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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT
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©[H][FSn©¥ AMI SAO MT J® !HI N
The Pictorial
Bible and Commentator:
ZFiRiESiEisrTiirsra-
TBI GREAT TRUTHS OF GOD'S WORD IN THE MOST SIMPLE, PLEASING, AFFECTIONATE,
AND INSTRUCTIVE MANNER.
BY INGKAM OOBBIN, V. D. M.
AUTHOR OF "DOMESTIC BIBLE;" "PORTABLE COMMENTARY;" "ILLUSTRATED NEW TESTAMENT." ETC., ETC.
A NEW EDITION.
Carefully Revised, Improved, and Enlarged.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT, SHOWING THE PTJEPOSE OF THE
REVEALED WOED ; CHAPTERS ON THE CREATIVE WORK, A FULLER EXPOSITION
OF THE PROPHECIES, THE APOCRYPHA, HISTORY OF THE JEWS, AND A
FULL DESCRIPTION OF PALESTINE, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW
TESTAMENT, AND FULL COMMENTARY ON IT, HISTORY OF THE
APOSTOLIC LABORS IN ASIA MINOR, AN ELABORATE
BIOGRAPHY OF THE APOSTLE JOHN.
Also, Hesba Stretton's "Wonderful Life" of Jesus Christ.
ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL AIDS TO TIIE STUDY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES,
ARRANGED SO AS BEST TO ASSIST RESZARCH AND CONTRIBUTE
TO A FULLER UNDERSTANDING OF THE INSPIRED WORD.
-^ . ** 1^6* gOfyr'g'^
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
EEV. DANIEL MARCH, D. D. \&h .
WITH OVER 4=50 ILLUSTRATIONS AND IMCAFS.
BRADLEY, GARRETSON & CO.,
PHILADELPHIA, 66 NORTH FOURTH STREET.
AUBURN, N. Y.; BRANTFORD, ONT.
WILLIAM GARRETSON & CO.,
COLUMBUS, 0.; CHICAGO, III.; NASHVILLE, Tenn.;
ST. LOUIS, Mo.; SAN FRANCISCO, Cal.
1878.
3^5
■ ^
~X
Copyright — Bradley & Co. — 1878.
Introduction.
HIS attractive and beautiful book, with its clear and simple yet
graphic style, and its abundant illustrations, is an attempt to set
the sacred truths of the Bible before the intelligent and thought-
ful reader, in such a manner as to charm the eye, instruct the
mind, and move the heart.
The writer of this Commentary has not attempted to improve
upon the Divine record, or to explain those things which are
easily and readily understood as they stand upon the sacred page.
But wherever there is any serious difficulty, in comprehending
that which the Holy Spirit has communicated to men in the word
of God, on the part of the reader, he has endeavored, in the
plainest and simplest terms, to shed new light upon the blessed word. Believing,
as he evidently does with his whole heart, that Jesus Christ is God manifest in
the flesh, and that the design of all the revealed word of God is to exhibit the plan
of redemption wrought out by him, and to show how, throughout the ages, his
coming was heralded, even from Eden, till in the fulness of time he came to be
our Redeemer, he makes this purpose of God the key-note of the Commentary ;
and whatever will aid in its demonstration, whether it be description, history,
geography, argument, or simple narrative, is employed freely. In short, the aim
and object of the writer is to justify the ways of God to man, and to show how full
of mercy and goodness they are. Yet it is as far as possible from his purpose to
put anything in the place of the Bible, or to write anything more interesting than
the simple and sublime story of patriarchs and prophets, apostles and martyrs.
He does not presume to improve upon the precepts and instructions that came
fresh and living from the lips of the Son of God. He would only gather his readers
around him and show them where and how to look, while the awful and glorious
vision of Divine revelation is unrolled before them. He does not hold up a taper
to give them an illustration of the sun, but he takes them by the hand and leads
them out into the broad day, when the sun himself is filling the earth and the
heavens with his glorious light.
This Commentary does not assume that the Bible is a blind book, and must
needs be explained, or it will not be understood by those who read it. Nor does it
imply that it is a dull book, and must be made interesting by all the artifices of the
novelist or word-painter, or it will never be read. Nor does it give its readers the
impression that the Bible is an antiquated and obsolete work which must be mod-
3
4 Introduction.
ernized and improved, or it will have to give place to the fresher and more impres-
sive thought of our own time. On the contrary, it is the object of the author of
this Commentary to show his readers that the Bible is the book for all times, all
places, and all circumstances ; that it is the most original, fresh, plain, and inter-
esting book that ever has been or ever will be written ; and that its saints, its
heroes, and its martyrs are representative men for the whole human race.
The lesson of the sacred story is sometimes rehearsed anew, and in modern
phrase, not to give a clearer version of what was written in olden times, but to
secure a change of position, and show the inspired picture in a different light, that
the reader may see it better and love it more. The best comment is that which
brings the reader's mind into closest contact with the word as written. That word
is ever so pure, simple, and expressive, that it needs only to find entrance to the
heart, and it will enlighten the eyes and convert the soul.
Many books have been written, and much learning expended, in the effort to
show that only those who were thoroughly versed in the languages in which the
Bible was originally written, and in the history, social customs, and manners, and
the literature of the nations among which it had its birth, could rightly understand
it ; but such an idea is utterly unworthy of the Christian, and savors of the bigotry
and exclusiveness of the dark ages. The greater part of the Scriptures, all that is
necessary to show us the way of salvation, is within the comprehension of the
simplest and humblest, and will educate and elevate their minds as nothing else
can. There are some passages which can be more clearly understood, and will
receive added force, by a knowledge of the circumstances under which they were
spoken or written, and the habits and customs of the people to whom they were
first uttered ; and in very rare instances, it is possible that our English translation
fails to convey the full force of the original expression. But even these excep-
tional cases are provided for in this Commentary, which, while carefully avoiding
all display of learning, gives in simple and clear language the results of the pro-
found and extensive research of the past two centuries, on all points, where there
is a necessity for them.
It is clue to the author and revisers of this work also, that we should speak of
some of the new features which have been added to the present edition. The
introduction to the Old Testament is conceived in perfect harmony with the
original idea of the work, and shows with great force and clearness that the Old
Testament Scriptures were intended as God's revelation of his purpose of mercy in
bestowing, in the fulness of time, his greatest and best of gifts to fallen man.
The first chapters of Genesis have been rewritten with the same purpose in view,
and give a theory of the preparation of the earth to be the habitation of man,
which, while explaining the creative day satisfactorily, removes the whole subject
from the realm of the geologist, and disposes at once and forever of all the cavils
of the scientist. The weakness and folly of the Darwinian theory of the origin of
man is shown by a few masterly touches ; and the deep guilt involved in the first
transgression effectively demonstrated. Throughout the Old Testament there are
passages which show great care in treating the really difficult topics. At the close
of the Old Testament, a brief but very interesting history of the Jews, from the
captivity to the destruction of Jerusalem, a period only alluded to in the Scrip-
tures, is given, which throws much light on many passages of the New Testament.
Introduction. 5
This is followed by a descriptive history and geography of the Holy Land, so com-
prehensive, complete, and interesting, that it deserves to be published as a separate
treatise. An introduction to the New Testament carries out and illustrates the
idea that the Scriptures are indeed Testaments— the revelation of God's will or
purposes of mercy to man, and that the expansion of those purposes, to include
the whole human family, as well as the chosen nation, is first fully set forth in the
New Testament. The questions of the authenticity and inspiration of each of the
books of the New Testament, and of their exclusive right to a place in the canon
of Scripture, are handled with great simplicity and clearness. In the books of the
New Testament, the hand of the careful reviser is clearly seen, and a history of
Asia Minor in the time of the apostles, and an admirable biography of St. John
the Divine, have been added to the work. The publishers have also appended,
very wisely, that charming life of our Saviour, by Hesba Stretton, known as " The
Wonderful Life."
The engravings and illustrations scattered so abundantly through this book
greatly increase its value. To young aud old they teach more vividly and impres-
sively than words. No verbal description, however accurate and minute, can be
worth anything like as much to the reader as the plainest picture of the thing
described. One glance at the rudest outline of Jerusalem will fix its form and
situation more deeply in the memory than a whole volume of verbal description.
It would be too much to expect that every one of the four hundred and fifty
illustrations found in this book should be drawn and engraved in the highest style
of art, or that none should fail to give a true impression of the places and the peo-
ple, the customs and modes of living in the Bible lands. And yet in all this large
number very few will fail to carry back the reader to the times of old, and to make
him better acquainted with the men who lived when angels came and sat in the
shade of oaks at the shepherd's tent-door, and the word of the Lord was given by
miracle and vision and prophecy.
The original works of the Italian, and Flemish, and Spanish schools of art are
very wonderful in coloring and in composition, but they are seldom true to the
Bible story ; they give very imperfect views of people and customs in the Bible
times. The Bible student will find more in the pictures which form a part of this
Commentary, to help him understand the Scriptures, than he would in all the works
of Raphael and Rubens, of Michael Angelo and Murillo.
These illustrations take the reader out into the pasture-grounds of the patri-
archs and show him the sheep and the goats, the flock and the fold, the well and
the fountain, just as Isaac and Jacob saw them at Beersheba and Bethel and
Shechem. He wanders with the great household over hill and plain in the glow of
the morning, and rests in the hot noon under the shadow of the shepherd's tent.
He goes down into Egypt, sees the brick-making and the brute-worship in the
house of bondage, and then joins the great emigration under Moses. He beholds'
the tents of the tribes and the tabernacle of the congregation in the long wander-
ing of the wilderness. He comes with the conquering host into the land of
promise, and surveys its mountains, and hills, and valleys, its cities and high
places and strongholds. As he goes on with the sacred history, his eye becomes
familiar with all the occupations and all the aspects of human life in the Holy
Land. He sees the sower scattering seed and the birds of the air following to
6 Introduction.
devour it up. He sees the gleaners following the reapers and the harvesters bind-
ing the sheaves, purging the threshing-floor and storing the wheat in the garner.
He goes out with the husbandman in the morning to see the laborers in the field,
and he sits by the village fountain when the women come at evening to bring
water. He visits the vineyard when the vintagers are treading out the grapes ; he
wralks by the seaside, when the fishermen are casting their nets ; he looks up to the
hills at sunrise, and sees the shepherd seeking pasturage and the flock following
his steps whithersoever he goeth. He sits in the city gate and sees the conqueror
coming home from distant war, and captive kings chained and following in his
train. He stands as a spectator in the banqueting-hall when meats steam, and
flowers blossom, and wine runs redder than blood, and he walks around outside
the city wall, where mourners rend their garments and sit in sackcloth and ashes.
All these things, and a thousand others, are set before the eye of the reader in
pictorial illustration, and so he receives a far more definite and lasting impression
of Bible times, lands, and people, than could ever be given by verbal description
alone. The sacred record becomes to him a living book, and its spiritual truths
are so bound up in earthly and material forms that he can grasp their meaning
and carry it with him through all the journey of life. The great lessons of courage
and constancy, and faith, and love, are set before him in such a companionable
and every-day dress, that he is insensibly drawn into sympathy with saints, and
heroes, and apostles, and martyrs. He makes them the companions of his best
hours, and he learns to imitate the best things in their lives. The holy men of old
walk with the men of the living age, and the blessing of the fathers descends to
the children from generation to generation.
The style and the whole execution of the work are well fitted to secure so great
and good a result. The entrance of the book into the house and the careful study
of its sacred lessons will begin a new era of light and instruction for the household.
To the Reader.
HE Pictorial Bible Commentator for the Young, of the late
Ingram Cobbin, has been a work of great success and
popularity ; but the time having arrived, when there was
a necessity for some changes, which should better adapt it
to the use of families, we have procured its revision by
able Christian writers, of the highest repute, who have
sought to explain, in accordance with the latest and best
results of Biblical criticism, those portions of the word of
God, against which infidels and scoffers have made their
most violent assaults ; and to show that the Book of Revelation and the
Book of Nature are in harmony with each other. We have also caused
the prophetical books to be treated at greater length ; have given an account
of the books known as the Apocrypha ; have added a History of the Jews,
from the captivity to the destruction of Jerusalem ; and a Geography and
History of the Holy Land, with a map of the same, from the pens of
eminent scholars, and which will be of great interest, from their connecting
each city, town, mountain and valley, with some event in the Bible history
of the country.
We have had an Introduction to the New Testament prepared, which
shows why all its books are regarded as inspired, and also as the only books
entitled to a place there, and gives the design and purpose of the New
Testament. The Commentary on the Gospels and Acts has been carefully
revised, and additions made where needed ; a History and Map of Asia
Minor, including the labors of the Apostles Paul, Peter and John, and an
elaborate and interesting Life of St. John, by the well-known biographical
writer, Dr. L. P. Brockett, have been added ; while the condensed but
excellent Life of Christ, entitled " The Wonderful Life," by Hesba Stretton,
completes the work. In all we have added about three hundred pages,
and many new illustrations to the work. We think we may safely
commend it to all Christian people, as, by far, the most complete and
comprehensive commentary on the entire Scriptures in one volume ever
published, and the testimony of many eminent clergymen and laymen, who
have carefully examined it; confirms us in this opinion.
The Publishers.
List of Illustrations.
OLD TESTAMENT.
Presentation Plate.
Frontispiece.
Pictorial Title Page.
Sacrifice of Abel page 44
Death of Abel 45
Noah's Ark 5°
The Flood 5*
Noah's Tomb in Armenia 55
Birs-Nimroud, the Ancient Babel 56
Native Plains of Abraham and Lot 58
Valley of Salt, between Canaan and Edom 61
Supposed Site of Sodom and Gomorrah 63
Pillar of Salt by the Dead Sea 65
Ancient Mode of giving Drink 67
Four-horned Ram of Palestine 70
Mosque at Hebron, having the Cave of Machpelah
underneath 72
Camels and their Furniture 74
Laban's Well, at Haran 75
Patriarchal Caravan 77
Where Abram fed his Flocks 80
Ancient Wine-Cups 83
Jacob's Well 86
Rachel's Tomb 89
Offering Salutation in the East 91
Receiving Salutation in the East 92
Ancient Household Gods 94
Eastern Household Gods 94
Egyptian Household Gods 95
Joseph's Coat brought to Jacob 97
Joseph explaining the Dreams 100
Joseph before Pharaoh 101
Pharaoh 1 104
Pharaoh II 105
Egyptian Crowns 107
Egyptian King in his Chariot 107
Israelites making Bricks in Egypt 113
Israelites making Bricks in Egypt 114
Moses before Pharaoh's Daughter 116
Ancient Sceptres 117
The Serpent 119
Egyptian Brick-making Kilns 120
Plague of Frogs 122
8
Locust page 124
Locust 125
Egyptian Women 126
Israelites crossing the Red Sea 128
Egyptian King in his Chariot 131
The giving of the Commandments 134
The Erection of the Tabernacle 137
The Tabernacle restored 138
The High-Priest 140
The Golden Candlestick 142
Ancient Hebrew Swords 145
Unhewn Stones 146
The Sin-offering. 14S
The Meat-offering 149
Awful Judgment on Nadab and Abihu 152
The High-Priest offering Incense 154
Pelican 156
White Stork 156
Raven 156
Owl 156
Ostrich 157
Egyptian Ibis 157
Gier Eagle 157
Wild Boar 157
The Scapegoat 160
Proclamation of Jubilee 161
Slaves variously employed 165
The Emblems on the Standards of the Tribes ... 168
Red Goat 171
TheOx 171
The Hart 1 72
The Ram 172
Mountain Goat of Palestine 172
Long-eared Goat 172
Mount Sinai 176
The Quail 180
Grapes of Eschol 183
Pomegranates 184
The Tabernacle of the Congregation 188
The Red Heifer 191
The Ass 195
Idols in High Places 197
Moses 202
Erecting a Tent in the East 204
Fleeing to the City of Refuge 208
Moloch 209
List of Illustrations.
9
Encampment of the Israelites page 212
The River Jordan 216
Plains of Jericho , 221
Modern Jericho 222
Mount Ebal 224
Pass at which Joshua defeated the five Kings. . . . 228
Temple of Samaria 231
Mount Ephraim, the Burial-place of Joshua 234
View near Mount Ephraim 235
Tomb of the Judges 238
Mount Tabor 241
The Fleece of Gideon 243
Tower of Shechem 247
Jephthah's Daughter 249
Samson carrying off the Gates of Gaza 252
The Fox 253
Fire-brand 253
Flax 254
Eastern Lions 255
Eastern Millstones 256
Slaves grinding Corn 257
Mount Ephraim 258
Ancient Idols 259
Micah's Images 260
The Work of Famine 261
View on Frontier of Moab 261
Bethlehem- Judah, the Home of Naomi 262
Boaz and Ruth 263
The Humble Home 265
Little Samuel on an Errand of Mercy 266
Temple Candelabra 267
Bearing the Ark 268
Milch-kine in an Oriental Cart 270
The Ark and Vessels of the Holy Place 271
Dagon 272
Saul the King 274
Ass of Palestine 274
Women going to draw Water 276
Shiloh in Time of Samuel 278
Victory over the Ammonites 280
Armor used in Time of Saul 280
Philistine Armor 282
Steep Rock with Fort 283
The Cattle preserved by the King. , 285
David the King 2S6
Philistine Shields and Spears 288
The young Slinger 289
Valley of Elah, in which David and Goliath met. 291
Jonathan and David 292
Table of Shew-bread 295
Carrying the Shew-bread 296
Linen Ephod 297
Strongholds at Engedi 298
Saul's Armor 300
David's Hold 301
City of Gath 304
Site of ancient City of Endor 306
Shunem, the Camping-place of the Philistines. . . . 308
Valley of Jezreel 309
Battle with the Amalekites ...PAGE 311
Ashtaroth, the Philistine Goddess 312
Mourners 313
In Sackcloth 314
Philistine City 314
Royal Window 315
Chariot and Horsemen 316
Women with Timbrels, dancing 317
Hebrew Cart 319
Uzzah and the Ark of God 319
Syrian Army 323
Battle with the Enemies of Israel 324
Storming of Thebez 326
David repenting his Sin 328
Ruins at Ammon 329
The Way f the Gate of the City . . . 331
Eastern Loaves of Bread 332
Eastern Baker selling thin Cakes 332
Thicket near the Fords of the Jordan 337
Defeat of Absalom 338
Jerusalem 341
War-engine, No. 1 342
War-engine, No. 2 342
The Crow, a War-engine 344
David the Poet 346
David in his Household 348
Altar of Offering 349
Royal Chairs 349
The Prophet Nathan 351
Sepulchral Cave in Jerusalem 353
David's Tomb at Mount Zion 354
Egyptian Ladies 356
Egyptian Ladies' Toilet 358
An Eastern Vineyard 359
Supposed Form of Solomon's Temple 361
Form of Second Temple 362
Near View of ancient Temple at Jerusalem 363
Brazen Laver 367
King Solomon's Ships 371
Part of ancient War-galley 372
War-galley in Solomon's Time 373
The Prophecy of Ahijah 376
Ancient Shechem 379
The King entreating the Prophet 383
Soldiers of Shishak, King of Egypt 384
Samaria 387
Fire sent down upon the Altar of Elijah 393
Mount Horeb, and Cave of Elijah 395
Syrian Warriors 397
Syrian Cavalry 400
Baal 402
Ivory Ornament 403
Ivory Ornament 403
Upper Chambers in Oriental House 405
Children-mockers killed by bears 409
Moabite Sheep-fold 411
Wilderness of Moab , 412
Mount Carmel, the Residence of Elisha 415
The River Jordan, near its source 418
10
List of Illustrations.
Walls of Samaria page 422
Syrian Tents 425
Burial-place of Jehu 428
Interior of a Rock Sepulchre 431
The Ammonitish Moloch 435
Carried away into Captivity 436
Assyrian Crowns 439
Jehoahaz led Captive by Pharaoh 443
Destruction of Jerusalem 446
Ancient Judean Ruins 447
Small Synagogue 448
David's Messengers 449
Burial of Judah's Great King 450
Village Temple for Worship 451
Young Joash at rest in the Temple 452
Large Synagogue 453
By the Rivers of Babylon 454
Ancient Babylon 455
Persian Monarch administering Judgment 459
Tomb of Cyrus 461
Jerusalem Rebuilt 463
Reading of the Law under Ezra 465
Ezra's Tomb 466
Ruins of Tombs built in Time of Ezra 466
One of the Gates repaired by Nehemiah 469
Tables in Time of Nehemiah 473
Materials used in writing the Law 475
Scroll or Book 476
Eastern Gate of Jerusalem 479
Temple Chapiters 480
Materials used at Persian Feasts 481
A Royal Feast 482
Persian King and Attendants 485
Travelling Post in Persia 487
Persian Dresses of State 491
Modern Persian Women 493
Supposed Tomb of Esther and Mordecai 494
A Persian Cup-bearer 495
Job • 497
Ostrich 499
Hippopotamus, or Sea-horse 501
Whale '5°3
Crocodile 504
Arabian Camel 505
Bedouins in the Arabian Desert 506
Instruments of the ancient Jews 50S
Manna Plant 509
Almond Blossom and Fruit 510
Wind Instruments of David's Time 511
Palm tree 512
Dates 513
Ancient Lamps 514
Wisdom's Materials 515
The Royal Couch 517
The sleeping Lion 517
Royal Cistern at Jerusalem 519
Revealing the Truth 520
Blowing of Trumpet at New Moon 521
Balm 527
Daniel in the Lion's Den page 534
Handwriting on the Wall 533
Ancient Ship-building 540
Ancient Ship ^z
High-Priest in his Robes 557
Lion jgi
Vulture 582
Joppa from the East 601
Map of Palestine 616
NEW TESTAMENT.
Symbolic Union of the Old and New Dispensa-
tions 618
Annunciation 621
There came Wise Men from the East 625
Myrrh 626
John the Baptist preaching Repentance 628
Christ disputing in the Temple 629
Jerusalem, with Temple in the Distance 631
Sermon on the Mount 633
Mount Tabor, in Galilee, often ascended by Christ 635
Roman Centurion 637
Wine Skins 638
Leather Bottles 639
Filling a Bottle 640
Healing the Blind ' 641
Dancing in the East ' 643
Ancient Jewish Scribes 645
Ancient Roman Scribe 646
The Sower 647
Black Mustard 648
Prison in which John was beheaded 650
Christ and Peter on the Water 651
Sea of Galilee 652
Bridge near Tyre 653
Baker at the Oven 654
Common Fish of Palestine 654
Transfiguration of Christ 658
The Jewish Shekel 660
Christ Blessing Little Children 662
Eastern Gold 663
Eastern Silver 664
Fruits of the Vineyard 666
Jerusalem in the Time of Christ 668
Robbers Hiding 670
Fig Branch 671
An Eastern Dining-room 673
Roman Magistrate 674
Csesar 675
Readers of the Jewish Law 676
Jewish Scribes in the Time of Christ 678
Robing a Priest 679
Hebrew Priests 679
A Levite 68o
The Conquerors 681
Ancient I imps 682
Bethany 684
Unleavened Bread 685
List of Illustrations
11
Ancient Wine-press, No. i page 686
Ancient Wine-press, No. 2 686
Hall of Judgment 692
Gethsemane 693
Bearing the Cross 695
Forms of Crosses 696
The Thorn-crowned Christ 697
Mount of Olives 698
Crucifixion 699
Veil of the Temple rent 700
Roman Guards 7°2
Roman Lictors 7°3
Sowing Grain 706
Eastern Mode of Threshing 706
Ancient Mode of Binding 707
The Angel appearing to Zacharias 709
The Infant John 710
Bethlehem 71 1
Nazareth 713
Turtle-dove 714
Simeon and Infant Saviour 715
Jewish Scrolls used in teaching the Young 717
Galilee 7T9
Miraculous Draught of Fishes 722
City of Nain 723
Sidon 725
Mountains about Jericho 726
Master and Servant. 728
Carob Fruit (Husks of Prodigal Son) and Leaves. 730
Ancient Signet Rings 731
Ancient Signet Rings 732
Shoes and Sandals 73.5
Sandals 737
House and Water-pots at Cana of Galilee 738
Ancient Cups and Water-jars 739
Fountain at Cana 740
Samarian Well 741
Country around Samaria 742
Bethesda 744
Ruins of Capernaum 746
Tent or Booth 748
The Good Shepherd 750
Sheep-fold 751
Ancient Tombs in the Rocks 752
The Husbandman 756
F-uit of Vine 757
First-fruits 758
Fire of Coals in the East 760
Ancient Messengers in the East 763
Potter's Field, or Field of Blood page 764
Beautiful Gate 766
Ananias and Sapphira 768
Chained to a Guard in the Prison 769
Practising the Cunning Arts 771
Soothsayers 772
Damascus 774
Lydda 776
Joppa from the Southwest 777
Cesarea 778
Antioch 779
Ancient Bethlehem 780
Herod receiving Supplicants 782
Worshipping Jupiter 784
Ruins of Troas 786
In the Stocks j 788
Roman Citizens 789
Thessalonica 790
Ancient Athens 793
Corinth 796
Diana, Jove and Minerva 798
Ruins of the Theatre at Ephesus 799
Miletus 802
Approach to Jerusalem 803
Fountain at Nazareth 806
Ptolemy Philadelphus 808
Crete 809
The Viper 811
Romans at Table in Time of Paul 812
Map of Asia Minor 814
Rome 823
Victor in the Races receiving his Crown 824
Seals and Scrolls of Beginning of our Era 830
The River of the Water of Life 857
"And there were Shepherds abiding in the Fields" 874
" He came to Nazareth, and was subject unto
them" 882
"And was with the Wild Beasts " 896
"An Angel went down at a certain time into the
Pool " 905
"John calling unto him two of his Disciples," etc. 916
" He took the blind Man by the Hand," etc 935
" But Mary sat still in the house " 947
" They went backward, and fell to the Ground ". 971
" There were also Women looking on afar off". . 982
"And from that Hour, that Disciple took her unto
his own Home" 984
" When the Morning was now come, Jesus stood
ontheShore" 986
Contents.
Introduction page 5
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 7
Genesis 25
The Creation of trie World and of Man 26
The first Chapter of Genesis continued 28
The Second Chapter of Genesis 31
The Third Chapter of Genesis 36
The first Murder 41
The Descendants of Seth 46
The Flood and Noah's Life 48
The Building of Babel 56
Abram 57
Lot 59
The Battle of the Kings 60
Burning of Sodom and Gomorrah 62
Hagar and Ishmael 66
Abraham offering up Isaac . 68
The Death of Sarah 71
Marriage of Isaac and Rebekah 73
The Death of Abraham 76
Esau selling his Birthright 78
Isaac blessing Jacob 79
Jacob's Dream 84
Jacob and Daughters of Laban 85
Jacob and his Flocks 87
Jacob and the Angels 90
Meeting of Jacob and Esau 91
Slaying of the Shechemites 92
Jacob and the Strange Gods 94
Esau's final Removal from Canaan 95
Joseph and his Brethren 96
Joseph in Potiphar's House 97
Joseph in Prison • 98
Joseph raised to honor 99
Joseph's Brethren in Egypt buying Corn 102
Joseph's Brethren sent for Benjamin 103
Joseph's Brethren return to Egypt 104
The Cup in Benjamin's Sack 105
Joseph makes himself known 106
Jacob goes into Egypt 108
Jacob before Pharaoh 109
Jacob on his Death-bed no
Jacob's Funeral and Joseph's Death in
12
Exodus.
Facts regarding Exodus PAGE 113
Children of Israel in Bondage 113
Birth and Preservation of Moses 114
Moses and the burning Bush 118
Moses with Aaron goes to Israelites 119
Moses applies to Pharaoh, etc 120
Beginning of the Ten Plagues 120
Plagues of Frogs, Lice and Flies 121
Murrain, Boils, Blains, Rain, Hail and Fire 123
Plagues of Locusts and Darkness 124
Destruction of First-born 125
Departure of Israel and Drowning of Pharaoh. . . 127
Israel fed with Manna 130
Moses smites the Rock — Defeat of Amalek 132
The giving of the Law 134
Laws given Israel by Moses 135
Tabernacle, P'urniture and Priests 136
The Golden Calf. 143
Ten Commandments renewed 146
Leviticus.
Facts concerning Leviticus .' 347
The Burnt-offering 147
The Meat-offering • 149
The Sacrifices 150
Consecration and Duties of Priests 153
Awful Judgment on Nadab and Abihu 153
Laws respecting Food 155
Laws on the Leprosy 158
The Scapegoat 1 59
The Year of Jubilee 161
Vows 164
Numbers.
Remarks upon Book 167
Numbering of Tribes 167
Law concerning Nazarites 169
Offerings to the Tabernacle 1 70
Directions about the Levites 174
Pillar of Cloud and Fire 174
March from Sinai 175
Fed with Quails , 178
Miriam's Leprosy 181
The Twelve Spies sent to Canaan 182
Korah, Dathan and Abiram swallowed up 186
Contents.
13
Wonderful budding of Aaron's Rod page 189
Provisions for Priests and Levites 190
The Red Heifer .191
Second Rock smitten for Water 192
The Brazen Serpent 193
Balaam and his Ass 194
Balak disappointed in cursing Israel 198
Events before Death of Moses 200
Deuteronomy.
Remarks upon Book 206
Laws regarding Cities of Refuge — Conjurers —
The Idol Moloch — Landmarks 206
Moses warned of Death — His Songs 211
Death of Moses — Joshua becomes Leader 213
Joshua.
Remarks upon Book 215
Joshua passes Jordan — Meets an Angel 215
Taking of Jericho 220
The Sin of Achan 223
The Taking of Ai 224
The Gibeonites saved by craft 225
Five Kings defeated — Sun and Moon stand still. . 227
Division of Land by Joshua. 229
Three more Cities of Refuge — Levite Cities, etc. 233
Judges.
Remarks upon Book 236
King Adonibezek punished — Ehud and Eglon —
Shamgar • 236
Deborah and Barak judge Israel — Sisera's Death 240
Gideon's Exploits and Death 240
King Abimelech 246
Jephthah's Vow — The Ephraimites slain 248
Samson's wonderful Deeds 251
Story of Micah and his Gods 257
Ruth.
Remarks upon Book 261
History of Naomi and Ruth 261
1 Samuel.
Facts concerning Book 265
Young Samuel a Servant of God — Eli's wicked
Sons , 265
Ark taken and restored 267
Saul chosen first King of Israel 273
Saul's Victory over Ammonites 279
Samuel 's Farewell to Israel 0 281
Saul rejected from being King 281
Jonathan's Attack of Philistines 283
The Amalekites destroyed 284
David anointed to be King 286
David's Victory over Goliath 287
Jonathan's Love of David — Saul seeks David's
Life 292
David eats the Shew-bread, and feigns Madness 295
David in Cave, and Priests slain 296
David's Victory over Philistines — Still pursued
by Saul page 298
Saul's Skirt cut off by David 299
Samuel's Death — Nabal's Behavior to David ... 302
David's Flight to Gath 304
The Witch of Endor 305
David's March with the Philistines 308
Amalekites plunder and burn Ziklag 310
Saul defeated and slain 312
2 Samuel.
Facts concerning Book 315
Slaying of Amalekite who slew Saul 315
David anointed King over all Israel 317
Removal of Ark, and Uzzah's Death 319
David's Conquests 321
David's Ambassadors insulted, and Ammonites
and Syrians defeated 322
Murder of Uriah 325
Nathan's Message to David 327
Amnon killed by Absalom 329
Absalom's Rebellion 331
Hushai deceives Absalom 333
Ahithophel's Counsel defeated 335
Absalom's Defeat and Death 336
David's Return to Jerusalem 340
Sheba's Rebellion and Death 342
Saul's Sons executed 343
David's Heroes 345
David's Pride in numbering his People 347
1 Kings.
Facts concerning Book 350
Adonijah's Conspiracy — Solomon proclaimed
King 350
Death of David — Execution of Adonijah, Joab,
and Shimei 353
Solomon's Marriage to Pharaoh's Daughter — His
Dream and Prayer for Wisdom — His won-
derful Judgment 356
Solomon's Prosperity and Honor 358
Preparation for building Temple 360
Building of the Temple 362
Solomon's Houses — The Ornaments and Utensils
for Temple 364
Dedication of the Temple 368
Solomon's new Cities and Ships 370
Queen of Sheba's Visit to Solomon — His great
Riches 371
Solomon's Disobedience to God 374
Jeroboam chosen King of Ten Tribes, and Reho-
boam of Judah 377
Jeroboam's Hand withered — The Disobedient
Prophet 380
Sins of Jeroboam and Rehoboam 382
Reigns of Abijam and Asa, of Judah, and of
Nadab and Baasha, of Israel 385
History of more Kings of Israel — Beginning of
Ahab's Reign 386
14
Contents
Elijah miraculously fed — Widow's Oil and Meal
multiplied — Her Son raised to Life page 389
Baal's Prophets slain by Elijah 390
Elijah's Flight from Jezebel 394
War between Syria and Israel 396
Naboth robbed and killed by Jezebel 397
Ahab killed in Battle 399
2 Kings.
Remarks upon Book 404
Sickness and Death of Ahaziah — Soldiers de-
stroyed by Fire from Heaven 404
Elijah taken up in Chariot of Fire — Mocking Chil-
dren killed by Bears 406
Israel supplied and Moabites defeated, 410
Miracles by Elisha 413
Naaman cured of Leprosy 417
An Axe made to Swim — The King's Secrets told
by Elisha — Syrians Smitten with Blindness. . 420
Siege of Samaria 422
Syrian King Murdered by Hazael 424
Jehu anointed King of Israel — Joram and Ahaziah
slain — Jezebel killed 426
Ahab's seventy Sons slain 428
Usurpation and Death of Athaliah. 429
Reign of Joash, King of Judah 430
Death of Elisha — Dead Man raised in Sepulchre. 431
Amaziah, King of Judah — Jeroboam, Son of
Joash, King of Israel 432
Reigns of Azariah, Menahem, and Jotham 433
Reign of Ahaz, King of Judah 434
Hoshea, last King of Israel — Tribes carried into
Captivity 436
Hezekiah, King of Judah 437
Hezekiah's Sickness and Recovery 439
Manasseh's wicked Reign — Anion's wicked Reign 440
Josiah, the most excellent King 441
Jehoiakim and Jehoiachim's Reigns — Zedekiah's
Reign 444
Jerusalem destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar 445
Characters of the Kings of Judah 447
1 and 2 Chronicles.
Remarks on first Book 448
Account of Contents of first Book 448
Remarks on second Book 451
Account of Contents of second Book 451
Ezra.
Facts regarding Book 453
Proclamation of Cyrus concerning Temple 453
Laying foundation of second Temple 457
Building of Temple hindered 458
Building of Temple continued 460
Ezra's Embassy and Return 462
Ezra forwards work at Jerusalem 464
Judah's Sins and Reformation 464
Nehemiah.
Remarks on Book page 467
Nehemiah's Affliction at affairs, and determined
conduct 467
Care regarding oppressed Jews 471
Artifices of Sanballat and others 473
Nehemiah's Measures of Protection 474
Solemn Fast of Jews — People covenant to serve
God 477
Dedication of Wall of Jerusalem — Reform of Jews
completed.... 478
Esther.
Remarks on Book — 481
Royal Feast of Ahasuerus 481
Esther made Queen of Persia— Plot against the
King 483
Haman's Plot against the Jews 484
Haman's Fall and Execution 486
Mordecai's Advancement — Establishment of
Purim 492
Job.
Remarks on Book 496
Full Description of Contents 496
Psalms.
Facts concerning Boek 507
Design of the Psalms — Titles of Psalms — Full de-
scription of Contents 507
Proverbs.
Facts concerning Book. „ \ 515
Description of Contents 515
Eeelesiastes.
Remarks on Book 516
Description of Contents 516
Song of Solomon.
Remarks on Book 518
Description of Contents 518
Four Greater Prophets.
Facts concerning them 520
Book of Isaiah 522
Book of Jeremiah 526
Lamentations of Jeremiah 528
Book of Ezekiel. 529
Book of Daniel 530
Chronological Table of Kings and Prophets 536
Twelve Minor Prophets.
