is his Latin translation of the
New Testament, with full annotations.1 He was a consummate
critic, a man of remarkable quickness and versatility of intellect,
and widely distinguished for his profound and varied learning. His
comments are unlike those of Calvin in not making prominent the
religious element of the sacred writings, but his philological learn
ing and constant reference to the Greek and Hebrew texts are more
conspicuous.
A careful study of the exegetical writings of the sixteenth cen-
Exegeticai ten- turv reveals two tendencies which early appeared among
denotes of the the Protestant reformers, and developed gradually dur-
Lutheran and . ,, . ,., . ,. ' ,.
Reformed par- lng the next two centuries, until in modern times the
ties- one has run into extreme rationalism, and the other into
a narrow and dogmatic orthodoxy. These tendencies early sepa
rated the so-called Lutheran and Reformed parties. The more rigid
orthodox Lutherans exhibited a proclivity to authoritative forms,
and assumed a dogmatic tone and method in their use of the Scrip
tures. The Reformed theologians showed greater readiness to break
away from churchly customs and traditional ideas, and treat the
Scriptures with a respectful, but free, critical spirit. In general ex
position no great differences appeared among the early reformers.
Luther and Melanchthon represent the dogmatic, Zwingle, CEcolam-
padius, and Beza the more grammatico-historical method of scrip
tural interpretation. Calvin combined some elements of both, but
belonged essentially to the Reformed party. It was not until two
centuries later that a cold, illiberal, and dogmatic orthodoxy pro*
yoked an opposite extreme of lawless rationalism.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the progress of
A new edition, edited by Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, is given in the Corpus Reforma-
torum, Brunswick, 1863-87 (yet incomplete). Tholuck's edition of his New Testa
ment Commentaries, in 7 vola. 8vo, is a very convenient one. English translation of
Calvin's works in 52 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh.
1 The editio optima of Beza's New Testament was published at Cambridge (1 vol,
fol., 1542), and contains his own new translation placed in a column between the
Greek text on the one side and the Vulgate on the other. It is accompanied by a
copious critical and exegetical commentary by the translator himself, and the com
mentary of Camerarius is appended to the end of the volume.
THE GREAT POLYGLOTS. 51
biblical criticism and exegesis was most marked. The way for a
more thorough grammatical study had been prepared by p0iy!?iots and
euch philologists as John Buxtorf , Schindler, Vatablus, Critici Sacrl-
and Joseph Scaliger. About 1615 Le Jay projected his immense work,
the Paris Polyglot. Its publication was begun in 1628 and completed
in 1645 in ten imperial folio volumes, containing the entire Bible in
seven languages (Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, Samaritan, Greek,
and Latin). This costly work, which ruined the fortune of Le Jay,
was soon superseded by the London Polyglot of Brian Walton, the
first volume of which was issued in 1654 and the sixth and last in
1657. It was followed in 1669 by the Heptaglot Lexicon of Cas-
tell in two folio volumes. These massive tomes, together with that
' O
great collection of critical and exegetical writings known as the
Critici Sacri (London, 1660, nine vols. fol.) and Poole's Synopsis
Criticorum (1669-74, five vols. fol.), forming in all twenty-two
large folios, begun and finished in the space of twenty-one years
(1653-74), at the expense of a few English divines and noblemen,
constitute a magnificent exegetical library, and will long endure as
a monument of English biblical scholarship in the seventeenth
century.
No sketch of the history of biblical interpretation should fail to
mention Hugo Grotius, one of the most remarkable men
of the seventeenth century, and eminent alike in theol
ogy, politics, and general literature. Though suffering the confis
cation of his property, imprisonment, and exile, his learning and
talents commanded for him the attention of kings and princes, and
of the educated men of Europe. Besides learned works in civil
jurisprudence, apologetics, and dogmatic theology, he wrote annota
tions on the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha. His
exegesis is distinguished for its philological and historical character,
and the uniform good sense displayed throughout. He has been
called the forerunner of Ernesti, but he often noticeably fails to grasp
the plan and scope of the sacred writers, and to trace the connexion
of thought. He lacked the profound religious intuition of Luther
and Calvin, and leaned to a rationalistic treatment of Scripture.1
One of the most eminent scholars of the Dutch Reformed Church
of the seventeenth century was Voetius, who received his
early training at Leyden under Gomar, Arminius, and
their colleagues. He was an influential member of the Synod of
Dort, and' a violent opponent of the Remonstrants. He also made it a
1 All the theological works of Grotius were published in three folio volumes at
London, in 1679. His annotations, with a life of the author, are contained in tho
first two volumes. They also appear in the Critici Sacri.
52 INTRODUCTION.
great work of Iris life to oppose the Cartesian philosophy. But his
methods of procedure tended to cultivate a narrow and dogmatic
spirit, and his exegesis, accordingly, aimed rather to support and
defend a theological system than to ascertain by valid reason the
exact meaning of the sacred writers. He was vehemently polemi
cal, and became the acknowledged head and leader of a school of
exegesis which assumed to adhere strictly to the literal sense, buts
at the same time, regarded all biblical criticism as highly dangerous
to the orthodox faith. The Voetians would fain have made the
dogmas of the Synod of Dort the authoritative guide to the sense
of Scripture, and were restless before an appeal to the original texts
of the Bible and independent methods of interpretation.
The great opponent both of scholasticism and of a narrow dog
matical exegesis was John Cocceius, a man of broad and
thorough scholarship, an adept in Greek, Hebrew, Chal-
dee, Arabic, and rabbinical literature, and a worthy compeer of such
scholars as Buxtorf, Walton, and Grotius. He devoted himself
chiefly to biblical exposition, publishing commentary after commen
tary until he had gone through nearly all canonical books.1 Although
his labours revived and encouraged allegorical and mystical methods
of interpretation, it must be conceded that he exhibited many of the
very best qualities of a biblical exegete, and did as much as any man
of his time to hold up the Holy Scriptures as the living fountain of
all revealed theology, and the only authoritative rule and standard
of faith. He insisted that the Old and Xew Testaments must be
treated as one organic whole, and that each passage should be inter
preted according to the meaning of its words, the connexion of
thought as traceable through an entire discourse, book, or epistle,
and the analogy of faith, or scope and plan of the one complete rev
elation of God. He maintained that Christ is the great subject of
divine revelation in the Old Testament as well as in the New, and
hence arose the saying that Cocceius found Christ everywhere in the
Old Testament, but Grotius nowhere. It is due, however, to the mem
ory of Cocceius to say that while he too often pressed the typical
import of Old Testament texts to an undue extreme, he acted on the
valid principle that the Hebrew Scriptures contain the germs of the
Gospel revelation, and that, according to the express teaching of our
Lord (John v, 39; Luke xxiv, 27), the Old Testament contained
many things concerning himself. The errors into which he fell are
less grave than those of not a few modern critics who exhibit :i
notable onesidedness in failing to see that the written revelation o:'
1 The works of Cocceius were published at Amsterdam, 1676-78, in 8 vols. folio,
and in 1701 in 10 vols. folio.
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY EXEGESIS. 53
God is truly an organic whole, and that the New Testament cannot
be interpreted without the Old, nor the Old without the New.
A fresh impulse was given to biblical studies in Germany by the
founding of the University of Halle in 1694. This was
Spener.
due mainly to the influence of Spener, the father of
Pietism. The Protestant Churches had fallen into a cold, formal
orthodoxy, and the symbols and sacraments took precedence of
scriptural knowledge and personal piety. As early as 1675 Spener
had urged, in his Pia Desideria, that all Christian doctrine should
be sought in a faithful study of the Holy Scriptures rather than in
the symbols of the Church, and that the living truths of God's
word should be brought home to the hearts of the people. Asso
ciated with him at Halle was A. H. Francke, who had previously
become noted at Leipsic by his exegetical lectures. Both these
men were eminent as preachers and abundant in pulpit
... _ , , ' t -i -i -i Francke.
ministrations, r rancke s exegetical lectures extended
over the books of the Old and New Testaments, and he published
treatises on the interpretation of Scripture, and on methods of the
ological study. These noble leaders of Pietism maintained that it
is the first duty of the theologian to ascertain the true meaning of
the Scriptures, not from traditional beliefs, but from a critical and
grammatical study of the original texts.
During the eighteenth century biblical criticism and interpreta
tion took on a more scientific character. It was a period of research,
of philosophical investigation, of sceptical and rationalistic assaults
upon Christianity, of extensive revival and of political revolution.
These exciting movements gave encouragement to biblical studies,
developed an array of distinguished scholars too numerous to be even
named in these pages, and prepared the way for the exact gram-
matico-historical interpretation which is yielding rich and varied
products in our own time. The science of Textual Criticism was
promoted by the labours of Van der Hooght, J. II. Michaelis, Hou-
bigant, Kennicott, and De Rossi on the Old Testament, and by
those of Mill, Bentley, Bengel, "Wetstein, and Griesbach on the
New. Bi-ijgel's best work, however, was his Gnomon of the New
Testament, a condensed but remarkably rich and suggestive com
mentary, the general principles and methods of which have not been
greatly excelled by any later exegete.
Probably the most distinguished name in the history of exegesis
in the eighteenth century is that of John Augustus
Ernesti, whose Institutio interpretis Novi Testament!
(Lipz., 1761), or Principles of New Testament Interpretation, has
been accepted as a standard textbook on hermeneutics by four gen-
54 INTRODUCTION.
erations of biblical scholars. "He is regarded," says Hagenbach,
"as the founder of a new exegetical school, whose principle simply
was that the Bible must be rigidly explained according to its own
language, and, in this explanation, it must neither be bribed by any
external authority of the Church, nor by our own feeling, nor by a
sportive and allegorizing fancy — which had frequently been the case
with the mystics — nor, finally, by any philosophical system what
ever. He here united in the main with Hugo Grotius, who had
laid down similar principles in the seventeenth century. Ernesti
was a philologian. He had occupied himself just as enthusiastically
with the ancient classics of Rome and Greece as with the Bible,
and claimed that the same exegetical laws should be observed in
the one case as in the other. He was perfectly right in this re
spect; even the Reformers wished the same thing. His error here
was, perhaps, in overlooking too much the fact that, in order to
perceive the religious truths of the Scriptures, we must not only
understand the meaning of a declaration in its relations to language
and history, but that we must also spiritually appropriate it by
feelingly transposing ourselves to it, and by seeking to understand
it from itself. Who will deny that, in order to understand the
epistles of the Apostle Paul, we must adopt from the very outset a
mode of view different from that which we would employ in order
to understand the epistles of Cicero, since the circle of ideas of these
two men is very different ? Religious writings can be perfectly
understood only by an anticipating spirit, which peers through the
logical and grammatical web of the thoughts to the depths below.
. . . The principle that we must expound the Scriptures like every other
book could at least be so misapprehended that it might be placed
in the same rank with the other writings of antiquity, and the
assistance of the Holy Spirit, which is the only guide to the depths
of the Scriptures, be regarded as superfluous. As for Ernesti person
ally, he was orthodox, like Michaelis and Mosheim. He even de
fended the Lutheran view of the Lord's Supper. And yet these men,
and others of like character, are distinguished from their orthodox
predecessors by their insisting upon independence, by struggling for
sobriety, and, if you will allow, for dryness also. But, with all this,
they were further distinguished from their predecessors by a certain
freedom and mildness of judgment which men had not been accus
tomed to find in theologians. Without any desire or wish on their
own part they effected a transition to a new theological method of
thought, which soon passed beyond the limits of their own labours." l
'History of the Church in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, vol. i, pp.
259-261. English translation by Hurst. New York, 1869.
GERMAN RATIONALISM. 55
In the latter part of the eighteenth century there was in Germany
a notable reaction against the old rigid orthodoxy which German Ra-
had been dominant, and also against the degenerating t>onaiism.
Pietism, which was given to magnify a blind emotional faith, and
rapidly deteriorated into a superstitious mysticism and extravagance.
Semler contributed greatly to this movement by his theoiy of Ac
commodation, applied to the interpretation of Scripture. His beau
tiful piety, however, preserved him from the evil effects of his own
theories, and he was surprised at the use others made of his critical
principles. There were men in Germany who were thoroughly in
fected with the leaven of English deism and French infidelity, and
they were not slow to appropriate Semler's destructive methods for
the propagation of unbelief among the people. Of this class were
Edelmann and Bahrdt, whose writings breathed the most offensive
spirit of hostility to all accepted Christian doctrine. The publica
tion of the Wolf enbtittel Fragments (1765-92), by Lessing, contrib
uted still more to the spread of scepticism. They extolled the
deists, glorified human beings, and treated the miracles of the Bible
as incredible myths and legends, which an intelligent age ought to
reject. And so, at the beginning of our present century, rational
ism had wellnigh taken possession of the best minds of Germany.
It has continued its work of destructive criticism even to our day,
and such names as J. G. Eichhorn, Paul us, Tuch, Von Bohlen,
Strauss, C. H. Weisse, and F. C. Baur have given peculiar brilliancy
to its methods. Reuss, Graf, Kuenen, and Wellhausen have in the
most recent times exhibited great ingenuity and scholarship in their
essays to reconstruct the very foundation of Old Testament history,
and place the writings of Moses after those of the prophets. *
This destructive school of Rationalism has been to a great extent
opposed by what is often called the mediation school of Mediation
interpreters. The man who more than any other initi- school.
ated a reaction against the rationalism current at the beginning of
this century was Schleiermacher. And yet he was far from ortho
dox in his teaching. He was neither strictly evangelical nor ration
alistic, but combined elements of both. He showed that vital piety
is a matter of the heart, and consists in the consciousness of God in
the soul, and, accordingly, is not attainable by reason, or dependent
on human culture. But in his methods of interpretation, he fol
lowed rcainly the ways of the rationalists. He treated the Old
Testament as having no divine authority, but as historically import
ant because of its relations to Christianity. His disciples branched
off into different schools, and in their attitude toward evangelical
doctrine were negative or positive, or followed a middle course be-
56 INTRODUCTION.
tween the two, and each school could appeal in defence of its posi
tions to the teachings of the master whom they all honoured. As
exegetes, De Wette, Lticke, the Rosenmiillers, Gesenius, and
Ewald carried out the rationalistic tendencies of Schleiermacher.
De Wette, however, deserves special notice as being unsurpassed in
critical tact and exegetical ability by any biblical scholar of modern
times. His views were formed under the influence of such theolog
ical teachers as Paul us, and are essentially rationalistic, but he re
jected the naturalistic method of explaining miracles, and antici
pated Strauss in many of the prominent positions of the mythical
interpretation. But he showed greater regard for the religious
element of Scripture, and never indulged in disrespectful insinua
tions hostile to its divine authority.
The German evangelical school of interpreters includes men 'of
Evangelical different shades of opinion, from the rigidly orthodox to
Schools. divines of a free critical spirit, intent, like Neander, to
know and maintain only essential truth. G. C. Storr, at the begin
ning of the century, was the leading representative of what is known
as the old Tubingen school. He aimed to check the growth of
rationalism by a purely scriptural teaching, but his method was un
scientific in that he failed to give due prominence to the organic
unity of the Bible, and rested too largely on isolated texts. Heng-
stenberg, professor of theology at Berlin, was recognized for almost
half a century as one of the staunchest defenders of orthodoxy, but
his tone and methods were highly dogmatic. Havernick, Bleek,
Umbreit, Tholuck, Stier, II. Olshausen, Keil, Delitzsch, Meyer, and
Lange represent the better class of the evangelical interpreters, and
their varied contributions to exegetical theology are worthy of the
very highest commendation.
American scholarship has as yet produced comparatively little
Biblical exej?e- that bears favourable comparison with the great exeget-
sts in America. icai Works of British and German authors. But the
translators of Lange's Commentary, nearly all Americans, have ex
hibited therein an exegetical ability quite equal to those of the orig
inal writers, and, in some of the volumes, the additions made by the
translators are the most valuable parts of the work. In the earlier
part of this century Moses Stuart and Edward Robinson did more
than any other two men in the United States to promote an interest
in exegetical studies. The former published commentaries on Prov
erbs, Ecclesiastes, Daniel, Romans, Hebrews, and the Apocalypse,
all of which show the skill of a master, and have maintained, up to
the present time, a place among the very ablest expositions of the.se
books. But Robinson's contributions to biblical literature were even
SUPERIORITY OF MODERN EXEGESIS. 57
more profound and valuable than those of Stuart. His translation
of Wahl's Clavis Philologica was superseded by his own Greek and
English Lexicon of the New Testament, a work that has had incalcu
lable influence in directing the studies of theological students and
ministers, and only now gives place to the admirable Greek-English
Lexicon of the New Testament, prepared by J. H. Thayer, another
American scholar.
It is noticeable that the best modern American exegesis, while
not less thorough and painstaking than that of Europe, is more con
servative and evangelical. There is less tendency to speculate and
build up theories and hypotheses. The intense utilitarianism of
American life has doubtless begotten some measure of superficial-
ness in scholarship as well as in other things, but it has also exerted
a most valuable influence in preserving the theologians of the coun
try from the wild and useless extremes of speculation, to which not
a few in other lands have been carried away.
It would require a large volume to describe even briefly the con
tributions to biblical interpretation which have been Modem Exege-
made within the last half-century. The breadth and sis-
thoroughness of biblical scholarship at the present time may be in
ferred from the fact that there are hundreds of modern expositors,
little known and read, who are far superior in learning and methods
of interpretation to any of the fathers or mediaeval writers. We
mention with highest regard such names as Alford and Ellicott and
Lightfoot of England, and Stuart and Edward Robinson and J. A.
Alexander, of America; and yet we should remember that there are
scores of exegetes now living who easily rank with these. The
historical importance of Philo and Origen and Chrysostom and
Jerome makes them much more conspicuous than these later writers,
but the intrinsic value of the expositions of Scripture produced by
the moderns is immeasurably superior to those of the ancients. The
rationalistic critics have done great service to the science of inter
pretation. The suggestions of Semler, the productions of Gesenius,
the critical acuteness of De Wette and Ewald, and even the works
of Strauss, and Baur, and Graf, and Kuenen, have given an impulse
to the scientific study of the Holy Scriptures which has already
produced inestimable gain, and which promises even better for the
future. For scholarly and critical assaults upon their faith have only
driven the friends of evangelical religion to a deeper and better
study of their sacred books. The most accomplished scholars of
the world are finding in the study and elucidation of the Bible a
worthy and ennobling field of labour, and are devoting their lives
to it with enthusiastic delicrht.
58 INTRODUCTION.
CHAPTER IV.
METHODS OF I NTEBPRETAT ION.
THE history of biblical exposition, as traceable in the works of the
great exegetes and critics, shows us what diverse methods of inter
pretation have at various periods prevailed. Doubtless through all
these centuries the common sense of readers has accepted the obvious
import of the principal portions of the Bible. For, as Stuart ob
serves, " from the first moment that one human being addressed
another by the use of language down to the present hour, the essen
tial laws of interpretation became, and have continued to be, a prac
tical matter. The person addressed has always been an interpreter
in every instance where he has heard and understood what was ad
dressed to him. All the human race, therefore, are, and ever have
been, interpreters. It is a law of their rational, intelligent, com
municative nature." ' Erroneous and absurd methods of explanation
are mostly traceable to false notions of the Bible itself. On the one
hand we find a superstitious reverence for the letter of Scripture,
prompting to search for hidden treasures of thought in every word;
on the other, prejudices and assumptions hostile to the spirit of the
holy writings have begotten methods of interpretation which per
vert, and often flatly contradict, the plainest statements of Scripture.
The ancient Jewish expositions of the Old Testament exhibit
, numerous absurd methods of interpretation. For exam-
Halachic and r
Hagadic Meth- pie, the letters of a word were reduced to their numeri
cal value, and then some other word or statement was
sought having the same letters in another order, or other letters ag
gregating the same numerical value, and the two words were there
upon regarded as equivalent in meaning. The numerical value of
the letters in the name Eliezer (iryf'X) is three hundred and eighteen,
the number of Abraham's trained men (Gen. xiv, 14), from which it
was inferred that Abraham's servant Eliezer was alone as powerful
as the three hundred others. And so, by ingenious manipulation,
every peculiar grammatical form, every instance of pleonasm, or
ellipsis, or apparently superflous use of a particle, was made to yield
some remarkable significance. It is easy to see that such capricious
1 Article by Professor H. Stuart, in the American Biblical Repository for Jan., 1832,
p. 125.
ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION. 59
methods must necessarily involve the exposition of the Scriptures in
utter confusion; and yet the learned rabbies who employed them
sought by these means to show the manifold excellence and wisdom
of their sacred books. The study of the ancient Jewish exegesis is,
acordingly, of little value in ascertaining the true meaning of the
Scriptures. The methods of procedure are fanciful and arbitrary
and encourage the pernicious habit of searching the oracles of God
for something that will minister to a morbid curiosity. But for the
illustration of ancient Jewish opinions, especially for the elucidation
of certain doctrines and customs, and sometimes for the criticism of
the Hebrew text, the comments of the rabbinical writers may be of
much service.
The jillegorical method of interpretation obtained an early prom
inence among the Jews of Alexandria. Its origin is Allegorical in-
usually attributed to the mingling of Greek philosophy terpretation.
and the biblical conceptions of God. Many of the theophanies and
anthropomorphisms of the Old Testament were repugnant to the
philosophic mind, and hence the effort to discover behind the outer
form an inner substance of truth. The biblical narratives were
often treated like the Greek myths, and explained as either a his
torical or an enigmatical embodiment of moral and religious les
sons. The most distinguished representative of Jewish allegorical
interpretation was Philo of Alexandria, and an example of his alle
gorizing many be seen in the following remarks on the rivers of
Eden (Gen. ii, 10-14):
In these words Moses intends to sketch out the particular virtues.
And they, also, are four in number, prudence, temperance, courage, and
justice. Now the greatest river, from which the four branches flow off, is
generic virtue, which we have already called goodness; and the four
branches are the same number of virtues. Generic virtue, therefore, de
rives its beginning from Eden, which is the wisdom of God ; which re
joices, and exults, and triumphs, being delighted at and honoured on
account of nothing else, except its Father, God. And the four particular
virtues are branches from the generic virtue, which, like a river, waters all
the good actions of each with an abundant stream of benefits.1
Similar allegorizing abounds in the early Christian fathers. Thus,
Clement of Alexandria, commenting on the Mosaic prohibition of
eating the swine, the hawk, the eagle, and the raven, observes:
" The sow is the emblem of voluptuous and unclean lust of food.
. . . The eagle indicates robbery, the hawk injustice, and the raven
greed." On Exod. xv, 1, " Jehovah has triumphed gloriously; the
horse and his rider has he thrown into the sea," Clement remarks:
1 The Allegories of the Sacred Laws, book i, 1 9 (Bohn's edition).
60 INTRODUCTION.
The many-limbed and brutal affection, lust, with the rider mounted, who
gives the reins to pleasures, he casts into the sea — throwing them away
into the disorders of the world. Thus, also, Plato, in his book on the soul
[Timseus], says that the charioteer and the horse that ran off — (the irra
tional part, which is divided into two, into anger and concupiscence) — fall
down; and so the myth intimates that it was through the licentiousness of
the steeds that Phaethon was thrown out.1
The allegorical method of interpretation is based upon a pro
found reverence for the Scriptures^ and a desire to exhibit their
manifold depths of wisdom. But it will be noticed at once that
its habit is to disregard the common signification of words, and
give wing to all manner of fanciful speculation. It does not draw
out the legitimate meaning of an author's language, but foists into
it whatever the whim or fancy of an interpreter may desire. As
a system, therefore, it puts itself beyond all well-defined principles
and laws.
Closely allied to the allegorical interpretation is the Mystical,'
Mystical inter- according to which manifold depths and shades of mean-
pretation. jng are sought in every word of Scripture. The alle
gorical interpreters have, accordingly, very naturally run into much
that is to be classed with mystical theorizing. Clement of Alex
andria maintained that the laws of Moses contain a fourfold signif
icance, the natural, the mystical, the moral, and the prophetical.
Origen held that, as man's nature consists of body, soul, and spirit,
so the Scriptures have a corresponding threefold sense, the bodily
(o^a-LKo^), or literal, the psychical (i/w%£/c6f), or moral, and the
spiritual (nvevfj art/tog), which latter he further distinguishes as alle
gorical, tropological, and anagogical. In the early part of the
ninth century the learned Rhabanus Maurus recommended four
methods of exposition, the historical, the allegorical, the anagogical,
and the tropological. He observes :
By these the mother Wisdom feeds the sons of her adoption. Upon
youth and those of tender age she bestows drink, in the milk of .history.;
on such as have made proficiency in faith, food, in the bread of allegory ;
to the good, such as strenuously labour in good works, she gives a satisfy
ing portion in the savoury nourishment of tropology. To those, in fine,
who have raised themselves above the common level of humanity by a con
tempt of earthly things, and have advanced to the highest by heavenly
desires, she gives the sober intoxication of theoretic contemplation in the
wine of anagogy. . . . History, which narrates examples of perfect men,
1 Miscellanies, book v, chap. viii.
2 According to Ernestj, the mystical interpretation differs from the allegorical, as
among the Greeks -deupia differs from ahXrjyopia. Institutes, chap, ix, 3.
MYSTICAL INTERPRETATION. 61
excites the reader to imitate their sanctity; allegory excites him to know
the truth in the revelation of faith ; tropology encourages him to the love
of virtue by improving the morals ; and anagogy promotes the longing after
eternal happiness by revealing everlasting joys. . . . Since then, it appears
that these four modes of understanding the Holy Scriptures unveil all the
secret things in them, we should consider when they are to be understood
according to one of them only, when according to two, when according to
three, and when according to all the four together.1
Among the mystical interpreters we may also place the cele
brated Emanuel Swedenborg, who maintains a three- gwedenborgian
fold sense of Scripture, according to what he calls " the interpretation.
Science of Correspondencies." As there are three heavens, a low
est, a middle, and a highest, so there are three senses of the Word,
the natural or literal, the spiritual, and the celestial. He says :
The Word in the letter is like a casket, where lie in order precious stones,
pearls, and diadems ; and when a man esteems the Word holy, and reads
it for the sake of the uses of life, the thoughts of his mind are, compara
tively, like one who holds such a cabinet in his hand, and sends it heaven
ward; and it is opened in its ascent, and the precious things therein come
to the angels, who are deeply delighted with seeing and examining them.
This delight of the angels is communicated to the man, and makes conso
ciation, and also a communication of perceptions.8
He explains the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" (Exod.
xx, 13), first, in its natural sense, as forbidding murder and also
the cherishing of hatred and revenge; secondly, in the spiritual
sense, as forbidding "to act the devil and destroy a man's soul;"
and thirdly, in the celestial or heavenly sense, the angels understand
killing to signify hating the Lord and the Word.
Somewhat allied to the mystical is that Pietistic mode of exposi
tion, according to which the interpreter claims to be pietistic inter-
guided by an "inward light," received as "an unction pretation.
from the Holy One" (1 John ii, 20). The rules of grammar and
the common meaning and usage of words are discarded, and the
internal Light of the Spirit is held to be the abiding and infallible
Revealer. Some of the later Pietists of Germany, and the Quakers
of England and America have been especially given to this mode
of handling the Scriptures.8 It is certainly to be supposed that
1 From Maurus, Allegoriae in Universam Sacram Scripturam, as given in Davidson,
Hermeneutics, pp. 165, 166.
8 The True Christian Religion, chap, iv, 6.
s From pietistic extravagance we of course except such men as Spener and A. H.
Francke, the great leaders of what is known as Pietism in Germany. The noble prac
tical character of their work and teaching saved them from the excesses into which
most of those run who are commonly called Pietists. "The pijincipal efforts of the
5
62 INTRODUCTION.
this holy inward light would never contradict itself, or guide its
followers into different expositions of the same scripture. But the
divergent and irreconcilable interpretations prevalent among the
adherents of this system show that the " inward light " is untrust
worthy. Like the allegorical and mystical systems of interpreta
tion, Pietism concedes the sanctity of the Scriptures, and seeks in
them the lessons of eternal life; but as to principles and rules of
exegesis it is more lawless and irrational. The Allegorist pro
fesses to follow certain analogies and correspondencies, but the
Quaker-Pietist is a law unto himself, and his own subjective feel
ing or fancy is the end of controversy. lie sets himself up as a
new oracle, and while assuming to follow the written word of God,
puts forth his own dictum as a further revelation. Such a pro
cedure, of course, can never co.nimend itself to the common sense
and the rational judgment. v
A method of exposition, which owes its distinction to the cele
brated J. S. Semler, the father of the destructive school of German
Accommoda- Rationalism, is known as the Accommodation Theory,
turn Theory. According to this theory the Scripture teachings respect
ing miracles, vicarious and expiatory sacrifice, the resurrection,
eternal judgment, and the existence of angels and demons, are to
be regarded as an accommodation to the superstitious notions,
prejudices, and ignorance of the times. The supernatural was
thus set aside. Semler became possessed with the idea that we
must distinguish between religion and theology, and between
personal piety and the public teaching of the Church. He re
jected the doctrine of the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures,
and argued that, as the Old Testament was written for the Jews,
whose religious notions were narrow and faulty, we cannot accept
its teachings as a general rule of faith. Matthew's Gospel, he held,
was intended for Jews outside of Palestine, and John's Gospel for
Christians who had more or less of Grecian culture. Paul at first
adapted himself to Jewish modes of thought with the hope of win
ning over many of his countrymen to Christianity, but failing in
this, he turned to the Gentiles, and became pre-eminent in holding
up Christianity as the religion for all men. The different books of
Scripture were, accordingly, designed to serve only a temporary
Pietists," says Immer, " were directed toward the edificatory application of Scripture,
as may be seen from Francke's Manuductio ad Lectionem Scripturae Sacrae. This
predominance of effort at edification soon degenerated into indifference to science, and
at last into proud contempt of it. Mystical and typological trifling arose ; chiliastic
phantasies found great acceptance ; the Scriptures were not so much explained as
overwhelmed with pious reflections." Hermeneutics, p. 46.
KANT'S THEORY. 63
purpose, and many of their statements may be summarily set aside
as untrue.
The fatal objection to this method of interpretation is that it
necessarily impugns the veracity and honour of the sacred writers,
and of the Son of God himself. It represents them as conniving at
the errors and ignorance of men, and confirming them and the
readers of the Scriptures in such ignorance and error. If such a
principle be admitted into our expositions of the Bible, we at once
lose our moorings, and drift out upon an open sea of conjecture
and uncertainty.
A passing notice should also be taken of what is commonly called
the Moral Interpretation, and which owes its origin to Moral mterpre-
the celebrated philosopher of Konigsberg, Immanuel t^100 of Kant-
Kant. The prominence given to the pure reason, and the idealism
maintained in his metaphysical system, naturally led to the practice
of making the Scriptures bend to the preconceived demands of
reason. For, although the whole Scripture be given by inspiration
of God, it has for its practical value and purpose the moral improve
ment of man. Hence, if the literal and historical sense of a given
passage yield no profitable moral lesson, such as commends itself to
the practical reason, we are at liberty to set it aside, and attach to
the words such a meaning as is compatible with the religion of
reason. It is maintained that such expositions are not to be charged
with insincerity, inasmuch as they are not to be set forth as the
meaning strictly intended by the sacred writers, but only as a
meaning which the writers may possibly have intended.1 The only
real value of the Scriptures is to illustrate and confirm the religion
of reason.
It is easy to see that such a system of interpretation, which pro
fessedly ignores the grammatical and historical sense of the Bible,
can have no reliable or self-consistent rules. Like the mystical and
allegorical methods, it leaves every thing subject to the peculiar
faith or fancy of the interpreter.
So open to criticism and objection are all the above-mentioned
methods of interpretation, that we need not be surprised to find
them offset by other extremes. Of all rationalistic theories the
1 See Kant, Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, p. 161. This
" was the work of his old age, and at all periods of his life he seems to have been at
least as deficient in religious sentiment as in emotional imagination, which is allied to
ft. ... It treats the revelations of Scripture in regard to the fall of man, to his re
demption, and to his restoration, as a moral allegory, the data of which are supplied
by the consciousness of depravity, and of dereliction from the strict principles of duty.
It is Strauss in the germ." M'Clintock and Strong's Cyclopaedia, article Kant.
64 INTRODUCTION.
Naturalistic is the most violent and radical. A rigid application
Naturalistic m- °^ this theory is exhibited in Paulus' Commentary on
terpretation. the New Testament,1 in which it is maintained that the
biblical critic should always distinguish between what is fact and
what is mere opinion. He accepts the historical truth of the Gospel
narratives, but holds that the mode of accounting for them is a mat
ter of opinion. He rejects all supernatural agency in human affairs,
and explains the miracles of Jesus either as acts of kindness, or ex
hibitions of medical skill, or illustrations of personal sagacity and
tact, recorded in a manner peculiar to the age and opinions of the
different writers. Jesus' walking on the sea was really a walking on
the shore ; but the boat was all the time so near the shore, that when
Peter jumped into the sea Jesus could reach and rescue him from the
shore. The excitement was so great, and the impression on the dis
ciples so deep, that it seemed to them as if Jesus had miraculously
walked on the sea, and come to their help. The apparent miracle of
making five loaves feed five thousand people was done simply by the
example, which Jesus bade his disciples set, of distributing of their
own little store to those immediately about them. This example was
promptly followed by other companies, and it was found that there
was more than sufficient food for all. Lazarus did not really die, but
fell into a swoon, and was supposed to be dead. But Jesus suspected
the real state of the case, and coming to the tomb at the opportune
moment, happily found that his suspicions were correct; and his wis
dom and power in the case made a profound and lasting impression.
This style of exposition, however, was soon seen to set at naught
the rational laws of human speech, and to undermine the credibility
of all ancient history. It exposed the sacred books to all manner
of ridicule and satire, and only for a little time awakened any con
siderable interest.
The Naturalistic method of interpretation was followed by the
The Mythical Mythical. Its most distinguished representative was
David Friedrich Strauss, whose Life of Jesus (Das Leben
Jesu), first published in 1835, created a profound sensation in the
Christian world. The Mythical theory, as developed and rigidly
carried out by Strauss, was a logical and self -consistent application
to biblical exposition of the Hegelian (pantheistic) doctrine that the
idea of God and of the absolute is neither shot forth miraculously,
nor revealed in the individual, but developed in the consciousness
of humanity. According to Strauss, the Messianic idea was gradu
ally developed in the expectations and yearnings of the Jewish
1 Philolopjisch-kritischer und historischer Commentar iiber das neue Testament
4 Yols. 1800-1804.
THE MYTHICAL THEORY. 65
j and at the time Jesus appeared it was ripening into full
maturity. The Christ was to spring from the line of David, be
born at Bethlehem, be a prophet like Moses, and speak words of
infallible wisdom. His age should be full of signs and wonders.
The eyes of the blind should be opened, the ears of the deaf should
be unstopped, and the tongue of the dumb should sing. Amid
these hopes and expectations Jesus arose, an Israelite of remarkable
beauty and force of character, who, by his personal excellence and
wise discourse, made an overwhelming impression upon his imme
diate friends and followers. After his decease, his disciples not
only yielded to the conviction that he must have risen from the
dead, but began at once to associate with him all their Messianic
ideals. Their argument was : " Such and such things must have
pertained to the Christ; Jesus was the Christ; therefore such and
such things happened to him." ' The visit of the wise men from
the East was suggested by Balaam's prophecy of the " star out of
Jacob" (Num. xxiv, 17). The flight of the holy family into Egypt
was worked up out of Moses' flight into Midian; and the slaughter
of the infants of Bethlehem out of Pharaoh's order to destroy
every male among the infant Israelites of Egypt. The miraculous
feeding of the five thousand with a few loaves of bread was appro
priated from the Old Testament story of the manna. The trans
figuration in the high mountain apart was drawn from the accounts
of Moses and Elijah in the mount of God. In short, Christ did not
institute the Christian Church, and send forth his gospel, as nar
rated in the New Testament ; rather, the Christ of the Gospels was
the mythical creation of the early Church. Adoring enthusiasts
clothed the memory of the man Jesus with all that could enhance
his name and character as the Messiah of the world. But what is
fact and what is fiction must be determined by critical analysis.
Sometimes it may be impossible to draw the dividing line.
Among the criteria by which we are to distinguish the mythical,
Strauss instances the following: A narrative is not his- strauss' cnte-
torical (1) when its statements are irreconcilable with ria of myths.
the known and universal laws which govern the course of events;
(2) when it is inconsistent with itself or with other accounts of the
eame thing; (3) when the actors converse in poetry or elevated dis
course unsuitable to their training and situation; (4) when the es-
*ential substance and groundwork of a reported occurrence is either
inconceivable in itself, or is in striking harmony with some Messi
anic idea of the Jews of that age.2
1 See Life of Jesus, Introduction, § 14.
" Ibid., Introduction, § 16.
66 INTRODUCTION.
We need not here enter upon a detailed exposure of the fallacies
of this mythical theory. It is sufficient to observe, on the four
critical rules enumerated above, that the first dogmatically denies
the possibility of miracles; the second (especially as used by
Strauss) virtually assumes, that when two accounts disagree, both
must be false! the third is worthless until it is clearly shown
what is suitable or unsuitable in each given case; and the fourth,
when reduced to the last analysis, will be found to be simply an
appeal to one's subjective notions. To these considerations we add
that the Gospel portraiture of Jesus is notably unlike the prevalent
Jewish conception of the Messiah at that time. It is too perfect
and marvellous to have been the product of any human fancy.
Myths arise only in unhistoric ages, and a long time after the per
sons or events they represent, whereas Jesus lived and wrought his
wonderful works in a most critical period of Greek and Roman
civilization. Furthermore, the New Testament writings were pub
lished too soon after the actual appearance of Jesus to embody
such a mythical development as Strauss assumes. While attempt
ing to show how the Church spontaneously originated the Christ of
the gospels, this whole theory fails to show any sufficient cause or
explanation of the origin of the Church and of Christianity itself.
The mythical interpretation, after half a century of learned labours,
has notably failed to commend itself to the judgment of Christian
scholars, and has few advocates at the present time.
The four last-named methods of interpretation may all be desig-
other rational- nated as Rationalistic; but under this name we may
istic methods. also place some other methods which agree with the
naturalistic, the mythical, the moral, and the accommodation the
ories, in denying the supernatural element in the Bible. The
peculiar methods by which F. C. Baur, Renan, Schenkel, and other
rationalistic critics have attempted to portray the life of Jesus,
and to account for the origin of the Gospels, the Acts, and the
Epistles, often involve correspondingly peculiar principles of inter
pretation. All these writers, however, proceed with assumptions
which virtually beg the questions at issue between the naturalist
and the supernaturalist. But they all conspicuously differ among
themselves. Baur rejects the mythical theory of Strauss, and finds
the origin of many of the New Testament writings in the Petrine
and Pauline factions of the early Church. These factions arose over
the question of abolishing the Old Testament ceremonial and the
rite of circumcision. The Acts of the Apostles is regarded as the
monument of a pacification between these rival parties, effected in
the parly part of the second century. The book is treated as large-
OTHER RATIONALISTIC METHODS. 67
ly a fiction, in which the author, a disciple of Paul, represents
Peter as the first to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles, and exhibits
Paul as conforming to divers Jewish customs, thus securing a rec
onciliation between the Pauline and Petrine Christians.1 Renan,
on the other hand, maintains a legendary theory of the origin of
the gospels, and attributes the miracles of Jesus, like the marvels
of mediaeval saints, partly to the blind adoration and enthusiasm of
his followers, and partly to pious fraud. Schenkel essays to make
the life and character of Christ intelligible by stripping it of the
divine and the miraculous, and presenting him as a mere man.
Against all these rationalistic theories it is obvious to remark that
they exclude and destroy each other. Strauss exploded the natur
alistic method of Paulus, and Baur shows that the mythical theory
of Strauss is untenable. Renan pronounces against the theories of
Baur, and exposes the glaring fallacy of making the Petrine and
Pauline factions account for the origin of the New Testament
books, and the books account for the factions. Renan's own meth
ods of criticism appear to be utterly lawless, and his light and cap
tious remarks have led many of his readers to feel that he is desti
tute of any serious or sacred convictions, and that he would readily
make use of furtive means to gain his end. He is continually
foisting into the Scriptures meanings of his own, and making the
writers say what was probably never in their thoughts. He as
sumes, for instance, as a teaching of Jesus, that the rich man was
sent to Hades because he was rich, and Lazarus was glorified be
cause he was a pauper. Many of his interpretations are based upon
the most unwarrantable assumptions, and are unworthy of any seri
ous attempt at refutation. The logical issue lies far back of his
exegesis, in the fundamental questions of a personal God and an
overruling providence.
The development of speculative philosophy through Kant, Jacobi,
Herbart, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel has exerted a pro- Exegesis con
found influence upon the critical minds of Germany, and
has affected the exegetical style and methods of many ophy.
of the great biblical scholars of the nineteenth century. This phi
losophy has tended to make the German mind intensely subjective,
and has led not a few theologians to view both history and doctrines
in relation to some preconceived theory rather than in their practi
cal bearings on human life. Thus, the critical methods of Ileuss,
Kuenen, and Wellhausen, in their treatment of Old Testament litera-
1 Several notions of the Tubingen critical school, represented by Baur, may be found
in substance among the teachings of Semler, the author of this destructive species r,f
criticism.
68 INTRODUCTION.
ture, seem based, not so much on a candid examination of all the
contents of the sacred books of Israel, as upon the application of a
philosophy of human history to the books. A dispassionate study
of the works of these critics begets a conviction that the detailed
arguments, by which they aim to support their positions, are not
the real steps of the process by which their conclusions were first
reached. The vai'ious assaults upon the Mosaic authorship of the
Pentateuch have been noticeably a succession of adjustments. One
critical theory has given place to another, as in the assaults on the
credibility of the gospels, and the methods employed are largely of
the nature of special pleading to maintain a preconceived theory.
Reuss tells us in the Preface of his great work on the History of the
Jewish Scriptures that his point of view is not that of biblical history,
but one inferred from a comparison of the legal codes, and, beginning
with an " intuition," he aimed " to find the Ariadne thread which
would lead out of the labyrinth of current hypotheses of the origin
of the Mosaic and other Old Testament books into the light of a
psychologically intelligible course of development for the Israelitish
people.1 His procedure is, accordingly, an ingenious attempt to make
his philosophy of history in general account for the records of Israel's
history, and, so far from interpreting the written records according
to legitimate principles, he rearranges them according to his own
fancy, and virtually constructs a new history conspicuously incon
sistent with the obvious import of the ancient records.
Sceptical and rationalistic assualts upon the Scriptures have called
out a method of interpretation which may be called
Apologetic . J
and Dogmatic Apologetic. It assumes to defend at all hazards the au
thenticity, genuineness, and credibility of every docu
ment incorporated in the sacred canon, and its standpoint and
methods are so akin to that of the Dogmatic exposition of the Bible
that we present the two together. The objectionable feature of
these methods is that they virtually set out with the ostensible pur
pose of maintaining a preconceived hypothesis. The hypothesis
may be right, but the procedure is always liable to mislead. It
presents the constant temptation to find desired meanings in words,
and ignore the scope and general purpose of the writer. There are
cases where it is well to assume an hypothesis, and to use it as a means
of investigation; but in all such cases the hypothesis is only as
sumed tentatively, not affirmed dogmatically. In the exposition of
the Bible, apology and dogma have a legitimate place. The true
apology defends the sacred books against an unreasonable and cap-
1 Die Geschichte dor heiligen Scbriften dcs Alteu Testament, p. viii. Braunschweig,
1881.
DOGMATIC METHODS. 69
tious criticism, and presents their claims to be regarded as the reve
lation of God. But this can be done only by pursuing rational
methods, and by the use of a convincing logic. So also the Scrip
tures are profitable for dogma, but the dogma must be shown to be
a legitimate teaching of the Scripture, not a traditional idea at
tached to the Scripture. The extermination of the Canaanites, the
immolation of Jephthah's daughter, the polygamy of the Old Test
ament saints, and their complicity with slavery, are capable of
rational explanation, and, in that sense, of a valid apology. The
true apologist will not attempt to justify the cruelties of the an
cient wars, or hold that Israel had a legal right to Canaan; he will
not seek to evade the obvious import of language, and maintain
that Jephthah's daughter was not offered at all, but became a Jew
ish nun; nor will he find it necessary to defend the Old Testament
practice of polygamy, or of slavery. He will let facts and state
ments stand in their own light, but guard against false inferences,
and rash conclusions. So also the doctrines of the Trinity, the
divinity of Christ, the personality of the Holy Spirit, the vicarious
atonement, justification, regeneration, sanctification, and the resur
rection, have a firm foundation in the Scriptures; but how unscien
tific and objectionable many of the methods by which these and
other doctrines have been maintained ! When a theologian assumes
the standpoint of an ecclesiastical creed, and thence proceeds, with
a polemic air, to search for single texts of Scripture favourable to
himself or unfavourable to his opponent, he is more than likely to
overdo the matter. His creed may be as true as the Bible itself,
but his method is reprehensible. Witness the disputes of Luther
and Zwingle over the matter of consubstantiation. Read the
polemic literature of the Antinomian, the Calvinistic, and the Sacra-
mentarian controversies. The whole Bible is ransacked and treated
as if it were an atomical collection of dogmatic proof -texts. How
hard is it, even at this day, for the polemic divine to concede the
spuriousness of 1 John v, 7. It should be remembered that no
apology is sound, and no doctrine sure, which rests upon uncritical
methods, or proceeds upon dogmatical assumptions. Such proced
ures are not exposition, but imposition. Moreover, the habit of
treating the views of others with contempt, or of declaring what
this passage must mean, and what that cannot possibly signify, is
not adapted to command the confidence of students who think for
themselves. Hengstenberg and Ewald represented two opposite ex
tremes of opinion, but the imperious and offensive dogmatism of
their writings has detracted largely from the influence of their other
wise invaluable contributions to biblical literature.
70 INTRODUCTION.
In distinction from all the above-mentioned methods of interpre
tation, we may name the Grammatico-Historical as the
Grammatico- •
Historical in- method which most fully commends itself to the judg-
lon' ment and conscience of Christian scholars. Its funda
mental principle is to gather from the Scriptures themselves the
precise meaning which the writers intended to convey. It applies
to the sacred books the same principles, the same grammatical
process and exercise of common sense and reason, which we apply to
other books. The grammatico-historical exegete, furnished with
suitable qualifications, intellectual, educational, and moral,1 will ac
cept the claims of the Bible without prejudice or adverse prepos
session, and, with no ambition to prove them true or false, will
investigate the language and import of each book with fearless in
dependence. He will master the language of the writer, the par
ticular dialect which he used, and his peculiar style and manner of
expression. He will inquire into the circumstances under which he
wrote, the manners and customs of his age, and the purpose or ob
ject which he had in view. He has a right to assume that no sensi
ble author will be knowingly inconsistent with himself, or seek to
bewilder and mislead his readers.
'Compare pp. 23-30 on the Qualifications of an Interpreter.
PART FIRST.
GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY.
THERE are certain general principles of thought and language which
underlie all intelligible writings. When one rational General princt.
mind desires to communicate thought to another it em- Ples defined,
ploys such conventional means of intercourse as are supposed to be
understood by both. Words of defined meaning and usage serve
this purpose in all the languages of men, and accordingly, if one
understand the written thoughts of another, he must know the
meaning and usage of his words. It is the province of interpreta
tion to observe the methods and laws of human thought as exhib
ited in the ordinary processes of speech. " The perfect understand
ing of a discourse," says Schleiermacher, " is a work of art, and in
volves the need of an art-doctrine, which we designate by the term
Hermeneutics. Such an art-doctrine has existence only in so far as
the precepts admitted form a system resting upon principles which
are immediately evident from the nature of thought and language." l
In general, therefore, we hold that the Bible, as a body of litera
ture, is to be interpreted like all other books. The to jn_
writers of the several parts and those who assume to terpreted like
explain what is written are alike supposed to be in ac- c
cord with the logical operations of the human mind. The first work
of the interpreter is accordingly philological. He should know the
primary^ signification of each word, the manner of its usage, and the
peculiar shades of meaning it may have acquired. With the study
of words he must also unite a knowledge of the genius and gram
matical structure of the language employed, for thus only can one
come into possession of the precise thoughts of an author, and judge
of their adaptation to impress the first readers. The main object_of
an author in writing is also to be diligently sought, for in the light
of his chief purpose the details of his composition are often more
1 Outline of the Study of Theology, p. 142. Edinb., 1850.
72 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
clearly apprehended. Along with the scope of a book the form of
its structure is also to be studied, and the logical relation of its sev
eral parts discerned. A wide comparison of all related books, or of
similar passages of writing, is invaluable, and hence the comparison
of one Scripture with another may often serve to set the whole in
clearest light. Especially important is it for the exegete to transfer
himself in spirit to the times of an ancient writer, learn the circum
stances under which he wrote, and look out upon the world from
his point of view.
These general principles are applicable alike to the interpretation
, of the Bible and of all other books, and are appropri.
Importance of ' rr r
general princi- ately designated General Hermeneutics. Such principles
are of the nature of comprehensive and fundamental
doctrines. They become to the practical interpreter so many max
ims, postulates, and settled rules. He holds them in mind as axioms,
and applies them in all his expositions with uniform consistency.
For it is evident that a false principle admitted into the method of
an interpreter will vitiate his entire exegetical process. And when,
for example, we find that in the explanation of certain parts of the
Scriptures no two interpreters out of a whole class agree, we have
good reason to presume at once that some fatal error lurks in their
principles of interpretation. It was surely no purpose or desire of
the sacred writers to be misunderstood. Nor is it reasonable to sup
pose that the Holy Scripture, given by inspiration of God, is of the
nature of a puzzle designed to exercise the ingenuity of the reader.
It is to be expected, therefore, that sound hermeneutical principles
will serve as elements of safety and satisfaction in the study of
God's written word.
The process of observing the laws of thought and language, as
Ennobling ten- exhibited in the Holy Scriptures, is an ennobling study,
meneuti^ai ^ affords an edifying intercourse with eminent and
study. choice spirits of the past, and compels us for the time
to lose sight of temporary interests, and to become absorbed with
the thoughts and feelings of other ages. He who forms the habit
of studying, not only the divine thoughts of revelation, but also the
principles and methods according to which those thoughts have been
expressed, will acquire a moral and intellectual culture worthy of
the noblest ambition.
STUDY OF WORDS. 73
CHAPTER II.
THE PRIMARY MEANING OF WORDS.
IT is interesting and profitable to observe how new languages orig*
inate; how they become modified and changed; how new dialects
arise, and how, at length, a national form of speech may go out of
use and become known as a dead language. Attention to these
facts makes it apparent that any given language is an
accumulation and aggregate of words which a nation iy the elements
or community of people use for the interchange and of Ian8ua«e'
expression of their thoughts. " Language," says Whitney, " has, in
fact, no existence save in the minds and mouths of those who use it;
it is made up of separate articulated signs of thought, each of which
is attached by a mental association to the idea it represents, is ut
tered by voluntary effort, and has its value and currency only by
the agreement of speakers and hearers. It is in their power, subject
to their will." '
To understand, therefore, the language of a speaker or writer, it
is necessary, first of all, to know the meaning of his words. The
interpreter, especially, needs to keep in mind the difference, so fre
quently apparent, between the primitive signification of a word
and that which it subsequently obtains. We first naturally inquire
after the original meaning of a word, or what is com- T
0 . Etymology, usus
monly called its etymology. Next we examine the loquendi, and
usus loquendi, or actual meaning which it bears in synonymes-
common usage ; and then we are prepared to understand the occa
sion and import of synonymes, and how a language becomes enriched
by them.
Whatever may be the common meaning of a word, as used by a
particular people or age, it often represents a history. Manifold value
Language has been significantly characterized as fossil ot etymology.
poetry, fossil history, fossil ethics, fossil philosophy. " This means,"
says Trench, "that just as in some fossil, curious and beautiful
shapes of vegetable or animal life, the graceful fern, or the finely
vertebrated lizard, extinct, it may be, for thousands of years, are
permanently bound up with the stone, and rescued from that per
ishing which would have otherwise been theirs, so in words are
'Language and the Study of Language, p. 35.
74 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
beautiful thoughts and images, the imagination, and feeling of past
ages, of men whose very names have perished, preserved and made
safe forever." ' Benjamin W. Dwight declares etymology to be
"fossil poetry, philosophy, and history combined. In the treasured
words of the past, the very spirits of elder days look out upon us,
as from so many crystalline spheres, with friendly recognition. We
see in them the light of their eyes ; we feel in them the warmth of
their hearts. They are relics, they are tokens, and almost break
jnto life again at our touch. The etymologist unites in himself the
characteristics of the traveller, roaming through strange and far-
off climes; the philosopher, prying into the causes and sequences
of things ; the antiquary, filling his cabinet with ancient curiosities
and wonders ; the historiographer, gathering up the records of by
gone men and ages; and the artist, studying the beautiful designs
in word architecture furnished him by various nations.""
Take, for example, that frequently occurring New Testament
word EKK^Tiaia. commonly rendered church. Compounded
J „
of etc, out of, and KaAeiv, to call, or summon, it was tirst
used of an assembly of the citizens of a Greek community, sum
moned together by a crier, for the transaction of business pertain
ing to the public welfare. The preposition EK indicates that it was
no motley crowd,3 no mass-meeting of nondescripts, but a select
company gathered out from the common mass ; it was an assembly
of free citizens, possessed of well-understood legal rights and
powers. The verb KaAeiv denotes that the assembly was legally
called (compare the ev ry evvopy eKKArjaia of Acts xix, 39), sum
moned for the purpose of deliberating in lawful conclave. Whether
the etymological connexion between the Hebrew f>nj3 and the Greek
KaAeiv be vital or merely accidental, the Septuagint translators gen
erally render ?n£ by eKKArjoia, and thus by an obvious process, e«-
KATjaia came to represent among the Hellenists the Old Testament
conception of " the congregation of the people of Israel," as usually
denoted by the Hebrew word ^nj?. Hence it was natural for Ste
phen to speak of the congregation of Israel, which Moses led out of
Egypt, as "the eKKArjoia in the wilderness" (Acts vii, 38), and equal
ly natural for the word to become the common designation of the
Christian community of converts from Judaism and the world.
Into this New Testament sense of the word, it was also important
that the full force of etc and KaAeiv (KArjm^, KArjrog) should continue.
'The Study of Words. Introductory Lecture, p. 12. New York, 1861.
* Article on The Science of Etymology, in Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1858, p. 438.
3 Compare the confused assembly, ij iKKAr/aia avvKexvfj.ivT), composed of the multitude,
, in Acts xix, 32, 33, 40.
GREEK AND HEBREW WORDS. 75
As the old Greek assembly was called by a public herald (/C7ypv£), so
"the Church of God (or of the Lord), which he purchased with his
own blood" (Acts xx, 28), is the congregation of those who are
"called to be saints" (K^TJ-OI ayioi, Rom. i, 7), "called out of dark
ness into his marvellous light " (1 Pet. ii, 9), called " unto his king
dom and glory" (1 Thess. ii, 12), and called by the voice of an au
thorized herald or preacher (Rom. x, 14, 15; 1 Tim. ii, Y).1 With
this fundamental idea the church may denote either the small as
sembly in a private house (Rom. xvi, 5 ; Philemon 2), the Christian
congregations of particular towns and cities (1 Cor. i, 2 ; 1 Thess.
i, 1), or the Church universal (Eph. i, 22; iii, 21). But a new idea is
added when our Lord says, " I will build my Church " (Matt, xvi, 18).
Here the company of the saints (K^TOI ayioi) is conceived of as a
house, a stately edifice ; and it was peculiarly fitting that Peter, the
disciple to whom these words were addressed, should afterward
write to the general Church, and designate it not only as " a chosen
generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation," but also as "a spir
itual house," builded of living stones (l*Pet. ii, 5, 9). Paul also
uses the same grand image, and speaks of the household of God as
" having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone, in whom all the
building, fitly framed together, grows unto a living temple in the
Lord" (Eph. ii, 20, 21). And then again, to this image of a build
ing (comp. 1 Cor. iii, 9) he also adds that of a living human body
of which Christ is the head, defining the whole as " his body, the
fulness (n^oufia) of him who fills all things in all" (Eph. i, 23).
Comp. also Rom. xii, 5; 1 Cor. xii, 12-28; and Col. i, 18.
Observe also the forms and derivatives of the Hebrew 1£3, to
cover. The primary meaning is to cover over, so as to ^Q3) the cw_
hide from view. The ark was thus covered or over- eri^ of atone_
laid with a covering of some material like pitch (Gen. ment-
vi, 14). Then it came to be used of a flower or shrub, with the
resin or powder of which oriental females are said to have covered
and stained their finger nails (Cant, i, 14). Again we find it ap
plied to villages or hamlets (1 Sam. vi, 18; 1 Chron. xxvii, 25), ap
parently, as Gesenius suggests, because such places were regarded
as a covering or shelter to the inhabitants. The verb is also used
of the abolishing or setting aside of a covenant (Isa. xxviii, 18).
But the deeper meaning of the word is that of covering, or hiding
sin, and thus making an atonement. Thus Jacob thought to cover
his brother Esau with a present (Gen. xxxii, 20). His words are,
literally, " I will cover his face with the present which goes before
1 A similar interesting history attaches to the words Kr/pvt; and Kr/pvaou.
76 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
me, and afterward I will see his face ; perhaps he will lift up my
face." Feeling that he had sorely wronged his brother, he would
now fain cover his face with such a princely gift that Esau would
no more behold those wrongs of the past. His old offences being
thus hidden, he hopes to be permitted to see his brother's face in
peace ; and perhaps even Esau will condescend to lift up his face —
raise from the dust the face of the prostrate and penitent Jacob.
The transition was easy from this use of the verb to that of making
an atonement, a meaning which it constantly conveys in the books
of the law (Lev. xvii, 11). And hence the use of the noun 1B3 in
the sense of ransom, satisfaction (Exod. xxx, 12), and the plural
Dnss, atonements (Exod. xxx, 10; Lev. xxiii, 27, 28). Hence,
also, that word of profound significance, rn.S3, capporeth, the
mercy-seat, the lid or cover of the ark which contained the tables
of the law (Exod. xxv, 17-22) — the symbol of mercy covering
wrath.
Additional interest is given to the study of words by the science
Hei of om °^ comParative philology. In tracing a word through
parativepMioi- a whole family of languages, we note not only the va
riety of forms it may have taken, but the different
usage and shades of meaning it acquired among different peoples.
The Hebrew words 3X, father, and J3, son, are traceable through
all the Semitic tongues, and maintain their common signification in
all. The Greek word for heart, naodia, appears also in the Sanskrit
hrid, Latin cor, Italian cuore, Spanish corazon, Portuguese, corafam,
French cceur, and English core. Some words, especially verbs, ac
quire new meanings as they pass from one language to another.
Hence the meaning which a word bears in Arabic or Syriac may not
be the meaning it was designed to convey in Hebrew. Thus the
Hebrew word "TOJ? is frequently used in the Old Testament in the sense
to stand, to be firm, to stand up; and this general idea can be traced
in the corresponding word and its derivatives in the Arabic, Ethi-
opic (to erect a column, to establish], Chaldee (to rise up), Samari
tan and Talmudic; but in the Syriac it is the word commonly used
for baptism. Some say this was because the candidate stood while
he was baptized; others, that the idea associated with baptism was
that of confirming or establishing in the faith; while others believe
that the Syriac word is to be traced to a different root. Whatever
be the true explanation, it is easy to see that the same word may
have different meanings in cognate languages, and, therefore, a sig
nification which appears in Arabic or Syriac may be very remote
from that which the word holds in the Hebrew. Hence great cau
tion is necessary in tracing etymologies.
STUDY OF RARE WORDS. 77
It is well known that, in all languages, the origin of many-
words has become utterly lost. The wonder, indeed, Rare words,
is that we are able to trace the etymology of such a and d?raf Aey-
large proportion. The extensive literature of the Greek °fj'eva-
language enables the New Testament interpreter to ascertain
without much difficulty the roots and usage of most of the words
with which he has to deal. But the Old Testament Scriptures em
body substantially all the remains of the Hebrew language, and when
we meet with a word which occurs but once in the entire literature
extant, we may often be puzzled to know the exact meaning which
it was intended to convey. In such cases help from cognate
tongues is particularly important. The word D;»p, in Gen. xxviii,
12, occurs nowhere else in Hebrew. The root appears to be ^p, to
cast up, to raise; and from the same root comes the word n^Jpp, used
of public highways (Judg. xx, 32; Isa. xl, 3; Ixii, 10), the paths of
locusts (Joel ii, 8), the courses of the stars (Judg. v, 20), and ter
races or stairways to the temple (2 Chron. ix, 11). The Arabic
word sullum confirms the sense of stairway or ladder, and leaves no
reasonable doubt as to the meaning of sullam in Gen. xxviii, 12.
Jacob saw, in his dream, an elevated ladder or stairway reaching
from the earth to the heavens. In determining the sense of such
<rra£ Aeyo'jueva, or words occurring but once, we have to be guided
by the context, by analogy of kindred roots, if any appear in the
language, by ancient versions of the word in other languages, and
by whatever traces of the word may be found in cognate tongues.
One of the most noted of New Testament arra£ Xeyo^eva is the
word smovoiov in the Lord's prayer, Matt, vi, 11; Luke
. j, ,,. m
xi, 3. It occurs nowhere else in Greek literature. 1 wo
derivations have been urged, one from km and levai, or the partici
ple of £7r« pi , to go toward or approach / according to which the
meaning would be, " give us our coming bread," that is, bread for
the coming day; to-morrow's bread. This is etymologically possi
ble, and, on the ground of analogy, has much in its favour. But
this meaning does not accord with a^epov, this day, occurring in
the same verse, nor with our Lord's teaching in verse 34 of the
same chapter. The other derivation is from km and ovaia, exist-
&ice, subsistence (from dpi, to be), and means that which is necessary
for existence, " our essential bread." This latter seems by far the
more appropriate meaning.
Another difficult word is moriKdc., used only in Mark xiv, 3, and
John xii, 3, to describe the nard (vdpdoc) with which
Mary anointed the feet of Jesus. It is found in manu
scripts of several Greek authors (Plato, Gorgias, 455 a.; Aristotle,
6
78 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
Rhet. i, 2) apparently as a false reading for TreiariKog, persuasive;
but this signification would have no relevancy to nard. Scaliger
proposed the meaning pounded nard, deriving -moTiKog from Trrmaw,
to pound, a possible derivation, but unsupported by any thing anal
ogous. Some think the word may be a proper adjective denoting
the place from which the nard came; i. e., Pistic nard. The Vul
gate of John xii, 3, has nardi pistici. This use of the word, how
ever, is altogether uncertain. The Vulgate of Mark xiv, 3, has
spicati, as denoting the spikes or ears of the nard plant; hence the
word spikenard. But there is no good ground for accepting this
interpretation. Many derive the word from iriva) (or mTriotcui), to
drink, and understand drinkable or liquid nard, and urge that sev
eral ancient writers affirm that certain anointing oils were used for
drinking. If such were the meaning here, however, the word
should refer to the ointment ([tvpov], not the nard. The explana
tion best suited to the context, and not without warrant in Greek
usage, makes the word equivalent to marog, faithful, trustworthy;
applied to a material object it would naturally signify genuine,
pure, that on which one can rely.
In determining the meaning of compound words we may usually
resort to the lexical and grammatical analogy of Ian- compound
guages. The signification of a compound expression is words-
generally apparent from the import of the different terms of which
it is compounded. Thus, the word dprjvoTroioi, used in Matt, v, 9,
is at once seen to be composed of elp-fjvn, peace, and TTOISG), to make,
and signifies those who make (work or establish) peace. The mean
ing, says Meyer, is " not the peaceful (elprjvinoi, James iii, 1 7 ;
2 Mace, v, 25; or elprjVEvovrec, Sirach vi, 7), a meaning which does
not appear even in Pollux, i, 41, 152 (Augustine thinks of the moral
inner harmony; De Wette, of the inclination of the contemporaries
of Jesus to war and tumult; Bleek reminds us of Jewish party
hatred); but the founders of peace (Xen. Hist. Gr., vi, 3, 4; Plut.
Mor., p. 279 B.; comp. Col. i, 20; Prov. x, 10), who as such min
ister to God's good pleasure, who is the God of peace (Rom. xvi,
20; 2 Cor. xiii, 11), as Christ himself was the highest founder of
peace (Luke ii, 14; John xvi, 33; Eph. ii, 14)."1 Similarly we
judge of the meaning of edekodnrjaKeia in Col. ii, 23, compounded
of ei9fAo> and •dprjaKeia, and signifying will worship, self-chosen wor
ship; TroXva-nXayxyo^, very compassionate (James v, 11); ovvavgdv-
ojucw, to grow together with (Matt, xiii, 30); -poTrofioped), to bear as
a nourisher (Acts xiii, 18), and many other compounds, which, like
the above, occur but once in the New Testament.
1 Critical and Exe<;etical Hand-book to the Gospel of Matthew, in loco.
USAGE OF WORDS. 79
CHAPTER III.
THE USUS LOQUENDI.
SOME words have a variety of significations, and hence, whatever
their primitive meaning, we are obliged to gather from the context,
and from familiarity with the usage of the language, the particular
sense which they bear in a given passage of Scripture. Many a
word in common use has lost its original meaning.
1 => The meaning of
How few of those who daily use the word sincere are words becomes \
aware that it was originally applied to pure honey, from c
which all wax was purged. Composed of the Latin words sine,
without, and cera, wax, it appears to have been first used of honey
strained or separated from the wax-like comb. The word cunning
no longer means knowledge, or honourable skill, but is generally
used in a bad sense, as implying artful trickery. The verb let has
come to mean the very opposite of what it once did, namely to
hinder; and prevent, which was formerly used in the sense of going
before, so as to prepare the way or assist one, now means to inter
cept or obstruct. Hence the importance of attending to what is
commonly called the usus loquendi, or current usajje of words as**)
employed by a particular writer, or prevalent in a particular age./
It often happens, also, that a writer uses a common word in some
special and peculiar sense, and then his own definitions must be
taken, or the context and scope must be consulted, in order to de
termine the precise meaning intended.
There are many ways by which the usus loquendi of a writer
may be ascertained. The first and simplest is when he T
» r Writer often
himself defines the terms he uses. Thus the word dennesnisown
dprtog, perfect, complete, occurring only in 2 Tim. iii, 11, ^
is defined by what immediately follows: "That the man of God
may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto every good work."
That is, he is made perfect or complete in this, that he is thorough
ly furnished and fitted, by the varied uses of the inspired Scripture,
to go forward unto the accomplishment of every good work. We
also find the word rehetoi, commonly rendered perfect, defined in
Heb. v, 14, as those " who by practice have the senses trained unto a
discrimination of good and of evil." They are, accordingly, the ma
ture and experienced Christians as distinguished from babes, VTJTTIOI.
80 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
Compare verse 13, and 1 Cor. ii, 6. So also, in Rom. ii, 28, 29, the
apostle defines the genuine Jew and genuine circumcision as fol
lows : " For he is not a Jew, who is one outwardly (kv TO> ^avepoi) ;
nor is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh : but he is a
Jew, who is one inwardly (kv TO> /cpvTmJj) ; and circumcision is that
of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not of
men, but of God."
But the immediate context, no less than the writer's own defini-
immediate tions, generally serves to exhibit any peculiar usage of
context. words. Thus, -rrvevpa, wind, spirit, is used in the New
Testament to denote the wind (John iii, 8), the vital breath (Rev.
xi, 11), the natural disposition or temper of mind (Luke ix, 55; Gal.
vi, 1), the life principle or immortal nature of man (John vi, 63),
the perfected spirit of a saint in the heavenly life (Heb. xii, 23),
the unclean spirits of demons (Matt, x, 1 ; Luke iv, 36), and the
Holy Spirit of God (John iv, 24; Matt, xxviii, 19; Rom. viii, 9-11).
It needs but a simple attention to the context, in any of these pas
sages, to determine the particular sense in which the word is used.
In John iii, 8, we note the two different meanings of -rrvev^a in one
and the same verse. "The wind (TO TTVSV^O) blows where it will,
and the sound of it thou nearest ; but thou knowest not whence it
comes and whither it goes; so is every one who is born of the
Spirit" (BK roi> irvEVfj-arog). Bengel holds, indeed, that we should
here render -nvev^a in both instances by spirit, and he urges that
the divine Spirit, and not the wind, has a will and a voice.1 But
the great body of interpreters maintain the common version. Nic-
odemus was curious and perplexed to know the how (TTWC, verses 4
and 9) of the Holy Spirit's workings, and as the Almighty of old
spoke to Job out of the whirlwind, and appealed to the manifold
mysteries of nature in vindication of his ways, so here the Son of
God appeals to the mystery in the motion of the wind. " Wouldst
thou know the whence and whither of the Spirit, and yet thou
knowest not the origin and the end of the common wind? Where
fore dost thou not marvel concerning the air which breathes around
thee, and of which thou livest?" a " Our Lord," says Alford, " might
have chosen any of the mysteries of nature to illustrate the point.
He takes that one which is above others symbolic of the action
of the Spirit, and which in both languages, that in which he
spoke, as well as that in which his speech is reported, is expressed
by the same word. So that the words as they stand apply them
selves at once to the Spirit and his working, without any figure." '
1 Gnomon of the New Testament, in loco.
* Comp. Stier, Words of the Lord Jesus, in loco. 3 Greek Testament, in loco.
CONTEXT DEFINES. 81
The word moixelov, used in classical Greek for the upright post
of a sundial, then for an elementary sound in language (from let
ters standing ir rows), came to be used almost solely in the plural,
TO, oroixKia, in the sense of elements or rudiments. In 2 Pet. iii, 10
it evidently denotes the elements of nature, the component parts
of the physical universe ; but in Gal. iv, 3, 9, as the immediate con
text shows, it denotes the ceremonials of Judaism, considered as
elementary object lessons, adapted to the capacity of children.
In this sense the word may also denote the ceremonial elements in
the religious cultus of the heathen world (compare verse 8).1
The enlightened Christian should grow out of these, and pass be
yond them, for otherwise they trammel, and become a system of
bondage. Compare also the use of the word in Col. ii, 8, 20 and
Heb. v, 12.
In connexion with the immediate context, the nature of the sub
ject may also determine the usage of a word. Thus, in Nature of the
2 Cor. v, 1, 2, the reference of the words olicia, house, subject.
OKTIVOC;, tabernacle, olKodop.^, building, and oiK.r)~fiQiov, habitation, to
the body as a covering of the soul hardly admits of question. The
whole passage (verses 1-4) reads literally thus : " For we know that
if our house of the tabernacle upon earth were dissolved,
a building from God we have, a house not made with
hands, eternal, in the heavens. For also in this we groan, yearning
to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven, since
indeed also (eiye itai) being clothed we shall not be found naked.
For, indeed, we who are in the tabernacle groan, being burdened,
in that we would not be unclothed, but clothed upon, to the end
that that which is mortal may be swallowed up by the life." Hodge
holds that the "building from God" is heaven itself, and argues
that in John xiv, 2, heaven is compared to a house of many man
sions ; in Luke xvi, 9, to a habitation ; and in Heb. xi, 1 0, and Rev.
xxi, 10, to a city of dwellings.2 But the scripture in question is too
explicit, and the nature of the subject too limited, to allow other
scriptures, like those cited, to determine its meaning. No one
doubts that the phrase, "our house of the tabernacle upon earth,"
refers to the human body, which is liable to dissolution. It is com
pared to a tent, or tabernacle (aitf)vo<;), and also to a vesture, thus
presenting us with a double metaphor. "The word tent," says
Stanley, " lent itself to this imagery, from being used in later Greek
writers for the human body, especially in medical writers, who
seem to have been led to adopt the word from the s&s'/i-materials
1 Comp. Lightfoot's Commentary on Galatians iv, 11.
9 Commentary on Second Corinthians, in loco.
82 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
of which tents were composed. The explanation of this abrupt
transition from the figure of a house or tent to that of a garment,
may be found in the image, familiar to the apostle, both from his
occupations and his birthplace, of the tent of Cilician haircloth,
which might almost equally suggest the idea of a habitation and of
a vesture. Compare the same union of metaphors in Psa. civ, 2,
'Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment; who stretch-
est out the heavens like a curtain' (of a tent)."1
The main subject, then, is the present body considered as an
earthly house, a tabernacle upon earth. In it we groan; in it we
are under burden; in it we endure "the momentary lightness of our
affliction " (TO naoavrina sAa^pov T??f $/ln/>£Wf ), which is mentioned
in chapter iv, 17, and Avhich is there set in contrast with an "eter
nal weight of glory" (aluviov ftdoog do|??o). To this earthly house,
heaven itself, whether considered as the house of many mansions
(John xiv, 2) or the city of God (Rev. xxi, 10), affords no true
antithesis. The true antithesis is the heavenly body, the vesture
of immortality, which is from God. For the opposite of our house
is the building from God ; the one may be dissolved, the other is
eternal / the one is upon earth (eTTiyeioc), the other is (not heaven
itself, but) in the heavens. The true parallel to the entire passage
before us is 1 Cor. xv, 47-54, where the earthly and the heavenly
bodies are contrasted, and it is said (ver. 53) "this corruptible
must be clothed with incorruption, and this mortal must be clothed
with immortality."
The above example also illustrates how antithesis, contrast, or
contrast or op- opposition, may serve to determine the meaning of
words. A further instance may be cited from Rom.
viii, 5-8. In verse 4 the apostle has introduced the antithetic ex
pressions Kara odoaa, and Kara Trvevpa, according to the flesh and
according to the spirit. He then proceeds to define, as by contrast,
the two characters. " For they who are according to the flesh the
things of the flesh do mind ((frpovovmv, think of, care for), but they,
according to the spirit, the things of the spirit. For the mind of
the flesh is death, but the mind of the spirit life and peace. Be
cause the mind of the flesh is enmity toward God, for to the law of
God it does not submit itself, for it is not able; and they who are
in the flesh are not able to please God." The spirit, throughout
this passage, is to be understood of the Holy Spirit: "the Spirit
of life in Christ Jesus," mentioned in verse 2, which delivers the
sinner "from the law of sin and of death." The being according
to the flesh, and the being in the flesh, are to be understood of
1 Commentary on St. Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians, in loco.
AID OP PARALLELISM. 83
unregenerate and unsanctified human life, conditioned and controlled
by carnal principles and motives. This Scripture, and more that
might be cited, indicates, by detailed opposition and contrast, the
essential and eternal antagonism between sinful carnality and re
deemed spirituality in human life and character.
The usus loquendi of many words may be seen in the parallelisms
of Hebrew poetry. Whether the parallelism be synon- Hebrew parai
ymous or antithetic,1 it may serve to exhibit in an leiisms.
unmistakable way the general import of the terms employed.
Take, for example, the following passage from the eighteenth
Psalm, verses 6-15 (Heb. 7-16):
6 In my distress I call Jehovah,
And to my God I cry ;
He hears from his sanctuary my voice,
And my cry before him comes into his ears.
7 Then shakes and quakes the land,
And the foundations of the mountains tremble,
And they shake themselves, for he was angry.
8 There went up a smoke in his nostril,
And fire from his mouth devours ;
Hot coals glowed from him.
9 And he bows the heavens and comes down,
And a dense gloom under his feet;
10 And he rides upon a cherub, and flies,
And soars upon the wings of the wind.
11 He sets darkness his covering,
His pavilion round about him,
A darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies.
12 From the brightness before him his thick clouds passed away,
Hail, and hot coals of fire.
13 Then Jehovah thunders in the heavens,
And the Most High gives forth his voice,
Hail, and hot coals of fire.
14 And he sends forth his arrows and scatters them,
And lightnings he shot, and puts them in commotion,
15 And the beds of the waters are seen,
And the foundations of the world are uncovered,
From thy rebuke, O Jehovah !
From the breath of the wind of thy nostril.
It requires but little attention here to observe how such words as
call, cry, fie hears my voice, and my cry comes into his ears (verse 6),
mutually explain and illustrate one another. The same may be
said of the words shakes, quakes, tremble, and shake themselves, in
1 On Hebrew Parallelisms, see pp. 149, 152.
84 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
verse 7 ; smoke, fire, and coals in verse 8 ; rides, flies, and soars in
verse 10; arrows and lightnings, scatters and puts in commotion, in
verse 14; and so to some extent of the varied expressions of nearly
every verse.
Here, too, may be seen how subject and predicate serve to ex
plain one another. Thus, in verse 8, above, smoke goes
Subject, predi- *
cate, and ad- up, fire devours, hot coals glow. feo in Matt, v, 13:
juncts. « ^ j.ne gajt Become tasteless," the sense of the verb
[Mpavdirj, become tasteless, is determined by the subject d'Aaf, salt.
But in Rom. i, 22, the import of this same verb is to become fool
ish, as the whole sentence shows: "Professing to be wise, they
become foolish," i. e., made fools of themselves. The word is
used in a similar signification in 1 Cor. i, 20: "Did not God make
foolish the wisdom of the world? " The extent to which qualify
ing words, as adjectives and adverbs, serve to limit or define the
meaning is too apparent to call for special illustration.
A further and most important method of ascertaining the usus
com art on of ^°Quen^ ^s an extensive and careful comparison of sim-
paraiiei pas- ilar or parallel passages of Scripture. When a writer
has treated a given subject in different parts of his
writings, or when different writers have treated the same subject, it
is both justice to the writers, and important in interpretation, to
collate and compare all that is written. The obscure or doubtful
passages are to be explained by what is plain and simple. A sub
ject may be only incidentally noticed in one place, but be treated
with extensive fulness in another. Thus, in Rom. xiii, 12, we have
the exhortation, "Let us put on the armour of light," set forth
merely in contrast with "cast off the works of darkness;" but if
we inquire into the meaning of this " armour of light," how much
more fully and forcibly does it impress us when we compare the
detailed description given in Ephesians vi, 13-17: "Take up the
whole armour of God. . . . Stand, therefore, having girded your
loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteous
ness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel
of peace; withal taking up the shield of faith wherewith ye shall
be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one. And take the
helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word
of God." Compare also 1 Thess. v, 8.
The meaning of the word K*UX (compare the Greek voeroc) in Jer.
xvii, 9, must be determined by ascertaining its use in other pas
sages. The common version translates it " desperately wicked,"
but usage does not sustain this meaning. The primary sense of
the word appears to be incurably sick, or diseased. It is used in
FAMILIAR USAGE. 85
2 Sam. xii, 15, to describe the condition of David's child when
smitten of the Lord so that it became very sick (tW£!!). It is used
in reference to the lamentable idolatry of the kingdom of Israel
(Micah i, 9), where the common version renders, " Her wound is in
curable" and gives in the margin, " She is grievously sick of her
wounds." The same signification appears also in Job xxxiv, 6:
" My wound ('Sn, wound caused by an arrow) is incurable." In
Isa. xvii, 11, we have the thought of " incurable pain," and in Jer.
xv, 18, we read, " Wherefore has my pain been enduring, and my
stroke incurable?" Compare also Jer. xxx, 12, 15. In Jer. xvii,
16, the prophet uses this word to characterize the day of grievous
calamity as a day of mortal sickness (BhJK Di1). In the ninth verse,
therefore, of the same chapter, where the deceitful heart is charac
terized by this word, which everywhere else maintains its original
sense of a diseased and incurable condition, we should also adhere
to the main idea made manifest by all these parallels: "Deceitful
is the heart above every thing; and incurably diseased is it; who
knows it ? !
The usus loquendi of common words is, of course, to be as
certained by the manner and the connection in which General and
they are generally used. We feel at once the incon- familiar usage.
gruity of saying, "Adriansz or Lippersheim discovered the tele
scope, and Harvey invented the circulation of the blood." We
know from familiar usage that discover applies to the finding out
or uncovering of that which was in existence before, but was hid
den from our view or knowledge, while the word invent is applica
ble to the contriving and constructing of something which had no
actual existence before. Thus, the astronomer invents a telescope,
and by its aid discovers the motions of the stars. The passage in
1 Cor. xiv, 34, 35, has been wrested to mean something else than
the prohibition of women's speaking in the public assemblies of
churches. Some have assumed that the words churches and church
in these verses are to be understood of the business meetings of the
Christians, in which it was not proper for the women to take part.
But the entire context shows that the apostle has especially in
mind the worshipping assembly. Others have sought in the word
AaAeZv a peculiar sense, and, finding that it bears in classic Greek
writers the meaning of babble, prattle, they have strangely taught
that Paul means to say: "Let your women keep silence in the
churches; for it is not permitted them to babble. . . . For it is a
shame for a woman to babble in church!" A slight examination
shows that in this same chapter the word Aa/UZv, to speak, occurs
1 On the importance of comparing parallel passages, see further in Chapter vii.
88 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
more than twenty times, and in no instance is there any necessity
or reason to understand it in other than its ordinary sense of dis
coursing, speaking. Who, for instance, would accuse Paul of say
ing, " I thank God, I babble with tongues more than ye all " (verse
18); or "let two or three of the prophets babble, and the others
judge" (verse 29)? Hence appears the necessity, in interpreta
tion, of observing the general usage rather than the etymology of
words.
In ascertaining the meaning of rare words, o/rraf Aeyo/zeva, or
Ancient ver- words which occur but once, and words of doubtful
sions. import, the ancient versions of Scripture furnish an im
portant aid. For, as Davidson well observes, "An interpreter
cannot arrive at the right meaning of every part of the Bible by
the Bible itself. Many portions are dark and ambiguous. Even
in discovering the correct sense, no less than in defending the
truth, other means are needed. Numerous passages will be abso
lutely unintelligible without such helps as lie out of the Scriptures.
The usages of the Hebrew and Hebrew-Greek languages cannot be
fully known by their existing remains.1
In the elucidation of difficult words and phrases the Septuagint
translation of the Old Testament holds the first rank among the
ancient versions. It antedates all existing Hebrew manuscripts;
and parts of it, especially the Pentateuch, belong, without much
doubt, to the third century before the Christian era. Philo and
Josephus appear to have made more use of it than they did of the
Hebrew original; the Hellenistic Jews used it in their synagogues,
and the New Testament writers frequently quote from it. Being
made by Jewish scholars, it serves to show how before the time
of Christ the Jews interpreted their Scriptures. Next in import
ance to the Septuagint is the Vulgate, or Latin Version, largely
prepared in its present form by St. Jerome, who derived much
knowledge and assistance from the Jews of his time. After these
we place the Peshito-Syriac Version, the Targums, or Chaldee Par
aphrases of the Old Testament, especially that of Onkelos on the
Pentateuch, and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Prophets, and the
Greek versions of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion." The other
ancient versions, such as the Ai'abic, Coptic, ^Ethiopic, Armenian,
and Gothic, are of less value, and, in determining the meaning of
rare words, cannot be relied on as having any considerable weight
or authority.
1 Hermeneutics, page 616.
5 On the history and character of all these ancient versions, see Harman's, Keil's,
or Bleek's " Introduction ; " also the various biblical dictionaries and cyclopedias.
AID OF ANCIENT VERSIONS. 87
A study and comparison of these ancient versions will show that
they often differ very widely. In many instances it is The
easy to see, in the light of modern researches, that the sions often <ur-
old translators fell into grave errors, and were often at fer'
a loss to determine the meaning of rare and doubtful words. When
the context, parallel passages, and several of the versions agree in
giving the same signification to a word, that signification may gen
erally be relied upon as the true one. But when the word is an
d-rra^ Xeyopevov, and the passage has no parallel, and the versions
vary, great caution is necessary lest we allow too much authority
to one or more versions, which, after all, may have been only con
jectural.
The following examples will illustrate the use, and the interest
attaching to the study, of the ancient versions. In the Authorized
English Version of Gen. i, 2, the words irbj inn are translated,
without form and void. The Targum of Onkelos has K'Jj^ll X^lV,
waste and empty; the Vulgate: inanis et vacua, empty and void ;
Aquila: Kevd)/j,a KCU ovdev, emptiness and nothing. Thus, all these
versions substantially agree, and the meaning of the Hebrew words
is now allowed to be desolation and emptiness. The Syriac merely
repeats the Hebrew words, but the Septuagint reads dooaro^ liat
dtcaraoKevaarog, invisible and unformed, and cannot be allowed to
set aside the meaning presented in all the other versions.
In Gen. xlix, 6, the Septuagint gives the more correct translation
of "iiK> Vipy, they houghed an ox, evevpoKonqvav ravoov; but the Chal-
dee, Syriac, Vulgate, Aquila, and Symmachus read, like the Au
thorized Version, they digged down a wall. Here, however, the au
thority of versions is outweighed by the fact that, in all other
passages where the Piel of this word occurs, it means to hamstring
or hough an animal. Compare Josh, xi, 6, 9; 2 Sam. viii, 4; 1 Chron.
xviii, 4. Where the usus loquendi can thus be determined from the
language itself, it has more weight than the testimony of many
versions.
The versions also differ in the rendering of rDSfV in Psa. xvi, 4.
This word elsewhere (Job ix, 28; Psa. cxlvii, 3; Prov. x, 10; xv, 13)
always means sorrow / but the form 2V^ means idols, and the Chal-
dee, Symmachus, and Theodotion so render J"O5fy in Psa. xvi, 4 : they
multiply their idols, or many are their idols. But the Septuagint,
Vulgate, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, and Aquila, render the word sor
rows, and this meaning is best sustained by the usage of the lan
guage.
In Cant, ii, 12, "VDjn ny is rendered by the Septuagint Kaipd$ rf/f
, time of the cutting; Symmachus, time of the pruning («Aa-
88 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
so also the Vulgate, tempus putatlonis. Most modern in
terpreters, however, discard these ancient versions here, and under
stand the words to mean, the time of song is come; not merely or par
ticularly the singing of birds, as the English version, but all the
glad songs of springtime, in which shepherds and husbandmen alike
rejoice. In this interpretation they are governed by the considera
tion that T10T and JIVVDT signify song and songs in 2 Sam. xxiii, 1 ;
Job xxxv, 10; Psa. xcv, 2; cxix, 54; Isa. xxiv, 16; xxv, 5, and that
when " the blossoms have been seen in the land " the pruning time
is altogether past.
In Isa. lii, 13 all the ancient versions except the Chaldee render the
word ^3E^ in the sense of acting wisely. This fact gives great weight
to that interpretation of the word, and it ought not to be set aside
by the testimony of one version, and by the opinion, which is open
to question, that ^3t^ is in some passages equivalent to IT^yn, to
prosper.
From the above examples it may be seen what judgment and
caution are necessary in the use of the ancient versions of the Bible.
In fact, no specific rules can safely be laid down to govern us in
the use of them. Sometimes the etymology of a word, or the con
text, or a parallel passage may have more weight than all the ver
sions combined; while in other instances the reverse may be true.
Where the versions are conflicting, the context and the analogy of
the language must generally be allowed to take the precedence.
In ascertaining the meaning of many Greek words the ancient
Glossaries and glossaries of Hesychius, Suidas, Photius, and others are
scholia. useful ; but as they treat very few of the obscure words
of the New Testament, they are of comparatively little value to
the biblical interpreter. Scholia, or brief critical notes on portions
of the New Testament, extracted chiefly from the writings of the
Greek Fathers, such as Origen and Chrysostom, occasionally serve
a good purpose,1 but they have been superseded by the more thor
ough and scholarly researches of modern times, and the results of
this research are embodied in the leading critical commentaries and
biblical lexicons of the present day. The Rabbinical commentaries
of Aben-Ezra, Jarchi, Kimchi, and Tanchum are often found ser
viceable in the exposition of the Old Testament.
1 The commentaries of Theodoret and Theophylact are largely composed of extracts
from Chrysostom. To the same class belong the commentaries of Euthymius, Ziga-
benus, (Ecumenius, Andreas, and Arethas. The Catenae of the Greek Fathers by
Procopius, Olympiodorus, and Nicephorus treat several books of the Old Testament.
The celebrated Catena Aurea of Thomas Aquinas covers the Four Gospels, and was
translated and published at Oxford in 1845 bv. J. H. Newman.
WORDS OF SAME MEANING. 89
CHAPTER IV.
SYNONYMES.
WORDS, being the conventional signs and representatives of ideas,
are changeable in both form and meaning by reason of the changes
constantly taking place in human society. In process of time the
same word will be applied to a variety of uses, and come to have a
variety of meanings. Thus, the name board, another
J . . ' Some words
form ot the word oroad, was originally applied to a piece have many
of timber, hewed or sawed so as to form a wide, thin meanlliss-
plank. It was also applied to a table on which food was placed,
and it became common to speak of gathering around the festive
board. Thence it came by a natural process to be applied to the
food which was placed upon the table, and men were said to work
or pay for their board. By a similar association the word was also
applied to a body of men who were wont to gather around a table
to transact business, and hence we have board of trustees, board
of commissioners. The word is also used for the deck of a vessel ;
hence the terms on board, overboard, and some other less common
nautical expressions. Thus it often happens, that the original
meaning of a word falls into disuse, and is forgotten, while
later meanings become current, and find a multitude and variety of
applications. But while a single word may thus come to have many
meanings, it also happens that a number of different words are used
to designate the same, or nearly the same, thing. By such a multi
plication of terms a language becomes greatly enriched, and capable
of expressing more minutely the different shades and aspects of any
particular idea. Thus in English we have the words Several words
wonder, surprise, admiration, astonishment, and amaze- of like mean-
ment, all conveying the same general thought, but distin- °8'
guishable by different shades of meaning. The same is true of the
words axiom, maxim, aphorism, apothegm, adage, proverb, byword,
saying, and saw. Such words are called synonymes, and they
abound in all cultivated languages. The biblical interpreter needs
discernment and skill to determine the nice distinctions and shades
of meaning attaching to Hebrew and Greek synonymes. Often the
exact point and pith of a passage will be missed by failing to make
the proper discrimination between synonymous expressions. There
90 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
are, for instance, eleven different Hebrew words used in the Old
Testament for kindling afire, or setting on fire,1 and seven Greek
words used in the New Testament for prayer y2 and yet a careful
study of these several terms will show that they all vary somewhat
in signification, and serve to set forth so many different shades of
thought or meaning.
We take, for illustration, the different Hebrew words which are
used to convey the general idea of killing, or putting
to death. The verb *?&% occurs but three times in the
death. Hebrew Scriptures, and means in every case to kill by
putting an end to one's existence. The three instances are the fol
lowing: Job xiii, 15, "If he kill me," or "Lo, let him kill me;" and
Job xxiv, 14, "At light will the murderer rise up; he will kill the
poor and needy;" and Psa. cxxxix, 19, "Thou wilt kill the wicked,
, O God." The primary idea of the word, according to
Gesenius, is that of cutting; hence cutting off; making
an end of by destruction. So the noun ^J5 is used in Obadiah 9 in
connexion with JVC, cut off — "shall be cut off by slaughter;" i. e.,
by a general destruction. In the Chaldee chapters of Daniel the
verb £tpp is used in a variety of forms seven times, but it seems to
retain in every instance essentially the same meaning as the Hebrew
verb. The simple fact of the killing or cutting off is stated without
any necessary implication as to the method or occasion of the act.
The word more commonly used to denote putting to death is (the
Hiphil, Hophal, and some of the rarer forms of) TWO, to
die. The grammatical structure of the language en-
ables us at once to perceive that the primary idea in
the use of this word is that of causing to die. Thus, in Josh, x, 26
and xi, 1 7, it is used to denote the result of violent smiting (naj) :
"Joshua smote them and caused them to die;" "All their kings he
took, and he smote them and caused them to die." Compare 1 Sam.
xvii, 50; xxii, 18; 2 Sam. xviii, 15 ; 2 Kings xv, 10, 14. In short,
the distinguishing idea of this word, as used for killing, is that of
putting to death, or causing to die, by some violent and deadly
measure. In this sense the word is used in the Old Testament
Scriptures over two hundred times. The prominent thought in ^Pi?
is merely that of cutting off; getting one out of the way ; while in
IVOn and rort the idea of death, as the result of some fatal means
and procedure, is more noticeable. The murderer or the assassin
kills (?Bi?) his victim or enemy; the warrior, the ruler, and the Lord
himself, causes to die, or puts to death (JVIpn) whom he will, and he
1 Namely: TIN, Tjn, p<ri, mn, w, np"1, Br6, pba mp, iBp,
rev^if, £.v\apiaTia, aiTr//ia, and iKSTijp
HEBREW SYNONYMES. 9i
performs the act by some certain means (specified or unspecified),
which will accomplish the desired result. The latter word is ac
cordingly used of public executions, the slaughter involved in war,
and the putting to death for the maintenance of some principle,
or the attainment of some ulterior end. It is never used to ex
press the idea of murder ; but God himself says : " I put to death "
(Deut. xxxii, 39). Compare 1 Sam. ii, 6 ; 2 Kino-s v, 7; Hosea
ix, 16.
Another word for kitting is F\r\. Unlike JVOn, it may be used for
private homicide, or murder (Gen. iv, 8; xxvii, 41), or
assassination (2 Chron. xxiv, 25 ; 2 Kings x, 9), or gen
eral slaughter and massacre (Judges viii, 17; Esther ix, 15). The
slaying it denotes may be done by the sword (1 Kings ii, 32), or by
a stone (Judges ix, 54), or a spear (2 Sam. xxiii, 21), or by the word
of Jehovah (Hos. vi, 5), or even by grief, or a viper's tongue (Job
v, 2 ; xx, 16). But the characterizing idea of the word, as distin
guished from m?n and St3£, seems to be that of wholesale or vengeful
slaughter. Thus Jehovah slew all the firstborn of Egypt (Exod.
xiii, 15), but the slaughter was a vengeful judgment-stroke, a
plague. Thus Simeon and Levi slew the men of Shechem, and that
slaughter was a cruel and vindictive massacre (Gen. xxxiv, 26 ;
xlix, 6). This word is used of the slaughter of Jehovah's prophets
by Jezebel, and of the prophets of Baal by Elijah (1 Kings xix,
1, 10), and in this sense generally, whether the numbers slain be
few or many. Compare Judges viii, 17, 21; Esther ix, 6, 10, 12;
Ezek. ix, 6. In Isa. xxii, 13 the word is used of the slaughter
of oxen, but the context shows that the slaughter contemplated
was on a large scale, at a time of feasting and revelry. So,
again, in Psa. Ixxviii, 47, we read: "He slays with hail their
vines," but the passage is poetical, and the thought is that of a
sweeping destruction, by which vines and trees, as well as other
things that suffered in the plagues of Egypt, were, so to speak,
slaughtered.
nvi has the primary signification of crushing, a violent breaking
in pieces, and is generally used to denote the act of ^^
murder or manslaughter in any degree. This is the
word used in the commandment, " Thou shalt not commit murder "
(Exod. xx, 13; Deut. v, 17); less properly translated, "Thou shalt
not kill" for often to kitt is not necessarily to murder. In Num.
xxxv the participial form of the word is used over a dozen times
to denote the manslayer, who flees to a city of refuge, and twice
(verses 27, 30) the verb is used to denote the execution of such
manslayer by the avenger of blood.
92 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
The word nip is used for the slaying of animals, especially in
preparation for a feast. It corresponds more nearly with
the word butcher. Thus, when Joseph's brethren came,
bringing Benjamin with them, Joseph commanded the ruler of his
house to bring the men to the house, and kill a killing (nap nip,
Gen. xliii, 16). Compare 1 Sam. xxv, 11; Prov. ix, 2. When the
word is applied to the slaughter of men it is always with the idea
that they are slaughtered or butchered like so many animals (Psa.
xxxvii, 14; Jer. li, 40; Lam. ii, 21; Ezek. xxi, 10, (15).
A kindred word is rQt, used of the sacrificing of animals for offer
ings. It is thus ever associated with the idea of im
molation, and the derivative noun nST means a sacrificial
offering to God. " This verb," says Gesenius, " is not used of the
priests as slaughtering victims in sacrifice, but of private persons
offering sacrifices at their own cost." Compare Gen. xxxi, 54; Exod.
viii, 29, (25); 1 Sam. xi, 15; 2 Chron. vii, 4; xxxiii, 17; Ezek. xx,
28; Hos. xiii, 2; Jon. i, 16.
Another word, constantly used in connection with the killing of
animals for sacrifice, is Ens?; but it differs from n?T
especially in this, that the latter emphasizes rather the
idea of sacrifice, while ton^ points more directly to the slaughter of
the victim. Hence n?T is often used intransitively, in the sense
of offering sacrifice, without specifying the object sacrificed; but
DnK> is always transitive, and connected with the object slain.
This latter word is often applied to the slaying of persons (Gen.
xxii, 10; 1 Kings xviii, 40; 2 Kings x, 7, 14; Isa. Ivii, 5; Ezek.
xvi, 21), but in a sacrificial sense, as the immediate context shows.
Judg. xii, 6, would seem to be an exception, but the probable
thought there is that the Ephraimites who could not pronounce the
" Shibboleth " were slain as so many human sacrifices.
Thus each of these seven Hebrew words, all of which involve the
idea of killing or slaughter, has its own distinct shade of meaning
and manner of usage.
The Hebrew language has twelve different words to express the
Hebrew words idea of sin. First, there is the verb Npn, which, like
the Greek afiapravG), means, primarily, to miss a mark,
and is so used (in Hiphil) in Judg. xx, 16, where mention is made
of seven hundred left handed Benjamites who could sling stones
" to the hair, and not miss." In Prov. viii, 36, it is con
trasted with N¥£, to find (verse 35): "They that find
me, find life; . . . and he that misses me wrongs his soul." Com
pare also Prov. xix, 2 : " He that hastens with his feet misses ; "
that is, makes a misstep; gets off the track. The exact meaning
HEBREW SYNONYMIES. 93
in Job v, 24, is more doubtful: "Thou shalt visit thy pasture (or
habitation), and shalt not miss." The sense, according to most in
terpreters, is: Thou shalt miss nothing; in visiting thy pasture and
thy flocks thou shalt find nothing gone; no sheep or cattle missing.
It is easy to see how the idea of making a misstep, or missing a
mark, passed over into the moral idea of missing some divinely ap
pointed mark; hence failure, error, shortcoming, an action that has
miscarried. Accordingly, the noun Ntpn means fault, error, sin. It
is interesting to note how the Piel, or intensive form of the verb
Ntpn, conveys the idea of making an offering for sin (compare Lev.
vi, 26, (19); ix, 15), or cleansing by some ceremonial of atonement
(Exod. xxix, 36; Lev. xiv, 52); as if the thought of bearing the
penalty of sin, and making it appear loathsome and damnable, were
to be made conspicuous by an intense effort to purge away its guilt
and shame. Hence arose the common usage of the noun DNBn in
the sense of sin offering.
We should next compare the words jiy, ?ty, and JJiN. The first is
from the root njy, to twist, to make crooked, to distort, , t .
and signifies moral perversity. In the English version ' "
it is commonly translated iniquity. It indicates the in- VT
herent badness of a perverted soul, and in Psa. xxxii, 5, we have
the expression: Thou hast taken away the iniquity (pS?) of my sin"
(TlNian). Closely cognate with jiy is $>}.y, from the root ?iy, to turn
away, to distort, and would seem to differ from it in usage by
being applied rather to outward action than to inner character; Jty
indicates specially what a sinner is, Tiy, what he does. The primary
sense of JIN, on the other hand, is emptiness, or nothingness. It is
used of idolatry (1 Sam. xv, 23; Isa. xli, 29; Ixvi, 3; Hos. x, 5, 8;
Zech. x, 2), and in the English version is occasionally translated
vanity (Job xv, 35; Psa. x, 7; Prov. xxii, 8). It denotes wicked
ness, or sin, as something that has no enduring reality or value. It
is a false, vain appearance; a deceitful shadow, destitute of stabil
ity. So, then, in these three words we have suggested to us bad
character, bad action, and the emptiness of sinful pursuits.
The word which especially denotes evil, or that which is essen
tially bad, is JH, with its cognate yi and njn, all from
the root yjn, to break, shatter, crush, crumble. It indicates,
a character or quality which, for all useful or valuable purposes, is
utterly broken and ruined. Thus the noun Jh, in Gen. xli, 19, de
notes the utter badness of the seven famine-smitten heifers of
Pharaoh's dream, and is frequently used of the wickedness of wrong
action (Deut. xxviii, 20; Psa. xxviii, 4; Isa. i, 16; Jer. xxiii, 2;
xliv, 22; Hos. ix, 15). The words JH and nyj, besides being frequently
7
94 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
employed in the same sense (compare Gen. vi, 5; viii, 21; 1 Kinga
ii, 44; Jer. vii, 12, 24; Zech. i, 4; Mai. ii, 17), are also used to de
note the evil or harm which one may do to another (Psa. xv, 3;
xxi, 11; xxxv, 4; Ixxi, 13). In all the uses of this word the idea of
a ruin or a breach is in some way traceable. The wickedness of
one's heart is in the moral wreck or ruin it discloses. The evil of a
sinner's wicked action is a breach of moral order.
Another aspect of sinfulness is brought out in the word PJftp and
Ly- its noun ^yo. It is usually translated trespass, but the
fundamental thought is treachery, some covert and
faithless action. Thus it is used of the unfaithfulness of an adul
terous woman toward her husband (Num. v, 12), of the taking
strange wives (Ezra x, 2, 10), of the offense of Achan (Josh, vii, 1 ;
xxii, 20; 1 Chron. ii, 7), and generally of unfaithfulness toward
God (Deut. xxxii, 51; Josh, xxii, 16; 2 Chron. xxix, 6; Ezek. xx,
27; xxxix, 23). By this word any transgression is depicted as a
plotting of treachery, or an exhibition of unfaithfulness to some
holy covenant or bond.
By a transposition of the first two letters of Syo we have the
Soy word ?)py, wrhich is used of the exhaustive toils of mor
tal life and their attendant sorrow and misery. In Num.
xxiii, 21, and Isa. x, 1, it is coupled in parallelism with flK, empti
ness, vanity, and may be regarded as the accompaniment of the
vain pursuits of men. It is that labour, which, in the book of Eccle-
siastes, where the word occurs thirty-four times, is shown both to
begin and end in "vanity and vexation of spirit;" a striving after
the wind (Eccles. i, 14; ii, 11, 17, 19).
The word iny, to cross over, like the Greek 7ropa/3a/v<o, is often
used metaphorically of passing over the line of moral
obligation, or going aside from it. Hence it corre
sponds closely with the word transgress. In Josh, vii, 11, 15; Judg.
ii, 20; 2 Kings xviii, 12; Hos. vi, 7; viii, 1, it is used of transgressing
a covenant; in Deut. xxvi, 13, of a commandment; in 1 Sam. xv, 24,
of the word (lit., mouth) of Jehovah; and in Isa. xxiv, 5, of the law.
Thus words of counsel and warning, covenants, commandments,
laws, may be crossed over, passed by, walked away from • and this
is the peculiar aspect of human perversity which is designated by
the word ~Oy> to transgress.
The two words J?K*D and J?Eh may be best considered together.
VK>K> d wwH '•^ae f°rmer conveys the idea of revolt, rebellion / the
T latter disturbance, tumultuous rage. The former word
is used, in 1 Kings xii, 19, of Israel's revolt from the house of Da
vid; and in 2 Kings i, 1; iii, 7; viii, 20, 22; 2 Chron. xxi, 10, of the
HEBREW SYNONYMES. 95
rebellions of Moab, Edom, and Libnah; and the noun J7K*S, which is
usually rendered transgression, should always be understood as a
fault or trespass considered as a revolt or an apostasy from some
bond of allegiance. Hence it is an aggravated form of sin, and in
Job xxxiv, 37, we find the significant expression: "He adds upon
his sin rebellion." The primary thought in yvn may be seen from
Isa. Ivii, 20, where it is said: "The wicked (D^Bhn) are like the
troubled (&*$}, tossed, agitated) sea; for rest it cannot, and its waters
will cast up (IKhr, toss about) mud and mire." So also in Job
xxxiv, 29, the Hiphil of the verb J?Kh is put in contrast with the
Hiphil of t2|5E*, to rest, to be quiet : " Let him give rest, and who will
give trouble?" The wicked man is one who is ever troubled and
troubling. His counsels (Psa. i, 1), his plots (Psa. xxxvii, 12), his
dishonesty and robberies (Psa. xxxvii, 21; cxix, 61), and manifold
iniquities (Prov. v, 22), are a source of confusion and disturbance
in the moral world, and that continually.
It remains to notice briefly the word DK'K, the primary idea of
which seems to be that of guilt or blame involved in
committing a trespass through ignorance or negligence,
and rut? (WK>, JJK>), with which it is frequently associated. The two
words appear together in Lev. iv, 13: "If the whole congregation
of Israel err through ignorance (UB^), and the matter be hidden
from the eyes of the assembly, and they have done with one from
all the commandments of Jehovah what should not have been done,
and have become guilty" (iD&?N). Compare verses 22, 27, and chap
ter v, 2, 3, 4, 17, 19. Hence it was natural that the noun DE>K
should become the common word for the trespass offering which was
required of those who contracted guilt by negligence or error.
For the passages just cited, and their contexts, show that any vio
lation or infringement of a divine commandment, whether com
mitted knowingly or not, involved one in fault, and the guilt, con
tracted unconsciously, required for its expiation a trespass offering
as soon as the sin became known. Accordingly, it will be seen that
HJE*, and its derivatives, point to errors committed through igno
rance (Job vi, 24; Num. xv, 27), while D^K denotes rather the
guiltiness contracted by such errors, and felt and acknowledged
when the sin becomes known.
A study of the divine names used in the Hebrew Scriptures is
exceedingly interesting and suggestive. They are Ad-
onai, El, Elah, Elim, Eloah, Elion, Elohim, Shaddai, J
Jah, and Jehovah. All these may be treated as synonymes, and
yet each divine name has its peculiar concept and its correspond
ing usage.
96 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
The synonymes of the New Testament furnish an equally inter
esting and profitable field of study. Many words appear to be
used interchangeably, and yet a careful examination will usually
show that each conveys its own distinct idea. Take, for instance,
K<u»>6f and the two Greek words for new, Kaivog and vio<;. Both
"toe- are applied to the new man (comp. Eph. ii, 15 ; Col.
iii, 10), the neio covenant (Heb. ix, 15 ; xii, 24), and neio wine (Matt,
ix, 17; xx vi, 29) ; but a wider comparison shows that icaivog denotes
what is new in quality or kind, in opposition to something that has
already existed and been known, used, and worn out; while veof
denotes what is new in time, what has not long existed, but is
young and fresh. Both words occur in Matt, ix, 17: " They put
new (VKOV) wine into new (tccuvovg) skins." The new wine is here
conceived as fresh, or recently made; the skins as never used be
fore. The skin bottles may have been old or new as to age, but
in order to preserve wine just made, they must not have been put
to that use before. But the wine referred to in Matt, xxvi, 29, is
to be thought of rather as a new kind of wine: " I will not drink
henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it
with you new (natvov, new in a higher sense and quality), in the
kingdom of my Father." So also Joseph's tomb, in which our
Lord's body was laid, was called a new one (Kaivog, Matt, xxvii, 60 ;
John xix, 41), not in the sense that it had recently been hewn from
the rock, but because no one had ever been laid in it before. The
new (tcaivrj) commandment of John xiii, 34 is the law of love,
which, proceeding from Christ, has a new aspect and scope ; a depth
and beauty and fulness which it had not before. But when John
wrote his epistles of brotherly love it had become " an old command
ment" (1 John ii, 7), long familiar, even "the word which ye heard
from the beginning." But then he (verse 8) adds: "Again, a new
commandment (kvTokfjv Kaivijv) I write to you, which thing is true
in him and in you ; because the darkness is passing away and the
true light is already shining." The passing away of the old darkness
and the growing intensity of the true light, according to proper
Christian experience, continually develop and bring out new glories
in the old commandment. This thing (o), namely, the fact that
the old commandment is also new, is seen to be true both in Christ
and in the believer ; because in the latter the darkness keeps pass
ing away, and in the former the true light shines more and more.
In like manner the tongues mentioned in Mark xvi, 17 are called
Kaivai, because they would be new to the world, " other tongues "
(Acts ii, 4), unlike any thing in the way of speaking which had been
known before. So, too, the new name, new Jerusalem, new song,
GREEK SYNONYMES. 97
new heaven and new earth (Rev. ii, 17; iii, 12; v, 9; xiv, 3; xxi, 1),
to designate which Kaiv6$ is used, are the renewed, ennobled, and
glorious apocalyptic aspects of the things of the kingdom of God.
The word veog is used nine times in the Synoptic Gospels of wine
recently made. In 1 Cor. v, 7, it is applied to the new lump of
leaven, as that which has been recently prepared. It is used of the
new man in Col. iii, 10, where the putting on the new man is spoken
of as a work recently accomplished; whereas Kaivog is used in Eph.
Ii, 15, denoting rather the character of the work accomplished. So
the new covenant may be conceived of as new, or recent (Heb.
xJi, 24), in opposition to that long ago given at Sinai, while it may
also be designated as new in the sense of being different from the
old (Matt, xxvi, 28; 2 Cor. iii, 6), which is worn out with age, and
ready to vanish away (Heb. viii, 13). Let it be noted, also, that
"newness of life" and "newness of spirit" (Rom. vi, 4; vii, 6), are
expressed by Kaivorrjc. ; but youth is denoted by veoTnc, (Matt, xix 20 ;
Mark x, 20 ; Luke xviii, 21 ; Acts xxvi, 4; 1 Tim. iv, 12).
The two words for life, ftiog and £w?7, are easily distinguishable
as used in the New Testament. Eiog denotes the pres- .
ent human life considered especially with reference to
modes and conditions of existence. It nowhere means lifetime, or
period of life ; for the true text of 1 Pet. iv, 3, which was supposed
to convey this meaning, omits the word. It commonly denotes the
means of living ; that on which one depends as a means of support
ing life. Thus the poor widow cast into the treasury her whole
living (ftiov, Mark xii, 44). Another woman spent all her living on
physicians (Luke viii, 14). The same meaning appears in Luke
xv, 12, 30; xxi, 4. In Luke viii, 14 and 1 John iii, 17 it denotes,
rather, life as conditioned by riches, pleasures, and abundance. In
1 Tim. ii, 2 ; 2 Tim. ii, 4 ; 1 John ii, 16 it conveys the idea of the
manner and style in which one spends his life; and so, in all its
uses, fiio$ has reference solely to the life of man as lived in this
world. Zo>?7, on the other hand, is the antithesis of death (ddvaToc.),
and while used occasionally in the New Testament in the sense of
physical existence (Acts xvii, 25 ; 1 Cor. iii, 22; xv, 19; Phil, i, 20;
James iv, 14), is defined by Cremer as " the kind of existence pos
sessed by individualized being, to be explained as self-governing
existence, which God is, and man has or is said to have, and which,
on its part, is supreme over all the rest of creation."1 Tholuck
1 Biblico-Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, p. 272. Cremer goes on to
show how from the sense of physical existence the word is also used to denote a perfect
and abiding antithesis to death (Heb. vii, 16), a positive freedom from death (Acts
ii, 28; 2 Cor. v, 4), and the sum of the divine promises under the Gospel, "belonging
GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
observes: "The words £w?/ and ^dvarog [death], along with the
cognate verbs, although appearing in very various applications, are
most clearly explained when we suppose the following views to
have lain at the basis of them. God is the life eternal (far) at&viog,
1 John v, 20), or the light, (</>£>$•, 1 John i, 5 ; James i, 7). Beings
made in the image of God have true life only in fellowship with
him. Wherever this life is absent there is death. Accordingly the
idea of £,ur\ comprehends holiness and bliss, that of ftdvaroc; sin and
misery. Now as both the £w?y and the -ddvarog manifest themselves
in different degrees, sometimes under different aspects, the words
acquire a variety of significations. The highest grade of the £0)77 is
the life which the redeemed live with the Saviour in the glorious
kingdom of heaven. Viewed on this side, £0)77 denotes continued
existence after death, communion with God, and blessedness, of
which each is implied in the other."1
In Jesus' conversation with Simon Peter at the sea of Tiberias
and (John xxi, 15-17), we have four sets of synonymes.
First, the words djarrdd) and 0i/l£0), for which we have
no two corresponding English words. The former, as opposed to
the latter, denotes a devout reverential love, grounded in reason
and admiration. 3>£/le«, on the other hand, denotes the love of a
warm personal affection, a tender emotional love of the heart. "The
first expresses," says Trench, "a more reasoning attachment, of
choice and selection (diligere = deligere), from seeing in the object
upon whom it is bestowed that which is worthy of regard ; or else
from a sense that such was fit and due toward the person so regard
ed, as being a benefactor, or the like; while the second, without
being necessarily an unreasoning attachment, does yet oftentimes
give less account of itself to itself ; is more instinctive, is more of
the feelings, implies more passion." 2 The range of fakeu, accord
ing to Cremer, is wider than that of aya-rrdu, but dyaTrdw stands
high above </«A£a> on account of its moral import. It involves the
moral affection of conscious, deliberate will, and may therefore be
depended on in moments of trial. But 0t/l£<o, involving the love of
natural inclination and impulse, may be variable.3 Observe, then,
to those to whom the future is sure, already in possession of all who are partakers of
the New Testament salvation, 'that leadeth unto life,' and who already in this life
begin life eternal." (Matt, vii, 14; Tit. i, 2 ; 2 Tim. i, 1; Acts xi, 18; xiii, 48). He
further observes, that in the writings of Paul " fw^ is the substance of Gospel preach
ing, the final aim of faith (1 Tim. i, 16);" in the writings of John it "is the subject
matter and aim of divine revelation." Comp. John v, 39; 1 John v, 20; etc.
1 Commentary on Romans v, 12.
2 Synonymes of the New Testament, sub verbo.
3 Comp. Biblico-Theological Lexicon, pp. 11, 12.
GREEK SYNONYMES. 99
the use of these words in the passage before us. " Jesus says to Simon
Peter, Simon, son of Jonah, dost thou devoutly love (dyarrag ) me more
than these? He says to him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest (oldag, seest)
that I tenderly love (0tAoi) thee." In his second question our Lord,
in tender regard for Simon, omits the words more than these, and sim
ply asks: "Dost thou devoutly love (ayaTrac.) me?" To this Simon
answers precisely as before, not venturing to assume so lofty a love
as dyaTrdco implies. In his third question (verse 17) our Lord uses
Simon's word, thus approaching nearer to the heart and emotion of
the disciple : " Simon, son of Jonah, dost thou tenderly love (^Aetf)
me?" The change of word, as well as his asking for the third
time, filled Peter with grief (e/lvTn^), and he replied with great
emotion : " O Lord, all things thou knowest (oldag , seest, dost per
ceive), thou dost surely know (yiv&oKEis, art fully cog- oWa and -yi-
nizant of the fact, hast full assurance by personal VUOKU.
knowledge) that I tenderly love (0tAw) thee." The distinction be
tween olda (from eMw, to see, to perceive) and yiv&oKG) (to obtain
and have knowledge of) is very subtle, and the words appear to be
often used interchangeably. According to Cremer, " there is mere
ly the difference that yiv&oiteiv implies an active relation, to wit, a
self -reference of the knower to the object of his knowledge ; where
as, in the case of eidevai, the object has simply come within the
sphere of perception, within the knower's circle of vision."1 As
used by Peter the two words differ, in that yiv&aicd) expresses a
deeper and more positive knowledge than olda.
According to many ancient authorities we have in this passage
three different words to denote lambs and sheep. In verse 15 the
word is apvia, lambs, in verse 16 TTpofiara, sheep, and in 'A.pvia,irp6f3a-
verse 17 TrpoQdria, sheeplings, or choice sheep. The dif- ra, and irpo-
ference and distinct import of these several words it is Parta.
not difficult to understand. The lambs are those of tender age;
the young of the flock. The sheep are the full-grown and strong.
The sheeplings, Trpoftdrta, are the choice full-grown sheep, those
which deserve peculiar tenderness and care, with special reference,
perhaps, to the milch-ewes of the flock. Compare Isa. xl, 11. Then,
in connexion with these different words for sheep we have also the
synonymes ftoaKU and Tromatvo), to denote the various BOOKU and
cares and work of the shepherd. BOCTKW means to feed, woipalvu.
and is used especially of a shepherd providing his flock with pas
ture, leading them to the field, and furnishing them with food.
Hoifj,aivh) is a word of wider significance, and involves the whole
office and work of a shepherd. It comes more nearly to our word
1 Biblico-Theological Lexicon, p. 230.
100 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
tend, and includes the ideas of feeding, folding, governing, guiding,
guarding, and whatever a good shepherd is expected to do for his
flock. Bocr/cco denotes the more special and tender care, the giving
of nourishment, and is appropriately used when speaking of lambs.
Hoipaivu is more general and comprehensive, and means to rule as
well as to feed. Hence appear the depth and fulness of the three
fold commandment : " Feed my lambs," " Tend my sheep," " Feed
my choice sheep." The lambs and the choice sheep need special
nourishment; all the sheep need the shepherd's faithful care. It
is well to note, that, on the occasion of the first miraculous draught
of fishes, at this same sea of Galilee (Luke v, 1-10), Jesus sounded
the depths of Simon Peter's soul (verse 8), awakened him to an aw
ful sense of sin, and then told him that he should thereafter catch
men (verse 10). Now, after this second like miracle, at the same
sea, and with another probing of his heart, he indicates to him that
there is something more for him to do than to catch men. He must
know how to care for them after they have been caught. He must
be a shepherd of the Lord's sheep as well as a fisher of men, and
he must learn to imitate the manifold care of the Great Shepherd
of Israel, of whom Isaiah wrote (Isa. xl, 11): "As a shepherd he
will feed his flock (~nj?) ; in his arms he will gather the lambs (D*J*JB),
and in his bosom bear; the milch-ewes (3"li?y) he will gently lead."
The synonymes of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures have been as
yet but slightly and imperfectly treated.1 They afford the biblical
scholar a broad and most interesting field of study. It is a spiritual
as well as an intellectual discipline to discriminate sharply between
synonymous terms of Holy Writ, and trace the diverging lines of
thought, and the far-reaching suggestions which often arise there
from. The foregoing pages will have made it apparent that the
exact import and the discriminative usage of words are all-import
ant to the biblical interpreter. Without an accurate knowledge
of the meaning of his words, no one can properly either under
stand or explain the language of any author.
1 The only works of note on the subject are, Girdlestone, Synonymes of the Old
Testament, London, 1871 ; and Trench, Synonymes of the New Testament, originally
published in two small volumes, and subsequently in one ; Ninth Edition, London, 188'\
The work of Tittmann, De Synonymis in Novo Testamento, translated and published
in two volumes of the Edinburgh Biblical Cabinet, is now of no great value. Cre-
mer's Biblico-Theological Lexicon of the New Testament contains a very excellent
treatment of a number of the New Testament synonymes ; and Wilson's Syntax and
Synonymes of the Greek Testament (London, 1864) is well worthy of consultation. A
brief but very valuable discussion of the Xew Testament synonymes is also furnished
in Grimm's "Wilke's Clavis Novi Testament!, translated and enlarged by Thayer. New
York, 1887.
USE OF GRAMMAR AND HISTORY. 101
CHAPTER V.
THE GKAMMATICO-HISTOBICAL SENSE.
HAYING become familiar with the meaning of words, and thoroughly
versed in the principles and methods by which their signification
and usage are ascertained, we are prepared to investigate the
grammatico-historical sense. This phrase is believed to have
originated with Karl A. G. Keil, whose treatise on Historical In
terpretation and Text-Book of New Testament Hermeneutics 1 fur
nished an important contribution to the science of in-
* Grammauco-
terpretation. We have already defined the grammati- historical
co-historical method of interpretation as distinguished
from the allegorical, mystical, naturalistic, mythical, and other
methods,8 which have more or less prevailed. The grammatico-1
historical sense of a writer is such an interpretation of his Ian-/
guage as is required by the laws of grammar and the facts of hisJ
tory. Sometimes we speak of the literal sense, by which we mean
the most simple, direct, and ordinary meaning of phrases and sen
tences. By this term we usually denote a meaning opposed to the
figurative or metaphorical. The grammatical sense is essentially
the same as the literal, the one expression being derived from the
Greek, the other from the Latin. But in English usage the word
grammatical is applied rather to the arrangement and construction
of words and sentences. By the historical sense we designate,'
rather, that meaning of an author's words which is required by
historical considerations. It demands that we consider carefully
the time of the author, and the circumstances under which he wrote,,
" Grammatical and historical interpretation, when rightly under
stood," says Davidson, "are synonymous. The special Davidson's
laws of grammar, agreeably to which the sacred writers statement,
employed language, were the result of their peculiar circumstances;
and history alone throws us back into these circumstances. A new
language was not made for the authors of Scripture; they con
formed to the current language of the country and time. Their
compositions would not have been otherwise intelligible. They
1 De historica librorum sacrorum interpretations ejusque necessitate. Lps., 1788.
Lehrbuch der Hermeneutik des N. T. nach Grundsatzen der grammatisch-historischen
Interpretation. Lpz., 1810. A Latin translation, by Emmerling, appeared in 1811.
9 Compare above, p. 70.
102 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
took up the usus loquendi as they found it, modifying it, as is quite
natural, by the relations internal and external amid which they
thought and wrote." The same writer also observes: " The gram-
matico-historical sense is made out by the application of grammat
ical and historical considerations. The great object to be ascer
tained is the usus loquendi, embracing the laws or principles of
universal grammar which form the basis of every language. These
are nothing but the logic of the mind, comprising the modes in
which ideas are formed, combined, and associated, agreeably to the
original susceptibilities of the intellectual constitution. They are
the physiology of the human mind as exemplified practically by
every individual. General grammar is wont to be occupied, how
ever, with the usage of the best writers; whereas the laws of lan
guage as observed by the writers of Scripture should be mainly
attended to by the sacred interpreter, even though the philosoph
ical grammarian may not admit them all to be correct. It is the
usus loquendi of the inspired authors which forms the subject of
the grammatical principles recognized and followed by the expos
itor. The grammar he adopts is deduced from the use of the lan
guage employed in the Bible. This may not be conformed to the
practice of the best writers; it may not be philosophically just; but
he must not, therefore, pronounce it erroneous. The modes of ex
pression used by each writer — the utterances of his mental associa
tions, constitute his usus loquendi. These form his grammatical
principles; and the interpreter takes them as his own in the busi
ness of exegesis. Hence, too, there arises a special as well as a
universal grammar. Now we attain to a knowledge of the peculiar
usus loquendi in the way of historical investigation. The religious,
moral, and psychological ideas, under whose influence a language
has been formed and moulded; all the objects with which the
writers were conversant, and the relations in which they were
placed, are traced out historically. The costume of the ideas in
the minds of the biblical authors originated from the character of
the times, country, place, and education, under which they acted.
Hence, in order to ascertain their peculiar usus loquendi, we should
know all those institutions and influences whereby it was formed or
affected." '
The general principles and methods by which we ascertain the
General rinci usus loquendi of single terms, or words, have been pre-
pies and metn- sented in the preceding chapter. Substantially the
same principles are to serve us as we proceed to investi
gate the grammatico-historical sense. We must attend to the
1 Davidson, Sacred Hermeneutica, pp. 225, 226.
THE OBVIOUS MEANING. 103
definitions and construction which an author puts upon his own terms,
and never suppose that he intends to contradict himself or puzzle
his readers. The context and connection of thought are also to be
studied in order to apprehend the general subject, scope, and pur
pose of the writer. But especially is it necessary to ascertain the
correct grammatical construction of sentences. Subject and predi
cate and subordinate clauses must be closely analyzed, and the
whole document, book, or epistle, should be viewed, as far as pos
sible, from the author's historical standpoint.
A fundamental principle in grammatico-historical exposition is
that words and sentences can have but one significa- words and sen-
tion in one and the same connection. The moment we
neglect this principle we drift out upon a sea of un- place,
certainty and conjecture. It is commonly assumed by the univer
sal sense of mankind that unless one designedly put forth a riddle,
h^e-will so speak as to convey his meaning as clearly as possible to
others. Hence that meaning of a sentence which most readily sug
gests itself to a reader or hearer, is, in general, to be received as
the true meaning, and that alone. Take, for example, the account
of Daniel and his three companions, as given in the first chapter of
the Book of Daniel. The simplest child readily grasps the mean
ing. There can be no doubt as to the general import of the words
throughout the chapter, and that the writer intended to inform his
readers in a particular way how God honoured those young men
because of their abstemiousness, and because of their refusal to
defile themselves with the meats and drinks which the king had
appointed for them. The same may be said of the lives of the
patriarchs as recorded in the Book of Genesis, and, indeed, of any
of the historical narratives of the Bible. They are to be accepted
as a trustworthy record of facts.
This principle holds with equal force in the narratives of miracu
lous events. For the miracles of the Bible are re- Mlracles to ^
corded as facts, actual occurrences, witnessed by few or literally under-
' * . ^T j
by many as the case might be, and the writers give no
intimation that their statements involve any thing but plain literal
truth. Thus, in Josh, v, 13-vi, 5, a man appears to Joshua, hold
ing a sword in his hand, announcing himself as " a prince of the
host of Jehovah" (verse 14), and giving directions for the capture
of Jericho. This may, possibly, have occurred in a dream or a
waking vision; but such a supposition is not in strictest accord with
the statements. For it would involve the supposition that Joshua
dreamed that he fell on his face, and took off his shoes from
his feet, as well as looked and listened. Revelations from Jehovah
104 GENERAL HERMEXEUTICS.
were wont to come through visions and dreams (Num. xii, 6), but
the simplest exposition of this passage is that the angel of Jehovah
openly appeared to Joshua, and the occurrences were all outward
and actual, rather than by -vision or dream.
The simple but mournful narrative of the offering up of Jeph-
thah's daughter (Judg. xi, 30-40) has been perverted to
daughter a mean that Jephthah devoted his daughter to perpetual
ring< virginity — an exposition that arose from the a priori
assumption that a judge of Israel must have known that human
sacrifices were an abomination to Jehovah. But no one presumes
to question that he vowed to offer as a burnt-offering that which
came forth from the doors of his house to meet him (verse 31).
Jephthah could scarcely have thought of a cow, or a sheep, or goat,
as coming out of his house to meet him. Still less could he have
contemplated a dog, or any unclean animal. The awful solemnity
and tremendous force of his vow appear, rather, in the thought
that he contemplated no common offering, but a victim to be taken
from among the inmates of his house. But he then little thought
that of all his household — servants, young men, and maidens — his
daughter and only child would be the first to meet him. Hence
his anguish, as indicated in verse 35. But she accepted her fate
with a sublime heroism. She asked two months of life in which
to bewail her virginity, for that was to her the one only thing that
darkened her thoughts of death. To die unwedded and childless
was the sting of death to a Hebrew woman, and especially one
who was as a princess in Israel. Take away that bitter thought, and
with Jephthah's daughter it were a sublime and enviable thing to
"die for God, her country, and her sire."
The notion that, previously to her being devoted to a life of vir
ginity and seclusion, she desired two months to mourn over such a
fate, appears exceedingly improbable, if not absurd. For, as Cap-
pellus well observes, " If she desired or felt obliged to bewail her
virginity, it were especially suitable to bewail that when shut up in
the monastery; previously to her being shut up it would have been
more suitable, with youthful friends and associates, to have spent
those two months joyfully and pleasantly, since afterward there
would remain to her a time for weeping more than sufficiently
long." ; The sacred writer declares (verse 39) that, after the two
months, Jephthah did to his daughter the vow which he had vowed
— not something else which he had not vowed. He records, not as
the manner in which he did his vow, but as the most thrilling knell
that in the ears of her father and companions sounded over that
1 Critici Sacri, torn, ii, p. 2076.
HISTORICAL FACT. 105
daughter's funeral pile, and sent its lingering echo into the later
times, that " she knew no man." '
The narratives of the resurrection of Jesus admit of no rational
explanation aside from that simple grammatico-histori-
, . , , ~, . . >,, ' Jesus' resur-
cal sense in which the Christian Church has ever under- rectum a literal
stood them. The naturalistic and mythical theories, nistorical fact-
v.'hen applied to this miracle of miracles, utterly break down. The
alleged discrepancies between the several evangelists, instead of
disproving the truthfulness of their accounts, become, on closer in
spection, confirmatory evidences of the accuracy and trustworthi
ness of all their statements. If the New Testament narratives are
deserving of any credit at all, the following facts are evident:
(1) Jesus foretold his death and resurrection, but his disciples were
slow to comprehend him, and did not fully accept his statements.
(2) Immediately after the crucifixion the disciples were smitten with
deep dejection and fear; but after the third day they all claimed
to have seen the Lord, and they gave minute details of several of
his appearances. (3) They affirm that they saw him ascend into the
heavens, and soon afterward are found preaching " Jesus and the
resurrection" in the streets of Jerusalem and in all Palestine and
the regions beyond. (4) Many years afterward Paul declared these
facts, and affirmed that Jesus appeared at one time to above five
hundred brethren, of whom the greater part were still alive (1 Cor.
xv, 6). He affirmed, that, if Christ had not been raised from the
dead, the preaching of the Gospel and the faith of the Church were
1 We gain nothing by attempting to evade the obvious import of any of the biblical
narratives. On the treatment of this account of Jephthah's daughter Stanley ob
serves : " As far back as we can trace the sentiment of those who read the passage,
in Jonathan the Targumist, and Josephus, and through the whole of the first eleven
centuries of Christendom, the story was taken in its literal sense as describing the
death of the maiden, although the attention of the Church was, as usual, diverted to
distant allegorical meanings. Then, it is said, from a polemical bias of Kimchi, arose
the interpretation that she was not killed, but immured in celibacy. From the Jew
ish theology this spread to the Christian. By this tune the notion had sprung up that
every act recorded in the Old Testament was to be defended according to the stand
ard of Christian morality ; and, accordingly, the process began of violently wresting
the words of Scripture to meet the preconceived fancies of later ages. In this way
entered the hypothesis of Jephthah's daughter having been devoted as a nun; con
trary to the plain meaning of the text, contrary to the highest authorities of the
Church, contrary to all the usages of the old dispensation. In modern times a more
careful study of the Bible has brought us back to the original sense. And with it
returns the deep pathos of the original story, and the lesson which it reads of the
heroism of the father and daughter, to be admired and loved, in the midst of the
fierce superstitions across which it plays like a sunbeam on a stormy sea." — Lectures
on the History of the Jewish Church. First Series, p. 397.
108 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
but an empty thing, based upon a gigantic falsehood. This con
clusion follows irresistibly from the above-named facts. We must
either accept the statements of the evangelists, in their plain and
obvious import, or else meet the inevitable alternative that they
knowingly put forth a falsehood (a concerted testimony which was
essentially a lie before God), and went preaching it in all the world,
ready to seal their testimony by tortures and death. This latter
alternative involves too great a strain upon our reason to be accept
ed for a moment, especially when the unique and straightforward
Gospel narratives furnish such a clear and adequate historical basis
for the marvellous rise and power of Christianity in the world.
Winer's Grammar of the New Testament, and the modern critical
commentaries on the whole or on parts of the New Testament —
such as those of Meyer, De Wette, Alford, Ellicott, and Godet —
have served largely to place the interpretation of the Christian
Grammatical Scriptures on a sound grammatico-historical basis, and
iroked^for0 in a constant use of these great works is all-important to
the scriptures, the biblical scholar. lie must, by repeated grammatical
praxis, make himself familiar with the peculiarities of the New
Testament dialect. The significance of the presence or the absence
of the article has often much to do with the meaning of a passage.
" In the language of living intercourse," says Winer, " it is utterly
impossible that the article should be omitted where it is decidedly
necessary, or employed where it is not demanded. "Opo^ can never
denote THE mountain, nor TO opof A mountain" 1 The position of
words and clauses, and peculiarities of grammatical structure, may
often serve to emphasize important thoughts and statements. The
special usage of the genitive, the dative, or the accusative case,
or of the active, middle, or passive voice, often conveys a notable
significance. The same is also true of conjunctions, adverbs, and
prepositions. These serve to indicate peculiar shades of meaning,
and delicate and suggestive relations of words and sentences, with
out a nice apprehension of which the real sense of a passage may
be lost to the reader. The authorized version often obscures an
important passage of the New Testament by a mistranslation of the
aorist tense. Take, as a single example, 2 Cor. v, 14: "For the
love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one
died for all, then were all dead." The (/"is now allowed to be an
error in the text and should be omitted. The verse
should then be translated: "For the love of Christ
constrains us, having judged this, that one died for all; therefore
the all died." The first verb, constrains (ovve%ei), is in the present
1 Xew Testament Grammar, p. 115. Andover, 1874.
6KAMMATICAL ACCURACY. 107
tense, and denotes the then present experience of the apostle at
the time of his writing: The love of Christ (Christ's love for men)
now constrains us ("holds us in bounds" — Meyer); and this is th»>
ever-present and abiding experience of all like the apostle. Having
judged (icpivavTas) is the aorist participle, and points to a definite
judgment which he had formed at some past time — probably at, or
soon after, his conversion. The statement that one died (aTredavev,
aorist singular) for all, points to that great historic event which,
above every other, exhibited the love of Christ for men. "Apa ol
Tdvrec drredavov, therefore the all died— "the all," who meet the
condition specified in the next verse, and "live unto him who for
their sakes died and rose again," are conceived as having died with
Christ. They were crucified with Christ, united with him by the
likeness of his death (Rom. vi, 5, 6).1 Compare also Col. iii, 3:
" For ye died (not ye are dead), and your life is hidden (/ee/cpyrmu,
has become hidden) with Christ in God." That is, ye died at the
time ye became united with Christ by faith, and as a consequence
of that death ye now have a spiritual life in Christ.
"With regard to the tenses of the verb," says Winer, "New
Testament grammarians and expositors have been guilty of the
greatest mistakes. In general, the tenses are employed in the New
Testament exactly in the same manner as in Greek authors. The
aorist marks simply the past (merely occurrence at some former
time — viewed, too, as momentary), and is the tense employed in
narration ; the imperfect and pluperfect always have reference to
secondary events connected in respect to time with the principal
event (as relative tenses) ; the perfect brings the past into con
nexion with the present, representing an action in reference to the
present as concluded. No one of these tenses, strictly and properly
taken, can stand for another, as commentators often would have us
believe. But where such an interchange appears to take place,
either it is merely apparent, and a sufficient reason (especially a
rhetorical one) can be discovered why this and no other tense has
been used, or it is to be set down to the account of a certain inac
curacy peculiar to the language of the people, which did not con
ceive and express relations of time with entire precision." 2
1 When Christ died the redeeming death for all, all died, in respect of their fleshly
life, with him ; this objective matter of fact which Paul here affirms has its subjective
realization in the faith of the individuals, through which they have entered into that
death-fellowship with Christ given through his death for all, so that they have now,
by means of baptism, become buried with him (Col. ii, 12). — Meyer, in loco.
* New Testament Grammar, p. 264. Comp. Buttmann's Grammar of the New Test
ament Greek ; Thayer's Translation, pp. 194-206. Andover, 1873.
108 GENERAL HERMENEUTIC8.
The grammatical sense is to be always sought by a careful study
and application of the well-established principles and rules of the
language. A close attention to the meaning and relations of words,
a care to note the course of thought, and to allow each case, mood,
tense, and the position of each word, to contribute its part to the
general whole, and a caution lest we assign to words and phrases a
scope and conception foreign to the nsus loquendi of the language
—these are rules, which, if faithfully observed, will always serve
to bring out the real import of any written document.
CHAPTER VI.
CONTEXT, SCOPE, AND PLAN.
THE grammatico-historical sense is further developed by a study of
„ . . 0 the context and scope of an author's work. The word
Context, Scope,
and plan de- context, as the etymology intimates (Latin, con, together,
and textus, woven), denotes something that is woven to
gether, and, applied to a written document, it means the connexion
of thought supposed to run through every passage Avhich consti
tutes by itself a whole. By some writers it is called the connexion.
The immediate context is that which immediately precedes or fol
lows a given word or sentence. The remote context is that which
is less closely connected, and may embrace a whole paragraph or
section. The scope, on the other hand, is the end or purpose which
the writer has in view. Every author is supposed to have some
object in writing, and that object wTill be either formally stated in
some part of his work, or else apparent from the general course of
thought. The plan of a work is the arrangement of its several
parts; the order of thought which the writer pursues.
The context, scope, and plan of a writing should, therefore, be
studied together; and, logically, perhaps, the scope should be first
ascertained. For the meaning of particular parts of a book may be
fully apprehended only when we have mastered the general purpose
and design of the whole. The plan of a book, moreover, is most
intimately related to its scope. The one cannot be fully appre
hended without some knowledge of the other. Even where the
scope is formally announced, an analysis of the plan will serve to
make it more clear. A writer who has a well-defined plan in
his mind will be likely to keep to that plan, and make all his nar
ratives and particular arguments bear upon the main subject.
PLA^s" OF GENESIS. 10S)
The scope of several of the books of Scripture is formally stated
by the writers. Most of the prophets of the Old Test- _
J r Scope of many
ament state the occasion and purpose of their oracles boots formally
at the beginning of their books, and at the beginning of
particular sections. The purpose of the Book of Proverbs is an
nounced in verses 1-6 of the first chapter. The subject of Eccle-
siastes is indicated at the beginning, in the words "Vanity of
vanities." The design of John's Gospel is formally stated at the
close of the twentieth chapter: "These things are written that ye
may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that be
lieving ye may have life in his name." The special purpose and
occasion of the Epistle of Jude are given in verses 3 and 4: "Be
loved, while giving all diligence to write to you of our common
salvation, I found (or had) necessity to write to you exhorting to
contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
For there crept in stealthily certain men, who of old were fore-
written unto this judgment, ungodly, turning the grace of our God
into lasciviousness, and denying the only Master, and our Lord
Jesus Christ." The purport of this is, that while Jude was dili
gently planning and preparing to write a treatise or epistle on the
common salvation, the circumstances stated in verse 4 led him to
break off from that purpose for the time, and write to exhort them
to contend earnestly for the faith once for all (ana!-, only once ;
" no other faith will be given." — Bengel) delivered to the saints.
The scope of some books must be ascertained by a diligent
examination of their contents. Thus, for example, the _
' Plan and Scope
Book of Genesis is found to consist of ten sections, of Genesis seen
each beginning with the heading, " These are the gen- L
erations," etc. This tenfold history of generations is preceded and
introduced by the record of creation in chapter i, 1-ii, 3. The
plan of the author appears, therefore, to be, first of all to record
the miraculous creation of the heavens and the land, and then the
developments (evolutions) in human history that followed that cre
ation. Accordingly, the first developments of human life and his
tory are called " the generations of the heavens and the land "
(chap, ii, 4). The historical standpoint of the writer is " the day "
from which the generations (ni"6in, growths) start, the day when
man was formed of the dust of the ground and the breath of life
from the heavens. So the first man is conceived as the product of
the land and the heavens by the word of God, and the word Nna,
create, does not occur in this whole section. " The day " of chapter
ii, 4, which most interpreters understand of the whole creative
week, we take rather to be the terminus a quo of generations, the
8
110 GENERAL HERMENE UTIUS.
day from which, according to verse 5, all the Edenic growths be«
gan; the day when the whole face of the ground was watered,
when the garden of Eden was planted, and the first human pair
were brought together. It was the sixth day of the creative week,
" the day that Jehovah God made (rrib'I?, in the sense of effected, did,
accomplished, brought to completion) land and heavens." Adam
was the "son of God" (Luke iii, 38), and the day of his creation
was the point of time when Jehovah Elohim first revealed himself
in history as one with the Creator. In chapter i, which records
the beginning of the heavens and the land, only Elohim is named,
the God in whom, as the plural form of the name denotes, centre
all fulness and manifoldness of divine powers. But at chapter
ii, 4, where the record of generations begins, we first meet with the
name Jehovah, the personal Revealer, who enters into covenant
with his creatures, and places man under moral law. Creation, so
to speak, began with the pluripotent God— Elohim; its completion
in the formation of man, and in subsequent developments, was
wrought by Jehovah, the God of revelation, of law, and of love.
Having traced the generations of the heavens and the land through
Adam down to Seth (iv, 25, 26), the writer next records the out
growths of that line in what he calls " the book of the generations
of Adam" (v, 1). This book is no history of Adam's origin, for
that was incorporated in the generations of the heavens and tne
land, but of Adam's posterity through Seth down to the time 01
the flood. Next follow "the generations of Noah (vi, 9), then
those of his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth (x, 1), then those of Shem
through Arphaxad to Terah (xi, 10-26), and then, in regular order,
the generations of Terah (xi, 27, under which the whole history
of Abraham is placed), Ishmael (xxv, 12), Isaac (xxv, 19), Esau
(xxxvi, 1), and Jacob (xxxvii, 2). Hence the great design of the|
book was evidently to place on record the beginning and the!
earliest developments of human life and history. Keeping in mind-
this scope and structure of the book, we see its unity, and also
find each section and subdivision, sustaining a logical fitness and
relation to the whole. Thus, too, the import of not a few passages
becomes more clear and forcible.
A very cursory examination of the Book of Exodus shows us
Plan and Scope that its great purpose is to record the history of the
of Exodus. Exodus from Egypt and the legislation at Mt. Sinai,
and it is readily divisible into two parts (1) chaps, i-xviii ;
(2) xix-xl; corresponding to these two great events. But a closer
examination and analysis reveal many beautiful and suggestive re
lations of the different sections. First, we have a vivid narrative
PLAN OF EXODUS AND ROMANS. Ill
of the bondage of Israel (chaps, i-xi). It is sharply outlined in
chapter i, enhanced by the account of Moses' early life and exile
(chaps, ii-iv), and shown in its intense persistence by the account
of Pharaoh's hardness of heart, and the consequent plagues which
smote the land of Egypt (chaps, v-xi). Second, we have the
redemption of Israel (chaps, xii-xv, 21). This is first typified by
the Passover (chaps, xii-xiii, 16), realized in the marvels and tri
umphs of the march out of Egypt, and the passage of the Red Sea
(xiii, 17-xiv, 31), and celebrated in the triumphal song of Moses
(xv, 1-21). Then, third, we have the consecration of Israel
(xv, 22-xl) set forth in seven sections, (l) The march from the
Red Sea to Rephidim (xv, 22-xvii, 7), depicting the first free activ
ities of the people after their redemption, and their need of special
Divine compassion and help. (2) Attitude of the heathen toward
Israel in the cases of hostile Amalek and friendly Jethro (xvii, 8-
xviii). (3) The giving of the Law at Sinai (xix-xxiv). (4) The
tabernacle planned (xxv-xxvii). (5) The Aaronic priesthood and
sundry sacred services ordained (xxviii-xxxi). (6) The backslid-
ings of the people punished, and renewal of the covenant and laws
(xxxii-xxxiv). (7) The tabernacle constructed, reared, and filled,
with the glory of Jehovah (xxxv-xl).