Facts concerning them 537
Book of Hosea 537
Book of Joel 538
Book of Amos 538
Book of Obadiah 539
Contents.
15
Book of Jonah page 540
Book of Micah 543
Book of Nahum 544
Book of Habakkuk 545
Book of Zephaniah — • 546
Book of Haggai 546
Book of Zechariah 547
Book of Malachi 547
The Apocrypha 550
h istory of the jews 552
Palestine, or the Holy Land 574
The New Testament 607
Map of Palestine 616
Title Page of New Testament 617
NEW TESTAMENT.
Matthew.
Facts concerning Book 619
Birth and infancy of Jesus 619
John the Baptist.. 627
Temptation of Jesus 630
Sermon on the Mount ; 632
Miraculous Cures performed 636
The twelve Disciples 642
The Baptist's Character by Christ 642
Enmity of Pharisees , 644
Parable of Sower ; of Tares; of Mustard Seed; of
Leaven; of Hidden Treasure; of Pearl; of
Net 646
John the Baptist beheaded — The Multitude fed —
Christ walks on the Sea 649
Syro-Phcenician Woman's Daughter Cured 653
Second Multitude fed 653
Peter's Confession about Christ 655
Transfiguration of Christ 656
Christ teaches Humility, Kindness, etc 660
Christ receives little Children, and converses
with rich young Man 663
Parable of Laborers in Vineyard — Christ foretells
his Sufferings — The two blind Men 665
Christ's triumphant Entry into Jerusalem 667
Parable of Marriage Supper — Christ converses
with Pharisees 672
Wickedness of Pharisees 677
Destruction of Jerusalem foretold 679
Parable often Virgins — of the Talents — The Day
of Judgment 681
The Passover — Sufferings of Christ 684
Gethsemane — Sufferings of Christ 687
The Sufferings of Christ — His Death 694
Christ's Resurrection 702
Mark.
Facts concerning Book 705
Description of Contents 705
Luke.
Facts concerning Book 708
Birth of John the Baptist.... 708
Birth and early Days of Jesus page 712
Christ persecuted at Nazareth 718
Miracle of Draught of Fishes — Christ raises
Widow's Son — The Penitent Woman 721
The Seventy sent forth — The inquiring Lawyer —
The Good Samaritan — Martha and Mary. . . . 725
Jesus teaches Disciples to pray — Parables of rich
Fool — The waiting Servants 727
Parables of barren Fig-tree — Highest Seat — Lost
Piece of Money — Prodigal Son 729
John.
Facts concerning Book 733
John the Evangelist — The Baptist's Testimony
to Christ , 733
Marriage at Cana 738
Christ converses with Nicodemus 740
The Woman of Samaria — The Nobleman's Son
Cured 741
Christ Cures the Man at Pool 743
Christ compares himself to Bread 745
Christ the Fountain of Happiness — The Jews try
to stone him — He restores Man born blind. . . 746
Christ compared to a Door — The good Shepherd 749
Lazarus raised from the Dead 751
The Precious Ointment — Christ's Entry into Jeru-
salem, etc 753
Parable of Vine and Branches. 755
Christ's side pierced — Christ after Resurrection .. 757
Acts.
Facts concerning Book 762
What the Apostles said and did, etc 762
Lame Man restored at Gate — Peter and John be-
fore Sanhedrim 766
Ananias and Sapphira struck dead — Peter and
John imprisoned — Released by Angel 767
Martyrdom of Stephen — Saul of Tarsus — The Per-
secutor — Simon Magus — Philip and the
Eunuch 770
Conversion of Saul — Peter cures Eneas of Palsy
and raises Dorcas to Life 773
Cornelius's Dream — Peter's Vision 777
Peter's Imprisonment and Escape — Herod's mis-
erable Death 780
Travels, Sufferings and Success of Paul and Bar-
nabas 783
Disputes settled by Apostles 786
Paul at Thessalonica 790
Paul's extensive Travels 795
Paul's Travels and Preaching — His Arrest and
Trial — At Cesarea. . 801
Paul's dangerous Voyage to Rome — His Miracles
at Melita : 808
Asia Minor 815
Epistles.
Facts concerning the Epistles 822
Epistle to the Romans 822
Episties to the Corinthians 824
16
Contents
Epistle to the Galatians 825
Epistle to the Ephesians 825
Epistle to the Philippians 826
Epistle to the Colossians 826
Epistles to the Thessalonians ,
Epistles to Timothy
Epistle to Titus
Epistle to Philemon ...,...*
Epistle to the Hebrews ,
General Epistle of James
826
827
827
Epistles General of Peter 829
First Epistle of John 829
Second Epistle of John 830
Third Epistle of John 830
General Epistle of Jude , 830
Revelation.
Facts concerning Book 831
Full Description of Contents 831
St. John, the Beloved Disciple 835
Preface .
The Wonderful Life—By Hesba Stretton
867
865
Book I. The Carpenter.
CHAP.
I. The Holy Land
II. Jerusalem and Bethlehem
III. In the Temple '.
IV. The Wise Men
V. Nazareth
VI. The First Passover
872
877
879
883
886
Book II. The Prophet.
John the Baptist. 891
Cana of Galilee 893
The First Summer 897
Samaria 901
The First Sabbath Miracle 904
His Old Home 908
Capernaum 910
VIII. Foes from Jerusalem 915
IX. At Nain 920
X. Mighty Works 922
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
CHAP.
XL A Holiday in Galilee 920"
XII. In the North 931
XIII. At Home once more 936
XIV. The Last Autumn 94*
XV. Lazarus 948
XVI. The Last Sabbath ..... 952
Book III. Victim and Victor.
I. The Son of David 956
II. The Traitor • 9^
III. The Paschal Supper •• 964
IV. Gethsemane 9^9
V. The High-Priest's Palace 973
VI. Pilate's Judgment Hall 97<5
Calvary 98°
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
In the Grave 985
In the Sepulchre 9^8
Emmaus • • 994
It is the Lord • 997
His Friends 1001
His Foes.... • i°o4
Analytical and Chronological Aids to the Study of the Holy
Scriptures.
Bible Synchronology. In Ten Periods 1007
Antediluvian Patriarchs 1007
Table, showing how the Earth was repeopled by
descendants of Noah joo8
Post-Diluvian Patriarchs 1008
The Wandering in the Wilderness 1008
Governors and Judges over Israel 1009
Chronology Of New-
Historical Books ion
The Pauline Epistles 1012
The General Epistles . . 1012
Chronology of our Lord's Life 1012
Parables of Jesus 1013
Miracles of Jesus 1014
The Twelve Original Apostles roi4
Tabular Memoir of the Apostle Paul 1015
Tabular arrangement of Old Testament History
Authorship and Dates of Poetical Books
Chronological order of Prophetical Books
Prophecies in Historical Books of Old Testa-
ment
Parables of Old Testament
Miraculous Events in Old Testament History. . .
Testament Books.
Words of Jesus
Analysis of the Old and New Testaments
Plan for Reading the Bible through in a Year. . .
Miracles Performed by and among the Apostles.
Table
From the Birth of Christ to the closing of the
New Testament Canon, A. d. 100
1009
1009
1010
1010
1010
ion
1016
1016
1016
1017
1017
1018
The Old Testament.
HE word Bible means The Book, because it is the best of
all books, the one book which contains all that is needful to
teach every one the way of salvation. This blessed book is
also called The Scriptures, which means The writings,
because these are the writings, or messages, which God has
sent to man. If you take up any of our English Bibles,
and look at the title page, you will read: "The Holy Bible,
containing the Old and New Testaments." The word Tes-
tament means a will, or manifestation of the benevolent
intentions of a person toward kindred and friends. Among men, this testa-
ment, or will, only takes effect after the death of the person who makes it,
and the testator can alter or change it, to the last day of his life, and it is
usually only the last or latest will or testament which is held to be valid.
But God is not only infinitely wise, and just, and benevolent, but he is
also eternal, or ever living, and so when he declares his will or intentions
toward us, since he can never die, he graciously allows us to come into the
immediate, or speedy possession of the blessings which he has in store for
us. His will or intentions of love toward us have never changed, and
though more than sixteen hundred years were consumed in the communi-
cation of the different books or portions which go to make up his will, yet
there is the same great purpose and plan running through the whole of it,
perhaps more fully displayed in the later, than in the earlier portions, but
so plain in all, that none need fail to comprehend it. *
So, when we read about the "Old/7 or earlier, and the "New," or later
Testament, we are not to suppose that what is called the "Old Testament"
is like an old will, which a man has made and thrown aside as worthless,
because, for some reason, he prefers to make a later will, and a different
disposition of his property. God does not change : he is the same, yester-
* The Greek word, which, in the title pages of our Bibles, is translated Testament, is, in some
passages in the New Testament, rendered Covenant; but this word, as it is used there, ex-
presses almost precisely the same idea which we have explained above ; that of the voluntary-
obligation which God has assumed to grant us redemption through the sacrifice of his Son;
and as God is ever-living, it is, perhaps, more strictly correct to speak of this obligation as a
Covenant between him and us, than as a Testament or will, which would only become valid on
the death of the testator. But our English Bibles have so accustomed us to the use of the
word Testament that we have adopted it in this work.
2 17
18 Bible and Commentator.
day, to-day, and forever; and what he willed three thousand years ago, that
he wills to-day. The two Testaments are but parts of one and the same
manifestation of his love and good will towards us, though expressed in
different ways and under different circumstances, so far as man is concerned.
Very often, indeed, almost always, the man who would make a will or
execute a deed of gift, employs another man, usually a lawyer or notary, to
draw up the papers for him. He tells this man what his ideas are, and the
lawyer or notary writes them down, using such language in expressing
them, as best accords with the legal forms of the time. So, the great God,
in communicating his will to man, has employed men to write it out in
human language; and while he has revealed to them, or inspired them with
the thoughts which he wished men to know, he has allowed each man to
express these thoughts, under the Divine superintendence, in the wor s
which he would naturally choose. They were all good men, and their words
were good, but the thoughts were God's thoughts. There were probably
about forty of these writers, in the Old and New Testaments, and each one
had his peculiarities of style and manner; but, as we shall show you by and
by, the books written by them, when compared with the best books which
have been written by men whom God did not inspire, show a very wonder-
ful difference, and prove that God's thoughts are not like our thoughts.
The Jews, for whom all these books of the Old Testament were first
written, divided them into three classes, viz. : I. The Law, which was
also called the Pentateuch or Five Boohs, and comprised the five books
usually supposed to have been written by Moses — Genesis, Exodus, Levit-
icus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. II. The Prophets, in which they
included not only the prophetical books which we recognize under that
name — Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the smaller prophecies, twelve in
number, from Hosea to Malachi — but also the books of Joshua, Judges,
First and Second Samuel, and First and Second Kings. III. "The Sacred
Writings," which included the three poetical books, Psalms, Proverbs and
Job; "the Five Bolls," Solomon's Song, Kuth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes
and Esther; and the books of Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and First and Sec-
ond Chronicles. This was the arrangement at the time our Saviour was on
earth. But it was not a very good one; and the Jews who spoke the Greek
language, and had had the Old Testament translated into Greek, adopted in
that translation the different, and in many respects better one, which we
have in our English Bibles.
Let us look at this arrangement of the books of the Old Testament a lit-
The Old Testament. 19
tie, and see what was God's plan in causing this portion of his will to be
made known to us in writing. We shall find that he begins by telling us
how this world and all worlds were created; how this world was fitted to
become the habitation of man ; how man was created, and put in a beautiful
garden, and the first woman given to him for a companion; how they dis-
obeyed God?s commands, and did that which he told them not to do, being
tempted to this disobedience by an evil spirit; how they were driven out
of the beautiful garden ; how they had three sons and several daughters;
how one of these sons quarrelled with another, and killed him, and thence-
forth went away from his parents, and his children became very wicked;
how the children and descendants of the third son, Seth, were good, and
obeyed God for a considerable time; how finally all became so wicked,
except one family, that God destroyed them, and sent his flood to drown
the world; that it was peopled anew from this family of Noah. Then,
after some general description of Noah's other descendants, God gives a
more particular account of the descendants of Shem, and of his grandson
Eber, and of his descendant in the seventh generation, Abraham, who with
his son Isaac, and his grandson Jacob, were the founders of the Jewish or
Hebrew nation.
Thenceforward the historical narrative is occupied mainly with the his-
tory and movements of the descendants of these three men, who eventually
occupied almost the whole of Palestine, and particularly with the Jewish
nation, the descendants of Jacob. It relates their migration into Egypt,
and their return, more than four hundred years later, to Palestine. Their
long journey in the wilderness, their organization there into a compact and
civilized nation ; the establishment of laws, government, and religious rites
and ceremonies ; describes how their first government acknowledged only
God as their Supreme Ruler, and that the judges, rulers, and lawgivers who
governed them under him, were selected by his will. After a time, they
became restive under this control, and desired to imitate the nations around
them in having a king, as they had already often imitated them in falling
into the worship of idols. We are told that God permitted them to have
kings, some of whom were both good and great men, and among the num-
ber David, the sweetest poet, as well as the bravest commander in all their
history ; Solomon, the wisest of men ; Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah and Jo-
siah, all good and judicious rulers. But the greater number of their
kings were bad men, and taught the people to worship idols, and to disobey
God. Yet God was very merciful and loving to the Jewish nation, and he
20 Bible and Commentator.
not only caused these good kings to write many psalms, and poems, and
books of instruction for them — all of which he has made a part of his will
or testament — but he raised up many prophets and teachers to warn and
instruct them ; and these warnings and prophecies are also written down for
our instruction. At length, they became so wicked, that he caused, first,
the kingdom of Israel — for they had divided into two distinct and often
hostile kingdoms — to be conquered by their enemies, and the people to be
carried into captivity, among the nations of the East, from whence very few
of them ever returned to their own land. This destruction of their sister
nation did not have any permanent good effect on the kingdom of Judah,
and, one hundred and thirty-two years later, they also were carried into cap-
tivity in Babylon, and subsequently scattered through Media and Persia,
and their beautiful temple, built by Solomon, was destroyed. At the end
of seventy years, a portion of these captives, or rather their descendants,
returned to Jerusalem and its neighborhood, probably not more than 45,-
000 or 50,000 at first, and rebuilt the temple. Henceforward they were not
idolaters ; but, at the coming of Christ to the earth, more than four hun-
dred years later, they were formalists, worldly, ambitious, and haughty.
We find most of the Old Testament, then, occupied with the history of
this one Jewish nation, and what there is of other history is given mainly
in its relation to them ; what there is of poetry and literature is their
poetry and literature, and describes their conditions and history, and their
country ; what there is of prophecy, relates mainly to them, or to the nations
which had made war upon them ; though, occasionally, some other nations
are the subjects of prophetic denunciation ■ and the picture of a more glori-
ous future, under the reign of the Messiah, is portrayed with wonderful
beauty. But, taken as a whole, we may say, that from the beginning of
the book of Exodus to the closing chapter of Malachi, the Old Testament
is devoted to the history, the condition, the wanderings, backslidings, and
crimes of the Jewish nation, and to their tardy and incomplete repentance.
You will see, then, that when God communicated to his .servants what
they should say in this Old or earlier Testament, he did not intend to
make a history, though all the history that is given incidentally is true;
he did not intend that it should be a treatise on science, explaining either
how the world was made, or how animals or man grew up in their present
forms and with their present habits, or how trees, plants and flowers, or
minerals, were produced ; though all the allusions to these matters, if
rightly understood, are perfectly in accord with true science; nor is it a
The Old Testament. 21
volume of poetry and description, though some of the loftiest poetry, and
the most vivid description in the whole range of literature is found in it;
nor a book of philosophy, though it deals with the grandest problems of
philosophy which the human mind can consider. No ! God had a higher,
grander purpose than this, or he would never have communicated his
thoughts and his will to men :
And what was this great purpose and plan, which prompted him thus to
make known his ways to man? It was just this:
God is not only all-wise and all-powerful, but he is all-seeing and all-
knowing. Whatever has been, in all the past, whatever now is, in all parts
of his universe, and whatever shall be in the future, is all perfectly known
to him, and as much present to his all-seeing eye, as the open page of a book
is to us. He knew that the human beings whom he created and placed in the
garden of Eden would sin against him, through the temptation of the devil ;
and knowing this, ages before they were created, his thoughts of mercy
toward them wTere so great and good, that he had devised a plan for their
salvation and for the salvation of all their descendants, who would accept for-
giveness on the terms which he offered to them. This plan provided that
in the fulness of time, his Son (in his relation to man), equal and one with
him in all power, and dignity, and glory, should come to this earth, should
be born as the child of an earthly mother, the descendant of the man and
woman who had fallen in Eden, and should live, teach, suffer, and die by
the death of the cross, as a sacrifice for the sins of the world; that he should
rise from the dead ; appear before men in this new life, and ascend into
heaven, to resume his former glory.
The Old Testament, then, is God's record of the history and progress of
his plan of the redemption of this world from its bondage to sin. And his
way of revealing this plan of mercy to man is as wonderful as the plan
itself. Man's way would have been (if we may suppose, without irrever-
ence, that man could have comprehended such a scheme of redemption) to
have announced this wondrous gift, a few years before its consummation,
and repeating the announcement, at stated intervals, at length to have intro-
duced the Saviour of men with all the pomp and display which it was pos-
sible for earth to bestow upon her King and Lord.
This was not God's way. Four thousand years before his coming, when
the first pair had sinned and been driven from Paradise, he had promised
to them that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent or
the tempter; and from that day forward, for four thousand years, the prep-
22 Bible and Commentator.
arations for the coming of that Saviour, thus promised, went on continu-
ously, " hasting not and resting not/'
It was the seed or descendant of the woman which should bruise the
head of the serpent, and Adam and Eve looked for this promised deliverer
in their first-born son ; but that was not God's plan. The descendants of
Seth, the third son, were those from whence the Messiah should spring ;
and of these, only Noah was deemed worthy to transmit the blessing past the
flood ; and of his three sons, the second alone, Shem, was chosen. For ten
generations the promise seemed forgotten by men ; but God had not forgotten
it, and in the tenth generation, he called Abraham, a younger son of Terah,
to a life of holiness and purity before him, and renewed to him the promise of
a Redeemer to come. In the generations which followed, it was Isaac and not
Ishmael, it was Jacob and not Esau, it was Judah, the fourth son, and not
Reuben, the first-born, nor Joseph, the eldest son of the favorite wife,
through whom the promise was transmitted.
And when, two hundred and sixty years later, the descendants of Jacob,
a mighty host, some millions in number, marched out of Egypt, under the
leadership of their great lawgiver, and became, under his training, a civilized
nation, there ran through all their laws, their sacrifices and observances, as
well as through the predictions and declarations of Moses, the central
thought, that there was to be, in the coming time, a great atoning sacrifice
for human transgression, the prophet, priest and king ; typified by the
paschal lamb, foreshadowed by the scape-goat over which their sins were
confessed, and still more strongly prefigured by the sacrifice for the sins of
the whole people, offered by the high priest, once a year, ere he ventured
to draw nigh to the most Holy Place.
In thousands of Hebrew households, holy men and women and well-
instructed children looked forward with eager eyes, past the sacrifices and
burnt-offerings, past the clouds of incense, which rose from the altar of the
Tabernacle, to the coming of Him who should redeem His people from their
sins; and this earnest longing elevated their souls, while it added beauty to
their faces, and comeliness to their forms. In the five hundred years that
followed their entrance into Canaan, under the rule of Joshua and the judges,
while there was a general falling away from the purity of the Tabernacle
worship, and frequent lapses into idolatry, yet there were many who still
waited for the Messiah, the anointed of God, the consolation of Israel.
With the beginning of the monarchy there came a more general observance
of the sacrifices of the ceremonial law, and this reformation in morals and
The Old Testament. 23
religious worship was greatly increased during the reigns of David and
Solomon, by the establishment of a systematic ceremonial, the composition
of a ritual and responsive services by David, whose sweet psalms added
much to its interest; and by the building of the temple, and the organiza-
tion of the priests into semi-monthly classes for the temple worship. At this
time also began those prophetic and lyrical utterances, which so minutely
described the coming, the appearance, and the mission of the Messiah.
For five hundred years, these prophetic voices rehearsed, often to
unwilling ears, the beneficence and glory of the reign of the coming Messiah ;
they described in detail, his birth, his circumstances, the reluctance of the
leaders of the people to receive him, his wonderful miracles, his humili-
ation, his death, his resurrection and his ascension. As the appointed
time drew nearer, their predictions gathered force and fervor, till they
seemed to stand upon the mount of God, and to be eye-witnesses of his
incarnation.
Yet the five hundred years passed, and as yet he came not, for all the
preparations for his coming were not completed. 'The chosen people, set
apart by God to be the nation from whom, according to the flesh, Christ
should be born, and who were to be the sole custodians of the word of God,
as thus far revealed, had so largely lost sight of their exalted privileges
and destiny, that they had fallen into the idolatrous customs and worship
of the nations around them ; and forgetting all the mercies which God had
bestowed upon them, had forsaken him, and his worship and service. They
were made the prey of foreign and powerful nations ; their beautiful temple
destroyed, and themselves carried into captivity.
But.in seventy years, God had brought them back purged of their idola-
tries, and more ready to serve him than before. Their records and geneal-
ogies and the sacred books had been carefully preserved ; their temple was
rebuilt, and amid many vicissitudes, but with numerous predictions of a
coming Redeemer, from the prophets of the restoration, they awaited yet
for four hundred years the appearance of the Messiah. In all this long
period, God had kept them apart from all other nations as a peculiar peo-
ple, through whom the oracles of God should be preserved, and from
whom the great Redeemer, of the world, and not simply of their own
nation, should spring. In the completion of this purpose of the Almighty,
was the Old Testament, the earlier revelation of the will of God, finished.
Thus, then, do we find the name which from time immemorial has been
affixed to this portion of the Scriptures, the Old Testament, fully justified.
24
Bible and Commentator.
It was the revelation of God's will and purpose toward man ; the history and
description of the steps of preparation for, and the character of, the won-
derful, the unspeakable, the heavenly Gift, which God had promised to
man through all the ages ; it was the descriptive title-deed of man's inheri-
tance in an immortality of blessedness. Armed with the promises of this
Testament, trusting implicitly in their fulfilment "at the end of the days,"
patriarch and lawgiver, the sweet singers of Israel, and the priests who saw
beyond the veil, the prophets and seers who beheld the Messiah's glory
from afar, went up to the throne of God to claim their heavenly inheritance
purchased through His blood, and all received it in His name.
GrENESIS
^4
HIS is the first book of the Bible and of the Old Testament.
The name "Genesis" means "the beginning, the origina-
tion, or the creation;" and it is so called probably from
the first words of the first verse : " In the beginning." It
tells us of the beginning of this world, and of the beginning
of man's existence, and the way in which he was created
by the Almighty God. It tells us also how man disobeyed
God and lost his favor ; how the descendants of the first
man and woman became so wicked that God drowned
them all in a great flood, except Noah and his family, and after the
flood traces the family of Noah, and especially the descendants of Shem,
for nearly seven hundred years, to the death of Joseph. It tells us all
about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and the children of each ; and
gives us many lessons of faith and trust in God, and shows us that even
in that remote period the coming of a Saviour was expected. According
to the best chronological tables, the book of Genesis covers a period of
about 2,369 years. It was written by Moses, though portions of it may
have been compiled from earlier documents or traditions, handed down
from the patriarchs before or after the flood. But every part of it bears
traces of having been inspired of God. It is worthy of notice that the
accounts of the creation and the flood are corroborated by Assyrian and
Babylonian traditions, recently discovered, inscribed on clay tablets. These
traditions seem to have been handed down from the descendants of Noah.
The account of the creation of man in this book is the only one among
those which have been found among the sacred books of the nations of the
world, which is either probable, rational, or consistent with itself.
25
26 Bible and Commentator.
The Creation of the World and of Man.
The First Chapter of Genesis.
PLEASE read this first chapter of Genesis very carefully, and then pay
strict attention to what I am going to tell you about it ; for unless
you give good heed to what is said you cannot well understand what has
puzzled a great many wTise heads.
In the introductory chapter, you were told that the Bible and the Old
Testament was not intended to be a treatise on science, but that whenever
any scientific subjects were treated of incidentally, the statements made were,
if rightly understood, perfectly in accord with true science. We know that
this must be so, because God, who revealed all the matters in these books
of the Bible to his servants, is all-wise and cannot make a mistake, while
men, who prepare these scientific treatises, though they may think they have
discovered all the truth, very often find that they have been in error, all
the way through.
There is a science which is called geology ; which means, " the science of
the earth ; " and many men who have studied the rocks and clay and sand
and gravel of which the earth is composed, and have named and counted
all the layers of these rocks as they were exposed, where large rivers had cut
their way through the mountains, or where the rocks had been turned up
on edge by an earthquake, have written many books about their discoveries.
Some of them believed that all the rocks had at some time been under the
influence of terrible heat, and some, that they had been deposited from
water. The truth seems to be, that some have been melted and crystallized,
and some deposited from water. These geologists think that it must have
taken millions of years to form all these layers of rocks; and when they
find the bony skeletons offish in some of the oldest rocks, and the bones of
reptiles, like alligators and crocodiles, and other creatures which are not now
found alive, in others, and four-footed beasts of kinds not now living in
others, they say : " These animals must have lived hundreds of thousands of
years ago, and yet this first chapter of Genesis says that all things were
made in six days, and Adam on one of the six days, and this was only six
thousand years ago. This cannot be true, because the rocks where these
fossil animals are found are hundreds of thousands of years old; and if
the Bible is not true about this, how can we know that it is true about any-
thing?"
Genesis. 27
This seemed, at first, to be a very serious objection to this account of the
creation, and while the infidels, and people who wanted an excuse for not
believing God's word, repeated this objection very triumphantly, a great
many good people were much troubled, to know how it should be explained.
There was no need of any anxiety about it. God is able to take care of
his word and to prove its truth at all times, and these anxious people
should have had more faith. If you will read the first verse of this chapter
carefully, you will see that it says, "In the beginning" (but gives us no hint
whether that beginning was a million or two million years ago) " God
created the heavens and the earth." There is abundance of room here for
all the changes which geologists and astronomers ask for. In the second
verse we are told : " And the earth was without form and void ; " or as the
Hebrew words mean, it was all in confusion and chaos; — "and darkness was
upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters." Now let us look at this a little ; this could not have been " in the
beginning," spoken of in the first verse; for " the earth" had already been
created, and there was a " deep " over which the darkness hung, and the
waters existed over which the Spirit of God moved. So, then, the earth
had been created, we know not how long, and it had evidently passed through
one of those great sudden or gradual upheavals, which the study of the rocks
shows us were very common in the early history of the earth, when the
rocks which were lowest down, i. e., nearest to the centre of the earth, were
thrown up by these upheavals, and became the crests of the highest moun-
tains. In these changes of the earth's surface, and there must have been
many of them, the highest mountains sunk down, and the water rushed in
upon them, and they became the bottom of the sea, while what had before been
the bottom of the sea became extended plains, or perhaps high mountains.
Now it was not in the beginning of the creation, but long ages after, when
this general upheaval, perhaps the last, though there may have been one at
the flood, occurred, and the land and water, earth, rocks, stones, mud, ice,
the forest trees, and the plants, shrubs, and flowers, and all the animals that
were then living on the earth, were mixed up in a terrible confusion, while
over the whole brooded a dense steam or fog, from the effect of the volcanic
fires upon the waters of the^reat deep.
As yet, amid all the changes which had taken place on the earth, there
had been no men upon it ; there had been many huge animals of kinds not
now existing ; but God saw that the time had come, when man should be
created and placed upon it, to subdue and govern the earth. And first, it
28 Bible and Commentator.
was necessary that the earth, which was in such a state of confusion, should
be prepared to be the dwelling-place of man. The remainder of this chapter
tells us how God fitted the earth to be man's habitation.
The First Chapter of Genesis, Continued.
LET us next say something about the six days in which God is said to
have created the world, or rather to have fitted it to be the habita-
tion of man. We have shown, in the previous chapter, that these six days
have nothing to do with the original creation of the earth ; for the earth
was already in existence before the six days began ; but there are many
people who say : " I will never believe that all that is described as having
been done, in the verses between the 3d and 31st, was accomplished in six
days of twenty-four hours each."
Why not? If God could do it at all, he could do it as well in six days,
or for that matter, in six hours, as in six hundred or six thousand years.
God possesses all power, and can do all things which he wills to do, in a
moment of time if he pleases ; if he could not, he would not be God.
But there is no necessity for being troubled about this, as I will show you.
Man was not created till the close of this period, when the earth was made
ready to be his habitation ; so much the chapter tells us. Then it follows,
that no man could have witnessed these acts of creation or transformation,
and, of course, no man could describe them as an eye-witness. How then
could it have been described so accurately and vividly, and in so few words ?
There were two ways in which it might have been done. God could have
dictated the exact words of this description to Moses, or whoever of his ser-
vants it was, who first wrote it out, so that although they knew nothing of
it, they would yet write down the words which God dictated to them ; just
as if I were to ask you to write down what I dictated to you; and should
then describe to you some very beautiful painting which I had seen, and
you would write down my words, though you could rrot understand very
perfectly about the picture.
But though, as we have said, God might have done this, it was not his
usual way of communicating to men, what he had done, or was about to do.
All through the Old Testament, we find that when he revealed to his ser-
vants what had already been done, or what was to be done in the future,
he did so "by means of visions, or as some would say, trances. And it is
Genesis. 29
altogether probable that the communication of this wonderful event was
made in the same way.
You have seen those views of landscapes and buildings which are thrown
upon a white surface by means of the magic-lantern, and have noticed how,
as one fades away, another takes its place. This will illustrate, though
imperfectly, what we mean by a vision or trance. If, as we believe, God
adopted this method of showing to his servant the way in which this earth
was made fit for the habitation of the human race, which he was about to
create, he would most naturally, and with a view to the clearer comprehen-
sion of the subject, exhibit the progress of his work, in several successive
stages, each of which would be represented in a distinct vision, and as it
commenced, progressed and was completed, it would seem to the seer, or
person who was in the trance, to complete a day. The original act of crea-
tion or transformation may have occupied a day, a month, a year, or a
century ; its representation in this vision may have been accomplished in
five or fifty minutes, yet to the person in the trance it would seem a com-
plete day. We find, then, that nothing can be determined concerning the
length, of what some call the creative day, from this narrative.
Let us now attend to the description of each of these visions as they are
related in this chapter.
1. We have seen that the earth appeared at the commencement of this
vision, as in terrible confusion, everything being mingled and jumbled to-
gether, while a dense fog threw a pall of darkness over it, and heavy black
clouds full of water, above, added to the gloom. Now, in this first vision,
God said, " Let there be light," and the light struggled through the clouds
and the dense mist and revealed the vast waste of wraters and chaos. To
the man in the vision it was not yet evident from whence this light, which
revealed (dimly, perhaps) the chaos below, proceeded, and as the light had
given the appearance of a dull and very cloudy day, it was called by that
name, and when the darkness regained its sway, that was named night.
2. Again the vision returns, and the light again struggles with the dark-
ness. The seer hears the voice of the Creator saying, "Let there be a
firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from
the waters;" and lo ! the dark clouds, which had hung so 1owt, rise into
the higher air, the dense mist disappears, and though nor sun nor moon as
yet appear, there is more clearly visible, the watery waste. Again the
vision is withdrawn, and darkness settles upon' the earth.
3. For the third time, the vision reappears, without the mist, and the still
30 Bible and Commentator.
clouded sky giving stronger indications of light, and this time the work of
change, reconstruction, and creation goes on more rapidly than before. At
the command of God the waters separate from the soil, which they had
held in suspense, and rushing down the hills and mountains, and filling
up the valleys, are gathered into rivulets, rivers, lakes, seas and oceans,
and the dry land appears; as yet without grass, flower, shrub or tree — the
observer hears the dry land named "earth," and the gathering of the
waters, " seas." Again the command is issued from the high heavens, that
this desolate earth shall be clothed with grass, with springing herb, with
gay flowers, and fruit-bearing trees, and at once the command seems to be
obeyed, and the hills, but now so bare and unseemly, to be clothed with
vernal beauty. The work exhibited in this vision could hardly have been
accomplished in as brief a time as that of the preceding visions, but there
is no definite idea of time in a trance, and so this, at its close, is reckoned
but a day.
4. The fourth vision opens with the display of the sun in the heavens,
the clouds being now dispelled, and the direct rays of the sun being
essential to the rapid development of the vegetation, which had sprung
into existence in the previous vision; and as the sun sank into the west, the
moon and stars in their turn appeared, and the rainless sky of the East,
glittering with the gems of the night, closed the fourth vision with radiant
beauty.
5. The fifth vision witnesses the peopling of the air with birds and flying
fowl, and the waters with the finny tribes, in the place of those whom the
previous upheavals and convulsions had destroyed, and it concludes with
the joyous music of birds, and the disporting of the fish in the waters.
6. The sixth vision opens with the repeopling of the land with reptiles and
quadrupeds, in place of those destroyed, and closes with the crowning work
of all, the creation of man, the master and lord of this world, now resplen-
dent with beauty, and the fit dwelling-place of him who, at his creation
was but a little lower than the angels. In its former changes, God had
called into existence beast and reptile, bird and fish, and had provided for
their wants; but in this new creation, he introduces a new order of beings;
man, of loftier intelligence and greater capacity than the beasts, and into
him he breathed the breath of life, and man became a living soul ; a being
knowing right and wrong, capable of doing right or of committing wrong;
a being like God in his moral faculties, but not like him in wisdom, power,
or perception — an immortal being, whose existence in the future was to be
as enduring as that of his Creator.
Genesis. 31
With this grand work accomplished the vision ends.
7. Yet once more, the vision opens on a world of wondrous beauty, in its
sunshine and shadow, its wide seas, and flowing rivers, its forest-crowned
hills, and its fertile valleys, and its animal tribes all peacefully disporting
themselves; and, most charming of all, a garden filled with flowers and fruity
with rich perfume and gay with birds of every hue, where the newly
created man offers his praises to his Creator. It was the first Sabbath of the
new earth, and from the high heavens, the Lord and Creator of all looked
down on this scene of blissful quiet and rest, and pronounced it good.
The Second Chapter of Genesis.
IN this chapter we have a further and more particular account of the
creation of the first man and the first woman, and of the beautiful garden
of Eden in which God placed them. The book of Genesis was written by
Moses, who was inspired by God to write it; but there is some reason to
believe that when he wrote, there were some earlier records or traditions,
perhaps handed clown through Shein, from those who lived before the flood,
which God permitted Moses to use in preparing this book. Thus, this sec-
ond chapter, while it agrees with the first in regard to the creation of Adam
and Eve, gives many more particulars about it, and also describes the gar-
den of Eden, its location, and the rivers which flowed from it, the naming
of the animals, etc. We may notice, further, that this chapter is unlike the
first, in that it is evidently not a vision, or series of visions, but a narrative
in the nature of a tradition ; and we may reasonably suppose that we have
here, in substance, the account of the garden of Eden, the fall of our first
parents and their expulsion from paradise, the murder of Abel, and other
events as they were handed down by Adam and Eve, and Enoch, or Methuse-
lah, to Shem and to Abraham and Jacob, to Kohath, Amrarn and Moses.
And the truth of these traditions is certified by God himself to his servant.
This brings us very near to the time of the creation of man ; Moses could
have received this tradition through his father, with only seven persons
between him and Adam, and he could know that it was all absolutely true.
We have the most conclusive proof that we have Moses' story just as he
wrote it ; and thus we are able to come, in our consciousness, so near to
these early times, that we can realize very clearly all of these wonderful and
important events. We have thus stated our reasons for believing this book
32 Bible and Commentator.
of Genesis to be entirely true, because there are so many who are saying
that the account of the creation and the fall of man are all fables. JNow, it
is not possible that any fable, or made-up story, should have so many and
such strong proofs from all quarters that it is true, as this has; and so if
we can believe anything that is recorded, we must believe this.
The first three verses of this chapter, which refer to the setting apart of
the seventh day as a day of rest, belong properly to the first chapter, and
we have already referred to them. The traditional narrative begins with
the fourth verse : " These are the generations (or accounts of the creation)
of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day (or at
the time) that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, and every
plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field
before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth,
and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from
the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God
formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life, and man became a living soul." In this statement we find
several things communicated directly by divine inspiration ; — one of these
is, that the work of creation was not done by the long-continued operation
of the laws controlling matter, but that it was by the putting forth of a
series of direct creative acts. God not only made the earth and the heav-
ens, but every plant of the field before it was in the earth, etc. ; that is, he
did not scatter the seed upon the earth, and suffer it to germinate and spring
up, but he made the plant perfect, with its seed vessels containing the seeds,
so that it could go on at once to perpetuate itself, and was ready at once, for
the food of cattle and of man. We find also that when man was created, it
was not as a little babe, helpless and requiring tender care, much less as an
inferior animal, which, from running on four feet, came to walk on two,
and from having only brute instincts, and no immortal nature, came by slow
development to be a man, and to have an immortal soul, capable of moral
action. That might have been man's way of creation, but it was not God's
way. He created a man in the full vigor of his life, with a well-developed
intellect, and a moral nature capable of deciding between right and wrong,
and responsible to his Creator for his actions. God does not, in his creative
work, leave anything half or imperfectly done. We find in the third place,
that it was the Lord God, by whom in the Scriptures we are always to
understand the second person in the Trinity, afterward revealed on earth as
our Lord Jesus Christ, who performed all these gracious works of creation.
Genesis. 33
And this is also proved in the eighth chapter of the book of Proverbs,
where the Son of God, speaking of himself under the name of Wisdom, says:
"The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of
old. I was set up (or existed) from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever
the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when
there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were
settled, before the hills was I brought forth : while as yet he had not made
the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world.
When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon
the face of the depth; when he established the clouds above; when he
strengthened the fountains of the deep ; when he gave to the sea his decree,
that the waters should not pass his commandment; when he appointed the
foundations of the earth: then I was by him, as one brought up with him ;
and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him ; rejoicing in the
habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men."
The apostle Paul says, speaking of Christ : " By whom also he (God) made
the worlds." If then our blessed Lord, who is our Redeemer and Saviour,
was also our Creator, and the Creator of all worlds, how should we love and
adore him?
After the Lord God had formed man by a special act of creation, " he
planted a garden eastward in Eden ; and there he put the man whom he
had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every
tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food ; the tree of life also in
the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil ; and a
river went out of Eden to water the garden ; and from thence it was parted
and became into four heads (or streams.)"
The description which is given of these rivers would probably enable us
to determine where Eden wras, if there had not been some change in the
course of those rivers, effected either by the flood, or by other causes, since
this part of the book of Genesis was written. The probability seems to be
that it was in Armenia, and not far from the present Lake Tan. The cli-
mate was at that time favorable for the perfecting of all descriptions of
fruit trees, as well as for those which were remarkable for beauty of foliage
or flowers. There were also two other trees, which stood in the midst of
the garden — " the tree of life, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil."
The early traditions or legends of all the Eastern nations abound in the
most glowing descriptions of the luxuriant beauty of this garden in Eden..
Every fruit every flower, every graceful shrub or vine, and every stately
3
34 Bible and Commentator.
forest tree, we are told, found a home there. The whole air was redolent
with the sweetest perfumes; the bird of paradise, and every other bird of
the most exquisite plumage, and all the songsters of the groves, flitted
among its trees and shrubs, and all the wild beasts, remarkable for grace,
beauty and strength, roamed through it, all as yet harmless and playful.
In its glassy pools and lakes, the finny tribes leaped into the air, and their
glittering scales flashed in the sunlight with myriad hues. Over this gar-
den the Lord God installed the man whom he had created, to dress and to
keep it. At this time the man was alone, with no companions except his
Creator, who, we are told, assumed even then the human form and walked
in the garden in the cool of the day ; and the angels of God, who, as they
sang their hymns of praise and rejoicing at the dawn of the creation, wTere
ready at all times to visit and cheer this new being, whose form so resem-
bled their own, and in whom they saw only a future addition to their glo-
rious company. That he should have, for a companion, a being of his own
nature, was a part of God's plan ; and as if to confute in advance the theory
of the development of the human race from the inferior orders of animals,
we are told that all the beasts and fowls were passed in critical review before
Adam, that he might see for himself that none of them could become his
equal or companion. "And the Lord God said, It is not good that the
man should be alone ; I will make him an help (or helper) meet for him.
And out of the ground the Lord God formed (rather, had formed) every
beast of the field and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam
to see what he would call them ; and whatsoever Adam called every living
creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle,
and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field ; but for Adam
there was not found an help meet (or fit) for him." Then it was that the
Lord God again exercised his creative power, not in implanting a soul and
higher intellectual powers in some dog, or cat, or ape, or other graceful and
beautiful animal of those which Adam's critical eye had seen were not fit
companions for him ; but he took from Adam's own person a rib and fash-
ioned it, by creative power, into human form, endowed the now animated
body with a soul like that of Adam, and an intelligence not inferior to his.
The " woman," as Adam named her, was to be thenceforward the comple-
ment of man.
From this narrative there are several lessons to be drawn. The first is,
that Adam was not, at his creation, the rude untutored savage just devel-
oped from an ape, and still farther back from a frog, a shell-fish, or a mo-
Genesis. 35
nad, as some philosophers of the present day would have us believe. His
creation was entirely distinct, both in time and in its processes, from that
of the inferior animals. He was endowed with a living, immortal soul from
the beginning of his existence ; he was entirely different in physical form,
structure, and habits of locomotion, and he was, in the beginning, an intel-
ligent, thoughtful being, with not only the faculty of speech, but ideas
which formed themselves readily into an extensive vocabulary of words,
and reasoning powers which were guided by intuition, perception, judgment,
and comparison. The care and dressing of a garden like that in Eden
requires no ordinary intelligence ; and in giving appropriate names to all
the beasts, cattle and birds, and discerning their several characters and
natures, and their unfitness to be his companions and equals, there was an
amount of intellectual development much greater than we find in many
savage tribes at the present day.*
2. -In the second place, we find that in this harmonious condition of the
physical, intellectual and moral natures of man, he had attained a height of
intelligence from which it was possible that he might fall to a lower posi-
tion; and consequently, that man's history has not been, as some tell us, a
constant development and elevation from the first to the present time, but
that he has fallen from his first high estate, and that even now> six thou-
sand years since his creation, some branches of the human family have not
regained the intelligence and mental capacity which our and their first
parents possessed. f
3. We learn also what was the position which the Lord God designed
that woman should occupy in this world ; that she should not be the slave,
* The strongest advocate of the development theory would find it beyond his power to
explain how this newly created man came to be at such an infinite distance from the inferior
animals in intellect, perception and judgment ; how he became so suddenly possessed of moral
faculties and a soul ; and how his judgment and observation satisfied him that there was no
one of the lower orders of animals who was capable of developing into a fit companion for
him. Nor could this theorist answer other questions, which press upon him, any more suc-
cessfully, such as these, for instance — why, in all the ages since the creation of man, no bird,
reptile or beast, has made the first step of approach to humanity ; or why, if Adam was but a
developed ape, the process of development did not go on, and man by this time reach the
stature, intellectual capacity and moral worth of an archangel.
f The development theory of Mr. Darwin and his followers makes no allowance for any
fall or degeneration of the race : its watchword is, " Onward and upward " — a good motto, if
the stubborn facts of history, sacred and profane, did not prove so conclusively that large por-
tions of the human race have been constantly degenerating morally, intellectually and physi-
cally, from the days of Noah to the present time.
36 Bible and Commentator.
drudge and inferior of man, but his companion and helper, his equal in
intellectual capacity, and in moral responsibility; and while possessed of less
physical power and a lower stature, making up for this deficiency by the
greater intensity of her affectional nature.
4. We see, also, the tender and thoughtful care and love of the Lord
God for this first human pair. The other creatures which he had made
were, many of them, beautiful, and endowed with a certain measure of
intelligence and affection. Over them he extended his general measures of
protecting care ; but for man he planted the " garden eastward in Eden ; "
for man he gathered, in that beautiful enclosure, all that could delight the
eye, all that could charm the ear, or gratify the senses of taste and smell ;
for the testing of his moral nature, he set in the midst of the garden that
tree the eating of whose forbidden fruit brought w#oe upon our race ; he
called his intellectual powers into active exercise, in the duty of deciding
upon the fitting names of all the lower orders of animals, and provided with
zealous care a suitable companion for him. Would he have manifested such
care over a being not destined to immortality ?
The Third Chapter of Genesis.
"TTTHEN the Lord God had placed the man and woman whom he had
» V created in the beautiful garden in Eden, and had given them
dominion over all the animals whose dwelling-place was on the earth, in the
air, or in the waters, and had also given into their care the earth, and espe-
cially the garden with all its grasses, flowers, shrubs and trees, he asked, in
return for all his bounteous gifts, but one thing : "And the Lord God
commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely
eat : but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat
of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." This
command was reiterated to the woman, and, as we shall presently see, she
had extended the prohibition to the touching of the tree. It had pleased
God, in the exercise of his sovereign power in the creation of man, to make
him a free agent, capable of choosing to do right or to do wrong ; yet with-
out any evil tendency to lead him to do wrong. Man was created perfectly
holy and pure ; and though he was free to choose either good or evil, any
temptation to evil must come from without. Still there must be some com-
mand to be obeyed, some restriction, however slight, which should test man's
37
willingness to acknowledge God's authority. That it should have been so
slight a prohibition as this — the abstinence from partaking of the fruit of a
single tree, not more desirable than many others of the thousands in the
garden — shows the tenderness and mercy of the Lord God. Among all the
legends and traditions of the heathen, there is not one in which their gods
made so moderate a demand on the beings they had created. In this third
chapter, we learn how this slight prohibition came to be disobeyed. And
here, let us say, that the efforts which are made by so many at the present
day to explain away this whole story of the fall of man, as an allegory or
fable, are very wrong and wicked. God revealed this to his servants, and
inspired them to write it, just as much as he did any other part of the Bible,
and if this is an allegory or fable, then the destruction of Sodom and
Gomorrah, the translation of Enoch and Elijah, the history of David and
Solomon, or any other event of Old Testament record, is equally a fable or
an allegory. The legends of eastern nations who have never had the Bible
corroborate, if any verification w^ere needed, all the important points of this
narrative, which could only have reached them by tradition. The Bible
is a golden chain of which every link is equally strong, and each depends
upon every other.
Nor is there any reason for doubting the literal truth of any part of this
narrative. It introduces to our notice, it is true, a being of a new order,
the tempter, whose hostility to the Lord God leads him to attempt the ruin
of the newly created pair, whose happiness and purity has roused his envy •
and he avails himself of the body of one of the animals of the garden, as the
medium for his presentation of the temptation ; but there is, surely, no
improbability in this : the pages of this sacred book, the whole history of
mankind, and our own personal experience, cannot fail to convince us of
the existence of, not one alone, but of legions of these evil spirits, who are
on the watch for opportunities to lure men on to destruction.
The Bible is full of allusions to the work of these evil spirits, and to
their temptations; and their existence is a cardinal doctrine in all the
religions of heathendom. Not a few of the heathen nations have gone so
far as to offer homage and sacrifices to the evil spirit, to propitiate it, and
to prevent the exercise of its malignity against them. The people who
almost since the flood have inhabited the regions nearest to the lost Eden,
the, Aryans or Parsees, have through all their history maintained their
belief in two divinities : the spirit of good, and the spirit of evil. Their
version of the fall is almost identical with that of the Scriptures. The
38 Bible and Commentator.
Hindoos, who were originally of the Aryan race, also have their deities,
who are impersonations of evil and malignity. All the history of the ages,
Christian as well as Pagan, enforces the truth of this belief in a personal
spirit of evil, who tempts men to sin.
That in this case the arch-fiend, he who in the Scripture is called " the
devil, and Satan," "the prince of the power of the air," should himself have
undertaken the part of the tempter, only indicates his full perception of the
importance of success. But let us follow literally the Scripture narrative :
" Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the
Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman (whom lie seems to
have found alone, and near this l tree of knowledge of good and evil ?), Yea,
hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden ? And the
woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the gar-
den ; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God
hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And
the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth
know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened ; and ye
shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that
the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree
to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat,
and gave also unto her husband with her ; and he did eat. And the eyes
of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked ; and they
sewed (or pinned with thorns) fig leaves together, and made themselves
aprons."
Let us pause here and consider what this narrative teaches. We find by
comparing this with other Scriptures, that it was not the serpent itself, but
a powerful, adroit and wicked • tempter, who had taken possession of the
serpent, and spoke through it to the woman. This tempter, we are told
elsewhere, was Satan, a being who had, before the creation of man, been the
light-bearer (Lucifer) and chief among the angels of God; but through
ambition and envy, had rebelled against God, and had been banished from
heaven. His heart was filled with hatred of God, and with malice against
the first human pair, from whom, he believed, it was intended to fill the
place of the angels, who had joined him in rebellion, and had been cast
out of heaven with him. His plan had been carefully wrought out. Tak-
ing the form of the serpent or dragon, then probably differing from its
present shape, and the most graceful, as it was the most crafty, of all the
animals in Eden, and in all probability perched upon a branch of the for-
Genesis. 39
bidden tree, of whose fruit he made a show of eating, he very carelessly and
innocently inquires of the woman, whether it is true, that God had forbidden
to them, his professed prime favorites, the fruit which the lower orders of
animals were permitted to eat ? His possession of the powers of speech, and
his partaking of this fruit freely, his crafty suggestion of doubt whether
this could be true, and his apparent artlessness, threw the woman off her
guard, and she replies with perhaps unconscious exaggeration, and with appa-
rently a little feeling of discontent, that they are allowed to partake of the
other fruits, but that in regard to this particular tree, God had not only for-
bidden them to eat of its fruit, but to touch it, lest they die.
The tempter has accomplished his first purpose ; he has excited in her a
feeling of distrust of God's love and mercy for her. Here was a beast evi-
dently her inferior, yet capable of talking and reasoning, who was allowed
to do what she was forbidden : could it be that God loved this beast more
than her? or was he arbitrary and unjust in his prohibitions, and desirous
of depriving her of pleasures which she might enjoy? There were no
promptings of a sinful nature to second these temptations, for her heart was
pure, but the tempter, by his first question, had implanted a germ of sin in
that pure soul ; and he proceeds to cultivate that germ, by a bold denial of
the truth and honor of God, and to inspire her with the belief that he, the
Almighty, was actuated by jealousy, lest the creatures he had made should
become his equals in knowledge and power. Weak and silly as was this
temptation, the woman was unable to detect its fallacy, and under the
fascinating gaze of the tempter, with her eyes dazzled by the beauty of the
fruit, which he offered her, her appetite roused, and her ambition excited to
become as wise as the God whom she knew, she had really committed the
sin which ruined all her progeny in her heart, ere she stretched forth her
trembling hand, and, with eager haste, plucked the fair fruit from the tree.
Having consummated her own offence against God, by eating the forbidden
fruit, she turns temptress and easily persuades her husband to partake in
her sin. Both had thus defied the thrice repeated command of the Lord
God, and though, but an hour ago, as pure as the angels, they were now in
open rebellion against him.
And now these poor souls, who, at the apparent prompting of this beast
of the field, had forfeited, so weakly and wantonly, the loving favor of the
Lord God, found that a part of what Satan had told them was true, but in
quite another sense than they had understood it; for Satan often mixes a
little truth with his falsehoods, to induce people to receive them more
40 Bible and Commentatoe.
readily. He had told them that they should be as gods, knowing good and
evil. They were not much like gods, as they stood there shivering and
hiding even from each other, in the first consciousness of their nakedness
their loss of purity, and their defilement of guilt ; but they did know more
of good and evil, than they did an hour before; they knew what was good
and pure, by their consciousness of having lost it, and they knew what evil
was, by their sense of guilt and fear of God's displeasure.
The first use they made of their knowledge was to make themselves a
rude and imperfect covering, from the great leaves of the banyan fig ; the
second to hide themselves from the sight of their Creator, in the darkest gloom
of the trees of the garden.
Vain was their attempt at concealment, and equally vain their effort to
hide, under their fig-leaf covering, their loss of purity and innocence. When
the voice of the Lord God is heard in the garden, in the cool of the day,
calling to Adam, " Where art thou ? v the guilty pair emerge trembling
from the shady depths, and attempt to excuse their delay and their new
attire, but the voice of the Creator sternly demands : " Who told thee that
thou wast naked ? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee
that thou shouldest not eat ? n
In the reply of both the man and woman to the searching questions of the
Lord God, we see new proof of the rapid development of the sinful nature.
Adam, who but yesterday was cherishing his companion with the fondest
affection, as bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh, now answers the stern
inquiry with, " The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me
of the tree, and I did eat/' as if he would lay the blame of his sin on the
Lord God, for giving him a companion, of whom he speaks thus reproach-
fully; while the woman, in turn, lays the blame of her ruin upon the ser-
pent, " The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." The poor serpent, dumb
now that the tempter has gone, can make no excuse ; and hears, no doubt
Avith anguish, the sentence of degradation, which strikes with terrible signifi-
cance through it to the fallen spirit, who had made it his organ for so foul
a crime; while this sentence also contains a gleam of hope for the guilty
pair, who yet stand awaiting their doom from the Creator, whose wrath
they had so lately defied. Upon each in turn falls the weight of his dis-
pleasure ; upon the woman, in the sorrows and pangs of maternity, and in
the, not always kindly, rule of her husband over her ; and upon the man,
as really, though latest, yet also the greatest offender, the solemn decree,
wThich for these six thousand years has been the dirge of all the tribes of
Genesis. 41
men : "Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all
the days of thy life ; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee ;
and thou shalt eat the herb of the field ; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou
eat bread, till thou return unto the ground ; for out of it wast thou taken;
for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."
Yet was this judgment mingled with mercy. Honest toil should still
bring bread, and though they might no longer dwell amid the luxury of the
beautiful garden, with its luscious fruits, they might, by persistent labor,
make to themselves garden homes which should remind them of the lost
Eden ; and by faith in the future sacrifice for sin, typified by the lambs
slain, even at this time in token of atonement, and with whose skins they
were clad, they might attain to a still more glorious paradise.
The First Murder.
The Fourth Chapter of Genesis.
EVENTS soon proved that this great sin of disobedience to God, which
our first parents had committed in eating of the forbidden fruit, had
not only rendered them mortal, and subjected them to great suffering and
severe toil, but that it had poisoned their blood and infected their whole
nature ; and that all their descendants would feel the sad effects of their sin,
not only in being liable to death, but in being more ready to yield to temp-
tation to sin, and having a natural drawing toward sin, which Adam did
not have, when he was first placed in the garden of Eden.
We are to learn from this sad story, what a wicked thing sin is ; how it
corrupts the whole nature, and if not resisted at the very beginning, makes
a man ready and willing to do any wicked act. From the time that Adam
and Eve were driven out of Paradise, to the present hour, all their descend-
ants, except the Lord Jesus Christ, have had this tendency to sin ; some
of them have resisted it, and through strength given them from above,
have been able to become pure and holy ; but the greater number of those
who have lived to grow up, have yielded to the tendency and have become
very sinful, committing, in many cases, great crimes such as^this, related in
this chapter. For both classes, the only way of redemption from sin, and
the tendency to sin, has been through faith in the sacrifice wrought out by
the world's Eedeemer.
42 Bible and Commentator.
After Adam and Eve were driven out of the garden of Eden, and had
begun to till the ground, they had several children, sons and daughters.
When the first son was born, Eve was much delighted, for she thought that
he would prove to be the Lord — the Saviour, who it had been promised
should bruise the head of the serpent — the tempter. In her joy she said,
" I have gotten a man from the Lord," or rather, " I have gotten the man,
the Lord — the promised seed." Poor Eve was mistaken in this joyful
anticipation. The Lord, or Saviour for whom she looked, was not to come
in human form for four thousand years, and this son, whom, from her hope-
fulness, she named Cain — possession, was to prove to her, and to his father,
the source of terrible sorrow, and to remind them of their great sin against
God. In due season another son came, and Eve, less hopeful, named him
Abel, — vanity. Daughters were also born, whose names are not given.
As the two sons grew up they manifested different dispositions and tastes.
Adam's employment was " to till the ground out of which he was taken " —
that is, he was to be a farmer or husbandman. Out of this occupation came,
by a subsequent subdivision of labor, two distinct pursuits. He who would
till any considerable portion of the ground, must have something beside
his own unassisted powers to break up the soil, or to gather the grains, seeds
and fruits. As yet iron and copper were not ; the only tools of the farmer
were the hardened and sharpened stick which was used as a plough, spade
and hoe, or the sharp-edged stone with which by infinite labor the ground
and sod might be broken up. By some rude harness, the buffalo, or the
cow of the Syrian bull, might be taught to draw this sharpened stick over
the surface and so scratch up the soil for planting seed. The sheep and goats
were domesticated without much difficulty, and their skins formed the
clothing of the time. There is some reason to believe that flesh was not
eaten till after the flood. The two pursuits of the patriarchal farmer, then,
were the direct cultivation of the soil, and the rearing of cattle and flocks
of sheep and goats; the subjugation of the horse and the ass seems to have
occurred at a later period. The two sons of Adam divided these two pur-
suits between them, in accordance with their natural tastes. Cain, the elder,
rugged and stalwart, broke up the soil, gathered and burned the thorny
shrubs, the nettles and thistles, which cumbered the ground, sowed the
grain, reaped the harvest, gathered the fruits, and provided from these
sources subsistence for the household. All this was praiseworthy, and met
with God's approval. Abel, the younger and possibly equally vigorous
brother, for his part, collected his fast increasing flocks of sheep and goats,
Genesis. 43
gathered the as yet hardly domesticated kine, and possibly subdued for his
use the camel or the ass. In these pursuits he also received the divine
approbation.
So far there is nothing to indicate that one brother was better than the
other. For aught we know, both were obedient to their parents, and kind
and tender to their sisters. Both were probably industrious, and perhaps
equally intelligent and thoughtful.
It is only when we are called to look at their religious life, that we see
the difference between them.
The rude altar of unhewn stone, probably not far off from the barred gate
of Eden, must have often smoked with the sacrifices of lambs and kids and
perhaps of kine, since that sad day when, expelled from Eden, the first pair
had learned from the Lord God, the necessity of a sacrifice for sin, which
should typify the great sacrifice to be offered on Calvary, and had also been
assured, that without the shedding of blood there was no remission of sins.
Of these solemn sacrifices, the only means which Adam and Eve as yet had
of communication with the infinite Creator, both Cain and Abel must have
been frequent witnesses, and possibly participants. But as they grew up,
Cain ceased to have faith in a coming Deliverer; he perhaps saw no
necessity for any deliverer; confident in his own strength and prowess, and
believing himself capable of protecting his own life, and the lives of his
family, he recognized no need of a Saviour from sin, as he was not conscious
of its deadly character. He was willing to acknowledge by an offering of
fruits and grains, that God had sent to the earth fruitful seasons, and an
abundant crop ; but he did not believe that his nature was sinful nor that
there was a necessity for a sacrifice of blood for the remission of sins,
" Why," he argued, " should God require the life of an innocent lamb or
heifer, as an appropriate sacrifice to him? It is folly to believe in any
such necessity."
Abel had not his brother's proud and haughty disposition. The story
of the lost Eden, and of the sin which had brought such woe upon them all,
had deeply impressed him ; and he recognized in the appointed sacrifice for
sin, the future sacrifice and atonement to be wrought out by the world's
Redeemer. To him, there was a precious and comforting truth hidden in
the assurance that, "without the shedding of blood, there is no remission."
So, when the day for sacrifice came, the two brothers reared their rude
stone altars, and Cain laid upon his a sheaf of his gathered grain, and the
ripened peach, pomegranate, olive, and grape ; while Abel, with bowed head
44
Bible and Commentator.
and humble reverence as confessing his sinfulness, and asking for atonement
and pardon, brought the flesh and fat of the firstlings of his flock, and laid
them upon the altar, beside which he had poured out their blood.
Cain stood erect by his altar awaiting recognition from him whom he
considered as but his equal, or at the most as entitled to but a qualified
homage. Soon the fire
from heaven came down
on Abel's sacrifice, and
consumed it, but no con-
suming flame, no indica-
tion of recognition or
acceptance, clesc ended
upon Cain's altar, and
fruit and grain remained
alike untouched. At this
evidence of the prefer-
ence of God for his
brother's offering, all the
jealousy of Cain's nature
blazed out. He was very
angry, and his counte-
brother, because the sacrifice
SACRIFICE OF ABEL.
nance was gloomy and sullen. He hated his
which Abel had offered had been accepted, and his own rejected; and he
hated God, because he had thus preferred his brother's sacrifice.
But the Lord God, the Redeemer of men, is gracious and long-suffering,
and he condescended to reason with this angry and sinful man. Whether on
this, as on other occasions, he assumed the human form, we know not; but
he said to Cain, "Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance
fallen?" Still sullen, Cain makes no answer, and the Lord God proceeds:
" If thou doestwell (that is, if thou recognizest thy sinfulness, and thy need
of a Saviour, by an appropriate sacrifice) shalt thou not be accepted ? (shalt
thou not find favor with me?) If thou persistest in denying thy need of a
Saviour, the very sinful nature, which thou wilt not acknowledge, lies
crouching at the door of thy heart, ready to spring upon thee and control
thee. But do thou master this sinful disposition."
But Cain preferred to let sin control him. He told his brother Abel, in
a defiant spirit, what the Lord God had said to him ; and then, his rage
increasing with his words, he sprang upon his brother and killed him.
G E N E S I S .
45
DEATH OF ABEL.
The tempter had increased in boldness in this his second act of defiance of
God, in connection with the human family. When our first parents had
sinned in the garden, and the Lord God called them to account, they at
once confessed their sin, though with such attempts at palliations as they
could offer; but Cain, when the Lord asks, "Where is Abel, thy brother? "
answers, evidently under the
prompting of the tempter, with a
scornful tone, and a falsehood so
stupendous, that the father of lies
must have dictated it : "I know
not ; am I my brother's keeper ? "
-For such a rebel against the
divine compassion there could be
no mercy. Terrible is the sen-
tence pronounced against him by
this hitherto gracious God. "The
voice of thy brother's blood crieth
unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which
hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand ; when
thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength.
A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth." Still unrepentant,
yet afraid lest the death he had inflicted upon his brother should befall
him, from some of his own family, Cain complains, in an injured tone,
that his punishment is greater than he can bear. But God ordains that his
life shall be prolonged, while he makes that very prolongation an added
punishment.
Thus burdened with the curse of God, branded by the hand of the
Almighty, Cain went out from the vicinity of Eden, from the home which
his crime had made desolate, taking with him his sister-wife and plunging
into the wilderness beyond the Tigris, probably in what is now Persia.
Here a son was born to him, and he built a small fort or walled town,
possibly for defence against apprehended foes ; this fort he named, as he did
his son, Enoch or Henoch, which is said to mean " the devoted " or
" initiated." As this was the first attempt at building a town of which there
is any record, the name may have indicated that Cain desired his son to be
regarded as the founder or initiated head of a future nation.
The descendants of this wretched man increased somewhat rapidly in
numbers, the men developing wonderful inventive skill and genius for all
46 Bible and Commentator.
kinds of business, and the women possessing extraordinary beauty. But
both sexes were as remarkable for their wickedness, as for their intellectual
endowments or personal comeliness. The song of one of the worst of them,
Lamech, of the fifth generation from Cain, is recorded in this chapter, and
its tone is that of a proud, boastful ruffian, ready for any deed of violence,
and basing his hope of immunity from punishment on the magnitude of
his crimes. It is worthy of notice that to this Cainitish race the world is
indebted for the rude smelting of iron and copper, and probably for weapons
made from these metals; for the introduction of musical instruments, per-
haps the Pandean pipe of reeds, or the earlier forms of the lyre or harp ;
and for the domestication of cattle, and the production of tents, perhaps of
coarse cloth.
But while the descendants of Cain were thus increasing in numbers and
wickedness, God did not leave himself without a witness. After the death
of Abel, Adam had yet other children, and his son Seth, whom Eve
regarded as sent to her in the place of the slain Abel, became a good and
holy man. From him descended a long list of good men who obeyed God
and preserved the knowledge of his commands and promises. It was at
this time that men first commenced to express their petitions to God in
prayer.
The Descendants of Seth.
The Fifth Chapter of Genesis.
IN this chapter we have new evidence of the design of God in revealing
his will to man, in the Old Testament. The descendants of Seth are
the godly line from whom, through Noah, and Shem and Abraham, through
Jacob and Judah and David, the Christ, the Anointed Saviour and Re-
deemer should come, and it was important that every step of this descent
or genealogy should be distinctly marked. In the fourth chapter we have
the names of some of the descendants of Cain, but not all, and no account
is given of their ages or the duration of their lives. This was not a matter
of any importance, since for their wickedness they were all to be swept away
by the flood, and their memory to be blotted out forever.
But when we come to the godly race, through whom the world was again
to be peopled, the narrative is much more minute and particular. In
every instance the age of the father, when the son, who was to form one of
Genesis. 47
the members of the patriarchal line, was born, is given, although this was
not always the eldest son ; and the period which elapsed between the birth
of this son and the death of the father, is also given. Most of these patri-
archs had large families and lived to a great age — Adam dying at the age
of nine hundred and thirty years, and probably seeing nine generations of
his descendants of the line of Seth ; Seth living to the age of nine hundred
and twelve years; Enos to nine hundred and five; Cainan to nine hundred
and ten ; Mahalaleel to eight hundred and ninety-five; Jared to nine hun-
dred and sixty-two ; Enoch, of whom we have more to say presently, only
to three hundred and sixty-five; Methuselah to nine hundred and sixty-
nine; Lamech to seven hundred and seventy-seven; while Noah, who sur-
vived the flood three hundred and fifty years, reached the age of nine hun-
dred and fifty.
There is no reason to suppose that any of these patriarchs whose names
are given were wicked men, but many of their sons, brothers, and nephews
probably were. One great cause of this wickedness was, that many of the
sons of these godly men were attracted by the remarkable beauty of the
women of the Cainite race, who lived at no great distance from them, and
they married into that race, and so were led away into sin ; for these
women were as wicked as they were fair. The tide of corruption spread
far and wide, and ere long, as these venerable worshippers of Jehovah died,
one after another, there was left but a single household who maintained
their faith in a coming Redeemer. All the rest, and they must have
numbered many thousands in the more than sixteen hundred years since
the creation of Adam and Eve, had " gone in the way of Cain," disobeying
and defying God, and letting sin reign in and rule over their hearts and
lives.
But among the patriarchs whom we have named, some were eminently
good men. One of these, Enoch, was so remarkable for his piety that we
are twice told that he walked with God — for three hundred years — " and
he was not, for God took him." His life was so holy and pure, and his
intercourse with Jehovah so intimate and confiding, that God took him to
heaven without the pangs of death, that he might be forever with the
Lord, where his righteous soul might not be tired and distressed by the
evil words and sinful deeds of the wicked men around him, whom he had
so earnestly rebuked. His life on earth was only three hundred and sixty-
five years, less than half of that of any of the other patriarchs, and he was
translated to heaven more than fifty years before the death of Seth. But
48 Bible and Commentator.
his life in the home above, has been longer than that of any of the other
patriarchs except Adam and Abel.
One of the sons of Enoch — the only one of whom we know anything —
Methuselah, lived to be nine hundred and sixty-nine years old, older than
any other man that ever lived on the earth ; and died the very year that the
flood commenced. The grandson of Enoch, Lamech, seems to have been
also a good man, and to have looked forward with hope to a coming
Redeemer, though he made the mistake of believing that his son Noah
was to be that promised Redeemer.* Noah, the son of Lamech, and great-
grandson of Enoch, was a man of strong faith, and of a pure and holy life.
Under the direction of God he was to become the ancestor of a new race,
after all the sinners of the races then existing should have been swept away
by the judgment of God.
We may learn from this record of the patriarchs, that while long life is
often a blessing, especially if it is accompanied with great usefulness, and
while one of the judgments pronounced upon the wicked is, that they shall
not live out half their days ; yet it is a far greater blessing, to live a life so
holy and pure as " to walk with God/7 as Enoch did. To those who are
thus blessed, it matters little whether their life in this world is long or
short, for if God takes them to himself, their eternal happiness is secure.
The Flood and Noah's Life.
The Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Chapters of Genesis.
nHHE intermarriage and intermingling of the two races, the descendants
-L of Cain and the descendants of Seth, led speedily to a great corruption
of morals, and to the almost universal prevalence of the grossest wickedness.
This was inevitable ; for, in consequence of the sin of our first parents, all
their descendants were born with a tendency to sin ; a disposition to yield to
temptation, which, even with the strictest watchfulness and the strongest re-
sistance to the tempter, made life a succession of struggles and self-denials,
in which only those who trusted in the power and grace of the coming Re-
deemer could hope to come off victors. How, then, could these descendants
of Seth, who flung aside all the barriers which restrained them from lives
of sinful disobedience to God, and rushed into alliances with the Cainites,
who openly defied God, and gloried in the boldest acts of iniquity, be ex-
* Gen. v. 29.
Genesis. 49
pected to become otherwise than corrupt and vile ? The sixth chapter tells
us what was the result. "And it came to pass, when men (that is, the Cain-
ite race of men) began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters
were born unto them, that the sons of God (i. e., the men of the Sethite
race, who were brought up in the fear of God) saw the daughters of men
(the Cainite women) that they were fair ; and they took them wives of all
which they chose. . . . There were giants (rather, men of violence) in the
earth in those days (these were probably such men as the Cainite Lantech
and Tubal-Cain) ; and also after that, when the sons of God married the
daughters of men, and they bore children to them, the same became mighty
men, which were of old men of renown. And Jehovah saw that the wicked-
ness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts
of his heart was only evil continually ; and it repented Jehovah that he had
made man on the earth ; and it grieved him at his heart. And Jehovah
said, I will destroy (or wipe off) man whom I have created, from the face of
the earth ; both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of
the air ; for it repenteth me that I have made them. ".
How fearful must have been the corruption and wickedness of men, when
the gracious and long-suffering God, who had borne so patiently with them,
should be so wearied with their depravity, as to at last determine to destroy
them, as unfit to exist longer upon his earth ; and to include in this destruc-
tion even the brute animals, who, as having been the unconscious partakers
in their crimes and wickedness, were also to participate in their punishment.
Yet, abhorrent as was their wickedness to Jehovah, he was not disposed to
send his judgments upon them, without giving them an opportunity tore-
pent. He sent his warnings to them a hundred and twenty years before the
flood, and Noah wras commissioned to preach unto them the necessity of re-
pentance, and the Eedeemer who was to come. Noah was directed by God
to prepare an ark, an immense ship — which was intended to float on the
waters of the flood. The dimensions and details of the construction of the
ark were given him by revelation from God, and he was required to make
provision of room and food, in it, not only for his own family, but for
single pairs of all the animals then known to man ; and for seven pairs of all
clean beasts and fowls, that is, of those which were suitable either for food
or sacrifice.
Noah showed his perfect faith in God, by making all these preparations
through many years, but though he preached so earnestly the necessity of
repentance during the whole period of a hundred and twenty years, there
50
Bible and Commentator
is no record that any were led to repentance. It is barely possible that
some of those who died in that hundred and twenty years may have believed
on the coming Saviour. We have reason to believe that Lamech, and
Methuselah, the father and grandfather of Noah, both of whom died just
before the beginning of the flood, were good and holy men, and there may
have been others, like them, who died before the destruction came ; but when
the day came for Noah and his family to enter the ark, there was not another
person, of all the thousands who were living, who was saved from the de-
struction of that terrible day. At last
~! the period of probation was ended; the
§=^_ hundred and twenty years were com-
: / pleted, and the judgments of God were
'".-■■■ ^_. to fall upon these wicked people. The
."=: v - ^ ark was completed, and all the neces-
; -- ;_y^^^ JH sary provision was made for the suste-
f Ijp^ nance of its living cargo. Seven days
§£r before the flood came, Jehovah declared
to Noah its immediate coming, and
provided for the entrance into the ark
of all the animals who were thus to be
saved. When these were all in their
places, Noah and his family followed,
being in all eight persons, viz., Noah
and his wife, and his three sons,
Shem, Ham and Japheth, with their
wives ; and Jehovah shut them in.