These different sections of Exodus are not designated by special
headings, like those of Genesis, but are easily distinguished as so
many subsidary portions of one whole, to which each contributes
its share, and in the light of which each is seen to have peculiar
significance.
Many have taken in hand to set forth in order the course of
thought in the Epistle to the Romans. There can be subjectand
no doubt, to those who have closely studied this epistle, Epistte°to the
that, after his opening salutation and personal address, Romans,
the apostle announces his great theme in verse 16 of the first chap-
Cer. It is the Gospel considered as the power of God unto salvation
o every believer, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. This is not
formally announced as the thesis, but it manifestly expresses, in a
happy personal way, the scope of the entire epistle. " It had for
its end," says Alford, " the settlement, on the broad principles of
God's truth and love, of the mutual relations and union in Christ
of God's ancient people and the recently engrafted world. What
wonder, then, if it be found to contain an exposition of man's un-
worthiness and God's redeeming love, such as not even Holy Scrip
ture itself elsewhere furnishes ? " '
In the development of his plan the apostle first spreads out before
1 Greek Testament ; Prolegomena to Romans.
112 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
us an appalling portraiture of the heathen world, and adds, that
even the Jew, with all his advantage of God's revelation, is under
the same condemnation; for by the law the whole world is involved
in sin, and exposed to the righteous judgment of God. This is the
first division (i, 18-iii, 20). The second, which extends to the close
of the eighth chapter, and ends with a magnificent expression of
Christian confidence and hope, discusses and illustrates the propo
sition stated at its beginning: "Now, apart from law, a righteous
ness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets, even a righteousness of God through faith of Jesus
Christ unto all them that believe" (iii, 21). Under this head we
find unfolded the doctrine of justification by faith, and the pro
gressive glorification of the new man through sanctification of the
Spirit. Then follows the apostle's vindication of the righteousness
of God in casting off the Jews and calling the Gentiles (chaps,
ix-xi), an argument that exhibits throughout a yearning for Is
rael's salvation, and closes with an outburst of wondering emo
tion over the " depth of riches and Avisdom and knowledge of God,"
and a doxology (xi, 33-36). The concluding chapters (xii-xvi) con
sist of a practical application of the great lessons of the epistle in
exhortations, counsels, and precepts for the Church, and numerous
salutations and references to personal Christian friends.
It will be found that a proper attention to this general plan and
scope of the Epistle will greatly help to the understanding of its
smaller sections.
Having ascertained the general scope and plan of a book of
Scripture, we are more fully prepared to trace the context and bear-
context of par- ings °f its particular parts. The context, as we have
ticuiar passages, observed, may be near or remote, according as we seek
its immediate or more distant connexion with the particular word
or passage in hand. It may run through a few verses or a whole
section. The last twenty-seven chapters of Isaiah exhibit a marked
unity of thought and style, but they are capable of several subdivis
ions. The celebrated Messianic prophecy in chapters Iii, 13-liii, 12,
is a complete whole in itself, but most unhappily torn asunder by
the division of chapters. But, though forming a clearly defined
section by themselves, these fifteen verses must not be severed from
their context, or treated as if they had no vital connexion with
what precedes and what follows after. Alexander justly condemns
" the radical error of supposing that the book is susceptible of dis
tribution into detached and independent parts." ! It has its divis
ions more or less clearly defined, but they cling to each other,
'Later Prophecies of Isaiah, p. 247. New York. 1847
STUDY OF CONTEXT. 113
and are interwoven with each other, and form a living whole. It
is beautifully observed by Nagelsbach, that " chapters xlix-lvii are
like a wreath of glorious flowers intertwined with black ribbon ; or
like a song of triumph, through whose muffled tone there courses
the melody of a dirge, yet so that gradually the mournful chords
merge into the melody of the song of triumph. And at the same
time the discourse of the prophet is arranged with so much art that
the mourning ribbon ties into a great bow exactly in the middle.
For chapter liii forms the middle of the entire prophetic cycle of
chapters xl-lxvi." l
The immediate connexion with what precedes may be thus seen :
In lii, 1-12, the future salvation of Israel is glowingly depicted as
a restoration more glorious than that from the bondage of Egypt
or from Assyrian exile. Jerusalem awakes and rises from the dust
of ruin ; the captive is released from fetters ; the feet of fleet mes
sengers speed with good tidings, and the watchmen take up the
glad report, and sound the cry of redemption. And then (verse 11)
an exhortation is sounded to depart from all pollution and bondage,
and the sublime exodus is contrasted (verse 12) with the hasty
flight from Egypt, but with the assurance that, as of old, Jehovah
would still be as the pillar of cloud and fire before them and behind
them. At this our passage begins, and the thought naturally turns
to the great Leader of this spiritual exodus — a greater than Moses,
even though that ancient servant of Jehovah was faithful in all his
house (Num. xii, 7). Our prophet proceeds to delineate Him whose
sufferings and sorrows for the transgressions of his people far tran
scended those of Moses, and whose final triumph through the fruit
of the travail of his soul shall be also infinitely greater.
The much-disputed passage in Matt, xi, 12 can be properly ex
plained only by special regard to the context. Literally Matt, xi, 12 ex-
translated, the verse reads: "From the days of John
the Baptist until now, the kingdom of the heavens text,
suffers violence (ptdfr-ai), and violent ones are seizing upon it."
There are seven different ways in which this passage has been
explained.
1. The violence here mentioned is explained by one class of in-
terpreters as a hostile violence — the kingdom is violently persecuted
by its enemies, and violent persecutors seize on it as by storm.
The words themselves would not unnaturally bear such a mean
ing, but we find nothing in the context to harmonize with a refer
ence to hostile forces, or violent persecution.
2. Fritzsche translates j3id&Tai by magna vi praedicatur (is
1 Commentary on Isaiah, lii, 13, in Lange's Bible work.
114 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
proclaimed with great power) ; but this is contrary to the meaning
of the word, and utterly without warrant.
3. The most common interpretation is that which takes (3id£erai
in a good sense, and explains it of the eager and anxious struggles
of many to enter into the new kingdom of God. This view, how
ever, is open to the twofold objection, that it does not allow the
word fiid&Tai its proper significance, and it has no relevancy to the
context. It could scarcely be said of the blind, the lame, the lepers,
the deaf, the dead, and the poor, mentioned in verse 5, that they
took the kingdom by violence, for whatever violence was exerted
in their case proceeded not from them but from Christ.
4. According to Lange " the expression is metaphorical, denoting
the violent bursting forth of the kingdom of heaven, as the kernel
of the ancient theocracy, through the husk of the Old Testament.
John and Christ are themselves the violent who take it by force —
the former, as commencing the assault; the latter, as completing
the conquest. Accordingly, this is a figurative description of the
great era which had then commenced." J So far as this exposition
might describe an era which began with John, it would cer
tainly have relevancy to the immediate context; but no such era
of a violent bursting forth of the kingdom of heaven had as yet
opened. The kingdom of God was not yet come ; it was only at
hand. Besides, the making of both John and Christ the violent
ones, in the sense of breaking open the husk of the Old Testament
to let the kingdom of the heavens out, is a far-fetched and most
improbable idea.
5. Others take /3id£erai in a middle sense: the kingdom of heaven
violently breaks in — forcibly introduces itself, or thrusts itself for
ward in spite of all opposition. This usage of the word may be
allowed; but the interpretation it offers is open to the same objec
tion as that of Lange just given. It cannot be shown that there
was any such violent breaking in of the kingdom of God from the
days of John the Baptist to the time when Jesus spoke these words.
Besides, it is difficult, on this view, to explain satisfactorily the
{3t,aorai, violent ones, mentioned immediately afterward.
6. Stier combines a good and a bad sense in the use of flid&rai :
" The word has here no more and no less than its active sense,
which passes into the middle. The kingdom of heaven proclaims
itself loudly and openly, breaking in with violence; the poor are
compelled (Luke xiv, 23) to enter it; those who oppose it are con
strained to take offence. In short, all things proceed urgently with
it ; it goes with mighty movement and impulse ; it works effectually
1 Commentary, in loco.
MEANING OF MATTHEW XI, 12. 115
upon all spirits on both sides and on all sides. . . . Its constrain
ing power does violence to all ; but it excites, at the same time, in
the case of many, obstinate opposition. He who will not submit to
it, must be offended and resist ; and he, too, who yields to it, must
press and struggle through this offence. Thus the kingdom of
heaven does and suffers violence, both in its twofold influence." l
Hence, according to Stier, the violent ones are either good or bad,
since both classes are compelled to take some part in the general
struggle, either for or against. This exposition, however, is with
out sufficient warrant in the history of the time, " from the days
of John the Baptist until now," and it puts too many shades of
meaning on the word ftiaarai. Besides, this view also has no clear
relevancy to the context.
7. We believe the true view will be attained only by giving each
word its natural meaning, and keeping attention strictly to the con
text. The common meaning of fiidfa is to take something by force,
to carry by storm, as a besieged city or fortress ; and it here refers
most naturally to the violent and hasty efforts to seize upon the
kingdom of God which had been conspicuous since the beginning of
the ministry of John. For this view seems to be demanded by the
context. John had heard, in his prison, about the works of Christ,
and, anxious and impatient for the glorious manifestation of the
Messiah, sent two of his disciples to put the dubious question, " Art
thou he that is coming, or look we for another?" (Matt, xi, 2, 3).
Jesus' answer (verses 4-6) was merely a statement of his mighty
works, and of the preaching of the Gospel to the poor — Old
Testament prophetic evidence that the days of the Messiah were
at hand— and the tacit rebuke : " Blessed is he whosoever shall not
be offended (onavdaXio^ find occasion of stumbling] in me," was
evidently meant for John's impatience. When John's disciples
went away Jesus at once proceeded to speak of John's char
acter and standing before the multitudes: When ye all flocked
to the wilderness to hear John preach, did ye expect to find a
wavering reed, or a finely dressed courtier? Or did ye expect,
rather, to see a prophet? Yes, he exclaims, much more than a
prophet. For he was the Messiah's messenger, himself prophe
sied of in the Scriptures (Mai. iii, 1). He was greater than all the
prophets who were before him; for he stood upon the very verge
of the Messianic era and introduced the Christ.. But, with all his
greatness, he misunderstands the kingdom of heaven ; and from his
days until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence from many
who, like him, think it may be forced into manifestation. That king-
1 Words of the Lord Jesus, in loco.
116 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
dom comes according to an ordered progress. First, the prophets
and the law until John — the Elijah foretold in Mai. iv, 5. John
was but the forerunner of Christ, preparing his way, and Christ's
manifestation in the flesh was not his coming in his kingdom.
Herein, we think, expositors have generally misapprehended our
Lord's doctrine. Thus Nast : " The Lord speaks of the absolutely
certain and momentous fact that the kingdom of heaven has come,
proclaims its presence, and sends forth its invitations in tones not
to be misunderstood (verse 15)." l We believe, on the contrary, that
this is a grave misunderstanding of our Lord's words. He neither
says, nor necessarily implies, that his kingdom has come. John's
preaching and Christ's preaching alike declared the kingdom to be
at hand, and not fully come. Compare Matt, iii, 2 and iv, 17. But
from the beginning of this gospel men had been over anxious to
have the kingdom itself appear, and in this sense it was suffering
violence, both by an inward impatience and zeal, such as John him
self had just now exhibited, and by an open and outward clamour,
such as was exhibited by those who would fain have taken Jesus
by force and made him king (John vi, 15). This same kind of vio
lence is to be understood in the parallel passage in Luke xvi, 16.
The preaching of " the Gospel of the kingdom " was the occasion of
a violence of attitude regarding it. Every man would fain enter
violently into it.
The word fiid&rai, accordingly, denotes not altogether a hostile
violence, nor yet, on the other hand, a commendable zeal; but it
may combine in a measure both of these conceptions. Stier finely
says : " In a case where exegesis perseveringly disputes which of
the two views of a passage capable of two senses is correct, it is
generally found that both are one in a third deeper meaning, and
that the disputants in both cases have both right and wrong in their
argument." 2 The word in question may combine both the good and
the bad senses of violence : not, however, in the manner in which
Stier explains, as above, but as depicting the violent zeal of those
who would hurry the kingdom of God into a premature manifesta
tion. Such a zeal might be laudable in its general aim, but very
mistaken in its spirit and plan, and therefore deserving of rebuke.
The context of Gal. v, 4, must be studied in order to apprehend
Gai. v, 4, to be the force and scope of the words : " Ye are fallen away
nnmedlateco?- from grace." The apostle is contrasting justification
text. by faith in Christ with justification by an observance
of the law, and he argues that these two are opposites, so that one
' English Commentary on Matthew, in loco.
2 Words of the Lord Jesus, on Matt, xi, 12.
VARIETY OF CONTEXT. 117
necessarily excludes the other. He who receives circumcision as a
means of justification (verse 2) virtually excludes Christ, whose
gospel calls for no such work. If one seeks justification in a law
of works, he binds himself to keep the whole law (verse 3); for
then not circumcision only, but the whole law, must be minutely
observed. Then, with a marked emphasis and force of words, he
adds: "Ye were severed from Christ, whoever of you are being
(assuming to be) justified in law, ye fell away from grace." Ye cut
yourselves off from the system of grace (T% ^dptro^). The word
grace, then, is here to be understood not as a gracious attainment
of personal experience, but as the gospel system of salvation. From.
this system they apostatized who sought justification in law.
It will be obvious from the above that the connexion of thought
in any given passage may depend on a variety of con
siderations. It may be a historical connexion, in that may be histori-
facts or events recorded are connected in a chronolog- ^^matic^io^
ical sequence. It may be historico-dogmatic, in that a cai, or psycho-
doctrinal discourse is connected with some historic fact
or circumstance. It may be a logical connexion, in that the thoughts
or arguments are presented in logical order; or it may be psycho
logical, because dependent on some association of ideas. This latter
often occasions a sudden breaking off from a line of thought, and
may serve to explain some of the parenthetical passages and in
stances of anacoluthon so frequent in the writings of Paul.
Too much stress cannot well be laid upon the importance of
closely studying the context, scope, and plan. Many a importance of
passage of Scripture will not be understood at all with- contextf scope!
out the help afforded by the context ; for many a sen- and plan,
tence derives all its point and force from the connexion in which
it stands. So, again, a whole section may depend, for its proper
exposition, upon our understanding the scope and plan of the
writer's argument. How futile would be a proof text drawn
from the Book of Job unless, along with the citation, it were ob
served whether it were an utterance of Job himself, or of one of his
three friends, or of Elihu, or of the Almighty ! Even Job's celebrated
utterance in chapter xix, 25-27, should be viewed in reference to
the scope of the whole book, as well as to his intense anguish and
emotion at that particular stage of the controversy.1
1 Some religious teachers are fond of employing scriptural texts simply as mottoes,
with little or no regard to their true connexion. Thus they too often adapt them to
their use by imparting to them a factitious sense foreign to their proper scope and
meaning. The seeming gain in all such cases is more than counterbalanced by the
loss and danger that attend the practice. It encourages the habit of interpreting
118 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
" In considering the connexion of parts in a section," says David-
, son, " and the amount of meaning they express, acute-
Critical tact . . J \
and ability ness and critical tact are much needed. We may be
able to tell the significations of single terms, and yet be
utterly inadequate to unfold a continuous argument. A capacity
for verbal analysis does not impart the talent of expounding an
entire paragraph. Ability to discover the proper causes, the nat
ural sequence, the pertinency of expressions to the subject dis
cussed, and the delicate distinctions of thought which characterize
particular kinds of composition, is distinct from the habit of care
fully tracing out the various senses of separate terms. It is a
higher faculty; not the child of diligence, but rather of original,
intellectual ability. Attention may sharpen and improve, but can
not create it. All men are not endowed with equal acuteness, nor
fitted to detect the latent links of associated ideas by their outward
symbols. They cannot alike discern the idiosyncrasies of various
writers as exhibited in their composition. But the verbal philolo
gist is not necessarily incapacitated by converse with separate signs
of ideas from unfolding the mutual bearings of an entire paragraph.
Imbued with a philosophic spirit, he may successfully trace the
connexion subsisting between the various parts of a book, while he
notes the commencement of new topics, the propriety of their posi
tion, the interweaving of argumentation, interruptions and digres
sions, and all the characteristic peculiarities exhibited in a particular
composition. In this he may be mightily assisted by a just per
ception of those particles which have been designated erred Trrspd-
evra [winged words], not less than by sympathy with the spirit of
the author whom he seeks to understand. By placing himself as
much as possible in the circumstances of the writer, and contem
plating from the same elevation the important phenomena to
which his rapt mind was directed, he will be in a favourable po
sition for understanding the parts and proportions of a connected
discourse." l
Scripture in an arbitrary and fanciful way, and thus furnishes the teachers of error
with their most effective weapon. The practice cannot be defended on any plea of
necessity. The plain words of Scripture, legitimately interpreted according to their
proper scope and context, contain a fulness and comprehensiveness of meaning suffi
cient for the wants of all men in all circumstances. That piety alone is robust and
healthful which is fed, not by the fancies and speculations of the preacher who prac
tically puts his own genius above the word of God, but by the pure doctrines and pre
cepts of the Bible, unfolded in their true connexion and meaning. Barrows, Intro
duction to the Study of the Bible, p. 455.
1 Sacred Hermeneutics, p. 240.
PARALLEL PASSAGES. 11»
CHAPTER VH.
COMPARISON OP PARALLEL PASSAGES.
THERE are portions of Scripture in the exposition of which we are
not to look for help in the context or scope. The Book some parts of
of Proverbs, for example, is composed of numerous
separate aphorisms, many of which have no necessary te*t.
connection with each other. The book itself is divisible into sev
eral collections of proverbs; and separate sections, like that con
cerning the evil woman in chapter vii, and the words of wisdom in
chapters viii and ix, have a unity and completeness in themselves,
through which a connected train of thought is discernible. But
many of the proverbs are manifestly without connexion with what
precedes or follows. Thus the twentieth and twenty-first chapters
of Proverbs may be studied ever so closely, and no essential con
nexion of thought appears to hold any two of the verses together.
The same will be found true of other portions of this book, which
from its very nature is a collection of apothegms, each one of which
may stand by itself as a concise expression of aphoristic wisdom.
Several parts of the Book of Ecclesiastes consist of proverbs, solilo
quies, and exhortations, which appear to have no vital relation to
each other. Such, especially, are to be found in chapters v-x.
Accordingly, while the scope and general subject-matter of the
entire book are easily discerned, many eminent critics have de
spaired of finding in it any definite plan or logical arrangement.
The Gospels, also, contain some passages which it is impossible to
explain as having any essential connexion with either that which
precedes or follows.
On such isolated texts, as also on those not so isolated, a compar
ison of parallel passages of Scripture often throws much value of parai-
light. For words, phrases, and historical or doctrinal lel passages-
statements, which in one place are difficult to understand, are often
set forth in clear light by the additional statements with which they
stand connected elsewhere. Thus, as shown above (pp. 113-116),
the comparatively isolated passage in Luke xvi, 16, is much more
clear and comprehensive when studied in the light of its context in
Matt, xi, 12. Without the help of parallel passages, some words and
statements of the Scripture would scarcely be intelligible. As we as
certain the ^ls^ts loquendi of words from a wide collation of passages
120 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
in which they occur, so the sense of an entire passage may be elu
cidated by a comparison with its parallel in another place. " The
employment of parallel passages," says Immer, " must go hand in
hand with attention to the connexion. The mere explanation ac
cording to the connexion often fails to secure the certainty that is
desired, at least in cases where the linguistic usage under consider
ation and the analogous thought cannot at the same time be other
wise established." 1
" In comparing parallels," says Davidson, " it is proper to observe
a certain order. In the first place we should seek for parallels in
the writings of the same author, as the same peculiarities of con
ception and modes of expression are liable to return in different
works proceeding from one person. There is a certain configura
tion of mind which manifests itself in the productions of one man.
Each writer is distinguished by a style more or less his own; by
characteristics which would serve to identify him with the emana
tions of his intellect, even were his name withheld. Hence the
reasonableness of expecting parallel passages in the writings of one
author to throw most light upon each other." 2
But we should also remember that the Scriptures of the Old and
New Testaments are a world by themselves. Although
The Bible a self- . J °
interpreting written at sundry times, and devoted to many differ
ent themes, taken altogether they constitute a self-
interpreting book. The old rule, therefore, that " Scripture must
be interpreted by Scripture," is a most important principle of sa
cred hermeneutics. But we must avoid the danger of overstepping
in this matter. Some have gone too far in trying to make Daniel
explain the Revelation of John, and it is equally possible to distort
a passage in Kings or in Chronicles by attempting to make it par
allel with some statement of Paul. In general we may expect to
find the most valuable parallels in books of the same class. Histor
ical passages will be likely to be paralleled with historical, prophetic
with prophetic, poetic with poetic, and argumentative and horta
tory with those of like character. Hosea and Amos will be likely
to have more in common than Genesis and Proverbs; Matthew and
Luke will be expected to be more alike than Matthew and one of
the Epistles of Paul, and Paul's Epistles naturally exhibit many
parallels both of thought and language.
Nor should we overlook the fact that almost all we know of the
history of the Jewish people is embodied in the Bible. The apoc
ryphal and pseudepigraphal books and the works of Josephus are
the principal outside sources. These different books may, then, be
'Hermeneutics of the New Testament, p. 159. 2 Hermeneutics, p. 251.
REAL AND VERBAL PARALLELS. 121
fairly expected to interpret themselves. Their spirit and purpose,
their modes of thought and expression, their doctrinal teachings,
and, to some extent, their general subject-matter, would be natu
rally expected to have a self-conformity. When, upon examina
tion, we find that this is the case, we shall the more fully appre
ciate the importance of comparing all parallel portions and readino-
them in each other's light.
Parallel passages have been commonly divided into two classes,
verbal and real, according as that which constitutes the parallels verbal
parallel consists in words or in like subject-matter, and real.
Where the same word occurs in similar connexion, or in reference
to the same general subject, the parallel is called verbal. The use
of such parallel passages has been shown above in determining the
meaning of words.1 Real parallels are those similar passages in
which the likeness or identity consists, not in words or phrases, but
in facts, subjects, sentiments, or doctrines. Parallels of this kind
are sometimes subdivided into historic and didactic, according as
the subject-matter consists of historical events or matters of doc
trine. But all these divisions are, perhaps, needless refinements.
The careful expositor will consult all parallel passages, whether
they be verbal, historical, or doctrinal; but in actual interpretation
he will find little occasion to discriminate formally between these
different classes.
The great thing to determine, in every case, is whether the pas
sages adduced are really parallel. A verbal parallel Parallels must
may be as real as one that embodies many correspond- have a real cor
ing sentiments, for a single word is often decisive of a
doctrine or a fact. On the other hand, there may be a likeness of
sentiment without any real parallelism. Proverbs xxii, 2, and
xxix, 13, are usually taken as parallels, but a close inspection will
show that though there is a marked similarity of sentiment, there
is no essential identity or real parallelism. The first passage is:
"Rich and poor meet together; maker of all of them is Jehovah."
We need not assume that this meeting together is in the grave (Co-
nant) or in the conflicts (103B3) of life in a hostile sense. The sec
ond passage, properly rendered, is: "The poor and the man of
oppressions meet together; an enlightener of the eyes of both of
them is Jehovah." Here the man of oppressions is not necessarily
a rich man; nor is enlightener of the eyes an equivalent of maker in
xxii, 2. Hence, all that can be properly said of these two passages
is, that they are similar in sentiment, but not strictly parallel or
identical in sense.
1 See above, pages 84, 85.
122 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
A careful comparison of the parables of the talents (Matt. xxvr
14-30) and of the pounds (Luke xix, 11-27) will show that they
have much in common, together with not a few things that are dif
ferent. They were spoken at different times, in different places,
and to different hearers. The parable of the talents deals only
with the servants of the lord who went into a far country; that of
the pounds deals also with his citizens and enemies who would not
have him reign over them. Yet the great lesson of the necessity
of diligent activity for the Lord in his absence is the same in both
parables.
A comparison of parallel passages is necessary in order to deter-
The word hate mine the sense of the word hate in Luke xiv, 26 : " If
'aranei16*1 &l any one comes unto me> an(^ nates not B^s father, and
sages. mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sis
ters, and even his own life besides, he cannot be my disciple." This
statement appears at first to contravene the fifth commandment of
the decalogue, and also to involve other unreasonable demands. It
seems to stand opposed to the Gospel doctrine of love. But, turn
ing to Matt, x, 37, we find the statement in a milder form, and
woven in a context which serves to disclose its full force and bear
ing. There the statement is: "He that loveth father or mother
more than me is not worthy of me ; and he that loveth son or daugh
ter more than me is not worthy of me." The immediate context
of this verse (verses 34-39), a characteristic passage of our Lord's
more ardent utterances, sets its meaning in a clear light. " Do not
think" he says, verse 34, "that I came to send peace
Matt, x, 34-39. , J ' ...
on the earth; 1 came not to send peace but a sword.
He sees a world lying in wickedness, and exhibiting all forms of
opposition to his messages of truth. With such a world he can
make no compromise, and have no peace without, first, a bitter
conflict. Such conflict he, therefore, purposely invites. He will
conquer a peace, or else have none at all. "The telic style of ex
pression is not only rhetorical, indicating that the result is unavoid
able, but what Jesus expresses is a purpose — not the final design of
his coming, but an intermediate purpose — in seeing clearly pre
sented to his view the reciprocally hostile excitement as a necessary
transition, which he therefore, in keeping with his destiny as
Messiah, must be sent first of all to bring forth." ' Before his
final purpose is accomplished he sees what bitter strifes must come;
but the grand result will be well worth all the intermediate woes.
Therefore he will call father, mother, child, although it cause many
household divisions; and so he adds, as explaining how he will send
1 Meyer, Critical and Exegetical Commentary, in loco.
PETER THE ROCK. 123
a sword rather than peace : " For I came to set a man at variance
against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the
daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law ; and a man's foes shall
be they of his own household." When this state of things shall
come to pass, how many will be called upon to decide whether they
will cleave to Christ, or to an unchristian father? Micah's words
(vii, 6) will then be true. Son will oppose father, daughter will
rise up against mother, and if one remains true to the Lord Christ,
he will have to forsake his own household and kin. He cannot be
a true disciple and love his parents or children more than Christ.
Hence he must needs set them aside, forsake them, love them less,
and even oppose them, assuming toward them the hostile attitude
of an enemy. for Christ's sake. The import of hate, in Luke xiv, 26,
is accordingly made clear.
This peculiar meaning of the word is further confirmed by its use
in Matt, vi, 24 : " No man can serve two masters : for
either he will hate the one, and love the other ; or else
he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God
and Mammon." Two masters, so opposite in nature as God and
Mammon, cannot be loved and served at one and the same time. The
love of the one necessarily excludes the love of the other, and nei
ther will be served with a divided heart. In the case of such essen
tial opposites, a lack of love for one amounts to a disloyal enmity —
the root of all hatred. Another parallel, illustrative of this impres
sive teaching, is to be found in Deut. xiii, 6-11, where it is enjoined
that, if brother, son, daughter, wife, or friend entice one to idolatry,
he shall not only not consent, but he shall not have pity on the
seducer, and shall take measures to have him publicly punished as
an enemy of God and his people. Hence we derive the lesson that
one who opposes our love and loyalty to God or Christ is the worst
possible enemy. Compare also John xii, 25; Rom. ix, 13; Mai.
i, 2, 3; Deut. xxi, 15.
The true interpretation of Jesus' words to Peter, in Matt, xvi, 18,
will be fully apprehended only by a comparison and careful study
of all the parallel texts. Jesus says to Peter, "Thou ^^ a llvlng
art Peter (Trerpof), and upon this petra (or rock, ini stone. Matt.xvi,
ravrq rq nerpp), will I build my Church, and the
gates of Hades shall not prevail against her." How is it possible
from this passage alone to decide whether the rock (Trerpa) refers
to Christ (as Augustine and Wordsworth), or ta Peter's confession
(Luther and many Protestant divines), or to Peter himself? It is
noticeable that in the parallel passages of Mark (viii, 27-30) and
Luke (ix, 18-21) these words of Christ to Peter do not occur. The
124 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
immediate context presents us with Simon Peter, as the spokesman
and representative of the disciples, answering Jesus' question with
the bold and confident confession, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of
the living God." Jesus was evidently moved by the fervid words
of Peter, and said to him, " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona, for
flesh and blood revealed it not to thee, but my Father who is in the
heavens." Whatever knowledge and convictions of Jesus' messiah-
ship and divinity the disciples had attained before, this noble con
fession of Peter possessed the newness and glory of a special revela
tion. It was not the offspring of " flesh and blood," that is, not of
natural human birth or origin, but the spontaneous outburst of a
divine inspiration from heaven. Peter was for the moment caught
up by the Spirit of God, and, in the glowing fervour of such in
spiration, spoke the very word of the Father. He was accordingly
pronounced the blessed (jiaicdptog) or happy one.
Turning now to the narrative of Simon's introduction to the
John i, 41-43 Saviour (John i, 41-43), we compare the first mention
compared. of the name Peter. He was led into the presence of
Jesus by his own brother Andrew, and Jesus, gazing on him, said,
" Thou art Simon, the son of Jonah ; thou shalt be called Cephas,
which is interpreted Peter" (ufirpof). Thus, at the beginning, he
tells him what he is and what he shall be. A doubtful character at
that time was Simon, the son of Jonah ; irritable, impetuous, un
stable, irresolute ; but Jesus saw a coming hour when he would be
come the bold, strong, abiding, memorable stone (Peter), the typ
ical and representative confessor of the Christ. Reverting again
to the passage in Matthew, it is easy to see that, through his in
spired confession of the Christ, the Son of the living God, Simon
has attained the ideal foreseen and foretold by his Lord. He has
now become Peter indeed; now "thou art Peter," not "shalt be
called Peter." Accordingly, we cannot avoid the conviction that
the manifest play on the words petros and petra (in Matt, xvi, 18,)
has a designed and important significance, and also an allusion to
the first bestowal of the name on Simon (John i, 43) ; as if the Lord
had said : Remember, Simon, the significant name I gave thee at
our first meeting. Then I said, Thou shalt be called Peter; now
I say unto thee, Thou art Peter.
But there is doubtless a designed significance in the change from
petros and petros to petra, in Matt, xvi, 18. It is altogether prob-
petra. ak]e that there was a corresponding change in the
Aramaic words used by our Lord on this occasion. He may, per
haps, have employed merely the simple and emphatic forms of the
Aramaic word Cephas (sp3 and NQ'3). What, then, is meant by
FOUNDATION OF THE APOSTLES. 125
the nerpa, petra, on which Christ builds his Church? In answer
ing this question we inquire what other scriptures say about the
building of the Church, and in Eph. ii, 20-22 we find it written
that Christian believers constitute "the household of Ephesians 11
God, having been built upon the foundation of the 20-22 compared,
apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner
stone ; in whom all the building, fitly framed together, grows unto
a holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are builded together
for a habitation of God in the Spirit." Having made the natural
and easy transition from the figure of a household to that of the
structure in which the household dwells, the apostle speaks of the
latter as " built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets."
The prophets here intended are doubtless the New Testament
prophets referred to in chapters iii, 5 and iv, 11.
The foundation OF the apostles and prophets has been explained
(1) as a genitive of apposition — the foundation which
is constituted of apostles and prophets; that is, the the apostles
apostles and prophets are themselves the foundation a
(so Chrysostom, Olshausen, De Wette, and many others) ; (2) as a
genitive of the originating cause — the foundation laid by the
apostles (Calvin, Koppe, Harless, Meyer, Eadie, Ellicott) ; (3) as a
genitive of possession — the apostles and prophets' foundation, that
is, the foundation upon which they as well as all other believers are
builded (Beza, Bucer, Alford). We believe that in the breadth
and fulness of the apostle's conception, there is room for all these
thoughts, and a wider comparison of Scripture corroborates this
view. In Gal. ii, 9, James, Cephas, and John are spoken of as
pillars (orvkoi), foundation-pillars, or columnar supports of the
Church. In the apocalyptic vision of the New Jerusalem, which is
"the bride, the wife of the Lamb" (Rev. xxi, 9), it is said that
" the wall of the city has twelve foundations, and upon
Rev xxi 14
them twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb"
(Rev. xxi, 14). Here it is evident that the apostles are conceived
as foundation-stones, forming the substructure of the Church ; and
with this conception " the foundation of the apostles and prophets "
(Eph. ii, 20) may be taken as genitive of apposition. But in 1 Cor.
iii, 10, the apostle speaks of himself as a wise architect,
i • * J *• /.a « »a ^ ^ „• T ICor. ill, 10.
laying a foundation (vefieAiov evijica,, a foundation I
laid). Immediately after (verse 11) he says: "Other foundation
can no one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." This
foundation Paul himself laid when he founded the Church of Cor
inth, and first made known there the Lord Jesus Christ. Having
once laid this foundation, no man could lay another, although he
126 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
might build thereupon. Paul himself could not have laid another
had some one else been first to lay this foundation in Corinth
(compare Rom. xv, 20). How he laid this foundation he tells in
chap, ii, 1-5, especially \vhen he says (verse 2) "I determined not
to know any thing among you except Jesus Christ, and him cruci
fied." So then, in this sense, Ephesians ii, 20 may be taken as gen
itive of the originating cause — the foundation which the apostles
laid. At the same time we need not overlook or ignore the fact
presented in 1 Cor. iii, 11, that Jesus is himself the foundation, that
is, Jesus Christ — including his person, work, and doctrine — is the
great fact on which the Church is builded, and without which there
could be no redemption. Hence the Church itself, according to
1 Tim. iii, 15, is the "pillar and basis (edpa/wjua) of the truth."
Accordingly we hold that the expression " foundation of the apostles
and prophets" (Eph. ii, 20) has a fulness of meaning which may in
clude all these thoughts. The apostles were themselves incorpor
ated in this foundation, and made pillars or foundation stones;
they, too, were instrumental in laying this foundation and building
upon it ; and having laid it in Christ, and working solely through
Christ, without whom they could do nothing, Jesus Christ himself,
as preached by them, was also conceived as the underlying basis
and foundation of all (1 Cor. iii, 11).
Another Scripture, in 1 Peter ii, 4, 5, should also be collated
i Peter ii, 4, 5, here, for it was written by the apostle to whom the
compared. words of Matt, xvi, 18, were addressed, and seems to
have been with him a thought that lingered like a precious mem
ory in the soul: "To whom (i. e., the gracious Lord just mentioned)
approaching, a living stone, by men indeed disallowed, but before
God chosen, precious, do ye also yourselves, as living stones, be
built up a spiritual house." Here the Lord is himself presented as
the elect and precious corner-stone (comp. verse 6), and at the same
time Christian believers are also represented as living stones, built
into the same spiritual temple.
Coming back now to the text in Matt, xvi, 18, which Schaff pro
nounces " one of the prof oundest and most far-reaching prophetical,
but, at the same time, one of the most controverted, sayings of the
Saviour," J we are furnished, by the above collation of cognate Scrip
tures, with the means of apprehending its true import and signifi
cance. Filled with a divine inspiration, Peter confessed his Lord
Christ, to the glory of God the Father (compare 1 John iv, 15, and
Rom. x, 9), and in that blessed attainment and confession he be-
1 Lange's Commentary on Matthew, translated and annotated by Philip Schaff,
p. 293. New York, 1864. Compare also Meyer, Alford, and Nast, in loco.
THE TYPICAL CONFESSOR. 127
came the representative or ideal Christian confessor. In view of
this, Jesus says to him: Now thou art Peter; thou art become a
living stone, the type and representative of the multitude of living
stones upon which I will build my Church. The change from the
masculine Tterpog to the feminine TrtVpa fittingly indicates that it is
not so much on Peter, the man, the single and separate individual,
as on Peter considered as the confessor, the type and representa
tive of all other Christian confessors, who are to be " builded to
gether for a habitation of God in the Spirit " (Eph. ii, 22).
In the light of all these Scriptures we may see the impropriety
and irrelevancy of what has been the prevailing Prot- Error of the
estant interpretation, namely, making the irerpa, rock, ^£^on j^T
to be Peter's confession. " Every building," says Nast, pretation of
"must have foundation stones. What is the founda- neTPa-
tion of the Christian Church on the part of man ? Is it not — what
Peter exhibited — a faith wrought in the heart by the Holy Ghost,
and a confession with the mouth that Jesus is the Christ, the Son
of the living God ? But this believing with the heart and confess
ing with the mouth is something personal; it cannot be separated
from the living personality that believes and confesses. The
Church consists of living men, and its foundation cannot be a mere
abstract truth or doctrine apart from the living personality in
which it is embodied. This is in accordance with the whole New
Testament language, in which not doctrines or confessions, but
men, are uniformly called pillars or foundations of the spiritual
building." '
It is well known how large a portion of the three synoptic Gos
pels consists of parallel narratives of the words and works of
1 Commentary on the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, in loco. To the Roman Cath
olic interpretation, which explains these words as investing Peter and his successors
with a permanent primacy at Rome, Schaff opposes the following insuperable objec
tions : (1) It obliterates the distinction between petros and petra ; (2) it is inconsistent
with the true nature of the architectural figure : the foundation of a building is one
and abiding, and not constantly renewed and changed ; (3) it confounds priority of
time with permanent superiority of rank ; (4 ) it confounds the apostolate, which, strict
ly speaking, is not transferable, but confined to the original personal disciples of
Christ and inspired organs of the Holy Spirit, with the post-apostolic episcopate ; (5) it
involves an injustice to the other apostles, who, as a body, are expressly called the
foundation or foundation-stones of the Church ; (6) it contradicts the whole spirit of
Peter's epistles, which is strongly antihierarchical, and disclaims any superiority over
his ' fellow-presbyters ; ' (7) finally, it rests on gratuitous assumptions which can
never be proven either exegetically or historically, viz., the transferability of Peter's
primacy, and its actual transfer upon the bishop, not of Jerusalem, nor of Antioch
(where Peter certainly was), but of Rome exclusively." See Lange's Matthew, in
loco, page 297.
128 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
Jesus. St. Paul's account of the appearances of Jesus after the
resurrection (xv, 4-7), and of the institution of the
Large portions '
of Scripture Lord s Supper (xi, 23-26), are well worthy or comparison
parallel. with ^ severai Gospel narratives.1 The Epistles of Paul
to the Romans and to the Galatians, being each so largely devoted
to the doctrine of righteousness through faith, should be studied
together, for they have many parallels which help to illustrate each
other. Not a few parallel passages of the Ephesian and Colossian
Epistles throw light upon each other. The second and third chap
ters of 2 Peter should be studied and expounded in connexion
with the Epistle of Jude. The genealogies of Genesis, Chronicles,
and Matthew and Luke, should be compared, as also large sections
of the books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah.
We have in the Acts of the Apostles three separate accounts of
Paul's conversion (chaps, ix, xxii, and xxvi), and all these illustrate
and supplement each other. The many passages of the Old Testa
ment which are quoted or referred to in the New, are also parallels;
but they are so specific in their nature as to call for special treat
ment in a future chapter.
1 More than common discretion must be exercised by the interpreter of the New
Testament with regard to the parallel passages in the Gospels, particularly in the
synoptical Gospels. With respect to the latter chiefly, they often relate the same
thing, sometimes they communicate the same conversation or saying of Jesus, but not
in the same words. We have here, then, different accounts of the same occurrence
or thing. But now the interpreter has no right to conclude from one evangelist to
another without any limitation, and e. g. to explain and supplement the words of the
Saviour, as recorded by one narrator, out of the account of another. For, in any
difference in the accounts, the question is, what Jesus actually said. We must com
mence there, by making a distinction between what was actually said and what is
communicated concerning it ; and with this last the interpreter has to deal. For in
stance, according to Matt, vi, 11, Jesus taught them to pray in the "Lord's Prayer:"
Give us " this day " our daily bread ; according to Luke xi, 3 : Give us " day by day,"
etc. Now we have no right to say : therefore, this day = day by day. In the same
prayer Matthew has it : " as we forgive," etc. (thus, standard) ; Luke : " for we also
forgive," etc. (thus, reason for hearing the prayer). Now we may not say that the
one is equal to the other. In like manner, also, we may not explain 1 Cor. xiv and
Acts ii, 4-13 out of each other, and so confound them with each other. In the latter
passage there is indeed mention of other (strange) languages (krepai -yhuaoai), in the
former, on the contrary, not a word is t-aid of " other " languages, but of tongues
(•y/.uaaai) ; and in Acts ii the context of the narrative compels us quite as much
to think of strange languages, as the context in 1 Cor. xiv decidedly forbids it.—
Doedes, Manual of Hermeneutics, pp. 100, 101.
AUTHOR'S POSITION. 129
CHAPTER VIII.
THE HISTORICAL STANDPOINT.
IT is of the first importance, in interpreting a written document, to
ascertain who the author was, and to determine the T
Importance 01
time, the place, and the circumstances of his writing, the historical
The interpreter should, therefore, endeavour to take standpoint-
himself from the present, and to transport himself into the his
torical position of his author, look through his eyes, note his sur
roundings, feel with his heart, and catch his emotion. Herein we
note the import of the term greanmaitico-historical interpretation.
We are not only to grasp the grammatical import of words and
sentences, but also to feel the force and bearing of the historical
circumstances which may in any way have affected the writer.
Hence, too, it will be seen how intimately connected may be the
object or design of a writing and the occasion which prompted its
composition. The individuality of the writer, his local surround
ings, his wants and desires, his relation to those for whom he
wrote, his nationality and theirs, the character of the times when
he wrote — all these matters are of the first importance to a thor
ough interpretation of the several books of Scripture.
A knowledge of geography, history, chronology, and antiquities,
has already been mentioned as an essential qualification _
. J. . . Extensive his-
of the biblical interpreter.1 Especially should he have toricai knowi-
a clear conception of the order of events connected edgen
with the whole course of sacred history, such as the contempora
neous history, so far as it may be known, of the great nations and
tribes of patriarchal times; the great world-powers of Egypt, As
syria, Babylon, and Persia, with which the Israelites at various
times came in contact ; the Macedonian Empire, with its later
Ptolemaic and Seleucidaic branches, from which the Jewish people
suffered many woes, and the subsequent conquest and dominion of
the Romans. The exegete should be able to take his standpoint
anywhere along this line of history wherever he may find the age
of his author, and thence vividly grasp the outlying circumstances.
He should seek a familiarity with the customs, life, spirit, ideas,
and pursuits of these different times and different tribes and
1 See above, pp. 26, 27.
V3(> GENERAL HERMEXEUTICS.
nations, so as to distinguish readily what belonged to one and what
to another. By such knowledge he will be able not only to transport
himself into any given age, but also to avoid confounding the ideas
of one age or race with those of another.
It is not an easy task for one to disengage himself from the liv-
TO transfer one- ing present, and thus transport himself into a past age.
tolftheV1femote ^s we advance in general knowledge, and attain a
past not easy, higher civilization, we unconsciously grow out of old
habits and ideas. We lose the spirit of the olden times, and be
come filled with the broader generalization and more scientific pro
cedures of modern thought. The immensity of the universe, the
vast accumulations of human study and research, the influence of
great civil and ecclesiastical institutions, and the power of tradi
tional sentiment and opinions, govern and shape our modes of
thought to an extent we hardly know. To tear oneself away from
these, and go back in spirit to the age of Moses, or David, or
Isaiah, or Ezra, or of Matthew and Paul, and assume the historic
standpoint of any of those writers, so as to see and feel as they
did — this surely is no easy task. Yet, if we truly catch the spirit
and feel the living force of the ancient oracles of God, we need to
apprehend them somewhat as they first thrilled the hearts of those
for whom they were immediately given.
Not a few devout readers of the Bible are so impressed with ex-
Undue exaita- alted ideas of the glory and sanctity of the ancient
SSntf btobliCte worthies, tnat they are liable to take the record of their
avoided. lives in an unnatural light. To some it is difficult to'
believe that Moses and Paul were not acquainted with the events
of modern times. The wisdom of Solomon, they imagine, must
have comprehended all that man can know. Isaiah and Daniel
must have discerned all future events as clearly as if they had
already occurred. The writers of the New Testament must have
known what a history and an influence their lifework would possess
in after ages. To such minds the names of Abraham, Jacob,
Joshua, Jephthah, and Samson, are so associated with holy
thoughts and supernatural revelations that they half forget that
they were men of like passions with ourselves. Such an undue
exaltation of the sanctity of the biblical saints will be likely to
interfere with a true historical exposition. The divine call and
inspiration of prophets and apostles did not nullify or set aside
.their natural human powers, and the biblical interpreter should not
allow his vision to be so dazzled by the glory of their divine mis
sion as to make him blind to facts of their history. Abraham's
cunning and deceit, conspicuous also in Isaac and Jacob, Moses'
OCCASION OF PSALMS. 131
hasty passions, and the barbarous brutality of most of the judges
and kings of Israel, are not to be explained away. They are facts
which the interpreter must fully recognize; and the more fully and
vividly all such facts are realized and set in their true light and
bearing, the more accurately shall we apprehend the real import of
the Scriptures.
In the exposition of the Psalms, one of the first things to inquire
after is the personal standpoint of the author. "The T
Historical oc-
histoncal occasions of the Psalms, says Hibbard, " have casions of the
ever been regarded, by judicious commentators, as im- Psalms-
portant aids to their interpretation, and the full exhibition of their
beauty and power. In the explanation of a work on exact science,
or of a metaphysical essay, no importance is attached to the exter
nal circumstances and place of the author at the time of writing.
In such a case the work has no relation to passing events, but to
the abstract and essential relations of things. Very different is the
language of poetry, and indeed of almost all such books as the sa
cred Scriptures are, which were at first addressed to a particular
people, or to particular individuals, for their moral benefit, and
much of them occupied with the personal experiences of their
authors. Here occasion, contact with outward things, the influence
of external circumstances and of passing events, play a conspicu
ous part m giving mould and fashion to the thoughts and feelings
of the writer, scope and design to his subject, and meaning and
pertinency to his words. It may be said of the Hebrew poets, as
of those of all other nations, that the interpretation of their poetry
is less dependent on verbal criticism than on sympathy with the
feelings of the author, knowledge of his circumstances, and atten
tion to the scope and drift of his utterances. You must place
yourself in his condition, adopt his sentiments, and be floated on
ward with the current of his feelings, soothed by his consolations,
or agitated by the storm of his emotions."1
Of many of the Psalms it is impossible now to determine the
historical standpoint ; but not a few of them are so clear in their
allusions as to leave no reasonable doubt as to the occasion on
which they were composed. There is, for example, no good rea
son for doubting the genuineness of the inscription to the third
psalm, which refers the composition to David when he fled from
the face of his son Absalom. "From verse 5 we gather," says
Perowne, "that the psalm is a morning hymn. With returning
day there comes back on the monarch's heart the recollection of
1 The Psalms, Chronologically Arranged, with Historical Introductions, General In
troduction, page 12. New York, 1856.
132 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
the enemies who threaten him — a nation up in arms against him,
his own son heading the rebellion, his wisest and most trusted
counsellor in the ranks of his foes (2 Sam. xv-xvii). Never, not
even when hounded by Saul, had he found his position one of
greater danger. The odds were overwhelmingly against him.
This is a fact which he does not attempt to hide from himself:
1 How many are mine enemies; ' ' many rise up against me;' ' many
say to my soul;' lten thousands of the people have set themselves
against me ' (verses 1, 2, 6). Meanwhile, where are his friends, his
army, his counsellors? Not a word of allusion to any of them in
the psalm. Yet he is not crushed; he is not desponding. Ene
mies may be thick as the leaves of the forest, and earthly friends
may be few, or uncertain, or far off. But there is one Friend who
cannot fail him, and to him David turns with a confidence and
&ft'ection which lift him above all his fears. Never had he been
more sensible of the reality and preciousness of the divine protec
tion. If he was surrounded by his enemies, Jehovah was his shield.
If Shimei and his crew turned his glory into shame, Jehovah was
his glory. If they sought to revile and degrade him, Jehovah was
the lifter-up of his head. Nor did the mere fact of distance from
Jerusalem separate between him and his God. He had sent back
the ark and the priests, for he would not endanger their safety, and
he did not trust in them as a charm, and he knew that Jehovah
could still hear him from 'his holy mountain' (verse 4), could still
lift up the light of his countenance upon him, and put gladness in
his heart (Psa. iv, 6, 7). Sustained by Jehovah, he had laid him
down and slept in safety; trusting in the same mighty protection
he would lie down again to rest. Enemies might taunt him,
(verse 2), and friends might fail him, but the victory was Jeho
vah's, and he could break the teeth of the ungodly" (iii, 7, 8).1
The historical standpoint of a writer is so often intimately con-
consider the nected with his situation at the date of writing, that
S?3Seo?the both the time and the Place of the composition should
composition. be considered together. The locality of the incidents
recorded should also be closely studied and pictured before the
mind. It adds much to one's knowledge and appreciation of bib
lical history to visit the lands trodden by patriarchs, prophets, and
apostles. Seeing Palestine is, indeed, a fifth gospel. A personal
visit to Beer-sheba, Hebron, Jerusalem, Joppa, Nazareth, and the
Sea of Galilee, affords a realistic sense of sacred narratives con
nected with these places such as cannot otherwise be had. The
1 The Book of Psalms, New Translation, with Introductions and Notes. Introductiou
to Psalm iii. Andover, 1876.
PAUL'S JOURNEY. 133
decalogue and the laws of Moses become more awful and impres
sive when read upon Mount Sinai, and the Lord's agony in the
garden thrills the soul with deeper emotion when meditated in the
Kedron valley, beneath the old trees at the foot of the Mount of
Olives.
What a vividness and reality appear in the Epistles of Paul when
we study them in connexion with the account of his ,
.. . -11 11 1-1 n Journeys and
apostolic journeys and labours, and the physical and Epistles of
political features of the countries through which he F
passed! Setting out from Antioch on his second missionary tour,
accompanied by Silas, he passed through Syria and Cilicia, visiting,
doubtless, his early home at Tarsus (Acts xv, 40, 41). Thence he
passed over the vast mountain-barrier on the north of Cilicia, and,
after visiting Derbe and Lystra, where he attached Timothy to him
as a companion in travel, he went through the region of Phrygia
and Galatia, where, notwithstanding his physical infirmity, he was
received as an angel of God (Gal. iv, 13), Passing westward, and
having been forbidden to preach in the western parts of Asia Minor
(Acts xvi, 6), he came with his companions to Troas. " The district
of Troas," observes Howson, " extending from Mt. Ida to the plain,
watered by the Simois and the Scamander, was the scene of the
Trojan War; and it was due to the poetry of Homer that the an
cient name of Priam's kingdom should be retained. This shore had
been visited on many memorable occasions by the great men of this
world. Xerxes passed this way when he undertook to conquer
Greece. Julius Ca?sar was here after the battle of Pharsalia. But,
above all, we associate this spot with a European conqueror of
Asia, and an Asiatic conqueror of Europe, with Alexander of
Macedon and Paul of Tarsus. For here it was that the enthusiasm
of Alexander was kindled at the tomb of Achilles by the memory
of his heroic ancestors; here he girded on his armour, and from
this goal he started to overthrow the august dynasties of the East.
And now the great apostle rests in his triumphal progress upon the
same poetic shore; here he is armed by heavenly visitants with the
weapons of a warfare that is not carnal, and hence he is sent forth
to subdue all the powers of the West, and bring the civilization of
the world into captivity to the obedience of Christ." '
After the vision and the Macedonian call received at this place,
he sailed from Troas and came to Neapolis, and thence to Philippi,
the scene of many memorable events (Acts xvi, 12-40), and thence
on through Amphipolis, Apollonia, Thessalonica, and Berea, to
1 Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, vol. i, page 280. Fourth
American Edition. New York, 1865.
134 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
Athens. There Paul waited, alone (comp. 1 Thess. iii, 1), for his
companions, but failed not meanwhile to preach the Gospel to the
inquisitive Athenians, " standing in the midst of the Areopagus "
(Acts xvii, 22). After this he passed on to Corinth, and founded
there the Church to which he subsequently addressed two of his
most important epistles. From Corinth, soon after his arrival, he
sent his first epistle to the Thessalonians. From this standpoint
how lifelike and real are all the personal allusions and reminiscences
of this his first epistle ! But that letter, in its vivid allusions to the
near coming of the Lord, awakened great excitement among the
Thessalonians, and only a few months afterward we find him writ
ing his second epistle to them to allay this trouble of their minds,
and to assure them that that day is not so near but that several
important events must first come to pass (2 Thess. ii, 1-8). A
grouping of all these facts and suggestions adds vastly to one's
interest in the study of Paul's epistles.
Without pursuing further the course of the apostles life and
labours, enough has been said to show what light and interest a
knowledge of the time and place of writing gives to the Epistles of
Paul. The situation and condition of the churches and persons ad
dressed in his epistles should also be carefully sought out. His
subsequent epistles, especially those to the Corinthians, and those of
his imprisonment, would be shorn of half their interest and value
but for the knowledge we elsewhere obtain of the persons, inci
dents, and places to which references are made. What a tender
charm hangs about the Epistle to the Philippians from our knowl
edge of the apostle's first experiences in that Roman colony, his
subsequent visits there, and the thought that he is writing from his
imprisonment in Rome, and making frequent mention of his bonds
(Phil, i, 7, 13, 14), and of their former kindnesses toward him (iv,
15-18).'
Thorough inquiries into the narratives of Scripture have evinced
such m uiries tne mmute accuracy of the sacred writers, and silenced
silence infidel many cavils of infidelity. The treatise of James Smith
on the Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul a furnishes an
unanswerable argument for the authenticity of the Acts of the
Apostles. The author's practical experience as a sailor, his resi
dence at Malta, his familiar intercourse with the seamen of the
Levant, and his study of the ships of the ancients, qualified him
1 Stanley's History of the Jewish Church, Farrar's and Geikie's works on the Life of
Christ, and Farrar's, Conybeare and Howson's, and Lewin's Life and Epistles of St.
Paul, are especially rich in illustrations of the subject of this chapter.
5 Third Edition. London, 1866.
DATE OF APOCALYPSE. 135
pre-eminently to expound the last two chapters of the Acts. His
volume is a monument of painstaking research, and throws more
light upon the narrative of Paul's voyage from Caesarea to Rome
than all that had been written previously on that subject.1
The great importance of ascertaining the historical standpoint
of an author is notably illustrated by the controversy
. J •> The historical
over the date of the Apocalypse of J ohn. If that pro- standpoint of
phetical book was written before the destruction of the Apocalypse-
Jerusalem, a number of its particular allusions must most naturally
be understood as referring to that city and its fall. If, however, it
was written at the end of the reign of Domitian (about A. D. 96),
as many have believed, another system of interpretation is neces
sary to explain the historical allusions.
Taking, first, the external evidence touching the date of the
Apocalypse, it seems to us that no impartial mind can fail to see
that it preponderates in favor of the later date. But when we
scrutinize the character and extent of this evidence, it seems equally
clear that no very great stress can safely be laid upon it. For it
all turns upon the single testimony of Irenaeus, who r
r ,J. External testt-
wrote, according to the best authorities, about one hun- mony hangs on
dred years after the death of John, and who says that l
in boyhood he had seen and conversed with Polycarp, and heard
him speak of his familiar intercourse with John.3 This fact would,
of course, make his testimony of peculiar value, but, at the same
time, it should be borne in mind that at an early age he removed to
1 The following passage from Lewin is a noteworthy illustration of the value of
personal research in refuting captious objections to the historical accuracy of the Bi
ble. " It is objected to the account of the viper fastening upon Paul's hand," says
Lewin, " that there is no wood in Malta, except at Bosquetta, and that there are
no vipers in Malta. How, then, it is said, could the apostle have collected the sticks,
and how couid a viper have fastened upon his hand ? But when I visited the Bay of
St. Paul, in 1851, by sea, I observed trees growing in the vicinity, and there were also
fig-trees growing among the rocks at the water's edge where the vessel was wrecked.
But there is a better explanation still. When I was at Malta in 1863, I went with
two companions to the Bay of St. Paul by land, and this was at the same season of
the year as when the wreck occurred. We now noticed on the shore, just opposite
the scene of the wreck, eight or nine stacks of small faggots, and in the nearest stack
I counted twenty-five bundles. They consisted of a kind of thorny heather, and had
evidently been cut for firewood. As we strolled about, my companions, whom I had
quitted to make an observation, put up a viper, or a reptile having the appearance of
one, which escaped into the bundle of sticks. It may not have been poisonous, but
was like an adder, and was quite different from the common snake ; one of my fel
low-travellers was quite familiar with the difference between snakes and adders, and
could not well be mistaken." — The Life and Epistles of St. Paul, vol. ii, page 208.
* Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book v, chap. xx.
136 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
the remote West, and became bishop of Lyons, in France, far from
the associations of his early life. It would, therefore, have been no
strange thing if he had somewhat confounded names and dates.
His testimony is as follows : " We therefore do not run the risk of
pronouncing positively concerning the name of the Antichrist [hid
den in the number 666, Rev. xiii, 18], for if it were necessary to
have his name distinctly announced at the present time, it would
doubtless have been announced by him who saw the Apocalypse;
for it is not a great while ago that it [or he] was seen (ovde yap rrpd
TroAAoi) XQOVOV ewpdtf?/), but almost in our own generation, toward
the end of Domitian's reign." ' Here it should be noted that the
subject of the verb ewpd^, was seen, is ambiguous, and may be
either it, referring to the Apocalypse, or he, referring to John him
self. But allowing it to refer to the Apocalypse, we have then this
testimony to the later date.
But what external testimony have we besides? Only Eusebius,
who lived and wrote a hundred years after Irenaeus, and who ex
pressly quotes Irenseus as his authority.2 He also quotes Clement
of Alexandria as saying that "after the tyrant was dead" John
returned from the isle of Patmos to Ephesus.3 But it nowhere
appears that Clement indicated who the tyrant was, or that he be
lieved him to have been Domitian. It is Eusebius who puts that
meaning in his words, and it is matter of notoriety that Eusebius
himself, after quoting various opinions, leaves the question of the
authorship of the Apocalypse in doubt.4 Origen's testimony is also
adduced, but he merely says that John was condemned by "the
king of the Romans," not intimating at all who that king was, but
calling attention to the fact that John himself did not name his
persecutor. All other testimonies on the subject are later than
these, and consequently of little or no value. If Eusebius was de
pendent on Irenseus for his information, it is not likely that later
writers drew from any other source. But that the voice of antiq
uity was not altogether uniform on this subject may be inferred
from the fact that an ancient fragment of a Latin document, prob
ably as old as Irenseus' writings, mentions Paul as following the
order of his predecessor John in writing to seven churches. The
value of this ancient fragment is its evidence of a current notion
that John's Apocalypse was written before the decease of Paul.
Epiphanius dates John's banishment in the reign of Claudius Caesar,
and the superscription to the Syriac version of the Apocalypse
1 Adversus Haereses, v, 30.
2 See Eccles. History, book iii, 18 and v, 8. 3 Ibid., book iii, 23.
4 See especially Alford's Prolegomena to the Revelation.
AUTHOR'S TESTIMONY. 137
places it in the reign of Nero.1 No one would lay great stress upon
any of these later statements, but putting them all together, and
letting the naked facts stand apart, shorn of all the artful colour
ings of partisan writers, we find the external evidence of John's
writing the Apocalypse at the close of Domitian's reign resting on
the sole testimony of Irenseus, who wrote a hundred years after
that date, and whose words admit of two different meanings.
One clear and explicit testimony, when not opposed by other
evidence, would be allowed by all fair critics to control the argu
ment ; but not so when many other considerations tend to weaken
it. It would seem much easier to account for the confusion of tra
dition on the date of John's banishment than to explain away the
definite references of the Apocalypse itself to the temple, the court,
and the city as still standing when the book was written. All tra
dition substantially agrees, that John's last years of labour were
spent among the churches of Western Asia, and it is very possible
that he was banished to the isle of Patmos during the reign of
Domitian. That banishment may have occurred long after John
had gone to the same island for another reason, and later writers,
misapprehending the apostle's words, might have easily confounded
the two events.
John's own testimony is that he "was in the island which is
called Patmos on account of the word of God (<5ia rov John's own
Aoyov rov $eov) and the testimony of Jesus" (Rev. i, 9). t6811111011?-
Alf ord says, though he does not adopt this meaning, that " in St.
Paul's usage, did would here signify for the sake of; that is, for the
purpose of receiving ; so that the apostle would have gone to Pat
mos [not as an exile, but] by special revelation in order to receive
this Apocalypse. Again, keeping to this meaning of did, these
words may mean that he visited Patmos in pursuance of, for the
purposes of, his ordinary apostolic employment, which might well
be designated by these substantives." a This proper and all-suffif-
1 See Stuart, Commentary on the Apocalypse, vol. i, pp. 265-269.
* Greek Testament, in loco. See also De Wette, in loco. Alford's " three objec
tions " appear to us without force ; for (1) the mention of tribulation and patience in
this verse by no means requires us to understand that he was then suffering from ban
ishment. (2) The parallels (chap, vi, 9 ; xx, 4) which he cites to determine the use
of 6id are offset by its use in ii, S ; iv, 11 ; xii, 11 ; xiii, 14 ; xviii, 10, 15, in all which
places, as also in vi, 9 and xx, 4, it is to be understood as setting forth the ground or
reason of what is stated. This meaning holds alike, whether we believe that John
went to Patmos freely or as an exile, on account of the word of God. Comp. Winer,
N. T. Grammar, § 49, on did. (3) The traditional banishment of John to Patmos may
have occurred, as we have shown above, long after he had first gone there on a«count
of the testimony of Jesus.
138 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
cient explanation of his words allows us to suppose that John re
ceived the Revelation in Patmos, whither he had gone, either by
some special divine call, or in pursuance of his apostolic labours.
The tradition, therefore, of his exile under Domitian may be true,
and at the same time not affect the question of the date of the
'Apocalypse.1
Turning now to inquire what internal evidence may be found
touching the historical standpoint of the writer, observe :
Internal <?vi-
dence of date. (1) That no critic of any note has ever claimed that the
six points. later ^ate jg require(j by any internal evidence. (2) On
the contrary, if John the apostle is the author, the comparatively
rough Hebraic style of the language unquestionably argues for it
an earlier date than his Gospel or Epistles. For, special pleading
aside, it must on all rational grounds be conceded, that a Hebrew,
in the supposed condition of John, would, after years of intercourse
and labour in the churches of Asia, acquire by degrees a purer
Greek style. (3) The address " to the seven churches which are in
Asia" (i, 4, 11), implies that, at this time, there were only seven
churches in that Asia where Paul was once forbidden by the Spirit
to speak the word (Acts xvi, 6, V). Macdonald says, "An earth
quake, in the ninth year of Nero's reign, overwhelmed both Lao-
dicea and ColossaB (Pliny, Hist. Xat., v, 41), and the church at the
latter place does not appear to have been restored. As the two
places were in close proximity, what remained of the church at
Colossa3 probably became identified with the one at Laodicea.
The churches at Tralles and Magnesia could not have been estab
lished until a considerable time after the Apocalypse was written.
Those who contend for the later date, when there must have been"
a greater number of churches than seven in the region designated
by the apostle, fail to give any sufficient reason for his mentioning
no more. That they mystically or symbolically represent others is
surely not such a reason."2 (4) The prominence in which persecu
tion from the Jews is set forth in the Epistles to the seven churches
also argues an early date. After the fall of Jenisalem, Christian
persecution and troubles came almost altogether from pagan sources,
and Jewish opposition and Judaizing heretics became of little note.
1 Any one who will compare the rapidity of Paul's movements on his missionary
journeys, and note how he addressed epistles to some of his churches (e. g., Thessa-
lonians) a few months after his first visitation, will have no difficulty in understand
ing how John could have visited all the seven churches of Asia, and also have gone
thence to Patmos and received the Revelation, within a year after departing from
Jerusalem. But John, like Paul, probably wrote to churches he had not visited.
3 The Life and Writings of John. p. 155.
INTERNAL EVIDENCE. 189
(5) A most weighty argument for the early date appears in the
mention of the temple, court, and city in chapter xi, 1-3. These
references and the further designation, in verse 8, of that city
" which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their
Lord was crucified," obviously imply that the Jewish temple, court,
and city were yet standing. To plead that these familiar appella
tives are not real, but only mystical allusions, is to assume the very
point in question. The most simple reference should stand unless
convincing reasons to the contrary be shown. When the writer
proceeds to characterize the city by a proper symbolical name, he
calls it Sodom and Egypt, and is careful to tell us that it is so called
spiritually (TrvevnaTiK&g), but, as if to prevent any possibility of
misunderstanding his reference, he adds that it is the place where
the Lord was crucified.
(6) Finally, what should especially impress every reader is the
emphatic statement, placed in the very title of the book, and re
peated in one form and another again and again, that this is a
revelation of " things which must shortly (ev rd^eC) come to pass,'*
and the time of which is near at hand (eyy£<r, Rev. i, 1, 3 ; xxii, 6, 7,
10, 12, 20). If the seer, writing a few years before the terrible
catastrophe, had the destruction of Jerusalem and its attendant
woes before him, all these expressions have a force and definiteness
which every interpreter must recognize.1 But if the things contem-
1 The trend of modern criticism is unmistakably toward the adoption of the early
date of the Apocalypse, and yet the best scholars differ. Elliott, Hengstenberg,
Lange, Alford, and Whedon contend strongly that the testimony of Irenaeus and the
ancient tradition ought to control the question ; while, on the other hand, Liicke,
Xeander, De Wette, Ewald, Bleek, Auberlen, Hilgenfeld, Diisterdieck, Stuart, Macdon-
ald, Davidson, J. B. Lightfoot, Glasgow, Farrar, Westcott, Cowles, and Schaff main
tain that the book, according to its own internal evidence, must have been written be
fore the destruction of Jerusalem. The last-named scholar, in the new edition of his
Church History (vol. i, pp. 834-837), revokes his acceptance of the Domitian date
which he affirmed thirty years ago, and now maintains that internal evidence for an
earlier date outweighs the external tradition. Writers on both sides of this question
have probably been too much influenced by some theory of the seven kings in chap,
xvii, 10 (see below, p. 371), and have placed the composition much later than valid
evidence warrants. Glasgow (The Apoc. Trans, and Expounded, pp. 9-38) adduces
proof not easy to be set aside that the Revelation was written before any of the
Epistles, probably somewhere between A. D. 50 and 54. Is it not supposable that one
reason why Paul was forbidden to preach the word in Western Asia (Acts xvi, 6) was
that John was either already there, or about to enter? The prevalent opinion that
the First Epistle of John was written after the fall of Jerusalem rests on no certain
evidence. To assume, from the writer's use of the term " little children," that he was
very far advanced in years, is futile. John was probably no older than Paul, but
some time before the fall of Jerusalem the latter was wont to speak of himself as
"Paul the aged." Philem. 9.
140 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS.
plated were in the distant future, these simple words of time must
be subjected to the most violent and unnatural treatment in order to
make the statements of the writer compatible with the exposition.
A consideration of these evidences, external and internal, of the
date of the Apocalypse, shows what delicacy and dis-
Great delicacy J r . ,J
anddiscrimina- crimination are requisite in an interpreter in order to
tion essential. Determine the historical standpoint of such a prophet
ical book. As far as possible, all systems of prophetical interpreta
tion should be held in abeyance until that question is determined;
but it may become necessary, in view of the conflicting evidences
of the date and the difficulties of the book itself, to withhold all
judgment as to the historical standpoint of the writer until we have
tried the different methods of interpretation, and have thus had
opportunity to judge which exposition affords the best solution of
the difficulties.
This, then, is to be held as a canon of interpretation, that all due
regard must be had to the person and circumstances of the author,
the time and place of his writing, and the occasion and reasons
which led him to write. Nor must we omit similar inquiry into the
character, conditions, and history of those for whom the book was
written, and of those also of whom the book makes mention.
PART SECOND.
SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY.
WHILE it is true that the Bible is to be interpreted like other books,
and therefore requires attention to the laws of General r
. . . Special quali-
Hermeneutics, it is also a notable fact that in many re- ties of the^i-
spects it differs from all other books. It contains many ble>
revelations in the form of types, symbols, parables, allegories, vis
ions, and dreams. The poetry of the Hebrews is a special study in
itself, and no one is competent to appreciate or expound it who has
not become familiar both with its spirit and its formal elements.
And what a wealth of figurative language in the Bible ! " I am
persuaded," wrote Sir William Jones, "that this volume, indepen
dently of its divine origin, contains more true sublimity, more ex
quisite beauty, more pure morality, more important history, and
finer strains of poetry and eloquence than can be collected from all
other books, in whatever age or language they may have been
written." *
The Bible, moreover, is a textbook of religion, and its chief
value is seen in the fact that it is divinely adapted to be Textbook of
profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and religion,
for instruction in righteousness (2 Tim. iii, 16). It is therefore of
the highest importance to know to what extent these sacred instruc
tions may be gathered from the written word, and to guard against
false methods in the elaboration of scriptural doctrine. Some exe-
getes manifest a morbid desire to find "mountains of sense in every
line of Holy Writ," and are constantly finding double meanings,
recondite allusions, and marvellous revelations in the plainest pas
sages. Others go to an opposite extreme, and not only eliminate
the doctrines of the supernatural, but even refuse to recognize some
of the most obvious lessons touching the unseen and eternal which
are set forth on many a page. No faithful and permanently satis-
1 Written on a blank leaf in his Bible.
10
142 SPECIAL HERMEXEUTICS.
factory exposition of the book of religious instruction is possible
without a sound conception of the spiritual nature of man, and of
faith in God as the means of religious life and growth.
It is also to be observed that the Holy Scriptures are the accretion
of a literature that covers some sixteen centuries, and
variety of sub
ject matter and represents various authors and times of composition.
These books embody biography, history, law, ritual,
psalmody, drama, proverbs, prophecy, apocalypses, and epistles.
Some were written by kings, others by shepherds, and prophets, and
fishermen. One writer was a taxgatherer, another a tentmaker, an
other a physician. They lived and wrote at various periods, some of
them centuries apart from others, and their places of residence were
also far separate, as Arabia, Palestine, Babylon, Persia, Asia Minor,
Greece, and Rome. The antiquities and varying civilizations of dif
ferent nations are imaged in these books, and when the name of an
author is not known, it is usually not difficult to ascertain approx
imately, from his statements or allusions, the time and circumstances
of his writing. The obvious result is that the Bible comprises a great
diversity of literature, and the larger portion of it calls for special
hermeneutics in its interpretation.
It is an important part of the province of Special Hermeneutics to
Distinction set forth the distinction between the essential thought
STce aSn*d of a writer and the form in which 'lt is clothed. No lit-
fonn. tie confusion has been introduced into biblical exposi
tion by reason of a failure to make this discrimination. The faith
ful and true interpreter must imbibe the spirit of the author whom
he would expound. If he would understand and explain Isaiah, he
must not only transport himself into the age in which that prophet
lived, but must also become possessed of some measure of his emo
tion when he bewailed the abominations of his time. And when, for
example, the son of Amoz portrays the sinful nation as diseased in
head and heart, and declares that from the sole of the foot even unto
the head there is no soundness, but rather wounds, and bruises, and
raw sores (Isa. i, 6), we are not to insist on the full significance of
each particular word. Such doleful utterances, even of inspired
prophets, are likely to contain elements of oriental hyperbole, and
may, at times, be coloured by the speaker's own despondency. A
notable instance of this kind is the language of Elijah in 1 Kings
xix, 10 (comp. verse 18), and it is probable that other prophets, al
though not fleeing for their lives, have sometimes expressed their
heart-sorrow in a similar strain. When Isaiah in the name of Jeho
vah denounces the burnt offerings of Israel as an abomination (Isa.
i, 11-14), we are not to rush to the conclusion that his language is
143
equivalent to a condemnation of animal sacrifices in general, nor
does it warrant the opinion that the ritual of the sanctuary was not
of divine appointment. The passage in Jer. vii, 21-26 has troubled
some critics because of its apparent conflict with the recorded his
tory of the exodus; but is not its real import best apprehended when
we recognize it, not as a prosaic statement of historical fact, to be
literally understood, but as an impassioned outburst of prophetic
inspiration, designed to emphasize the utter worthlessness of sacri
fice when made a substitute for obedience ? Special Hermeneutics
aims to find the proper analysis and import of such language of
emotion. It must take cognizance both of the spirit and the forms
of human speech, and distinguish correctly between them. In like
manner must it treat of all which is special or peculiar in the Holy
Scriptures, and which, accordingly, differentiates these writings
from other compositions of men.1
Biblical Hermeneutics is a department of General Hermeneutics,
and, as we have seen, calls in the main for the application of the
general principles required in the interpretation of all literature.
But as so large a portion of the Bible is composed of poetry and
prophecy, and contains so many examples of parable, allegory, type,
and symbol, it is proper in treating the science of biblical interpre
tation to devote more space to Special than to General Hermeneutics.
Parables, allegories, types, and symbols, have their peculiar laws,
and grammatico-historical interpretation must give attention to
rhetorical form and prophetic symbolism, as well as to the laws of
grammar and the facts of history.
The principles of Special Hermeneutics must be gathered from a
faithful study of the Bible itself. "We must observe The Bib]e
the methods which the sacred writers followed. Naked own best inter-
propositions or formulated rules will be of little value preter-
unless supported and illustrated by self-verifying examples. It is
worthy of note that the Scriptures furnish numerous instances of the
interpretation of dreams, visions, types, symbols, and parables. In
such examples we are to find our principles and laws of exposition.
The Holy Scripture is no Delphic oracle, to bewilder the heart by
utterances of double meaning. Taken as a whole, and allowed to
speak for itself, the Bible will be found to be its own best interpreter.
1 The very peculiarities of the Bible have undoubtedly contributed largely to their
enduring power over the human heart "This volume," says "Phelps, has never
numbered among its believers a fourth part of the human race, yet it has swayed a
greater amount of mind than any other volume the world has known. It has the
singular faculty of attracting to itself the thinkers of the world, either as friends or
foes, always and every- where." — Men and Books, p. 239, New York, 1882.
144 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
CHAPTER II.
HEBKEW POETBY.
MUCH of the Old Testament is composed in a style and form of lan-
oid Testament Suage ^ar a^ove that of simple prose. The historical
largely poeti- books abound in spirited addresses, odes, lyrics, psalms,
and fragments of song. The books of Job, Psalms,
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon, are highly poetical,
and the prophetical books (D^nnx D^'OJ, later prophets of Hebrew
Canon) are mainly of the same order. Nearly one half of the Old
Testament is written in this poetic style. But the poetry of the
Hebrews has peculiarities as marked and distinct from that of other
nations as the language itself is different from other families of
languages. Its metre is not that of syllables, but of sentences and
sentiments. Properly speaking, Hebrew poetry knows nothing
Not metrical in of metrical feet and versification analogous to the poet-
structure, ical form of the Indo-European tongues. The learned
and ingenious attempts of some scholars to construct a system of
Hebrew metres are now generally regarded as failures. There are
discernible an elevated style, a harmony and parallelism of sen
tences, a sonorous flow of graphic words, an artificial arrangement
of clauses, repetitions, transpositions, and rhetorical antitheses,
which constitute the life of poetry. But the form is nowhere that
of syllabic metre.1 Some scholars have supposed that, since the
Hebrew became a dead language, the ancient pronunciation is so
utterly lost that it is therefore impossible now to discover or restore
its ancient metres. But this, at best, is a doubtful hypothesis, and
has all probabilities against it.
1 On the subject of Hebrew poetry, see Lowth, Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews, in.
Latin, with notes of Michaelis, Rosenmuller, and others (Oxford, 1828), and English
Translation, edited by Stowe (Andover, 1829), and the Preliminary Dissertation to
his Isaiah; Bellerman, Versuch iiber die Metrik der Hebriier (Berlin, 1813); Saal-
schutz, Form der hebraischen Poesie nebst einer Abhandlung iiber die Musik der
Hebriier (Konigsb., 1825), and the same author's Form und Geist der hebraischen
Poesie (1853) ; Ewald, die poetischen Biicher des alten Bundes, vol. i, Translated by
isicholson in Kitto's Journal of Sacred Literature for Jan. and April, 1848 ; Herder,
Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, English Translation, in two vols., by James Marsh (Burl-
ington, Tt., 1833); Isaac Taylor, The Spirit of Hebrew Poetry (Phila., 1873); De
Wette, Introduction to his Commentar iiber die Psalmeu, pp. 32-63.
SPEECHES OP LABAN AND JACOB. 145
The distinguishing feature of Hebrew poetry is now generally
acknowledged to be the parallelism of members. This T
., . i* * u u j • -j Parallelism the
would be a very natural form tor such short and vivid distinguishing
sentences as characterize Hebrew syntax. Let the soul feature-
be filled with deep emotion; let burning passions move the heart,
and sparkle in the eye, and speak loudly in the voice, and the simple
sentences of Hebrew prose would spontaneously take poetic form.
In illustration of this we may instance the exciting controversy of
Jacob and Laban in Gen. xxxi. The whole chapter is like a pas
sage from an ancient epic; but when we read the speeches of Laban
and Jacob we seem to feel the wild throbbings of their human pas
sions. The speeches are not cast in the artificial harmony of par
allelism which appears in the poetical books; but we shall best ob
serve their force by presenting them in the following form. After
seven days' hot pursuit, Laban overtakes Jacob in Mount Gilead,
and assails him thus:
What hast thou done ?
And thou hast stolen my heart,
And hast carried off my daughters
As captives of the sword.
Why didst thou hide thyself to flee?
And thou hast stolen me,
And thou didst not inform me,
And I would have sent thee away with joy,
And with songs, with timbrel and with harp.
And thou didst not permit me to kiss my sons and my daughters!
Now hast thou played the fool — to do!
It is to the God of my hand
To do with you an evil.
But the God of your father
Yesternight said to me, saying :
Guard thyself from speaking with Jacob from good to evil.
And now, going thou hast gone ;
For longing thou hast longed for the house of thy father.
Why hast thou stolen my gods ? Verses 26-30.
After the goods have been searched, and no gods found, " Jacob
•was wroth, and chode with Laban," and uttered his pent-up emo
tion in the following style:
What my trespass,
What my sin,
That thou hast been burning after me ?
For thou hast been feeling all my vessels;
What hast thou found of all the vessels of thy house?
146 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
Place here —
Before my brethren and thy brethren,
And let them decide between us two.
This twenty year I with thee ;
Thy ewes and thy goats have not been bereft,
And the rams of thy flock have I not eaten.
The torn I brought not to thee ;
I atoned for it.
Of my hand didst thou demand it,
Stolen by day,
Or stolen by night.
I have been —
In the day heat devoured me,
And cold in the night,
And my sleep fled from my eyes.
This to me twenty year in thy house.
I served thee fourteen year for two of thy daughters,
And six years for thy flock ;
And thou hast changed nay wages ten parts.
Unless the God of my father,
The God of Abraham and the fear of Isaac, were for me, —
That now empty thou hadst sent me away.
The affliction and the labour of my hands
God has seen,
And he was judging yesternight. Verses 36-42.
This may not be poetry, in the strict sense; but it is certainly
not the language of common prose. The rapidity of movement,
the emotion, the broken lines, and the abrupt transitions, serve to
show how a language of such peculiar structure as the Hebrew
might early and naturally develop a poetic form, whose distinguish
ing feature would be a harmony of successive sentences, or some
artificial concord or contrast of different sentiments, rather than
syllabic versification. Untrammeled by metric limitations, the He
brew poet enjoyed a peculiar freedom, and could utter the moving
sentiments of passion in a great variety of forms.
We cannot too strongly emphasize the fact that some structural
Form essential form is essential to all poetry. The elements of poetry
to poetry. are invention, inspiration, and expressive form. But
all possible genius for invention, and all the inspiration of most
fervent passion, would go for nothing without some suitable mould
in which to set them forth. When the creations of genius and in
spiration have taken a monumental form in language, that form
becomes an essential part of the whole. Hence the impossibility
of translating the poetry of Homer, or Virgil, or David, into Eng-
FORM IN POETRY. 147
lish prose, or the prose of any other language, and at the same time
preserving the power and spirit of the original.
Bayard Taylor's translation of Goethe's Faust is a masterpiece
in this, that it is a remarkably successful attempt to
7 ' Bayard Taylor
transfer from one language to another not merely the on form in
thoughts, the sentiment, and the exact meaning of the poetrj-
author, but also the form and rhythm. Mr. Taylor argues very
forcibly, and we think truly, that " the value of form in a poetical
work is the first question to be considered. Poetry," he observes,
" is not simply a fashion of expression ; it is the form of expression
absolutely required by a certain class of ideas. Poetry, indeed,
may be distinguished from prose by the single circumstance that it
is the utterance of whatever in man cannot be perfectly uttered in
any other than a rhythmical form. It is useless to say that the naked
meaning is independent of the form. On the contrary, the form
contributes essentially to the fulness of the meaning. In poetry
which endures through its own inherent vitality, there is no forced
union of these two elements. They are as intimately blended, an<?
with the same mysterious beauty, as the sexes in the ancient Her-
maphroditus. To attempt to represent poetry in prose is very
much like attempting to translate music into speech."1
How impossible to translate perfectly into any other form the
following passage from Milton :
Now storming fury rose,
And clamour such as heard in Heaven till now
Was never; arms on armour clashing brayed
Horrible discord, and the maddening wheels
Of brazen chariots raged ; dire was the noise
Of conflict ; overhead the dismal hiss
Of fiery darts in flaming volleys flew,
And flying vaulted either host with fire.
So under fiery cope together rushed
Both battles main, with ruinous assault
And inextinguishable rage. All Heaven
Resounded, and had earth been then, all earth
Had to her centre shook. What wonder? when
Millions of fierce encountering angels fought
On either side, the least of whom could wield
These elements, and arm him with the force
Of all their regions.2
The very form of this passage, as it stands before the reader's
eye, contributes not a little to the emotions produced by it in the
1 Preface to Translation of Goethe's Faust.
* Paradise Lost, Book vi, lines 207-223.
148 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
soul of a man of taste. Change the order of the words, or attempt
to state their naked meaning in prose, and the very ideas will seem
to vanish. The grandeur and beauty of the passage are due as
much to the rhythm, the emphatic collocation of words, the express
iveness of the form in which the whole is placed before us, as to
the sublime conceptions they embody. But if so much is due to
the form of poetic writing, much must be lost from any noble poem
when transferred to another language shorn of these elements of
power. The least we can do is to make prominent in our transla
tions the measured forms of the original. So far as it may be done
without too great violence to the idioms of our own tongue, we
should preserve the same order of words, emphatic forms of state
ment, and abrupt transitions. In these respects Hebrew poetry is
Hebrew spirit probably more capable of exact translation than that of
and form may any other language. For there is no rhyme, no metric
served in trans- scale, to be translated. Two things it is essential to
preserve — the spirit and the form, and both of these
are of such a nature as to make it possible to reproduce them to a
great extent in almost any other language.1
1 No man, perhaps, has shown a greater power to present in English the real spirit
of Hebrew poetry than Tayler Lewis. The following version of Job iv, 12-21, while
not exactly following the Hebrew collocation of the words, and giving to some words
a meaning scarcely sustained by Hebrew usage, does, nevertheless, bring out the spirit
and force of the original in a most impressive way :
To me, at times, there steals a warning word ;
Mine ear its whisper seems to catch.
In troubled thoughts from spectres of the night,
When falls on men the vision-seeing trance, —
And fear has come, and trembling dread,
And made my every bone to thrill with awe, —
"Pis then before me stirs a breathing form ;
O'er all my flesh it makes the hair rise up.
It stands ; no face distinct can I discern ;
An outline is before mine eyes ;
Deep silence ! then a voice I hear:
Is mortal man more just than God?
Is boasting man more pure than he who made him ?
In his own servants, lo, he trustetb not,
Even on his angels doth he charge defect.
Much more to them who dwell in homes of clay,
With their foundation laid in dust,
And crumbled like the moth
From morn till night they're stricken down ;
Without regard they perish utterly.
Their cord of life, is it not torn away ?
They die— still lacking wisdom.
See the notes on this rhythmical version, in which Lewis defends the accuracy of
bis translation, in Lange's Commentary on Job, pp. 69, 60. See also Lewis' articles
on The Emotional Element in Hebrew Translation, in the Methodist Quarterly Review,
for Jan., 1862, Jan. and July, 1863, and Jan., 1864.
HEBREW PARALLELISM. 149
While the spirit and emotionality of Hebrew poetry are aue to
a combination of various elements, the parallelism of structural form
sentences is a most marked feature of its outward form, of Hebrew par-
This it becomes us now to exhibit more fully, for a a
scientific interpretation of the poetical portions of the Old Testa
ment requires that the parallelism be not ignored. Joseph Addison
Alexander, indeed, animadverts upon Bishop Lowth's "supposed
discovery of rhythm or measure in the Hebrew prophets," and con
demns his theory as unsound and in bad taste.1 But his strictures
seem to proceed on the assumption that the theory of parallelism
involves the idea of metrical versification analogous to the prosody
of other languages. Aside from such an assumption they have no
relevancy or force. For it is indisputable that the large portions
of the Hebrew scriptures, commonly regarded as poetical, are as
capable of arrangement in well-defined parallelisms as the variety
of Greek metres are capable of being reduced to system and rules.
The short and vivid sentences which are a peculiar characteristic
of Hebrew speech would lead, by a very natural proc- The process of
ess, to the formation of parallelisms in poetry. The S^naS
desire to present a subject most impressibly would in Hebrew,
lead to repetition, and the tautology would show itself in slightly
varying forms of one and the same thought. Thus the following,
from Prov. i, 24-27:
Because I have called, and ye refuse;
I have stretched out my hand, and no one attending;
And ye refuse all my counsel,
And my correction ye have not desired ;
Also I in your calamity will laugh ;
I will mock at the coming of your terror;
At the coming — as a roaring tempest — of your terror;
And your calamity as a sweeping whirlwind shall come on ;
At the coming upon you of distress and anguish.
Other thoughts would be more forcibly expressed by setting tnem
in contrast with something of an opposite nature. Hence such
parallelisms as the following:
They have kneeled down and fallen;
But we have arisen and straightened ourselves up. Psa. xx, 9.
The memory of the righteous (is) for a blessing,
But the name of the wicked shall be rotten.
The wise of heart will take commands,
But a prating fool shall be thrown down. Prov. x, 7, 8.
1 See the Introduction to his Commentary on The Earlier Prophecies of Isaiah, pp
48,49. New York, 1846.
150 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
Such simple distichs would readily develop into more complex ex
amples of parallelism, and we find among the Hebrew poems a great
variety of forms in which the sacred writers sought to set forth
their burning thoughts. The more common and regular forms of
Hebrew parallelism are classified by Lowth under three general
heads, which he denominates Synonymous, Antithetic, and Syn
thetic. These, again, may be subdivided, according as the lines
form simple couplets or triplets, or have measured correspondence
in sentiment and length, or are unequal, and broken by sudden bursts
of passion, or by some impressive refrain.
1. SYNONYMOUS PARALLELISM.
Here we place passages in which the different lines or members
present the same thought in a slightly altered manner of expres
sion. To this class belong the couplets of Prov. i, 24-27 cited
above, where it will be seen there is a constant repetition of thought
under a variety of words. Three kinds of synonymous parallels
may be specified:
a) Identical, when the different members are composed of the
same, or nearly the same, words:
Thou wert snared in the sayings of thy mouth ;
Thou wert taken in the sayings of thy mouth. Prov. vi, 2.
They lifted up, the floods, O Jehovah ;
They lifted up, the floods, their voice;
They lift up, the floods, their dashing. Psa. xciii, 3.
It shall devour the parts of his skin,
It shall devour his parts, the first-born of death. Job xviii, 13.
For in a night is spoiled Ar, Moab, cut oif.
For in a night is spoiled Kir, Moab, cut off. Isa. xv, 1
b) Similar, when the sentiment is substantially the same, but
language and figures are different:
For he on seas has founded it.
And on floods will he establish it. Psa. xxiv, 2.
Brays the wild ass over the tender grass ?
Or lows the ox over his provender? Job vi, 5.
c) Inverted, when there is an inversion or transposition of words
or sentences so as to change the order of thought:
The heavens are telling the glory of God,
And the work of his hands declares the expanse. Psa. xix, 2.
They did not keep the covenant of God,
And in his law they refused to walk. Psa. Ixxviii, 10.
HEBREW PARALLELISM. 151
For unto me is he lovingly joined, and I will deliver him;
I will exalt him, for he has known my name. Psa. xci, 14.
Strengthen ye the weak hands,
And the feeble knees confirm. Isa. xxxv, 3.
2. ANTITHETIC PARALLELISM.
Under this head come all passages in which there is a contrast or
opposition of thought presented in the different sentences. This
kind of parallelism abounds in the Book of Proverbs especially,
for it is peculiarly adapted to express maxims of proverbial wis
dom. There are two forms of antithetic parallelism:
«) Simple, when the contrast is presented in a single distich of
simple sentences:
Righteousness will exalt a nation,
But the disgrace of peoples is sin. Prov. xiv, 34.
The tongue of wise men makes knowledge good,
But the mouth of fools pours out folly. Prov. xv, 2.
For a moment in his anger :
Lifetimes in his favour.
In the evening abideth weeping;
And at morning, a shout of joy. Psa. xxx, 5. (6.)
b) Compound, when there are two or more sentences in each
member of the antithesis:
The ox has known his owner,
And the ass the crib of his lord ;
Israel has not known, —
My people have not shown themselves discerning. Isa. i, 3.
If ye be willing, and have heard,
The good of the land shall ye eat ;
But if ye refuse, and have rebelled,
A sword shall eat —
For the mouth of Jehovah has spoken. Isa. i, 19, 20.
In a little moment I forsook thee,
But in great mercies I will gather thee.
In the raging of wrath I hid my face a moment from thee ;
But with everlasting kindness have I had mercy on thee.
Isa. liv, 7, 8,.
3. SYNTHETIC PARALLELISM.
Synthetic or Constructive Parallelism consists, according to
Lowth's definition, "only in the similar form of construction, in
which word does not answer to word, and sentence to sentence, as
equivalent or opposite; but there is a correspondence and equality
153 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
between different propositions in respect to the shape and turn of
the whole sentence and of the constructive parts; such as noun
answering to noun, verb to verb, member to member, negative to
negative, interrogative to interrogative."1 Two kinds of synthetic
parallels may be noticed :
«) Correspondent, when there is a designed and formal corre
spondency between related sentences, as in the following example
from Psa. xxvii, 1, where the first line corresponds with the third,
and the second with the fourth :
Jehovah, my light and my salvation,
Of whom shall I be afraid?
Jehovah, fortress of my life,
Of whom shall I stand in terror?
This same style of correspondence is noticeable in the following
compound antithetic parallelism :
They shall be ashamed and blush together,
Who are rejoicing in my harm ;
They shall be clothed with shame and disgrace,
Who magnify themselves over me.
They shall shout and rejoice,
Who delight in my righteousness,
And they shall say continually — be magnified, Jehovah,
Who delight in the peace of his servant. Psa. xxxv, 26, 27.
5) Cumulative, when there is a climax of sentiment running
through the successive parallels, or when there is a constant varia
tion of words and thought by means of the simple accumulation
of images or ideas :
Happy the man who has not walked in the counsel of wicked ones,
And in the way of sinners has not stood,
And in the seat of scorners has not sat down ;
But in the law of Jehovah is his delight;
Aud in his law will he meditate day and night. Psa. i, 1, 2.
Seek ye Jehovah while he may be found,
Call upon him while he is near by ;
Let the wicked forsake his way,
And the man of iniquity his thoughts;
And let him return to Jehovah, and he will have mercy on him,
And to our God, for he will be abundant to pardon. Isa. Iv, 6, 7.
For the fig-tree shall not blossom,
And no produce in the vines;
Deceived has the work of the olive,
And fields have not wrought food ;
1 Lowth's Isaiah, Preliminary Dissertation, p. 21. London, 1779.
JACOB'S PROPHECY. 153
Cut off from the fold was the flock,
And no cattle in the stalls ;
But I — in Jehovah will I exult ;
I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. Hab. iii, 17.
But aside from these more regular forms of parallelism, there are
numerous peculiarities in Hebrew poetry which are not irregular struc-
to be classified under any rules or theories of prosody. s^e
The rapt nights of the ancient bards ignored such utterances,
trammels, and, by abrupt turns of thought, broken and unequal
lines, and sudden ejaculations of prayer or emotion, they produced
a great variety of expressive forms of sentiment. Take, for illus
tration, the two following extracts from Jacob's dying psalm — the
blessings of Judah and Joseph — and note the variety of expression,
the sharp transitions, the profound emotion, and the boldness and
abundance of metaphor :
Judah, thou! Thy brothers shall praise thee;
Thy hand in the neck of thy foes!
They shall bow down to thee, the sons of thy father.
Whelp of a lion is Judah.
From the prey, O my son, thou hast gone up!
He bent low ;
He lay down as a lion,
And as a lioness ;
Who will rouse him up ?
There shall not depart a sceptre from Judah,
And a ruler from between his feet,
Until he shall come — Shiloh —
And to him shall be gathered peoples.
Fastening to the vine his foal,
And to the choice vine the son of his ass,
He has washed in the wine his garment,
And in the blood of grapes his clothes.
Dark the eyes from wine,
And white the teeth from milk. Gen. xlix, 8-13-
Son of a fruit tree is Joseph,
Son of a fruit tree over a fountain ;
Daughters climbing over a wall.
And they imbittered him,
And they shot,
And they hated him, —
The lords of arrows.
Yet remained in strength his bow,
And firm were the arms of his hands,
From the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob ;
From the name of the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel;
154 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
From the God of thy father, and he will help thee;
And the Almighty, and he will bless thee;
Blessings of the heavens above,
Blessings of the deep lying down below,
Blessings of breasts and womb.
The blessings of thy father have been mighty,
Above the blessings of the enduring mountains,
The desire of the everlasting hills.
Let them be to the head of Joseph
And to the crown of the devoted of his brothers. Gen. xlix, 22-26.
In the later period of the language we find a number of artificial
Alphabetical poems, in which the several lines or verses begin with
poems. the letters of the Hebrew alphabet in their regular
order. Thus, in Psalms cxi and cxii, the lines or half verses are
arranged alphabetically. In Psalms xxv, xxxiv, cxlv, Prov. xxxi,
10-31, and Lam. i and ii, each separate verse begins with a new
letter in regular order. In Psa. xxxvii, with some slight exceptions,
every alternate verse begins with a new letter. In Psa. cxix and
Lam. in, a series of verses, each beginning with the same letter, is
grouped into strophes or stanzas, and the strophes follow one an
other in alphabetical order. Such artificiality evinces a later period
in the life of the language, when the poetical spirit, becoming less
creative and more mechanical, contrives a new feature of external
form to arrest attention and assist the memory.
We find also in the Old Testament several noticeable instances
Hebrew rhymes. °f rhyme' The following, in Samson's answer to
the men of Timnath (Judges xiv, 18), was probably
designed
'rtaya onehn ufaf?
Trrn
If ye had not plowed with my heifer,
Ye had not found out my riddle.
The following are perhaps only accidental :
Kings of Tarshish and of isles a gift shall return,
Kings of Sheba and Seba a present shall bring. Psa. Ixxii, 10.
As Sodom had we been,
To Gomorrah had we been like. Isa. i, 9.
VIVID CONCEPTS. 155
In a nation profane will I send him,
And upon a people of my wrath will I command him. Isa. x, 6.1
But aside from all artificial forms, the Hebrew language, in its
words, idiomatic phrases, vivid concepts, and pictorial
power, has a remarkable simplicity and beauty. To Hebrew words
the emotional Hebrew every thing was full of life, and and phrases-
the manner of the most ordinary action attracted his attention.
Sentences full of pathos, sublime exclamations, and profound sug
gestions often found expression in his common talk. How often
the word behold (nan) occurs in simple narrative ! How the very
process and order of action are pictured in the following passages :
" Jacob lifted up his feet, and went to the land of the sons of the
east" (Gen. xxix, 1). "He lifted up his voice, and wept. . . .
Laban heard the hearing about Jacob, the son of his brother,
and he ran to meet him, and embraced him, and kissed him, and
brought him to his house" (verses 11, 13). "Jacob lifted up his
eyes, and looked, and, behold! Esau was coming" (Gen. xxxiii, 1).
There are, again, many passages where a notable ellipsis enhances
the impression: "And now, lest he send forth his hand,
and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live
forever — and sent him forth Jehovah God from the garden of
Eden" (Gen. iii, 22). "And now, if thou wilt forgive their sin —
and if not, wipe me, I pray, from thy book which thou hast written."
"Return, O Jehovah — how long ! " (Psa. xc, 13). The attempt of
our translators to supply the ellipsis in Psa. xix, 3, 4, perverts the
real meaning: " There is no speech nor language where their voice
is not heard." The simple Hebrew is much more impressive:
No saying, and no words ; —
Not heard — their voice ;
In all the earth went forth their line,
And in the end of the world their utterances.
That is, the heavens have no audible language or voice such as mor
tal man is wont to speak; nevertheless, they have been stretched as
a measuring line over all the surface of the earth, and, though voice
less, they have sermons for thoughtful souls in every part of the
habitable world.
'Comp. also Isa. i, 25, where three rhymes appear in one verse; and Isa. i, 29;
Sflv, 3 ; xlix, 10; liii, 6; Job vi, 9: Psa. xlv, 8 ; Prov. vi, 1.
156 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
It is the province of Special Hermeneutics to recognize rhetorical
Special Herme- form, and to distinguish the essential thought from the
reeUogCnise rhet! Peculi&r mode of expression in which it may be set forth,
oricaiform. And it must be obvious to every thoughtful mind that
the impassioned poetry of the Hebrews is not of a nature to be sub
jected to a literal interpretation. Many of the finest passages of
the Psalms and the Prophets have been wrought out in splendid
style for the sake of rhetorical effect, and their magnificent parallel
isms and strophes should be explained as we explain similar imagin
ative flights of other poets. Such highly wrought language may
serve better than any other to deepen the impression of the divine
thought which it conveys. It is not literal exposition but connate
spiritual rapture that enables one to understand the force of such a
passage as Deut. xxxii, 22:
For now a fire is kindled in my rage,
And it has burned to Sheol far below,
And it has eaten earth and her increase,
And made the bases of the mountains burn.
The emotional language of Zech. xi, 1, 2 loses nothing in power or
impressiveness by addressing mountains and trees as if they were
beings of conscious life and feeling:
Open, O Lebanon, thy doors, and fire shall eat into thy cedars!
Howl, O Cypress, for the cedar has fallen which mighty ones did spoil !
Howl, oaks of Bashan, for down has gone the inaccessible forest !
In the coming calamity which this oracle announced, it is not neces
sary to suppose that a single cedar on Mount Lebanon or an oak of
Bashan was destroyed. The language is that of poetic imagery,
adapted to produce a profound impression, and to convey the idea
of a widespread ruin, but never designed to be literally understood.
And so those sublime descriptions of Jehovah found in the Psalms
and Prophets — his bowing down the heavens and descending, with a
dark cloud under his feet; his riding upon the cherubim and making
himself visible on the wings of the wind (2 Sam. xxii, 10, 11; comp.
Psa. xviii, 9, 10; Ezek. i, 13, 14), his standing and measuring the
earth, riding on horses and chariots of salvation, with horns issuing
out of his hand, and the lightning-glitter of his spear astonishing the
sun and moon in the heavens (Hab. iii, 4, 6, 8, 11) — these and all
like passages are but poetical pictures of the power and majesty of
God in his providential administration of the world. The particular
figures of speech employed in such descriptions will be discussed in
the following chapters.
TROPICAL FORMS OF SPEECH. 157
CHAPTER III.
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE.
THOSE portions of the Holy Scriptures which are written in figura
tive language call for special care in their interpretation. Tropes many
When a word is employed in another than its primary and various-
meaning, or applied to some object different from that to which it
is appropriated in common usage, it is called a trope.1 The neces
sities and purposes of human speech require the frequent use of
words in such a tropical sense. We have already seen, under the
head of the usus loquendi of words, how many terms come to have
a variety of meanings. Some words lose their primary signification
altogether, and are employed only in a secondary or acquired sense.
Most words in every language have been used or are capable of be
ing used in this way. And very many words have so long and so
constantly maintained a figurative sense that their primary meaning
has become obsolete and forgotten. How few remember that the
word law denotes that which is laid; or that the common expres
sions right and wrong, which have almost exclusively a moral im
port, originally signified straight and crooked. Other words are so
commonly used in a twofold sense that we immediately note when
they are employed literally and when figuratively. When James,
Cephas, and John are called pillars of the Church (Gal. ii, 9), we see
at once that the word pillars is a metaphor. And when the Church
itself is said to be " builtTupon the foundation of the apostles and
prophets " (Eph. ii, 20), we know that a figure, the image of a house
or temple, is meant to be depicted before the mind.
The origin of figures of speech has been generally attributed
to the poverty of languages in their earliest stages. Orlgln and ne_
The scarcity of words required the use of one and the cessityof flgur-
i • • f • «-VT i 5' ative language.
same word in a variety of meanings. "Mo language,
says Blair, " is so copious as to have a separate word for every sep
arate idea. Men naturally sought to abridge this labour of multi
plying words ad infinitum ; and, in order to lay less burden on their
memories, made one word, which they had already appropriated to
a certain idea or object, stand also for some other idea or object
1 From the Greek rpondf, a turn or change of language ; that is, a word turned
from its primary usage to another meaning.
11
158 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
between which and the primary one they found or fancied some
relation." '
But it is not solely in the scarcity of words that we are to find
the origin of figurative language. The natural operations of the
human mind prompt men to trace analogies and make comparisons.
Pleasing emotions are excited and the imagination is gratified by
the use of metaphors and similes. Were we to suppose a language
sufficiently copious in words to express all possible conceptions, the
human mind would still require us to compare and contrast our
concepts, and such a procedure would soon necessitate a variety of
figures of speech. So much of our knowledge is acquired through
the senses, that all our abstract ideas and our spiritual language
have a material basis. It is remarkable to what an extent the lan
guage of common life is made up of metaphors, the origin of which
has become largely if not altogether forgotten.
The principal sources of the figurative language of the Bible are
Source of scrip- ^he physical features of the Holy Land, the habits and
turai imagery, customs of its ancient tribes, and the forms of Israel-
itish worship. All these sources should, accordingly, be closely
studied in order to the interpretation of the figurative portions of
the Scriptures. As we discern a divine providence in the use of
Hebrew, Chaldee, and Greek as the languages of God's inspired
revelation, and as we believe that the progeny of Abraham through
Jacob were the divinely chosen people to receive and guard the
oracles of God, so may we also believe that the Land of Promise
was an essential element in the process of developing and perfect
ing the rhetorical form of the sacred records. " It is neither fiction
nor extravagance," says Thomson, " to call this land a microcosm —
a little world in itself, embracing everything which in the thought
of the Creator would be needed in developing the language of the
kingdom of heaven. Nor is it easy to see how the end sought
could have been reached at all without just such a land, furnished
and fitted up, as this was, by the overruling providence of God.
All were needed — mountain and valley, hill and plain, lake and
river, sea and sky, summer and winter, seedtime and harvest, trees,
shrubs, and flowers, beasts and birds, men and women, tribes and
nations, governments and religions false and ^rue, and other things
innumerable; none of which could be spared.1! Think, if you can,
of a Bible with all these left out, or others essentially different sub
stituted in their place — a Bible without patriarch or pilgrimage,
with no bondage in Egypt, or deliverance therefrom, no Red Sea,
no Sinai with its miracles, no wilderness of wandering with all the
1 Rhetoric, Lecture xiv, On the Origin and Nature of Figurative Language.
NO SPECIFIC RULES. 159
included scenes and associated incidents ; without a Jordan with a
Canaan over against it, or a Dead Sea with Sodom beneath it; no
Moriah with its temple, no Zion with palaces, nor Hinnom below,
with the fire and the worm that never die. Whence could have
come our divine songs and psalms, if the sacred poets had lived in
a land without mountain or valley, where were no plains covered
over with corn, no fields clothed with green, no hills planted with
the olive, the fig, and the vine? All are needed, and all do good
service, from the oaks of Bashan and the cedars of Lebanon to the
hyssop that springeth out of the wall. The tiny mustard- seed has
its moral, and lilies their lessons. Thorns and thistles utter ad
monitions, and revive sad memories. The sheep and the fold, the
shepherd and his dog, the ass and his owner, the ox and his goad,
the camel and his burden, the horse with neck clothed with thun
der; lions that roar, wolves that raven, foxes that destroy, harts
panting for water brooks, and roes feeding among lilies, doves in
their windows, sparrows on the housetop, storks in the heavens,
eagles hasting to their prey ; things great and small ; the busy bee
improving each shining hour, and the careful ant laying up store in
harvest — nothing too large to serve, too small to aid. These are
merely random specimens out of a world of rich materials ; but we
must not forget that they are all found in this land where the dia
lect of God's spiritual kingdom was to be taught and spoken."1
It is scarcely necessary, and, indeed, quite impracticable, to lay
down specific rules for determining when language is s m
used figuratively and when literally. It is an old and unnecessary and
oft-repeated hermeneutical principle that words should impra
be understood in their literal sense unless such literal interpreta
tion involves a manifest contradiction or absurdity. It should be
observed, however, that this principle, when reduced to practice,
becomes simply an appeal to every man's rational judgment. And
what to one seems very absurd and improbable may be to another
altogether simple and self-consistent. Some expositors have claimed
to see necessity for departing from the literal sense where others
saw none, and it seems impossible to establish any fixed rule that
will govern in all cases. Reference must be had to the general
character and style of the particular book, to the plan and purpose
of the author, and to the context and scope of the particular passage
in question. Especially should strict regard be had to the usage
1 The Physical Basis of our Spiritual Language ; by W. M. Thomson, in the
Bibliotheca Sacra for January, 1872. Compare the same author's articles on The
Natural Basis of our Spiritual Language in the same periodical for Jan., 1873; Jan.,
1874; Jan., 1875; July, 1876; and Jan., 1877.
160 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
of the sacred writers, as determined by a thorough collation and
comparison of all parallel passages. The same general principles,
by which we ascertain the grammatico-historical sense, apply also
to the interpretation of figurative language, and it should never be
forgotten that the figurative portions of the Bible are as certain
and truthful as the most prosaic chapters. Metaphors, allegories,
parables, and symbols are divinely chosen forms of setting forth
the oracles of God, and we must not suppose their meaning to be
so vague and uncertain as to be past finding out. In the main, we
believe the figurative parts of the Scriptures are not so difficult to
understand as many have imagined. By a careful and judicious
discrimination the interpreter should aim to determine the char
acter and purport of each particular trope, and explain it in harmony
with the common laws of language, and the author's context, scope,
and plan.
Figures of speech have been distributed into two great classes,
figures of words and figures of thought. The distinc-
Flpures of words & . , .
and figures of tion is an easy one in that a figure of words is one in
which the image or resemblance is confined to a single
word, whereas a figure of thought may require for its expression a
great many words and sentences. Metaphor and metonomy are fig
ures of words, in which the comparison is reduced to a single expres
sion, as when, characterizing Herod, Jesus said, " Go and say to that
fox" (Luke xiii, 32). In Psalm xviii, 2, we find seven figures of
words crowded into a single verse: "Jehovah, my rock (""J^D), and
my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my rock ("H^) — I will seek
refuge in him; — my shield and horn of my salvation, my height."
Figures of thought, on the other hand, are seen in similes, alle
gories, and parables, where no single word will suffice to convey
the idea intended, but an entire passage or section must be taken
together. But this classification of figures will be of little value in
the study of the figurative language of the Scriptures.
All figures of speech are founded upon some resemblance or rela
tion which different objects bear to one another, and it often hap
pens, in rapid and brilliant style, that a cause is put for its effect, or
an effect for its cause ; or the name of a subject is used when only
some adjunct or associated circumstance is intended. This figure
Metonymy of °f speech is called Metonymy, from the Greek jtterd,
cause and effect, denoting change, and ovopa, a name. Such change and
substitution of one name for another give language a force and
impressiveness not otherwise attainable. Thus, Job is represented
as saying, " My arrow is incurable " (Job xxxiv, 6) ; where by arrow
is evidently meant a wound caused by an arrow, and allusion is
METONYMY. 161
made to chapter vi, 4, where the bitter afflictions of Job are repre
sented as caused by the arrows of the Almighty. So again in Luke
xvi, 29 and xxiv, 27, Moses and the prophets are used for the writ
ings of which they were the authors. The name of a patriarch is
sometimes used when his posterity is intended (Gen. ix, 27, Amos
vii, 9). In Gen. xlv, 21; Num. iii, 16; Deut. xvii, 6, the word mouth
is used for saying or commandment which issues from one's mouth.
" According to the mouth (order or command) of Pharaoh." " Ac
cording to the mouth (word) of Jehovah." " At the mouth (word,
testimony) of two witnesses or three witnesses shall the dying one
(nan, the one appointed to die, or worthy of death,) be put to
death." The words Up and tongue are used in a similar way in
Prov. xii, 19, and frequently. "The Up of truth shall be estab
lished forever; but only for a moment [Heb. until I shall wink]
the tongue of falsehood." Comp. Prov. xvii, 7; xxv, 15. In Eze-
kiel xxiii, 29, " They shall take away all thy labour, and leave thee
naked," the word labour is used instead of earnings or results of
labour. All such cases of metonymy — and examples might be
multiplied indefinitely — are commonly classified under the head of
Metonymy of cause and effect. To this same class belong also such
passages as Exod. vii, 19, where, instead of vessels, the names of
the materials of which they were made are used : " Stretch out thy
hand over the waters of Egypt . . . and there shall be blood in all
the land of Egypt, both in wood and in stone;" that is, in wooden
vessels and stone reservoirs.
Another use of this figure occurs where some adjunct, associated
idea, or circumstance is put for the main subject, and vice .
r . » Metonymy of I
versa. Thus, in Lev. xix, 32, HT^, gray hair, hoariness, subject and ad- }
is used for a person of advanced age : " Thou shalt rise ct"
up before the hoary head." Comp. Gen. xlii, 38: "Ye will bring
down my gray hairs in sorrow to the grave." When Moses com
mands the elders of Israel to take a lamb according to their families
and "kill the passover" (Exod. xii, 21), he evidently uses the word
passover for the paschal lamb. In Hosea i, 2, it is written : " The
land has grievously committed whoredom." Here the word land is
used by metonymy for the Israelitish people dwelling in the land.
So also, in Matt, iii, 5. Jerusalem and Judea are put for the people
that inhabited those places: "Then went out unto him Jerusalem
and all Judea and all the region round about the Jordan." The
metonymy of the subject for its adjunct is also seen in passages
where the container is put for the thing contained, as, " Thou pre-
parest a table before me in the presence of my enemies" (Psa.
xxiii, 5). "Blessed shall be thy basket, and thy kneading trough"'
162 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
(Deut. xxviii, 5). "Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the
cup of demons, ye cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the
table of demons " (1 Cor. x, 21). Here table, basket, kneading-trough,
and cup are used for that which they contained, or for which they
were used. The following examples illustrate how the abstract is
used for the concrete : " He shall justify the circumcision by faith,
and the uncircumcision through faith" (Rom. iii, 30). Here the
word circumcision designates the Jews, and uncircumcision the
Gentiles. In Rom. xi, 7, the word election is used for the aggre
gate of those who composed the " remnant according to the elec
tion of grace" (verse 5), the elect portion of Israel. And Paul tells
the Ephesians (v, 8) with great force of language : " Ye were once
darkness, but now light in the Lord."
There is another use of this figure which may be called metonymy
, of the sign and the thing signified. Thus Isa. xxii, 22:
Metonymy or « -«-v « -+ -• •
sign and thing " I will put the key of the house of David upon his
shoulder, and he shall open, and no one shutting, and
he shall shut, and no one opening." Here key is used as the sign
of control over the house, of power to open or close the doors when
ever one pleases; and the putting the \zyupon the shoulder denotes
that the power, symbolized by the key, will be a heavy burden on
him who exercises it. Compare Matt, xvi, 19. So again diadem
and crown are used in Ezek. xxi, 26, for regal dignity and power,
and sceptre in Gen. xlix, 10, and Zech, x, 11, for kingly dominion.
In Isaiah's glowing picture of the Messianic era (ii, 4) he describes
the utter cessation of national strife and warfare by the significant
words, " They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their
spears into pruninghooks." In Ezek. vii, 27, we have an example
of the use of the thing signified for the sign: "The prince shall be
clothed with desolation; " that is, arrayed in the garments or signs
of desolation.
Another kind of trope, quite similar in character to metonymy, is
that by which the whole is put for a part, or a part for
Synecdoche.
the whole; a genus for a species, or a species for a genus;
the singular for the plural, and the plural for the singular. This
is called Synecdoche, from the Greek ovv, with, and eK6e%o/j,cu, to re-
ceivefrom, which conveys the general idea of receiving and associating
one thing along with another. Thus " all the world " is used in Luke
ii, 1, for the Roman Empire; and in Matt, xii, 40, three days and
three nights are used for only part of that time. The soul is often
named when the whole man or person is intended; as, "We were
in all in the ship two hundred threescore and sixteen souls (Acts
xxvii, 37). The singular of day is used by synecdoche for days or
PERSONIFICATION. 163
period in such passages as Eccles. xii, 3 : "In the day when the
keepers of the house tremble." The singular of stork, turtle, crane,
and swallow is used in Jer. viii, 7, as the representative of the whole
class to which each belongs. Jephthah is said to have been " buried
in the cities of Gilead " (Judg. xii, 7), where, of course, only one of
those cities is intended. In Psa. xlvi, 9, the Lord is represented as
" causing wars to cease unto the extremity of the land; bow he will
ghiver, and cut in pieces spear; war chariots he will burn in the
fire." Here, by specifying bow, spear, and chariots, the Psalmist
doubtless designed to represent Jehovah's triumph as an utter de
struction of all implements of war. In Deut. xxxii, 41, the flashing
gleam of the sword is put for its edge : " If I sharpen the lightning
of my sword, and my hand lay hold on judgment."
It was characteristic of the Hebrew mind to form and express
vivid conceptions of the external world. All objects of
, . , , ., " Personification. 1
nature, inanimate things, and even abstract ideas were
viewed as if instinct with life, and spoken of as masculine or femi
nine. And this tendency is noticeable in all languages, and occasions
the figure of speech called Personification.1 It is so common a feature
of language that it often occurs in the most ordinary conversation;
but it is more especially suited to the language of imagination and
passion, and appears most frequently in the poetical parts of Scrip
ture. The statement in Num. xvi, 32, that "the earth opened her
mouth and swallowed " Korah and his associates, is an instance of
personification, the like of which often occurs in prose narration.
More striking is the language of Matt, vi, 34 : " Be not therefore
anxious for the morrow, for the morrow will be anxious for itself."
Here the morrow itself is pictured before us as a living person,
pressed by care and anxiety. But the more forcible instances of per
sonification are found in such passages as Psa. cxiv, 3,4: " The sea
saw and fled; the Jordan was turned backward. The mountains
leaped like rams; hills like the sons of the flock." Or, again, in
Hab. iii, 10: "Mountains saw thee, they writhe; a flood of waters
passed over; the deep gave his voice; on high his hands he lifted."
Here mountains, hills, rivers, and sea, are introduced as things of
life. They are assumed to be self-conscious, having powers of thought,
feeling, and locomotion, and yet it is all the emotional language of
imagination and poetic fervour, and has its origin in an intense,
lively intuition of nature.
1 The more technical name is Prosopopoeia, from the Greek TrpoouTrov, face, or per
son, and Ttoifu, to make ; and, accordingly, means to give personal form or character
to an object. Prosopopoeia is held by some to be a term of more extensive applica
tion than personification.
164 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
Apostrophe is a figure closely allied to personification. The
I name is derived from the Greek 0,776, from, and <rrp£0w,
\ to turn, and denotes especially the turning of a speaker
away from his immediate hearers, and addressing an absent and
imaginary person or thing. When the address is to an inanimate
object, the figures of personification and apostrophe combine in one
and the same passage. So, in connexion with the passage above
cited from Psa. cxiv. After personifying the sea, the Jordan, and
the mountains, the psalmist suddenly turns in direct address to
them, and says: "'What is the matter with thee, O thou sea, that
thou fleest ? Thou Jordan, that thou art turning backward ? Ye
mountains, that ye leap like rams; ye hills, like the sons of the
flock?" The following apostrophe is peculiarly impressive by the
force of its imagery. " O, Sword of Jehovah ! How long wilt
thou not be quiet? Gather thyself to thy sheath; be at rest and
be dumb" (Jer. xlvii, 6). But apostrophe proper is an address to
some absent person either living or dead; as when David laments
for the dead Absalom (2 Sam. xviii, 33), and, as if the departed
soul were present to hear, exclaims: "My son Absalom! my son,
my son Absalom ! Would that I had died in thy stead, O Absa
lom, my son, my son ! " The apostrophe to the fallen king of
Babylon, in Isa. xiv, 9-20, is one of the boldest and sublimest ex
amples of the kind in any language. Similar instances of bold and
impassioned address abound in the Hebrew prophets, and, as we
have seen, the oriental mind was notably given to express thoughts
and feelings in this emotional style.
Interrogatory forms of expression are often the strongest possible
>way of enunciating important truths. As when it is
Interrogation. • . .
written in lleb. i, 14, concerning the angels: "Are they
not all ministering spirits sent forth into service for the sake of
those who are to inherit salvation?" Here the doctrine of the
ministry of angels in such a noble service is by implication as
sumed as an undisputed belief. The interrogatories in Rom. viii,
33-35, afford a most impressive style of setting forth the triumph
of believers in the blessed provisions of redemption: "Who shall
bring charge against God's elect ones? Shall God who justifies?
Who is he that is condemning ? Is it Christ Jesus that died, but,
rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of
God, who also intercedes for us ? Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or
famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Even as it is written,
For thy sake we are killed all the day; we were accounted as sheep
of slaughter. But in all these things we more than conquer through
HYPERBOLE AND IRONY. 165
him that loved us." ' Very frequent and conspicuous also are the
interrogatory forms of speech in the Book of Job. " Knowest thou
this of old, from the placing of Adam on the earth, that the tri
umph of the wicked is short, and the joy of the profane for a
moment ?"(xx, 4). "The secret of Eloah canst thou find? Or
canst thou find out Shaddai to perfection?" (xi, 7). Jehovah's an
swer out of the whirlwind (chaps, xxxviii-xli) is very largely in
this form.
Hyperbole is a rhetorical figure which consists in exaggeration,
or magnifying an obiect beyond reality. It has its nat-
i •••*!. u J f ^t i J • • -.- Hyperbole.
ural origin in the tendency ot youthful and imaginative \
minds to portray facts in the liveliest colours. An ardent imagina
tion would very naturally describe the appearance of the many
camps of the Midianites and Amalekites as in Judg. vii, 12: "Lying
in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude; and as to their
camels, no number, like the sand which is upon the -shore of the
sea for multitude." So the emotion of David prompts him to speak
of Saul and Jonathan as swifter than eagles and stronger than
lions (2 Sam. i, 23). Other scriptural examples of this figure are
the following: " All night I make my bed to swim; with my tears
I dissolve my couch " (Psa. vi, 6). " Would that my head were
waters and my eyes a fountain of tears; and I would weep day and
night the slain of the daughter of my people" (Jer. ix, 1). "There
are also many other things which Jesus did, which things, if writ
ten every one, I suppose that the world itself would not contain
the books that should be written" (John xxi, 25). Such exagger
ated expressions, when not overdone, or occurring too frequently,
strike the attention and make an agreeable impression on the mind.
Another peculiar form of speech, deserving a passing notice
here, is irony, by which a speaker or writer says the \
very opposite of what he intends. Elijah's language to
the Baal worshippers (1 Kings xviii, 27) is an example of most
effective irony. Another example is Job xii, 1 : " True it is that
ye are the people, and with you wisdom will die ! " In 1 Cor.
iv, 8, Paul indulges in the following ironical vein: "Already ye
are filled; already ye are become rich; without us ye have reigned;
and I would indeed that ye did reign, that we also might reign with
you." On this passage Meyer remarks: "The discourse, already in
1 The interrogative construction of this passage given above is maintained by many
of the best interpreters and critics, ancient and modern (as Augustine, Ambrosiaster,
Koppe, Reiche, Kollner, Olshausen, De Wette, Griesbach, Lachmann, Alford, Web
ster, and Jowett), and seems to us, on the whole, the most simple and satisfactory.
But see other constructions advocated in Meyer and Lange.
166 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
verse 7, roused to a lively pitch, becomes now bitterly ironical, heap
ing stroke 011 stroke, even as the proud Corinthians, with their par
tisan conduct, needed an admonition (vovdsoia, ver. 14) to teach them
humility." The designation of the thirty pieces of silver, in Zech.
xi, 13, as "a glorious price," is an example of sarcasm. Words of
derision and scorn, like those of the soldiers in Matt, xxvii, 30:
" Hail, King of the Jews ! " and those of the chief priests and scribes
in Mark xv, 32: "Let the Christ, the King of Israel, now come
down from the cross, that we may see and believe," are not proper
examples of irony, but of malignant mockery.
CHAPTER IV.
SIMILE AND METAPHOR.
SIMILE.
WHEN a formal comparison is made between two different objects,
simile defined so as to impress trhe mind with some resemblance or
and illustrated, likeness, the figure is called a simile. A beautiful
example is found in Isa. Iv, 10, 11: "For as the rain and the snow
come down from the heavens, and thither do not return, but water
the land, and cause it to bear and to sprout, and it gives seed to
the sower and bread to the eater: so shall my word be which goes
forth out of my mouth ; it shall not return to me empty, but do that
which I desired, and be successful in what I sent it." The apt and
varied allusions of this passage set forth the beneficial efficacy of
God's word in a most impressive style. " The images chosen," ob
serves Delitzsch, " are rich with allusions. As snow and rain are
the mediate cause of growth, and thus also of the enjoyment of
what is harvested, so also by the word of God the ground and soil
of the human heart is softened, refreshed, and made fertile and
vegetative, and this word gives the prophet, who is like the sower,
the seed which he scatters, and it brings with it bread that nour
ishes the soul; for every word that proceeds from the mouth of God
is bread " (Deut. viii, 3).1 Another illustration of the word of God
appears in Jer. xxiii, 29: "Is not my word even as the fire, saith
Jehovah, and as a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces ? " Here
are portrayed the fury and force of the divine word against false
1 Biblical Commentury on Isaiah, in loco.
BIBLICAL SIMILES. 167
prophets. It is a word of judgment that burns and smites the sin
ful offender unto utter ruin, and the intensity of its power is en
hanced by the double simile.
The tendency of the Hebrew writers to crowd several similes to
gether is noticeable, and this may be in part accounted ,
• Crowding of
for by the nature of Hebrew parallelism. Thus in Isa. similes togeth-
i, 8 : " The daughter of Zion is left as a booth in a vine- er'
yard; as a night-lodge in a field of cucumbers; as a city besieged.'*
And again in verse 30: "Ye shall be as an oak withering in foliage,
and as a garden to which there is no water." And in xxix, 8: "It
shall be as when the hungry dreams, and lo, he is eating, and he
awakes, and his soul is empty ; and as when the thirsty dreams, and
lo, he is drinking, and he awakes, and lo, he is faint, and his soul is
eagerly longing: so shall be the multitude of all the nations that
are warring against Mount Zion." But though the figures are thus
multiplied, they have a natural affinity, and are not open to the
charge of being mixed or confused.
Similes are of frequent occurrence in the Scriptures, and being
designed to illustrate an author's meaning, they involve similes seif-m-
no difficulties of interpretation. When the Psalmist terpretmg.
says: "I am like a pelican of the wilderness; I have become as an
owl of desert places; I watch and am become as a solitary sparrow
on a roof " (Psa. cii, 6), he conveys a vivid picture of his utter
loneliness. An image of gracefulness and beauty is presented by
the language of Cant, ii, 9 : " My beloved is like a roe, or a young
fawn." Compare verse 16, and chapter iv, 1-5. Ezekiel (xxxii, 2)
compares Pharaoh to a young lion of the nations, and a dragon
(crocodile) in the seas. It is said in Matt, xvii, 2, that when Jesus
became transfigured "his face did shine as the sun, and his gar
ments became white as the light." In Matt, xxviii, 3, it is said
of the angel who rolled the stone from the sepulchre, that "his
appearance was as lightning, and his raiment white as snow." In
Rom. xii, 4, the apostle illustrates the unity of the Church and the
diversity of its individual ministers by the following comparison:
" Even as in one body we have many members, and all the mem
bers have not the same work: so we, who are many, are one body
in Christ, and severally members one of another." Compare also
1 Cor. xii, 12. In all these and other instances the comparison is
self-interpreting, and the main thought is intensified by the imagery.
A fine example of simile is that at the close of the sermon on the
mount (Matt, vii, 24-27): "Every one therefore who hears these
words of mine, and does them, shall be likened unto a wise man,
who built his house upon the rock." Whether we here take the
168 SPECIAL IIEKMENEUTICS.
rai, shall be likened, as a prediction of what will take place
in the final judgment — I will then make him like; show as a matter
of fact that he is like (Tholuck, Meyer), or as simply the predi
cate of formal comparison (the future tense merely contemplating
future cases as they shall arise), the similitude is in either case the
same. We have on the one hand the figure of a house based upon
the immovable rock, which neither storm nor flood can shake; on
the other of a house based upon the shifting sand, and unable to
resist the violence of winds and floods. The similitude, thus formal
ly developed, becomes, in fact, a parable, and the mention of rains,
floods, and winds implies that the house is to be tested at roof,
foundation, and sides — top, bottom, and middle. But we should
not, like the mystics, seek to find some special and distinct form of
temptation in these three words. The grand similitude sets forth
impressively the certain future of those who hear and obey the
words of Jesus, and also of those who hear and. refuse to obey.
Compare with this similitude the allegory in Ezek. xiii, 11-15.
Blair traces the pleasure we take in comparisons of this kind to
three different sources. " First, from the pleasure
Pleasures af- t r
forded by sim- which nature has annexed to that act of the mind by
which we compare two objects together, trace resem
blances among those that are different, and differences among those
that resemble each other; a pleasure, the final cause of which is to
prompt us to remark and observe, and thereby to make us advance
in useful knowledge. This operation of the mind is naturally and
universally agreeable, as appears from the delight which even chil
dren have in comparing things together, as soon as they are capa
ble of attending to the objects that surround them. Secondly, the
pleasure of comparison arises from the illustration which the simile
employed gives to the principal object; from the clearer view of it
which it presents, or the stronger impression of it which it stamps
upon the mind. And, thirdly, it arises from the introduction of a
new, and commonly a splendid object, associated to the principal
one of which we treat; and from the agreeable picture which that
object presents to the fancy; new scenes being thereby brought
into view, which, without the assistance of this figure, we could not
have enjoyed." '
There is, common to all languages, a class of illustrations, which
might be appropriately called assumed comparisons.
parisons or ii- They are not, strictly speaking, either similes, or meta
phors, or parables, or allegories, and yet they include
some elements of them all. A fact or figure is introduced for
1 Lectures on Rhetoric, lecture xvii.
ASSUMED COMPARISONS. 169
the sake of illustration, and yet no formal words of comparison are
used. But the reader or hearer perceives at once that a compari
son is assumed. Sometimes such assumed comparisons follow a
regular simile. In 2 Tim. ii, 3, we read: "Partake thou in hard
ship as a good soldier of Christ Jesus." But immediately after
these words, and keeping the figure thus introduced in his mind,
the apostle adds: "No one on service as a soldier entangles himself
with the affairs of life; in order that he may please him who en
listed him as a soldier." Here is no figure of speech, but the plain
statement of a fact fully recognized in military service. But fol
lowing the simile of verse 3, it is evidently intended as a further
illustration, and Timothy is left to make his own application of it.
And then follow two other illustrations, which it is also assumed
the reader will apply for himself. "And if also any one contend
as an athlete, he is not crowned if he did not lawfully contend. The
labouring husbandman must first partake of the fruits." These
are plain, literal statements, but a comparison is tacitly assumed,
and Timothy could not fail to make the proper application. The
true minister's close devotion to his proper work, his cordial sub
mission, and conformity to lawful authority and order, and his
laborious activity, are the points especially emphasized by these
respective illustrations. So, again, in verses 20 and 21 of the same
chapter: "In a great house there are not only vessels golden and
silver, but also wooden and earthen ones, and some Literal state-
unto honour and some unto dishonour." Here is a JJS
simple statement of facts intended for an illustration, son.
but not presented as a simile. It is suggested by the metaphor in
the preceding verse, in which the Lord's own chosen, the pure who
confess his name, are represented as the firm foundation laid by
God, a beautifully inscribed substructure, which, however, is to be
gradually builded upon until the edifice becomes complete.1 Its
real character and purport are as if the apostle had said: "And
now, for illustration, consider how, in a great house," etc. What
he says of this house is, in itself, no figure, but a literal statement
of what was commonly found in any extensive building; but in
verse 21 he makes his own application thus: "If, therefore, any
one purify himself from these (persons like the troublesome error-
ists, as the babblers, Hymemeus, etc., verses 16, 17, considered as
vessels unto dishonour), he shall be as a vessel unto honour, sancti
fied, useful to the Master, unto every good work prepared."
A similar example of extended illustration appears in Matt, vii,
15-20: "Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's
1 Compare what is said on Peter, the living stone, pp. 124-127.
170 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves." Here is a bold,
strong metaphor, obliging us to think of the false teacher as a wolf
covered over and concealed from outward view by the skin of a
sheep. But the next verse introduces another figure entirely:
"From their fruits ye will know them;" and then to make the
figure plainer, our Lord asks: " Do they gather grapes from thorns,
or figs from thistles ? " The question demands a negative answer,
and is itself an emphatic way of making such answer. Thereupon
he proceeds, using the formula of comparison : " So every good tree
produces good fruit, and the bad tree produces bad fruit; " and
then, dropping formal comparison, he adds: "A good tree cannot
bring forth bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.
Every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and cast
into fire. Therefore (in view of these well-known facts, adduced
as illustrations, I repeat the statement made a moment ago, verse
16), from their fruits ye will know them." It will be shown in a
subsequent chapter how all true parables are essentially similes, but
all similes are not parables. The examples of assumed comparison,
given above, though distinguished from both simile and parable
proper, contain essential elements of both.
METAPHOR.
Metaphor is an implied comparison, and is of much more frequent
occurrence in all languages than simile. It differs from
Metaphor de- > . .
toed and uius- the latter in being a briefer and more pungent form of
expression, and in turning words from their literal
meaning to a new and striking use. The passage in Hos. xiii, 8:
"I will devour them like a lion," is a simile or formal comparison;
but Gen. xlix, 9: "A lion's whelp is Judah," is a metaphor. We
may compare something to the savage strength and rapacity of a
lion, or the swift flight of an eagle, or the brightness of the sun, or
the beauty of a rose, and in each case we use the words in their
literal sense. But when we say, Judah is a lion, Jonathan was an
eagle, Jehovah is a sun, my beloved one is a rose, we perceive at
once that the words lion, eagle, etc., are not used literally, but only
some notable quality or characteristic of these creatures is intended.
| Hence metaphor, as the name denotes (Greek, juera^epw, to carry
j over, to transfer), is that figure of speech in which the sense of one
\word is transferred to another. This process of using words in new
constructions is constantly going on, and, as we have seen in former
chapters, the tropical sense of many words becomes at length the
only one in use. Every language is, therefore, to a great extent,
a dictionary of faded metaphors.
BIBLICAL METAPHORS. 171
The sources from which scriptural metaphors are drawn are to
be looked for chiefly in the natural scenery of the lands of the
Bible, the customs and antiquities of the Orient, and the ritual
worship of the Hebrews.1 In Jer. ii, 13, we have two very expres
sive metaphors : "My people have committed two evils: Examples of
they have forsaken me, a fountain of living waters, to
hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can scenery.
hold no water." A fountain of living waters, especially in such a
land as Palestine, is of inestimable worth ; far more valuable than
any artificial well or cistern, that can at best only catch and hold
rain water, and is liable to become broken and lose its contents.
What insane folly for a man to forsake a living fountain to hew for
himself an uncertain cistern! The ingratitude and apostasy of
Israel are strikingly characterized by the first figure, and their self-
sufficiency by the second.
In Job ix, 6, a violent earthquake is represented as Jehovah
" causing the land to move from her place, and making her columns
tremble." The whole land affected by the earthquake shock is
conceived as a building, heaved out of place, and all her pillars or
columnar supports trembling and tottering to their fall. In chapter
xxvi, 8, the holding of the rain in the heavens is pictured as God
"binding up the waters in his dark cloud (ny), and the cloud (py,
cloud-covering) is not rent under them." The clouds are conceived
as a great sheet or bag, strong enough to hold the immense weight
of waters. In Deut. xxxii, 40, Jehovah is represented as saying :
" For I will lift up to heaven my hand, and say, living am I for
ever." Here the allusion is to the ancient custom of Anclent cus-
lifting up the hand to heaven in the act of making a ^ma-
solemn oath. In verse 42 we have these further images : " I will
make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour
flesh." By these metaphors arrows are personified as living things,
intoxicated with drinking the blood of Jehovah's slaughtered foes,
and the sword, as a ravenous beast of prey, devouring their flesh.
Many similar examples exhibit at one and the same time the Old
Testament anthropomorphisms, together with personification and
metaphor.
The following strong metaphors have their basis in well-known
habits of animals : " Issachar is an ass of bone, lying Metaphorica, al_
down between the double fold" (Gen. xlix, 14). He lusionstotneha-
. „ ,., ,, bits of animals.
loves rest, like a beast of burden, especially like the
strong, bony ass, that seeks repose between the sheepf olds. " Naph-
tali is a hind set forth, the giver of sayings of beauty" (Gen.
1 Compare above p. 158.
172 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
xlix, 21). The allusion here is specially to the elegance and beauty
of the hind, bounding away gracefully in his freedom, and denotes
in the tribe of Naphtali a taste for sayings of beauty, such as ele
gant songs and proverbs. As the neighbouring tribe of Zebulon
produced ready writers (Judges v, 14), so, probably, Naphtali be
came noted for elegant speakers. " Benjamin is a wolf ; he shall
rend" (Gen. xlix, 27). This metaphor fitingly portrays the furious,
warlike character of the Benjamites, from wThom sprang an Ehud
and a Saul. In Zech. vii, 11, mention is made of those who "re
fused to hearken, and gave a refractory shoulder," that is, acted
like a refractory heifer or ox that shakes the shoulder and refuses
to accept the yoke. Comp. Neh. ix, 29 and Hos. iv, 16. In Num.
xxiv, 21, it is said of the Kenites, "Enduring is thy dwelling-place,
and set in the rock thy nest." The secure dwellings of this tribe in
the high fastnesses of the rocky hills are conceived as the nest of
the eagle in the towering rock. Comp. Job xxxix, 27; Jer. xlix, 16;
Obad. 4 ; Hab. ii, 9.
The following metaphors are based upon practices appertaining
to the worship and ritual of the Hebrews. "I will
Metaphors _ r . . T .„ n , .
based on He- wash my palms in mnocency, 1 will go round about thy
brew ritual. ^^ Q Jehovah» (psa< xxyi> 6), Here the allusion is
to the practice of the priests who were required to wash their hands
before coming near the altar to minister (Exod. xxx, 20). The
psalmist expresses his purpose to conform thoroughly to Jehovah's
will; he would, so to speak, offer his burnt-offerings, even as the
priest who goes about the altar on which his sacrifice is to be
offered ; and in doing so, he would be careful to conform to every
requirement. In Psa. li, 7, "Purify me with hyssop, and I shall
become clean," the allusion is to the ceremonial forms of purifying
the leper (Lev. xiv, 6, 7) and his house (verse 51), and the person
who had been defiled by contact with a dead body (Num. xix, 18, 19).
So also the well-known usages of the passover, the sacrifice of the
lamb, the careful removal of all leaven, and the use of unleavened
bread, lie at the basis of the following metaphorical language:
" Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, even as ye
are unleavened; for our passover also has been sacrificed, even
Christ ; wherefore, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor
with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened
loaves of sincerity and truth" (1 Cor. v, 7, 8). Here the metaphors
are continued until they make an allegory.
Sometimes a writer or speaker, after having used a striking
metaphor goes on to elaborate its imagery, and, by so doing, con
structs an allegory ; sometimes he introduces a number and variety
MIXED METAPHORS. 173
of images together, or, at other times, laying all figure aside, he
proceeds with plain and simple language. Thus, in the EIaborated and
Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says : " Ye are the salt of mixed meta-
the earth" (Matt, v, 13). It is not difficult to grasp at phore'
once the comparison here implied. " The earth, the living world
of men, is like a piece of meat, which would putrefy but that the
grace of the Gospel of God, like salt, arrests the decay and purifies
and preserves it." * But the Lord proceeds, adhering closely to the
imagery of salt and its power, and develops his figure into a brief
allegory : " But if the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be
salted?" Here is a most significant query. "The apostles, and in
their degree all Christians," says Whedon, "are the substance and
body of that salt. They are the substance to which the saltness
inheres. But if the living body to which this gracious saltness in
heres doth lose this quality, wherewith shall the quality be restored?
The it refers to the solid salt which has lost its saltness or savour.
What, alas! shall ever resalt that savourless salt? The Christian
is the solid salt, and the grace of God is his saltness ; that grace is
the very salt of the salt. This solid salt is intended to salt the
world with; but, alas! who shall salt the salt?"2 But immediately
after this elaborated figure, another and different metaphor is in
troduced, and carried forward with still greater detail. "Ye are
the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hid;
nor do they light a lamp and put it under the modius, but on the
stand, and it shines for all that are in the house. Even so let your
light shine" (Matt, v, 14-16). Here a variety of images is pre
sented to the mind ; a light, a city on a mountain, a lamp, a lamp-
stand, and a Roman modius or peck measure. But through all
these varying images runs the main figure of a light designed to
send its rays afar, and illumine all within its range. A metaphor
thus extended always becomes, strictly speaking, an allegory. In
Matt, vii, 7, we have three metaphors introduced in a single verse.
" Ask and it shall be given you ; seek and ye shall find ; knock and
it shall be opened unto you." First, we have the image of a sup
pliant, making a request before a superior; next, of one who is in
search for some goodly pearl or treasure (comp. Matt, xiii, 45, 46) ;
and, finally, of one who is knocking at a door for admission. The
three figures are so well related that they produce no confusion, but
rather serve to strengthen one another. So Paul uses with good
effect a twofold metaphor in Eph. iii, 17, where he prays "that
Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, being rooted and
grounded in love." Here is the figure of a tree striking its roots
1 Whedon, Commentary, in loco. 9 Ibid.
12
174 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
into the soil, and of a building based upon a deep and strong
foundation.1 But these figures are accompanied both before and
after with a style of language of the most simple and practical
character, and not designed to elaborate or even adhere to the
imagery suggested by the metaphors.
Sometimes the salient point of allusion in a metaphor may be a
matter of doubt or uncertainty. The opening words of
Uncertain met- . . ' , IT, -i
aphoricai aiiu- Deborah's song (Judg. v, 2) have long puzzled transla
tions. torg an(j exegetes. The English version, following sub- .
stantially the Syriac and Arabic, renders the Hebrew 7K"J^3 rrijna Jfisa,
" for the avenging of Israel." The Septuagint (Alex. Codex) has,
" for the leading of the leaders," but seems to have been governed by
the resemblance of the word nijna to the official name of Egyptian
monarchs rijHB, Pharaoh. Neither of these translations has any
certain support in Hebrew usage. The noun jns> occurs in the sing
ular but twice (Num. vi, 5; Ezek. xliv, 20), and in both places
means a lock of hair. The plural form of the word, mjna, occurs
only here and in Deut. xxxii, 42, and in both places would seem to
mean, most legitimately, locks of hair, or flowing locks. And why
should it be thought to mean any thing else ? So far from being
incongruous, it best suits the imagery of the immediate context in
Deut. xxxii, 42. Jehovah there says: "I will make my arrows
drunk with blood (Heb. D^E, from blood), and my sword shall de
vour flesh — with the blood (or, from the blood) of slain and of cap
tives, from the head of hairy locks of the enemy " — that is, from
the blood of the hairy heads of the enemies. And so at the be
ginning of Deborah's song we may understand a bold metaphor,
1 Meyer observes : " Paul, in the vivacity of his imagination, conceives to himself
the congregation of his readers as a plant (comp. Matt, xiii, 3), perhaps a tree (Matt,
vii, 17), and at the same time as a building." Critical Com. on Ephesians, in loco.
" The perfect participles," says Braune, " denote a state in which Paul's readers are
and continue to be, which is the presupposition in order that they may be able to
know. . . . They mark that a profoundly penetrating life (kpfafapevoi) and a well
grounded, permanent character (rn^e/Uw^evot) are necessary. The double figure
strengthens the notion of the relation to love ; this latter (sv a-yaicy) is made promi
nent by being placed first. In marks love as the soil in which they are rooted, and
as the foundation on which they are grounded. This implies moreover that it is not
their own love which is referred to, but one which corresponds with the soil afforded
to the tree, the foundation given to the house ; and this would undoubtedly be, in ac
cordance with the context, the love of Christ, were not all closer definition wanting,
even the article. Accordingly, this substantive rendered general by the absence of
the article corresponds with the verbal idea : in loving, i. e., in that love, which is
first God's in Christ, and then that of men who became Christians, who are rooted in
him and grounded on him through faith." Commentary on Ephesians (Lange's Bible-
work), in loco.