On the same day, which is supposed to have been in the early part of
November, a storm commenced such as the inhabitants of the world had
never seen, and such as has never since been witnessed on our globe; and
there were united with it some great convulsions of nature, such as earth-
quakes, and perhaps eruptions of volcanoes. The Bible account of it is,
that on "the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up,
and the windows of heaven were opened, and the rain was upon the earth
forty days and forty nights ;."..-.." and the flood was forty days upon
the earth ; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up
above the earth. And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly
upon the earth ; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the
waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth ; and all the high hills (or
noah's ark.
Genesis. 53
mountains) that were under the whole heaven were covered. Fifteen
cubits upward did the waters prevail : and the mountains were covered.
And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle,
and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and
every man : all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in
the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was
upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things,
and the fowl of the heaven ; and they were destroyed from the earth : and
Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. And
the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days."
Let us notice several things which are suggested by a careful study of
this passage. The words of the eleventh verse of the seventh chapter imply
some great convulsion of nature, which by God's ordaining occurred at this
time, in connection with the terrible and long-continued storm. Scientific
men are divided in opinion as to what this convulsion was. Some of them
think that the island or continent of Australia or New Holland, which is
acknowledged to be the portion of the globe which was the latest to rise
from the sea, was thrown up at this time, and that its upheaval threw a vast
wave of the Indian Ocean over Asia, which was slow in subsiding. Others
think that the Caspian Sea, which may have been very deep originally, and
connected with the ocean by way of the Persian Gulf, or the Black Sea,
which may have been much larger than now, became much shallower by
the upheaval of the earth which formed its bed, and thus threw a vast body
of water over this region. Either of these causes in connection with the
continued rain was sufficient to have produced the flood.
It is not necessary to suppose that all parts of the globe were alike over-
whelmed by this flood. Its primary purpose was to destroy the whole
human race except Noah and his family ; but these, though probably number-
ing many thousands, could not, with the most liberal estimate, have extended
their settlements beyond the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea at the northeast,
the Persian Gulf and northern Arabia at the south, the Mediterranean, the
Bosphorus and the Black Sea at the west and north. The probability is
very strong that they did not occupy one-half of this territory. A flood
which would submerge the highest mountains of this district to the depth
of twenty-one feet, even on the supposition that the mountains were as high
then as they now are, would not necessarily submerge eastern Asia or much
of Europe. All the human beings were destroyed except Noah's family,
but the animals destroyed were only those of this region ; and it has been
54 Bible and Commentator.
proved by Mr. Wallace in his " Geographical Distribution of Animals,"
that inasmuch as very few animals inhabit all parts of the earth, and there
are in different countries animals which, though resembling each other
somewhat, are yet of distinct species, and sometimes of distinct genera or
families — there must have been many distinct centres of creation for the
lower animals. We need not therefore regard the destruction of animals
as having been so nearly universal as that of man. While there are un-
doubted marks of the changes produced by this flood in Armenia and Trans-
Caucasia, and perhaps also in Persia and Asia Minor, the most eminent
geologists do not find any such evidences of it in western Europe, or so far
as they have explored in Africa, Australia, or in any part of this great
western continent. There are traditions of it, though dim ones, among
some of the older European nations, and the Indian tribes of this continent;
but these only prove that they, like ourselves, are descendants of Noah.
The ark, with its precious freight — for it carried all that remained of the
human family — after a period of about four months of floating, five months
after Noah and his family entered it, rested upon the mountains of Ararat,
supposed to be in southern Armenia, near the borders of Persia. It was
more than ten weeks after this, however, before the tops of the lower moun-
tains were seen. Eight weeks later the dove, thrice sent forth, found a rest-
ing-place outside of the ark, and a few days after, on removing the upper
covering of the ark, Noah found that the waters were completely drained
off; but he awaited the divine command, which did not come until he had
spent a year and ten days in the ark ; and when he at last came out with
his family, he brought out, also, all the animals and birds which had been
his fellow-occupants of the ark.
For this great deliverance from the wreck of the old world, and his
emergence into a new one which was to be peopled by his family, Noah was
very grateful, and erecting an altar unto the Lord, as his fathers had done,
he sacrificed thereupon one of every clean beast and fowl or bird, which had
come out of the ark, as a burnt-offering. You will remember that there
were seven pairs of each of these clean beasts and fowls in the ark.
This sacrifice was pleasing to Jehovah — it indicated the penitence and
the faith of this father of the nesv race; and, though God knew infinitely
better than Noah could know, the weakness and fallibility of man's nature,
his proneness to sin, and the gross vices into which many of the race would
fall, yet he was moved with compassion for their errors and sins, and pro-
claimed his determination not to destroy the race of men again by a flood.
Genesis.
55
In the ninth chapter we have an account of God's covenant with Noah and
his family ; the blessings he conferred upon them, the permission to use the
flesh of animals and fowls as food, but the prohibition of the use of blood.
At this time, too, was given that solemn denunciation of murder, and that
penalty — a life for a life — which was to be exacted upon the murderer, and
which has in all ages been the foundation of the law of the death penalty.
And this long interview of Jehovah, the God of the covenant, with Noah
and his family, in which he seems to have appeared in human form, was
terminated by that most beautiful seal and sign of the covenant, the rain-
bow, or the bow in the cloud, specially declared to be its sign by Jehovah
himself. The chapter ends with a piteous story, which shows us that even
the best of men may, if they do not constantly maintain their watchfulness,
NOAH'S TOMB IN ARMENIA.
fall into sin. Noah became a husbandman, and planted a vineyard, and
when the grapes were ripe, made wine, and in partaking of it became intox-
icated, and while in a drunken sleep or stupor, disrobed himself, and was
seen in this unseemly condition, by his grandson, Canaan, the son of Ham.
Both Ham and Canaan seem to have ridiculed their father's condition, but
Shem and Japheth, with filial reverence, tenderly covered him. The pa-
triarch, after recovering from his stupor, was inspired to pronounce pro-
phetic blessings on his two elder sons, and to predict the evils which should
come upon Canaan for the gross wickedness of his descendants.
Noah survived the flood for three hundred and fifty years, living till two
years before the birth of Abraham.
56
Bible and Commentator,
The Building of Babel, and Beginning of many Languages.
Genesis xi. 1-9.
FOR more than eighteen hundred years there was only one language
known in the world. What this language was we do not know ;
probably it was not any which is now spoken. At this time, about a hun-
dred and fifty years after the flood, men had increased so much, that God
saw that it was best that they should go abroad and people other parts of
the earth, as, when they were congregated together in large towns, they
became more wicked. But a prominent chief named Nimrod, who had
been a successful hunter of wild beasts, persuaded his followers that it was
better that they should build a city and a lofty tower, and keep together,
BIKS-NIMEOUD, THE ANCIENT BABEL.
and make him their king. So they began a tower, which was the most
wonderful thing that ever was seen. It was half a mile round it, and
half a quarter of a mile high ! The shape was square, like many church
towers, which, however, are as small, compared with it, as a post compared
with them. There was a walk to ascend by degrees round and round it, so
broad that horses and carriages might pass each other and turn round.
This tower was built of brick, cemented together with a kind of hard pitch,
instead of mortar.
Genesis. 57
It was against God's will that men should all live together, instead of
spreading over the earth ; so God said, " Go to, let us go down, and there
confound their language, that they may not understand one another's
speech."
This showed God's wisdom; for this simple device, which rendered them
incapable of understanding each other, not only effectually prevented them
from going on with their building, since their demands could not be com-
prehended ; but it also caused them to go away to distant lands in small
companies at first, including only those who spoke the same language, and
thus it came to pass that, instead of their settling down on this great plain
of Shinar, in the Euphrates valley, as they were disposed to do, for centuries
to come, they went in all directions, to Egypt, and Syria, and Greece, and to
Persia, and Scythia, and China and India, and those whose language was
the most changed went farthest. TVTe find evidence in the languages of the
world to this day, that the differences of these various tongues must have
been produced in just this way; for while the languages of all the nations
which had their early homes in this region about the Euphrates and Tigris
have a general affinity and many similar words, and so are called Indo-
European languages; those nations whose founders must have left that
region very early and gone to distant lands, such as the Chinese, and the
early settlers of Farther India, and of Egypt and Ethiopia, are so different
that they cannot be classed with the others. The tower which these ambi-
tious men were thus obliged to abandon was called Babel, which means
" confusion." Many years later, it became the central point of the city of
Babylon, and it was reduced to a ruin, though still of immense size, about
2,500 years ago. Within a few years past it has been very thoroughly
explored, and many things have been discovered there which confirm the
Bible story.
Abram.
Genesis xn. 1-3.
TOU read a great deal about Abram in the Bible. His father's name
was Terah, and his family was of the race that sprung from Shem,
one of the sons of Noah.
Abram lived in a place called Ur, in the country of the Chaldeans ; but
Genesis. 59
the people were wicked, so God " said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy
country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land
that I will show thee :
"And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and
make thy name great ; and thou shalt be a blessing :
"And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee :
and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed."
How God spoke to Abram we cannot tell ; but we know that God can
do all things, and he who made the world could very easily make any
one in the world to know what he wished him to do. He now speaks to
us in his word ; but then he often spoke to good men in dreams, and by
other like means, and he might so speak to Abram.
Abram obeyed what God said to him. He left his country, and he took
with him those that would go of his family — his wife Sarai, and his
nephew Lot. "And they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and
into the land of Canaan they came."
This was a country then full of wicked men ; but Abram did not go to
live amongst them as he did in his native country. " The Canaanite was
then in the land." The Canaanites displeased God very much by their
sins, and their land was in time to be taken from them because of their sins,
and then Abram's family would have it; and they would know what a
mercy it was to have so good a father, whom God had blessed and made a
blessing to them.
As soon as Abram entered Canaan, " there was a famine," or want of
food in the land. The crops of corn and fruit had failed, and people were
starving. This must have made Abram think whether he had done right
or not in leaving his country, and whether God would really bless him as
he had said. But Al>ram had great faith : he was sure that all God says
is right and true. So Abram would not go back ; and he went for a time
into the next country, which was Egypt, where there was corn.
Lot .
Genesis xiii. 5-13.
T I THE riches of people in those days were mostly in cattle, of which they
-L had great numbers. "And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver,
and in gold." — "And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and
60 Bible and Commentator.
herds, and tents. And the land was not able to bear them " (that is, it
was not large enough just in that part), "that they might dwell together.
And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abraham's cattle, and the
herd men of Lot's cattle."
In that country, water was not always to be found, as it is here, and wells
were dug with great pains, to find water. To those wells the cattle were
driven, and water was drawn and given them to drink. If two parties came
to a well at the same time, they often quarrelled who should get the water
first, or who only should have it. This was most likely the case with Lot's
and Abram's servants : but they were wrong to quarrel, and by so doing
they made Lot and Abram leave one another, when they might still have
lived together in love and peace; for the land would have been large
enough if they had been kind to each other. " Bad servants often make a
great deal of mischief in families, by their pride and passion, their lying,
slandering, and tale-bearing." Perhaps some of those who read this may
be in the employ of others. If so, let them profit by this story of the ser-
vants of Abram and Lot, and learn the folly and wickedness of quarrelling
with others, and of speaking evil of those who employ them.
And now Abram showed how good a man he was. As Lot and he must
part, he gave Lot his choice. He was willing to do anything for the sake
of peace: and he told him, if he would go to the country on the left hand,
then he would go to the right; or if he went to the right hand, then he
would go to the left
Battle of the Kings, and Lot taken Prisoner,,
Genesis xiv. 8-12.
"TTTE have here an account of the first war that we read of in Scrip-
V V ture. Chedorlaomer was king of Persia, which was in old times
called Elam. He was not content with what he had, but had probably
beaten five other kings not so strong as he, and had made them pay him
some money and goods every year, to keep their crowns. After he had
done so for twelve years, they .thought they were strong enough to beat
him, and so they would pay the money and goods no longer. The king of
Elam, or Persia, did not like to lose their tribute, or what they paid him ;
so he asked the king of Shinar, or Chaldea, and two other kings, to join
him, and go and help him to subdue these people. They met in a plain, or
large piece of flat ground, and there they fought. The king of Elam, or
61
62 Bible and Commentator.
Persia, conquered, or beat them, and they all ran away. Among those that
were beaten was the king of Sodom, and his city was entered, and all
that was worth having was taken away; and Lot, having gone to live
there, lost all that he had, and was carried off to be made a slave of with
all his family.
A wretched condition poor Lot was in now ! This came from choosing
to go and live among people that did not fear God, and that, as we shall
soon learn, were noted for being wicked.
One of the people of Sodom escaped, and made haste to Abram, and told
him what had become of Lot. Abram pitied his poor nephew, and
resolved to save him. So he took all his men, three hundred and eighteen
in number, and divided them into several parts, that he might come upon
the enemy on all sides ; and overtaking them at night, he took them by
surprise, defeated and routed them, and brought back Lot, " and his goods,
and the women also, and the people."
And now the king of Sodom, hearing of what Abram had done, went to
see if he could get back any of his people. You will see in the chapter,
that the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell into the slime pits, or
pits full of a kind of black mud, and probably were smothered there ; so
that this was either a new king of Sodom, or it was only his people that
fell into pits, and he escaped. Abram very kindly gave back all he had
taken, and would receive nothing for what he had done. He was too good
a man to wish to get rich by war ; and he restored everything to the lawful
owners.
The Burning of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Genesis xix. 24, 25.
SODOM was now become so very wicked a place, that God said he
would destroy it at once, and he told Abraham what he meant to
do. Now, Abraham did not know it was so very wicked a place as it was ;
and as we should always think as kindly as we can of everybody, Abraham
hoped there might be some good people there besides Lot, for whose sake
God would spare the wicked cities. In the eighteenth chapter of Genesis,
and at the twenty-third and following verses, we have a very fine prayer
which Abraham prayed to God, to try and save Sodom and Gomorrah j for
we have said that Abraham was a good man, and good men always pray.
He said, " Peradventure (or if) there be fifty righteous in the city; wilt
Genesis,
63
thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are
therein ? " And the Lord said, " If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within
the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes."
SUPPOSED SITE OP SODOM AND GOMOKBAH.
See how God loves good people ; so much, that if there had only been
fifty in Sodom and Gomorrah, he would have spared all the wicked for
their sakes. And see what blessings we may hope for, if we live among
truly good people, who love and fear God.
But Abraham was afraid that there might not be fifty, for he no doubt
knew that the cities were very wicked ; and he therefore prayed God to
save Sodom, if the number of good people should be less than fifty, till at
last he left off at ten; and the Lord said, "I will not destroy it for ten's
sake."
Some angels had appeared to Abraham, and talked with him on this
subject. An angel means a messenger, or a person that carries a message.
Angels are often spoken of in Scripture, for in those days God made
known his mind to men by sending angels. These are spirits that serve
God in heaven, and they often by his power put on the shape of men, and
so talked with them.
64 Bible and Commentator.
Now two angels were sent to visit Sodom and Gomorrah, and to destroy
them for their sins. In those days there was much hospitality. Lot was
sitting out of doors, enjoying the air, as they do in hot countries; and as he
was at the gate or entrance of the city, he saw two men that looked like
travellers, and he bowed to them to show them respect, and kindly asked
them into his house, and begged them to stop all night and to wash their
feet, and then they could go on comfortably in the morning.
In some of the hot countries the people do not wear shoes, but what are
called sandals, or soles with straps to them, that go over the top of the foot
to keep them on. These were used by people at that time, and after a
journey it was very comfortable to wash the feet to make them clean and
cool. This will explain the reason why Lot asked the travellers to wash
their feet.
The travellers now went in with Lot, and he made them a feast, and his
food was very plain, according to the custom of those times ; all they had
was a little unleavened bread, or bread made without yeast, which ours is
made with that it may be light.
But the angels found that the people of Sodom were very wicked, and
they warned Lot to take his family and escape before God destroyed them.
Lot had a wife, and two daughters, at home ; there were also married daugh-
ters, but their husbands would not believe Lot's warning, and he was
obliged to leave them and their husbands behind ; if they had been good
people, they would not have perished with such a punishment. And in the
morning the angels led him away, for he lingered, perhaps in hopes of seeing
his other children coming, and they said, " Escape for thy life ; look not
behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain : escape to the mountain, lest
thou be consumed." But Lot begged that he might go to Zoar, a little city
close by ; and for his sake that city was saved.
And now the storm began. " Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and
upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he
overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the
cities, and that which grew upon the ground."
Some persons, who wrote a long while ago, tell us there were thirteen
cities in the plain of Sodom, and that Sodom was the capital, or largest,
as London is of England. These all perished but Zoar, where Lot
was.
God caused fire to fall upon them, and it. fell upon ground, which, being
pitchy, soon caught fire ; and all those wicked people, and their houses, and
Genesis.
65
goods, and lands were all burnt, and the cities were turned into a lake, or
very large body of water. This lake, now called the Dead Sea, is as much
as thirty miles long and ten miles broad. Its waters look clear, but the
bottom is black, and smells nasty. No fish can live there, and no herbs
can grow near it. Sulphur in quantities is found near the edges of
the lake. So to this day we have this witness of God's anger against the
wicked.
In this dreadful judgment Lot lost his wife. She did not like to leave
PILLAB OF SALT BY THE DEAD SEA.
Sodom. Perhaps she thought of her daughters behind, or wanted to save
her goods, or more likely did not quite believe that God was going to burn
the place : and so she stood and looked, and the fiery rain fell upon her, and
5
66 Bible and Commentator.
she was killed as she stood-; and being covered over with what fell, as
people are covered over in a fall of snow, she became a pillar of salt, or salt
sulphur!
When Abraham rose in the morning, he went to a place whence he could
see where Sodom and Gomorrah had stood ; " and, lo, the smoke of the
country went up as the smoke of a furnace."
Here you see what an evil and a bitter thing it is to sin against God.
This was a terrible fire ; but "the earth and all the works that are in it"
will by-and-by be burned up, on account of the wickedness which is in the
world. God spares it for a while, but its end shall come ; and all wicked
people shall have their part in " the lake which burneth with fire and brim-
stone," which, because of its many horrors, is the name God gives to the
place reserved for the wicked. Pray, then, to God, that he would save you
from this dreadful place, as Lot was saved from burning Sodom, " the Lord
being merciful unto him."
Hagar and Ishmael.
Genesis xxi. 9-21.
BESIDES Sarah, his first wife, Abraham married his maid, named
Hagar, who was an Egyptian woman. Several of the patriarchs or
good men of that period of the world had more wives than one ; God per-
mitted this in that dark age, though it was not according to his rule in the
beginning of the world ; but Christ, when he came, ordained that there
should be no more polygamy.
Hagar had a son named Ishmael, and Sarah had a son named Isaac.
Ishmael was fourteen years older than Isaac, and big enough to know
better, but he " mocked " his little brother Isaac, and teased him, when
they were probably at play together.
Sarah loved her own son Isaac, and could not bear that he should be so
treated by his elder brother : and though she had told Abraham to marry
Hagar, she did not like her, and this behavior of her son so vexed her
that she begged Abraham to turn both Hagar and Ishmael out of doors.
Perhaps Hagar had not brought up Ishmael to behave like a good boy, and
this made Sarah the more angry. It is a great Messing to have parents
who teach us to love God, and to love one another. Abraham loved both
his children ; "and the thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight : " — he
was grieved that his children should quarrel, and grieved that Sarah should
ask him to punish Hagar and Ishmael so severely.
Genesis.
67
But God determined that these children should be the heads of great
nations, and in his wise providence he caused this affair to bring about what
he intended should take place. "And God said unto Abraham, Let it not
be grievous in thy sight." So then God saw Ishmael mocking Isaac.
" God," says Rev. Matthew Henry, "takes notice what children do in their
play, and will reckon with them if they say or do amiss, though their
parents do not."
And so the end of all this was, that Ishmael was turned out of doors for
his bad behavior, and his mother too, for not teaching him better.
And now, from the fourteenth to the nineteenth verses of the chapter,
you have a very wonderful account
of God's kindness to Hagar and
Ishmael, when they were cast out.
Abraham gave Hagar some bread,
and a bottle of water, and sent her
and her son away. And she wan-
dered about in the wilderness, or
wild country ; and when the water
was all drunk, and they were faint-
ing with thirst and fatigue, she cast
her son under one of the shrubs :
and she sat down at a little distance
and wept. And the poor boy cried
aloud ; "And God heard the voice
of the lad ; and the angel of God
called to Hagar out of heaven, and
said unto her, What aileth thee, Ha-
gar? fear not, for God hath heard
the voice of the lad where he is.
And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water ; and she went, and
filled the bottle with water and gave the lad drink." Perhaps her eyes were
swollen with crying, and she could scarcely see ; but now she dried her tears,
and looked around, and lo ! there was a well which she had not seen before,
and she and her son did not perish with thirst.
My dear young friend, wherever we are, there is a good God that looks
down upon us. If even our friends forsake us, let us never forget to trust
in God. Perhaps when Hagar " lifted up her voice, and wept," she also
prayed — and so, perhaps, did Ishmael ; for they must have learnt so to do
ANCIENT MODE OF GIVING DKINK.
68 Bible and Commentator.
in the dwelling of pious Abraham. And God was there, to hear their
prayers and their cries, and to see their tears. Let this comfort you when
you are in sorrow, and teach you to pray to God for his help. He will then
surely bless you, and do you good.
Note 1. — You must have seen that we first spelt the name of Isaac's father Abeam, and
then Abraham, for God altered his name. About this you read in the 17th chapter, and
4th and following verses. Abraham means " the father of a great multitude ; " and from
Abraham came all the Jews, who long served God: and all good men, as they are like
Abraham, believe in God, and are called Abraham's seed, or children.
Note 2. — God also changed the name of Abraham's wife, as we learn from the 17th chapter
and 15th verse, from Sarai, which means "contentious" to Sarah, which signifies " a princess; "
for when God made her the mother of Isaac, she was to be the mother, or princess, of many
nations, that should be born of her race ; and especially in her family, in course of time, was
to be born Jesus Christ, " the Prince of Peace."
Abraham Offering up his Son Isaac.
Genesis xxii.
YOU should read this chapter very carefully ; for it is very interesting
and important. Abraham had long wished to have a son, and when
Isaac was born he was called by the name Isaac, which means laughter, to
show how glad the good old man and his aged wife were to have a son to
ccmfort them in theii old age, and whom they could both love.
But perhaps they thought of Isaac more than of God ; and if they did so,
they did that which was very wrong, for we ought to love God above all
persons or things in the world.
Abraham and Sarah, no doubt, knew all this, and they did love God ;
but still there might be a danger of their loving Isaac so as to give him a
share of love that did not belong to him, but to God only.
Perhaps, therefore, to put Abraham to the trial, and to show how far he
would go in his love, as well as what real love to God can do, " God did
tempt Abraham."
To tempt, among us, means to entice one another to do anything, and
very often to do a wrong thing ; but here it means only to try.
But what was this trial? God spake to Abraham, and said, "Take
now thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into
the land of Moriah ; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one
of the mountains which I will tell thee of." Now, burnt-offerings were
slain beasts, whose bodies, laid on the altar, were all consumed by fire.
Genesis. 69
Poor Abraham ! had God said, I will make thy dear son sick ; had he
even said, In a few hours Isaac shall die : this would not half so much have
pained his heart. But to be told to take his son for a sacrifice, and to offer
him himself — his only son Isaac! — Isaac, whom he loved! Perhaps he
wept very bitterly. Perhaps he prayed that Isaac might be spared. But
. God's will must be done, and he said nothing against it.
You may wonder that God should command him to kill his son ; and
were any one to suppose he had such a command now, he would show that
he was tempted by the wicked spirit, and not tried by the Almighty : but,
in those times, God spake in various ways to pious men, so that they knew
when he did speak ; and Abraham knew that he would not order him to do
anything that was wrong.
"And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and
took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood
for the burnt-oifering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God
had told him."
This journey took Abraham three days, so that all this time he might
have repented and turned back. But Abraham knew that God was able to
raise up his son even from the dead ; and as God had told him that Isaac
should be his heir, he would not dispute his word, but went on his way.
And now he came near the spot, and leaving the young men, he went up
the mountain. "And Abraham took the wood of the burnt-offering, and
laid it upon Isaac his son ; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife ;
and they went both of them together." Oh, what a moment was this for
poor Abraham ! in a few minutes more and his dear, dear son Isaac must
be killed, and bleed like a lamb upon the altar; so he thought. Who can
tell how much he was pained at his heart ? but still he obeyed God.
Isaac had been taught by his good father to sacrifice to God, as was the
custom of those days, and he began to wonder where the sacrifice was, and
very innocently said, " My father, behold the fire and the wood ; but where
is the lamb for a burnt-offering?" Oh, how this must have touched the
good old man's heart ! Isaac had been a good son, and it was no wonder,
then, if he dearly loved him. But he could not then make up his mind to
tell him, and he only said, — still, perhaps, hoping that God would spare him
in the end, — " My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt-offering ;
so they went both of them together."
And now Abraham built the altar and laid the wood in order — oh, did
not his hands and his heart tremble ? And now, perhaps, he said with a
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Bible and Commentator.
trembling voice, "My Isaac, my dearly beloved Isaac ! my son ! my own
son ! my only son! thou joy of my old age ! Oh, how shall I tell thee —
but I must ; thou art the sacrifice, and God has required it." Perhaps, too,
he sobbed, and ceased to speak in the midst of his grief: all this was not
unlikely. But, perhaps, as he had great faith in God, he shed no tear, nor
breathed a single sigh. He knew that all he did must be right ; at least he
had much of such a spirit in him : and, like Abraham, when God afflicts us,
we ought to say as Jesus Christ has taught us, ' - Thy will be done."
Isaac was a good youth. He was now about twenty years old. He had
learned to love and serve God. It does not appear that he tried one
moment to resist his good old father, who was one hundred and twenty
years of age. He had gone with delight to worship God and join in the
sacrifice ; and now he was to be the offering — he gave himself willingly up.
Oh, how must God love such obedient hearts !
Here, my dear young reader, let me tell you, that through life God will
require you to give up many things to him, as he did require of Abraham
FOUR-HORNED RAM OF PALESTINE.
to give up his son. And you must learn to do it without a murmur at
what he does, for he doth all things well.
And now "Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay
his son." — It is enough. God has tried him. He is willing to obey his
commands, but God does not want innocent blood. "And the angal of the
Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham, lay not
Genesis. 71
thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him ; for now I
know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine
only son, from me." Now the trial was over. God had proved Abraham,
and, like pure metal passed through the fire, he found him very precious.
His faith had not failed.
"And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, behind him
a ram caught in a thicket by his horns ; and Abraham went and took the
ram, and offered him up for a burnt-offering in the stead of his son."
You see that when God had tried the love of Abraham, he had
kindness in reserve for him after all, and spared his son. Isaac must
then have been dearer to him than ever, and God for his goodness dearer
to them both.
This history reminds us of the love of God, in giving his Son, his only
Son, for a sacrifice for us. " God so loved the world, that he gave his only-
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him might not perish, but have
everlasting life." " He spared not his own Son, but freely gave him up for
us all ! " " Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the
world." It was to point to his sacrifice, and to show that one better than
all others together should come, that Abraham and all the pious then
offered sacrifices to God. And these never ceased till Jesus Christ came,
who is called the " offering once for all." Then all sacrifices were over, for
Jesus had bled and died for the sins of a guilty world.
The Death of Sarah.
Genesis xxtii. 1, 2.
u AND Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old: these
-J~±- were the years of the life of Sarah. And Sarah died," and we read
that "Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her : " for he
was probably at a distance, feeding his flocks, when she died. It is very
affecting to lose our friends. And no doubt Isaac wept for Sarah, too.
And would not you, if you were to lose your dear mother from whom you
have received so much kindness ? But if we lose our friends, and they and
Ave love Jesus Christ, we may hope to meet again in a better world.
We are told that Abraham bought a burying-place of one whose name
was Ephron, and he paid for it at the gates of the city called Mamre, after-
wards known by the name Hebron. The gates or ways into the city,
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Bible and Commentator,
like Temple-Bar in London and many other archways in other places, had,
it is thought, rooms over them, where the chief men settled all matters of
right among the people. Here Abraham agreed for the price, and paid the
MOSQUE AT HEBRON, HAVING THE CAVE OF MACHPELAH UNDERNEATH.
money for the burying-place. " And Abraham weighed to Ephron the
silver" he was to pay; for there were no coins in general circulation then,
and when a purchase was made the silver or gold was weighed out in their
balances, a pound of silver having a fixed value. The price which Abra-
ham paid was four hundred shekels of silver. A shekel of silver was worth
about fifty-six cents, and the whole price paid by Abraham for this field
and cave was about two hundred and forty dollars. But money was worth
so much more then than it is now, that that sum would be equal to about
fifteen hundred dollars now.
Abraham buried his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before
Mamre, in the land of Canaan. It was usual in those times and in that
country to bury people in caves, which were like little chambers cut out of
the side of some hill, or vaults bricked or arched over ; and here the whole
of a family would lie together. This is "the house appointed for all
living; " and though we may have no other spot on earth, we must all have
a burial-place ; or though Ave may own ever so much of the earth, a burial-
place must be our only lot in the earth at last.
Genesis. 73
The Marriage of Isaac and Rebekah.
Genesis xxiv. 2-4.
A BRAHAM was now one hundred and forty years old, for he was one
• J* hundred years old when Isaac was born, and Isaac was forty years
old when he married Rebekah. Like a kind father, he was desirous of his
son doing well and being happy in life, and he wished to see Isaac married.
But as there were people who served false gods all around him, he would
have his son take care not to choose any one of them for a wife ; he therefore
called his steward, who was the head servant of his house, and no doubt
a good and faithful man, and he desired him to take an oath, or give his
solemn word, that he would go among his relations, where the true God
was worshipped, and seek him a wife.
The servant put his hand under Abraham's thigh ; and this was a sign
used at that time to show that he swore, or promised faithfully, — for by
swearing is not meant in this case the use of any wicked words ; Abraham
was too good a man to want such words to be used — he would rather have
reproved any one for using them.
And see here what respect good servants deserve from their masters, and
their masters' children ; Abraham trusts this matter entirely with his
servant, and Isaac no doubt approved of it, for he was old enough to have
objected.
And now the good servant, having sworn to his master, set out on his
way tc the city of Nahor, or where Nahor lived, who was Abraham's brother.
This city was called Haran, and was in the country called Mesopotamia.
"And the servant took ten camels, of the camels of his master, and
departed : for all the goods of his master were in his hand," or trusted to
his care.
The camel is a very useful beast in the eastern parts of the world, and
rich people had then, and still have, great numbers of these animals : they
are very strong, and will carry very large loads — as much as a thousand
pounds in weight. Some have two humps on their back, and some have
one ; they will go long journeys through hot deserts without any water.
Abraham's servant took ten of these, laden with presents for the exjiected
wife of Isaac and her friends.
Having ended his journey of several days, he made his camels to kneel
74 Bible and Commentator.
down without the city by a well of water, at the time of the evening — even
the time that women go out to draw water.
Camels are early taught to kneel, that they may take rest, and be loaded
and unloaded, as they are very high.
CAMELS AND THEIR FURNITURE.
The women went to the well in the evening to draw water ; and in
Arabia, to this day, the women do the same.
And now Abraham's servant prayed to God that he would direct in his
providence, that the young woman who should offer him and his camels
water should be the wife of Isaac.
We can never hope for a blessing on anything that we do that is impor-
tant in life unless we pray to God for it.
When the servant had done praying, Rebekah, who was the daughter of
Bethuel, Abraham's brother's son, came to the well, and brought a pitcher
on her shoulder ; and she was very kind, and good-natured, and obliging,
and did present the servant and his camels with water; and as there were
ten camels, it was no small trouble.
All this must have pleased the good servant, or rather the steward ; and
with all this we learn that " the damsel was very fair to look upon," but
her beauty would have been nothing, if she had not had good temper.
You must not wonder at Rebekah going to draw the water, for it was
quite usual then, and in that country, for persons of the first rank to be so
employed. Industry is no disgrace to any rank, but idleness always is.
Genesis.
75
The steward now hoped that his journey would succeed, and he gave
Rebekak a golden ear-ring and two bracelets for her arms, which together
weighed ten shekels and a half, every shekel of gold being worth about
four and a half dollars.
The steward next asked her about her relations, and inquired if they
could give him a lodging for himself and camels.
In that country it is quite usual still, for those who have large houses, 01
roomy tents, to show the same politeness and hospitality to travellers.
They have large court-yards for the beasts, and plenty of room for any
friends or respectable strangers.
Having so far succeeded, the good man " bowed down his head, and
worshipped the Lord," or thanked God. We ought always to thank God
for all our comforts.
And now Eebekah, having learnt who he was, ran and told her mother :
LABAN S WELL, AT HAEAS,
the women lived in apartments by themselves, as they still do in the East.
And then her brother Laban soon learnt the news ; and he ran out to the
man, and invited him in, and told him he had room for himself and camels.
"And the man came into the house: and he ungirded his camels, and
76 Bible and Commentator.
gave straw and provender for the camels, and water to wash his feet, and
the men's feet that were with him."
Laban's father was perhaps dead, or not able to move about with age,
and so Laban was the acting master of the house.
And now the steward told about his master's wealth, and that he had a
son born in his old age, and what had passed between him and his master
about Isaac's marriage, and what he had prayed, and what had happened
at the well.
When he had finished, Laban and Bethuel agreed to let Rebekah go, as
they saw God's will was in the matter. This Bethuel is thought to have
been a younger brother of Rebekah, and not the father. And they blessed
Rebekah, or expressed the kindest wishes for her, that she might be com-
forted in her children, and that they might be many, and overcome all their
enemies.
"And Rebekah arose, and her damsels, and they rode upon the camels,
and followed the man ; and the servant took Rebekah, and went his way."
And it happened that Isaac was walking in the field on the evening of
their arrival; and seeing them coming, he went towards them. And
Rebekah inquired of the steward who he was; and as was, and is, the
custom of that country, she put a veil on her face as a token of modesty on
meeting Isaac ; for nothing in a woman is so lovely as modesty in behavior.
And now the different customs required were all gone through, and Isaac
took Rebekah to be his companion for life ; and he loved her : and Isaac
was comforted after his mother's death.
The Death of Abraham.
Genesis xxv. 8-10.
ABRAHAM, the friend of God, is at last called to die. His had been a
longer life than the lives of men now. He had left his country and
kindred at God's command, and had gone into a distant land, which God
promised to give to his descendants in a future generation, but he himself
owned nothing in it, except a burial-place. He was a hundred years old
when his son Isaac was born, and when that son was approaching manhood,
his faith was tried by the command to offer him in sacrifice ; and he was
spared only at the last moment. Abraham was buried in the cave of
Machpelah, by the side of Sarah.
78 Bible and Commentator.
It is said he died of " a good old age."
Abraham had spent all his best days in serving God ; he looked back
upon them with pleasure, and now his old age had become happy and good.
But here, we must tell you, that Abraham, though a good man, had his
faults. You will often read of the faults of good men, as you read your
Bible ; and they are told you for two reasons : first, that you should avoid
them, and not commit the same ; and, secondly, to show that God would
not hide them, and that he was displeased with them, and often corrected
good men severely for them.
In the twentieth chapter of Genesis we find Abraham, contrary to that
faith or trust which he had in God, guilty of keeping back the truth when
he ought to have spoken it, which was no credit to him. He went into the
country of King Abimelech, and as he foolishly feared that the king might
take his wife Sarah, and make her a queen, she being very beautiful, he
told her to say she was his sister. This was so far true, for they had both
the same father, but not the same mother ; but then it implied that she was
not his wife. And he had nearly brought himself, and Sarah, and the king,
into great distress, by his mistrust of God's care in this instance.
But while we read of these faults and follies in good men, as faithfully
told in the Bible, let it lead us to pray to God to keep us. from doing the
same, and to ask his grace that we may imitate their numerous virtues.
Isaac and Ishmael buried their father with all due regard for his memory,
for " the memory of the just is blessed ; " even Ishmael paid this respect to
the remains of his father, though Ishmael was not a good man.
Esau Selling his Birthright and Isaac's Prosperity.
Genesis xxv. 27-34 ; xxvi. 13, 14.
HERE is a new race springing up : thus " one generation passeth away "
like a shadow, " and another generation cometh." Rebekah is now
introduced to us as the mother of Esau and Jacob : these differed in their
pursuits ; Esau loved hunting, and was cunning in laying his snares to catch
his game, while Jacob was a plain man, watching his flocks and his herds.
Esau and Jacob were twins, or born at the same time ; but Esau having
been born a moment before Jacob, he was the eldest brother.
Now to the elder brother, among the Hebrews, belonged many benefits ;
among the rest, he had honor paid him next to his parents ; he had a double
Genesis. 79
portion of the inheritance ; and the Messiah, or Jesus Christ, was to be
born, in time, of his family — a blessing of the greatest price.
Jacob aimed to get the birthright, or privileges of the first-born ; and it
appears from another part of this book, that his mother being fond of him,
wished him .to have it, and no doubt set Jacob to watch his moment to
supplant his brother.
This is a blot in Jacob's character ; and it afterwards led to another, as
one bad thing generally does. But Jacob turned out an excellent man at
last ; we must therefore follow that which was good in him, and not dwell
on his faults.
Esau, however, deserved to lose his birthright, for he did not seem to
set much value upon it, when he sold it for a paltry mess of pottage. No
doubt he could have got something else in his mother's house ; but, on
reaching home, hungry and tired after hunting, nothing else would suit his
fanc}T but Jacob's mess which he had been preparing ; and so Jacob, seizing
the opportunity, made his bargain, and tricked poor Esau.
Jacob's pottage was made of lentiles — what were they ? A kind of bean
which is still used in those parts, and makes a drink, looking red, some-
thing like coffee : and for this " Esau despised his birthright."
The next chapter tells us much of Isaac's prosperity and of his dealings
with the Philistine king, Abimelech, to whose country he went in a time
of famine. He had become so wealthy, in flocks and herds and servants,
that Abimelech's officers and servants became jealous of him, and manifested
their jealousy by stopping up the wells which Abraham's servants had dug
in that very dry country, and in quarrelling with Isaac's servants when they
dug any new ones ; so that Isaac finally removed to what was afterwards
southern Judea — to Beersheba. But Isaac was guilty of the same fault as
his father Abraham, and with less excuse. Fearing lest Abimelech should
take Rebekah from him, and kill him, he called her his sister, though she
was only a second cousin. God punished him for this deception, as we shall
see in the next chapter.
Isaac blessing Jacob.
Genesis xxvn.
T I ^HE following is the history in this chapter : Isaac was now very old ;
-*- it is reckoned that he must have been about one hundred and
thirty-six years of age, and that Jacob was about seventy-seven. The old
WHERE ABEAM FED HIS FLOCKS.
SO
Genesis. 81
man's eyes were grown nearly blind with age. He thought that, from
the length of years he had lived, his life could not last much longer. He
therefore desired his son Esau to come and take the blessing which belonged
to the first-born.
As a proof of his obedience to his father, he asked him to get him some
of his nice meat, which he killed with the bow and arrow ; and when he
had prepared it, he was to have the blessing.
This blessing was a very solemn thing. It was what parents used to give
to their children when they were about to die and leave them behind ; and
the patriarchs had a spirit of prophecy given them from heaven, so that
what they said foretold what was to come to pass respecting their families.
The first-born always had a right to the best blessing.
Now, Rebekah heard what Isaac said to Esau, and, as Jacob was her
favorite son, she resolved that he should try and get the blessing. There
is some excuse for her conduct, because she had been told from God him-
self, in a particular way, respecting her sons, before they were born, " The
elder shall serve the younger " — yet not excuse enough for her to tell Jacob
to do that which was wrong, to bring about what God had promised. This
was very foolish ; and because she did wrong, she was punished afterwards
by many troubles which sprung out of this very affair, like bitter branches
out of a bitter root.
Rebekah told Jacob to take two kids from his flocks and let her have
them, and she would make savory meat of them for Isaac ; and he should
go to him under the pretence that he was Esau, and offer the meat and get
the blessing; for as Isaac was almost blind, he could not see his face
clearly.
Jacob, however, remembered that Esau was a strong man, covered with
hair ; and he thought that, if his father touched him, he would find out
that it was not Esau, and that he would be so displeased at his trying to
deceive him, that he would curse him instead of blessing him.
But his mother encouraged him ; and to make his skin like Esau's,
she fitted some goat-skins to his hands and his neck: for the goats in
the East have very delicate hair, which might by its feel pass for that on
a strong man's skin.
And now Jacob made haste with the meat, and took it to his father
before Esau could come home from hunting. And he said, " I am Esau,
thy first-born ; I have done according as thou badest me : arise, I pray
thee ; sit and eat of my venison, that thy soul may bless me."
6
82 Bible and Commentator.
This was a very wicked deception on Jacob's part, and he afterwards
suffered for it severely, and his descendants suffered for it, too ; for the con-
sequences of sin reach far into the future. Jacob probably reasoned in this
way : that as he had bought the birthright of his brother, and the prediction
had been made that the elder should serve the younger, he had a right to
secure the blessing even by fraud ; but this was no justification for his sin.
However, Jacob did succeed in getting the blessing. His father sus-
pected bis voice ; but his raiment smelt of the sweet perfumes of Esau's
garments, which it is thought were used to keep them from moths, and of
which his mother had procured one from his chests on this occasion, — per-
haps a garment kept for the elder sons.
So Isaac ate of his meat and drank of his wine ; which, it is thought,
was a kind of religious rite before pronouncing the blessing. "And his
father Isaac said, Come near now, and kiss me, my son. And he came
near and kissed him : and he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed
him, and said, See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the
Lord hath blessed." That is, his garments smelt like a field in which sweet
spices grow in abundance, through God's blessing on the soil, as we smell
the sweet-scented bean field when it is in full flower. He added, " There-
fore, God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and
plenty of corn and wine ! " It rains only at particular times in that part
of the world ; but then God sends heavy dews, something like such as we
have about three or four o'clock on a summer's morning, but much thicker ;
and these falling upon the fields make them rich in crops, yielding corn to
grind for bread, and grapes to make wine.
Isaac further said, "Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to
thee : be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to
thee : cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth
thee."
Scarcely had Jacob left Isaac when Esau returned, and he hastened to
his father with his savory meat.
But now he was justly punished for selling his birthright; notwith-
standing which, and though he had taken an oath to part with it for the
red pottage, he tried to obtain it.
And the aged "Isaac trembled exceedingly," as he remembered his
doubts, and knew who had deceived him ; but being governed by a spirit
of prophecy, that is, having spoken by the guidance of God, he said of Jacob,
" I have blessed him ; yea, and he shall be blessed."
84 Bible and Commentator.
Poor Esau now cried bitterly, and he said, " Bless me, even me also, O
my father ! hast thou not reserved a blessing for me ? "
And Isaac gave him a blessing also ; but it was not that of the first-
born : he lost his birthright.
Jacob's Dream.
Genesis xxviii. 12, 13.
TT^SAU was in the greatest rage on account of the loss of his birthright,
J-^ and as he expected that his father would soon die, since he was so old
he vowed that he would then kill his brother. Rebekah was told what he
said, and Jacob, by her advice, fled for safety to his uncle Laban, at
Haran; but, before he left, Isaac bade him farewell, and renewed his
blessing at parting.
Isaac also gave Jacob a charge that he should not take any one for
a wife that did not serve the true God, and that he should therefore
try and marry one of Laban's daughters. Esau knew this, and to
satisfy his father he went to Ishmael, his uncle, and married his daughter in
addition to the two Canaanite wives he already had.
"And Jacob went out from Beersheba," where Isaac and Rebekah
now lived, "and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain
place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set : and he took of
the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that
place to sleep."
This seems to us to have been a very hard bed, especially to a man who
had walked a long distance ; but the people of the East are accustomed to
hard pillows, and rest their necks rather than their heads on them ; and as
Bethel, where he had his dream, was about sixty miles from Beersheba, he
had probably slept for two nights already in the open air ; besides, " Jacob
was a plain man, dwelling in tents," and his hardy nature made him feel
less the want of the comforts of home.
And, whilst Jacob was asleep, he dreamed the dream mentioned in this
chapter.
This was one way in which the Lord spake to the patriarchs, and Jacob
could know that it was divine, and no common dream. The ladder which
lie saw reaching from heaven to earth, and which was full of angels, or
heavenly messengers, going up and down, will show us, as well as Jacob,
that God's angels watch over us when we sleep, especially if we cast our-
selves into God's care ; and how must Jacob's heart have been strengthened
Genesis. 85
when God himself then spoke and said, " Behold, I am with thee, and will
keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again unto
this land ; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have
spoken to thee of."
This event was very comforting to Jacob ; and as we ought to remember
the mercies of God at all times, he set up a stone on the spot, that he might
know it when at any distant time he should return home ; and he poured
oil upon it, probably in token that there he would build an altar to worship
God ; for " he called the name of that place Bethel," which means the house
of God, for there he had seen God, and there he hoped again to see him in
his gracious goodness towards him. "And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If
God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give
me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's
house in peace ; then shall the Lord be my God : " not that he meant he
should not be his God if he did not do all these things for him, for Jacob
showed he would have no other God by resolving to take no wife but one
that would serve God ; but he meant that then he would make a particular
mention of him, and declare what a God his God was. This appears from
what he further says : " This stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be
God's house : and of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the
tenth unto thee."
Jacob and the Daughters of Laban.
Genesis xxix. 15-20.
JACOB now knowing well that God would protect him, went on gladly
to Haran, or " The Land of the People of the East," as it lay east of
Canaan.
On coming to Haran he saw a well — perhaps the same where Abraham's
servant stopped ; and there is a well near that spot still, called by some
Jacob's Well, although Jacob was there between three and four thousand
years ago. There he also stopped ; and there were flocks of sheep resting
near it, waiting for water, attended by their shepherds.
Jacob very civilly spoke to the shepherds, and asked if they knew Laban.
They told him that they did know him — that he was well, and that Rachel,
his daughter, was then coming with her father's sheep to get water for them.
Jacob rolled away the great stone which covered the well, to keep the
water clean, " and watered the flock of Laban, his mother's brother."
Jacob's well.
86
Genesis. 87
He then kissed his dear relation, Rachel, telling her who he was ; and
she ran and told her father.
Laban hastened to the well, and was glad to see Jacob, and asked him to
go home with him.
Jacob then told him " all these things ; " — that he had got his brother's
birthright — that Esau had for this cause said that he would kill him — that
he had come there for safety — that God had appeared to him in a dream,,
and had promised to protect him and prosper him — that he had met with
Rachel at the well — and that he had come to take a wife out of his family..
Laban told him that he might live with him and mind his flocks, but he
should have wages for his work.
As Jacob had no presents to make for his daughter, according to the
custom of the country, he told his uncle that he would serve him seven
years, if he would agree that Rachel should then become his wife.
When the seven years were gone, Jacob said, " Give me my wife," — but
his uncle cheated him, and gave him Leah. He however promised him
Rachel if he would serve seven years more.
Here you see that Jacob, having cheated Isaac by pretending to be Esau,
was just served in the same way by Laban, who gave him Leah instead of
Rachel.
After seven days' feasting, as was usual, Jacob had also Rachel for his
wife, for whom he was to serve another seven years.
Jacob and his Flocks.
Geistesis xxx. 25-28 ; xxxi. 3.
T I 1HE fourteen years which Jacob had engaged to serve for Rachel and
-*- Leah being expired, he wanted to return to see his father ; having
got no other reward for very hard service than Laban's daughters with
their families.
But Laban did not like to part with Jacob, for God had blessed him for
Jacob's sake. It is a great blessing to be connected with really good people.
Now Laban knew that Jacob was not a covetous man, as he himself was,
and that he would not ask him too much for his services ; so he said to
him, "Appoint me," or fix, " thy wages, and I will give it."
Then said Jacob, You shall give me all the speckled and spotted goats
and sheep that may from this time be brought forth among the flocks.
88 Bible and Commentator.
So we learn, " the man increased exceedingly, and had much cattle, and
maid-servants, and men-servants, and camels and asses."
Laban and his sons, seeing how Jacob prospered, put on very black looks
towards him. Being under the divine direction, and having consulted his
wives upon the subject, he therefore resolved to quit Laban, and return to
Canaan.
" Then Jacob rose up, and set his sons and his wives upon camels ; and
he carried away all his cattle, and all his goods which he had gotten, the
cattle of his getting, which he had gotten in Padan-aran [or Mesopotamia],
for to go to Isaac his father in the land of Canaan."
" And it was told Laban on the third day that Jacob was fled. And he
took his brethren with him, and pursued after him seven days' journey ;
and they overtook him in the mount Gilead," a distance of three hundred
and eighty miles from Haran.
Laban might have designed to bring Jacob back by fair promises, or else
to have avenged himself upon him in case of refusal ; but " God came to
Laban the Syrian in a dream by night, and said unto him, Take heed that
thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad." Laban, therefore, only
accused Jacob of running away from him, and of taking away his gods.
For Rachel, unknown to Jacob, had stolen some things supposed to have
been images or brass-work, which Laban used to consult like a conjuror, to
know what would come to pass. Probably, Rachel knew better than to
suppose that they were of any use, but wished to take such silly things
from her deluded father. He, therefore, supposing that Jacob had got
them, said, " Wherefore hast thou stolen my gods ? " Foolish man ! to
call those his gods that could be stolen ! And yet there are millions of
our fellow-creatures, in distant parts of the world, who now worship as
gods things of the most absurd kind, made of wood and other articles, and
know nothing of Jesus Christ, the only Saviour of perishing sinners.
Laban searched everywhere for his gods, but could not find them ; and
he made Jacob angry by his rude behavior : however, if J acob was wrong
in being angry, Laban was not less so in provoking him by nis bad conduct.
Jacob told him how hard a master he had been, for he had made him pay
for the cattle torn by wild beasts and stolen ; he had had fourteen years'
service for his two daughters, and six years' for the cattle, and had
changed his wages no less than ten times ; being never contented with his
bargains : so that if God had not prospered him, he would never have had
.anything for all his labor.
90 Bible and Commentator.
Laban then proposed an agreement between them, which Jacob was very
ready to make ; and they set up some stones as a mark, and gave a promise
that they would never pass those stones with designs to do harm to each
other ; and " the God of Abraham " was asked to witness the promise : for
wherever we are, we are under God's eye, and he knows all that we say and
do. They also offered a sacrifice and ate bread together, as a proof that
they both parted friends. Thus the quarrel ended, and God protected
Jacob.
"And early in the morning Laban rose up and kissed his sons," — that
is, in this place, grandsons — " and his daughters, and blessed them ; and
Laban departed, and returned unto his place."
Jacob and the Angels.
Genesis xxxii. 1.
66 AND Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him."
-£A_ Angels are God's servants, to protect them that trust in him, and
these spirits were made known to Jacob to encourage him in his journey.
Now Jacob had great need of this encouragement, for he had to pass by
the way in which he might meet with his brother Esau ; and remembering
how he had obtained his birthright, and, therefore, how much reason Esau
had to be angry, he was afraid of his vengeance — Esau not being a good
man.
"And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother unto the
land of Seir, the country of Edom." These were to tell him of his long
absence, and troubles under a hard master, that Esau's heart might be
softened. They were also to speak of his prosperity, that he might not
suppose that he wanted more of him ; and to address him from Jacob in
language of respect, and express his wish that they might meet each other
as brothers.
The messengers returned, and said that Esau was coming, and four
hundred men with him.
Poor Jacob was now sadly frightened ; for he feared that his brother
would kill him and the children, and take all that he had.
He therefore divided the people and flocks into two bands, so that if he
fell upon one the other might have time to escape ; and so, his wife and
children being in the hindmost band, he might save their lives.
Genesis.
91
He then thought that he would send presents to his brother to gain his
good will ; and ordered servants to go, one after another, with droves of
cattle of various sorts, five hundred and eighty animals in all; which thev
were directed to tell Esau were sent for his acceptance. After this present,
Jacob sent his wives and children over the river Jabbok, he himself remain-
ing on its north bank, where he spent the night in earnest prayer. After the
midnight hour, there appeared to him one, who, though in human form, yet
possessed more than human power, who wrestled with him, but without over-
coming him. Jacob undoubtedly knew or suspected that his antagonist was
the angel of the covenant — Jehovah — and the struggle was one of earnest
prayer, more than a wrestling of the body. At length by a dextrous touch,
this divine wrestler put Jacob's thigh out of joint, and then said, " Let me
go : for the day breaketh," but Jacob still clung to him, demanding a
blessing: his name was changed to Israel, a Prince of God, and he received
an assurance of the divine favor.
Meeting of Jacob and Esau.
Genesis xxxiii.
JACOB, having divided the people and flocks into separate bodies, now
went forward to meet Esau ; and, after the custom of the East, he bowed
himself frequently to the ground. The manner of bowing in the East is
different from ours — here is a picture of a
person so doing. And then Esau, having
got off the beast he probably rode, ran to
him, and, with all the kind feelings of a
brother, put his arms round his neck and
kissed him. If Esau had come with any
design to do Jacob harm, God had softened
his heart ; and certainly he showed a noble
spirit in forgiving his brother who had once
done him so much injury, but who now,
however, showed how much he wished to
make him amends for it.
Next Jacob's family approached Esau,
and bowed themselves also, and then Jacob offered his presents to his
brother.
But Esau, not being covetous, wanted nothing to reconcile him.
OFFERING SALUTATION IN THE EAST.
92
Bible and Commentator.
Jacob, however, was not quite sure of his brother's sincerity, and, per-
haps, feared that when the first warm feeling of his heart had been shown,
it would grow cooler and he might be in danger ; he therefore said, " Nay,
I pray thee, if now I have found grace in thy sight, then receive my present
at my hand : for therefore I have seen thy face, as though I had seen the
face of God," — meaning that it was pleasant, as a sight of God's favor is
also pleasant — " and thou wast pleased with me." In Eastern countries if
a present be offered to a superior and he will not take it there is much to
fear from his refusal ; but if he accept it, it is a mark of his favor and
protection, and there is nothing to fear.
Jacob also wished to give his
brother something in token of kind-
ness, and in return for the harm he
had formerly done him. "And he
urged him, and he took it."
Esau now offered either to keep
him company or to leave some ser-
vants behind as a guard of honor or
safety, that he might look more
grand, or be protected against dan-
gers ; but this Jacob did not need,
and so they parted.
Jacob went for a while to a place
called Succoth, and afterwards he
removed to " Shalem, a city of Shechem," and there he bought some land for
the use of his cattle.
There also he erected an altar, and called it by a name which meant God,
the God of Israel : thus he returned thanks to God for having preserved
him and blessed him, and allowed him to return to the land of Canaan.
RECEIVING SALUTATION IN THE EAST.
The Slaying of the Shechemites.
Genesis xxxiv. 25-31.
JACOB had but one daughter, the child of Leah, whose name was Dinah.
She was younger than any of her brothers, except Joseph and Benjamin,
and was evidently a great favorite with all of them.
Genesis. 93
Dinah, probably thinking herself lonely at home, wished to go and see
" the daughters of the land/' and to visit the ungodly people of Shechem ;
and her mother, perhaps from a foolish fondness, gave her leave.
Dinah was now about fifteen or sixteen years of age ; and Shechem, the
prince of the country, having seen her, resolved to take her by force and
carry her home, and never let her return to her father's house again, but
have her for his wife.
But the family of Israel were not to marry with any of those who were
not worshippers of the true God.
Shechem and his father Hamor, however, did all they could to persuade
Jacob to let Shechem keep his daughter, for whom he felt a strong
affection ; and as in those times a man gave a dowry, or something of value,
to the parents for taking away their daughters for wives, Shechem offered
any sum that might be asked.
Jacob's sons pretended to agree, but on one condition, which was, that
the Shechemites should practise the religious forms of the Hebrews. To
this Hamor and his son consented ; and so did all the people, out of regard
to their prince, who seems, notwithstanding his carrying away Dinah, to
have had some good qualities.
The Shechemites, having fulfilled their agreement and submitted to the
religious customs of the Hebrews, fully relied on their good faith ; but
when they were quite off their guard two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and
Levi, Dinah's brethren, took each man his sword and came upon the city
boldly and slew all the males and rescued their sister. And " they took
their sheep, and their oxen, and their asses, and that which was in the city,
and that which was in the field. And all their wealth, and all their little
ones, and their wives took they captive, and spoiled even all that was in the
house."
This was a treacherous and cruel act on the part of Jacob's sons, and he
could not but be very angry at it. It was, indeed, just in God to permit
the Shechemites so to perish, for they had only become religious for the
sake of pleasing their prince and benefiting by their union with the
Hebrews ; and God hates hypocrisy.
But as far as it respected Jacob's sons doing this act, it was very wicked,
for they broke their faith with the Shechemites, and besides that they
punished a whole city for the fault of one man.
Jacob feared now for the honor of religion as well as for the safety of his
family : for who after this would be likely to trust an Israelite ? And if
94
Bible and Commentator.
God did not particularly guard him, all the tribes round about might
fall upon him to avenge so cruel a deed.
Jacob and the Strange Gods.
Genesis xxxv. 1-5.
'YTT'HILE Jacob was perplexed about the cruel conduct of his sons
▼ ▼ Simeon and Levi, and afraid lest it should bring a host of enemies
upon him, God appeared to him, and commanded him to remove to
Bethel.
Jacob then ordered all the false gods to be
put out of his family, which it is supposed that
the servants he brought from Syria, when he
left Laban, had kept among them, and,
perhaps, some had been brought from the
Shechemites.
Jacob now ordered the garments of his
people also to be changed, for, perhaps, many
of them were stained with blood in the late
cruel affair.
He likewise took away a quantity of ear-
rings, which were either stuck in the ears of
ANCIENT HOUSEHOLD GODS.
the false gods or worn by the people as charms
to protect them, as they thought, from danger ;
and these he buried with the strange gods
under an oak tree, near Shechem, that nobody
might have them any more.
And though Jacob was now in as much or
more danger than he was formerly from Esau,
yet God made the people around afraid of
touching him; and so he escaped and went
to Bethel, and there he praised and worshipped
God and set up a pillar, as we build monuments, in remembrance of his
goodness.
Jacob then removed from Bethel, and on his journey Benjamin was born,
and Rachel his mother died. This chapter also tells us that Deborah,
Rebekah's nurse, died; and that Isaac died, aged one hundred and eighty
EASTERN 1IOUS1.HOLD GODS.
G E X E S I S .
95
years : he was a good and peaceable man. Esau and Jacob, being recon-
ciled, united in burying their good old father.
In this chapter we have the names of Jacob's twelve sons, who were called
the twelve patriarchs, or chiefs, of numerous families and tribes.
Leah's sons were six: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and
Zebulon. She was also the mother of Dinah, Jacob's daughter.
Rachel had two sons,
Joseph and Benjamin.
Bilhah, Rachel's hand-
maid, had two sons, Dan
andNaphtali. And Zilpah,
Leah's handmaid, had two
sons, Gad and Asher.
The tribe of Joseph was
usually called after the
names of his two sons,
Manasseh and Ephraim ;
and though this would
° EGYPTIAN HOUSEHOLD GODS.
make thirteen tribes, yet
Levi was not reckoned among them, as that tribe was appointed by God to
be priests, and to do only sacred work.
Esau's final Removal from Canaan.
Gexesis xxxvt. 6, 7.
YOU may, perhaps, wish to know what became of Esau after he had
buried his father.
He took what property came to him, and left Canaan entirely to his
brother Jacob. He had now become very rich, as his father, when he
comforted him after he had lost his birthright, had foretold : " Behold, thy
dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from
above." As it seldom rains in hot countries, the dews that wet the ground
make its herbs and trees to bear fruit in abundance ; and the words of his
father clearly meant, that his lands should be well watered, and bring him
much riches ; and so it came to pass. Henceforward he and his descendants
lived in Mount Seir, a mountainous but fertile region of Arabia Petraea,
S. S. E. of the Dead Sea, originally inhabited by the Horites or cave-dwellers.
96 Bible and Commentator.
Joseph and his Brethren.
Genesis xxxvii.
JOSEPH was the eldest son of Rachel, the beloved wife of Jacob : he
was very dear to his father, because his mother was dead; and
he was his comfort, being a dutiful and affectionate child. No wonder,
therefore, that his father loved him ; but still he was wrong to make so
marked a distinction between him and the rest of his brothers. He made
him a coat of many colors, probably being cloths of different dyes sewn
together in stripes, and this, no doubt, greatly tended to add to the envy of
his brethren ; besides which, they did bad things, and he told of them, — so
that at last they hated him, and could not speak a kind word to him.
Joseph was now seventeen years of age ; and though he was his father's
darling, he was not brought up in idleness. " Those that are trained up to
do nothing are likely to be good for nothing ; " Joseph was therefore a
shepherd, and fed the flocks with his brethren.
"And Joseph dreamed a dream." He thought he was binding sheaves
in the field, and his brethren's sheaves all bowed to his sheaf. And he
dreamt again that the sun, moon, and eleven stars bowed to him.
These his brethren and father explained as meaning that *they were to
bow to him ; and his brethren hated him the more on this account, while
his father blamed him for telling such dreams, but kept them in his memory,
to see what would come to pass.
"And his brethren went to feed their father's flock in Shechem," where,
perhaps, Jacob was afraid they might be in danger of being attacked and
killed, as they had attacked and killed the Shechemites. And Jacob sent
Joseph to see if they were safe.
At length he " found them in Dothan. And when they saw him afar off,
they conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to another,
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now therefore, let us slay him, and
cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured
him : and we shall see what will become of his dreams." In this way they
proposed to commit murder ; and then, as one sin leads to another, to cover
that murder with a lie.
Reuben and Judah did not, however, agree in this treatment of their
brother ; Reuben said, " Do not sin against the child," for Joseph was a child
to them. But " they stript Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colors that
Genesis
97
was on him ; and they took him, and cast him into a pit." Poor Joseph
had, in the anguish of his soul, besought them to have pity on him ; but
they would not hear. So he was left, after his journey, to perish in the
pit with hunger and cold.
But not long after, some Ishmaelites and Midianites, who were merchants,
happened to be travelling that way in company ; and Judah proposed to sell
Joseph to them, by which means they should easily get rid of him, and he
would, probably, never be likely to become their master, for he would go
into Egypt, and there be sold as a slave. So " they drew and lifted up
Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces
of silver " — that is, about fifteen dollars of our money — and " they brought
Joseph into Egypt."
Reuben was just then gone
from his brethren ; and probably
by a roundabout way he arrived
at the pit, with a design to get
his brother out and send him
safe home. But to his surprise
he was not there, and as a token
of his grief he rent his clothes.
"And they took Joseph's coat,
and killed a kid of the goats,
and they dipped the coat in the
blood." This coat they sent
to poor old Jacob, to ask if it did not belong to Joseph, and to make
him suppose that a wild beast had torn his dear boy to pieces and devoured
him. "And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins," —
that is, a very coarse cloth, of which sacks were, and still are, made ;
which, besides the tearing of the clothes, was a further sign of grief; —
and he " mourned for his son many days."
JOSEPH'S COAT BROUGHT TO JACOB.
Joseph in Potiphar's House.
Genesis xxxix.
JOSEPH was sold to Potiphar, who was captain of Pharaoh's guard.
He was a good youth, and feared God ; and God so blest him, that
his master took a great liking to him, and made him head servant over all
his house.
7
98 Bible and Commentator.
But Joseph's mistress was a wicked woman, and she planned his ruin,
because he would not break his master's confidence, by constantly keeping
company with her ; which would- have been very much out of order for the
young man, and especially one in his situation.
And Joseph reasoned with her, and said, " How can I do this great
wickedness, and sin against God?"
At length Potiphar's wife one day caught hold of Joseph's outer garment,
and as he fled from her, not wishing to be found in company with so
wicked a woman, she held the garment fast till it fell from him, and then
she kept it, and showed it to Potiphar when he came home, and said to him
that Joseph had come to her to mock and insult her while he was out ; that
this was not to be borne from a Hebrew slave ; that she had lifted up her
voice and cried for some one to take him away ; and that when she did so
he fled, and dropped his garment, which she had kept as a proof he had
been there.
This wicked lie was believed by Potiphar, and he directly threw Joseph
" into the prison, a place where the king's prisoners were bound : and he
was there in the prison," where they hurt his feet with fetters, and he was
bound in iron. — (Psalm cv. 18.)
But still " the Lord was with Joseph ; " and in the prison he soon got
the favor of the keeper, who trusted its affairs in his hands, and God pros-
pered him.
Joseph in Prison.
Genesis xi.
"TTTHILE Joseph was in prison, Pharaoh was displeased with two of
V V his servants. One was his chief butler, who supplied him with
wfne ; and the other was his chief baker, who supplied him with bread.
Now, no slave or common p?rson was allowed to serve in the presence
of the kings of Egypt; these chief officers were, therefore, of the most
noble families, and were, on that account, put into the state prison where
Joseph was. "And the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them,
and he served them."
After a time, when Joseph went to see them one morning, he found them
both looking very dull, as if something was the matter ; and on asking
them why they looked so sadly, they told him they had been dreaming,
and were very anxious to know what their dreams meant.
Genesis. 99
Joseph in reply said, " Do not interpretations belong to God ? " that is,
God only knows future events ; and if your dreams mean anything, God
only can tell what they mean. Then Joseph asked to know the dreams.
The chief butler said his was about a vine with three branches, which
brought forth ripe grapes, and he pressed them into Pharaoh's cup for him
to drink the juice, as was the custom of those times.
Now Joseph was taught by God to explain these dreams ; and he told
the butler that his meant that he should be restored in three days to
Pharaoh's favor, and should give him his cup to drink out of as he used
to do.
Joseph wanted no reward for this service, but only asked, that as he had
been unjustly put in prison, he would, when restored to the king's favor,
kindly speak a word to get him set at liberty.
The chief baker, finding that this was a pleasant explanation of the
meaning of the butler's dream, then told his to Joseph.
He said he had dreamt that he had three white baskets on his head ; and
that in the one at the top he had baked meats for the king, but the birds
eat them out of the basket on his head.
Joseph told him that his dream meant that in three days his head should
be cut off, and he should be hung on a gibbet, and the birds should eat his
flesh.
Three days after this was Pharaoh's birthday, and what Joseph said
came to pass — the butler was restored to favor, and the baker was hung.
Joseph raised to Honor.
Genesis xli.
TWO years more passed away, and still poor Joseph remained in prison.
Then Pharaoh dreamed that seven fat kine came out of the river
Nije, and fed in a meadow, and seven lean kine came after, and ate up the
fat kine.
He went to sleep again, and again he had a dream ; and he thought he
saw seven ears of fine corn springing up from the ground, and after that
sprung up seven thin ears, blasted by the hot east wind known by travellers
under the name of simoom, — a wind which, in the deserts of Arabia, often
suffocates large numbers of persons who are travelling, by blowing suddenly
like a flame upon tliem : and these thin ears ate up the full ones.
^■w»*;vsfc.-"<»x'*.'»Ass*s -s» ..
100
JOSEPH INTERPRETING THE
Genesis.
101
Now there were men in Egypt called magicians, or cunning men, who
pretended, by thinking on the stars, to know what would happen to people ;
and as Pharaoh was distressed about his dreams, he sent for some of these
men to tell him what they meant, but they could not even pretend to tell
anything about them.
Then the chief butler, probably hoping to get higher into favor by telling
of Joseph, told him that there was a young man, a prisoner in the king's
prison, who had interpreted a dream which he had when he was there, and
also another of the chief baker's, and had told them what came to pass ; and
he would recommend him to try what he could do.
Pharaoh, glad to catch at anything to ease his mind, sent directly for
Joseph ; and as soon as he saw him, without asking him who or what he
was, he told him his dreams.
Joseph was divinely taught to see that they meant that the river Nile,
which overflows the land of
Egypt, and causes it every year
to bring forth a harvest, should
overflow it so as to produce an
abundance for seven years ; and
then it should flow so sparingly
that there would be no water to
water the sown grounds ; and
there should be seven years of
dreadful famine, so that people
would not be able to get any
bread to eat.
Joseph then told Pharaoh that
he ought to find some wise man, who would lay up one-fifth part of the
corn in plentiful years, and perhaps buy more, and keep it in store till the
years of scarcity, so that the people might not starve.
Pharaoh was satisfied with what he said, and no doubt God moved the
mind of the king to believe Joseph, as much as he did the mind of Joseph
to explain his dreams.
Then the king thought that none could be found like Joseph — so full of
wisdom ; and he appointed him ruler, next to himself, over all the land of
Egypt ; and he clothed him finely, and put a ring on his finger, and a gold
chain round his neck ; and he made him to ride in a fine state chariot, and
the people bowed to him in respect, as we in civility do to great men when
we approach them.
JOSEPH BEFORE PHABAOH.
102 Bible and Commentator.
And Pharaoh gave him a name of distinction, as our kings make dukes
and lords ; and he found him a wife to be his companion and comforter.
And then Joseph went out through the land, probably to build granaries,
or places to keep the corn, and find persons to look after it ; as he could not
do it all himself.
He was now thirty years of age, and as he was seventeen when he was
sold into Egypt, he had been just thirteen years a slave.
At length the famine came ; and it was not only in Egypt, but in all the
countries round about, so that the people came from them to buv corn in
Egypt ; and everybody looked to Joseph to be supplied with what they
wanted to save them from perishing for hunger.
Joseph's Brethren in Egypt buying Corn.
Genesis xlii. 1-8.
THE famine had now got into Canaan, which, it seems, was often
troubled by it ; and, indeed, before men learnt to know how to farm
and manage the ground, which was not then studied as it is with us, famines
were very common. Canaan was often troubled with them ; you remember
that Abraham and Isaac both went into Egypt on account of famine in
Canaan ; and now Jacob sends to Egypt also, having probably seen some
of the corn that his neighbors had bought in that country.
Jacob, having lost his dear son Joseph, was now exceedingly careful of
his younger son Benjamin, Joseph's very near brother, both having Rachel
for their mother. He, therefore, sent down his other ten sons into Egypt,
but kept Benjamin at home.
And Joseph's brethren a came and bowed down themselves before him
with their faces to the earth/' Now, you see that Joseph's dreams have
come true. Oh, the wonderful ways of God ! for, if his brethren had not
sold him into Egypt, to prevent the dreamer from ever being among them,
this had never happened.
Joseph knew his brethren ; for they having been men when he saw them
twenty-one years before, had not so altered in their faces as he had, who
was then a lad, but had now become a man.
And Joseph remembered his dreams, and saw the wonderful providence
of God in sending him into Egypt, where he was to save the lives of his
starving family as well as of the Egyptians and other people, and where his
brethren's sheaves bowed to his sheaf.
Genesis. 103
And he treated them very roughly, still better to prevent them from
knowing him, who was probably very meek and mild. And he charged
them with being spies, — that is, with going to see how weak the people
might be from want of food, and so intending to return and kill and
plunder them, if all seemed to favor their plan ; for the Arabs who live in
those parts, even to this day, will spy out a weak town and drive out the
people, and take their houses and goods, and live in it themselves.
Jacob's sons then told him who they were, to prove they were not spies ;
for no man would hazard the lives of ten sods on such a dangerous business,
where they would lose their lives if they were found out. But they said
the youngest son was left behind.
" That," said Joseph, " looks more suspicious : why was your father
afraid to trust him with you, if you intended to do what was right ? "
Joseph's Brethren sent Home for Benjamin.
Genesis xeii. 19, 20.
JOSEPH now told them that they must send one to fetch their youngest
brother, and he would keep the rest till he returned with him ; and he
put them in prison for three days to think about it. But on the third day
he let them all go but one, and he kept Simeon while they took home the
corn, and till they brought back Benjamin, whom, as his own brother, he
secretly wanted much to see.