OBSCURE METAPHORS. 175
*'In the loosing of locks in Israel; " for the primary meaning of the
verb JHS is everywhere that of letting something loose, and when
used of locks of hair would naturally denote the loosing of the
hair from all artificial coverings and restraint, and leaving it to
wave wildly, as was done in the case of a Nazarite. The metaphor
of the passage would thus be an allusion to the unrestrained growth
of the locks of those who took upon themselves the vows of a
Nazarite. And this view of the passage is corroborated by the
next line of the parallelism, "In the free self-offering of the peo
ple." The people had, so to speak, by this act of consecration,
made themselves free-will offerings. Nothing, therefore, could be
more striking and impressive than these metaphorical allusions at
the opening of this hymn:
In 1 the loosing of locks in Israel,
In the free self -offering of the people,
Praise Jehovah!
In Psa. xlv, 1, "My heart boils up with a goodly word," it is
difficult to determine whether the allusion is to an overflowing
fountain, or to a boiling pot. The primary idea, according to
Gesenius, lies in the noise of water boiling or bubbling, and as the
word KTH occurs nowhere else, but its derivative, n^rno, denotes in
Lev. ii, 7 ; vii, 9, a pot or vessel used both for boiling and frying,
it is perhaps safer to say that the allusion in the metaphor of Psa,
xlv, i, is to a boiling pot. The heart of the Psalmist was hot with a
holy fervour, and, like the boiling oil of the vessel in which the
meat-offering was prepared, it seethed and bubbled in the rapture
of exulting song.
The exact point of the allusion in the words, " buried with him
through baptism into death" (Rom. vi, 4), and "buried Buried with
with him in baptism" (Col. ii, 12), has been disputed. SSn*""^
The advocates of immersion insist that there is an allu- death,
sion to the mode in which the rite of water baptism was performed,
and most interpreters have acknowledged that such an allusion is
in the word. The immersion of the candidate was thought of as a
burial in the water. But the context in both passages goes to show
that the great thought of the apostle was that of the believer's
death unto sin. Thus, in Romans, " Are ye ignorant that as many
1 The preposition 3, in, points out the condition of the people in which they con
quered and sang. The song is the people's consecration hymn, and praises God for
the prosperous and successful issue with which he has crowned their vows. Cassel's
Commentary on Judges (Lange's Biblework), in loco. Comp. Whedon's Old Testament
Commentary, in loco.
176 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his
death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into
death. . . . We have become united with the likeness of his death
(ver. 5). ... Our old man was crucified with him (ver. 6). ... We
died with Christ (ver. 8). ... Even so consider ye yourselves to
be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus" (ver. 11).
Now, while the word buried with (ovv&dnrG)) would naturally ac
cord with the idea of an immersion into water, the main thought
is the deadness unto sin, attained through a union with Christ in
the likeness of his death. The imagery does not depend on the mode
of Christ's execution or of his burial, much less on the manner
in which baptism was administered, but on the similitude of his
death (rw 6/j,oiu>nan rov davdrov avrov, ver. 5) considered as an ac
complished fact. The baptism is into death, not into water; and
whether the outward rite were performed by sprinkling, or pour
ing, or immersion, it would have been equally true in either case,
that they were "buried with him through the baptism into the
death." Or he might have said, "We were crucified with him
through baptism into death;" and then as now it would have been
the end accomplished, the death, not the mode of the baptism, which
is made prominent. In the briefer form of expression in Col. ii, 12,
it is written, simply, " having been buried with him in baptism."
Here, however, the context shows that the leading thought is the
same as in Rom. vi, 3-11. The burial in baptism (kv rw /3anriafj,aTi,
in the matter of baptism) figured " the putting off of the body of
the flesh;" that is, the utter stripping off and casting aside the old
carnal nature. The burial is not to be thought of as a mode of
putting a corpse in a grave or sepulchre, but as indicating that the
body of sin is truly dead. Having thus clearly defined the real
point of the allusion it need not be denied or disputed that the
figure also may include, incidentally, a reference to the practice of
immersion. But, as Eadie observes, " Whatever may be otherwise
said in favour of immersion, it is plain that here the burial is
wholly ideal. Believers are buried in baptism, but even in immer
sion they do not go through a process having any resemblance to
the burial and resurrection of Christ." ! To maintain from such a
metaphorical allusion, where the process and mode of burial are not
in point at all, that a burial into, and a resurrection from, water,
are essential to valid baptism, would seem like an extravagance of
dogmatism.
1 Commentary on the Greek Text of Colossians, in loco.
VARIOUS FIGURES. 177
CHAPTER V.
FABLES, RIDDLES, AND ENIGMAS.
PASSING now from the more common figures of speech, we come to
those peculiar tropical methods of conveying ideas and ,
• I.-T-I-U • i • • More Proml-
impressmg truths, which hold a special prominence in nent scriptural
the Holy Scriptures. These are known as fables, rid- l
dies, enigmas, allegories, parables, proverbs, types, and symbols.
In order to appreciate and properly interpret these special forms
of thought, a clear understanding of the more common rhetorical
figures treated in the previous chapters is altogether necessary.
For the parable will be found to correspond with the simile, the
allegory with the metaphor, and other analogies will be traceable
in other figures. A scientific analysis and treatment of these more
prominent tropes of Scripture will require us to distinguish and dis
criminate between some things which in popular speech are fre
quently confounded. Even in the Scripture itself the proverb, the
parable, and the allegory are not formally distinguished. In the
Old Testament the word ?B>lp is applied alike to the proverbs of
Solomon (Prov. i, 1 ; x, 1 ; xxv, 1), the oracles of Balaam (Num.
xxiii, 7; xxiv, 8), the addresses of Job (Job xxvii, 1; xxix, 1), the
taunting speech against the King of Babylon (in Isa. xiv, 4, ff.),
and other prophecies (Micah ii, 4; Hab. ii, 6). In the New Testa
ment the word Trapa/Jo/b?, parable, is applied not only to what are
admitted on all hands to be parables proper, but also to proverb
(Luke iv, 23), and symbol (Heb. ix, 9), and type (Heb. xi, 19).
John does not use the word 7ropa/3oA?7 at all, but calls the allegory
of the good shepherd in chap, x, 6, a Trapo^m, which word Peter
uses in the sense of a proverb or byword (2 Peter ii, 22). The
word allegory occurs but once (Gal. iv, 24), and then in verbal
form (dkkrjyoQovfieva) to denote the allegorizing process by which
certain Old Testament facts might be made to typify Gospel truths.
Lowest of these special figures, in dignity and aim, is the fable.
It consists essentially in this, that individuals of the characteristics
brute creation, and of animate and inanimate nature, are of the fable-
introduced into the imagery as if possessed with reason and speech,
and are represented as acting and talking contrary to the laws of
their being. There is a conspicuous element of unreality about the
178 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
whole machinery of fables, and yet the moral intended to be set
forth is usually so manifest that no difficulty is felt in understand
ing it.
The oldest fable of which we have any trace is that of Jotham,
recorded in Judg. ix, Y-20. The trees are represented
Jotham's fable. . ., , _ , , . , , . m,
as going forth to choose and anoint a king. Ihey in
vite the olive, the fig-tree, and the vine to come and reign over
them, but these all decline, and urge that their own natural purpose
and products require all their care. Then the trees invite the
bramble, which does not refuse, but, in biting irony, insists that all
the trees shall come and take refuge under its shadow! Let the
olive-tree, and the fig-tree, and the vine come under the protecting
shade of the briar ! But if not, it is significantly added, " Let fire go
forth from the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon." The
miserable, worthless bramble, utterly unfit to shade even the small
est shrub, might, nevertheless, well serve to kindle a fire that would
quickly devour the noblest of trees. So Jotham, in giving an im
mediate application of his fable, predicts that the weak and worth
less Abimelech, whom the men of Shechem had been so fast to
make king over them, would prove an accursed torch to burn their
noblest leaders. All this imagery of trees walking and talking is
at once seen to be purely fanciful. It has no foundation in fact,
and yet it presents a vivid and impressive picture of the political
follies of mankind in accepting the leadership of such worthless
characters as Abimelech.
Another fable, quite similar to that of Jotham, is found in
2 Kings xiv, 9, where Jehoash, the King of Israel, an-
Jehoash's fable. ' '
swers the warlike challenge of Amaziah, King of Ju-
dah, by the following short and pungent apologue: "The thorn-
bush which is in Lebanon sent to the cedar which is in Lebanon,
saying, Give thy daughter to my son for a wife; and there passed
over a beast of the field which was in Lebanon, and trampled down
the thornbush." This fable embodies a most contemptuous re
sponse to Amaziah, intimating that his pride of heart and self-con
ceit were moving him to attempt things far beyond his proper
sphere. The beast trampling down the thornbush intimates that a
passing incident, which could have no effect on a cedar of Lebanon,
might easily destroy the briar. Jehoash does not proudly boast
that he himself will come forth, and by his military forces crush
Amaziah; but suggests that a passing judgment, an incidental
circumstance, would be sufficient for that purpose, and it were
therefore better for the presumptuous King of Judah to remain at
home in his proper place.
THE FABLE. 179
The apologues of Jotham and Jehoash are the only proper fables
that appear in the Bible. In the interpretation of these Fabuious im&_
we should guard against pressing the imagery too far. gery not to be
We are not to suppose that every word and allusion fntne interpret
has some special meaning. In the apologue of Jehoash tetion.
we are not to say that the thornbush was Amaziah, and the cedar
Jehoash, and the wild beast the warriors of the latter ; and yet, by
the contrast between the cedar and the thornbush, the king of
Israel would, doubtless, impress his contempt for Amaziah upon
the latter's mind, and thus seek to humiliate his pride. Neither
are we to suppose that Amaziah had asked Jehoash to give his
daughter in marriage to his son ; nor that " Israel might properly
be regarded as Jehoash's daughter, and Judah as Amaziah's son"
(Thenius), as if Amaziah had formally demanded, as Josephus
states, (Ant, ix, 9, 2), a union of the two kingdoms. Nor in the
fable of Jotham are we, like some of the ancient interpreters, to
understand by the olive, the fig-tree, and the vine, the three great
judges that had preceded Abimelech, viz., Othniel, Deborah, and
Gideon, nor seek for hidden meanings and thrusts in such words as
anoint, reign over us, and shadow. We should always keep in
mind that it is one distinguishing feature of fables that they are
not exact parallels of those things to which they are designed to be
applied. They are based on imaginary actions of irrational crea
tures, or inanimate things, and can therefore never be true to
actual life.
We should also note how completely the spirit and aim of the
fable accords with irony, sarcasm, and ridicule. Hence its special
adaptation to expose the follies and vices of men. " It is essential
ly of the earth," says Trench, "and never lifts itself above the
earth. It never has a higher aim than to inculcate maxims of pru
dential morality, industry, caution, foresight ; and these it will some
times recommend even at the expense of the higher self-forgetting
virtues. The fable just reaches that pitch of morality which the
world will understand and approve." l But this able and excellent
writer goes, as we think, too far when he says that the fable has no
proper place in the Scripture, " and, in the nature of things, could
have none, for the purpose of Scripture excludes it." The fables
noticed above are a part of the Scripture which is received as God-
inspired (2 Tim. iii, 16); and though it is not God that speaks
through them, but men occupying an earthly standpoint, that fact
does not make good the assertion that such fables have no true
place in Scripture. For the teachings of Scripture move in the
1 Notes on the Parables, p. 10.
180 SPECIAL IIERMENEUTICS.
realm of earthly life and human thought as well as in a higher and
holier element, and sarcasm and caustic rebukes find a place on the
sacred page. The record of Adam's naming the beasts and fowls
that were brought to him in Eden (Gen. ii, 19) suggests that their
qualities and habits impressed his mind with significant analogies.
Many of the most useful proverbs are abbreviated fables (Prov.
vi, 6 ; xxx, 15, 25-28). Though the fable moves in the earthly ele
ment of prudential morality, even that element may be pervaded
and taken possession of by the divine wisdom.1
The riddle differs from the fable in being designed to puzzle and
Characteristics perplex the hearer. It is purposely obscure in order to
of the nddie. test the sharpness and penetration of those who attempt
to solve it. The Hebrew word for riddle (HTn) is from a root which
means to twist, or tie a knot, and is used of any dark and intricate
saying, which requires peculiar skill and insight to unravel. The
queen of Sheba made a journey to Solomon's court to test him with
riddles (1 Kings x, 1). It is declared, at the beginning of the Book
of the Proverbs, that it is the part of true wisdom " to understand
a proverb and an enigma (nyylp) ; words of the wise and their
riddles" (Prov. i, 6). The psalmist says, "I will incline my ear to
a proverb; I will open on a harp my riddle" (Psa. xlix, 4). "I
will open my mouth in a proverb ; I will pour forth riddles of old "
(Ixxviii, 2). Riddles, therefore, dark sayings, enigmas, which con
ceal thought, and, at the same time, incite the inquiring mind to
search for their hidden meanings, have a place in the Scripture.
Samson's celebrated riddle is in the form of a Hebrew couplet
(Judges xiv, 14):
Out of the eater came forth food,
And out of strength came forth sweetness.
The clue to this riddle is furnished in the incidents related in
Samson's rid- verses 8 and 9. Out of the carcass of a devouring
me- beast came the food of which both Samson and his
parents had eaten; and out of that which had been the embodi
ment of strength, came forth the sweet honey, which the bees bad
deposited therein. But Samson's companions, and even his parents,
were not acquainted with these facts. Their ignorance, however,
1 The profound significance of Jotham's fable is declared by Cassel to be inexhaust
ible. " Its truth is of perpetual recurrence. More than once was Israel in the posi
tion of the Shechemites ; then, especially, when he whose kingdom is not of this world,
refused to be a king. Then, too, Herod and Pilate became friends. The thornbush
seemed to be king when it encircled the head of the Crucified. But Israel experienced
what is here denounced : a fire went forth and consumed city and people, temple and
fortress." Cassel's Commentary on Judges (Lauge's Biblework), in loco.
THE RIDDLE. 181
is no ground for saying that therefore Samson's riddle was no
proper riddle at all. "The ingenuity of the riddle," says Cassel,
" consists precisely in this, that the ambiguity both of its language
and contents can be turned in every direction, and thus conceals the
answer. It is like a knot whose right end cannot be found. . . .
Samson's problem distinguishes itself only by its peculiar ingenuity.
It is short and simple, and its words are used in their natural signi
fication. It is so clear as to be obscure. It is not properly liable
to the objection that it refers to an historical act which no one could
know. The act was one -which was common in that country. Its
turning point, with reference to the riddle was, not that it was an
incident of Samson's personal history, but that its occurrence in
general was not impossible." '
A notable example of riddle in the New Testament is that of the
mystic number of the beast propounded in Rev. xiii, 18. The number of
" Here is wisdom. Let him that has understanding the ^ast.
reckon the number of the beast, for it is a man's number ; and his
number is six hundred sixty-six." Another very ancient reading,
but probably the error of a copyist, makes the number six hundred
and fourteen. This riddle has perplexed critics and interpreters
through all the ages since the Apocalypse was written." The num
ber of a man would most naturally mean the numerical value of the
letters which compose some man's name, and the two names which
have found most favour in the solution of this problem are the
Greek Aareivo^ and the Hebrew "iDp p~U. Either of these names
makes up the required number, and one or the other will be adopt
ed according to one's interpretation of the symbolical beast in
question.
Some of the sayings of the wise in the Book of Proverbs seem to
have been made purposely obscure. Who shall decide
mi -n i • i Darfc proverbs.
the real meaning of Prov. xxvi, 10? The English ver
sion renders : " The great God that formed all things both reward-
eth the fool, and rewardeth transgressors." But the margin gives
us an alternative reading : " A great man grieveth all, and he hireth
the fool, he hireth also transgressors." Others translate: "As the
archer that woundeth every one, so is he that hireth the fool, and
he that hireth the passer-by." Others: "An arrow that woundeth
every one is he who hireth a fool and he who hireth vagrants."
Others: "A master forms all things himself, but he that hires a
fool is as he that hires vagrants." And the Hebrew words of the
1 Commentary on Judges, in loco.
8 For the various conjectures see the leading Commentaries on the passage, espe
cially Stuart, Elliott, and Dusterdieck.
182 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
original are susceptible of still other renderings. A proverb couched
in words susceptible of so many different meanings may well be
called a riddle or "dark saying." It was probably designed to
puzzle, and the variety of meanings attaching to its words was a
reason with the author for choosing just those words.
One of the " dark sayings of old " is the poetic fragment ascribed
to Lamech (Gen. iv, 23, 24), which may be closely rendered thus:
Adah and Zillah, hear rny voice ;
Wives of Lamech, listen to my saying ;
For a man have I slain for my wound,
And a child for my bruise.
For sevenfold avenged should Cain be,
And Lamech seventy and seven.
The obscurity attaching to this song arises probably from our
io-norance of the circumstances which called it forth. Some have
o
supposed that Lamech was smitten with remorse over
the murder of a young man, and these words are his
lamentation. Others suppose he had killed a man in self-defense,
or in retaliation for wounds received. Others make the song a tri
umphant exultation over Tubal-cain's invention of brass and iron
weapons, and, translating the verb as a future " I will slay," regard
the utterance as a pompous threat. Verse 24 is then understood
as a blasphemous boast that he could now avenge his own wrongs
ten times more thoroughly than God would avenge the slaying of
Cain.1 Possibly the whole song was originally intended as a riddle,
and was as perplexing to Lamech's wives as to modern expositors.
It would be well to make a formal distinction between the riddle
and the enigma, and apply the former term to such in-
igma should be tricate sayings as deal essentially with earthly things,
ied' and arc especially designed to exercise human ingenuity
and shrewdness. Such were Samson's riddle, and the puzzling
questions put to Solomon by the Queen of Sheba, the number of
the beast, and proverbs like that noticed above (Prov. xxvi, 10).
Enigmas, on the other hand, would be the more fitting name for
those mystic utterances which serve both to conceal and enhance
some deep and sacred thought. But the words have been so long
used interchangeably of both classes of dark sayings that we can
scarcely expect to change from such indiscriminate usage.
The word enigma (alviyna) occurs but once (1 Cor. xiii, 12) in the
New Testament, but in the Septuagint it is employed as the Greek
equivalent of the Hebrew HTH. In 1 Cor. xiii, 12, it is used to
1 For a full synopsis of the various interpretations of this song, see M'Clintock and
Strong's Cyclopaedia, article Lamech.
THE ENIGMA. 183
indicate the dim and imperfect manner in which in this life we ap
prehend heavenly and eternal things: "For we see now through a
mirror in enigma." Most expositors take the words in enigma ad
verbially, in the sense of darkly, dimly, in an enigmatical way.
" But aiviy(j,a" says Meyer, " is a dark saying, and the idea of the
saying should as little be lost here as in Num. xii, 8. Luther ren
ders rightly: in a dark word; which, however, should be explained
more precisely as by means of an enigmatic word, whereby is meant
the word of the Gospel revelation, which capacitates for the seeing
(/3A£7T£tv) in question, however imperfect it be, and is its medium to
us. It is alviyfia, inasmuch as it affords to us no full clearness of
light upon God's decrees, ways of salvation, etc., but keeps its con
tents sometimes in greater, sometimes in a less, degree (Rom. xi, 33;
1 Cor. ii, 9) concealed, bound up in images, similitudes, types, and
the like forms of human limitation and human speech, and conse
quently is for us of a mysterious and enigmatic nature, standing in
need of a future kvois (solution), and vouchsafing martg (faith), in
deed, but not eidoc (appearance, 2 Cor. v, V)."1
There is an enigmatical element in our Lord's discourse with
Nicodemus, John iii, 1-13. The profound lesson con- Enigmatical
tained in the words of verse 3 : " Except a man be born S^'t^Si
from above he cannot see the kingdom of God," per- demus.
plexed and confounded the Jewish ruler. Deep in his heart the
Lord, who "knew what was in man" (ii, 25), discerned his spir
itual need. His thoughts were too much upon the outward, the
visible, the fleshly. The miracles of Jesus had made a deep im
pression, and he would inquire of the great wonder-worker as of a
divinely commissioned teacher. Jesus stops all his compliments,
and surprises him with a mysterious word, which seems equivalent
to saying: Do not now talk about my works, or of whence I came;
turn your thoughts upon your inner self. What you need is not
new knowledge, but new life ; and that life can be had only by an
other birth. And when Nicodemus uttered his surprise and won
der, he was rebuked by the reflection, " Art thou the teacher of
Israel, and knowest not these things?" (ver. 10). Had not the
psalmist prayed, " Create in me a clean heart, O God? " (Psa. Ii, 10).
Had not the law and the prophets spoken of a divine circumcision
of the heart? (Deut. xxx, 6; Jer. iv, 4; Ezek. xi, 19). Why then
should such a man as Nicodemus express surprise at these deep
sayings of the Lord ? Simply because his heart-life and spiritual
discernment were unable then to apprehend "the things of the
Spirit of Gjod" (1 Cor. ii, 14). They were as a riddle to him.
1 Meyer on Corinthians, in loco.
184 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
The same style of enigmatical discourse appears in Jesus' say
ings in the synagogue at Capernaum (John vi, 53-59); also in his
first words to the woman of Samaria (John iv, 10-15), and in his
response to the disciples when they returned and "wondered that
he was talking with a woman," and asked him to eat of the food
they had procured (John iv, 32-38). His reply, in this last case,
was, "I have food to eat which ye do not know." They mis
understood him, as did Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman,
"What wonder," says Augustine, "if that woman did not under
stand water? Behold, the disciples do not yet understand food." l
They wondered whether any one had brought him something to
eat during their absence, and then Jesus spoke more plainly: "My
food is that (iva, indicating conscious aim and purpose) I shall do
the will of him that sent me, and shall complete his work." His
success with the Samaritan woman was to him better food than any
bodily sustenance, for it elevated his soul into the holy conviction
and assurance that he should successfully accomplish the whole of
that work for which he came into the world. And then he pro
ceeds, adhering still to the tone and style of intermingled enigma
and allegory: "Do not ye say that there is yet a four-month, and
the harvest comes? Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes and
look on the fields, that they are white unto harvest. Already 2 he
that reaps is receiving reward and gathering fruit into (slg, as into
a garner) life eternal, that he who sows and he who reaps may re
joice together." The winning of that one Samaritan convert opens
to Jesus' prophetic soul the great Gospel harvest of the near future,
and he speaks of it as already at hand. Whether we regard the
saying, " There is yet a four-month, and the harvest comes," as a
proverb (Lightfoot, Tholuck, Liicke, De Wette, Stier), equivalent
to, There is a space of four months between seedtime and harvest,
or understand that the neighbouring grain fields were just sown, or
just now green with the young tender grain (Meyer and many),
and over them many Samaritans appeared coming to him (ver. 30),
the great thought is still the same, and emphasizes the actual joy
of Jesus in that hour of ingathering. Sower and reaper were to
gether there and then, but the disciples could scarcely take in the
full import of Jesus' glowing words. " The disciples saw no har
vest field; they said and they thought assuredly, There must be at
least four months yet ! But the Lord sets before them a mystery
1 In Joannis Evangelium Tractatus xv, 31.
2 Most of the oldest and best manuscript authorities omit KOI after 7/673, and many
of the best critics join rjdr) with what follows. So Schulz, Tischendorf, Godet, and
Westcott and Hort.
BIBLICAL ENIGMAS. 185
and an enigma, and thereby would teach them to lift up aright the
eyes of their faith. Jlehold, I say unto you, I have now been sow
ing the word, and already behold a sudden harvest upspringing and
ready. Should not this be my meat and my joy? O ye, my reap
ers, rejoice together with me, the sower, and forget ye also to
eat ! " '
The words of Jesus in Luke xxii, 36, are an enigma. As he was
about to so out to Gethsemane he discerned that the
•' . Enigma of the
hour of peril was at hand. He reminded his disciples sword in Luke
of the time when he sent them forth without purse, XX11)36-
wallet, or shoes (Luke ix, 1-6), and drew from them the acknowl
edgement that they had then lacked nothing. " But now," said he,
"he that has a purse, let him take it, and likewise a wallet; and he
that has not, let him sell his mantle, and buy a sword." He would
impress them with the feeling that the time of fearful conflict and
exposure was now imminent. They must expect to be assailed,
and should be prepared for all righteous self-defense. They would
see times when a sword would be worth more to them than a man
tle. But our Lord, evidently, did not mean that they should, liter
ally, arm themselves with the weapons of a carnal warfare, and use
the sword to propagate his cause (Matt, xxvi, 52; John xviii, 36).
He would significantly warn them of the coming bitter conflict and
opposition they must meet. The world would be against them, and
assail them in many a hostile form, and they should therefore pre
pare for self-defense and manly encounter. It is not the sword of
the Spirit (Eph. vi, 17) of which the Lord here speaks, but the
sword as the symbol of that warlike heroism, that bold and fearless
confession, and that inflexible purpose to maintain the truth, which
would soon be a duty and a necessity on the part of the disciples
in order to defend their faith. But the disciples misunderstood
these enigmatical words, and spoke of two swords which they had
with them ! Jesus paused not to explain, and broke off that con
versation " in the tone of one who is conscious that others would
not yet understand him, and who, therefore, holds further speech
unprofitable."8 His laconic answer, it is enough, was "a gentle
turning aside of further discussion, with a touch of sorrowful
irony. More than your two swords ye need not! "
A similar enigma appears in John xxi, 18, where Jesus says to
Simon Peter: "When thou wast young thou girdedst maticai
thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest; but when words to Peter,
thou shalt be old another shall gird thee and carry thee Joh "*' 18'
1 Stier, Words of Jesus, in loco. * Van Oosterzee's Commentary on Luke
(Lange's Biblework), in loco. ' Meyer, in loco.
186 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
whither thou wouldest not." The writer immediately adds that
Jesus thereby signified (ar)[j,aiv(jv) " by what death he should glorify
God." But it is scarcely probable that Peter then fully compre
hended the saying. Comp. also John ii, 19.
The prophetic picture of the two eagles in Ezek. xvii, 2-10, is a
mixture of enigma (iTVn) and fable (bcto). It is fabu
The two eagles
of Ezek. xvii, lous so far as it represents the eagles as acting with
human intelligence and will, but, aside from this, its
imagery belongs rather to the sphere of propLetic symbols. Alto
gether, it is an enigma of high prophetic character, a " dark say
ing," in which the real meaning is concealed behind typical images.
In its interpretation we need to take the whole chapter together,
and we observe that it has three distinct parts: (1) The enigma
(verses 1-10); (2) its interpretation (11-21); (3) a Messianic proph
ecy based upon the foregoing imagery (22-24). The great eagle
represents the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar. The " great
wings, with long pinions, full of feathers of many colours " (ver. 3),
altogether furnish a striking figure of majesty, rapidity of move
ment, and splendour of regal power. Most expositors explain the
great wings as denoting the wide dominion of this eagle; the long
pinions as the extent and energy of his military power; the fulness
of feathers to the multitude of subjects; and the many colours to the
diversity of their nations, languages, and customs. But the tracing
of such special allusions in the natural appendages of the eagle is
of doubtful worth, and should not be made prominent. It is better
to understand in a more general way the strength, rapidity, and
glory of Nebuchadnezzar. Lebanon is mentioned because of its
being the natural home of the cedar, but it here represents Jerusa
lem (ver. 12), which was the home and seat of the royal seed of
Judah. The leafy crown and topmost shoots of the cedar are the
king and princes of Judah whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away to
Babylon (2 Kings xxiv, 14, 15). Babylon is here called, enigmat
ically, " a land of Canaan," because its commerce and its diplomacy
had made it " a city of merchants." Its self-seeking spirit of policy
and trade made it a land of Canaan (Eng. Ver., "traffic").
And now the figure changes. The eagle "took of the seed of
the land," of the same land where the cedar grew, " and put it in
a field of seed " (ver. 5) where it had every chance to grow. Nay,
he took it upon many waters as one would plant a willow; that is,
with the care and foresight that one would exercise in setting a
willow in a well- watered soil in which alone it can flourish. But
this " seed of the land " was not the seed of a willow, but of a
vine, and it " sprouted and became a spreading vine of low stature; *
THE TWO EAGLES. 187
and it was the plan of the eagle that this lowly vine snould "turn
its branches toward him, and its roots under him" (ver. 6). The
" seed of the land " (ver. 5) was the royal seed of the kingdom of
Judah (ver. 13), Zedekiah, whom Nebuchadnezzar made king in
Jerusalem after the capture of Jehoiachin (2 Kings xxiv, 17).
The other great eagle was the king of Egypt, less mighty and
glorious than the other. Toward this second eagle the vine turned
her roots and sent forth her branches (ver. 7). The impotent but
rebellious Zedekiah " sent his messengers to Egypt " for horses and
people to help him against Nebuchadnezzar (ver. 15). But it was
all in vain. He who broke his covenant and despised his oath
(ver. 18) could not prosper; it required no great arm or many peo
ple to uproot and destroy such a feeble vine. The eagle of Egypt
was powerless to help, and the Chaldaean forces, like a destructive
east wind (ver. 10), utterly withered it away. All this is brought
out forcibly in the solemn words of the "oracle of the Lord Jeho
vah," verses 16-21.
Thus far the imagery has been a mixture of fable and symbol,1
but with verse 22 the prophet enters a higher plane of prophecy.
The eagles drop out of view entirely, and Jehovah himself takes
from the leafy crown of the high cedar a tender shoot (comp. Isa.
xi, 1; liii, 2) and plants it upon the lofty mountain of Israel, where
it becomes a glorious cedar to shelter and shade " every bird of
every wing." This is a noble prophecy of the Messiah, springing
from the stock of Judah, and developing from the holy " mountain
of the house of Jehovah " (Micah iv, 1, 2) a kingdom of marvellous
growth and of gracious protection to all who may seek its shelter.
We should note especially how the Messianic prophecy here leaves
the realm of fable and takes on the style of allegory and parable.
Comp. Matt, xiii, 31, 32.
1 Schroder observes that the mixed figure here used by Ezekiel goes far beyond
mere popular illustration, and must not " be explained away from the aesthetic stand
point, as merely another rhetorical garb for the thought. As in the parable the em
blematic form preponderates over the thought, so also here. What the prophet is to
say tc Israel is said by the whole of that mighty array of figurative expression for
which the animal and vegetable worlds furnish the figures. But the eagle does what
eagles otherwise never do ; and what is planted as a willow grows as a vine ; and tin
vine is represented as falling in love with the other eagle. The contradictory cli: -
acter of such a representation, and the fact that in the difficulties to be sol
(ver. 9, sq.) the comparison comes to a stand, and the closing Messianic portion
which the whole culminates, convert the parable into a riddle. A trace of irony ami
the moral tendency, such as belong to the fable, are not wanting." Commentary on
Ezekiel (in Lange's Bible work), in loco.
188
CHAPTER VL
INTERPRETATION OF PARABLES.
AMONG the figurative forms of scriptural speech the parable has a
notable pre-eminence. We find a number of examples
Pre-eminence . *• .
of parabolic in the Old Testament, and the esteem in which this
mode of teaching was held by the ancient Jews is ap
parent from the following words of the son of Sirach :
He who gives his soul and exercises his mind in the law of the
Most High
Will seek out the wisdom of the ancients,
And will be occupied with prophecies.
He will observe the utterances of men of fame,
And will enter with them into the twists (crrpo^aZf) of parables.
He will seek out the hidden things of proverbs,
And busy himself with the enigmas of parables.1
Parables are especially worthy of our study, inasmuch as they were
the chosen methods by which our Lord set forth many revelations
of his heavenly kingdom. They were also employed by the great
rabbis who were contemporary with Jesus, and they frequently ap
pear in the Talmud and other Jewish books. Among all the orien
tal peoples they appear to have been a favourite form of conveying
moral instruction, and find a place in the literature of most nations.
The word parable is derived from the Greek verb 7rapa/3a/lAa), to
7 The parable de- throw or place by the side of, and carries the idea of
$ fined, placing one thing by the side of another for the pur
pose of comparison. The word has been somewhat vaguely used,
as we have seen above,3 to represent the Hebrew ?^, and to desig
nate proverbs, types, and symbols (as in Luke iv, 23; Heb. ix, 9;
xi, 19). But, strictly speaking, the parable belongs to a style of
figurative speech which constitutes a class of its own. It is essen
tially a comparison, or simile, and yet all similes are not parables.
The simile may appropriate a comparison from any kind or class of
objects, whether real or imaginary. The parable is limited in its
range, and confined to that which is real. Its imagery always eml
bodies a narrative which is true to the facts and experiences of hu'
man life. It makes no use, like the fable, of talking birds and
1 Ecclesiasticus xxxix, 1-3. 4See above on p. 177.
PARABLE DEFINED. 189
beasts, or of trees in council. Like the riddle and enigma, it may
serve to conceal a truth from those who have not spiritual pene
tration to perceive it under its figurative form; but its narrative
style, and the formal comparison always announced or assumed,
differentiate it clearly from all classes of knotty sayings which are
designed mainly to puzzle and confuse. The parable, when once
understood, unfolds and illustrates the mysteries of the kingdom of
heaven. The enigma may embody profound truths, and make
much use of metaphor, but it never, like the parable, forms a nar
rative, or assumes to make a formal comparison. The parable and
the allegory come nearer together, so that, indeed, parables have
been defined as "historical allegories;" ' but they differ from each
other in substantially the same way as simile differs from meta
phor. The parable is essentially a formal comparison, and requires*
its interpreter to go beyond its own narrative to bring in its mean
ing; the allegory is an extended metaphor, and contains its inter
pretation within itself. The parable, therefore, stands apart by it--
self as a mode and style of figurative speech. It moves in an
element of sober earnestness, never transgressing in its imagery
the limits of probability, or of what might be actual fact. It may
tacitly take up within itself essential elements of enigma, type,
symbol, and allegory, but it differs from them all, and in its own
chosen sphere of real, every-day life, is peculiarly adapted to body
forth special teachings of Him who is " the Verax, no less than the
Verus, and the Veritas." 8
The general design of parables, as of all other kinds of figurative
language, is to embellish and set forth ideas and moral General use of
truths in attractive and impressive forms. Many a Parables-
moral lesson, if spoken in naked, literal style, is soon forgotten; but,
clothed in parabolic dress, it arouses attention, and fastens itself in
the memory. Many rebukes and pungent warnings may be couched
1 Davidson's Hermeneutics, p. 311.
2 Trench on the Miracles, p. 127. This eminent divine, whose work on the para
bles is one of the best of its kind, traces to considerable extent the differences
between the parable, the fable, the myth, the proverb, and the allegory, and sums
up as follows : " The parable differs from the fable, moving as it does in a spiritual
world, and never transgressing the actual order of things natural ; from the m ythus,
there being in the latter an unconscious blending of the deeper meaning with the out
ward symbol, the two remaining separate and separable in the parable ; from the
proverb, inasmuch as it is longer carried out, and not merely accidentally and occa
sionally, but necessarily figurative ; from the allegory, comparing as it does one thing
with, another, at the same time preserving them apart as an inner and an outer, not
transf"-ring, as does the allegory, the proprieties, and qualities, and relations of one
to the c ther." — Notes on the Parables, pp. 15, 16. New York, 1857.
13
190 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
in a parable, and thereby give less offence, and yet work better
effects than open plainness of speech could do. Nathan's par
able (in 2 Sam. xii, 1-4) prepared the heart of David to receive
with profit the keen reproof he was about to administer. Some of
our Lord's most pointed parables against the Jews — parables which
they perceived were directed against themselves — embodied re
proof, rebuke, and warning, and yet by their form and drapery,
they served to shield him from open violence (Matt, xxi, 45; Mark
xii, 12; Luke xx, 19). It is easy, also, to see that a parable may
enshrine a profound truth or mystery which the hearers may not
at first apprehend, but which, because of its striking or memorable
form, abides more firmly in the mind, and so abiding, yields at
length its deep and precious meaning.1
The special reason and purpose of the parables of Jesus are stated
Special reason in Matt, xiii, 10-17. Up to that point in his ministry
the* frames of JGSUS appears not to have spoken in parables. "The
Jesus. words of grace (hoyta rfjg xdpi~o(;) which proceeded
from his mouth " (Luke iv, 22) in the synagogue, by the seashore,
and on the mount, were direct, simple, and plain. He used simile
and metaphor in the sermon on the mount, and elsewhere. In the
synagogue at Nazareth he quoted a familiar proverb and called it a
parable (Luke iv, 23). His words had power and authority, unlike
those of the scribes, and the people were astonished at his teaching.
But there came a time when he notably changed his style. His
simple precepts were often met with derision and scorn, and among
the multitudes there were always some who were anxious to pervert
his sayings. When multitudes gathered by the sea of Galilee to*
hear him, " and he spoke to them many things in parables " (Matt,
xiii, 3), his disciples quickly observed the change and asked himr
"Why in parables dost thou speak to them?" Our Lord's answer
is remarkable for its blended use of metaphor, proverb, and enigma,
so combined and connected with a prophecy of Isaiah (vi, 9, 10),
that it becomes in itself one of the profoundest of his discourses.
Because to you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of the
heavens, but to them it is not given. For whosoever has, to him shall be
given and he shall superabound ; but whosoever has not, even what he has
1 Trench writes of our Lord's parables : " His words laid up in the memory were to
mauy that heard them like the money of another country, unavailable, it might be, for
present use, of which they knew not the value, but which yet was ready in their hand
when they reached that land and were naturalized in it. When the Spirit came and
brought all things to their remembrance, then he filled all the outlines of truth which
they before possessed with its substance, quickened all its forms with the power and
spirit of life." — Notes on the Parables, p. 28.
PURPOSES OF PARABLES. 191
shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables; be
cause seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor understand.
And with them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which says, By hearing
ye shall hear and in no wise understand ; and seeing ye shall see and in no
wise perceive ; for thick became the heart of this people, and they heard
heavily with their ears, and their eyes they closed, lest haply they should
perceive with their eyes, and with their ears hear, and with the heart un
derstand, and should turn again, and I should heal them. Matt, xiii, 11-15.
The great thought in this answer seems to be that the Lord had
a twofold purpose in the use of parables, namely, both
— . , r •" Parables both
to reveal and to conceal great truths.1 There was, first, reveal and con-
that inner circle of followers who received his word with ceal truth-
joy, and who, like those who shared in the secret counsels of other
kingdoms, were gifted to know the mysteries of the Messianic reign,"
long hidden, but now about to be made known (comp. Rom. xi, 25 ;
xvi, 25 ; Col. i, 26). These should realize the truth of the proverb,
"Whosoever has to him shall be given," etc. This proverb ex
presses in an enigmatical way a most weighty and wonderful law
of experience in the things of God. He who is gifted with a desire
to know God, and to appropriate rightly the provisions of his grace,
shall increase in wisdom and knowledge more and more by the
manifold revelations of divine truth. But the man of opposite
character, who has heart, soul, and mind wherewith to love God,
but is unwilling to use his powers in earnest search for the
truth, shall lose even what he seems to have.3 His powers will
become weak and worthless by inactivity, and like the slothful
servant in the parable of the talents,4 he will lose that which should
have been his glory.
1 The Iva in the parallel passages of Mark iv, 12 and Luke viii, 10 shows that our
Lord teaches in these words the final end and purpose of his parables, not merely
their results. The quotation from Isaiah evinces the same thing.
2 " The kingdom of heaven," says Stier, " is itself a mystery for the natural earthly
understanding, and, like earthly kingdoms, it has its state secrets, which cannot and
ought not to be cast before every one. When, on a frank and friendly approach be
ing made, no feeling of loyalty shows itself, but rather a threatening of rebellion,
then it is wise and reasonable to draw a veil, which, however, is willingly removed
whenever any faithful one wishes to join himself more nearly to the king." — Words
of the Lord Jesus, in loco.
3 So Luke (viii, 18) expresses the thought: Kal o doicel e^ftv. On which Stier re
marks: "For every 1%UV (one having) who does not keep (/carpet) is only a Aontiv
?££ii» (one seeming to have) in a manifold sense. It is an imaginary having, the noth
ingness of which is to be made manifest by a so-called taking, which yet properly
takes nothing from him. It is a having which has become lost through his unfaith
fulness (2 John 8)."
4 Of whom the same proverb is used again, and more fully illustrated, Matt, xxv,
28, 29. Comp. also John xv, 2.
192 SPECIAL IIERMEXEUTICS.
And so the use cf parables, in our Lord's teaching, became a test
Parables a test °f character. With those disposed to know and accept
of character, the truth the words of a parable served to arouse atten
tion and to excite inquiry. If they did not at first apprehend the
meaning, they would come, like the disciples to the Master (Matt,
xiii, 36; Mark iv, 10), and inquire of him, assured that all who
asked, searched, or knocked (Matt, vii, 7) at the door of Divine
Wisdom should certainly obtain their desire. Even those who at
first are dull of apprehension may be attracted and captivated by
the outer form of the parable, and by honest inquiry come to master
the laws of interpretation until they "know all parables" (Mark
iv, 13). But the perverse and fleshly mind shows its real character
by making no inquiry and evincing no desire to understand the
mysteries of the kingdom of God. Such a mind treats those mys
teries as a species of folly (1 Cor. i, 18).
The parables of the Bible are remarkable for their beauty, vari-
Supenor beauty ety, conciseness, and fulness of meaning. There is a
neiTSuIre noticeable appropriateness in the parables of Jesus,
parables. and their adaptation to the time and place of their
first utterance. The parable of the sower was spoken by the sea
side (Matt, xiii, 1, 2), whence might have been seen, at no great
distance off, a sower actually engaged in sowing his seed. The
parable of the dragnet in the same chapter (verses 47-50) may
have been occasioned by the sight of such a net close by. The
parable of the nobleman going into a far country to receive for
himself a kingdom (Luke xix, 12) was probably suggested by the
ease of Archelaus, who made a journey from Judea to Rome to
plead his right to the kingdom of Herod his father.1 As Jesus had
just passed through Jericho and was approaching Jerusalem, per
haps the sight of the royal palace which Archelaus had recently
rebuilt at Jericho 2 suggested the allusion. Even the literal narra
tive of some of the parables is in the highest degree beautiful and
impressive. The parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke x, 30-37)
was probably based on fact. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho
was notably infested by robbers, and yet, leading as it did from
Perea to the holy city, it would be frequented by priests and Le-
vites passing to and fro. The coldness and neglect of the ministers
of the law, and the tender compassion of the Samaritan, are full of
interest and rich in suggestions. The narrative of the Prodigal
Son has been called "the pearl and crown of all the parables of
Scripture," and " a gospel in a gospel." 3 We never tire of its literal
1 Josepbus, Ant., xvii, 9, 1 ff. 11, 4. 2 Ibid, xvii, 11, 13.
3 Comp. Trench on the Parables, p. 316.
THREE ELEMENTS OF PARABLE. 198
statements, for they are as full of naturalness and beauty as they
are of lessons of sin and redemption.
The parable is commonly assumed to have three parts, (1) the
occasion and scope, (2) the similitude, in the form of a „
' . . Three essential
real narrative, and (3) the moral and religious lessons, elements of a
These three parts are called by Salmeron, Glassius, and parable-
others, the root or basis (radix), the bark or covering (cortex), and
the marrow (medulla) or inner substance and core.1 The last two
are often called, respectively, the protasis and the apodosis. The
main thing in the construction of a parable is its similitude, or lit
eral narrative, for this always appears, and constitutes the parable
as a figure of speech. The occasion and scope, as well as the in
ternal sense, are not always expressed. In most cases, in fact, the
apodosis, or inner sense, is left for the hearer to find out for himself,
and sometimes the occasion and scope are difficult to determine.
But our Lord himself has given us two examples of interpreting
parables;2 and frequently the scope and application of the parable
are formally stated in the context, so that, with but few exceptions,
the parables of Scripture are not difficult to explain.3
As every parable essentially involves the three elements named
above, the hermeneutical principles which should guide Three prtnci-i
us in understanding all parables are mainly three. £^5S?paH
First, we should determine the historical occasion and abies.
aim of the parable ; secondly, we should make an accurate analysis
1 Salmeron, De Parabolis Domini nostri, tr. iii, p. 15. Glassius, Philologia Sacra
(Lips. 1725) lib. ii, pars i, tr. ii, sect. 5. Home (Introduction, ed. Ayre and Treg.,
vol. ii, p. 346) adopts the same division, and calls the three parts, respectively, the
root or scope, the sensible similitude, and the explanation or mystical sense. Davidson
(Hermeneutics, p. 311) says: "In the parable as in the allegory three things de
mand attention: (1) The thing to be illustrated; (2) the example illustrating; (3) the
tertium comparationis, or the similitude existing between them."
2 Namely, in the interpretation of the parables of the sower (Matt, xiii, 18-23) and
of the tares of the field (Matt, xiii, 36-43). Trench observes, "that when our Lord
himself interpreted the two first which he delivered, it is more than probable that he
intended to furnish us with a key for the interpretation of all. These explanations,
therefore, are most important, not merely for their own sakes, but as laying down the
principles and canons of interpretation to be applied throughout." — Notes on the
Parables, p. 36.
3 Trench (Parables, p. 32) beautifully observes : " The parables, fair in their out
ward form, are yet fairer within — apples of gold in network of silver: each one of
them like a casket, itself of exquisite workmanship, but in which jewels yet richer
than itself are laid up ; or as fruit, which, however lovely to look upon, is yet more
delectable still in its inner sweetness. To find the golden key for this casket, at the
touch of which it shall reveal its treasures ; to open this fruit, so that nothing of its
hidden kernel shall be missed or lost, has naturally been regarded ever as a matter of
high concern."
194 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
of the subject matter, and observe the nature and properties of
the things employed as imagery in the similitude ; and thirdly, we
should interpret the several parts with strict reference to the gen
eral scope and design of the whole, so as to preserve a harmony of
proportions, maintain the unity of all the parts, and make promi
nent the great central truth.1 These principles can become of
practical value only by actual use and illustration in the interpre
tation of a variety of parables.
As our Lord has left us a formal explanation of what were prob
ably the first two parables he uttered, we do well, first of all, to
Principles n- note the principles of interpretation as they appear illus-
SabS^the trated in llis examples. In the parable of the sower we
sower. find it easy to conceive the position and surroundings
of Jesus when he opened his parabolic discourse. He had gone out
to the seaside and sat down there, but when the multitudes crowded
around him, " he entered into a boat and sat ; and all the multitude
stood on the beach " (Matt, xiii, 2). How natural and appropriate
for him then and there to think of the various dispositions and
characters of those before him. How like so many kinds of soil
were their hearts. How was his preaching " the word of the king-
dona" (verse 19) like a sowing of seed, suggested perhaps by the
sight of a sower, or of a sown field, on the neighbouring coast.8
Nay, how was his coming into the world like a going forth to sow.
Passing now to notice the similitude itself, we observe that our
Lord attached significance to the seed sown, the wayside and the
birds, the rocky places, the thorns, and the good ground. Each of
these parts has a relevancy to the whole. In that one field where
the sower scattered his grain there were all these kinds of soil,
and the nature and properties of seed and soil are in perfect keep
ing with the results of that sowing as stated in the parable. The
soil is in every case a human heart. The birds represent the evil
one,3 who is ever opposed to the work of the sower, and watches to
snatch away that which is sown in the heart, " that they may not
1 One may compare the entire parable with a circle, of which the middle point is the
spiritual truth or doctrine, and of which the radii are the several circumstances of the
narration ; so long as one has not placed himself in the centre, neither the circle itself
appears in its perfect shape, nor will the beautiful unity with which the radii converge
to a single point be perceived, but this is all observed so soon as the eye looks forth
from the centre. Even so in the parable, if we have recognized its middle point, its
main doctrine, in full light, then will the proportion and right signification of all par
ticular circumstances be clear unto us, and we shall lay stress upon them only so far
as the main truth is thereby more vividly set forth. — Lisco, Die Parabeln Jesu, p. 22.
Fairbairn's Translation (Edinburgh Bib. Cabinet), p. 29.
•See Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, p. 418. 3 Mark says Satan; Luke, the devil.
THE SOWER AND THE TARES. 193
believe and be saved " (Luke viii, 1 2). He who hears the Word and
understands not — on whom the heavenly truth makes no impression
— may well be likened to a trodden pathway. " He has brought
himself to it ; he has exposed his heart as a common road to every
evil influence of the world till it has become hard as a pavement —
till he has laid Avaste the very soil in which the word of God should
have taken root; and he has not submitted it to the ploughshare of
the law, which would have broken it; which, if he had suffered it
to do the work which God appointed it to do, would have gone be
fore, preparing that soil to receive the seed of the Gospel." ' With
equal force and propriety the rocky places, the thorns, and the
good ground represent so many varieties of hearers of the Word.
The application of the parable, closing with the significant words,
"he that has ears let him hear" (verse 8), might be safely left
to the minds and consciences of the multitudes who heard it.
Among those multitudes were doubtless many representatives of
all the classes designated.
The parable of the tares of the field had the same historical occa
sion as that of the sower, and is an important isupple-
Parable of the
ment to it. In the interpretation of the foregoing par- Tares and its
able the sower was not made prominent. The seed lnterpretation.
was declared to be " the word of the kingdom," " and its character
and worth are variously indicated, but no explanation was given of
the sower. In this second parable the sower is prominently set
forth as the Son of man, the sower of good seed; and the work of
his great enemy, the devil, is presented with equal prominence.
But we are not to suppose that this parable takes up and carries
with it all the imagery and implications of the one preceding.
Other considerations are introduced under other imagery. But in
seeking the occasion and connexion of all the parables recorded in
Matt, xiii, we should note how one grows out of the other as by a
logical sequence. Three of them were spoken privately to the dis
ciples, but the whole seven were appropriate for the seaside; for
those of the mustard-seed, the treasure hid in a field, and the drag
net, no less than the sower and the tares of the field, may have been
suggested to Jesus by the scenes around him, and those of the
leaven and the merchantman seeking pearls were but counterparts,
respectively, of the mustard-seed and the hid treasure. Stier's
suggestion, also, is worthy of note, that the parable of the tares
corresponds with the first kind of soil mentioned in the parable of
the sower, and helps to answer the question, Whence and how that
1 Trench, Notes on the Parables, p. 61.
* In Luke viii, 11, it ia written: "The seed is the word of God."
196 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
soil had come to serve so well the purpose of the devil. The para
ble of the mustard-plant, whose growth was so great, stands in
notable contrast with the second kind of soil in which there was no
real growth at all. The parable of the leaven suggests the oppo
site of the heart overgrown with worldliness, namely, a heart per
meated and purified by the inner workings of grace, while the fifth
and sixth parables — those of the treasure and the pearl of great
price — represent the various experiences of the good heart (repre
sented by the good ground) in apprehending and appropriating the
precious things of the Word of the kingdom. The seventh para
ble, that of the dragnet, appropriately concludes all with the doc
trine of the separating judgment which shall take place " in the
end of the age" (verse 49). Such an inner relation and connexion
we do well to trace, and the suggestions thereby afforded may be
especially valuable for homiletical purposes. They serve for in
struction, but they should not be insisted on as essential to a cor
rect interpretation of the several parables.
In the interpretation of the second parable Jesus gives special
Things inter- significance to the sower, the field, the good seed, the
preted and tares, the enemy, the harvest, and the reapers; also the
thinprs unno- /. , T . /• i -11 •
ticed in Jesus' nnal burning ot the tares and the garnering of the
wheat. But we should observe that he does not attach
a meaning to the men who slept, nor to the sleeping, nor to the
springing up of the blades of wheat, and their yielding fruit, nor
to the servants of the householder and the questions they asked.
These are but incidental parts of the parable, and necessary to a
happy filling up of its narrative. An attempt to show a special
meaning in them all would tend to obscure and confuse the main
lessons. So, if we would know how to interpret all parables, we
should notice what our Lord omitted as well as what he empha
sized in those expositions which are given us as models; and we
should not be anxious to find a hidden meaning in every word and
allusion.
At the same time we need not deny that these two parables con-
We may notice tained some other lessons which Jesus did not bring out
some things in nis interpretation. There was no need for him to
which Jesus . . , .
had no need to state the occasion of his parables, or what suggested
the imagery to his mind, or the inner logical connexion
which they sustained to one another. These things might be safe
ly left to every scribe who should become a disciple to the kingdom
of heaven (Matt, xiii, 52). In his explanation of the first parable,
Jesus sufficiently indicated that particular words and allusions, like
the having no root (ro ftfj fysiv pi£av, Matt, xiii, 6), and choked
THE SOWER AND THE TARES. 197
(aireirvi%av, ver. 7; comp. ovvrrviyet in ver. 22) may suggest important
thoughts; and so the incidental words of the second parable, "lest
haply while gathering up the tares ye root up the wheat with them "
(verse 29), though not afterward referred to in the explanation,
may also furnish lessons worthy of our consideration. So, too,
it may serve a useful purpose, in interpretation, to show the fitness
and beauty of any particular image or allusion. We wTould not ex
pect our Lord to call the attention of his hearers to such things,
but his well-disciplined disciples should not fail to note the pro
priety and suggestiveness of comparing the word of God to good
seed, and the children of the evil one to tares.1 The trodden path,
the rocky places, and the thorny ground, have peculiar fitness to
represent the several states of heart denoted thereby. Even the
incidental remark " while men slept " (Matt, xiii, 25) is a suggestive
hint that the enemy wrought his malicious work in darkness and
secrecy, when no one would be likely to be present and interrupt
him ; but it would break the unity of the parable to interpret these
words, as some have done, of the sleep of sin (Calovius), or the
dull slowness of man's spiritual development and human weakness
generally (Lange), or the careless negligence of religious teachers
(Chrysostom).
It is also to be admitted that some incidental words, not designed
to be made prominent in the interpretation, may, nev- suggestive
ertheless, deserve attention and comment. Not a little J^f"J^
pleasure and much instruction may be derived from the Attention and
incidental parts of some parables. The hundredfold, Comment-
sixtyfold, and thirtyfold increase, mentioned in the parable of the
sower, and in its interpretation, may be profitably compared with
making the five talents increase to ten talents, and the two to four
(in Matt, xxv, 16-22), and also with the increase in the parable of
the pounds (Luke xix, 16-19). The peculiar expressions, "he that
was sown by the wayside," "he that was sown upon the rocky
places," are not, as Alf ord truly observes, " a confusion of simili
tudes — no primary and secondary interpretation of onopoq [seed], —
but the deep truth both of nature and of grace. The seed sown,
springing up in the earth, becomes the plant, and bears the fruit, or
fails of bearing it; it is, therefore, the representative, when sown,
of the individuals of whom the discourse is." * Especially do we
notice that the seed which, in the first parable, is said to be " the
word of God" (Luke viii, 11), is defined in. the second as "the
1 Greek Zi&via, darnel, which is said to resemble wheat in its earlier stages of
growth, but shows its real character more clearly at the harvest time.
2 Greek Testament, in loco.
198 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
children of the kingdom " (Matt, xiii, 38). A different stage of prog
ress is tacitly assumed, and we think of the word of God as having
developed in the good heart in which it was cast until it has taken
up that heart within itself and made it a new creation.1
From the above examples we may derive the general principles
Not specific which are to be observed in the interpretation of
rules, but sound parables. Xo specific rules can be formed that will
sense and d i s- *
criminating apply to every case, and show what parts of a parable
guldeth^inter- are designed to be significant, and what parts are mere
preter. drapery and form. Sound sense and delicate discrimina
tion are to be cultivated and matured by a protracted study of all
the parables, and by careful collation and comparison. Our Lord's
examples of interpretation show that most of the details of his par
ables have a meaning; and yet there are incidental words and allu
sions which are not to be pressed into significance. We should,
therfore, study to avoid, on the one side, the extreme of ingenuity
which searches for hidden meanings in every word, and, on the
other, the disposition to pass over many details as mere rhetorical
figures. In general it may be said that most of the details in a
parable have a meaning, and those which have no special signifi
cance in the interpretation, serve, nevertheless, to enhance the force
and beauty of the rest. Such parts, as Boyle observes, " are like
the feathers which wing our arrows, which, though they pierce not
like the head, but seem slight things, and of a different matter from
the rest, are yet requisite to make the shaft to pierce, and do both
convey it to and penetrate the mark." 2 We may also add, with
Trench, that " it is tolerable evidence that we have found the right
interpretation of a parable if it leave none of the main circum
stances unexplained. A false interpretation will inevitably betray
itself, since it will invariably paralyze and render nugatory some
important member of an entire account. If we have the right key
in our hand, not merely some of the words, but all, will have their
corresponding parts, and, moreover, the key will turn without
grating or overmuch forcing; and if we have the right interpreta
tion it will scarcely need to be defended and made plausible with
great appliance of learning, to be propped up by remote allusions
to rabbinical or profane literature, or by illustrations drawn from
the recesses of antiquity." 3
The prophet Isaiah, in chap, v, 1-6, sings of his Beloved Friend,
1 " Our life," says Lange, " becomes identified with the spiritual seed, and principles
assume, so to speak, a bodily shape in individuals." Commentary on Matthew, in loco.
9 Quoted by Trench, Notes on the Parables, p. 34.
3 Notes on the Parables, p. 39.
ISAIAH'S PARABLE. 19&
and his Friend's own song touching his vineyard, and in verse 7
declares that
The vineyard of Jehovah of hosts is the house of Israel,
And the man of Judah is the plant of his delight;
And he waited for justice, and behold bloodshed,
For righteousness, and behold a cry.
This short explanation gives the main purpose of the parable.
No special meaning is put on the digging, the gathering out of
the stones, the tower, and the winevat. Our Lord appropriates
the imagery of this passage in his parable of the wicked
J . ° Isaiah s para-
husbandmen (Matt, xxi, 33-44). But to understand, bieof tnevine-
in either parable, that the tower represents Jerusalem yard>
(Grotius), or the temple (Bengel), that the winevat is the altar
(Chrysostom), or the prophetic institution (Irenaeus), that the gath
ering out of the stones denotes the expulsion of the Canaanites
from the Holy Land, together with the stone idols (Grotius), is to
go upon doubtful ground, and introduce that which will confuse
rather than elucidate. These several particulars are rather to be
taken together as denoting the complete provision which Jehovah
made for the security, culture, and prosperity of his people. "What
is there to do more for my vineyard," he asks, " that I have not
done in it ? " He had spared no pains or outlay, and yet, when the
time of grape harvest came, his vineyard brought forth wild grapes.
What would seem to have been so full of hope and promise yielded
only disappointment and chagrin. The grapes he expected were
truth and righteousness; those which he found were bloodshed and
oppression. He announces, accordingly, his purpose to destroy that
vineyard, and make it an utter desolation, a threat fearfully ful
filled in the subsequent history of Israel and the Holy Land.
Such is the substance of the interpretation of Isaiah's parable,
but the language in which it is clothed has many beautiful strokes
and delicate allusions which are worthy of attention.1 Our Lord's
parable of the wicked husbandmen, which is based upon its im
agery, may be profitably noticed in connexion with it. It is
'Such, for instance, is the "very fertile hill" in which this vineyard was planted;
literally, in a horn, a son of oil, or fatness ; metaphor for a horn-shaped hill of rich
soil, and used in allusion to the land of promise (comp. Deut. viii, 7-9). There is
also an ironical play on the Hebrew words for justice and bloodshed, righteousness and
cry in the last two lines of verse 7 : "He looked for BSEJp, mishpat, and behold
nS'JO, mispach, for njn¥, tzdhakah, and behold HpVV, tzgndkah." Contrast also the
jubilant opening in which the prophet essays to sing his well-beloved's song with the
change of person in verse 3 and the sad tone of disappointment which follows.
200 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
recorded by Matthew (xxi, 33-44), Mark (xii, 1-12), and Luke
(xx, 9-18), and, though spoken in the ears of "the people" (Luke
xx, 9), the chief priests, the scribes, and the Pharisees understood
that it was directed against them (Matt, xxi, 45; Luke xx, 19).
The context also informs us (in Matt, xxi, 43) that the
Parable of the . \ ' .
wicked BUS- vineyard represents " the kingdom of (rod. In Isaiah's
parable the whole house of Israel is at fault, and is
threatened with utter destruction. Here the fault is with the hus
bandmen to whom the vineyard was leased, and whose wickedness
appears most flagrant; and here, accordingly, the threat is not to
destroy the vineyard, but the husbandmen. The great questions,
then, in the interpretation of our Lord's parable, are: (1) What is
meant by the vineyard? (2) Who are the husbandmen, servants,
and son ? (3) What events are contemplated in the destruction of
the husbandmen and the giving of the vineyard to others ? These
questions are not hard to answer: (1) The vineyard in Isaiah is the
Israelitish people, considered not merely as the Old Testament
Church, but also as the chosen nation established in the land of
Canaan. Here it is the more spiritual idea of the kingdom of God
considered as an inheritance of divine grace and truth to be so ap
prehended and utilized unto the honour and glory of God as that
husbandmen, servants, and Son may be joint heirs and partakers of
its benefits. (2) The husbandmen are the divinely commissioned
leaders and teachers of the people, whose business and duty it was
to guide and instruct those committed to their care in the true
knowledge and love of God. They were the chief priests and
scribes who heard this parable, and knew that it was spoken against
them. The servants, as distinguished from the husbandmen, are to
be understood of the prophets, who were sent as special messengers
of God, and whose mission was usually to the leaders of the people.1
But they had been mocked, despised, and maltreated in many ways
(2 Chron. xxxvi, 16); Jeremiah was shut up in prison (Jer. xxxii, 3),
and Zechariah was stoned (2 Chron. xxiv, 21; comp. Matt, xxiii,
34-37, and Acts vii, 52). The one son, the beloved, is, of course,
the Son of man, who " came unto his own, and they that were his
own received him not" (John i, 11). (3) The destruction of the
wicked husbandmen was accomplished in the utter overthrow and
miserable ruin of the Jewish leaders in the fall of Jerusalem. Then
the avenging of " all the righteous blood " of the prophets came
upon that generation (Matt, xxiii, 35, 36), and then, too, the
1 Servants are the extraordinary ministers of God, husbandmen the ordinary. The
former are almost always badly received by the latter, who take ill the interruption
of their own quiet possession. — Bengel, Gnomon, in loco.
COMPARISON OF PARABLES. 201
vineyard of the kingdom of God, repaired and restored as the New
Testament Church, was transferred to the Gentiles.
There are many minor lessons and suggestive hints in the lan
guage of this parable, but they should not, in an expo-
. . , . J . Minor points
sition, be elevated into such prominence as to confuse not to be made
these leading thoughts. Here, as in Isaiah, we should Prominent-
not seek special meanings in the hedge, winepress, and tower, nor
should we make a great matter of what particular fruits the owner
had reason to expect, nor attempt to identify each one of the ser
vants sent with some particular prophet or messenger mentioned in
Jewish history. Still less should we think of finding special mean
ings in forms of expression used by one of the evangelists and not
by another. Some of these minor points may be rich in sugges
tions and abundantly worthy of comment, but in view of the over
straining which they have too frequently received at the hands of
expositors we need the constant caution that at most they are in
cidental rather than important.
Two other parables of our Lord illustrate the casting off of the
Jews and the calling of the Gentiles. They are the r
, 01 mr Comparison of
marriage of the King's Son (Matt, xxn, 2-14), and the analogous par-
great supper (Luke xiv, 16-24). The former is recorded able8'
only by Matthew, and follows immediately after that of the wicked
husbandmen. The latter is recorded only by Luke. Some of the
rationalistic critics have argued that these are but different versions
of the same discourse, but a careful analysis will show that, while
they have marked analogies, they have also numerous points of
difference. And it is an aid to the interpretation of such analogous
parables to study them together and mark their diverging lines of
thought. The parable of the marriage of the King's Son, as com
pared with that of the wicked husbandmen, exhibits an advance in
thought as notable as that observed in the parable of the tares as
compared with that of the sower. Trench here observes " how the
Lord is revealing himself in ever clearer light as the central person
of the kingdom, giving here a far plainer hint than there of the
nobility of his descent. There he was indeed the son, the only and
beloved one, of the householder; but here his race is royal, and he
appears himself at once as the King and the King's Son (Psa. Ixxii, 1).
This appearance of the householder as the King announces that
the sphere in which this parable moves is the New parabie of Mar-
Testament dispensation — is the kingdom which was an- riage of King's
nounced before, but was only actually present with the HusTandmen
coming of the King. The last was a parable of the compared.
Old Testament history; even Christ himself appears there rather as
20a SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
the last and greatest of the line of its prophets and teachers than as
the founder of a new kingdom. In that, a parable of the law, God
appears demanding something from men ; in this, a parable of
grace, God appears more as giving something to them. There he
is displeased that his demands are not complied with, here that his
goodness is not accepted; there he requires, here he imparts. And
thus, as we so often find, the two mutually complete one another;
this taking up the matter where the other left it." l The great
purpose in both parables was to make conspicuous the shameful
character and conduct of those who were under great obligation to
show all possible respect and loyalty. The conduct of the hus
bandmen was atrocious in the extreme; but it may be said that a
claim of rent was demanded of them, and there was some supposa-
ble motive to treat the messengers of the owner of the vineyard
with disrespect. Not so, however, with those bidden to the royal
marriage feast. That guests, honoured by an invitation from the
king to attend the marriage of his son, should have treated such in
vitation with wilful refusal and contempt, and even have gone to
the extreme of abusing the royal servants who came to bid them to
the marriage, and of putting some to death, seems hardly conceiv
able. But this very feature which seems so improbable in itself is
a prominent part of the parable, and designed to set in the most
odious light the conduct of those chief priests and Pharisees who
were treating the Son of God with open contempt, and would fain
have put him to death. Such ingratitude and disloyalty deserved
no less a punishment than the sending forth of armies to destroy
the murderers and to burn their city (verse 7).
When now we compare the parable of the marriage of the king's
Parables of Mar- son with that of the great supper (Luke xiv, 16) we
riage of King's fln(j they both agree (1) in having a festival as the
Son and Great . „ , . . \ ' . . . & .
Supper com- basis o± their imagery, (2) in that invitations were sent
pared. ^Q persons already bidden, (3) in the disrespect shown
by those bidden, and (4) the calling in of the poor and neglected
from the streets and highways. But they differ in the following
particulars: The parable of the great supper was spoken at an
earlier period of our Lord's ministry, when the opposition of chief
priests, scribes, and Pharisees was as yet not violent. It was
uttered in the house of a Pharisee whither he had been invited to
eat bread (verses 1, 12), and where there appeared in his presence
a dropsical man, whose malady he healed. Thereupon he addressed
a parable to those who were bidden, counselling them not to recline
on the chief seat at table unless invited there (verses 7-11). He
1 Xotes on the Parables, p. 180.
COMPARISON OF PARABLES. 20^
also uttered a proverbial injunction to the Pharisee who had in
vited him to make a feast for the poor and the maimed rather than
kinsmen and rich friends (verses 12-14); and then he added the
parable of the great supper. But the parable of the marriage of
the king's son was uttered at a later period, and in the temple,,
when no Pharisee would have invited him to his table, and when
the hatred of chief priests and scribes had become so bitter that it
gave occasion for ominous and fearful words, such as that parable
contained. We note further that, in the earlier parable, the occa
sion was a great supper (deiTrvov), in the latter a wedding (ydfj-og)*
In the one, the person making the feast is simply " a certain man "
(Luke xiv, 16), in the other he is a king. In the one the guests all
make excuse, in the other they treat the royal invitation with con
tempt and violence. In the one those who were bidden are simply
denounced with the statement that none of them shall taste of the
supper; in the other the king's armies are sent forth to destroy the
murderers of his servants and to burn their city. In the earlier
parable there are two sendings forth to call in guests, first from the
streets and lanes of the city, and next from the highways and
hedges — intimating first the going unto the lost sheep of the house
of Israel (Matt, x, 6; xv, 24), and afterward to the Gentiles (Acts
xiii, 46) ; in the latter only one outgoing call is indicated, and that
one subsequent to the destruction of the murderers and their city.
In that later prophetic moment Jesus contemplated the ingather
ing of the Gentiles. Then to the later parable is added the inci
dent of the guest who appeared without the wedding garment
(Matt, xxii, 11-14), which Strauss characteristically conjectures to
be the fragment of another parable which Matthew by mistake at
tached to this, because of its referring to a feast.1 But with a
purer and profounder insight Trench sees in these few added words
"a wonderful example of the love and wisdom which marked
the teaching of our Lord. For how fitting was it in a discourse
which set forth how sinners of every degree were invited to a fel
lowship in the blessings of the Gospel, that they should be reminded
likewise, that for the lasting enjoyment of these, they must put off
their former conversation — a most needful caution, lest any should
abuse the grace of God, and forget that while as regarded the past
they were freely called, they were yet now called unto holiness." s
The parable of the barren fig-tree (Luke xiii, 6-9) had its special
application in the cutting off of Israel, but it is not xhe barren
necessarily limited to that one event. It has lessons of
universal application, illustrating the forbearance and longsuffering
1 Life of Jesus, § 78. 8 Xotes on the Parables, pp. 179, 180.
204 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
of God, as also the certainty of destructive judgment upon every one
who not only produces no good fruit, but " also cumbers the ground "
(/cat rr\v y?jv /carapyet). Its historical occasion appears from the
preceding context, (verses 1-5), but the logical connexion is not so
apparent. It is to be traced, however, to the character of those in
formants who told him of Pilate's outrage on the Galileans. For
the twice-repeated warning, " Except ye repent ye shall all likewise
perish" (verses 3 and 5), implies that the persons addressed were
sinners deserving fearful penalty. They were probably from Je
rusalem, and representatives of the Pharisaic party who had little
respect for the Galileans, and perhaps intended their tidings to be
a sort of gibe against Jesus and his Galilean followers.
The means for understanding the occasion and import of Nathan's
old Testament parable (2 Sam. xii, 1-4) are abundantly furnished in
parables. the context. The same is true of the parable of the
wise woman of Tekoah (2 Sam. xiv, 4-7), and that of the wounded
prophet in 1 Kings xx, 38-40. The narrative, in Eccles. ix, 14, 15,
of the little city besieged by a great king, but delivered by the wis
dom of a poor wise man, has been regarded by some as an actual
history. Those who date the Book of Ecclesiastes under the
Persian domination think that allusion is made to the delivery of
Athens by Themistocles, when that city was besieged by Xerxes,
the great king of Persia. Others have suggested the deliverance
of Potidsea (Herod., viii, 128), or Tripolis (Diodor., xvi, 41). Hitzig
even refers it to the little seaport Dora besieged by Antiochus the
Great (Polybius, v, 66). But in none of these last three cases is it
known that the deliverance was effected by a poor wise man ; and
as for Athens, it could hardly have been called a little city, with
few men in it, nor could the brilliant leader of the Greeks be prop
erly called " a poor wise man." It is far better to take the narra
tive as a parable, which may or may not have had its basis in some
real incident of the kind, but which was designed to illustrate the
great value of wisdom. The author makes his own application in
verse 16: "Then said I, Better is wisdom than strength; yet the
wisdom of the poor is despised, and his words — none of them are
heard." That is, such is the general rule. A case of exceptional
extremity, like the siege referred to, may for a moment exhibit the
value of wisdom, and its superiority over strength and weapons of
war; but the lesson is soon forgotten, and the masses of men give
no heed to the words of the poor, whatever their wisdom and worth.
The two verses that follow (17 and 18) are an additional comment
upon the lesson taught in the parable, and put its real meaning be
yond all reasonable doubt. But it is a misuse of the parable, and a
PARABLE OF LABOURERS. 205
pressing of its import beyond legitimate bounds, to say, with Heng-
Ktenberg : " The poor man with his delivering wisdom is an imago
of Israel. . . . Israel would have proved a salt to the heathen world
if ear had only been given to the voice of wisdom dwelling in his
midst." ' Still more unsound is the spiritualizing process by which
the besieged city is made to represent " the life of the individual :
the great king who lays siege to it is death and the judgment of
the Lord."3
All the parables of our Lord are contained in the first three
Gospels. Those of the door, the good shepherd, and
r . AllJesus para-
the vine, recorded by John, are not parables proper, bies in the sy-
but allegories. In most instances we find in the imme- noptic GosPels-
diate context a clue to the correct interpretation. Thus the para
ble of the unmerciful servant (Matt, xviii, 23-34) has its occasion
stated in verses 21 and 22, and its application in verse 35. The par
able of the rich man who planned to pull down his barns and build
greater in order to treasure up all the increase of his fields (Luke
xii, 16-20), is readily seen from the context to have been uttered
as a warning against covetousness. The parable of the importunate
friend at midnight (Luke xi, 5-8) is but a part of a discourse on
prayer. The parables of the unjust judge and the importunate
widow, and of the Pharisee and the publican at prayer (Luke xviii,
1-14), have their purpose stated by the evangelist who records them.
The parable of the good Samaritan (Luke x, 30-37) was called forth
by the question of the lawyer, who desired to justify himself, and
asked, "Who is my neighbour?"
The parable of the labourers in the vineyard (Matt, xx, 1-16),
although its occasion and application are given in the Parable of th
context, has been regarded as difficult of interpretation. Labourers m
It was occasioned by the mercenary spirit of Peter's
question (in chap, xix, 27), "What then shall we have?" and its
principal aim is evidently to rebuke and condemn that spirit. But
the difficulties of interpreters have arisen chiefly from giving undue
prominence to the minor points of the parable, as the penny a day,
and the different hours at which the labourers were hired. Stier
insists that the penny (dT/vaptov), or day's wages (fucr&6<f), is the
principal question and main feature of the parable. Others make
the several hours mentioned represent different periods of life at
which men are called into the kingdom of God, as childhood, youth,
manhood, and old age. Others have supposed that the Jews were
denoted by those first hired, and the Gentiles by those who were
1 Commentary on Ecclesiasteg, in loco.
* Wangemann, as quoted by Delitzsch, in loco.
14
206 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
called last. Origen held that the different hours represented the
different epochs of human history, as the time before the flood,
from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to Christ, etc. But all this
tends to divert the mind from the great thought in the purpose of
the parable, namely, to condemn thef mercenary spirit, and indicate
that the rewards of heaven are matters of grace and not of debt.
And we should make very emphatic the observation of Bengel,
that the parable is not so much a prediction as a warning.1 The
fundamental fallacy of those exegetes who make the penny the
most prominent point, is their tacit assumption that the narrative
Mistakes of in- °f tne parable is designed to portray a murmuring and
terpreters. fault finding which will actually take place at the last
day. Unless we assume this, according to Stier, " no reality would
correspond with the principal point of the figurative narration."2
Accordingly, the vnaye, go thy way (verse 14), is understood, like
the TTopeveatfe, depart (of Matt, xxv, 41), as an angry rejection and
banishment from God ; and the doov TO aov, take thine own, " can
mean nothing else than what, at another stage, Abraham says to
the rich man (Luke xvi, 25) : What thou hast contracted for, with
that thou art discharged ; but now, away from my service and from
all further intercourse with me ! " ! So also Luther says that " the
murmuring labourers go away with their penny and are damned.'*
But the word ii-nayu has been already twice used in this parable
(verses 4 and 7) in the sense of going away into the vineyard to
work, and it seems altogether too violent a change to put on it here
the sense of going into damnation. Still less supposable is such a
sense of the word when addressed to those who had filled an hon
ourable contract, laboured faithfully in the vineyard, and "borne
the burden of the day and the burning heat" (verse 12).
Let us now carefully apply the three principles of interpretation
enunciated above 4 to the exposition of this intricate parable. First,
occasion and tne historical occasion and scope. Jesus had said to the
scope. young man who had great possessions : " If thou wouldst
be perfect, go (xmaye), sell thy possessions and give to the poor, and
thou shalt have treasure in heaven ; and come, follow me " (Matt.
xix, 21). The young man went away sorrowful, for he had many
goods (fcrri^iara TroAAd), and Jesus thereupon spoke of the difficulty
of a rich man entering into the kingdom of heaven (verses 23-26).
" Then answered Peter and said to him, Lo, we forsook all things
and followed thee: what then shall we have?" Tt apa earai i][iiv •
what then shall be to us? — that is, in the way of compensation and
1 Xon est praedictio sed admonitia. Gnomon, in loco.
2 Words of the Lord Jesus, in loco. 3 Ibid. 4See above, pp. 193, 194.
PARABLE OF LABOURERS. 207
reward. AVhat shall be our drjoavpog kv ovpavotg, treasure in heaven?
This question, not reprehensible in itself, breathed a bad spirit of
overweening confidence and self-esteem, by its evident comparison
with the young man : We have done all that you demand of him ;
we forsook our all ; what treasure shall be ours in heaven? Jesus
did not at once rebuke what was bad in the question, but, first,
graciously responded to what was good in it. These disciples, who
did truly leave all and follow him, shall not go without blissful re
ward. " Verily, I say unto you that ye, who followed me, in the
regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit upon the throne of his
glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve
tribes of Israel." This was, virtually, making to them a promise
and pledge of what they should have in the future, but he adds:
"And every one who forsook houses, or brothers, or sisters, or
father, or mother, or children, or lands for my name's sake, shall
receive manifold more,1 and shall inherit life eternal." Here is a
common inheritance and blessing promised to all who meet the
conditions named. But in addition to this great reward, which is
common alike to all, there will be distinctions and differences ; and
so it is immediately added: "But many first will be last and last
first." And from this last statement the parable immediately pro
ceeds : " For (yap) the kingdom of heaven is like," etc. This con
nexion Stier recognizes : " Because Peter has inquired after reward
and compensation, Christ says, first of all, what is contained in
verses 28, 29 ; but because he has asked with a culpable eagerness
for reward, the parable concerning the first and the last follows
with its earnest warning and rebuke." 2 But to say, in the face of
such a connexion and context, that the reward contemplated in the
penny has no reference to eternal life, but is to be understood sole
ly of temporal good which may lead to damnation, is virtually to
ignore and defy the context, and bring in a strange and foreign
thought. The scope of the parable is no doubt to admonish Peter
and the rest against the mercenary spirit and self-conceit apparent
in his question, but it concludes, as Meyer observes, " and that very
appropriately, with language which no doubt allows the apostles to
contemplate the prospect of receiving rewards of a peculiarly dis
tinguished character (xix, 28), but does not warrant the absolute
certainty of it, nor does it recognize the existence of any thing like
so-called valid claims." 3
is the reading of two most ancient codices, B and L, a number
of versions, as Syriac and Sahidic, and is adopted by Lachmann, Alford, Tischendorf,
Tregelles, and Westcott and Hort. Comp. Luke xviii, 30.
* Words of the Lord Jesus, in loco. s Commentary on Matt, xx, 16.
203 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
Having ascertained the historical occasion and scope, the next
step is to analyze the subject matter, and note what appears to
have special prominence. It will hardly be disputed
points m the that the particular agreement of the householder with
the labourers hired early in the morning is one point
too prominent to be ignored in the exposition. Noticeable also is
the fact that the second class (hired at the third hour) go to work
without any special bargain, and rely on the word " whatsoever is
right I will give you." So also with those called at the sixth and
ninth hours. But those called at the eleventh hour received (ac
cording to the true text of verse 7) no special promise at all, and
nothing is said to them about reward. They had been waiting and
seem to have been anxious for a call to work, and were idle because
no one had hired them, but as soon as an order came they we~nt off
to their labour, not stopping so much as to speak or hear about
wages. In all this it does not appear that the different hours have
any special significance ; but we are rather to note the spirit and
disposition of the different labourers, particularly the first and the
last hired. In the account of the settlement at the close of the day,
only these last and the first are mentioned with any degree of
prominence. The last are the first rewarded, and with such marks
of favour that the self-conceit and mercenary spirit of those who,
in the early morning, had made a special bargain for a penny a
day, are shown in words of fault finding, and elicit the rebuke of
the householder and the declaration of his absolute right to do what
he will with his own.
If now we interpret these several parts with strict reference to
The parable the occasion and scope of the parable, we must think
adln^mtion for of t^ie aPostles as those for whom its admonition
the disciples, was first of all intended. What was wrong in the
spirit of Peter's question called for timely rebuke and admoni
tion. Jesus gives him and the others assurance that no man who
becomes his disciple shall fail of glorious reward; and, somewhat
after the style of the agreement with the labourers first hired, he
bargains with the twelve, and agrees that every one of them shall
have a throne. But, he adds (for such is the simplest application
of the proverb, "Many first shall be last," etc.): Do not imagine,
in vain self-conceit, that, because you were the first to leave all and
follow me, you therefore must needs be honoured more than others
who may hereafter enter my service. That is not the noblest spir
it which asks, What shall I have ? It is better to ask, What shall
I do? He who follows Christ, and makes all manner of sacrifices
for his sake, confident that it will be well, is nobler than he who
THE UNJUST STEWARD. 209
lingers to make a bargain. Nay, he who goes into the Lord's
vineyard asking no questions, and not even waiting to talk about
the wages, is nobler and better still. His spirit and labour, though
it continue but as an hour, may have qualities so beautiful and
rare as to lead Him, whose heavenly rewards are gifts of grace, and
not payments of debts, to place him on a more conspicuous throne
than that which any one of the apostles may attain. The mur
muring, and the response which it draws from the householder, are
not to be taken as a prophecy of what may be expected to take
place at the final judgment, but rather as a suggestive hint and
warning for Peter and the rest to examine the spirit in which they
followed Jesus.
If this be the real import of the parable, how misleading are
those expositions which would make the penny a day the most
prominent point. How unnecessary and irrelevant to regard the
words of the householder (in verses 13-16) as equivalent to the final
sentence of damnation, or to attach special significance to the stand
ing idle. How unimportant the different hours at which the la
bourers were hired, or the question whether the householder be God
or Christ. The interpretation which aims to maintain the unity of
the whole narrative, and make prominent the great central truth,
will see in this parable a tender admonition and a suggestive warn
ing against the wrong spirit evinced in Peter's words.1
The parable of the unjust steward (Luke xvi, 1-13) has been re
garded, as above all others, a crux interpretiim. It parabie of the
appears to have no such historical or logical connexion unjust steward.
with what precedes as will serve in any material way to help in its
interpretation. It follows immediately after the three parables of
the lost sheep, the lost drachma, and the prodigal son, which were
addressed to the Pharisees and the scribes who murmured because
Jesus received sinners and ate with them (chap, xv, 2). Having
uttered those parables for their special benefit, he spoke one " also
to the disciples" (nai noog rovg /ua^ra^, xvi, 1). These disciples
are probably to be understood of that wider circle which included
others besides the twelve (compare Luke x, 1), and among them
were doubtless many publicans like Matthew and Zacchseus, who
needed the special lesson here enjoined. That lesson is now
quite generally acknowledged to be a wise and prudent use of
this world's goods. For the sagacity, shrewd foresight, and care to
1 The words, " For many are called, but few chosen," which appear in some ancient
codices (C, D, N), at the close of verse 16, are wanting in the oldest and best manu
scripts (X, B, L, Z), and are rejected by the best textual critics (Tischendorf, Tregelles,
Westcott and Hort). We have, therefore, taken no notice of them above.
210 SPECIAL IIERMENEUTICS.
shift for himself, which the steward evinced in his hasty action
with his lord's debtors (^poWjuw^ sTroirjaev, ver. 8), are emphatically
the tertium comparationis, and are said to have been applauded
(fc7r^ver7£v) even by his master.
The parable first of all demands that we apprehend correctly the
thoriz d ^eral import of its narrative, and avoid the reading or
additions to the imagining in it any thing that is not really there.
Thus, for example, it is said the steward was accused
of wasting the rich man's goods, and it is nowhere intimated that
this accusation was a slander. We have, therefore, no right (as
Koster) to assume that it was. Neither is there any warrant for
saying (as Van Oosterzee and others) that the steward had been
guilty of exacting excessive and exorbitant claims of his lord's
debtors, remitting only what was equitable to his lord, and wasting
the rest on himself; and that his haste to have them write down
their bills to a lower amount was simply, on his part, an act of jus
tice toward them and an effort to repair his former wrongs. If
such had been the fact he would not have wasted his lord's goods
(TO, vTrdpxovra avrov), but those of the debtors. Nor is there any
ground to assume that the steward made restitution from his own
funds (Brauns), or, that his lord, after commending his prudence, re
tained him in his service (Baumgarten-Crusius). All this is putting
into the narrative of our Lord what he did not see fit to put there.
We are to notice, further, that Jesus himself applies the parable to
Jesus' own ap- the disciples by his words of counsel and exhortation in
plication. verse 9, and makes additional comments on it in verses
10-13. These comments of the author of the parable are to be
carefully studied as containing the best clue to his meaning. The
main lesson is given in verse 9, where the disciples are urged to
imitate the prudence and wisdom of the unjust steward in making
to themselves friends out of unrighteous mammon (KK rov, K. r. A.,
from the resources and opportunities afforded by the wealth, or the
worldly goods, in their control). The steward exhibited in his
shrewd plan the quick sagacity of a child of the world, and knew
well how to ingratiate himself with the men of his own kind and
generation. In this respect it is said the children of this age are
wiser than the children of the light; ' therefore, our Lord would say,
1 The latter part of verse 8 is, literally, " Because the sons of this age are wiser than
the sons of the light in reference to their own generation." Not in their generation,
as Authorized Version, but «f TTJV yeveav rr/v t:avr<jv, for their generation, as regards,
or in relation to, their own generation. '' The whole body of the children of the world
— a category of like-minded men — is described as a generation, a clan of connexions,
and how appropriately, since they appear precisely as viol, sotis." — Meyer. "The
ready accomplices in tlie steward's fraud showed themselves to be men of the same
THE UNJUST STEWARD. 211
emulate and imitate them in this particular. Similarly, on another
occasion, he had enjoined upon his disciples, when they were sent
forth into the hostile world, to be wise as serpents and harmless as
doves (Matt, x, 16).
So far all is tolerably clear and certain, but when we inquire
Who is the rich man (in verse 1), and who are the friends who re
ceive into the eternal tabernacles (verse 9), we find great diversity
of opinion among the best interpreters. Usually the rich man has
been understood of God, as the possessor of all things, who uses us
as his stewards of whatever goods are entrusted to our care.
Olshausen, on the other hand, takes the rich man to be the devil,
considered as the prince of this world. Meyer explains the rich
man as Mammon, and urges that verses 9 and 13 especially require
this view. It will be seen that the adoption of either one of these
views will materially effect our exegesis of the whole parable.
Here, then, especially, we need to make a most careful use of the
second and third hermeneutical rules afore mentioned, and observe
the nature and properties of the things employed as imagery, and
interpret them with strict reference to the great central thought
and to the general scope and design of the whole. Our choice
would seem to lie between the common view and that of Meyer;
for Olshausen's explanation, so far as it differs essentially from
Meyer's, has nothing in the text to make it even plausible; and the
other views (as of Schleiermacher, who makes the rich man repre
sent the Romans, and Grossmann, who understands the Roman
emperor) have still less in their favour. The common exposition,
which takes the rich man to be God, may be accepted and main
tained without serious difficulty. The details of the parable are
then to be explained as incidental, designed merely to exhibit the
shrewdness of the unjust steward, and no other analogies are to be
pressed. The disciples are urged to be discreet and faithful to God
in their use of the unrighteous mammon, and thereby secure the
friendship of God, Christ, angels, and their fellow men,1 who may
generation as he was — they were all of one race, children of the ungodly world." —
Trench. There is no sufficient reason to supply the thought, or refer the phrase,
their own generation, to the sons of light (as De Wette, Olshausen, Trench, and many).
If that were the thought another construction could easily have been adopted to ex
press it clearly. As it stands, it means that the children of light do not, in general,
in relation to themselves or others, evince the prudence and sagacity which the chil
dren of the world know so well how to use in their relations to their own race of
worldlings.
1 Some, however, who adopt this exposition in general, will not allow that God or
the angels are to be understood by the friends, inasmuch as such reference would not
accord strictly with the analogy of the parable.
212 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
all be thereby disposed to receive them, when the goods of this
world fail, into the eternal habitations.
But the interpretation which makes the rich man to be Mammon,
The rich man gives a special point and force to several noticeable
oocTa/Main- remai'ks of Jesus, maintains a self-consistency within
mon. itself, and also enforces the same great central thought
as truly as the other exposition. It contemplates the disciples as
about to be put out of the stewardship of Mammon, and admonishes
them to consider how the world loves its own, and knows how to
calculate and plan wisely (0poW|UWf) for personal and selfish ends.
Such shrewdness as that displayed by the unjust steward calls forth
the applause of even Mammon himself, who is defrauded by the
act. But, Jesus says, "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." Ye
must, in the nature of things, be unfaithful to the one or the other.
If ye are true and faithful to the unrighteous lord Mammon, ye
cannot be sons of the light and friends of God. If, on the other
hand, ye are unfaithful to Mammon, he and all his adherents will
accuse you, and ye will be put out of his service. What will ye
do? If ye would secure a place in the kingdom of God, if ye
Avould make friends now, while the goods of unrighteous Mammon
are at your control — friends to receive and welcome you to the
eternal dwellings of light — ye must imitate the prudent foresight
of the unjust steward, and be unfaithful to Mammon in order to
be faithful servants of God.1
The scope and purport of the parable, as evidenced by the com-
Geikie's com- ments of Jesus (in verses 9-13), is thus set forth by
Geikie: "By becoming my disciples you have identi
fied yourselves with the interest of another master than Mammon,
the god of this world — whom you have hitherto served — and have
before you another course and aim in life. You will be represented
to your former master as no longer faithful to him, for my service
is so utterly opposed to that of Mammon, that, if faithful to me,
you cannot be faithful to him, and he will, in consequence, assured
ly take your stewardship of this world's goods away from you —
that is, sink you in poverty, as I have often said. I counsel you,
therefore, so to use the goods of Mammon — the wordly means still
at your command — that by a truly worthy distribution of them to
1 Meyer remarks : " This circumstance, that Jesus sets before his disciples the pru
dence of a dishonest proceeding as an example, would not have been the occasion of
such unspeakable misrepresentations and such unrighteous judgments if the princi
pie, Ye cannot serve God and Mammon, (verse 13), had been kept in view, and it hac.
been considered accordingly that even the disciples, in fact, by beneficent application
of their property, must have acted unfaithfully toward Mammon in order to be faith
ful toward their contrasted master, toward God." — Commentary, in loco.
THE UNJUST STEWARD. 213
your needy brethren — and my disciples are mostly poor — you may
make friends for yourselves, who, if they die before you, will wel
come you to everlasting habitations in heaven, when you pass thith
er, at death. Fit yourselves, by labours of love and deeds of true
charity, as my followers, to become fellow citizens of the heavenly
mansions with those whose wants you have relieved while they
were still in life. If you be faithful thus, in the use of your pos
sessions on earth, you will be deemed worthy by God to be en
trusted with infinitely greater riches hereafter. ... Be assured
that if you do not use your earthly riches faithfully for God, by
dispensing them as I have told you, you will never enter my heav
enly kingdom at all. You will have shown that you are servants
of Mammon, and not the servants of God; for it is impossible for
any man to serve two masters." J
There is a deep inner connexion between the parable of the un
just steward and that of the rich man and Lazarus, narrated in the
same chapter (Luke xvi, 19-31). A wise faithfulness toward God
in the use of the mammon of unrighteousness will make friends to
receive us into eternal mansions. But he who allows himself, like
the rich man, to become the pampered, luxury-loving man of the
world — so true and faithful to the interests of Mammon that he
himself becomes an impersonation and representative of the god of
riches — will in the world to come lift up his eyes in torments, and
learn there, too late, how he might have made the angels and Abra
ham and Lazarus friends to receive him to the banquets of the
paradise of God.
It is interesting and profitable to study the relation of the par
ables to each other, where there is a manifest logical connexion.
This we noticed in the seven parables recorded in Matt. xiii. It is
more conspicuous in Luke xv, where the joy over the recovery of
that which was lost is enhanced by the climax: (1) a lost sheep, and
one of a hundred; (2) a lost drachma, and one out of ten; (3) a lost
child, and one out of two. The parables of the ten virgins and the
talents in Matt, xxv, enjoin, (1) the duty of watching for the com
ing of the Lord, and (2) the duty of working for him in his absence.
But we have not space to trace the details. The principles and
methods of interpreting parables, as illustrated in the foregoing
pages, will be found sufficient guides to the interpretation of all
the scriptural parables.
1 Geikie, Life of Christ, chap. liii.
214 SPECIAL HERMENEUTIC&
CHAPTER VII.
INTERPRETATION OF ALLEGORIES.
AN allegory is usually defined as an extended metaphor. It bears
the same relation to the parable which the metaphor does
Allegory to be _ L r
distinguished to the simile. In a parable there is either some formal
ble' comparison introduced, as "The kingdom of heaven is
like a grain of mustard seed," or else the imagery is so presented
as to be kept distinct from the thing signified, and to require an
explanation outside of itself, as in the case of the parable of the
sower (Matt, xiii, 3, ff.). The allegory contains its interpretation
within itself, and the thing signified is identified with the image ;
as " I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman " (John
xv, 1) ; "Ye are the salt of the earth" (Matt, v, 13). The allegory
is a figurative use and application of some supposable fact or his
tory, whereas the parable is itself such a supposable fact or history.
The parable uses words in their literal sense, and its narrative never
transgresses the limits of what might have been actual fact. The
allegory is continually using words in a metaphorical sense, and
its narrative, however supposable in itself, is manifestly fictitious.
Hence the meaning of the name, from the Greek aAAof , other, and
ayopevw, to speak, to proclaim- that is, to say another thing from
that which is meant, or, so to speak, that another sense is expressed
than that which the words convey. It is a discourse in which the
main subject is represented by some other subject to which it has a
resemblance.1
Some have objected to calling an allegory a continued metaphor.3
Who shall say, they ask, where the one ends and the
Allegory is a * ' J
continued Met- other begins? But the very definition should answer
this question. When the metaphor is confined to a
single word or sentence it is improper to call it an allegory; just
as it is improper to call a proverb a parable, although many a pro
verb is a condensed parable, and is sometimes loosely called so in
the Scriptures (Matt, xv, 14, 15). But when it is extended into a
1 "The allegory," says Cremer, "is a mode of exposition which does not, like the
parable, hide and clothe the sense in order to give a clear idea of it ; on the contrary,
it clothes the sense in order to hide it." — Biblico-Theol. Lex. N. Test., p. 96.
2 See Davidson's Hermeneutics, p. 306, and Home's Introduction, vol. ii, p. 338.
ALLEGORY DEFINED. 215
narrative, and its imagery is drawn out in many details and analo
gies, yet so as to accord with the one leading figure, it would be
improper to call it a metaphor. It is also affirmed by Davidson
that in a metaphor there is only one meaning, while the allegory
has two meanings, a literal and a figurative.1 It will be seen, how
ever, on careful examination, that this statement is misleading.
Except in the case of the mystic allegory of Gal. iv, 21-31, it will
be found that the allegory, like the metaphor, has but one meaning.
Take for example the following from Psalm Ixxx, 8-15:
8 A vine from Egypt thou hast torn away ;
Thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it;
9 Thou didst clear away before it,
And it rooted its roots,
And it filled the land.
10 Covered were the mountains with its shade,
And its branches are cedars of God.
11 It sent out its boughs unto the sea,
And unto the river its tender shoots.
12 Wherefore hast thou broken down its walls,
And have plucked it all that pass over the road i
13 Swine from the forest are laying it waste,
And creatures of the field are feeding on it.
14 O God of hosts, return now,
Look from heaven, and behold,
' And visit this vine ;
15 And protect what thy right hand has planted,
And upon the son thou madest strong for thyself.
Surely no one would understand this allegory in a literal sense.
No one supposes for a moment that God literally took a vine out of
Egypt, or that it had an actual growth elsewhere as here described.
The language throughout is metaphorical, but being thus continued
under one leading figure of a vine, the whole passage becomes an
allegory. The casting out of the heathen (verse 8) is a momentary
departure from the figure, but it serves as a clue to the meaning of
all the rest, and after verse 15 the writer leaves the figure entirely,
but makes it clear that he identifies himself and Israel with the
1 Hermeneutics, p. 306. This writer also says : " The metaphor always asserts or
imagines that one object is another. Thus, ' Judah is a lion's whelp ' (Gen. xlix, 9) ;
'I am the vine' (John xv, 1). On the contrary, allegory never affirms that one thing
is another, which is in truth an absurdity." But the very passage he quotes from
John xv, 1, as a metaphor, is also part of an allegory, which is continued through six
verses, showing that allegory as well as metaphor may affirm that one thing is another.
The literal meaning of the word allegory, as shown above, is the affirming one thing
for another.
216 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
vine. The same imagery is given in the form of a parable in Isa.
v, 1-6, and the distinction between the two is seen in this, that the
meaning of the parable is given separately at the close (verse 7),
but the meaning of the allegory is implied in the metaphorical use
of its words.
Having carefully distinguished between the parable and the alle
gory, and shown that the allegory is essentially an extended meta
phor, we need no separate and special rules for the interpretation
Same herme- °^ *ke allegorical portions of the Scriptures. The same
neuticai prin- general principles that apply to the interpretation of
Allegory as to metaphors and parables will apply to allegories. The
Parable. great error to be guarded against is the effort to find
minute analogies and hidden meanings in all the details of the im
agery. Hence, as in the case of parables, we should first determine
the main thought intended by the figure, and then interpret the
minor points with constant reference to it. The context, the occa
sion, the circumstances, the application, and often the accompany
ing explanation, are, in each case, such as to leave little doubt of
the import of any of the allegories of the Bible.
The allegory of old age, in Eccles. xii, 3-7, under the figure of a
. house about to fall in ruins, has been variously inter-
Allegory of old % '
age in Eccies. preted. Some of the fathers (Gregory Thaumaturgus,
Cyril of Jerusalem) understood the whole passage as
referring to the day of judgment as connected with the end of the
world. Accordingly, " the day " of verse 3 would be " the great
and terrible day of the Lord " (Joel ii, 31 ; comp. Matt, xxiv, 29).
Other expositors (Umbreit, Elster, Ginsburg) regard the passage as
describing the approach of death under the figure of a fearful tem
pest which strikes the inmates of a noble mansion with consterna
tion and terror. Wright explains the imagery of verses 1-5 as de
rived from the closing days of a Palestinean winter, which occur at
the end of February, and are always dangerous and quite often
fatal to the old and intirm. They betake them to their sick cham
bers, feel all sorts of terrors, and when the almond tree blossoms
without, and the locusts crawl out of their holes, they see no spring
time for themselves, but an almost certain departure to their long
home. According to all these explanations the passage must be
understood metaphorically and not as an allegory. Wright's exe
gesis makes most of the allusions mere references to facts supposed
to be common and well known during the seven days of evil.1 But
the great majority of expositors, ancient and modern, have under
stood the passage as an allegorical description of old age. And this
1 The Book of Koheleth, pp. 270-275, London, 1883.
ALLEGORY OF OLD AGE. 217
view, we may safely say, is favoured and even required by the im
mediate context and by the imagery itself. But we lose much of
its point and force by understanding it of old age generally. It is
not a truthful portraiture of the peaceful, serene, honoured, and
" good old age " so much extolled in the Old Testament. It is not
the picture presented to the mind in Prov. xvi, 31 : "A crown of
glory is the hoary head ; in the way of righteousness will it be
found ;" nor that of Psa. xcii, 12-14, where it is declared that the
righteous shall flourish like the palm, and grow great like the Leb
anon cedars ; " they shall still bear fruit in hoary age ; fresh and
green shall they be." Comp. also Isa. xl, 30, 31. It remains for us,
then, with Tayler Lewis, to understand that " the picture here given
is the old age of the sensualist. This appears, too, from the con
nexion. It is the ' evil time,' the ' day of darkness ' that has come
upon the youth who was warned in the language above, made so
much more impressive by its tone of forcasting irony.
It is the dreary old age of the young man who icould age of the sen-
' go on in every way of his heart and after every sight s
of his eyes,' who did not ' keep remorse from his soul nor evils from
his flesh,' and now all these things are come upon him, with no
such alleviations as often accompany the decline of life.1 "
Passing now to the particular figures used, we should exercise
the greatest caution and care, for some of the allusions Dcmbtfui aiiu-
seem to be quite enigmatical. Barely to name the slons-
different interpretations of the several parts of this allegory would
require many pages." But the most judicious and careful interpret
ers are agreed that the " keepers of the house " (verse 3) are the
arms and hands, which serve for protection and defence, but in de
crepit age become feeble and tremulous. The " strong men " are
the legs, which, when they lose their muscular vigour, become
bowed and crooked in supporting their wearisome load. " The
grinders," or rather grinding maids (nijriB fern, plural in allusion to
the fact that grinding with hand mills was usually performed by
women), are the teeth, which in age become few and cease to per
form their work. " Those that behold in the windows " are the
eyes, which become dim with years. Beyond this point the inter
pretations become much more various and subtle. " The doors into
the street " (verse 4) are generally explained of the mouth, the two
lips of which are conceived of as double doors (Heb. DVW), or a
door consisting of two sides or leaves. But it would seem better to
understand these double doors of the two ears, which become
1 American edition of Lange's Commentary on Ecclesiastes, pp. 152, 153.
• See Poole'a Synopsis, in loco.
218 SPECIAL HEKMENEUTICS.
shut up or closed to outer sounds. So Hengstenberg explains it,
and is followed by Tayler Lewis, who observes: "The old sensual
ist, who had lived so much abroad and so little at home, is shut in
at last. With no propriety could the mouth be called the street
door, through which the master of the house goes abroad. ... It
is rather the door to the interior, the cellar door, that leads down
to the stored or consumed provision, the stomach." ' The " sound
of the grinding " is by many referred to the noise of the teeth in
masticatinof food; but this would be a return to what has been suf-
O
ficiently noticed in verse 3. Better to understand this sound of the
mill as equivalent to " the most familiar household sounds," as the
sound of the mill really was. The thought then connects naturally
with what precedes and follows; the ears are so shut up, the hear
ing has become so dull, that the most familiar sounds are but faint
ly heard,2 " and," he adds, " it rises to the sound of the sparrow ; "
that is, as most recent critics explain, the " sound of the grinding "
rises to that of a sparrow's shrill cry, and yet this old man's organs
of hearing are so dull that he scarcely hears it. Others explain
this last clause of the wakefulness of the old man: "he rises up at
the voice of the sparrow." Thus rendered, we need not, as many,
understand it of rising or waking up early in the morning (in which
case the Hebrew word "W rather than Dip should have been used),
but of restlessness. Though dull of hearing, he will, nevertheless,
at times start and rise up at the sound of a sparrow's shrill note.
" The daughters of song " may be understood of the women singers
(chap, ii, 8) who once ministered to his hilarity, but whose songs
can now no longer charm him, and they are therefore humbled.
But it is, perhaps, better to understand the voice itself, the various
tones of which become low and feeble (comp. the use of nn^ in Isa.
xxix, 4).
As we pass to verse 5 we note the peculiar nature of allegory to
The allegory interweave its interpretation with its imagery. The
In^witMSTm- fi&ure °f a house is for the time abandoned, and we
agery. read : " Also from a height they are afraid, and terrors
are in the way, and the almond disgusts, and the locust becomes
heavy, and the caperberry fails to produce effect; for going is the
'Lange's Commentary on Ecclesiastes (Am. ed.), p. 165.
2 There was hardly any part of the day or night when this work was not going on
with its ceaseless noise. It was, indeed, a sign that the senses were failing in their
office when this familiar, yet very peculiar, sound of the grinding had ceased to arrest
the attention, or had become low and obscure —
When the hum of the mill is faintly heard,
Arid the daughters of song are still.— Ibid., p. 156.
ALLEGORY OF OLD AGE. 219
man to his everlasting house, and round about in the street pass the
mourners." That is, looking down from that which is high, the tot
tering old man quickly becomes dizzy and is afraid; terrors seem
to be continually in his path (comp. Prov. xxii, 13; xxvi, 13); the
almond is no longer pleasant to his taste, but, on the contrary, dis
gusts;1 and the locust, once with him perhaps a dainty article of
food (Lev. xi, 22; Matt, iii, 4; Mark i, 6), becomes heavy and
nauseating in his stomach, and the caperberry no longer serves its
purpose of stimulating appetite.
In verse 6 we meet again with other figures which have a nat
ural association with the lordly mansion. The end of life is repre
sented as a removing (pm) or sundering of the silver cord and a
breaking of the golden lampbowl. The idea is that of a golden lamp
suspended by a silver cord in the palatial hall, and suddenly the bowl
of the lamp is dashed to pieces by the breaking of the cord. The
pitcher at the fountain and the wheel at the cistern are similar
metaphors referring to the abundant machinery for drawing water
which would be connected with the mansion of a sumptuous Dives.
These at last give out, and the whole furniture and machinery of
life fall into sudden ruin. The explaining of the silver cord as the
spinal marrow, and the golden bowl as the brain, and the fountain
and cistern as the right and left ventricles of the heart, seems 'too
far fetched to be safe or satisfactory. Such minute and ramified
explanations of particular figures are always likely to be overdone,
and generally confuse rather than illustrate the main idea which
the author had in mind. The words of verse 7 show that the met
aphors of verse 6 refer to the utter breaking down of the functions
and processes of life. The pampered old body falls a pitiable ruin,
in view of which Koheleth repeats his cry of "vanity of vanities."
In the interpretation of an allegory so rich in suggestions as
the above, the great hermeneutical principles to be r
' Hermeneutical
carefully adhered to are, first, to grasp the one great principles to be
idea of the whole passage, and, second, to avoid the °
1 f*tfy, Hiphil of j»KJ, and meaning to cause disgust, or is despised. The old ver
sions and most interpreters render shall flourish, deriving the form from pj, and
understand the silvery hair of the old man as resembling the almond-tree, which
blossoms in winter, and its flowers, which at first are roseate in colour, become white
like snowflakes before they fall off. But, aside from this doubtful derivation of the
form YW (Stuart affirms that " f»XJ' for VJ> has no parallel in Hebrew orthogra
phy "), the immediate connexion is against the introduction of such an image as the
silvery hair of age in this place. The hoary head can only be thought of as a crown
of glory — a beautiful sight ; but to introduce it between the mention of the old man's
fears and terrors on the one side, and the disturbing locust on the other, would make
a most unhappy confusion of images.
220 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
temptation of seeking manifold meanings in the particular figures.
By the minute search for some special significance in every allusion
the mind becomes wearied and overcrowded with the particular
illustrations, so as to be likely to miss entirely the great thought
which should be kept mainly in view.
The work of the false prophets in Israel, and the ruin of both it
Ruin of false an<^ them, are set forth allegoric-ally in Ezek. xiii, 10-15.
prophets aiie- The people are represented as building a wall, and the
gorized in r. . . (
Ezek. xiii, io- prophets as plastering it over with 7QH, a sort of coat
ing or whitewash (comp. Matt, xxiii, 27; Acts xxiii, 3),
designed to cover the worthless material of which the wall is
built, and also to hide its unsafe construction. Ewald observes
that this word (72£) denotes elsewhere what is absurd intellect
ually, what is inconsistent with itself ; here the mortar which does
not hold together, clay without straw, or dry clay.1 The mean
ing of these figures is very clear. The people built up vain hopes,
and the false prophets covered them over with deceitful words and
promises; they "saw vanity and divined a lie" (verses 7 and 9).
The ruin of wall and plastering and plasterers is announced by Je
hovah's oracle as fearfully effected by an overwhelming rain of
judgment; the rain is accompanied by falling hailstones and a vio
lent rushing tempest; all these together hurl wall and plastering to
the ground, expose the false foundations, and utterly destroy the
lying prophets in the general ruin. Here we have, in the form of
an allegory, or extended metaphor, the same image, substantially,
which our Lord puts in the form of a simile at the close of the ser
mon on the mount (Matt, vii, 26, 27).3
The much-disputed passage in 1 Cor. iii, 10-15, is an allegory.
Allegory of In the preceding context Paul represents himself and
wise faster- APollos as tlie ministers through whom the Corinth-
building. ians had believed. "I planted, Apollos watered;
but God gave the increase " (ver. 6). He shows his appreci
ation of the honour and responsibility of such ministry by saying
(ver. 9): "For we (apostles and ministers like Paul and Apollos)
'Die Propheten des Alien Bundes, vol. ii, p. 399. Gottingen, 1868.
2 The prophecies of Ezekiel abound in allegory. Chapter xvi contains an allegor
ical history of Israel, representing, by way of narrative, prophecy, and promise, the
past, present, and future relations of God and the chosen people, and maintaining
throughout the general figure of the marriage relation. Under like imagery, in chap
ter xxiii, the prophet depicts the idolatries of Samaria and Jerusalem. Compare also
the similitudes of the vine wood and the vine in chapters xv and xix, 10-14, and the
allegory of the lioness and her whelps in xix, 1-9. The allegorical history of As
syria, in chapter xxxi, may also be profitably compared and contrasted with the enig
matical fable of chapter xvii.
GOD'S BUILDING. 221
are God's fellow workers," and then he adds: "God's tilled field
(yecjpytov, in allusion to, and in harmony with, the planting and
watering mentioned above), God's building, are ye." Then drop
ping the former figure, and taking up that of a building (olno6ofj,rj),
he proceeds:
According to the grace of God which was given unto me, as a wise arch
itect, I laid a foundation, and another is building thereon. But let each
man take heed how he builds thereon. For other foundation can no man
lay than the one laid, which is Jesus Christ. But if any one builds on the
foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble ; each man's
•work shall be made manifest, for the day will make it known, because in
fire it is revealed, and each man's work, of what sort it is, the fire itself
will prove. If any one's work shall endure which he built thereon, he
shall receive reward. If any one's work shall be burned, he shall suffer
loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire.
The greatest trouble in explaining this passage has been to deter
mine what is meant by the " gold, silver, precious stones,
' Are the mate-
wood, hay, stubble, in verse 12. According to the rials persons or
majority of commentators these materials denote doc- d
trines supposed to be taught in the Church.1 Many others, how
ever, understand the character of the persotis brought into the
Church.2 But the most discerning among those who understand
doctrines, do not deny that the doctrines are such as interpen
etrate and mould character and life; and those who understand
persons are as ready to admit that the personal character of those
referred to would be influenced and developed by the doctrines of
their ministers. Probably in this, as in some other Scripture,
where so many devout and critical minds have differed, Both views ai-
the real exposition is to be found in a blending of both lowable-
views. The Church, considered as God's building, is a frequent
figure with Paul (comp. Eph. ii, 20-22; Col. ii, 7; also 1 Peter ii, 5),
and in every case it is the Christian believer who is conceived as
builded into the structure. So here Paul says to the Corinthians,
" Ye are God's building," and it comports fully with this figure to
understand that the material of which this building is to be con
structed consists of persons who accept Christ in faith. The
Church is builded of persons, not of doctrines, but the persons are
not brought to such use without doctrine. As in the case of Peter,
1 So Clemens Alexandrinus, Ambrosiaster, Lyra, Cajetan, Erasmus, Luther, Beza, Cal
vin, Piscator, Grotius, Estius, Calovius, Lightfoot, Stolz, Rosenmuller, Flatt, Heiden-
reich, Neander, De Wette, Ewald, Meyer, Hodge, Alford, and Kling.
2 So, substantially, Origen, Chrysostom, Photius, Theodoret, Theophylact, Augustine,
Jerome, Billroth, Bengel, Pott, and Stanley.
15
222 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
the stone (Matt, xvi, 18), the true material of which the abiding
Church is built, is not the doctrine of Christ, or the confession of
Christ put forth by Peter, nor yet Peter considered as an individual
man (ITerpof), but both of these combined in Peter confessing — a
believer inspired of 'God and confessing Christ as the Son of the
living God — thus making one new man, the ideal and representa
tive confessor (Trerpa),1 so the material here contemplated consists of
persons made and fashioned into various character through the in
strumentality of different ministers. These ministers are admon
ished that they may work into God's building " wood, hay, stubble,"
worthless and perishable stuff, as well as "gold, silver, precious
stones." The material may be largely made what it is by the doc
trines taught, and other influences brought to bear on converts by
the minister who is to build them into the house of God, but is it
not clear that in such case the doctrines taught are the tools of the
workman rather than the material of which he builds ? Neverthe
less, this process of building (erroucodopM) on the foundation already
laid, like the work of Apollos in watering that which was planted
by Paul (ver. 6), is to be thought of chiefly in reference to the re
sponsibility of the ministers of the Gospel. The great caution is:
" Let each man (whether Apollos or Cephas, or any other minister)
take heed how he builds thereon" (ver. 10). Let him take heed to
the doctrine he preaches, the morality he inculcates, the discipline
he maintains, and, indeed, to every influence he exerts, which o-oes
in any way to mould and fashion the life and character of those
who are builded into the Church. The gold, silver, and precious
stones, according to Alford, " refer to the matter of the minister's
teaching, primarily, and by inference to those whom that teaching
penetrates and builds up in Christ, who should be the living stones
of the temple."5 So also Meyer: "The various specimens of
building materials, set side by side in vivid asyndeton, denote the
various matters of doctrine propounded by teachers and brought
into connexion with faith in Christ, in order to develop and com
plete the Christian training of the Church." 3 These statements
contain essential truth, but they are, as we conceive, misleading, in
so far as they exalt matters of doctrine alone. We are rather to
think of the whole administration and work of the minister in mak
ing converts and influencing their character and life. The mate
rials are rather the Church members, but considered primarily as
made, or allowed to remain what they are by the agency of the
minister who builds the Church.
'See on this subject above, pp. 126, 127. 2 Greek Testament, in loco.
* Critical Commentary on Corinthians, in loco.
GOD'S BUILDING. 223
The great thoughts in the passage, then, would be as follows:
On the foundation of Jesus Christ, ministers, as fellow xt^ passage
workers with God, are engaged in building up God's paraphrased,
house. But let each man take heed how he builds. On that
foundation may be erected an edifice of sound and enduring sub
stance, as if it were built of gold, silver, and precious stones (as, for
instance, costly marbles); the kind of Christians thus "builded to
gether for a habitation of God in the Spirit " (Eph. ii, 20) will con
stitute a noble and enduring structure, and his work will stand the
fiery test of the last day. But on that same foundation a careless
and unfaithful workman may build with unsafe material; he may
tolerate and even foster jealousy, and strife (ver. 3), and pride
(iv, 18); he may keep fornicators in the Church without sorrow or
compunction (v, 1, 2); he may allow brother to go to law against
brother (vi, 1), and permit drunken persons to come to the Lord's
Supper (xi, 21) — all these, as well as heretics in doctrine (xv, 12),
may be taken up and used as materials for building God's house.1
In writing to the Corinthians the apostle had all these classes of
persons in mind, and saw how they were becoming incorporated
into that Church of his own planting. But he adds: The day of
the Lord's judgment will bring every thing to light, and put to the
test every man's work. The fiery revelation will disclose what
sort of work each one has been doing, and he that has builded wise
ly and soundly will obtain a glorious reward; but he that has
brought, or sought to keep, the wood, hay, stubble, in the Church
— he who has not rebuked jealousy, nor put down strife, nor ex
communicated fornicators, nor faithfully administered the discipline
of the Church— shall see his life-work all consumed, and he himself
shall barely escape with his life, as one that is saved by being has
tened through the fire of the burning building. His labour will all
have been in vain, though he assumed to build on Christ, and did
in fact minister in the holy place of his temple.
It is to be especially kept in mind that this allegory is intended
to serve rather as a warning than to be understood as The allegory a
a prophecy. As the parable of the labourers in the ^aT^proph-
vineyard (Matt, xix, 27-xx, 16) is spoken against Pe- ecy.
ter's mercenary spirit, and thus serves as a warning and rebuke
rather than as a prophecy of what will actually take place in the
judgment, so here Paul warns those who are fellow labourers with
God to take heed how they build, lest they involve both themselves
and others in irreparable loss. We are not to understand the wood,
1 In his parable of the tares and the wheat (Matt, xiii, 24-30, 37-43) Jesus himself
taught that the good and the evil would be mixed together in the Church.
224 SPECIAL HERMENEUTTCS.
hay, stubble, as the profane and ungodly, who have no faith in
Christ. Nor do these words denote false, anti-Christian doc
trines. They denote rather the character and life-work of those
who are rooted and grounded in Christ, but whose personal char
acter and work are of little or no worth in the Church. All such
persons, as well as the ministers who helped to make them such,
will suffer irreparable loss in the day of the Lord Jesus, although
they themselves may be saved. And this consideration obviates
the objection made by some that if the work which shall be burned
(ver. 15) are the persons brought into the Church, it is not to be
supposed that the ministers who brought them in shall be saved.
The final destiny of the persons affected by this work is, no doubt,
necessarily involved in the fearful issue, but for their ruin the care
less minister may not have been solely responsible. He may be
saved, yet so as through fire, and they be lost. In chapter v, 5,
Paul enjoins the severest discipline of the vile fornicator " in order
that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord." But a
failure to administer such discipline would not necessarily have in
volved the final ruin of those commissioned to administer it; they
would " suffer loss," and their final salvation would be " as through
fire." So, on the other hand, the work which the wise architect
builds on the true foundation (ver. 14), and which endures, is not so
much the final salvation and eternal life of those whom he brought
into the Church and trained there as the general character and re
sults of his labour in thus bringing them in and training them.
We thus seek the true solution of this allegory in carefully dis
tinguishing between the materials put into the building and the
work of the builders, and, at the same time, note the essential
blending of the two. The wise builder will so teach, train, and dis
cipline the church in which he labours as to secure excellent and
permanent results. The unwise will work in bad material, and
have no regard for the judgment which will test the work of all.
In thus building, whether wisely or unwisely, the persons brought
into the church and the ministerial labour by which they are taught
and disciplined have a most intimate relation ; and hence the essen
tial truth in both the expositions of the allegory which have been
so widely maintained.
Another of Paul's allegories occurs in 1 Cor. v, 6-8. Its imagery
Allegory of ig based upon the well-known custom of the Jews of re-
i Cor. v, 6-8. moving all leaven from their houses at the beginning of
the passo ver week,1 and allowing no leaven to be found there during
1 The allusion may have been suggested by the time of the year when the epistle
was written, apparently (chap, xvi, 8) a short time before Pentecost, and, therefore,
ALLEGORY OF THE LEAVEN. 225
the seven days of the feast (Exod. xii, 15-20; xiii, 7). It also as
sumes the knowledge of the working of leaven, and its nature to
communicate its properties of sourness to the whole kneaded mass.
Jesus had used leaven as a symbol of pharisaic hypocrisy (Matt.
xvi, 6, 12; Mark viii, 15; Luke xii, 1), and the power of a little
leaven to leaven the whole lump had become a proverb (Gal. v, 9;
comp. 1 Cor. xv, 33). All this Paul constructs into the following
allegory :
Know ye not that a little leaven leavens the whole lump ? Purge out
the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, even as ye are unleavened.
For our passover, also, has been sacrificed, even Christ; wherefore let us
keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and
wickedness, but with the unleavened loaves of sincerity and truth.
The particular import and application of this allegory are to be
found in the context. The apostle has in mind the case
of the incestuous person who was tolerated in the church
at Corinth, and whose foul example would be likely to contaminate
the whole Church. He enjoins his immediate expulsion, and ex
presses amazement that they showed no humiliation and grief in
having such a stain upon their character as a church, but seemed
rather to be puffed up with self-conceit and pride. " Not goodly,'r
not seemly or beautiful (ov /caAov), he says, "is your paraphrase of
glorying" (/cav^pi, ground of glorying). Sadly out of the passage.
place your exultation and boast of being a Christian church with
such a reproach and abuse in your midst. Know ye not the com
mon proverb of the working of leaven? The toleration of such
impurity and scandal in the Christian society will soon corrupt the
whole body. Purge out, then, the old leaven. Cast off and put
utterly away the old corrupt life and habits of heathenism. You
know the customs of the passover. " You know how, when the
lamb is killed, every particle of leaven is removed from every
household; every morsel of food eaten, every drop drunk in that
feast, is taken in its natural state. This is the true figure of your
condition. You are the chosen people, delivered from bondage;
you are called to begin a new life, you have had the lamb slain for
you in the person of Christ. Whatever, therefore, in you corre
sponds to the literal leaven, must be utterly cast out ; the perpetual
passover to which we are called must be celebrated, like theirs, un-
contaminated by any corrupting influence." *
•with the scenes of the passover, either present or recent, in his thoughts. — Stanley on
the Epistles to the Corinthians, in loco.
1 Stanley on Corinthians, in loco.
226 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
In such an allegory care should be taken to give the right mean-
The more im- ™& to t^ie raore important allusions. The old leaven in
portant aim- verse 7 is not to be explained as referring directly to
the incestuous person mentioned in the context. It has
a wider import, and denotes, undoubtedly, all corrupt habits and im
moral practices of the old heathen life, of which this case of incest
was but one notorious specimen. The leaven in the Corinthian
church was not so much the person of this particular offender, as
the corrupting influence of his example, a residuum of the old unre-
generate state. So " the leaven of the Pharisees " was not the per
sons, but the doctrine and example of the Pharisees. Furthermore,
the words " even as ye are unleavened " are not to be taken literally
(as Rosenmiiller, Wieseler, and Conybeare), as if meaning "even
as ye are now celebrating the feast of unleavened bread." Such a
mixing of literal and allegorical significations together is not to be
assumed unless necessary. If such had been the apostle's design
he would scarcely have used the word unleavened (d^v^oi) of per
sons abstaining from leavened bread. Nor is it supposable that
the whole Corinthian church, or any considerable portion of them,
observed the Jewish passover. And even if Paul had been observ
ing this feast at Ephesus at the time he wrote this epistle (chap,
xvi, 8), it would have been some time past when the epistle reached
Corinth, so that the allusion would have lost all its pertinency and
effect. But Paul here uses unleavened figuratively of the Corinth
ians considered as a " new lump ; " for so the words used imme
diately before and after imply.
The vivid allegory of the Christian armour and conflict, in Eph.
vi, 11—17, furnishes its own interpretation, and is espe-
curistian ar- cially notable in the particular explanations of the dif
ferent parts of the armour. It appropriates the figure
used in Isa. lix, 17 (comp. also Rom. xiii, 12; 1 Thess. v, 8), and
elaborates it in great detail. Its several parts make up rr\v navo-
-nXiav TOV Qeov, "the whole armour (panoply) of God," the entire
outfit of weapons, offensive and defensive, which is supplied by
God. The enumeration, of the several parts shows that the apostle
has in mind the panoply of a heavy-armed soldier, with which the
dwellers in all provinces of the Roman Empire must have been suf
ficiently familiar. The conflict (rj TrdA?/, a life and death struggle)
is not against blood and flesh (weak, fallible men, comp. Gal. i, 16),
but against the organized spiritual forces of the kingdom of dark
ness, and hence the necessity of taking on the entire armour of
God, which alone can meet the exigencies of such a wrestling. The
six pieces of armour here named, which include girdle and sandals,
ALLEGORY OF JOHN X. 227
are sufficiently explained by the writer himself, and ought not, in
interpretation, to be pressed into all possible details of comparison
which corresponding portions of ancient armour might be made to
suggest. Here, as in Isa. lix, 17, righteousness is represented as a
breastplate, but in 1 Thess. v, 8, faith and love are thus depicted.
Here the helmet is salvation — a present consciousness of salvation
in Christ as an actual possession — but in 1 Thess. v, 8 it is the hope
of salvation. Each allusion must be carefully studied in the light
of its own context, and not be too widely referred. For the same
figure may be used at different times for different purposes.1
The complex allegory of the door of the sheep and of the good
shepherd, in John x, 1-16, is in the main simple and self- Allegory of
interpreting. But as it involves the twofold comparison John x> i-16-
of Christ as the door and the good shepherd, and has other allu
sions of diverse character, its interpretation requires particular care,
lest the main figures become confused, and non-essential points
be made too prominent. The passage should be divided into two
parts, and it should be noted that the first five verses are a pure
allegory, containing no explanation within itself. It is observed, in
verse 6, that the allegory (naootpia) was not understood by those to
whom it was addressed. Thereupon Jesus proceeded (verses 7-16)
not only to explain it, but also to expand it by the addition of other
images. He makes it emphatic that be himself is " the door of the
sheep," but adds further on that he is the good shepherd, ready to
give his life for the sheep, and thus distinguished from the hireling
who forsakes the flock and flees in the hour of danger.
The allegory stands in vital relation to the history of the blind
man who was cast out of the synagogue by the Phari- _
J ° m Occasion and
sees, but graciously received by Jesus. The occasion and scope of the
scope of the whole passage cannot be clearly apprehended allegory>
without keeping this connexion constantly in mind. Jesus first
1 Meyer appropriately observes : " The figurative mode of regarding a subject can.
by no means, with a mind so many-sided, rich, and versatile as that of St. Paul, be so
stereotyped that the very same thing which he has here viewed under the figure of
the protecting breastplate, must have presented itself another time under this very
same figure. Thus, for example, there appears to him, as an offering well pleasing to
God, at one time Christ (Eph. v, 2), at another the gifts of love received (Phil, iv, 18),
at another time the bodies of Christians (Rom. xii, 1); under the figure of the seed-
corn, at one time the body becoming buried (1 Cor. xv, 36), at another tune the moral
conduct (Gal. vi, 7) ; under the figure of the leaven, once moral corruption (1 Cor. v, 6),
another time doctrinal corruption (Gal. v, 9) ; under the figure of clothing which is
put on, once the new man (Eph. iv, 24), another time Christ (Gal. iii, 27), at another
time the body (2 Cor. v, 3), and other similar instances." — Critical Commentary on
Ephesians, in loco.
228 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
contrasts himself, as the door of the sheep, with those who acted
rather the part of thieves and robbers of the flock. Then, when
the Pharisees fail to understand him, he partly explains his mean
ing, and goes on to contrast himself, as the good shepherd, with
those who had no genuine care for the sheep committed to their
charge, but, at the coming of the wolf, would leave them and
flee. At verse 17 he drops the figure, and speaks of his willing
ness to lay down his life, and of his power to take it again. Thus
the whole passage should be studied in the light of that pharisaical
opposition to Christ which showed itself to be selfish and self-seek
ing, and ready to do violence when met with opposition. These
pharisaical Jews, who assumed to hold the doors of the synagogue,
and had agreed to thrust out any that confessed Jesus as the Christ
(chap, ix, 22), were no better than thieves and robbers of God's
flock. Against these the allegory was aimed.
Keeping in view this occasion and scope of the allegory, we next
import of par- inquire into the meaning of its principal allusions,
ticuiar parts. « The fold of the sheep " is the Church of God's people,
who are here represented as his sheep. Christ himself is the door,
as he emphatically affirms (verses 7, 9), and every true shepherd,
teacher, and guide of God's people should recognize him as the
only way and means of entering into the fold. Shepherd and sheep
alike should enter through this door. " He that enters in through
the door is a shepherd ' of the sheep " (ver. 2) ; not a thief, nor a
robber, nor a stranger (ver. 5). He is well known to all who have
any charge of the fold, and his voice is familiar to the sheep. A
stranger's voice, on the contrary, is a cause of alarm and flight.*
Such, indeed, were the action and words of those Jewish officials
toward the man who had received his sight. He perceived in their
words and manner that which was strange and alien to the truth of
God (see chap, ix, 30-33).
So far all seems clear, but we should be less positive in finding
other special meanings. The porter, or doorkeeper (tffpcopof, ver.
3), has been explained variously, as denoting God (Calvin, Bengel,
Tholuck), or the Holy Spirit (Theodoret, Stier, Alford, Lange), or
even Christ (Cyril, Augustine), or Moses (Chrysostom), or John
Baptist, (Godet). But it is better not to give the word any such
1 Not the shepherd, as the English version renders noip.f]v here. This has led to a
mixture of figures by supposing Christ to be referred to. In this first simple allegory
Christ is only the door ; further on, where the figure is explained, and then enlarged,
he appears also as the good shepherd (verses 11, 14).
2 For a description of the habits and customs of oriental shepherds, see especially,
Thomson, The Land and t\. Book, vol. i, p. 301. Xew York, 1858.
ALLEGORY OF JOHN X. 229
remarkable prominence in the interpretation. The porter is rather
an inferior servant of the shepherd. He opens the door to him
when he comes, and is supposed to obey his orders. We should,
therefore, treat this word as an incidental feature of the allegory,
legitimate and essential to the figure, but not to be pressed into any
special significance. The distinction made by some between " the
sheep " and " his own sheep " in verse 3, by supposing that several
flocks were accustomed to occupy one fold, and the sheep of each
particular flock, which had a separate shepherd, are to be under
stood by " his own sheep," may be allowed, but ought not to be
urged. It is as well to understand the calling his own sheep by
name as simply a special allusion to the eastern custom of giving
particular names to favourite sheep. But we may with propriety
understand the leading them out (e^dyet avrd, ver. 3), and putting
forth all his own (ra idia -rravra eKpaty, ver. 4), as an intimation of
the exodus of God's elect and faithful ones from the fold of the old
Testament theocracy. This view is maintained by Lange and Godet,
and is suggested and warranted by the words of Jesus in verses
14-16.
The language of Jesus in defining his allegory and expanding its
imagery (verses 7-16) is in some points enigmatical. Jesus. explana_
For he would not make things too plain to those who, tton somewhat
like the Pharisees, assumed to see and know so much
(comp. chap, ix, 39-41), and he uses the strong words, which seem
to be purposely obscure: "All as many as came before me are
thieves and robbers " (ver. 8). He would prompt special inquiry
and concern as to what might be meant by coming before him. a
procedure so wrong that he likens it to the stealth of a thief and
the rapacity of a robber. Most natural is it to understand the com
ing before me, in verse 8, as corresponding with the climbing up
some other way, in verse 1, and meaning an entrance into the fold
other than through the door. But it is manifestly aimed at those
who, like these Pharisees, by their action and attitude, assumed to
be lords of the theocracy, and used both deceit and violence to ac
complish their own will. Hence it would seem but proper to
give the words before me (-nod k^ov, ver. 8) a somewhat broad and
general significance, and not press them, as many do, into the one
sole idea of a precedence in time. The preposition TTOO is often used
of place, as before the doors, before the gate, before the city (comp.
Acts v, 23; xii, 6, 14; xiv, 13) and may here combine with the
temporal reference of TyAtfov, came, the further idea of position in
front of the door. These Pharisees came as teachers and guides of
the people, and in such conduct as that of casting out the man born
230 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
blind, they placed themselves in front of the true door, shutting up
the kingdom of heaven against men, and neither entering them-
eelves nor allowing others to enter through that door (comp. Matt,
xxiii, 13). All this Jesus may have intended by the enigmatical
came before me. Accordingly, the various explanations, as " instead
of me," " without regard to me," " passing by me," and " pressing
before me," have all a measure of correctness. The expression is
to be interpreted, as Lange urges, with special reference to the
figure of the door. " The meaning is, All who came before the door
(jrpd rrjg i9vpaf 7/A$ov). With the idea of passing by the door this
other is connected: the setting of themselves up for the door; that is,
all who came claiming rule over the conscience as spiritual lords.
The time of their coming is indicated to be already past by the
?}/u9ov, not however by the Trpo, forasmuch as the positive Trpo does
not coincide with the temporal one. ... At the same time empha
sis is given to the r//t$ov. They came as though the Messiah had
come; there was no room left for him. It is not necessary that we
should confine our thought to those who were false Messiahs in the
stricter sense of the term, since the majority of these did not ap
pear until after Christ. Every hierarch prior to Christ was pseudo-
Messianic in proportion as he was anti-Christian; and to covet rule
over the conscience of men is pseudo-Christian. Be it further ob
served that the thieves and robbers, who climb over the wall, ap
pear in this verse with the assumption of a higher power. They
stand no longer in their naked selfishness, they lay claim to posi
tive importance, and that not merely as shepherds, but as the door
itself. Thus the hierarchs had just been attempting to exercise
rule over the man who was born blind." l
The import of the other allusions and statements of this passage
is sufficiently clear, but in a thorough and elaborate treatment of
the whole subject the student should compare the similar allegories
which are found in Jer. xxiii, 1-4; Exek. xxxiv; Zech. xi, 4-17;
and also the twenty-third Psalm. So also the allegory of the vine
and its branches, John xv, 1-10 2 — an allegory like that of the door
and the shepherd peculiar to John — may be profitably compared
1 Lange's Commentary on John, in loco.
'According to Lange (on John xv, 1) "Jesus' discourse concerning the vine la
neither an allegory nor a parable, but a parabolic discourse, and that a symbolical
one." But this is an over-refinement, and withal, misleading. The figures of some
allegories may be construed as symbols, and allegory and parable may have much in
common. But this figure of the vine, illustrating the vital and organic union between
Christ and believers, has every essential quality of the allegory, and contains its own
interpretation within itself.
PAUL'S ALLEGORY. 231
and contrasted with the psalmist's allegory of the vine (Psa. Ixxx,
8-15) which we have already noticed.
The allegorizing process by which Paul, in Gal. iv, 21-31, makes
Hagar and Sarah illustrate two covenants, is an excep- Paul's allegory
tional New Testament instance of developing a mysti- 3" ^uUarand
cal meaning from facts of Old Testament history. Paul exceptional,
elsewhere (Rom. vii, 1-6) illustrates the believer's release from the
law, and union with Christ, by means of the law of marriage, ac
cording to which a woman, upon the death of her husband, is dis
charged from (/carT/pyT/rai) the law which bound her to him alone,
and is at liberty to become united to another man. In 2 Cor. iii,
13-16, he contrasts the open boldness (-rrapprjaia) of the Gospel
preaching with the veil which Moses put on his face purposely to
conceal for the time the transitory character of the Old Testament
ministration which then appeared so glorious, but was, nevertheless,
destined to pass away like the glory of his own God-lit face. He
also, in the same passage, makes the veil a symbol of the incapacity
of Israel's heart to apprehend the Lord Christ. The passage of the
Red Sea, and the rock in the desert from which the water flowed,
are recognized as types of spiritual things (1 Cor. x, 1-4; comp.
1 Peter iii, 21). But all these illustrations from the Old Testament
differ essentially from the allegory of the two covenants. Paul
himself, by the manner and style in which he introduces it, evi
dently feels that his argument is exceptional and peculiar, and being
addressed especially to those who boasted of their attachment to
the law, it has the nature of an aryumentum ad hominem. " At the
conclusion of the theoretical portion of his epistle," says Meyer,
"Paul adds a quite peculiar antinomistic disquisition — a learned
rabbinico-allegorical argument derived from the law itself — calcu
lated to annihilate the influence of the pseudo-apostles with their
own weapons, and to root them out of their own ground." l
We observe that the apostle, first of all, states the historical facts,
as written in the Book of Genesis, namely, that Abra- T
' J ' Historical facts
ham was the father of two sons, one by the bond worn- accepted as iit-
an, the other by the free woman; the son of the bond- e
maid was born Kara odpica, according to flesh, i. e., according to the
ordinary course of nature, but the son of the free woman was born
through promise, and, as the Scripture shows (Gen. xvii, 19; xviii,
10-14), by miraculous interposition. He further on brings in the
rabbinical tradition founded on Gen. xxi, 9, that Ishmael persecuted
(ediu)K£, ver. 29) Isaac, perhaps having in mind also some subsequent
aggressions of the Ishmaelites upon Israel, and then adds the words
1 Critical Commentary on Galatians, in loco.
232 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
of Sarah, as written in Gen. xxi, 10, adapting them somewhat freely
to his purpose. It is evident from all this that Paul recognizes the
grammatico-historical truthfulness of the Old Testament narrative.
But, he says, all these historical facts are capable of being allegor
ized: dnvd koriv dXXijyopovf.isva, which things are allegorical • or as
Ellicott well expresses it: "All which things, viewed in their most
general light, are allegorical." ' He proceeds to allegorize the facts
referred to, making the two women represent the two covenants,
the Sinaitic (Jewish) and the Christian, and showing in detail how
one thing answers to, or ranks with (ovoroixel) another, and also
wherein the two covenants stand opposed. We may represent the
correspondences of his allegory as follows:
1 Hagar, bondmaid, =01d Covenant, avaroixEl, The present Jerusalem.
2 Sarah, free woman, = New Covenant, Jerusalem above, our mother.
, j 3 Ishmael, child of flesh, Those in bondage to the law.
( 4 Isaac, child of promise, " We, Christian brethren (ver. 2
( 5 Ishmael persecuted Isaac, So now legalists pers. Christia
c •< (I sav, (ver. 31 ; v, 1) : Be not
/ 6 Scripture says: Cast out bondmaid and son, .. , ,
( tangled m yoke of bondage.
The above tabulation exhibits at a glance six points of similitude
(on a line with the figures 1, 2, 3, etc.), and three sets of things con
trasted (as linked by the braces a, b, c). The general import of the
apostle's language is clear and simple, and this allegorizing process
served most aptly both to illustrate the relations and contrasts of
the Law and the Gospel, and also to confound and silence the Juda-
izing legalists, against whom Paul was writing.
Here arises the important hermeneutical question, What inference
What authori- are we to draw from this example of an inspired apostle
ty attaches to allegorizing the facts of sacred history? Was it a fruit
Paul's exam- .. ° , ° . , , . * . ..
pie of aiiegor- of his rabbinical education, and a sanction of that alle
gorical method of interpretation which was prevalent,
especially among Jewish- Alexandrian writers, at that time?
That Paul in this passage treats historical facts of the Old Testa
ment as capable of being used allegorically is a simple matter of
fact. That he was familiar with the allegorical methods of ex
pounding the Scriptures current in his day is scarcely to be doubted.
That his own rabbinical training had some influence on him, and
coloured his methods of argument and illustration, there seems no
valid reason to deny. It is further evident that in his allegorical
use of Hagar and Sarah he employs an exceptional and peculiar
method of dealing with his Judaizing opponents, and, so far as the
passage is an argument, it is essentially an argumentum ad hominem.
* Commentary on Galatians, in loco.
PAUL'S ALLEGORY. 233
But it is not merely an argument of that kind, as if it could have
no worth or force with any other parties. It is assumed to have an
interest and value as illustrating certain relations of the Law and
the Gospel.1 But its position, connexion, and use in this epistle to
the Galatians gives no sufficient warrant for such allegorical methods
in general. Schmoller remarks: "Paul to be sure allegorizes here,
for he says so himself. But with the very fact of his saying this
himself, the gravity of the hermeneutical difficulty disappears. He
means therefore to give an allegory, not an exposition; he does not
proceed as an exegete, and does not mean to say (after the manner
of the allegorizing exegetes) that only what he now says is the true
sense of the narrative."8 Herein especially consists the great dif
ference between Paul's example and that of nearly all the alle-
gorists. He concedes and assumes the historical truthfulness of
the Old Testament narrative, but makes an allegorical use of it for
a special and exceptional purpose.3
1 According to Jowett, " it is neither an argument nor an illustration, but an inter
pretation of the Old Testament Scripture after the manner of the age in which he
lived; that is, after the manner of the Jewish and Christian Alexandrian writers.
Whatever difference there is between him and them, or between Philo and the Chris
tian fathers, as interpreters of Scripture, is not one of kind, but of degree. The
Christian writers lay aside many of the extravagances of Philo; St. Paul is free also
from their extravagances, employing only casually, and exceptionally, and when rea
soning with those ' who desire to be under the law,' what they use habitually and un
sparingly, so as to overlay, and in some cases to destroy the original sense. Instead
of seeking to draw subtle distinctions between the method of St. Paul and that of his
age, probably of the school in which he was brought up, it is better to observe that
the noble spirit of the apostle shines through the 'elements of the law' in which he
clothes his meaning." — The Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, Galatians, etc.,
with Critical Notes and Dissertations, vol. i, p. 285. London, 1855.
1 Commentary on Galatians (Lange's Biblework), in loco.
8 J. B. Lightfoot compares and contrasts Philo's allegory of Hagar and Sarah, and
shows how the two move in different realms of thought, and yet have points of re
semblance as well as points of difference. He shows how, " with Philo, the allegory
is the whole substance of his teaching; with St. Paul it is but an accessory." He fur
nishes also, on the general subject, the following judicious and sensible remarks :
" We need not fear to allow that St. Paul's mode of teaching here is coloured by his
early education in the rabbinical schools. It were as unreasonable to stake the apos
tle's inspiration on the turn of a metaphor or the character of an illustration or the
form of an argument, as on purity of diction. No one now thinks of maintaining that
the language of the inspired writers reaches the classical standard of correctness and
elegance, though at one time it was held almost a heresy to deny this. 'A treasure con
tained in earthen vessels,' ' strength made perfect in weakness,' ' rudeness in speech,
yet not in knowledge,' — such is the far nobler conception of inspired teaching which
we may gather from the apostle's own language. And this language we should do
well to bear in mind." — St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, Greek Text, Notes, etc.,
p. 370. Andover, 1881.
234 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
Hence we may say, in general, that as certain other Old Testament
characters and events are acknowledged by Paul to have a typical
significance (see Rom. ix, 14; 1 Cor. x, 5), so he allows
Paul's method 6 . ' '. ' .
of allegorizing a like significance to the points specified in the history
allowable. Qf jjagar an(j Sarah. But he never for a moment loses
sight of the historical basis, or permits his allegorizing to displace it.
And in the same general way it may be allowable for us to alle
gorize portions of the Scripture, providing the facts are capable of
typical significance, and are never ignored and displaced by the
allegorizing process. Biblical characters and events may thus be
used for homiletical purposes, and serve for " instruction in right
eousness;" but the special and exceptional character of such hand
ling of Scripture must, as in Paul's example, be explicitly acknowl
edged. The apostle's solitary instance is a sufficient admonition
that such expositions are to be indulged in most sparingly.
The allegorical interpretation of the Book of Canticles, adopted
interpretation by all the older Jewish expositors and the great major-
of canticles. j^y of Christian divines, is not to be lightly cast aside.
Where such a unanimity has so long prevailed, there is at least
the presumption that it is rooted in some element of truth. The
methods of procedure adopted by individual exegetes may all be
open to objection, while, at the same time, they may embody prin
ciples in themselves essentially correct.
The allegorists agree in making the pure love and tender rela-
Aiiegoricai tions of Solomon and Shulamith represent the relations
methods. of QO(j an(j nis people. But when they come to details
they differ most widely, each writer finding in particular passages
mystic or historical allusions, which, in turn, are disregarded or denied
by others. In fact, it can scarcely be said that any two allegorizing
minds have ever agreed throughout in the details of their exposi
tion. The Jewish Targum, which takes the bridegroom to be the
Lord of the world, and the bride the congregation of Israel, explains
the whole song as a picture of Israel's history, from the exodus un
til the final redemption and restoration of the nation to the mountain
of Jerusalem.1 Aben-Ezra makes the song an allegorico-prophetic
history of Israel from Abraham onward. Origen and the Christian
allegorists generally make Christ the bridegroom and his Church
the bride. Some, however, explain all the allusions of the loving
intercourse between Christ and the individual believer, while others
treat the whole song as a sort of apocalypse, or prophetic picture of
the history of the Church in all ages. Ambrose, in a sermon on the
1 An English translation of the Targum of Canticles is given in Adam Clarke's
Commentary, at the end of his note? on Solomon's Song.
SOLOMON'S SONG. 235
perpetual virginity of the virgin Mary, represents Shulamith as
identical with Mary, the mother of God. But these are only some
of the more general types or outlines of exposition pursued by
the allegorists. Besides such leading differences there is an end
less and most confusing mass of special expositions. It is assumed
that every word must be explained in a mystic sense. The Targum,
for example, in chap, ii, 4, understands the bringing into the house
of wine as the Lord bringing Israel to the school of Mount Sinai
to learn the law from Moses. Aben-Ezra explains the coming of
the beloved, leaping over the mountains (chap, ii, 8), as Jehovah
descending upon Sinai and shaking the whole mountain by his.
thunder. The Christian allegorists also find in every word and
allusion of the song some illustration of the "great mystery" of
which Paul gpeaks in Eph. v, 31-33, and some have carried the
matter into wild extravagance. Thus Epiphanius makes the eighty
concubines (vi, 8) prefigure eighty heresies of Christendom; the
winter (ii, 11) denotes the sufferings of Christ, and the voice of the
turtle-dove (ii, 12) is the preaching of Paul. Hengstenberg makes
the hair of the bride, which is compared to a flock of goats that
leap playfully from Mount Gilead (iv, 1), signify the mass of the
nations converted to the Church, and Cocceius discovered in other
allusions the strifes of Guelphs and Ghibellines, the struggles of
the Reformation, and even particular events like the capture of
the elector of Saxony at Mtihlberg ! And so the interpretation of
this book has been carried to the same extreme as that of John's
Apocalypse.
Against the allegorical interpretation of Canticles we may urge
three considerations. First, the notable disagreement
of its advocates, as indicated above, and the constant the allegorical
tendency of their expositions to run into irrational E
extremes. These facts warrant the inference that some fatal er
ror lies in that method of procedure. Secondly, the allegorists,
as a rule, deny that the song has any literal basis. The persons
and objects described are mere figures of the Lord and his people,
and of the manifold relations between them. This position throws
the whole exposition into the realm of fancy, and explains how, as
a matter of fact, each interpreter becomes a law unto himself.
Having no basis in reality, the purely allegorical interpretation
has not been able to fix upon any historical standpoint, or adopt
any common principles. Thirdly, the song contains no intimation
that it is an allegory. It certainly does not, like the other alle
gories of Scripture, contain its exposition within itself. Herein, as
we have shown above, the allegory differs from the parable, and to
236 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
be self -consistent in allegorizing the song of songs we should either
adopt Paul's method with the history of Sarah and Hagar, and, al
lowing a literal historical basis, say : All these things may be alle
gorized ; or else we should call the song a parable, and, as in the
parable of the prodigal son, affirm that its imagery is true to fact
and nature and capable of literal explanation, but that it serves
more especially to set forth the mystic relation that exists between
God and his people.
Following, therefore, the analogy of Scripture we may more ap
propriately designate the Canticles as a dramatic par-
Canticles a l J ITT,,-.,
dramatic Par- able. It may or may not have had a literal historical
occasion, as the marriage of Solomon with Pharaoh's
daughter (1 Kings iii, 1), or, as many think, with some beautiful
shepherd-maiden of Northern Palestine (comp. chap, iv, 8). In
either case the imagery and form of the composition are poetic and
dramatic, and, as in the book of Job, we are not to suppose a literal
narrative of persons actually addressing one another in such perfect
and ornamental style. Solomon is a well-known historical person,
and also, in Scripture, a typical character. Shulamith may have been
one of his wives. But the song of songs is a parable, and its leading
actors are, as in all parables, typical of others besides themselves.
The parable depicts in a most charming style the highest ideal of
pure connubial love, and "we cannot but believe that the writer
of this divine song recognized the symbolical character of that love,
which he has here embellished. . . . The typical character of Solo
mon's own reign was well understood by himself, as appears from
Psalm Ixxii. That the Lord's relation to his people was conceived
of as a marriage from the time of the covenant at Sinai, is shown by
repeated expressions which imply it in the law of Moses. That, under
these circumstances, the marriage of the king of Israel should carry
the thought up by a ready and spontaneous association to the cov
enant-relation of the King^ar excellence to the people whom he had
espoused to himself, is surely no extravagant supposition, even if the
analogous instance of Psalm xlv did not remove it from the region
of conjecture to that of established fact. The mystical use made of
marriage so frequently in the subsequent scriptures, with evident
and even verbal allusion to this song, and the constant interpreta
tion of both the Synagogue and the Church, show the naturalness of
the symbol, and enhance the probability that the writer himself saw
what the great body of his readers have found in his production."1
1 Prof. W. H. Green, in American edition of Lange's 0. T. Commentary, Introduc
tion, pp. 24, 25. This learned exegete adopts, along with Zockler, Delitzsch, and
some others, what he calls the typical method of interpreting the Cnnticles. "I am
SOLOMON'S SONG. 237
Accepting, then, the view that the song is of parabolic import,
we should avoid the extravagances of those allegorists who find a
spiritual significance in every word and metaphor. We should,
first of all, study to ascertain the literal sense of every passage.
First the natural, afterward that which is spiritual. The assump
tion of many that the literal sense involves absurdities and revolt
ing images is a grave error. Such writers seem to forget that " the
work is an oriental poem, and the diction should therefore not be
taken as prose. It is the offspring of a luxuriant imagination
tinged with the voluptuousness characteristic of the eastern mind.
There love is warm and passionate even while pure. It deals in
colours and images which seem extravagant to the colder ideas of
the West." '
Having apprehended the literal sense, we should proceed, as in a
parable, to define the general scope and plan of the entire song.
But remembering that the whole is poetry of the most highly orna
mented character, the particular descriptions of persons, scenes, and
events must not be supposed to have in every detail a spiritual or
mystic significance. The mention of spikenard, myrrh, and cypress
flowers (chap, i, 12-14), yields an intensified thought of fragrance,
and indicates the mutual attractiveness of the lovers, and their de
sire and care to please one another; and from this general idea it is
not difficult to infer similar relations between the Lord and his
chosen ones. But an attempt to find special meanings in the spike,
nard, and myrrh, and cypress flower, as if each allusion pointed to
some distinct feature of the economy of grace, would lead to certain
failure in the exegesis. The carping critics who have found fault
with the descriptions of the bodies of Solomon and Shulamith, and
condemned them as revolting to a chaste imagination, too readily
ignore the fact that from the historical standpoint of the ancient
writer these were the noblest ideals of the perfect human form, which,
according to the psalmist (Psa. cxxxix, 14), is " fearfully and wonder
fully made." The highly wrought eulogy of the person of the be
loved (chap, v, 10-16) gives a vivid idea of his surpassing beauty
and perfection, and, like John's glowing vision of the Son of man
in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks (Rev. i, 13-16), may
well depict the glorious person of the Lord. But the description
must be taken as a whole, and not torn into pieces by an effort to
not sure," he says, " but the absence of the name of God, and of any distinctive relig
ious expressions throughout the song, is thus to be accounted for — that the writer,
conscious of the parabolic character of what he is describing, felt that there would be
an incongruity in mingling the symbol with the thing symbolized."
, ' Davidson, Introduction to the Old Testament, vol. ii, p. 404.
238 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
find some separate attribute or doctrine of the Divine Person in
head, hair, eyes, etc. The same principle must be maintained in
explaining the description of the charmingly beautiful and perfect
form of Shulamith in chap, vii, 2-6. The allegorical interpreters
have been guilty of the most extravagant folly in spiritualizing
every part of that portraiture of womanly beauty. But, taken as a
whole, it may appropriately set forth, in type, the perfection and
beauty of " a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any
such thing" (Eph. v, 27).
CHAPTER VIII.
PROVERBS AND GNOMIC POETRY.
THE Old Testament Book of Proverbs has been appropriately called
an Anthology of Hebrew gnomes.1 Its general form is
fined and de- poetic, and follows the usual methods of Hebrew paral
lelism. The simpler proverbs are in the form of dis-
tichs,and consist of synonymous, antithetic and synthetic parallelisms,
as has been explained in a previous part of this work.2 But there
are many involved passages and obscure allusions, and the book
contains riddles, enigmas, or dark sayings (HTn, nypp)., as well as
proverbs (•>£to)- Many a proverb is also a condensed parable; some
consist of metaphors, some of similes, and some are extended into
allegories. In the interpretation of all scriptural proverbs it is im
portant, therefore, to distinguish between their substance and their
form.
The Hebrew word for proverb (?Kto) is derived from the verb
7E>O, which signifies to liken or compare. The same verb means also
to rule, or have dominion, and some have sought to trace a logical
connexion between the two significations; but, more probably, as
Gesenius suggests, two distinct and independent radicals have coa
lesced under this one form. The proverb proper will generally be
found, in its ultimate analysis, to be a comparison or similitude.
Thus, the saying, which became a proverb (^Kto) in Israel, " Is Saul
also among the prophets?" arose from his prophesying after the
manner of the prophets with whom he came in contact (1 Sam. x,
10-12). The proverb used by Jesus in the synagogue of Nazareth,
1 Bruch's "VVeisheitslehre der Ilebraer, p. 104. Strasburg, 1851.
5 See above, pp. 149-153.
GNOMIC LANGUAGE. 239
"Physician, heal thyself," is a condensed parable, as, indeed, it is
there called (Luke iv, 23), and it would be no difficult task to en.
large it into a parabolic narrative. Herein also we may see how
proverbs and parables came to be designated by the same word.
The word Trapoipia, adage, byicord, expresses more nearly the later
idea commonly associated with the Hebrew $>B>D, and stands as its
representative in the Septuagint. In the New Testament it is used
in the sense of adage, or common byword, in 2 Peter ii, 22, but in
John's Gospel it denotes more especially an enigmatical discourse
(John x, 6; xvi, 15, 29).1
Proverbs proper are therefore to be understood as short, pithy
sayings, in which a wise counsel, a moral lesson, or a called Gnomic
suggestive experience, is expressed in memorable form, ^nj^senti-
Such sayings are often called gnomic because of their ment.
pointed and sententious form and force. " The earliest ethical and
practical wisdom of most ancient nations," observes Conant, " found
expression in short, pithy, and pointed sayings. These embodied,
in few words, the suggestions of common experience, or of individ
ual reflection and observation. Acute observers and thinkers, ac
customed to generalize the facts of experience, and to reason from
first principles, were fond of clothing their results in striking apoph
thegms, conveying some instruction or witty reflection, some moral or
religious truth, a maxim of worldly prudence or policy, or a practi
cal rule of life. These were expressed in terms aptly chosen to
awaken attention, or inquiry, and reflection, and in a form that
fixed them indelibly in the memory. They thus became elements
of the national and popular thought, as inseparable from the men
tal habits of the people as the power of perception itself." ' " Prov
erbs," says another, " arc characteristic of a comparatively early
stage in the mental growth of most nations. Men find in the outer
world analogies to their own experience, and are helped by them to
generalize and formulate what they have observed. A single start
ling or humorous fact fixes itself in their minds as the type to
which all like facts may be referred, as when men used the proverb,
' Is Saul also among the prophets? ' The mere result of an induc
tion to which other instances may be referred fixes itself in their
minds with the charm of a discovery, as in ' the proverb of the an
cients, Wickedness proceecleth from the wicked' (1 Sam. xxiv, 13).
. . . Such proverbs are found in the history of all nations, gener
ally in their earlier stages. For the most part there is no record of
'Comp. above, p. 177.
2 The Book of Proverbs, with Hebrew text, King James' Version, and Revised Ver
sion, etc. For the American Bible Union. Introduction, p. 8. JsTew York, 1872.
240 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
their birth. No one knows their author. They find acceptance
among men, not as resting upon the authority of a reverend name,
but from their inherent truth, or semblance of truth." '
The biblical proverbs are not confined to the book which bears
that title. The Book of Ecclesiastes contains many a
Rules for the . J
interpretatiou gnomic sentence. Proverbs appear also in almost every
of proverbs. par^ Q£ ^Q Scriptures, and, from the definition and ori
gin of proverbs, as given above, it will be readily seen that much
care and discrimination may be often required for their proper ex
position. In such exposition the following observations will be
found of practical value and importance.
1. As proverbs may consist of simile, metaphor, parable, or alle
gory, the interpreter should, first of all, determine to
Discrimination o J>
of form and which of these classes of figures, if to any, the proverb
properly belongs. We have seen above that Prov. v,
15-18, is an allegory. In Prov. i, 20; viii, 1; ix, 1, wisdom is per
sonified. Eccles. ix, 13-18, is a combination of parable and prov
erb, the parable serving to illustrate the proverb. Some proverbial
similes are of the nature of a conundrum, requiring us to pause and
study awhile before we catch the point of comparison. The same
is true of some proverbial expressions in which the comparison is
not formally stated, but implied. Thus, in Prov. xxvi, 8, " As bind
ing a stone in a sling, so is he that gives honour to a fool." Here
is a formal comparison, the point of which is not at first apparent,
but it soon dawns on the mind as we reflect that the binding fast of
a stone in a sling would of itself be a piece of folly. The next
verse is enigmatical: "A thornbush (nin) goes up in a drunkard's
hand, and a proverb in the mouth of fools." The distich implies a
comparison between the thornbush in the drunkard's hand and a
proverb in the mouth of fools. But what is the point of compari
son ? The passage is obscure by reason of the uncertainty attach
ing to the word nin, which may mean thorn, thornbush, or thistle.
The authorized English version reads : " As a thorn goeth up into
the hand of a drunkard, so is a parable in the mouth of fools."
Stuart renders: " As a thornbush which is elevated [riseth up, Zock-
ler] in the hand of a drunkard, so is a proverb in the mouth of a
fool," and he explains as'follows: "As a drunken man, who holds a
high thornbush in his hand, will be very apt to injure others or
himself, so a fool's wrords will injure himself or others."2 But Co-
nant translates and explains the passage thus: "A thorn comes up
1 Prof. Plumptre in the Speaker's Commentary on. Proverbs (Am. ed.). Introduc
tion, p. 514.
• Commentary on Proverbs, in loco.
INTERPRETATION OF GNOMES. 241
into the drunkard's hand, so is a proverb in the mouth of fools.
The drunkard's hand, as he gropes around, blindly grasping at
whatever comes in his way, is pierced by a thorn. So fares the
fool when he awkwardly attempts to apply some sharp saying of
the wise." The enigmatical character of the next verse we have
already noticed (p. 181). It is evident, therefore, from this variety
in the nature and style of proverbs, that the interpreter should be
able to determine the exact character of each proverbial passage
which he essays to explain.
2. Great critical and practical sagacity is also necessary both to
determine the character of a proverb and to apprehend
, , ,, Critical and
its scope and bearing. Many proverbs are literal state- practical sagac
ments of fact, the results of observation and experience ; ity'
as, " A child is known by his doings, whether pure and whether
right his deed" (Prov. xx, 11). Many are simple precepts and
maxims of a virtuous life, or warnings against sin, which any one
can understand, as, " Trust in Jehovah with all thy heart, and upon
thine own understanding do not rely " (Prov. iii, 5). " In the path of
the wicked come thou not, and proceed not in the way of the evil "
(Prov. iv, 14). But there are other proverbs that seem to defy all
critical sharpness and ingenuity, as, "To eat much honey is not
good, and to search out their glory is glory" (Prov. xxv, 27). The
last clause has been a puzzle to all exegetes. Some, as the Author
ized Version, carry over the negative particle from the preceding
sentence, and so make the author say the precise opposite of what
he does say. Others reject the itsus loquendi of the verb ipn, to
search out, and, appealing to the corresponding Arabic root, make
the word mean to despise: "To despise their glory is glory."
Others take the word "1133, glory, in its radical sense of weight : " To
search into weighty matters is itself a weight; i. e., men soon be
come satiated with it as with honey " (Plumptre). Zockler renders:
"To search out the difficult bringeth difficulty;" Stuart: "Search
ing after one's own glory is burdensome." Others suggest an emen
dation of the text. Amid such a diversity of possible constructions
the sagacious critic will be slow to venture a positive judgment.
He will consider how many such obscure sayings have arisen from
events now utterly forgotten. Their whole point and force may
have depended originally upon some incident like that of Saul
prophesying, or upon some provincial idiom. So, again, the myste
rious word n|WJJ, in Prov. xxx, 15, translated horseleech in all the
ancient versions, and vampire by many modern exegetes, gives an
uncertainty to every exposition. Possibly here the text is corrupt,
and we may take the word Alukah as a proper name, like Agur in
242 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
verse 1, and Lemuel in chap, xxxi, 1. Then we would supply some
thing, as, " Words of Alukah," or, " Words which one spoke to
Alukah." It will, at least, be granted that among so many prov
erbs as have been preserved to us in the Scriptures, several of which
were manifestly designed to puzzle, there are probably some which
can now be only conjecturally explained.
3. Wherever the context lends any help to the exposition of a
context and proverb great deference is to be paid to it, and it is to
parallelism. be noted that in the Book of Proverbs, as in the other
Scriptures, the immediate context is, for the most part, a very safe
guide to the meaning of each particular passage. So, also, the
poetic parallelisms, in which this book is written, help greatly in
the exposition. The synonymous and the antithetic parallelisms,
especially, are adapted, by way of the analogies and contrasts they
furnish, to suggest their own meaning from within themselves.
Thus Prov. xi, 25: "The soul of blessing (liberal soul that is a
blessing to others) shall become fat (enriched), and he that waters
shall also himself be watered." Here the second member of the
parallelism is a metaphorical illustration of the somewhat enigmat
ical sentiment of the first. So, again, in the antithetic parallelism
of Prov. xii, 24, each member is metaphorical, and the sense of each
is made clearer by the contrast: "The hand of the diligent shall
bear rule, but the slothful shall be under tribute."
4. But there are passages in the Book of Proverbs where the con
text affords no certain or satisfactory help. There are
Common sense «
and sound judg- passages that seem at first self-contradictory, and AVC
are obliged to pause awhile to judge whether the
language be literal or figurative. " There is," says Stuart, " scarce
ly any book which calls upon us so often to apply the golden mean
between literality on the one hand and flimsy and diffuse general
ity on the other." l Especially must common sense and sound judg
ment be appealed to where other helps are not at hand. These are,
in all doubtful cases, to be our last resort to guard us against con
struing all proverbs as universal propositions. Prov. xvi, 7, ex
presses a great truth: " When Jehovah delights in the ways of a
man he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him." But
there have been many exceptions to this statement, and many cases
to which it could apply only with considerable modification. Such,
to some extent, have been all cases of persecution for righteous
ness' sake. So, too, with verse 13 of the same chapter: "Delight
of kings are lips of righteousness, and him that speaks right things
he will love." The annals of human history show that this has not
1 Commentary on Proverbs. Introduction, p. 128.
INTERPRETATION OF GNOMES. 343
always been true; and yet the most impious kings understand the
value of upright counsellors. Prov. xxvi, 4 and 5, are contradictory
in form and statement, but, for reasons there given, both are at once
seen to be true: "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou
also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he
become wise in his own eyes." A man's good sense and judgment
must decide how to answer in any particular case. Prov. vi, 30, 31,
has been supposed to involve an absurdity: "They do not despise
a thief when he steals to satisfy his soul when he is hungry; but if
found he shall restore sevenfold, the whole substance of his house
shall he give." Theft is theft in any case, but if a man is so im
poverished as to steal to satisfy hunger, wherewithal, it is asked,
can he be made to restore sevenfold ? Whence all that substance
of his house ? The absurdities here alleged arise from a lack of
knowledge of Hebrew sentiment and law. To begin with, the pas
sage is proverbial, and must be taken subject to proverbial limita
tions. Then the context must be kept in view, in which the writer
is aiming to show the exceeding wickedness of adultery. No one
shall be innocent, he argues, (ver. 29), who touches his neighbor's
wife. A man who steals to satisfy the cravings of hunger is not
despised, for the palliating circumstances are duly considered; nev
ertheless, if discovered, even he is subject to the full penalty of the
law (comp. Exod. xxii, 1-4). The sevenfold is, doubtless, to be
taken idiomatically. His entire property shall be given up, if nec
essary, to make due restitution. All this of a thief under the cir
cumstances named. But an adulterer shall find even a worse judg
ment — blows, and shame, and reproach that may not be wiped away
(verses 32-35). As for the supposed absurdity of compelling a man
who has nothing to restore sevenfold, it arises from an absurdly
literal interpretation of the proverb. The sense evidently is, that
whatever the circumstances of the theft, if the thief be found, he
shall certainly be punished as the case may demand. A man might
own estates and yet steal to satisfy his hunger; or, if he owned no
property, he could be sold (Exod. xxii, 3) for perhaps more than
seven times the value of what he had stolen. So, also, in Eccles.
x, 2, it is at once evident that the language is not to be taken liter
ally, but metaphorically: "The heart of a wise man is on his right,
but the heart of a fool on his left." The exact meaning of the
proverb, however, is obscure. Heart is probably to be taken for
the judgment or understanding, and the sentiment is that a wise
man has his understanding always at ready and vigorous command,
while the opposite is the case with the fool.
244 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
CHAPTER IX.
INTERPRETATION OP TYPES.
TYPES and symbols constitute a class of figures distinct from all
those which we have treated in the foregoing chapters:
Types and Sym- . £
bois denned and but they are not, properly speaking, figures of speech,
distinguished. They resemble each other in being sensible representa
tions of moral and religious truth, and may be defined, in general,
as figures of thought in which material objects are made to convey
vivid spiritual conceptions to the mind. Crabb defines types and
symbols as different species of the emblem, and observes: "The
type, is that species of emblem by which one object is made to
represent another mystically; it is, therefore, only employed in
religious matters, particularly in relation to the coming, the office,
and the death of our Saviour; in this manner the offering of Isaac
is considered as a type of our Saviour's offering himself as an
atoning sacrifice. The symbol is that species of emblem which is
converted into a constituted sign among men; thus the olive and
laurel are the symbols of peace, and have been recognized as such
among barbarous as well as enlightened nations." ' The symbols
of Scripture, however, rise far above the conventional signs in
common use among men, and are employed, especially in the apoc
alyptic portions of the Bible, to set forth those revelations, given
in visions or dreams, which could find no suitable expression in
mere words.
Types and symbols may, therefore, be said to agree in their gen-
Exam les of era^ cnaracter as emblems, but they differ noticeably in
types and sym- special method and design. Adam, in his representa
tive character and relation to the human race, was a
type of Christ (Rom. v, 14). The rainbow is a symbol of the cove
nanted mercy and faithfulness of God (Gen. ix, 13-16; Ezek. i, 28;
Rev. iv, 3; comp. Isa. liv, 8-10), and the bread and wine in the
sacrament of the Lord's Supper are symbols of the body and blood
of Christ. There are also typical events like the passage of the
Red Sea (1 Cor. x, 1-11), and symbolico-typical actions like Ahi-
jah's rending his new garment as a sign of the rupture of the king
dom of Solomon (1 Kings xi, 29-31). In instances like the latter
'English Synonymes, p. 531. New York, 1859.
TYPES AND SYMBOLS DEFINED. 245
certain essential elements of both type and symbol become blended
in one and the same example. The Scriptures also furnish us with
examples of symbolical metals, names, numbers, and colours.
Certain analogies may be traced between types and symbols,
and several figures of speech. Symbols, being always . a]
based upon some points of resemblance between them- tween types
selves and the things to be symbolized, correspond
somewhat closely with metonymy of the adjunct, or ures
metonymy of the sign and the thing signified (comp. above, pp.
161, 162). Then there are analogies between the simile, the par
able, and the type, on the one hand, and between the metaphor,
the allegory, and the symbol, on the other. Similes, parables, and
types have this in common, that a formal comparison is made or
assumed between different persons and events, and the language is
employed in its literal sense; but in metaphor, allegory, and sym
bol, the characteristic feature is that one thing is said or seen,
and another is intended. If we say "Israel is like a barren fig-
tree," the sentence is a simile. In Luke xiii, 6-9, the same image
is expanded into a narrative, in the parable of the fruitless fig-tree.
But our Lord's miracle of cursing the leafy but fruitless fig-tree
(Mark xi, 13, 14) was a symbolico-typical action, foreshadowing
the approaching doom of the Jewish nation. If, however, we
say " Judah is an olive-tree," we have a metaphor ; one thing
is said to be another. But in Jer. xi, 16, 17, this metaphor is
extended into an allegory, and in Zech. iv, 3, two olive-trees are
symbols of Zerubbabel and Joshua," the two anointed ones (He
brew, sons of oil) who stand by the Lord of all the earth " (ver. 14).
At the same time it is to be observed that as the metaphor differs
from the simile in being an implied rather than a formal compari
son, and as the allegory differs from the parable in a similar way —
saying one thing and meaning another — so the symbol differs from
the type in being a suggestive sign rather than an image of that
which it is intended to represent. The interpretation of a type re
quires us to show some formal analogy between two persons, ob
jects, or events; that of a symbol requires us rather to point out
the particular qualities, marks, features, or signs by means of which
one object, real or ideal, indicates and illustrates another. Mel-
chizedek is a type, not a symbol, of Christ, and Heb. vii fur
nishes a formal statement of the typical analogies. But the seven
golden candlesticks (Rev. i, 12) are a symbol, not a type, of the
seven churches of Asia. The comparison, however, is implied, not
expressed, and it is left to the interpreter to unfold it, and show the
points of resemblance.
.546 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
Besides these formal distinctions between types and symbols
there is the more radical and fundamental difference that while a
symbol may represent a thing either past, present, or future, a type
Natural dis- is essentially a prefiguring of something future from
ti net ion be- jtseif jn the technical and theological sense a type is
tween types . , . , . T
and symbols, a figure or adumbration of that which is to come, it
is a person, institution, office, action, or event, by means of which
some truth of the Gospel was divinely foreshadowed under the Old
Testament dispensations. Whatever was thus prefigured is called
the antitype.1 A symbol, on the other hand, has in itself no essen
tial reference to time. It is designed rather to represent some
character, office, or quality, as when a horn denotes either strength
or a king in whom strength is impersonated (Dan. vii, 24; viii, 21).
The origin of symbols has been supposed to be connected with the
history of hieroglyphics.2
"The word type" obsei-ves Muenscher, "is employed not only
Essential char *n tne°l°gy> but ^n philosophy, medicine, and other sci-
acteristics of ences and arts. In all these departments of knowledge
the radical idea is the same, while its specific meaning
varies with the subject to which it is applied. Resemblance of
some kind, real or supposed, lies at the foundation in every case.
In the science of theology it properly signifies the preordained rep
resentative relation which certain persons, events, and institutions of
the Old Testament bear to corresponding persons, events, and institu
tions in the New" 3 Accordingly the type is always something real,
not a fictitious or ideal symbol. And, further, it is no ordinary fact
or incident of history, but one of exalted dignity and worth — one di
vinely ordained by the omniscient Ruler to be a foreshadowing of
the good things which he purposed in the fulness of time to bring
to pass through the mediation of Jesus Christ.4 Three things are,
1 It should be observed, however, that this word (avriTvirov), as used in the New
Testament (Heb. ix, 24; 1 Peter iii, 21), is not equivalent to the technical sense of
antitype, or counterpart, as now used in theological literature. It has the more gen
eral meaning of image or likeness.
2 Comp. Warburton, Divine Legation of Moses, book iv, sect. iv.
3 Types and the Typical Interpretation of Scripture. Article in the American Bib
lical Repository for January, 1841, p. 9*7.
4 In the New Testament the word Tvirog, type, is applied variously, but always with
the fundamental idea of a figure or real form. In John xx, 25, it is used of th*
print of the nails in the Saviour's hands — visible marks which identified him as the
crucified. In Acts vii, 43, it denotes idolatrous images, and in verse 44, and Heb.
viii, 5, the pattern or model after which the tabernacle was made. In Acts xxiii, 25,
it denotes the form or style of a letter, and in Rom. vi, 17, a form of doctrine.
Gomp. vrroTviruair in 2 Tim. i, 13. In Phil, iii, 17; 1 Thess. i, 7; 2 Thess. iii, 9;
1 Tim. iv, 12; Titus ii, 7 ; 1 Peter v, 3, the word is used in the sense of an example
THREE ELEMENTS OF TYPE. 24?
accordingly, essential to make one person or event the type of
another.
1. There must be some notable point of resemblance or analogy
between the two. They may, in many respects, be to- u^ness and
tally dissimilar. In fact it is as essential that there be uniikeness.
points of dissimilarity as that there be some notable analogy, other
wise we should have identity where only a resemblance is designed.
Adam, for instance, is made a type of Christ, but only in his head
ship of the race, as the first representative of humanity; and in
Bom. v, 14-20, and 1 Cor. xv, 45-49, the apostle notes more points
of unlikeness than of agreement between the two. Moreover, we
always expect to find in the antitype something higher and nobler
than in the type, for " much greater honour than the house has he
who built it " (Heb. iii, 3).
2. There must be evidence that the type was designed and ap
pointed by God to represent the thing typified. This Divinely ap-
proposition is maintained with great unanimity by the P°mted-
best writers on scriptural typology. " To constitute one thing the
type of another," says Bishop Marsh, " something more is wanted
than mere resemblance. The former must not only resemble the
latter, but must have been designed to resemble the latter. It
must have been so designed in its original institution. It must
have been designed as something preparatory to the latter. The
type as well as the antitype must have been pre-ordained, and they
must have been pre-ordained as constituent parts of the same gen
eral scheme of divine providence." ' " It is essential to a type,"
says Van Mildert, " in the scriptural adaptation of the term, that
there should be competent evidence of the divine intention in the
correspondence between it and the antitype — a matter not to be
left to the imagination of the expositor to discover, but resting on
or pattern of Christian character and conduct. But the more technical theological
sense of the word appears in Rom. v, 14, where Adam is called a " type of him who
was to come." On this passage Meyer remarks : " The type is always something his
torical (a person, thing, saying) which is destined, in accordance with the divine plan
to prefigure something corresponding to it in the future — in the connected scheme of
sacred historical teleology, which is to be discerned from the standpoint of the anti
type." The word is used in the same sense in 1 Cor. x, 6 : " These things (the ex-
periences of the fathers, verses 1-6) became types of us." That is, says Meyer, they
yere " historical transactions of the Old Testament, guided and shaped by God, and
designed by him, figuratively, to represent the corresponding relation and experience
on the part of Christians." In verse 11 of the same chapter we have the word TVTTI-
«c<jf, typically, or, after the manner of type ; and it here bears essentially the same
sense as verse 6. " These things came to pass typically with them ; and it wa3
written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages are come."
1 Lectures on Sacred Criticism and Interpretation, p. 371. Lond., 1838.
248 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
some solid proof from Scripture itself."1 But we should guard
against the extreme position of some writers who declare that noth
ing in the Old Testament is to be regarded as typical but what the
New Testament affirms to be so. We admit a divine purpose in
every real type, but it does not therefore follow that every such
purpose must be formally affirmed in the Scriptures.
3. The type must prefigure something in the future. It must
Foreshadowing serve in the divine economy as a shadow of things to
of the future, come (Col. ii, IV ; Heb. x, 1). Hence it is that sacred
typology constitutes a specific form of prophetic revelation. The
Old Testament dispensations were preparatory to the New, and
contained many things in germ which could fully blossom only
in the light of the Gospel of Jesus. So the law was a school
master to bring men to Christ (Gal. iii, 24). Old Testament char
acters, offices, institutions, and events were prophetic adumbrations
of corresponding realities in the Church and kingdom of Christ.
The principal types of the Old Testament may be distributed into
five different classes, as follows :
1. Typical Persons. It is to be noted, however, that persons are
typical, not as persons, but because of some character or relation
which they sustain in the history of redemption. Adam was a type
Typical per- °f Christ because of his representative character as the
sons. first man, and federal head of the race (Rom. v, 14).
" As through the disobedience of the one man the many were made
sinners, so also through the obedience of the one the many shall be
made righteous" (Rom. v, 19). "The first man Adam became a
living soul; the last Adam a life-giving spirit" (1 Cor. xv, 45).
Enoch may be regarded as a type of Christ, in that, by his saintly
life and translation he brought life and immortality to light to the
antediluvian world. Elijah the Tishbite was made, in the same
way, a type of the ascending Lord, and these two were also types
of God's power and purpose to change his living saints, " in a mo
ment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump" (1 Cor. xv, 52).
In the spirit and power of his prophetic ministry Elijah was also a
type of John the Baptist. Abraham's faith in God's word, and
consequent justification (Gen. xv, 6), while yet in uncircumcision
(Rom. iv, 10), made him a type of all believers who are justified by
faith "apart from works of law" (Rom. iii, 28). His offering of
Isaac, at a later date (Gen. xxii), made him a type of working faith,
showing how " a man is justified by works and not by faith only "
(James ii, 24). Typical relations may also be traced in Melchizedek,
Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, and Zerubbabel.
'Bampton Lectures for 1814, p. 239.
FIVE CLASSES OF TYPES. 249
2. Typical Institutions. The sacrificing of lambs and other ani
mals, the blood of which was appointed to make atone- Typical msti-
ment for the souls of men (Lev. xvii, 11), was typical tutions.
of the offering of Christ, who, " as a lamb without blemish and
without spot" (1 Pet. i, 19), was "once offered to bear the sins of
many" (Heb. ix, 28). The sabbath is a type of the believer's ever
lasting rest (Heb. iv, 9). The provision of cities of refuge, into
which the manslayer might escape (Num. xxxv, 9-34), was typical
of the provisions of the Gospel by which the sinner may be saved
from death. The Old Testament passover was typical of the New
Testament eucharist, and the feast of tabernacles a foreshadowing of
the universal thanksgiving of the Church of the latter day (comp.
Zech. xiv, 16). The Old Testament theocracy itself was a type and
shadow of the more glorious New Testament kingdom of God.
3. Typical Offices. Every holy prophet of the Old Testament,
by being the medium of divine revelation, and a mes
senger sent forth from God, was a type of Christ. It
was in the office of prophet that Moses was a type of Jesus (Deut
xviii, 15). The priests, and especially the high priest, in the per
formance of their priestly duties, were types of Him who through
his own blood entered into the holy place once for all, and thereby
obtained eternal redemption (Heb. iv, 14; ix, 12). Christ is also,
as king, the antitype of Melchizedek, who was king of righteous
ness and king of peace (Heb. vii, 2), and of David and Solomon,
and of every other of whom Jehovah might say, "I have set my
king upon my holy hill of Zion" (Psa. ii, 6). So the Lord Christ
unites in himself the offices of prophet, priest, and king, and fulfills
the types of former dispensations.
4. Typical Events. Under this head we may name the flood, the
exodus from Egypt, the sojourn in the wilderness, the .
... * * *v i Typical Events,
giving of manna, the supply of water from the rock,
the lifting up of the brazen serpent, the conquest of Canaan, and
the restoration from the Babylonish captivity. It is such events
and experiences as these, according to Paul (1 Cor. x, 11), which
" came to pass typically with them ; and it was written for our ad
monition upon whom the ends of the ages are come."
5. Typical Actions. These partake so largely of the nature of
symbols that we may appropriately designate them as
symbolico-typical, and treat them in a chapter by them
selves. So far as they were prophetic of things to come they were
types, and belong essentially to what we have defined as typical
events ; so far as they were signs (niJIX, orjfiela], suggestive of lessons
of present or permanent value, they were symbols. The symbol
250 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
may be a mere outward visible sign; the type always requires
the presence and action of an intelligent agent. So it should be
noted that typical characters, institutions, offices, or events are
such by bringing in the activity or service of some intelligent
agent. The brazen serpent, considered merely as a sign — an ob
ject to look to — was rather a symbol than a type; but the per
sonal agency of Moses in lifting up the serpent on a pole, and the
looking upon it on the part of the bitten Israelites, places the whole
transaction properly in the class of typical events; for as such it
was mainly a foreshadowing of things to come. The miracle of the
fleece, in Judges vi, 36-40, was not so much a type as a symbolical
sign, an extraordinary miraculous token, and our Lord cites the
case of Jonah, who was three days and three nights in the whale,
not only as a prophetic type of his burial and resurrection, but also
as a symbolical " sign " for that " evil and adulterous generation "
(Matt, xii, 39). The symbolico-typical actions of the prophets are:
Isaiah's walking naked and barefoot for three years (Isa. xx, 2-4) ;
Jeremiah taking and hiding his girdle by the Euphrates (Jer. xiii,
1-11); his going to the potter's house and observing the work
wrought there (xviii, 1-6) ; his breaking the potter's bottle in the
valley of Hinnom (xix) ; his putting a yoke upon his neck for a
sign to the nations (xxvii, 1-14; comp. xxviii, 10-17); and his hid
ing the stones in the brick-kiln (xliii, 8—13) ; Ezekiel's portraiture
upon a brick of the siege of Jerusalem, and his lying upon his side
for many days (Ezek. iv) ; his cutting off his hair and beard, and
destroying it in different parcels (v) ; his removing the baggage,
and eating and drinking with trembling (xii, 3-20) ; his sighing
(xxi, 6, 7) ; and his peculiar action on the death of his wife (xxiv,
15-27); Hosea's marrying "a wife of whoredoms and children of
whoredoms" (Hos. i), and his buying an adulteress (iii) ; and Zech-
ariah's making crowns of silver and gold for the head of Joshua
(Zech. vi, 9-15).
The hermeneutical principles to be used in the interpretation of
ti types are essentially the same as those used in the in-
principiestobe terpretation of parables and allegories. Nevertheless,
in view of the peculiar nature and purpose of the scrip
tural types, we should be careful in the application of the following
principles :
1. The real point of resemblance between type and antitype
ui real corre- snou^j ^rst °f a^> ^e clearly apprehended, and all far-
spondences to fetched and recondite analogies should be as carefully
avoided. It often requires the exercise of a very sober
discrimination to determine the proper application of this rule.
POINTS OF RESEMBLANCE. 251
Every real correspondence should be noted. Thus, the lifting up
of the brazen serpent, narrated in Num. xxi, 4-9, is one -j^g brazea
of the most notable types of the Old Testament, and was serpent,
explained by Jesus himself as a prefiguration of his being lifted up
upon the cross (John iii, 14, 15). Three points of analogy are clear
ly traceable: (1) As the brazen serpent was lifted up upon a pole,
so Christ upon the cross. (2) As the serpent of brass was made,
by divine order, in the likeness of the fiery serpents, so Christ was
made in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom. viii, 3) a curse for us
(Gal. iii, 13). (3) As the offending Israelites, bitten and ready to
die, looked unto the serpent of brass and lived, so sinful men, poi
soned by the old serpent, the devil, and ready to perish, look by
faith to the crucified Christ, and are made alive for evermore.
Other incidental analogies involved in one or another of these three
may be allowed, but should be used with caution. Thus, Bengel
says : " As that serpent was one without venom placed over against
venomous serpents, so the man Christ, a man without sin, against
the old serpent." l This thought may be incidentally included in anal
ogy (2) above. Lange's observation, however, seems too far-fetched
and mystical: "The fiery serpents in the wilderness were primarily
the form of a divine punishment, presented in a form elsewhere de
noting sin. The elevated serpent-standard was thus the type of
punishment lifted in the phantom of sin, and transformed into a
means of salvation. This is the nature of the cross. The look at
the cross is a look at the curse-laden One, who is not a sinner, but
a divine token of evil and penalty, and of the suffering of [a sub
stitute for] penalty which is holy, and therefore transformed into
deliverance."" Such incidental analogies, as long as they adhere
consistently to the main points, may be allowed, especially in homi-
letical discourse. But to find in the brass — a metal inferior to gold
or silver — a type of the outward meanness of the Saviour's appear
ance; or to suppose that it was cast in a mould, not wrought by
hand, and thus typified the divine conception of Christ's human
nature ; or to imagine that it was fashioned in the shape of a cross
to depict more exactly the form in which Christ was to suffer —
these, and all like suppositions, are far-fetched, misleading, and to
be rejected.
In Hebrews vii the priesthood of Christ is illustrated and en
hanced by typical analogies in the character and position Melchizedek
of Melchizedek. Four points of resemblance are there and Christ,
set forth. (1) Melchizedek was both king and priest; so Christ.
(2) His timelessness — being without recorded parentage, genealogy,
1 Gnomon, on John iii, 14. 8 Commentary on John, in loco.
252 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
or death — is a figure of the perpetuity of Christ's priesthood.
(3) Melchizedek's superiority over Abraham and over the Levitical
priests is made to suggest the exalted dignity of Christ. (4) Mel
chizedek's priesthood was not, like the Levitical, constituted by
formal legal enactment, but was without succession and without
tribe or race limitations ; so Christ, an independent and universal
priest, abides forever, having an unchangeable priesthood. Much
more is said in the chapter by way of contrasting Christ with the
Levitical priests, and the manifest design of the writer is to set
forth in a most impressive way the great dignity and unchangeable
perpetuity of the priesthood of the Son of God. But interpreters
have gone wild over the mysterious character of Melchizedek, yield
ing to all manner of speculation, first, in attempting to answer the
question " Who was Melchizedek?'3 and second, in tracing all im
aginable analogies. "VVhedon observes sensibly and aptly: "Our
opinion is, that Melchizedek was nobody but himself; himself as
simply narrated in Gen. xiv, 18-'20; in which narrative both David,
in Psa. ex, and our author after him, find every point they specify
in making him a king-priest, typical of the king-priesthood of
Christ. Yet it is not in the person of Melchizedek alone, but in the
grouping, also, of circumstances around and in his person, that the
inspired imagination of the psalmist finds the shadowing points.
Melchizedek, in Genesis, suddenly appears upon the historic stage,
without antecedents or consequents. He is a king-priest not of
Judaism, but of Gentilism universally. He appears an unlineal
priest, without father, mother, or pedigree. He is preceded and
succeeded by an everlasting silence, so as to present neither begin
ning nor end of life. And he is, as an historic picture, forever
there, divinely suspended, the very image of a perpetual king-priest.
It is thus not in his actual unknown reality, but in the Scripture
presentation, that the group of shadowings appears. It is by opti
cal truth only, not by corporeal facts, that he becomes a picture,
and with his surroundings a tableau, into which the psalmist first
reads the conception of an adumbration of the eternal priesthood
of the Messiah; and all our author does is to develop the particulars
which are in mass presupposed by the psalmist." :
2. The points of difference and of contrast between type and
Notable differ- antitype should also be noted by the interpreter. The
tr^tetobeCobI tJPe from its vei7 nature must be inferior to the anti-
served. type, for we cannot expect the shadow to equal the
substance. " For," says Fairbairn, " as the typical is divine truth
on a lower stage, exhibited by means of outward relations and
1 Commentary on JSTew Testament, in loco.
POINTS OF CONTRAST. 253
terrestrial interests, so, when making the transition from this to the
antitypical, we must expect the truth to appear on a loftier stage,
and, if we may so speak, with a more heavenly aspect. What in
the one bore immediate respect to the bodily life, must in the other
be found to bear immediate respect to the spiritual life. While in
the one it is seen and temporal objects that ostensibly present
themselves, their proper counterpart in the other is the unseen and
eternal: — there, the outward, the present, the worldly; here, the
inward, the future, the heavenly." *
The New Testament writers dilate upon these differences between
type and antitype. In Heb. iii, 1-6, Moses, considered Moses an<f
as the faithful apostle and servant of God, is repre- Chrlst-
sented as a type of Christ, and this typical aspect of his character
is based upon the remark in Num. xii, 7, that Moses was faithful in
all the house of God. This is the great point of analogy, but the
writer immediately goes on to say that Jesus is " worthy of more
glory than Moses," and instances two points of superiority: (1) Mo
ses was but a part of the house itself in which he served, but Jesus
is entitled to far greater glory, inasmuch as he may be regarded as
the builder of the house, and much greater honour than the house
has he who built or established it. Further (2), Moses was faithful
in the house as a minister (ver. 5), but Christ as a son over the
house. Still more extensively does this writer enlarge upon the
superiority of Christ, the great High Priest, as compared with the
Levitical priests after the order of Aaron.
In Rom. v, 14, Adam is declared to be "a type of Him who was
to come," and the whole of the celebrated passage, Adam and
verses 12-21, is an elaboration of a typical analogy Christ-
which has force only as it involves ideas and consequences of the
most opposite character. The great thought of the passage is this :
As through the trespass of the one man Adam a condemning judg
ment, involving death, passed upon all men, so through the right
eousness of the one man, Jesus Christ, the free gift of saving
grace, involving justification unto life, came unto all men. But in
verses 15-17 the apostle makes prominent several points of distinc
tion in which the free gift is " not as the trespass." First, it differs
quantitivdy. The trespass involved the one irreversible sentence
of death to the many, the free gift abounded with manifold pro
visions of grace to the same many (rovg Tro/lAovf). It differs also
numerically in the matter of trespasses; for the condemnation fol
lowed one act of transgression, but the free gift provides for justi
fication from many trespasses. Moreover, the free gift differs
1 The Typology of Scripture, vol. 5, p. 131. Philadelphia, 186*7.
17
254 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
'qualitatively in its glorious results. By the trespass of Adam " death
reigned " — acquired domination over all men, even over those who
sinned not after the likeness of the transgression of Adam; but
through the one man, Jesus Christ, they who receive the abundance
of his saving grace will themselves reign in eternal life.
3. The Old Testament types are susceptible of complete interpre-
oid Testament tation only by the light of the Gospel. It has too often
tf^fd d o^PFb" been tastily assumed that the ancient prophets and
the Gospel. holy men were possessed of a full knowledge of th«
mysteries of Christ, and vividly apprehended the profound signifi
cance of all sacred types and symbols. That they at times had
some idea that certain acts and institutions foreshadowed better
things to come may be admitted, but according to Heb. ix, 7-12,
the meaning of the holiest mysteries of the ancient worship was
not manifest while the outward tabernacle was yet standing. And
not only did the ancient worshippers fail to understand those mys
teries, but the mysteries themselves — the forms of worship, "the
meats, and drinks, and divers washings, ordinances of flesh, imposed
until a time of rectification " (dtopi9a><7£a)f, straightening ^tp},l were
unable to make the worshippers perfect. In short, the entire Mo
saic cultus was, in its nature and purpose, preparatory and peda
gogic (Gal. iii, 25), and any interpreter who assumes that the
ancients apprehended clearly what the Gospel reveals in the Old
Testament types, will be likely to run into extravagance, and in
volve himself in untenable conclusions.
We may appropriately add the following words of Cave : " Hav
ing apprehended that the divine revelation to the human race had
been made at successive times and by successive stages, the doc
trine of types gave utterance to the further apprehension that these
revelations were not incongruous and disconnected, but by numer
ous links, subtle in their location, and by concords prearranged,
were inseparably interwoven. To the belief that holy men had
spoken things beyond the limits of human thought, the doctrine of
types superadded or testified to the addition of the belief that
these holy men were moved by one Spirit, their utterances having
mysterious interconnexions with each other, this explaining that,
and that completing this. ... It is this community of system, this
fundamental resemblance under different forms, which the doctrine
of types aids us to apprehend. Xor, when once the conception of
the historical development of the Scriptures has been seized, is it
1 That is, says Alford, " when all these things would be better arranged, the sub
stance put where the shadow was before, the sufficient grace where the insufficient
type." Greek Testament on Heb. ix, 10.
GOSPEL FULFILMENT OF TYPES. 255
any longer difficult to fix the precise significance of the type. Type*
and antitype convey exactly the same truth, but under forms ap
propriate to different stages of development." '
It remains for us to inquire into the validity of the principle,
maintained by many writers, that only those persons Limitation of
and things are to be regarded as typical which are ex- tyPea-
pressly declared to be such in the New Testament. A leading au
thority for this view is Bishop Marsh, who says: "There is no
other rule by which we can distinguish a real from a pretended
type, than that of Scripture itself. There is no other possible
means by which we can know that a previous design and a pre
ordained connexion existed. Whatever persons or Bishop Marsh's
things, therefore, recorded in the Old Testament, were diciwa-
especially declared by Christ, or by his apostles, to have been de
signed as prefigurations of persons and things relating to the New
Testament, such persons and things so recorded in the former are
types of the persons or things with which they are compared in
the latter. But if we assert that a person or thing was designed to
prefigure another person or thing, where no such prefiguration has
been declared by divine authority, we make an assertion for which
we neither have nor can have the slightest foundation. And
even when comparisons are instituted in the New Testament be
tween antecedent and subsequent persons and things, we must be
careful to distinguish the examples, where a comparison is insti
tuted merely for the sake of illustration, from the examples where
such a connexion is declared as exists in the relation of a type to
its antitype." *
This principle, however, is altogether too restrictive for an ade
quate exposition of the Old Testament types. We Marsh's rule too
should, indeed, look to the Scriptures themselves for narrow,
general principles and guidance, but not with the expectation that
every type, designed to prefigure Gospel truths, must be formally
announced as such. We might with equal reason demand that
every parable and every prophecy of Scripture must have inspired
and authoritative exposition. Such a rigid rule of interpretation
could scarcely have been adopted by so many excellent divines ex
cept under the pressure of the opposite extreme, which found hid
den meanings and typical lessons in almost every fact of Scripture.
The persons and events which are expressly declared by the sacred
1 The Scriptural Doctrine of Sacrifice, p. 157. Edinb., 1877.
* Lectures on Sacred Criticism and Interpretation, p. 373. This extreme view is,
in substance, affirmed by Macknight, Ernesti, Conybeare, Van Mildert, Home, Nares,
Chevalier, Stuart, Stowe, and Muenscher.
256 SPECIAL IIERMENEUTICS.
writers to be typical are rather to be taken as specimens and ex
amples for the interpretation of all types. For it will hardly be
deemed reasonable or satisfactory to affirm that Moses and Jonah
A better prin- were typical characters and deny such character to
clPle- Samuel and Elisha. The miraculous passage of the
Jordan may have as profound a typical significance as that of the
Red Sea, and the sweetened waters of the desert as that of the
smitten rock in Iloreb. Our Lord rebuked the two disciples for
having a heart so dull and slow to believe in all things which the
prophets spoke (Luke xxiv, 25), clearly implying the duty of seek
ing to apprehend the sense of all the prophetic Scriptures. A sim
ilar reproof is administered to the Hebrews (Heb. v, 10-14) for
their incapacity to understand the typical character of Melchizedek,
" thus placing it beyond a doubt," says Fairbairn, " that it is both
the duty and the privilege of the Church, with that measure of the
Spirit's grace which it is the part even of private Christians to pos
sess, to search into the types of ancient Scripture and come to a
correct understanding of them. To deny this is plainly to withhold
an important privilege from the Church of Christ, to dissuade from
it is to encourage the neglect of an incumbent duty." l
Such Old Testament persons and events as are cited for typical
lessons should always, however, possess some notably exceptional
importance. Some have taken Abel, as a keeper of sheep, to be a
type of Christ the great Shepherd. But a score of others might as
well be instanced, and the analogy is, therefore, too common to be
exalted into the dignity of a prefiguring type. So, also, as we have
said, every prophet, priest, and king of the Old Testament, consid
ering merely their offices, were types of Christ; but it would be
improper to cite every one, of whom we have any recorded history,
as a type. Only exceptional characters, such as Moses, Aaron, and
David, are to be so used. Each case must be determined on its
own merits by the good sense and sound judgment of the inter
preter; and his exegetical discernment must be disciplined by a
thorough study of such characters as are acknowledged on all hands
to be scriptural types.
1 Typology, vol. i, page 29. See this subject more amply discussed by this writer
in connexion with the passage above quoted (pp. 26-32) where he ably shows that
the writers belonging to the school of Marsh " drop a golden principle for the sake of
avoiding a few lawless aberrations." He observes that their system of procedure
" sets such narrow limits to our inquiries that we cannot, indeed, wander far into the
regions of extravagance. But in the very prescription of these limits it wrongfully
withholds from us the key of knowledge, and shuts us up to evils scarcely less to be
deprecated than those it seeks to correct."
BIBLICAL SYMBOLS. 257
CHAPTER X.
INTERPRETATION OF SYMBOLS.
BIBLICAL SYMBOLISM is, in many respects, one of the most difficult
subjects with which the interpreter of divine revelation Difficulties of
has to deal. Spiritual truths, prophetic oracles, and the subject,
things unseen and eternal, have been represented enigmatically in
sacred symbols, and it appears to have been the pleasure of the
Great Author of divine revelation that many of the deepest mys
teries of providence and grace should be thus enshrined. And, be
cause of its mystic and enigmatic character, this whole subject of
symbolism demands of the interpreter a sober and discriminating
judgment, a most delicate taste, a thorough collation and compari
son of Scripture symbols, and a rational and self -consistent pro
cedure in their explanation.
The proper and logical method of investigating the principles of
symbolization is first to collate a sufficient number and principles of
variety of the biblical symbols, especially such as are procedure,
accompanied by an authoritative solution. And it is all-important
that we do not admit into such a collation any objects which are
not veritable symbols, for such a fundamental fallacy would neces
sarily vitiate our whole subsequent procedure. Having brought
together in one field of view a goodly number of unquestionable
examples, our next step is to mark carefully the principles and
methods exhibited in the exposition of those symbols which are ac
companied by a solution. As, in the interpretation of parables, we
make the expositions of our Lord a main guide to the understand
ing of all parables, so from the solution of symbols furnished by
the sacred writers we should, as far as possible, learn the principles
by which all symbols are to be interpreted.
It is scarcely to be disputed that the cherubim and flaming sword
placed at the east of Eden (Gen. iii, 24), the burn- classification of
ing bush at Horeb (Exod. iii, 2), and the pillars of symb°is.
cloud and fire which went before the Israelites (Exod. xiii, 21)
were of symbolical import. In a scientific classification of symbols
these are, perhaps, sufficiently exceptional to be placed by them
selves, and designated as miraculously signal. Other symbols
are appropriately named material, because they consist of material
258 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
objects, as the blood offered in expiatory sacrifices, the bread and
wine of the Eucharist, and the tabernacle and temple with their
apartments and furniture. But by far the more numerous symbols
are the visional, including all such as were seen in the dreams and
visions of the prophets. Under one or the other of these three
heads we may bring all the biblical symbols, and any attempt at
a more minute classification would, at this stage of our investiga«
tion, be unnecessary and inexpedient.1
As the visional symbols are the most numerous and common,
The Almond an(l many of them have special explanations, we be-
Rod- gin with these, and take the simplest and less impor
tant first. In Jer. i, 11, the prophet is represented as seeing "a
rod of an almond tree," which is at once explained as a symbol of
the active vigilance with which Jehovah would attend to the per
formance of his word. The key to the explanation is found in the
Hebrew name of the almond tree, 1j?rf , which Gesenius defines as
" the waker, so called as being the earliest of all trees to awake
from the sleep of winter." 2 In verse 12 the Lord appropriates
this word in its verbal form, and says: "For I am watching (lj?.&)
over my word to perform it."
1 Winthrop, in his Essay on the Characteristics and Laws of Prophetic Symbols
(2d ed., Xew York, 1854, pp. 16-19), adopting substantially the theory of Mr.
D. N. Lord (Theological and Literary Journal for April, 1851, p. 668), divides what
he regards as the biblical symbols into five classes, as follows : (1) Living conscious
agents, as God, the Son of man, the Lamb, angels, men, souls (Rev. vi, 9), beasts,
monster animals, and insects ; (2) dead bodies, as the slain witnesses in Rev. xi ;
(3) natural unconscious agents or objects, as the earth, sun, moon, stars, and waters ;
(4) artificial objects, as candlesticks, sword, cities, books, diadems, and white robes ;
(5) acts, effects, characteristics, conditions, and relations of agents and objects, as
speaking, fighting, and colour. But a large proportion of the agents and objects he
enumerates are not symbols. He makes God and Christ, disembodied souls, risen
saints, and living men, symbols of themselves ! Other objects named, as acts, ef
fects, colours, and relations, are symbolical only as they form part of a composite
image, and should be rather designated as symbolical attributes, and not erected into
independent symbols. E. R. Craven, the American editor of Lange on the Revela
tion (pp. 145, 146), adopts the first four classes of Lord and Winthrop, and then pro
pounds a further classification based upon the relations of symbols to the ultimate
objects symbolized. He finds five orders, which he designates (1) immediate-similar,
(2) immediate-ideal, (3) mediate-individual, (4) classical, and (5) aberrant. But he
falls into the error of Lord and Winthrop, of making an object symbolize itself.
His immediate-similar, and at least some of his immediate-symbols, cannot, for this
rea.son, be accepted as symbols until proven to be such by valid evidence. Such proof
we do not find that he has attempted to produce.
2 Heb. Lex., sub verbo. Pliny (Hist. Nat., xvi, 25) observes that the almond blos
soms first of all trees in the month of January, and matures its fruit in March.
Nagelsbach (Com. on Jeremiah, in loco) remarks : " What the cock is among domestic
animals, the almond is among trees."
BIBLICAL SYMBOLS. 259
A seething pot (niDJ Tp, a pot blown upon, i. e., by fire) appeared
to the prophet with " its face from the face of the north " The seething
(Jer. i, 13), that is, its front and opening were turned Pot-
toward the prophet at Jerusalem, as if a furious fire were pouring
its blaze upon its northern side, and was likely to overturn it and
drive its boiling hot waters southward " upon all the cities of Ju-
dah " (ver. 15). This is explained in the immediate context as the
irruption of " all the families of the kingdoms of the north " upon
the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. " The swelling waters of a
flood are the usual symbol of any overwhelming calamity (Psa. Ixix,
1, 2), and especially of a hostile invasion (Isa. viii, 7, 8); but this is
a flood of scalding waters whose very touch is death." ' Here, also,
in the inspired exposition of the vision, appears a play upon He
brew words. Jehovah says, in verse 14, "From the north shall be
opened (nnsri) the evil upon all the inhabitants of the land." There
is a designed assonance between ITiD:) in verse 13 and nriSJji in verse 14.
The symbol of the good and bad figs, in Jer. xxiv, is accom
panied by an ample exposition. The prophet saw " two The good and
baskets of figs set before the temple of Jehovah " (ver. 1), bad m^i-
as if they had been placed there as offerings to the Lord. The
good figs were pronounced very good, and the bad figs were very
bad, and, for that reason, not fit to be eaten (ver. 3). The good
figs represent, according to the Lord's own showing, the better
classes of the Jewish people, who were to be taken for a godly dis
cipline to the land of the Chaldaeans, and in due time brought
back again. The bad figs represent Zedekiah and the miserable
remnant that were left with him in the land of Judah, but were
soon cut off or driven away.
Very similar is Amos' vision of "a basket of summer fruit"
(Amos viii, 1), that is- early-ripe fruit (pj?; comp. 2 Sam. -me summer
xvi, 1, and Isa. xvi, 9) ready to be gathered. It was a Fruit-
symbol of the end (pj3) about to come upon Israel. As in the sym
bols of the almond rod and the seething pot, there is here also a
paronomasia of the Hebrew words for ripe fruit and end, qayits
and gets. The people are ripe for judgment, and Jehovah will
bring the matter to an early end ; and, as if the end had come, it is
written (ver. 3): "And the songs of the temple have wailed in that
day, saith the Lord Jehovah. Vast the corpse ! In every place he
has cast it forth. Hush! "
The resurrection of dry bones, in Ezek. xxxvii, 1-14, is explained
of the restoration of Israel to their own land. The vision is not a par
able (Jerome), but a composite visional symbol of life from the dead.
1 R. Payne Smith, in Speaker's Commentary, in loco.
200 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
The dry bones are expressly declared to be " the whole house of Is
rael" (ver. 11), and are represented as saying: " Our bones are dried,
and our hope is perished." These bones were not en-
The Resurrec
tion of dry cased in sepulchres, or buried in the ground, but were
seen in great numbers " on the surface of the valley "
(ver. 2). So the exiled Israelites were scattered among the nations,
and the lands of their exile were their graves. But the prophecy
now conies from Jehovah (ver. 12) : " Behold, I open your graves and
bring you up out of your graves, O my people ! " In verse 14 it is
added: " I will put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I will
cause you to rest on your own ground, and ye shall know that I,
Jehovah, have spoken and accomplished, saith Jehovah." To all
outward appearances Israel was politically and spiritually ruined,
and the promised restoration was, in reality, as life from the dead.
In the opening vision of the Apocalypse, John saw the likeness
The golden °f tne Son of man in the midst of seven golden candle-
candiestick. sticks, and was told that the candlesticks were symbols
of the seven churches of Asia. And there is no question but that
the golden candlestick with its seven lamps seen by the prophet
Zechariah (chap, iv, 2), and the seven-branched candlestick of the
Mosaic tabernacle (Exod. xxv, 31-40), were of like symbolical im
port. These all denote the Church or people of God considered
as the light of the world (comp. Matt, v, 14; Phil, ii, 15; Eph. v, 8).'
In Zechariah's vision (Zech. iv) there appeared two olive trees,
The two oiive one at tne right and the other at the left of the golden
Trees- candlestick, and through two of their branches they
poured the golden oil out of themselves. The composite symbol
was " a word of Jehovah to Zerubbabel, saying, Not in might and
not in power, but in my Spirit, saith Jehovah of hosts" (ver. 6);
and the two olive trees denoted " the two anointed ones (Hebrew,
sons of oil) who stand by the Lord of all the land " (ver. 14). These
two anointed ones are spoken of as if well known, and needing no
further designation. The vision had special comfort and encour
agement for Zerubbabel. At that time of trouble, when the suprem
acy of Persia seemed so absolute that Israel might well despair of
regaining any of its ancient glory, and might be overawed by an
undue estimate of national and military power, the lesson is given
that the people of God need not aspire after that sort of prow
ess. God's people are set to be the light of the world, and their
glory is to be seen not in worldly might and pomp, but in the
Spirit of Jehovah of hosts. And this Spirit, as contrasted with
the might of the world, is to be understood, not solely as the sanc
tifying grace of God in the heart, but as the divine wisdom and
THE TWO OLIVE TREES. 261
power of the Almighty, by which he ever carries to completion the
great purposes of his will. The mountains of difficulty which con
fronted this great leader of God's people should become a plain
(ver. 7); his hands had laid the foundation of the house of God
(which itself was a symbol of the Church), and he has the assurance
that he shall complete it, and in the triumph of his labour even the
eyes of Jehovah shall rejoice (ver. 10). " Joshua, the high priest
standing before the angel of Jehovah " (chap, iii, 1) has already
received special comfort and encouragement from the vision and
prophecy of the previous chapter, and these two, Joshua and Zer-
ubbabel, are evidently " the two anointed ones " denoted by the
olive trees. These were raised up in the providence of God and
prepared and consecrated to be the ministers of his grace to the
people in that perilous time.1 There is no propriety in making
these trees represent, as some do, the Church and the State; for,
if the candlestick represents the Church, it would be incongruous
to make one of the olive trees represent the same thing. For the
same reason we must reject the view of Kliefoth and Wright, who
make the olive trees denote Jews and Gentiles as jointly aiding and
sustaining the light of truth, for this also confounds candlestick and
olive trees. There is, further, no warrant for making these trees
symbolize the regal and priestly offices or orders, for the Scripture
furnishes no valid evidence that those offices and orders as such
were ever designed to be media of communicating the grace and
power of God to the Church. The office of priest was established,
not as a means of communicating divine grace to the people,
but rather to offer the people's gifts and sacrifices for sins to
God (Heb. v, 1), and the office of king certainly had no such func
tion as that of these olive trees. Neither was Zerubbabel in any
proper sense a king. Individual priests and kings were, indeed,
a means of blessing to Israel, but an equal or greater number
were a curse rather than a blessing. Joshua and Zerubbabel were
the chosen and anointed agents for building the second temple, and
they fully meet the requirements of the symbol.2
1 " The two sons of oil," says Keil, " can only be the two media, anointed with oil,
through whom the spiritual and gracious gifts of God were conveyed to the Church
of the Lord, namely, the existing representatives of the priesthood and the regal gov
ernment, who were at that time Joshua, the high priest, and the prince Zerubbabel.
These stand by the Lord of the whole earth as the divinely appointed instruments
through whom the Lord causes his Spirit to flow into his congregation." — Commen
tary on the Minor Prophets, in loco.
2 Cowles observes : " I prefer to apply the phrase, the two anointed ones, to the two
orders, kings and priests, rather than to the two individuals then filling those offices^
Zerubbabel and Joshua, because this provision for oil through these conducting tubes
262 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
The mention of " the two olive trees and the two candlesticks,
The allusion in standing before the Lord of the earth," in Rev. xi, 4, is
Kev. xi, 4. merely a metaphorical allusion to these symbols in
Zechariah, and serves to enhance the dignity of the two witnesses
whom the writer is describing. But with John they are not sym
bols, and were not seen as such in his vision. And this fact should
make us distrust all those expositions which make the two witnesses
represent offices and orders in the Church, or two lines of witnesses,
or the Law and the Gospel, or two different Christian bodies, as
the Waldenses and Albigenses. If the olive trees in Zechariah rep
resent individuals, the allusion in Rev. xi, 4 would most properly
designate the two witnesses as individuals also, and the whole de
scription of their work, power, death, resurrection, and ascension to
heaven, most readily harmonizes with this view. The singularity of
their position is also denoted by calling them " the two candlesticks,"
as well as the two olive trees. They were not only God's two
anointed ones, but the two sole light holders which he had remain
ing in that doomed city "where their Lord was crucified" (ver. 8).
The symbols employed in the Book of Daniel are, happily, so
fully explained that there need be no serious doubt as to the import
.. of most of them. The great image of Nebuchadnezzar's
The composite ..
image of Dan- dream (chap ii, 31-35) was a symbol of a succession of
world-powers. The head of gold denoted Nebuchad
nezzar himself, as the mighty head and representative of the Baby
Ionian monarchy (vers. 3V, 38). The other parts of the image,
composed of other metals, symbolized kingdoms that were subse
quently to arise. The legs of iron denoted a fourth kingdom of
great strength, " forasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and crushes
every thing" (ver. 40). The feet and toes, part of iron and part of
clay, indicated the mingled strength and wreakness of this kingdom
in its later period (vers. 41-43). The stone that smote the image,
and became a great mountain filling the whole land, was a prophetic
symbol of the kingdom of the God of heaven (vers. 44, 45). l
was not transient, limited to the lifetime of these two men, but permanent — to con
tinue as long as God should give them kings and priests, and, especially, because
permanence was a cardinal idea in the symbol." — Notes on the Minor Prophets, in
loco. Here are several unwarranted and fallacious assumptions. There is nothing
in the symbol that represents enduring permanence ; Zerubbabel, though of royal an
cestry, was not a king, but, like Nehemiah, of later times, was merely a temporary
governor, and a subject of the Persian Empire. And no king, in any worthy sense
of the name, ever reigned in Israel after the exile.
1 Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the great tree, in Dan. iv, is so fully and minutely ex
plained there, that we need only make this reference to it, and leave the reader to ex
amine the details for himself.
SYMBOLS OF DANIEL AND ZECHARIAH. 263
The four great beasts, in Dan. vii, 1-8, are said to represent four
imgs that should arise out of the earth (ver. 17). The Tnefour Beasts
fourth beast is also defined, in verse 23, as a fourth of Daniel vii.
kingdom, from which we infer that a wild beast may symbolize
either a king or a kingdom. So in the image, the king Nebuchad
nezzar was the head of gold (chap, ii, 38), and also the representa
tive of his kingdom. The ten horns of the fourth beast are ten
kings (ver. 24), but from a comparison of Dan. viii, 8, 22, and Rev.
xvii, 11, 12, it appears that horns may also symbolize either kings or
kingdoms. In any such image of a wild beast with horns, the
beast would properly represent the kingdom or world-power, and
the horn or horns some particular king or kings in whom the exer
cise of the power of the kingdom centered itself. So a horn may
represent either a king or kingdom, but always with this implied
distinction. No explanation is given of the wings and the heads of
the beasts, nor of other noticeable features of the vision, but we
can hardly doubt that they also had some symbolical import. The
vision of the ram and the he-goat, in chap, viii, contains no symbols
essentially different, for the ram is explained as the kings of Media
and Persia, the goat as the king of Greece, and the great horn as
the first king (vers. 20, 21).
Most of the symbols employed by Zechariah are accompanied by
a partial explanation, but so vague and general as to symbols in
leave much room for conjecture. The riders on various Zechariah.
coloured horses, indefinite in number, are said to be "those whom
Jehovah sent forth to walk up and down in the land" (Zech. i, 10),
and they are represented as saying to the angel of Jehovah : " We
have walked up and dowTn in the land, and behold, all the land is
sitting and resting" (ver. 11). "Whether they traversed the land
together in a body, or separately and successively; and whether
their mission was merely one of inspection, or for the purpose of
bringing the land to the quiet condition reported, are points left
undecided by the language of the sacred writer. Any one of these
suppositions is possible ; and our opinion on the subject should be
formed by a careful study of the historical standpoint of the proph
et, and the analogy of other similar visions and symbols.
The four horns (Zech. i, 18, 19 in Eng. Ver., Sept., and Vulg.,
but chap, ii, 1, 2 in Heb. text), described in the next vis- -rug four Horns
ion are explained as " the horns which scattered Judah, andfour.smiths.
Israel, and Jerusalem." Horns here, as in the visions of Daniel,
doubtless represent kings or kingdoms, but whether these four
horns belonged to one beast or more is not stated. Many inter
preters understand by the four horns the four kingdoms predicted
264 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
by Daniel; but against this view is the consideration that these
four horns have, wrought their work of violence (n.T, have scattered,
or did scatter], but a part of the kingdoms foretold by Daniel were
future from the historical standpoint of Zechariah. Others under
stand four distinct world-powers, as Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, and
Persia, while others understand the number four as a symbolical
number, having a very general reference to the four points of the
compass, and denoting enemies from all quarters. Either of the last
two suppositions may be held, but the last named, in the absence
of any thing more specific in the language of the prophet, is the
safer hypothesis. The four smiths or "carpenters" (vers. 20, 21),
which are evidently the providential agencies raised up to awe and
cast out the powerful enemies and scatterers of God's people, may
denote either human or divine instrumentalities, or an interworking
of both.
The flying roll (Zech. v, 1-4) was a symbol of Jehovah's curse
The flying Roll upon thieves and false swearers. Its dimensions, twenty
and the Ephah. cubits by ten, exactly the size of the porch of the temple
(1 Kings vi, 3), might naturally intimate that the judgment denoted
must begin at the house of the Lord (Ezek. ix, 6 ; 1 Pet. iv, 17).
In immediate connexion with this vision the prophet saw also an
ephah going forth (ver. 6), an uplifted talent of lead,1 and a woman
sitting in the midst of the ephah. The woman was declared to be
a symbol of "wickedness" (ver. 8). But what sort of wickedness?
The ephah and the stone of lead, naturally suggestive of measure
and weight, would indicate the wickedness of unrighteous traffic —
the sin denounced by Amos (viii, 5) of " making the ephah small
and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit." This
symbol of wickedness is here presented as a woman who had an
empty measure for her throne, and a weight of lead for a sign.
But her punishment and confusion are brought about by the
1 Very many expositors understand msy "133 to mean a circle or cover of lead ;
but, as Wright well observes, "if the ephah had a cover of lead, that cover would
scarcely have been termed the stone of lead, or leaden stone (ver. 8). The rendering
leaden cover obscures the real sense of the vision. The Hebrew word rendered talent
does, indeed, literally mean a circle, and the expression a circle of bread is used to de
note a round loaf (Exod. xxix, 23 ; 1 Sam. ii, 36). The word is not found in the sig
nification of a cover, though that is a possible signification. It is constantly used in
the sense of a fixed weight by which gold, silver, and other things were weighed and
measured, and is naturally spoken of in such a meaning here in connexion with the
ephah, as the latter was the usual measure of capacity. The talent was the standard
measure of quantity, and the weight was made of lead as the most common heavy
metal, and was used in all commercial transactions for weighing out money." — Bainp-
ton Lectures on Zechariah, pp. Ill, 112.
THE FOUR CHARIOTS. 265
instruments of her sin (comp. Matt, vii, 2). She is cast into the
ephah, and the leaden weight is cast like a stone upon her mouth.
She is not, however, destroyed, but transported to a distant land, and
this is effected by two other women, apparently her aiders and abet
tors in wickedness, who had wings like the wings of a stork, and who
were therefore quick and powerful enough to rescue the one woman
from immediate doom, and carry her off and establish her in another
land. Thus the children of this world are wise toward their own
kind (Luke xvi, 8). This distant land is called the land of Shinar
{ver. 11), perhaps for the reason that it was the land where wicked
ness first developed itself after the flood (Gen. xi, 2).
The four chariots, probably war chariots, which this same prophet
saw going forth from between the two mountains of The four char-
brass, and drawn by different coloured horses (Zech. vi, iots-
1-8), are but another and fuller form of presenting the facts symbol
ized in the vision of the horsemen in chap, i, 8-11. The import of
the mountains of brass is undefined. The chariots and horses " are
the four winds1 of the heavens, going forth from standing before
the Lord of all the land" (ver. 5). The black horses were said to
go forth to the land of the north, the white behind them (perhaps
meaning to regions behind or beyond them, DnnnX'PN), and the spec
kled (DTP?, spotted) to the land of the south. Whither the red
horses went is not stated, unless we suppose (as is very probable)
that the word D^lfON, strong, in ver. 7, (rendered bay in Eng. Ver.),
is a copyist's blunder for D'EHK, red. These, it is said, " sought to
go forth to walk up and down in the land" (ver. 7), and were per
mitted to have their way, and it is added that those that went to
the land of the north " have caused my spirit to rest (in judgment)
in the land of the north."
There can be no doubt that these warlike symbols denoted cer
tain agencies of divine judgment. They were, like the winds of
the heavens, the messengers and ministers of the divine will (comp.
Psa. civ, 4 ; Jer. xlix, 36), and it is to be noted that the horsemen
of chap, i, 8-11, and these chariots, respectively, open and close the
series of Zechariah's symbolic visions. No more specific explana
tion of their meaning than that furnished above is given in the
Scripture. Perhaps, in distinguishing the import of the several
symbols, we might reasonably suppose that the warlike riders on
horses denoted so many military chieftains and conquerors (as for
example Shalmaneser, Nebuchadnezzar, Pharaoh Necho, and Cyrus),
1 The word flimi, winds, does not anywhere appear to be used in the plural in the
sense of spirits, or personal beings ; but these four chariots correspond with the mys
tic wheels of Ezek. i, 15-21 ; x, 9-13.
266 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
and the more impersonal vision of the chariots and horses as con
quering world-powers, and having regard to the military forces of a
kingdom rather than any individual conqueror ; as when, in Isa. x, 5,
Assyria (not Assyrian as Eng. Ver.) is a rod of God's anger.
The foregoing examples of symbols, more or less fully explained,
should have great weight with us in determining the
The foregoing
Examples au- general principles of biblical symbolism. We note that
the names of all these symbols are to be taken literally.
Trees, figs, bones, candlesticks, olive trees, beasts, horns, horses,
riders, and chariots, are all simple and natural designations of what
the prophets saw. But, while the words are to be understood lit
erally, they are symbols of something else. As, in metonymy, one
thing is put for another, or, as in allegory, one thing is said and an
other is intended, so a symbol always denotes something other
than itself. Ezekiel saw a resurrection of dry bones, but it meant
the restoration of Israel from the lands of their exile. Daniel saw
a great horn upon the head of a he-goat, but it represented the
mighty Grecian conqueror, Alexander the Great. But, though one
thing is said and another is intended in the use of symbols, there is
always traceable a resemblance, more or less detailed, between the
symbol and the thing symbolized. In some cases, as that of the
almond rod (Jer. i, 11), the analogy is suggested by the name. A
candlestick represents the Church or people of God by holding a
light where it may shine for all in the house (Matt, v, 15), even as
God's people are to occupy a position in the visible Church, and
let their light so shine that others may see their good works. The
correspondences between the beasts in Daniel and the powers they
represented are in some points quite detailed. In view of these
Th , several facts, therefore, we accept the following as
mental Princi- three fundamental principles of symbolism: (1) The
names of symbols are to be understood literally; (2) the
symbols always denote something essentially different from them
selves; and (3) some resemblance, more or less minute, is traceable
between the symbol and the thing symbolized.
The great question with the interpreter of symbols should, there-
No minute set fore, be, What are the probable points of resemblance
cable ^to^aii between this sign and the thing which it is intended to
symbols. represent? And one would suppose it to be obvious to
every thoughtful mind that in answering this question no minute
and rigid set of rules, as supposably applicable to all symbols, can
be expected. For there is an air of enigma and mystery about all
emblems, and the examples adduced above show that while in some
the points of resemblance are many and minute, in others they are
THREE PRINCIPLES OF SYMBOLISM. 267
slight and incidental. In general it may be said that in answering
the above question the interpreter must have strict regard (1) to
the historical standpoint of the writer or prophet, (2) to the scope
and context, and (3) to the analogy and import of similar symbol*
and figures elsewhere used. That is, doubtless, the true interpreta
tion of every symbol which most fully satisfies these several condi
tions, and which attempts to press no point of supposable resem
blance beyond what is clearly warranted by fact, reason, and
analogy.
For the interpretation of prophetic symbols Fairbairn enunciates
two very important principles: (1) "The image must { ,
be contemplated in its broader and commoner aspects, statement of
as it would naturally present itself to the view of per- P1"11101?168-
sons generally acquainted with the works and ways of God, not as
connected with any smaller incidents or recondite uses known only
to the few. ... (2) The other condition with which the use and
interpretation of symbols must be associated is that of a consistent
and uniform manner of applying them; not shifting from the sym
bolical to the literal without any apparent indication of a change
in the original; or from one aspect of the symbolical to another
essentially different, but adhering to a regular and harmonious
treatment of the objects introduced into the representation. With
out such a consistence and regularity in the employment of symbols
there could be no certainty in the interpretations put upon them,
all would become arbitrary and doubtful." '
The hermeneutical principles derived from the foregoing exami
nation of the visional symbols of Scripture are equally same Princi-
applicable to the interpretation of material symbols, MateriTi^sym?
such as the tabernacle, the ark of the covenant, the bois.
mercy-seat, the sacrificial offerings and ceremonial washings re
quired by the law, the water of baptism and the bread and wine in
the Lord's supper. For, as far as they set forth any spiritual fact or
thought, their imagery is of essentially the same general character.*
1 Fairbaim on Prophecy, pp. 150, 151. The writer goes on to show how current
systems of apocalyptic interpretation violate both of these principles.
* Bahr enunciates the following hermeneutical principles and rules for the explan
ation of symbols : (1) The meaning of a symbol is to be determined first of all by an
accurate knowledge of its nature. (2) The symbols of the Mosaic cultus can have, in
general, only such meaning as accords with the religious ideas and truths of Mosaism,
and with its clearly expressed and acknowledged principles. (3) The import of each
separate symbol is to be sought, in the first place, from its name. (4) Each individual
symbol has, in general, but one signification. (5) However different the connexion in
which it may occur, each individual symbol has always the same fundamental mean
ing. (6) In every symbol, whether it be object or action, the main idea to be symbol-
268 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
The symbolical import of the shedding of blood in sacrificial
symbolism of worship is shown in Lev. xvii, 11, where it is stated,
Blood. as the reason for the prohibition of eating blood, that
*' the soul of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you
upon the altar to make expiation for your souls, for the blood makes
expiation in the soul." The exact sense of the last clause is some
what obscure. The phrase tJ>S|3, in the soul, is rendered in the
common version, after the Septuagint, Vulgate, and Luther, for
the soul ; but the verb 133 is never elsewhere construed with 3, re
ferring to that for which expiation is made. It is better, there
fore, to translate as Keil does: "For the blood, it expiates by virtue
of the soul." The preposition 3 thus denotes the means by which
the atonement is accomplished. " It was not the blood as such,"
says Keil, "but the blood as the vehicle of the soul, which pos
sessed expiatory virtue, because the animal soul was offered to God
upon the altar as a substitute for the human soul." 1 Delitzsch ren
ders: "For the blood, by means of the soul, is an atonement."
That is, as he observes, " the blood atones by the means, or by the
power, of the soul which is in it. The life of the sinner has spe
cially incurred the punitive wrath of Jehovah, but he accepts for it
the substituted life of the sacrificial beast, the blood of which is
shed and brought before him, whereupon he pardons the sinner.
The prohibition of eating the blood is thus doubly established: the
blood has the soul in itself, and it is, in consequence of a gracious
arrangement of God, the means of atonement for the souls of men,
in virtue of the soul contained in it. The one reason lies in the
nature of the blood, and the other in its destination to a holy pur
pose, which, even apart from the other reason, withdraws it from a
common use : it is that which, contains the soul, and God suffers it
to be brought to his altar as an atonement for human souls. It
atones not by indwelling power, which the blood of beasts has not,
except, perchance, as given by God for this purpose — given, name
ly, with a view to the fulness of the times foreseen from eternity,
when that blood is to flow for humanity which atones, because a
soul united to the eternal Spirit (comp. Heb. ix, 14) has place there
in, and because it is exactly of such value that it is able to screen
the whole of humanity." ''
Nothing pertaining to the Mosaic worship is more evident than
ized must be carefully distinguished from that which necessarily serves only for its
appropriate exhibition, and has, therefore, only a secondary purpose. See his Sym-
bolik des mosaischen Cultus, pp. 89-93. Second ed. Heidelberg, 1874.
1 Commentary on Leviticus xvii, 11.
2 Biblical Psychology, p. 283. See the whole section on soul and blood, part iv, sec. 11.
SYMBOLISM OF BLOOD. 269
the fact that " apart from shedding of blood (ai/j,aTEK%vaia, pouring
out of blood, Heb. ix, 22) there is no remission." This .
J . .Ho Remission
solemn pouring out of blood was the offering of a without Wood-
living soul, for the warm life blood was conceived as 8
the element in which the soul subsisted, or with which it was in
some mysterious way identified (comp. Deut. xii, 23). When poured
out at the altar it symbolized the surrender of a life which had
been forfeited by sin, and the worshipper who made the sacrifice
thereby acknowledged before God his death-deserving guilt. " The
rite of expiatory sacrifice," says Fairbairn, " was, in its own nature,
a symbolical transaction embodying a threefold idea; first, that the
worshipper, having been guilty of sin, had forfeited his life to God;
then, that the life so forfeited must be surrendered to divine justice;
and, finally, that being surrendered in the way appointed, it was
given back to him again by God, or he became re-established as a
justified person in the divine favour and fellowship." '
The symbolism and typology of the Mosaic tabernacle are recog
nized in the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the He- symbolism of
brews, from which it appears that specific objects, as tneTabernacie.
the candlestick, the showbread, and the ark, had a symbolical
meaning, and that the various ordinances of the worship were shad
ows of good things to come. But the particular import of the
various symbols, and of the tabernacle as a whole, is left for the
interpreter to gather from the various Scripture passages which
bear upon the subject. It must be ascertained, like the import of
all other symbols not formally expounded in the Scriptures, from
the particular names or designations used, and from such allusions
by the sacred writers as will serve either for suggestion or illus
tration.
The words by which the tabernacle is designated serve as a clue
to the great idea embodied in its complex symbolism. Names of the
The principal name is }3^p, dwelling, but ^HK, tent, usu- Tabernacle,
ally connected with some distinguishing epithet, is also frequently
used, and is applied to the tabernacle in the books of Exodus, Le
viticus, and Numbers more than one hundred and fifty times. In
Exod. xxiii, 19 ; xxxiv, 26, it is called nliT JV3, house of Jehovah,
and in 1 Sam. i, 9 ; iii, 3, nirv $>3<n, temple of Jehovah. But a fuller
indication of the import of these names is found in the compound
1 Typology, vol. i, p. 54. On the symbolism and typology of the Old Testament
sacrifices, see Kurtz, Der alttestamentliche Opfercultus (Mitau, 1862); English trans
lation, Sacrificial Worship of the Old Testament (Edinb., 1863); Cave, The Scriptural
Doctrine of Sacrifice (Edinb., 1877); Keil, Die Opfer des alten Bundes nach ihrer
•ymbolischen und typischen Bedeuting (in Luth. Zeitschrift for 1856 and 1857).
18
270 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
expressions lyta >jjK, tent of meeting, riFJjn H'X, tent of the testi
mony, and nnjJH jStJto, dwelling of the testimony. The testimony is
a term applied emphatically to the law of the two tables (Exod.
xxv, 16, 21 ; xxxi, 18), and designated the authoritative declaration
of God, upon the basis of which he made a covenant with Israel
(Exod. xxxiv, 27; Deut. iv, 13). Hence these tables were called
tables of the covenant (Deut. ix, 9) as well as tables of the testi
mony. As the representatives of God's most holy testimony against
sin they occupied the most secret and sacred place of his tabernacle
(Exod. xxv, 16). All these designations of the tabernacle serve to
indicate its great design as a symbol of Jehovah's meeting and
dwelling with his people. One passage which, above all others,
elaborates this thought, is Exod. xxix, 42-46 : " It shall be a con
tinual burnt offering throughout your generations, at the door of
the tent of meeting ("lyiET^ritf) before Jehovah, where I will meet
("WJN) you, to speak unto thee there. And I will meet (VTip) there
the sons of Israel, and he (i. e., Israel) shall be sanctified in my
glory. And I will sanctify the tent of meeting (1J>to"?riS) and the
altar, and Aaron and his sons will I sanctify to act as priests for
me. And I will dwell (W3B>) in the midst of the sons of Israel, and
I will be God to them, and they shall know that I am Jehovah their
God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I might
dwell ("»$) in their midst— I, Jehovah, their God."
The tabernacle, therefore, is not to be thought of as a symbol of
things external and visible,1 not even of heaven itself considered
merely as a place, but of the meeting and dwelling together of God
and his people both in time and eternity. The ordinances of
Tabernacle worsnip may be expected to denote the way in which
symbolizes a Jehovah condescends to meet with man, and enables
divine -human , . , , . . -, £ nl
Relation rather man to approach nigh unto him — a meeting and fellow-
tnan a place, ship by which the true Israel become sanctified in the
divine glory (Exod. xxix, 43). The divine-human relationship real
ized in the kingdom of heaven is attained in Christ when God comes
1 A full statement of the various opinions of the symbolical import of the tabernacle
would require more space than this work allows, and would tend, perhaps, only to
confuse. Our purpose is to direct the student to the right method of ascertaining the
meaning of the principal symbols, and leave him to pursue the details for himself.
For a condensed statement of opinions on the subject, see especially Leyrer, article
Stiftshiitte, in Herzog's Real-Encyclopadie (Stuttgardt ed., 1856-66). See also
Bahr, Symbolik des mosaischen Cultus (Heidelb., 2 vols., 1837-39; revised ed., vol. i,
1874); Bahr, Der salomonische Temple (Karlsr., 1848); Friedrich, Symbolik der mo
saischen Stiftshiitte (Lpz., 1841); Simpson, Typical Character of the Tabernacle
(Edinb., 1852); Keil, Biblischen Archaeologie, pp. 124-129 (Frankf., 1875); Atwater,
History and Significance of the Sacred Tabernacle of the Hebrews (New York, 1875).
THE TABERNACLE. 271
nnto man and makes his abode (povrjv) with him (John xiv, 23), so
that the man dwells in God and God in him (1 John iv, 16). This
is the glorious indwelling contemplated in the prayer of Jesus that
all believers " may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee,
that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that thou
didst send me. And the glory which thou hast given me I have
given them, that they may be one, even as we are one, I in
them and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one " (John
xvii, 21-23). Of this blessed relationship the tabernacle is a signifi
cant symbol, and being also a shadow of the good things to come,
it was a type of the New Testament Church or kingdom of God,
that spiritual house, built of living stones (1 Pet. ii, 5) which is a
habitation of God in the spirit (Eph. ii, 22).
The two apartments of the |3Cip (dwelling, or tabernacle proper),
the holy place and the most holy, would naturally rep- TnetwoApart-
resent the twofold relation, the human and the divine, merits.
The Holy of Holies, being Jehovah's special dwellingplace, would
appropriately contain the symbols of his testimony and relation to
his people; the holy place, with ministering priest, incense altar,
table of showbread and candlestick, expressed the relation of the
true worshippers toward God. The two places, separated only by
the veil, denoted, therefore, on the one hand, what God is in his.
condescending grace toward his people, and on the other, what his
redeemed people — the salt of the earth and the light of the world —
are toward him. It was meet that the divine and human should
thus be made distinct.1
As the Holy of Holies in the temple was a perfect cube (1 Kings
vi, 20), so was it doubtless in the tabernacle. The The Mogt Ho]
length and breadth and height of it being equal, like place and its
the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev. xxi, 16), its form was a s
symbol of perfection. Here was placed the ark, the depository of
1 However near God may come to his creatures, and however close the fellowship to
which he admits them, there still must be something to mark his incomparable great
ness and glory. Even in the sanctuary above, where all is stainless purity, the minis
tering spirits are represented as veiling their faces with their wings before the mani
fested glory of Godhead ; and how much more should sinful men on the earth be alive
to his awful majesty, and feel unworthy to stand amid the splendours of his throne ?
If, therefore, he should so far condescend as to pitch among them a tent for his dwell
ing, we might certainly have expected that it would consist of two apartments— one
which he would reserve for his own peculiar residence, and another to which they
should have free access, who, as his familiars, were to be permitted to dwell with Vim
in his house. For in this way alone could the two grand ideas of the glorious majesty
of God, which raises him infinitely above his people, and yet of his covenant nearness
to them, be reconciled and imaged together. — Fairbairn, Typology, vol. ii, p. 249.
272 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
the two tables of testimony. This testimony was Jehovah's decla
ration from the thick darkness (?£ny) of the mount on which he
descended in smoke and fire, and would remain a monumental wit
ness of his wrath against sin. The ark or chest, made of the most
durable wood, and overlaid within and without with gold, was a
becoming shrine in which to preserve inviolate the sacred tables of
divine testimony. The most holy God is jealous (N3(3, comp. Exod.
xx, 5) for the honour of his law. Over the ark, and thus covering
the testimony, was placed the capporeth (nlS3), or mercyseat
(Exod. xxv, 21 ; xxvi, 34), to be sprinkled with blood on the great
day of atonement (Lev. xvi, 11-17). This was a most significant
symbol of mercy covering wrath. Made of fine gold, and having
its dimensions the same as the length and breadth of the ark (Exod.
xxv, 17), it fittingly represented that glorious provision of Infinite
Wisdom and Love by which, in virtue of the precious blood of
Christ, and in complete, harmony with the righteousness of God,
atonement is made for the guilty but penitent transgressor. The
Septuagint translates rnS3, capporeth, by l^aonJQiov, which word
Paul uses in Rom. iii, 25, where he speaks of the " righteousness of
God through faith of Jesus Christ," and "the redemption (anoXv-
rpwcrif) which is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth an expiatory
covering (£Aaar?/ptov), through faith in his blood," etc. The divine
provision for the covering of sin is the deepest mystery of the king
dom of grace. "It must be noticed," says Cremer, "that accord
ing to Exod. xxv, 22, and Lev. xvi, 2, the Capporeth is the central
seat of the saving presence and gracious revelation of God ; so that
it need not surprise that Christ is designated l^aarTJoiov, as he can
be so designated when we consider that he, as high priest and sac
rifice at the same time, comes ev TO> IdiG) atpm (in his own blood),
and not as the high priest of the Old Testament, sv ai\ia,n dAAorptw
(with blood not his own) which he must discharge himself of by
sprinkling on the Capporeth. The Capporeth was so far the princi
pal part of the Holy of Holies, that the latter is even termed 'the
house of the capporeth' (1 Chron. xxviii, II)."1
The two cherubim, placed at the ends of the mercyseat, and
spreading their wings over it, were objects too promi
nent to be without significance. In Eden the cherubim
appear with the flaming sword to watch ("iD$) the way of the tree
of life (Gen. iii, 24). In Ezek. i, 5-14 they appear as " living crea
tures" (nisn), their composite form is described, and they are rep
resented as moving the mystic wheels of divine providence and
judgment (vers. 15-21). Over their heads was enthroned "the
1 Biblico-Theological Lexicon, p. 306.
THE HOLY OF HOLIES. 273
appearance of the likeness of the glory of Jehovah" (vers. 26-28).
In Rev. iv, 6-8 they appear also as living creatures (££>a) "in the
midst of the throne, and round about the throne." Whatever the
various import of these figures, we note that they everywhere ap
pear in most intimate relation to the glory of God. May we not
believe that they were symbols of the ultimate glory of redeemed
humanity, conveying at the same time profound suggestions of the
immanent presence and intense activity of God in all creature life,
by which (presence and activity) all that was lost in Eden shall be
restored to heavenly places in Christ, and man, redeemed and filled
with the Spirit, shall again have power over the tree of life, which is
in the midst of the paradise of God (comp. Rev. ii, 7 and xxii, 14) ?
Though of composite form, and representing the highest kinds of
creature life on earth (Ezek. i, 10; Rev. iv, 7), these ideal beings
had preeminently the likeness of a man (Exek. i, 5). Jehovah is
the God of the living, and has about the throne of his glory the
highest symbols of life. Both at the gate of paradise and in the
Holy of Holies these cherubim were signs and pledges that in the
ages to come, having made peace through the blood of the cross,
God would reconcile all things unto himself, whether things upon
the earth or things in the heavens (Col. i, 20), and sanctify them in
his glory (Exod. xxix, 43). ' Then the redeemed "shall reign in
life" (ev £to^ paotkevoovoiv) through Jesus Christ (Rom. v, 17.)
As the Holy of Holies symbolized Jehovah's relations to his peo
ple, and intimated what he is to them and what he purposes to do
for them; and as its symbols of mercy covering wrath showed how
and on what terms he condescends to meet and dwell with men; so,
on the other hand, the holy place, with its golden altar -j^ Holy Place
of incense, table of showbread, golden candlestick, and and lts symbols.
ministering priests, represented the relation of the true Israel
toward God. The priests who officiated in this holy place acted
not for themselves alone; they were the representatives of all
Israel, and their service was the service of all the tribes, whose pe
culiar relation to God, so long as they obeyed his voice and kept
his covenant, was that of " a kingdom of priests and a holy nation "
(Exod. xix, 5, 6; comp. 1 Pet. ii, 5, 9; Rev. i, 6; v, 10). As the
officiating priest stood in the holy place, facing the Holy of Holies,
he had on his right the table of showbread, on his left -n^ Table of
the candlestick, and immediately before him the altar Showbread.
of incense (Exod. xl, 22-27). The twelve cakes of showbread kept
continually on the table symbolized the twelve tribes of Israel con
tinually presented as a living sacrifice before God (Lev. xxiv, 5-9).
The golden candlestick, with its seven lamps, placed opposite the
274 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
table, was another symbol of Israel considered as the Church of
The golden the living God. As the showbread represented the
candlestick. relation of Israel to God as a holy and acceptable offer
ing, the candlestick represented what this same Israel would do for
God as causing the light of the Spirit in them to shine forth. To
all thus exalted may it well be said: "Ye were once darkness, but
now light in the Lord; walk as children of light (for the fruit of
the light is in all goodness, and righteousness, and truth), proving
what is well pleasing unto the Lord " (Eph. v, 8-10).
But the highest continual devotion of Israel to God is represented
The Altar of a^ the golden altar of incense, which stood immediately
incense. before the veil and in front of the mercyseat (Exod.
xxx, 6). The offering of incense was an expressive symbol of the
prayers of the saints (Psa. cxli, 2; Rev. v, 8; viii, 3, 4), and the
whole multitude of the people were wont to pray without at the
hour of the incense-offering (Luke i, 10). Jehovah was pleased to
" inhabit the praises of Israel " (Psa. xxii, 3), for all that his people
may be and do in their consecrated relation to him expresses itself
in their prayers before his altar and mercyseat.
We need not linger in detail upon the symbolism of the court of
the tabernacle, with its altar of burnt offerings and its
Great Altar ' &
and Laver in laver of brass. There could be no appi*oach to God, on
the part of sinful men, no possible meeting or dwelling
with him, except by the offerings made at the great altar in front
of the sacred tent. All that belongs to the symbolism of sacrificial
blood centred in this altar, where the daily offerings of Israel were
made. No priest might pass into the tabernacle until sprinkled
with blood from that altar (Exod. xxix, 21), and the live coals
used for the burning of incense before Jehovah were taken from
the same place (Lev. xvi, 12). Nor might the priest, on penalty of
death, minister at the altar or enter the tabernacle without first
washing at the laver (Exod. xxx, 20, 21). So the great altar con
tinually proclaimed that without the shedding of blood there is no
remission, and the priestly ablutions denoted that without the
washing of regeneration no man might enter the kingdom of God
(comp. Psa. xxiv, 3, 4; John iii, 5; Heb. x, 19-22). All those
blessed relations, which were symbolized in the holy place, are pos
sible only because of the reconciliation effected at the altar of sac
rifice without. Having there obtained remission of sins, the true
Israel, as represented in the priests, draw near before God in forms
of holy consecration and service.
The graduated sanctity of the several parts of the tabernacle is
very noticeable. In front was the court, into which any Israelite
THE HOLY PLACES. 273
who was ceremonially clean might enter; next was the holy place,
into which none but the consecrated priests might go to Tb duated
perform the work of their office, and, especially to offer sanctity of the
incense. Beyond this, veiled in thick darkness, was
the Holy of Holies, into which only the high priest entered, and he
but once a year. This graduated sanctity of the holy places was
fitted to inculcate and impress the lesson of the absolute holiness
of God, whose special presence was manifested in the innermost
sanctuary. The several apartments were also adapted to show the
gradual and progressive stages of divine revelation. The outer
court suggests the early patriarchal period, when, under the open
sky, the devout fathers of families and nations, like Noah, Mel-
chizedek, and Abraham, worshipped the God of heaven.1 The holy
place represents the period of Mosaism, that intermediate stage of
revelation and law, when many a type and symbol foreshadowed
the better things to come, and the exceptional entrance of the high
priest once a year within the veil signified that " the way of the
holies was not yet made manifest " (Heb. ix, 8). The Holy of Holies
represents the Messianic aeon, when the Christian believer, having
boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus (Heb. x, 19),
is conceived to "have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the
living God, the heavenly Jerusalem" (Heb. xii, 22).
The profound symbolism of the tabernacle is further seen in con
nexion with the offerings of the great day of atonement. Once
a year the high priest entered the Holy of Holies to make atonement
for himself and Israel, but in connexion with his work symboiico-typ-
on that day all parts of the tabernacle are brought into [Ton's"** the
notice. Having washed his flesh in water, and put on High Priest's
the hallowed linen garments, he first offered the jjay°of Atone-
burnt offering on the great altar to make atonement for ment-
himself and his house (Lev. xvi, 2-6). Then taking a censer of live
coals from the altar he offered incense upon the fire before the
Lord, so that the cloud covered the mercyseat, and, taking the
blood of a bullock and a goat, he passed within the veil and sprin
kled the mercyseat seven times with the blood of each (Lev. xvi,
12-16). All this, we are told in the Epistle to the Hebrews, pre
figured the work of Christ for us: "Christ having come a high
priest of the good things to come, through the greater and more
perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this crea
tion [not material, tangible, or local], nor through the blood of
1 For a somewhat different conception of the import of the holy places, as repre
senting periods of revelation, see Atwater, Sacred Tabernacle of the Hebrews, pp.
369-271.
276 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
goats and calves, but through his own blood entered in once for all
into the holy places (TO, ayia, plural, and indefinitely intimating
more than places merely), having obtained eternal redemption. . . .
For Christ entered not into holy (places) made with hands, pat
terns of the true, but into the heaven itself, now to appear in the
presence of God for us" (Heb. ix, 11, 12, 24). The believer is, ac
cordingly, exhorted to enter with confidence into the holy places
by the blood of Jesus, and to draw near with a true heart in full
assurance of faith (Heb. x, 19, 22). Whither our high priest has
gone we may also go, and the position of the cherubim over the
mercyseat and in the garden of Eden suggests the final glorifica
tion of all the sons of God. This is the inspiring and suggestive
doctrine of Paul in Eph. i, 15; ii, 10, where he speaks of "the
riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints," and " that ener
gy of the strength of his might which he wrought in Christ, when
he raised him from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in
the heavenly" (ev roi<; k-novpavioK;, in the heavenlies, not heavenly
places merely, but fellowships, powers, glories) ; and then goes on
to say that God, in like manner, quickens those who were dead in
trespasses and sins, makes them alive with Christ, raises them up
and makes them sit together in the same heavenly regions, asso
ciations, and glories into which Christ himself has gone. Thus we
see the fullest revelation of the means by which, and the extent to
which, Israel shall be sanctified in Jehovah's glory (Exod. xxix, 43).'
Then, in the highest and holiest sense, will " the tabernacle of
God be with men, and he will tabernacle with them, and they shall
be his people, and God himself shall be with them " (Rev. xxi, 3).
In the heavenly glory there will be no place for temple, or any
local shrine and symbol, " for the Lord, the God, the Almighty, is
its temple, and the Lamb " (Rev. xxi, 22).
1 The profound expression, in Exod. xxix, 43, may well be compared with that of
Jesus, in John xvii, 24, which, according to the best-authenticated text, reads : " Fa
ther, that which thou hast given me (o dedw/cdf /not), I will that where I am they also
(naKfivoi) may be with me, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me,
for thou didst love me before the foundation of the world." The pleonastic construc
tion here seems to have a designed significance. The whole body of the redeemed is
first conceived as a unit ; it is Christ's inheritance, regarded as the Father's gift to
him. It is the same as the TTCV 6 6e6uKtv fj.oi, all that which he has given me, in John
vi, 39. But as the thought turns to the individual beholding (comp. " I shall see for
myself," etc., Job xix, 27) on the part of the redeemed the plural (Kaxeivoi) is re
sumed. Thus Alford: "The neuter has a peculiar solemnity, uniting the whole
Church together as one gift of the Father to the Son. Then the KCLKE'LVOI resolves it
into the great multitude whom no man can number, and comes home to the heart of
every individual believer with inexpressibly sweet assurance of an eternity with.
Christ." — Greek Test., in loco.
ACTS PERFORMED IN VISION. 277
CHAPTER XI.
SYMBOLICO-TYPICAL ACTIONS.
IN receiving his divine commission as a prophet, Ezekiel saw a roll
of a book spread out before him, on both sides of
, . , .,, , , ,. , ,, . TT Visional actions.
which were written many doleful things. He was
commanded to eat the book, and he obeyed, and found that which
seemed so full of lamentation and woe to be sweet as honey in his
mouth (Ezek. ii, 8-iii, 3). The same thing is, in substance, re
peated in the Apocalypse of John (x, 2, 8-11), and it is there ex
pressly added that the book which was sweet as honey in his mouth
became bitter in his stomach. These transactions manifestly took
place in vision. The prophet was lifted into a divine trance or
ecstacy, in which it seemed to him that he saw, heard, obeyed, and
experienced the effects which he describes. It was a symbolical
transaction, performed subjectively in a state of prophetic ecstacy.
It was an impressive method of fastening upon his soul the convic
tion of his prophetic mission, and its import was not difficult to
apprehend. The book contained the bitter judgments to be uttered
against " the house of Israel," and the prophet was commanded to-
cause his stomach to eat it and to fill his bowels with it (iii, 3); that
is, he must make the prophetic word, as it were, a part of himself,
receive it into his innermost being (ver. 10), and there digest it.
And though it may be often bitter to his inner sense, the process
of prophetic obedience yields a sweet experience to the doer.1 " It
is infinitely sweet and lovely," says Hengstenberg, " to be the organ
and spokesman of the Most High." 2
But in the fourth and fifth chapters of Ezekiel we are introduced
to a series of four symbolico-typical actions in which Syrabollco_tyi>_
the prophet appears not as the seer, but the doer. First icai acts of
he is commanded to take a brick 3 and engrave upon it
A portraiture of Jerusalem in a state of siege. He is also to set
1 What Ezekiel and John did in vision Jeremiah describes in other and more sim
ple style. Comp. Jer. xv, 16.
2 Commentary on Ezekiel, in loco.
8 ("IJ3P, a white brick, so called, according to Gesenius, from the white chalky clay
of which certain bricks were made. In the valley of the Euphrates EzekiePs eyes
had, doubtless, become familiar with bricks and stone slabs covered with images and
inscriptions.
278 SPECIAL HERMEXEUTICS.
up an iron pan between it and himself, and direct his face against
it, as if he were the besieging party, and had erected an iron wall
between himself and the doomed city. This, it was declared, would
be " a sign to the house of Israel " (Ezek. iv, 1-3). Evidently,
therefore, the sign was intended to be outward, actual, and visible,
for how could these things, if imagined only in the prophet's soul,
be made a sign to Israel ? In the next place he is to lie upon his
left side three hundred and ninety days, and then upon his right
side forty days, thus symbolically bearing the guilt of Israel and
Judah four hundred and thirty days, each day of his prostration
denoting a year of Israel's abject condition. During this time he
must keep his face turned toward the siege of Jerusalem, and his
arm made bare (comp. Isa. Hi, 10), and God lays bands upon him
that he shall not turn from one side to another (Ezek. iv, 4-8).
As the days of this prostration are symbolical of years, so it would
seem the number four hundred and thirty is appropriated from the
term of Israel's sojourn in Egypt (Exod. xii, 40), the last forty
years of which, when Moses was in exile, were the most oppressive
of all. This number would, from its dark associations, become nat
urally symbolical of a period of humiliation and exile; not, how
ever, necessarily denoting a chronological period of just so many
years. Still further, the prophet is directed to prepare for himself
The prophet's food of divers grains and vegetables, some desirable
food. an(j some undesirable, and put them in one vessel, as if
it were necessary to use any and all kinds of available food, and
one vessel would suffice for all. His food and drink are to be
weighed out and measured, and in such small rations as to denote
the most pinching destitution. He is also commanded to bake
his barley cakes with human excrement, to denote how Isi-ael would
•eat their denied bread among the heathen; but in view of his loath
ing at the thought of food thus prepared, he is permitted to sub
stitute the excrement of cattle for that of man. All this was de
signed to symbolize the misery and anguish which should come
upon Israel (verses 9-17). A fourth sign follows in chapter v,
1-4, and is accompanied (verses 5-17) by a divine interpretation.
The prophet is directed to shave off his hair and beard with a
sharp sword, and weigh and divide the numberless hairs in three
parts. One third he is to burn in the midst of the city (i. e., the
city portrayed on the brick), another third he is to smite with the
sword, and another he is to scatter to the wind. These three acts
are explained as prophetic symbols of a threefold judgment im
pending over Jerusalem, one part of whose inhabitants shall perish
l)y pestilence and famine, another by the slaughter of war, and a
SYMBOLICAL ACTS. 279
third by dispersion among the nations, whither also the perils of
the sword shall follow them.
Many able expositors insist that these symbolical actions of the
prophet took place only in vision, as the eating of the The actions out-
roll in chapter ii, 8. And yet they are all obliged to ward and actual,
acknowledge that the language used is such as to make a differ
ent impression on the mind of a reader. Certain it is that the eat
ing of the roll is described as a vision: " I saw, and behold a hand
stretched out unto me, and behold in it a roll of a book " (Ezek.
ii, 9). No such language is used in connexion with the transac
tions of chapters iv and v, but the prophet is the doer, and his ac
tions are to serve as a sign to the house of Israel.
Five reasons have been urged to show that these actions could
not have been outward and actual: (1) The spectacle of rive objections
such a miniature siege would only have provoked among considered,
the Israelites who saw it a sense of the ludicrous. But even if this
were true, it would by no means disprove that the acts were, never
theless, actually done, for many of the noblest oracles of prophecy
were ridiculed and scoffed at by the rebellious house of Israel. The
assertion, however, is purely a subjective fancy of modern inter
preters. It is like the untenable notion of those allegorical ex
pounders of Canticles, who presume to say that a literal interpreta
tion of some parts of the song is monstrous and revolting, but, at the
same time, allegorically descriptive of the holiest things ! If these
symbolic actions of Ezekiel, literally performed, would have been
childish and ludicrous, would not any conceivable communication
of them to Israel as a sign have been equally ludicrous ? As long
as the actions were possible and practicable, and were calculated to
make a notable impression, there is no objection to their literal oc
currence which may not be urged with equal force against their
ideal occurrence.
But it is urged (2) that lying motionless on one side for three
hundred and ninety days was a physical impossibility. The rostratlon
The prophet's language, however, sufficiently intimates not without in-
that his prostration was not absolutely continuous dur
ing the whole twenty-four hours of each of the days. He prepared
his own food and drink, weighed and measured it, and, we may
suppose, niat as a Jewish fast of many days allowed eating at
night while requiring abstinence by day, so Ezekiel's long prostra
tion had many incidental reliefs. The prohibition of turning from
one side to another required, at most, only that during the longer
period he must not lie at all on his right side, and during the
last forty days he must not lie at all on his left. (3) Fairbairn
280 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
declares that it would have been a moral impossibility to eat bread
composed of such abominable materials, since it would have in
volved a violation of the Mosaic law.1 But it cannot be shown that
the law anywhere prohibits the materials which Ezekiel was ordered
to prepare for his food; and, even if it did, it would not follow that
Ezekiel might not thus symbolically exhibit the penal judgments
that were to visit Israel, when fathers should even eat their own
sons, and sons their fathers (chap, v, 10).
Another objection (4) is that between the dates given at Ezek.
The Dates no i> *> 2> an(l viii, 1, there could not have been four hun-
vaiid objection. dre(j and thirty days for these symbolical actions to
really take place. But between the fifth day of the fourth month
of the fifth year of Jehoiachin's captivity (chap, i, 1, 2) and
the fifth day of the sixth month of the sixth year (chap, viii, 1)
there intervened one year and two months, or four hundred and
twenty-seven days, a period not only sufficiently approximate to
meet all the necessity of the case, but so closely approximate as to
be in itself an evidence of the real performance of these actions.
And all this might be said after subtracting from the period the
seven days mentioned in chapter iii, 15. But the visions of chap
ters viii, xi may have taken place while Ezekiel yet remained lying
on his side. We are not to suppose that his body was literally
transported to Jerusalem, for he expressly states that it was done
"in visions of God" (chap, viii, 3). His sitting in his house, with
the elders of Judah before him (viii, 1), does not necessarily define
either his or their posture, and the word 1& is commonly used in
the sense of abiding or staying. The long prostration and symbol
ical acts of this priest-prophet would naturally attract the elders of
Judah to his house, and cause them to linger long in his presence;
and all this time his arm was made bare, and he prophesied against
Jerusalem (iv, 7). There was nothing in his posture or surround
ings to hinder his receiving, during that signal year and two
months, many an additional word and vision of Jehovah. (5) It
has been further objected that it was literally impossible for him.
to burn the third part of his hair " in the midst of the city " (chap,
v, 2). But the city here referred to is to be understood of the
miniature city engraved on the brick, which consideration at once
obviates the objection.
1 Commentary on Ezekiel, p. 48. Fairbairn's references to Deut. xiv, 3 ; xxiii, 12-
14, and xiii, 1-5, are pointless in this argument, for those passages have no neces
sary bearing on this subject, inasmuch as Ezekiel was excused from using human or
dure. Nor was a mixture of various kinds of food a transgression, as Hitzig imagines,
of the law of Lev. xix, 19; Deut. xxii, 9.
SYMBOLICAL ACTS. 281
There appears, therefore, no sufficient reason to deny that Ezekiel's
symbolic actions, described in chapters iv and v, were NO valid ar«u-
outwardlv performed. Nor is it difficult to conceive the J?6"* J*ainsi
J r their Outward
impression which these performances must naturally performance.
have made upon the house of Israel — especially upon the elders.
After his first overwhelming vision (see chap, i, 28), and the hear
ing of his divine commission, he went to certain captives who dwelt
along the Chebar, and sat down among them in mute astonishment
(D^pt^D) for seven days (chap, iii, 15). Then Jehovah's word came
to him again, and he went forth into the plain, and there again
beheld the glory of the cherubim (ver. 23), and received the
command to go and shut himself up within his house, and per
form the symbolical actions which we have examined. And no
more impressive or signal prophecies could have been given than
these symbolic deeds. Not to have done the things commanded
would have been to withhold from the house of Israel the signs of
o
judgment which he was commissioned to exhibit. The fourfold
symbol denoted, (1) the coming siege of Jerusalem, (2) the exile
and consequent prostration of Israel and Judah (comp. Isa. 1, 11;
Amos v, 2), which should be like another Egyptian bondage, (3)
the destitution and humiliation of this sad period, and, (4) finally,
the threefold judgment with which the siege should end, namely,
pestilence and famine, the sword, and dispersion among the nations.
Other symbolical actions of this prophet are his removal of his
baggage through the broken wall (chap, xii, 3-8), and other symboii-
his eating his bread with quaking, and drinking water cai actions,
with trembling and anxiety (xii, 18), his deep and bitter sighing
(xxi, 6; Heb. xxi, 11), and his strange deportment on the death of
his wife (xxiv, 16-18). But the symbol of the boiling caldron in
chap, xxiv, 3-12, is expressly presented as an uttered parable, or
symbolical discourse, and the imagery is, accordingly, ideal, and
not to be understood of an outward action. The symbolical ac
tions of Isaiah (xx, 2-4) and Jeremiah (xiii, 11; xviii, 1-6; xix,
1-2; xxvii, 1-14, and xliii, 8-13) are, like those of Ezekiel, amply
explained in their immediate context.
Of all the symbolical actions of the prophets the most difficult
and disputed example is that of Hosea taking unto Hosea's Mar-
himself "a woman of whoredoms and children of riage-
whoredoms" (Hosea i, 2), and his loving "a woman beloved of
a friend, and an adulteress" (Hosea iii, 1). The great question
is : Are these transactions to be understood as mere visional
symbols, or as real events in the outward life of the prophet ff
No one will venture to deny that the language of Hosea most
282 SPECIAL HERMEXEUTICS.
naturally implies that the events were outward and real. He plain
ly says that Jehovah commanded him to go and marry an
Language im- •> •> & _ J
plies outward adulterous woman, and that he obeyed. He gives the
name of the woman and the name of her father, and
says that she conceived and bore him a son, whom he named Jezreel,
and subsequently she bore him a daughter and another son, to whom
he also gave significant names as God directed him. There is no
intimation whatever that these events were merely visions of the
soul, or that they were to be published to Israel as a purely para
bolic discourse. If the account of any symbolical action on record
is so explicit and positive as to require a literal interpretation, this
surely is one, for its terms are clear, its language is simple, and its
general import not difficult to comprehend.
Whence, then, the difficulties which expositors have felt in its in-
supposedimpos- terpretation ? It is mainly in the supposition that
sibmty based such a marriage, commanded by God and effected by
on Misapprehen- . ' • ,••<•. A r
sion of scope and a holy prophet, was a moral impossibility. A part ot
import. t^g Difficulty has also arisen from a misapprehension
of the meaning of certain allusions, and the scope of the entire pas
sage. Upon these misapprehensions false assumptions have been
based, and false interpretations have naturally followed. Thus, it
has been assumed that the three children of the prophet, Jezreel,
Lo-ruhamah, and Lo-ammi, were themselves the " children of whore
doms " whom the prophet was to take, and that the prophet's wife
herself continued her dissolute life after her marriage with him. Of
all this there is nothing in the text. The most simple and natural
meaning of " a woman of whoredoms and children of whoredoms "
(chap, i, 2) is a woman who is a notable harlot, and who, as such, has
begotten children who also follow her lewd practices. If it had
been otherwise, and the prophet had been directed to take a pure
virgin, the language of our text would have been utterly out of
place. For how could Hosea know how and where to select a vir
gin who would, after her marriage with him, become a harlot?
That the prophet's wife continued her lewd practices after her
marriage with him is nowhere intimated.
The straightforward, literal statement that the prophet "went
and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and
bare him a son " (ver. 3), is the furthest possible from describing
something which occurred only in idea. The sophism of Hengs-
tenberg, that these things took place " actually, but not outwardly," '
1 Christology of the Old Testament, English translation (Edinb., 1863), vol. i, p.
185. Hengstenberg's whole discussion of this subject, which assumes to be very full
and thorough, is a notable exhibition of exegetical dogmatism.
HOSEA'S MARRIAGE. 283
is too glaring to be for a moment entertained. If the things here
narrated had no outward reality in the prophet's life, ,
J ' (Jomer and Dib
it is an abuse of language to say they actually occurred, laim not sym-
All attempts to explain the names Gomer and Dib- l
laim symbolically are manifest failures, and Schmoller is candid
enough to admit that " we cannot say that, in themselves, they nec
essarily demand such an explanation." ' Gomer may indeed denote
completion, but no parallel usage justifies the meaning of "com
pleted whoredom," which most English expositors adopt from Aben
Ezra and Jerome. The verb ~iD3 means either to come to an end
in the sense of ceasing to exist (Psa. vii, 10; xii, 2; Ixxvii, 9), or to
complete, or bring to perfection, in a good sense (Psa. Ivii, 3;
cxxxviii," 8; comp. the Chaldee "IO2 in Ezra vii, 12). Gesenius and
Fiirst (Heb. Lex.) suggest the meaning of coals, heat, or fireglow.
The name of Diblaim is also too uncertain to warrant a symbol
ical interpretation. If we allow its identity with DvTi, Jig cakes,
the explanation, "completed whoredom, the daughter of two fig
cakes," is sufficiently awkward and far-fetched to discredit the
whole interpretation.
Hengstenberg is also guilty of the bold and remarkable assertion
that " there exists a multitude of symbolical actions, in T
J . Hengstenberg s
regard to which it is undeniable and universally admit- unwarrantable
ted (!) that they took place internally only." 2 He does assertion-
not deign to inform us what they are, and we may with equal pro
priety, therefore, affirm that there is not a single instance of a vis
ion, or of a symbolical action, that took place only internally, but that
there is in the context something which clearly indicates its vis
ional character. Jeremiah's taking the wine cup of Jehovah's fury
and presenting it to the nations (Jer. xxv, 15-33) is not a parallel
case, but is metaphorical, as the expression " cup of the wine of this
fury" (ver. 15) abundantly shows. This is confirmed by its causal
connexion ('3, for) with verse 14, and by the whole tone and spirit
of the passage, which is highly figurative; see, especially, verses
27-31. The same is true of Zech. xi, 4-14, where the prophet by
inspiration identifies himself with the Lord, and describes no vis
ion, or internal transaction, but a highly figurative account of the
relations of the Lord and Israel. The breaking of the staves,
Beauty and Bands, was the Lord's doing, and not that of the proph
et. Much more scientific and trustworthy is the procedure of
Cowles, who collates all the Old Testament examples bearing on
this point, and exhibits " a clear line of distinction drawn between
1 Commentary on Hosea (Lange's Biblework), in loco.
J Christology, vol. i, p. 186.
284 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
the things seen and shown in vision only, and those which were
done in outward life for symbolic or other pin-poses. These dis
tinctions," he observes, " lie not mainly — indeed scarcely at all — in
the nature of the things as convenient to be done, or as impossible,
but in the very form of the statements. In other words, the Lord
has been specially careful to leave us in no doubt as to what was
actually done by his prophets on the one hand, and what was only
seen by them in vision on the other." '
The prophet Hosea was not commanded to go and rehearse a par
able before the people, nor to relate what occurred to
The facts as . m
stated not in- him in vision, but to perform certain actions. Ine time
supposabie. necessary for his marriage, and the birth of the three
children of Gomer, need have been no greater than that in which
Isaiah was required to walk naked and barefoot for a sign (Isa.
xx, 3). The names of the three children are symbolical of certain
purposes and plans of God in his dealings with the house of Israel,
but there is no hint that these children were at all given to licentious
ness. Their names point to coming judgments, as did the name of
Isaiah's son (Isa. viii, 3), but those symbolical names are no dispar
agement of the character of the persons who bore them. As long
as Gomer was no man's lawful wife, her marriage to Hosea, even
though she had become noted as a harlot, and had thus begotten
" children of whoredoms," involved no breach of law. The law
governing a priest's marriage (Lev. xxi, V-15), and which even pro
hibited his marrying a widow, did not apply to a prophet more
than to any other man in Israel. That a prophet should marry a
harlot, and take her children with her, was indeed surprising, and
calculated to excite wonder and astonishment; but to excite such
wonder, and deeply impress it on the popular heart, was the very
purpose of the whole transaction. We cannot conceive how the ac
tions here recorded could have been made si<ms and wonders in Is-
O
rael (comp. Isa. viii, 18), or have been at all impressive, if they were
known to have never occurred. In that case they would have been
either ridiculed as a silly fancy, or denounced as an utter falsehood.
Their real occurrence, however, would have been a sign and a won
der too striking to be trifled with; but it is not probable that when
the people of the whole land had grievously committed whoredom
away from Jehovah (chap, i, 2) their moral sense would have
been so shocked at these actions of a prophet as many modern
critics imagine.
The main purport and scope of the passage may be indicated as
follows: Hosea is commanded to marry a harlot "because the land
1 Notes on the Minor Prophets. Dissertation i, p. 413. New York, 1866.
HOSEA'S MARRIAGE. 285
has grievously committed whoredom away from Jehovah." The adul
terous woman would thus represent idolatrous Israel, scope of pas-
whose sins are so frequently set forth under this figure, **& indicated.
No particular historical period is indicated, none need be assumed.
All question here as to when Jehovah was married to Israel, or
what Israel was before, and what after such marriage, only tends
to confuse and obscure the main purport of this Scripture, into
which a consideration of such questions does not enter. The mar
riage of the prophet to a harlot was a striking symbol of Jehovah's
relation to a people to whom it would be supposed he would have
titter aversion. Yet of that people, so guilty of spiritual adultery,
will Jehovah beget a holy seed, and the three symbolical names,
Jezreel, Lo-ruhamah, and Lo-ammi, denote the severe measures,
stated in the passage itself, by which the redemption of Israel must
be accomplished. Jezreel may have a double reference, one local,
taken from the well-known valley of this name where Jehu wrought
his bloody deeds (2 Kings x, 1-7); the other etymological (as the
word denotes " God sows," or, " God will sow "), and indicating
that the very judgments by which the kingdom of the house of
Israel was overthrown were a sowing of the seed from -j^ symboiicai
which should spring a regenerated nation. The names Names.
Lo-ruhamah and Lo-ammi symbolize other forms of judgment.
By his unpitying chastisements (Lo-ruhamah) and the utter rejec
tion of them as a people (Lo-ammi) will he secure the redemption
of that vast multitude mentioned in verses 10, 11, and chapter ii, 1
(Heb. ii, 1-3), whose glory and triumph will give new significance
to the " day of Jezreel," and change the name of Lo-ruhamah to
Ruhamah (compassionated), and Lo-ammi to Ammi (my people).
This view fully harmonizes with the language of chapter ii, 22, 23,
and gives a unity and definiteness to the whole of the first two
chapters of Hosea. The oracle of chapter ii, is, accordingly, to be
understood as Jehovah's appeal to Israel. It is addressed to the
" children of whoredoms," who are called on to plead with their
mother (ii, 2; Heb. ii, 4). It consists of complaint, threatening,
and promises, and from verse 14 on to the end of the chapter
(Heb., verses 16-25) indicates the process by which Jehovah will
woo and marry that mother of profligate children, making for her
"the valley of Achor as a door of hope" (ver. 15),1 and thereby
1 Achor (liDy) means troubler, or troubling, and is here used in allusion to the events
recorded in Josh, vii, 24-26. In the valley of Achor, Achan was punished for his
crimes, and the ban was thereby removed from Israel. " Through the name Achor
this valley became a memorial how the Lord restores his favour to the Church after
the expiation of the guilt by the punishment of the transgressor. And this divine
19
286 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
accomplishing her redemption. To emphasize this most wonderful
prophecy and promise the marriage of Hosea and Gomer served as
a most impressive sign.
The third chapter of Hosea records another symbolical action of
Hosea, chap, ill, this prophet, by which it is shown, in another form,
a"i°itheartynwith how Jehovah would reform and regenerate the chil-
simiiar purport, dren of Israel. Who this adulterous woman beloved
by a friend (ver. 1) was, we are not told, and conjectures are idle.
The supposition of many, that she was identical with Gomer, accords
with the apocalyptic habit of repeating symbolical prophecies under
various forms. So this prophet may have repeated the record of
the great symbolical act of his life so as to exhibit it from another
point of view. The supposition, hoAvever, is unnecessary. In the long
life and ministry of Hosea (comp. chap, i, 1) there was room for
several events of this kind, and we most naturally assume that in
the meantime his former wife, Gomer, had died. In the very brief
record here made there was no space for such details. Hosea's
loving this woman, buying her according to oriental custom, and
placing her apart for many days, are explained as a symbol of Israel's
exile and dispersion until the appointed time of restitution should
come. All that is here said about Israel's remaining many days
without king, sacrifices, and images was amply fulfilled during the
Assyrian exile. No traces of idolatry or spiritual whoredom re
mained in Israel or Judah after the restoration which took place
under Cyrus and his successors. The reason why so many exposi
tors have supposed that this chapter refers to another and later
exile arises from failure to note the habit of prophetic discourse to
Repetition of repeat the same things under different symbols. This
symbols. error has misled many into the notion that the adul
terous woman of chapter iii, must be identified with the Gomer
of chapter i. As in the prophecies of Daniel we find the composite
image of chapter ii, and the four beasts of chapter vii, only different
symbols of the same events, and the vision of the ram and he-goat,
in chapter viii, going over a part of the same ground again, so here
wre should understand that Hosea, at different periods of his life,
depicted by entirely different symbolic actions different phases of
mode of procedure will be repeated in all its essential characteristics. The Lord
will make the valley of troubling a door of hope ; that is, he will so expiate the
sins of his Church and cover them with his grace, that the covenant of fellowship
with him will no more be rent asunder by them ; or he will so display his grace to
the sinners that compassion will manifest itself even in wrath, and through judgment
and mercy the pardoned sinners will be more and more firmly and inwardly united to
him." — Keil on Hosea, in loco.
287
the same great facts. Similar repetition abounds in Ezekiel, Zech-
ariah, and the Apocalypse of John.
These actions of Ilosea, then, according to all sound laws of
grammatico-historical interpretation, are to be understood as hav
ing actually occurred in the life of the prophet, and are to be
classed along with other actions which we have termed symbolico-
typical. Such actions, as we have observed before, combine essen
tial elements of both symbol and type, and serve to illustrate at
once the kinship and the difference between them. Serving as signs
and visible images of unseen facts or truths, they are symbolical ;
but being at the same time representative actions of an intelligent
agent, actually and outwardly performed, and pointing especially
to things to come, they are typical. Hence the propriety of desig
nating them by the compound name symbolico-typical. And it is
worthy of note that every instance of such actions is accompanied
by an explanation of its import, more or less detailed.
The miracles of our Lord may not improperly be spoken of as
symbolico-typical. They were arjpela ical repara, signs Our Lord's mir-
and iconders, and they all, without exception, have a acies symbolical,
moral and spiritual significance. The cleansing of the leper symbol
ized the power of Christ to heal the sinner, and so all his miracles
of love and mercy bear the character of redemptive acts, and are
typically prophetical of what he is evermore doing in his reign of
grace. The stilling of the tempest, the walking on the sea, and the
opening of the eyes of the blind furnish suggestive lessons of divine
grace and power, as some of the noblest hymns of the Church at
test. The miracle of the water made wine, says Trench, " may be
taken as the sign and symbol of all which Christ is evermore doing
in the world, ennobling all that he touches, making saints out of
sinners, angels out of men, and in the end heaven out of earth, a
new paradise of God out of the old wilderness of the world." '
Hengstenberg observes that Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusa
lem, as predicted in Zech. ix, 10, "was a symbolical action, the
design and purport of which were to assert his royal dignity,
and to set forth in a living picture the true nature of his person
and kingdom, in opposition to the false notions of both friends and
foes. Apart, therefore, from the prophecy, the entry had its own
peculiar meaning, as, in fact, was the case with every act of Christ
and every event of his life." *
1 Notes on the Miracles of our Lord, p. 98. New York, 1858.
9 Christology of the Old Testament, vol. iii, p. 375. Edinb., 1863.
288 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
CHAPTER XII.
SYMBOLIC NUMBERS, NAMES, AND COLOURS.
EVERY observant reader of the Bible has had his attention arrested
at times by what seemed a mystical or symbolical use of numbers.
The numbers three, four, seven, ten, and twelve, especially, have a
significance worthy of most careful study. Certain well-known
proper names, as Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon, are also used in a
mystic sense, and the colours red, black, and white are understood
to be so associated with the ideas respectively of bloodshed, evil,
and purity as to have become emblematic of those ideas. The only
Process of as- valid method of ascertaining the symbolical meaning
holism of^Num- an<^ usage °f sucn numbers, names, and colours in the
bers, etc. Scriptures, is by an ample collation and study of the
passages where they occur. The hermeneutical process is therefore
essentially the same as that by which we ascertain the usus loquendi
of words, and the province of hermeneutics is, not to furnish an
elaborate discussion of the subject, but to exhibit the principles
and methods by which such a discussion should be carried out.1
SYMBOLICAL NUMBERS.
The number one, as being the first, the startingpoint, the parent,
and source of all numbers, the representative of unity, might natu
rally be supposed to possess some mystical significance, and yet there
appears no evidence that it is ever used in any such sense in the
Scriptures. It has a notable emphasis in that watchword of Israel-
itish faith, "Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is ONE JEHOVAH"
(Deut. vi, 4; comp. Mark xii, 29, 32; 1 Cor. viii, 4), but neither
here nor elsewhere is the number used in any other than its literal
1 On the symbolism of numbers see Bahr, Symbolik des mosaischen Cultus, vol. 5,
(1874), pp. 185-282 ; Kurtz, Ueber die symbolische Dignitat der Zahlen an der Stifts-
hiitte, in the Studien und Kritiken for 1844, pp. 315-370; Lilmmert, Zur Revision
der biblischen Zahlcnsymbolik, in the Jahrbiicher fur deutsche Theologie for 1864,
pp. 1-49; and Engelhardt, Einiges iiber symbolische Zahlen, in the same periodical
for 1866, pp. 301-332; Kliefoth, Die Zahlensymbolik der heiligen Schrift, in Dieck-
hoff und Kliefoth's Theologische Zeitschrift for 1862, pp. 1-89, 341-453, and 509-
623; Stuart's Excursus (appropriating largely from Biihr) on the Symbolical Use of
Numbers in the Apocalypse, in his Commentary on the Apocalypse, vol. ii, pp. 409-
434; White, Symbolical Numbers of Scripture (Ediub., 1868).
SYMBOLISM OF NUMBERS. 289
sense. The number three, however, is employed in such relations as
to suggest that it is especially the number of divine full- The number
ness in unity. Bahr seems altogether too fanciful when Three-
he says : " It lies in the very nature of the number three, that
is, in its relation to the two preceding numbers one and two, that it
forms in the progression of numbers the first conclusion (Abschluss) ;
for the one is first made a number by being followed by the two,
but the two as such represents separation, difference, contrast, and
this becomes cancelled by the number three, so that three is in fact
the first finished, true, and complete unity." * But he goes on to say
that every true unity comprises a trinity, and instances the familiar
triads, beginning, middle, and end; past, present, and future; un
der, midst, and upper ; and he cites from many heathen sources to
show the mystic significance that everywhere attached to the num
ber three. He also cites from the Scripture such triads as the three
men who appeared to Abraham (Gen. xviii, 2), the three forefathers
of the children of Israel, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exod. iii, 6),
the three sons of Noah, by whom the postdiluvian world was peo
pled (Gen. ix, 19), the three constituent parts of the universe, heav
en, earth, and sea (Exod. xx, 11; Psa. cxlvi, 6), the cedar wood,
scarlet, and hyssop, used in the ceremonial purification (Lev. xiv, 6 ;
Num. xix, 6), the threefold cord that is not quickly broken (Eccl.
iv, 12), and other less noticeable examples. More important and
conspicuous, however, as exhibiting a sacredness in the number
three, are those texts which associate it immediately with the divine
name. These are the thrice-repeated benediction of Num. vi, 24-26,
or threefold putting the name of Jehovah (ver. 27) upon the chil
dren of Israel ; the threefold name in the formula of baptism (Matt,
xxviii, 19), and the apostolic benediction (2 Cor. xiii, 14); and the
trisagion of Isa. vi, 3, and Rev. iv, 8, accompanied in the latter
passage by the three divine titles, Lord, God, and Almighty, and
the additional words "who was, and who is, and who is to come."
From all this it would appear, as Stuart a has observed, " that the
doctrine of a Trinity in the Godhead lies much deeper than the New-
Platonic philosophy, to which so many have been accustomed to refer
it. An original impression of the character in question plainly over
spread all the ancient oriental world . . . That many philosophistic
and superstitious conceits have been mixed with it, in process of
time, proves nothing against the general fact as stated. And this
being admitted, we cease to think it strange that such distinction and
significancy have been given in the Scriptures to the number three.'*
1 Symbolik des mosaischen Cultus, p. 205.
8 Commentary on Apocalypse, vol. ii, pp. 419, 420.
290 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
If its peculiar usage in connexion with the divine Name gives
mystical significance to the number three, and entitles it to be
called " the number of God," the use of the number four
in the Scriptures would in like manner entitle it to be
called " the number of the world," or of the visible creation. Thus
we have the four winds of heaven (Jer. xlix, 36 ; Ezek. xxxvii, 9 ;
Dan. vii, 2 ; viii, 8 ; Zech. ii, 6 ; vi, 5 ; Matt, xxiv, 31 ; Mark xiii, 27 ;
Rev. vii, 1), the four corners or extremities of the earth (Isa. xi, 12 ;
Ezek. vii, 2 ; Rev. vii, 1 ; xx, 8), corresponding, doubtless, with the
four points of the compass, east, west, north, and south (1 Chron.
ix, 24; Psa. cvii, 3; Luke xiii, 29), and the four seasons. Notice
able also are the four living creatures in Ezek. i, 5, each with four
faces, four wings, four hands, and connected with four wheels ; and
in Zechariah the four horns (i, 18), the four smiths (i, 20), and the
four chariots (vi, l).
The number seven, being the sum of four and three, may natural
ly be supposed to symbolize some mystical union of God
with the world, and accordingly, may be called the sacred
number of the covenant between God and his creation. The heb
domad, or period of seven days, is so essentially associated with the
record of creation (Gen. ii, 2, 3; Exod. xx, 8-11), that from the
beginning a sevenfold division of time was recognized among the
ancient nations. In the Scripture it is peculiarly a ritual number.
In establishing his covenant with Abraham God ordained that seven
days must pass after the birth of a child, and then, upon the eighth
day, he must be circumcised (Gen. xvii, 12; comp. Lev. xii, 2, 3).
The passover feast continued seven days (Exod. xii, 15). The feast
of Pentecost was held seven weeks after the day of the wave offer
ing (Lev. xxiii, 15). The feast of trumpets occurred in the seventh
month (Lev. xxiii, 24), and seven times seven years brought round
the year of jubilee (Lev. xxv, 8). The blood of the sin offering was
sprinkled seven times before the Lord (Lev. iv, 6). The ceremonial
cleansing of the leper required that he be sprinkled seven times
with blood and seven times with oil, that he tarry abroad outside
of his tent seven days (Lev. xiv. 7, 8; xvi, 27), and that his house
also be sprinkled seven times (Lev. xiv, 51). Contact with a dead
body and other kinds of ceremonial uncleanness required a purifi
cation of seven days (Num. xix, 11 ; Lev. xv, 13, 24). And so the
idea of covenant relations and obligations seems to be associated
with this sacred number. Jehovah confirmed his word to Joshua
and Israel, when for seven days seven priests with seven trumpets
compassed Jericho, and on the seventh day compassed the city
eeven times (Josh, vi, 13-15). The golden candlestick had seven
SYMBOLICAL NUMBERS. 291
lamps (Exod. xxxviii, 23). The seven churches, seven stars, seven
seals, seven trumpets, seven thunders, and seven last plagues of the
Apocalypse are of similar mystical significance.
The number ten completes the list of primary numbers, and is
made the basis of all further numeration. Hence, it is
Ten
naturally regarded as the number of rounded fulness
or completeness. The Hebrew word for ten, ")|>JJ, is believed to
favour this idea. Gesenius (Lex.) traces it to a root which conveys
the idea of conjunction, and observes that "etymologists agree in
deriving this form from the conjunction of the ten fingers." Ftirst
adopts the same fundamental idea, and defines the word as if it
were expressive of "union, association; hence multitude, heap, mul
tiplicity" (Heb. Lex). And this general idea is sustained by the
usage of the number. Thus the Decalogue, the totality and sub
stance of the whole Torah, or Law, is spoken of as the ten words
Exod. xxxiv, 28; Deut. iv, 13; x, 4); ten elders constitute an an
cient Israelitish court (Ruth iv, 2); ten princes represent the tribes
of Israel (Josh, xxii, 14); ten virgins go forth to meet the bride
groom (Matt, xxv, 1). And, in a more general way, ten times is
equivalent to many times (Gen. xxxi, 7, 41; Job xix, 3), ten wom
en means many women (Lev. xxvi, 26), ten sons many sons (1 Sam.
i, 8), ten mighty ones are many mighty ones (Eccles. vii, 19), and
the ten horns of Dan. vii, 7, 24; Rev. xii, 3; xiii, 1; xvii, 12, may
fittingly symbolize many kings.1
The symbolical use of the number twelve in Scripture appears
to have fundamental allusion to the twelve tribes of
T\VGlV6
Israel. Thus Moses erects "twelve pillars according
to the twelve tribes of Israel" (Exod. xxiv, 4), and there were
twelve stones in the breastplate of the high priest (Exod. xxviii, 21),
twelve cakes of showbread (Lev. xxiv, 5), twelve bullocks, twelve
rams, twelve lambs, and twelve kids for offerings of dedication
(Num. vii, 87), and many other like instances. In the New Testa
ment we have the twelve apostles, twelve times twelve thousand
are sealed out of the tribes of Israel, twelve thousand from each
tribe (Rev. vii, 4-8), and the New Jerusalem has twelve gates,
bearing the names of the twelve tribes, and guarded by twelve an
gels (Rev. xxi, 12), and its wall has twelve foundations, bearing
the twelve names of the apostles (xxi, 14). Twelve, then, may
properly be called the mystical number of God's chosen people.
It is thus by collation and comparison of the peculiar uses of these
numbers that we can arrive at any safe conclusion as to their
1 Compare Wemyss, Clavia Symbolica, under tne word Ten, and Bahr, Symbolik,
vol. i, pp. 223, 224.
292 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
symbolical import. But allowing that they have such import as the
symbolical does foregoing examples indicate, we must not suppose that
"uKie^ i t ;e ni i tneY thereby necessarily lose their literal and proper
sense. meaning. The number ten, as shown above, and some
few instances of the number seven (Psa. xii, 6; Ixxix, 12; Prov.
xxvi, 16; Isa. iv, 4; Dan. iv, 16), authorize us to say that they are
used sometimes indefinitely in the sense of many. But when, for
example, it is written that seven priests, with seven trumpets, com
passed Jericho on the seventh day seven times (Josh, vi, 13-15), we
understand the statements in their literal sense. These things
were done just so many times, but the symbolism of the sevens
suggests that in this signal overthrow of Jericho God was confirm
ing his covenant and promises to give into the hand of his chosen
people their enemies and the land they occupied (comp. Exod.
xxiii, 31 ; Josh, ii, 9, 24; vi, 2). And so the sounding of the seven
trumpets of the Apocalypse completed the mystery of God as de
clared to his prophets (Rev. x, 7), so that when the seventh angel
sounded great voices in heaven said: "The kingdom of the world
is become that of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign
forever and ever" (Rev. xii, 15).
The " time and times and dividing (or half) of a time " (Dan. vii,
Time, times, ^5; xii, 7; Rev. xii, 13) is commonly and with reason
and half a time, believed to stand for three years and a half, a time de
noting a year. A comparison of verses 6 and 12 of Rev. xii shows
this period to be the same as twelve hundred and sixty days, or ex
actly three and a half years, reckoning three hundred and sixty
days to a year. But as this number is in every case used to
denote a period of woe and disaster to the Church or people of
God (Rev. xi, 2), we may regard it as symbolical. It is a divided
seven (comp. Dan. ix, 27) as if suggesting the thought of a broken
covenant, an interrupted sacrifice, a triumph of the enemy of God.
The twelve hundred and sixty days are also equivalent to forty-
Forty-two two months (Rev. xi, 2, 3; xiii, 5), reckoning thirty
months. days to a month, and, thus used, it is probably to be
regarded, not as an exact designation of just so many days, but as
a round number readily reckoned and remembered, and approxi
mating the exact length of the period denoted with sufficient near
ness. In Dan. viii, 14 we have the peculiar expression "two thou
sand and three hundred evening mornings," which some explain as
meaning so many days, in allusion to Gen. i, 5, where evening and
morning constitute one day. Others, however, understand so many
morning and evening sacrifices, which would require half the num
ber of days (eleven hundred and fifty). This latter is the more
PROPHETIC NUMBERS. 293
preferable view, and the number 1150 should be compared with the
1290 and 1335 of Dan. xii, 11, 12. All these numbers approximate
the period of three and a half years, and may possibly have had
relation to facts no longer known to us. But the noticeable enigmat
ical differences in these related numbers may have been designed, in
apocalyptic symbolism, to suggest that the "time, times, and divid
ing of a time" were not to be understood with mathematical
precision.
The number forty designates in so many places the duration of a
penal judgment, either forty days or forty years, that
it may be regarded as symbolic of a period of judg
ment. The forty days of the flood (Gen. vii, 4, 12, 17), the forty
years of Israel's wandering in the wilderness (Num. xiv, 34), the
forty stripes with which a convicted criminal was to be beaten
(Deut. xxv, 3), the forty years of Egypt's desolation (Ezek. xxix,
11, 12), and the forty days and nights during which Moses, Elijah,
and Jesus fasted (Exod. xxiv, 28; 1 Kings xix, 8; Matt, iv, 2), all
favour this idea. But there is no reason to suppose that in all
these cases the number forty is not also used in its proper and lit
eral sense. The symbolism, if any, arises from the association of
the number with a period of punishment or trial.
The number seventy is also noticeable as being that of the total
ity of Jacob's sons (Gen. xlvi. 27; Exod. i, 5; Deut.