Now their consciences began to wound them, and they recollected how
they had used Joseph ; and they talked to one another, and said, " We are
verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul
when he besought us, and we would not hear ; therefore is this distress
come upon us." "Ah," said Reuben, " did not I say, i Do not sin against
the child ; ? and ye would not hear ? "
They, supposing Joseph to be an Egyptian, talked out loud in Hebrew ;
for Joseph, to conceal himself, got another to speak for him, who was called
on this account an interpreter.
When Joseph heard how their hearts were pained, he turned aside and
wept ; and then, having recovered his courage, he " took from them Simeon,
and bound him before their eyes."
Thus Providence put it into his power to punish the injustice and
cruelty of his brethren ; though you will see that after he had humbled
104 Bible and Commentator.
them, he treated them very kindly, and harbored no wicked revenge in
his bosom.
Joseph next ordered their money to be put into their sacks ; and they
went home, leaving Simeon behind.
But one of them opened his sack to feed his ass, and finding his money,
he was quite frightened lest he should be sent for back as a thief.
And when they got home, they told Jacob all that had happened ; and as
they all emptied their sacks, they all, to their great surprise, found their
money there.
And when they told Jacob that Simeon was left behind and Benjamin
must go back, the poor old man's heart was sadly grieved ; and he said,
" Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away ; all
these things are against me." " My son shall not go down with you ; for
his brother is dead, and he is left alone : if mischief befall him by the way
in the which ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to
the grave."
Joseph's Brethren return to Egypt.
Genesis xliii.
THE famine still continued ; and the last supply having been eaten,
Jacob wished his sons to get some more corn.
They were ready to go ; but then they could not go without Benjamin.
This was very hard for poor Jacob ; but at last he consented, and his dear
Benjamin went also.
Then Jacob sent presents to Joseph, — for that
is the way in which the favor of great men in the
East is to be gained, — and he sent back the money
found in the sacks, for he knew it did not belong
to him ; and good people are always honest ; and
he prayed to God to bless them, and sent them
away.
When they got to Egypt Joseph provided a
great feast for them, and they were sadly afraid on
going to his house lest he should do them some
harm. Their fears were, however, soon quieted; for the steward spake
kindly to them, and Joseph treated them as kindly.
PHARAOH 1.
G E X E S I S .
105
And now he asked after his good old father, for he was a tender-hearted
son and loved him dearly. And when he saw his own brother Benjamin,
born of the same mother, his heart was so full that he was obliged to go
himself into his chamber and weep.
Having washed his tears away, he returned and ordered three tables to
be spread : one for himself, as a great chief above all the rest ; another for
his brethren, to eat by themselves ; and another for the Egyptians, that they
might eat by themselves — for the Egyptians thought it an abomination, or
that it would defile them, to eat bread with the Hebrews, because the He-
brews ate for food some creatures which they were so ignorant as to worship
as gods.
Then Joseph having given orders, the eldest
was put at the head of the table, and the youngest
at the bottom — all in order according to their
ages ; and they all wondered how he could know
so much about them ; and all this time it never
came into their thoughts that he might be Joseph.
And, according to the custom of the country,
Benjamin had five times more food set before him " ™
, ! . . PHARAOH II.
than any ot the rest, having a greater variety of
dishes for his choice ; hence we sometimes say, when any one is helped
largely, he has got Benjamin's mess ; not that Benjamin was a glutton, and
ate more than any of the rest, but Joseph gave him this mark of honor,
as it was then thought, because he was not a half brother, but his own
brother, whom he greatly loved.
So seeing Joseph behaved so kindly, they drank and were merry with
him.
The Cup in Benjamin's Sack.
Genesis xliv. 12.
JOSEPH'S brethren again prepared to depart, and Joseph ordered every
man's money to be put again in his sack's mouth ; and along with the
money he ordered his silver drinking-cup to be put into Benjamin's sack.
As soon as the men were gone a little way he sent after them, and charged
them with having stolen his cup. They were sure that they all knew too
well what a crime it was to steal,, and so they readily agreed to be searched,
106 Bible and Commentatok.
and that the thief should be made prisoner. The search was then made ;
and lo, the cup was found in Benjamin's sack. Then, as was the custom in
great grief, they tore their garments, and all of them went back.
When they came to Joseph, " they fell before him on the ground." And
Joseph asked them if they supposed that they could cheat him ? Did not
they know that he was a very cunning man, and could divine or find out
such things ? Now Joseph did all this to try if his brethren could yet find
him out, and Providence made these plans their punishment for their cruelty
to their brother. He wanted, also, to detain Benjamin, and to try if they
had any affection for his brother, or if they did not care about him, as they
once proved they did not love him.
But Joseph had the pleasure to find that his brethren were truly sorry for
what they had done. He knew they were innocent ; yet they said, in re-
membrance of their past conduct, " God hath found out the iniquity of thy
servants ; " thinking that God was now reckoning with them. And at length
Juclah made a most beautiful and tender speech, which touched the heart of
Joseph to the centre, and which we can scarcely read even now without tears.
Joseph makes himself known to his Brethren.
Genesis xlv. 1-15.
JUDAH'S beautiful speech so overcame Joseph, that he was obliged to
give way to his feelings, and to make himself known ; and having
ordered every one but his brethren instantly to leave his presence, he said,
" I am Joseph ; doth my father yet live ? I am Joseph your brother, whom
ye sold into Egypt." No wonder they were troubled at his presence. These
were cutting words, but he soon softened them and quieted their fears.
" Now, therefore," said he, " be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that
ye sold me hither : for God did send me before you to preserve life."
How much of kindness and goodness was here ! Joseph only wished his
brethren to forgive themselves, for he had forgiven them.
And now he would have his father come and live near him, and all of
them. "And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck, and wept ; and
Benjamin wept upon his neck. Moreover he kissed all his brethren and
wept upon them : and after that his brethren talked with him."
Now Pharaoh soon heard of this interesting meeting of Joseph and his
EGYPTIAN7 CROWNS.
EGYPTIAN KING IN HIS CHARIOT.
107
108 Bible and Commentator.
brethren ; and as he greatly respected him, he desired that what he wished
should be directly done : and he ordered Egyptian wagons to be sent into
Canaan, to fetch the women and children of the old man, and promised
them " the good of all the land of Egypt."
And Joseph gave presents of clothes to his brethren, and a large present
of clothes to his brother Benjamin ; and he sent corn, and bread, and meat,
for his father; and dismissed his brethren with this good advice — "See
that ye fall not out by the way."
And when they got home and told their father that Joseph was yet alive,
he was some time before he could believe them ; but when he saw the
wagons, he knew that they were not theirs, and that they could not bring
them away without leave, and then he said, " It is enough ; " — I am satis-
fied ; — " Joseph my son is yet alive : I will go and see him before I die."
Jacob goes into Egypt.
Genesis xlvi. 1-7.
GOOD old Jacob wished to be guided by Providence in all he did ; and
before he quite made up his mind to go down into Egypt, he went to
Beersheba, and there he worshipped God. It was in his way, and it was a
favorite place, for there Abraham and Isaac had worshipped God before
him. (See Genesis xxi. 33 ; xxvi. 35.) And there God spake in some way,
perhaps in a vision or dream, — for we know he can do all things, — and told
Jacob to go down into Egypt, and that he and his should then prosper.
So Jacob and his family went down into Egypt, being in number three-
score and ten, or seventy persons.
When they were near their journey's end, Judah was sent forward to tell
Joseph that they were coming ; " and Joseph made ready his chariot,"
being a great man, " and went up to meet Israel his father, to Goshen ; " —
for you remember that Israel was the name given to Jacob by the Angel
that wrestled with him ; — and he " presented himself unto him : and he fell
on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while."
You see that Joseph did not neglect his good old father because he was
" a plain man," while he himself was become a great man in the land of
Egypt.
Genesis. 109
Jacob before Pharaoh.
Genesis xevii.
JACOB and his family having arrived in Egypt, he and five of his sons
were introduced by Joseph to the king, and Joseph having told them
what to say about themselves, — that they were shepherds, — they told Pharaoh
about their employment ; for though Joseph could have got them greater
honors, he thought that they would be much more happy in being by them-
selves, than among a people that did not worship the true God.
So Pharaoh ordered Joseph to give them the best land in Goshen to live
in, where there was pasture for their flocks; and to make any of the most
trustworthy, rulers of his cattle, or chiefs over his herdmen.
And when Jacob was introduced, he blessed Pharaoh, who had been so
kind to his family. This was grateful. Jacob's blessing was the same as
if he prayed for his welfare ; and the prayers of such a good old man were
no small returns for Pharaoh's kindness.
And then Pharaoh asked Jacob, " How old art thou ? " And Jacob said
unto Pharaoh, "The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred
and thirty years : few and evil have the days of the years of my life been,
and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers
in the days of their pilgrimage."
"And Joseph nourished his father, and his brethren, and all his father's
household, with bread, according to their families." Thus you see how
God brought good out of all the seeming evil that had happened to him.
And now the famine became very bad indeed, as Joseph, under divine
direction, had foretold. And the people spent all their money to buy corn ;
and when that was gone, they exchanged their cattle for it ; and when that
was gone, they gave their lands and themselves as servants to Pharaoh,
rather than perish for want. Now, Joseph was not cruel in taking their
money, and cattle, and lands, and themselves ; for he had bought up the
corn in his granaries with Pharaoh's money, and it was Pharaoh's corn and
not his to give away. And if the people had been wise, they wTould have
laid up corn as well as Joseph ; but as they did not fear God, they did not
believe his servant, and so this distress came upon them. And as the
property he gained was the king's, Joseph made no advantage of it : he
kept none for himself, but only, like a faithful servant, gave it to Pharaoh ;
and then, at last, he restored the people their lands — only on condition that
110 Bible and Commentator.
they would give one-fifth of its produce to Pharaoh, to help him to pre-
serve the state, — a kind of tax, somewhat more than is paid by farmers in
America to keep up the state; and they may be happy enough if they
please.
So you see how Pharaoh prospered through Joseph, and for being kind
to Jacob.
After this Jacob lived seventeen years; and finding himself growing
feeble, he thought upon dying and being buried, and he got Joseph to make
him a solemn promise that he would take his body out of Egypt, and bury
him with his fathers ; for Canaan was a type or resemblance of heaven,
being the land God had preserved for his peculiar people, and there he
wished to rest in peace.
Jacob on his Death-bed.
Genesis xlviii., xlix.
JACOB being about to die, Joseph went to comfort him, and to receive
his blessing ; and he took his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, with
him, that he might bless them also.
Jacob blessed the two boys, crossing his hands as he did so, in such a way,
that the right hand, which was supposed to convey the greater blessing, rested
on the head of Ephraim, who was the younger, prophesying that from him
should come a multitude of nations.
Then he called all his sons together, and told them, being taught by God,
what should happen to them in their latter days.
After he had done, he desired to be buried in the field which Abraham
had bought of Ephron the Hittite, — the same field in which Abraham and
Sarah were buried, and Isaac, and Rebekah, and Leah ; there they were
laid in a cave prepared on purpose for the family.
"And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered
up his feet ink) the bed, died and was buried with his fathers."
Jacob had not attained quite to the age of his father or grandfather, for
Isaac was a hundred and eighty, and Abraham one hundred and seventy-
five, while Jacob was only one hundred and forty-seven; but none of the
patriarchs after him attained to his age.
Genesis. Ill
Jacob's Funeral and Joseph's Death.
Genesis l.
"T~1T7"HEN Joseph saw that Jacob was dead, he " fell upon his father's
V V face, and wept upon hi in, and kissed hhn." He had lost a kind
and pious father, and such a friend is a loss indeed.
It was a custom with the Egyptians to embalm or preserve the bodies of
their dead friends, by taking out their insides and salting them, and filling
them with spices, which had the effect of keeping them from decaying for
many hundreds of years ; and after this the corpse was rolled up tightly in
linen cloths, and generally put into a coffin of strong wood or stone, finely
ornamented. Some had grand apartments prepared for them, where they
were kept for many generations. Some of these bodies, called mummies,
have been taken out of ancient tombs in Egypt, where they have been
buried almost from the time of Joseph, and now, after more than three
thousand years, are yet perfect, and to be seen in the museums in Europe
and America. The whole time usually taken for embalming the body was
seventy days ; and while those days lasted, the Egyptians, out of respect to
Joseph as well as Jacob's family, mourned for his loss, as when in some
countries a king dies, everybody, out of respect, goes for a time into deep
mourning.
When the seventy days were over, Joseph asked Pharaoh's leave to go
into Canaan and bury his father, which Pharaoh readily granted. "And
Joseph went up to bury his father ; and with him went up all the servants
of Pharaoh, the elders," or most honorable men, " of his house, and all the
elders of the land of Egypt, and all the house of Joseph, and his brethren,
and his father's house : only their little ones, and their flocks, and their
herds, they left in the land of Goshen. And there went up with him both
chariots and horsemen ; and it was a very great company."
After the funeral, Joseph returned into Egypt. His brethren still feared
his anger, knowing they deserved it, and supposed that he only withheld it
till the death of his father, that he might not hurt the good old man's feel-
ings. They therefore again implored Joseph's forgiveness, and pleaded
that his father wished them so to do ; and this might be true, for he, per-
haps, thought they could not too much humble themselves, for the wicked
act of selling their own brother. Joseph then repeated his pardon, and
said to them, "Fear not: for am I in the place of God? Ask pardon of
112
Bible and Commentator.
God for your sin, but I will not take vengeance : besides, he overruled your
cruelty for good. As for you, ye thought evil against me ; but God meant
it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.
Now, therefore, fear ye not : I will nourish you and your little ones. And
he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them."
Joseph was a chief man in Egypt .for eighty years ; for he was thirty
years old when he was raised to his honors, and he died at an hundred and
ten years old, — being the shortest-lived of all the patriarchs. Perhaps this
was partly owing to his living the life of a courtier, which was less hardy,
and therefore not so healthy as that of a shepherd. However, when he
died, he had great-great-grandchildren to remember his name with respect;
and what was better than all, he died in faith, believing in a joyful resur-
rection and a promised Messiah.
Exodus.
This word signifies "the departure," or going out; and it is given to this book because it describes the circum-
stances under which the children of Israel departed from Egypt to go to the land of Canaan. Of course it also fur-
nishes many incidents and events preceding and following that remarkable migration. The book was written by
Moses, as he himself says in Ex. xxiv. 4, and as our Saviour says in Mark xii. 26, and Luke xx. 37. The object of
it was to show the great deliverance God gave his chosen people; the great importance of public and constant wor-
ship; the.real source of all true worship, as well as our near relationship to that source; and the fulfilment of the
promises God had made to Abraham. The book contains forty chapters, and may be divided into, first, the circum-
stances of the deliverance; and, second, the giving of the law, and the complete organization of the nation.
The Children of Israel in Bondage.
Exodus i.
FTER the death of Joseph, and of all his breth-
ren, and of all the people that lived in the time
of his greatness, another king reigned, called
also Pharaoh, that being a general name for a
king in Egypt.
"And the children of Israel were fruitful, and
increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed
exceeding mighty ; and the land was filled with
them/'
Pharaoh was jealous on this account, and he burdened the Israelites
with heavy taxes, and made them work for him at brick-making, and
build his cities; and it is sup-
posed by some that he made
them build the famous pyramids,
or huge monuments, which re-
main to this day in Egypt among
the greatest wonders of the
world; and he set over them
taskmasters, or men to overlook
them and see that they kept
hard at work. By so doing he
kept them very poor, for they
had not time to labor for them-
selves, and he tried to wear them out with slavery, that he might lessen
8 113
ISRAELITES MAKING BRICKS IN EGYPT.
114
Bible and Commbntatoe,
their numbers ; " But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied
and grew."
So the king thought upon another plan to destroy them, and ordered all
the little boys of the Hebrews to be drowned in the river Nile, as soon as
they were born: but the Hebrew women, to whom he gave the orders,
feared to commit murder, and God blessed them for it, and protected them,
so that Pharaoh did them no harm for not obeying him.
The Birth and wonderful Preservation of Moses.
Exodus ii.
A BOUT this time God gave a son to a man of the house of Levi, that
-£^- is, one descended from Levi, one of Joseph's brethren ; probably a
grandson of Levi's, for it was only thirty-five years after Joseph's death.
Besides the love his mother had for him; as her son, she was struck with
his great beauty, and she
hid him for three months
that she might save him
from being drowned.
At last it is thought
that Pharaoh sent spies to
search out for all the little
Hebrew babes that were
boys ; and Moses's mother,
when she could no longer
hide him, took for him
an ark of bulrushes, and
daubed it with slime and
with pitch, and put the
child therein, and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. The ark
means a boat, and the bulrushes were a sort of strong tall reed which grows
on the banks of the Nile, the wood of which was tied together in little bun-
dles ; and these little bundles were again tied together, till enough were so
tied as to make a boat of nearly the same shape as we could make it of wood.
The slime and the pitch were to keep the water from getting into it, that it
might not sink. The Egyptians made all their boats this way, till they
found out a Jbetter method. Moses's mother perhaps knew the spot which
ISRAELITES MAKING BRICKS IN EGYPT.
Exodus. 115
Pharaoh's daughter used to visit, and might have hoped to move her to pity
by his helplessness, and innocency, and beauty ; and, being directed by
Divine Providence, the poor little babe was put there, "and his sister,
Miriam, stood afar off, to wit," or observe, "what would be done to him."
"And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself," or, as some
suppose, to wash her clothes, " at the river," which was then no disgrace
even to a king's daughter ; " and her maidens " that attended upon her
"walked along by the river's side; and when she saw the ark," or little
reed boat, " among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she
had opened it, she saw the child : and, behold, the babe wept. And she
had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children."
His sister drawing near, as if to see what was found, but not daring to
tell whose child it was, said " to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call to
thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee ?
And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, Go. And the maid went and called
the child's mother. And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, Take this child
away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman
took the child, and nursed it." So he was restored to his mother's bosom.
"And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and
he became her son." She called him such, and brought him up as if he
had been her own. "And she called his name Moses : " which means,
drawn out, " and she said, Because I drew him out of the water"
And now Moses having been taken under the protection of Pharaoh's
daughter, was brought up as a prince ; and being very clever, he was
learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, who were at that time the most
learned people in the world ; so that, both from natural talents, as well as
from extraordinary divine help, he was well qualified to write the first five
books of the Bible, of which books he was the author, and some have
thought that he also wrote Job. History likewise reports, that he was a
great general, and the New Testament says, he was mighty in words and
in deeds ; and this helped to make him a leader and deliverer.
God early touched the heart of Moses with pity to his burthened
countrymen, and he " refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter ;
choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God," who were his
people, and whom God had promised to bless.
From the New Testament, Acts vii. 23, we learn that " when he was full
forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of
Israel. And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and
116
MOSES BEFORE PHAEAOH's DAUGHTER.
Exodts, 117
avenged him that was oppressed/' — that is, he took his part, — and smote
the Egyptian, and hid his body in the sand. This would have been a
wicked act ; but Moses was divinely taught to do this as a pledge of his
smiting the armies of Egypt, and saving the Israelites from their cruel
enemies ; and " he supposed his brethren would have understood how that
God by his hand would deliver them : but they understood not."
AXCIEXT SCEPTKES.
The next day he found two Hebrews quarrelling, and wishing to prevent
them from hurting one another, he asked the one who struck the first blow,
why he struck his brother. He answered with another question, " Who
made thee a ruler and judge over us ? Wilt thou kill me as thou didst
the Egyptian yesterday?" Moses, on hearing this, wondered how the
thing was known ; but it soon came to the ears of Pharaoh, who sent in
search of him, that he might have him killed. Moses, therefore, escaped
into Midian, a country a great way off, beyond the Red Sea.
Moses, perhaps wearied with his journey, sat himself down by a well,
the traveller's usual place of rest, at that time, and long after.
"Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters; and they came and
drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father's flock. And the
shepherds came and drove them away ; " and after they had been at the
trouble of drawing the water, they used it for their own flocks.
Moses was a brave man, who loved to defend the weak against the
strong ; a just man, who loved to do that which was right ; and a good
man, who delighted in doing good; he therefore boldly "stood up and
helped " the priest's daughters, and even watered their flocks.
When the young women got home, their father wondered how they had
done so soon ; and they told him how kind Moses had been ; and he sent to
invite him to his house, and made much of him ; and he gave him his
daughter, or perhaps granddaughter, for his wife, for the name of the
priest was Ruel, but Jethro was the name of Moses's father-in-law, and he
was probably a son of RuePs.
118 Bible and Commentator.
Moses and the Burning Bush.
Exodus hi. 1-6.
MOSES was employed as a shepherd, and he kept the flocks of Jethro,
his father-in-law, the priest of Midian : and he led the flock into
the desert, and came to the mountain of Horeb.
Suddenly the angel of the Lord appeared to him, all covered with glory
like fire, and he was in the midst of a bush. Moses wondered how the
bush could be all in flames, and yet not consumed.
But this had a meaning in it ; and it taught him, by an emblem or sign,
that as that bush had the angel of the Lord shining in it, so God is in the
midst of his church or people, who are often so called ; and though they in
danger may look like the bush likely to be burnt, yet they shall never be
destroyed. So did the Israelites appear in Egypt, like this bush, exposed
to destroying flames, and so has the Church of God often appeared since ;
but God has always safely preserved it.
Moses would have gone nearer to the bush to see the wonderful sight,
but the voice of God spoke from it, and calling him by name, commanded
him not to go any nearer, and to pull off his shoes as a mark of reverence,
as we take off our hats in the time of divine service ; for the place on which
he stood was holy ground.
Then God told him how his poor countrymen, the Israelites, were
oppressed, and that he would send him to be their deliverer, and that they
should yet possess a land flowing with milk — that is, full of fine grass for
cattle, the eating of which would fill them with milk — and full also of
honey — that is, flowers in abundance, from which the bees should gather
honey more than in any other part of the world ; both of which were true of
Canaan.
But Moses knew that to save his people was quite out of his power, and
he inquired how it could come to pass.
And God told him to go into Egypt, and to speak to the elders, or old
men and chiefs of Israel, and that they should mind what he said ; and
that they should all go to the king of Egypt, and ask leave to go and offer
sacrifices to their God in the wilderness — a distance ' that would take them
a journey of three days, for instead of measuring distance by miles in those
times, they always measured by the time a journey took ; but they did not
travel near so fast as we commonly do in this country.
Exodus
119
God also told Moses that the king of Egypt would not let them go at
first, but he would make him do so ; and the Egyptians should at last be
glad to let them go, and even give up their gold and silver for their use,
which should be a just payment for all the hard labor that they had forced
the Israelites to perform, without paying them for it.
Moses performs Miracles, and goes with Aaron to the Israelites.
Exodus iv. 1-9.
MOSES now wanted to do some wonderful thing before the Israelites,
such as could not be done by common skill, but only by the great
power of God, and which we call miracles. These would prove that he was
no impostor or cheat, and that God had
really commanded him to become the de-
liverer of Israel, when he enabled him to
do these things.
Then God commanded him to throw
down a rod which he held in his hand,
and it became a serpent. Then again he
told him to take it up by the tail, and it
became a rod. He also told him to put
his hand into his bosom, and when he
pulled it out it was leprous — something
like a person covered with the scurvy, or
smallpox, but much worse; and then he
told him to put his hand into his bosom
again j when he pulled it out it was well.
God also told him, that if these miracles would not prove that he had
sent him, he should perform more, and he should turn some of the water
of the river Nile into blood.
Moses then complained that he could not speak well ; but God asked
him, who made his mouth ? and he could make him speak well.
Still he did not like to go, till God was displeased with him for his unbe-
lief, and he told him that Aaron his brother should speak for him.
So Moses went to his father-in-law, and asked his leave to go into Egypt ;
and he took his family with him, and his rod in his hand.
And God, by some secret power, impressed Aaron's mind with the
thought that he must go and meet Moses.
*-V/
THE SERPENT.
120
Bible and Commentator.
And when Moses had told Aaron all that had happened, they went
together to the elders of Israel.
Moses applies to Pharaoh— Pharaoh's Obstinacy and Cruelty.
Exodus v.
' 1\ /j~OSES and Aaron now went to Pharaoh, and asked leave for the
-LV_1_ Israelites to go and worship in the wilderness. But Pharaoh knew
nothing of the God of Israel, and he asked, " Who is the Lord, that I
should obey his voice ? " And he charged Moses and Aaron with making
the people discontented ; and he desired that their work should be heavier,
and that they should make the same number of bricks as before, but instead
of having straw served out to them they should get it where they could ; for
they used straw to make the clay of the bricks stick faster together ; and
some of the bricks made at that time have been found in very ancient ruins
in Egypt, and are kept by those who are curious in such things, and in these
are straw with the clay. So the people wandered about the corn-fields to
get stubble instead of good straw ; and this took up so much time, that they
could not make the number of bricks they were ordered to make.
EBfittkl
EGYPTIAN BRICK-MAKING KILNS.
Then Pharaoh ordered the Israelitish officers to be beaten, probably by
striking them hard on the soles of the feet — a cruel punishment, used in
Egypt, called being bastinadoed. And when they complained to Pharaoh,
he said, " Ye are idle, ye are idle ; " and told them to go to their work.
And Moses entreated the Lord in behalf of the poor Israelites.
Beginning of the Ten Plagues of Egypt— The Plague of Blood.
Exodus vii.
GOD now permitted Pharaoh's stubbornness and obstinacy to remain,
and did not directly cut him off, that he might afterwards show his
great power over those who dare to resist his will. This is what is meant
Exodus. 121
by his hardening Pharaoh's heart ; and not that he made him wicked, for
God never does any wicked thing ; he is too good to do evil.
Moses was now eighty years of age, and Aaron was eighty-three, when
they stood before Pharaoh.
Now, as Pharaoh would require some proof of their coming from God
with their demand to let the Israelites go, Moses and Aaron were desired to
use their rod, which perhaps had been Moses's shepherd's crook.
So when they came before Pharaoh, they did as the Lord had com-
manded ; and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his
servants, and it became a serpent.
Then God determined to afflict Egypt with great plagues.
The first was the plague cf blood, which lasted about seven days. The
Egyptians were such stupid idolaters that they worshipped beasts, birds,
insects, and even things without life, as the river Nile, to which they sacri-
ficed a boy or a girl every year. To show them how stupid it was, Moses
was commanded to go to the river when Pharaoh went there, perhaps to
bathe or to pay it some honors, — and to smite the waters with his rod, and
they should become blood, and the fish should die and the river stink, and
the. Egyptians nauseate the very water they were used to adore and which
is the most delicious and the most refreshing in the world. And when
Moses smote the waters, all the waters in the rivers and ponds, and even in
the vessels in the houses, became blood. "And there was blood throughout
all the land of Egypt." Perhaps God here designed to punish the
Egyptians, for their cruelty in having drowned so many poor helpless
Hebrew infants in the Nile. The Egyptians then dug wells and got good
water : so Pharaoh still remained obstinate, and would not let the people go.
The Plagues of Frogs, of Lice, and of Flies
Exodus yhi.
AS Pharaoh would not let the people go, the Lord commanded Moses
-v*~ to threaten him with a second plague, which should be frogs.
There was no need that in this case new frogs should be created, for
thVe were heaps of them in the muddy bed of the Nile, grown and in
spivn ; and a miracle would be plain enough to be seen if all the young
on^ were brought at once to life and the whole covered the land as
Mofes said.
122
Bible and Commentator
And now what he said to Pharaoh came to pass — "And the river shall
bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house,
and into thy bed-chamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy
servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneading
troughs : and the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people,
and upon all thy servants."
You will wonder, perhaps, how the frogs could get into the ovens ; but
the Egyptian ovens were only earthen pots sunk into the ground, into
which they put their dough, and covered it with fire, and so baked it
into bread. Here, when the fire was out, the frogs would easily fill the
ovens.
Pharaoh was obliged to ask Moses to pray to God that he would
remove them. Moses did so ; but Pharaoh still remained obstinate, and
would not let Israel go, though
the miracle remained before his
eyes ; " and the frogs died out of
the houses, out of the villages,
and out of the fields. And they
gathered them together upon
heaps : and the land stank."
God then brought a third
plague upon Egypt. Aaron #t
his command "stretched out his
hand with his rod, and smote the
dust of the earth, and it became lice in man, and in beast; all the dust
of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt."
The magicians tried to imitate this plague; but God bounded their
power, and they could not do it. Then they said, " This is the finger of
God." Some learned men think this plague was an insect called the tick
which is flat and round, and is worse than the noxious vermin called lice
as it thrusts its little head and body into the flesh, and will not coir3
out till it is torn in two, and dreadfully torments the body on which t
fastens.
This plague did not answer the purpose ; so a day or two after Gd
threatened Pharaoh again : and as he would not obey him, " there cam a
grievous swarm of flies into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servsits
houses, and into all the land of Egypt : the land was corrupted by reson
of the swarm of flies."
PLAGUE OF FROGS.
Exodus. 123
Many persons probably died of this fourth plague, — being stung to
death and having their bodies inflamed and thrown into a fever by these
venomous little insects, which they could not escape ; for it is said in the
seventy-eighth Psalm, when speaking of this plague, " He sent divers sorts
of flies among them which devoured them."
All the time that these plagues existed the Israelites in Goshen were free
from them, — a proof that God's care was over them.
Pharaoh now offered to let the people go, but he did not wish them to
go far, and he begged of Moses to pray that the flies might be removed.
But when this was done he again refused to let the people go.
The Plagues of Murrain, of Boils and Blains, and of Rain,
Hail and Fire.
Exodus ix.
IT was very foolish as well as very wicked for Pharaoh to contend against
the Loed God, for he can do everything. So he sent a fifth plague,
and caused a disease among the cattle of the Egyptians, and " all the cattle
of Egypt died," — that is, all the cattle that the disease killed were belong-
ing to Egypt, for some were afterwards killed in other ways ; — " but of the
cattle of the children of Israel died not one."
But Pharaoh was yet hardened. God, therefore, sent a sixth plague;
it was. " a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast,
throughout all the land of Egypt." Moses and Aaron, at God's command,
" took ashes of the furnace, and stood before Pharaoh ; and Moses sprinkled
it up towards heaven ; and it became a boil breaking forth with blains upon
man, and upon beast. And the magicians could not stand before Moses,
because of the boils ; for the boil was upon the magicians and upon all the
Egyptians." The ashes from the furnaces of the brick-kilns were thus
turned into a righteous punishment, for the cruel treatment of the Israelites
by the Egyptians.
This was followed by a seventh plague of hail, fire, and thunder. The
people were warned of the danger, and cautioned not to go themselves, nor
to leave out their cattle in the fields, for the hail should come down upon
them and they should die. "And he that feared the word of the Lord
among the servants of Pharaoh made his servants and his cattle flee into
the houses : and he that regarded not the word of the Lord left his servants
124 Bible and Commentator.
and his cattle in the field." And now again " Moses stretched forth his rod
towards heaven : and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along
the ground." And " all that was in the field," man and beast, and herb and
tree, perished. " Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel
were, was there no hail."
Pharaoh was now sadly frightened, and sent for Moses and begged him
to pray to God to stop the " mighty thunderings and hail ; " but when they
were over, Pharaoh again would not let the people go.
The Plagues of Locusts and Darkness.
Exodus x.
GOD now threatened Pharaoh with the plague of locusts, which was the
eighth plague.
So Moses stretched out his rod, and the Lord sent a wind that brought
locusts with it, and " they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the
land was darkened ; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the
fruit of the trees which the hail had
left: and there remained not any
green thing in the trees, or in the
herbs of the field, through all the
land of Egypt."
Perhaps you do not know what
locusts are. We will tell you. They are like a large grasshopper, with
wings of a green color. They travel in such large bodies, that they ob-
scure the light of the sun like a cloud. Wherever they alight, they devour
faster than caterpillars; after a visit of locusts, the leaves of every herb and
tree disappear, and look as if a fire had destroyed them. When they lay
their eggs, they produce worms or caterpillars; and these are dreadfully
destructive. They crawl in immense bodies or numbers united. The
"people try to stop them with fires, and trenches with water in them ; but
they march on over one another's bodies till they find a passage, and by
their numbers they put out the fire and fill up the water-trenches. They
are often the means of destroying crops in the East, and within the past few
years they have eaten up every green thing in several of our Western States.
Well, these terrible insects, as we have said, visited the Egyptians, and
destroyed all their fields, and entered into all their houses; and it was such
Exodus. 125
a visit of locusts as neither they, nor their fathers, nor their fathers' fathers
had seen.
Then Pharaoh again " called for Moses and Aaron in haste ; and he said,
I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you. Now therefore
forgive, I pray thee, my sin only this once, and entreat the Lord your God,
that he may take away from me this death only."
As Moses was a good man, he took no pleasure in Pharaoh's punishment,
and he prayed to God even for his enemy, as good men do. " And the
Lord turned a mighty strong west wind, which took away the locusts, and
cast them into the Eed Sea ; there remained not one locust in all the coasts
of Egypt."
Well, surely Pharaoh would now let the children of Israel go. No ; he
would not. So God told Moses to stretch
out his hand toward heaven, that there
might be "darkness over the land of
Egypt, even darkness which may be felt ; "
supposed to have been a very thick mist
or fog ; and it lasted three days, so that
the people saw not one another, neither
did they rise from the place where they
were. They were so frightened, that they
knew not what to do ; and if the dark-
ness was caused by a damp mist or fog, it
would put out every fire and every light,
which, no doubt, it did. This was the
? J , LOCUST.
ninth plague.
But while this plague lasted, the part where the children of Israel lived
was free from it, for "all the children of Israel had light in their
dwellings."
Destruction' of the First-born of Egypt, and Release of the Children
of Israel.
Exodus xi., xn.
rTIHE tenth and last plague was about to fall upon Pharaoh, and a most
-*- terrible plague it was.
"And Moses said, Thus saith the Lord, About midnight will I go out
126
Bible and. Commentatoe.
into the midst of Egypt : and all the first-born in the land of Egypt shall
die, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto
the first-born of the maid-servant that is behind the mill ; and all the first-
born of beasts. And there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of
Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it any more."
This plague was the most alarming of all. "And Pharaoh rose up in
the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians ; and there was
a great cry in Egypt ; for there was not a house where there was not one
dead."
In Egypt, when any died, the people ran into the streets, and howled,
and showed their grief in the strongest manner. What a scene of distress
must there have been in the streets, when some from every house ran out
and cried !
Pharaoh was now convinced that it was in vain to fight against God, and
was, probably, afraid for his own life, and for the lives of all his people.
EGYPTIAN WOMEN.
So " he called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, Rise up, and get
you forth from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel ; and
go, serve the Lord as ye have said. Also take your flocks and your herds,
Exodus. 127
as ye have said, and be gone ; and bless me also. And the Egyptians were
urgent upon the people, that they might send them out of the land in haste ;
for they said, We be all dead men."
So the children of Israel went away in so much haste, that they even
carried their dough with them that was mixed for their bread, without
having time to bake it. And having been cheated out of their wages for
their hard labor, they borrowed, or rather ashed, for some silver and gold
from the Egyptians, — for they would not at God's command have borrowed
without intending to pay ; and the people, glad to get rid of them, in their
fright gave them jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment.
In memory of this great event, God established what is called the
Pass-over.
On the evening when the first-born were to be slain, a lamb was to be
killed by each Israelitish family, who were to eat its flesh with bitter herbs,
in remembrance of their bitter bondage in Egypt. The lamb's blood was
ordered to be sprinkled on the lintel of each door, or that part which is over
our heads when we enter; and also on the door posts; and when the
destroying angel, or the stroke of death, should visit the Egyptians, not a
single injury should happen to those whose doors were so sprinkled.
This Pass-over, as it was called, because in that night God's wrath
should pass over the houses of the Israelites, was also to show how those
should escape Divine wrath who should by faith be sprinkled, as it were,
with the blood of Jesus Christ, who is called "The Lamb of God that
taketh away the sins of the world."
The Departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt, and the Drown-
ing of Pharaoh and his Army in the Red Sea.
Exodus xiii., xiv.
A ND now the children of Israel set off to leave Egypt. There were six
-£^- hundred thousand men on foot, and with the Levites, who were not
reckoned in that number, and also their wives and children, it is supposed
the whole were above three millions. This was indeed a large body.
And as they were commanded to travel in the wilderness, a wild and
dreary place, where they might lose their way, and fall into the hands of
enemies, they were guided by a cloud in the air, which was of the shape of
a pillar, and which at night was light on their side, but dark on the other.
* These were all of military age, above twenty years old, and so were about one-fifth of the
whole.
128
Bible and Commentator
By this cloud they were guided, when Pharaoh repented of letting them
go, and said, " Why have we done this, that we have let Israel go from
serving us ? And he made ready his chariot, and took his people with him :
and he took six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt,
and captains over every one of them ; " " and he pursued after the children
of Israel/7 And he overtook them encamping, or resting in their tents, by
the sea. On both sides were mountains and strong towers, so that, with
his army behind them, they had no way of escape but through the sea ; and
how could they get through the sea without ships, while they had not so
much as even a boat with them ?
Pharaoh now thought that they were " entangled in the land," and that
" the wilderness had shut them in."
The children of Israel, too, were alarmed, and forgot what great things
God had done for them, and
they began to cry out against
p Moses, and to say to him, " Be-
gjg cause there were no graves in
jl Egypt, hast thou taken us away
to die in the wilderness ? " " It
had been better for us to serve
the Egyptians, than that we
should die in the wilderness."
Moses had more faith in God,
and he said, " Fear ye not, stand
still, and see the salvation of the
Lord, which he will show to
you to-day : for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to-day, ye shall see
them again no more forever. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall
hold your peace." The same God who had wrought all those miracles for
their deliverance in Egypt, and had compelled Pharaoh to let them go, was
still their protector, and would prevent their oppressor from destroying them.
And now God ordered Moses to lift up his rod, and stretch his hand out
to the sea, and the children of Israel should " go on dry ground through
the midst of the sea."
The cloud began to move, and the children of Israel were commanded to
go forward. And the cloud came between the camp of Egyptians and the
camp of Israel ; and it was a cloud of darkness to the Egyptians, but it
gave light by night to the Israelites ; so that the one came not near to the
ISRAELITES CROSSING THE RED SEA.
Exodus. 129
other all night. And the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east
wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were
divided.
Travellers have observed, that at the part where the Israelites crossed,
the sea is about twelve miles over, and about twenty-eight yards deep, or
about nine or ten times as high as a room usually is. Some have thought
that the strong wind blew up the water and cleared a channel, as we may
do with our breath in a saucer of water; but then others wisely think
that so strong a wind as must have raised so much water, would have blown
all the people away ; beside, the waters would never have stood as a wall,
but have returned often to their place, and have drowned the Israelites :
it is therefore plain that God wrought another miracle to deliver them,
and the wind was, probably, used to dry up the bottom of the sea, that they
might walk better on it.
"And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the
sea, even all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen."
Probably Pharaoh went on in the dark, and did not know where he
was until he found out his danger. "And it came to pass that in the
morning watch," which was from about three o'clock in the morning till
six, when the watchmen on the towers were changed, " the Lord looked
unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of cloud, and
troubled the host of the Egyptians." Probably a storm gathered in the
cloud, and it might thunder and lighten ; for in the Psalms it is said, when
this deliverance is named, " The voice of thy thunder was in the heavens,
the lightnings lightened the world, the earth trembled and shook."
— (See the 77th Psalm.) And the Lord " took off their chariot wheels, that
they drave them heavily : " for by the storm he so terrified the drivers, that
they, perhaps, ran against one another, and broke each other's chariots to
pieces ; and, besides, the bottom of the sea might again become wet and
heavy, so that the chariots could not go forward without violent dragging
and breaking.
And now the Egyptians saw their danger, and said, " Let us flee from
the face of Israel ; for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians."
At this moment God commanded Moses again to stretch his hand over
the sea, and the waters should return : and he did so, and all the army of
Egypt was drowned.
God could have done all this without Moses using his rod, but he would
by this teach him to obey his commands, and then all would be well with
9
130 Bible and Commentator.
him, and God would have Israel respect Moses as his servant and
their leader.
The morning showed a most fearful sight, for the shores were strewed
with dead bodies and wrecks : there remained not so much as one Egyptian.
" Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians ;
and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea-shore. And Israel saw
that great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians; and the people
feared the Lord, and believed the Lord, and his servant Moses."
T1
The Israelites fed with Manna.
Exodus x_vi. 11-15.
IHIS wonderful deliverance ought to have made the children of Israel
trust in the God who had thus rescued them, for all the future, but
they were a faithless, fretful people, ever ready to murmur against God.
Israel seemed unwilling to trust God for their daily bread ; and when
their supply ran short, after leaving Egypt, they began to be angry at
Moses again. And they said to Moses and Aaron, " Would to God we
had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by
the flesh-pots ; " where, probably, their food as slaves was cooked in a large
quantity, under the eyes of their task-masters ; " and," they added, " when
we did eat bread to the full ; for ye have brought us forth into this wilder-
ness to kill this whole assembly with hunger."
God is long-suffering, and instead of punishing the ungrateful people, he
said unto Moses, " Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you • and the
people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove
them, whether they will walk in my law, or no."
So in the evening God used to cause a great quantity of a bird called a
quail, something like a partridge, to cover the camp, which the Israelites
caught ; and in the morning a white-looking small thing, as small as hoar
frost, covered the ground when the dew had left it. This food was more
wonderful than the regular coming of large flights of quails. The people
had never seen anything like it, and they cried out "Man hu?" "What is
this?" from which some think it got the name manna; though others
suppose it means a portion, as there was a Hebrew word like it with this
meaning. Every one who was able was to gather this food before the sun
had risen, or it would be melted ; and when it was put into one heap, it was
■ JSj^S^^^
% - IL
Jill
™""| 4|B
Hi
131
132 Bible and Commentator.
divided among the people, allowing an omer, which was about three quarts,
for each person's use for the day. This was put into a mortar and bruised,
or ground in a mill, and then made into bread. God caused this to fall six
days in the week ; but on the sixth day, they were to gather for two days,
as they were not to expect any on the Sabbath ; for on that day they were
to do no manner of work ; and though it bred worms, and wTas unfit to eat,
if kept for two days at any other time, yet it was always good on the
Sabbath.
It is reckoned that the Hebrew camp wanted not less than ninety -four
thousand four hundred and sixty-six bushels of this food every day ; and
that in the whole of the forty years that they were travelling about in the
wilderness, they must have consumed one thousand three hundred and
seventy million two hundred and three thousand six hundred bushels !
In remembrance of this miracle, the Lord commanded Moses to fill an
omer measure of it, which we just told you was about three quarts, and to
keep it in a pot for future generations ; that is, the children and children's
children of Israel, from one hundred years to another — that they might see
the bread with which God fed them in the wilderness when he brought
them forth out of the land of Egypt. This was laid up in the ark ; and
its preservation was another miracle, as, without that, it would have bred
worms, and become corrupt as the rest when kept.
God provided thus from day to day, to teach Israel to look to him for
their daily bread, and, in like manner, we must look and ask for ours from
God.
This manna coming down from heaven to keep Israel alive, reminds us
that Jesus Christ came down from heaven, who is the bread of life ; and
that whoever, by faith, looks to him for salvation, believing that he is both
able and willing to save his soul forever, shall not perish, but have eternal
life.
Moses smites the Rock— Israel defeats the Amalekites.
Exodus xvii.
WHEN shall we hear the last of Israel's murmur ings ? Here they
are murmuring again at a place called Rephidim. They wanted
water, and chided Moses, and said, "Give us water that we may drink."
" Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us
and our children and our cattle with thirst ? "
Exodus. 133
Was not this very provoking, after all that had been done for them ?
Well, a patient God still bore with them, and ordered Moses to take his rod
and smite the rock in Horeb ; and to show them that it was a miracle,
water should instantly gush out from this hard rock. "And Moses did so
in the sight of the elders of Israel."
The Apostle Paul says, "This rock was Christ:" h<3 does not mean
Christ himself, but that it resembled Christ, who, as he lives forever, is
sometimes called a Rock, as a rock is one of the most lasting things in the
world ; and it is from him flows all true happiness, which is, to the mind
or soul of man, as refreshing as the streams of water were, flowing from the
rock to the Israelites in the wilderness. (John vii. 37.)
The Israelites had now a real cause of trouble ; for a people, called the
Amalekites, came upon them in the wilderness, intending to kill them, and
rob them of all their cattle and whatever else they possessed. But again
God appeared to save them. Joshua was a brave man, and Moses desired
him to choose out men, and go out and fight with the Amalekites. And
Moses, and Aaron, and Hur, went up to the top of a hill ; and there Moses
held up the rod of God in his hand, and no doubt prayed to God that he
would save Israel from their enemies. And when his hands grew tired with
holding them up, then Aaron and Hur supported them ; " and Joshua dis-
comfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword."
Probably the arms cast ashore from the Red Sea, after the Egyptians
were drowned, were those which were used to beat off the Amalekites ; and
if so, God overruled the wickedness of one enemy to prevent that of another.
This was a cruel and unjust attack of Amalek upon the Israelites, and
God punished them by their shameful defeat ; and he also swore that he
would have war with Amalek from generation to generation, and that he
would " utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek." When it is said God
hath sworn, it means that he speaks very solemnly, and with a fixed resolu-
tion ; and it always deserves particular notice, for it relates to something
very important. And in the fifteenth chapter of the first book of Samuel
you will read of the fulfilment of this threat, when the Amalekites having
become so wicked that they were a curse to the earth on which they lived,
God told King Saul to "go and utterly destroy the sinneks, the
Amalekites."
134
Bible and Commentator.
The Giving of the Law.
Exodus xx.
ABOUT three months after God had delivered his people from the
- tyrant Pharaoh, he spake to Moses, and desired him to remind them
of the great favors he had bestowed upon them ; and to tell them that if
they would obey his voice, and keep his covenant or agreement that he
would make with them, then he
would always do them good, and he
would keep them with as much care
as a man would keep his treasures
of silver and gold, and they should
be a particular nation sacred to his
service.
Moses told the Israelites what
God had said to him. "And all the
people answered together, and said,
All that the Lord hath spoken we
will do.'7
Then Moses having returned the
words of the people unto the Lord,
he was ordered to warn them to be
ready by holy and solemn prepara-
tion, such as washing their clothes,
as a sign of putting off everything
that was impure, and in three days
he would come down and show his
glory in the sight of all of them
upon Mount Sinai, which is a moun-
tain in Arabia.
He also ordered Moses to set
bounds to keep the people from going too near to the foot of the mountain ;
as every one who touched even its borders should die.
"And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were
thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the Mount, and the voice
of the trumpet exceeding loud ; so that all the people that was in the camp
trembled." "And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the
THE GIVING OF THE COMMANDMENTS.
Exodus. 135
Lord descended upon it in fire : and the smoke thereof ascended as the
smoke of a furnace, and the whole Mount quaked greatly."
And God spake all the words of his commandments, and from the Mount
they were heard by all the people.
These commandments are ten in number.
The first is against idolatry, and teaches us to love nothing more than
God.
The second is against worshipping images for God.
The third is against cursing and swearing.
The fourth is against Sabbath-breaking, and idleness in the other days of
the week.
The fifth is against disrespect and disobedience to parents.
The sixth is against murder : he that hateth his brother is a murderer.
The seventh is against everything that is indecent in word or behavior.
The eighth is against stealing and cheating.
The ninth forbids false stories about our neighbors, and tending to do
them harm, by making people think badly of them.
The tenth commandment is against covetousness, or desiring what does
not belong to us.
Laws given to the Israelites by Moses.
Exodus xxi., xxii., xxiii.
IX these chapters there are a great many laws which God told Moses to
command the Israelites to keep.
We have also some commands given to the Hebrews to keep several
feasts.
In the twenty-third chapter, and the fourteenth and following verses, God
commands the Hebrews, " Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in
the year."
The first feast was the feast of unleavened bread, or the Pass-oyek, to
remind them of their great deliverance out of Egypt. Then they were to
kill a lamb and feast on it ; to call to mind how God saved them by the
sprinkling of the blood of a lamb on their door-posts, on the night when he
slew all the first-born in Egypt ; and pious men would, by faith, look for
salvation in Jesus Christ, who is called the " Lamb of God," when God
shall destroy the wicked world in the last day. Part of the time of this
feast they were to eat unleavened bread,, as they did when they escaped from
136 Bible and Commentator.
Egypt. The first day was, indeed, properly the Passover, and seven days
following, the feast of unleavened bread. This bread not being pleasant to
the taste, was to remind the Israelites how bitter was their bondage in Egypt
when God delivered them.
When this feast was kept, the children would often ask what it meant,
and they were answered, " Children, we were all servants, like this maid-
servant, or this man-servant who waiteth " — pointing to some servant in
the family, — "and on this night, many years ago, the Lord redeemed
us and brought us to liberty ; " and he who sat at the head of the
table returned thanks, and said, "Blessed be thou, O Lord our God,
King everlasting, who hast redeemed us, and redeemed our fathers out of
Egypt, and brought us to this night to eat unleavened bread and bitter
herbs/7
Another yearly feast of the Hebrews was the Feast of Harvest, sometimes
called the Feast of Weeks, but better known by the name of The Feast of
Pentecost. The Jews then offered thanks to God for the bounties of the
harvest, in bread baked of the new corn. On that day, too, they celebrated
the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. This feast was kept fifty days after
the Passover.
The Feast of Tabernacles was the third great feast. This was sometimes
called The Feast of Tents, and The Feast of the In-gathering. This feast
was to call to memory the way in which Israel lived when God protected
them in the wilderness, in movable tents or tabernacles, something like
what you see put up sometimes in gardens, to screen people from \yet and
heat, or in fields at fairs, or reviews. This feast, like the Passover, lasted
for a week, during which time the people all lived in booths or arbors,
made of the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs
of thick trees, and willows of the brook. This feast, being at the close of
harvest, was also a yearly thanksgiving for God's goodness in giving them
an opportunity of getting it in.
The Tabernacle, its Furniture, and Priests.
Exodus xxv. 8, 9.
MOSES told all the people the laws of God, and they promised, " all
the words which the Lord hath said we will do." And Moses wrote
down all the words in a book, called the book of the covenant or agreement,
Exodus
137
and he made offerings to God, and he took of the blood of the sacrifices
and sprinkled on the people, which was an understood sign that they
solemnly engaged to keep their promise to God, and that if they did so,
God would do everything for their good.
After this Moses and Aaron, and Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, and
seventy of the elders of Israel, went up Mount Sinai, and the glory of God
shone very brightly about them. And God commanded Moses to go up
into the mountain, and he would give him the commandments written on
stone. So Moses went up into the Mount, and he was there forty days and
forty nights. All this time he neither ate nor drank, but God kept him
alive.
God now showed Moses the pattern by which he was to make a Taber-
nacle in the wilderness, in which to
worship him. This was to differ Siawn^
from the Temple which was after-
wards built in Canaan, as the Tab-
ernacle was a kind of very grand
tent, to move about from place to
place as the Israelites moved ; but
the Temple was a fixed building,
like any one of our churches.
For the building of the Taber-
nacle, and the making of different
articles to be used in it, the people
EKECTION OF THE TABEKNACLE.
were to give gold and silver, and
brass ; and fine linen of blue, pur-
ple, and scarlet colors, and skins of animals and wood ; and also oil, and
spices for making incense; and precious stones to be worn by the high
priest.
The people brought their offerings in the most liberal manner; and Moses
toon got more money and things than he wanted, so that he was obliged to
restrain them from giving him anything more.
The value of the gold and silver only, which was used for the work, was
equal to nine hundred and twelve thousand, eight hundred and forty dollars,
and reckoning the difference of values, was more than six million dollars.
The Tabernacle was long and narrow. Its length was about fifty-
five feet, its breadth ten, and its height ten— that is, aimost twice as high
as a man. Its two sides, and one end, were made of a very durable
138
Bible and Commentator
wood, called acacia wood ; and they were overlaid with thin plates of
gold, and fixed in solid sockets of silver. At the top of the sides were
rings of gold ; and bars of wood, overlaid with gold, ran through these rings
at each side, and held the boards upright. At the entrance were five pillars
of the same wood, ornamented with gold and fixed in sockets of brass. A
richly-worked curtain hung on these pillars.
For its ceiling, there was a covering of fine linen, magnificently
embroidered or worked in needle-work, with figures called cherubim,
which it is not easy to explain. The colors of the work were blue, purple,
and scarlet. On this ceiling was laid an outsicje covering, made of goats'
hair ; then upon that another covering of rams' skins, dyed red ; and a fourth
covering was outside, to bear the weather ; this was made of some other
skins.
THE TABERNACLE RESTORED.
This Tabernacle was divided into two apartments. The partition was
made by four pillars of the same wood as the rest, and overlaid with gold :
and these stood in sockets of silver put in the ground, and on these pillars
was hung a veil or curtain richly worked.
One part, at the further end, was for the Most Holy Place, where the
people could not enter, but only the priest; and the part as large again as
that remained for the people.
This Tabernacle stood in a large court surrounded with pillars of brass,
ornamented with silver ; and all around there ' hung upon them curtains
of fine twined white linen yarn, with cords to draw them up when
necessary.
Exodus. 139
"Within this square stood an altar for offering burnt-offerings, or offerings
in which the animals offered were burnt, and there was also a laver for
holding water, for the priests to wash themselves.
Having told you about this grand structure, I will now tell you about
the rich and curious furniture which was put in it, as God commanded
Moses.
In the Holy Place there was an altar of incense, on which incense was
burnt morning and evening ; which teaches us to pray to God morning and
evening, and our prayers will, if sincere, and offered in the name of Christ,
ascend up before God, as sweet incense or perfumed smoke ascends in the
air. This altar was made of acacia wood, and completely covered with
plates of gold* It had four rings of the same precious metal, into which
poles were put to carry it from one place to another. There was also the
table for the shew-bread. It had its dishes, spoons, covers and bowls, all
made of pure gold. The bread was made every week ; and the priests had
that which was taken away every Sabbath day, as a part of their reward for
their services. Its quality was of the finest kind, being made of the best
wheaten flour.
There were twelve cakes, being the number of the tribes of Israel ;
these were piled up in two equal rows, and pure frankincense, a sweet
perfume, put upon each row. The meaning of this bread, and the things
about it, seems to have been, that God by his presence dwelt there ; and
though he need not eat as his creatures, yet these things were the signs of
a dwelling place, by which the Israelites were to understand he was
amongst them. There was also the golden candlestick, which had seven
branches for lights, and ornaments beautifully worked in the shape of
flowers, and was worth about thirty thousand dollars of our money.
The lamps of this were lighted every evening, and put out every morning.
As there were no windows to the Tabernacle, this light was much needed.
It was also a sign of that Holy Spirit, which now shines into the mind to
give it divine light ; and when Christ sent his Spirit, that light, as a sign,
was needed no more. So, seventy years after Christ, Jerusalem was con-
quered by the Romans ; and there is a large stone archway still at Rome
which was built in memory of that conquest ; and, among the figures cut
out on stone as taken from the Jews, is this candlestick, the table of shew-
bread, and some other things — so that the shapes of the table and of the
candlestick are well known to this day, and they are as the Lord commanded
Moses. See how far back, and exactly, we can trace the correctness of the
history of the Book of God, although it is so very old.
140
HIGH PRIEST
Exodus. 141
There were three things also very remarkable in the Most Holy Place,
where the high priests went. First, the ark. This was a chest of the usual
wood, overlaid within and without with pure gold. It had also gold rings
to put staves or poles through, to carry it. Inside this ark were tables, or
inscriptions on stone, of the covenant with God ; a golden pot with some
manna, to be kept in remembrance of God's feeding Israel, when that food
would be wanted no more ; and also Aaron's wonderful rod. There was a
covering to the ark made of pure gold, called the mercy-seat, where God
showed, by signs of his glory, that he would be merciful to his people ; and
upon this were placed what were called the cherubim, or figures with wings.
We do not exactly know what these meant.
One more subject you will find in these chapters connected with the
Temple, which wras the robes of the priests.
God commanded Moses — " Thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy
brother for glory and for beauty. And thou shalt speak unto all that are
wise-hearted, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, that they may
make Aaron's garments to consecrate him, that he may minister to me in
the priest's office."
There was to be a breastplate, in which twelve precious stones were set in
four rows ; they were very brilliant, and of different colors, and on these
were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. Also, an ephod; the
common priests had it made plain of cloth, but the high priest's was richly
worked. This was a garment to cover the back and front of the body only,
to be fastened to the shoulders by two precious stones ; and a robe, or upper
coat, which was under the ephod, that, perhaps, fastening it down : round
the hem at the bottom of this garment there were a number of gold bells,
to ring when the priest went into the Holy Place. And under this robe,
next to the body, like a shirt, was to be what is called " a broidered coat."
And further, on his head there was to be a mitre or turban, something like
what is worn by the Turks instead of hats. A girdle was to go round the
waist, the two ends of which, after it was tied, fell down in front ; and
lastly, there was a curious girdle to the ephod.
Besides what we have named, there was what is called the TJrim and
Thummim, which was put into the breastplate, and by which the priest
inquired for direction from Jehovah in all times of difficulty. No one can
now exactly tell wThat the meaning of Urim and Thummim is. There was
also a plate of gold on the front of the mitre, on which was written,
" Holiness to the Lord."
142
Bible and Commentator,
All these garments were designed to show the dignity of the high priest's
office, and the purity which ought to belong to it.
The high priest enjoyed great honors, and was considered next to the
chief Governor of the Jews. No other person could enter the Holy of Holies,
and all sacred things were under his entire direction. He offered the
people's sacrifices, blessed them, and interceded for them, and was a type
or representation of Jesus Christ, who is called " the Great High Priest of
our profession, and who ever lives to plead for sinners."
Besides the high priest, were many priests of less distinction, and they
were all of the tribe of Levi, and of the family of Aaron.
Many of these prepared and offered the sacrifices, they kept a fire con-
stantly burning on the altar for burnt-offerings, and they kept the lamps
alive in the golden candlestick. They exam-
ined the people as to diseases and practices
which made them impure; and, in time of
war, they carried the holy ark with the people,
and sounded the trumpets to encourage them
in the battle. They also blessed the people,
as did the high priest.
Others of the Levites waited on the priests,
and assisted them in their duties; they
cleansed the sacred vessels, took care of the
sacred place, sung psalms, played musical
instruments, and did other services. These
all were appointed cities to live in ; and the
priests, besides what they got from the sacri-
fices in the temple, had tithes, or a tenth of
all the corn and fruit which grew every year, and of all the cattle that was
added to the people's stock. Their duties were very laborious and
important, and it was right that, while they performed them faithfully, the
people should take care of them, and for this God provided.
A chief part of the priests' labors consisted in presenting the offerings of
the people to God. He did not want what they offered, for the cattle on a
thousand hills are his; but every beast and bird that was slain, taught
them that they had sinned against God, and deserved to die as those
creatures did ; and while they must be sure that God could not forgive their
sins, because they killed a bullock, a calf, a goat, a kid, a sheep, or a bird ;
those among them that truly served God saw that all these things were
THE GOLDEN CANDLESTICK.
Exodus. 143
signs, or " shadows of good things to come/' and that they all pointed to
the Messiah — that is, Jesus Christ — who was to be the great offering once
for all, and then all these sacrifices were to be, as they now are, done away.
So that, instead of going with sacrifices to an altar as the Jews did, we now
go and pray to God to pardon our sins every day, for the sake of his dear
Son Jesus Christ, who has loved us, and given himself for us, and whose
precious blood " cleanseth from all sin.77
The offerings had different names, as they were offered on different
occasions.
There were burnt-offerings, which were all consumed by fire, to show us
that nothing less could save us than the entire sacrifice of Christ for our
sins. There were peace-offerings, part of which were offered, and the rest
went to the priest ; these were signs of peace between God and the offerer.
There were sin-offerings, for sins done without knowing they were sins
at the time ; and these teach us that all sin is destructive, and must be
pardoned through Christ. There were trespass-offerings, of which we
particularly read in Leviticus; these were offered if the person even
doubted and supposed that he might, perhaps, have offended God Almighty.
There were also meat-offerings, drink-offerings, and wave-offerings, so called
from the priest waving or moving them backwards and forwards — and a
number of other offerings ; all which were to remind the people of Israel
that they were sinners, and to make them humble before God, and grateful
for his mercies.
The Golden Calf.
Exodus xxxii.
MOSES having been with God in the Mount to receive instructions for
the good of Israel, during forty days and forty nights, at length
descended, bringing with him two tables or pages of stone, " written with
the finger of God/7 and having the ten commandments upon them.
We have before told you, that God has not bodily parts like us, for he is
a Spirit ; but as we write with our fingers, so, to make us understand that
this writing was God7s own doing, it is said to be written by his finger, as
we should do it.
With what delight did Moses bear this honorable and precious treasure,
such as no nation beside could boast ! But how greatly was he disappointed
on his return !
144 Bible and Commentator.
The people, tired with waiting for Moses, and perhaps supposing that he
had died somewhere in the Mount, wanted another leader, and forced
Aaron to do as they pleased. And what do you think they fixed upon to
lead them through the wilderness ? You can hardly fancy they could be
so foolish, when we tell you. Why, a lump of gold, made into the shape
of a calf!
"With the same readiness with which they had given their gold and silver
to make the materials for the Tabernacle, they now gave their ornaments
to make their fancied god.
This inclination to idols they had got in Egypt, where the people made
and worshipped such things.
And how low, too, is poor Aaron fallen ! for after he had made the
molten calf, cast in a mould, as children cast playthings of lead, " When
Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it ; and Aaron made proclamation,
and said, To-morrow is a feast to the Lord.
"And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt-offerings, and
brought peace-offerings ; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and
rose up to play."
This was the manner of the heathen ; and it means that they ate and
drank more than they ought, and that they did both foolishly and wickedly
afterwards, as drunken people do.
And now Moses descended from the Mount, and he heard the people
rejoicing, and he saw the calf and the dancing ; and in his anger he threw
down the tables of stone, of which they were so undeserving, and the laws
which they had so shamefully broken, after they had promised faithfully
to attend to them ; and so the tables were broken in pieces.
"And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and
ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children
of Israel drink of it."
Gold powder will sink, but gold can be made into leaf, which is very light
and very thin ; and if it were so made, and then broken, it would easily
swim. And so Moses made these foolish people swallow their god. Nothing
could better teach them how foolish it was to worship idols.
Poor Aaron was quite ashamed, and he made a very weak excuse for the
part he had taken in this affair. He said, that when he took their gold he
cast it into the fire, and there came out the calf; as if the calf would have
come out if he had not made the mould.
And now Moses saw that the people were naked before their enemies — an
Exodus.
145
expression which means wretched, as a person is that can get no clothes to
wear; and that the anger of the Lord might be wholly turned away, he
tried if there were any that disapproved of what had been done. And he
stood in the gate of the camp, and cried, " Who is on the Lord's side ? let
him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together
A>~CIEN"T HEBREW SWOEDS.
unto him. And he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel," —
for God commanded this, — " Put every man his sword by his side, and go
in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his
brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.
"And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses : and there
fell of the people that day about three thousand men." These were,
probably, the chief transgressors, and so God spared the rest of the people
and destroyed them. In this we are taught that when God gives us every
proof of his power, his love and his care, and supplies all our real needs,
he will be jealous of our trust and worship; and that those who, in dis-
regard of his instruction, lead also others into disobedience and sin, are
especially the subjects of his displeasure, and will accordingly be punished.
10
146 Bible and Commentator.
The Ten Commandments renewed.
Exodus xxxiv. 4.
"TTTHEN Moses came down from the Mount, he threw down the tables of
V V stone, and brake them to pieces. God, therefore, in token of his
still keeping Israel as his people, renewed his laws with them, and Moses
was ordered to prepare some new tables, and to go again up into Mount
Sinai.
And there the Lord proclaimed or made known to him his name, and
that he was "the Lord God, merciful and gracious." What a lovely
name ! Oh, let us love him who bears such a name !
And Moses " bowed his head forward to the earth and worshipped." And
he pleaded again for Israel ; and God promised to drive their enemies out
of the promised land of Canaan ; but he required as a proof of their obe-
dience to him, that they should destroy their altars, break their images, and
cut down their groves, where they worshipped, as the Druids used to do,
long after, in England.
And Moses wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten
commandments. In the first verse, you have probably observed that the
Lord said unto Moses, " Hew these two tables of stone like unto the first,
and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables,
which thou brakest ; " but here it is said, " Moses wrote upon the tables."
This is easily explained : God wrote the original commandments on the
tables deposited or placed in the ark, and Moses probably wrote a copy for
the use of the people.
And now Moses descended from the Mount, and having been favored so
greatly by God, "the skin of his face shone before all the people, and they
were afraid to come nigh him." "And till Moses had done speaking with
them, he put a veil on his face : " and he " spake unto the children of
Israel that which he was commanded."
UNHEWN STONES.
Leviticus
So called, because the book gives the laws relating to divine worship to be conducted by the Levites, who were
chosen to be the ministers of the Israelites. It relates principally to the priests, however, "the sons of Aaron."
It was written by Moses and is divided into twenty-seven chapters. The matter of this book seems closely
connected with Exodus at its commencement, and with Numbers at its conclusion.
The Burnt-offering.
Leviticus i. 1-3.
-HE Levites were all of the tribe of Levi, one of the twelve
sons of Israel ; the priests were of the family of Aaron, who
was a descendant of Levi. Both priests and Levites were
employed in sacred services in the sanctuary, and their
whole lives were devoted to these duties.
. For a long time the patriarchs were priests in their own
families, and offered up sacrifices; but by divine appoint-
ment the family of Aaron was now set apart to perform all
sacred duties, as there was a large congregation, and a
Tabernacle in which they were to assemble.
This book treats of the duties which the priests and Levites were to
perform.
In this chapter you may read the account of the burnt-offering.
You will see that it was to be " a male without blemish ; " that is, the best
of the herd, for we ought always to serve God with the best of everything.
Then it is said, " he shall offer it of his oicn voluntary will, at the door of
the tabernacle of the congregation, before the Lord ; " — to teach us, that if
we do not serve God with all our hearts, our service is not pleasing in his
sight.
It is also said in the fourth verse, "And he," that is, the person who
offers the sacrifice, "shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt-offering;
and it shall be accepted for him, to make atonement for him." Now in
doing this, it was to signify that he deserved to die as the poor beast was to
die ; but that he begged of God to accept the life of the animal instead of
147
148
Bible and Commentator
his life. And God did so ;, having respect to the death of his dearly beloved
Son Jesns Christ, who is ealled " the Lamb slain from before the foundation
of the world." There is no doubt that as we look back by faith to the
merits of his death, so good men then looked forward, through these
ceremonies, to him who in a future time should come to redeem Israel.
Now you may better understand the meaning of that verse of a hymn
, which is often sung in many congregations —
a My faith would lay her hand
On that dear head of thine,
While like a penitent I stand,
And there confess my sin."
But some persons were too poor to bring a bullock to be sacrificed wnen
they offered a burnt-offering, and then they were to bring a calf, a sheep, a
THE SIN-OFFERING.
goat, a kid, or even a lamb — a " turtle-dove," or a " young pigeon." So
that the poorest were not neglected by a merciful God, and were taught
alike to look to the same way of salvation. The rich and the poor both
alike need a Saviour, and Jesus Christ, who is " the Lamb of God," is " rich
in mercy " to all them that call upon him ; and those who have had much
committed to their trust, either in possessions or talents, will find occasion
for greater offerings to him, — whilst those who have had less will find as
full reward if they bring to him what they can.
Leviticus,
149
The Meat-offering.
Leviticus ii. 1-3.
THE meat-offering was of five sorts: — 1. Simple flour and meal, 2,
Cakes and wafers ; that is, very thin bread. 3. Cakes baked in a pan.
4. Cakes baked on the frying-pan, or probably a gridiron. 5. Green ears
of corn parched.
In offering their meat-offerings, the Jews owned God as the Giver of all
the fruits of the earth.
THE rtfEAT-OFTEEIXG.
There was to be no leaven or yeast in this offering ; for that ferments
and produces corruption, and our offerings to God must be pure. There
was to be salt with all the sacrifices; for it seasons things and makes
them savory, teaching us again that our good things must be presented
to God.
All these things are called typical — that is, they are meant to show to
us other things of much more importance than they themselves ; just as a
picture shows us the likeness of a real person, but you know it is not the
person. Thus the most important services of the Jews were intended to
typify the most wonderful events which in God's goodness were to happen
to the world ; and we find in the leading events of the New Testament the
first causes of nearly all the types in the Old.
150 Bible and Commentator.
The Sacrifices.
Leviticus hi., iv., v., vi., vn.
AS the sacrifices very much resembled each other, all having respect to
-£^- the great sacrifice of Christ, we need not explain them any more,
separately. Only it will be well for you to remember, that when we read
about the killing of the animals, and the sprinkling of blood upon the
altars, and the offering of fruits, and the burning of different parts, and the
giving of other parts to the priests, and a number of other particulars;
though at first sight they may not seem to be very interesting, yet they are
very much so, whfcn we can find out their meaning ; and this is not left to
our fancies, but we may know it by looking at other parts of the Bible.
For instance, we read in the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews,
u For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer, sprink-
ling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh ; how much more
shall the blood of Christ, who, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself
without spot to Go(l, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the
living God ? " — in other words, if the blood of the animals offered by the
priests under the law given by Moses, had so much virtue, that it removed
uncleanness and guilt, or sin and guilt before God, he having promised it
should do so because he had commanded it ; then how much more shall the
precious virtue of the blood of Jesus Christ, who died to save sinners, and
through the power of his Spirit sustained all our load of guilt, which no
mere human creature could have borne ; — how much more shall the virtue
of his sacrifice take away all guilt from the conscience arising from sinful
deeds, so that you may with pleasure serve the living God !
Again, Ave read in the same chapter, that " Christ was once offered to
bear the sins of many." For other sacrifices were offered from time to time,
as offences occurred, and there were even daily sacrifices ; but when Christ
died on Calvary, he died once for all, and all sacrifices then ceased. For,
't is worthy of your notice, that soon after Christ had died on Calvary, the
Jewish nation was, for their hardness of heart against God, destroyed and
scattered abroad in all countries, as they are to this day. The Romans,
then a great power, were God's instruments to effect this ; and then their
temple was destroyed, in which their sacrifices were offered, and the tribes
were mixed all in confusion ; so that the tribe of Levi could soon no longer
be known, to offer sacrifices. But Christ had made them needless: they
Leviticus. 151
had all along been as guides to lead to him ; and now he was slain, those
who would be saved must by faith trust on the benefits of his death, " who
himself bear our sins in his own body on the tree."
Think what a labor and expense all these sacrifices must have been ;
and what a burden of ceremonies was taken away, when the Saviour closed,
as it were, the book of the Law, and opened to us that of the everlasting
Gospel, much says only, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt
be saved."
You will find a number of seemingly trifling instructions given to the
priests in performing their duties and offering the sacrifices, and perhaps
some may be difficult to understand ; but you must never forget that
they teach us this one great truth, — they point, as it were, to Jesus
Christ, and say, " Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of
the world."
There are some customs not yet noticed, which must also be explained
before we proceed. In the fourth chapter we read that the bullock offered
in sacrifice was to be burnt without the camp. The Israelites, you know,
lived for a long time in tents in the wilderness, and when these tents were
all pitched together, they formed what is called a camp — looking like a
number of little cottages standing in rows. The carrying of the bullocks
outside the camp to be burnt was to signify that sin is offensive.
The priest had committed a sin, he had laid his hand on the head of
the animal and confessed it; the sin was thus considered as laid on the
beast, and the bullock was made vile. It also expressed that this sin was
now taken away and the camp was purified from it. Now, the writer to
the Hebrews says, " It is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats
should take away sins." No ; they only did this as a type or picture of
what Christ afterwards did in reality. So in the Hebrews this custom is
thus explained : " For the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought
into the sanctuary by the high priest, for sin, are burned without the camp.