Seventy.
x, 22) and of the elders of Israel (Exod. xxiv, 1, 9;
Num. xi, 24) ; the Jews were doomed to seventy years of Babylo
nian exile (Jer. xxv, 11, 12; Dan. ix, 2); seventy weeks distinguish
one of Daniel's most important prophecies (Dan. ix, 24), and our
Lord appointed seventy other disciples besides the twelve (Luke
x, 1). Auberlen observes: " The number seventy is ten multiplied
by seven; the human is here moulded and fixed by the divine.
For this reason the seventy years of exile are a symbolical sign of
the time during which the power of the world would, according to
God's will, triumph over Israel, during which it would execute the
divine judgments on God's people." J
We have already seen (p. 278), in discussing the symbolical ac
tions of Ezekiel, that the four hundred and thirty days ^-1^^ des_
of his prostration formed a symbolical period in allu- ignations of
sion to the four hundred and thirty (390+40) years of l
the Egyptian bondage (Exod. xii, 40). Like the number forty,
as shown above, it was associated with a period of discipline and
sorrow. Each day of the prophet's prostration represented a year
of Israel's humiliation and judgment (Ezek. iv, 6), as the forty days
1 The Prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation, Eng. Trans., p. 134. Edinb., 1866.
294 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
during which the spies searched the land of Canaan were typical
of the years of Israel's wandering and wasting in the wilderness
(Num. xiv, 33, 34).
Here it is in place to examine the so-called "year-day theory"
The year-day °f prophetic interpretation, so prevalent among modern
theory. expositors.1 Upon the statement of the two passages
just cited from Numbers and Ezekiel, and also upon supposed ne
cessities of apocalyptic interpretation, a large number of modern
writers on prophecy have advanced the theory that the word day,
or days, is to be understood in prophetic designations of time as
denoting years. This theory has been applied especially to the
"time, times, and dividing of a time" in Dan. vii, 25, xii, 7, and
Rev. xii, 14; the twelve hundred and sixty days of Rev. xi, 3; xii, 6;
and also by many to the two thousand three hundred days of Dan.
viii, 14, and the twelve hundred and ninety and thirteen hundred
and thirty-five days of Dan. xii, 11, 12. The forty and two months
of Rev. xi, 2, and xiii, 5, are, according to this theory, to be multi
plied by thirty (42X30=1260), and then the result in days is to be
understood as so many years. After the like manner, the time,
times, and a half, are first understood as three years and a half, and
then the years are multiplied by three hundred and sixty, a round
number for the days of a year, and the result (1260) is understood
as designating, not so many days, but so many years.
If this is a correct theory of interpreting the designations of
prophetic time, it is obvious that it is a most important
A theory so far * * _ . .... .
reaching and one. It is necessarily so farreachmg in its practical
sh^uiTh^ve results as fundamentally to affect one's whole plan and
most valid sup- process of exposition. Such a theory, surely, ought to
be supported by the most convincing and incontrovert
ible reasons. And yet, upon the most careful examination, we do
not find that it has any sufficient warrant in the Scripture, and the
expositions of its advocates are not of a character likely to com
mend it to the critical mind. Against it we urge the five follow
ing considerations:
1. This theory derives no valid support from the passages in
Numbers and Ezekiel already referred to. In Num.
Has no support . ,, , T , . , .,
in Num. xiv and X1V> 33, 34, Jehovah s word to Israel simply states that
Ezek. iv. they must suffer for their iniquities forty years, " in the
1 See on this subject Stuart's article on the Designation of Time in the Apocalypse
in the American Biblical Repository for Jan., 1835. Also a reply to the same by Dr.
Allen in the same periodical for July, 1840. Compare also Cowles' Dissertation on the
subject at the end of his Commentary on Daniel. Elliott's laboured argument on this
subject (Hone Apocalypticae, vol. iii, pp. 260-298) is mainly a series of presumptions.
YEAR-DAY THEORY. 295
number of the days which ye searched the land, forty days, a day
for the year, a day for the year." There is no possibility of mis
understanding this. The spies were absent forty days searching
the land of Canaan (Num. xiii, 25), and when they returned they
brought back a bad report of the country, and spread disaffection,
murmuring, and rebellion through the whole congregation of Israel
(xiv, 2-4). Thereupon the divine sentence of judgment was pro
nounced upon that generation, and they were condemned to " graze
(D*jh, pasture, feed) in the wilderness forty years" (xiv, 33). Here
then is certainly no ground on which to base the universal prop
osition that, in prophetic designations of time, a day means a year.
The passage is exceptional and explicit, and the words are used in
a strictly literal sense; the days evidently mean days, and the years
mean years. The same is true in every particular of the days and
years mentioned in Ezek. iv, 5, 6. The days of his prostration
were literal days, and they were typical of years, as is explicitly
stated. But to derive from this symbolico-typical action of Ezekiel
a hermeneutical principle or law of universal application, namely,
that days in prophecy mean years, would be a most unwarrantable
procedure.
2. If the two passages now noticed were expressive of a universal
law, we certainly would expect to find it sustained and Not sustalned
capable of illustration by examples of fulfilled prophecy, by Prophetic
But examples bearing on this point are overwhelmingly ogy*
against the theory in question. God's word to Noah was: "Yet
seven days, I will cause it to rain upon the land forty days and forty
nights" (Gen. vii, 4). Did any one ever imagine these days were
symbolical of years? Or will it be pretended that the mention of
nights along with days removes the prophecy from the category of
those scriptures which have a mystical import? God's word to
Abraham was that his seed should be afflicted in a foreign land
four hundred years (Gen. xv, 13). Must we multiply these years
by three hundred and sixty to know the real time intended ? Isaiah
prophesied that Ephraim should be broken within threescore and
five years (Isa. vii, 8) ; but who ever dreamed that this must be re
solved into days in order to find the period of Ephraim's fall?
Was it ever sagely believed that the three years of Moab's glory,
referred to in Isa. xvi, 14, must be multiplied by three hundred and
sixty in order to find the import of what Jehovah had spoken con
cerning it? Was it by such mathematical calculation as this that
Daniel "understood in the books the number of the years, which
was a word of Jehovah to Jeremiah (comp. Jer. xxv, 12) the
prophet, to complete as to the desolations of Jerusalem seventy
296 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
years" (Dan. ix, 2)? Or is it supposable that the seventy years of
Jeremiah's prophecy were ever intended to be manipulated by such
calculations? In short, this theory breaks down utterly when an
appeal is taken to the analogy of prophetic scriptures. If the time,
times, and a half of Dan. vii, 25 means three and a half years mul
tiplied by three hundred and sixty, that is, twelve hundred and
sixty years, then the seven times of Dan. iv, 16, 32, should mean
seven times three hundred and sixty, or two thousand five hun
dred and twenty years. Or if in one prophecy of the future,
twelve hundred and sixty days must, without any accompanying
qualification, or any statement to that effect in the context, be un
derstood as denoting so many years, then the advocates of such a
theory must show pertinent and valid reason why the forty days of
Jonah's prophecy against Nineveh (Jon. iii, 4) are not to be also
understood as denoting forty years.
3. The year-day theory is thought to have support in Daniel's
Daniel's proph- prophecy of the seventy weeks (Dan. ix, 24-27). But
eSy°weeksSnot that P™phecy says not a word about days or years, but
parallel. seventy heptads, or sevens (DI|J?2^). The position and
gender of the word indicate its peculiar significance. It nowhere
else occurs in the masculine except in Dan. x, 2, 3, where it is ex
pressly defined as denoting heptads of days (D'D' D^JQ^). Unaccom
panied by any such limiting word, and standing in such an emphatic
position at the beginning of ver. 24, we have reason to infer at once
that it involves some mystical import. When, now, we observe
that it is a Messianic oracle, granted to Daniel when his mind was
full of meditations upon Jeremiah's prophecy of the seventy years
of Jewish exile (ver. 2), and in answer to his ardent supplications,
we most naturally understand the seventy heptads as heptads of
years. But this admission furnishes slender support to such a
sweeping theory as would logically bring all prophetic designations
of time to the principle that days mean years.
4. It has been argued that in such passages as Judg. xvii, 10;
1 Sam. ii, 19; 2 Chron. xxi, 19, and Isa. xxxii, 10, the
Days nowhere ' . ' ' ^
properly mean word days is used to denote years, and "if this word
be sometimes thus used in Scripture in places not pro
phetic, why should it not be thus employed in prophetic passages?"1
But a critical examination of those passages will show that the word
for days is not really used in the sense of years. In Judg. xvii, 10,
Micah says to the Levite: "Dwell with me, and be to me for a
father and a priest, and I will give thee ten (pieces) of silver for
1 See Allen's article " On the Designations of Time in Daniel and John," in The
American Biblical Repository, for July, 1840, p. 39.
YEAR-DAY THEORY. 297
the, days'1'1 (D^), that is, for the days that he should dwell with
him as a priest. In 1 Sam. ii, 19, it is said that Samuel's mother
made him a little robe, and brought it up to him from days to days
in her going up along with her husband to offer the sacrifice of the
days" Here the reference is to the particular days of going up to
the tabernacle to worship and sacrifice, and the exact sense is not
brought out by the common version, "year by year" or "yearly."
They may have gone up several times during the year at the days
of the great national feasts. And this appears from a comparison
of 1 Sam. i, 3 and 7, where, in the first place, it is said that Elkanah
went up from days to days, and in ver. 7, "so he did year by year."
That is, he went up three times a year according to the law (Exod.
xxiii, 14-17) "from days to days," as the well-known national
feastdays came round; and his wife generally accompanied him.
2 Chron. xxi, 1 9 is literally : " And it came to pass at days from
days (i. e., after several days), and about the time of the going out
^expiration) of the end, at two days, his bowels went out," etc.1
Similarly, Isa. xxxii, 10: "Days above a year shall ye be troubled,"
etc. That is, more than a year shall ye be troubled." The most
that can be said of such a use of the word days, is, that it is used
indefinitely in a proverbial and idiomatic way ; but such a usage by
no means justifies the broad proposition that a day means a year.
5. The advocates of the year-day theory rest their strongest argu
ment, however, upon the necessity of such a theory for Disproved by
what they regard the true explanation of certain proph- J^8
ecies. They affirm that the three times and a half of pretation.
Dan. vii, 25, and the twelve hundred and sixty days of Rev. xii, 6,
and their parallels, are incapable of a literal interpretation. And
so, carrying the predictions both of Daniel and John down into
the history of modern Europe for explanation, most of these
writers understand the twelve hundred and sixty year-days as
designating the period of the Roman Papacy. Mr. William Mil
ler, famous in the last generation for the sensation he produced,
and the large following he had, adopted a scheme of interpreting
not only the twelve hundred and sixty days, but also the twelve
hundred and ninety, and the thirteen hundred and thirty-five
(of Dan. xii, 11, 12), so that he ascertained and published with
great assurance that the coming of Christ would take place in
October, 1843. We have lived to see his theories thoroughly ex
ploded, and yet there have not been wanting others who have
adopted his hermeneutical principles, and named A. D. 1866 and
1 See Keil and Bertheau on Chronicles, in loco.
* See Alexander on Isaiah, in loco. *
298 SPECIAL HEKMENEUTICS.
A. D. 1870 as "the time of the end." A theory which is so desti
tute of scriptural analogy and support as we have seen above, and
presumes to rest on such a slender showing of divine authority, is
on those grounds alone to be suspected; but when it has again
and again proved to be false and misleading in its application, we
may safely reject it, as furnishing no valid principle or rule in a
true science of hermeneutics.1 Those who have supposed it to be
necessary for the exposition of apocalyptic prophecies, should be
gin to feel that their systems of interpretation are in error.
The duration of the thousand years, or the millenial reign, men
tioned in Rev. xx, 2-7, has been variously estimated.
The thousand ' J
years of Rev. Most of those who advocate the year-day theory have
singularly agreed to understand this thousand years lit
erally. With them days mean years, and times mean years, to be
resolved into three hundred and sixty days each, but the thousand
years of the Apocalypse are literally and exactly a thousand years !
Many, however, understand this number as denoting an indefinitely
long period, and some have not scrupled to apply to it the theory
of a day for a year, and multiplying by three hundred and sixty,
estimate the length of the millenium at three hundred and sixty
thousand years. But in this case we have no analogy, no real
parallel, in other parts of scripture. Allen himself candidly ad
mits that " there is nothing in the customary use of the phrase a
thousand^ in other places, which will determine its import in the
Book of Revelation. The probability of its being used there defi
nitely or indefinitely must be determined by examining the place
itself, and from the nature of the case."2 This is a very safe and
proper rule, and it may well be added that, as we have found the
number ten to symbolize the general idea of fulness, totality, com
pleteness, so not improbably the number one thousand may stand
as the symbolic number of manifold fulness, the rounded ceon of
Messianic triumph, (6 ai&iv jueA/lwi'), during which he shall abolish
all rule and all authority and power, and put all his enemies un
der his feet (1 Cor. xv, 24, 25), and bring in the fulness (TO rrA^-
of both Jews and Gentiles (Rom. xi, 12, 25).
1 It may be said that Bengal's long-ago exploded theory of explaining apocalyptic
designations of time is worthy of as much credence as this more popular year-day
theory. In his Erklurten Offenbarung Johannis (1740) he takes the mystic number
666 (Rev. xiii, 18) for his startingpoint, and dividing it by 42 months, he makes a
prophetic month equal 15? years. His prophetic days were of corresponding length,
amounting to about half a year, and his scheme fixed the end of all things in A. D. 18o6.
In favour of Bengel it may be said that he started with a number which is propound
ed as a riddle, which is more than we can say in favour of these other theorists.
2 American Biblical Repository, July, 1840, p. 47.
SYMBOLISM OF PROPER NAMES. 299
SYMBOLICAL NAMES.
A symbolical use of proper names is apparent in such passages as
Rev. xi, 8, where the great city, in which the bodies of sodom and
the slain witnesses were exposed, and " where also their E&ypt-
Lord was crucified," is called, spiritually,1 Sodom and Egypt. Evi
dently this wicked city, whether we understand Jerusalem or Rome,
is so designated because its moral corruptions and bitter persecut
ing spirit were like those of Sodom and Egypt, both famous in
Jewish history for these ungodly qualities. In a similar way Isaiah
likens Judah and Jerusalem to Sodom and Gomorrah (Isa. i, 9, 10).
Compare also Jer. xxiii, 14. In Ezek. xvi, 44-59, the abominations
of Jerusalem are made to appear loathsome by comparison and con
trast with Samaria on one side and Sodom on the other.
In like manner " Babylon the great," is evidently a symbolical
name in Rev. xiv, 8; xvi, 19; xvii, 5; xviii, 2, etc. Babylon and
Whether the name is used to denote the same city as Jerusalem.
that called Sodom and Egypt in chapter xi, 8, or some other cityr
its mystical designation is to be explained, like that of Sodom and
Egypt, as arising from Jewish historical associations with Babylon,
the great city of the exile. That city could, in Jewish thought, be
associated only with oppression and woe, and their antipathy to it
as a persecuting power is well expressed in Psa. cxxxvii. The op
posite of Babylon, the Harlot, in the Apocalypse, is Jerusalem, the
Bride (Rev. xxi, 9, 10). So, too, in the psalm just referred to, the
opposite of Babylon, with its rivers and willows, was Jerusalem
and Mount Zion. And the careful student will note that, as one of
the seven angels said to the prophet, "Come hither," and then
" carried him away in spirit into a wilderness " and showed him the
mystic Babylon, the Harlot (Rev. xvii, 1-3), so also one of the
same class of angels addressed him with like words, and then " car
ried him away in spirit into a mountain great and high," and showed
him the holy Jerusalem, the Bride (chap, xxi, 9, 10). And if the
Bride denotes the true Church of the people and saints of the Most
High, doubtless the Harlot represents the false and apostate Church,
historically guilty of the blood of saints and martyrs. Which great
city best represents that harlot — Rome, which truly has been a bitter
persecutor, or Jerusalem, so often called a harlot by the prophets,
and charged by Jesus himself as guilty of " all the righteous blood
poured out upon the land, from the blood of Abel, the righteous,
1 Hv£V[ia.TiK(J{, i. e., by a mental discernment intensified and exalted by a divine in
spiration which enables one to see things according to their real and spiritual
nature.
300 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
unto the blood of Zachariah, son of Barachiah" (Matt, xxiii, 35) —
where also their Lord and ours was crucified — each expositor will
determine for himself.
The name of Egypt is used symbolically in Hos. viii, 13, where
Ephraim is sentenced, on account of sin, to " return to
Egypt." The name had become proverbial as the land
of bondage (Exod. xx, 2), and Moses had threatened such a return
in his warnings and admonitions addressed to Israel (Deut. xxviii,
68). In Hos. ix, 3, this return to Egypt is, by the Hebrew poetic
parallelism of the passage, made equivalent to eating unclean
things in the land of Asshur. Hence the Assyrian exile is viewed
as another Egyptian bondage.
The names of David and Elijah are used after the same sym-
David and Eii- bolical manner to designate, prophetically, the prince
^an- Messiah and the prophet John the Baptist. In Ezek.
xxxiv, 23, 24, Jehovah declares that he will set his servant
David for a shepherd over his people, and for a prince among
them. Here, assuredly, the language cannot be taken literally,
and no one will contend that the historical David is to appear
again in fulfilment of this prediction. Compare Ezek. xxxvii, 24;
Jer. xxx, 9; Hos. iii, 5. So, too, the prophecy of the coming of
Elijah in Mai. iv, 5, was fulfilled in John the Baptist (Matt, xi, 14;
xvii, 10-13).
The name Ariel is used in Isa. xxix, 1, 2, 7, as a symbolical des-
ignation of Jerusalem, but its mystical import is quite
uncertain. The word, according to Gesenius,1 may de
note either lion of God, or altar of God ; but whether it should be
understood as denoting the city of lion-like heroes, or of invincible
strength, or as the city of the altar place, it is impossible to de
termine. Fuerst thinks (Hob. Lex.), in view of Isa. xxxi, 9, "where
Jerusalem is celebrated as a sacred hearth of the everlasting fire, it
is more advisable to choose this signification."
A hostile, oppressive world-power is designated in Isa. xxvii, 1,
Leviathan, the as " Leviathan, a flying serpent, Leviathan, a crooked
serpent. serpent ... a dragon which is in the sea." Some
think three different hostile powers are meant, but the repetition of
the name Leviathan, and the poetic parallelism of the passage, are
against that view. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, and
Rome have all been suggested as the hostile power intended. It
is, perhaps, best to understand it generically as a symbolic name for
any and every godless world-power that sets itself up as an opposer
and oppressor of the people of God.
J Commentar iiber den Jesaia, in looo.
SIGNIFICANT COLOURS. 301
SYMBOLISM OF COLOURS.
The setting of the rainbow in the cloud for a covenant sign be
tween God and the land, that no flood of waters should ,
' Rainbow and
again destroy all flesh (Gen. ix, 8-17) would naturally tabernacle coi-
associate the prominent colours of that bow with ideas °
of heavenly grace. In the construction of the tabernacle four col
ours are prominent, blue, purple, scarlet, and white (Exod. xxv, 4;
xxvi, 1, 31; xxxv, 6, etc.), and the blending of these in the cover
ings and appurtenances of that symbolic structure probably served
not only for the sake of beauty and variety, but also to suggest
thoughts of heavenly excellence and glory. The exact colours,
tints, or shades denoted by the Hebrew words translated blue, pur
ple, and scarlet (rrari, |D3nK, and *y& nj^ifl), it is hardly possible now
to determine with absolute certainty,1 but probably the common
version is sufficiently correct.
The import of these several colours is to be gathered from the
associations in which they appear. Blue, as the colour Import of ^j.
of the heaven, reflected in the sea, would naturally sug- ours to be in
gest that which is heavenly, holy, and divine. Hence their associa-
it was appropriate that the robe of the ephod was made tion*
wholly of blue (Exod. xxviii, 31; xxxix, 22), and the breastplate
was connected with it by blue cords (ver. 28). It was also by a
blue cord or ribbon that the golden plate inscribed
Blue
"Holiness to Jehovah" was attached to the high
priest's mitre (ver. 31). The loops of the tabernacle curtains were
of this colour (Exod. xxvi, 4), and the children of Israel were com
manded to place blue ribbons as badges upon the borders of their
garments (Num. xv, 37-41) as if to remind them that they were
children of the heavenly King, and were under the responsibility of
having received from him commandments and revelations. Hence,
too, it was appropriate that a blue cloth was spread over the holiest
things of the tabernacle when they were arranged for journeying
forward (Num. iv, 6, 7, 11, 12).
Purple and scarlet, so often mentioned in connexion with the
dress of kings, have very naturally been regarded as purple and
symbolical of royalty and majesty (Judg. viii, 26 ; Esther scarlet.
1 See Bahr's section on the Beschaffenheit der Farben in his chapter on Die Farben
nnd Bildwerke der Cultus-Statte, Symbolik, vol. i (new ed.), pp. 331-337. See also
Atwater, Sacred Tabernacle of the Hebrews, pp. 209-224, and the various biblical dic~
tionaries and cyclopaedias, under the word Colours. Josephus' explanation of the im
port of these colours (Ant., iii, 7, sec. 7) is more fanciful than authoritative or satis
factory.
20
302 SPECIAL IIERMENEUTICS.
viii, 15; Dan. v, 7; Nan. ii, 3). Both these colours, along with
blue, appeared upon the curtains of the tabernacle (Exod. xxvi, 1)
and upon the veil that separated the holy place from the most holy
(Exod. xxvi, 31). A scarlet cloth covered the holy vessels which
were placed upon the table of showbread, and a purple cloth the
altar of burnt offerings (Num. iv, 8, 13).
White is, pre-eminently, the colour of purity and righteousness.
The Hebrew word for fine linen, or byssus (K>CJ>), of
White.
which the covering and veil and curtains of the taber
nacle were partly made (Exod. xxvi, 1, 31, 36) is from a root which
signifies whiteness, or to be white. It wTas also largely used in the
vestments of the high priest (Exod. xxviii, 5, 6, 8, 15, 39). Of
kindred signification is the Hebrew word p2, white linen, in which
the Levitical singers were arrayed (2 Chron. v, 12). With these
white garments of the priests and Levites (comp. Psa. cxxxii, 9)
we naturally associate the raiment " white as the light " in which
the transfigured Christ appeared (Matt, xvii, 2; Mark ix, 3), the
apparel of the angels (Matt, xxviii, 3; John xx, 12; Acts i, 10), the
white robes of the glorified (Rev. vii, 9), and the fine linen bright
and pure, symbolic of " the righteous acts of the saints " (Rev. xix,
8), which is the ornamental vesture of the wife of the Lamb. Also,
as characterizing the horses of victorious warriors (Zech. i, 8; vi,
3; Rev. vi, 2; xix, 11), and the throne of judgment (Rev. xx, 11),
white may represent victorious royalty and power.
Black, as being the opposite of white, would easily become asso
ciated with that which is evil, as mourning (Jer. xiv, 2),
Black and Red.
pestilence, and tamine (Rev. vi, 5, 6). Red is naturally
associated with war and bloodshed, as the armour of the armed
warrior is suggestive of tumult and garments rolled in blood (Isa.
ix, 5; Nah. ii, 3). But in any attempt to explain the symbolism
of a particular colour the interpreter should guard against pressing
the matter to an unwarranted extreme. The most prudent and
learned exegetes have reasonably doubted whether the different
colours of the horses seen in Zechariah's first vision (Zech. i, 8)
should be construed as having each a definite symbolical signifi
cance. The several colours of the curtains of the tabernacle ap
pear to have been somewhat promiscuously blended together
(Exod. xxvi, 1, 31), and when thus used they served probably
for beauty and adornment rather than for separate and specific
symbolical import. Only as an interpreter is able to show from
parallel usage, analogy and inherent propriety, that a given colour
is used symbolically, will his exposition be entitled to command
assent.
SYMBOLISM OF METALS. 303
The same thing, substantially, may be said of the symbolical im
port of metals. No specific significance should be symbolical im-
sought in each separate metal or precious stone, for any ^s°fMheetpar^
attempt to point out such significancy is apt to run into and jewels,
various freaks of fancy.1 But the pure gold with which the ark,
mercyseat, cherubim, altar of incense, table, and candlestick, were
either overlaid or entirely constructed (Exod. xxv), might very ap
propriately symbolize the light and splendour of God as he dwells
in his holy temple. The altar of burntofferings was overlaid with
brass or copper (Exod. xxvii, 2), an inferior metal. The pillars of
the court were also made of this material (Exod. xxvii, 10). The
sockets of the tabernacle boards, and the hooks and joinings of the
pillars, were of silver (Exod. xxvi, 19; xxvii, 10). Outside of any
attempt to trace a mystic meaning in each of these metals, it may
be enough to say, in general, that gold, as being the more costly,
would appropriately be used in constructing the holiest things of
the inner sanctuary. Brass would, accordingly, be more appropri
ate for the things of the outer court, and silver, intermediate be
tween the two, would naturally serve, to some extent, in both. The
great image of Nebuchadnezzar's dream combined gold, silver,
brass, iron, and clay (Dan. ii, 32, 33). The power, strength, and
glory of the Babylonian monarchy, as represented in the regal
splendour of the king, Nebuchadnezzar, was represented by the
golden head (verses 37 and 38). The silver denoted an inferior
kingdom. The iron denoted, especially, the strength of the fourth
kingdom, " inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and crushes every
thing" (ver. 40). So the different metals used in the construction
of the tabernacle were expressive of the relative sanctity of its
different parts. The twelve precious stones in the high priest's
breastplate, bearing the names of the twelve tribes of Israel (Exod.
xxviii, 15-21), and the twelve foundations of Jerusalem the golden
(Rev. xxi, 14), may symbolize God's own elect as his precious jew
els; but an effort to tell which tribe, or which apostle, was desig
nated by each particular jewel, would lead the interpreter into
unauthorized speculations, more likely to bewilder and confuse than
to furnish any valuable lesson.
1 See the third chapter of Bahr's Symbolik (vol. i, New ed.) on Das Baumaterial der
Cultus-Stiitte, pp. 283-330, in which not a little of valuable suggestion is presented
along with much that is too fanciful to be safely accepted. See also Atwater, Sacred
Tabernacle of the Hebrews, pp. 225-232.
304 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
CHAPTER XIII.
DREAMS AND PROPHETIC ECSTASY.
IN an intelligent exposition of the prophetic portions of Holy Scrip-
Methods of di- ture, the methods and forms by which God communi-
vine revelation. cated supernatural revelations to men become questions
of fundamental importance. Dreams, night visions, and states of
spiritual ecstacy are mentioned as forms and conditions under which
men received such revelations. In Num. xii, 6, it is written: "If
there be a prophet among you, I, Jehovah, will make myself known
to him in the vision; in the dream will I speak within him."1 The
open and visible manner in which Jehovah revealed himself to Mo
ses is then (verses 7, 8) contrasted with ordinary visions, showing
that Moses was honoured above all prophets in the intimacy of his
communion with God. The appearance (n^DJjl, form, semblance,
ver. 8) of Jehovah which Moses was permitted to behold was some
thing far above what other holy seers beheld (comp. Deut. xxxiv,
12). This appearance "was not the essential nature of God, his
unveiled glory, for this no mortal man can see (Exod. xxxiii, 18),
but a form which manifested the invisible God to the eye of man
in a clearly discernible mode, and which was essentially different,
not only from the visional sight of God in the form of a man
(Ezek. i, 26; Dan. vii, 9, 13), but also from the appearances of God
in the outward world of the senses in the person and form of the
angel of Jehovah, and stood in the same relation to these two forms
of revelation, so far as directness and clearness were concerned, as
the sight of a person in a dream to that of the actual figure of the
person himself. God talked with Moses without figure, in the
clear distinctness of a spiritual communication, whereas to the
prophets he only revealed himself through the medium of ecstacy
or dream."2
The dream is noticeably prominent among the earlier forms of
The Dreams of receiving divine revelations, but becomes less frequent
scripture. a^ a }ater period. The most remarkable instances of
dreams recorded in the Scriptures are those of Abimelech (Gen. xx,
'13, within him, not unto him, as the common version. "In him" says Keil," in
asmuch as a revelation in a dream fell within the inner sphere of the soul life." —
Commentary on the Pentateuch, in loco. Compare Job xixiii, 14-lY.
2 Keil's Commentary on Num. xii, 8.
PROPHETIC DREAMS. 305
3-7), Jacob at Bethel (xxviii, 12), Laban in Mt. Gilead (xxxi, 24),
Joseph respecting the sheaves and the luminaries (xxxvii, 5-10), the
butler and the baker (xl, 5-19), Pharaoh (xli, 1-32), the Midianite
(Judg. vii, 13-15), Solomon (1 Kings iii, 5; ix, 2), Nebuchadnezzar
(Dan. ii and iv), Daniel (Dan. vii, 1), Joseph (Matt, i, 20; ii, 13, 19),
and the Magi from the East (Matt, ii, 12). The "night vision"
appears to have been of essentially the same nature as the dream
(comp. Dan. ii, 19; vii, 1; Acts xvi, 9; xviii, 9; xxvii, 23).
It is manifest that in man's interior nature there exist powers
and latent possibilities which only extraordinary occa- ,
r . • • Dreams evince
sions or peculiar conditions serve to display. And these latent powers
facts it becomes the interpreter to note. These latent °
powers are occasionally seen in cases of disordered mental action
and insanity. The phenomena of somnambulism and clairvoyance
also exhibit the same. And ordinary dreams, considered as abnor
mal operations of the perceptive faculties uncontrolled by the judg
ment and the will, are often of a striking and impressive character.
The dreams of Joseph, of the butler and baker, and of the Midian
ite, are not represented as divine or supernatural revelations. In
numerable instances equally striking have occurred to other men.
But at the same time, all such impressive dreams bring out into
partial manifestation latent potencies of the human soul which may
well have served in the communication of divine revelations to
men. "The deep of man's internal nature," observes Delitzsch,
" into which in sleep he sinks back, conceals far more than is mani
fest to himself. It has been a fundamental error of most psycholo
gists hitherto to make the soul extend only so far as its conscious
ness extends; it embraces, as is now always acknowledged, a far
greater abundance of powers and relations than can commonly ap
pear in its consciousness. To this abundance pertains, moreover,
the faculty of foreboding, that leads and warns a man without con
scious motive, and anticipates the future — a faculty which, in the
state of sleep, wherein the outer senses are fettered, is frequently
unbound, and looms in the remoteness of the future." '
The profound and far-reaching significance of some prophetic
dreams may be seen in that of Jacob at Bethel (Gen. Jacob's dream
xxviii, 10-22). This son of Isaac was guilty of grave atBetnel-
wrongs, but in his quiet and thoughful soul there was a hiding of
power, a susceptibility for divine things, a spiritual insight and
longing that made him a fitter person than Esau to lead in the de
velopment of the chosen nation. He appears to have passed the
1 Biblical Psychology, English translation (Edinb., 1879), p. 330. See his whole
section on Sleeping, Waking, and Dreaming, from which the above extract is taken.
306 SPECIAL IIERMENEUTICS.
night in the open field near the ancient town of Luz (vcr. 19).
Before darkness covered him he, doubtless, like Abraham in that
same place long before (Gen. xiii, 14), looked northward, and
southward, and eastward, and westward, and saw afar the hills
and mountains towering up like a stairway into heaven, and this
view may have been, in part, a psychological preparation for his
dream. For, falling asleep, he beheld a ladder or stairway (D?D),
perhaps a gigantic staircase composed of piles of mountains placed
one upon another so as to look like a wondrous highway of passage
to the skies. The main points of his dream fall under four BEHOLDS,
three of vision — "behold, a ladder," "behold, angels of God," "be
hold, Jehovah" (verses 12, 13) — and one of promise — "behold, I
am with thee " (ver. 15). These words imply an intense impres-
siveness in the whole revelation. It was a night vision by means of
which the great future of Jacob and his seed was set forth in sym
bol and in promise. For Jacob at the bottom of the ladder, Jeho
vah at the top, and angels ascending and descending, form alto
gether a complex symbol full of profound suggestions. It indicated
at least four things: (1) There is a way opened between earth and
heaven by which spirits may ascend to God. (2) The ministry
of angels. (3) The mystery of the incarnation: for the ladder
was a symbol of the Son of man, the way (^ ddog, John xiv, 4, 6;
Heb. ix, 8) into the holiest heaven, the Mediator iipon whom, as the
sole ground and basis of all possibility of grace, the angels of God
ascend and descend to minister to the heirs of salvation (John i, 52).
In that mystery of grace Jehovah himself reaches down as from
the top of the ladder, and lays hold upon this son of Abraham and
all his spiritual seed, and lifts them up to heaven. (4) The prom
ise, in connexion with the vision (verses 13-15), emphasized the
wonderful providence of God, who stood (ver. 13) gazing down
upon this lonely, helpless man, and making gracious provision for
him and his posterity.
We need not assume that Jacob understood the far-reaching im
port of that dream, but it led him to make a holy vow, and, doubt
less, it was often afterward the subject of his quiet meditations.
It could not fail to impress him with the conviction that he was
a special object of Jehovah's care, and of the ministry of angels.
It is noticeable that the record of the prophetic dreams of the
interpretation heathen, as, for example, those of Pharaoh and his but-
of dreams. jer an(j kaker> of tne Midianite, and of Nebuchadnezzar,
are accompanied by an ample explanation. We observe also that
the dreams of Joseph and of Pharaoh were double, or repeated under
different forms. Joseph's first dream was a vision of sheaves in
PROPHETIC ECSTASY. 307
the harvest field; his second, of the sun, moon, and eleven stars
(Gen. xxxvii, 5-11). They both conveyed the same prognostica
tion, and were so far understood by his brethren and his father as
to excite the envy of the former and draw the serious attention of
the latter. Joseph explains the two dreams of Pharaoh as one
(Gen. xli, 25), and declared that the repetition of the _
v in r Repetition of
dream to Pharaoh twice was because the word was dreams and
established from God, and God was hastening to ac- vlslons-
complish it (ver. 32). Here is a hint for the interpretation of other
dreams and visions. Daniel's dream-vision of the four beasts out
of the sea (Dan. vii) is, in substance, a repetition of Nebuchadnez
zar's dream of the great image, and the visions of the eighth and
eleventh chapters, go partly over the same ground again. God
thus repeats his revelations under various forms, and thereby de
notes their certainty as the determinate purposes of his will. Many
visions of the Apocalypse are also, apparently, symbols of the same
events, or else move so largely over the same field as to warrant
the belief that they, too, are repetitions, under different forms, of
things that were shortly to come to pass, and the certainty of
which was fixed in the purposes of God.
But dreams, we observed, were rather the earlier and lower
forms of divine revelation. A higher form was that _
, . . ,.,,.. Prophetic eo-
of prophetic ecstasy, in which the spirit of the seer stasy or vision-
became possessed of the Spirit of God, and, while yet ** trance-
retaining its human consciousness, and susceptible of human emo
tion, was rapt away into visions of the Almighty and made cogni
zant of words and things which no mortal could naturally per
ceive. In 2 Sam. vii, 4-17, we have the record of "a word of
Jehovah " that came to Nathan in a night vision (see ver. 1 7) and
was communicated to David. It contained the prophecy and prom
ise that his kingdom and throne should be established forever. It
was for David an impressive oracle, and he "went and sat down
before Jehovah" (ver. 18), and wondered and worshipped. Such
wonder and worship were probably, at that or some other time, a
means of inducing the psychological condition and spiritual ecstasy
in which the second psalm was composed. David becomes a seer
and prophet. " The Spirit of Jehovah spoke within him, and his
word was upon his tongue " (2 Sam. xxiii, 2). He is lifted into vis
ional ecstasy, in which the substance of Nathan's prophecy takes a
new and higher form, transcending all earthly royalty and power.
He sees Jehovah enthroning his Anointed (irPEto, his Messiah) upon
Zion, the mountain of his holiness (Psa. ii, 2, 6). The nations rage
against him, and struggle to cast off his authority, but they are
308 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
utterly discomfited by him who " sitteth in the heavens," and to
whom the nations are given for an inheritance. Thus, the second
psalm is seen to be no mere historical ode, composed upon the regal
inauguration of David or Solomon, or any other earthly prince.
A greater than either David or Solomon arose in the psalmist's
vision. For he is clearly styled the Messiah, the Son of Jehovah;
the kings and judges of the earth are counselled to kiss him, that
they may not perish, and all who put their trust in him are
pronounced blessed. And it is only as the interpreter attains a
vivid apprehension of the power of such ecstasy that he can
properly perceive or explain the import of any Messianic prophecy.
Another illustration of the prophetical ecstasy may be seen in
Ezetiei's Rap- Ezekiel's statements. At the beginning of his prophe-
ture- cies he uses four different expressions to indicate the
form and power in which he received revelations (Ezek. i, 1, 3).
The heavens were opened, visions of God were seen, the word of
Jehovah came with great force,1 and the hand of Jehovah was laid
upon him. Allowing for whatever of the poetical element these
expressions contain, it remains evident that the prophet experienced
a mighty interworking of human and superhuman powers. The
visions of God caused him to fall upon his face (ver. 28), and, anon,
the Spirit lifted him up upon his feet (chap, ii, 1, 2). At another
time the form of a hand reached forth and took him by a lock of
his head, and transported him in the visions of God to Jerusalem
(Ezek. viii, 3). From this it would appear that for a mortal man
to receive consciously a revelation from the Infinite Spirit two
things are essential. The human spirit must become divinely ex
alted, or rapt away from its ordinary life and operations, and the
Divine Spirit must so take possession of its energies, and quicken
them into supersensual perception, that they become temporary
organs of the Infinite. The whole process is manifestly a divine-
human, or theandric operation. And yet, through it all, the human
spirit retains its normal consciousness and knows the vision is
divine.
The same things appear also in the visions of Daniel. He be-
other examples holds the prophetic symbols, he hears the words of the
of Ecstasy. angel interpreter Gabriel, and he too falls upon his
face, overwhelmed with the deep sleep that stupifies the active
powers of the mind, and puts him in full possession of the reveal
ing angel (Dan. viii, 17, 18). The touch of the angel lifts him into
the ecstasy in which he sees and hears the heavenly word. This
1 Heb. nTl rV!"l, coming came, the Hebrew idiomatic way of giving emphasis to a
thought by repeating the verb, and using its absolute infinitive form.
PROPHETIC ECSTASY. 80S
peculiar form of prophetic ecstasy appears to have differed from
the "dream and visions of his head upon his bed" (Dan. vii, 1), in
that this latter seized him during the slumbers of the night, where
as the other came upon him during his waking consciousness, and
probably while in the act of prayer (comp. chap, ix, 21). The ecs
tasy which came upon Peter on the housetop came in connexion
with his praying and a sense of great hunger (Acts x, 9, 10). The
act of prayer was a spiritual preparation, and the hunger fur
nished a physical and psychical condition, by means of which the
form of the vision and the command to slay and eat became the
more impressive. Paul's similar ecstasy in the temple at Jerusa
lem was preceded by prayer (Acts xxii, 17), and his experience of
these " visions and revelations of God," narrated in 2 Cor. xii, 1-4,
was in such a transcendent rapture of soul that he knew not
whether he were in the body or out of the body. That is, he knew
not whether his whole person had been rapt away in visions of God,
like Ezekiel (viii, 3), or whether merely the spirit had been elevated
into visional ecstasy. His consciousness in this matter seems to
have been overcome by the excessive greatness (v-nepfiohf)) of the
revelations (ver. 7). And probably had Ezekiel been called upon
to say whether his rapture to Jerusalem were in the body or out of
the body, he would have answered as uncertainly as Paul.
The prophetic ecstasy, of which the above are notable examples,
was evidently a spiritual sight seeing,1 a supernatural illumination,
in which the natural eye was either closed (comp. Num. xxiv, 3, 4)
or suspended from its ordinary functions, and the inner sense*
vividly grasped the scene that was presented, or the divine word
which was revealed. We need not refine so far as, with Delitzsch,.
to classify this divine ecstasy into three forms, as mystic, prophetic,
and charismatic. All ecstasy is mystic, and charismatic ecstasy
may have been prophetic ; but we may still, with him, define pro
phetic ecstasy as consisting essentially in this, that the human spirit
is seized and compassed by the Divine Spirit, which searcheth all
things, even the deep things of God, and seized with such uplifting
energy that, being averted from its ordinary conditions of limita
tion in the body, it becomes altogether a seeing eye, a hearing ear,
a perceiving sense, that takes most vivid cognizance of things in
time or eternity, according as they are presented by the power and
wisdom of God."
The grandest form of prophetic ecstasy is that in which the vision
1 For this reason the Old Testament prophet is often called the seer (H^l and
He was a beholder of visions from the Almighty.
* Comp. Delitzsch, Biblical Psychology, p. 421.
310 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
and word (i?^) of Jehovah appear to have become so absorbed
The prophet by the prophet's heaven-lit soul that he himself person-
lost in God. a£es £]ie Holy One, and speaks in Jehovah's name. So
we understand the later chapters of Isaiah, where the person of the
prophet sinks comparatively out of sight, and Jehovah announces
himself as the speaker. So, too, Zechariah announces the word of
Jehovah touching "the flock of slaughter" Zech. xi, 4), but as he
proceeds with the divine oracle, he seems to lose the consciousness
of his own distinct personality, and to speak in the name and per
son of his Lord (vers. 10-14). l
A later and mysterious manifestation of spiritual ecstasy appears
in the New Testament glossolaly, or gift of speaking
Glossolaly, or •> '
speaking with with tongues. Among the signs to follow those who
tongues. should believe through the apostles' preaching, a speak
ing with "new2 tongues" was specified (Mark xvi, 17); and the dis
ciples were commanded by Jesus to tarry in the city of Jerusalem
until they were clothed with power from on high (Luke xxiv, 49).
On the day of Pentecost " there came suddenly from heaven a sound
as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they
were sitting, and there appeared unto them self -distributing (dia/je-
Q^opevcu) tongues as of fire, and it sat upon each one of them, and
they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began to speak
with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance" (Acts ii, 3, 4).
A like display was manifest at the conversion of Cornelius (Acts
x, 46), and when, after their baptism, Paul laid his hands upon the
twelve disciples of John the Baptist whom he found at Ephesus
(Acts xix, 6). But the most extensive treatment of the subject is
found in 1 Cor. xiv, with which are to be compared also the inci
dental references in chaps, xii, 10, 28, and xiii, 1. From this Cor
inthian epistle it appears, (1) that it was a supernatural gift, a
4ivine xdpiopa, that marked with a measure of novelty the first
outgoings of the Gospel of Christ. (2) There were different kinds
(yivr], sorts, classes, 1 Cor. xii, 10) of tongues. (3) The speaking
with tongues was a speaking unto God rather than man (xiv, 2) and
an utterance of mysteries, which edified the subjective spirit of the
1 " The prophet himself sometimes speaks from God," observes Delitzsch, " some
times God himself speaks from the prophet ; sometimes the divine Ego asserts itself
with a supreme power that absorbs all other, sometimes the human in the entire ful
ness of sanctified humanity; but in both cases it is the personality of the prophet, in
the totality of its pneumatico-psychical powers, which becomes the more active or pas
sive organ of God." — Biblical Psychology, p. 421.
2 The word ttaivalc;, new, is omitted by several of the chief MS. authorities for the
close of Mark's Gospel. In Westcott and Hort's edition of the Greek Testament the
word is placed in the margin, but omitted from the text.
SPEAKING WITH TONGUES. 31t
speaker (ver. 4), but was unintelligible to the common understand
ing (vovg, ver. 14). (4) The speaking with tongues took the form
of worship, and manifested itself in prayer, singing, and thanks
giving (vers. 14-16). (5) Though edifying to the speaker, it did
not tend to edify the Church unless one gifted with the interpreta
tion of tongues, either the speaker himself or another, explained
what was uttered. (6) It was a sign to the unbeliever, accompanied
probably with such evidences of the supernatural as, at first, to im
press the hearer with a sense of awe, but calculated on the whole
to lead such as had no sympathy with the Gospel to say that these
speakers were either mad or filled with wine (ver. 23 ; comp. Acts
ii, 13). (7) It was a gift for which one might thank God (ver. 18),
and not to be forbidden in the Church (ver. 39), but was to be cov
eted less than other charisms, and, especially, less than the gift of
prophesying unto the edifying of the Church (vers. 1, 5, 19); for
" greater is he who prophesies than he who speaks with tongues,
except he interpret."
Such is substantially what Paul says of this remarkable gift. On
the day of Pentecost it took the form of appropriating „
J ri i & The Pentecost-
the various dialects of the hearers, so as to fill them all ai Giossoiaiy
with amazement and wonder (Acts ii, 5-12). This, how- symboUcal-
ever, appears to have been an exceptional manifestation, perhaps a
miraculous exhibition, for a symbolic purpose, of all the kinds of
tongues (comp. 1 Cor. xii, 10), which on other occasions were separ
ate and individually distinct. Certainly the speaking with tongues
in the Corinthian church was accompanied by no such effect upon
the hearers as on the day of Pentecost. The once prevalent notion
that this glossolaly was a supernatural gift, by which the first
preachers of the Gospel were enabled to proclaim the word of life
in the various languages of foreign nations, has little in its favour.
There is no intimation, outside of the miracle of Pentecost, that
this gift ever served such a purpose. And that miracle, whatever
its real nature, seems rather like a symbolical sign, signifying that
the confusion of tongues, which came as a curse at Babel, should be
counteracted and abolished by the Gospel of the new life, then
just breaking in heavenly charismatic power upon the world.1
That evangelic word was destined to become potent in all the lan
guages of men, and by the living voice of preachers, and through
the written volume, utter its heavenly messages to the nations, un
til all should know the Lord.
1 Poena linguarum dispersit homines (Gen. xi); donum linguarum disperses in unam
populum collegit (The punishment of tongues scattered men abroad; the gift of tongues
gathered the dispersed into one people). — Grotius, Annotations on Acts, ii, 3.
312 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
The exact nature of the New Testament glossolaly it is probably
now impossible to define. It may have been, in some instances, a
soul-ecstasy, in which men worshipped strangely, and lost control of
a part of their faculties. Something like this was experienced by
Giossoiai a ^au^ w^en ne met ^e band of prophets (1 Sam. x, 9-12),
mysterious and when, at a later time, he prophesied before Samuel,
and fell down under the power of the Spirit of God
(1 Sam. xix, 23, 24). At other times it may have been a condition
of receiving visions and revelations of God, as when Paul was
caught up to paradise, " and heard unspeakable words, which it is
not lawful for a man to utter " (2 Cor. xii, 4). Possibly in that heav
enly rapture this apostle received his conception of " the tongues of
the angels" (1 Cor. xiii, I).1 But whatever its real nature, it was
essentially an ecstatic speaking of mysteries (1 Cor. xiv, 2), involv
ing such a divine communion with God as lifted the spirit of the
rapt believer into the realm of the unseen and eternal, and pro
duced in him an awe-inspiring sense of supernatural exaltation.2
1 According to Stanley, the gift of tongues " was a trance or ecstasy, which, in mo
ments of great religious fervour, especially at the moment of conversion, seized the
early believers ; and this fervour vented itself in expressions of thanksgiving, in frag
ments of psalmody or hymnody and prayer, which to the speaker himself conveyed an
irresistible sense of communion with God, and to the bystander an impression of
some extraordinary manifestation of power, but not necessarily any instruction or
teaching, and sometimes even having the appearance of wild excitement, like that of
madness or intoxication. It was the most emphatic sign to each individual believer
that a power mightier than his own was come into the world ; and in those who, like
the Apostle Paul, possessed this gift in a high degree, ' speaking with tongues more
than they all,' it would, when combined with the other more remarkable gifts which
he possessed, form a fitting mood for the reception of ' God's secrets ' (^var^fnu), and
of ' unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for man to utter,' ' being caught into
the third heaven,' and into ' Paradise.' And thus the nearest written example of
this gift is that exhibited in the abrupt style and the strange visions of the Apoca
lypse, in which, almost in the words of St. Paul, the prophet is described as being ' in
the Spirit on the Lord's day,' and ' hearing a voice as of a trumpet,' and seeing ' a
door open in heaven,' and ' a throne set in heaven,' and ' the New Jerusalem,' ' the
river of life,' and ' the tree of life.' " — Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians, pp.
246, 247. London, 1876.
a See Rossteuscher, Gabe der Sprachen (Marb., 1850); Hilgenfeld, Glossolalie in der
alten Kirche (Lpz., 1850); Neander, Planting and Training of the Christian Church
(New ed., Xcw York, 1 864), Book I, chap, i ; Schaff, Hist, of the Christian Church
(New ed., New York, 1882), vol. i, pp. 230-242; Stanley, St. Paul's Epistles to the
Corinthians, Introductory Dissertation to chap, xiv ; Kling on the Corinthians (in
Lange's Biblework), pp. 282-301, Amer. ed., translated and enlarged by Dr. Poor;
Keim, article Zungenreden, in Herzog's Real-Encyclopadie (vol. xviii, ed. Gotha,
1864); Plumptre's article on the Gift of Tongues in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible.
BIBLICAL PROPHECY. 313
CHAPTER XIV.
PROPHECY AND ITS INTERPRETATION.
A THOEOUGH interpretation of the prophetic portions of the holy
Scripture is largely dependent upon a mastery of the principles
and laws of figurative language, and of types and symbols. It re
quires also some acquaintance with the nature of vision-seeing ec-
stacy and dreams. The foregoing chapters have, therefore, been a
necessary preparation for an intelligent study of those more ab
struse writings, which have continuously exercised the most gifted
minds of the Church, and yet have been most variously interpreted.
Inspired oracles, forecasting the future, wrought out with every
variety of figurative speech, and often embodied in
type and symbol, are interspersed throughout the entire scope of scrip-
Scriptures, and constitute a uniting bond between the ture Prophecy-
Old Testament and the New. The first great prophecy was uttered
in Paradise, where man originally sinned and first felt the need of
a Redeemer. It was repeated in many forms and portions as years
and centuries passed. The Christ of God, the mighty Prophet,
Priest, and King, was its loftiest theme; but it also dealt so copi
ously with all man's relations to God and to the world, with human
hopes and fears, with civil governments and national responsibili
ties, with divine laws and purposes, that its written records are a
textbook of divine counsel for all time.1
Prophesying, according to the Scriptures, is not primarily a pre
diction of future events. The Hebrew word for prophet,
1 The subjects of prophecy varied. Whilst it was all directed to one general de
sign, in the evidence and support of religion, there was a diversity in the adminis
tration of the Spirit in respect of that design. In Paradise, it gave the first hope of
a Redeemer. After the deluge, it established the peace of the natural world. In
Abraham it founded the double covenant of Canaan and the Gospel. In the age of
>the law, it spoke of the second prophet, and foreshadowed, in types, the Christian
doctrine, but foretold most largely the future fate of the selected people, who were
placed under that preparatory dispensation. In the time of David it revealed the
Gospel kingdom, with the promise of the temporal. In the days of the later prophets
it presignified the changes of the Mosaic covenant, embraced the history of the chief
pagan kingdoms, and completed the annunciation of the Messiah and his work of
redemption. After the captivity, it gave a last and more urgent information of the
approaching advent of the Gospel. — Davison, Discourses on Prophecy, pp. 365, 356.
Oxford, 1834.
314 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
signifies one who speaks under the pressure of a divine fervour,1
prophecy not an^ tue Prophet is especially to be regarded as one who
merely predic- bears a divine message, and acts as the spokesman of
tion, but utter- ^i » i • i ^ A j- • i • ± -i t
ance of God's tne Almighty. Aaron was divinely appointed as the
truth. spokesman of Moses, to repeat God's word from his
mouth (Exod. iv, 16), and thereby was Moses made as God to
Pharaoh, and Aaron served as his prophet (X^J, Exod. vii, 1).
Hence the prophet is the announcer of a divine message, and that
message may refer to the past, the present, or the future. It may
be a revelation, a warning, a rebuke, an exhortation, a promise, or
a prediction. The bearer of such a message is appropriately called
a "man of God" (1 Kings xiii, 1 ; 2 Kings iv, 7, 9), and a "man of
the Spirit " (Hos. ix, 7). It is important also to observe that a very
large proportion of the Old Testament prophetical books consists
of warning, expostulation, and rebuke ; and there are intimations
of many unwritten prophecies of this character. "The prophets,"
says Fairbairn, " were in a peculiar sense the spiritual watchmen of
Judah and Israel, the representatives of divine truth and holiness,
whose part it was to keep a wakeful and jealous eye upon the man
ners of the times, to detect and reprove the symptoms of defection
which appeared, and by every means in their power foster and en
courage the spirit of real godliness. And such pre-eminently was
Elijah, who is therefore taken in the Scripture as the type of the
whole prophetical order in the earlier stages of its development ; a
man of heroic energy of action rather than of prolific thought and
elevating discourse. The words he spoke were few, but they were
words spoken as from the secret place of thunder, and seemed more
like decrees issuing from the presence of the Eternal than the utter
ances of one of like passions with those whom he addressed."2
1 Gesenius derives the word from the root X2J, equivalent to JOJ, to boil forth; to
yush out ; to flow, as a fountain. Hence the idea of one upon whom the vision-seeing
ecstacy falls ; or of one who is borne along and carried aloft by a supernatural in
spiration (VTTO TrvEv^aroq ayiov tyspofjevoi; 2 Pet. i, 21). "Hebrew prophecy, like the
Hebrew people, stands without parallel in the history of the world. Other nations
have had their oracles, diviners, augurs, soothsayers, necromancers. The Hebrews
alone have possessed prophets and a prophetic literature. It is useless, therefore, to
go to the manticism of the heathen to get light as to the nature of Hebrew prophecy.
To follow the rabbis of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is just as vain. The
only reliable sources of information on the subject are the Scriptures of the Old and
New Testaments." — M'Call, in Aids to Faith, p. 9*7. On the distinction between the
prophet (NS33) and the seer (n{«h, and nth) see Smith, Prophecy a Preparation for
Christ (Bampton Lectures), pp. 68-86. Boston, 1870.
2 Prophecy, viewed in respect to its Distinctive Nature, Special Functions, and
Proper Interpretation, p. 37. N. Y., 1866. Philippi (Commentary on Romans xii, 6)
observes that "the New Testament idea of the prophetic office is essentially identical
PROPHECY NOT HISTORY. 315
It is principally those portions of the prophetic Scriptures which
forecast the future that call for special hermeneutics. only prophecies
Being exceptional in their character, they demand caii^o'r social
exceptional study and care in interpretation. Other hermeneutics.
prophecies, consisting mainly of rebuke, expostulation, or warning,
are so readily apprehended by the common mind as to need no
extended explanation. Avoiding, on the one side, the extreme lit-
eralistic error that the biblical predictions are " history written be
forehand," and on the other, the rationalistic notions that they are
either happy guesses of the probable outcome of impending events,
or else a peculiar portraiture of them after they had taken place
(vaticinium post eventuiri), we accept these predictions as divine
oracles of events that were subsequently to come to pass, but so
expressed in figure and symbol as to demand great care on the part
of him who would understand and interpret them. When we deny
that prophecy is a history of events before they come to pass, we
mean to say that prophecy is in no proper sense history. _
. , r, / , J History and pre-
History is the record of what has already occurred; diction should
prediction is a foretelling of what is to come, and near
ly always in some form of statement or revelation that takes it out
side of the line of literal narrative. There are cases, indeed, where
the prediction is a specific declaration of incidents of the simplest
character; as when Samuel foretold to Saul the particular events
that would befall him on his return to Gibeah (1 Sam. x, 3-6) ; but
it is misleading to call even such predictions a history of future
events, for it is a confusion < * the proper usage of words. There
is an element of mystery about all predictions, and those of greatest
moment in the Scriptures are clothed in a symbolic drapery.1
with that of the Old Testament. Prophets are men who, inspired by the Spirit of
God, and impelled to theopneustic discourse, partly remove the veil from the future
(Rev. i, 3 ; xxii, 7, 10 ; John xi, 51 ; Acts xi, 27, 28 ; xxi, 10, 11. Comp. 1 Pet. i, 10) —
partly make known concealed facts of the present, either in discovering the secret
counsel and will of God (Luke i, 67 ; Acts xiii, 1 ; Eph. Hi, 5), or in disclosing the hid
den thoughts of man (1 Cor. xiv, 24, 25), and dragging into light his unknown deeds
(Matt, xxvi, 68; Mark xiv, 65; Luke xxii, 64; John iv, 19) — partly dispense to their
hearers instruction, comfort, exhortation, in animated, powerfully impassioned lan
guage, going far beyond the wonted limits of the capacity for teaching, which, although
spiritual, still confines itself within the forms of reason (Matt, vii, 28, 29; Luke
xxiv, 19; John vii, 40; Acts xv, 32; 1 Cor. xiv, 3, 4, 31)."
1 Fairbairn has an able chapter on " The place of prophecy in history, and the
organic connexion of the one with the other" (Prophecy, pp. 33-53). He traces the
beginning and growth of prophecy in the sacred history, showing how "it appears
somewhat like a river, small in its beginnings, and though still proceeding, yet often
losing itself for ages under ground, then bursting forth anew with increased volume,
and at last rising into a swollen stream — greatest by far when it has come within
316 SPECIAL 1IERMEXEUTICS.
In order to a proper interpretation of prophecy three things are
Fundamental to ^e particularly studied, (1) the organic relations and
principles. inter-dependence of the principal predictions on record ;
(2) the usage and import of figures and symbols; and (3) analysis
and comparison of similar prophecies, especially such as have been
divinely interpreted, and such as have been clearly fulfilled.
1. ORGANIC RELATIONS OF PROPHECY.
In studying the general structure and organic relations of the
great prophecies, it will be seen that they are first presented in
broad and bold outline, and subsequently expanded in their minor
details. Thus the first great prophecy on record (Gen. iii, 15) is a
brief but far-reaching announcement of the long conflict between
good and evil, as these opposing principles, with all their forces,
connect themselves with the Promised Seed of the woman on the
progressive one side, and the old serpent, the devil, oa the other,
character of Tt may -foe sa^c| ^}iat an other prophecies of the Christ
Messianic J r i
prophecy. and the kingdom of God are comprehended in the
protevangelium as in a germ. From this point onward through the
Scripture revelations the successive prophecies sustain a noticeably
progressive character. Varying ideas of the Promised Seed appear
in the prophecy of Noah (Gen. ix, 26, 27), and the repeated prom
ises to Abraham (Gen. xii, 3; xvii, 2-8; xviii, 18). These Mes
sianic predictions became more definite as they were repeatedly
confirmed to Isaac, to Jacob, to Judah, and to the house of David.
They constitute the noblest psalms and the grandest portions of
the Greater and the Lesser Prophets. Taken separately, these dif
ferent predictions are of a fragmentary character; each prophet
prospect of its termination" (p. 33). He observes further (p. 43): "Prophecy, there
fore, being from the very first inseparably linked with the plan of grace unfolded in
Scripture, is, at the same time, the necessary concomitant of sacred history. The two
mutually act and react on each other. Prophecy gives birth to the history ; the his
tory, in turn, as it moves onward to its destined completion, at once fulfils prophecies
already given, and calls forth further revelations. And so far from possessing the
character of an excrescence, or existing merely as an anomaly in the procedure of God
toward men, prophecy cannot even be rightly understood unless viewed in the rela
tion to the order of the divine dispensations, and its actual place in history. . . .
However closely related the two are to each other, they still have their own distinc
tive characteristics and, through these, their respective ends to serve. History is the
occasion of prophecy, but not its measure ; for prophecy rises above history, borne
aloft by wings which carry it far above the present, and which it derives, not from
the past occurrences of which history takes cognizance, but from Him to whom the
future and the past are alike known. It is the communication of so much of his own
supernatural light as he sees fit to let down upon the dark movements of history, to
show whither thev are conducting."
PROPHETIC REPETITION. 317
knew or caught glimpses of the Messianic future only in part, and
he prophesied in part (1 Cor. xiii, 9) ; but when the Christ himself
appeared, and fulfilled the prophecies, then all these fragmentary
parts were seen to form a glorious harmony.1
The oracle of Balaam touching Moab, Edom, Amalek, the Ken-
ites, Asshur, and the power from the side of Chittim T
.r . Repetitions of
(Num. xxiv, 17-24), is the prophetic germ of many oracles against
later oracles against these and similar enemies of the heathen P°wers-
chosen people. Amos long after takes up the prophetic word, and
speaks more fully against Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon,
and Moab, and does not except even Judah and Israel (Amos i
and ii). Compare also Isaiah's burden-prophecies (Nfrp) against
Babylon, Moab, Damascus, Ethiopia, Egypt, Media, Edom, Arabia,
and Tyre (Isa. xiii-xxiii), in which we observe the minatory sen
tence uttered against these heathen powers in great detail. And
as Balaam noticed the affliction of Eber, (i. e., Israel) in connexion
with his last-named hostile power from Chittim (Num. xxiv, 24), so
Isaiah introduces the "burden of the valley of vision" (Isa. xxii, 1)
just before announcing the overthrow of Tyre (Isa. xxiii, 1). Jer
emiah devotes chapters xlvi to li to the announcement of judg
ments upon Egypt, Philistia, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Damascus,
Kedar, Hazor, Elam, and Babylon, and ajnid these utterances of
coming wrath are intimations of Israel's dispersion and sorrow
(comp. chap. 1, 17-20, 33 ; li, 5, 6, 45). Compare also Ezekiel's
seven oracles against Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia, Tyre, Sidon,
and Egypt (Ezek. xxv to xxxii).
In noticeable analogy with the repetition of similar prophecies by
different prophets, is the repetition of the same prophecy by one
and the same prophet.
The vision of the four great beasts, in Dan. vii, is essentially a
repetition of the vision of the great image in chapter ii. Daniel's two
The same four great world-powers are denoted in these /^
prophecies; but, as has often been observed, the imagery compared,
is varied according to the relative standpoint of the king and the
prophet. " As presented to the view of Nebuchadnezzar, the
worldly power was seen only in its external aspect, under the form
of a colossal image possessing the likeness of a man, and in its more
1 In the redemptive system of the Old Testament we see the unfolding germ whose
flower and fruit appear under the New Covenant. The child Israel is trained by the
]>edagogy of prophecy for the manhood of Messianic times. The redemption of the
Jaw and the prophets is realized in him who came to fulfil the law and the prophets.
And thus the Messianic prophecy of the Old Testament may be regarded as the New
Testament in the Old. — Briggs, Messianic Prophecy, p. 63. New York, 1886.
21
818 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
conspicuous parts composed of the shining and precious metals;
while the divine kingdom appeared in the meaner aspect of a stone,
without ornament or beauty, with nothing, indeed, to distinguish it
but its resistless energy and perpetual duration. Daniel's visions,
on the other hand, direct the eye into the interior of things, strip
the earthly kingdoms of their false glory by exhibiting them under
the aspects of wild beasts and nameless monsters (siich as are every
where to be seen in the grotesque sculptures and painted entabla
tures of Babylon), and reserve the human form, in conformity with
its divine, original, and true idea, to stand as the representative of
the kingdom of God, which is composed of the saints of the Most
High, and holds the truth that is destined to prevail over all error
and ungodliness of men." !
So, again, the impressive vision of the ram and the he-goat, in
The little horn Dan. viii, is but a repetition from another standpoint
Md55u?fl5 (Shushan, in Elam, a chief seat of the Medo-Persian
same power monarchy) of the previous vision of the third and fourth
prophetic ^as- beasts. Differences in detail appear according to the
pects. analogy of all such repeated prophecies, but these minor
differences should not be allowed to obscure and obliterate the
great fundamental analogies. Few expositors of any note have
doubted that the little horn of Dan. viii, 9, denoted Antiochus
Epiphanes, the bitter persecutor of the Jews, who "spoiled the
temple, and put a stop to the constant practice of offering a daily
sacrifice of expiation for three years and six months." 2 The first
and most natural presumption is that the little horn of chap, vii, 8,
denotes the same impious and violent persecutor. The fact that
one prophecy delineates the impiety and violence of this enemy
more fully than another is no evidence that two different persons
are intended. Otherwise the still fuller delineation of this mon
ster of iniquity, given in chap, xi, must on this sole ground be re
ferred to yet another person. The statements that the little horn
of chap, vii, 8 came up between the ten horns, and rooted up three
of them, and that of chap, viii, 9 came out from one of the four
horns of the he-goat, can have no force in disproving the identity
of the little horns in both passages unless it is assumed that the four
horns of chap, viii, 8 are identical with the ten horns of chap, vii, 7
— an assumption which no one will allow. These are but the minor
variations called for by the different positions occupied by the
prophet in the different visions. If we understand the ten horns
of chap, vii, V as a round number denoting the kings more fully
1 Fairbairn on Prophecy, p. 122.
* Josephus, Wars, i, 1. Comp. Ant., xii, 5, 4, and 1 Maccabees i.
PROPHETIC REPETITION. 319
described in chap, xi, and the four conspicuous horns of chap, via, 8
as the four notable successors of Alexander, the harmony of the
two visions will be readily apparent. From one point of view the
great horn (Alexander) was succeeded by ten horns, and also a lit
tle horn more notable in some respects than any of the ten; from
another standpoint the great horn was seen to be followed by
four notable horns (the famous Diadochoi), from the stump of
one of which (Seleucus) came forth Antiochus Epiphanes. Only
a failure to note the repetition of prophecies under various forms,
and from different points of view, occasions the trouble which
some have found in identifying prophecies of essentially the same
great events.1
According to the principle here illustrated the still more minute
prophecy of the later period of the Graeco-Macedonian other prophet-
Empire, in Dan. xi, is seen to travel over much of the lc repetitions.
same field as those of chapters vii and viii. In the same manner
we should naturally presume that the seven vials of the seven last
plagues in Rev. xvi are intended to correspond with the seven woe-
trumpets of chapters viii-xi. The striking resemblances between
the two are such as to force a conviction that the terrible woes
'Pusey's discussion of this subject (Lectures on Daniel, Oxford, 1868) is an illustra
tion of the dogmatic way in which a writer may magnify and mystify the merely for
mal and structural differences of visions. He affirms (p. 91) : "The four-horned he-
goat cannot agree with the fourth empire, whose division into ten is marked by the ten
horns of the terrible beast and the ten toes of the image. Nor can the heavy ram,
with its two horns, be identified with the superhuman swiftness of the four-headed
leopard." But, according to Pusey, the two-horned ram of chap, viii, 3, 4, corre
spond? with the bear of chap, vii, 5, and the he-goat corresponds with the four-winged
and four-headed leopard of chap, vii, 6. If, then, a ram with two horns " pushing
•westward, and northward, and southward, etc." (viii, 4), agrees with a bear having no
horns at all, and, so far from pushing in any direction, is merely " raised up on one
side ready to use the arm in which its chief strength lies," and " lifts itself up heav
ily, in contrast with the winged rapidity of the Chaldean conquests " (Pusey, p. 72),
and holds three ribs in its teeth — with what consistency can it be claimed that the
differences in the descriptions of the little horns of chaps, vii and viii must be fun
damental ? Pusey has no difficulty in harmonizing a he-goat having one notable horn,
and then four horns in its place, and one little horn branching out of one of the four,
with a leopard having four wings and four heads ; but he pronounces it impossible
for a goat which at one stage has one horn, and at another four, to agree with a ter
rible beast which at one period had ten horns ! It is, forsooth, easy to harmonize an
animal having one horn and four horns, with an animal having four heads and four
wings, and no horns at all ; but impossible to believe that a goat having one horn,
and afterward four horns, can agree with a beast having ten horns ! Such incon
sistency cannot be based upon sound hermeneutical principles. See Zockler on Dan
iel in loco, translated and annotated by Strong in the American edition of Lange's
Biblework.
320 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
denoted by the trumpets are substantially identical with the plagues
denoted by the vials of wrath. A contrary opinion would make
the case a remarkable exception to the analogy of prophecy, and
should not be accepted without the most convincing reasons.
2. FIGURATIVE AND SYMBOLICAL STYLE OF PROPHECY.
The fact already observed, that the word of prophecy was re-
imagery the ceive(^ by visions and dreams, and in a state of ecstacy,
most natural accounts largely for the further fact that so great a
pressing revel portion of the prophetic Scriptures is set forth in figur-
lations ob- ative language and in symbol.1 This important fact is
tained by vis- , , . , . .
ions and too often overlooked in prophetic interpretation, and
hence has arisen the misleading doctrine that prophecy
is " history written beforehand." Accepting such an idea, one is
prone to press the literal meaning of all passages which may, by any
possibility, admit of such a construction; and hence the endless con
troversies and vagaries in the exposition of the prophetical Scrip
tures. But observe for a moment the style and diction of the great
predictions. The first one on record announces a standing enmity
between the serpent and the woman and their progeny; and, ad-
di-essing the serpent, God says : " He shall bruise thy head, and
thou shalt bruise his heel" (Gen. iii, 15). There have not been
wanting literalists who have applied the prophecy to the enmity
between men and serpents, and who declare that it is fulfilled when
ever a serpent bites a man, or whenever a man crushes a serpent's
head. But such an interpretation of the passage has never been
able to command any general acceptance. Its deeper import re
specting the children of light and the children of darkness, and
1 The fundamental reason of the figurative style, which is so prominent a charac
teristic of prophecy, must be sought in the mode of revelation by vision. In the
higher species of prophecy, which was connected with no ecstatic elevation on the
part of the writer, but with his ordinary frame of mind ; that, namely, of which the
most eminent examples are to be found in Moses and Christ ; the language employed
does not, in general, differ from the style of ordinary discourse. But prophecy, in
the more special and peculiar sense, having been not only framed on purpose to veil
while it announced the future, but also communicated in vision to the prophets, must
have largely consisted of figurative representations ; for, as in vision it is the im
aginative faculty that is more immediately called into play, images were necessary to
make on it the fitting impressions, and these impressions could only be conveyed to
others by means of figurative representations. Hence the two, prophetic visions and
figurative representations, are coupled together by the prophet Hosea (xii, 10) as the
proper correlatives of each other: "I have also spoken by the prophets, and I have
multiplied visions and used similitudes by the ministry of the prophets." — Fairbairn
on Prophecy, p. 147.
PROPHETIC STYLE. 321
their respective heads (Messiah and Satan), has been universally rec
ognized by the best interpreters. " It is a sign and witness," says
Fairbairn, " set up at the very threshold of the prophetic Fairbairn on
territory, showing how much prophecy, in the general Gen- ili( 15-
form of its announcements, might be expected to take its hue and as
pect from the occasion and circumstances that gave rise to it; how
it would serve itself of things seen and present as a symbolical
cover under which to exhibit a perspective of things which were to
be hereafter; and how, even when there might be a certain fulfil
ment of what was written according to the letter, the terms of the
prediction might yet be such as to make it evident that something
of a higher kind was required properly to verify its meaning.
Such plainly was the case with respect to the prediction at the fall;
and in proof that it must be so read and understood, some of the
later intimations of prophecy, which are founded upon the address
to the serpent, vary the precise form of the representation which
they give of the ultimate termination of the conflict. Thus Isaiah,
when descanting on the peace and blessedness of Messiah's king
dom, tells us not of the serpent's head being bruised, but of his
power to hurt being destroyed; of dust being his meat, and of the
child playing upon his hole (chapters xi, 8, 9; Ixv, 25). It is the same
truth again that appears at the close of the Apocalypse under the
still different form of chaining the old serpent, and casting him into
the bottomless pit, that he might not deceive the nations any more
(Rev. xx, 2, 3) ; his power to deceive in the one case corresponding
to his liberty to bruise the heel in the other, and his being chained
and imprisoned in the bottomless pit to the threatened bruising of
his head." >
In like manner we note that Jacob's dying prophecy (Gen. xlix)
is written in the highest style of poetic fervour and of Poeticform
figurative speech. All the events of the patriarch's life Jjjys ^^
and the storied fulness of the future moved his soul, cies.
and gave emotion to his words. The oracles of Balaam and the
songs of Moses are of the same high order. The Messianic
psalms abound with simile and metaphor, drawn from the heavens,
the earth, and the seas. The prophetical books are mostly written
in the' forms and spirit of Hebrew poetry, and, in predictions of
notable events, the language often rises to forms of statement,
which, to an occidental critic, might seem a hyperbolical extrava
gance. Take, for example, the following " burden of Babylon "
which Isaiah saw (("ijn), and note the excessive emotion and the
boldness of figures (Isa. xiii, 2-13):
1 Fairbairn on Prophecy, p. 102.
322 SPECIAL HERMENEUTTCS.
2 On a mountain bare set up a signal ;
Lift up a voice to them ; wave a hand,
And they shall enter gates of nobles.
3 Also I have called my mighty ones for my anger —
Those that exult proudly in my glory.
4 Voice of a multitude in the mountains, as of much people ;
Voice of a tumult of kingdoms of nations assembled,
Jehovah of hosts mustering a host of battle ;
5 Coming from a land afar,
From the end of the heavens —
Jehovah and the instruments of his fury,
To lay waste all the land.
6 Howl ye! For near is the day of Jehovah ;
As a destruction from Shaddai shall it come.
7 Therefore shall all hands become slack,
And every heart of man shall melt.
8 And they shall be in trepidation ;
Writhings and throes shall seize them;
As the travailing woman shall they twist in pain.
Each at his neighbour they shall look astonished,
Their faces, faces of flames.
9 Behold, the day of Jehovah comes ;
Cruel — and wrath, and burning of anger,
To make the land a desolation,
And her sinners will be destroyed out of her.
10 For the stars of the heavens and their constellations
Shall not shed forth their light ;
Dark has the sun become in his going forth,
And the moon will not cause her light to shine.
11 And I will visit upon the world evil,
And upon the wicked their iniquity.
And I will cause the arrogance of the proud to cease,
And the haughtiness of the lawless I bring low.
12 I will make men rarer than refined gold,
And mankind than the gold of Ophir.
13 Therefore I will make heaven tremble,
And the land shall shake from her place,
In the overflowing wrath of Jehovah of hosts,
And in the day of the burning of his anger.
It has never been questioned by the best interpreters that the
Refers to the above passage refers to the overthrow of Babylon by the
fan of Babylon. Medes. The heading of the chapter, and the specific
statements that follow (verses 17, 19), put this beyond all doubt.
And yet it is done, according to the prophet, by Jehovah, who
musters his host of mighty heroes from the end of the heavens,
causes a tumultuous noise of kingdoms of nations, fills human
PROPHETIC SYMBOLISM. 323
hearts with trembling, and despair, and throes of agony, shakes
heaven and earth, and blots out sun, and moon, and stars. This
fearful judgment of Babylon is called " the day of Jehovah," " the
day of the burning of his anger." Standing in the forefront of
Isaiah's oracles against the heathen world-powers, it is a classic
passage of the kind, and its style and imagery would naturally be
followed by other prophets when announcing similar judgments.1
Such highly emotional and figurative passages are common to all
the prophetic writers, but in the so-called apocalyptic prominence of
prophets we note a peculiar prominence of symbolism, ^^ai in uc
In its earlier and yet undeveloped form it first strikes our books.
attention in the Book of Joel, which may be called the oldest apoca
lypse. But its fuller development appears among the later proph
ets, Daniel, Ezekiel, and Zechariah, and its perfected structure in
the New Testament Apocalypse of John. In the exposition, there
fore, of this class of prophecies it is of the first importance to apply
with judgment and skill the hermeneutical principles of biblical
symbolism. This process requires, especially, three Three herme-
things: (1) That we be able clearly to discriminate and
determine what are symbols and what are not; (2) that served.
the symbols be contemplated in their broad and striking aspects
rather than their incidental points of resemblance; and (3) that
they be amply compared as to their general import and usage, so
that a uniform and self -consistent method be followed in their in
terpretation. A failure to observe the first of these will lead to
endless confusion of the symbolical and the literal. A failure in
the second tends to magnify minute and unimportant points to the
obscuring of the greater lessons, and to the misapprehension, oft-
times, of the scope and import of the whole. Not a few interpret
ers have put great stress upon the import of the ten toes of Nebu
chadnezzar's image (Dan. ii, 41, 42), and have searched to find ten
kings to correspond; whereas, from aught that appears to the con
trary, the image may have had twelve toes, like the giant of Gath
1 " Such passages," says Fairbairn, " are not to be regarded simply as highly
wrought descriptions in the peculiar style of oriental poetry, possessing but a slender
foundation of nature to rest upon. On the contrary they have their correspondence
in the literature of all nations, and their justification in the natural workings of the
human mind ; we mean its workings when under circumstances which tend to bring
the faculty of imagination into vigorous play, much as it was acted on with the
prophets when, in ecstacy, they received divine revelations. For it is the character
istic of this faculty when possessed in great strength, and operated upon by stirring
events such as mighty revolutions and distressing calamities, that it fuses every ob
ject by its intense radiation, and brings them into harmony with its own prevailing
passion or feeling." — Prophecy, p. 158.
324 SPECIAL HERMEKEUTICS.
(2 Sam. xxi, 20). A care to observe the third rule will enable one
to note the differences as well as the likeness of similar symbols,
and save him from the error of supposing that the same symbol,
when employed by two different writers, must denote the same
power, person, or event.
3. ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON OF SIMILAR PROPHECIES.
Not only are the same, or like figures and symbols, employed by
different prophets, but also many whole prophecies are so like one
another in their general form and import as to require of the inter
preter a minute comparison. Thus only can he distinguish things
which are alike and things which differ.
First we observe numerous instances in which one prophet ap-
verbai anaio- pears to quote from another. Isa. ii, 1-4 is almost iden-
g168- tical with Micah iv, 1-3, and it has been a problem of
critics to determine whether Isaiah quoted from Micah, or Micah
from Isaiah, or both of them from an older prophet now unknown.
Jeremiah's prophecy against Edom (xlix, 7-22) is appropriated
largely from Obadiah. The Epistle of Jude and the second chap
ter of Peter's Second Epistle furnish a similar analogy. A compar
ison of the oracles against the heathen nations by Balaam, Amos,
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, as already indicated, shows many
verbal parallels. From all which it appears that these sacred writ
ers freely appropriated forms of expression from each other as from
a common treasure house.1 The word of God, once uttered by an
inspired man, became the common property of the chosen people,
and was used by them as times and occasions served.
The twofold presentation of prophetic revelations, both of vis-
Twofoid pre- ions and of dreams, demands particular attention. It
prophetic rev- 'ls ^rst brought to our attention in the dreams of Joseph
eiations. and of Pharaoh, and as we have seen above (pp. 306,
307), the double dream was, in its significance, but one, and the
repetition under different symbols was the divine method of inten
sifying the impression, and indicating the certainty of the things
revealed. " As to the doubling of the dream to Pharaoh twice, it
is because the word ("l^fD, this particular revelation) from God
is established, and God is hastening to accomplish it " (Gen. xli, 32).
A principle of prophetic interpretation so explicitly enunciated
in the earliest records of divine revelation deserves to be made
1 " Such verbal repetitions," says Hengstenberg, " must not be, by any means, con
sidered as unintentional reminiscences. They served to exhibit that the prophets ac
knowledged one another as the organs of the Holy Spirit." — Christology, vol. i,
p. 291.
PROPHETIC ANALOGY. 325
prominent.1 It serves as a key to the explanation of many of the
most difficult questions involved in the apocalyptic Scriptures. We
shall have occasion to illustrate this principle more fully in treating
the visions of Daniel and John.
It is important, furthermore, to study the analogies of imagery
in the apocalyptic portions of prophecy. Isaiah's vis- Analogies of
ion of the Seraphim (Isa. vi, 1-8), Ezekiel's vision of imasery.
the Living Creatures (Ezek. i and x), and John's vision of the
throne in heaven (Rev. iv), have manifest relations to one another
which no interpreter can fail to observe. The scope and bearing
of each can, however, be apprehended only as we study them from
the standpoint of each individual prophet. Daniel's vision of the
four beasts out of the sea (Dan. vii) furnishes the imagery by
which John depicts his one beast out of the sea (Rev. xiii, 1-2),
and we note that the one beast of the latter, being a nameless mon
ster, combines also the other main features (leopard, bear, lion) of
the four beasts of the former. John's second beast out of the
earth, with two horns like a lamb (Rev. xiii, 11), combines much
of the imagery of both the ram and the he-goat of Daniel (viii,
1-12). Zechariah's vision of the four chariots, drawn by different
coloured horses (vi, 1-7), forms the basis of the symbolism of the
first four seals (Rev. vi, 1-8), and John's glowing picture of the
New Jerusalem, the new heavens and the new land (xxi, xxii), is a
manifest counterpart of the closing chapters of Ezekiel. The most
noticeable difference, perhaps, is that Ezekiel has a long and minute
description of a temple and its service (xl-xliv), while no temple
appears in the vision of John, but rather the city itself becomes all
temple, nay, a Holy of Holies, being filled with the glory of God
and of the Lamb (Rev. xxi, 3, 22, 23).
It will be evident from the above-mentioned analogies that no prop
er interpretation of any one of these similar prophecies similar
can be given without a clear analysis and careful compar-
ison of all. We are not to assume, however, that by the Jects.
use of the same or similar imagery one prophet must needs refer to
the same subject as the other. The two olive trees of Rev. xi, 4
are not necessarily the same as those of Zech. iv, 3, 14. The
beasts of John's Apocalypse are not necessarily identical with those
of Daniel. John's vision of the new heaven, and the new land,
and the golden city, is doubtless a fuller revelation of redeemed
Israel than Ezekiel's corresponding vision. But one of these vis
ions cannot be fully expounded without the other, and each should
1 For many valuable suggestions on what he calls the " Double Allegory," see
Cochran, The Revelation of John its Own Interpreter, New York, 1860.
326 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
be subjected to a minute analysis, and studied from its own histor
ical or visional standpoint.
From these considerations it will also be seen that, while duly
J General sum- appreciating the peculiarities of prophecy, we neverthe-
) mary. }egg must employ in its interpretation essentially the
same great principles as in the interpretation of other ancient
writings. First, we should ascertain the historical position of the
prophet; next the scope and plan of his book; then the usage and
import of his words and symbols; and, finally, ample and discrimi
nating comparison of the parallel Scriptures should be made.
f It is, moreover, of the first importance that the interpreter of the
prophetic Scriptures keep in mind the following considerations:
1. Old Testament prophecy is but a part of the Old Testament
revelation of God, and should ever be studied in the liajht of the
* o
entire Hebrew dispensation. It should also be repeatedly empha
sized that history, law, psalm, provei'b, and prophecy are so many
parts of a series of divine communications given at sundry times,
and constituting an organic whole. In the construction of every
large building, single parts, when seen alone and separate from the
rest, may appear unpleasant to the eye and offensive to the cultured
taste, but, wThen studied in their relation to the entire structure, they
are seen to be essential to the support and relief of all. In a like
manner should we regard various portions of the composite elements
of the Old Testament revelation.
2. Prophecy deals mainly with the persons and events of the
times in which it was first uttered. The prophet was a power of
God, a living messenger to kings, and peoples, and nations. He
voiced God's message for the time, and hence we find the language
of Old Testament prophecy full of allusions to contemporary events.
Hence also the necessity of extensive and accurate historical knowl
edge in order to understand and explain the written productions
of the ancient seers.
3. The Hebrew prophets also spoke and wrote in the deep con
sciousness of being oracles of Jehovah, "the Holy One of Israel."
They were impelled by the divine Spirit, and rose above the fear of
men. And yet they never lost their self -consciousness as human
beings, and the divine truths which were given them to communi
cate to men took outward form in accord with the mental and psy
chological qualities of each individual prophet. Hence the interpre
ter should note the personal qualities and characteristic style of each
prophet as well as the organic entirety of the Old Testament pro
phetical literature.
CHRIST IN PROPHECY. 827
CHAPTER XV.
MESSIANIC PBOPHECY.
MESSIAXIO prophecy has for its great object the glorious reign of
God among men, the consequent overthrow of evil, and Messinic proph-
the exaltation and blessedness of his people who obey ecy defined,
him and love righteousness. This kind of prophecy constitutes a
special feature of the Old Testament prophetic revelation, and ap
pears under two forms : first, an impersonal portraiture of a coming
kingdom of power and righteousness, in which humanity attains its
highest good, and, second, the announcement of a person, the
Anointed One, with whom all the triumph and glory are connected.
Accordingly we have Messianic prophecies in which the person of
Christ receives no mention, and others in which he is emphatically
named and represented as the efficient cause of all the glory.
Messianic prophecy should be studied on its divine and human
sides. Viewed as a part of the divine purpose and plan of redemp
tion, it appears in the course of sacred history as a progressive
series of special revelations, gradually unfolding into greater clear
ness as the ages pass along. We recognize it in the protevangelium
(Gen. iii, 15), in the promises to Abraham (Gen. xii, 3; xvii, 6;
xviii, 18; xxii, 18), in the poetic words of Jacob (Gen. xlix, 10), and
the promise of a prophet like Moses (Deut. xviii, 15, 18). It took
a more specific form in connection with Nathan's words to David
(2 Sam. vii, 12-16), and thereafter the king and the kingdom of
righteousness become prominent in the Psalms and the Prophets.1
In the interpretation of Messianic prophecies we meet with two
schools of extremists. One insists on a literal interpre- Discard ex.
tation of nearly every passage, and accordingly drifts, tremists-
as by logical necessity, to the teaching of a future temporal restora
tion of the Jews at Jerusalem, a rebuilding of the temple, and
1 On the Messianic prophecies see J. Pye Smith, Scripture Testimony to the Messiah,
3 vols. (Lond., 1829) ; Hengstenberg, Christology of the Old Testament, 4 vols. (Eng.
trans, by Meyer, Edinb., 1863); Tholuck, Die Propheten und ihre Weissagungen, pp.
146-189 (Gotha, 1860); Leathes, Witness of the Old Testament to Christ (Boyle, Lec
tures for 1868); Riehm, Messianic Prophecy (Eng. trans., Edinb., 1876); Gloag, The
Messianic Prophecies, pp. 98-208 (Baird Lecture, Edinb., 1879); Briggs, Messianic
Prophecy (New York, 1886); Elliott, Old Testament Prophecy, Part Third, pp. 186-
279 (New York, 1889).
328 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
renewal of Hebrew ritual and worship. The other spiritualizes all
forms of prophetic teaching to an extent that scarcely allows any
true historical interpretation. In order to a faithful and satisfac
tory exposition, we must learn to distinguish, with reasonable clear
ness, between the forms of speech and the great underlying thought,
between the imagery of historical and metaphorical allusion and the
essential contents of a prophecy.
What in each prophecy is mere form, and what is the essential
rive Messianic idea, may be best seen by a full collation and comparison
prophecies ad- o£ a number of similar prophecies. This is true alike of
duced for illus
tration. Messianic and of other great predictions. Our prin
ciples may be sufficiently illustrated by attention to the five notable
Messianic prophecies which appear in the first twelve chapters of
Isaiah. The chronological order of these and other prophecies of
the son of Amoz seem to have been made subject to a certain logical
order, as if the editing and arranging of the several oracles were
governed by the purpose of exhibiting an organic series. In this
single series we discover a marked progress of thought from what
is at first broad and comparatively indefinite to what is more specific
and personal.
THE MOUNTAIN OF JEHOVAH'S HOUSE.
The first in order is the prophecy of the mountain of Jehovah's
house (Isa. ii, 2-4). This passage is identical with Micah iv, 1-3,
but whether Isaiah quoted it from Micah (Gesenius, Henderson),
or Micah from Isaiah (Vitringa, Lowth), or both from an older
writer now unknown (Rosenmliller, Knobel), cannot be positively
determined. Hitzig and Ewald think that it was taken by both
prophets from a lost work of Joel; but this is a pure conjecture.
Isaiah seems to have cited it as a text on which to base an appeal to
the house of Jacob (comp. ii, 5-iv, 6), first announcing the glorious
future in the language of another, and then preceding to show that
Judah and Jerusalem must be purged with burning blasts of judg
ment, so that only a chosen remnant will attain the golden age
(comp. iv, 2-6). We render the passage as follows:
2 And it shall come to pass in the end of days,
The mountain of Jehovah's house shall be
Established in the summit of the mountains,
And it shall be exalted from the hills,
And unto it shall all the nations flow.
3 And many peoples shall go there and say :
Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah,
Unto the house of the God of Jacob ;
And he will teach us of his ways,
ISAIAH II, 2-4. 329
And let us go on in his paths,
For out of Zion shall go forth a law
And the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem.
4 And he will judge between the nations,
And unto many peoples give rebuke ;
And into plowshares they will beat their swords,
And their spears into pruning-knives;
Nation toward nation will not lift a sword,
And they no longer will be learning war.
According to the rules already enunciated we should first en
deavour to distinguish that which is essential from that which is
merely formal. A literal interpretation would here evidently in
volve insuperable difficulties, not to say absurdities. Who will urge
that Mount Zion or Moriah is yet to be heaved up to a natural ele
vation higher than all other mountains of the earth, and that all the
nations of men are as such to flow upward to it ? Or who will in
sist that in order to the true fulfilment of this prophecy swords and
spears must be literally and actually converted into other imple
ments as here described ? The true interpretation must be sought
by a rational elimination of the main thoughts from the ideal forms
of their Jewish imagery. The author was a Jew, and associated
the highest hopes of his nation with a glorification of the holy
mountain of Jehovah's temple. We should not, however, spiritual
ize all these Jewish forms of conception, and run into fanciful alle
gorical interpretations of particular words. In the very drapery of
his thought we recognize the natural limitations of the prophet and
trace the historical realism of the Old Testament religion.
Let us now inquire after the essential contents and the corre
sponding essential prophetic thoughts of this passage. Beyond
question the four main ideas are (1) the temple-mountain (including
Zion) is to be exalted into prominence above all other hills j (2) Jeru
salem will be the source of law and revelation; (3) there will be
a confluence of all nations thither; (4) universal peace is to be
effected by divine judgment among the nations. These essential
contents furnish a clear prediction of four great corresponding facts,
which are fulfiled in the origin and propagation of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ. They may be thus formulated: (1) Jerusalem occu
pies a conspicuous historical, geographical, and religious position
in the origin and development of the kingdom of God on earth;
(2) the Gospel is a republication and enlargement of the law and
word of Jehovah, having issued from Jerusalem as a geographical
and historical starting point (comp. Luke xxiv, 47); (3) the nations
will acknowledge and accept the truths and excellencies of this new
830 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
and higher revelation; (4) the ultimate result will be universal peace
among the nations. By this method of interpretation we show due
regard to the language and thought of the writer, avoid the un
natural extremes of literalism, allow no fanciful allegorizing, and
obtain a result which is at once simple, clear, self-evidencing as a
truthful exposition, and confirmed by manifest New Testament
fulfilment.
THE BRANCH OF JEHOVAH.
The prophecy of the Branch of Jehovah in Isa. iv, 2-6 is a
counterpart of that of chap, ii, 2-4. The one opens, the other closes,
the appeal to the house of Jacob. The one presents an outward
historical picture, the other an inner view of the redemption of the
true Israel. The one should be compared with the parable of the
mustard seed, the other with the parable of the leaven (Matt, xiii,
31-33).
2 In that day shall the Branch of Jehovah, become a splendour and a
glory,
And the fruit of the land a majesty and a beauty to the escaped of
Israel ;
3 And he that is left in Zion and he that remains 1 in Jerusalem
Snail be called holy to him — all who are written for life in Jerusalem.
4 When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion,
And the blood-drops of Jerusalem he will cleanse away from her midst,
By the blast of judgment and by the blast of burning,
5 Then will Jehovah create over the whole site of Mount Zion, and over
her assembly,
A cloud by day and the brightness of a fire-flame by night 3
For over all the glory (there will be) a covering,
6 And a booth 3 shall become a shade by clay from heat,
And a refuge and shelter from storm and from rain.
The " Branch of Jehovah " and the " fruit of the land " are ex
plained by Ewald, Cheyne and others as the natural wealth and
produce of Israel's land; that is, immense and glorious harvests to
be given as blessings from Jehovah. This, indeed, might furnish a
worthy prophetic picture of the Messianic age and be explained like
the similar imagery of chap, xxxv, 1, 2. Gesenius understands by
1 Observe the three different words here used to denote the surviving remnant,
!lt3 vS, one who escapes, or that which escapes destruction ; ")NKO ; one who is left
over, a survivor ; "inij, one who remains, or is left behind.
2 Observe the allusion to the pillar of cloud and fire which accompanied Israel in
the desert (Exod. xiii, 21).
3 Comp. Rev. vii, 15: "He that sitteth on the throne shall spread his tabernacle
over them."
PROPHECY OF IMMANUEL. 33i
the branch the chosen remnant, the new growth of Israel after the
chastening judgments; but this confuses things which the sacred
writer distinguishes in the immediate context. We prefer with
most interpreters to understand an individual, as in Jer. xxiii, 5;
xxxiii, 15; Zech. iii, 8; vi, 12, where the same word (nov) is em
ployed. This Branch is here represented as at once a sprout of
Jehovah and a growth of the land of Israel, a somewhat dim but
very suggestive intimation of the Christ who was at once divine
and human.
The essential elements of this prophecy may be presented in four
propositions: (l) The filth and crimes of the Jewish people must
be put away by burning blasts of judgment; (2) there will be a
surviving remnant, known as holy and written unto life; (3) they
will enjoy divine protection and care as truly as did God's chosen
people at the time of the exodus from Egypt; (4) all this honour,
glory, majesty, and beauty will be brought about by, or in some way
be most intimately associated with, a remarkable person or power
here called a Branch of Jehovah. "We need not insist on the
personality of this branch, for that is not made prominent in the
prophecy, nor should we put forward the twofold allusion in verse
2 as a dogmatic proof-text of the double nature of the Messiah.
The entire passage is, accordingly, seen to be a striking prophecy
of the judgment, redemption, and glorification of Israel.1
IMMANUEL.
The prophecy of Immanuel in Isa. vii, 14-16 is probably the most
difficult and enigmatical of all the Messianic prophecies. This is
partly owing to the fact that several expressions in it are capable
of more than one interpretation. We translate as follows :
14 Therefore the Lord himself gives you a sign :
Behold, the virgin has conceived,
And is about to bear a son,
And call his name Immanuel.
15 Milk-curd and honey he shall eat,
Till he knows a to shun evil and choose good.
1 "This prediction," says Briggs, " is of great importance. It really opens up two
new phases of the Messianic idea. It lays stress upon the discipline of the people of
God themselves, and also upon a holy remnant to be redeemed from the fiery trial*
about to destroy the nation as a whole. A new line is opened for the doctrine of
the advent of Jehovah. There is a judgment, not upon the nations as in Joel, but
upon perverse Israel after the manner of Hosea. Israel is disciplined and then re
stored. The restoration is through a fiery trial." — Messianic Prophecy, p. 194.
5 injn^, to his knowing, is best explained as meaning up to the time when he first
comes to know enough to distinguish between good and evil. His eating curds and
832 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
16 Because before the child shall know
To shun the evil and to choose the good,
Forsaken will that land become,
Before whose two kings thou art filled with fear.
The great questions here are, who is the virgin and who is Imman-
uel ? It must be conceded that the word HD7JJ, commonly rendered
virgin, denotes a young woman of marriageable age, without deter
mining whether she is married or unmarried. If the virginity of
the person designated were intended to be made prominent, it is
difficult to conceive why rtana, the specific word for virgin, was
not employed. Without pausing to examine the non-messianic in
terpretations,1 we notice first the view of Ewald and Cheyne, that
the prophet expected Messiah's advent within a few years, and ut
tered this oracle more for the benefit of his own disciples than for
Ahaz, who was already judicially hardened. The virgin was, ac
cordingly, the mother of the Messiah, but unmarried and, indeed,
unknown. This view, however, which maintains that Isaiah's hope
and prophecy were not fulfiled, empties the Scripture of all worthy
significance, and will always be unsatisfactory to evangelical be
lievers. It is out of harmony with the solemn and emphatic man
ner in which the prophet uttered the divine word. Others ( Junius,
Calvin) have maintained that two different children are to be un
derstood, and that verse 14 refers to the Messiah and verse 16 to
the prophet's son Shearjashub, or to some other child then living.
This, however, involves a most unnatural violence. Such a sudden
change of reference to another child would have required a more
specific form of statement. The most common Messianic interpre
tation maintains that the prophecy was fulfiled first and only by
the birth of Jesus, and is so regarded in Matt, i, 22, 23. It is af
firmed that the prediction concerning the forsaking of the land was
truly fulfiled in the time of Ahaz, and the birth of Immanuel was
a sign only in a sense in which something occurring long after may
be called a sign. This, however, is the weak point in the current
Messianic explanation. No expositor has succeeded in showing
honey up to that time denotes that until then the land will not be cultivated, but
used only for pasturing cattle, and the food will consist only of milk-curds and wild
honey, though these may be abundant. This is seen more fully from what is said
in verses 21-25.
1 These are at least five in number : (1) The virgin was Ahaz' wife, and the son
Hezekiah (2 Kings xviii, 2); (2) Isaiah's wife (Hitzig, Gesenius, Knobel); (3) a
princess of Ahaz' court and family, unmarried but with child (Nagelsbach) ; (4) the
Jewish people considered as the bride of Jehovah (Hofmann, "Weir, Koler) ; (5) an
ideal person — hypothetical case of any young woman who was about to become a
mother (Eichhorn, Michaelis, "W. R. Smith).
VIRGIN AND IMMANTJEL. 333
how an event destined to occur centuries later could serve as a sign
to Ahaz or to any one living at that period; nor can such a theory
be reconciled with a sound belief in the sacred truthfulness of
prophecy. The case of Moses (Exod. iii, 12), often cited, is by no
means parallel, for Moses had already witnessed the sign of the
burning bush, and he led the people out of Egypt, and served God
upon that mountain within a short time after the assurance had been
given him. But for Israel to have come to Sinai for the first time
some seven hundred years afterward could have been no sign to
Moses. Moreover, the language of Isa. vii, 14-16 cannot without
flagrant violence be explained as referring to an event of the far
future. He says that the virgin is about to bear a son, and before the
child shall grow up to years of moral accountability the land of
Syria and Ephraim (comp. verses 4-9), before whose two kings
Ahaz was filled with trembling, should be abandoned. To suppose
in the face of this statement that the land was indeed forsaken
within the specified time, but that the child was not born until
seven centuries later, is exceedingly unnatural, not to say prepos
terous.
It remains, therefore, that we understand the prophecy to have
been truly fulfiled in the time of Ahaz and Isaiah by the birth of a
child who was a type of the Messiah. This does not involve the
doctrine of a double sense in the Scripture. The language has no
double or occult meaning. Its application to Christ in Matt, i, 23 is
to be explained typically, just as we explain the passage cited from
Hosea in Matt, ii, 15. The most simple explanation is that which
identifies the virgin with the prophet's young wife, called in chap,
viii, 3 the prophetess, and the child Immanuel is no other than
Maher-shalal-hash-baz, whose name and birth were so solemnly
attested (see chap, viii, 1-3). We understand this latter as but
another symbolical name of the child Immanuel, for the same
great sign is to be at once a proof that GOD is WITH his people,
and that he also HASTENS THE SPOLIATION of the two kingdoms of
which Ahaz was so much afraid. In less than three years from the
beginning of Ahaz' reign, Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, broke the
power of Damascus, and spoiled the cities of Ephraim as described
in 2 Kings xv, 29; xvi, 9. The language of Isa. viii, 4, when com
pared with Isa. vii, 16, confirms this interpretation, for it shows
that the significant sign, which the child Immanuel was to be to the
house of David, was also to be fulfiled in Maher-shalal-hash-baz.
This is still further incidentally confirmed by the repetition in Isa.
viii, 8 and 1 0 of the name Immanuel. It may further be shown
that the whole passage, beginning with Isa. vi, 1 and ending with.
22
834 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
ix, 7 is an apocalypse of symbolical names, in which the prophet's
children figure as "signs and portents in Israel" (Isa. viii, 18).
The difficulties which some have felt in the way of this exposition,
owing to the change of names and appellatives, is obviated when we
see that the prophet, in chap, viii, 1-4, following the manner of
apocalyptic repetitions, presents the Immanuel revelation of chap,
vii, 14-16, from another point of view, and in connection with
another symbolical name.
THE GALILEAN KING.
The apocalyptic passage beginning with Isa. vi, 1 concludes most
magnificently with a prophecy of the Prince of Peace, destined to
reign forever (Isa. ix, 1-7; Heb. text, viii, 23 — ix, 6). In contrast
with the gloom and anguish sure to come on such as reject the
"law and testimony " of divine revelation (viii, 20), and resort unto
heathen oracles, the light and joy of the true Israel are portrayed.
"We thus translate :
1 But there shall be no gloom to her who was in straits.
As the former time despised the land of Zebulun and Naphtali,
The latter honours the way of the sea beyond the Jordan,
The circle 1 of the nations.
2 The people who walked in darkness saw great light,
Dwelling in a land of death-shade, light beamed on them.
3 Thou hast increased the nation and magnified its joy,
They have rejoiced before thee like joy in harvest time,
4 Even as men exult when they distribute spoil.
For the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder,
The rod of his oppressor thou hast broken as the day of Midi an.8
5 For every boot of warrior in the fray, and garment rolled in blood,
Even it shall be for burning, food of fire.
6 For a child is born to us, a son is given to us,
And tbe dominion is upon his shoulder,
And bis name is called Pele-yo'ets-'el-glbbor-abi-ad-sar-shalom.3
7 Great 4 the dominion, and for peace no end ;
1 Commonly rendered Galilee, but, strictly, any circuit of country surrounded by
hills ; here it is applied to the tribe territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, and afterward
to the entire northern section of the Holy Land.
* As when Gideon so signally overthrew the hosts of Midian (Judg. vii, 19-25
comp. Psa. Ixxxiii, 9; Isa. x, 26).
3 Consistency of translation and interpretation requires that this symbolical name
be retained in the same manner as Immanuel and Maher-shalal-hash-baz in chap,
vii, 14; viii, 1, 3. The interpreter is to show that as one means God with us, and
another, hasten-spoil, speed-prey, so this means wonderful- counsellor ', God-hero, father-
eternal, prince of peace.
4 For n3"lD? at the beginning of this verse read HZn. The letters £7 have every
appearance of a copyist's repetition from the close of the preceding verse.
MESSIANIC FUTURE. 335
Over the throne of David and over his kingdom, —
To confirm it and to strengthen it in righteousness and judgment,
Henceforward even unto eternity.
The zeal of Jehovah of hosts will perform this.
In this passage the prophet's eye sweeps far beyond his own time,
and contemplates the Messianic future as a perfected triumph.1
The essential contents may be stated in seven propositions :
(1) The Galilean region, formerly despised, shall in the latter time
be greatly honoured (comp. Matt, iv, 14-16); (2) the people formerly
in darkness shall see great light ; (3) the nation shall be increased
and made joyful ; (4) their yoke of oppression shall be thrown off
as triumphantly as when Gideon defeated Midian ; (5) military
clothing will be needed no more and be fit only for burning;
(6) the Messiah is announced as if already born and bearing a name
of manifold significance; (7) he is destined to reign as if over
David's throne in righteousness forever. Here we observe how
both the kingdom and person of the Messiah are made prominent,
and the Christian expositor has no difficulty in showing that the
prophecy is wonderfully fulfiled in the birth of Jesus Christ, and
his enthronement to reign until he has put all his enemies under his
feet (1 Cor. xv, 25).
THE SHOOT OF JESSE AND THE FINAL EXODUS.
The Messianic prophecy and song which occupy Isa. xi and xii are
too long for full citation here. We have space only for a statement
of the principal Messianic ideals which form the essential prophetic
thoughts of the entire passage. (1) The Messiah is a shoot * from
the stock of Jesse; (2) he is endued with the wise and holy spirit
of Jehovah; (3) he is a righteous and holy judge; (4) he is to effect
a universal peace like that of Eden; (5) this peace will be accompa
nied by a universal knowledge of Jehovah; (6) nations and peoples
will seek his glorious rest; (7) the result will involve a redemption
more glorious than that of the exodus from Egypt; (8) the
redeemed people shall triumph over their enemies; (9) all old
tribal rivalry and disputes will cease; (10) the song in chap, xii is
an ideal Messianic ode of triumph, designed to be analogous to that
which Israel sang on the shore of the Egyptian sea after their de
liverance from the house of bondage (Exod. xv, 1-19), and should
also be compared with the song of Moses and of the Lamb by the
glassy sea, in Rev. xv, 2, 3.
1 Hence the use of the prophetic perfect so noticeable in this passage. See Ge-
senius, Heb. Gram., § 126, 4.
* Hebrew iph and -itfj, Comp. TO¥ in cliaP' iv» 2-
33G SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
The student of prophecy should not fail to notice how largely
this last oracle of the five now cited corresponds with
Messi anic .. r
prophecy an or- the first one (in chap. 11, 2-4), and is a fuller elaboration
same series. Q£ |tg main ideals> It should also be observed that these
five Messianic prophecies as here arranged constitute a progressive
series, beginning with the comparatively indefinite but comprehen
sive one of the exaltation of the temple-mountain, and ending with
this full and glowing picture of ultimate redemption to be realized
in the Son of David's everlasting reign. This organic structure of
Messianic prophecy may be exhibited on a broader scale by a colla
tion and comparison of all the Old Testament oracles belonging to
this class.
Messianic prophecy seems to have been often prompted by the
t d b wrongs an<i discouragements of the times, and was wont
the times of the to soar above the evils which the prophet saw about
him, and idealize a future golden age, in which all such
wrongs should be abolished. Accordingly, in portraying the
Messianic future, each prophet was naturally limited by his histori
cal position and outlook, and the great events of his own time would
give a tone and colour to his language. Thus Isaiah, in chaps, vii-
xii, seems to connect the glorification of Israel with the fall of
Assyria, as if it were to follow immediately after the next great
political catastrophe and commotion among the nations. So the
" day of the Lord " is near in the prophets' visions, and out of its
darkness and terrors dawns the triumphant reign of the Prince of
Peace, whose kingdom is everlasting.
We observe further how Messianic prophecy appropriates the
cast in meta- f acts and forms of Old Testament history and theocratic
pnoricai forms, conceptions, and makes them serve the purpose of met
aphorical allusion. The Messiah himself is a branch, a shoot, an
ensign, a prince, a governor, a king, a judge, a conqueror, a priest,
a prophet, etc., and his rule is associated with what is great and
noble in Jewish thought. In the foregoing examples we have the
Gospel age predicted under the imagery of the temple-mountain ex
alted above all others, and Zion as the starting-place of a new reve
lation (chap, ii, 2-4). A chosen remnant is to be the nucleus of the
Messianic kingdom (x, 22; xi, 16). The ultimate restoration of the
true Israel and their blessedness and glory are set forth under the
imagery of the miracles of the exodus (iv, 5, 6 ; xi, 15, 16). So, too,
in other similar Scriptures the ultimate glory is portrayed as a re
creation of Jerusalem, and a perfect keeping of new moons and Sab
baths, and, in short, as a new land and heavens (Isa. Ixv, 17, 18; Ixvi,
22, 23; comp. Ezek. xl-xlviii). It is also noticeable that immortality
MESSIANIC PROPHECY. 337
and heavenly life are implied rather than expressly announced.
Even the new heavens and the new land are an earthly, human
picture, and such profound spiritual conceptions as " drawing water
from the fountains of salvation " (Isa. xii, 3) are associated with the
thought of dwelling in the midst of Zion.
Finally, we may affirm that the formal elements of the great
Messianic prophecies are such as to admonish us not to Not ^ ^ llter.
expect their literal fulfilment. It is a morbid and ally interpreted,
prodigy-loving tendency which searches human history to find
minute fulfilments of ancient predictions. One might well infer from
the expositions of some writers that the sole essence and value of some
Messianic prophecies were dependent on the minute fulfilment of
certain details of imagery, which are at most only incidental to the
great idea of the prophecy. Thus the entry of our Lord into Jeru
salem, meekly riding upon an ass, was truly a fulfiling of the words
of Zech. ix, 9, and is so declared by the evangelists (Matt, xxi, 1-9;
John xii, 12-16). But to find all or the chief part of the im
port of Zechariah's prophecy fulfiled in that particular event is to
miss the great lesson of the prophet's words, and of Christ's symbolic
act. The passage cited by the evangelists is only an incidental part
of the composite picture presented by Zechariah, and by no means
exhausts its meaning, which is to be found rather in the incarnation,
humility, and ultimate triumph of the Christ, of which the incident
of his riding into Jerusalem on an ass was itself only a symbol.1
Not literal but substantial fulfilment of the great ideals of prophecy
is therefore to be looked for. It is the lowest and least important
kind of prophecy that deals with minute details. Such was Samuel's
prediction of what should occur to Saul on his way home after the
search for his father's asses (1 Sam. x, 2-7), and its method borders
closely on the popular conceptions of fortunetelling. Messianic
and apocalyptic prophecy moves in a higher realm of thought.
1 " That triumphal procession," says Wright, " was not in the main the fact which
the prophecy was desigued to depict. The prophecy would have been as truly and
really fulfiled if the triumphant procession of Palm Sunday had never taken place.
That single incident in the life of our Lord is not the point which the prophet had in
view. It was rather the whole of the Saviour's life, the entire series of events con
nected with Christ's first advent, that was presented in one striking picture." — Zech
ariah and his prophecies, p. 239. Similarly Lowe: "The prophecy was fulfiled by
our Lord, when he rode into Jerusalem. But he fulfiled it more in spirit than to the
letter ; . . . generally, by his own life of humility, and in particular by illustrating
to friends and foes, by his symbolical act of riding on an ass, that his kingdom is not
of this world." — Hebrew Students' Commentary on Zechariah, p. 89. London, 1882.
Comp. Hengstenberg, as quoted, p. 287 above.
838 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
CHAPTER XVI.
OLD TESTAMENT APOC AL YPTICS.
APOCALYPTICS is a theological term of recent origin employed in
Apocaiyptics biblical literature to designate a class of prophetic
defined. writings which refer to impending or future judg
ments, and the final glory of the Messianic kingdom. According to
Llicke * biblical apocalyptics includes " the sum total of the eschat-
ological revelations of the Old and the New Testament." The
great theme of all these Scriptures is the holy kingdom of God in
its conflict with the godless and persecuting powers of the world —
a conflict in which the ultimate triumph of righteousness is assured.
This form of prophecy may, accordingly, include such Messianic
predictions as we have treated in the preceding chapter, but it takes
a wider range. Exhibiting a view of the world of man which one
living above the world, and forecasting the future, may be sup
posed to hold, it emphasizes the divine interposition in all the affairs
of men and nations, and hence it has had a peculiar fascination for
minds anxious to find in the word of God detailed events of history
written beforehand.8
In 1 Cor. xiv, 6 the apostle distinguishes between apocalypse and
prophecy. One may speak " either in (or by way of) apocalypse,
or in knowledge, or in prophesying, or in teaching." The apocalypse
1 Versuch einer vollstiindigen Einleitung in die Offenbarung des Johannes, p. 25.
Second ed., Bonn, 1852. See his whole chapter entitled Erorterung des Begriffs oder
Theorie der Apokalyptik, pp. 17-39 ; and compare Hilgenfeld, Die judische Apokalyp-
tik, Einleitung, pp. 1-16 (Jena, 1857); Diisterdieck, Kritisch-exegetisches Handbuch.
iiber die Offenbarung Johaimis, pp. 35-46 (Gottingen, 1877); Lange, The Revelation
of John, pp. 1-6. American ed., New York, 1874.
2 The amount of apocryphal apocalyptical literature still extant is very large, and
may be divided into Jewish and Christian apocalyptics. Cornp. Liicke, pp. 223-230.
Much of it may be properly called Jewish-Christian ; but, altogether, it is of little
value in the elucidation of scriptural prophecy, which holds an incomparable eleva
tion above it. Liicke and Stuart devote a considerable part of their works on the
Apocalypse to an account of these pscudepigraphal books. Hilgenfeld (Jiidische
Apokalyptik, pp. 5-8) disregards entirely the distinction between canonical and apoc
ryphal apocalyptics, and treats the books of Daniel, Enoch, Pseudo-Ezra, and the
Sibylline Oracles as a precursory history (Vorgeschichte) of Christianity. But most,
if not all, of the apocryphal Apocalypses (at least in their present form) are posterior
to the Christian Scriptures.
APOCALYPTICS. 339
is to be understood especially of the heavenly revelation, in the re
ception of which the man is passive; prophecy, on the other hand,
denotes rather the inspired human activity, the uttering forth of
God's truth (see above p. 314). "In prophecy," says Auberlen,
" the Spirit of God finds his immediate expression in words; in the
apocalypse human language disappears, for the reason given by the
apostle (2 Cor. xii, 4) : he ' heard unspeakable words, which it is not
lawful for a man to utter.' A new element appears here which
corresponds to the subjective element of seeing, the vision. The
prophet's eye is opened to look into the unseen world; he has
intercourse with angels; and as he thus beholds the unseen, he be
holds also the future, which appears to him embodied in plastic
symbolic shapes as in a dream, only that these images are not the
children of his own fancy, but the product of divine revelation
adapting itself essentially to our human horizon." *
Biblical apocalyptics comprehends that entire series of biblical
revelations which accord with the idea of a divine gco of Wbll_
apocalypse as defined above. Its scope is therefore cai apocaiyp-
very extensive. From the earliest period of God's tcs*
revelation of himself to man, apocalyptic disclosures of the divine
purposes of righteous judgment and abounding grace served to
cheer the hearts of the godly, and to comfort them in times of trial.
They were given in many portions and under manifold forms, and
helped by their impressive visions to strengthen faith in God. The
inspireji seer was permitted to look above and beyond the evils of
his own time, behold the crucial day of the Lord on the near hori
zon, and depict an approaching age in which all wrongs should be
duly recompensed, and righteousness, glory, and joy become the
abiding portion of the people of God.
Aside from their wealth of tropes and symbols, which they ex
hibit more than any other class of writings, the apoca- Formal eie-
lyptic prophecies are notable for their highly- wrought ments-
artistic arrangement and finish. There appears constantly the
double vision of judgment and salvation, and the natural divisions
and subdivisions of the principal apocalypses frequently fall into
fours and sevens. The double picture of judgment and glory is
seen in the two symbols which were placed at the gate of the garden
of Eden (Gen. iii, 24). The sword of flame represented the divine
justice which demands the punishment of sin, and the cherubim,
symbols of endless Edenic life, convey to fallen man the blessed hope
of a restored paradise. The communications of God to Noah and
1 The Prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation of St. John viewed in their mutual
Relation, pp. 83, 84. Edinb.. 1856.
340 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
to Abraham are a series of revelations of judgment and of love.
Considerable portions of Isaiah, Amos, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Zecha-
riah are cast in apocalyptic form. The book of Joel is perhaps the
oldest entire book of this character, and its two main divisions are
devoted respectively to the impending judgments and coming glory
of Jehovah. It is also noticeable that the successive writers freely
appropriate both the language and symbols of their predecessors,
and modify or change them to suit the particular revelation each
would make known. Isaiah imitates some passages of Joel; Ezekiel
draws from both; Zechariah makes much use of Daniel and Ezekiel;
and there is scarcely a figure or symbol employed in John's apoca
lypse which is not appropriated from the Old Testament books.
The hermeneutical principles to be observed in the interpretation
Hermeneuticai °f apocalyptics are, in the main, the same as those which
principles. we apply to all predictive prophecy. But probably no
rule or admonition needs more emphasis than that the student
closely attend to the formal elements referred to above, and learn
to distinguish them from the great thoughts or truths which they
serve to embody. The confusing of form and substance has too
often loaded the divine revelation with a burden it was never de
signed to bear, and such a habit is certain to draw a veil over the
mind so as to prevent a truthful understanding of important sections
of both the Old Testament and the New (comp. 2 Cor. iii, 14).
The great apocalypses should be compared with each other, their
formal elements carefully noted, and their methods of enunciating
great judgments and great triumphs should be made familiar to the
mind. We can illustrate these principles only by a discriminating
application of them to such books and parts of books as may best
serve the purpose of examples. We, accordingly, proceed to ex
amine in this chapter the structure and import of several of the
most important apocalyptic portions of the Old Testament, and re
serve for a separate chapter the great apocalypse of the New
Testament.
THE REVELATION OF JOEL.
We first direct attention to the apocalyptic form and method of
Analysis of Jo- the Book of Joel. His prophecy is arranged in two
el's prophecy, leading divisions. The first part consists of a twofold
revelation of judgment, each revelation being accompanied by words
of divine counsel and promise (chapters i, 1-ii, 27); the second part
goes over a portion of the same field again, but delineates more
clearly the blessings and triumphs which shall accompany the day
of Jehovah (chapters ii, 28-iii, 21; Hebrew text, chapters iii and iv).
These two parts may be properly entitled: (1) Jehovah's impending
BOOK OF JOEL. 341
judgments ; (2) Jehovah's coming triumph and glory. The first
may again be subdivided into four sections, the second into three,
as follows:
1. Chap, i, 1-12. After the manner of Moses, in Exod. x, 1-6,
Joel is commissioned to announce a fourfold plague of locusts.
What one swarm leaves behind them another devours (verse 4), until
all vegetation is destroyed, and the whole land is left in mourning.
This fourfold scourge, as a beginning of sorrows in the impending
day of Jehovah, should be compared with the four riders on differ
ent coloured horses, and the four horns of Zech. i, 8, 18, the four
war chariots of Zech. vi, 1-8, the wars, famines, pestilences, and
earthquakes of Matt, xxiv, V; Luke, xxi, 10, 11, and the four horses
of Rev. vi, 1-8. It is thus a habit of apocalyptics to represent
punitive judgments in a fourfold manner.
2. Chap, i, 13-20. After the manner of Jehoshaphat, when the
combined forces of Moab, Ammon, and Seir were marching against
him (2 Chron. xx, 1—13), the prophet calls upon the priests to
lament, and proclaim a fast, and gather the people in solemn assem
bly to bewail the awful day that is coming as a destruction from
Shaddai. Under this head other features of the calamity are inci
dentally mentioned, as the distress of beasts, cattle, and flock, and
the ravages of fire (verses 18—20.)
3. Chap, ii, 1-11. In this section the prophet proclaims the day
of Jehovah in still more fearful aspects. Under the blended ima
gery of darkness, devouring fire, numberless locusts, and rushing
armies (all which are represented in a plague of locusts),1 the earth
and the heavens are shaken, and sun, moon, and stars withhold
their light. The formal elements of this terrible apocalyptic pict
ure deserve special examination. There are few more sublime
descpriptions to be found in the literature of the world.
1 An eyewitness of a plague of locusts, which visited Palestine in 1866, says:
" From early morning till near sunset the locusts passed over the city in countless
hosts, as though all the swarms in the world were let loose, and the whir of their
wings was as the sound of chariots. At times they appeared in the air like some
great snowdrift, obscuring the sun, and casting a shadow upon the earth. Men stood
in the streets and looked up, and their faces gathered blackness. At intervals those
which were tired or hungry descended on the little gardens in the city, and in an in
credibly short time all that was green disappeared. They ran up the walls, they
sought out every blade of grass or weed growing between the stones, and after eat
ing to satiety, they gathered in their ranks- along the ground, or on the tops of the
houses. It is no marvel that as Pharaoh looked at them he called them ' this death '
(Exod. x, 17). . . . One locust has been found near Bethlehem measuring more than
five inches in length. It is covered with a hard shell, and has a tail like a scorpion."
— Journal of Sacred Literature for 1866, p. 89. Compare the same Journal for
1865, pp. 235-237.
342 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
4. Chap, ii, 12-27. The second portrayal of the great and terri«
ble day is in turn followed by another call to penitence, fasting,
and prayer, and also the promise of deliverance and glorious recom
pense. So the double proclamation of judgment has for each
announcement a corresponding word of counsel and hope.
The second part of the prophecy is distinguished by the words,
"And it shall come to pass afterward " (i5~^.nNl rPiT)), a formula which
simply indicates the indefinite future.
1. Chap, ii, 28—32 (Hebrew text, chap. iii). In accordance with
the prayer of Moses (Num. xi, 29), Jehovah promises a great out
pouring of his Spirit upon all the people, so that all will become
prophets. This token of grace is followed by wonders in heaven
and earth (D'Tiaid, prodigious signs, like the plagues of Egypt):
And I will give wonders in the heavens and in the land,
Blood, and fire, and columns of smoke ;
The sun shall be turned to darkness,
And the moon to blood,
Before the coming of the day of Jehovah —
The great and the terrible.
And it shall come to pass that all who call upon the name
of Jehovah shall be saved.
For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance,
As Jehovah has said,
And in the remnant whom Jehovah calls.
2. Chap, iii, 1-17 (Heb. iv, 1-17). The great day of Jehovah will
issue in a judgment of all nations (comp. Matt, xxv, 31-46). Like
the combined armies of Moab, Ammon, and Seir, which came against
Judah and Jerusalem in the time of Jehoshaphat, the hostile nations
shall be brought down into " a valley of Jehoshaphat " (verses 2,
12), and there be recompensed according as they had recompensed
Jehovah and his people (comp. Matt, xxv, 41-46).
Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of judgment 1
For near is the day of Jehovah,
In the valley of judgment (verse 14).
Jehovah, who dwells in Zion, will make that valley — a valley of
judgment to his enemies — like another valley of blessings to his
people. Comp. 2 Chron. xx, 20-26.
3. Chap, iii, 18-21 (Heb. iv, 18-21). The judgment of the na
tions shall be followed by a perpetual peace and glory like the
composure and rest which God gave the realm of Jehoshaphat
(2 Chron. xx, 30). The figures of great plenty, the flowing waters,
the fountain proceeding from the house of Jehovah, Judah and
BOOK OF EZEKIEL. 343
Jerusalem abiding forever, and " Jehovah dwelling in Zion," are
in substance equivalent to the closing chapters of Ezekiel and John.
Thus this oldest Apocalypse virtually assumes a sevenfold struc
ture, and repeats its revelations in various forms. The Joel,g ro h
first four sections refer to a day of Jehovah near at agenericApoc-
hand, an impending judgment, of which the locust
scourge had, perhaps, already appeared as the beginning of sor
rows; the last three stand out in the more distant future (after
ward — the last days, Acts ii, 17). The allusions of the book to
events of the reign of Jehoshaphat have led most critics to believe
that Joel prophesied soon after the days of that monarch, but be
yond those allusions this ancient prophet is unknown. The absence
of any thing to determine his historical standpoint, and the far-
reaching import of his words, render his oracles a kind of generic
prophecy capable of manifold applications.
EZEKIEL'S VISIONS.
The numerous parallels between the Book of Ezekiel and the
Revelation of John have arrested the attention of all peculiarities of
readers.1 But the number and extent of Ezekiel's proph- Ezekiel.
ecies carry him over a broader field than that of any other apoca
lyptic seer, so that he combines vision, symbolico-typical action,
parable, allegory, and formal prophesying. " Ezekiel's style of
prophetic representation," says Keil, " has many peculiarities. In
the first place the clothing of symbol and allegory prevails in him
to a greater degree that in all the other prophets; and his symbol
ism and allegory are not confined to general outlines and pictures,
but elaborated in the minutest details, so as to present figures of a
boldness surpassing reality, and ideal representations which pro
duce an impression of imposing grandeur and exuberant fulness.4
Ezekiel's prophecies, like Joel's, may be divided into two parts;
the first (chapters i-xxxii) announcing Jehovah's judg-
ments upon Israel and the heathen nations ; the second Ezekiei's proph-
(chapters xxxiii-xlviii) announcing the restoration and e
final glorification of Israel. The first part, however, is not without
gracious words of promise (xi, 13—20; xvii, 22-24), and the second
contains the fearful judgment of God (xxxvii, xxxviii) after the
manner of the judgment of all nations described in the second part
of Joel (iii, 2-14). Our space will permit us only to notice here the
closing section of this great apocalypse, which is comprised in chap-
1 See a list of parallels between Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah; and John, in the Speak
er's Commentary on Ezekiel, pp. 12-16.
2 Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiol, vol. i, p. 9. Ediub., 1876.
344 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
ters xl-xlviii, and contains an elaborate vision of the kingdom of
God, and is the Old Testament counterpart of the new heaven and
new land portrayed in Rev. xxi and xxii. Ezekiel is
The new tern- r »,
pie, land, and carried in the visions of God to a very high mountain
in the land of Israel (xl, 2 ; comp. Rev. xxi, 10) and
Bees a new temple, new ordinances of worship, a river of waters of
life, new land and new tribal divisions, and a new city named JE-
HOVAH-SHAMMAH. The minuteness of detail is characteristic of
Ezekiel, and no one would so naturally have portrayed the Messi
anic times under the imagery of a glorified Judaism as a prophet
who was himself a priest. From his historical standpoint, as an ex
ile by the rivers of Babylon, smitten with grief as he remembered
Zion, and the ruined city and temple, and the desolated land of
Canaan (comp. Psa. cxxxvii), no ideal of restoration and glory could
be more attractive and pleasing than that of a perfect temple, a
continual service, a holy priesthood, a restored city, and a land com
pletely occupied, and watered by a never-failing river that would
make the deserts blossom as the rose.
Three different interpretations of these closing chapters of Eze-
interpretation kiel have been maintained. (1) The first regards this
description of the temple as a model of the temple of
Solomon which was destroyed by the Chaldasans. The
advocates of this view suppose that the prophet designed this pat
tern to serve in the rebuilding of the house of God after the return
of the Jews from their exile. (2) Another class of interpreters
hold that this whole passage is a literal prophecy of the final resto
ration of the Jews. At the second coming of Christ all Israel will
be gathered out from among the nations, become established in their
ancient land of promise, rebuild their temple after this glorious
model, and dwell in tribal divisions according to the literal state
ments of this prophecy. (3) That exposition which has been main
tained probably by the majority of evangelical divines may be
called the figurative or symbolico-typical. The vision is a Levitico-
prophetic picture of the New Testament Church or kingdom of
God. Its general import is thus set forth by Keil : " The tribes of
Israel which receive Canaan for a perpetual possession are not the
Jewish people converted to Christ, but the Israel of God; i. e., the
people of God of the new covenant gathered from among both Jews
and Gentiles ; and that Canaan in which they are to dwell is not
the earthly Canaan or Palestine between the Jordan and the Medi
terranean Sea, but the New Testament Canaan, the territory of the
kingdom of God, whose boundaries reach from sea to sea, and from
the river to the ends of the earth. And the temple upon a very
DANIEL'S REVELATION. 345
high mountain in the midst of this Canaan in which the Lord is
enthroned, and causes the river of the water of life to flow down
from his throne over his kingdom, so that the earth produces the
tree of life with leaves as medicine for men, and the Dead Sea is
filled with fishes and living creatures, is a figurative representation
and type of the gracious presence of the Lord in his Church, which
is realized, in the present period of the early development of the
kingdom of heaven, in the form of the Christian Church, in a spir
itual and invisible manner, in the indwelling of the Father and the
Son through the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers, and in a
spiritual and invisible operation in the Church, but which will
eventually manifest itself when our Lord shall appear in the glory
of the Father to translate his Church into the kingdom of glory
in such a manner that we shall see the Almighty God and the
Lamb with the eyes of our glorified body, and worship before
his throne." *
This symbolico-typical interpretation recognizes a harmony of
Ezekiel's method and style with other apocalyptic representations of
the kingdom of heaven, and finds in this fact a strong argument in
its favour. The measurements recorded, the ideal character of the
tribe divisions, and especially the river of healing waters flowing
from the threshold of the temple into the eastern sea, are insupera
ble difficulties in the way of any literal exposition of the vision.
The modern chiliastic notion of a future return of the Jews to Pal
estine, and a revival of the Old Testament sacrificial worship, is
opposed to the entire genius and spirit of the Gospel dispensation.*
REVELATION OF DANIEL.
All interpreters agree that the empires or world-powers denoted
by the various parts of the great image in Dan. ii, 31-45,
and by the four beasts from the sea (Dan. vii), are the lustrated by
mi i • ,. j j J-JT vi Daniel's double
same. 1 he prophecy is repeated under different symbols, revelation of
but the interpretation is one. This double revelation, empires.
then, will be of special value in illustrating the hermeneutical prin
ciples already enunciated. But in no portion of Scripture do we
need to exercise greater discrimination and care. These prophe
cies, in their details, have been variously understood, and the most
able and accomplished exegetes have differed widely in their ex
planations. And not only in matters of minor detail, but there
prevails, even to this day, a notable divergence of opinion in regard
1 Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel, vol. ii, p. 425. Edinb., 1876.
8 For extended arguments in favour of the symbolico-typical, and against the liter
al, interpretation of Ezek. xl-xlviii, see the commentaries on this prophet by Fair«
bairn, Schroeder, Cowles, and Currey.
346 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
to three out of the foiir great kingdoms which occupy so prominent
a position in the recorded visions and dreams.
A critical study of the current English literature of Daniel's
prophecies begets the conviction that three serious errors
Thr66 errors.
have had much to do in vitiating the process pursued by
a large number of expositors. (1) There appears with many an ob
vious desire to make the book itself a contribtition to apologetics.
When the interpretation of any writing is made subservient to such
an ulterior polemical purpose, there is usually more than a prob
ability that the interpreter will be too much governed by considera
tions outside the purpose of pure exegesis. (2) Some writers,
observing a remarkable resemblance between the Book of Daniel
and the Apocalypse of John, rush to the conclusion that the similar
symbols of both books must refer to the same great events in the
history of the world. This fact of similarity has been construed as if
it were in itself a proof that the fourth beast of Dan. vii, is identical
with the first beast of Rev. xiii, 1-10, and the little horn of Dan.
vii, and the second beast of Rev. xiii, 11-18 are both alike symbols
of the papacy of Rome. (3) There is, further, a singularly persist
ent presumption that the Book of Daniel, and also the Apocalypse
of John, may reasonably be expected to contain an outline history
of European politics, and the chronicles of ancient, mediaeval, and
modern times have been ransacked, and even tortured, to find the ten
kings referred to by the prophet. One is amazed at the amount of
imperious dogmatism which often appears in the works of some who
follow these erroneous methods.
It must be conceded, therefore, that a faithful exposition of Dan
iel requires the most painstaking care. All dogmatism must be
set aside, and we should endeavour to place ourselves in the very
position of the prophet, and study with minute attention his lan
guage and his symbols. Where such wide differences of opinion
have prevailed we cannot for a moment allow any a priori assump
tions of what ought to be found in these prophecies, or of what
ought not to be found there.1 All such assumptions are fatal to
1 The Roman Empire, the papacy, the Momammedans, the Goths and Yandals, the
French Revolution, the Crimean War, the United States of America, and our late civil
war between the North and the South, have all been assumed to have such an import
ance in the history of humanity and of the Gospel that we should expect to find
some notice of them somewhere in the prophets of the Bible. Daniel and the Reve
lation of John, abounding as they do in vision and symbol, have been searched more
than other prophecies with snch an expectation. "We find even Barnes writing as
follows : " The Roman Empire was in itself too important, and performed too import
ant an agency in preparing the world for the kingdom of the Redeemer, to be omitted
in such an enumeration." — Notes on Dan. ii, 40. p. 147. On the same principle we
THE FOUR EMPIRES. 347
sound interpretation. The prophet should be permitted, as far as
possible, to explain himself; and the interpreter should not be so
full of ideas drawn from profane history, or from remote ages and
peoples, as to desire to find in Daniel what is not manifestly there.
Especially when it is a notable fact that profane history knows
nothing of Belshazzar,1 or of Darius the Mede, should we be cau
tious how far we allow our interpretation of other parts of Daniel
to be controlled by such history.
Three different interpretations of Daniel's vision of the four
world-powers have long prevailed. According to the Three different
first and oldest of these, the fourth kingdom is the interpretations.
Roman Empire; another identifies it with the mixed dominion of
Alexander's successors, and a third makes it include Alexander and
his successors.8 Those who adopt this last view regard the Median
rule of Darius at Babylon (Dan. v, 31) as a distinct dynasty. The
four kingdoms, according to these several expositions, may be seen
in the following outline:
1st. 2d. 3d.
1. Babylonian. 1. Babylonian. 1. Babylonian.
2. Medo-Persian. 2. Medo-Persian. 2. Median.
3. Graeco-Macedonian. 3. Alexander. 3. Persian.
4. Roman. 4. Alexander's successors. 4. Grseco-Macedonian.
Any one of these views will suffice to bring out the great ethical and
religious lessons of the prophecy. No doctrine, therefore, is affected,
might insist that the Chinese Empire, with its great dynasties, and countless millions
of people, and also those of India and Japan, should also have some kind of notice.
"We have no right to assume in advance what Daniel's vision or Nebuchadnezzar's
dream should contain.
1 This fact greatly puzzled all expositors until an inscription discovered on a cylin
der at Mugheir showed that a Bel-shar-uzur was associated with his father as co-regent
at Babylon. See Rawlinson, Ancient Monarchies, vol. iii, p. 70. New York, 1871.
2 The first of these views is ably defended by Barnes, Pusey, and Keil, and is the
one held, probably, by most evangelical divines. The second has its ablest advocates
in Bertholdt, Stuart, and Cowles. The third is maintained by Eichhorn, Lengerke,
Maurer, Bleek, De Wette, Hilgenfeld, Kranichfeld, Delitzsch, and Westcott. It is
quite possible that the prevalence among English expositors of the first theory is
largely, if not mainly, due to the fact that the arguments in its favour have been scat
tered broadcast by the popular commentaries, and the able expositions of the other
theories have been quite generally inaccessible to English readers. Many have ac
cepted the current exposition because they never had a better one clearly set before
them. It is almost amusing to hear some of the advocates of the Roman theory say
ing, with Luther : " In this interpretation and opinion all the world are agreed, and
history and fact abundantly establish it" (see Keil, p. 245). Desprez is equally in
teresting when he says : " The almost unanimous opinion of modern criticism is in
favour of a separate Median kingdom, distinct from the united Medo-Persian Empire
under Cyrus." — Daniel and John, p. 50.
348 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
whichever interpretation we adopt. The question at issue is purely
one of exegetical accuracy and self -consistency: Which view best
satisfies all the conditions of prophet, language, and symbol?
Great stress has been laid by the advocates of the Roman theory
upon three considerations: (1) First they urge that
Argument in * . v ' . .
favour of the Rome was too important to be left out of sight in such
Roman theory. ft vigion of worid-empire. "The Roman kingdom,"
says Keil, "was the first universal monarchy in the full sense.
Along with the three earlier world-kingdoms, the nations of the
world-historical future remained still unsubdued."1 But such pre
sumptions cannot properly be allowed to weigh at all. It matters
not in the least how great Rome was, or how important a place
it occupies in universal history. The sole question with the inter
preter of Daniel must be, What world-powers, great or small, fell
within his circle of prophetic vision ? This presumption in favour of
Rome is more than offset by the consideration that geographically
and politically that later empire had its seat and centre of influ
ence far aside from the territory of the Asiatic kingdoms. But
the Grseco-Macedonian Empire, in all its relations to Israel, and,
indeed, in its principal component elements, was an Asiatic,
not a European, world-power. The prophet, moreover, makes
repeated allusion to kings of Greece (JV, Javan), but never mentions
Rome.
(2) It is further argued that the strong and terrible character of the
iron strength fourth kingdom is best fulfilled in Rome. No previous
and violence, dominion, it is said, was of such an iron nature, break
ing all things in pieces.2 Here again we must insist that the ques
tion is not so much whether the imagery fits Rome, but whether it
may not also appropriately depict some other kingdom. The de
scription of iron strength and violence is, no doubt, appropriate to
Rome, but for any one to aver that the conquests and rule of Alex
ander and his successors did not " break in pieces and bruise " (Dan.
ii, 40), and trample with terrible violence the kingdoms of many
nations, is to exhibit a marvellous obtuseness in reading the facts
of history. The Grseco-Macedonian power broke up the older civil
izations, and trampled in pieces the various elements of the Asiatic
1 Biblical Commentary on Daniel, p. 267. English translation. Edinburgh, 1872.
s "Neither the monarchy of Alexander," says Keil (p. 252), " nor the Javanic world-
kingdom accords with the iron nature of the fourth kingdom, represented by the legs
of iron, breaking all things in pieces, nor with the internal division of this kingdom,
represented by the feet consisting partly of iron and partly of clay, nor finally with
the ten toes formed of iron and clay mixed." Such an assertion from a commentator
usually so guarded and trustworthy inclines one to believe that its author was here
labouring under the blinding effects of a foregone conclusion.
THE ROMAN THEORY. 349
monarchies more completely than had ever been done before.
Rome never had any such triumph in the Orient, and, indeed, no
great Asiatic world-power, comparable for magnitude and power
with that of Alexander, ever succeeded his. If now we keep in
mind this utter overthrow and destruction of the older dynasties
by Alexander, and then observe what seems especially to have
affected Daniel, namely, the wrath and violence of the "little
horn," and note how, in different forms, this bitter and relent
less persecutor is made prominent in this book (chapters viii and
xi), we may safely say that the conquests of Alexander, and the
blasphemous fury of Antiochus Epiphanes, in his violence against
the chosen people, amply fulfilled the prophecies of the fourth
kingdom.
(3) It is also claimed that the Roman theory is favoured by the
statement, in chap, ii, 44, that the kingdom of God should be set up
" in the days of those kings." For the Roman Empire, it is urged,
ruled Palestine when Christ appeared, and all the other great mon
archies had passed away. But on what ground can it be quietly
assumed that "these kings" are Roman kings? If we say that
they are kings denoted by the toes of the image, inasmuch as the
stone smote the image on the feet (ii, 34), we involve ourselves in
serious confusion. The Christ appeared when Rome was in the
meridian of her power and glory. It was three hundred years
later when the empire was divided, and much later still when bro
ken in pieces and made to pass away. But the stone smote not the
legs of iron, but the feet, which were partly of iron and partly of
clay (ii, 33, 34). When, therefore, it is argued that the Graeco-
Macedonian power had fallen before the Christ was born, it may on
the other hand be replied with greater force that a much longer
time elapsed after the coming of Christ before the power of Rome
was broken in pieces.
Evidently, therefore, no satisfactory conclusion can be reached as
long as we allow ourselves to be governed by subjective Sub1ectlve pre.
notions of the import of minor features of the symbols, sumptions must
or by assumptions of what the prophet ought to have b
seen. The advocates of the Roman theory are continually laying
stress upon the supposed import of the two arms, and two legs, and
ten toes of the image; whereas these are merely the natural parts
of a human image, and necessary to complete a coherent outline.
The prophet lays no stress upon them in his exposition, and it is
nowhere said that the image had ten toes. We must appeal to a
closer view of the prophet's historical standpoint and his outlying
field of vision; and especially should we study his visions in the
23
350 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
light of his own explanations and historical statements, rather than
from the narratives of the Greek historians.
Applying principles already sufficiently emphasized, we first at-
Daniei's histor- tend to Daniel's historical position. At his first vision
teal standpoint. Nebuchadnezzar was reigning in great splendour (Dan.
ii, 37, 38). At his second, Belshazzar occupied the throne of Baby
lon (vii, 1). This monarch, unknown to the Greek historians, fills
an important place in the Book of Daniel. He was slain in the
night on which Babylon was taken, and the kingdom passed into the
hand of Darius the Mede (v, 30, 31). Whatever we may think or
say, Daniel recognizes Darius as the representative of a new dy
nasty upon the throne of Babylon (ix, 1). The prophet held a high
position in his government (vi, 2, 3), and during his reign was mir
aculously delivered from the den of lions. Darius the Mede was a
monarch with authority to issue prolamations "to all
the Medes in people, nations, and languages that dwelt in all the
land " (vi, 25). From Daniel's point of view, therefore,
the Median domination of Babylon was no such insignificant thing
as many expositors, looking more to profane history than to the
Bible itself, are wont to pronounce it. Isaiah had foretold that
Babylon should fall by the power of the Medes (Isa. xiii, 17;
xxi, 2), and Jeremiah had repeated the prophecy (Jer. li, 11, 28).
Daniel lived to see the kingdom pass into the hands of Cyrus the
Persian, and in the third year of his reign received the minute rev
elation of chapters x and xi touching the kings of Persia and of
Greece. Already, in the reign of Belshazzar, had he received spe
cific revelations of the kings of Greece who were to succeed the
kings of Media and Persia (viii, 1, 21). But no mention of any
world-power later than Greece is to be found in the Book of Daniel.
The prophetic standpoint of chap, viii is Shushan, the throne-centre
of the Medo-Persian dominion, and long after the Medes had ceased
to hold precedence in the kingdom. All these things, bearing on
the historical position of this prophet, are to be constantly kept
in view.
Having vividly apprehended the historical standpoint of the
The varied but wr^er, we should next take up the prophecies which he
paraiieide- has himself most clearly explained, and reason from
what is clear to what is not clear. In the explanation
of the great image (ii, 36-45), and of the four beasts (vii, 17-27),
we find no mention of any of the world-powers by name, except
Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar (ii, 38). But the description and
explanation of the fourth beast, in vii, 17-27, correspond so fully
with those of the he-goat in chap, viii as scarcely to leave any rea-
PARALLELS CCftlPAREtt. 351
sonable ground to doubt that they are but varied portraitures of the
same great world-power, and that power is declared in the latter
chapter to be the Grecian (viii, 21). In chap, xi, 3 the Grecian
power is again taken up, its partly strong and partly brittle charac
ter (comp. Dan. ii, 42) is exhibited, together with the attempts of
the rival kings to strengthen themselves by intermarriage (comp.
ii, 43 and xi, 6), and also the conflicts of these kings, especially
those between the Ptolemies and the Seleucids. At verse 21 is
introduced the " vile person " (HDJ, despised or despicable one), and
the description through the rest of the chapter of his deceit and
cunning, his violence and his sacrilegious impiety, is but a more
fully detailed picture of the king denoted by the little horn of chap
ters vii and viii. As the repetition of Joseph's and Pharaoh's dreams
served to impress them the more intensely, and to show that the
things were established by God (Gen. xli, 32), so the repetition of
these prophetic visions under different forms and imagery served to
emphasize their truth and certainty. There appears to be no good
ground to doubt that the little horn of chap, viii, and the vile per
son of chap, xi, 21, denoted Antiochus Epiphanes. We have shown
above (pp. 3 18,3 19.) that the reasons commonly alleged to prove that
the little horn of chap, viii denotes a different person from the little
horn of chap, vii are superficial and nugatory. It follows, there
fore, that the fourth kingdom described in chapters ii, 40 ff., vii,
23 ff., is the same as the Grecian kingdom symbolized by the he-goat
in chap. viii. The repetitions and varied descriptions of this tre
mendous power are in perfect accord with other analogies of the
style and structure of apocalyptic prophecy.
If we have applied our principles fairly thus far, it now follows
that we must find the four kingdoms of Daniel between The prophet
Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander the Great, including 8*°^ ^ ^
these two monarchs. Reasoning and searching from plain himself.
Daniel's position, and by the light of his own interpretations, we
are obliged to adopt the third view named above, according to
which the four kingdoms are, respectively, the Babylonian, the
Median, the Persian, and the Grace-Macedonian. We have been
able to find but two real arguments against this view, namely,
(1) the assumption that the Median rule of Babylon was too insig
nificant to be thus mentioned, and (2) the statement of chap, viii,
20 that the ram denoted the kings of Media and Persia. The first
argument should have no force with those who allow Daniel to ex
plain himself. He clearly recognizes Darius the Mede as the suc
cessor of Belshazzar on the throne of Babylon (v, 31). This
Darius was " the son of Ahasuerus of the seed of the Medes "
352 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
(ix, 1), and though he reigned but two years, that reign was, from
the prophet's standpoint, as truly a new world-power at Babylon as
if he had reigned fifty years. Whatever his relation to Cyrus the
Persian, he set a hundred and twenty princes over his kingdom
(vi, 1), and assumed to issue decrees for "all people, nations, and
languages " (vi, 25, 26). Most Avriters have seemed strangely un
willing to allow Daniel's statements as much weight as those of the
Greek historians, who are notably confused and unsatisfactory in
their accounts of Cyrus and of his relations to the Medes.
The other argument, namely, that in chap, viii, 20, the two-horned
ram denotes " the kings of Media and Persia," is very
The prophet's *
point of view properly supposed to show that Daniel himself recog-
>an. vin. nise(j Medes and Persians as constituting one mon
archy. But this argument is set aside by the fact that the position
of the prophet in chap, viii is Shushan (ver. 2), the royal residence
and capital of the later Medo-Persian monarchy (Neh. i, 1; Esther
i, 2). The standpoint of the vision is manifestly in the last period
of the Persian rule, and long after the Median power at Babylon
had ceased to exist. The Book of Esther, written during this later
period, uses the expression "Persia and Media" (Esther i, 3, 14,
18, 19), thus implying that Persia then held the supremacy. The
facts, then, according to Daniel, are that a Median world-power
succeeded the Babylonian; but that, under Cyrus the Persian, it
subsequently lost its earlier precedence, and Media became thor
oughly consolidated with Persia into the one great empire known
in other history as the Medo-Persian.
With this view all the prophecies of Daniel readily harmonize.
inner harmony According to chap, ii, 39, the second kingdom was in-
io ns ^o Vt!e ferior to tnat °f Nebuchadnezzar, and in vii, 5, it is
sought. represented by a bear raised up on one side, and holding
three ribs between his teeth. It has no prominence in the interpre
tation given by the prophet, and nothing could more fitly symbolize
the Median rule at Babylon than the image of a bear, sluggish,
grasping, and devouring what it has, but getting nothing more than
its three ribs, though loudly called on to " arise and devour much
flesh." No ingenuity of critics has ever been able to make these
representations of the second kingdom tally with the facts of the
Medo-Persian monarchy. Except in golden splendour this latter
was in no sense inferior to the Babylonian,1 for its dominion was
2 Calvin, Auberlen, and others think the Medo-Persian was inferior in moral condi
tion to the Babylonian. But surely the Persian monotheism was far higher in point
of moral and religious worth than the polytheism of Babylon. Kcil and others find
the inferiority of the Medo-Persian monarchy in its want of inner unity, the combina-
SYMBOLS CONFUSED. 353
every way broader and mightier. It was well represented by the
fleet leopard with the four wings and four heads which, like the
third kingdom of brass, acquired wide dominion over all the earth
(comp. ii, 39, and vii, 6), but not by the sluggish, half-reclining
bear, which merely grasped and held the ribs put in its mouth, but
seemed indisposed to arise and seek more prey.
Those interpreters who adopt the second view above named, and,
distinguishing between Alexander and his successors. The Diadochoi
make these latter constitute the fourth kingdom, have tneory-
brought most weighty and controlling arguments against the first
or Roman theory,1 showing that chronologically, geographically,
politically, and in relation to the Jewish people, the Roman Empire
is excluded from the range of Daniel's prophecies. " The Roman
Empire," says Cowles, " came into no important relations to the
Jews until the Christian era, and never disturbed their repose effect
ually until A. D. 70. ... Rome never was Asiatic, never was orien
tal; never, therefore, was a legitimate successor of the first three
of these great empires. . . . Rome had the seat of her power and
the masses of her population in another and remote part of the
world." 3
But this second theory is unable to show any sufficient reason for
dividing the dominion of Alexander and his successors T
° . . Dominion of
into two distinct monarchies. According to every prop- Alexander and
er analogy and implication, the fourth beast with its ^ t^^uie™
ten horns and one little horn of chap, vii, and the he- entworid-pow-
6rs
goat with its one great horn and its four succeeding ones,
and the little horn out of one of these — as presented in chap, viii, 8, 9,
21-23 — all represent but one world-power. From Daniel's point of
vision these could not be separated, as the Median domination at
Babylon was separated from the Chaldaean on the one side, and the
later Medo-Persian on the other. It would be an unwarrantable
confusion of symbols to make the horns of a beast represent a dif
ferent kingdom from that denoted by the beast itself. The two
horns of the Medo-Persian ram are not to be so understood, for the
Median and Persian elements are, according to chap, viii, 20, sym
bolized by the whole body, not exclusively by the horns of the ram,
and the vision of the prophet is from a standpoint where the Median
tion of Medes and Persians being an element of weakness. But, from all that appears
in history, this combination of two great peoples was an element of might and majesty
rather than of weakness or of inferiority.
1 See Stuart's " Excursus on the Fourth Beast " in his Commentary on Daniel, pp.
205-210. Cowles' Notes on Daniel, pp. 354-371, and Zockler on Daniel ii and vii in
Lange's Biblework, translated and annotated by Strong.
* Notes on Daniel vii, 28, p. 355.
354: SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
and Persian powers have become fully consolidated into one great
empire. If, in chap, viii, 8, 9, we regard the goat and his first horn
as denoting one world-power, and the four succeeding horns an
other and distinct world-power, analogy requires that we should
also make the ten horns of the fourth beast (vii, 7, 8, 24) denote a
kingdom different from the beast itself. Then, again, what a con
fusion of symbols would be introduced in these parallel visions if
we make a leopard with four wings and four heads in one vision
(vii, 6) correspond with the one horn of a he-goat in another, and
the terrible fourth beast of chap, vii, 7, horns and all, correspond
merely with the horns of the goat!
From every point of view, therefore, we are driven by our her-
meneutical principles to hold that view of Daniel's four
Conclusion. .. , . , , ,
symbolic beasts which makes them represent, respect
ively, the Babylonian, the Median, the Medo-Persian, and the Gre
cian domination of Western Asia. But the "Ancient of days"
(vii, 9-12) brought them into judgment, and took away their do
minion before he enthroned the Son of man in his everlasting
kingdom. The penal judgment is represented as a great assize, the
books are opened, and countless thousands attend the bidding of
the Judge. The blasphemous beast is slain, his body is destroyed
and given to burning flames, and his dominion is rent from him,
and consumed by a gradual destruction (verses 10, 11, 26).
The prophecy of the seventy weeks (Dan. ix, 24-27) affords a re-
Tne seventy markable side light to the other revelations of this book.
weeks. j^ was a Special communication to the prophet in answer
to his intercession for Jerusalem " the holy mountain," " thy sanc
tuary," "thy city," and "thy people" (verses 16, 17, 19), and would,
therefore, presumably contain some revelation of God's purpose re
specting the city and sanctuary which had at that time lain desolate
about seventy years. The language of the angel is noticeably enig
matical, and several of the expressions have never been satisfactorily
explained; but the obvious import of the passage, taken as a whole,
is that both city and sanctuary are to be rebuilt, and yet ultimately
to be overwhelmed by a fearful desolation. Moreover, a Messianic
Prince is to appear and be cut off, and the outcome of all is " a fin
ishing of the transgression, a completing of sins, an expiation for
iniquity, a bringing in of everlasting righteousness, a sealing up of
vision and prophet, and the anointing of a Holy of holies." All this
strikingly accords with the coming and kingdom of Jesus Christ,
the consummation of the Old Testament economy and the introduc
tion of the New. The seventy weeks are a symbolical number (see
page 296 above), conceived as broken into three portions of seven,
GOAL OF DANIEL'S VISIONS. 355
sixty -two, and one (7+62 + 1=^0). The first seems to refer to the
time of rebuilding the city, the second to the period intervening
between the restoration and the appearance of Messiah, and the
third is the last decisive heptad, in the midst of which a new cov
enant is confirmed with many, but the end of which is the ruin of
city and sanctuary with an unspeakable desolation. The labour of
expositors to fix the precise date of the " going forth of a word to
return and to build Jerusalem" (verse 35) has failed thus far to
reach any result which commands general confidence. The procla
mation of Cyrus (Ezra i, 1-4), the decree of Artaxerxes given to
Ezra (Ezra vii, 11-26), and that given to Nehemiah (Neb. ii, 5-8)
all sufficiently supply the " word to return and build," but no one
of these so signally fulfils the prophecy as to establish its claim to
be the only one intended by the angel. There is little probability
of ever reaching a satisfactory interpretation so long as we insist on
finding mathematical precision in the use of symbolical numbers.
If the seventy names in Jacob's family record are not to be under
stood with rigid exactness (see on pp. 406-409), much less are the
symbolical numbers which make up these seventy weeks.
The final revelation, contained in Dan. xi, 2-xii, 3, is a fuller de
lineation of that of chapter viii, but the deliverance of Revelation of
God's people is there shown to include a resurrection ^ s-*11' 3-
from the dead and heavenly beatification. As Isaiah connected the
Messianic glorification of Israel with the fall of Assyria (see above,
p. 336), overlooking intervening events as if they were hidden between
two lofty mountains to which his vision turned, so Daniel makes no
note of what other things might follow the fall of the great oppres
sor, but is told that out of an unspeakable trouble his people shall be
delivered, "every one who is found written in the book." With
the coming and kingdom of the Son of man, to which all his visions
reached, he sees as in one field of view whatever that kingdom
assures to the saints of the Most High.
Thus the comparative study of the five great prophecies of the
Book of Daniel discloses a harmony of scope and general outline, an
internal self-consistency, and a profound conception of the kingdom
and glory of God. These facts not only illustrate the methods of
apocalyptics, but also confirm the title of this book to a high place
among the biblical revelations.
356 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE APOCALYPSE OP JOHN.
No portion of the Holy Scriptures has been the subject of so much
controversy and of so many varying interpretations as the Apoca-
systems of in- typse of John. The principal systems of exposition
terpretation. may, however, be reduced to three, which are commonly
known as the Preterist, the Continuous-Historical, and the Futurist.
The Preterists hold that the larger part of the prophecy of this
book was fulfilled in the overthrow of Jerusalem and pagan Rome.
The Continuous-Historical school of interpreters find most of these
prophecies fulfilled in the history of the Roman Empire and of
modern Europe. The Futurists maintain that the book relates
mainly to events which are yet to come, and which must be literally
fulfilled at the end of the world. Any attempt to discuss these
systems in detail, and examine their numerous divergent methods,
as carried out by individual expositors, would require a very large
volume. Our plan is simply to seek the historical position of the
writer, and trace the scope and plan of his book in the light of the
hermeneutical principles already set forth. Especially are we to
regard the analogy of the apocalyptic scriptures and the general
principles of biblical symbolism.
The writer addresses the book of his prophecy to the churches
Historical °f seven well-known cities of western Asia, and ex-
standpoint, pressly declares in the opening verses that his revela
tion is of " things which must shortly come to pass." At the close
(chap, xxii, 12, 20) the Alpha and the Omega, who himself testifies
all these things, and manifestly aims to make the thought of their
imminence emphatic, says: " Behold, I come quickly;" " Yea, I come
quickly." The prophet, moreover, is admonished not to seal "the
words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near at hand "
(xxii, 10). Surely, if words have any meaning, and thoughts are
capable of emphatic statement, the events contemplated were im
pending in the near future at the time this book was written.1 The
1 The plea of Alford and others that the iv rdxei, shortly, of this book is " a meas
ure by which, not our judgment of its contents, but our estimate of worldly events
and their duration, should be corrected," and that the word " confessedly contains,
among other periods, a period of a thousand years" (Greek Testament, Proleg. to
Rev., chap, viii, §§4, 10), is a singular proposition. He might as well have said that
APOCALYPSE ANALYSED. 857
import of all these expressions is in noticeable harmony with our
Lord's repeated declaration : " This generation shall not pass away
until all these things be accomplished." But when John wrote,
the things contemplated were much nearer at hand than when Je
sus addressed his disciples on the Mount of Olives.1
After the manner of other apocalypses this book is divisible into
two principal parts, which may be appropriately desig- Plan ot ^e
nated, (1) The Revelation of Christ, the Lamb (chaps. Apocalypse.
i-xi), and (2) The Revelation of the Bride, the Wife of the Lamb
(chaps, xii-xxii). These two parts, after the manner of Daniel's re
peated visions, traverse the same field of view, and each terminates
in the fall of a great city, and the establishment of the kingdom of
God. But each of these parts is divisible again into smaller sec
tions, the first into three, the second into seven. The whole will
be apparent in the following outline :
I. REVELATION OP THE LAMB.
1. In the Epistles to the Seven Churches, i-iii.
2. By the Opening of the Seven Seals, iv-vii.
3. By the Sounding of the Seven Trumpets, viii-xi.
II. REVELATION OP THE BKIDE.
1. Vision of the Woman and the Dragon, xii.
2. Vision of the Two Beasts, xiii.
3. Vision of the Mount Zion, xiv.
4. Vision of the Seven Last Plagues, xv, xvi.
5. Vision of the Mystic Babylon, xvii, xviii.
6. Vision of Parousia, Millennium, and Judgment, xix, xx.
7. Vision of the New Jerusalem, xxi, xxii.
It should be observed that John's Apocalypse is, in its artificial
arrangement and finish, the most perfect of all the prophecies. Its
it confessedly contains the " for ever and ever " of chap, xxii, 5. Manifestly the thou
sand years of chap, xx, 2, like the ages of ages in chaps, xi, 15 and xxii, 5, is a state
ment that runs far beyond the great catastrophes of the book, and is too exceptional
in its nature to be included among the things which were to come to pass quickly.
1 On the early date of the Apocalypse see Glasgow, The Apocalypse Translated and
Expounded, pp. 9-54 (Edinb., 1872); Farrar, The Early Days of Christianity, chap,
xxvii (Lond., 1882); and SchafFs new edition of his History of the Christian Church,
pp. 834-836. We have already discussed at some length the time of this prophecy
(see pp. 135-140), and have shown good reasons for believing that it was written
before the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. The preponderance of the best
modern criticism is in favour of this view. If now, in harmony with such date, we
find the structure and import of the book, as studied in the light of biblical apoca-
lyptics, a self-consistent whole, and meeting signal fulfilment in the ruin of Judaism
and the rise of Christianity, the interpretation itself becomes a controlling argument
in favour of the early date.
358 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
outline and the correlation of its several parts evince that its ima
gery was most carefully chosen, and yet there is scarcely
Artificial form ° _* J J J
of the Apoca- a figure or symbol that is not appropriated from the
Old Testament. The books of Daniel, Ezekiel, and
Zechariah are especially made use of. The number seven is nota
bly prominent — as seven spirits, seven churches, seven seals, seven
trumpets, seven heads, seven eyes, seven horns, seven plagues. The
numbers three, four, ten, and twelve are also used in a significant
way,1 and where symbolical numbers are so frequently used we
should at least hesitate about insisting on the literal import of any
particular number. Constant reference, therefore, should be had, in
the interpretation of this book, to the analogous prophecies of the
Old Testament.
Immediately after the opening statements, and the salutation and
The great Theme doxology of verses 4-6, the great theme of the book is
of the book. announced in this truly Hebraic and emotional style:
" Behold he is coming with the clouds, and every eye shall see him,"
and they who pierced him, and all the tribes of the land,3 shall wail
over him " (chap, i, 7). Let it be particularly noted that these words
are appropriated substantially from our Lord's discourse (Matt,
xxiv, 30): "Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heav
en, and then shall all the tribes of the land wail, and they shall see
the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and
much glory." The words " they who pierced him " are from Zech.
xii, 10, and should here be understood not so much of the soldiers
1 See Stuart on the " Numerosity of the Apocalypse " in his Commentary, vol. i, pp.
130-149. Comp. Trench, Com. on the Epistles to the Seven Churches of Asia, pp.
83-91.
2 To press the literal import of these words, and insist that Christ is to come on a
material cloud, and be visible to every person living at one time on the habitable
globe, involves manifest absurdities. No person or phenomenon in the clouds of
heaven could be visible, at one and the same time, to all the inhabitants of the world.
That every one shall at some time see the Son of man is unmistakable doctrine, as is
also the statement of 2 Cor. v, 10, that "we must ail be manifest before the judgment
seat of Christ; " but in an apocalyptic passage like that above, the language is to be
\mderstood in general harmony with the temporal and geographical limitations of
the prophecy. The statement is no more to be explained literally than that concerning
the trembling of the idols of Egypt in Isa. xix, 1, a passage closely parallel with this:
Behold Jehovah riding on a swift cloud, and coming into Egypt,
And the idols of Egypt tremble before him,
And the heart of the Egyptians melt within them.
3 The common English Version, " all kindreds of the earth," appears to have misled
not only many common readers, but even learned commentators. No Hellenist of our
Lord's day would have understood iraaai al fyvkal TTJ<; y^f as equivalent to all nations
of the habitable globe. The phrase is traceable to Zech. xii, 12, where all the fami
lies of the land of Judah are represented as mourning.
\
THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 359
who nailed him to the cross, and pierced his side, as of the Jews,
upon whom Peter charged the crime (Acts ii, 23, 36; v, 30), and
who had cried, " His blood be upon us and upon our children " (Matt,
xxvii, 25). To these Jesus himself had said: "Hereafter ye shall
see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming
on the clouds of heaven " (Matt, xxvi, 64).
Having announced his great theme, the writer proceeds to record
his vision of the Alpha and the Omega, the first and words to the
the last — an expression taken from Isa. xli, 4; xliv, 6; Seven churches.
xlviii, 12. The description of the Son of man is mainly in the lan
guage by which Daniel describes the Ancient of days (Dan. vii, 9)
and the Son of man (x, 5, 6), but it also appropriates expressions
from other prophets (Isa. xi, 4; xlix, 2; Ezek. i, 26, 28; xliii, 2).
The seven golden candlesticks remind us of Zechariah's one golden
candlestick with its seven lamps (Zech. iv, 2). The meaning of the
symbols is given by the Lord himself, and the whole forms an im
pressive introduction to the seven epistles. These epistles, though
written in a most regular and artificial form, are full of individual
allusions, and show that there was much persecution of the faith
ful, and that a momentous crisis was at hand. The various charac
teristics of the seven Churches may be typical of varying phases of
church life and character for subsequent ages, but they are never
theless distinct portraitures of then existing facts. The mention
of Nicolaitans (ii, 6), the faithful martyr Antipas (ii, 13), and the
mischievous prophetess Jezebel (ii, 20), is evidence that the epistles
deal with actual persons and events, though the names employed are
probably symbolical. The warnings, counsels, and encouragements
given to these Churches correspond in substance with those our
Lord gave to his disciples in Matt. xxiv. He warned them against
false prophets, told them they should have tribulation, and some
would be put to death, and the love of many would wax cold, but
that he who endured to the end should be saved. It is not to be
supposed that in this remoteness of time we can feel the force of
the personal allusions of these epistles as well as those to whom
they were first addressed.
The prophecy of the seven seals is opened by a glorious vision
of the throne of God (chap, iv), and its symbols are
. . f f . The Seven Seals.
taken from the corresponding visions ot Isa. vi, 1-4,
and Ezek. i, 4-28. Then appears in the right hand of Him who sat
on the throne a book close sealed with seven seals (v, i). The Lion
of Judah, the Root of David, is the only one who can open that
book, and he is revealed as " a Lamb standing as though it had been
slain, having seven horns and seven eyes." His position was " in
3GO SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
the midst of the throne " (v, 6). The eyes and horns, symbols of
the perfection of wisdom and power, the appearance of a slain
lamb, expressive of the whole mystery of redemption, and the posi
tion in the throne,1 as suggestive of heavenly authority — all serve
to extol the Christ as the great Revealer of divine mysteries. The
first four seals correspond virtually with the symbols of Zech. vi,
2, 3, and denote dispensations of conquest, bloodshed, famine, and
aggravated slaughter or mortality.8 These rapidly successive and
commingling judgments correspond strikingly with our Lord's pre
diction of wars and rumours of wars, falling by the edge of the
sword, famines, pestilences, terrors, days of vengeance, and unheard
of horrors. The pages of Josephus, descriptive of the unparalleled
woes which culminated in the utter ruin of Jerusalem, furnish an
ample commentary on these symbols and on the words of our Lord.
Why should we ignore the statements of the Jewish historian, and
search in the pages of Gibbon, or in the annals of modern Europe,
to find the fulfilment of prophecies which were so signally fulfilled
before the end of the Jewish age ?
The fifth seal is a martyr-scene — the blood of souls crying from
The Martyr- under the altar where they had been slain for the Word
scene. of God (vi, 9, 10). This corresponds with the Lord's
announcement that his followers should be put to death (Matt.
xxiv, 9; Luke xxi, 16). The white robes and the comfort given to
the martyrs answer to Jesus' pledge that in their patience they
should win their souls (Luke xxi, 19), and that "whosoever shall lose
his life for my sake and the' Gospel's shall save it " (Mark viii, 35).
But these souls wait only for "a little time " (ver. 11), even as Jesus
declared that all the martyr-blood shed from the time of Abel
should be visited in vengeance upon that generation, even upon Je
rusalem the murderess of prophets (Matt, xxiii, 34-38). And then,
; to show how quickly the retribution comes, like the " immediately
after the tribulation" of Matt, xxiv, 29, the sixth seal
The Sixth Seal. . n , .. . ,
is opened, and exhibits the terrors ot the end (verses
12-17). We need not linger to show how the symbols of this seal
correspond with the language of Jesus and other prophets when
describing the great and terrible day of the Lord. But we should
note that before this judgment falls the elect of God are sealed,
1 In chap, xxii, 1, it is called "the throne of God and of the Lamb." The throne
belonged to the Lamb as well as to God. Comp. chap, iii, 21.
* To understand the rider on the white horse as a symbol of Christ, as many do,
and the others as symbols of war, famine, etc., involves the interpretation in manifest
confusion of imagery. If the first rider denote a person, so should the others ; but,
according to the analogy of corresponding prophecies, we have here a fourfold symbol
of impending judgments. Comp. above, p. 341.
THE SEVEN TRUMPETS. 361
and there appear two companies, the elect of the twelve tribes (the
Jewish-Christian Church — the circumcision), and an innumerable
company out of all nations and tongues (the Gentile Church — the
uncircumcision) who had washed their robes and made them white
in the blood of the Lamb (chap. vii). This is the apocalyptic coun
terpart of Jesus' words: "He shall send forth his angels with a
great trumpet-sound, and they shall gather his elect from the four
winds, from one end of heaven to the other" (Matt, xxiv, 31).
The opening of the sixth seal brought us to the very verge of
doom, and we might naturally suppose that the seventh The seven
would usher in the ultimate consummation. But it Trumpets,
issues in the vision of the seven trumpets, which traverses a part of
the same field again, and awfully portrays the signs, wonders, and
horrors indicated by the symbols of the sixth seal. These trumpet
woes we understand to be a highly wrought picture of the fearful
sights and great signs from heaven of which Jesus spoke, the abom
ination of desolation, Jerusalem compassed with armies, and " signs
in the sun and moon and stars; and upon the land distress of na
tions in perplexity for the roaring of the sea and the billows; men
fainting for fear and for expectation of the things coming on the
world" (Luke xxi, 25, 26). ' Accordingly, the first four trumpet-
woes fall, respectively, on the land, the sea, the rivers and fountains
of water, and the lights of heaven, and their imagery is appropri
ated from the account of the plagues of Egypt, and from other
parts of the Old Testament. These plagues do not ruin everything,
but, like Ezekiel's symbols (Ezek. v, 2), each destroys a third.
The last three trumpets are signals of direr woes (viii, 13). The
tormenting locusts from the abyss, introduced by the Tne piajrue
fifth trumpet, assume the form of a moving army, after from the abyss.
the manner of Joel's description (Joel ii, 1-11), and are permitted
to torment those men who have not the seal of God upon them.
They may appropriately denote the unclean spirits of demons,
which were permitted to come forth in those days of vengeance
. and possess and torment the men who had given themselves over to
1 " The descriptions are of a kind," says Bleek, " that cannot be meant literally,
since they cannot be shaped into intuitive ideas. But it is also inadmissible to refer
them to single political events and catastrophes happening upon the earth, either at
tiie time of the writing, so that the seer must have had them already before his eyes,
or occurring later, so that these visions were fulfilled in them. Rather should we
view the contents of these visions as a general poetical representation of the great
revolutions of nature connected with the appearing of the Lord, or preceding it, in
which Old Testament images, taken particularly from the narrative of the Egyptian
plagues, lie at the foundation, and particulars should not be especially urged." — Lec
tures on the Apocalypse, p. 228. Lond., 1874.
362 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
all wickedness. Describing the excessive impiety of the Jewish
leaders, Josephus remarks: "No age ever bred a generation more
fruitful in wickedness than this was from the beginning of the
world." " I suppose that had the Romans made any longer delay
in coming against these villains the city would either have been
swallowed up by the ground opening upon them, or been over
whelmed by water, or else been destroyed by such thunder as the
country of Sodom perished by; for it had brought forth a genera
tion of men much more atheistical than were those that suffered
such punishments; for by their madness it was that all the people
came to be destroyed." 1 Was not some fact like this before the
mind of our Lord when he spoke of the unclean spirit that took
seven others more wicked than himself, and returned and entered
the house from which he had been cast out ? " So shall it be," said
he, " with this wicked generation " (Matt, xii, 43-45).2
The sixth trumpet is the signal for unloosing the armies restrained
The armies of " at the great river Euphrates" (ix, 14). All proper
Euphrates. names of this book appear to be symbolical. So we
Understand Sodom and Egypt (xi, 8), Michael (xii, 7), Zion (xiv, 1),
Har-Magedon (xvi,16), Babylon (xvii, 5), and New Jerusalem (xxi, 2).
It would be contrary to all these analogies to understand the name
Euphrates (in ix, 14, and xvi, 12) in a literal sense. In chap, xvii, 1
the mystic Babylon is represented as sitting upon many waters, and
these waters are explained in verse 15 as symbolizing peoples and
multitudes and nations and tongues.3 What more natural explana
tion of this symbol, then, than to \inderstand it of the multitudinous
armies, which in their appointed time came with their prowess and
terror, compassed the Jewish capital about, and pressed the siege
with unrelenting fury to the bitter end ? The Roman army was
composed of soldiers from many nations, and fitly corresponds with
the abomination of desolation spoken of in our Lord's discourse
(Matt, xxiv, 15). " When ye see Jerusalem compassed with armies,
then know that her desolation is at hand " (Luke xxi, 20).
At this momentous point in the revelation, and when we might
1 Whiston's Josephus ; Wars, book v, chapters x, 5, and xiii, 6.
2 The star fallen from heaven, to whom is given the key of the pit of the abyss,
can scarcely denote any other than the Satan whom Jesus saw falling like lightning
from heaven (Luke x, 18), and the names Abaddon and Apollyon are but symbolic
names of Satan, the prince or chief of the demons. It should be noticed also that in
chap, xviii, 2 the fallen Babylon is described as having " become a habitation of de
mons, and a hold of every unclean spirit, and a hold of every unclean and hateful
bird."
3 That Euphrates is here to be taken as a symbolical name is ably shown by Fair-
bairn, Prophecy, etc., pp. 410, 411, and Appendix M.
THE MIGHTY ANGEL. 36&
naturally expect the seventh trumpet to sound, there is a pause, and
lo, " another strong angel, coming down from the heav- The mighty
en, arrayed with a cloud, and the rainbow upon his
head, and his face as the sun, and his feet as pillars of rainbow.
fire " (x, 1). The attributes of this angel, and their correspondence
with the sublime description of the Son of man in chap, i, 13-16,
point him out as no other than the Lord himself,1 and his lion-like
cry, and the accompanying voices of the seven thunders, remind
us of Paul's prophecy that "the Lord himself shall descend from
heaven with a shout, with voice of archangel, and with trump of
God " (1 Thess. iv, 16). This is no other than " the Son of man com
ing in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory," which Je
sus himself foretold as destined to come to pass in that generation
(Matt, xxiv, 30-34). His glorious appearance seems like a prelude
to the sound of the last trumpet, but the delay is not to defer the
catastrophe, but to furnish an opportunity to say that with the
voice of the seventh angel the mystery of God is to be finished
(verses 6 and 7). The prophet also takes a book from the angel's
hand and eats it (8-11) after the manner of Ezekiel (ii, 9-iii, 3), and
is told that he shall " prophesy again over many peoples and nations
and tongues and kings." For John survived that terrible catas
trophe, and lived long after to make known the testimony of God.
It was more than a suggestion that that disciple should tarry till
the coming of the Lord (comp. John xxi, 21-24). The measure
ment of the temple, altar, and worshippers (xi, 1), and the treading
under foot of the holy city forty-two months (three years and a
half=a time, times, and a half a time), signify that the whole will
be given over to desolation. This, again, corresponds with our
Lord's words (Luke xxi, 24) : " Jerusalem shall be trodden down of
the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." Judging
from the analogy of the language of Daniel, the "times of the
1 It is in accord with the habit of repetition common to apocalyptic prophecies that
the Son of man should appear in this book under various forms. First the glorious
Christophany of chap, i, then as the Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes (v, 6),
then as the mighty, rainbow-encircled Angel of this passage (x, 1), then as Michael
(xii, 7), and again as a Lamb (xiv, 1), and as the Son of man on a cloud (xiv, 14),
then as the rider on the white horse (xix, 11), and finally as the Judge sitting on a
great white throne (xx, 11). Thus the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ fittingly reveals
him in manifold aspects of his character and glory. So, also, on the other hand, the
arch-enemy, or antichrist, appears under various forms of manifestation, as Abaddon,
or Apollyon. the angel of the abyss (ix, 11), the great red dragon (xii, 3), the beast
out of the sea and out of the land (xiii, 1, 11), the scarlet-coloured beast on which the
harlot is sitting (xvii, 3), the beast out of the abyss (xvii, 8 ; comp. xi, 7), and even
the mystic Babylon considered as a habitation of devils (xviii, 2).
364 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
Gentiles" (Kaipoi; comp. Luke xxi, 24, with the Septuagint and
Theodotion of Dan. vii, 25; xii, V) are the "time, times, and half a
time " during which the destructive siege was to continue, and the
city be trodden without and within. During a corresponding period
the two witnesses prophecy. These are, perhaps, best understood as
a symbolic portraiture of the martyrs who perished by Jewish per
secution, here conceived as two witnesses (comp. Deut. xvii, 6; xix,
15; Matt, xviii, 16; 2 Cor. xiii, 1) attested by such signs as proved
Moses and Elijah to be true prophets, but perishing in the city where
also their Lord was crucified after he had performed miracles " to-day
and to-morrow and the third," and declared that it was "not allow
able for a prophet to perish out of Jerusalem" (Luke xiii, 33).
With this revelation, which stands as an episode between the
sixth and seventh trumpets, we are the more fully prepared to feel
The last trum- tne tremendous significance of the last trumpet. In that
pet. lingering hour of the sixth trumpet — an awful pause
before the final blast — "There was a great earthquake, and the
tenth part of the city fell." It would not be difficult to cite from
the pages of Josephus an almost literal fulfilment of these words.1
The imagery has allusion to the trumpet signaled fall of Jericho.
1 See Josephus, TVars, book iv, chap, iv, 5, and chap. v. 1. If any one would see
the fanciful and arbitrary hermeneutical methods into which some of the continuous-
historical interpreters of the Revelation unconsciously involve themselves, let him
note the following from Faber : " The great city (mystic Babylon) is said to compre
hend ten different parts, or streets, which answer to the ten horns of the first
apocalyptic wild beast, and which denote the ten kingdoms of the divided Roman
Empire ; for, since one tenth part of the great city is thrown down by an earthquake
at the close of the second woe, such language necessarily implies a division into ten
parts. The same great city is viewed also under two different aspects, according to
its wider and its narrower extent. As a literal city may, at one time, comprehend
within its walls a much larger tract of land than it does at another time, whence a
district which was formerly within it may be subsequently without it ; so the allegor
ical great city is variously spoken of, according as in point of geography it is variously
contemplated. On this principle the platform of the ten streets, though it constituted
the whole city when viewed in reference to the ecclesiastical authority exercised from
its palace or centre, constituted but a part of it when viewed in reference to the wide
dominions of the Roman Caesars ; and on the same principle, any province which lies
beyond the geographical limits of the ten streets may be truly described as being
either within or without the city. In this same manner, accordingly, we find the
province of Judea spoken of. Our Lord is said to have been crucified within the
great city, because he was crucified in the province of Judea, at that time within the
limits of the Roman Empire [so was Britain ! Surely a remarkable way of telling
where the Lord was crucified] ; yet is that identical province described as being with
out the great city (Rev. xi, 8 ; xiv, 20). because it lies without the platform of the
ten streets which constitute the proper Western Empire, or Latin Patriarchate." —
The Sacred Calendar of Prophecy (3 vols., Lond., 1828), vol. i, pp. 31, 32. Couip.
other specimens in Farrar, The Early Days of Christianity, pp. 434, 435.
WOMAN AND DRAGON. 365
Next and "quickly" (xi, 14) the last trumpet sounds, and great
voices in the heaven say "The kingdom of the world is become
our Lord's and his Christ's, and he shall reign unto the ages of the
ages" (ver. 15). The old aeon has passed, the new one has begun,
and the heavenly host shout a paean of triumph. The blood of the
souls that cried from under the altar (vi, 10) is now avenged, and
those prophets and saints receive their reward (xi, 18). The old
temple disappears, and the temple of God which is in heaven opens,
and reveals the long-lost ark of the covenant (ver. 19), henceforth
accessible to all who are washed in the blood of the Lamb.
The second part of the Apocalypse (chaps, xii-xxii) is not a
chronological sequel to the first, but travels over the „
\ The second part
same ground again. The two parts have a relation to of the Apoca-
each other somewhat like the dream of the great image SSVthJSwt
and the vision of the four beasts in the Book of Daniel, under other
They cover the same field of vision, but view things
tinder different aspects. The first part exhibits the terrible ven
geance of the Lamb upon his enemies, as if contemplating every
thing from the idea of the king " who sent forth his armies and de
stroyed those murderers, and burned their city " (Matt, xxii, 7). The
second part presents a vivid outline of the struggling Church pass
ing her first crisis, and rising through persecution and danger to
triumph and glory. The same great struggles and the same fearful
catastrophe appear in each part, though under different symbols.
By the woman, in chap, xii, 1, we understand the apostolic Church;
the man-child (ver. 5) represents her children, the ad- The woman
herents and faithful devotees of the Gospel. The im- and tne Dragon,
agery is taken from Isa. Ixvi, 7, 8. These are the children of " the
Jerusalem which is above," and which Paul calls "our mother"
(Gal. iv, 26). The statement that this child was to rule all nations
with a rod of iron, and be caught up to the throne of God, has led
many to suppose that Christ is designated. But the language of
the promise to the church of Thyatira (chap, ii, 26, 27), and the
vision of the martyrs who live and reign with Christ a thousand
years (chap, xx, 4-6), show that Christ's faithful martyrs, whose
blood was the seed of the Church, are associated with him in the
authority and administration of his Messianic rule. The dragon is
the old serpent, the devil, and his standing ready to devour the
child as soon as born is an image appropriated from Pharaoh's atti-
Mide toward the infant Israelites (Exod. i, 16). Michael and his
angels are but symbolic names of Christ and his apostles. The war
in heaven was fought in the same element where the woman ap
peared, and the casting out of demons by Christ and his apostles
24
366 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
was the reality to which these symbols point (comp. Luke x, 18;
John xii, 31). The soul-conflicts of the Christian are of like char
acter.1 The flight of the woman into the wilderness was the scat
tering of the Church by reason of bitter persecutions (comp. Acts
viii, 1), but especially that flight of the church in Judea which
Jesus authorized when his disciples should see the signs of the end
(Matt, xxiv, 16 ; Luke xxi, 21).
Being cast down from the heavenly places, the dragon stood upon
the sand of the sea, and next revealed himself in a wild
TheBeastsfrom .... . „ .....
the sea and from beast, which is seen coming up out of the sea (xm, 1).
He combines various features of a leopard, a bear, and
a lion, the first three beasts of Daniel's vision (Dan. vii, 4, 6), and
the power which the dragon gives him imparts to him all the
malignity, blasphemy, and persecuting violence which characterized
Daniel's fourth beast at the appearance of the little horn. This
beast we understand to be the Roman Empire, especially as repre
sented in Nero, under whom the Jewish war began, and by whom
the woman's seed, the saints (comp. xii, 17, and xiii, 7), were most
bitterly persecuted. He was the veriest incarnation of wickedness,
a signal revelation of antichrist, and corresponds in every essential
feature with the man of sin, the son of perdition, of whom Paul
wrote to the Thessalonians (2 Thess. ii, 3-10). a At the same time
another beast is seen coming up out of the land (xiii, 11), having
two horns like a lamb. But he is only the satellite, the alter ego
and representative of the first beast, and exercises his authority.
This second beast is a proper symbol of the Roman government of
Judea by procurators, and if we seek for the meaning of the two
horns, we may find it in the two procurators specially noted for their
tyranny and oppression, Albinus and Gessius Florus.3 It is a well-
known fact that the Christians of this period were required to wor
ship the image of the emperor or die, and the procurators were the
emperor's agents to enforce this measure.4 Thus the second beast
1 Paul fully recognized the spiritual and demoniacal character of the Christian's
struggle when he wrote : " Our wrestling is not against blood and flesh, but against
the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against
the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Eph. vi, 12). Such conflict
was a war in heaven.
1 Comp. Farrar, Early Days of Christianity, chap, xxviii, section v.
*See Josephus, Ant., book xx, chap, ix, 1, and chap, xi, 1. Wars, book ii, chaps,
xiv. and xv.
*Alford, after quoting in evidence from Pliny's letter to Trajan, observes: "If it
be said, as an objection to this, that it is not an image of the emperor, but of the beast
itself, which is spoken of, the answer is very simple, that as the seer himself in chap,
xvii, 11 does not hesitate to identify one of the seven kings with the beast itself, so
VISION OF MOUNT ZION. 367
is appropriately called "the false prophet" (chaps, xvi, 13; xix, 20),
for his great work was to turn men to a blasphemous idolatry. The
mystic number of the beast (xiii, 18) would then be represented
both by the Greek Aaretvog, and the Hebrew iDp P"0, the numerical
value of each being 666. For the beast was both the Latin king
dom, and its representative and head, N&ro Caesar.
The vision of Mount Zion in chap, xiv is a glorious contrast to
the preceding revelations of antichrist. It presents the vision of Mount
heavenly side of this period of persecution and trial, Zion-
and sets it forth in seven exhibitions: (1) First is seen the Lamb on
Mount Zion (the heavenly Zion), and with him are the thousands of
his redeemed Israel in great glory (verses 1-5). These ai*e no other
than the woman's seed who have been caught up to the throne of
God (xii, 5), but are now seen from another point of view. (2) Next
follows the vision of the flying angel bearing eternal good tidings to
every nation (verses 6, 7). This is done in spite of the dragon and
his agents. While the dragon, wielding the forces of empire, seeks
to annihilate the Church of God, the true children of the heav
enly Jerusalem are caught up to be with Christ in glory; but the
Gospel is still preached in all the world, accompanied by warning
and promise. Thus the saints triumph " on account of the blood of
the Lamb, and on account of the word of their testimony " (chap,
xii, 11). (3) Then an angel, as by anticipation, announces the fall
of Babylon the great (ver. 8), and is followed (4) by another who
warns men against the worship of the beast and his image (verses
9-12). (5) Then a voice from heaven pronounces them blessed
who die in the Lord from henceforth (ver. 13); as if from that
eventful epoch the dead in Christ should enter at once into a rest
we may fairly assume that the image of the beast for the time being would be the
image of the reigning emperor." — Greek Test, on Rev. xiii, 15. It is strange that
learned critics will turn, with an air of contempt, away from an explanation of the
"image of the beast" so natural and simple as that given above, and find satisfaction
in such fancies as that this image denotes the images of saints set up in papal
churches (Faber) ; or the pope considered as the idol of the Roman Church (Xewton,
Daubuz) ; or the temporal power of the pope, and the patrimony granted by Pepin in
A. D. 754 (Glasgow) ; or the papal kingdom or hierarchy which the priesthood estab
lished (Lord) ; or the empire of Charlemagne, regarded as the image of the old hea
then Roman Empire (Mede); or the pope's decretals (Osiander); or the Inquisition
(Vitringa) ; or the papal General Councils of Western Europe (Elliott). Writers so
full of visions of modern Europe and the fortunes of the papacy that they quickly
discern apocalyptic epochs in such events as the battle of Sadowa, July 3, 1866, the
pope's bull of July, 1868, the insurrection in Spain under Prim, and the revolution in
France consequent upon the battle of Sedan, 1870, can scarcely be expected to view
any prophecy from the historical standpoint of the sacred writer. Comp. Elliott,
Horae Apocalypticte, 5th ed., Lond., 1872; Preface and Postscript.
868 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
which the dead of the previous aeon could not know. (6) The sixth
scene is that of the Son of man represented as wearing a golden
crown, holding a sharp sickle in his hand, and attended by an angel
(verses 14-16); and with these soon appears another angel having a
sharp sickle, and the land was reaped, and the winepress, trodden
without the city, spread rivers of blood that seemed to deluge all
the land. This is but another picture of the same great catastrophe,
seen from another point of view.
The vision of the seven vials (4>mAaf, bowls) full of the wrath of
The seven last God, which are also called the seven last plagues (chap-
piagues. ters xv, xvi), is but another symbolization of the seven
trumpet-woes (of chapters viii-xi), with which they minutely corre
spond. The duplicate vision of these terrible judgments (one judg
ment of sevenfold fury, conip. Dan. iii, 19) is analogous to other repe
titions of the same subject under different imagery (see above, pp.
317-319, and 324, 325). This double vision of wrath, like the double
dream of Pharaoh, served to show that these things were estab
lished by the Almighty, and that he would shortly bring them to
pass (Gen. xli, 32).1
The vision of Babylon the great (chapters xvii, xviii) is a highly
• of tb wrought apocalyptic picture of the apostate Church of
mystic Baby- the old covenant (comp. above, p. 299). The then exist
ing Jerusalem, in bondage with her children (Gal. iv, 25),
is portrayed as a harlot, and the language and imagery are appropri
ated largely from Ezekiel's allegory of the same city (Ezek. xvi;
comp. Ezek. xxiv).2 It is that murderess of prophets against whom
Jesus uttered the terrible words of Matt, xxiii, 34-36. From the
beginning of the Roman Empire Jerusalem sought and maintained
a heathenish complicity with the Casars, and the empire became,
politically, her dependence and support. There was constant strife
among ambitious rulers to obtain the so-called "kingdom of Judea."
Jerusalem was the chief city of that province, and is, therefore,
properly said to " reign over the kings (not of the earth, and not
over emperors and monarchy of the world, but) of the land " (chap.
1 " The repetition of the vision of judgment in various forms," says Farrar, " is one
of the recognized Hebrew methods of expressing their certainty. The same general
calamities are indicated by diverse symbols." He cites from the ancient Commentary
of Yictorinus the statement that the seven vials are but another symbol of the same
judgments as those denoted by the trumpets, and adds : " There is fair reason to sup
pose that Victorinus derived this valuable and by no means obvious principle of in
terpretation from early, and perhaps from apostolic, tradition." — The Early Days of
Christianity, chap, xxviii, p. 450. London, 1882.
2 Comp. Isa. i, 21 : " How has the once faithful city become a harlot ! " Comp. also
Jer. ii, 2, 20; iii, 3-6; iv, 30; xiii, 27.
WOMAN AND BEAST. 363
xvii, 18). It is the same land (777), the tribes of which mourn over
the coming of the Son of man (chap, i, 7).1 We, accordingly, take
the mystic Babylon to be identical with the great city which, in
chap, xi, 8, is called Sodom and Egypt, where the Lord was cruci
fied.1
The explanation of the mystery of the woman and the beast,
given in chap, xvii, 7-18, has puzzled all interpreters. f
It is noticeably a composite explanation, and avowedly woman and
applies partly to the woman and partly to the beast b
which carries her. The mystery requires for its solution " the
mind which hath wisdom " (ver. 9), and it may have had a meaning
and force for John's contemporaries which we of a long subsequent
age cannot so easily feel. " The beast which was, and is not, and is
about to come up out of the abyss, and to go away into destruc
tion " (ver. 8), is an expression of cautious reserve, which is notably
like Paul's guarded language about the man of sin (2 Thess. ii, 5-7).
The beast with seven heads and ten horns is usually identified with
the wild beast from the sea (chap, xiii, 1), and may be understood
of Rome and her allied and tributary princes who took part in the
war against Judea and Jerusalem. The great harlot city, whose
1 " The kings of the land," who, in Psa. ii, 2, set themselves against Jehovah and
his Christ, are declared by the Apostle Peter to be such kings as Herod and Pontius
Pilate (Acts iv, 27). These, he declares, "were gathered together with Gentiles and
peoples of Israel." Josephus says : " The city of Jerusalem is situated in the very
middle (of the land), on which account some have called that city the navel of the
country. Nor indeed is Judea destitute of such delights as come by the sea, since its
maritime places extend as far as Ptolemais. It was parted into eleven portions, of
which the royal city Jerusalem was supreme, and presided over all the neighbouring
country as the head does over the body." — Wars of the Jews, book iii, iii, 5.
2 It deserves notice that there is a title which, in the Apocalypse, is applied to
one particular city par excellence. It is the title " that great city " \fi 7ro/Uf rj fj.eya^.rf\,
It is clear that it is always the same city which is so designated, unless another be
expressly specified. Now, the city in which the witnesses are slain is expressly called
by this title, " that great city ; " and the names Sodom and Egypt are applied to it ; and
it is furthermore particularly identified as the city " where also our Lord was crucified "
(chap, xi, 8). There can be no reasonable doubt that this refers to ancient Jerusa
lem. If, then, " the great city " of chap, xi, 8, means ancient Jerusalem, it follows
that " the great city " of chap, xiv, 8, styled also Babylon, and " the great city " of chap,
xvi, 19, must equally signify Jerusalem. By parity of reasoning, "that great city"
[77 TroAtf i] neya^.rf\ in chap, xvii, 18, and elsewhere, must refer also to Jerusalem. It
is a mere assumption to say, as Dean Alford does, that Jerusalem is never called by
this name. There is no unfitness, but the contrary, in such a distinctive title being
applied to Jerusalem. It was to an Israelite the royal city, by far the greatest in the
land, the only city which could properly be so designated ; and it ought never to be
forgotten that the visions of the Apocalypse are to be regarded from a Jewish point
?f v^w. — The Parousia, pp. 486, 487.
370 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
holy temple had been made a place of merchandise and a den of
thieves (Matt, xxi, 13; John ii, 15), was carried for a hundred years
by Rome, and at last hated and destroyed by the very kings with
whom she had maintained her heathenish traffic. Jerusalem's rela
tion to Rome and her tributary princes was well voiced in that
Jewish appeal to Pilate: "If thou release this man, thou art not
Caesar's friend. . . . We have no king but Cresar" (John xix,
12, 15).
But while the relations of Jerusalem and Rome are thus outlined,
The beast from the beast "which was, and is not, and shall come"
the abyss. (Trdpgdrat, shall be present, ver. 8), may symbolize a
deeper mystery. He is not a combination of the lion, the leopard,
and the bear, nor does he " come up out of the sea " like the beast
of chap, xiii, 1, but he is a " scarlet-coloured beast," and " comes up
out of the abyss." May he not, therefore, be more properly re
garded as a special manifestation of the " great red dragon " of
chap, xii, 3 ? The seven heads and ten horns of the dragon indi
cate seats of power and regal and princely agents through whom
the kingly "angel of the abyss" (chap, ix, 11) accomplishes his
satanic purposes. We need not, therefore, look to the seven hills
of Rome,1 or to ten particular kings, for the solution of the mystery
of the scarlet-coloured beast. The language of the angel interpret
er, even when ostensibly explaining the mystery, is manifestly
enigmatical. Just as when, in chap, xiii, 18, he that has under
standing is called upon to " count the number of the beast," so here
the clue to the mystery of the seven heads and ten horns is itself a
riddle. " The seven heads are seven mountains on which the
woman is sitting " (ver. 9). This may indeed refer litei'ally to
seven mountains, either of Jerusalem or Rome, for both these
cities covered seven heights; but it is as likely to refer, enigmati
cally, to manifold political supports or alliances, considered as so
many seats of power or consolidated kingdoms, and called seven
because of covenanted arrangements.2 The words which follow
1 The seven mountains on which the woman sittcth (ver. 9) may be the mountains
of Jerusalem as well as the seven hills of Rome. There were Zion, Moriah, Acra, and
Bezetha, and the three fortified heights, Jlillo, Ophel, and the rock, seventy-five feet
high, on which the Castle of Antonia was built. See Edcrsheim, The Temple, pp.
11, 13. Boston, 1881 The notion that the septem colics of Latin writers were famil
iar to John and his Greek and Hebrew readers, and, necessarily to be understood
here, is as fanciful as that the eagles of Matt, xxiv, 28, are the Roman eagles. The
number seven, in this allusion to the mountains, need not be pressed into fuller sig
nificance than the seven horns and seven eyes of the Lamb in chap, v, 6, where no
one insists on a literal significance of the number seven.
* " The mountains," says Glasgow, " are, like other terms, to be understood
THE SEVEN KINGS. 371
should be rendered: "And seven kings there are," not necessarily,
as commonly translated, " they are seven kings," that is, the moun
tains represent seven kings. We are not satisfied with any solu
tion of the riddle of these seven kings which we have yet seen, and
will not presume to add another to the legion of guesses which
have been put forth.1 But we venture to suggest that the beast
" which was, and is not, and shall come," may be understood pri
marily of Satan himself, under his different and successive manifes
tations, in the persons of bitter persecutors of the Church. It was
the beast from the abyss by whom the two witnesses were slain
(chap, xi, 7; comp. chap, xx, 7). Cast out by the death of one im
perial persecutor he goes into the abyss (comp. Luke viii, 31), and,
anon, comes up again out of the abyss, and appropriates the blas
phemy and forces and diadems of the empire to make war upon the
Lamb and his faithful followers. As the Elijah, who was to come
before the great and notable day of Jehovah (Mai. iv, 5), appeared
in the person of John the Baptist (Matt, xi, 14), and was so called
because he represented the spirit and power of Elijah (Luke i, 17),
so the beast " which was, and is not, is himself also an eighth," and
symbolically. If the woman is not literal, why should the mountains be so thought ?
And to call the woman a literal city, built on seven hills, is equally gratuitous, whether
a Protestant says it of Rome or a Romanist of Constantinople." — The Apocalypse
Translated and Expounded, p. 439.
1 The explanations of the seven kings may be divided into three classes : I. Those
which regard them as so many different historical phases of world-power, as (1) Egypt,
(2) Assyria, (3) Babylon, (4) Persia, (5) Greece, (6) Rome, (7) Germanic-Sclavonic Em
pire (Auberlen) ; or (1) Babylonian, (2) iledo-Persian, (3) Greek, (4) Syrian, (5) Egyp
tian, (6) Roman, (7) German Empire (Wordsworth). II. Those which make them
represent so many different classes of rulers, as (1) kings, (2) consuls, (3) decemvirs,
(4) military tribunes, (5) dictators, (6) emperors, (7) popes (Vitringa) ; or (1) kings,
(2) consuls, (3) dictators, (4) decemvirs, (5) military tribunes, (6) the wreath-crowned
(<TTf0avof) emperors, (7) the diadem (6idd>/pa) emperors (Elliott). III. Those which
understand seven individual kings, as the first seven Caesars, (1) Julius, (2) Augustus,
(3) Tiberius, (4) Caligula, (5) Claudius, (6) Nero, (7) Galba (Stuart). Others begin the
seven with Augustus ; Grotius begins with Claudius ; Diisterdieck throws out of the
number the three usurpers, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, and makes the seventh head
Vespasian. Ziillig understands the seven kings to be (1) Herod the Great, (2) Arche-
laus, (3) Philip, (4) Antipas, (5) Agrippa, (6) Herod of Chalcis, (7) Agrippa II., con
sidered as antitypes of the seven Edomite kings mentioned in Gen. xxxvi, 33-38.
The author of The Parousia (Lond., 1878) identifies them with the seven procurators
of Judea, (1 ) Cuspius Fadus, (2) Tiberius Alexander, (3) Ventidius Cumanus, (4) Anto-
nius Felix, (5) Porcius Festus, (6) Albinus, (7) Gessius Florus. The above by no
means exhausts the various explanations. Surely be who would presume to deter
mine an important question of apocalyptic interpretation upon aay theory of the seven
kings builds upon a very uncertain foundation.
2 According to Gebhardt " the eighth king is identical with the beast (comp.
Cowles on the Revelation, in loco), whose seven heads are seven kings. As individual
372 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
is of the seven [of the same spirit and power], and goes away into
destruction" (ver. 11). It is not at all impossible that the wide
spread rumour that Nero was to appear again grew out of a misap
prehension of this riddle, just as some modern interpreters still
insist (see Alford on Matt, xi, 14) that the real Elijah is yet liter
ally to come. The early Chiliasts, like their modern followers,
often insisted on the literal interpretation even of riddles.
The fall of Babylon the great is portrayed in glowing colours in
chap, xviii, 1-xix, 10, and the language and imagery
mystic Baby- are appropriated almost wholly from the Old Testa
ment prophetic pictures of the fall of ancient Babylon
and Tyre.1 The vision is fourfold: First (1) an angel proclaims the
forms of world-power appear to the seer to culminate and unite in an empire which
he calls the beast, so he sees again the particular stages of the development of this
empire, the individual rulers of the same culminate in one prince, which he also de
scribes as the beast. As the leopard, the bear, and the lion are contained in the beast,
so are the seven heads of the beast contained in the one head. We may say that as
he sees in an individual king the nature of a definite empire, uniting in itself all ear
lier empires, personified, so also he sees unfolded in this empire the nature of that
individual king : this king is to him the empire in person ; this empire is to him the
king in the form of a kingdom. It is also evidently much easier in the one place to
think of an individual king, and in the other of an empire, and it is therefore ever to
be maintained that the seer so thought ; the empire of which this is the king, the
king whose is the empire." — The Doctrine of the Apocalypse, English translation,
p. 221. Edinb., 1878.
1 How notably strange it is that learned exegetes, who can see striking fulfilments
of this prophecy in comparatively unimportant events of the politics and feuds of
modern Europe and the papacy, are forgetful of such events as the following, which
is only one of many similar pictures of woe given us by the Jewish historian. De
scribing the destruction of the temple, Josephus says : " While the holy house was on
fire everything was plundered that came to hand, and ten thousand of those that were
caught were slain ; nor was there a commiseration of any age, or any reverence of
gravity ; but children and old men, and profane persons and priests, were all slain in
the same manner ; so that this war went round all sorts of men, and brought them to
destruction, and as well those that made supplication for their lives as those that de
fended themselves by fighting. The flame was also carried a long way, and made an
echo together with the groans of those that were slain ; and because this hill was
high, and the works at the temple were very great, one would have thought the whole
city had been on fire. Nor can one imagine anything either greater or more terrible
than this noise ; for there was at once a shout of the Roman legions, who were march
ing all together, and a sad clamour of the seditious, who were now surrounded with
fire and sword. The people also that were left above were beaten back upon the
enemy, and under a great consternation, and made sad moans at the calamity they
were under ; the multitude also that was in the city joined in this outcry with those
that were upon the hill ; and, besides, many of those that were worn away by the
famine, and their mouths almost closed, when they saw the fire of the holy house,
they exerted their utmost strength, and brake out into groans and outcries again :
Perea did also return the echo, as well as the mountains round about [the city], and
FALL OF BABYLON. 373
awful ruin (xviii, 1-3). He repeats the words already used in chap,
xiv, 8, but which were used of old by Isaiah (xxi, 9) and Jeremiah
(li, 8) in foretelling the ruin of the Chaldaean capital. (2) Then an
other heavenly voice is heard, like the words of Jesus in Matt, xxiv,
16, and like the prophetic word which long before had called the chos
en people to " flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man
his soul" (Jer. li, 6; comp. 1, 8; Isa. xlviii, 20; Zech. ii, 6, 7), and
this call is followed by a woeful dirge over the sudden ruin of the
great city (xviii, 4-20). This oracle of doom should be closely
compared with that of Isaiah and Jeremiah over ancient Babylon
(Isa. xiii, 19-22; Jer. 1, li), and that of Ezekiel over the fall of
Tyre (Ezek. xxvi-xxviii). (3) The violence of the catastrophe is
next illustrated by the symbol of a mighty angel hurling a mill
stone into the sea, and the consequent cessation of all her former
activity and noise (xviii, 21-24). (4) After these things there is
heard a paean of victory in the heavens — notable contrast to the
voice of the harpers and minstrels of the fallen Babylon, and all
the servants of God are admonished to prepare for the marriage
supper of the Lamb.
After the fall of the great Babylon there follows a sevenfold
vision of the coming and kingdom of the Christ (chap. The Parousia
xix, 11-xxi, 8). As, in Matt, xxiv, 29, "immediately S^J^fS
after the tribulation of those days " the sign of the Son man.
of man appears in heaven, so, immediately after the horrors of the
woe-smitten city, the seer of Patmos beholds the heaven opened,
and the glorious King of kings and Lord of lords comes forth to
judge the nations and avenge his own elect. This great apocalyp
tic picture contains: (1) The parousia of the Son of man in his
glory (xix, 11-16). (2) The destruction of the beast and the false
prophet with all their impious forces (verses 17-21). This over
throw is portrayed in noticeable harmony with that of the lawless
one in 2 Thess. ii, 8, " whom the Lord Jesus shall take off with the
breath of his mouth, and bring to naught with the manifestation of
his coming;" and the beastly agents of Satan, like those of Daniel's
visions (Dan. vii, 11), are given to the burning flame. (3) The de
struction of these beasts, to whom the dragon gave his power and
augmented the force of the entire noise. Yet was the misery itself more terrible
than this disorder ; for one would have thought that the hill itself, on which the tem
ple stood, was seething hot, as full of fire on every part of it, that the blood was
larger in quantity than the fire, and those that were slain more in number than those
that slew them ; for the ground did nowhere appear visible for the dead bodies that
lay on it ; but the soldiers went over heaps of these bodies as they ran upon such as
fled from them." — Wars of the Jews, book vi, chap, v, 1.
374 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
authority (chap, xiii, 2, 11, 12), is appropriately followed by the
binding and imprisonment of the old dragon himself (chap, xx, 1-3).
The symbols employed to set forth all these triumphs are surely
not to be understood literally of a warfare carried on with carnal
weapons (comp. 2 Cor. x, 4; Eph. vi, 11-17), but they vividly ex
press momentous facts forever to be associated with the consumma
tion of that age, and crisis of ages, when Judaism fell, and Chris
tianity opened upon the world. From that period onward no
well-authenticated instance of demoniacal possession can be shown.1
With that shutting up of Satan the millennium begins,
The Millennium. . . , ,, . ., ,, TTI i
a long indefinite period, as the symbolical number
most naturally suggests (see above, p. 298), but a period of ample
fulness for the universal diffusion and triumph of the Gospel
(verses 4-6). "The first resurrection" takes place at the begin
ning of this period, and is chiefly conspicuous as a resurrection of
martyrs; a bliss of which not all the dead appear to have been
"accounted worthy" (Kara^t^evreg, Luke xx, 35), but which Paul
was anxious to attain (Phil, iii, 11). For it is written, " Blessed and
holy is he who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the
second death has no authority," for of such Jesus said, " neither can
they die any more" (Luke xx, 36). Moreover, they sit upon
thrones, and judgment is given to them (comp. Dan. vii, 22; Matt,
xix, 28; Luke xxii, 28-30; 1 Cor. vi, 2), and they are made "priests
of God and of Christ, and reign with him the thousand years."
The language of verse 4, however, intimates that others besides the
martyrs may sit upon thrones and exercise judgment with the
Christ (comp. chap, ii, 26, 27; iii, 21).
Of other things which may occur during the millennium no men-
The chiiiastic tion is here made, and yet all manner of fancies have
interpretation. been built upon this brief passage of the Apocalypse.
The Chiliasts assume that this millennium is to be a visible reign
of Christ and his saints upon the earth, and with this reign they
associate a most literal conception of other prophecies. The follow
ing, from Justin Martyr, is one of the earliest expressions of this
view: "I, and others," he says, "who are right-minded Christians
on all points, are assured that there will be a resurrection of the
1 " We conclude," says the author of The Parousia, " that at the end of the age a
marked and decisive check was given to the power of Satan ; which check is symbol
ically represented in the Apocalypse by the chaining and imprisoning of the dragon
in the abyss. It does not follow from this that error and evil were banished from the
earth. It is enough to show that this was, as Schlegel says, ' the decisive crisis be
tween ancient and modern times,' and that the introduction of Christianity 'has
changed and regenerated, not only government and science, but the whole system of
human life.'" — Parousia, p. 518.
FIRST RESURRECTION. 375
dead, and a thousand years in Jerusalem, which will then be built,
adorned, and enlarged, as the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah and
others declare. . . . And, further, there was a certain man with
us whose name was John, one of the apostles of Christ, who proph
esied, by a revelation that was made to him, that those who believed
in our Christ would dwell a thousand years in Jerusalem; and that
thereafter the general and, in short, the eternal resurrection and
judgment of all men would likewise take place." ' This Ebionite
conception, having gained an early prominence, has infected apoc
alyptic interpretation with a disturbing leaven even until now, and
there is little hope of a better exegesis until all dogmatic notions
are set aside and we fearlessly accept what the Scripture says, and
no more.
The old Chiliastic ideas of a restoration of all Israel at Jerusalem,
and of Christ and his glorified saints literally sitting chmastic inter-
on thrones and reigning in visible material glory on ou
the earth, are without warrant in this Scripture. Noth- warrant,
ing is here said about Jerusalem, or the Jews, or the Gentiles. An
indefinite number sit upon thrones and receive judgment. Among
them those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus have
a most conspicuous place, and thus they receive the reward prom
ised in chap, vi, 9-11. These now live and reign with Christ, not
on the earth, but where the throne of his kingdom is, namely, in
the heavens. This accords with Paul's words in 2 Tim. ii, 11: "If
we died with him (i. e., by martyrdom; comp. Phil, iii, 10) we shall
also live with him; if we endure suffering we shall also reign with
him." A resurrection of martyrs, to take place at the beginning of
the millennial era appears to be the most natural and obvious import
of Rev. xx, 4—6, and nothing is gained by reading into the language
another meaning. " I do not see," says Stuart, " how we can, on
the ground of exegesis, fairly avoid the conclusion that John has
taught in the passage before us that there will be a resurrection of
the martyr-saints at the commencement of the period after Satan
shall have been shut up in the dungeon of the great abyss." *
1 Dialogue with Trypho, Ixxx, Ixxxi. " The Book of Revelation," says Hagenbach,
" in its twentieth chapter, gave currency to the idea of a millennial kingdom, together
with that of a second resurrection; and the imagination of those who dwelt fondly
Upon sensuous impressions delineated these millennial hopes in the most glowing
terms. This was the case, not only with the Judaizing Ebionites and Cerinthus, but
also with several orthodox fathers, such as Papias, Justin, Irenaeus, and Tertullian." —
History of Doctrines, Translated by Smith, vol. i, p. 213. New York, 1861.
8 Commentary on the Apocalypse, vol. ii, p. 476. Similarly Alford : " No legitimate
treatment of this text will extort from it what is known as the spiritual interpretation
now in fashion. If, in a passage where two resurrections are mentioned, where
376 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
(5) At the end of the millennial period there is to be a loosing of
The last defeat Satan, a rising of hostile forces, symbolized by Gog and
the SiasMudn>-- ^ao°» (comp. Ezek. xxxviii, xxxix), and a fearful
ment. catastrophe, resulting in the final and everlasting over
throw of the devil — the culmination of the prophecy of Gen. iii, 15.
This last conflict, belonging to a distant future, is rapidly passed
over by the seer, and its details are not made known (verses 7-10).
(6) The last great judgment is next portrayed (verses 11-15), and
may well be regarded as the culmination and completion of that
continual judgment (depicted in Matt, xxv, 31-46) which began
with the parousia and continues until the Son of man delivers over
the kingdom to the Father (1 Cor. xv, 24). (7) The last picture in
this wonderful apocalyptical series is that of the new heavens and
new land, and the descent of the heavenly Jerusalem (xxi, 1-8). It
corresponds with Matt, xxv, 34, where the king says to those on his
right hand: "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom
prepared for you from the foundation of the world." As there the
glory of the righteous is put in striking contrast with the curse
and doom of the wicked, and, it is finally said, " These shall go
away into eternal punishment " (Matt, xxv, 46), so here, after the
glory of the redeemed is outlined, it is added, as the issue of an
eternal judgment : " But as for the fearful, and unbelieving, and
abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idol
aters, and all liars, their part is in the lake that burns with fire and
brimstone (comp. ' the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his
angels,' Matt, xxv, 41), which is the second death."
It should be noticed how this last sevenfold apocalyptic vision
certain souls lived at the first, and the rest of the dead lived only at the end of a speci
fied period after the first — if in such a passage the first resurrection may be under
stood to mean spiritual rising with Christ, while the second means literal rising from
the grave ; then there is an end of all significance in language, and Scripture is wiped
out as a definite testimony to any thing." — Greek Testament, in loco. This argument
holds equally good against all theories of the " first resurrection," which allow that
the first is figurative and the other literal. Brown's nine famous arguments against
the literal, and in favour of a figurative explanation of the first resurrection (Christ's
Second Coming, pp. 231-258, New York, 1866), are all aimed against the sensuous
Chiliastic notion that it is the simultaneous resurrection of all the righteous dead — a
view which we repudiate as unscriptural. But Brown himself fairly overthrows the
notion of Scott and others that John saw a resurrection of souls, and not of bodies.
" This is to mistake what the apostle saw in the vision. He did not see a resurrection
of souls. He saw ' the souls of them that were slain ; ' that is, he had a vision of the
martyrs themselves in the state of the dead — after they were dead, and just before
their resurrection. Then he saw them rise : ' They lived ' — not their souls, but them
selves. All figurative resurrections in Scripture are couched in the language of literal
ones ; and why should this be any exception ? " — Christ's Second Coming, p. 229.
THE MILLENNIUM. 377
(chap, xix, 11-xxi, 8) covers the entire field of biblical eschatology.
The whole is rapidly sketched, for details would have ^^ vialooa
transcended the purpose of " the prophecy of this book " introduce what
»__•• iA\ i« i 11 . i • 1-1 transcends the
(xxn, 10), which was to make known things which were time-limits of
shortly to come to pass (chap, i, 1-3). But like the last tnebook-
section of our Lord's discourse (Matt, xxv, 31-46), which introduces
things running far beyond the time-limits of that prophecy, but
which were to commence "when the Son of man should come in
his glory;" so this sevenfold vision begins with the parousia (chap.
xix, 11), and sketches in brief outline the mighty triumphs and eter
nal issues of the Messiah's reign.1
We understand that the millennium of Rev. xx, 1-6, is now in
progress. It dates from the consummation of the Jew- „
. . The Millennium
ish age. It is a round definite number used symboh- is the Gospel
cally for an indefinite £eon. It is the period of the <UsPensatton-
Messianic reign, and the kingdom of the heavens, like the mustard
seed and the leaven (Matt, xiii, 31-33), is passing through its grad
ual development. It may require a million years. The impatient
Chiliast will not be satisfied with this slow Messianic order, and re
fuses to see that the powers of darkness have been repressed, and
the progress of human civilization has been more marked since the
end of that age than ever before. But others see and know that
since the dawn of Christianity, idolatry has been well nigh abolished,
and every element of righteousness and truth has been gaining
prominence and control in the laws of nations.8 It is not in accord
1 Lange suggestively but somewhat fancifully observes : " The entire aeon is to be
conceived of as an aeon of separations and eliminations in an ethical and a cosmical
sense, separations and eliminations such as are necessary to make manifest and to
complete the ideal regulations of life. Of judgments of damnation between the judg
ment upon Antichrist and the judgment upon Satan there can be no question ; the
reference can be only to a critical government and management preparatory to the
final consummation. The whole aeon is a crisis which occasions the visible appear-
ance of the heaven on earth. The whole aeon is the great last day. We may even
conceive of the mutiny which finally breaks out as a result of these preparations, for
a sort of protest on the part of the wicked was hinted at by Christ in his eschatolog-
ical discourse (Matt, xxv, 44), and the most essential element in the curse of hell is
the continuance of revolt, the gnashing of teeth." — Commentary on the Revelation of
John, p. 350. American edition. New York, 1874.
2 Pope represents the Catholic faith and interpretation as "content to understand
figuratively the glowing representations of the ancient prophecies as applying to the
present Christian Church. It takes the Apocalypse as a book of symbols, which does
not give consecutive history, but continually reverts to the beginning, and exhibits in
varying visions the same one great final truth. Satan was bound or cast out when.
our Saviour ascended ; he has never since been the god and seducer of the nations as
he was before, and as he will for a season be permitted to be again. The saints,
378 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
with either history or prophecy to believe that the Gospel of the
kingdom of Christ will have for its historical period an aeon shorter
than that required for its preparation in the typical dispensations
which preceded it. It is not probable that God would take four
thousand years of type and shadow to prepare the world for two
thousand years of light. We should not expect the earlier part of
the Messianic millennium to be without any darkness, and there is
nothing in the Scriptures to warrant the idea that its entire period
is to be one of uniform and unclouded blessedness and glory.
There remains for our notice but one more great apocalyptic
picture, the vision of the New Jerusalem. As in chap.
The vision of
the New Jeru- xvi, 19, under the seventh and last plague, the fall of
salem' the great Babylon (old Jerusalem) was briefly outlined,
and then, in chap, xvii-xix, 10, another and more detailed portrai
ture of that " mother of the harlots and of the abominations of the
land" was added, going over many of the same things again, so
here, having given under the last series of visions a short but vivid
picture of the heavenly Jerusalem (xxi, 1-8), the apocalyptist, follow
ing his artistic style and habit of repetition, tells how one of the
same seven angels (comp. xvii, 1-4, and xxi, 9-11) took him to a lofty
mountain, and gave him a fuller vision of the Bride, the wife of the
Lamb. This wife of the Lamb is no other than the woman of chap,
xii, 1, but she is here revealed at a later stage of her history, after
the dragon has been shut up in the abyss. After the land has been
cleared of dragon, beast, and false prophet, the seed of the woman
who fled into the wilderness, the seed caught up to the throne of
God, are conceived as "coming down out of heaven from God,"
and all things are made new. The language and symbols used are
appropriated mainly from Isaiah Ixv, 17-lvi, 24, and the closing
chapters of Ezekiel. The great thought is : Babylon, the bloody
harlot, has fallen, and New Jerusalem, the glorious Bride, appears.
As the closing chapters of Ezekiel have been variously under-
Meaning of the stood (see above, pp. 344, 345), so this vision of the
New Jerusalem. jjew Jerusalem, which is evidently modelled after the
pattern of that older Apocalypse, has been explained in different
martyrs, and others — the martyrs pre-eminently — now rule with Christ : and hath made
us a kingdom (Rev. i, 6), they themselves sing; and they reign upon earth (Rev. v, 10).
The apostles, and all saints, have part in the first resurrection, and in the present
regeneration reign with Jesus, though the future regeneration shall be yet more abun
dant. The unanimous strain of prophecy concerning the glory of the Messiah's king
dom is to be interpreted as partly fulfilled in the spiritual reign of Christ in this
world, which is not yet fully manifested as it will be ; and partly as the earthly figure
of a heavenly reality hereafter." — Compendium of Christian Theology, vol. iii, pp.
400, 401. N. Y., 1881.
NEW HEAVEN AND EARTH. 379
ways. (1) According to one class of interpreters, the future resto
ration of the Jews to Palestine, and the rebuilding of Jerusalem on
a magnificent scale, are here predicted.1 (2) According to others,
the new heaven, new land, and new Jerusalem are but a symbolic
recapitulation of the visions of chap, xx, for the purpose of fuller
detail, and are to be understood as synchronizing with the period
of the thousand years. (3) But most interpreters regard the proph
ecy as post-millennial, and descriptive of the final heavenly state
of the glorified saints of God. Rejecting the first of the above
named views (which represents the sensuous Ebionite conception of
the kingdom of heaven, and magnifies the letter to the quenching
of the spirit of Scripture), we may blend the two other interpreta
tions. Ezekiel's vision, as we have seen (p. 345), symbolized the
New Testament Church and kingdom of God ; why should not the
same conception enter into this parallel prophecy? But as later
revelations are wont to embody fuller and more perfect outlines of
the provisions of grace, so John's picture of new heaven, new land,
and new city is more luminous and far reaching in its indications
of what God has prepared for those who love him and keep his
commandments.
The words of Haggai ii, 6, 7, are acknowledged by the best inter
preters to be a Messianic prophecy : " Yet once — it is Hag H 6; 7i and
a little while — and I will shake the heavens, and the Heb- ^ 26-28-
land, and the sea, and the desert ; and I will shake all the nations,
and they shall come to the delight2 of all the nations, and I will
1 Here properly belongs that exposition of the " new heaven and new earth," which
finds in Isa. li, 16; Ixv, 17; Ixvi, 22; 2 Pet. Hi, 10-13; Rev. xx, 11; xxi, 1, a literal
prophecy of the destruction of the world by fire, and the creation of a new world in
its place. The only question among these interpreters is whether an absolutely new
creation is intended, or only a renovation (Ka).Lyyeveaia, regeneration (Matt, xix, 28)
of the materials of the old. That these texts may intimate or dimly foreshadow some
such ultimate reconstruction of the physical creation, need not be denied, for we know
not the possibilities of the future, nor the purposes of God respecting all things which
he has created. But the contexts of these several passages do not authorize such a
doctrine. Isa. li, 16, refers to the resuscitation of Zion and Jerusalem, and is clearly
metaphorical. The same is true of Isa. Ixv, 17, and Ixvi, 22, for the context in all
these places confines the reference to Jerusalem and the people of God, and sets forth
the same great prophetic conception of the Messianic future as the closing chapters
of Ezekiel. The language of 2 Pet. iii, 10, 12, is taken mainly from Isa. xxx, 4, and
is limited to the parousia, like the language of Matt, xxiv, 29. Then the Lord made
" not only the land but also the heaven " to tremble (Heb. xii, 26), and removed the
things that were shaken in order to establish a kingdom which cannot be moved
(Heb. xii, 27, 28).
* This most simple construction of the Hebrew has been strangely ignored by a
supposed necessity of making rnOI"!, deligld, or desire, the subject of the verb }tf3,
380 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
fill this house with glory." This prophecy is quoted and explained,
in Heb. xii, 26-28, as the removal of an earth and heaven which shall
give place to an " immovable kingdom." Is there any reason for be
lieving this immovable kingdom to be other than that of which the
Lord spoke in Matt, xvi, 28 : " There are some standing here who
shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his
kingdom"? The greatest "glory of that latter house," of which
Haggai (ii, 7, 9) spoke, was attained when the Lord Christ entered
and taught within its courts; but the destruction of the second
temple, and the shaking of "the heaven and the land" which it
represented, prepared the way for the nobler temple of " his body,
the fulness of him who fills all things in all" (Eph. i, 23). Of this
body Christ is the head, the husband, and Saviour (Eph. v, 23),
having loved her and given himself for her, " that he might sanctify
her, having purified her by the laver of water in the word, that he
himself might present to himself in glorious beauty the Church,
not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing" (Eph. v, 26, 27). l
This glorious Church is manifestly the same as the Bride, the wife
of the Lamb, the holy city, New Jerusalem. It was necessary that
the Old Testament visible Church should be shaken and fall and
pass away, for its glory had departed ; but in its place comes forth
" the whole assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled
in heaven" (Heb. xii, 23).
If, furthermore, we allow the author of the Epistle to the He-
Aiiusion of brews to guide us to a right understanding of the New
Heb. xii, 22, 23. Jerusalem, we will observe that the communion and
fellowship of New Testament saints are apprehended as heaven
begun on earth. It is altogether probable that this epistle was
come. But }tf3 is plural, and has naturally for its subject the nations (Q^3) just
mentioned. So in Isa. xxxv, 10, " The ransomed of Jehovah shall return, and come to
Zion, with shouting and everlasting joy upon their heads." When we read further,
in Isa. Ixv, 18, as explanatory of the new heavens and new land (ver. 17), "Behold,
I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy," we will find therein the surest
explanation of the ITlQn, delight, of Hag. ii, 7. The New Jerusalem, the New Testa
ment Church and kingdom of God, is the delight and desire of the nations, which, ac
cording to Rev. xxi, 24, walk by the light of it.
1 " The union of Christ," says Meyer, " with his Church, at the parousia, in order
to confer upon it Messianic blessedness, is conceived of by Paul (as also by Christ
himself, Matt, xxv, 1 ; comp. Rev. xix, 7 ; see also John iii, 29) under the figure of the
bringing home of a bride, wherein Christ appears as the bridegroom, and sets forth
the bride, i. e., his Church, as a spotless virgin (the bodily purity is a representative
of the ethical) before himself, after he has already in this age cleansed it by the
bath of baptism, and sanctified it through his word." — Critical Com. on Ephesians,
in loco.
NEW JERUSALEM. 331
•written after the Book of Revelation,1 and direct allusions to it are
apparent in the following passage : " Ye are come (TrpoCTeATfAvtfare,
ye have already come) unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the
living God, the heavenly Jerusalem." The Christian believer, when
his life becomes hidden with Christ in God, has already entered
into a communion and fellowship that never ceases.1 His name is
enrolled in heaven. He dwells in God and God in him, and all
subsequent glorification in time and in eternity is but a continuous
and growing realization of the blessedness of the Church and King
dom of God.
In the vision of the Xew Jerusalem we have the last New Testa
ment revelation of the spiritual and heavenly blessed- New Jerusalem
ness and glory of which the Mosaic tabernacle was a the heavenly
material symbol. The "dwelling of the testimony" the tabernacle
japto, Exod. xxxviii, 21) and its various vessels symbolized.
and services were "copies of the things in the heavens" (Heb.
ix, 23), and Christ has entered into the holy places "through the
greater and more perfect tabernacle" (Heb. ix, 11), thereby making
it possible for all true believers to enter "with boldness into the
entrance way of the holies" (Heb. x, 19). This entrance into the
holy places and fellowships is realized only as " we draw near with
a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled
from an evil conscience, and the body washed with pure water"
(Heb. x, 22), and such spiritual access is possible to us now. The
Alpha and the Omega, accordingly, says : " Blessed are they who
wash their robes, that they may have the authority over the tree
of life, and by the gates may enter into the city" (Rev. xxii, 14).
This city is represented as a perfect cube in form (Rev. xxi, 16),
and may therefore be regarded as the heavenly Holy of Holies,
into the entrance way (doodov) of which we may now approach.
All this accords with the voice from the throne, which said : " Be
hold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will tabernacle with
them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with
them" (Rev. xxi, 3). Herein we discern the true antitype of the
ancient tabernacle and temple, and hence it is that this holy city
1 Comp. the "innumerable company of angels" (Heb. xii, 22) with Rev. v, 11 ; and
the " assembly and church enrolled in heaven " with Rev. xiii, 8 ; xxi, 27 ; and " spirits
of just men made perfect" with Rev. vii, 13-17. References and allusions as direct
and explicit as these, made by any of the early Fathers to books of the New Testa
ment, would be regarded by all critics as indisputable evidence of the pre-existence
of such books. Comp. Cowles, The Revelation of John, p. 22 ; Glasgow, The Apoca
lypse, Translated and Expounded, pp. 29, 30.
3 Comp. Riehm, Messianic Prophecy, pp. 164-166. Edinb., 1876.
25
382 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
admits of no temple, and no light of sun and moon, for the Lord
God, the Almighty, and the Lamb are its light and its temple
(Rev. xxi, 22, 23). Moreover, no cherubim appear within this Holy
of Holies, for these former symbols of redeemed humanity are now
supplanted by the innumerable company of Adam's race, from
whom the curse (na-dde^a, Rev. xxii, 3) has been removed, and
who take their places about the throne of God and of the Lamb,
act as his servants there, behold his face, and have his name upon
their foreheads (Rev. xxii, 3, 4).
The New Jerusalem, then, is the apocalyptic portraiture of the
New Testament Church and Kingdom of God. Its symbolism ex
hibits the heavenly nature of the communion and fellowship of God
and his people, which is entered here by faith, but which opens
into unspeakable fulness of glory through ages of ages.
There is room for differences of opinion in the interpretation of
particular passages and symbols in all the apocalyptic Scriptures.
But attention to their general harmonies, and a careful study of
the scope and outline of each prophecy as a whole, will go far to
save us from the hopeless confusion and contradiction into which
many by neglecting this method have fallen.
From the foregoing study of biblical apocalyptics we may legiti
mately derive the following conclusions:
Conclusions. T • /• i /> • -, , • i <-
1. It is or the nrst importance that this class of
prophecies should be studied as a whole, and be seen to constitute
a well-connected and inter-dependent series of divine revelations,
running through the entire Scriptures.
2. The formal elements of apocalyptics are not of a nature to
allow a literal interpretation of all the language employed. In great
part the various revelations are set forth in the highly wrought
language of metaphor and symbolism. The task of the faithful in
terpreter is to grasp the great essential thought, and distinguish it
from the mere drapery in which it has been clothed. One can afford
to miss some incidental parts, and frankly acknowledge inability to
determine the exact meaning of such a passage as that touching the
" first resurrection " in Rev. xx, 6, if he but truly apprehend the
great scope, plan, and import of the prophecy taken as a whole.
3. Too much stress cannot well be laid upon the habit of repeti
tion so conspicuous in all the great apocalypses of the Bible. We
believe that the failure in most of the current expositions of the
apocalypse of John to note that the second half (xii-xxii) is in the
main a repetition of the first (i-xi) under other symbols and from
other points of view, has been a fatal hinderance to the true inter
pretation of this most wonderful book.
NO DOUBLE SENSE. 383
CHAPTER XVIII.
NO DOUBLE SENSE IN PROPHECY.
THE hermeneutical principles which we have now set forth neces
sarily exclude the doctrine that the prophecies of Scripture contain
an occult or double sense. It has been alleged by some that as
these oracles are heavenly and divine we should expect to find in
them manifold meanings. They must needs differ from other
books. Hence has arisen not only the doctrine of a double sense,
but of a threefold and fourfold sense, and the rabbis Theory of a
went so far as to insist that there are "mountains of d°u*>ie sense
j £ c? • x » -inr j-i unsettles all
sense in every word of Scripture. We may readily sound inter-
admit that the Scriptures are capable of manifold prac- Pretation-
tical applications / otherwise they would not be so useful for doc
trine, correction, and instruction in righteousness (2 Tim. iii, 16).
But the moment we admit the principle that portions of Scripture
contain an occult or double sense we introduce an element of un
certainty in the sacred volume, and unsettle all scientific interpre
tation.1 "If the Scripture has more than one meaning," says Dr.
Owen, " it has no meaning at all." " I hold," says Ryle, " that the
words of Scripture were intended to have one definite sense, and
that our first object should be to discover that sense, and adhere
rigidly to it. ... To say that words do mean a thing merely be
cause they can be tortured into meaning it is a most dishonourable
and dangerous way of handling Scripture." a " This scheme of in
terpretation," says Stuart, "forsakes and sets aside the common
1 "We count it no gentleness or fair dealing, in a man of power, to require strict
and punctual obedience, and yet give out his commands ambiguously. We should
think he had a plot upon us. Certainly such commands were no commands, but
snares. The very essence of truth is plainness and brightness ; the darkness and
ignorance are our own. The wisdom of God created understanding, fit and propor
tionable to truth, the object and end of it, as the eye to the thing visible. If our
understanding have a film of ignorance over it, or be blear with gazing on other false
glisterings, what is that to truth? If we will but purge with sovereign eye-salve
that intellectual ray which God hath planted in us, then we would believe the Scrip
tures protesting their own plainness and perspicuity, calling to.them to be instructed,
not only the wise and the learned, but the simple, the poor, the babes. — Milton,
Reformation in England, Book i.
* Expository Thoughts on St. Luke, vol. i, p. 383.
384 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
laws of language. The Bible excepted, in no book, treatise, epis
tle, discourse, or conversation, ever written, published, or addressed
by any one man to his fellow beings (unless in the way of sport,
or with an intention to deceive), can a double sense be found. There
are, indeed, charades, enigmas, phrases with a double entente, and
the like, perhaps, in all languages; there have been abundance of
heathen oracles which were susceptible of two interpretations; but
even among all these there never has been, and there never was a
design that there should be, but one sense or meaning in reality.
Ambiguity of language may be, and has been, designedly resorted
to in order to mislead the reader or hearer, or in order to conceal
the ignorance of soothsayers, or to provide for their credit amid
future exigencies; but this is quite foreign to the matter of a seri
ous and bonafide double meaning of words. Nor can we for a mo
ment, without violating the dignity and sacredness of the Scriptures,
suppose that the inspired writers are to be compared to the authors
of riddles, conundrums, enigmas, and ambiguous heathen oracles." '
Some writers have confused this subject by connecting it with
Typology and the doctrine of type and antitype. As many persons
double sense of an(j events of the Old Testament were types of greater
language not . , .
to be con- ones to come, so the language respecting them is sup
posed to be capable of a double sense. The second
Psalm has been supposed to refer both to David and Christ, and
Isa. vii, 14-16, to a child born of a virgin who lived in the time of
the prophet, and also to the Messiah. Psalms xlv and Ixxii have
been supposed to have a double reference to Solomon and Christ, and
the prophecy against Edom in Isa. xxxiv, 5-10, to comprehend also
the general judgment of the last day.2 But it should be seen that
in the case of types the language of the Scripture has no double
sense. The types themselves are such because they prefigure
things to come, and this fact must be kept distinct from the ques
tion of the sense of language used in any particular passage. We
reject as unsound and misleading the theory that such Messianic
psalms as the second, forty-fifth and seventy-second have a double
sense, and refer first to David, Solomon, or some other ruler, and
secondly to Christ. If an historical reference to some great typical
character can be shown, the whole case may be relegated to biblical
typology, the language naturally explained of the person celebrated
in the psalm, and then the person himself may be shown to be a type
and illustration of a greater one to come. After this manner the
1 Hints on the Interpretation of Prophecy, p. 14. Andover, 1842.
! See Davidson's Hermeneutics, pp. 49, 50. "Woodhouse on the Apocalypse, pp.
172-174. Home, Introduction, vol. ii. pp. 404-408.
NO DOUBLE SENSE. 385
great events referred to in the Immanuel prophecy of Isa. vii, 14,
and the calling of Israel out of Egypt in Hos. xi, 1, were typically
fulfiled in Jesus. The oracle against Edom (Isa. xxxiv, 5-10), like
that against Babylon (Isa. xiii, 6-13) is simply a specimen of the
highly wrought style of apocalyptic prophecy, and gives no warrant
to the theory of a double sense in the word of God. The twenty-
fourth of Matthew, often appealed to in support of this theory, is
explicable by a much simpler method.
Some plausibility is given to the theory by adducing the sug
gestive fulness of some parts of the prophetic Scrip- The suggestive
tures. Such fulness is readily admitted, and ever to be {Jj^iw proo?of
extolled. The first prophecy is a good example. The a double sense.
enmity between the seed of the woman and that of the serpent
(Gen. iii, 15) has been exhibited in a thousand forms. The precious
words of promise to God's people find more or less fulfilment in
every individual experience. But these facts do not sustain the
theory of a double sense. The sense in every case is direct and
simple; the applications and illustrations are many. Such facts give
no authority for us to go into apocalyptic prophecies with the ex
pectation of finding two or more meanings in each specific state
ment, and then to declare: This verse refers to an event long past,
this to something yet future; this had a partial fulfilment in the
ruin of Babylon, or Edom, but it awaits a grander fulfilment in the
future. The judgment of Babylon, or Nineveh, or Jerusalem, may,
indeed, be a type of every other similar judgment, and is a warn
ing to all nations and ages; but this is very different from say
ing that the language in which that judgment was predicted was
fulfilled only partially when Babylon, or Nineveh, or Jerusalem
fell, and is yet awaiting its complete fulfilment.
We have already seen that the Bible has its riddles, enigmas,
and dark sayings, but whenever they are given the context clearly
advises us of the fact. To assume, in the absence of any hint, that
we have an enigma, and in the face of explicit statements to the
contrary, that any specific prophecy has a double sense, a primary
and a secondary meaning, a near and a remote fulfilment, must
necessarily introduce an element of uncertainty and confusion into
biblical interpretation.
The same may be said about explicit designations of time. When a
writer says that an event will shortly and speedily come NO misleading
to pass, or is about to take place, it is contrary to all pro-
priety to declare that his statements allow us to believe ecy.
the event is in the far future. It is a reprehensible abuse of lan
guage to say that the words immediately, or near at hand, mean
386 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
ages hence, or after a long time. Such a treatment of the language
of Scripture is even worse than the theory of a double sense. And
yet interpreters have appealed to 2 Peter iii, 8 as furnishing in
spired authority to disregard designations of time in prophecy.
" Let not this one thing be hid from you, beloved, that one day
Avith the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one
day." This statement, it is urged, is made with direct reference to
the time of the Lord's coming, and illustrates the arithmetic of
God, in which soon, quickly, and similar terms may denote ages.
A careful attention to this passage, however, will show that it
teaches no such strange doctrine as this.
The language in question is a poetical citation from Psa. xc, 4,
, and is adduced to show that the lapse of time does not
A thousand. . . *
years as one invalidate the promises of God. Whatever he has
pledged will come to pass, however men may think
or talk about his tardiness. Days and years and ages do not affect
him. From everlasting to everlasting he is God (Psa. xc, 2).
But this is very different from saying that when the everlasting
God promises something shortly, and declares that it is close at
hand, he may mean that it is a thousand years in the future.
Whatever he has promised indefinitely he may take a thousand
years or more to fulfil; but what he affirms to be at the door let no
man declare to be far away. "It is surely unnecessary," says a
recent writer, " to repudiate in the strongest manner such a non-
natural method of interpreting the language of Scripture. It is
worse than ungrammatical and unreasonable, it is immoral. It is
to suggest that God has two weights and two measures in his deal
ings with men, and that in his mode of reckoning there is an am
biguity and variableness which makes it impossible to tell what
manner of time the Spirit of Christ in the prophets may signify.
It seems to imply that a day may not mean a day, nor a thousand
years a thousand years, but that either may mean the other. If
this were so, there could be no interpretation of prophecy possible;
it would be deprived of all precision, and even of all credibility;
for it is manifest that if there could be such ambiguity and uncer
tainty in respect to time, there might be no less ambiguity and un
certainty in respect to every thing else. . . . Faithfulness is one
of the attributes most frequently ascribed to the covenant-keeping
God, and the divine faithfulness is that which the apostle in this
very passage affirms. To the taunt of the scoffers who impugn the
faithfulness of God, and ask, ' Where is the promise of his com
ing ? ' he answers, ' the Lord is not slack concerning his promises as
some men count slackness.' Long or short, a day or an age, doe*
BENGEL'S FALLACIES. 387
not affect his faithfulness. He keepeth truth forever. But the
apostle does not say that when the Lord (promises a, thing for to
day he may not fulfil his promise for a thousand years: that would
be slackness ; that would be a breach of promise. He does not say
that because God is infinite and everlasting, therefore he reckons
with a different arithmetic from ours, or speaks to us in a double
sense, or uses two different weights and measures in his dealings
with mankind. The very reverse is the truth." *
As an illustration of the fallacious and confusing theory of a
double sense, especially when applied to prophetic des- Fallacies of
ignations of time, witness the following from Bengel. J^of propbeu
Commenting on the words, "Immediately after the ic perspective,
tribulation of those days," in Matt, xxiv, 29, he says: "You will
say it is a great leap from the destruction of Jerusalem to the end
of the world which is subjoined to it immediately. I reply, a
prophecy resembles a landscape painting which represents distinctly
the houses, paths, and bridges in the foreground, but brings to
gether, into a narrow space, most widely severed valleys and moun
tains in the distance. Such a view should they who study proph
ecy have of the future to which the prophecy refers. And the
eyes of the disciples, who in their question had connected the end
of the temple with that of the world, are left somewhat in the
dark (for it was not yet time to know, ver. 36); hence they after
ward, with entire harmony, imitated the Lord's language, and de
clared that the end was at hand. By advancing, however, both the
prophecy and the prospect continually reveal a further and still
further distance. In this manner also we ought to interpret, not
the clear by the obscure, but the obscure by the clear, and to re
vere in its dark sayings the divine wisdom which sees all things
always, but does not reveal all things at once. Afterward it was
revealed that antichrist should come before the end of the world;
and again Paul joined these two things closely, until the Apocalypse
placed even millenniums between. On such passages there rests, as
St. Anthony used to call it, a prophetical cloudlet. It was not yet
time to reveal the whole series of future events from the destruc
tion of Jerusalem to the end of the world." "
Here, we may say, are almost as many fallacies, or misleading
statements, as there are sentences. The figure of a land- .
As many falla-
scape painting with its principles of perspective is a cies as sen-
favourite illustration with those expositors who advo- l
1 The Parousia, pp. 221-223.
9 Gnomon of the New Testament, in loco. Lewis and Vincent's translation. Phil
adelphia, 1860.
388 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
cate the theory of a double sense, and some, who reject such the
ory, employ this figure to illustrate the uncertainty of prophetic
designations of time. But it is a great error to apply this illus
tration to specific designations of time. Where no particular time
is indicated, or where time-limitations are kept out of view, the
figure may be allowed, and is, indeed, a happy illustration. But
when the Lord says that certain events are to follow immediately
after certain other events, let no interpreter presume to say that mil
lenniums may come between. This is not " to interpret the obscure
by the clear," but to obscure the clear by a misleading fancy. To
say that " the eyes of the disciples were left in the dark," and that
they afterward, " imitating the Lord's language, declared that the
end was at hand," is virtually equivalent to saying that Jesus misled
them, and that they went forth and perpetuated the error ! The
notion that any portion of Scripture " reveals the whole series
of events from the destruction of Jerusalem to the end of the
world," is a fancy of modern interpreters, who would all do well,
like the pious Bengel, to confess that over their forced method
of explaining the statements of Christ and the apostles there truly
rests an obscuring " prophetical cloudlet."
There are, indeed, manifold applications of certain prophecies
Practical ap- which may be called generic, and some events of mod-
pfophecy may ern flistory mav illustrate them, and, in a broad sense,
be many. fulfil them as truly as the events to which they had
original reference. In the days of John many antichrists had ap
peared (1 John ii, 18; comp. Matt, xxiv, 5, 24), and the demoniacal
attributes of Paul's " man of sin " (2 Thess. ii, 3-8) may appear
again and again in monsters of lawlessness and crime. Antiochus
and Nero are definite typical illustrations in whom great prophecies
were specifically fulfilled, but other similar impersonations of wick
edness may also have revealed the beast from the abyss, which was,
and then, after disappearing for a time, appeared again, and then
again went into perdition (Rev. xvii, 8). But such allowable ap
plications of prophecy are not to be confounded with grammatico-
historical interpretation. When Satan shall be loosed out of his
prison after the millennium (Rev. xx, 7) he may, indeed, reveal
himself in some man of sin more fearful and more lawless far than
any Antiochus or Nero of the past.
It may, in truth, be said that a large proportion of the confusion
and errors of biblical expositors has arisen from mistaken notions
of the Bible itself.1 No such confusion and diversity of views ap-
1 This thought is made prominent in Hofman's valuable work, Biblische Herme-
neutik. Nordlingen, 1880.
FALSE NOTIONS OF THE BIBLE. 389
pear in the interpretation of other books. A strained and unnatu
ral theory of divine inspiration has, doubtless, led many
into the habit of assuming that somehow the Scriptures tions of the BI-
must be explained differently from other compositions,
Hence, also, the assumption that in prophetic revela- false exposi
tions God has furnished us with a detailed historical
outline of particular occurrences ages in advance, so that we may
properly expect to find such events as the rise of Islam, the Wars
of the Roses, and the French Revolution recorded in the prophet
ical books. This assumption is often found attaching itself to the
theory of a double or triple sense. The interpretation of the Apoc
alypse of John has especially suffered from this singular error.
There is such a charm in the fancy that we have a New Testament
prophecy of the events of all coming time — a graphic outline of
the history of the Church and the world until the final judgment —
that not a few have yielded to the delusion that we may reasonably
search this mystic book for any character or event which we deem
important in the history of human civilization.1
We must set aside these false assumptions touching the Bible it
self, and the character and purport of its prophecies. A rational
investigation of the scope and analogies of the great prophecies
gives no support to such extravagant fancies as that " the whole
Apocalypse of John, from chapter iv to the end, is but a develop
ment of Daniel's imperfect tense."* The Holy Scriptures have
lessons for all time. God's specific revelation to one individual,
age, or nation will be found to have a practical value for all men.
We need no specific predictions of Napoleon, or of the Waldenses,
or of the martyrdom of John Huss, or of the massacre of St. Bar
tholomew to confirm the faith of the Church, or to convince the
infidel; else, doubtless, we should have had them in a form capa
ble of producing conviction. It cannot be shown that such pre
dictions would have accomplished any worthy purpose not already
met by fulfilled prophecies with their practical lessons of universal
application.
1 A friend of the writer once observed : It always seemed strange to me that Baby
lon, and Persia, and Greece, and Rome, and European states should be noticed in the
prophecies, and yet no mention of the United States of America. He, accordingly,
set himself to work to find something on the subject, and by and by discovered the
great North American Republic in the fifth kingdom of Daniel — the stone cut out of
the mountain without hands. Further research in the same line soon enabled him
to see that the "war in heaven" between Michael and the dragon (Rev. xii, 7) was a
specific prophecy of the late civil war between the Northern and Southern States,
which resulted in the abolition of American slavery.
* Pre-Millennial Essays of the Prophetic Conference, p. 326. New York, 18Y9.
S90 SPECIAL HERMENEUTTCS.
CHAPTER XIX.
SCRIPTURE QUOTATIONS IN THE SCRIPTURES.
IN comparing Scripture with Scripture, and tracing the parallel and
analogous passages of the several sacred writers, the interpreter
continually meets with quotations, more or less exact, made by one
writer from another. These quotations may be distributed into
Four classes of f°ur classes: (1) Old Testament parallel passages and
quotations. quotations made by the later writers from the earlier
books ; (2) New Testament quotations from the Old Testament ;
(3) New Testament quotations from New Testament sources; and
(4) quotations from apocryphal writings and oral tradition. The
verbal variations of many of these citations, the formulas and
methods of quotation, and the illustrations they furnish of the pur
poses and uses of the Holy Scriptures, are all matters of great im
portance to the biblical exegete.
As examples of each of these classes of citations we mention,
Examples of first, genealogical tables, as Gen. xi, 10-26, compared
SnsTndpa^ with l Chron' {> 17~27' and Gen- xlvi compared with
aiieis. Num. xxvi. Psa. xviii is substantially identical with
2 Sam. xxii. The same is true of 2 Kings xviii-xx and Isa. xxxvi-
xxxix, 2 Kings xxiv, xxv, and Jer. lii. Large portions of the Books
of Samuel and Kings are appropriated in the Books of Chronicles,
and there are numerous textual parallels like Psa. xlii, 7, and Jonah
ii, 3. The New Testament quotations from the Old Testament are
manifold in character and form. In most cases they are taken ver
batim, or nearly so, from the Septuagint version ; in some instances
they are a translation of the Hebrew text, more accurate than that
of the Septuagint (Matt, ii, 15, compared with Heb. and Sept. of
Hos. xi, 1; Matt, viii, 17, comp. Isa. liii, 4). Some of the quota
tions differ notably both from the Hebrew and the Septuagint,
while others were apparently constructed by a use of both sources.
Sometimes several passages of the Old Testament are blended to
gether, as in 2 Cor. vi, 16-18, where use is made of Exod. xxix, 45;
Lev xxvi, 12; Isa. lii, 11; Jer. xxxi, 1, 9, 33; xxxii, 38; Ezek.
xi, 2o ; xxxvi, 28; xxxvii, 27; Zech. viii, 8. Sometimes the Old
Testament passage is merely paraphrased, or the general sentiment
or substance is given, while in other cases it is merely referred to
QUOTATIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 391
or hinted at (comp. Prov. xviii, 4 ; Isa. xii, 3 ; xliv, 3, with John
vii, 38. Isa. Ix, 1-3, with Eph. v, 14. Hos. xiv, 2, with Heb. xiii, 15).'
In the New Testament it is evident that the many parallel portions
of the Gospels must have been derived from some common source,
either oral or written, or both. In Acts xx, 35, Paul quotes a say
ing of the Lord which is to be found nowhere else. Peter evinces
a knowledge of the epistles of Paul (2 Pet. iii, 15, 16), and in the
second chapter of his second epistle appropriates much from the
Epistle of Jude. Finally, the quotations from apocrv-
J Apocryphal
phal and other sources, and allusions to them, both in and traditional
the Old Testament and in the New, are quite numerous. sources-
Thus, in the Old Testament we have " The Book of the Wars of the
Lord" (Num. xxi, 14), "The Book of Jasher" (Josh, x, 13), "The
Book of the Acts of Solomon" (1 Kings xi, 41), "The Book of
Shemaiah" (2 Chron. xii, 15), and numerous others quoted or re
ferred to. Jude quotes apparently from the pseudepigraphal Book
of Enoch, and also makes allusion to traditions of the fall of the
angels, and the dispute of Michael and the devil over the body of
Moses (Jude 6, 9, 14). St. Paul calls the magicians, who opposed
Moses, Jannes and Jambres (2 Tim. iii, 8), names which had proba
bly been transmitted by oral tradition. Many such traditions found
their way into the Targums, the Talmud, and the apocryphal and
pseudepigraphal Jewish literature. Quotations from such books
and allusions to such traditions give them no canonical authority.
An apostle or any one else, addressing those who were familiar with
such traditions, might appropriately refer to them for homiletical
purposes, without thereby designing to assume or declare their
verity. Similarly Paul quotes from the Greek poets Aratus, Me-
nander, and Epimenides (Acts xvii, 28; 1 Cor. xv, 33; Titus i, 12).
The great number of parallel passages, both in the Old Testament
and in the New, is evidence of a harmony and organic relation of
Scripture with Scripture of a most notable kind. Once written, the
oracles of God became the public and private treasure of his people.
Any passage that would serve a useful purpose was used by prophet
1 See Drusius, Parallela Sacra, etc., in vol. viii of the Critici Sacri, pp. 1261-1325;
Davidson, Sacred Hermeneutics, chap, xi ; Gough, New Testament Quotations Collated
with the Old Testament (Lond., 1853); Home's Introduction (Ayers and Tregelles'
Ed.), vol. ii, pp. 113-207; and especially Turpie, The Old Testament in the New; A
Contribution to Biblical Criticism and Interpretation. Lond., 1868. This last-named
work conveniently classifies and tabulates the Old Testament quotations in the New
Testament according to their agreement with, or variation from, both the Hebrew text
and the Septuagint version. Comp. also Scott, Principles of New Testament Quota
tion established and applied to Biblical Science (Edinb., 1875), and Boehl, Die alttesta-
mentlichen Citate im neuen Testament. Wieu, 1878.
392 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
or apostle as part of a common heritage. With this understanding,
there is little in the matter or style of the Scripture quotations in
the Scriptures to jn ve any trouble to the interpreter.
Only the O. T. • * n i • u
quotations in 1 he comparison oi parallel passages is, as we have seen
Scheme- (PP- 119-128)> a great helP in exposition, and some pas-
neuticai treat- sages become clear and forcible only when read in the
light of their parallels. The alleged discrepancies be
tween these different Scriptures will be noticed in a separate chap
ter; it is only the Old Testament citations in the New Testament
which call for special treatment here. These, as we have said, are
so manifold in character and form that we should examine (1) the
sources of quotation, (2) the formulas and methods of quotation,
and (3) the purposes of the several quotations.
I. It is now generally conceded that the sources from which the
Sources of N.T. ^ew Testament writers quote are the Hebrew text of
quotation. the Old Testament, and the Septuagint translation of it.
Formerly it was maintained by some that the Septuagint only was
used; others, feeling that such a position was disparaging to the
Hebrew Scriptures, maintained as strenuously that the apostles and
evangelists must have always cited from the Hebrew, and though
the quotations were in the exact words of the Septuagint, it was
thought that two translators might have used the same language.
But calmer study has made all such discussions obsolete. It is well
known that the Septuagint version was in current use among the
Hellenistic Jews. The New Testament writers follow it in some
passages where it differs widely from the Hebrew. A critical com
parison of all the New Testament citations from the Old shows be
yond a question that in the great majority of cases the Septuagint
rather than the Hebrew text was the source from which the writers
quoted.1
But it is noticeable that the New Testament writers do not uni-
NO uniform ^ormbr follow either source. The Septuagint version
method of quo- of Mai. iii, 1, is an accurate translation of the Hebrew,
but Matthew, Mark, and Luke agree literally in a ren
dering which is noticeably different.2 In short, it is impossible to
discover any rule that will account for all the variations between
the citations and the Hebrew and Septuagint texts. Sometimes the
1 See Home's Introduction, vol. ii, pp. 114-178, where the Hebrew, the Septuagint
version, and the New Testament citation of all the Old Testament quotations in the
New, are given in the original texts, arranged in parallel columns, and each accom
panied by an English version.
2 Matt, xi, 10; Mark i, 10; Luke vii, 27. Matthew inserts iyu, and Mark omits
NO UNIFORM METHODS. 393
variation is merely a change of person, number, or tense; some
times it consists of a transposition of words; sometimes in the
omission or addition of words and phrases. In many cases only the
general sense is given, and often the citation is but an allusion or
reference, not a formal quotation at all. In view of all these facts
it seems best to understand that the sacred writers followed no
uniform method in quoting the older Scriptures. They were famil
iar both with the Hebrew text and the Septuagint. But textual
accuracy had no special weight with them. From childhood the
contents of the sacred writings had been publicly and privately
made known to them (2 Tim. iii, 15), and they were wont to cite
them in familiar discourse without any attempt at verbal accuracy.
With them as with us an inaccurate quotation might be-
, ,. Inaccurate quo-
COme common and current on the lips of the people, and, tations may be-
while known by many to differ from the ancient text, Co™6 current-
was nevertheless sufficiently correct for all practical purposes. How
few of us now recite the Lord's prayer accurately ? So, doubtless,
the inspired writers made use of Scripture, in many instances, with
out care to conform the quotation with the exact letter of the
Hebrew text, or of the common Septuagint version. They quoted
probably in most cases from memory, and the Holy Spirit pre
served them from any vital error (John xiv, 26). The idea that
divine inspiration must necessitate verbal uniformity among the
sacred writers is an unnecessary and untenable assumption.1 Vari
ety marked both the portions and manner of the successive revela
tions of God (Heb. i, 1).
II. The introductory formulas by which quotations from the Old
Testament are adduced are many and various, and have Formulas and
been thought by some to be a sort of index or key to methods of
the particular purpose of each citation. But we find q
different formulas used by different writers to introduce one and the
1 " In examining cited passages, we perceive," says Davidson, " that every mode of
quotation has been employed, from the exactest to the most loose, from the strictest
verbal method to the widest paraphrase. But in no .case is violence done to the
meaning of the original. A sentiment expressed in one connexion in the Old Testa
ment is frequently in the New interwoven with another train of argument ; but this is
allowable and natural. . . . Let it be remembered, then, that the sacred writers were
not bound in all cases to cite the very words of the originals ; it was usually sufficient
for them to exhibit the sense perspicuously. The same meaning may be conveyed by
different terms. It is unreasonable to expect that the apostles should scrupulously
abide by the precise words of the passage they quote. ... In every instance we sup
pose them to have been directed by the superintending Spirit, who infallibly kept them
from error, and guided them in selecting the most appropriate terms where their own
judgments would have failed." — Sacred Hermeneutics, pp. 469, 470.
394 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
same passage, so that we cannot suppose that in all cases the formu
la used will direct us to the special purpose of the quotation. The
more common formulas are, " It is written," " Thus it is written,"
" According as it is written," " The Scripture says," " It was said,"
" According as it is said; " but many other forms are used. The
' same formulas are used by the Rabbinical writers.1 Occasionally
the place of a citation is indicated, as in Mark xii, 26; Acts xiii, 33;
and Rom. xi, 2; but more frequently Moses, the Law, Isaiah, Jere
miah, or some other prophet is mentioned as writing or saying what
is quoted. It is assumed that the persons addressed were so familiar
with the holy writings that they needed no more specific reference.
" Besides the quotations introduced by these formulas there are a
considerable number scattered through the writings of the apostles
which are inserted in the train of their own remarks without any
announcement whatever of their being cited from others. To the
cursory reader the passages thus quoted appear to form a part of
the apostle's own words, and it is only by intimate acquaintance
with the Old Testament Scriptures, and a careful comparison of
these with those of the New Testament, that the fact of their being
quotations can be detected. In the common version every trace of
quotation is in many of these passages lost, from the circumstance
that the writer has closely followed the Septuagint, while our ver
sion of the Old Testament is made from the Hebrew. Thus, for
instance, in 2 Cor. viii, 21, Paul says, n^ovoov^ev yap «;a/ta ov
fiovov ev&mov Kvpiov, d/lAd Kal ev&Tnov dv$paJ7rojv, which, with a
change in the mood of the verb, is a citation of the Septuagint ver
sion of Prov. iii, 4. Hardly any trace of this, however, appears in
the common version, where the one passage reads, ' Providing for
honest things not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the
sight of men;' and the other, 'So shalt thou find favour and good
understanding in the sight of God and man.' So, also in 1 Peter
iv, 18, the apostle quotes word for word from the Septuagint ver
sion of Prov. xi, 31, the clause el 6 dUaiog /ioAtf ou&rai, 6 aoefifis
Kal d/zaprwAdf TTOV </>avemw; a quotation which we should in vain
endeavour to trace in the common version of the Proverbs, where
the passage in question is rendered ' Behold, the righteous shall be
recompensed in the earth; much more the wicked and the sinner.'
Such quotations evidently show how much the minds of the New
Testament writers were imbued with the sentiments and expressions
of the Old Testament as exhibited in the Alexandrine version." 2
1 Many examples are given by Surenhusius, fiNPOn "IDD, sive Bt/&of
pp. 1-36 ; and by Dopke, Hermeneutik, pp. 60-69.
8 Alexander, in KUto's New Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature, article Quotations.
NO LAW OF EXEGESIS. 395
The New Testament writers were necessarily familiar with the
current Rabbinical methods of interpreting the Old Tes-
tament, and they sometimes employed arguments and of Renerai her-
illustrations derived from the Holy Scripture which are r
not adapted to convince persons who have not been trained in the
same way of thinking. A careful study, for example, of the Epis
tle to the Hebrews, will discover numerous instances in which the
use made of Old Testament citations is not of a nature to influence
the judgment of one unfamiliar with the discipline of the Hebrew
cultus. Hence we should not study the methods of New Testament
citation from the Old Testament for principles of general herme-
neutics, but should always remember that the writers were acting
under special conditions of mental and religious training. We rec
ognize their profound reverence for the written word, and their
divinely inspired use of it for a specific end, and yet maintain that,
in many passages, the particular citation, and the argument built
upon it, furnish no law of biblical exegesis suitable for universal
application.
There appears no sufficient reason for maintaining that the refer
ence to an Old Testament book by the name of its com- Not designed
monly supposed author commits the apostles, the evan-
gelists, or Christ himself to an authoritative judgment criticism,
concerning the authenticity and genuineness of the book. Such an
inference is unnecessary unless it appears that the purpose of the
reference was to express a judgment on that subject. If it can be
shown by valid exegesis that the manner of quoting, or the use
made of the quotation itself, necessarily involves a personal opinion
touching the authorship of the passage, then, of course, the char
acter of the quotation itself determines the question. But the
mere allusion to a well-known book, or the mention of its supposed
author according to the current opinions of the time, is obviously
neither an affirmation nor a denial of the correctness of the common
opinion.
There is one formula, peculiar to Matthew and John, which de
serves more that a passing notice. It first occurs in The formula
Matt, i, 22: "All this has come to pass in order that lva **np<^i-
what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be ful
filed" This is its fullest form ; elsewhere it is only lva TrA^pw^,
in order that it might be fulfiled (Matt, ii, 15; iv, 14; xxi, 4; John
xii, 38 ; xiii, 18; xv, 25 ; xvii, 12 ; xviii, 9, 32 ; xix, 24, 36), but in
John's Gospel these words vary in their connexion, as, " in order
that the word of Isaiah might be fulfiled ; " " in order that the
Scripture might be fulfiled ; " in order that the word of Jesus
396 SPECIAL IIERMENEUTICS.
mio-ht be fulfilled." Sometimes it is written orrw£ TrA^pcj^f (Matt,
ii 23; viii, 17; xii, 17), and occasionally rore gTr/l^pwtf??, then loos
fulfilled. The great question with interpreters has been to deter
mine the force of the conjunction Iva (and OTTW^) in these formulas.
Is it telic, that is, expressive of final cause, purpose, or design • or
is it ecbatic, denoting merely the outcome or result of something ?
If telic, it should be translated in order that ; if ecbatic, it should be
rendered so that.
Bengel, commenting on the words Iva n^tedy in Matt, i, 22, ob-
views or Ben- serves: "Wherever this phrase occurs we are bound to
gel and Meyer, recognise the authority of the evangelists, and (how
ever dull our own perception may be) to believe that the event they
mention does not merely chance to correspond with some ancient
form of speech, but was one which had been predicted, and which
the divine truth was pledged to bring to pass at the commencement
of the new dispensation." ' Meyer, commenting on the same pas
sage, observes: "iva is never ecbatic, so that, but always telic, in
order that / it presupposes here that what was done stood in the
connexion of purpose with the Old Testament declaration, and con
sequently in the connexion of the divine necessity as an actual fact
by which the prophecy was destined to be fulfilled. The divine
decree, expressed in the latter, must be accomplished, and to that
end this, namely, which is related from verse 18 onward, came to
pass, and that, according to the whole of its contents (oAov)."
This view of the telic force of Iva, especially in the words Iva
The telic force Tr/lT/pioi!^? in connexion with prophetic statements, is
aiiyito°begmainl maintained by many of the most eminent critics and
tained. scholars, as Fritzsche, De Wette, Olshausen, Alford,
and Winer. Others, as Tittmann, Stuart, and Robinson, contend for
the ecbatic use of 'iva in this phrase as well as in many other pas
sages.2 The question can be determined only by a critical exami
nation of the passages where the alleged ecbatic use of the particle
occurs. In most of these cases we believe the ordinary telic sense
of iva has been misapprehended by a superficial view of the real
import of the passage. Thus Tittmann cites Mark xi, 25, as a clear
instance of the ecbatic use of 'iva : " Whenever ye stand praying,
forgive, if ye have aught against any one, in order that your Fa
ther also who is in the heavens may forgive you your trespasses."
1 Gnomon of the New Testament, in loco.
2 See Tittmann's essay on the " Use of the particle iva in the New Testament,"
translated into English with introductory remarks by M. Stuart in the Biblical Repos
itory of Jan., 1835. Also Robinson's Lexicon of the New Testament under the words
Iva and OTTWC.
TELIC AND ECBATIC. 397
According to Tittmann, "the Saviour could not inculcate on his
disciples the mere prudential duty of forgiving others in order that
they themselves might obtain forgiveness, which would be quite
foreign to real integrity and purity of mind ; but he wished them to
consider that if they cherished an implacable spirit they could have
no grounds to hope for pardon from God; so that if they them
selves were not ready to forgive it was impossible that they should
obtain forgiveness." ' But this reasoning would exclude every
where the telic force of Iva. According to the writer's own admis
sion, the forgiving of others is an indispensable condition of pardon;
why not then regard this condition, as well as any other, in the
light of a means to an end? Is it possible to believe that obtain
ing forgiveness from God is an object and aim at all inconsistent
with "real integrity and purity of mind?" Much more soundly
does Meyer give the real thought of the passage: "To the exhorta
tion to confidence in prayer Jesus links on another principal requi
site of being heard — namely, the necessity of forgiving in order to
obtain forgiveness." 2 The forgiving is presented as an indispensa
ble means to an end.
It need not, however, be denied that in some passages the ecbatic
rendering of Iva may bring out more clearly the sense r^g ecbatic
of the author. The particle may be allowed some meas- sense of Iva
r * need not in all
ure of its native telic import, and yet the final cause or cases be de-
end may be conceived of as an accomplished result or nled-
attainment rather than an objective ideal necessary to be reached.3
Ellicott's position may be accepted as every way sound and satis
factory: " The uses of Iva in the New Testament appear to be three:
(1) Final, or indicative of the end, purpose, or object of the action
— the primary and principal meaning, and never to be given up
except on the most distinct counter arguments. (2) Sub-final, occa
sionally, especially after verbs of entreaty (not of command), the
subject of the prayer being blended with, and even in some cases
obscuring, the purpose of making it. (3) Eventual, or indicative of
result, apparently in a few cases, and due, perhaps, more to what
is called 'Hebrew teleology' (i. e., the reverential aspect under
which the Jews regarded prophecy and its fulfilment) than gram
matical depravation." 4
1 Biblical Repository for Jan., 1 835, p. 105.
2 Critical Commentary on Mark xi, 25.
3 Comp. Winer's New Testament Grammar (English translation, Andover, 1874), pp.
457-161, and Buttmann's Grammar of the New Testament Greek (English translation,
Andover, 1873), pp. 235-241.
4 Critical and Grammatical Commentary on Ephesians i, 17.
26
398 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
But when the words Iva 7r/t??pa>$iji are used in connexion with the
Iva teiic in fulfilment of prophecy we should not hesitate to accept
formulas of j.jie ^e\[c force of Iva. The Scriptures themselves recog-
prophetic cita- . . £ °
tion. nise a sort 01 divine necessity tor the lulnlment or all
that predicted or typified the Christ. As it was necessary
for the Christ to suffer (Luke xxiv, 26), so " it was necessary that
all things which were written in the law of Moses, and the Prophets,
and the Psalms concerning him should be fulfilled" (Luke xxiv, 44;
comp. the edei rrA?/pa)^7/vai of Acts i, 16). The objection that it is
absurd to suppose all these things were done merely to fulfil a
prophecy is based upon a misconception and misrepresentation of the
evangelist. The statement that this particular divine purpose was
served does not imply that no other divine purpose was accom
plished. " All these things did transpire," says Whedon, " in order,
among other purposes, to the fulfilment of that prophecy, inasmuch
as the fulfilment of that prophecy was at the same time the accom
plishment of the Incarnation of the Redeemer, and the verification
of the divine prediction. Nor is there any predestinarian fatalism
in all this. God predicts what he foresees that men will freely do;
and then men do freely in turn fulfil what God predicts, and so un
consciously act in order to verify God's veracity. Moreover there
is no fatalism in supposing that God has high plans which he does
with infinite wisdom carry out through the free, unnecessitated,
though foreseen wills of men. Such is his inconceivable wisdom
that he can so place free agents in a free system of probation that
which ever way they freely turn they will but further his great
generic plans and verify his foreknowledge. So that it may, in a
right sense, be true that all these things are done by free agents in
order to so desirable an end as to fulfil the divine foresight."1
The passage in Matt, ii, 15, has been thought by many to be a
certain instance of the ecbatic usage of iva. It is there
Hosea xi, 1, as
cited in Matt, written that Joseph arose and took the child Jesus and
his mother by night and withdrew into Egypt, and was
there until the death of Herod, "in order that (iva n^r^u-dy) it
might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the
prophet, saying, Out of Egypt I called my son." The quotation is
a literal translation of the Hebrew of Hos xi, 1, and the reference
of the prophet is to Israel. The whole verse of Hos. xi, 1, reads
thus: "For a child was Israel, and I loved him, and out of Egypt I
called my son." Here some would see a double sense of prophecy,
and others an Old Testament text accommodated to a New Testa
ment use. But the true interpretation of this quotation will recog-
1 Commentary on Matthew i, 22
PURPOSES OF QUOTATION. 399
nise the typical character of Israel as " God's firstborn," a familiar
thought of the Old Testament Scripture. Thus, in Exod. iv, 22,
Jehovah is represented as saying: "My son, my firstborn, is Israel.'*
And again in Jer. xxxi, 9: " For I have been to Israel for a father,
and Ephraim is my firstborn." Compare also Isa. xlix, 3. Recog
nising this typical character of Israel as God's firstborn son, the
evangelist readily perceived that the ancient exodus of Israel out
of Egypt was a type of this event in the life of the Son of God
while he was yet a child. Among the other purposes (and there
were doubtless many) that were served by this going down into
Egypt, and exodus therefrom, was the fulfilment of the prophecy of
Hosea. This fulfilment of typical events, as we have shown above
(p. 384), does not authorize the doctrine of a double sense in the
language of prophecy. The words of Hosea xi, 1, have but one
meaning, and announce in poetic form a fact of Israel's ancient his
tory. That fact was a type which was fulfilled in the event re
corded in Matt, ii, but the language used by the prophet had no
previous fulfilment. It was not a prediction at all, but an allusion
to an event which occured six hundred years before Hosea was born.1
III. It remains to notice the purposes for which any of the sacred
writers quoted or referred to the more ancient Scrip- _
* Purposes or
tures. Attention to this point will be an important aid scripture quo
in enabling us to understand and appreciate the various
uses of the holy writings.
1. The citation of many ancient prophecies was manifestly for
the purpose of showing and putting on record their fulfilment.
This is true of all the prophecies which are introduced with the
formula Iva TrA?/pwi9^, in order that it might be fulfilled. And the
same thought is implied in the context of quotations introduced by
1 Lange (Commentary on Matthew ii, 15) has the following: "As the flight and the
return had really taken place, the evangelist, whose attention was always directed to
the fulfilment of prophecy, might very properly call attention to the fact that even
this prediction of Hosea had been fulfilled. And, in truth, viewed not as a verbal
but as a typical prophecy, this prediction was fulfilled by this flight into Egypt. Is
rael of old was called out of Egypt as the son of God, inasmuch as Israel was identi
fied with the Son of God. But now the Son of God himself was called out of Egypt,
who came out of Israel, as the kernel from the husk. When the Lord called Israel
out of Egypt, it was with special reference to his Son ; that is, in view of the high
spiritual place which Israel was destined to occupy. In connexion with this it is also
important to bear in mind the historical influence of Egypt on the world at large.
Ancient Greek civilization — nay, in a certain sense, the imperial power of Rome itself
— sprung from Egypt ; in Egypt the science of Christian theology originated ; from
Egypt proceeded the last universal Conqueror ; out of Egypt came the typical son of
God to found the theocracy ; and thence also the true Son of God to complete the
theocracy."
400 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
other formulas. These facts exhibit the interdependence and or
ganic connexion of the entire body of Holy Scripture. It is a
divinely constructed whole, and the essential relations of its several
parts must never be forgotten.
2. Other quotations are made for the purpose of establishing a
doctrine. So Paul, in Rom. iii, 9-19, quotes the Scriptures to prove
the universal depravity of man; and in Rom. iv, 3, he cites the
record of Abraham's belief in God to show that a man is justified
by faith rather than works, and that faith is imputed unto him for
righteousness. This manner of his using the Old Testament obvi
ously implies that the apostle and his readers regarded it as author-
itative in its teachings. What was written therein, or could be
confirmed thereby, was final, and must be accepted as the revela
tion of God.
3. Sometimes the Scripture is quoted for the purpose of confut
ing and rebuking opponents and unbelievers. Jesus himself ap
pealed to his Jewish opponents on the ground of their regard for
the Scriptures, and showed their inconsistency in refusing to receive
him of whom the Scriptures so abundantly testified (John v, 39, 40).
With those who accepted the Scripture as the word of God such
argumentation was of great weight. How effectually Jesus em
ployed it may be seen in his answers to the Sadducees and Phari
sees (Matt, xxii, 29-32, 41-46). Compare John x, 34-36.
4. Finally, the Scriptures were cited or referred to in a general
way as a book of divine authority, for rhetorical purposes, and for
illustration. Its manifold treasures were the heritage of the people
of God. Its language would be naturally appropriated to express
any thought or idea which a writer or speaker might wish to clothe
in sacred and venerable form. Hence the manners, references, allu
sions, and citations which serve mainly to enhance the force or
beauty of a statement, and to illustrate some argument or appeal.
" The writings of the Jewish prophets," says Home, " which
abound in fine descriptions, poetical images, and sublime diction,
were the classics of the later Jews; and, in subsequent ages, all
their writers affected allusions to them, borrowed their images and
descriptions, and very often cited their identical words when re
cording any event or circumstance that happened in the history of
the persons whose lives they were relating, provided it was similar
•and parallel to one that occurred at the times, and was described in
the books, of the ancient prophets." '
1 Introduction to the Holy Scriptures, vol. ii, p. 191.
ACCOMMODATION. 401
CHAPTER XX.
THE FALSE AND THE TRUE ACCOMMODATION.
INASMUCH as many passages of the Old Testament Scripture are
appropriated by New Testament writers for the sake of -me mionaiis-
illustration, or by way of special application, it has been Oc theol>y
held by many that all the Old Testament quotations, even the Mes
sianic prophecies, have been applied in the New Testament in a
sense differing more or less widely from their original import.
This especially has been a position taken by many rationalists of
Germany, and some have gone so far as to teach that our Lord ac
commodated himself to the prejudices of his age and people. His
use of Scripture, they tell us, was of the nature of argument and
appeal ad homin&n / even his words and acts in regard to unclean
spirits of demons, and other matters of belief among the Jews,
were a falling in line with the errors and superstitions of the com
mon people.
Such a theory of accommodation should be utterly repudiated by
the sober and thoughtful exegete. It virtually teaches should be repu-
that Jesus Christ was a propagator of falsehood. It &***<!.
would convict every New Testament writer of a species of mental
and religious delusion. The divine Teacher did, indeed, accommo
date his teaching to the capacity of his hearers, as every wise
teacher will do; or, rather, he condescended to put himself on the
plane of their limited knowledge. He would speak so that men
might understand, and believe, and be saved. But in those who
had no disposition to search and test his truth he declared that
Isaiah's words (Isa. vi, 9, 10) received a new application, and a most
significant fulfilment (Matt, xiii, 14, 15). And this was strictly
true. Isaiah's words were first spoken to the dull and blinded hearts
of the Israel of his own day. Ezekiel repeated them with equal
propriety to the Israel of a later generation (Ezek. xii, 2). And
our Lord quoted and applied them to the Israel of his time as one
of those homiletic Scriptures which are fulfilled again and again in
human history when the faculties of spiritual perception become
perversely dull to the truths of God. The prophecy in question
was not the prediction of a specific event, but a general oracle of
God, and of such a nature as to be capable of repeated fulfilments.
402 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
Hence such prophecies afford no proof of a double sense. The
sense is in each instance simple and direct, but the language is
capable of double or manifold applications.
And herein we observe a true sense in which the words of Scrip
ture may be accommodated to particular occasions and
The true idea J . •»•,-,
of accommoda- purposes. It is found in the maniiold uses and applica
tions of which the words of divine inspiration are capa
ble. This is not, strictly speaking, a manifold fulfilment of Scrip
ture, though it may be affirmed that a forcible and legitimate
application of a passage is truly a fulfilment of it. When a given
passage is of such a character as to be susceptible of application to
other circumstances or subjects than those to which it first applied,
such secondary application should not be denied the name of a ful
filment. In such a case we do not say: The first reference was to
an event near at hand, but that primary fulfilment did not exhaust
the meaning; its higher fulfilment is to be seen in a future event.
O } O
Much truth may attach to such a statement, but it is liable to mis
lead one, and to foster the idea of a hidden sense, a mystic mean
ing, a so-called hyponoia (VTTOVOIO). Thus the psalmist says: "I
will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of old"
(Psa. Ixxviii, 2). This is quoted by Matthew (xiii, 35), the first
sentence according to the Septuagint, the second a free rendering
of the Hebrew, but following strictly neither the Hebrew nor the
Septuagint. The evangelist affirms that Jesus made use of parables
in order that these words might be fulfilled. And we are not at
liberty to deny that this was one real purpose of Jesus in the use of
parables. The words of the psalmist prophet herein found a new
and higher application, but in no different sense than that in which
they were first used.
The language of Jer. xxxi, 15, is quoted by Matthew (ii, 17, 18)
Jer. xxxi, is, as as being fulfilled in the weeping and lamentation occa-
cited in 'natt. sioned by Herod's slaughter of the infants of Bethle
hem. In the highest strain of poetical conception the
prophet Jeremiah sets forth the grief of Israel's woes and exile. It
seems to him as if the affectionate Rachel — the mother of the house
of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh (Gen. xxx, 24; xli, 51, 52), and
the mother of Benjamin (Gen. xxxv, 16-18), might be heard weep
ing and wailing at Ramah over the loss of her children. The
prophet mentions Ephraim (Jer. xxxi, 18, 20) as the chief tribe and
representative of all Israel. The tender mother's agony is over a
wider woe than the exile of Judah only. It takes in Ephraim's
overthrow and captivity as well. And Rachel, rather than Leah, is
named because of her great desire for children (Gen. xxx, 1), and
ACCOMMODATION. 403
the touching and melancholy circumstances of her death (Gen.
xxxv, 18). The weeping is represented as heard at Ramah, perhaps
for various reasons. That city occupied a conspicuous eminence '
in the tribe-territory of Benjamin, whence the lamentation might
be conceived as sounding far and wide through all the coasts of
Benjamin and Judah.2 Ramah was the home of Hannah (the
mother of Samuel, 1 Sam. i, 19, 20), whose motherly yearning was
so much like that of Rachel.3 It was at Ramah also where the Jew
ish exiles were gathered before their deportation to Babylon (Jer.
xl, 1). The heart of Rachel, in the prophet's view, was large
enough to feel and lament the woes of all the sons of Jacob. All
this comes up to the evangelist when he pens the slaughter of the
children of the coasts of Bethlehem (Matt, ii, 16). It seems to him
as if the motherly heart of Rachel cried from the tomb again, and
this later sorrow was but a repetition of that of the exile, the for
mer sorrow being a type of the latter. And this was a fulfilment
of that poetic prophecy, although it is not said that this sorrow of
Bethlehem came to pass in order to fulfil the words of Jeremiah.
By a true and legitimate accommodation the words of the prophet
were appropriated by the evangelist as enhancing his record of that
bitter woe. " By keeping in mind," says Davidson, " the close re
lation of type and antitype, whether the former be a person, as Da
vid, or an event, as the birth of a child, we shall not stumble at the
manner in which certain quotations in the New Testament are in
troduced, nor have recourse to other modes of explanation which
seem to be objectionable. We do not adopt, with some, the hy
pothesis of a double sense, to which there are weighty objections.
Neither do we conceive that the principle of accommodation, in its
mildest form, comes up to the truth. The passages containing typ
ical prophecies have always a direct reference to facts or things in
the history of the persons or people obviously spoken of in the con
text. But these facts or circumstances were typical of spiritual
transactions in the history of the Saviour and his kingdom." *
1 Robinson's Biblical Researches, vol. i, p. 676.
2 Comp. Keil, Commentary on Jeremitfc xxxi, 15.
3 "The prophet goes back in spirit," says Nagelsbach, 'Uo the time^whgn the in-
habitants of the kingdom of the ten tribes were led away to Assyria into captivity.
. . . The mother of the ruling tribe appears thus as the personification of the king
dom ruled by it. The spirit of Rachel is the genius of the kingdom of the'ten tribes
whom the prophet represented*by a bold poetical figure a^ rising from her tonfb by
night and bewailing the misery of her children." — Commentary on Jeremiah £xxi, 45.
4 Sacred Hermeneutics, p. 488.
404 SPECIAL IIERMENEUTICS.
CHAPTER XXL
ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES OF THE SCRIPTURES.
IN comparing the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, and
also in examining the statements of the different writers
General char
acter of the dls- of either Testament, the reader's attention is occasion-
ies' ally arrested by what appear to be contradictions.
Sometimes different passages of the same book present some notice
able inconsistency, but more frequently the statements made by
different writers exhibit discrepancies which some critics have been
hasty to pronounce irreconcilable. These discrepancies are found
in the genealogical tables, and in various numerical, historical, doc
trinal, ethical, and prophetical statements. It is the province of
the interpreter of Scripture to examine these with great patience
and care; he must not ignore any difficulty, but should be able to
explain the apparent inconsistencies, not by dogmatic assertions or
denials, but by rational methods of procedure. If he find a dis
crepancy or a contradiction which he is unable to explain he should
not hesitate to acknowledge it. It does not follow that because he
is not able to solve the problem it is therefore insoluble. The lack
of sufficient data has often effectually baffled the efforts of the most
able and accomplished exegetes.
A large proportion of the discrepancies of the Bible are traceable
causes of the to one or more of the following causes: The errors of
discrepancies, copyists in the manuscripts; the variety of names ap
plied to the same person or place; different methods of reckoning
times and seasons; different local and historical standpoints; and
the special scope and plan of each particular book. Variations are
ntt contradictions, and many essential variations arise from differ
ent methods of arranging a series of particular facts. The peculi
arities of oriental thought and speech often involve seeming extrav
agance of statement and verbal inaccuracies, which are of a nature
to provoke the criticism of the less impassioned writers of the West.
And it is but just to add that not a few of the alleged contradic
tions of Scripture exist only in the imagination of sceptical writers,
and are to be attributed to the perverse misunderstanding of cap
tious critics.
It is easy to perceive how, in the course of ages, numerous
DISCREPANCIES. 405
little errors and discrepancies would be likely to find their way into
the text by reason of the oversight or carelessness of Discrepancies
transcribers. To this cause we attribute many of the
variations in orthography and in numerical statements, ists.
The habit of expressing numbers by letters, several of which closely
resemble each other, was liable to occasion many discrepancies.
Sometimes the omission of a letter or a word occasions a difficulty
which cannot now be removed. Thus the only proper rendering of
the present Hebrew text of 1 Sam. xiii, 1, is, " Saul was a year old
(Hebrew, son of a year) when he began to reign, and two years he
reigned over Israel." The writer is here evidently following the
custom exhibited in 2 Sam. ii, 10; v, 4; 1 Kings xiv, 21; xxii, 42;
2 Kings viii, 26, of opening his account of a king's reign with a for
mal statement of his age when he became king, and of the number
of years that he reigned. But the numbers have been lost from
the text, and the omission is older than the Septuagint version
which follows our present corrupt Hebrew text. The following
form may best present the passage with its omissions: "Saul was
years old when he began to reign, and he reigned and
two years over Israel." These omissions can now be supplied only
by conjecture. It is evident that Saul was more than a year old
wThen he began to reign, and that he reigned more than two years.
According to Acts xiii, 21, and Josephus (Ant., vi, 14, 9) he reigned
forty years, but this may include the seven years and a half as
sumed to have passed between the death of Saul and that of Ish-
bosheth (2 Sam. ii, 11). Ishbosheth, however, is said to have reigned
but two years (2 Sam. ii, 10). The language of Paul and Josephus
more likely expresses a current Jewish tradition which was not exact.
A comparison of genealogical tables often exhibits discrepancies
in names and numbers. But the transcription and repe- msvTe ncieB
tition of such records through a long period of time, in geneaiogi-
and by many different scribes, would naturally expose
them to numerous variations. A comparison of the family record
of Jacob and his sons, the seventy souls that came into Egypt
(Gen. xlvi), with that of the census of these families in the time of
Moses (Num. xxvi) will serve to illustrate the peculiarities of He
brew genealogies. We give these lists, on the adjoining page, in
parallel columns, and also select from the lists in 1 Chron. ii-viii
the corresponding names, so far as they appear there, that the
reader may see at a glance the variations in orthography. For
convenience of reference we place the corresponding names oppo
site each other; but the student should note the variations in the
order of names as they appear in these different lists. The list
406 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
in Genesis is arranged according to the wives and concubines of
Jacob's family Jacob. The first thirty-three include Jacob and the
record. sons an(j daughter of Leah; the next sixteen are the
sons of Zilpah; the next fourteen are the sons of Rachel; and the
remaining seven are the sons of Bilhah. It is a manifest purpose
to make the list number " seventy souls." In Num. xxvi the order
of names follows no apparent plan.1
Gen. xlvi. Num. xxvi. 1 Chron. ii-viii.
1. JACOB.
2. REUBEN REUBEN REUBEN.
3. Hanoch Hanoch Hanoch.
4. Phallua Phallua Phallua.
(Descendants.)
5. Hezron Hezron Hezron.
6. Carmi Carmi Carmi.
7. SIMEON SIMEON SIMEON.
8. Jemuel * Nemuel * Nemuel.
9. Jamin Jamin Jamin.
10. Ohad - - -
11. Jachin Jachin * Jarib.
12. Zohar * Zerah * Zerah.
13. Shaul Shaul Shaul.
14. LEVI LEVI LEVI.
15. Gershon Gershon * Gershom.
(Descendants.)
16. Kohath Kohath Kohath.
17. Merari Merari Merari.
(Descendants.)
18. JUDAH JUDAH JUDAH.
19. Er. Hezron Er. Hezron Er. Hezron.
20. Onan. Hamul Onan. Hamul Onan. HamuL
21. Shelah Shelah Shelah.
22. Pherez Pherez Pherez.
23. Zerah Zerah Zerah.
24. ISSACHAR ISSACHAR ISSACHAR.
25. Tola Tola Tola.
26. Phuvah Phuvah * Phuah.
27. Job * Jashub * Jashib.
28. Shimron Shimron Shimron.
29. ZEBULUN ZEBTJLUN ZEBDLUN.
30. Sered Sered ] j^
31. Elon Elon I § §
32. Jahleel Jahleel f 8> 2
33. Dinah j g ^
1 The names of the tribes, or tribe-fathers, are frequently written, but in no two
places do they stand in the same order. Comp. Gen. xxix, 32-xxx, 24; xlix; Exod,
i, 1-5; Num. i, 5-15 and 20^17; xiii, 1-16; xxxiv, 17-28; Deut. xxxiii.
CO
o
02
JACOB'S FAMILY RECORD. 407
Gen. xlvi. Num. xxvi. 1 Cliron. ii-viU.
34. GAD GAD GAD.
35. Ziphion * Zephon
36. Haggi Haggi
37. Shuni Shuni
38. Ezbon * Ozni
39. Eri Eri
40. Arodi * Arod w ,
41. Areli ., ..Areli . ~
42. ASHER ASHER ASHER.
43. Jimnah Jimnah Jimnah.
44. Jishvah - - Jishvah.
45. Jishvi Jishvi Jishvi.
46. Beriah Beriah Beriah.
47. Serah Serah Serah.
48. Heber Heber Heber.
49. Malchiel Malchiel Malchiel.
50. JOSEPH JOSEPH JOSEPH.
51. Manasseh Manasseh Manasseh.
(Descendants.)
52. Ephraim Ephraim Ephraim.
(Descendants.)
53. BENJAMIN BENJAMIN BENJAMIN.
yr | 54. Bela Bela Bela.
55. Becher - - . . (Comp. Heb. text of 1 Chron. viii, 1.)
56. Ashbel Ashbel Ashbel.
57. Gera - - Gera.
58. Naaman Naaman Naaman.
59. Ehi * Ahirain * Aharah.
60. Rosh - - -
61. Muppim Sheshupham Shephuphan.
62. Huppim * Hupham -
63. Ard Ard * Addar.
*r f64. DAN DAN DAN.
65. Hushim * Shuham -
66. NAPHTALI NAPHTALI NAPHTALI.
67. Jahzeel.. ..Jahzeel ..*Jahzieel.
68. Guni Guni Guni.
69. Jezer Jezer Jezer.
70. Shillem. . . . Shillem . . . . * Shallum.
B
•<
t=
eq
* The asterisk Is designed to call attention to several variations In orthography ; the small
capitals designate the tribe-fathers ; names in black letter are supposed levirate substitutions of
grandchildren; and the word (descendants) stands In place of names given in the Scripture
record, but for want of room not printed above.
In studying these lists of names, it is important to attend to the
historical position and purpose of each writer. The Historical
list of Gen. xlvi was probably prepared in Egypt, some standpoint,
time after the migration of Jacob and his family thither. It was
408 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
probably prepared, in the form in which it there stands, by the
sanction of Jacob himself.1 The aged and chastened patriarch
went down into Egypt with the divine assurance that God would
make him a great nation, and bring him up again (Gen. xlvi, 3, 4).
Great interest therefore would attach to his family register, as it
was made out under his own direction. But at the time of the
census of Num. xxvi, whilst the names of the heads of families are
all carefully preserved, they have become differently arranged, and
other names have become prominent. Numerous later descendants
have become historically conspicuous, and are accordingly added
under the proper family heads. The tables given in 1 Chron. i-ix
show much more extensive additions and changes. The peculiar
differences between the lists show that one has not been copied
from the other ; nor were both taken from a common source. They
were evidently prepared independently, each from a different stand
point, and for a definite purpose.
We should notice also the peculiar Hebrew methods of thought
and expression as exhibited in the ancient list of Gen. xlvi. In
Hebrew style verses 8 and 15 Jacob is included among his own sons,
and usage. an(j the immortal thii-ty-three, which includes the father
and one daughter, and two great-grandsons (Hezron and Hamul)
probably not yet born when Jacob moved into Egypt, are desig-
1 The following suggestive observations of Dr. Mahan, in his little work entitled
"The Spiritual Point of View; An Answer to Bishop Colenso" (New York, 1863,
pp. 57, 58), illustrate how many considerations and circumstances may have naturally
influenced in the preparation of this genealogy. " Jacob's family list, whether written
in any way or merely committed to memory, contained before he went into Egypt pre
cisely seventy souls ; though four of these, namely, his two wives and two of the sons
of Judah, were souls of the departed. Thus, arithmetically, and in a matter-of-fact
way, Jacob had sixty-six in his company when he first settled in Egypt ; but religious
ly, or, as some might say, poetically — in the spirit of the little maid of Wordsworth's
ballad, who insisted so strenuously 'we are seven' — he might still count them seventy.
To this fact may be added the following probabilities : When Jacob arrived in Egypt
he probably gave to his list the title or heading which it still bears, namely, The
names of (he children of Israel ichich came with him into Egypt. And it is likely
enough that he did this without troubling himself to erase, either from the tablets or
his memory, the names of the dear departed souls whom the kind-hearted and faithful
patriarch still regarded as ' of his company.' At a later date, however, he may have
revised his list. Affectionate heads of families are apt to do such things. Their
family list is the solace of their old age ; and they turn it over and over as fondly as
a miser counts over his hoarded money. The patriarch, then, turning his list over in
this way, and counting his seventy souls which the Lord had given him, and reluctant
to erase his four departed souls, availed himself of the first opportunity to substitute
for them four new souls — among his great-grandchildren — whom the Lord had granted
him in their place. Thus the names of the grandchildren of Judah and Asher may
easily have come in. Xo other names were added, because no others were needed."
JACOB'S FAMILY RECORD. 409
nated as "all the souls of his sons and his daughters." Similar
usage appears in Exod. i, 5, where it is said that " all the souls that
came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls." l The writer has
in mind the memorable "seventy" that came into Egypt (comp.
Deut. x, 22). In Gen. xlvi, 27, the two sons of Joseph, who are
expressly said to have been " born to him in Egypt," are reckoned
among the seventy who " came into Egypt." It is a carping and
captious criticism which fastens upon peculiarities of Hebrew usus
loquendi like these, and pronounces them "remarkable contradic
tions, involving such plain impossibilities that they cannot be re
garded as true narratives of actual historical matters of fact." *
The probable reason for reckoning Hezron and Hamul (verse 12)
among the seventy was that they were adopted by Judah in the
places of the deceased Er and Onan, who died in the land of Canaan.
This appears from the fact that in the later registers of Num. xxvi
and 1 Chron. ii they appear as permanent heads of families in Judah.
Heber and Malchiel, grandsons of Asher (ver. 17), are also reckoned
among the seventy, and probably for the reason that they were
born before the migration into Egypt. They also appear in the
later lists as heads of families in Israel.
In the list of Gen. xlvi, 21, the names of Naaman and Ard appear
among the sons of Benjamin, but in Num. xxvi, 40, they substitution of
appear as sons of Bela. The most probable explanation names-
of this discrepancy is that the Naaman and Ard, mentioned in Gen.
xlvi, 21, died in Egypt without issue, and two of their brother
Bela's sons were named after them, and substituted in their place
to perpetuate intact the families of Benjamin. In 1 Chron. viii
many other names appear among the sons of Benjamin and Bela,
but whether Nohah and Rapha were substituted for families that
had become extinct, or are other names for some of the same
persons who appear in the list of Gen. xlvi, it is now impossible to
1 In the mention of seventy-five souls, Acts vii, 14, Stephen simply follows the read
ing of the Septuagint.
4 Bishop Colenso on the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua (New York, 1863),
p. 60. This remarkable critic quotes Gen. xlvi, 12, and then observes: "It appears
to me to be certain that the writer here means to say that Hezron and Hamul were born
in (he land of Canaan." But it is absolutely certain that that is one particular thing
which the writer does not say. Again, after quoting Exod. i, 1, 5, and Deut. x, 22,
he observes : " I assume that it is absolutely undeniable that the narrative of the
Exodus distinctly involves the statement, that the sixty-six persons 'out of the loins
of Jacob,' mentioned in Gen. xlvi. and no others (!), went down with him into Egypt."
Mark the words "and no others," although Jacob's sons' wives are expressly men
tioned in Gen. xlvi, 26. Such a critic would appear to be utterly incapable of grasp*
ing the spirit and style of the Hebrew writers.
410 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
determine. Ashbel is mentioned as second in Chronicles, but in
Gen. xlvi he stands third.1 Gera, the fourth name in the list in
Genesis, appears twice in 1 Chron. viii, 3, 5, among the sons of Bela.
Such variations evince the independence of the different lists, and
yet they are of a nature to confirm rather than discredit the genu
ineness of the several genealogies. Each list had its own distinct
history and purpose.
It was in accordance with the Hebrew spirit and custom to frame
a register of honoured names so as to have them produce a definite
and suggestive number. So Matthew's genealogy of our Lord is
arranged into three groups of fourteen names each (Matt, i, 17),
and yet this could be done only by the omission of several import
ant names.2 While the compiler might, by another process equally
correct, have made the list of Gen. xlvi number sixty-nine by omit
ting Jacob, or have made it exceed seventy by adding the names
of the wives of Jacob's sons, he doubtless purposely arranged it so
as to make it number seventy souls. The number of the descend
ants of Noah, as given in the genealogical table of Gen. x, amounts
to seventy. This habit of using fixed numbers, being a help to
memory, may have originated in the necessities of oral tradition.
The seventy elders of Israel were probably chosen with some ref
erence to the families that sprung from these seventy souls of
Jacob's household, and Jesus' sending out of seventy disciples
(Luke x, 1) is evidence that his mind was influenced by the mystic
significance of the number seventy.
It is well known that intermarriages between the tribes, and
questions of legal right to an inheritance, affected a
Legal and 1m- * o o
eai genealogies person's genealogical status. Thus, in Num. xxxii, 40,
often differ. 4^ it jg &&^ ^^ Moseg gaye the jand of Qj]ea(j to
Machir, the son of Manasseh, " and Jair, the son of Manasseh, went
and seized their hamlets, and called them Havoth-jair " (comp.
1 Kings iv, 13). This inheritance, therefore, belonged to the tribe
of Manasseh; but a comparison of 1 Chron. ii, 21, 22, shows that by
lineal descent Jair belonged to the tribe of Judah, and is so reck
oned by the chronicler, who also gives the facts which explain the
whole case. He informs us that Hezron, the son of Pharez, the son
of Judah, married the daughter of Machir, the son of Manasseh,
1 Perhaps for 1331, and Becker, in Gen. xlvi, 21, we should read "H33, his firstborn.
* " According to the evangelist," says TJpham, " the time-cycles of the Hebrews
(and if so, the time-cycles of the world) had relations to the coming of the Lord. He
points out that the life of the Hebrews unrolled in three time-harmonies, one ending
in triumph, one in mourning ; and thus may intimate that in the end of the third the
notes of the two former blend." — Thoughts on the Holy Gospels, p. 199.
GENEALOGIES OF JESUS. 41t
and by her became the father of Segub, who was the father of Jair.
If now Jair would make out his legal claim to the inheritance in
Gilead he would show how he was a descendant of Machir, the son
of Manasseh; but if his paternal lineage were inquired after, it
would be as easily traceable to Hezron, the son of Judah.
Considerations of this kind will go far to solve the difficulties
which have so greatly perplexed critics in the two di-
° . T . The two diverse
verse genealogies of Jesus, as given in Matt, i, 1-17, genealogies of
and Luke iii, 23-38. At this late day the particular Jesus'
facts are wanting which would put in clear light the discrepancies
of these lists of our Lord's ancestry, and can only be supplied by
such reasons and probable suppositions as are warranted by a care
ful collation of genealogies, and well-known facts of Jewish custom
in reckoning legal succession and lineal descent. The hypothesis,
quite prevalent and popular since the time of the Reformation, that
Matthew gives the genealogy of Joseph, and Luke that of Mary, is
justly set aside by a majority of the best critics as incompatible
with the words of both evangelists, who alike claim to give the
genealogy of Joseph.1 The right to " the throne of David his fa
ther" (Luke i, 32) must, according to all Jewish precedent, ideas,
and usage, be based upon a legal ground of succession, as of an in
heritance; and therefore his genealogy must be traced backward
from Joseph the legal husband of Mary. And it is clear, outside
of these genealogies, that Joseph was of the royal house of David.
Thus, the angel addressed him: "Joseph, son of David, do not fear
to take Mary thy wife " (Matt, i, 20). He went to Bethlehem, the
city of David, to enroll himself with Mary, " because he was of the
house and family of David" (Luke ii, 45). It is, however, not at
all improbable that Mary also was of the house and family of Da
vid,2 a near relative — cousin perhaps — of Joseph, and thus the
natural succession of Jesus to the throne of David would, according
1 Many critics read Luke iii, 23, as if it implied that Mary's rather than Joseph's
genealogy is given. Thus: L>v i>i'6f, wf evo/tifrro, 'luarj(j>, TOV 'HAet: "Being the son,
as was supposed, of Joseph (but in fact of Mary), of Eli," etc. This, however, is man
ifestly interpolating a most important statement into the words of the evangelist, a
statement too important for him to have omitted had he intended such a thought.
See Meyer, in loco.
2 Fairbairn observes that the marriage of cousins " perfectly accords with Jewish
practice. ... It was the constant aim of the Jews to make inheritance and blood-
relationship, as far as possible, go together." — Hermeneutical Manual, p. 222. Upham
similarly remarks : " Royal blood intermarries with royal blood. When Victoria was
betrothed to Albert every one knew that Albert was a prince, and every one would
know that the betrothed of a Czarowitz, or of a Prince of Wales, was a princess.
The family of King David, obscure people for centuries, must have married below
their rank, or have intermarried among themselves. That they did the latter is so
412 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
to Jewish ideas, be most remarkably complete. Certain it is that
our Lord's descent from David was never questioned in the earliest
times. He allowed himself to be called the Son of David (Matt, ix,
27; xv, 22), and no one of his adversaries denied this important
claim. He was " of the seed of David," according to Paul's Gospel
(2 Tim. ii, 8; comp. Rom. i, 3; Acts xiii, 22, 23), and the Epistle to
the Hebrews says: "It is evident (7rpod?7/lov, conspicuously manifest)
that our Lord has sprung from Judah " (Ileb. vii, 14).
The Emperor Julian attacked these genealogies on the ground
Jerome and of their discrepancies, and Jerome, in replying to him,
observes that if Julian had been more familiar with
Jewish modes of speech he might have seen that one
evangelist gives the natural and the other the legal pedigree of
Joseph.1 Essentially the same method of reconciling these dis
crepancies was advanced long previously by Africanus, who writes
as follows: "It was customary in Israel to calculate the names of
the generations either according to nature or according to the law;
according to nature by the succession of legitimate offspring; ac
cording to law when another raised children to the name of a
brother who had died childless. For as the hope of a resurrection
was not yet clearly given, they imitated the promise which was to
take place by a kind of mortal resurrection, with a view to perpet
uate the name of the person who had died. Since then there are
some of those who are inserted in this genealogical table that suc
ceed each other in the natural order of father and son, some again
that were born of others and were ascribed to others by name, both
the real and reputed fathers have been recorded. Thus neither of
the Gospels has made a false statement, whether calculating in the
order of nature or according to law. For the families descended
from Solomon, and those from Nathan, were so intermingled by
substitutions in the place of those who had died childless, by second
marriages, and the raising up of seed, that the same persons are
justly considered as in one respect belonging to one of these, and in
another respect belonging to others. Hence it is that, both of these
accounts being true, they come down to Joseph, with considerable
intricacy, it is true, but with great accuracy." a
probable, from the tendency of Jewish families to keep together, and from the usage
of royal families, that it may be held for certain that when St. Matthew stated that
Joseph, a prince of the house of David, married Mary, he plainly told his countrymen
(and, if he thought of others, he thought that through them all would know) that the
betrothed of this prince was a princess of the house of David." — Thoughts on the
Holy Gospels, p. 204.
1 Jerome on Matt. i.
2 Quoted by Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. (Bohn's ed.), book i, chap. vii.
GENEALOGIES OF JESUS. 413
These general considerations furnish the basis on which several
different methods of harmonizing the genealogies are NO hypothesis
possible. In the absence of certain information no hy- ^b^iute C^T
pothesis can well claim absolute certainty. The theory tainty.
of Africanus is that Jacob and Heli were brothers by the same
mother. Heli died childless, and Jacob married his widow, and by
her begat Joseph, the husband of Mary (Matt, i, 16), and yet, accord
ing to levirate law, Joseph was also of Heli (Luke iii, 23). * Ac
cording to this theory Matthew records the natural, and Luke the
legal, line of descent. Grotius, on the other hand, maintains that
Matthew's table gives the legal succession, inasmuch as he recounts
those who obtained the kingdom (which was the right of the first
born) without the admixture of a private name.8 He observes
further that, according to Matt, i, 12, Jechonias begat Salathiel, but
according to Luke iii, 27, Salathiel was the son of Neri. Now, ac
cording to Jer. xxii, 30 (comp. xxxvi, 30), Jechonias was sentenced
to become childless. In that case the right to the throne of David
would devolve upon the next nearest heir, which was probably
Salathiel, the son of Neri, whose direct lineage Luke traces up to
Nathan, another son of David (Luke iii, 27-31). This theory is
most fully developed by Hervey, who maintains "that Salathiel, of
the house of Nathan, became heir to David's throne on the failure
of Solomon's line in Jechonias, and that as such he and his descend
ants were transferred as ' sons of Jeconiah ' to the royal genealog
ical table, according to the principle of the Jewish law laid down
in Num. xxvii, 8-11. The two genealogies then coincide for two,
or rather four, generations [Salathiel, Zorobabel (= Rhesa), Joana
(= Hananiah, 1 Chron. iii, 19), Juda (= Abiud of Matt, i, 13, and
Hodaiah of 1 Chron. iii, 24)]. There then occur six names in Mat
thew which are not found in Luke; and then once more the two
genealogies coincide in the name of Matthan, or Matthat (Matt,
i, 15; Luke iii, 24), to whom two different sons, Jacob and Heli,
are assigned, but one and the same grandson and heir, Joseph, the
husband of Mary. The simple and obvious explanation of this is,
on the same principle as before, that Joseph was descended from
Joseph, a younger son of Abiud (the Juda of Luke iii, 26), but
that on the failure of the line of Abiud's eldest son in Eleazar
(Matt, i, 15), Joseph's grandfather, Matthan, became the heir; that
Matthan had two sons, Jacob and Heli; that Jacob had no son, and
consequently that Joseph, the son of his younger brother Heli, be
came heir to his uncle, and to the throne of David. . . . Mary, the
1 Eusebius, Eccl. Hist., book i, chap. vii.
sSee his Annotations on Matt, i, 16, and Poole, Synopsis Criticorum, in loco.
27
414 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
mother of Jesus, was, in all probability, the daughter of Jacob,
and first cousin to Joseph, her husband. So that in point of fact,,
though not of form, both the genealogies are as much hers as her
husband's." l
The biblical genealogies may appear to the modern reader like
Genealogies not a useless part of Scripture, and lists of places, many
useless. of them now utterly unknown, like that of Israel's
places of encampment (Num. xxxiii), and the cities allotted to the
different tribes (e. g., Josh, xv, 20-62), have been pronounced by
sceptics as incompatible with lofty ideas of a written revelation of
God. But such notions spring from a stilted and mechanical con
ception of what the revelation ought to be. These apparently dry
and tiresome lists of names are among the most irrefragable evi
dences of the historical verity of the Scripture records. If to our
modern thought they seem of no practical worth, we should not
forget that to the ancient Hebrew they were of the first importance
as documents of ancestral history and legal rights. The most un
critical and absurd of all sceptical fancies would be the notion that
these lists have been fabricated for a purpose. One might as well
maintain that the fossil remains of extinct animals have been set in
the rocks for the purpose of deception. The superficial utilitarian
may indeed pronounce both the fossils and the genealogies alike
worthless; but the profounder student of the earth and of man will
recognise in them invaluable indexes of history. These genealogies
are like the rough stones in the lower foundation of a building.
Some of the stones are out of sight in the subsoil; others have be
come nicked and bruised, and some displaced and lost in the lapse
of centuries, but they were all in some way essential to the origin,
rise, stability, and usefulness of the noble superstructure.
1 A. C. Hervey, article on Genealogy of Jesus Christ in Smith's Bible Dictionary.
For fuller details and discussion of the same theory see the same author's volume en
titled Genealogies of our Lord (Cambridge, 1853). Dr. Holmes attempts (article Gen.
of Jesus Christ in Kitto's New Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature) to controvert
Hervey's positions and arguments, but we think entirely without success. The same
may be said of Meyer's note at the end of Luke iii. The fact is that while no one
should affirm that Hervey's hypothesis is perfectly certain (for in the absence of suffi
cient data no theory is entitled to such a claim) no one can prove that it is not cor
rect. All that can well be asked for in the case is a hypothesis which will exhibit
how both genealogies may be true, and that which holds Matthew's to be the legal
(royal) line and Luke's the natural seems on the whole to be most entitled to credit.
On the minor discrepancies and difficulties of these genealogies see the works named
above, the several Bible dictionaries and commentaries, and W. II. Mill's discussion of
the genealogies in his Observations on the attempted Application of Pantheistic Prin
ciples to the Theory and Historical Criticism of the Gospel. Cambridge, 2d edition,
1855.
DISCREPANCY OF NUMBERS. 415
The greater number of the numerical discrepancies of the Bible
are probably due to the mistakes of copyists. The an- Numerical dia-
cient custom of using letters for numbers, and the great crepancies.
similarity of some of the letters, will account for such differences
as that of 2 Sam. viii, 4, compared with 1 Chron. xviii, 4, where
final Nun (f), which stands for YOO, might easily be confounded with
Zayin with two dots over it ('f) which was used to denote 7000.
According to 1 Kings vii, 15, the two brazen pillars were each
eighteen cubits high; in 2 Chron. iii, 15, it is written: "He made
before the house two pillars thirty and five cubits long." Some
have thought that, as in Kings, the height (HOip) of each pillar is
given, and in Chronicles the length ("nJK) of the two pillars, we should
understand the latter passage as giving the length of the two pillars
together. They may have been cast in one piece, and afterward
cut into two pillars, each being, in round numbers, eighteen cubits.
The more probable supposition, however, is that the discrepancy
arose by confounding rv = 18, with rf? = 35.
The two lists of exiles who returned with Zerubbabel (Ezra ii,
1-70, and Neh. vii, 6-73) exhibit numerous discrepan- Lists of return-
cies as well as many coincidences, and it is remarkable
that the numbers in Ezra's list amount to 29,818, and mtah.
in Nehemiah's to 31,089, and yet, according to both lists, the entire
congregation numbered 42,360 (Ezra ii, 64; Neh. vii, 66). The
probability is that neither list is intended as a perfect enumeration
of all the families that returned from exile, but only of such fami
lies of Judah and Benjamin as could show an authentic genealogy
of their father's house, while the 42,360 includes many persons and
families belonging to other tribes who in their exile had lost all
certain record of their genealogy, but were nevertheless true de
scendants of some of the ancient tribes. It is also noticeable that
Ezra's list mentions 494 persons not recognised in Nehemiah's list,
and Nehemiah's list mentions 1,765 not recognised in Ezra's; but if
we add the surplus of Ezra to the sum of Nehemiah (494 + 31,089
= 31,583) we have the same result as by adding Nehemiah's sur
plus to the sum of Ezra's numbers (1,765 + 29,818 = 31,583).
Hence it may be reasonably believed that 31,583 was the sum of all
that could show their father's house; that the two lists were drawn
up independently of each other; and that both are defective, though
one supplies the defects of the other.
As an instance of doctrinal and ethical inconsistency Doctrinal and
between the Old and New Testaments we may cite the
Hebrew law of retaliation as treated by our Lord. In
Exod. xxi, 23-25, it is commanded that in cases of assault and
416 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
strife resulting in the injury of persons, " thou shalt give life for
life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn
ing for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe " (comp. Lev.
xxiv, 20; Deut. xix, 21). But Jesus says: "Do not resist the evil
man; but whosoever smites thee upon thy right cheek turn to him
the other also" (Matt, v, 39). A proper explanation of these con
tradictory Scriptures will also answer for many other passages of
like spirit and import. The true explanation is to be had by a
careful consideration of the historical standpoint of each speaker,
and the particular end or purpose which each had in view. We
are not to assume that the Mosaic legislation was without divine
sanction, and that by the words " it was said to the ancients "
(Matt, v, 21) Jesus meant to cast a reflection on the source or au
thority of the old law, as if to set himself against Moses. "What
was said to them of old was well said, but it needed modifying at
a later age and under a new dispensation. Moreover, Moses was
legislating for a peculiar nation at a distinctive crisis, and enunciat
ing the rights and methods of a civil jurisprudence. The old law
of retaliation was grounded essentially in truth and justice. In the
maintenance of law and order in any body politic personal assault
and wilful wrong demand penal satisfaction, and this self-evident
Supposed con- truth the Gospel does not ignore or set aside. It recog-
tue' LawWand n*ses the civil magistrate as a minister of God ordained
the Gospel. to punish the evildoer (Rom. xiii, 1-5; 1 Peter ii, 14).
But in the sermon on the mount Jesus is urging the principle of
Christian tenderness and love as it should prevail in the personal
intercourse of men as individuals. The great principle of Christian
action should be: Let not bitterness and hatred toward any man
possess your soul. The spirit of law, national honour, and right
logically led to the general motto, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour
and hate thy enemy " (Matt, v, 43). Jesus would bring about a
better age, a kindlier feeling among men, a higher and nobler civil
ization. To effect this he issues a new commandment designed, first
of all, to operate in a man's private relations with his fellow man:
"Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you" (Matt.
v, 44). Here our Lord is evidently not putting forth a maxim or
method of civil jurisprudence, but a principle of individual con
duct. He shows us, as Alford observes, "the condition to which a
Christian community should tend, and to further which every pri
vate Christian's own endeavours should be directed. It is quite
beside the purpose for the world to say that these precepts of our
Lord are too highly pitched for humanity, and so to find an excuse
for violating them. If we were disciples of his in the true sense,
DOCTRINAL DISCREPANCIES. 417
these precepts would, in their spirit, as indicative of frames of
mind, be strictly observed; and, as far as we are disciples, we shall
attain to such observance." '
That Jesus, by these precepts of personal conduct in the ordinary
affairs of life, did not intend to forbid the censure and ,
... . Civil rights
punishment of evildoers, is evident from his own con- maintained by
duct. When struck by one of the officers in the pres- JesusandpauL
ence of the high priest, our Lord remonstrated against the flagrant
abuse (John xviii, 22, 23). When Paul was similarly smitten by
command of the high priest (Acts xxiii, 3), the apostle indignantly
cried out: "God will smite thee, thou whited wall!" The same
apostle sets forth the true Christian doctrine on all these points in
Rom. xii, 18-xiii, 6: "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, be
at peace with all men." Here he more than intimates the improba
bility of being at peace with all, and then, assuming that one suffers
personal assault and injury, he adds: "Avenge not yourselves, be
loved, but give place to the wrath" (of God). That is, let the
divine wrath take its own course, and do not attempt to anticipate
it, or stand in its way by retaliation and personal revenge. And
then he quotes from the old law (Deut. xxxii, 35) where " it is
written, To me belongeth vengeance; I will recompense, saith the
Lord." God will bring his wrath (opy?/) to bear upon the offender
in due time, and will requite the wrong. And then follows another
quotation from the Old Testament (Prov. xxv, 21, 22): "If thine
enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; for by doing
this thou wilt heap coals of fire upon his head." Thereupon he sums
up the whole thought by saying: "Be not overcome by the evil
(which has been committed against thee), but overcome the evil in
the good " (in the element and life of that all-conquering goodness
which will be exhibited by this course of conduct). But so far is
the apostle from teaching that crimes and offences are never to be
avenged that he proceeds immediately to show that God has or
dained the civil power as an agency and instrument for this very
end. Is it asked what course the wrath of God takes when he
recompenses vengeance upon evildoers ? Doubtless his methods
of judgment are manifold, but the apostle shows us, in the imme
diate context, one of the established methods by which God has
arranged to punish the impious offender, namely, through "the
higher powers" (Rom. xiii, 1). Rulers are designed to be a terror
to evildoers. The civil magistrate " does not vainly bear the
sword; for he is God's minister, an avenger for wrath (eicdiKo^ el$
*lv> a divinely ordained avenging agent for the purpose of
1 Greek Testament on Matt, v, 38.
418 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
executing the wrath, rj opy?/, mentioned above in xii, 19) to him that
doeth the evil " (Rom. xiii, 4). Let no man, therefore, presume to
say that the spirit and precepts of the New Testament are at war
with those of the Old. In both Testaments the principles of broth
erly love and of doing good for evil are inculcated, as well as the
duty of maintaining human rights and civil order.
Some persons have strangely assumed that the prohibition of
The avenging murder (Exod. xx, 13) in the Decalogue is inconsistent
of blood. with the taking of human life in any form. This fallacy
arises from a failure to distinguish between individual relations and
the demands of public and administrative justice. The right and
justice of capital punishment are affirmed in the most ancient legis
lation (Gen. ix, 6). The law of Moses, which makes so prominent
the prohibition of murder, forbids the taking of any satisfaction for
the life of a murderer. He that wickedly takes the life of a man
must pay the penalty with his own life, or the very land will be
defiled (Num. xxxv, 31-34). Ancient law and custom, recognized in
the books of Moses, gave the nearest kinsman of the murdered man
the right of avenging this crime. The practice, however, was liable
to grave abuses, and Moses took measures to restrict them by pro
viding cities of refuge. But the necessity of punishing the guilty
criminal is everywhere recognised, and the Gospel of Jesus nowhere
assumes to set it aside. The methods of penalty may change in the
course of ages, and sins which called for capital punishment among
the ancient Hebrews may demand no such severity of treatment
under the Gospel dispensation. But it may be gravely doubted
whether the " higher powers " can bear the sword to any excellent
purpose if they be denied the right to recompense the crime of
murder with capital punishment.1
A prominent example of supposed inconsistency of doctrine in
Difference be- the New Testament is found in the different methods of
James onJusti- presenting the subject of justification in the epistles of
fication. Paul and of James. Paul's teaching is thus expressed
in Gal. ii, 15, 16: "We Jews by nature, and not sinners from the
1 Meyer observes that Rom. xiii, 4, compared with Acts xxv, 11, "proves that the
abolition of the r'ujlit of capital punishment deprives the magistracy of a power which
is not merely given to it in the Old Testament, but is also decisively confirmed in the
New Testament, and which it (herein lies the sacred limitation and responsibility of
this power) possesses as God's minister ; on which account its application is to be up
held as a principle with reference to those cases in law, where the actual satisfaction
of the divine Nemesis absolutely demands it, while, at the same time, the right of
pardon is still to be kept open for all concrete cases. The character of being un
christian, of barbarism, etc., does not adhere to the right itself, but to its abuse in
legislation and practice." — Critical Commentary on Rom. xiii, 4.
DOCTRINAL DISCREPANCIES. 419
Gentiles, but knowing that a man is not justified by the works of
the law (e£ epywv vopov, from works of law, i. e., as a source of
merit, ground of procedure in the given case, and so the reason and
cause of the justification) save through faith of Jesus Christ, even
we believed in (e£c, into, in allusion to the definite fact of entering
into vital union with Christ at conversion) Christ Jesus, that we
might be justified by faith of Christ, and not by works of law ; be
cause by works of law shall no flesh be justified." Substantially
the same statement is made in Rom. iii, 20, 28, and in Rom. iv the
doctrine is illustrated by the case of Abraham, who " believed God
and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness" (ver. 3). On the
other hand James insists on being " doers of the word " (Jas. i,
22-25). He extols practical godliness, the fulfilling of "the royal
law according to the Scripture " (ii, 8), and declares that " faith, if
it have not works, is dead by itself " (ii, 1 7). He also illustrates by
the case of Abraham "when he offered Isaac his son upon the
altar," and argues " that the faith wrought with his works, and by
the works the faith was perfected, and the Scripture was fulfilled
which says : Abraham believed God and it was reckoned unto him
for righteousness, and he was called God's Friend. Ye see," he
concludes, "that by works (e£ Ipywv) a man is justified, and not by
faith only" (ii, 21-24).
The solution of this apparent opposition is to be had by a study
of the personal religious experience of each writer, and Metiiod of so-
their different modes of thought and fields of operation lution.
in the early Christian Church. We must also observe the peculiar
sense in which each one uses the terms faith, works, and justification,
for these words have each been used in all periods of the Church to
express a number of quite distinct though kindred ideas.
We should first remember that Paul was led to Christ by a sud
den and marvellous conversion. The conviction of sin, Different per-
the smitings of soul when he found that he had been "^ 0jX£^j
persecuting the Lord Jesus, the falling of the scales and James,
from his eyes, and his consequent keen and vivid perception of the
free grace of the Gospel realized through faith in Christ Jesus — all
this would necessarily enter into his ideal of the justification of a
sinner. He sees that neither Jew nor Gentile can enter into saving
relations with Christ except through such a faith. Then his mis
sion and ministry led him pre-eminently to combat legal Judaism,
and he became " the apostle of the Gentiles." James, on the other
hand, had been more gradually indoctrinated in Gospel life. His
conception of Christianity was that of the consummation and per
fection of the old covenant. His mission and ministry led him
420 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
mainly, if not altogether, to labour among those of the circumcision
(Gal. ii, 9). lie was wont to view all Christian doctrine in the light
of Old Testament Scripture, which thereby became to him " the im
planted word" (i, 21), "a perfect law, the (law) of liberty" (ver. 25),
" a royal law " (ii, 8). And we must also bear in mind, as Neander
observes, "that James in his peculiar position had not, like Paul,
to vindicate an independent and unshackled ministration of the
Gospel among the Gentiles in opposition to the pretensions of
Jewish legal righteousness ; but that he felt himself compelled to
press the practical consequences and requirements of the Christian
faith on those in whom that faith had been blended with the errors
of carnal Judaism, and to tear away the supports of their false
confidence."1
Such different experiences and fields of action would naturally
Different modes develop in these ministers of Jesus Christ correspond-
andPPeXeSng "^7 different styles of thought and teaching. But
great truths. when, with these facts in view, we analyze their re
spective teachings, we find nothing that is really contradictory.
They simply set before us different aspects of the same great truths
of God. Paul's teaching in the passages quoted above has refer
ence to faith in its first operation ; the confidence with which a
sinner, conscious of guilt and condemnation, throws himself upon
the free grace of God in Jesus Christ, and thus obtains pardon and
peace with God. James, on the other hand, treats of faith rather
as the abiding principle of a godly life, with works of piety flowing
from it as waters from a living spring. Paul cites the case of Abra
ham while he is yet in uncircumcision, and before he had received
that seal of the righteousness of faith (Rom. iv, 10, 11) ; but James
reverts to the later time when he offered up Isaac, and by that act
of fidelity to God's word had his faith perfected (Jas. ii, 21). The
term works is also used with different shades of meaning. Paul has
in mind the works of the law with reference to the idea of a legal
righteousness; James evidently has in view works of practical
piety, like visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction
(i, 27), and ministering to the wants of the needy (ii, 15, 16). Justi
fication, accordingly, is viewed by Paul as a judicial act involving
the remission of sins, reconciliation with God, and restoration to the
divine favour ; but with James it is rather the maintenance of such
a state of favour with God, a continued approval in the sight of
God and man. All this will appear the more clearly when we note
that James addresses his Jewish brethren of the dispersion, who
1 Planting and Training of the Christian Church. English Translation, by Ryland,
p. 499. New York, 1865.
PAUL AND JAMES ON FAITH. 421
•were exposed to divers temptations and trials (i, 1-4), and were in
danger of reposing in a dead antinomian Pharisaism; but Paul is
discussing, as a learned theologian, the doctrine of salvation, as it
originates in the counsels of God, and is developed in the history
of God's dealings with the whole race of Adam.
Moreover, it should be observed that James does not deny the
necessity and efficacy of faith, nor does Paul ignore the ,
J J ' o Different aim
importance of good works. What James opposes is the of Paul and
mischievous doctrine of faith apart from works. He James>
condemns the man who says he has faith, and yet exhibits a life
and conduct inconsistent with the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Such faith, he declares, is dead in itself (ii, 14-17). Justification is
by faith, but not by faith only (ver. 24). It evidences itself by
works of piety and love. Paul, on the other hand, opposes the idea
of a legal righteousness. He condemns the vain conceit that a man
can merit God's favour by a perfect keeping of law, and shows that
the law serves its highest purpose when it discloses to a man " the
knowledge of sin" (Rom. iii, 20) and makes sin itself appear "ex
ceedingly sinful" (vii, 7-13). But Paul is as far from denying the
necessity of good works as evidences of a believer's faith in Christ,
as James is from denying the necessity of faith in Christ in order
to obtain the remission of sin- In Gal. v, 6, he speaks of " faith
working through love," and in 1 Cor. xiii, 2, he affirms that though
one have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, he
is nothing. Evidently both these apostles are in harmony with
Jesus, who comprehends the essential relations of faith and works
when he says: "Either make the tree good and its fruit good; or
make the tree corrupt and its fruit corrupt ; for the tree is known
by its fruit" (Matt, xii, 33).
These differences between Paul and James illustrate the individ
ual freedom of the sacred writers in their enunciation
... Individual f ree-
of divine truth. Each maintains his own peculiarities dom of different
of thought and style. Each receives and communi- *
cates his word of revelation and knowledge of the mystery of
Christ according to the conditions of life, experience, and action
under which he has been trained. All these facts are to be taken
into consideration when we compare and contrast the teachings of
Scripture which are apparently diverse. It will be found that these
variations constitute one manifold and self-evidencing revelation of
the only true God.
The general principles of exegesis set forth above will suffice for
the explanation of all other doctrinal and ethical inconsistencies
which have been alleged as existing in the Bible. Strict regard to
422 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
the standpoint of the speaker or writer, the occasion, scope, and
plan, together with a critical analysis of the details, will usually
show that there exists no real contradiction. But when men bring
forward hyperbolical expressions peculiar to oriental speech, or
instances of Hebraic anthropomorphism, and press them into an
assumed literal significance, they simply create the difficulties over
which they stumble. Doctrinal and ethical inconsistencies, devel
oped by such a process, are all dissipated by attention to the na
ture of the scriptural language and a rational interpretation of the
same.
Mr. Haley, in his comprehensive and valuable work on the Dis
crepancies of the Bible,1 observes that these discrepan-
Value of bibli- r
cai discrepan- cies are not without a value. 1 hey may well be believed
to contemplate the following ends: (1) They stimulate
intellectual effort, awaken curiosity and inquiry, and thus lead to a
closer and more extensive study of the sacred volume. (2) They
illustrate the analogy between the Bible and nature. As the earth
and heavens exhibit marvellous harmony in the midst of great
variety and discord, so in the Scriptures there exists a notable har
mony behind all the seeming discrepancies. (3) They prove that
there was no collusion among the sacred writers, for their differ
ences are such as would never have been introduced by their design.*
(4) They also show the value of the spirit as above the letter of
the word of God, and (5) serve as a test of moral character. To
the captious spirit, predisposed to find and magnify difficulties in
the divine revelation, the biblical discrepancies will be great stum-
blingblocks, and occasions of disobedience and cavil. But to the
serious inquirer, who desires to " know the mysteries of the king
dom of heaven" (Matt, xiii, 11), a faithful study of these discrep
ancies will disclose hidden harmonies and undesigned coincidences
which will convince him that these multiform Scriptures are truly
the word of God.
1 An Examination of the Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible, pp. 30-40. Andover,
1874.
* " These discrepancies," observes Wordsworth, " being such as they are found to
be, are of inestimable value. They show that there has been no collusion among our
witnesses, and that our manuscript copies of the Gospels, about five hundred in num
ber, and brought to us from all parts of the world, have not been mutilated or inter
polated with any sinister design ; they have not been tampered with by any religious
sect for the sake of propagating any private opinion as the word of God. These dis
crepancies are, in fact, evidences of the purity and integrity of the sacred text." —
The New Testament in the original Greek, with Notes and Introductions. Preface to
the Four Gospels, p, xiii. Lond., 1859.
THE FOUR GOSPELS. 423
CHAPTER XXII.
HAEMONY AND DIVERSITY OF THE GOSPELS.
THE life of Jesus forms a turningpoint in the history of the world.
The Old Testament Scriptures show the steady trend The life of Je-
of history toward that eventful epoch. The prophets
with one voice place the coming of the Christ " in the history.
end of the days" (Gen. xlix, 1; Num. xxiv, ]4; Isa. ii, 2; Dan. x, 14),
and conceive his advent and reign as the ushering in of a new age.
The God of the prophets spoke, in the last days of the old aeon, in
the person of his incarnate Son, " whom he made heir of all things,
through whom also he made the ages " (TOV$ a'tuva^, the ceons, Heb.
i, 2). The death and consequent exaltation of Jesus were the
crucial hour of the world's history (John xii, 23-33), and from that
hour there was a new departure in the course of human affairs.
After the Gospel of the Messianic kingdom had been preached in
the whole Roman world, for a witness to all the nations of the
same (Matt, xxiv, 14), the end of that age came. For it was neces
sary, before the old economy came to its decisive end, that the new
Gospel should first obtain a sure standing in the world. The utter
overthrow of the Jewish polity and state, and the awful ruin of
that wicked city where the Lord was crucified, marked the consum
mation of that aeon. And from that point onward the triumphs of
the cross extend. It is but natural, therefore, that the four gos
pels, being the authoritative records of the life and words of the
Lord Jesus, are esteemed the most precious documents of Chris
tianity.
Each of the four gospels presents us with a life picture of the
Lord Jesus, and assumes to tell what he did and what The Gospels the
he said. But while narrating many things in common, chief Around
3 ' of conflict be-
these four witnesses differ much from one another, tween faith
How to account for so many differences in the midst of and unbelief-
so many coincidences has always been a perplexing study among
expositors. In modern times the rationalistic critics have pointed
to the apparent discrepancies of the gospels as evidences against
their credibility, and these most cherished records of the Church
have become the central point of controversy between faith and
unbelief. , The rationalists all concede that the man Jesus lived and
died, but that he rose again from the dead, according to the gospels,
424 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
they stoutly deny, and resort to all manner of conjectures to
account for the uniform and universal faith of the Church in his
resurrection. The common sense of all Christendom logically con
cludes that if Jesus Christ arose from the dead that miracle at once
confirms the credibility of the gospels, and accounts for the marvel
lous rise, the excellency and present power, of the Christian religion.
It proves that its origin was supernatural and divine. But if the
miracle of Christ's resurrection be a falsehood, the entire Christian
system, which rests upon it, is a stupendous fraud. Well might
Paul write : " If Christ has not been raised, vain then is our preach
ing, vain also your faith, and we are found even false witnesses of
God, because we witnessed respecting God that he raised up the
Christ" (1 Cor. xv, 14, 15).
Many writers, ancient and modern, have undertaken to construct
Attempts at a (so-called) Harmony of the Gospels.1 They have adopted
G^T^Har- various methods of explaining the several discrepancies,
monies. and of constructing one harmonious narrative out of the
four different accounts of the life of Christ. Eusebius compiled an
arrangement of the gospels in ten canons or tables, according as
the different events are related by one or more of the evangelists.
Thus, under one head he brought those passages that are common
to all the gospels; under another those that are found only in one
gospel; in three other tables he exhibited those facts which are
common to any three of the gospels, and in five others those that
are common to any two. At a later period effort was directed more
to the combining of the four gospels into one chronological order,
and then the great question arose, Which of the evangelists gives
us the true order of events ? Some maintained that all four gos
pels give the events of the Lord's life in their true chronological
order, and wherever the events are arranged differently by different
writers we should understand that the transactions in question oc
curred more than once. Others strenuously maintained that chrono
logical order is not observed by any of the evangelists, while others
were uncertain which particular evangelist is the best chronologi
cal guide, some preferring Matthew's arrangement, others Luke's,
inasmuch as he professes to set forth things in their true order
Luke i, 3). Cartwright follows the arrangement of Mark,
1 The most valuable works on the Harmony of the Gospels are those of J. Hacknight
(London, 1756), W Newcome, in Greek (Dublin, 1778), and English (1802), G. Town-
send (London, 1825), edited by T. W. Coit (Boston, 1837), E. Robinson, in Greek
(Boston, 1845), and English (1846), J. Strong, in English (New York, 1852), and
Greek (1854), W. Stroud, in Greek (London, 1853), Tischendorf, Synopsis Evangelica
(New edition, Leipsic, 1864), F. Gardiner, in Greek and English (Andover, 1871).
USE OF HARMONIES. 425
and John's Gospel, having comparatively few things in common
with the others, is generally believed to present the true chronolog
ical order of the matters it records.
The harmonists have furnished many valuable expositions, to
gether with many solutions of the alleged discrepancies use of Harmo-
of the gospels. But as far as they have attempted to nles-
combine the four gospels into one continuous narrative, and settle
positively the exact chronological order of events, they have rather
hindered than helped a satisfactory understanding of these price
less records. Such a process brings these lifelike and independent
narratives to a test they were never meant to meet, and assumes a
standard of judgment that is both unscientific and unfair. But
most of the later harmonists concede that it was no purpose of the
evangelists to compose a complete account of the life and works of
Jesus, and that all of them record some things without strict regard
to the order of time. "The true use of harmonies," says J. A.
Alexander, "is threefold: exegetical, historical, and apologetical.
By mere juxtaposition, if judicious, the gospels may be made to
throw light upon each other's obscure places. By combination — not
mechanical, but rational; not textual, but interpretative — harmonies
put it in our power not to grind, or melt, or boil four gospels into
one, but out of the four, kept apart, yet viewed together, to extract
one history for ourselves. And, lastly, by the endless demonstra
tion of the possible solutions of apparent or alleged discrepancies,
even where we may not be prepared to choose among them, they
reduce the general charge of falsehood or of contradiction, not only
ad absurdum, but to a palpable impossibility. How can four inde
pendent narratives be false or contradictory which it is possible to
reconcile on so many distinct hypotheses? The art of the most
subtle infidelity consists in hiding this convincing argument behind
the alleged necessity of either giving a conclusive and exclusive
answer to all captious cavils and apparent disagreements, or aban
doning our faith in the history as a whole. This most important
end of gospel harmonies has been accomplished." '
An intelligent and profitable study of the gospels requires atten
tion especially to three things: (1) Their origin; (2) The Three consid-
distinct plan and purpose of each gospel, and (3) The eratlons-
marked characteristics of the several gospels. These considera
tions, leading as they do to a proper understanding of the gospel
records, and to the solution of their discrepancies, are really so
many hermeneutical principles to be applied in any thorough ex
position of these records.
1 Article on Harmonies of the Gospels in the Princeton Review, voL xxviii, p. 105.
426 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
The most cursory examination of the four gospels must show the
Origin of the observant critic that they are not, in any proper sense,
Gospels. formal histories. Nor do they assume to be complete
biographies. There is, really, nothing like them in the whole
range of literature. They manifestly sprung from a common
source, and they all agree in recording more or less of the life,
words, works, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But whether
that common source were written documents or oral traditions has
long been a matter of controversy. Some have maintained the
existence of an original gospel in Hebrew or Aramaic ; others an
original gospel in Greek; while others have supposed the earlier writ
ten gospel was supplemented by apostolical traditions.1 But the
hypothesis of an oral gospel, embodying the substance of the apos
tolic preaching, is now very generally held as the principal source
of our four gospels. "The hypothesis of an oral gospel," says
An original Westcott, " is most consistent with the general habit
oral Gospel. of tjje jews an(j the peculiar habit of the apostles; it is
supported by the earliest direct testimony, and in some degree im
plied in the apostolic writings. The result of the examination of
the internal character of the gospels is not less favourable to its
adoption than the weight of external evidence. The general form
of the Gospels points to an oral source. A minute biography, or a
series of annals, which are the simplest and most natural forms of
writing, are the least natural forms of tradition, and the farthest
removed from the evangelical narratives, which consist of striking
scenes and discourses, such as must have lived long in the memories
of those who witnessed them. Nor are the gospels fashioned only
on an oral type; they are fashioned also upon that type which is
preserved in the other apostolic waitings. The oral gospel, as far
as it can be traced in the Acts and the Epistles, centered in the
crowning facts of the passion and the resurrection, while the earlier
ministry of the Lord was regarded chiefly in relation to its final
issue. In a narrative composed on such a plan it is evident that
the record of the last stage of Christ's work wrould be conspicuous
for detail and fulness, and that the events chosen to represent the
salient features of its earlier course would be combined together
without special reference to date or even to sequence. Viewed in
the light of its end the whole period was one in essence, undivided
1 For an account of the various theories of the origin of the gospels, see Introduc
tions to the New Testament by Eichhorn, De Wette, Bleek, Davidson, etc., and
Marsh's Translation of Michaelis' Introduction to the New Testament, Westcott's In
troduction to the Study of the Gospels, pp. 174-216, and the biblical dictionaries and
cyclopaedias under the word Gospels.
ORIGIN OF GOSPELS. 427
by years or festivals, and the record would be marked not so much
by divisions of time as by groups of events. In all these respects
the synoptic gospels exactly represent the probable form of the
first oral gospel. They seem to have been shaped by the pressure
of recurring needs, and not by the deliberate forethought of their
authors. In their common features they seem to be that which the
earliest history declares they are, the summary of the apostolic
preaching, the historic groundwork of the Church." '
But granting the earliest form of the gospel narrative to have
been oral, that concession is far from determining the No absoiute
particular origin of our present gospels. And it ought certainty as to
, ,° ,. . /f. ., ,. ~, the particular
to be agreed among discerning critics that, from the origin of each
nature of the case, in the absence of sufficient evidence,
no absolute certainty can be attained. How and when Matthew and
Mark wrote, what was the special occasion of their writing, how far
they may have used written documents, and what understanding the
apostles and evangelists may have had among themselves about
writing down the words and works of their Lord, are all questions
which admit of no positive answer. It is not the province of a
work on hermeneutics to discuss the different theories of the origin
of the written gospels, but to define principles of procedure essen
tial to any profitable discussion of the subject. And it is all im
portant to bear in mind that where absolute certainty on a given
question is impossible, dogmatic assumptions must be avoided, and
considerate attention should be bestowed upon any reasonable sup
positions which will help to elucidate the problem. In the absence
of external testimony the gospels themselves, and other New Test
ament books, may be expected to suggest the best indications of
the origin and aim of any one of the gospels. It appears that it
was regarded as an essential qualification for apostleship to have
seen the Lord (Acts i, 21, 22; 1 Cor. ix, 1). And is it not every
way reasonable to suppose that the apostles had an understanding
among themselves as to what principal facts of the Lord's life
should be embodied in their preaching? May it not Probable g,^
have been agreed among them that Matthew and John positions as to
should each write a gospel of the Lord? At one time
it was agreed, according to Paul (Gal. ii, 9), that James, Peter, and
John should go as apostles to the Jews, and Paul and Barnabas to
the Gentiles. The council of the apostles and elders at Jerusalem,
described in Acts xv, shows how carefully matters of general inter
est to the Church were discussed by the great leaders. Is it likely,
then, that so important a matter as the publication of authoritative
1 Introduction to the Gospels, pp. 212, 213, Boston, 1862.
428 SPECIAL HERMEXEUTICS.
accounts of the Christ would have been neglected by them ? There
was a saying abroad in the Church that John should not die (John
xxi, 23). Whatever its precise meaning, it may have been the
occasion of his putting off the composition of his gospel until all
the rest of the apostles had passed away. The ancient tradition
that Mark's Gospel is essentially that of Peter, and Luke's essen
tially that of Paul, is corroborated by their general character and
form. With those who accept the apostolic origin and divine in
spiration of the four gospels there is no reasonable ground for deny
ing that these records were put forth by a common understanding
of the apostles and elders of the Church, and for the purpose of
providing the churches everywhere with an authoritative testimony
of the life and works of the Lord Jesus. It appears from Luke's
preface (Luke i, 1) that many persons took in hand, at an early day,
to publish narratives of the current oral gospel, namely, the things
that were looked upon as fully accomplished by God in the person
of Jesus, and before the eyes of those who were with him from the
first. This fact probably made it expedient that the great events of
that gospel should be set forth by apostolic authority, and when at
length these four authoritative records went forth to the churches
they supplanted all others, and have ever commended themselves to
the faith of Christian believers in all lands.
Further suggestions as to the origin of the four gospels will
Distinct lan aPPear as we proceed to inquire into the distinct plan
and purpose of and purpose of each. Is it reasonable to suppose that
iospei. these gospel records were composed and sent forth
among the early churches without any definite plan and purpose ?
Are they merely so many collections of fragmentary traditions
thrown together haphazard ? When an event recorded by one is
omitted by another, are we to suppose that the omission arose
from ignorance of the event ? To suppose the affirmative of any
one of these questions would seem highly absurd, for each of the
four gospels contains so many evidences of definite design, and so
many inimitable word-pictures, that we cannot believe that any
authors, competent for the writing of such books, would have put
them forth without orderly arrangement and without special pur
pose. It is far more probable that each evangelist had a reason
for what he omitted as well as for what he recorded.
Ireraeus gives the following account of the gospels: "Matthew
Tradition of the issued a written gospel among the Hebrews in their
early Church. own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at
Rome, a.nd laying the foundation of the Church. After their de
parture, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand
CHARACTERISTICS OF GOSPELS.
429
down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke
also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the gospel preached
by him. Afterward, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had
leaned upon his breast, did himself publish a gospel during his resi
dence at Ephesus in Asia."1 With this general statement of Ire-
nseus all ancient history and tradition substantially agree.
A cursory examination of Matthew's Gospel will discover its
special adaptation to Jewish readers. The first verse,
in true Jewish style, declares it to be " The Book of pel adapted to
the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the l
son of Abraham." The great purpose of this gospel throughout is
to exhibit Jesus as the Messiah of whom the prophets had spoken,
the divine founder of the kingdom of God. Hence he makes more
extensive and more elaborate use of Old Testament prophecy than
any other of the evangelists. These prominent features of the first
gospel are certainly a fair indication of its special purpose.
The ancient tradition that Mark's Gospel is substantially that of
Peter,* is confirmed by the general style, scope, and plan Mark>g Gos t
of the gospel itself. Peter's active and rapid manner adapted to the
would naturally dictate a condensed and pointed gospel. BomaD
His ministry to such Gentile converts as Cornelius would be likely
to show the need of an account of the Lord Jesus especially adapted
to that class of minds. Mark's Gospel well meets this ideal. It
omits genealogies and long discourses. It has comparatively few
citations from Old Testament prophecy. It portrays the life of
Jesus as that of a mighty conqueror. It was certainly adapted to
meet the tastes of the Roman mind, whose ideals of rapidity, power,
and triumph were well expressed in the famous words of Caesar, " I
came, I saw, I conquered."
Luke's Gospel, declared by the voice of the most ancient tradition
1 Against Heresies, book iii, chap, i, 1. That Matthew's Gospel was originally writ
ten in Hebrew, or Aramaean, but early put forth in Greek by the hand or under the
oversight of Matthew himself, is now the opinion of many of the best biblical scholars.
But the arguments pro and con may be seen in Meyer, Commentary on Matthew, In
troduction ; Alford, Greek Testament, Prolegomena ; Introduction to New Testament
by Hug, De Wette, Bleek, Davidson, etc., and Biblical Dictionaries of Smith, Kitto,
and M'Clintock and Strong.
2 Eusebius says that Peter, having established the Gospel among the Romans, " so
greatly did the splendour of piety enlighten the minds of his hearers, that it was not
sufficient to hear but once, nor to receive the unwritten doctrine of the Gospel of God,
but they persevered in every variety of entreaties to solicit Mark, as the companion
of Peter, that he should leave them a monument of the doctrines thus orally com
municated in writing. Nor did they cease their solicitations until they had prevailed
with the man, and thus became the means of that history which is called the Gospel
according to Mark." — Eccl. Hist., book ii, chap, xv (Bohn's Ed.).
28
430 SPECIAL IIERMENEUTICS,
to be the substance of Paul's preaching,1 is pre-eminently the
gospel of the Gentiles. It deals more than any other
Lukesthe>-lr . •
Pauline Gospel gospel with Jesus' words and works for the whole
to the Gentiles. worj(j> Luke alone records the mission of the seventy.
He alone records the parable of the Good Samaritan, and that of
the Prodigal Son. He narrates the journey and ministry in Peraea,
a comparatively heathen land. But while adding many things of
this kind, he also sets forth in his own way the main facts recorded
in Matthew and Mark.2 And the three together, because of the
general view they give of the same great outline of facts, are called
the Synoptic Gospels.
Not without reason has the Gospel of Luke been believed to have
special adaptations to the mind of the Greeks. As a mighty uni
versal conqueror was the grand ideal of a Roman, so the perfection
of humanity was the dream of the noblest Grecian intellect. Luke's
orderly narrative, with all those delicate traits which none but
the "beloved physician" could so well detail, is pre-eminently the
gospel of the Son of man, the gospel of universal redemption.3
The Gospel of John has manifestly a specific design different
. from that of the other gospels. Its lofty spiritual tone,
ituai Gospel of its f ulness of doctrine, and its profound conceptions of
the life of faith. the divinity of the Lord> arrest the attention of all
readers. " The Synoptic Gospels," says Westcott, " contain the
gospel of the infant Church; that of St. John the gospel of its
1 Irenasus Against Heresies, iii, 1. Ensebius, Eccl. Hist., book vi, chap, xxv, where
Origen is quoted as saying: "The third Gospel is that according to Luke, the gospel
commended by Paul, which was written for the converts from the Gentiles."
2 " The Gospel of St. Paul," says Westcott, " is, in its essential characteristics, the
complementary history to that of St. Matthew. The difference between the two may
be seen in their opening chapters. The first words of the Hebrew evangelist gave the
clue to his whole narrative ; and so the first chapter of St. Luke, with its declarations
of the blessedness of faith, and the exaltation of the lowly, lead at once to the point
from which he contemplated the life of Him who was ' to give light to them that sit
in darkness and in the shadow of death.' The perfect manhood of the Saviour, and
the consequent mercy and universality of his covenant, is his central subject, rather
than the temporal relations or eternal basis of Christianity. In the other gospels we
find our King, our Lord, our God ; but in St. Luke we see the image of our great
High Priest, 'made perfect through suffering, tempted in all points as we are, but
without sin,' so that each trait of human feeling and natural love helps us to complete
the outline and confirms its truthfulness."— Introduction to the Study of the Gospels,
pp. 370-372.
3 See Da Costa, The Four Witnesses, pp. 185-225, and Prof. D. S. Gregory, Why
Four Gospels ? pp. 207-276. In both these valuable works the idea that Matthew's
is *he gospel for the Jew, Mark's for the Roman, Luke's for the Greek, and John's
iVtitQe Church is elaborated with much detail. Gregory, however, at some points,
v ? the matter to an undue extreme.
CHARACTERISTICS OF GOSPELS. 431
maturity. The first combine to give the wide experience of the
many; the last embraces the deep mysteries treasured up by the
one. All alike are consciously based on the same great facts ; but
yet it is possible, in a more limited sense, to describe the first as
historical, and the last as ideal; though the history necessarily
points to truths which lie beyond all human experience, and the
'ideas' only connect that which was once for all realized on earth
with the eternal of which it was the revelation." ' Clement of
Alexandria, as quoted by Eusebius," also observes : " John, last of
all, perceiving that what had reference to the body in the gospel
of our Saviour was sufficiently detailed, and, being encouraged by
his familiar friends, and urged by the Spirit, he wrote a spiritual
gospel." John's Gospel is pre-eminently the gospel of the word of
God. It deals especially with the mystery of God in Christ, and
sets forth the Lord as the life of men and the light of the world.
It is a revelation of the life of faith in the Son of God. It was writ
ten " that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ;
and that, believing, ye may have life in his name" (John xx, 31). 3
Keeping in mind the leading idea and aim of each of the four
gospels, we may study their several characteristics to _
° r J J Characteristics
advantage. It will often be found that what at first of the several
arrests attention as an inconsistency is an evidence of evan^elists-
the scrupulous fidelity of the evangelist. What sceptical critics
have pronounced unaccountable omissions may be evidences of spe
cial design. The vivid portrayal of events, the little incidents true
to life, the touches of pathos, the forms of expression which none
but eyewitnesses of the events could use, are a mightier proof of
the credibility of the gospels than all the alleged discrepancies are
of their incredibility.
Considering now, for example, the Gospel of Matthew as de
signed especially for Jewish readers, haw natural for him Noticeable
to announce it as the book of the generation of Jesus characteristics.
Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. How to °
his purpose to describe the birth of Jesus, in the days of Herod the
1 Introduction to Gospels, p. 254. * Ecclesiastical History, vi, 14.
3 Thus Westcott, " The subject which is announced in the opening verses is realized,
step by step, in the course of the narrative. The word ' came to his own,' and they
'received him not;' but others 'received him,' and thereby became 'sons of God.'
This is the theme which requires for its complete treatment, not a true record of events
or teaching, but a view of the working of both on the hearts of men. The ethical
element is co-ordinate with the historical ; and the end which the evangelist proposes
to himself answers to this double current of his gospel. He wrote that men might
believe the fact that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing — by spiritual
fellowship — might have life in his name." — Introduction to Gospels, pp. 276, 277.
432 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
king, as one that was born King of the Jews, and born in Bethlehem,
according to the prophets. How the Sermon on the Mount is pre
sented in one connected whole, as if it were a republication of the
ancient law of Sinai in a new and better form. How the series of
miracles in the eighth and ninth chapters follows as if designed to
evidence the divine power and authority of this new Lawgiver and
King. The calling, ordaining, and sending out the twelve disciples
(chap, x) was like the election of a new Israel to reclaim the twelve
tribes scattered abroad. The seven parables of chap, xiii are a
revelation of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom
which he, as the Christ of God, was about to establish. Then fol
lows ample record of the conflict between this King of the Jews
and the scribes and Pharisees, who looked for another kind of
Messianic kingdom (xiv-xxiii). The great apocalyptic discourse of
chaps, xxiv and xxv discloses the end of that age as in the near
future, and is in striking analogy with the spirit and forms of Old
Testament prophecy. The record of the last supper, the betrayal,
the crucifixion, and the resurrection, completes the picture of the
great Prophet, Priest, and King. The entire book has thus a unity
of purpose and of detail admirably adapted to be the gospel to the
Hebrews, and to show to all the thoughtful in Israel that Jesus was
indeed the Messiah of whom the prophets had spoken. Moreover,
while thus breathing the Hebrew spirit, it has fewer explanations
of Jewish customs than the other gospels.
Many have deemed it strange that Matthew says nothing about
omissions of the first miracle of Jesus, at Cana, or of the healing at
^is^oifwitii- Capernaum of the nobleman's son, or of the resurrec-
out a purpose, tion of Lazarus, facts of such great interest. These
notable miracles are omitted in all the synoptic gospels, and some
have rushed to the conclusion that they were unknown to Matthew,
Mark, and Luke. Much more reasonable is the suggestion of Up-
ham, that in the earlier oral gospel, preached everywhere by the
apostles, and represented in substance in the synoptic gospels, it
was agreed, as a matter of prudence, to abstain from any mention
of living persons who would be exposed to peril by such a publica
tion of their connexion with Jesus. The persecution that arose
upon the death of Stephen would naturally seek out the relatives
of the hated Nazarene, and any other parties whose testimony
mightily confirmed the divine power of Jesus. The evangelists and
apostles would not needlessly expose the nobleman or his son, who
were probably still living at Capernaum. They would not publish
the home of the relatives of the mother of Jesus, where he wrought
his first miracle, nor jeopardize the lives of Mary and Martha and
INNER HARMONY OF GOSPELS. 433
their friends at Bethany by sending forth a publication likely to
intensify the feeling that was already so violent against them.'
The above considerations are sufficient to set aside all arguments
against the genuineness and credibility of the gospels, which are
based upon omissions which modern critics may deem strange. To
the beloved disciple, John, who was expected to outlive the others,
it was appropriately left to record the fuller account of Jesus'
Judean ministry, and to make mention of persons and events of
whom it was inexpedient to write so fully at an earlier time. And
a minute study of the peculiar characteristics of Mark, Luke, and
John, wrill show that, both in what they record and in what they
omit, each consistently carries out his own individual plan and
purpose.9
The inner and essential harmony of the gospels is accordingly
enhanced by their diversity. These narratives consti- The harmony
tute a fourfold witness of the Christ of God. As broad- enh^ceT^by
minded philosophers have discerned in the national their diversity.
characteristics and history of the Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans
a providential preparation of the world for the Gospel, so in the
gospels themselves may be seen, in turn, a providential record of
the world's Redeemer, wonderfully adapted by manifold forms of
statement to impress and convince the various minds of men. "We
1 " Bethany," observes TJpham, " was one of the suburbs of Jerusalem. The mir
acle there wrought was the immediate occasion of the arrest and trial of Jesus, though
the hatred of the Jews had kindled to the heat of murder before the raising of Laz
arus, and even the neighbourhood of the unholy city had become so unsafe that Jesus
stayed on the eastern bank of the Jordan. While there Mary and her sister Martha
sent this message, ' Lord, he whom thou lovest is sick.' And, when he would go to
Bethany, the thoughtful Thomas said, ' Let us go and die with him.' These words
disprove the notion that most of the disciples were then away from their Master ; his
time was too near for that; but they do prove not only the chivalry of St. Thomas,
but his sagacity. He judged rightly of the peril of the place and time ; for, as soon
as the chief priests knew that Jesus was again so near, and heard of what he did at
Bethany, they took counsel how they might kill him.
"At that time it was their plan to kill Lazarus also. Only St. John records this,
and he does not say how Lazarus escaped. But such was the wealth and rank of the
family of Bethany that its love for Jesus greatly enraged the rulers of the Jews ; and,
as Mary foresaw the Lord's death, she may have seen the danger of Lazarus, and the
family have had the power to guard against it. Perhaps they did so because of some
intimation from their Lord ; all we know is, that the Jews then failed to kill Lazarus.
But such was their purpose then; and this purpose would naturally revive in the
midst of the provocations that led them to murder St. Stephen." — Thoughts on the
Holy Gospels, pp. 170, 171. -
* See these characteristics elaborated in detail by Da Costa and Gregory in their
works named above. Comp. also Westcott's chapter on The Characteristics of the
Gospels, in his Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, pp. 217-253.
4^4 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
should not say that Matthew wrote for the Jews only, Mark for the
Romans, and Luke for the Greeks. That would imply that when
these several nations ceased these gospels would have no further
special adaptation. We should rather bear in mind that, so far as
the several gospels have the special adaptations named, they have
a divinely-ordained fitness to make the person and character of
Jesus the more powerfully impressive upon all classes of men. The
types of mind and character represented by those great historic
races are ever appearing, and require perpetually the manifold tes
timony of Jesus furnished by the four evangelists. The four are
better than one. We need the living picture of the Prince of the
house of David as given by Matthew, for it reveals him as the per-
fecter of the old economy, the fulfiller of the law and the prophets.
We need the briefer gospel of the mighty Son of God as given by
Mark. Its rapid style and movement affect multitudes more deeply
than a gospel so fully imbued with the Old Testament spirit as that
of Matthew. " If in the first gospel," observes Ellicott, " we recog
nise transitions from theocratic glories to meek submissions, in the
second we see our Redeemer in one light only, of majesty and
power. If in St. Matthew's record we behold now the glorified
and now the suffering Messiah, in St. Mark's vivid pages we see
only the all-powerful Son of God; the voice we hear is that of the
Lion of the tribe of Judah." ' Luke's gospel, on the other hand,
opens before us the broader vision of the Son of man, born, to be
sure, under the law, but born of a woman, "a light for revelation
of the Gentiles," as well as for the glory of Israel (Luke ii, 32). He
appropriately traces the Redeemer's lineage away back beyond Da
vid, and beyond Abraham, to Adam, the son of God (Luke iii, 38).
This Pauline gospel gives us the living embodiment of the perfect
Man, the Friend and Saviour of helpless humanity. Not only does
it offer the noblest ideal to the mind of the Greek; it must always
have a charm for every Theophilus who has a disposition and
desire to know the immovable certainty (rrjv dofidXeiav, Luke i, 4)
of the things of the Gospel. And John's record notably supple
ments the others. It is pre-eminently the gospel for the Church of
God. It is the gospel of the heart of Jesus, and the disciple who
leaned upon the Lord's bosom, and imbibed so fully the inspira
tions of that sacred heart, was the only one of the twelve who could
write this inimitable gospel of the Word, the Light, the Way, the
Truth, the Resurrection, and the Life.
In view of the marvellous harmonies and the all-embracing scope
and purposes of the written gospels of our Lord, how unworthy the
1 Historical Lectures on the Life of our Lord Jesus Christ, pp. 3!), 40, Boston, 1863.
HARMONY IN DIVERSITY. 435
scepticism that fastens upon their little differences of statement
(which may be explained by divers reasonable supposi- unreasonabie-
tions), and magnifies these differences into contradic- °fn °f me^ai
tions with design to disparage the credibility of the leged Gospel
evangelists. Why puzzle over the fact that Matthew tato^oatradic-
and Mark relate that the two thieves who were cruci- tlons-
fled with Jesus reviled him, while Luke says that one reviled him,
and was rebuked by the other, who prayed to the Lord, and re
ceived the promise of paradise ? Is it not supposable that during
the three hours of mortal agony on the cross all these things might
have occurred? Great variety is noticeable in the different ac
counts of the appearances of Jesus after the resurrection, but no
man has ever been able to show a real discrepancy or contradiction.1
In the absence of particulars we may not be able to detail the exact
order of events, but when it is shown, on a number of hypotheses,
that it was possible for all the events to take place, the diversity of
statements becomes an undeniable evidence that they all are true.
1 The following order of events following the resurrection is given by Gardiner :
'• The resurrection itself occurred at or before the earliest dawn of the first day of
the week (Matt, xxviii, 1 ; Mark xvi, 2 ; Luke xxiv, 1 ; John xxi, 1). The women
coming to the sepulchre find the stone rolled away and the body gone. They are
amazed and perplexed. Mary Magdalene alone runs to tell Peter and John (John
xx, 2). The other women remain, enter the tomb, see the angels, are charged by
them to announce the resurrection to the disciples, and depart on their errand.
Meantime Peter and John run very rapidly (verse 4) to the sepulchre. (A glance at
the plan of Jerusalem shows that there were so many different gates by which per
sons might pass between the city and the sepulchre that they might easily have failed
to meet the women on their way). They enter the tomb and are astonished at the
orderly arrangement of the grave-clothes, and then return to the city. Mary follows
to the tomb, unable quite to keep pace with them, and so falling behind. She remains
standing at the entrance after they had gone, and, looking in, sees the angels. Then
turning about she sees Jesus himself, and receives his charge for the disciples. This
was our Lord's first appearance after his resurrection (Mark xvi, 9). To return to
the women who were on their way from the sepulchre to the disciples : They went in
haste, yet more slowly than Peter and John. There were many of them, and being
in a state of great agitation and alarm (Mark xvi, 8) they appear to have become
separated, and to have entered the city by different gates. One party of them, in
their astonishment and fear, say nothing to any one (Matt, xxviii, 8) ; the others run
to the disciples and announce all that they had seen, namely, the vision of the angels
(Mark xvi, 8; Luke xxiv, 9-11). At this time, before any report had come in of the
appearance of our Lord himself, the two disciples set out for Emmaus (Luke xxiv, 13).
Soon after Mary Magdalene comes in announcing that she had actually seen the risen
Lord (Mark xvi, 10, 11; John xx, 18). While these things are happening the first-
mentioned party of the women are stopped on the way by the appearance of the Lord
himself, and they also receive a charge to his disciples (Matt, xxviii, 9, 10). Beyond
this point there is no difficulty in the narrative. — Harmony of the Gospels in Greek,
pp. 253, 254.
436 SPECIAL HERMEKEUTICS.
CHAPTER XXIII.
PROGRESS OP DOCTRINE AND ANALOGY OF FAITH.
THE interpreter of the Holy Scriptures must never forget that the
The Holy scrip- Bible in its entirety, as now possessed by the Church,
tures a growth. was no sudden gift from heaven, but the slow and grad
ual accretion of many centuries. It is made up of many parts,
which were produced at many different times. For the first twenty-
five centuries of human history, according to the common chronol
ogy, the world was without any part of our Bible.1 Then, in the
course of forty years, the Books of Moses appeared. Possibly the
Book of Job belongs to that early period. Subsequently such histor
ical collections as the Books of Joshua and Judges were compiled,
and in due time other histories, with psalms, proverbs, and the ora
cles of prophets, were gathered into many separate rolls or volumes,
and at length, after the Babylonian captivity, this whole body of
sacred literature was combined together, and came to be recognized
as a book of divine authority. The different writings of the New
Testament all appeared within a period of about half a century,
but they also furnish the means of tracing the development of life
and thought in the early apostolic Church. Our present canonical
Scriptures, therefore, are to be recognised as the records of a pro
gressive divine revelation. We recognise the Spirit of God as the
presiding and controlling wisdom which shaped these lively oracles.
He not only employed holy men in the accomplishment of his pur
pose (2 Sam. xxiii, 2; Luke i, 70; Acts i, 16; iii, 18; 2 Peter i, 21),
but also the ministry of angels (Acts vii, 53; Gal. iii, 19; Heb. ii, 2).
A minute divine providence secured the embodiment of the entire
revelation in the written forms in which we now possess it.
The same God who spoke in the last days in the person of his Son
spoke also in the older revelations (Heb. i, 1), and we may search
his word in confidence that divine order and wisdom will be found
from the beginning to the end.
The Book of Genesis exhibits, as we have seen (pp. 109, 110), a
1 That is, in its present form. No doubt the narratives of the creation, of the fall,
and the flood, were handed down by oral tradition. They may, indeed, long before
Moses' time, have existed in written form, and, with the genealogical tables and other
fragmentary portions of patriarchal history, have constituted a sort of sacred litera
ture amonj* the descendants of Sheru.
EVOLUTIONS IN GENESIS. 437
series of evolutions, which serve well to illustrate the progress and
order of the divine revelation. First conies the account Genesis a series
of the miraculous beginning, the cutting, forming, and °*d 0™]."^!
making (&O3 and nfc^) of Adam's world (Gen. i, 1-ii, 3). tions.
This passage is most naturally explained as the supernatural
preparation of the heavens and land where the first man appeared.
From that geographical and historical beginning we trace a well-
defined series of generations (rnpifi). The first series comprises the
"generations of the heavens and the land" (ii, 4). The starting-
point is " a day of Jehovah God's making land and heavens," when
as yet no plant or herb of the new creation had commenced the
processes of growth; no rain had yet fallen, no man to work the
soil had yet appeared (ver. 5). It is the morning of the sixth day
of the creative week. The whole surface of the ground is watered,
and the processes of growth begin (ver. 6). Man is formed (~\V)
from the dust of the soil, and becomes (W) a living soul by the
breath of Jehovah God (ver. 7). His formation is, therefore, con
ceived as a generation or birth out of the heavens and the land by
the breath (no^J) of God. Then the woman was produced from
the man, another step in the process of these generations (ver. 23;
comp. 1 Cor. xi, 8). Then follows the narrative of the fall, show
ing how the first man was from the earth and earthy (1 Cor. xv,
47), and by disobedience lost his original relation to God. The first
generations run to violence and crime, and become more and more
earthly until Seth is born, and with him the revelation takes a new
departure. "The book of the generations of Adam" (v, 1) is not
a record of Adam's origin, but of his posterity in the line of Seth.
But again the race deteriorates, and the sons of Seth, so much nobler
than the Cainites, and other children of Adam, that they are called
the sons of God (vi, 2), intermarry with the fair but ignoble
daughters of men, and the land is filled with violence. With Noah,
who was just and upright, and walked with God (vi, 9), another
series of generations takes its departure, and the flood destroys all
the rest of men.
After the flood God establishes a covenant with Noah (ix, 9), and
through him foretells the honour that shall come to the From Noah on_
dwellings of Shem (ix, 27). But the tendencies of the ward-
sons of Noah still appear to be earthy, and their generations are
rapidly sketched (x). Shem's line is traced to Terah (xi, 10-26),
with whose son, Abram, the covenant of grace and the promise of
unspeakable glory in the aftei times are set forth in fuller light.
The history of Abraham, the friend of God, first exhibits in clear
outline the wonderful condescension of Jehovah; he is separate^
438 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
from country and kindred, and disciplined in faith. He receives
the covenant of circumcision, and the promise of a seed through
whom all nations shall be blessed. Jehovah speaks to him in
visions and dreams, and in the person of his angel. Additional
revelations come in connexion with Isaac and Ishmael, the genera
tions of Jacob branch out into twelve tribes, and the prophetic
blessing of the dying patriarch reveals the outline of their history
in after times (Gen. xlix).
It is impossible to trace the record of these ten generations of
the Book of Genesis without observing the steady prog-
A progress of .,..,.
Revelation in ress of divine revelation. Again and again the history,
darkened by the growth of human wickedness, fastens
upon a divinely chosen name, and from it takes a new departure.
With each new series of generations some new promise is given, or
some great purpose of God is brought to light. While the ten
dency of the race is to grow worse and worse, there appears at the
same time the unwavering purpose of the Almighty to choose out
and maintain a holy seed. Thus the Book of Genesis is an essential
part of the history of redemption.
The centuries of Egyptian bondage are rapidly passed over, but
The Mosaic leg- the history of the deliverance from Egypt is detailed
era*1?? reveiiT- witlx notaWe f ulness. Jehovah's triumph over the gods
tion. of Egypt, the establishing of the passover, the journey
to Sinai, the giving of the law, the building of the tabernacle, and
the entire Mosaic ministry and legislation were the beginnings of a
new era. Captious critics, incompetent to grasp the scope and
moral grandeur of the Mosaic system, may cavil at some of its en
actments, and forget that Moses had to do with a nation of emanci
pated serfs ; but the philosophical historian will ever recognise the
Sinaitic legislation as one of the greatest wonders of the world.
The Decalogue, sublimely uttered from the mount of God, embodies
the substance of all true religion and all sound morality. The
construction of the tabernacle, modelled after a divine plan (Exod.
xxv, 40), and the order of the Levitical service, most truly sym
bolize the prof oundest conceptions of the curse of sin and the power
of God in redemption.
But, aside from the Decalogue and the symbolism of the Mosaic
cultus, how full and comprehensive the doctrinal and
Doctrine of God. .
moral teachings of the last four books of the .Penta
teuch. The personality, attributes, nd moral perfections of God
are set forth in unspeakably superior form to that of any and all
other religious systems of the ancient or modern world. The self-
existence and eternity of God, his holiness, justice, and mercy, his
MOSAIC CODE. 489
wisdom and his providence, are revealed in many ways. How aw
fully sublime and yet how gracious that revelation to Moses in the
mount, when " Jehovah descended in the cloud, and stood with him
there, and called in the name of Jehovah; and Jehovah passed by
before him, and called: Jehovah, Jehovah, God, merciful and gra
cious, long-suffering and abundant in kindness and truth, keeping
kindness for thousands, lifting iniquity, and transgression and sin,
but in punishing will not let go unpunished, visiting the iniquity
of fathers upon children, and upon children of children, upon the
third and upon the fourth" (generations). Exod. xxxiv, 5-7.
Such a revelation would necessarily beget the holiest reverence,
and at the same time evince that he was worthy of all c
J Superior ethi-
love. Hence the commandment, "Thou shalt love cai and civil
Jehovah, thy God, with all thy heart and with all thy code'
soul and with all thy might" (Deut. vi, 5). This doctrine of God
furnished the basis of a superior ethical code. The true Israelite
was required to guard the morals of his neighbour, and love him as
himself. He must not yield to feelings of vengeance, nor hold bit
terness in his heart toward any of his brethren (Lev. xix, 17, 18).
He must not oppress the poor and the needy, but leave large glean
ings for them in his harvest field (Lev. xix, 10). He must not even
allow his neighbour's ox or sheep to go astray, but seek to restore
them to him as if they were his own (Deut. xxii, 1-3). Even in
taking the young of birds for any proper purpose, he must, in
kindness and consideration, spare the mother bird. Surely a code
which enacted such humane provisions ought never to have been
charged with barbarous severity.1 Its severest penalties were
grounded in the highest expediency,8 and ample securities were
provided against injustice and capricious acts of power. While
the governments of all the great nations of that age were despotic
and largely barbarous, that of the Mosaic legislation was essentially
republican.1
The Pentateuch holds the same relation to the subsequent books
1 See Sewall, Humaneness of the Mosaic Code, Bib. Sacra for 1862, pp. 368-384.
2 Barrows observes: "The attitude of the Mosaic economy toward the Gentile na
tions was indeed severe, but it was the severity of love and goodwill. It had for its
object not their destruction, but a speedier preparation of the way for the advent of
Christ, in whom the promise, ' In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed,'
was to find its fulfilment." — Missionary Spirit of the Psalms and Prophets. Bib. Sacra
for 1860, p. 459.
8 See the excellences of the Mosaic legislation elaborately set forth by Michaelis,
Commentaries on the Laws of Moses (Eng. Trans, by Smith, 4 vols., Lond., 1814);
Warburton, The Divine Legation of Moses ; Graves, on the Four Last Books of the
Pentateuch (Lond., 1850).
440 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
of the Old Testament that the gospels hold to the rest of the New
The Pentateuch Testament. It contains in some form the substance of
oid^stoment a11 the Old Testament revelation, but it intimates in
revelations. many a passage that other revelations will be given.
It assumes that a great and glorious future is awaiting the chosen
nation, and indicates the ways by which the glories may be realized.
At the same time it warns against the possibility of lamentable
failure. The entire system of Mosaic laws, moral, civil, and cere
monial, was wisely adapted to train the Israelitish nation, and
served as a schoolmaster to prepare them and the world for the re
ception of the Gospel of Christ. So far was Moses from regarding
his work as final in the training of Israel, that he announced by
the word of Jehovah that another prophet should arise, to whom
divine revelations would be given, and whom the people should
obey (Deut. xviii, 15-19). The last words of the great lawgiver
are full of warning, of promise, and of prophecy (Deut. xxix-xxxiii).
After the death of Moses Joshua received his divine commission
to carry forward the great work of establishing Israel
continued after in the land of promise. Jehovah spoke to him as he
did to Moses (Josh, i, 1; iii, 7; iv, 1). He also revealed
himself in the person of his angel (Josh, v, 13), and in all the his
tory of the conquest and settlement of Canaan, Jehovah spoke as
frequently and familiarly with Joshua as he had done with Moses.
In the dark times of the Judges God left himself not without pro
phetic witness. Revelations came to Deborah and Gideon and
Manoah. At length Samuel arose when prophecy was rare in
Israel (1 Sam. iii, 1), and in his day the schools of the prophets ap
pear (1 Sam. x, 5; xix, 20). When David became king of all Israel,
the promise and prophecy of the Messiah assumed a fuller form.
The word which came to the king through Nathan the prophet
(2 Sam. vii, 4-17) was the germ of the Messianic psalms, and the
Theology of the entire collection of lyrics, which constitutes the Hebrew
Psalter. psalter, is an invaluable index of the highest religious
thought and feeling of Israel in the times of David and later. The
Messianic hope is enhanced by a variety of conceptions : he is the
anointed King in Zion, declared to be the very Son of Jehovah
(Psa. ii) ; he is a reigning Lord, who is at the same time a priest for
ever after the order of Melchizedek (Psa. ex) ; his majesty and grace
are extolled above all the sons of men (Psa. xlv) ; but he is also a
sufferer, crying out as if forsaken of God, while his enemies deride
him and cast lots for his vesture (Psa. xxii) ; he even sinks into the
grave, but exults in hope and confidence that he shall not see corrup
tion (Psa. xvi). The doctrine of God is also set forth in the psalter
PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 441
in new force and beauty. He is Lord of earth and sea and heavens,
ruling on high and beholding all; the almighty Preserver, the
omnipresent Spirit, infinitely perfect in every moral excellence ;
tender, compassionate, long-suffering, marvellous in mercy, and yet
terrible in his judgments, fearful in holiness, ever vindicating the
truth ; he is the absolute and eternal God, the fountain of life and
of light. The guardianship of angels (Psa. xxxiv, 7; xci, 11) and
the hope of a blissful immortality (xvii, 15) were not wanting in
the psalmist's faith. The doctrines of redeeming grace, of pardon
from sin, of cleansing from guilt ; the hidden life of trust ; the per
sonal approach of the worshipper into closest fellowship with God ;
the joy and gladness of that fellowship, and the probationary dis
cipline of the saints, are doctrines which find manifold expression
in the hymn book of the Israelitish people.1
The age of Solomon was the golden age of the proverbial philos
ophy of the Hebrews. The Book of Proverbs repre- „
r J The Solomonic
sents the Old Testament doctrines of practical wisdom proverbial PM-
(nppn), and is the great textbook of biblical ethics. It losophy-
brings out in fuller form and in a great variety of precepts the
ethical principles embodied in the Mosaic law. It has to do with
practical life, and so serves, at the right stage in the progress of the
divine revelation, to exalt that human element in which pure re
ligion necessarily finds some of its most beautiful manifestations.
" The Book of Proverbs," says Stanley, " is not on a level with the
Prophets or the Psalms. It approaches human things and things
divine from quite another side. It has even something of a worldly,
prudential look, unlike the rest of the Bible. But this is the very
reason why its recognition as a sacred book is so useful. It is the
philosophy of practical life. It is the sign to us that the Bible does
not despise common sense and discretion. It impresses upon us, in
the most forcible manner, the value of intelligence and prudence,
and of a good education. The whole strength of the Hebrew lan
guage, and of the sacred authority of the book, is thrown upon
these homely truths. It deals, too, in that refined, discriminating,
1 " This book," says Calvin, " not unreasonably, am I wont to style an anatomy of
all parts of the soul, for no one will discover in himself a single feeling whereof the
image is not reflected in this mirror. All griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares,
and anxieties — in short, all the tumultuous agitations wherewith the minds of men
are wont to be tossed — the Holy Ghost hath here represented to the life. The rest of
Scripture contains the commands which God gave to his servants to be delivered unto
us. But here the prophets themsehves, holding converse with God, inasmuch as they
lay bare all their inmost feelings, invite or impel every one of us to self-examination,
that of all the infirmities to which we are liable, and all the sins of which we are so
full, none may remain hidden." — Commentary on the Psalms, Preface.
442 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
careful view of the finer shades of human character, so often
overlooked by theologians, but so necessary to any true estimate of
human life."1
In the great prophets of the Old Testament the depth and spir-
oid T st rev itua^ty °f tne Mosaic religion attained their highest
elation reached expression. We have already outlined the progressive
ituamyeinSttie character of the Messianic prophecies, and seen the or-
great prophets. ganic and vital relations of prophecy to the history of
the Israelitish people (p. 316). The Messianic hope, first uttered in
the garden of Eden (Gen. iii, 15), was a fountain-head from which
a gradually increasing stream went forth, receiving constant acces
sions as prophet after prophet arose commissioned to utter some
clearer oracle. In a general way, at least, each new prophet added
to the work of his predecessors.2 The prophecy of Jonah, one
of the earliest written, emphasizes Jehovah's compassion upon a
great heathen city which repents at his word. It is conspicuously
an oracle of hope to the Gentiles. Joel, the ancient apocalyptist,
sees in the desolating judgments on the land signs of the com
ing of Jehovah, and calls upon the people to rend their hearts
rather than their garments in evidence of contrite humiliation be
fore God (Joel ii, 12). His visions stretch away to the latter times
when the Spirit of Jehovah shall be poured out upon all flesh, and
whosoever shall call upon the name of Jehovah shall be saved
(ii, 28, 32). Hosea bewails the idolatry of Israel and Judah, but
sees great hope for them if they will but offer their lips as sacrifi
cial offerings of prayer and praise (Hos. xiv, 2). The formal cere
monial worship of the nation was fast losing all its deep sacredness,
and ceasing to be a means of holy, heartfelt devotion. With such
outward unspiritual worship Jehovah could not be pleased, and he
says in Amos (v, 21, 22) :
1 History of the Jewish Church, second series, p. 269. New York, 1869.
5 R. Payne Smith observes : " Men never do understand anything unless already in their
minds they have some kindred ideas, something that leads up to the new thought which
they are required to master. Our knowledge grows, but it is by the gradual accumu
lation of thought upon thought, and by following out ideas already gained to their
legitimate conclusions. God followed this rule even in the supernatural knowledge
bestowed upon the prophets. It was a growing light, a gradual dawning preparatory
to the sunrise, and no flash of lightning, illuminating everything for one moment with
ghastly splendour, to be succeeded immediately by a deeper and more oppressive
gloom. . . . Carefully, and with prayer, the prophets studied the teaching of their
predecessors, and by the use of the light already given were made fit for more light,
and to be the spokesmen of Jehovah in teaching ever more clearly to the Church those
truttis wl ;ch have regenerated mankind." — Bampton Lectures. Prophecy a Prepara
tion for Jurist, pp. 304, 305. Boston, 1870.
SPIRITUALITY OF PROPHECY. 443
I have hated, I have despised your feasts,
And I will not breathe in your assemblies ;
For if ye offer me burnt-offerings and your meat-offerings
I will not be delighted,
And a peace-offering of your failings I will not regard.
Put away from me the noise of thy songs ;
And the music of thy harps I will not hear.
And let judgment be rolled along as the waters,
And righteousness as a perennial stream.
It would thus appear that as idolatry increased, and the ceremo
nial worship became cold, heartless, and idolatrous, the prophets,
as inspired watchmen and teachers, turned the thoughts of the peo
ple to those deeper spiritual truths of which the ceremonial cultus
furnished only the outer symbols. They yearned for a purer wor
ship, and a more real and vital approach to God. They began to
realize, what the New Testament so fully reveals, that the law was
only a shadow, not the very likeness, of the good things to come,
and that the ritual sacrifices could never perfect the worshippers
who depended on them alone (Heb. x, 1). Thus Micah (vi, 6-8):
With what shall I come before Jehovah —
Bend myself to the God of height ?
Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings ?
With calves, sons of a year ?
Will Jehovah be pleased with thousands of rams,
With myriads of streams of oil ?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
Fruit of my body for the sin of my soul ?
He has showed thee, O man, what is good ;
And what is Jehovah seeking from thee,
But to execute judgment and the love of mercy,
And humbly to walk with thy God?
In the Book of Isaiah the prophetic word reaches a lofty climax.
This evangelist among the prophets seems to rise at written proph-
will above the limitations of time, and to see the past, ^ ^*esi *
the present, and the future converge in great historic Isaiah.
epochs vital to the interests of the kingdom of God. Although the
first thirty-nine chapters deal mainly with the matters of contem
porary interest and note, they are filled with glowing visions of
Messianic triumph. The first part of the second chapter, appa
rently borrowed from Micah, portrays the universality and glory of
that spiritual dominion which is to supplant Judaism, and go forth
from Jerusalem to establish peace among all nations. The Messi
anic promise again and again finds varied expression (chap, vii, 14;
4M SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
ix, 1-7; xi, 1-10). Where, in all the pictures of a coming golden
age, can be found a more beautiful outline than Isa. xxxv ? But
in the last twenty-seven chapters Isaiah's prophecies exhibit their
highest spirituality. He depicts things in their divine relations,
and contemplates the redemption of Israel as from the position of
the high and exalted One who dwells in eternity (Ivii, 15). His
thoughts and ways are loftier than those of men, even as the heav
ens are higher than the earth (Iv, 8, 9). Looking away from the
darkening present, and exulting in glowing visions of Messiah's
triumph, the prophet often speaks in the name and person of Mes-
siah and his elect, and apprehends the glories of his reign as the
creation of a new heavens and a new earth.
The prophecies of Daniel exhibit the increasing light of divine
The prophecies revelation which came when Israel, by exile, was brought
of Daniel. jn contact with the great heathen world-powers. Dan
iel speaks as one who looks out from the midst of the operations of
great empires, and sees a throne higher than that of the kings
of Babylon or of Persia, and forces more numerous and mighty
than all the armies of the world (Dan. vii, 9, 10). "In him," says
R. Payne Smith, "prophecy has a new development; it breaks away
from the bonds of Jewish thought, and sets before us the grand
onward march of the world's history, and the Christian Church as
the centre and end of all history." ' His visions make prominent a
determined END or consummation, when a desolating abomination
shall destroy the sanctuary (ix, 26, 27; comp. Matt, xxiv, 15; Mark
xiii, 14; Luke xxi, 20):
And many, sleeping in the dust of the ground, shall awake,
These to life eternal,
And those to shame and eternal contempt.
And the wise ones shall shine as the brightness of the firmament,
And those who make many righteous
As the stars for ever and ever (Dan. xii, 2, 3).
In some respects Ezekiel surpasses Daniel in the depth and ful-
Prophecies of ness °f his revelations. His vision of the cherubim and
Ezekiel. ^he theophany is set forth in the first chapter of his
prophecy with a wealth of suggestive symbols not to be found else
where in the Old Testament, and the detailed description of the
new temple and land of Israel (chapters xl-xlviii) is an anticipation
of John's vision of the new heavens and the new earth (Rev. xxi).
Ezekiel's city of Jehovah-Shammah (xlviii, 35) is no other than the
New Jerusalem of John. The doctrine of the resurrection, which
o l Prophecy a Preparation for Christ, p. 238.
TRANSITION TO NEW TESTAMENT. 445
in Isaiah (xxvi, 19) is suggested by a striking apostrophe, is ex
pressed in formal statement by Daniel (xii, 2), and assumed as a
common belief in the imagery of Ezekiel (xxxvii, 1-14).
After the Babylonian exile we note that Haggai sees in the sec
ond temple a glory greater than that of the former post-exile
(Hag. ii, 9). Zechariah combines in his prophetic book prophets.
the varied symbolism of Daniel and Ezekiel with the lofty spirit
uality of Isaiah. And the " burden of Jehovah's word to Israel by
the hand of Malachi" (Mai. i, 1), the last of the Old Testament
prophets, is a series of rebukes to a false and heartless formalism,
and an earnest call to repentance and personal self -consecration.1
Passing over the four hundred years of silence between Malachi
and the advent of Jesus Christ, we find the two Testa- prophetic link
ments linked by a noticeable prophetic bond. The Old Jjj^ ^
Testament closes with a promise that Elijah the prophet Testaments,
shall come before the great day of Jehovah, and the gospel history
of the New Testament opens with the ministry of this Elijah who
was to come (Luke i, 17; Matt, xi, 14; xvii, 10-13). But John the
Baptist, though filled with the spirit and power of Elijah, was
merely a forerunner, a herald, a voice (John i, 23), provided in the
divine order to prepare the way of the Lord. His ministry was
professedly introductory to the Gospel Age, and his constant testi
mony was that one mightier than himself was about to come, who
would baptize with the Holy Ghost and fire (Matt, iii, 11).
The ministry and words of the Lord Jesus, as recorded in the
gospels, constitute the substance of all Christian doc- _.
& . r Christ s teach-
trines. As the five books of Moses really embody the ings the sub-
germs of all subsequent revelation, so in a clearer form ^amu"^™1
the teachings of Jesus embrace every great truth of the of Christian
Christian faith. But our Lord himself was explicit in
declaring that his own teaching must needs be supplemented by the
fuller revelations of the Spirit. He taught by parable, by precept,
and by example, but he found the hearts of the people and of his
own disciples too heavy to apprehend the grand scope and spirit
uality of his Gospel, and declared that it was expedient for him to
1 R. Payne Smith observes that prophecy " was not withdrawn abruptly. It still lin
gered in those beautiful psalms of degrees sung by the exiles, and in those prophets
who helped in rearing the second house. But at the dispersion it had done its work.
The Jews wondered that no prophet more arose. We can see why the gift was with
drawn. The time for teaching had ceased. The Jews were children no longer, but
grown men ; and, like grown men, they must leave home, and go out into all lands to
carry to them the truths which the prophets had taught them." — Prophecy a Prepa
ration for Christ, p. 335.
29
446 SPECIAL IIERMENEUTICS.
go away in order that the Spirit of truth might come to guide into
all the truth, and to teach all things (John xiv, 25, 26; xvi, 7-15). '
, The Acts of the Apostles shows that divine revelations were
Revelations continued after the ascension of the Lord. On the day
ttewxnLraS of Pentecost the waiting disciples received the gift of
Jesus. the Holy Spirit, and began to realize as never before
the "powers of the coming age" (Heb. vi, 5). Thenceforth they
went forth wTith a heavenly authority to proclaim the newly enun
ciated truth of God. The angel of the Lord opened the prison
doors where the apostles were shut up, and commanded them to
continue speaking the words of eternal life (Acts v, 19, 20 ; comp.
xii, 7 ; xvi, 26). The martyr Stephen saw the heavens opened, and
the Son of man standing on the right hand of God (vii, 56). The
same Lord Jesus appeared to Saul on his way to Damascus (ix, 17),
and also to Ananias, in a vision (ix, 10). Peter was guided into
opening the kingdom of God to the Gentiles by a symbolic vision
(x, 9-16), and was aided by the ministry of an angel of God (x, 3-7).
Special revelations of the Spirit directed Philip and Paul in their
journeys (viii, 29, 39; xvi, 7). The great apostle of the Gentiles
was repeatedly directed by visions and revelations of God (Acts
xvi, 9; xxii, 17-21; comp. 2 Cor. xii, 1-4). Thus it is evident from
the Acts of the Apostles that what Jesus began to do and teach
(Acts i, 1) was carried into completion by those whom he chose to
be the authoritative expounders of his word.
The Book of the Acts of the Apostles is a connecting link between
the gospels and the epistles. It is essentially a historical introduc
tion to the latter, and without the information it affords, both the
The Epistles em- gospels and the epistles would be involved in much
ratdeV?eeaeehinS obscurity- The epistles preserve for the Church the
of the apostles, teachings of the apostles, and present them in a form
admirably adapted to meet the wants of all classes of readers.*
1 This subject is ably presented in Bernard's Bampton Lectures on the Progress of
Doctrine in the New Testament. In Lecture iii he lays down and elaborates the fol
lowing propositions : " First. The teaching of the Lord in the gospels includes the
substance of all Christian doctrine, but does not bear the character of finality. Sec
ondly, The teaching of the Lord in the gospels is a visibly progressive course, but on
reaching its highest point announces its own incompleteness, and opens another stage
of instruction." — P. 79.
2 "The prophets," writes Bernard, "delivered oracles to the people, but the apostles
wrote letters to the brethren, letters characterized by all that fulness of unreserved ex
planation, and that play of various feeling, which are proper to that form of inter
course. It is in its nature a more familiar communication, as between those who are,
or should be, equals. That character may less obviously force upon us the sense, that
the light which is thrown upon all subjects is that of a divine inspiration ; but this is
NEW TESTAMENT EPISTLES. 447
Great principles, enunciated by Jesus, are elaborated and applied to
practical life and experience by the apostolic epistles. The Epistles
of Paul, including that to the Hebrews, traverse a wide field of
Christian doctrine and experience. Their range may be indicated
by the following classification : (1) Dogmatical, discussing especial
ly the doctrines of sin and redemption (Romans and Galatians) ;
(2) Christological (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Hebrews);
(3) Ecclesiastical, devoted to the order, practice, and life of the
Church (Corinthians) ; (4) Pastoral (Timothy, Titus, Philemon) ;
and (5) Eschatological (Thessalonians). Of course, none of these
epistles is devoted exclusively to one particular subject, but each
contains more or less of doctrine, reproof, exhortation, and counsels
for practical life. The catholic epistles are concerned more exclu
sively writh the practical affairs of the Christian life. Bernard em
phasizes the fact that they were written by Peter and John, the
two chief apostles, and James and Jude, the brethren of the Lord.
" We take knowledge of them that they have been with Jesus, and
own the highest authority which association with him can give."
But he observes that the united epistles of these representatives of
our Lord form only a kind of supplement to the writings of Paul.
"Had we been permitted," he adds, "to choose our instructors from
among 'the glorious company,' three of these names at least would
have been uttered by every tongue; and besides our desire to be
taught by their lips, we should, as disciples of St. Paul, have felt a
natural anxiety to know whether 'James, Cephas, and John, who
seemed to be pillars, added nothing to' (Gal. ii, 6, 9), and took
nothing from, the substance of the doctrine which we had received
through him. . . . We have words from these very apostles, ex
pressing the mind of their later life, words in which we recognise
the mellow tone of age, the settled manner of an old experience,
and the long habit of Christian thought." '
The Apocalypse of John is, as we have seen (pp. 356-382), a
magnificent expansion of the eschatological prophecy The Apocalypse
of our Lord in Matt. xxiv. It is professedly a further ^"S^New
revelation from the Lord Jesus himself (Rev. i, 1). As Test, canon.
Paul's Thessalonian Epistles, containing his prophecies of the pa-
rousia and the end of the age, were earlier in date than his other
only the natural effect of the greater fulness of that light ; for so the moonbeams fix
the eye upon themselves, as they burst through the rifts of rolling clouds, catching
the edges of objects and falling on patches of landscape ; while, under the settled
brightness of the universal and genial day, it is not so much the light that we think
of, as the varied scene which it shows." — Progress of Doctrine, p. 156.
1 Progress of Doctrine, pp. 161, 165.
448 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
writings, so John's book of eschatology antedates his gospel. But
there is a fitness in having the Book of Revelation close the New
Testament canon, even as the Thessalonian Epistles stand in canon
ical order at the close of Paul's letters to seven different churches.1
For the Apocalypse reveals the marvellous things of the parousia,
and the consummation of that age, when both earth and heavens
were shaken, and the former things passed away in order to give
place to the Messianic kingdom, which cannot be shaken (Heb.
xii, 26-28). No vision could more appropriately close the Christ
ian Canon than the apocalyptic symbol of the heavenly and eternal
kingdom.
This rapid outline of the development and progress of doctrine,
Attention to traceable in the several books of the Old and New
progress of dor- Testament Scriptures, will serve to show that God did
trme a heip to . .
the interpreter, not communicate his revelations all at once. The suc
cessive portions which he revealed from time to time were adapted
to the varying conditions and needs of his people. Sometimes the
word was left defective because of the hardness of the people's
hearts (Mark x, 5). Sometimes the progress was slow, and inter
rupted by long periods of spiritual decline; then again it broke
forth in new developments of national life. A careful attention to
this progressive character of the divine revelation is necessary to a
thorough interpretation and efficient use of the Holy Scriptures.
It helps to set aside the charges of doctrinal and ethical discrep
ancies which have been alleged. The notion that the Pauline doc
trine of justification is something essentially different from the
teachings of Jesus, will have no force when it is seen that the whole
Epistle to the Romans is virtually a systematic elaboration of our
Lord's words to Nicodemus : " God so loved the world that he gave
his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not
perish, but have eternal life" (John iii, 16). The allegation that
the New Testament contradicts the Old is seen to be an error when
we discover that the older revelations were necessarily imperfect,
and manifestly not designed to set forth all the truth of God.
Things which from one standpoint seem to be contradictory, from
another are seen to be only separated portions of one grand har
mony. The lex talionis and the violent procedures of the blood-
avenger were grounded in the righteous demands of retributive
justice, and were archaic forms of executing law. A higher civil
ization, based on clearer revelations, adopts other methods of exe
cuting penalty, but recognises the same essential principles of right.
1 Comp. Bernard, Progress of Doctrine, p. 169.
HARMONY OF DOCTRINE. 449
THE ANALOGY OF FAITH.
The foregoing observations prepare the way to a proper appre
hension of the "Analogy of Faith" as an aid in ex- Progress of doc-
pounding the Scriptures. This expression, appropri- S^faro^fflJ
ated from Rom. xii, 6, but used in a different sense ogy of Faith.
from that which the apostle intended,1 denotes that general har
mony of fundamental doctrine which pervades the entire Scriptures.
It assumes that the Bible is a self-interpreting book, and what is
obscure in one passage may be illuminated by another. No single
statement or obscure passage of one book can be allowed to set
aside a doctrine which is clearly established by many passages.
The obscure texts must be interpreted in the light of those which
are plain and positive. " The faith," says Fairbairn, " according to
which the sense of particular passages is determined, must be that
which rests upon the broad import of some of the most explicit
announcements of Scripture, about the meaning of which there can
be, with unbiassed minds, no reasonable doubt. And in so far as
we must decide between one passage and another, those passages
should always be allowed greatest weight in fixing the general
principles of the faith in which the subjects belonging to it are not
incidentally noticed merely, but formally treated and discussed;
for, in such cases, we can have no doubt that the point on which
we seek for an authoritative deliverance was distinctly in the eye
of the writer."2
1 In Rom. xii, 6, the apostle is speaking of the gifts, #apt'<r//aTa, the spiritual quali
fications and aptitudes for Christian activity and usefulness in the Church, "gifts
differing according to the grace given " to each individual. Of these varying gifts he
specifies several examples, one of which is that of prophesying. Let the one thus
gifted, he says, exercise his gift, Kara TTJV uvakoyiav rf/f niaTiuf, according to the pro
portion of the faith, that is, the faith which he individually possesses. This propor
tion or analogy (dvaAoy/a) of one's individual faith is not an external rule or doctrinal
standard, the regula fidci (as Philippi, Hodge, and others hold), but the measure of
faith with which each is endowed. " They are not to depart from the proportional
measure which their faith has, neither wishing to exceed it, nor falling short of it, but
are to guide themselves by it, and are therefore so to announce and interpret the received
revelation, as the peculiar position in respect of faith bestowed on them, according
to the strength, fervour, clearness, and other qualities of that faith, suggests — so that
the character and mode of their speaking is conformed to the rules and limits, which
are implied in the proportion of their individual degree of faith. In the contrary case
they fall, in respect of contents and of form, into a mode of prophetic utterance, either
excessive and overstrained, or, on the other hund, insufficient and defective, not corre
sponding to the level of their faith. The same revelation may, in fact — according to
the difference in the proportion of faith with which it, objectively given, subjectively
connects itself — be very differently expressed and delivered." — Meyer, in loco.
* Hcrmeneutical Manual, p. 128.
450 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
"We may distinguish two degrees of the analogy of faith. The
first and highest is positive, in which the doctrine or
Two degrees ,° . *• '
of the analogy revelation is so plainly and positively stated, and sup
ported by so many distinct passages, that there can be
no doubt of its meaning and value. Thus the Scriptures teach posi
tively that all men are sinners; that God has provided redemption
for all; that God is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, holy9
righteous, and merciful; that he requires in those who seek his
grace, repentance, faith, humility, love, and obedience;
that he purposes to save and glorify those who love and
serve him, and to punish those who disobey and hate him. These
and many similar great truths are so positively and repeatedly set
forth in the Holy Scriptures that no one who reads with care can
fail to apprehend them.
The next degree is appropriately called the general analogy of
faith. It rests not like the first upon explicit declara
tions, but upon the obvious scope and import of the
Scripture teachings taken as a whole. Thus, for example, the sub
ject of human slavery is referred to in various ways, both in the
Old Testament and in the Xew. Some passages have been con
strued as sanctioning the practice, others as opposing and condemn
ing it. A valid conclusion as to the general import of Scripture on
this subject can be reached only by a broad and thorough inves
tigation of all that bears upon it in the revelation of God. The
Mosaic legislation, which expressly permits the buying of slaves
from foreigners (Lev. xxv, 44, 45), makes the stealing and selling
of a Hebrew a capital crime (Exod. xxi, 1C; Deut. xxiv, 7). A
leading feature of the Mosaic system was to distinguish sharply
between the Israelite and the foreigner, always to the prejudice of
the latter. This fact must be kept in mind in discussing any sub
ject of Mosaic ethics. No Hebrew could, without his own consent,
be retained in slavery more than six years (Exod. xxi, 2), and the
year of jubilee might terminate the bondage sooner (Lev. xxv,
40, 54). Paul counsels the Christian slaves to be obedient to their
masters (Eph. vi, 5; Col. iii, 22; 1 Tim. vi, 1, 2), but he sends
back the fugitive, Onesimus, to his master, "no longer a slave, but
more than a slave, a brother beloved" (Philem. 16). He proclaims,
moreover, that under the Gospel " there is neither Jew nor Greek,
there is neither bond nor free, there is no male and female " (Gal.
iii, 28). The putting on of Christ by being baptized into Christ (ver.
27) causes all distinctions of nation (comp. Rom. x, 12), condition,
and even of sex, to be wholly lost sight of and forgotten. "When to
these and other similar teachings we add the consideration that the
ANALOGY OP FAITH. 451
Old Testament commandment, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself," dropped somewhat incidentally in the Mosaic legislation
(Lev. xix, 18), is called by James " the royal law " (James ii, 8), and
is announced by the Lord as a fundamental pillar of the divine
revelation (Matt, xxii, 39; Mark xii, 31 ; Luke x, 27), we can
scarcely doubt that the holding of any fellow being in bondage
against his will is essentially contrary to the highest ethics. The
general analogy of faith is thus made apparent by a broad and
careful collation of all that the Scripture says on any given sub
ject.1
It is evident that no doctrine which rests upon a single passage
of Scripture can belong to fundamental doctrines rec- T
1 ..,—.. Limitations and
ognised in the analogy of faith. But it must not be uses of the anai-
inf erred from this that no specific statement of Scrip- ogy of faltb'
ture is authoritative unless it has support in other passages. Nor
can we set aside any legitimate inference from a statement of
Scripture on the ground that such inference is unsupported by other
parallel statements. Unless it be clearly contradicted or excluded
by the analogy of faith, or by some other equally explicit state
ment, one positive declaration of God's word is sufficient to estab
lish either a fact or a doctrine. Hence the analogy of faith as a
principle of interpretation is necessarily limited in its application.
It is useful in bringing out the relative importance and prominence
of different doctrines, and guarding against a one-sided exposition
of the sacred oracles. It exhibits the inner unity and harmony of
the entire divine revelation. It magnifies the importance of con
sistency in interpretation. But it cannot govern the interpreter in
the exposition of those parts of the Scriptures which are without
real parallel, and which stand unopposed by other parts. For it
may justly be inferred from the progress of doctrine in the Bible
that here and there single revelations of divine truth may have
been given in passages where the context furnished no occasion for
further development or elaboration.
'Celerier (Manuel d'Hermeneutique, pp. 194-196) specifies two inferior degrees of
analogy which he defines as deduced and imposed; but he very properly observes that
they are unworthy of the name of analogy of faith ; for the one rests upon the logi
cal process by which it is attempted to prove a doctrine, the other upon an assumed
authority supposed to inhere in the consensus of the creeds of Christendom. The con
sensus or analogy of Christian creeds is not without its value, but to use it as a method
of interpreting Scripture is to substitute authority in the place of rational principles
and rules of hermeneutics. What is believed everywhere, always, and by all (Quod
ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est), is, doubtless, worthy of serious
consideration, but cannot be admitted as a means of unfolding the sense of any par-
ticular portions of the Bible.
452 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
CHAPTER XXIV.
DOCTRINAL AND PRACTICAL USE OF SCRIPTURE.
PAUL, the apostle, declares that all Scripture which is divinely in-
Paui's state- spired is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for
ment of the correction, for instruction in righteousness (2 Tim. iii,
uses of Scrip- . °
ture. 16). These various uses of the holy records may be
distinguished as doctrinal and practical. The Christian teacher
appeals to them as authoritative utterances of divine truth, and un
folds their lessons as theoretical and doctrinal statements of what
their divine author would have men believe. Our fifth Article of
Religion (the sixth of the Church of England) says: "The Holy
Scriptures contain all things necessary to salvation; so that what
soever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be
required of any man that it should be believed as an article of faith,
or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." The inspired
word, moreover, serves a most important practical purpose by fur
nishing conviction and reproof (eAey^ov, or k^ey^ov] for the sinful,
correction (e-rravopduaiv) for the fallen and erring, and instruction
or disciplinary training (rraideiav) for all who would become sancti
fied by the truth (comp. John xvii, 17) and perfected in the ways
of righteousness.
The Roman Church, as is well known, denies the right of private
Roman doc- judgment in the interpretation of the Scriptures, and
tune of inter- condemns the exercise of that right as the source of all
pretation by . . e
church author- heresy and schism. The third article of the creed of
Pope Pius IV., which is one of the most authoritative
expressions of Roman faith, reads as follows: "I admit the Holy
Scriptures, according to that sense which our holy mother Church
has held and does hold, to which it belongs to judge of the true
sense and interpretation of the Scriptures ; neither will I ever take
and interpret them otherwise than according to the unanimous con-
'sent of the fathers." J The Romanist, therefore, finds in the Church
and tradition an authority superior to the inspired Scripture. But
when we find that the fathers notoriously disagree in the exposition
of important passages, that popes have contradicted one another,
and have condemned and annulled the acts of their predecessors,
1 Comp. Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, vol. i, pp. 96-99 ; vol. ii, p. 207. New
York, 1877.
BIBLICAL DOCTRINE. 453
and that even great councils, like those of Nice (325), Laodicea
(360), Constantinople (754), and Trent (1545) have enacted decrees
utterly inconsistent with each other,1 we may safely reject the pre
tensions of the Romanists, and pronounce them absurd and prepos
terous.
The Protestant, on the other hand, maintains the right of exer
cising his own reason and judgment in the study of the The Protestant
Scriptures. But he humbly acknowledges the fallibility ugi°c1^ °f
of all men, not excepting any of the popes of Rome, own reason.
He observes that there are portions of the Bible which are diffi
cult to explain; he also observes that no Roman pontiff, whatever
his claim of infallibility, has ever made them clear. He is con
vinced, furthermore, that there are many passages of holy writ on
which good and wise men may agree to differ, and some of which no
one may be able to interpret. By far the greater portion of the Old
and New Testaments is so clear in general import that there is no
room for controversy, and those parts which are obscure contain no
fundamental truth or doctrine which is not elsewhere set forth in
clearer form. Protestants, accordingly, hold it to be not only a
right but a duty of all Christians to search the Scriptures, that they
may know for themselves the will and commandments of God.8
But while the Holy Scriptures contain all essential revelation of
divine truth, "so that whatsoever is not read therein, statement and
nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any defence or doc-
. . , ,, , , ,. , . , <•<••.!« trine to conform
man that it should be believed as an article or faith, to correct Her-
it is of fundamental importance that all formal state-
ments of biblical doctrine, and the exposition, elaboration, or de
fence of the same, be made in accordance with correct hermeneutical
principles. The systematic expounder of Scripture doctrine is ex
pected to set forth, in clear outline and well-defined terms, such
teachings as have certain warrant in the word of God. He must not
import into the text of Scripture the ideas of later times, or build
upon any words or passages a dogma which they do not legitimately
teach. The apologetic and dogmatic methods of interpretation
which proceed from the standpoint of a formulated creed, and ap^
peal to all words and sentiments scattered here and there in the
1 See the proof of these statements in Elliott, Delineation of Roman Catholicism,
voL i, pp. 144-147. New York, 1841.
s " If a position is demonstrably scriptural," says Dorner, " according to the evan.
gelical doctrine of the Church, it has an essentially ecclesiastical character ; it has
citizenship and a claim to regard even though it do not enjoy a formal validity ; and
a position which is demonstrably opposed to Scripture has similarly no claim to ac
ceptance though it be ecclesiastical." — System of Christian Doctrine, vol. i, p. 176.
Edinb., 1880.
454 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
Scriptures, which may by any possibility lend support to a foregone
conclusion, have been condemned already (see above, pp. 68, 69).
By such methods many false notions have been urged upon men as
matters of faith. But no man has a right to foist into his exposi
tions of Scripture his own dogmatic conceptions, or those of others,
and then insist that these are an essential part of divine revelation.
Only that which is clearly read therein, or legitimately proved
thereby, can be properly held as scriptural doctrine.1
We should, however, clearly discriminate between biblical theol-
Bibiicai and ogy, and the historical and systematic development of
historical the- Christian doctrine. Many fundamental truths are set
ology to be dis- •
tinguished. forth in fragmentary forms, or by implication, in the
Scriptures; but in the subsequent life and thought of the Church,
they have been brought out by thorough elaboration, and the for
mulated statements of individuals and ecclesiastical councils.2 All
the great creeds and confessions of Christendom assume to be in
harmony with the written word of God, and manifestly have great
historical value ; but they contain not a few statements of doctrine
which a legitimate interpretation of the Scripture proof-texts ap
pealed to does not authorize. A fundamental principle of Protes
tantism is that the Scriptures only are the true sources of doctrine.
A creed has no authority further than it clearly rests upon what
God has spoken by his inspired prophets and apostles. All true
Christian doctrine is contained in substance in the canonical Scrip
tures.3 But the elaborate study and exposition of subsequent ages
1 " In the domain of Christian doctrine," says Van Oosterzee, " the Scripture is
rightly made use of, when it is duly tested, interpreted according to precise rules, em
ployed in explaining, purifying, and developing Church confessions, and is consulted
as a guide in individual Christian philosophic investigation of truth." — Christian Dog
matics, vol. i, pp. 220, 221. New York, 1874.
2 Thus Martensen : "As the archetypal work of the Spirit of Inspiration, the Scrip
tures include within themselves a world of germs for a continuous development.
While every dogmatic system grows old, the Bible remains eternally young, because it
does not give us a systematic presentation of truth, but truth in its fulness, involving
the possibility of a variety of systems." — Christian Dogmatics, p. 52. Edinb., 1866.
z "The history of doctrines," says Hagenbach, "presupposes biblical theology as its
basis ; just as the general history of the Church presupposes the life of Jesus and the
apostolic age." — Text-Book of the History of Doctrines, p. 16. Eng. trans., revised
by II. B. Smith, Xew York, 1861. lie observes further (p. 44): "With the incarna
tion of the Redeemer, and the introduction of Christianity into the world, the materi
als of the history of doctrines are already fully given in the germ. The object of all
f .ther doctrinal statements and definitions is, in the positive point of view, to unfold
thi. germ ; in the negative, to guard it against all foreign additions and influences."
Similarly Schaff : " In the Protestant system, the authority of symbols, as of all human
compositions, is relative and limited. It is not co-ordiiiate with, but always subordinate
STATEMENTS OF DOCTRINE. 455
may be presumed to have put some things in clearer light, and the
judgments expressed by venerable councils are entitled to great
respect and deference.
Most of the great controversies on Christian doctrine have grown
out of attempts to define what is left in the Scriptures Human tend-
undefined. The mysteries of the nature of God, the e^10 be wise
• ... above what Is
person and work of Jesus Christ, sacrificial atone- written.
ment in its relations to divine justice, man's depraved nature
and the relative possibilities of the human soul with and without
the light of the Gospel, the method of regeneration, and the de
grees of possible Christian attainment, the resurrection of the
dead, and the mode of immortality and eternal judgment — these
and kindred subjects are of a nature to invite speculation and vain
theorizing, and it was most natural that everything in the Scripture
bearing on such points should have been pressed into service. On
such mysterious themes it is quite easy for men to become " wise
above what is written," and in the historical development of the
blended life, thought, and activities of the Church, some things
came to be generally accepted as essential Christian doctrine which
in fact are without sufficient warrant in the Scriptures.
Inasmuch, then, as the Scriptures are the sole source of revealed
doctrine, and were given for the purpose of making True and false
known to men the saving truth of God, it is of the ut- J^JUJ* £.*£•
most importance that we study, by sound hermeneutical ture doctrines.
methods, to ascertain from them the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth. We may best illustrate our meaning by taking several
leading doctrines of the Christian faith, and indicating the unsound
and untenable methods by which their advocates have sometimes
defended them.
Nothing is more fundamental in any system of religion than the
doctrine of God, and the catholic faith of the early n
. . . J The catholic doc-
Christian Church, as formulated in the Athanasian trine or God.
Creed, is this :
That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity ; neither con
founding the Persons, nor dividing the substance. For there is one Person
of the Father ; another of the Son ; and another of the Holy Spirit. But
the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one:
the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the
to, the Bible, as the only infallible rule of the Christian faith and practice. The
value of creeds depends upon the measure of their agreement with the Scriptures. In
the best case a human creed is only an approximate and relatively correct exposition
of revealed truth, and may be improved by the progressive knowledge of the Church,
while the Bible remains perfect and infallible." — The Creeds of Christendom, vol. i, p. 7.
456 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
Son, and such is the Holy Spirit: The Father uncreated, the Son uncre
ated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated; the Father incomprehensible (immen-
s«s), the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible ; the
Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal. And yet there
are not three Eternals, but one Eternal ; as also there are not three uncre
ated, nor three incouiprehensibles, but One uncreated, and One incompre
hensible. So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and the
Holy Spirit Almighty ; and yet there are not three Almighties, but one
Almighty. So the Father is God, the Sou is God, and the Holy Spirit is
God ; and yet there are not three Gods, but one God.
Here is a very succinct and explicit statement of doctrine, and
its definitions, so far as quoted above, have obtained all but uni
versal acceptance among evangelical believers. Though commonly
ascribed to Athanasius, this symbol of faith, like the Apostles*
Creed, is of unknown authorship, and furnishes one of the most
remarkable examples of the extraordinary influence which some
works of that kind have exerted.
But are the definitions and sharp distinctions set forth in this
Doctrinal s m cree<^ according to the Scriptures? May we read them
bois not un- therein, or prove them thereby? No one pretends that
the several clauses, or any of the formal definitions, are
taken from the Bible. All such systematic presentations of dogma
are foreign to the style of the Scriptures ; but this fact is no valid
reason for rejecting them, or supposing them to be unscriptural.
"A creed," says Schaff, "ought to use language different from that
of the Bible. A string of Scripture passages would be no creed at
all, as little as it would be a prayer or a hymn. A creed is, as it
were, a doctrinal poem written under the inspiration of divine truth.
This may be said at least of the oecumenical creeds."1 Hence a
well-constructed creed is supposed to express the sum total of what
the Scriptures teach on a given subject, but not necessarily in the
language or terms of the sacred writers. Nor are its statements to
be supposed to depend on any one or two particular texts or pas
sages of the Bible. It is quite possible that the general judgment
of men may legitimately accept as a positive doctrine of Scripture
what no one text or passage, taken by itself alone, would be suffi
cient to authorize. The catholic doctrine of the Trinity is very
much of this character. A calm and dispassionate review of ages
of controversy over this important dogma will show that, on the
one hand, the advocates of the catholic faith have made an unscien
tific and inconclusive use of many Scripture texts, while, on the
other hand, their opponents have been equally unfair in rejecting
1 The Creeds of Christendom, vol. i, p. 7, foot note.
DOCTRINAL PROOF-TEXTS. 457
the logical and legitimate conclusion of a cumulative argument
which rested on the evidence of many biblical statements, of which
they themselves could furnish no sufficient or satisfactory explana
tion. The argument from each text may be nullified or largely set
aside, when taken singly and alone ; but a great number and variety
of such evidences, taken as a whole, and exhibiting a manifest co
herency, may not thus be set aside.
Thus, for example, the plural form of the name of God (D^K)
in the Hebrew Scriptures has often been adduced as T
r Plural form of
proof of a plurality 01 persons in the Godhead. A sim- the name of
ilar application has been made of the threefold use of (
the divine name in the priestly blessing (Num. vi, 24-27), and the
trisagion in Isa. vi, 3. Even the proverb, " A threefold cord is not
quickly broken" (Eccles. iv, 12), has been quoted as a proof -text of
the Trinity. Such a use of Scripture will not be likely to advance
the interests of truth, or be profitable for doctrine. A repetition
of the divine name three or more times is no evidence that the wor
shipper thereby intends a reference to so many personal distinctions
in the divine nature. The plural form D'rpx may as well designate
a multiplicity of divine potentialities in the deity as three personal
distinctions, or it may be explained as the plural of majesty and
excellency. Such peculiar forms of expression are susceptible
of too many explanations to be used as valid proof texts of the
Trinity.
So, again, of the passage in Gen. xix, 24, often quoted in the
Trinitarian controversies. "The name Jehovah," says Language of
Watson, " if it has not a plural form, has more than one Gen- xtx> 24-
personal application. ' Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon
Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.' We
have here the visible Jehovah who had talked with Abraham rain
ing the storm of vengeance from another Jehovah out of heaven,
and who was, therefore, invisible. Thus we have two Jehovahs
expressly mentioned, * the Lord rained from the Lord,' and yet we
have it most solemnly asserted in Deut. vi, 4, 'Hear, O Israel,
Jehovah our God is one Jehovah.' " ' Much more natural and sim
ple, however, is the explanation which recognises in this repetition
of the name Jehovah a Hebraistic mode of statement. "It is,"
says Calvin, "an emphatic repetition." Browne remarks: "Aben
Ezra, whom perhaps a majority of Christian commentators have
followed in this, sees in these words a peculiar ' elegance or grace
of language;' 'the Lord rained from the Lord' being a grander
and more impressive mode of saying, ' the Lord rained from himself.'
1 Theological Institutes, vol. i, p. 467.
458 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
It is a common idiom in Hebrew to repeat the noun instead of
using a pronoun." '
The theophanies of the Old Testament have also been adduced
Angel of Jeho- m maintaining the doctrine of the Trinity. But what-
vau. ever else may be made of the argument, it furnishes no
sound proof that the Godhead consists of a number of distinct
persons. The Angel of Jehovah, so mysteriously identified with
Jehovah himself (Gen. xvi, 7, 10, 13; xxii, 11, 12, 15, 16), and in
whom is the name of Jehovah (Exod. xxiii, 21), is not necessarily a
manifestation of one person of the Godhead rather than another,
but may be explained as a singular manifestation of Jehovah him
self without any idea of personal distinctions in his nature or
essence. But while this is admitted on the one hand, it ought not
to be denied, on the other, that in the light of New Testament reve
lations of Christ, as the revealed wisdom and power of God, we
may discern in the Old Testament Angel of Jehovah a manifesta
tion of him who in the fulness of time took upon himself the form
of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men (Phil, ii, 7). It
was, moreover, a part of the theology of the ancient synagogue
that this angel was the Shekinah, or manifested power and media
tion of God in the world.
A similar disposition may be made of many other proofs of the
New Testament Trinity which have been cited from the Old Testament,
doctrine of God. but passing into the New Testament we cannot but be
impressed with the language used in John i, 18: "No one has ever
seen God; God only begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father,
he made him known."2 This remarkable statement leads one to
ask, Who is this only begotten God who is in the bosom of the
Father, and reveals God, or makes him known ? In the first verse
of the same chapter he is called the Word (6 Aoyof ), and is said to
have been " with the God " (Trpdg rov tieov*), and the further statement
1 Speaker's Commentary, in loco.
2 The more familiar and almost equally well-supported reading, "only begotten
Son," conveys essentially the same mysterious and wonderful suggestion. " Both
readings," says Hort, "intrinsically are free from objection. The text (God only be
gotten), though startling at first, simply combines in a single phrase the two attributes
of the Logos marked before (deof, ver. 1, ,uovoy£i%, ver. 14). Its sense is 'One who
was both i?e6f and /*oi>oyev7;f.' The substitution of the familiar phrase 6 [xovoyevTjc
viof for the unique [tovoyevrif tfeof would be obvious, and fiovoycvfif, by its own pri
mary meaning, directly suggested vldf. The converse substitution is inexplicable by
any ordinary motive likely to affect transcribers. There is no evidence that the read
ing had any controversial interest in ancient times. And the absence of the article
from the more important documents is fatal to the idea that 00 was an accidental
substitution for YG." — Appendix to Westcott and Hort's Greek Testament, p. 74.
DOCTRINE OF GOD. 459
is made that he " was God." Creation is ascribed to him (ver. 3),
and he is declared to be the life and the light of men (ver. 4).
This Word, it is added in verse 14, "became flesh, and taber
nacled among us, and we beheld his glory — glory as of an only be
gotten from a Father full of grace and truth." It is quite possible
that polemic writers may make too much of these wonderful words.
What it is to be with the God, and also to be God, may well be treated
as a mystery too deep for the human mind to solve. The Word
which became flesh, according to John i, 14, may fairly be under
stood to be identical with him who, according to Paul in 1 Tim.
iii, 16, embodies "the mystery of godliness; he who was manifested
in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among
the nations, believed on in the world, received up in glory." This
can be no other than Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of man.
When, now, we observe that the .apostles were commissioned to
" go forth and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit " (Matt.
xxviii, 19;) that Paul invokes "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit," to
be with all the brethren of the Corinthian church (2 Cor. xiii, 13);
and that John invokes grace and peace upon the seven churches of
Asia " from Him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and
from the seven spirits which are before his throne, and from Jesus
Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the
prince of the kings of the land " (Rev. i, 4, 5), we may with good
reason conclude that God, as revealed in the New Testament, con
sists of Father, Son, and Spirit existing in some myste- M sterlous dls_
rious and incomprehensible unity of nature. From tinctions in the
such a basis the exegete may go on to examine all those d
texts which indicate in any way the person, nature, and character
of Christ: his pre-existence, his divine names and titles, his holy
attributes and perfections, his power on earth to forgive sins, and
other prerogatives and works ascribed to him, and the command
for all men and angels to worship him. The fact that " God is
Spirit" (John iv, 24) allows us readily to conceive that the Holy
Spirit and God himself are one in substance, and the manner in
which our Lord speaks of the Holy Spirit as the Comforter whom
he will send (John xv, 26; xvi, 7), and whom the Father will send
in his name (xiv, 26), points by every fair construction to a dis
tinction between the Father and the Holy Spirit. Putting all these
together we find so many far-reaching and profoundly suggestive
declarations concerning these divine persons, that we cannot logi
cally avoid the conclusion enunciated in the creed, that " the Father
460 SPECIAL IIERMENEUTICS.
is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; and yet there
are not three Gods, but one God."
But in the systematic elaboration of this argument the theologian
Abstain from should carefully abstain from unauthorized assertions,
unauthorized A theme so full of mystery and of majesty as the nature
disputed read- of God, and his personal revelations in Christ and
ings. through the Holy Spirit, admits of no dogmatic tone.
Assertions like the following from Sherlock are no advantage to
the interests of truth: "To say they are three divine persons, and
not three distinct infinite minds, is both heresy and nonsense. . . .
The distinction of persons cannot be more truly and aptly repre
sented than by the distinction between three men; for Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost are as really distinct persons as Peter, James, and
John." l This is being wise above what is written, and is as harm
ful to valid argument as citing and urging texts where the reading
and punctuation are doubtful, or where (as in the case of 1 John
v, 7) the evidence of interpolation is overwhelming. No man
should assume to explain the mysteries of Deity.
The doctrine of atonement in Christ is thus set forth in the
vicarious Atone- Canons of the Synod of Dort: "The death of the Son
ment- of God is the only and most perfect sacrifice and satis
faction for sin; is of infinite worth and value, abundantly sufficient
to expiate the sins of the whole world." 2 The Westminster Con
fession of Faith expresses it thus: "The Lord Jesus, by his perfect
obedience and sacrifice of himself, which he through the eternal
Spirit once offered up unto God, hath fully satisfied the justice of
the Father, and purchased not only reconciliation, but an everlast
ing inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, for all those whom the
Father hath given unto him." 3 It is probable that to many evan
gelical Christians neither of these forms of statement is satis
factory, while yet, at the same time, they would not reject them
as unscriptural. They contain several phrases which have been so
mixed with dogmatic controversy that many would for that reason
decline to use them, and prefer the simple but comprehensive state
ment of the Gospel: " God so loved the world that he gave the Son,
the only begotten, that every one who believes in him should not
1 Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, pp. 66, 105. London, 1690. Equally
dogmatic, on the other hand, is the declaration of Norton concerning the doctrines
of the Trinity and the twofold nature of Christ : " There is not a passage to be found
in the Scriptures which can be imagined to affirm either of those doctrines that have
been represented as being at the very foundation of Christianity." — Statement of
Reasons for not believing the Doctrines of Trinitarians concerning the Nature of God
and the Person of Christ, p. 63. Third edition, Boston, 1856.
a See Schaif, Creeds of Christendom, vol. iii, p. 586. 3 Ibid., p. 621.
ETERNAL RETRIBUTION. 461
perish, but have life eternal" (John iii, 16). This Scripture does
not say that the Son was given as " a sacrifice and satisfaction for
sin," or that the procedure was a " perfect obedience and sacrifice
of himself" in order to "fully satisfy the justice of the Father,"
and " purchase reconciliation for all those whom the Father hath
given unto him." But, as Alford well says: " These words, whether
spoken in Hebrew or in Greek, seem to carry a reference to the
offering of Isaac; and Nicodemus in that case would at once be
reminded by them of the love there required, the substitution there
made, and the prophecy there uttered to Abraham (Gen. xxii, 18)
to which * every one who believes ' so nearly corresponds." J
When we proceed to compare with this Scripture its obvious
parallels (as Rom. iii, 24-26; v, 6-10; Eph. i, 7; 1 Peter i, 18, 19;
iii, 18; 1 John iv, 9), and bring forward in illustration of them the
Old Testament idea of sacrifice, and the symbolism of blood (see
above, pp. 268, 269), we may construct a systematic exhibition of
the doctrine of atonement which no faithful interpreter of the
Scriptures can fairly gainsay or resist. It is not a special dogmatic
exposition of any single text, or a peculiar stress laid upon isolated
words or phrases by which a scriptural doctrine is best set forth,
but rather by accumulation of a number and variety of passages
bearing on the subject, the meaning and relevancy of each of which
are obvious.
The awful doctrine of eternal punishment has been greatly con
fused by mixing with it many notions which are desti- Eternal Pun-
tute of valid scriptural proof. The refinements of lshment-
torture, delineated in the appalling pictures of Dante's Inferno,
should not be taken as guides to help us in understanding the words
of Jesus, even though we be told that the Gehenna, " where their
worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark ix, 48), and
"the outer darkness, where shall be weeping and gnashing of
teeth" (Matt, xxv, 30), authorize such horrible portraitures of the
final doom of the wicked. The fearful representations of divine
judgment and penalty set forth in Scripture need not be interpreted
literally in order to enforce the doctrine of the hopeless perdition
of the incorrigible sinner, and the exegete, who assumes in his dis
cussion that the literal import of such texts must be held, weakens
his own argument. Far more convincing and overwhelming is
that mode of teaching which makes no special plea over the ety
mology or usage of some disputed word (even though it be alavio$),
but rather holds up to view the uniform and awful indications of
hopeless ruin and utter exclusion from the glory of God which the
1 Greek Testament, in loco.
30
462 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
Scriptures continually furnish as a certain fearful expectation of
the ungodly. A momentous and eternal truth may be set forth in
figure as well as in literal statement, and the force of the Scripture
doctrine of the final doom of the wicked lies not more in the terri-
utter absence ble suggestions of positive punishment, tribulation, and
ho e SCfor 'The angu^sn5 than in the absence of any hope of pardon and
wicked. salvation in the future. Vain is the appeal to such a
text as Matt, xii, 32: "Whosoever shall speak against the Holy
Spirit it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this age nor in that
which is to come." Here, say some, is an implication that for other
sins and blasphemies there may be forgiveness in the age or world
to come. But to this it may at once be answered that such an im
plication is at best a most uncertain hope, while on the contrary the
assertion is most positive that the blasphemy against the Spirit
shall never be forgiven. Endless perdition, therefore, awaits such
blaspheming sinners, and will the opponents of eternal punishment
assume that no one ever has committed, or will commit, the blas
phemy here meant? In the parallel passage of Mark (iii, 29) we
meet with that profound and fearfully suggestive statement, that
" whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit has no forgive
ness forever, but is guilty of (evo%oc, is held fast bound by) eternal
sin." How futile and delusive, then, to build a hope on the sugges
tions of such a text, when, for aught the reasoner knows, every wil
ful sinner, who deliberately rejects the claims of the Gospel and dies
impenitent, commits this blasphemy against the Spirit.
Equally delusive would it be to build a hope of future pardon on
Preaching to wnat ^s written in 1 Peter iii, 18-20, and iv, 6. For if
the spirits in we allow the strictest literal construction, and believe
that Christ went in spirit and preached to the spirits in
prison, we have no intimation as to what he preached, or of the
results of that preaching; and the entire statement is confined to
those who were disobedient in the days of Noah. There is no inti
mation that he preached to any other spirits, or that any other such
preaching ever took place before, or ever will take place hereafter.
Furthermore, if we infer, from 1 Peter iv, 6, that the purpose of
this preaching to the dead was that they might be rescued from
their prison, and " live according to God in spirit," it is entirely
uncertain whether any one of them accepted the offer, and were
thus saved. If, however, it be urged that it is altogether presum
able that such a preaching of the Gospel by Christ himself would
not be without blessed results, and that such grace shown to one
class of imprisoned spirits is a fair ground for presuming that like
mercy may be extended to many others, if not to all, we have only
DOCTRINE TAUGHT IN FIGURES. 4G3
to answer: All these are presumptions which have too mucn against
them in other parts of Scripture to be made the ground of hope to
any wilful sinner, or to allow our laying down any universal propo
sition touching the unknown future.1
We repudiate the notion, often asserted by some, that we may
not use the figurative portions of Scripture for the pur- DOCtrine not
pose of establishing or maintaining a doctrine. Figures confined to any
f i i i n • T 11 °ne Class OI"
of speech, parables, allegories, types, and symbols are portion of the
divinely chosen forms by which God has communicated ScriPtures-
a large part of his written word to men, and these peculiar methods
of communicating thought may teach doctrine as well as any thing
else (comp. pp. 159, 160). Our Lord has seen fit to set forth hi»
truth in manifold forms, and it is our duty to recognise that truth
whether it appear in metaphor, parable, or symbol. Is there no
doctrine taught in such metaphors as (Psa. li, 7) " Purify me with
hyssop," or (1 Cor. v, 7) "Christ, our passover, was sacrificed"?
Can the doctrine of a new creation in Christ (2 Cor. v, 17; GaL
vi, 15), and the renewing of the Holy Spirit (Titus iii, 5), be more'
clearly or forcibly set forth than by the figure of the new birth-
Degeneration) as used by Jesus (John iii, 3-8) ? Does the allegory
of the vine and its branches (John xv, 1-6) teach no doctrine ?
Was there no doctrine taught by the lifting up of the serpent in
the wilderness, or in the symbolism of blood, or in the pattern and
service of the tabernacle ? And as to teaching by parables, we may
well observe with Trench: "To create a powerful impression lan
guage must be recalled, minted, and issued anew, cast into novel
forms, as was done by him of whom it is said that without a parable
(•7rapa/3oA?7, in its widest sense) spake he nothing to his hearers; that
is, he gave no doctrine in the abstract form, no skeletons of truth,,
but all clothed, as it were, with flesh and blood. He acted himself
as he declared to his disciples they must act if they would be scribes
instructed unto the kingdom, and able to instruct others (Matt,
xiii, 52); he brought forth out of his treasure things new and old;
by the help of the old he made intelligible the new; by the aid of
the familiar he introduced them to that which was strange; from
the known he passed more easily to the unknown. And in his own
1 It scarcely accords with the true spirit of calm theological inquiry to obtrude dog
matical assertions as to any possibilities of grace beyond this life. What may be the
future development and opportunities of those who die in infancy, or what may be
allowed in another state of being to such as may be supposed never to have had suit
able opportunities of accepting salvation in this life, are questions which God alone
can answer, and the presumption of those who, in the absence of specific revelation,
dogmatize on such themes, is only equalled by the folly of those who would rest their
hopes of the future on such unknown and uncertain possibilities.
464 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
manner of teaching, and in his instruction to his apostles, he has
given us the secret of all effectual teaching — of all speaking which
shall leave behind it, as was said of one man's eloquence, stings in
the minds and memories of the hearers." l
But when we come to study the doctrines of biblical eschatology,
Eschatoiogy how little do we find that is not set forth in figure or in
in°StflguraaUt!ve symbol? Perhaps the notable confusion of modern
language. teaching on the subjects of the parousia, resurrection,
and judgment is largely due to a notion that these doctrines must
needs have been revealed in literal form. The doctrine of divine
judgment with its eternal issues is none the less positive and sure
because set forth in the highly wrought and vivid picture of
Matt, xxv, 31-46, or the vision of Rev. xx, 11, 12. "The judg
ment seat of Christ" (Rom. xiv, 10; 2 Cor. v, 10) is a metaphorical
expression, based on familiar forms of dispensing justice in human
tribunals (comp. Matt, xxvii, 19; Acts xii, 21; xviii, 12, 16; xxv,
6, 10, 17), and the expositor who insists that we must understand
the eternal judgment of Christ only as executed after the forms of
human courts, only damages the cause of truth.
How, also, has the doctrine of the resurrection become involved
The resurrection ^n doubt and confusion by overwise attempts to tell
of the body. jlow the dead are raised up, and with what body they
come forth! That the body is raised is the manifest scriptural
teaching. Christ's body was raised, and his resurrection is the
type, representative, and pledge that all will be raised (1 Cor.
xv, 1-22). Many saints who had fallen asleep arose with him, and
it is expressly written that their bodies (aa^ara) were raised (Matt,
xxvii, 52). Paul's doctrine clearly is that "he who raised up Christ
Jesus from the dead, shall also make alive your mortal bodies"
(Rom. viii, 11 ; comp. Phil, iii, 21). He does not entertain the
question, on which so many modern divines have wasted specula
tion, as, wherein consists identity of body, and may not the dust of
different bodies become mixed, and will all the particles of matter
be restored? But he does employ suggestive illustrations, and by
the figure of the grain of wheat shows that the body which is sown
is "not the body that shall be" (1 Cor. xv, 37). He calls attention
to the varieties of flesh (ffdp£), as of men, beasts, birds, and fishes,
and to the great difference between the glory of heavenly and
earthly bodies, and then says that the human body is sown in cor
ruption, dishonour, and weakness, but raised up in incorruption,
glory, and power (verses 39-45). "It is sown a natural (^VXJLKOV)
body; it is raised a spiritual body." The interests of divine truth
1 Xotes on the Parables, p. 27.
FALSE AND TRUE METHODS. 465
have not been helped by dogmatic essays to go beyond the apostle
in the explanation or illustration of this mystery.
In the systematic presentation, therefore, of any scriptural doc
trine, we are always to make a discriminating use of Freedom from
sound hermeneutical principles. We must not study and^^ui
them in the light of modern systems of divinity, but tions.
should aim rather to place ourselves in the position of the sacred
writers, and study to obtain the impression their words would natu
rally have made upon the minds of the first readers.1 The question
should be, not what does the Church say, or what do the ancient
fathers and the great councils and the oecumenical creeds say, but
what do the Scriptures legitimately teach? Still less should we
allow ourselves to be influenced by any presumptions of what the
Scriptures ought to teach. It is not uncommon for writers and
preachers to open a discussion with the remark that in a written
revelation like the Bible we might naturally expect to find such or
such things. All such presumptions are uncalled for and prejudi
cial. The assumption that the first chapter of Genesis describes a
universal cosmogony, and that the Book of Revelation details all
human history, or that of the Church, to the end of time, has been
the fruitful source of a vast amount of false exegesis.
The teacher of Scripture doctrine should not cite his proof -texts
ad libitum, or at random, as if any word or sentiment „
J Texts not to be
in harmony with his purpose, if only found in the Scrip- cited ad iibi-
tures, must needs be pertinent. The character of the *
whole book or epistle, and the context, scope, and plan are often
necessary to be taken into consideration before the real bearings
of a given text can be clearly apprehended. That doctrine only
is theologically sound which rests upon a strict grammatico-his-
torical interpretation of Scripture, and while all divinely inspired
Scripture is profitable for doctrine and discipline in righteousness,
its inspiration does not require or allow us to interpret it on any
1 In order to be able to explain any one's words to others, one must understand
them himself, otherwise he cannot render them intelligible to others. One under
stands another's words when by means of them he thinks as did the speaker or writer,
and as he wished one should think. Thus one explains another's words rightly to
others when he enables them to think precisely what the speaker or writer thought
or wished to be thought. In the interpretation of any writing, it has not to be in
quired what the readers for whom it was destined thought, but what, according to the
intention of the writer, they should have thought in reading it. The object of the in
terpretation is the thoughts of the writer or speaker, in as far as he has expressed
them in words for others. This does not take away that it often is of great import
ance to the interpretation of one or more sayings to inquire how the hearers under-
stood them. — Doedes, Manual of Hermeneutics, pp. 2, 3. Edinb., 1867.
4613 SPECIAL HERMEXEUTICS.
other principles than those which are applicable to uninspired
writings. The interpreter is always bound to consider how the
subject lay in the mind of the author, and to point out the exact
ideas and sentiments intended. It is not for him to show how
many meanings the words may possibly bear, nor even how the
first readers understood them. The real meaning intended by the
author, and that only, is to be set forth.
There is much reason for believing that the habit, quite general
New Testament smce the time of Ernesti, of treating the hermeneutics
•doctrine not of the New Testament separately from the Old, has oc-
the help of the casioned the misunderstanding of some important doc-
old- trines of Holy Writ. The language and style in which
certain New Testament teachings are expressed are so manifestly
modelled after Old Testament forms of statement, that they cannot
be properly explained without a minute and thorough apprehension
of the import of the older Scriptures.1 We cannot, therefore, ac
cept without qualification the following words of Van Oosterzee :
"We have no right for a use of these (O. T.) Scriptures, in which
we do not take heed to their peculiar character, as distinguished
from those of the New Testament. The Old Testament revelation
must always be regarded first in relation to Israel, and has only
value for our dogmatics in so far as it is confirmed by the gospel
of the New. The letter of the Old Testament must thus be tested
by the spirit of the New, and whatever therein stands in opposition
1 Take for illustration the following passage from one of our most recent and able
•works on theology. Speaking of the lawless one mentioned in 2 Thess. ii, 8, Pope
says : " Prophetical theology has its many hypotheses for the explanation of the sym
bols of Daniel and the Apocalypse, and the plain words of St. Paul. But there has
not yet been found on earth the power or the being to whom all St. Paul's terms are
applicable." — Compendium of Chr. Theology, vol. iii, p. 394. The critical student of
Daniel's description of the little horn (Dan. vii, 8, 25; viii, 9-12, 23-25; comp. xi,
86-38), will note that the words of Paul in 2 Thess. ii, 3-10, are no plainer than those
of Daniel, from whom they are so evidently copied. And if Daniel's symbols and lan
guage were fulfilled, as most of the leading Old Testament exegetes admit, in the law
less Antiochus Epiphanes, how can it be said, in view of the equally lawless and blas
phemous Nero, that " there has not yet been found on earth the power or the being
-to whom all St. Paul's terms are applicable?" We might fill volumes with extracts
showing how exegetes and writers on New Testament doctrine assume as a principle
•not to be questioned that such highly wrought language as Matt, xxiv, 29-31; 1 Thess.
Iv, 16 ; and 2 Pet. iii, 10, 12, taken almost verbatim from Old Testament prophecies of
judgment on nations and kingdoms which long ago perished, must be literally under
stood. Too little study of Old Testament ideas of judgment, and apocalyptic language
and style, would seem to be the main reason for this one sided exegesis. It will re
quire moie than assertion to convince thoughtful men that the figurative language of
Isaiah and Daniel, admitted on all hands to be such in those ancient prophets, is to be
literally interpreted when used by Jesus or Paul.
BOTH TESTAMENTS VALID. 46?
to the New has as little binding force for our belief as for our life.
A dogma which can be supported only by an appeal to the Old
Testament can only maintain its place in Christian dogmatics if it
manifestly does not conflict with the letter and spirit of the New,
and also stands in close connexion with other propositions derived
from the New Testament." '
Every distinct portion of Scripture, whether in the Old or the
New Testament, must, indeed, be interpreted in har- one and the
mony with its own peculiar character, and the historical
standpoint of each writer must be duly considered, ments.
The Old Testament cannot be truly apprehended without always
regarding its relation to Israel, to whom it was first intrusted
(Rom. iii, 2). And while it is true that "the letter of the Old
Testament must be tested by the spirit of the New," it is equally
true that, to understand the spirit and import of the New Testament,
we are often dependent on both the letter and spirit of the Old. It
may be that no important doctrine of the Old Testament is without
confirmation in the Christian Scriptures, but it is also to be remem
bered that every important doctrine of the New Testament may be
found in germ in the Old, and the New Testament writers were all,
without exception, Jews or Jewish proselytes, and made use of the
Jewish Scriptures as oracles of God.
A correct view of this whole subject is taken when we regard
the Hebrew people as of old divinely chosen to hold Confusion of
and teach the principles of true religion. It was not
theirs to develop science, philosophy, and art. Other thought,
races attended more to these. It was not until the mystery of God,
enclosed in the Israelitish worship as the bud, blossomed out in the
Gospel, and was given to the Aryan world, that a systematic theol
ogy began to be developed. These Gentile peoples had long been
trying, by reason and from nature, to solve the mysterious problems
of the universe, and when the Gospel revelation came to them, it
was eagerly seized by many as a clue to the intricate and perplex
ing secrets of God and the world. But a failure to apprehend the
letter and spirit of the Hebrew records of faith led also to a failure
to understand some of the doctrines of the Gospel, so that, from the
apostolic age until now, there has been a conflict of Gnostic and
Ebionitish tendencies in Christian thought. It is only as a correct
scientific method enables us to distinguish between the true and the
false in each of these tendencies that we shall perceive that the
revelations of both Testaments are essentially one and inseparable.
There can be, therefore, no complete and thorough hermeneutics of
1 Christian Dogmatics, vol. i, p. 18. New York, 1874.
4C8 SPECIAL HEEMENEUTICS.
New Testament doctrine without a clear insight into the letter and
spirit of the Old.
In the practical and homiletical use of the Scriptures we are also
to seek first the true grammatico-historical sense. The life of
godliness is nourished by the edifying, comforting, and assuring les
sons of divine revelation. They serve also, as we have
Practical and J
Homiletical use seen, for reproof and correction. But in this more sub-
of scripture. jective an(j practical use of the Bible, words and thoughts
may have a wider and more general application than in strict
exegesis. Commands and counsels which had their first and only
direct reference to those of bygone generations may be equally
useful for us. An entire chapter, like that of Rom. xvi, filled with
personal salutations for godly men and women now utterly un
known, may furnish many most precious suggestions of brotherly
love and holy Christian fellowship. The personal experiences of
Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel, and Paul exhibit lights and shades
from which every devout reader may gather counsel and admoni
tion. Pious feeling may find in such characters and experiences
lessons of permanent worth even where a sound exegesis must dis
allow the typical character of the person or event. In short, every
great event, every notable personage or character, whether good or
evil, every account of patient suffering, every triumph of virtue,
every example of faith and good works, may serve in some way for
instruction in righteousness.1
The promises of divine oversight and care, the hopes and pledges
Promises ad se^ Before *he holy men of old, and all exhortations to
monitions, and watchfulness and prayer, may have manifold practical
applications to Christians of every age. The same may
be said of all the ancient warnings and appeals to escape the com
ing wrath of God which had primary reference to impending judg
ments. The carelessness and disobedience of those who lived in
the days of Noah are a lively admonition and warning to all men of
1 The Bible constantly presents general principles, absolute commandments, and
living examples, but it never applies these principles to human actions as recorded
upon its pages. This is left to the enlightened conscience and thoughtful judg
ment of the reader. It is God's will that we should meditate upon all Scripture, and
make ourselves the moral application. The Bible records the pious obedience and
simple and singular faith of Noah, but makes no comment upon it ; and it relates the
story of his shame when overcome by his appetite without a note of warning. Abra
ham is sometimes called the friend of God, and is styled in Scripture the father of
them that believe. His marvellous simplicity of character, and unfaltering trust in
God, are fully described in the sacred word, and without note of comment or excuse
the stories of his deceit are also written out. — Pierce, The Word of God Opened, p. 77.
New York, 1868.
PRACTICAL USE OF SCRIPTURE. 469
every age who follow worldly things alone, and have no care about
their eternal destiny. All the New Testament admonitions to
watch and be in constant readiness for the coming of the Lord are
capable of a most legitimate practical application to believers now, in
reference to the uncertainty of the hour of death. To say, as many
modern Chiliasts, that such an application of the admonitions to
prepare for the parousia is a perversion of the Scripture teaching,
is most futile. The coming of the Lord to a believer at death, in
order to transport his redeemed spirit to paradise, is not, to be
sure, the parousia which Jesus declared would take place within a
generation from his time. But as departure from this life puts an
end to probation, and " inasmuch as it is appointed unto men once
to die, and after that— judgment" (Heb. ix, 27), every motive
which should have led men to prepare and watch for the judgment
of the flood, and every exhortation for the contemporaries of Jesus
and Paul to watch and be ready for the parousia, serve ever to ad
monish and warn us and all generations to be prepared for that day
and hour when we must pass to eternal judgment of weal or woe.
How much more sensible and forcible is this practical exhortation,
the point and propriety of which all men must feel, than the vision
ary appeals of those expositors who would have us believe that we
are now, any day and hour, to expect what Jesus said should take
place within his own generation !
Pre-millennialists and post-millennialists have fallen into notice
able confusion in attempts to make such commands as "Watch
therefore, for ye know not on what day your Lord cometh ; "
"Therefore, be ye also ready;" "Watch therefore, for ye know
not the day nor the hour" (Matt, xxiv, 42, 44; xxv, 13), consistent
with two thousand years' delay. Brown, indeed, concedes (Christ's
Second Coming, p. 20) that " the death of any individual is, to all
practical purposes, the coming of Christ to that soul. It is his
summons to appear before the judgment seat of Christ. It is to
him the close of time, and the opening of an unchanging eternity,
as truly as the second advent will be to mankind at large." " There
is a perfect analogy," he adds, " between the two classes of events.
. . . Still, it is in the way of analogy alone that texts expressive of
the one can or ought to be applied to the other. It can never be
warranted, and is often dangerous to make that the primary and
proper interpretation of a passage which is but a secondary, though
it may be a very legitimate, and even irresistible, application of it."
All this is very correct, but Mr. Brown falls into the error of the
Chiliasts themselves when he goes on to argue that all the New
Testament admonitions and warnings which imply the nearness of
470 SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS.
the parousia are consistent with centuries, and even millenniums, of
delay. All those warnings and exhortations may be easily shown to
have had their primary application and reference to the end
of the pre-millennial age (aeon), which took place at the fall of the
temple and its cultus, and correct interpretation finds their primary
and only direct reference to that event. But by way of manifest
analogy, and in practical and homiletical use, they have a pertinent
and impressive lesson to all generations of men. And it detracts
from the force and usefulness of these texts to import into them an
imaginary significance which they were never intended to bear.
In all our private study of the Scriptures for personal edification
we do well to remember that the first and great thing
Practical and . . &. °
homiletical use is to lay hold of the real spirit and meaning of the
be^base^on sacred writer. There can be no true application, and
correct inter- no profitable taking to ourselves of any lessons of the
Bible, unless we first clearly apprehend their original
meaning and reference. To build a moral lesson upon an erroneous
interpretation of the language of God's word is a reprehensible pro
cedure. But he who clearly discerns the exact grammatico-historical
sense of a passage, is the better qualified to give it any legitimate
application which its language and context will allow.
Accordingly, in homiletical discourse, the public teacher is bound
to base his applications of the truths and lessons of the divine word
upon a correct apprehension of the primary signification of the lan
guage which he assumes to expound and enforce. To misinterpret
the sacred writer is to discredit any application one may make of
his words. But when, on the other hand, the preacher first shows,
by a valid interpretation, that he thoroughly comprehends that
which is written, his various allowable accommodations of the
writer's words will have the greater force, in whatever practical
applications he may give them.
BIBLIOGEAPHY OF HEKMENEUTICS.
ACOSTA, JOSEPH. — De vera scripturas interpretandi ratione libri tres.
A part of his work entitled De Christo revelato (Rome, 1590, 4to), and published
also in the appendix of Menochius' Commentary on the Bible. Paris, 1719,
and Venice, 1771.
AIKEN, C. A. — The Citations of the Old Testament in the New. Trans
lated from the German of Tholuck, in Bibliotheca Sacra for July, 1854.
ALBER, J. N. — Institutiones Hermeneuticae Scripturae Novi Testamenti.
Pestini, 1818. 3 vols. 8vo.
Institutiones Hermeneuticae Scripturae Sacrae Veteris Testamenti.
Pestini, 1827. 3 vols. 8vo.
ALEXANDER, ARCHIBALD. — Principle of Design in the Interpretation of
Scripture. Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review for July, 1845.
On Schools and Systems of Interpretation, see same Review for April, 1855.
ANGUS, JOSEPH. — The Bible Handbook. An Introduction to the Study of
Sacred Scripture. Many English and American editions. Revised with
Notes and Index of Scripture texts by F. S. Hoyt. Phila., 1868. 8vo.
Chapters iv-vii of Part First relate to Biblical Hermeneutics.
APTHOR**, EAST. — Discourses on Prophecy. London, 1786. 2 vols. 8vo.
The second discourse (vol. 5, pp. 49-106) discusses the Canons of Prophecy.
ARIGLER, ALTMAN. — Hermeneutica Biblica generalis usibus academicis ac-
commodata. Vienna, 1813. 8vo. See UNTERKIRCHER.
ARIZZARRA, F. HYACINTHE. — Elementa Sacrae Hermeneuticae, seu Institu
tiones ad Intelligentiam Sacrarum Scripturarum. Castrinovi Carfagnanse,
1790. 4to.
ARNOLD, THOMAS. — Sermons chiefly on the Interpretation of Scripture.
New edition. London, 1878. 8vo.
The last two sermons of the volume are on the Interpretation of Prophecy, and
are accompanied with Notes and Appendices.
AST, F. — Grundlinien der Grammatik, Hermeneutik und Kritik. Lands-
hut, 1808. 8vo.
ATRE, JOHN. See HORNE.
BARROWS, E. P. — A new Introduction to the Study of the Bible. Pub
lished by Religious Tract Society. London. 8vo.
Part Fourth of this work is devoted to the Principles of Biblical Interpretation,
and contains in clear outline and compact form an excellent presentation of
the fundamental principles of Hermeneutics.
472 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HERMENEUTICS.
BAUER, G. L. — Hermeneutica Sacra Veteris Testamenti. Lips., 1797. 8vo.
Published as a new edition of Glassius' Philologia Sacra, but in fact a new work
of no great value.
Entwurf einer Hermeneutik des alten und neuen Testaments.
Lpz., 1799. 8vo.
Rationalistic, but full of useful hints.
BAUMGARTEN, S. J. — Unterricht von Auslegung der heiligen Schrift, fur
seine Zuhorer ausgefertiget. Halle, 1742. 8vo. Published in an enlarged
form with the title, Ausfuhrlicher Vortrag der biblischen Hermeneutik,
by J. C. Bertram. Halle, 1769. 4to.
A work of considerable value.
BECK, C. D. — Commentationes de interpretatione Veterum Scriptorum.
Lips., 1791. 4to.
. Monogrammata Hermeneutices librorurn Novi Fcederis. Pars
prima, Hermeneutice Novi Testamenti universa. Lips., 1803. 8vo.
BECK, J. T. — Versuch einer pneumatisch-henneneutischen Entwickelung
des neuen Kapitels im Briefe an die Homer. Stuttgart, 1833. 8vo.
Somewhat mystical, but suggestive.
Zur theologischen Auslegung der Schrift. Appended to his Ein-
leitung in das System der christlichen Luhre. Stuttgart, 1838. 8vo.
BECKHAUS, J. H. — Remarks on the Interpretation of the Tropical Language
of the New Testament (vol. ii, Edinburgh Biblical Cabinet). Edin
burgh, 1833. 16mo.
BELLARMINE, ROBERT. — De Verbi Dei Interpretatione. Opera, vol. i,
book iii, pp. 159-198. Ingolstadt, 1590. Folio.
BLUNT, J. H. — Key to the Knowledge and Use of the Holy Bible. Lond.,
1873. 8vo. Phila., 1873. 16mo.
BOSANQUET, S. R. — Interpretation ; being Rules and Principles assisting to
the Reading and Understanding of the Holy Scriptures. London,
1874. 12mo.
BRETSCHNEIDER, C. G. — Die historische-dogmatische Auslegung des neuen
Testaments, nach ihren Principien, Quellen, und Hulfsmitteln darges-
tellt. Lpz., 1806. 12mo.
Rationalistic, and of no great value.
BROOKS, J. W. — Elements of Prophetical Interpretation. Phila., 1841.
12mo.
BUDD^EUS, J. F. — Isagoge Historico-Theologica ad Theologiam Universam
siugulasque ejus Partes. Lips., 1727. 4to.
Pages 1427-1796 are devoted to Exegetical Theology.
CAMPBELL, GEORGE. — Preliminary Dissertations to the Gospels. London,
1789. 4to. New edition in 2 vols. London, 1834. 8vo.
The first volume contains twelve dissertations in which important questions of
New Testament exposition are ably handled.
CARPENTER, WILLIAM. — Popular Lectures on Biblical Criticism and Inter
pretation. London, 1829. Svo.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HERMENEUTICS. 473
CARPENTER, WILLIAM. — A Popular Introduction to the Study of the Holy
Scriptures for the Use of English Readers. London, 1826.
Part First of this work contains a number of very useful directions for reading
the Holy Scriptures.
CARPZOV, JOHN B. — Primae lineae Hermeueuticae et Philologiae sacrae cum
Veteris turn Novi Testament! brevibus aphorismis comprehensae in usum
lectionum academicarum. Helmstadt, 1790. 8vo.
CELLERIER, J. E. — Manuel D'Herrne'neutique Biblique. Geneva, 1852. 8vo.
An admirably planned, systematic, and ably executed work ; one of the best of
modern times.
Biblical Hermeneutics. Chiefly a Translation of the Manuel
D'Hermeneutique Biblique, par J. E. Celle'rier. By Charles Elliott and
William J. Harsha. New York, 1881. 8vo.
CHAMIER, D.— Panstratiae Catholicae, sive controversiarum de religione ad-
versus Pontificios corpus. Geneva, 1626. 4 vols. folio.
The first volume treats biblical interpretation, but polemically.
CHLADENIUS, MARTIN. — Institutiones Exegeticae, regulis et observationibus
luculentissimis instructae, largissimisque exemplis illustratae. Witten
berg, 1725. 8vo.
Einleitung zur rechtigen Auslegung von Reden und Schriften.
Lpz., 1742. 8vo.
CLARK, JAMES A. — Diversity of Interpretation. Article in the Christian
Review of 1857, pp. 196-215.
CLAUSEN, H. N. (commonly Klausen). — Hermeneutik des neuen Testaments ;
aus dem Danischen iibersetzt von C. O. Schmidt-Phiseldek. Lpz., 1841.
8vo.
A learned and valuable production, and especially useful for its discriminating
history of biblical interpretation.
CLERICUS, (LE CLERC) JOHN. — Dissertatio de optimo genere Interp return
Sacrae Scripturae.
Prefixed to his Commentary on the Old Testament, vol. i, pp. xiv-xxviii. Am
sterdam, 1710.
COBET, C. G. — Oratio de arte interpretandi grammatices et critices funda-
mentis innixa primario philologi officio. Leyden, 1847. 8vo.
COLLYER, DAVID. — The Sacred Interpreter; or, a practical Introduction
toward a beneficial Reading and a thorough Understanding of the Holy
Bible. Fifth edition. Carlisle, 1796. 2 vols. 8vo, with cuts.
It was first published in 1746, and translated into German by F. E. Rambach
(Rostock, 1750, 8vo), but is a work of no great merit.
CONYBEARE, J. J. — The Bampton Lectures for the year 1824, being an At
tempt to trace the History and to ascertain the Limits of the secondary
and spiritual Interpretation of Scripture. Oxford, 1824. 8vo.
CONYBEARE, W. D. — Elementary Course of Theological Lectures. London,
1836. 12mo.
DANNHAUER, J. C. — Hermeneutica Sacra, sive methodus ezponendarum
Sacrarum Literarum. Argentor, 1654. 8vo.
474 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HERMENEUTICS.
DATIIE, J. A. — Opuscula ad Crisin et Interpretationem Veteris Testament!
(edited by Rosenmuller). Lips., 1795. See GLASSIUS.
DAVIDSON, SAMUEL. — Sacred Hermeneutics developed and applied, includ
ing a History of Biblical Interpretation from the earliest of the Fathers
to the Reformation. Edinburgh, 1843. 8vo.
A learned and very valuable work, but lacks completeness, and is dispropor
tionate in its several parts.
DAVISON, JOHN. — Discourses on Prophecy. Oxford, 1821. 8vo. Fifth
edition, 1845.
DE Rossi, G. B. — Sinopsi della Ermeneutica Sacra. Parma, 1819.
DIESTEL, L. — Geschichte des alten Testaments in der Christlichen Kirche.
Jena, 1868. 8vo.
DIXON, JOSEPH. — A General Introduction to the Sacred Scriptures in a
series of Dissertations, Critical, Hermeneutical, and Historical. Dublin,
1852. 2 vols. 8vo. Baltimore, 1853. 2 vols. in one, 8vo.
Dissertation xii, in vol. i, consisting of eight chapters, sets forth succinctly the
principles of Roman Catholic Hermeneutics.
DOBIE, DAVID. — A Key to the Bible : Being an Exposition of the History,
Axioms, and General Laws of Sacred Interpretation. New York, 1856.
12mo.
DOEDES, J. J. — Manual of Hermeneutics for the Writings of the New Test
ament. Translated from the Dutch by G. W. Stegrnann. Edinburgh,
1867. 12mo.
Brief, but excellent, and well worthy of repeated study.
DOEPKE, J. C. C. — Hermeneutik der neutestamentlichen Schriftsteller.
Lpz.. 1829. 8vo.
Evinces great learning and careful research.
DUKES, L. See EWALD and DUKES.
EICHSTAEDT. See MORUS.
ELLICOTT, C. J. — Scripture and its Interpretation. One of the essays in
Aids to Faith — Replies to Essays and Reviews. London, 1863. 8vo.
ELSTER, ERNST. — De mediiaeviTheologiaExegetica. Gottingen, 1855. 8vo.
EWALD, H. 'See EWALD and DUKES.
EWALD and DUKES. — Beitrage zur Geschichte der altesten Auslegung und
Bchrifterklarung des alten Testament, 3 vols. 8vo. Stuttgart, 1844.
ERNESTI, JOHN AUGUST. — Institutio Interprets Novi Testament! ad usus
lectionum. Lips., 1761. 8vo. Fifth edition, edited by Ammon, 1809.
A great work for its day, almost an epoch-making book, and still useful, though
superseded by later treatises.
Elements of Biblical Criticism and Interpretation, translated from.
the Latin of Ernesti, Keil, Beck, and Morus, and accompanied with
notes, by Moses Stuart. Andover, 1827. 12mo. This translation was
republished, with additional observations, by Henderson. London, 1827.
. — Principles of Biblical Interpretation, translated from the Insti
tutio Interprets of J. A. Ernesti, by Charles H. Terrot. Edinburgh
(Bibli&EK^abiuet), 1843. 2 vols. 12mo.
Terro \n> Jie best English translation.
\
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HERMENEUTICS. 475
FAIRBAIRN, PATRICK. — Hermeneutical Manual; or, Introduction to the
Exegetical Study of the Scriptures of the New Testament. Edinburgh,
1858. 8vo. Phila., 1859.
- The Typology of Scripture, viewed in connexion with the entire
Scheme of the Divine Dispensations. Vol. i, Edinburgh, 1845 ; vol. ii,
1847. 8vo. Fifth edition, revised and enlarged, Edinb., 1870. New
York, 1877.
Prophecy, viewed in its distinctive Nature, its special Function,
and proper Interpretation. Edinb., 1865. New York, 1866. 8vo.
All these productions of Fairbairn are works of enduring value.
FLACIUS, MATTHIAS. — Clavis Scripturae Sacrae, seu de sermone Sacrarum
Literarum. Basle, 1567. Folio. Edited by Musaeus. Jena, 1674. Lips.,
1695. Erfurt, 1719.
Copious in material, and executed with great learning and ability for the time
when it appeared.
FORBES. See PAREAU.
FRANCKE, A. H. — Manuductio ad lectionem Sacrae Scripturae. Halle,
1693. 8vo. London, 1706.
Praelectiones Hermeneuticae ad viam dextre indagandi et expo-
nendi seusum Sacrae Scripturae. Halle, 1717.
A Guide to the Reading and Study of the Holy Scriptures.
Translated by William Jaques with life of Francke. London, 1813. 8vo.
Phila., 1823. 12mo.
FRANKEL, Z. — Ueber den Einfluss der palastinischeu Exegese auf den
alexandrinisclie Hermeneutik. Lpz., 1851. 8vo.
FBANZIUS, WOLFGANG. — Tractatus theologicus novus et perspicuus de In-
terpretatione Sacrarum Scripturarum, etc. Wittenberg, 1619. 4to.
Several times reprinted. Sixth ed., 1708. Controversial, and of little worth.
GABLER, J. P. — Entwurf einer Hermeneutik des neuen Testament. Alt-
dorf, 1788. 4to.
GERARD, GILBERT. — Institutes of Biblical Criticism, or Heads of the
course of Lectures on that subject, read in the University of Aberdeen.
Edinb., 1808. 8vo. Boston, 1823.
GERHARD, JOHN. — Tractatus de legitima Scripturae Sacrae Interpretatione.
Jena, 1610. 4to.
GERHAUSER, G. B. — Biblische Hermeneutik. Zweiter Theil: Die Grund-
satze der Schriftauslegung. Kernpten, 1829. 8vo.
GERMAR, F. H. — Die panharmonische Interpretation der heiligen Schrift.
Ein Versuch. Schleswig, 1821. 8vo.
Beitrag zur allgemeinen Hermeneutik und zu deren Anwendung
auf die theologische. Altona, 1828. 8vo.
Die hermeneutischen Mangel der sogenannten grammatisch-histor-
ischen, eigentlich aber der Tact-Interpretation. Halle, 1834. 8vo.
Kritik der modernen Exegese, nach den hermeneutischeu Maximcu
eines competeuten Philologen. Halle, 1841. 8vo.
Suggestive dissertations, still worthy of perusal.
476 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HERMENEUTICS.
GERSON, JOHN. — Propositions de sensu literal! Sacrae Scripturae. Opera,
vol. i. Antwerp, 1706. Folio.
GLAIRE. See JANSSENS.
GLASSIUS. SOLOMON. — Philologiae sacrae, qua totius sacrosanctae Veteris et
Novi Testament! Scripturae turn stylus et literatura, turn sensus et genu-
inae Interpretationis ratio expenditur. Jena, 1623. 4to.
Most correct edition, Frankfort and Hamburg, 1653. 4to. Fullest of the old
editions, with Preface by Buddaeus, Lips., 1725. New edition, with valuable
additions by Dathe and Bauer, Lips., 1776-97. 8 vols. 8vo. A work of con
siderable value.
GOLDIIAGEN, HERMANN. — Introductio in Sacrain Scripturam Veteris et
Novi Testament!. Maintz, three parts, 1766-68. 8vo.
GRIESBACH, J. J. — Vorlesuugen iiber die Hermeneutik des neuen Testa
ments ; herausgegeben von J. C. S. Steiner. Nuremberg, 1815. 8vo.
GUENTNER, G. J. B. — Ilermeneutica Biblica generalis juxta Principia Ca-
tholica. Prague, 1848. Vienna, 1851. 8vo.
HENDERSON, E. See ERNESTI.
HILLER, M. — Syntagma Hermeneutica. Tubingen, 1711. 4to.
HIRSCIIFELD, H. S. — Der Geist der talmudischen Auslegung der Bibel.
Erster Theil, Halacliische Exegese. Berlin, 1840. 8vo.
Der Geist der ersten Schrift-auslegungen, oder die hagadische
Exegese. Berlin, 1847. 8vo.
HOEPFNER, C. F. — Grundlinien zu einer fruchtbaren Auslegung der heili-
gen Schrift. Lpz., 1827. 8vo.
HOFMANN, J. CHRISTIAN K., VON. — Biblische Hermeneutik. Nordlingen,
1880. 16mo.
A new and very valuable contribution to the Science of Biblical Interpretation.
It is a posthumous publication, edited by W. Volck.
HOKNE, THOMAS HARTWELL. — An Introduction to the Critical Study and
Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. London, 1818. 3 vols. 8vo. Many
editions. The second volume of the tenth edition was edited and nearly
rewritten by Samuel Davidson: The Text of the Old Testament, with
a Treatise on Sacred Interpretation, 1856. Eleventh edition, revised
and largely rewritten, by John Ayre and S. P. Tregelles. London, 1860.
4 vols. 8vo. Thirteenth edition, 1872.
The second volume, revised by Ayre, is devoted to tbe Criticism and Interpreta
tion of Scripture, and is a comprehensive and useful work.
HUETIUS, PETER DANIEL. — De Interpretatione libri duo ; quorum prior est.
de optimo genere iuterpretandi : alter, de Claris interpretibus. Stadse,
1680. 16rno.
IMMER, A. — Hermeneutik des neuen Testaments. Wittenberg, 1873. 8vo.
- Hermeneutics of the New Testament. Translated from the Ger
man by A. H. Newman. Andover, 1877. 8vo.
One of the best hermeneutical treatises of modern times.
IRONS, W. J. — The Bible and its Interpreters. Miracles and Prophecy.
Second edition. London, 1869. 8vo.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HERMENEUTICS. 477
JACKSON, ARTHUR. — A Help for the Understanding of the Holy Scripture.
Camb., 1643. 3 vols. 4t<>.
JACKSON, THOMAS. — The true Sense of Scripture determinable by Rules of
Art. Works xii, 174 (folio edition iii, 895).
JAHN, J. — Enchiridion Hermeneuticae generalis tabularum Veteris et Novi
Foederis. Vienna, 1812. 8vo.
A work of much good sense. See SANDBICHLER and STUART.
JANSSENS, J. HERMANN. — Hermeneutica Sacra, seu Introductio in omnes
ac singulos libros sacros Veteris et Novi Foederis. Maintz, 1818.
2 vols. 8vo.
— Hermgneutique Sacrfie, ou Introduction a 1'lCcriture Sainte. Trad.
. du Lat. par J. J. Pacaud. Paris, 1827. 2 vols. 8vo. New ed., rev. by
J. B. Glaire, 1840. Fifth ed., rev. by Sionnet, 1855.
JONES, WILLIAM. — Course of Lectures on the Figurative Language of the
Holy Scriptures. London, 1787. 8vo. Second edition, 1789. Also in
vol. iv. of his Theological and Miscellaneous Works. London, 1810.
JOWETT, BENJAMIN. — On the Interpretation of Scripture. One of the es
says in Essays and Reviews by eminent English Churchmen. London,
1861. 8vo.
KAISER, G. P. C. — Gruudriss eines Systems der neutestamentlichen Her-
nieneutik. Erlangen, 1817. 8vo.
KEIL, KARL A. G. — De historica librorum sacrorum Interpretatione ejus-
que necessitate. Lips., 1788. 8vo.
Ueber die historische Erklarungsart der heiligen Schrift und deren
Nothwendigkeit. Aus d. Lat. von C. A. Henipel. Lpz., 1793. 8vo.
Lehrbuch der Hermeneutik des neuen Testaments nach Grundsatzen
der grammatisch-historischen Interpretation. Lpz., 1810. 8vo.
Elementa Hermeneutices Novi Testament! (Latine reddita a C. A. G.
Emmerling). Lips., 1811. 12mo.
All these treatises display the skill of a master, and emphasize the necessity of
strict grammatico-historical interpretation.
KLACSEN. See CLAUSEN.
KOHLGRUBER, J. — Hermeneutica Biblica generalis. Vienna, 1850. 8vo.
LAMAR, J. S. — The Organon of Scripture; or, the Inductive Method of
Biblical Interpretation. Philadelphia, 1860. 12ino.
LANDERER. — Article Hermeneutik in Herzog, Real-Encyklopadie (edition
Stuttgart and Hamburg, 1856). Comp. SCHMIDT.
LANGE, JOACHIM. — Hermeneutica Sacra. Halle, 1733. 8vo.
LANGE, J. P. — Grundriss der biblischen Hermeneutik. Heidelb., 1878. 8vo.
Suggestive, well arranged, compact, and convenient for use.
LEE, SAMUEL. — Six Sermons on the Study of the Holy Scriptures, their
Nature, Interpretation, and some of their most Important Doctrines.
London, 1830. 8vo.
An Inquiry into the Nature, Progress, and End of Prophecy. Cam
bridge, 1849. 8vo.
LINDANUS, W. D. — De optimo Scripturas interpretandi geuere libri iii.
Colonise, 1558. 16mo.
31
478 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HERMENEUTICS.
LITTON, E. A. — Guide to the Study of the Holy Scripture. London, 1860.
LOEHNIS, J. M. A. — Grundziige der biblischen Hermeneutik und Kritik.
Giessen, 1839. 8vo.
LOESCHER,V. E. — BreviariumTheologiaeExegeticae. Frankfort, 1715. 8vo.
- Breviarium Theologiae Exegeticae legitimam Scripturae Sacrae
Interpretationem, nee lion studii biblici rationem succincte tradens.
Wittenberg, 1719. 8vo.
LOWTH, W. — Directions for the Profitable Reading of the Holy Scriptures;
with some Observations for confirming their Divine Authority, and illus
trating their Difficulties. Seventh edition, London, 1799. 12ino.
LUECKE, G. C. F. — Grundriss der neutestamentlichen Hermeneutik und
ihrer Geschichte. Gottingen, 1817. 8vo.
LUTZ, J. L. S. — Biblische Hermeneutik. Pforzheim, 1849. 8vo. Second
ed., edited by Adolf Lutz, 1861.
MACKNIGHT, JAMES. — Concerning the Right Interpretation of the Writings
in which the Revelations of God are contained.
Essay viii, appended to his Translation and Commentary on the Apostolical
Epistles. Many editions.
MAIMONIDES, MOSES (Rainbam). — Moreh Nebuchim, or Guide of the Per
plexed. Many editions and translations.
MAITLAND, CHARLES. — The Apostles' School of Prophetic Interpretation,
with its History to the present time. London, 1849. 8vo.
MAITLAND. S. R. — Eight Essays on the Mystical Interpretation of Scrip
ture. London, 1852. 8vo.
MARSH, HERBERT. — Lectures on the Criticism and Interpretation of the
Bible. London, 1838 and 1842. 8vo.
MARTIAN AY, JEAN. — Traite method ique, ou maniere d'expliquer 1'Ecriture
par le secours de trois Syntaxes, la propre, la figuree, 1'harmonique.
Paris, 1704. 12mo.
— Methode Sacrfie pour apprendre et expliquer 1'Ecriture Sainte par
1'Ecriture meme. Paris, 1716. 8vo.
MATTIIAEI, G. C. R. — Uebersicht der Fehler der neutestamentlichen Exe-
gese. Gottingen, 1835. 8vo.
MAYER, G. — Institutio interpretis sacri. Vindobonse, 1789. 8vo.
M'CLELLAND, ALEXANDER. — Manual of Sacred Interpretation, for the Spe
cial Benefit of Junior Theological Students ; but intended for private
Christians in general. New York, 1842. 12mo.
• — — A Brief Treatise on the Canon and Interpretation of the Holy Scrip
tures. New York, 1850.
This is a second and enlarged edition of the preceding. Another revised edition
appeared in 1860
MEIER, G. F. — Versuch einer allgemeinen Auslegungskunst. Halle, 1756.
8vo.
MEYER, G. W. — Versuch einer Hermeneutik des elten Testaments. Erster
Theil, Liibeck, 1799. 8vo. Zweiter Theil, 1800. 8vo. New edition, 1812.
Rationalistic, but full of excellent thoughts ; concise and comprehensive.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HERMENEUTICS. 479
METEU, G. W. — Geschichte cler Schrifterklarung seit der Wiederherstel-
lung der Wissenschaften. Gottingen, 1802-9. 5 vols. 8vo.
MEYER, LEWIS. — Philosopbia Scripturae Interpres. Eleutheropolis, 1666.
4to. Edited, with preface and various notes, by J. S. Semler. Halle,
1776. 8vo.
MOEGELIN, W. — Die allegorische Bibelauslegung, besonders in der Predigt,
historisch und didactisch betrachtet. Nurnberg, 1844. 8vo.
MONSPERGER, J. J. — Institutions Hermeneuticae sacrae Veteris Testament!
praelectionibus academicis accommodatae. Pars i, Vindobonae, 1776.
8vo. Pars ii, 1777. 8vo. Second edition, 1784.
MORUS, S. F. N. — Super Hermeneutica Novi Testamenti Acroases Acade-
rnicae. Edited, with additions, by Eichstadt. Vol. i, Lips., 1797;
vol. ii, 1802. 8vo.
Consists substantially of lectures on Ernesti's Institutes.
MUENSCHER, JOSEPH. — On Types and the Typical Interpretation of Scrip
ture. Article in the American Biblical Repository for Jan., 1841.
Manual of Biblical Interpretation. Gambier, Ohio, 1865. 16mo.
NEUBAUER, E. F. See RAMBACH.
NEVIN, J. W. — Sacred Hermeneutics. Article in the Mercersburg Review,
for 1878, pp. 5-38.
NEWMAN, A. H. See IMMER.
NICHOLLS, BENJAMIN ELLIOT. — Introduction to the Study of the Scrip
tures. Published by the American S. S. Union. Phila., 1853. 8vo.
Originally published by the London Christian Knowledge Society under the title
of The Mine Explored.
NOESSELT, J. A. — Exercitationes ad Sacrarum Scriptuarum Interpreta-
tionem. Halle. 4 vols. 8vo.
OLEARIUS, J. — Elementa Hermeneuticae Sacrae cum praxi hermen. in qui-
busdam exemplis. Lips., 1699.
OLSHAUSEN, H. — Em Wort vibertiefern Schriftsinn. Konigsberg, 1824. 8vo.
— Die biblisclie Schrif tauslegung ; noch ein Wort iiber tieferu Schrift
sinn. Sendschreiben an Steudel. Hamburg, 1825. 8vo.
OSTERWALD, J. F. — The Necessity and Usefulness of Reading the Holy
Scriptures; and the Disposition with which they ought to be read.
Translated by J. Moore. London, 1750. 18mo.
OWEN, JOHN. — The Causes, Ways, and Means of understanding the Mind
of God as Revealed in his Word. Works, iii, 369.
PAGNINUS, SANCTES. — Isagoge ad Sacras Literas. Isagoge ad mysticos Sacrae
Scripturae sensus. Lugduni, 1536. Folio.
PAREAU, J. H. — Institutio Interpretis Veteris Testamenti. Trajecti. 1822.
8vo.
— Principles of Interpretation of the Old Testament. Translated from
the original by Patrick Forbes. Edinburgh (Biblical Cabinet), 1835
1840. 2 vols. 12mo.
A very excellent and useful treatise.
480 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HERMENEUTICS.
PAREAU, L. G. — Hermeueutica Coclicis Sacri. Gronigen, 1846. 8vo.
PEIRCE, B. K. — The "Word of God Opened. Its Inspiration, Canon, and
Interpretation considered and illustrated. New York, 1868. 16mo.
PERION, JOACHIM. — Commentarii de optimo genere interpretandi. Paris,
1548.
PFEIFFER, AUGUSTUS. — Hermeneutica Sacra, sive luculenta de legitima In-
terpretatione Sacrarum Literarum Tractatus. Dresden, 1684. 12mo.
Revised and enlarged, with Preface, by S. B. Carpzov (Thesaurus Her-
meueuticus). Lips, and Fraiikf., 1690. 4to.
PFEIFFER, J. E. — Elementa Hermeneuticae Universalis, veterum atque re-
ceutiorum et proprias quasdam praeceptiones complexa. Jena, 1743. 8vo.
Institutiones Hermeneuticae Sacrae, veterum atque recentiorum et
propria quaedam praecepta complexae. Erlangen, 1771. 8vo.
PLANCK, G. J. — Einleitung in die theologischen Wissenschaften. Lpz.,
1795. 2 vols. 8vo.
— Introduction to Sacred Philology and Interpretation. Translated
from the German of G. J. Planck, by S. H. Turner. Edinburgh (Biblical
Cabinet), 1834. 12mo. New York, 1834.
Worthy of repeated perusal.
RAMBACH. JOHN JAMES. — Institutiones Hermeneuticae Sacrae, variis obser-
vationibus copiosissimisque exemplis biblicis illustratae, cum praefa-
tione J. F. Buddei. Jena, 1723. 8vo. Eighth edition, 1764.
Of this work Davidson says : " In the nature and richness of its materials, the
perspicuous method in which they are presented, and the judicious use of an
cient as well as modern literature, it leaves preceding works far behind."
Commentatio Hermeneutica de sensus mystici criteriis ex genuinis
principiis deducta, uecessariisque cautelis cucnrnscripta. Jena, 1728.
8vo. Second edition, 1741.
Erlauteruug viber seine eigne Institutiones Hermeneuticae Sacrae,
darin nicht nur dieses ganze Werk erklart, imgleichen manches von ihm
geiindert und verbessert, sondern auch neue hermeneutische Regeln
und Anmerkungen hinzugethan, alles aber mit mehr als 1000 erklarten
Oertern der Schrift erlautert worden; mit einer Vorrede von der Yor-
trefflichkeit der rambachischen Hermeneutik, in zwei Theilen ans Licht
gestellt von E. F. Neubauer. Giessen, 1738. 4to. (See also REIERSEN.)
RANOLDER, J. — Ilenneneuticae Biblicae generalis Principia rationalia Chris
tiana et Catholica. Lips., 1839. 8vo.
RAETZE, J. G. — Die hochsten Prinzipien der Schrifterklaruug. Lpz., 1814.
8vo.
RECKENBERGER, J. L. — Tractatus de studio Sacrae Ilermeneuticae, in quo
de ejus natura et indole, absolute in omnibus Theologiae partibus neces
sitate, impedimentis ac mediis agitur. Jena, 1732. 8vo.
Chiefly based on Rambach.
REICHEL, V. — Introductio in Hermeneuticam Biblicam. Vienna, 1839. 8vo.
RKIERSEN, ANDREAS. — Hermeneutica Sacra per Tabulas, sea Tabulae syn-
opticae in Institutioues Hermeneuticae Sacrae earumqae liiustrationeni
seu Eiiauterung J. J. Rambachii. Lips., 1741. 8vo.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HEKMENEUTICS. 48J
KEITMAYER, FRANZ XAVER. — Lehrbuch der bibliscben Hermeneutik, her-
ausgegebeu von Thalhofer. Kempten, 1874. 8vo.
RIVET, ANDREW. — Isagoge, seu Introductio generalis ad Scripturam Sa-
cram Veteris et Novi Testament!. Ludg. Batav., 1627. 4to.
Chapters xiv to xxiv of this work are devoted to Hermeneutics.
ROSENMUELLER, J. G. — Historia Interpretationis Librorum Sacrorum in Ec-
clesia Christiana, ab Apostolorum aetate ad literarum instaurationem.
Hildburg, 1795-1814. 5 vols. 12mo.
An excellent review of patristic and mediaeval interpretation.
ROSENMUELLER, E. F. K. — Handbuch fur die Literatur der biblischen Kritik
und Exegese. Gottingen, 1797-1800. 4 vols.
SALMERON, ALPHONSO. — De Scripturae sensu literali et spiritual!, etc.
Opera, vol. i, pp. 69-369. Coloniae, 1612. Folio.
SALMOND, C. D. F. — Article Hermeneutics in the new edition of the En
cyclopaedia Britannica.
SANDBICHLBR, A. — Darstellung der Regeln einer allgemeinen Auslegungs-
kunst von den Biichern des neuen und alten Bundes, nach Jahn. Salz
burg, 1813. 8vo.
SAWYER, LEICESTER A. — The Elements of Biblical Interpretation, or an
Exposition of the Laws by which the Scriptures are capable of being cor
rectly interpreted, together with an Analysis of the Rationalistic and Mys
tic Modes of interpreting them, adapted to common Use, and designed as
an Auxiliary to the Critical Study of the Bible. New Haven, 1836. 12mo.
SCHAEFER, J. N. — Ichnographia Hermeneuticae Sacrae. Maintz, 1784. 8vo,
SCHLEIERMACHER, F. — Hermeneutik und Kritik mit besonderer Riicksicht
auf das neue Testament. Berlin, 1838. 8vo. (Vol. vii of his Theological
Works.)
Masterly in many of its statements, but tinged with speculative philosophy.
SCHMIDT, W. — Article Hermeneutik in new edition of Herzog's Real-Ency-
klopadie. Lpz., 1880. Comp. LANDERER.
SCHMITTER, A. — Grundlinien der biblischen Hermeneutik. Regensb., 1844.
8vo.
SCHULER, P. H. — Geschichte der popularen Schrifterklarung unter den
Christen. Tubingen, 1787. 8vo.
SCOTT, J. — Principles of New Testament Quotation established and applied
to Biblical Science. Edinburgh, 1875. 12mo.
SEEMILLER, SEBASTIAN. — Institutiones ad Interpretationem Sacrae Scrip
turae, seu Hermeneutica Sacra. Augsburg, 1779. 8vo.
SKILEU, G. F. — Biblische Hermeneutik ; oder Grundsatze und Regeln
zur Erlauterung der heiligen Schrift des alten und neuen Testaments.
Erlangen, 1800. 8vo.
Biblical Hermeneutics, or the Art of Scripture Interpretation.
From the German of George Frederic Seller, with Notes, Strictures, and
Supplements from the Dutch of J. Heringa. Translated from the origi
nals, with additional notes and observations, by William Wright. Lon
don, 1835. 8vo.
Slightly rationalistic, but on the whole a very comprehensive and useful work.
482 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HEBMENEUTICS.
SEMLER, J. S. — Vorbereitung zur theologischen Hermeneutik. Halle,
1760-69. 4 vols. 8vo.
Institutio brevior ad liberalem cruditionem theologicam. Halle,
1765. 8vo. See MEYER, LEWIS.
Apparatus ad liberalem Novi Testament! Interpretationem. Halle,
1767. 8vo.
Apparatus ad liberalem Veteris Testament! Interpretationem. Halle,
1773. 8vo.
Neuer Versuch, die gemeinnutzige Auslegung und Anwendung des
neuen Testaments zu befordern. Halle, 1786. 8vo.
All Semler's works are rich in suggestion, but replete with rationalistic errors,
and have exerted a pernicious influence on German exegesis.
SET-WIN, J. B. — Hermeneuticae Biblicae Institutions theoretico-practicae
secundum philologiae regulam ad analogiam fidei Ecclesiae Romanae
Catholicae in compendium collatae. Vienna, 1872. 8vo.
SIMON, R. — Histoire Critique du Vieux Testament. Amst., new edition,
1685. 4to.
A Critical History of the Old Testament. London, 1882. 4to.
English translation of the preceding.
Histoire Critique des principaux Commentateurs du Nouveau
Testament. Rotterdam, 1693.
'SioNNET. See JANSSENS.
SIXT, G. A. — De Interpretatione universa ab Ernestio observata notulis
aucta. 1785.
SIXTUS SENENSIS. — Ars interpretandi Scripturas Sacras absolutissima.
Forms the third book of his Bibliotheca Sancta. Venice, 1566. Folio.
Often reprinted.
SMITH, JOHN PYE. — Principles of Interpretation as applied to the Prophe
cies of Holy Scripture. London, 1829. Second edition, 1831.
STARK, "W. — Beitrage zur Vervollkommung der Hermeneutik, insbesondere
des Neuen Testament. Two Parts, Jena, 1817-18.
STACDLIX, K. F. — De Interpretatione librorum Novi Testament! historica
non unice vera. Gottingen, 1807.
STEGMANN. See DOEDES.
STEIN, K. W. — Ueber den Begriff und den obersten Grundsatz der historis-
chen Interpretation des neuen Testament. Lpz., 1815. 8vo.
An able and suggestive treatise.
'STEIXER. See GRIESBACH.
STIER, R. — Andeutungen fur glaubiges Schriftverstandniss im Gancen
und Einzelnen. Konigsberg, 1824. 8vo.
STORE, G. C. — Opuscula Academica ad Interpretationem Librorum Sacrorum
pertinentia. Tubingen, 1796. 8vo.
Essay on the Historical Sense of the New Testament. Translated
by J. "W. Gibbs. Boston, 1817. 12mo.
STOWE, C. E. — The Right Interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. The
Helps and the Hindrances. Bibliotheca Sacra, 1853, pp. 34-62.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HERMENEUTICS. 483
STUART, MOSES. — Hints on the Interpretation of Prophecy. Andover, 1842.
12mo.
Dissertations on the Importance and best Method of Studying the
original Languages of the Bible, by Jahn and others. Translated from
the originals, and accompanied with notes. Andover, 1827. 8vo.
These, like all of Professor Stuart's writings, are very worthy of careful perusal.
On the Alleged Obscurity of Prophecy. Article in the American
Biblical Repository for April, 1832.
Translation of Hahn, On the Grammatico-Historical Interpretation
of the Scriptures, with additional essay on the same subject, in American
Biblical Repository for January, 1831.
-Are the same Principles of Interpretation to be applied to the Scrip
ture as to other books. American Biblical Repository for January, 1832.
See also ERNESTI.
SURENHTJSIUS, W. — fREW! 1SD, sive B«/3Aof Kara/Ua}%, in quo secundum
Veterum Theologicorum Hebraeorum formulas allegandi, et modus inter-
pretandi conciliantur loca ex V. in N. T. allegata. Amst., 1713. 4to.
Unsurpassed in the field it occupies.
TELLER. See TURRETIN.
TERROT. See ERNESTI.
THOLUCK, AUGUSTUS. — Beitrage zur Spracherklarung des neuen Testaments.
Halle, 1832. 8vo.
Hints on the Interpretation of the Old Testament. Translated by
R. B. Patton (vol. ii of Edinburgh Biblical Cabinet). Edinb, 1833. 16mo.
On the Use of the Old Testament in the New, and especially in the
Epistle to the Hebrews. Translated by J. E. Ryland. (Vol. xxxix of
the Biblical Cabinet). Edinburgh, 1842. 16mo. See AIKEN.
Hermeneutics of the Apostle Paul, with special reference to Gal.
Hi, 16. (Vol. xxxix Biblical Cabinet).
These last two are Dissertations at the end of Tholuck's Commentary on the
Epistle to the Hebrews, and all the above are worthy of careful study.
TOELLNEB, J. G. — Grundriss einer erwieaenen Hermeneutik der heiligen
Schrift. Zullichau, 1765. 8vo.
Philosophical, learned, and excellent for its day.
TURNER, S. H. — Thoughts on the Origin, Character, and Interpretation of
Scriptural Prophecy. New York, 1851. 12mo. See also PLANCK.
TURRETIN, J. A. — De Sacrae Scripturae interpretandae methodo Tractatus
bipartitus, in quo falsae multorum interpretum hypotheses refelluntur,
veraque interpretandae sacrae Scripturae methodus adstruitur. Dort,
1728. 8vo. Revised and enlarged by G. A. Teller. Frankfort, 1776. 8vo.
TURPIE, DAVID McC.— The Old Testament in the New. A Contribution
to Biblical Criticism and Interpretation. London, 1868. 8vo.
UNGER, A. F. — Populare Hermeneutik, oder Anleitung die Schrift auszu-
legen fur Lehrer des Volkes in Schulen und Kirchen. Lpz., 1845. 8vo.
UNTERKIRCHER, C. — Hermeneutica Biblica generalis. GSniponti, 1834. 8vo.
Arigler's work of the same title adapted to the use of Romanists in Austria.
484 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HERMENEUTICS.
VAIL, STEPHEN M. — Hermeneutics and Homiletics ; or, The Study of the
Original Scriptures and Preaching. Articles in Methodist Quarterly Re
view for 1866, pp. 37-50 and 371-386.
VAN MILDERT, WILLIAM. — An Inquiry into the General Principles of Scrip
ture Interpretation, in eight sermons, preached before the University of
Oxford in the year 1814. (Barnpton Lectures). Oxford, 1814. 8vo.
Third edition, 1831.
VOLCK, W. — Section on Biblical Hermeneutics in Zockler's Handbuch der
theologischen Wissenschaften. Nordlingen, 1883. See HOFMANN.
WEMYSS, THOMAS. — A Key to the Symbolical Language of Scripture, by
which numerous Passages are explained and illustrated. Edinb., 1835.
16mo.
WETTSTEIN, J. J. — Libelli ad Crisin atque Interpretationeui Novi Testa-
menti. Halle, 1766. 12mo.
WHITAKEB, WILLIAM. — On the Interpretation of Scripture. Cambridge,
1849.
Part of a disputation on Holy Scripture against the papists, especially Bellarmine
and Stapleton.
WHITTAKER, JOHN WILLIAM. — An Historical and Critical Enquiry into the
Interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures. London, 1819. 8vo.
WHITBY, DANIEL. — Dissertatio de Sacrarum Scripturarum Interpretatione
secundum Pat-rum Commentarios. Lond., 1714. 8vo.
WILKE, CHRISTIAN G. — Die Hermeneutik des neuen Testamentes systemat-
isch dargestellt. Lpz., 1843. 8vo.
Biblische Hermeneutik nach katholischen Grundsatzen in streng
systematischen Zusammenhange und unter Berucksichtigung der neu-
esten approbirten hermeneutischen Lehrbiicher. Wiirzburg, 1853. 8vo.
WILSON, J. — The Scripture's genuine Interpreter asserted ; or, a Discourse
concerning the right Interpretation of Scripture. Lond., 1678. 8vo.
WIXTHROP, EDWARD. — The Premium Essay on the Characteristics and
Laws of Prophetic Symbols. Second edition. New York, 1854. 12mo.
WOLLIUS, C. — Hermeneutica Novi Foederis acroamatico-dogmatica certis-
simis defecatae philosophiae principiis corroborate eximiisque omnium
Theologiae Christianae partium usibus inserviens. Lips., 1736. 4to.
Appendix to Blackwall's Auctores Sacri classici defensi et illustrati.
WORDSWORTH, C. — On the Interpretation of Scripture. An essay in Re
plies to Essays and Reviews. London, 1862. 8vo.
WRIGHT. See SEILER.
WYTTENBACH, DANIEL. — Elementa Hermeneuticae Sacrae, eo quo in scien-
tiis fieri debet, modo proposita. Marburg, 1760. 8vo.
ZACHARIAE, G. T. — Einleitung in die Auslegungskunst der heiligen Schrift.
Gottingen, 1778. 8vo.
ZENKEL, G. P. — Elementa Hermeueuticae Sacrae, methodo natural! con-
cinnata. Jena, 1752. 8vo.
SUPPLEMENT TO BIBLIOGEAPHY.
AUGUSTINE, AURELIUS. — De Doctrina Christiana. Libri Quattuor.
Printed in all complete editions of Augustine's works. In Migne's Latin Patrol-
ogy, vol. xxxiv, 11-122. Contains a number of valuable hermeneutical rules,
which the distinguished author did not himself always observe in his own ex
positions. In Book III. he makes use of the seven rules of Tichonius.
BRIGGS, CHARLES AUGUSTUS. — Biblical Study: its Principles, Methods, and
History, together with a catalogue of Books of Keference. New York,
1883. 8vo.
Chapter x, covering pp. 296-366, contains an admirable dissertation on " The
Interpretation of Scripture."
BURGON, JOHN W. — Inspiration and Interpretation, London, 1861. 8vo.
BURNHAM, S. — Manual of Old Testament Interpretation. For the use of
Classes in Hamilton Theological Seminary. Hamilton, N. Y. 8vo.
FARRAR, FREDERIC W. — History of Interpretation. Bampton Lectures of
1885.
A most valuable contribution to the history of biblical interpretation.
HARTMANN, A. T. — Die enge Verbindung des Alten Testaments mit dem
Neuen aus rein biblischen Standpunkte entwickelt. Hamburg, 1831. 8vo.
HERGKNROTHER, P. — Die antiochenische Schule und ihre Bedeutung auf
exegetischem Gebiete. Wiirzburg, 1866. 8vo.
HIERONYMUS, SOPHRONIUS EusEBius (commonly called JEROME.) — De Op
timo Genere Interpretandi. In Epistola Ivii, ad Pammachium.
Found in all editions of Jerome's works.
KIHN, HEINRICH. — Die Bedeutung der antiochenischen Schule auf dem ex-
egetischen Gebiete. Nebst einer Abhandlung iiber die altesten christ-
lichen Schulen. Eine gekronte Preisschrift. Weissenburg, 1880. 8vo.
Theodor von Mopsuestia und Junilius Africanus als Exegeten.
Nebst einer kritischen Textausgabe von des letzteren Instituta regularia
divinae legis. Freiburg, 1880. 8vo.
KUENEN, ABRAHAM. — Criticae et Hermeneuticse Librorum Novi Fosderis
Lineamenta in Auditorum Usum. Lugduni Batavorum, 1856. 8vo.
LENGERKE, CAESAR. — De Ephremi Syri Arte Hermeneutica Liber. Regio-
monti Pruss., 1831. 8vo.
486 SUPPLEMENT TO BIBLIOGRAPHY.
MERX, ADALBERT. — Die Prophetie des Joel und ihre Ausleger, von des
altesten Zeiten bis zu den Reformatoren. Eine exegetische-kritische und
hermeneutisch-dogmengeschichtliche Studie. Halle, 1879. 8vo.
Pages 110-441 are devoted to a learned history of the exposition of the proph
ecy of Joel.
SEYFFARTII, G. — Ueber die Begriff, die Umfang und die Anordnung der
Hermeneutik des Neuen Testament. Lpz., 1824. 8vo.
SIEFFERT, F. L. — Theodorus Mopsuentenus Veteris Testament! sobrie Inter-
pretandi Vindex. Regensburg, 1827. 8vo.
SPECHT, F. A. — Der Exegetische Standpunkt des Theodor von Mopsuestia
und Theodoret von Kyros in der Auslegung Messianischer Weissagungen
aus ihren Commentaren zu den kleinen Propheten dargestellt. Miinchen,
1871. 8vo.
TiCHONius, AFER. — Liber de Septem Regulis.
Found in most editions of the Fathers. In Migne's Latin Patrology, vol. xviii,
15-66. Of little intrinsic worth, but notable as being perhaps the first formal
enunciation of hermeneutical rules.
VOGL, F. — Dieheiligen Schriften und ihre Interpretation durch die heiligen
Va'ter der Kirche dargestellt. Augsburg, 1836. 8vo.
WERENFELS, SAMUEL. — Lectiones Hermeaeuticae.
In his Opuscula, Basel, 1782.
WEIDNER, REVERE FRANKLIN. — Theological Encyclopedia. Part I, Exe-
getical Theology. Philadelphia, 1885. 8vo.
Section xlviii, pp. 123-156, consists of a condensed outline of the work of Cel-
lerier, as translated by Elliott and Marsha.
INDEX OF HEBREW WORDS.
To facilitate reference the upper and lower portions of each page are designated by the letters
a and b. Thus 95a denotes the upper half of page 95, and 95b the lower half. The letter n fol
lowing the number of a page indicates that the word is to be found in a footnote. The asterisk
<*) designates pages on which the word receives some comment or explanation.
3X 76a.
n?1 217b.
DV 85a, 296b, 297a.
D1X 265b.
m 174b.
pi 348b.
^,1X 269b, 270a.
nm i54b.
pi 219n.
PX 93ab,* 94b.
iyi 270a.
•flX 90n.
,T,1 154b, 308n, 342a,
IS* 437a.
DIX 249b.
437a.
nV 90n.
-irtX 265b, 342a.
fs3M 269b.
Ipi 90n.
flinX 144a.
njn 155a.
3{»>i 280b.*
'X 154b.
Jin 91a.*
^>X1K^ 174a.
f)X 265b.
O^X 293a, 457a.
H3T 92a*
1133 241b.*
Vy^X 58b.*
TDT 87b,* 88a,
13 283b.
P»X 265b.
niT 264a.
p 342a.
B>JX 84b,* 85a.
t]i3 124b.
pnX SOla,
mn 240b.*
133 75b,* 76a,* 264n,
•pX 415a.
HTn 309n, 314n, 321b.
268a.
QK>X 95ab.*
prn sioa.
Q11S3 76a.
XDn 92b,* 93a.
niD3 76a,* 272a,*
2 175n, 304n.
riXOn 93a.
013 90a.
in3 87a.
inn 336n.
X13 379n, 380n.
nTn 154b,180a,*182b,
x!? 154b.
P3 302a.
186a, 238b.
HJ3^ 277n.
JV3 269b.
,Tn 272b.
tsn^ 90n.
133 41 On.
n»3n 44 la.
XV6 154b.
p 76a.
mon 379n, 380n.
iy3 90n.
C]3n 155a.
IjniD 270a.
X13 109b, 437a.
yn 85a.
riDIO 342a.
113 265b.
ipn 241b.*
HID 90b,* 91a, 161a.«
nViri3 332a.
mn 90n.
Xn$>3D 34n.
t»nn i54b.
n^fe 180a, 238b.
113 165a, 380n.
-]fo 154b.
1EJ 283a.*
n3D 92a.*
iinJO 154b.
{JHi 95a.
i^tD lOOb.
n^DO 77a.
mono 2i7b.
^yO 94a.*
•"631 283a.
XVO 92b, 154b.
131 310a, 324b.
JH1 331n.
ntrmo i7sb.
p$>1 90n.
mn' 269b.
mtriD 394n.
488
INDEX OF HEBREW WORDS.
n'tTD 307b.
^y 155a.
Nip 34a.
py» 269b,*270a,*271a,
nplSy 241b.*
aip 154b.
881b.
iic6y 332a.*
IBP'D 199n.
Dy 155a.
HN1 309n, 314a.
lay 76b.*
nai 334n.
S^D I77b, 286a, 188b,
Soy 94b.*
nil 265n.
238b, 239a.
m»y i54b.
pni 219a.
py i7ib.
B>H1 175b.*
j>KJ 219n.»
N33 314n.
may 264n.
avy 87b.
JOJpn 87a.
yi 93b.*
jraj 144a,313b,314an.*
navy 87b.*
nyi 93b, 295a.
HDJ 35 la.
Ipy 87b*
yyi 93b.
y33 314n.
Saiy 272a.
HV1 91b.*
pj 219n.
nK>y llOa,* 437a.
y{»r) 94b,* 95a.*
iniJ 330n.
-V>t«» OOlo
|^[/ Ai/XCU
NatJ' 154b.
,iaj 90b.
ny 87b
yiat^ 296ab.*
yaj 268a.
Nit^ 95a.
1VJ 335n.
Wja 121b.
JJ^> 95a.
J11J 181b, 367a.
Hia 259a.
HJ^ 95a.*
1NDO 330n.
HQ^Sa 330n.
aiK' 154b.
noyj 437a.
yia 174a * 175a.*
"*
11K> 87b.
pyj 9 On.
nyia i74a.
yt>>a 94b,* 95a.*
an^ 92ab.*
&OD 154b.
nna 259a.
na^ ieib.*
DTD 154b.
Sa^> 88a.*
1>D 259a.
HIV 155a.
pj}> 270b.
SSo 77a.
11V 160b.
latJ* 154b.
DSD 77a.*
N^V 87a.
n?^ 155a.
ySo 160b.
ilpIV 199n.
DD£> 281a
iaD 394n.
nSv 88a.
1OCJ» 272b.
niOV 33 la, 334n.
iJK> 301a.
3y I7lb.
npyV 199n.
Ipy 258a.*
13y 94b.*
t3py 95a.
may issa.
nip 90n.
yy 302a.
nSjy i54b.
Snp 74b.*
tjiy 90n.
nny 270a, SSla.
Dip 21 8b.
11 J> lOOb.
nOlp 415a,
inn 87a.
my 9 3 a.
St3p 90a*b, 91a.
nnSin io9b,*487a
$iy 93ab.*
1J3p 90n.
nySin sola.
Siy ioob.
pp 259b.
nSan soia.
}iy 93ab.*
XJp 272a.
HJIOn 304a.
liy 218b.
IDp 181b, 367a.
San 220a.*
Tl3y 285n.*
Yp 259b.
yiyin i54b.
INDEX OF GREEK WORDS.
j, 98ab,* 99a.»
dyaTD?, 174n.
aywf, 75a, 276a.
dyop£t>«, 214b.
dCv^of, 226a.
aina. 272b.
alfiareK^vffta, 269ft.
alvt-yna, 182b, 183a.*
aipw, 206a.
ciwv, 298b, 423a.
aiwvwf, 82a, 98a, 461b.
dAaf, 84a.
dAAd, 394b.
>EU, I77b, 232a.
3t'a, 60n.
f, 214b.
aAAdrp/of, 272b.
d/JMpru^.6^ 894b.
dva^oy/a, 449n.
f, 894b.
irof, 87a.
f, 109b.
6, 164a.
>w, 197a.
dpa, 206b.
dpw'a, 99b.*
dprwf, 79b.*
aaEJ3r/f, 394b.
d<70d/.«a, 434b.
pdTTTiafta, 176b.
/3dpof, 8 2 a.
fiaai/ievu, 273b.
/3tdCw, 113b*-116b.*
fiiaarfc, 114b, 115a.
/3//3/lof, 394n.
/3/of, 97 ab.*
/3/f^-w, 183a.
J, 99b,* lOOa.*
1/uof, 203a.
ip, 30n, 136a, 207b 394b.
2, 210n.
wf, 310b.
apytov, 22 la.
, 338n, 369a.
', 99a.*
', 34b.
, 398a.
203a.
Sijvapiov, 205b.
dtd, 137bn.
371n.
t'Cw, 310a.
of, 28a.
:, 276n.
T, 394b.
•, 254a.
6iuKu, 23 Ib.
JO/CEW, 19 In.
82a.
', 210n,
fyyif, 139a.
Idpaiu/ndj 126a.
E^E^o'&pTjaiceia, 78b.*
E)?£Aw, 78b.
£iy£, 81b.
£i<5of, 183a.
Etdcj 99a ^
elfjiil 77b, 206b, 232a, 411n.
eiprjveiHJ, 78b.
eip^vj?, 78b.
/cdf, 78b.
5f, 78b.*
Eif, 184b, 210n, 4l7b, 419a.
etcrodof, 381b.
EK, 74a, 210b, 419a.
E/c/3dAAw, 229a.
E/cJe^o/uai, 162b.
:of, 417b.
, 276n.
t'a, 74ab.*
of, 82a.
df, 452a.
•of, 452a.
, 392n.
EV, 174n, 273b, 276a, 356n.
-, 74b.
f, 462b.
7, 96b.
evuTtiov, 394b.
E^dyw, 229a.
ercaiveu, 2lOa.
ETravdpi^oxTif, 452a.
lirEifj.1, 77b.
ETU, 77b.
, 82a.
, 30b.
-, 77b.*
io/i£w, 222a.
', 276a.
', 419a.
', 17n.
vu, 17n.
:, 229b, 230a.
f^u, 19 In, 196b.
v, 197n.
rfi, 97ab,* 98an, 273U.
ty, 184n.
[Act, 41 In.
, 97b, 98a, 176a.
•, 125b.
iu, 174n.
<5f, 137b, 226b, 458bn.
wp/a, 60n.
ftr/aavpof, 207a.
', 82a.
<«, 78b.
, 230a.
•, 228b.
, 229a, 272b.
', 23n.
', 23n.
inavdu, 23n.
1/laor^p^of, 272ab.*
Iva, 184a, 191n, 395b,
396a*bn, 397ab,* 398ab,*
399b.
'Ioi)(5aiiff/U(}f, 34b.
'Iuaq<p, 41 In.
xatvdf, 96ab,* 97a, 310n.
KCLlVOT7f£y .' ( !l,
/ca^pdf, 87b, 364a.
£w, 74ab.
-, 394b.
/card, 82b, 449n.
;, 382a.
7, 394n.
>, 874a.
EW, 23 la.
', 191n.
;, 225b.
/CEVW//O, 87a.
:, 75n.
IXTO-U, 75n.
•, 88a.
', 74b.
490
IXDEX OF GREEK WORDS.
jc/j/rcJf, 74b, 75a.
oi>pav<5f, 207a.
ay/nepov, 77b.
npivu, 107a.
oiffto, 77b.
CTKavdaPuCw, 116b.
Kpw7df, 80a.
6^/lof, 74n.
CT/ciywf, Slab.
Kpi'TTTu, 107a.
ffdf, 206a.
^//a, 206b.
Trads'ia, 452a,
CTTrdpof, 197b.
Krpiof, 394b.
7rd/l^, 226b.
crityavoc, 3 7 In.
rraJavysveaia, 379n.
CTOixEiov, 8 la.*
/.aAfu, 85b.*
navoirMa, 226b.
G~pe(j>ut 164a.
/.arcjvof, 367a.
irapaftaivu, 94b.
<T7po0^, 188a.
?.07WJ>, 190a.
7rapa/3d/./.w, 188b.*
(jrt'Aof, 125b.»
>.dyof, 137b, 458b.
Trapa/Jo/,^, 177b.
(jvy^-fw, 74n.
/.wr£w, 99a.
TrapavTiKa, 82a.
aw, 162b.
/.iwf, 183a.
7rdp«/zi, 370a.
(Ti^avfdvw, 78b.
vapoi/Ltia, 177b, 227b, 239a.
(Twe^u, 106b.*
fia$r)Trj£, 209b.
Trapp^u/a, 23 la.
awi^d7r7w, 176a.
[idKapioc;, 124a.
Trdf, 229a, 276n, 358n.
awTrviyu, 197a.
jUfyaf, 369n.
TTS-pa, 123b,125a,127a,222a.
avffToixeu, 232a.
/zfAAw, 298b.
Trerpo?, 123b, 124a, 222a.
cruCw, 394b.
/zerd, 160b.
TT/VU, 7 8 a.
aufta, 464b.
/uf7a<pfpw, I70b.
TrimaKu, 78a.
aufjtariK6^t 60b.
,tz/a$df, 205b.
7TiCT7i/cdf, 77b,* 78a.*
/zda/f, 394b.
TTiVriC, 183a, 449n.
7at>pof, 87b.
/zov?, 271a.
7r<cr7<5c, 78a.
rd^o?, 139a, 356n.
fj.ovoy£V7]fy 458n.
TrA^pdw, 395b,396ab,398ab,*
T#.«of, 79b.*
/zdvof, 394b.
399b.
7£paf, 287a.
/zupov, 78a.
TrP-^/p^ua, 75b, 298b.
T£XVT1, 19n.
(iva-r/piov, 312n.
TTVEi'^a, 80a,* 82b.
rt, 206b.
irvevfiaTirfe, 60b.
r(i?^i, 107a, 125b.
vdpdof, 77b.
TTV£VUaTlKG)C 139a
TO//)?, 87b.
rfof, 96ab,* 97a.
TTotcu, 78b, 163n, 210a.
rpoTro^opsw, 78b.
VEOTK, 97a.
•KOLfialvu, 99b,* lOOa.*
rim/cwf, 24 7n.
VEVpOKOKCU, 87b.
TTOLHT/V, 228n.
rvTrof, 24 6n.
V^TTWf, 79b.
7T(J?./f, 369n.
vo/z/Cw, 41 In.
TroP.P.aTr/ao'iwv, 207n.
wdf, 210n, 41 In, 458iu
vo/u.iK6f, 32b.
Tro/.iii/epwf, 19a.
I'Trdyw, 206a.
vd/uof, 419a.
TroAi.f, 136a, 206b, 253b.
t'Trdpjw, 210a.
rd<TOf, 84b.
rro/.t'fTTr/l.ay^vof, 78b.
v7T-spf3o/.Tf, 309a.
vovdeaia, 166a.
7ro?iV7pd7rwf, 19a.
vTrovoia, 402a.
vot'f, 31 la.
Tropei'w, 206a.
v7roTV7TCt)(jt£. 246n.
TTOII, 394b.
o<5<5f, 306b.
Trpd, 136a, 223b, 230a
0ai'vw, 394b.
o^da, 99ab.*
7rpopa7/ov. 99b.
0av£pdf, 80a.
oiKTjTT/piov, 8 la.
Trpofiarov, 99b.*
(piaArj, 368a.
oi/aa, 8 la.
Trpdd^Aof, 412a.
^Afw, 98ab,* 99a.*
o'tKo6o/j.7], 8 la', 221a.
7rpovo£w, 394b.
<t>pov£u, 82b.
o/.oc, 396b.
Trpdf, 209b, 458b.
itppovi/Mjf, 210a, 212a.
otzo^dw, 168a.
Trpocrep^ozzaf, 381a.
0vA^, 358n.
6/zo/w/za, 176a,
TTpdcTfjTrov. 163n.
0wf, 98a.
bvofj.a, 160b.
7T7/c7(Tu, 78a.
oTTWf, 396an.
~cif, 80b.
Xdpic, H7a, 190a.
opdw, 136a.
xdpiofia, 31 Ob, 449n.
op>-^, 417b, 418a.
p/Ca, 196b.
jpdvof, 136a.
«pof, 106b.
pi^dw, 174n.
o<TOf, 30a.
TpevSuwfiof) 34b.
oi, 394b.
ffdpf, 82b, 213b, 464b.
^n'^//cdf, 60b.
ovc5f, 136a.
OTJUMLVU^ 1 8 6 a.
oi'dtif, 87a.
CTjfiElov, 249b, 287a.
if, 41 In.
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE TEXTS.
Genesis.
Genesis.
Genesis.
I, 109b, HOa.
XII, 3. 316b, 327b.
XXXIII, 1. 155a.
" l-II, 3. 109b,437a.*
XIII, 14. 306a.
XXXIV, 26. 91a.
" 2. 87a*
XIV, 14. 58b.
XXXV, 16-18. 402b.
" 5. 292b.
" 18-20. 252a.
18. 403a.
H, 1-3. 109b.
XV, 6. 248b.
XXXVI, 1. llOb.
" 2. 290a.
" 13. 295b.
XXXVII, 2. llOb.
" 3. 290a.
XVI, 7. 458a.
" 5-11. 305a,
' 4.109b,*110a,437a.*
" 10. 45 8a.
307a.*
' 5. HOa, 437a.
" 13. 458a.
XL, 5-19. 305a.
1 6. 437a.
XVII, 2-8. 316b.
XLI, 1-32. 305a.
' 7. 437a.
" 6. 327b.
" 19. 93b.
1 10-14. 59b.
" 12. 290b.
" 25. 307a.
' 19. 180a.*
" 19. 231b.
" 32. 307a, 324b,*
" 23. 437a.
XVIII, 2. 269a.
351a, 368a.
Ill, 15. 320b,* 327b,
" 10-14. 231b.
" 51. 402b.
385a, 442a.
" 18. 316b, 327b.
" 52. 402b.
" 22. 155b.
XIX, 24. 457b.*
XLII, 38. 161b.
" 24. 257b,272b,339b.*
XX, 3-7. 305a.
XLIII, 16. 92a.
IV, 8. 9 la.
XXI, 9. 231b.
XLV, 21. 161a.
" 23, 182a.*
" 10. 232a.
XLVI, 390a, 405a,
" 24. 182a.*
XXII, 10. 92b.
406ab,* 408a.
" 25. HOa.
" 11. 458a.
" 3. 408a.
" 26. HOa.
" 12. 458a.
" 4. 408a.
V, 1. llOb, 437b.
" 15. 458a.
" 12. 409an.*
VI, 2. 473b.
" 16. 458a.
" 17. 409a.»
" 5. 94a.
" 18. 327b, 461a.
" 21. 409b,*
" 9. llOb, 437b.
XXV, 12. 11 Ob.
410an.*
" 14. 75b.
" 19. llOb.
" 26. 409n.
VII, 4. 293a, 295b.
XXVII, 41. 91a.
" 27. 273b,409a.*
" 12. 293a.
XXVIII, 10-22. 305b*
XLIX, 321b,* 406n.
" 17. 293a.
306ab.*
" 1. 423a.
VIII, 21. 94a
" 12. 77a, 305a.
" 6. 87b,* 91b.
IX, 6. 418a.*
XXIX, 1. 155a.
" 8-12. 153ab.*
" 8-17. 301a.
" 11. 155a.
" 9. 170b, 215n.
" 9. 437b. '
" 13. 155a.
" 10. 162b,*327b.
" 13. 244b.
32 - XXX. 24.
" 14. 17 lb.»
44 16. 244b.
406n.
" 21. 172a.*
" 19. 289a.
XXX, 1. 402b.
" 22-26. 153b,
" 26. 3l6b.
" 24. 402b.
154a.«
" 27. 161a,316b,437b.
XXXI, 145a.
" 27. 17 2a*
X, 410a, 437b.
7. 291a.
" 1. llOb.
" 24. 305a.
• Exodus.
XI, 31 In.
" 26-30. 145ab.*
I-XI, Ilia.
" 2. 265a.
" 36-42. 146a.*
"-XVIII, llOb.
" 10-26. llOb, 390a,
" 41. 29a.
" 1. 409n.
437b.
" 54. 92a.
" 1-6. 406n.
" 27. llOb.
XXXII, 20. 75b*
" 5. 293b, 409an.«
492
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE TEXTS.
Exodus,
Exodus.
LevlticBs.
I, 16. 365b.
XXVI, 4. 301b.
XIV, 6. 172b, 289a,
II-IV, Ilia.
" 19. 303a.
" 7. I72b, 290b.
Ill, 2. 257b.
" 31.301a,302ab.
" 8. 290b.
" 6. 289a.
" 34. 372a.
" 51. 172b, 290b.
" 12. 333a.
" 36. 302a.
52. 93a.
IV, 16. 314a.
XXVII, 2. 303a.
XV, 13. 290b.
" 22. 399a.
" 10. 303a.
" 24. 290b.
V-XI, Ilia.
XXVIII-XXXI. Ilia.
XVI, 2. 27 2b.
VII, 1. 314a.
" 5. 302a.
" 2-6. 27 5b.
VIII, 29. 92a.
" 6. 302a.
" 11-17. 272a.
X, 1-6. 341a.
" 8. 302a.
" 12. 274b.
" 17. 341n.
" 15. 302a.
" 12-16. 275b.
XII-XIII, 16. Ilia.
" 15-21. 303b.
" 27. 290b.
" -XV, 21. Ilia.
" 21. 291b.
XVII, 11. 76a, 249a,
" 15. 290b.
" 39. 202a.
268ab.*
" 35-20. 225a.
" 31. 301b.
XIX, 10. 439b.
" 21. 161b.*
XXIX, 21. 274b.
" 17. 439b.
" 40. 278a, 293b.*
23. 264n.
" 18. 439b, 451a.
XIII, 7. 225a.
" 36. 93a.
" 19. 280n.
" 15. 91a.
" 42-46. 270ab.*
" 32. 161b.*
" 17-XIV, 31. Ilia.
" 43. 270b, 273b.
XXI, 7-15. 284b.
" 21. 257b, 330n.
276bn.
XXIII, 15. 290b.
XV, 1. 59b.*
" 45. 390b.
24. 290b.
" 1-19. 335b.
XXX, 6. 274a.
" 27. 76a.
" 1-21. Ilia.
" 10. 76a.
" 28. 76a.
" 22-XVII, 7. Ilia.
" 17. 76a.
XXIV, 5. 29 Ib.
" 22-XL. Ilia.
" 20. 172b,274b.
" 5-9. 273b.
XVII, 8-XVIII. Ilia.
" 21. 274b.
" 20. 416a.*
" 19. 161a.*
XXXI, 18. 270a.
XXV, 8. 290b.
XIX-XXIV. Ilia.
XXXII-XXXIV.llla.
" 40. 450b.
" -XL. 11 Ob.
XXXIII, 18. 304b.
" 44. 450b.
" 5. 273b.
XXXIV, 5-7. 439a.
" 45. 450b.
" 6. 273b.
" 26. 269b.
" 54. 450b.
XX, 2. 300a.
" 27. 270a.
XXVI, 12. 390b.
" 5. 272a.
" 28. 291a.
" 26. 291a.
" 8-11. 290a.
XXXV-XL. Ilia.
" 11 289a
" 6. 301a.
Numbers.
" 13. 61b, 91b,*
XXXVIII, 21. 381a.
I, 5-15. 406n.
418a.*
" 23. 291a.
" 20-47. 406n.
XXI, 2. 450b.
XXXIX, 22. 30 Ib.
Ill, 16. 161a.
" 16. 450b.
" 28. 301b.
IV, 6. 301b.
" 23-25. 415b.*
" 31. 301b.
" 7. 301b.
XXII, 1-4. 343b.
XL, 22-27. 273b.
" 8. 302a.
XXIII, 14-17. 297a.
" 11. 301b.
" 19. 269b.
Leviticus.
" 12. 301b.
" 21. 458a.
II, 7. I75b.
" 13. 302a.
" 31. 292a.
IV, 6. 290b.
V, 12. 94a.
XXIV, 1. 293b.
" 13. 95a.
VI, 5. I74a.
" 4. 291b.
" 22. 95b.
" 24-27. 289b, 457a.
" 9. 293b.
" 27. 95b.
" 27. 289b.
'• 28. 293a.
V, 2. 95b.
VII, 87. 291b.
XXV, 303a.
" 3. 95b.
XI, 24. 293b.
" -XXVII. Ilia.
" 4. 95b.
" 29. 342a.
" 4. 301a.
" 17. 95b.
XII, 6. 104a.304a,n.*
" 16. 270a.
" 19. 95b.
" 7. 113b, 304a.*
" 17. 272a.
VI, 26. 93a.
" 8. 183a, 304a.*
41 17-22. 76a.
VII, 9. 175b.
XIII, 1-16. 406n.
" 21. 270a, 272a.
IX, 15. 93a.
" 25. 295a.
" 22. 272b.
XI, 22. 219a.
" 34. 293a.
" 31-40. 260a.
XII, 2. 290b.
XIV, 2-4. 295a.
XXVI, 1. 201a, 302ab.
3. 290b.
" 33. 294a, 295a.
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE TEXTS.
493
IV ambers.
Deuteronomy.
Judges.
XIV, 34. 294a.
XXVIII, 63.
32a.
XII, 7.
163a.»
XV, 27. 95b.
" 64.
32a.
XIV, 8.
180b.
" 37-41. 301b.
" 68.
300a.
" 9.
180b.
XVI, 32. 163b.*
xxix-xxxni.
440a.
44 14.
180b.
XIX, 6. 289b.
XXT, 6.
183b.
" 18.
154b.
" 11. 290b.
XXXII, 22.
156a.*
XVII, 10.
296b.*
" 18. 172b.
35.
4l7a.*
XX, 16.
92b.
" 19. 172b.
39.
91a.
44 32.
77a.
XXI, 4-9. 251ab.*
40.
171b.*
" 14. 391a.
41.
163a.*
Ruth.
XXIII, 7. 177b.
42. 17 lb,*
174b.*
IV, 2.
291a.
" 21. 94b.
51.
94a.
XXIV, 3. 309b.
XXXIII,
406n.
1 Samuel.
44 4. 309b.
XXXIV, 12.
304a.
I, 3.
297a.
' 8. 177b.
" 7.
297a.
14. 423a.
14 8.
291b.
' 17. 65a.
*
" 9.
269b.
17-24. 317a.*
I, 1.
440a.
44 19.
403a.
1 21. 172a.*
II, 9.
292a.
" 20.
403a.
' 24. 317a.
XXVI, 390a, 405b,
406ab,* 409a.
" 40. 409b.*
XXVII, 8-11. 413b.
" 24.
Ill, 7.
IV, 1.
V, 13.
" 13-15.
U 1 A
292a.
440a.
440a.
440b.
103b.*
1 AOK
II, 6.
44 19.
44 36.
Ill, 1.
" 3.
91a.
296ab*
264n.
440b.
269b.
XXXII, 40. 410b.*
XXXIII, 414a.
14.
VI, 1-5.
lOab.
103b.
VI, 18.
VIII, 15.
75b.
92a.
XXXIV, 17-28. 406n.
XXXV, 9-34. 249a.
" 27. 91b.
" 2.
" 13-15. 290b,
VII, 1.
•* 11
292a.
292a.
94a.
( , i '
X, 2-7.
44 3-6.
" 5.
337b.*
315b.
440b.
" 30. 91b.
11.
94 b.
44 9-12.
312a.
" 31-34. 41 8a.
41 15.
44 24-26.
94b.
285n.
41 10-12.
XIII, 1.
238b.
405a.*
Deuteronomy.
X, 13.
, , .) j*
391a.
(JIL!
XV, 23.
93b.
IV, 13. 270a, 291a.
V, 17. 91b.*
Jo.
XI, 6.
yuo.
87b.
" 24.
XVII, 50.
94b.
90b.
VI, 4. 288b, 457b.
14 9.
" 17
87b.
QrtK
XIX, 20.
440b.
" 5. 439a.*
VIII, 3. 166b.*
" 7-9. 199n.
XV, 20-62.
XXII, 14.
yuo.
414a.
291a.
" 23.
44 24.
XXII, 18.
312a.
312a.
90b.
IX, 9. 270a.
44 16.
" on
94a.
OAo
XXIV, 13.
239b.
X, 4. 291a.
mVm
y-±H.
XXV, 11.
92a,
" 22. 293b, 409an.
XII, 23. 269a.
Judges.
2 Samuel.
XIII, 1-5. 280u.
II, 20.
94b.
I, 23.
165a.
" 6-11. I23b.
V, 2.
174a.«
II, 10.
405ab.
XIV, 3. 280n.
41 14.
172a.
44 11.
405b.
XVII, 6. 161 a, 364a.
11 20.
77a.
V, 4.
405a.
XVIH, 15. 249a, 327b.
" 26.
155b.
VII, 4-17.
307b,*
" 15-19. 440a.
41 27.
155b.
440b.
" 18. 327b.
VI, 36-40.
250a.
41 12-16.
327b.
XIX, 15. 364a.
VII, 12.
165a.*
14 18.
307b.»
" 21. 416a.*
44 13-15.
305a.
VIII, 4. 87b, 415a.*
XXI, 15. 123b.
44 19-25.
334n.
44 17.
32b.
XXII, 1-3. 439b.
VIII, 17.
91ab.
XII, 1-4. 190a,204a.
" 9. 280n.
" 21.
91b.
44 15.
85a.
XXIII, 12-14. 280n.
44 26.
301b.
XIV, 4-7.
204a.
XXIV, 7. 450b.
IX, 7-20.
178a.*
XV-XVII,
132a.
XXV, 3. 293a.
44 54.
91a.
XVI, 1.
259b.
XXVI, 13. 94b.
XI, 30-40. 104ab.*
XVIII, 15.
90b.
XXVIII, 5. 162a.
44 35.
104a.
" 33.
164a.*
" 20. 93b.
44 39.
104b.*
XXI, 20.
324a,
32
494
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE TEXTS.
2 Samuel.
1 Chronicles.
Esther.
XXII,
390b.
I-IX, 408a.
VIII, 15.
302a.
" 2.
436b.
" 17-27. 390a.
IX, 6.
91b.
" 10.
156b.
II. 409a.
" 10.
91b.
" 11.
156b.
' -VIII. 405b.
" 12.
91b.
XXXIII, 1.
88a.
' 7. 94a.
" 15.
91b.
" 2.
307b.
' 21. 410b.
" 21.
Ola.
1 22. 410b.
Job.
' 55. 33a.
IV, 12-21.
148n.*
1 Kings.
Ill, 19. 413b.
V, 2.
91a.
II, 32.
" 44.
91a.
94a.
" 24. 413b.
VIII, 409b.
" 24.
VI, 4.
93a.*
161a.
Ill, 1.'
u FC
236a.
o AKQ
" 1. 407b.
" 3. 410a.
" 5.
" 9.
15 Ob.
155n.
0.
IV 3.
ouoa.
32b
" 5. 410a.
" 24.
95b.
" 13
41 Ob
IX, 24. 290a.
IX, 6.
171a.*
YI, 3.
" 20.
264b.
271b.
XVIII, 4. 87b, 415a.*
XXVII, 25. 75b.
" 28.
XI, 7.
87b.
165a.
YII, 15'.
IX, 2.
X, 1.
XI, 29-31.
41 5a.*
305a.
180a,
244b.
XXVIII, 11. 272b.
2 Chronicles.
Ill, 15. 415a.*
V, 12. 302a.
XII, 1.
XIII, 15.
XV, 35.
xvnr, 13.
XIX, 3.
165b.
90a.
93a,
150b.
291a.
" 41.
XII, 19.
XIII, 1.
XIY, 21.
XVIII, 21.
" 40.
XIX, 1.
" 8
391a.
94b.
314a.
405a.
16b.
92b.
91b.
9Q3a
YII, 4. 92a.
IX, 11. 77a.
XII, 15. 391a.
XX, 1-13. 341a.
" 20-26. 342b.
" 30. 342b.
XXI, 10. 94b.
" 25-27.
" 27.
XX, 4.
" 16.
XXIV, 14.
XXVI, 8.
XXVII, 1.
H7b.
276n.
165a.
91a.
90a.
171a.*
I77b.
" 10. 91b,
" 18.
XX, 38-40.
XXII, 42.
MvSjUit
142b.
142b.
204a.
405a.
" 19. 296b, 297a.*
XXIV, 21. 200b.
" 25. 91a.
XXIX, 6. 94a.
XXXIII, 17. 92.
XXIX, 1.
XXXIII, 14-17.
XXXIV, 6. 85a,*
" 29.
" 37.
I77b.
304n.
160b.*
95a.
95a.
XXXVI, 16. 200b.
XXXV, 10.
88a.
2 Kings.
XXXYIII-XLI,
165a.
I, 1.
94b.
Ezra.
XXXIX, 27.
172a.
Ill, 7.
94b.
I, 1-4. 355a.
IV, 7.
314a.
II, 1-70. 41 5a.*
Psalms.
" 9.
314a.
" 64. 415b.
I, 1. 95a,
152b.
V, 7.
91a.
VII, 10. 32a.
" 2. 32b,
152b.
VIII, 20.
94b.
" 11-26. 355a.
II, 308a,*, 384b,
440b.
" 22.
94b.
" 12. 283a.
" 2. 307b,
369n.*
" 26.
405a.
VIII, 16. 33a.
" 6. 249b,
307b.
X, 1-7.
285a.
X, 2. 94a.
III,
131b.
" 7.
92b.
" 10. 94a.
" 1.
132a.
" 9.
91a.
" 2.
132a.
" 14.
92b.
Nehemiah.
" 4.
132b.
XIY, 9.
178b.*
I, 1. 352a.
" 5.
131b.
XV, 10.
90b.
II, 5-8. 351a.
" 6.
132a.
li 14.
90b.
VII, 6-73 41 5a.*
" 7.
132b.
• " 29.
333b.
" 66. 415b.
" 8.
132b.
XVI, 9.
333b.
VIII, 1-8. 32b.
IV, 2.
132b.
XVIII-XX,
390b.
IX, 29. 172a.
" 6.
132b.
" 2.
332n.
" 7.
132b.
" 12.
94b.
Esther.
VI, 6.
165b.
XXIV,
390b.
I, 2. 352a.
VII, 10.
283a.
14.
186b.
" 3. 352a.
X, 7.
93b.
" 15.
186b.
" 14. 352a.
XII, 2.
283a.
17.
187a.
" 18. 352a.
" 6.
292a.
XXV,
390b.
" 19. 352a.
XV, 3.
94a.
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE TEXTS.
493
Psalm*.
Psalms.
ProTerbt.
XVI,
440b.
LXXXIII, 9. 334n.
IX, 2. 92a.
li 4.
87b.*
XC, 2. 386a.
X, 1. 177b.
XVII, 15.
44la.
" 4. 386a.
" 7. 149b.
XVIII,
390b.
" 13. 155b.
" 8. 149b.
" 2.
160b.*
XCI, 11. 441a.
" 10. 78b, 87b.
" 6-15.
83ab.*
" 14. 151a.
XI, 25. 242a.
** 9
156b.
XCII, 12-14. 2l7a.
XII, 19. 161a.
" 10.
156b.
XCIII, 3. 150b.
" 24. 242b.
XIX, 2.
150b.
XCV, 2. 88a.
XIII, 34. 151a.
" 3
155b.*
CII, 6. 167b.*
XV, 2. 151a.
" 4
155b.*
CIV, 2. 82a.
" 13. 87b.
XX, 9.
149b.
" 4. 265b.
XVI, 7. 242b.*
XXI, 11.
94a.
CVII, 3. 290a.
" 13. 242b.*
XXII,
440b.
CX, 252a, 440b.
" 31. 2l7a.
" 3.
274a.
CXIV, 3. 163b.
XVII, 7. 161a,
XXIII,
230b.
" 4. 163b.
XVIII, 4. 391a.
" 5.
161b.
" 5. 164a.
XIX, 2. 92b.*
XXIV, 2.
150b.
" 6. 164a.
XX, 119a.
3.
274b.
CXIX, 154a.
" 11. 241a.
" 4.
274b.
" 34. 32b.
XXI, 119a.
XXV,
154a.
" 35. 32b.
XXII, 2. 121b.*
XXVI, 6.
172b.*
" 54. 88a.
" 8. 93b.
" 10.
241a.
" 61. 95a.
" 13. 219a.
XXVII, 1.
152a.*
" 97. 32b.
XXV, 1. I77b.
XXVIII, 4.
93b.
" 105. 22a.
•' 15. 161a.
XXX, 5.
15 la.
" 111. 22a.
" 21. 4l7b.
XXXII, 5.
93a.
CXXXII, 9. 302a.
" 22. 4l7b.
XXXIV,
154a.
CXXXVII, 299b, 344a.
" 27. 241b.*
" 7.
441a.
CXXXVIII, 8. 283a.
XXVI, 4. 243a.*
XXXV, 4.
94a.
CXXXIX, 14. 237b.
" 5. 243a.*
" 26.
152a.
" 19. 90a.
" 8. 240b.*
" 27.
152a.
CXLI, 2. 274a.
" 9. 240b.*
XXXVII.
154a.
CXLV, 154a.
" 10. 181b,* 182b.
" 12.
95a.
CXLVI, 6. 289a.
" 13. 219a.
" 14.
92a.
CXLVII, 3. 87b.
" 16. 292a.
" 21.
95a.
XXIX, 13. 121b.*
XLII, 7.
390b.
Proverbs.
XXX, 1. 242a.
XLV, 236b,
384b,
I, 1. 177b.
" 15. 180a, 241b.*
440b.
' 1-6. 109a.
" 25-28. 180a.
" 1. ]
L75ab.*
' 6. 180b.
XXXI, 1. 242a.
" 8.
155n.
' 7. 29a.
10-31. 154a.
XLV1, 9.
]63a.*
' 20. 240a.
XLIX, 4.
180b.
' 24-27. 149b,*150a.
Eccleslastea.
LI, 7.
172b,*
Ill, 4. 394b.*
I, 2. 109a.
463a.
" 5. 241a.
" 14. 94b.
" 10.
183b.
IV, 14. 241a.
II, 8. 218b.
LVII, 3.
283a.
V, 15-18. 240a.
" 11. 94b.
LXIX, 1.
259a.
" 22. 95a.
" 17. 94b.
" 2.
259a.
VI, 1. 155u.
" 19. 94b.
LXXI, 13.
94a.
2. 150a.
IV, 12. 289b, 457a.
LXXII, 236b,
384b.
6. 180a.
V-X, 119b.
1.
201b.
30. 243a.*
VII, 19. 291b.
" 10.
154b.
31. 243a.
IX, 13-18. 240a.
LXXVII, 9.
283a.
32-35. 243b.
14. 204ab.»
LXXVIII, 2.
180b,
VII, 119a.
15. 204ab.*
402b.*
VIII, 119a.
16. 204ab.*
" 10.
150b.
" 1. 240a.
17. 204b.
" 47.
91b.*
" 35. 92b.
18. 204b.
LXXIX, 12.
292a.
" 36. 92b.
X, 2. 243b.*
LXXX, 8-15.
215ab,*
IX, 119a.
XII, 1-5. 216b.»
231a.
" 1. 240a.
" 3. 163a, 217b.
496
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE TEXTS.
Eerie
-iii-K-.
Isaiah.
Isaiah.
XII, 3-7.
216b.*
VII, 16. 333b.
XXIX, 1. 300b.*
" 4.
217b.*
" 21-25. 332n.
" 2. 300b.»
" 5.
218b,* 219n.
VIII, 1. 334n.
" 4. 218b.
" 6.
219a.*
" 1-3. 333b.*
7. 300b.*
" 7.
219b.*
" 1-4. 334a.
" 8. 167a.
" 3. 284a, 333b,*
XXXI, 9. 300b.
Song of Solomon.
334n.
XXXII, 10. 296b, 297a.*
I, 10.
75b.
" 4. 333b.*
XXXIII, 4. 379n.
" 12-14.
23 7 b.*
" 7. 259a.
XXXIV, 5-10. 384b,
II, 4.
235a.*
" 8. 259a, 333b.
385a.»
" 8.
235a.*
" 10. 333b.
XXXV, 444a.
" 9.
167b.*
" 20. 284b, 334a.
" 1. 330b.
" 11.
235a.
334a,
" 2. 330b.
" 12.
87b, 235a.
IX, 1-7. 334ab,*
" 3. 15 la.
il 16.
167b.
444a.
" 10. 380n.
IV, 1.
235b.*
" 5. 302b.
XXXVI-XXXIX, 390b.
" 1-5.
167b.
" 6. 334n.*
XL-LXVI, 112b, 113a.
" 8.
236a.
" 7. 334a.
" 3. 77a.
V, 10-16.
237b*
X, 1. 94b.
" 11. 99b, lOOb.
VI, 8.
235a.
" 5. 266a.
" 30. 2l7a.
VII, 2-6.
238a.*
" 6. 155a.
" 31. 217a.
" 22. 366b.
XLI, 4. 359a.
I§aiah.
" 26. 334n.
" 29. 93b.
I, 3.
151b.
XI, 335b.*
XLIV, 3. 155n, 391a.
" 6.
142b.
" 1. 187b.
" 6. 359a.
" 8.
157a.
" 1-10. 444a.
XLVIII, 12. 359a.
" 9.
154b, 299a.
" 4. 359a.
" 20. 373a.
" 10.
299a.
" 8. 321b.
XLIX-LVI, 113a.
" 11-14.
142b.
" 9. 321b.
" 2. 359a.
" 16.
93b.
" 12. 290a.
" 3. 399a.
" 19.
151b.
" 15. 336b.
" 10. 155n.
" 20.
lolb.
" 16. 336b.
L, 11. 281a.
" 21.
368n.
XII, 355b.*
LI, 16. 379n.*
" 25.
155n.
" 3. 337a, 391a
LII, 1-12. 113a.*
" 29.
155n.
XIII, 2-13. 322ab.*
" 10. 278a.
" 30.
167a.
6-13. 385a.*
" 11. 390b.
II, 1-4.
324a.
" 17. 322b, 350a.
" 13. 88a.*
" 2.
423a.
" 19. 322b.
" 13-LIII, 12.
" 2-4.
328b,*330a,
" 19-22. 373a.
122b.
336ab.
" -XXIII, 3 17 a.
LIII, 113a.
"
162a.
XIV, 4. 177b.
2. 187b.
" 5-46.
328b.
" 9-20. 164b.*
" 4. 390b.
IV, 2-6.
328b, 330ab.*
XV, 1. 150b.
" 6. I55n.
" 4.
292a.
XVI, 9. 259b.
LIV, 7. 151b.
" 5.
336b.
" 14. 295b.
" 8. 151b.
" 6.
336b.
XVII, 11. 85a.
" 8-10. 244b.
V, 1-6.
198b,* 216a.
XIX, 1. 358n.
LV, 6. 152b.
" 7.
216a.
XX, 2-4.250a,281b.
" 7. 152b.
VI, 1.
333b, 334a.
" 3. 284a.
" 8. 444a.
" 1-4.
359b.
XXI, 2. 350b.
" 9. 444a.
" 1-8.
325a.
" 9. 373a.
" 10. 166b.*
" 3.
289b, 457a.
XXII, 1. 317a.
" 11. 166b.*
" 9.
190b. 401b.
" 13. 91b.
LVII, 5. 92b.
" 10.
31a, 190b,
" 22. 162a.*
" 1 5. 444a.
401b.
XXIII, 1. 317a.
" 20. 95a.
VII, 4-9.
333a.
XXIV, 5. 94a.
LIX, 17. 226b, 227a.
" 8.
255b.
" 16. 88a.
LX, 1-3. 391.
* 14.
334n, 385a,*
XXV, 5. 88a.
LXII, 10. 77a.
443b.
XXVI, 19. 445a.
LXIV, 4. 30a.
" 14-16.
331b,*333a,*
XXVII, 1. 300b.*
LXV, 17. 336b, 379n,*
334a, 384b.
XXVIII, 18. 75b.
380n.
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE TEXTS.
497
Isaiah.
Jeremiah.
Ezekiel.
LXV, 17-LXVI, 24.
XXXI, 15.402b,*303an.*
Ill, 10. 277b.
378b.
" 18. 402b.
" 15. 280a, 281a.
" 18. 336b, 380n.
" 20. 402b.
" 23. 281a.
" 25. 321b.
" 33. 390b.
IV, 250b, 277b.«
LXVI, 3. 93b.
XXXII, 3. 200b.
" 1-3. 278a.»
" 7. 365b.
•' 38. 390b.
" 4-8. 278a.
" 8. 365b.
XXXIII, 15. 331a.
" 5. 295a.
«' 22. 336b, 379n.
XXXVI, 30. 413a.
" 6. 293b, 295a.
" 23. 336b.
XL, 1. 403a.
" 7. 280b.
XLIII, 8-13. 250b,
" 9-17. 278b.
Jeremiah.
281b.
V, 250b, 27 7b,*
I, 11. 258a,*266b.
XLIV, 22. 93b.
" 1-4. 278b.
" 12. 258a.
XLVI-LI, 317b.
" 2. 280b,* 361b.
" 13. 259a.
XLVII, 6. 164a.*
" 5-17. 278b.*
" 14. 259a.
XLIX, 7-22. 324a.
VII, 2. 290a.
" 15. 259a.
" 16. I72a.
" 27. 162b.*
II, 2. 368n.
" 36. 265b, 290a.
VIII, 1. 280ab.*
" 13. 17la.*
L, 373a.
" 3. 280b, 308b,
" 20. 368n.
" 8. 373a.
309a.
Ill, 3-6, 368n.
" 17-20. 3l7b.
IX, 6. 91b, 264b.
IV, 4. 183b.
" 33. 3l7b.
X, 325a.
" 30. 368n.
LI, 373a.
" 9-13. 265n.
V, 21. 31a.
" 5. 317b.
XI, 280b.
VII, 12. 94a.
" 6. 317b, 373a.
" 13-20. 343b.
" 21-26. 143a.*
" 8. 373a.
" 19. 183b.
" 24. 94a.
" 11. 350b.
" 20. 390b.
VIII, 7. 163a.*
" 28. 350b.
XII, 2. 31a, 401b.
IX, 1. 165b.
" 40. 92a.
" 3-8. 281b,
XI, 16. 245b.
" 45. 317b.
" 3-20. 250b.
" 17. 245b.
LII, 390b.
" 18. 281b.
XIII, 1-11. 280a.
XIII, 7. 220a.
" 11. 281b.
Lamentations.
" 9. 220a.
" 27. 368n.
I, 154a.
" 10-15. 220ab.*
XIV, 2. 302b.
II, 154a.
" 11-15. 168a.
XV, 16. 277n.
" 21. 92a.
XV, 220n.
" 18. 85a.
Ill, 154a.
XVI, 220n, 368b.
XVII, 9. 84b.*
" 21. 92b.
" 16. 85a.
Ezekiel.
" 44-59. 299a,*
XVIII, 1-6. 250a,
I, 325a.
XVII, 220n.
281b.
-XXXII, 343b.
" 2-10. 186ab.*
XIX, 250b.
1. 280a, 308a.
" 11-21. 186a.
" 1-2. 281b.
2. 280a.
" 13. 187a.*
XXII, 30. 413a.
3. 308an.*
" 15. 187a.
XXIII, 1-4, 230b.
4-28. 359b.
" 16-21. 187a.
2. 93b.
5. 273a, 290a.
" 18. 187a.
" 5. 331a.
5-14. 272b.
" 22. 187b.
" 14. 299a.
10. 273a.
" 22-24. 186a,343b.
" 29. 166b.*
13. 156b.
XIX, 1-9. 220n.
XXIV, 1. 259b,*
14. 156b.
" 10-14. 220n.
" 3. 259b.*
15-21, 265n, 272b.
XX, 27. 94a.
XXV, 11. 293b.
26. 304b, 359a.
" 28. 92a.
" 12. 293b, 295b.
26-28. 273a.
XXI, 6. 250b, 28 Ib.
" 15-33. 283b.*
' 28. 244b, 281a, 308a,
" 7. 250b.
XXVII, 1-14. 250b,
359a.
" 10. 92a.
281b.
II, 1. 308b.
" 26. 162b.*
XXVIII, 10-17. 250b.
' 2. 308b.
XXIII, 220n.
XXX, 9. 300a.
8. 279a.
" 29. 161a,*
44 12. 85a.
' 8-III, 3. 27 7a.*
XXIV, 368b.
" 15. 85a.
' 9. 279a.
" 3-12. 281b.»
XXXI, 1. 390b.
' 9-III, 3. 363b.
" 15-27. 250b.
44 9. 390b. 399a.
Ill, 3. 27 7b.
" 16-18. 281L.
498
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE TEXTS.
Ezekiel.
Daniel.
Daniel.
XXV-XXXII, 317b.
VI, 1. 352a.
IX, 19. 354b.
XXVIII, 37 3a.
" 2. 350a.
" 21. 309a.
XXIX, 11. 293a.
" 3. 350a.
" 24. 293b.
" 12. 293a.
" 25. 350a, 352a.
" 24-27. 296a,*354b.*
XXXI, 2 2 On.
" 26. 352a.
" 26. 444b.
XXXII, 2. 167b.
VII, 286b, 307a,
" 27, 292b, 444b.
XXXIII-XLVIII, 343b.
3l7b,* 319an,
X, 350b.
XXXIV, 230b.
325a, 345b,
" 2. 296a.
" 23. 300a.
346a, 353b.
'; 3. 296a.
" 24. 300a.
" 1. 305a, 309a,
" 5. 359a.
XXXVI, 28. 390b.
350a.
" 6. 359a.
XXXVII, 343b.
" 1-8. 263a.*
" 14. 423a.
" 1-14. 259b,*
" 2. 290a.
XI, 307a, 318b, 319a,
445a.
" 4. 366a.
349a, 350b.
9. 290a.
" 5. 319n, 352b.*
" 2-XII, 3. 355b.*
" 24. 300a.
" 6. 319n, 353a,
" 3. 351a.
" 27. 390b.
354a.
li 6. 351a.
XXXVIII, 343b, 376a.
" 7. 291b, 318b,*
" 21. 351a.*
XXXIX, 376a.
354a, 366a.
" 36-38. 466n.
23. 94a.
" 8. 318b,* 354a,
XII, 2. 445a.
XL-XLIV, 325b.
444a, 466n.
" 7. 292b,* 294a,
" -XLVIII, 336b, 344ab,*
" 9. 304b, 359a,
364a.
345n, 444b.
444a.
" 11. 293a,* 294a,
" 2. 344a.
" 11. 373b.
297b.
XLIII, 2. 359a.
" 13. 304b.
" 12. 294a,297b.
XLIV, 20. 174a.
" 17. 263a.
XLVITI, 35. 444b.
" 17-27. 350b.
Hosea.
" 22. 374b.
I, 250b, 286b.
Daniel.
" 23. 263a, 351b.
" 1. 286a.
II, 286b, 305a,
" 24. 246a, 291b,
" 2. 161b,* 281b,*
317b.*
354a.
284b.*
" 19. 305a.
" 25. 292b,*294a,
" 3. 282b.*
" 24. 263a.
296a, 297b,
" 10. 285b.
" 31-36. 262b.*
364a, 466n.
" 11. 285b.
" 31-45. 345b.
VIII, 307a,318a,319an,
II, 286b.
" 32. 303b.
349a,350b,351ab.
" 1. 285b.
" 33. 349b.
" 1. 350b.
" 2. 285b.
" 34. 349b.
" 1-12. 325a.
" 14-23. 285b.
" 36-45. 350b.
" 2. 352a.*
" 15. 285bn.*
" 37. 262b, 303b,
" 3. 319u.
" 22. 285b.
350a.
" 4. 319a.
" 23. 285b.
" 38. 262b, 263a.
" 8. 263a, 290,
Ill, 250b.
303b, 350ab.
318b,* 319a,
" 1. 281b,* 286a.*
" 39. 352b,* 353a.
353b, 354a.
" 5. 300a.
" 40. 262b, 303b,
" 9. 318b,*353b.
IV, 16. 172a.
348b,* 351b.
354a.
VI, 5. 9 la.
" 41. 323b.*
" 9-12. 466n.
" 7. 94b.
" 41-42. 323b.*
" 14. 292b,* 294a.
VIII, 1. 94b.
" 41-43. 262b.
" 17. 308b.
" 13. 300a.*
" 42. 351a.
" 18. 308b.
IX, 3. 300a.*
" 43. 351a.
" 20. 263a, 352a,*
" 7. 314a.
" 44. 262b, 349ab.*
353b.*
" 15. 93b.
" 45. 262b.
" 21. 246a,263a,350b,
l: 16. 91a.
Ill, 19. 368a.
351a.
X, 5. 93b.
IV, 262n, 305a.
" 21-23. 353b.
" 8- 93b-
" 16. 292a, 296a.
" 22. 263a.
XI, 1. 385a,* 390b,
" 32. 296a.
" 23-25. 466n.
398b,* 399a.*
V, 7. 302a.
IX, 1. 350a, 352a.
XII, 10. 320n.
" 30. 350a.
" 2. 293b, 296a.
XIII, 2. 92a.
" 31. 347a, 350a,
" 16. 354b.
" 8. 17 Ob.
351b.
" 17. 354b.
XIV, 2. 391a, 442b.
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE TEXTS.
499
Joel.
Zechariah.
Matthew.
I, 1-12. 341a.*
I, 4.
94a.
I, 1.
429a.
" l-II, 27. 340b.
" 8.
302b, 341a.
1-17.
411ab.*
" 13-20. 341ab.*
" 8-11.
265ab.
12.
413a.
II, 1-11. 341b,* 361b.
" 10.
263b.*
13.
41 3b.
" 8. 77a.
" 11.
263b.
15.
413b.
" 12. 442b.
" 18.
263b,* 290a.
16.
41 3a.
" 12-27. 342a.*
341a.
17.
410a.
" 28. 442b.
" 19.
263b.
20.
305a.
" 28-32. 342a.*
" 20.
264a, 290a.
22.
332b, 395b,
" 28-111, 21. 340b.
" 21.
264a.
396a.»
" 31. 216b.
II, 6.
290a, 373a.
" 23.
332b, 333b.*
" 32. 442b.
" 7.
373a.
II, 12.
306a.
Ill, 1-17. 342b.«
Ill, 1.
261a.
" 13.
305a.
" 2-14. 343b.
" 8.
331a.
" 15.
333b, 390b,
" 14. 342b.
IV,
260b,*
395b, 398b.*
" 18-21. 342b.*
" 2.
260a, 359a.
" 16.
403a.
" 3.
245b,* 325b.
" 17.
402b.
Am«M.
" 6
260b.
" 18.
402b.
I, 317a.
" 10.
2 6 la.
" 19.
305a.
II, 31 7a.
" 14.
245b, 260b,
" 23.
396a.
V, 2. 28 la.
261n, 325b.
Ill, 2.
116a.
" 21. 442b.*
" 17.
261a.
" 4.
219a.
" 22. 442b.*
V, 1-4.
264b.*
" 5.
161b.*
VII, 9. 161a.
" 6.
264b.*
" 11.
445b.
VIII, 1. 259b.*
" 8.
264bn.*
rv, 2.
293a.
" 3. 259b.
" 11.
265a.*
" 14.
395b.
" 5. 264b.
VI, 1.
290a.
" 14-16.
335a.
" 1-7.
325b.
" 17.
116a,
Obadiah.
" 1-8.
264ab,*
V, 9.
78b.*
4. 172a.
341a.
" 13.
84a, 173a,*
9. 90a.
" 2.
360a.
214a.
" s!
302b, 360a.
" 14.
260b.
Jonah.
I, 16. 92a.
" 5.
290a.
" 14-16.
173b.*
II, 3. 390b.
" 9-15.
250b.
" 15.
266b.
Ill, 4. 296a.
" 12.
33 la.
" 21.
41 6a.
VII, 11.
172a.*
" 39.
416a.*
Mioah.
VIII, 8.
390b.
" 43.
416b.
I, 9. 85a.
IX, 9.
337abn.*
" 44.
416b.*
II, 4. 177b.
" 10.
287b.*
VI, 11.
77b,* 128n.»
IV, 1. 187b.
X, 2.
93b.
" 24.
123a.*
" 1-3. 324a, 328b.*
" 11.
162b.*
" 34.
163b.*
" 2. 187b.
XI, 1.
156b*
VII, 2.
265a.
VI, 6-8. 443b.
" 2.
156b.*
" 7.
173b,*192a.
VII, 6. 123a.
" 4.
310a.
" 15-20.
169b.*
iV&huni.
" 4-14.
283b.*
" 17.
174n.
II, 3. 302ab.
" 4-17.
230b.
" 24-27.
167b.»
" 10-14.
310a.
" 26.
220b.
Habakkuk.
" 13.
166a.*
" 27.
220b.
II, 6. 177b.
XII, 10.
358b.
" 28.
315n.
11 9. 172a.
" 12.
358n.
" 29.
315n.
HI, 4. 156b.
XIV, 16.
249a.
VIII, 17.
390b, 396a.
" 6. 156b.
IX, 17.
96a.»
" 8. 156b.
" 27.
412a.
" 10. 163b.»
Malachi.
x,
432a.
" 11. 156b.
I, 1.
445a.
1 1.
80a.
" 17. 152b, 153a.
" 2.
123b.
' 6.
203b.
" 3.
123b.
' 16.
211a.
Haggai.
II, 17.
94a.
' 32-39.
122b.*
II, 6. 379bn.*
Ill, 1.
115b, 392b.*
1 37.
122a.
" 7. 379bn,* 380an.*
IV, 5.
34b, 116a,
XI, 2.
115b.
" 9. 380a, 445a.
300b,*371a.
" 3.
115b.
500
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE TEXTS.
Matthew.
Matthew.
Matthew.
XI, 4-6. 115b.
XVI, 18. 75a* 123b,*
XXIV, 29. 216b, 360b,
" 10. 392n.
124b*, 126b,
373b, 379n,
" 12. 131b,*119b.
222a.*
387a.«
" 14. 34b, 300b,
" 19. ]62a.
" 29-31. 466n.
371a, 372a,
" 28. 380a.
" 30. 358b.
445a.
XVII, 2. 167b, 302a.
" 30-34. 363a.
" 15. 116a.
" 10-13. 34b, 300b,
" 31. 290a, 361a.
" 25. 29b.
445a.
" 36. 387b.
XII, 12. 190a.
" 14. 98n.
" 42. 469b.*
" 17. 396a.
XVIII, 16. 364a.
" 44. 469b.*
" 32. 462a.*
" 21. 205a.
XXV, 213b, 432a.
" 33. 42 Ib.
" 22. 205a.
" 1. 291a, 380n.
" 39. 250a.
" 23-38. 205a,
" 13. 469b.*
" 40. 162b.*
" 35. 205a.
" 16-22. 197b.
" 43^5. 362a.
XIX, 20. 97a.
" 14-30. 122a.*
XIII, 213b, 43 2a.
" 21. 206b.
" 28. 191n.
" 1. 192a.
" 23-26. 306b.
" 29. 191n.
" 2. 192a, 194a.
" 27. 205b.
" 30. 461b.
" 3. 190b, 174n,
" 27-XX,16. 223b.*
" 31-46. 342b,
214a.
" 28. 207ab, 374b,
376a, 377a,
" 6. 196b.
379n.*
464a.
" 7. 197a.
" 29. 207a.
" 34. 37 6a.
" 10-17. 190a.
" 30. 207b.
" 41. 206a, 376b.
" 11. 30b, 422b.
XX, 1-16. 205b.*
" 44. 377n.
" 11-15. 191ab.*
" 4. 206b.
" 46. 376b.
" 14. 401b.
" 7. 206b,
XXVI, 28. 97a.
" 15. 401b.
208a.
" 29. 96a.*
" 18-23. 193n.
" 12. 206b.
" 52. 185a.
" 19. 194b.
" 13-16. 209a.*
" 64. 359a.
" 22. 197a.
" 14. 206a.
" 68. 315n.
" 24-30. 223n.
XXI, 1-9. 337a.*
XXVII, 19. 464a.
" 25. 197a.*
" 4. 395b.
" 25. 359a.
" 29. 197a.
" 13. 370a.
" 30. 166a.*
" 30. 78b.
" 33-44. 199a,*
" 52. 464b.
" 31. 187b.
200ab.*
60. 96b.*
" 31-33. 330a,
" 45. 190a,
XXVIII, 1. 435u.
377a.
200a.
" 3. 167b, 302a.
" 32. 187b.
XXII, 2-14. 20 Ib.*
" 8. 435n.
" 35. 402b.*
" 7. 365a.
" 9. 435n.
" 36. 192a.
" 11-14. 203b.
" 10. 435n.
" 36-43. 193n.
" 29. 34a.
" 19. 80a, 289b,
" 37-43. 223n.
" 29-32. 400b.
459a.
" 38. 198a.*
" 31-33. 35b.*
41 45. 173b.
" 39. 451 a.
Mark.
" 46. I73b.
" 41-46. 400b.
I, 6. 219a.
" 47-50. 192b.
XXIII, 13. 230a.
" 10. 392n.
u 49. 196a.
" 27. 220a.
Ill, 29. 462a.*
" 52. 196b, 463b.
" 34-36. 3G8b.
IV, 10. 192a,
XIV-XXIII, 43 2a.
" 34-37. 200b.
" 12. 191n.
XV, 1-9. 34a
" 34-38. 360b.
" 13. 192a.
" 14. 214b.
" 35. 300a.
VII, 1-13. 34a.
" 15. 214b.
XXIV, 359b. 385a.
VIII, 15. 225a.
" 22. 412a.
432a, 447b.
" 27-30. 123b.
" 24. 203b.
" 5. 388b.
" 35. 360b.
XVI, 1. 21 la.
" 7. 341a.
IX, 3. 302a.
" 6. 225a.
" 9. 360b.
" 45. 461b.
" 9. 211a.
" 14. 423a.
X, 5. 448a.
" 12. 225a.
" 15. 362b, 444b.
" 20. 97a.
" 18. 211a.
" 16. 366a, 37 3a.
XI, 13. 245b.
" 16-18. 123b.*
" 24. 388bb.
" 14. 245b.
M 17. 29b.
" 28. 370n.
" 25. 396b.*
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE TEXTS.
501
Mark.
Luke.
John.
XII, 1-12. 200ab.*
XII, 1. 225a.
I, 3.
459a,
• 26. 394a.
" 16-20. 205a.
" 4.
459a.
4 29. 288b.
XIII, 1-5. 204a.
" 11.
200b.
' 31. 451a.
44 6-9. 203b,* 245a.
44 14.
458n, 459a.
4 32. 288b.
" 29. 290a.
44 18.
458bn.«
• 44. 97b.
41 32. 160b.
44 23.
445b.
XIII, 14. 444b.
44 33. 364a.
" 41-43.
124ab.*
44 27. 290a.
XIV, 7-11. 202b.
14 43.
124b.
XIV, 3. 77b.
14 12-14. 203a.
II, 15.
370a.
" 65. 31 5n.
44 14-16.202b,*203a.
" 25.
183b.
XV, 32. 166a.*
" 16-24. 201b.*
Ill, 1-13.
183b.*
XVI, 2. 435n.
44 23. 114b.
14 3-8.
463b.
" 8. 435n.
" 26. 122a,» 123a.
14 4.
80b.
u 9. 435n.
XV, 213b.
14 5.
274b.
" 10. 435n.
" 2. 209b.
" 8.
80ab.*
" 11. 435n.
" 12. 97b.
14 9.
80b.
- 17. 96b,* 310an.
14 30. 97b.
44 14.
251a.*
XVI, 1. 209b*
44 15.
251a.
Luke.
44 1-13. 209b.*
44 16.
461a,* 448b.
I, 1. 428a.
14 8. 210an, 265a.
14 20.
28b.
" 3. 424b.
44 9. 81b, 210b.*
14 29.
380n.
« 4. 434b.
44 9-13. 212b.*
IV, 10-15.
184a.
u 10. 274a.
" 10-13. 210b.
" 19.
315n.
"17. 34b,371a,445a.
44 13. 21 2n.
44 23.
29b.
" 32. 411b.
41 16. 119b.
14 24.
29b, 80a,
14 67. 315n.
44 19-31. 213ab.*
459b.
" 70. 43 6b.
44 25. 206a.
44 32-38.
184ab.*
H, 1. 162b.*
44 29. 161a.*
V, 39.
18b, 34a,
" 14. 78b.
XVIII, 1-14. 205b.
98n, 400a.
" 32. 434b.
41 14. 97b.
41 40.
400a.
" 45. 41 Ib.
44 21, 97a.
VI, 15.
116a.
Ill, 23. 41 In,* 413a.
44 30. 207n.
" 39.
276n.
" 23-38. 41 lab.*
XIX, 11-27. 122a.*
" 53-59.
184a.
44 24. 41 3b.
44 12. 192b.*
41 63.
80a.
14 26. 41 3b.
44 16-19. 197b.
VII, 38.
391a.
" 27. 413a.*
XX, 9-18. 200ab.*
40.
315n.
" 27-31. 413a.*
" 19. 190a, 200a.
IX, 22.
228a.
14 38. HOa, 434b.
41 35. 374a.
" 30-33.
228b.
IV, 22. 190a.
44 36. 374b.
44 39-41.
229b.
M 23. 177b, 188b,
XXI, 4. 97b.
X, 1-16.
227ab.*
190b, 239a.*
14 10. 341a.
" 2.
228n.*
" 36. 80a.
44 11. 341a.
" 3.
228b,* 229a.*
V, 1-10. lOOa.
44 16. 360b.
" 4.
229a.
VII, 27. 392n.
44 19. 360b.
' 5.
228b.
VIII, 8. 195a.
44 20. 362b, 444b.
1 6.
177b, 239a.
" 10. 191n.
14 21. 366a.
4 7.
228b.
4 11. 195n, 197b.
44 24. 363b, 364a.
; 7-16.
229b.*
1 12. 195a.
41 25. 361b.
4 9.
228b.
4 14. 97b.
14 26. 361b.
4 11.
228n.
4 18. 191n.
XXII, 36. 185a.*
4 14.
228n.
4 31. 371a.
" 28-30. 374b.
14 14-16.
229a.
IX, 1-6. 185a.
44 64. 315n.
14 34-36.
400b.
44 18-21. I23b.
XXIV, 1. 435n.
XI, 51.
315n.
" 55. 80a.
14 9-11. 435n.
XII, 3.
77b, 78a.
X, L 209b, 293b,
44 13. 435n.
' 12-16.
337a.
410b.*
14 19. 315n.
4 23-33.
42 3a.
44 18. 362n, 366a.
44 25. 256a.
1 25.
123b.
14 27. 451a.
41 27. 18b, 34a,161a.*
4 31.
366a.
u 30-37. 192b,*205b.
44 44. 18b, 398a.*
1 38.
395b.
XI, 3. 77b,* 128n.*
44 47. 329b.
XIII, 18.
395b.
" 5-8. 205a.
" 49. 310a.
44 34.
96b.*
502
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE TEXTS.
John.
Acts.
Actu.
XIV, 2. 81b, 82a.
II, 28.
97a.
XIX, 32. 74n.
" 4.
306b.
" 36.
359a.
" 33. 74n.
" 23.
27 la.
Ill, 18.
436b.
" 39. 74b.
" 25.
446a.
IV, 27.
369n.
" 40. 74n.
" 26. 393a,
446a,
V, 19.
446a.
XX, 28. 75a.
459b.
" 20.
446a.
" 35. 391a.
XV, 1. 214a,
215n,
" 23.
229b.
XXI, 10. 315n.
230n.
" 30.
359a.
" 11. 3]5n.
" 1-6.
463b.
VII, 38.
74b.
XXII, 128a.
" 1-10.
230b.
" 43.
246n.
" 17. 309a.
" 25.
395b.
" 44.
246n.
" 17-21. 446b.
" 26.
459b.
" 52.
200b.
XXIII, 3. 220a, 417a.
XVI, 7.
459b.
" 53.
43 6b.
" 25. 246u.
" 7-15.
446a.
" 56.
446a.
XXV, 6. 464a.
" 15.
239a.
VIII, 1.
366a.
" 10. 464a.
" 29.
239a.
" 29.
446a.
" 11. 418n.
" 33.
78b.
" 39.
446a.
" 17. 464a.
XVII, 12.
395b.
IX,
128a.
XXVI, 128a.
" 17. 22b,
45 2b.*
" 10.
446a.
4. 97a.
" 21-23.
271a.
" 17.
446a.
XXVII, 23. 305a.
" 24.
276n.
X, 3-7.
446a.
" 37. 162b.*
XVIII, 9.
395b.
" 9.
309a.
XXVIII, 3. 135n.*
" 22.
417a.
" 9-16.
446a.
" 23.
417a.
" 10.
309a.
Romans.
" 32.
395b.
" 43.
18b.
I, 3. 412a.
" 36.
185a.
" 46.
31 Ob.
' 6. 107a.
XIX. 12.
370a.
XI, 18.
98n.
1 7. 75a.
" ' 15.
37 Oa.
" 26.
37b.
' 16. 11 lb.«
" 24.
395b.
" 27.
315n.
' 18-111. 21. 112a.
" 36.
395b.
" 28.
315n.
' 22. 84a.
" 41.
96b.*
XII, 6.
229b.
II, 28. 80a.
XX, 2.
43 5n.
" 7.
446a.
" 29. 80a.
" 12.
302a.
" 14.
229b.
Ill, 1. 32a.
" 18.
435n.
" 21.
464a.
" 2. 32a, 467a.
" 25.
246n.
XIII, 1.
315n.
" 9-19. 400a.
" 31.
109a,
" 18.
78b.
" 20. 419a, 421a.
431a.
" 21.
405b.
" 21. 112a.
XXI, 1.
435n.
" 22.
412a.
" 24-26. 461a.
" 15.
99b.*
" 23.
41 2a.
" 25. 272a.*
" 15-17.
98ab.*
" 33.
394a.
" 28. 248b, 41 9a.
" 16.
99b.*
" 46.
203b.
" 30. 162a.*
" 17.
99b.*
" 48.
98n.
IV, 3. 400a, 419a.
" 18.
185b.*
XIV, 13.
229b.
" 10. 248b, 420b.
" 21-24.
363b.
XV,
42 7 b.
" 11. 420b.
" 23.
428a.*
" 32.
315n.
V, 6-10. 46 la.
" 25.
165b.
" 40.
133a.
" 12-21. 253b.*
" 41.
133a.
" 14. 244b, 247n,
Acts.
XVI, 6. 133a,
138a,
248b, 253b.
I, 1.
446b.
139n.
" 17. 273b.
" 10.
302a.
" 7. 138a,
446a.
" 19. 248b.
" 16. 398a,*436b.
" 9. 305a,
446b.
VI, 3. 176a.
" 21.
427b.
" 12-40.
133b.
" 3-11. 176b.
" 22.
427b.
" 26.
446a.
" 4. 97a, 175b.*
II, 3.
310b.
XVII, 22.
134a.
" 5. 107a, 176a.
" 4.
31 Ob.
" 25.
97b.
" 6. 176a.
" 4-13.
128n.*
" 28.
391b.
" 8. 176a.
" 5-12.
311a.
XVIII, 9.
305a.
" 11. 176a.
" 13.
31 la.
12.
464a.
" 17. 246n.
" 14.
96b.
" 16.
464a.
VII, 1-6. 231a.*
" 17.
343a.
" 24.
36b.
" 6. 97a.
" 23.
359a.
XIX, 6.
310b.
" 7-13. 421a.
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE TEXTS.
503
Romans.
1 Corinthians.
1 Corinthians.
VIII, 2. 82b.
IV, 7. 166a.
XV, 33. 225a, 391b.
" 3. 251a.
" 8. 165b.*
" 36. 227n.
" 4. 82b, 274a.
" 14. 166a.
" 37. 464b.
' 6. 30a.
" 18. 223a.
" 39-45. 464b.«
' 7. 28b.
V, 1. 223a.
" 45. 248b.
1 9-11. 80a.
" 2. 223a.
" 45-49. 274a.
' 11. 464b.
" 5. 224a.
" 47. 437b.
' 33-35. 164b.*
" 6. 227n.
" 47-54. 82b.*
" 68. 82b.*
" 6-8. 224b.*
" 52. 248b.
IX XI, 112a.
'• 7. 97a,* 172b,*
XVI, 8. 224n, 226b.
" 13. 123b.
226a,* 463a.
" 14. 234a.
" 8. 172b.*
2 Corinthians.
X, 9. 126b.
VI, 1. 223a.
II, 17. 22b.
" 12. 450b.
" 2. 374b.
Ill, 5. 23n.
" 14. 75a.
VIII, 4. 288b.
" 6. 23n, 97a.
" 15. 75a.
IX, 1. 427b.
" 13-16. 231a.»
XI, 2. 394a.
X, 1-5, 247n.
" 14. 34 Ob.
5. 162a.
" 1-1 1. 244b.
IV, 17. 82a.*
7. 162a.*
" 5. 234a.
V, 1-4. 81b.*
12. 298b.
" 6. 247n.
' 3. 227n.
25. 191a, 298b.
" 11. 247n, 249b.
' 4. 97n.
33. 183a.
" 21. 162a.
' 7. 183a.
33-36. 112a.
XI, 8. 43 7a.
' 10. 358n, 464a.*
XII-XVI, 112a.
" 21. 223a.
' 14. 106b.*
" 1. 227n.
" 23-26. 128a.
' 17. 463a.
" 4. 167b.*
XII, 10. 31 Ob, 3 lib.
VI, 16-18. 390b.
" 5. 75b.
" 12. 167b.
VIII, 21. 394b.»
" 6. 314n,* 449an.*
" 12-28. 310b.
X, 1-4. 23 la.
" 12. 226b.
" 28. 310b.
" 4. 374a.
" 18-XIII, 6. 417a*
XIII, 1. 310b, 312a.
XII, 1-4. 309a,*446b.
" 19. 418a.
" 2. 421 b.
" 4. 339a.*
XIII, 1. 417b.
" 9. 3l7a.
" 7. 309a.
" 1-5. 416b.
" 12. 182b.*
XIII, 1. 364a.
" 4. 418an.*
XIV, 128n,*310b.*
" 11. 78b.
" 12. 84b.*
" 1. 3 1 la.
" 13. 459a.
XIV, 10. 464a.
" 2. 310b, 312b.
" 14. 289b.
XV, 20. 126a.
" 3. 315n.
XVI, 468a.
" 4. 31 la, 316n.
Galatians.
" 5. 75a.
" 5. 311a.
I, 13. 34b.
" 20. 78b.
" 6. 338b.*
" 14. 34b.
" 25. 191a.
" 14. 311a.
" 16. 226b.
' 14-16. 311a.
II, 6. 447b.
1 Corinthians.
1 18. 86a, 311a.
"' 9. 125b,*, 157b,*
I, 2. 75a.
1 19. 311a.
420a, 427b, 447b.
" 18. 192a.
' 23. 31 la.
" 15. 418b.*
" 20. 84a.
1 24. 315n.
" 16. 418b.»
II, 1-5. 126a.
' 25. 315n.
III, 13. 251a.
" 6. 80a.
1 29. 86a.
" 19. 436b.
" 7-11. 30an*
1 31. 315n.
" 24. 248a.
" 9. 183a.
' 34. 85b.*
" 25. 254b.
" 14. 28b, 183b.
' 35. 85b.*
" 27. 227n, 450b.
Ill, 3. 223a.
' 39. 31 la.
" 28. 450b.
" 6. 220b, 222a.
XV, 1-22. 464b.
IV, 3. 8 la.*
" 9. 75b, 220b.
" 4-7. 128a.
8. 8 la.
" 10. 125b,* 222b.*
" 6. 105b.
9. 81a.»
" 10-15. 220b.*
" 12. 223a.
13. 133a.
" 11. 126b,*126a.*
' 14. 424a.
21. 35a.
" 12. 22 lab.*
' 15. 424a.
21-31. 215a, 231a.*
" 14. 224b.*
' 19. 97b.
24. 177b.*
" 15. 224a.*
' 24. 298b, 376a.
26. 365b.
" 22. 97b.
1 25. 298b, 335a.
29. 23 Ib.
504
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE TEXTS.
Galatians.
('(ilosMJaiiM.
2 Timothy.
V, 2. 117a.
I, 26. 191a.
Ill, 16. 30a, 141b,
" 3. 117a.
II, 7. 221b.
179b, 383a.
" 4. 116b.*
' 8. 35a, 81a.
" 17. 79b.«
" 6. 421b.
' 12. 107n, 175b.*
" 9. 225a, 227n.
' 17. 248a.
Titus.
VI, 1. 80a.
' 20. 81a.
I, 2. 98n.
" 7. 227n.
' 23. 78b.
" 12. 391b.
" 15. 463a.
Ill, 3. 107a.*
" 14. 34b.
" 10. 96a, 97a.*
II, 7. 246n.
EphesianH.
" 22. 450b.
Ill, 5. 463a.
I, 7. 461a.
" 9. 34b.
" 15. 276a.
1 Thessalonians.
" 17. 30b.
T 1 T^A
Philemon.
" 18. 30b.
.1, J.. 1 •'<*.
" 7. 246n.
2. 75a.
" 22. 75a.
II, 12. 75a.
9. 139ii.
" 23. 75b, 380a.
II, 10. 276a *
Ill, 1. 134a.*
IV, 16. 363a, 466n.
16. 450b.
" 14. 78b.
" 15. 96a, 97a.*
V, 8. 84b, 226b, 227a.
Hebrews.
I. 1. 19a, 393a,
" 20. 75b, 125ab,*
126a, 223a.
2 ThcNsnlonians.
436b,
" 2. 423a.
" 20-22. 22Jb.
II, 1-8. 134a.
" 14. 164b.*
" 21. 75b.
" 22. 127a, 271a.
Ill, 5. 18a, 125a, 315n.
" 2. 31a.
" 3-8. 388b.*
" 3-10. 366b, 466n.*
II, 2. 436b.
Ill, 1-6. 253ab.*
" 3. 247a.
" 17. 173b.*
" 5-7. 369a.
IV, 9. 349a.
" 21. 75a.
" 8. 373b, 466n.*
" 14. 249b.
IV, 11. 125a.
Ill, 9. 246n.
V, 1. 261b.
" 12. 22b.
" 10-14. 256a.
" 13. 22b.
1 Timothy.
" 12. 8la.
" 24. 227u.
I, 4. 35a.
" 13. 80a.
V, 1-14. 391a.
" 16. 98n.
" 14. 79b.*
" 2. 227n.
II, 2. 97b.
VI, 5. 446a.
" 8. 162a, 260b.
" 7. 75a,
VII, 245b, 25 lb.*
" 8-10. 274a.
III, 15. 126a.
" 2. 249b.
" 23. 280a.
" 16. 459a.*
" 14. 412a.*
" 26. 380a.
IV, 7. 35a.
" 16. 97n.
" 27. 238a, 380a.
" 12. 97a, 246n.
VIII, 5. 246n.
" 31-33. 235a.
VI, 1. 450b.
" 13. 97a.
VI, 5. 450b.
" 2. 450b.
IX, 8. 275a, 306b.
" 11-17. 226b,* 374a.
" 20. 34b.
" 9. 177b, 188b.
" 12. 366n.*
' 11. 276a, 381a.
" 13-17. 84b.
2 Timothy.
1 12. 249b, 276a.
" 17. 185b.
I, 1. 98n.
' 14. 268b.
" 13. 24Gn.
' 15. 96a.
Philippians.
II, 3. 169a.
' 22. 269a.
I, 7. 134b.
" 13. 134b.
" 4. 97b, 169a.*
" 5. 169a.*
' 23. 381a.
1 24. 246n, 276a.
" 14. 134b.
" 6. 169a.*
' 27. 469a.*
" 20. 97b.
" 8. 412a.
" 28. 249a.
II, 7. 458a.
" 11. 375b.
X, 1. 248a, 443a.
" 15. 260b.
Ill, 10. 375b.*
" 11. 374a.
" 14-16. 35a.
" 15. 22b.
" 16. 169b.
" 19. 275a, 381a.
" 19-22. 274b, 276a.
" 22. 381b.
" 17. 246n.
" 17. 169b.
XI. 10. 81b.
" 21. 4G4b.
IV, 15-18. 13-ib.
" 20. 169b.*
" 21. 169b.*
" 19. 177b, 188b.
XII, 22. 275b.
" 18. 227n.
" 23. 35a.
" 23. 80a, 380b.
Cologsiana.
" 24. 26a.
" 24. 96a, 97a.*
I, 18. 75b.
Ill, 8. 39 la.
" 26. 379n.
" 20. 78b, 273b.
" 15. 22b, 393a.
li 26-23. 380a,* 448a.
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE TEXTS.
505
Hebrews.
1 John.
Rerelation.
XII, 27. 379n.
Ill, 20. 61b.
VI, 10. 360b,* 365a.
" 28. 379n.
" 17. 97b.
" 11. 360b.
XIII, 15. 391a.
IV, 7. 29a.
" 12-17. 360b.
" 9. 461a.
VII, 361a.
James.
" 15. 126b.
" 1. 290a.
I, 1-4. 421a.
" 16. 29a, 27 la.
" 4-8. 291 b.
" 7. 98a.
V, 7. 69b, 460a.
" 9. 302a.
" 21. 420a.
" 2,0. 98an.
" 13-17. 381n.
"22-25. 41 9a*
" 15. 330n.
" 25. 420a.
9 John.
81 Ql n
VIII-XI, 319b,* 368a.
" 27. 420b.
. 1.' J [1.
" 3. 274a.
II, 8. 419a, 420a,
Jude.
" 13. 361b.
45 la.
3. 109a.*
IX, 1. 362n*
" 14-17. 421a.
4. 109a.*
" 11. 363n, 370a.
" 15. 420b.
6. 391a.
" 14. 362ab.
" 16. 420b.
9. 39 la.
X, 1. 363an.
" 17. 41 9a.
14. 391a.
" 2. 277a.*
" 21. 420b.
" 6. 363b.
" 21-24. 419a.
Revelation.
" 7. 292a.
" 24. 248b, 42 la.
I, 260a,* 263n.
" 8-11. 277a,*363b.
Ill, 17. 78b.
-XI, 357a, 382b.
XI, 258n.
IV, 14. 97b.
1. 139a,447b.
" 1, 363b.
V, 11. 78b.
1-3. 377a.
" 1-3. 139a.*
3. 139a, 31 5n.
" 2. 292b,* 294a.
1 Peter.
4. 138a, 459b.
" 3. 392b,* 294a.
I, 10. 31 5n.
5. 459b.
" 4. 262a,* 325b.*
" 18. 461a.
6. 273b, 378n.
" 7. 363n, 371a.
" 19. 249a, 46 la.
7. 358bn,* 369a.
" 8. 139a,* 262a,
II, 4. 126b.
9. 137b.*
299an,* 362a,
" 5. 75a,126b,*221b,
11. 138a.
364n, 389an.*
271a, 273b.
12. 245b.
" 11. 80a.
" 6. 126b.
13-16. 237b, 363a.
" 14. 365a.
" 9. 75a. 273b.
II, 3. 137n.
" 15. 357n, 365a.
" 14. 416b.
" 6. 359b.
" 18. 365a.
Ill, 18. 461a.
" 7. 273a.
" 19. 365a.
" 18-20. 462b.*
" 13. 359b.
XII-XXII, 357a, 365a.*
" 21. 231b, 246n.
" 17. 97a.
382b.
IV, 3. 97b.
" 20. 359b.
" 1. 355b,*
" 6. 462b.*
" 26. 365b, 374b.
" 3. 291b, 363n,
" 17. 264b.
" 27. 365b, 374b.
37 Oa.
" 18. 394b.*
Ill, 12. 97a.
" 5. 365b,* 367a.
V, 3. 246n.
" 21. 374b.
" 6. 292b, 294a,
IV, 325a, 359b.
297b.
2 Peter.
" 3. 244b.
" 7. 362a, 362n,
T, 21. 30a, 314n, 436b.
" 6-8. 273a.
389n.*
II, 128a.
" 7. 273a.
" 11. 137n, 367b.
" 22. 177b, 237a.
" 8. 289b.
" 12. 292b.
Ill, 128a.
" 11. 137n.
" 13. 292b.«
" 8. 386a.*
V, 1. 359b.
" 14. 294a.
" 10. 81a, 466n.
" 6. 360a, 363n.
" 15. 292a.
" 10-13. 379n.«
" 8. 274a.
" 17. 366a.
" 12. 466n.
" 9. 97a.
" 22. 381an.«
" 15. 391a.
" 10. 273b, 378n.
XIII, 1. 291b, 363n,
" 16. 20b, 31a, 391a.
" 11. 381n.
366a, 369a,
" 14-20. 247a.
370a.
1 John.
VI, 1-8. 325b, 341a.
" 1-2. 325a.
I, 5. 98a.
1 2. 302a.
" 1-10. 346a.
II, 1. 96b*
1 5. 302b.
" 2. 374a.
" 8. 96b.*
1 6. 302b.
" 5. 292b, 294a.
" 16. 97b.
1 9. 137n, 258n, 360b.*
" 7. 366a.
" 18. 388b.
' 9-11. 375b.
" 8. 381n.
506
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE TEXTS.
Revelation.
Revelation.
Revelation.
XIII, 11. 325a, 363n,
366b, 374a.
XVII, 8. 363n, 370a.
388b.
XX, 7-10. 376a.
" 8. 290a.
" 11-18. 346a.
" 12. 374a.
" 14. 137n.
" . 9. 370bn,*
" 11. 263a, 366n.
372a.
" 11. 302b, 363n,
379u,* 464a.
" 11-15. 376a.
" 18. 136a, 181ab,*
298n, 370b.
XIV, 367a.*
" 1. 362a, 363n.
" 1-5. 367a.*
" 3. 97a.
" 12. 291b.
" 15. 362b.
" 18. 269n.
XVIII, 368b.*
" -XIX, 10. 372a.
" 1-3. 373a.
" 12. 464a.
XXI, 325b, 444b.
" 1. 97a. 379n.*
" 1-8. 376a.
" 3. 276b, 325b,
381b.
" 6. 367a.
" 7. 367a.
" 2. 299a, 362n.
363u.
" 9. 125b, 299b.
" 9-11. 378a.
" 8. 299a, 367b.
369n,* 373a.
" 9-12. 367b.
" 4-20. 373a.
" 10. 137n.
" 15. 137n.
" 10. 81b, 82a,
299b, 344a.
" 12. 291b.
" 13. 367b.
" 14. 363n.
" 14-16. 367b.
" 21-24. 373a.
XIX, 7. 380n.
" 8. 302a.
" 14. 125b,* 291b,
303b.
" 16. 27lb,*
" 20. 364n.
" 11. 302b, 363n.
381b.*
XV, 368a.*
2. 335b.
377a.
" 11-16. 373b.
" 22. 276b, 325b,
382a.
" 3. 335b.
XVI, 319b, * 368a.*
" 6. 362b.
" 11-XXI, 8. 373a.
377a.
" 17-21. 373b.
" 23. 325b, 382a.
" 24. 380o.
" 27. 381n.
" 12. 362b.
" 13. 367a.
" 20. 367a.
XX, 1-3. 374a.
XXII, 325b.
1. 360n.*
" 19. 299a, 369n,*
378a.
" 1-6. 37 7a.*
" 1-8. 378a.
" 3. 382a.
" 4. 382a.
XVII, 868b*
" -XIX, 10. 378a.
" 2. 321b,357n.
" 2-7. 298a.*
" 5. 357n.
" 6. 139a.
1. 362b.
" 1-3. 299b.
" 3. 321b.
" 4. 137n, 374b.
" 7. 139a, 315n.
" 10. 139a, 315n,
" 1-4. 378a.
" 3. 363n.
" 5. 299a, 362b.
" 7-18, 369a.
" 4-6. 365b,*
374a, 375bn.*
" 6. 382b.
" 7. 37 la. 388b.*
356b, 37 7a.
" 12. 139a, 356b.
" 14. 273a, 381b.
" 20. 139a, 356b.
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