Therefore, Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood,
suffered without the gate." When the Jews dwelt in houses, and wor-
shipped in the Temple at Jerusalem, these bodies were carried outside the
gates of the city ; and when Christ, the great sacrifice, was offered up, it
was on Mount Calvary, which was outside the gates of that city. This will
help further to show you the meaning of these sacrifices, and how nearly
the type, or thing representing, was like the antitype, or thing which had
been represented.
152
Leviticus. 153
Consecration and Duties of the Priests.
Leviticus viii., ix.
MOSES, in the way in which he was commanded, consecrated, or set
apart, Aaron and his sons to be priests, and to offer up the sacrifices
of the people of Israel.
There is one thing which ought to be noticed in this place, that you may
understand its meaning, because it appears at first to be a very odd kind of
ceremony. After the ram of consecration was slain, " Moses took of the
blood of it, and put it upon the tip of Aaron's right ear, and upon the thumb
of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot ; " and then he
did the same also to Aaron's sons. This is generally supposed to mean,
that the priest's ears should be holy, and that his hands should be employed
in holy work, and his feet should tread in holy ways ; and as the blood was
to touch each part, that the blood of the atonement, shed on Calvary, as it
were, touching our hearts by believing in it, alone can render our services
acceptable and pure in the sight of God. Every little thing here commanded
had, without doubt, some interesting meaning.
Awful Judgment on Nadab and Abihu.
Leviticus x. 1-8.
IX this chapter we see what a fearful thing it is to disobey God. Nadab
and Abihu had just been appointed priests, and it was a part of their
duty to burn incense, as an emblem or sign of prayer (which, if offered
aright, ascends to heaven), and especially of the merits of Jesus Christ, which
always plead in heaven for them that pray for blessings on his account.
But Xadab and Abihu disobeyed the command of God ; for they not only
took the incense of their own accord, when he " commanded them not," but
zhey presumptuously disregarded what God had said about burning incense
on the altar of incense, as it is recorded in the ninth verse of the thirtieth
chapter of Exodus — " Ye shall offer no strange incense thereon." Moses
had not given them any of the incense which he had ordered to be made
according to the Divine direction, so that they must have used some common
kind of incense ; besides this, instead of taking sacred fire from the altar,
which had been kindled with fire from heaven, they took strange fire, —
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Bible and Commentator.
probably from that with which the flesh of the peace-offering was boiled, aa
Moses commanded Aaron and his sons, as mentioned in the eighth chapte?
and the thirty-first verse.
The priests were also commanded to burn incense, one at a time; but
here both went together to do it. This seems a severe punishment for such
THE HIGH PEIEST OFFERING INCENSE.
an offence ; but it was very wicked to disobey God ; and, by taking common
fire, they profaned God's sacred altar. It had also been threatened in the
law, that those who disobeyed the commands of God should be cut off from
the people. And now God shows that what he spoke was truth. In an
instant Aaron's two sons fell dead: God struck them with a blast of
lightning ; for as neither their bodies nor coats were burnt, and yet they were
suddenly dead, the manner of their death shows how it was done.
And now their lifeless bodies were carried out of the camp, looked
upon, no doubt, with wonder by the affrighted people ; and lest they should
seem to favor their sin in any way, none of their kindred were allowed to
mourn for them. Oh, " who is able to stand against this holy Lord God ? *
Leviticus. 155
Laws respecting the Food of the Israelites.
Leviticus xi.
THE Israelites were God's peculiar people, and he would therefore dis-
tinguish them as much as possible from all others. Among other
things he regulated their food, and told them what they were to eat, and
what they were not to eat.
You ask, " What reason can be given for this law ? " And the answer
must be that which the good Matthew Henry gives, who wrote a work on
the Bible. He says, " It is reason enough that God would have it so : his
will, as it is law sufficient, so it is reason sufficient; for his will is his
wisdom. He saw good thus to try and exercise the obedience of his people,
not only in the solemnities of his altar, but in matters of daily occurrence at
their own table, that there they might remember they were under authority.
Thus God had tried the obedience of man in innocency, by forbidding him
to eat of one particular tree." He, however, mentions some reasons which
are also very good ones : " Most of the meats forbidden as unclean are such
as were really unwholesome, and not fit to be eaten ; and those of them that
we think wholesome enough, and use accordingly, as the coney (a kind of
rabbit), the hare, and the swine, perhaps in those countries, and to their
bodies, might be hurtful : and then, God in this law did by them but as a
wise and loving father does by his children, whom he restrains from eatiDg
that which he knows will make them sick. God would, also, thus teach his
people to distinguish themselves from other people, not only in their religious
worship, but in the common actions of life." In this way they were types,
or pictures, to show what all good people should be in future ages — a people
whose lives and customs should differ from those of the rest of the world.
It is to be noticed that the fish, birds and beasts, which are spoken of .as
an abomination, which did not include all that were unclean, were those
which were worshipped or used for divination among the heathen : the eagle,
ibis, raven and owl ; the lizard, ferret, cat, and the predatory fishes.
It is said, and with much probability, that the condition of slavery in
which the Israelites had been living, had developed in them a tendency to
scrofulous disease, which could only be eradicated by abstinence from indi-
gestible meat, as swine's flesh, etc.
Many things forbidden to the Israelites, which are not hurtful, we now
eat, as pigs, and hares, and rabbits ; for we are not restricted as the Jews,
TJITCXiE^iT AUIMALS.
WHITE STORK.
156
TTIsrCXjIEJ^ICT ^ZtTIHyL-A-ILS.
EGYPTIAN IBIS.
&$*!
GIEE EAGLE.
VTILV BOAE.
157
158 Bible and Commentator.
were ; and the Gospel teaches us that " every creature of God is good," and
we are " to call nothing common or unclean." Even the touch of any of
these animals, after they were dead, denied ; so that the person that touched
them was obliged to wash his clothes, and be for a while unclean, and keep
company with no one. And the very things which they touched must be
washed as unclean ; and if they were made of earthenware, they were to be
broken. By these things they were taught to avoid everything that could
pollute them. And this shows us, as in a glass or picture, how much God
hates sin, which is to the soul much more defiling than these things could
be to the body, and highly offensive to his holy nature.
The Laws on the Leprosy.
Leviticus xiii., xiv.
~Y~YT"E often read in Scripture about lepers. The leprosy is a very
V V loathsome and destructive disease. These chapters describe the
disease as it existed in men, in clothing, and in dwellings.
In men this disorder affects the skin, and produces white scurf and scabs,
and corrupts the whole mass of blood. It is dangerous to touch a leper, for
the disorder is very infectious. Travellers in the East have seen people
afflicted with it ; and they say that it defiles all the skin, and swells all the
joints of the body, particularly the wrists and the ankles, so that the sufferer
is a pitiable object. The poor who have this disorder beg with buckets
to receive the alms ; perhaps, because they will not touch the money, which
people would then be afraid of taking.
The leper, under the law, was commanded to show himself to the priest ;
and Moses being divinely taught to point out the signs of a dangerous
leprosy, gave proper directions for examining him. If the disorder was of
a bad kind, the leper was to be separated from society ; he was to tear his
clothes, as the Jews did in extreme grief; he was to throw off his turban,
and have his head bare ; and to put a covering upon his upper lip, his jaws
being tied up with a linen cloth, as the dead were bound up; and in
addition to these marks, by which he might be known and avoided, he was
to cry, "Unclean, unclean;" and he was to dwell alone, and at a distance
from the camp.
When a leper was cured, there were several ceremonies to be gone
through, which are mentioned in the fourteenth chapter.
Leviticus. 159
The leprosy in clothes seemed to have been something like moths in
garments ; and it is supposed that it was caused by a kind of insect getting
into them.
The leprosy in houses certainly resembled what builders call the dry-rot,
which now gets into houses, beginning at the foundation, and causing all
the timbers soon to rot, even to the top, if not speedily cured. It is thought
that a sort of worms produced this evil. In some cases this leprosy was
very obstinate, and the house was in consequence entirely pulled down.
Now, you may wonder why there is so much about this leprosy mentioned
here ; but we have told you, that all things under the law were shadows or
representations of spiritual things, or things relating to the soul, and which
still exist. Do you know that you have got this dangerous leprosy ? We
will tell you what it is — Sin : for " all have sinned, and come short of the
glory of God." Sin defiles the soul before God, as the leprosy denies the
body. Sin is infectious, and one sinner destroys much good.
For this reason, perhaps, a bird wTas killed at the ceremony of the puri-
fication of the leper, to show that Christ died for our sins ; and another bird
was let loose, after being dipped in the blood of the slain bird, to show
forth the resurrection of our Saviour, in consequence of having done away
our guilt, by his death in our stead, who otherwise deserved death.
The leprous house may, in the same way, show us that, as there is sin in
our mortal body, which is the house of the soul, and which sin exposes us
to pain, decay, and death ; so it is only by the pulling down of the body, or
house, that we can entirely get rid of sin ; and then, when the believer's
body is turned to dust, God, who first made it, shall make it again, and
change this vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto the glorious body
of the Redeemer.
The Scape-Goat.
Leviticus xvi.
THE grand subject of the sixteenth chapter, to which your attention k
called, is the great day of atonement, on which the scape-goat was
made to bear the sins of the people. The numerous other sacrifices were
for particular persons, and on occasions which respected objects of a more
limited nature, but on this occasion an atonement was made for the whole
Israelitish nation : this happened once a year : the whole service of the day
was performed by the high priest, who was to be dressed, not in his
160
Bible and Commentator.
splendid robes, but in an humble dress of linen : he was to bring, first, a
sin-offering and a burnt-offering for himself; to offer first his sin-offering,
and then to go within the veil with some of the blood of his sin-offering,
burn incense, and sprinkle the blood before the mercy-seat. Two goats
were to be provided for the people; lots were then to be cast, to know
which goat to offer : this was done by putting two pieces of wood, stone, or
metal, into a pot, on one of which was written, " for the scape-goat : " the
goats then stood on the
priest's right and left hand,
and as he took out the pa-
pers with both hands, the
one to whose lot that name
fell was to be set free. The
one goat was then slain as a
sin-offering for the people ;
and the blood of it, and of
the other sin-offering, was
sprinkled upon the altar.
The other was to be the
scape-goat, or the goat
which was allowed to es-
cape: the high priest laid
his hands on his head, and
then confessed the sins of
Israel ; and he was to bear
away these sins into the
wilderness, to which he was
led and allowed to go free.
Burnt-offerings and sin-
offerings were then added :
the fat of the sin-offering was burnt on the altar, and the flesh without
the camp. The people rested from labor on that day, and they mourned
their sins. This was the practice on the day of atonement.
You will wonder how the scape-goat could bear away the sins of the
people; but you must understand that this scape-goat was to typify or
exhibit, as in a picture, the great Saviour of sinners, Jesus Christ, of whom
the sacrifices were constant representations. We are pardoned through the
death of Christ, who "died for our sins," if we believe on him ; and we
THE SCAPE-GOAT.
Leviticus.
161
shall be made inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, and enjoy immortal
life — that is, a life of joy that can never end — through the resurrection of
Christ. Now, both these truths were taught here as in a shadow. But
one goat could not teach both ; for the goat that died could not live again.
Therefore there were two goats appointed to be used : one was slain, as we
have told you, to set forth the death of Christ, the great atonement or
reconciler between God and man ; and the other was let free into the wilder-
ness, bearing the people's sins, to show that all those were to be forgotten
through him, and lost like the goat in the wilderness, and that through his
life we should not die.
The Year of Jubilee.
Leviticus xxv. 10.
THE Jews, besides keeping every seventh day as a day of rest, were
also commanded to keep every seventh year, called on that account the
Sabbatical Year. This was an additional remembrancer of the Sabbath
day. In that year, therefore,
they neither sowed nor reaped,
but only gathered anything the
ground produced of its own ac-
cord, just as they wanted it;
leaving the rest for the poor, for
servants, for strangers, and cat-
tle. Thus they were taught com-
passion towards servants and
cattle, and benevolence to the
poor; thus they were instructed
to depend upon God's providence
for their support, who could,
if they obeyed his commands,
provide for them without labor,
or bless their labor; and thus
they were reminded of a better rest, which this was to signify — a never-
ending Sabbath in heaven.
There was another remarkable privilege enjoyed by the Jews, and that
was the Year of Jubilee.
11
PROCLAMATION OF JUBILEE.
162 Bible and Commentator.
This was every fiftieth year. After spending " seven times seven years/'
which make forty-nine, the Jews were to keep the fiftieth year, or, some
think, the last year of the forty-nine.
In this year there was neither sowing nor reaping; but the earth
brought forth fruit of itself. All estates which had been bought were
restored to their first owners, so that no family could be finally made
poor by a father's selling the property forever. Hebrew slaves, with
their wives and children, were set free ; and even all foreign slaves enjoyed
the right of the Jubilee. The first nine days were spent in joyful feasting ;
on the tenth, which happened always to be the great day of the annual
atonement, the trumpets were sounded, and at that moment the slaves were
declared free, and the lands returned to their ancient owners. Houses and
other buildings in walled towns only, did not return to the old proprietor
in the jubilee.
By this wise law, the rich could not oppress the poor, by getting possessed
of all the property in the country; and debts could not last always, for the
jubilee made them void ; and the slave had a hope of a final release.
In making purchases, therefore, this law was always remembered, and a
proportionable value was given as the year of jubilee drew nigh.
But this year had a spiritual signification. It was a type or representa-
tion of the redemption of sinners, by Christ, from the slavery of sin and
Satan, and the restoring of man, who by transgression has lost his title to
eternal blessedness, so that he becomes the heir of heaven — that " inheri-
tance which is incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away."
In many religious assemblies there is a hymn sung which refers to this
Jewish institution, and which partly explains its meaning ; it is too long to
be inserted here, but a few verses may assist in explaining the subject, and
impressing it on your memory. It begins with alluding to the preaching
of the Gospel, which is often compared to the blowing of the jubilee trum-
pet, which proclaimed liberty to the captive; and so does the Gospel
proclaim deliverance to all those who are the slaves of sin, and would desire
deliverance through the great Saviour of sinners.
" Blow ye the trumpet, blow !
The gladly solemn sound,
Let all the nations know,
To earth's remotest bound.
The year of jubilee is come ;
Return, ye ransomed sinners, home.
Leviticus. 363
<{ Ye, who have sold for naught
The heritage above,
Shall have it back unbought,
The gift of Jesus' love :
The year of jubilee is come ;
Return, ye ransomed sinners, home.
" Ye slaves of sin and hell,
Your liberty receive ;
And safe in Jesus dwell,
And blest in Jesus live.
The year of jubilee is come ;
Return, ye ransomed sinners, home.
" Exalt the Lamb of God,
The sin-atoning Lamb ;
Redemption by his blood
Through all the lands proclaim.
The year of jubilee is come ;
Return, ye ransomed sinners, home."
You will wonder to read about slaves among the people who were the
particular people of God ; this must therefore be explained to you before
this book is closed, and perhaps this is the best time.
The Hebrews had a great number of slaves. These differ from servants,
in this way: a servant may do the same work, but is not his master's
property, and may leave him whenever he likes ; but a slave is his master's
property as much as his horse or his ox, and durst not run away; nor is
another allowed to keep him, for he keeps stolen goods. We are sorry to
write as if slaves still exist — for they do ; and in the West Indies, belonging
to England, till very lately there were slaves. There they have black
people to manage the growing of sugar, because the country is too hot for
whites to work, who are used to a colder climate ; and these people were,
not long since, stolen from their own country in Africa and sold as slaves,
and cruelly treated by their masters — indeed, some of them are very rough
to them still. But Jewish slaves were not liable to the same evils. Those
taken in war were bought, sold, or exchanged, like goods ; but this was a
special punishment of the Almighty on idolaters, and none of these were
stolen ; for he that stole a man was to be put to death. The Hebrew slaves
were poor persons, who sold themselves, just as a man now takes what is
called a bounty, or a sum of money, to become a soldier for many years ; or
they had run in debt without thinking how they were to pay, and were
164 Bible and Commentator.
obliged to sell themselves for want of money; or they were delivered as
slaves by their parents, who were not able to keep them, and so were a kind
of apprentice for a number of years. So you see that, though the Jews
were allowed to have slaves, they were under very strict regulations to
treat them with kindness ; and all, except the heathen slaves, were set at
full liberty in the year of jubilee. Those who had kind masters often
returned to live with them a second time ; when they went to the judges,
told them they wished to live with their good old masters all their days,
and then, in token of it, had their ears bored with an awl against the door-
posts of their master's house ; when they became his property till another
year of jubilee, which probably few ever lived to see. The account of this
ceremony you will find in the twenty-first chapter of Exodus.
Vows.
Leviticus xxvii.
AVO W was a promise made to God of doing some good thing hereafter.
The meaning of the first verse of this chapter is this : if any one
has vowed to give any person or thing to the Lord, if he wishes to ransom
it, or to give its value instead, for the benefit of the house of God, the
priest in that case may set a value upon it, and take that value in money
instead of the person or thing vowed.
You will read here of the value of a male, and of a female, and of a
beast, and of a house, and of a field; for all these a man might, perhaps,
vow to give to God.
But why should he so vow or promise ? and what need had God of
them?
I will tell you. A man might have received some very great kindness
from God beyond the bounty and goodness which we all receive every day.
Under the fresh recollection of this, with a heart full of gratitude, he might
say; " Oh, what shall I do in return, to show how much I thank God ? I
will give my servant for the service of his house forever : there he shall
work and help the priests. Or, I will give a bullock as a proof of my
gratitude, and it shall be offered on his altar." So, when Jacob went
into Mesopotamia, he vowed to God a tenth part of his estates; that
is, as if a man who has ten fields should vow one of them, which would
be the tenth ; or have a hundred cattle should vow ten of them, which
SLAVES VABIOTjSLY EMPLOYED.
165
166 Bible and Commentator.
would also be the tenth, and he promised to offer it at Bethel to the honor
of God.
Now a man, when he thought more about it, might have wished that he
had not vowed what he had — perhaps even a daughter. In that case, a
value was set upon the vow, and he paid that value.
There was, however, a more rigid vow, in which nothing could be re-
deemed ; but the things vowed were to be devoted entirely and at once to the
service of the Lord. So we read — " No devoted thing that a man shall
devote unto the Lord, of all that he hath, both of man and beast, and of the
field of his possessions, shall be sold or redeemed: every devoted thing is
most holy unto the Lord."
We read in this chapter about tithes. These were a tenth part of what
the earth brought forth, which God commanded to be given to the support
of religion ; and also a tenth part of the flocks and herds which fed upon
the fruits of the earth. You will read, in the thirty-second verse, of a
curious way of taking this tenth : "And concerning the tithe of the herd,
or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be
holy unto the Lord." Now, when a man was to give the tithe of his sheep
or calves to God, he was to shut up his flock in one fold, in which there was
one narrow door, capable of letting out one at a time. The owner, about to
give the tenth to the Lord, stood by the door with a rod in his hand, the
end of which was dipped in vermilion — a very red color, or red ochre,
with which you sometimes see sheep now marked ; the mothers of these
lambs or calves stood without. The door being opened, the young ones
ran out to join themselves to their dams ; and as they passed out, the owner
stood with his rod over them, and counted one, two, three, four, five, and
so on to ten ; and when the tenth came, he touched it with the colored rod,
by which it was distinguished to be the tithe calf, sheep, etc. ; and whether
poor or lean, perfect or blemished, that was received as the proper tithe.
This is the account the Jews give of taking the tithe, and it is believed to be
correct.
NUMBERS:
Derives its name from the numbering of the Israelites. The account of the march through the wilderness is given,
together with the early incidents of the invasion of Palestine. The book was written by Moses, and is divided into
thirty-six chapters.
The Numbering of the Tribes of Israel.
Numbers i., ii.
N the second year after Israel had come out of Egypt, Moses
was ordered to number the people. They had greatly increased
in numbers, and God would now prove to them how he had kept
his word to Abraham, that he should be the father of a very
numerous posterity. They were so unbelieving, as by this time
you must well know, that they would hardly have thought it
possible they were so numerous, had Moses only told them their
number ; and so he was ordered to count them, that they might see for
themselves.
What a wonderful increase was here! You must well remember that
when Jacob's sons went down into Egypt there were only seventy souls ;
and now, about two hundred and eighteen years afterwards, the people are
indeed " as the stars of heaven for multitude.'7
They had also murmured and sinned against God ; so that he had resolved
that they should never be put in possession of the promised land of Canaan,
but that their children only should have it. These would then know how
true was the word of God, when, at the end of thirty-eight years, they
should find there were but three left out of this large number, now amount-
ing to six hundred and twenty-five thousand eight hundred and fifty men,
reckoning those above twenty years of age ; for at that period they were
ordered to be counted again.
Another reason for this numbering of the people was to set them in
proper order, so that, as they were now so very jiumerous, they might know
how to march through the wilderness, which they were otherwise likely
to do in great confusion, more like a mob than a regular army.
167
168
Bible and Commentator
Yet a further reason is clearly understood, in the command to count all
those only that were " able to go forth to war in Israel." For the children
of Israel were very timid, and they would feel more courage when they
knew how strong they were ; though all their numbers would have been
Judah. A lion.
Gen. xlix. 9.
Reuben. A palm
tree. Gen.
xlix. 3.
Simeon. A
sword. Gen.
xlix. 5.
Dan. A sei-pent.
Gen. xlix. 17.
Zebulun. A har- |
bor. Gen.
xlix. 13.
Ixs-achar. An ass
with a he;ivy
burden. Gen.
xlix. 14.
Gad. An en-
cam pm en t.
Gen. xlix. 19.
THE EMBLEMS ON THE STANDARDS OF THE TRIBES.
nothing, if God had not protected them ; for the Canaanites were much
more numerous than they, when they entered into the land to drive them
out : yet, as God was not with that idolatrous people, to protect them, they
often fled before a few handfuls of Israelites.
" Every man by their polls " means by the number of their heads, the
word used being usually defined by such expressions as, " to take a list or
register of persons ;" "to enter one's name in a list ;" "to insert into a num-
ber, as a voter," etc. ; the original referring to the head, and being used
pretty much as we use the words " heads " and " noses."
Numbers. 169
The Law concerning Nazarites.
Numbers vi.
ANAZAKITE means a separated person — that is, one who separates
himself from the affairs of the world, to be entirely employed in the
service of God.
Under the ancient law of Moses, there were persons who made peculiar
vows to become Nazarites. When this was the case, the Nazarite would not
allow himself to drink wine prepared in any way ; for the sacred command
respecting the Nazarite was, " He shall separate himself from wine and
strong drink, and shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of strong
drink, neither shall he drink any liquor of grapes, nor eat moist grapes, or
dried. All the days of his separation shall he eat nothing that is made of
the vine tree, from the kernels even to the husk." The reason of this was,
that his understanding might be quite clear to meditate on God Almighty's
goodness, and that he might be the fitter for praise and prayer to God.
The Nazarite never shaved his head, but let his hair grow. So God com-
manded : aAll the days of the vow of his separation there shall no razor
come upon his head.'7 He was not to cut off his hair in any way ; for, at
the end of the time fixed by his vow, he was to cut off the hair ; and, as he
could not offer his own body — for God did not require that — he offered his
hair that he cut off and put it in the fire on the altar of the Lord : this
was a sign by which he would show that he belonged to the Lord.
The Nazarite was also not to enter any house in which there was a dead
corpse, for that was defiling ; nor was he to be present AT any funeral.
This is what is meant in those words, "All the days that he separateth
himself unto the Lord he shall come at no dead body. He shall not make
himself unclean for his father, or for his mother, for his brother, or for his
sister, when they die," which he would have done had he touched their
dead bodies.
The vows of the Nazarites sometimes lasted for all their lives, but some
only for as short a time as eight days.
When the time was over, the priest brought the person to the door of the
Temple, who there offered to the Lord a he-lamb for a burnt-offering, a she-
lamb for a sacrifice of expiation or removing guilt, and a ram for a peace-
offering. He also offered loaves and cakes, with wine. When all was
done, the priest, or some one beside, shaved the head of the Nazarite at the
door of the Tabernacle, and burnt his hair, for the reasons before men-
170 Bible and Commentator.
tioned, on the fire of the altar. Then the priest put into the hands of the
Nazarite the shoulder of the ram which had been roasted, with a loaf and
a cake, which the JNazarite put back into the priest's hands, who offered
them to the Lord. From this time the Nazarite might again drink wine,
and his vow was finished.
All this form about the Nazarite is meant to show us, that if we would
separate ourselves for the service of God, as every Christian ought to do,
we should " live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world."
The Offerings of the Tribes to the Tabernacle.
Numbers vii.
~TT~TE have read before about the building of the Tabernacle, and the
V V duties of the various officers belonging to it. Here we have
something more about it; and .this chapter gives us an account of the
liberal offering which God put it into the hearts of all the princes, or chief
men of the tribes, to present for the use of the Tabernacle, after having
probably collected some of what they gave from amongst the people.
They first presented " six covered wagons and twelve oxen ; a wagon for
two of the princes, and for each one an ox : and they brought them before
the Tabernacle." As their other presents were very handsome, these
wagons were no doubt the best of their kind, that they might be fit for the
service of the Tabernacle. But what did they want with wagons ? Why,
you know that the children of Israel moved about from place to place in
the wilderness, and that then they had to take down the Tabernacle, and
move all its materials with them. You must recollect that there were
persons called Levites, who were appointed to carry the materials : so Moses
divided the wagons among them accordingly. To the Gershonites, or sons
of Gershon, who had to carry the lighter things, such as the curtains and
hangings, he gave two wagons, and two yoke of oxen ; when they had loaded
these, they must carry the rest, if any remained, upon their shoulders.
The Merarites, that had the heavy carriage, or such things as were more
solid and weighty — such as the boards, and pillars, and sockets — had four
wagons, and four yoke of oxen ; yet much must have remained for them to
carry upon their backs, so that they were not to be idle ; but they were not
at the same time to be overburdened. The weight of which they had to
take care was very great, for the silver sockets only weighed a hundred
GXjE^Lisr jltstth/lj^XiS.
^fffe ^w
VvSs
THE OX.
^
171
CXiE-A-2sT ,A.2STIM:A.IiS.
MOUNTAIN GOAT OP PALESTINE.
LONG-EAEED GOAT.
172
Numbers. 173
talents, which was about four tons, and one ton only is twenty hundred
weight — every hundred weight, so called, being one hundred and twelve
pounds. These four tons were enough to load four wagons that were drawn
by but one yoke of oxen apiece ; two oxen having quite as much as they
could draw with one ton. Each socket being a talent weight, which is
about a man's burthen, probably they carried those on their backs, and put
the boards and pillars into the wagons.
Thus, you see, the wagons served to ease the Levites of their burthens ;
and being covered wagons, they would better protect some of the materials
of the Tabernacle, that needed to be kept from the sun and weather.
" But unto the sons of Kohath he " (Moses) " gave none " (no wagons),
" because the service of the sanctuary belonging unto them was that they
should bear upon their shoulders." For in the fourth chapter we have
read, that they had the charge of the ark, table, candlestick, altars, and the
like, which were to be carried upon their shoulders ; for those sacred things
were not to be drawn by beasts.
The princes offered, besides, other things, during twelve days, one prince
after the other, — that is, one every day for each tribe, according to the
inarching order of their standards ; and their offerings were the same each
day. This was as God commanded, that each tribe might have equal
honor in contributing.
The offering of each prince was as follows : " One silver charger," or
dish, perhaps to hold the meat-offering, the weight whereof was one hun-
dred and thirty shekels ; " which was above sixty-one ounces," and in
value more than eighty dollars. " One silver bowl of seventy shekels,
after the shekel of the sanctuary," or after the standard weight of the
sanctuary j a standard being kept there to weigh the shekel exactly. This
bowl was either to hold the drink-offering, or receive the blood of the
sacrifices, weighed above thirty-three ounces, and was worth about forty-five
dollars. " Both of them were full of fine flour, mingled with oil for a meat-
offering." There was also " one spoon of ten shekels of gold, full of incense,"
intended for the service of the golden altar, and worth about ninety dollars.
Besides the before named, there were added " one young bullock, one
ram, one lamb of the first year for a burnt-offering. And for a sacrifice of
peace-offerings, two oxen, five rams, five he-goats, five lambs of the first
year." Part of these offerings were to be eaten with their friends, —
expressing that the service of God may be connected with the moderate
enjoyment of providential comforts ; and part of them were to point to
174 Bible and Commentator.
Christ, the great sacrifice for sin, through whom, whatever we offer to God
acceptably, must be received.
In all, then, there were twelve large silver dishes, as many silver cups, and
as many golden spoons, for the service of the altar ; besides the animals.
" This was the dedication of the altar after that it was anointed."
All this shows us that we ought to support the worship of God, and to
do all that we can to keep it up in the world, — and that cheerfully and
willingly, and as far as we can liberally.
Directions about the Levites.
Numbers viii. 1-14.
A AEON is now told to light the seven lamps of the golden candlestick,
-£^- and then to proceed to prepare the Levites for their work.
This he was to do in this way : — He was to sprinkle water upon them,
and they were to shave themselves, and wash their clothes. All this meant
that the ministers of religion must be good men, and not wicked men :
good men being represented as purifying themselves, by God's help, from
all filthiness of the flesh and spirit ; or, of the disposition as well as of the
practice; and evil men as being defiled, because they love sin and live in
sin.
Now, God having spared all the first-born children of the Israelites,
when he destroyed those of the Egyptians, just before the Israelites came
out of Egypt, he desired that the first-born of "man and beast" should
always afterwards be given to him ; but instead of the first-born children,
he accepted of the Levites.
" Thus," said the Lord to Moses, " shalt thou separate the Levites from
among the children of Israel : and the Levites shall be mine."
The Pillar of Cloud and Fire.
Numbers ix. 15-23.
"TT7E have a further account of the pillar of cloud and fire ; and we
* V are told that as soon as the Tabernacle was put up, this cloud
rested over it, something like the clouds which you may have seen resting in
the air on a fine day over the top of some high hill, and perhaps shining
Nit m bees. 175
with bright colors on the side next the sun, and looking dark on the other.
" So it was alway : the cloud covered the Tabernacle by day, and the ap-
pearance of fire by night."
This cloud was meant to show the Israelites that God was present in a
particular manner in his Tabernacle. You know that he is present every-
where, so that we can never get out of God's sight ; but this was a token
given to Israel only, to show that he was present with them, not only to see
them and to hear them, but to protect them.
This cloud was also a sign for the people to follow, as armies follow a
flag which guides them; for, "when the cloud was taken up from the
Tabernacle, then, after that, the children of Israel journeyed, and at the com-
mandment of the Lord they pitched/' or put down their tents to dwell in :
" as long as the cloud abode upon the Tabernacle, they rested in the tents."
So, if the cloud moved, they marched : and if it rested, they rested ;
whether by night or by day : for by day it was dark, and they could see it ;
and it, perhaps, even cast a shadow over all the army, to keep it from the
burning sun ; and by night it was bright, and served as a bright moon to
guide all their steps, and keep them from the confusion which such an army
must have fallen into without such an aid. So, " whether it were two days,
or a month, or a year, that the cloud tarried," or rested, " upon the Taber-
nacle, remaining thereon, the children of Israel abode in their tents, and
journeyed not : but when it was taken up, they journeyed. At the com-
mandment of the Lord they rested in the tents, and at the commandment
of the Lord they journeyed : they kept the charge of the Lord, at the com-
mandment of the Lord by the hand of Moses." Probably, some one was
also on the watch, to see the motions of the cloud night and day, as soldiers
are kept as sentinels, and take turns with each other; and the children of
Israel were also always ready to march at a moment's notice, as we ought
always to be ready to obey the will of God, which we also often learn from
his holy word ; for this world is to us what the wilderness was to the
Israelites.
The Silver Trumpets, and March from Sinai.
Numbers x.
T I THE children of Israel had pitched their tents before Mount Sinai for
-L about a year, and they were now expected to remove ; but, before
they marched, they were commanded to make two silver trumpets ; these,
176
Bible and Commentator
when both were blown, were to call the whole congregation together ;
and when one only was blown, it was to call the chiefs together. When
any alarm was blown, or, instead of one long and continued sound, the
notes of one trumpet were made to rattle, the people were to march ; and
each time the rattling alarm sounded, making a noise like tara 4an-tara,
different bodies were to march one after another, so as to prevent jostling
and confusion. If the alarm was to prepare for war, then a tara-tan-tara
was blown on two trumpets.
These trumpets were also to be blown in the day of " gladness," or when-
ever Israel might triumph over their enemies ; on " solemn days," or
festivals, as the Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacle ; in the beginnings of
their months, especially on the first day of the seventh month, which was
a feast of blowing of trumpets : but you have been already told that nobody
now knows exactly why this feast was kept; and lastly, these trumpets
were to be blown over the " burnt-offerings," and over the " sacrifices " of
their " peace-offerings," as expressing joy for the acceptance of them; and
MOUNT SINAI.
especially when they had, by faith, a view of the great sacrifice of Christ,
which these offerings were intended to represent.
There were only two trumpets, for that was the number of the priests,
who were Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of Aaron ; and the priests only
were to blow these trumpets. In Solomon's time there were a hundred
and twenty priests, and then there were as many trumpets.
'N UMBERS. 177
And now the cloud moved, and all Israel moved. "And they first took
their journey according to the commandment of the Lord by the hand of
Moses ; " or, as we read in the ninth chapter — "At the commandment of
the Lord the children of Israel journeyed, and at the commandment of the
Lord they pitched ; " that is, set up their tents : — " as long as the cloud
abode upon the Tabernacle, they rested in their tents : " Moses having given
them God's command ; and as we give things with the hand, it is here said
to be given by the hand of Moses.
We may suppose that the cloud had stood for some time after it " was
taken up from off the Tabernacle of the testimony," which was that part of
the Tabernacle where the ark of the testimony stood, even the most holy
place. There must have been a great deal of work, to take down all the
tents, and pack up all the goods ; but as every family managed their own,
the work was not so long in doing as we might at first suppose.
Here we have their order of march. "In the first place went the
standard," or colors, "of the camp of the children of Judah; " just' as our
soldiers often march with flags flying to distinguish the different regiments;
and they had for their captain " Nahshon, the son of Amminadab.'' Then
there was the Tabernacle, borne by the two families of the Levites, the sons
of Gershon and the sons of Merari, who were appointed to carry it. For
this there Avere six wagons.
The second squadron was Reuben's, with its flag flying and its captain ;
and this was followed by the Kohathites, bearing the sacred furniture of the
Tabernacle ; and those who had gone before with the Tabernacle set it up
against these came with the furniture.
Then, third in order after the ark, followed Ephraim's squadron ; and
Last, "the standard of the camp of the children of Dan set forward,
which was the rere-ward," or gathering body, " of all the camps throughout
their hosts." These took with them what were left of the rest — some being
unfit to mix with the body, as were the unclean, and some were too feeble
to go first, so they were allowed to march behind, and get forward at a
slower rate.
What a noble army was here ! How grand a sight it must have been to
have seen it marching ! For Judah's camp had a hundred and eighty-six
thousand four hundred men fit for war; and Reuben's a hundred and
fifty-one thousand four hundred and fifty warlike men ; and Ephraim's one
Hundred and eight thousand one hundred men fit for soldiers ; and Dan's
one hundred and fifty-seven thousand six hundred strong men ; besides the
12
178 Bible and Commentator.
Levites and others that were behind. Would not you have liked to have
seen the flags flying over this great multitude, which made in all more than
half a million of men, besides women and children, and priests ?
The Murmuring Israelites fed with Quails.
Numbers xi.
THE Israelites had for some time conducted themselves very well, and
nothing very wrong is related about them since they committed the
sin of worshipping a golden calf, but here we find them complaining.
What were their complaints about? When we consider how kindly God
guided their camp, what good victuals they had, and what good company,
and what care was taken of them in their marches, that their feet should
not swell nor their clothes wear, of which you will read in Deuteronomy —
what cause could they have to complain ?
Good Mr. Henry says, " Those that are of a fretful, discontented spirit
will always find something or other to quarrel with, though the circum-
stances of their outward condition be ever so favorable."
Such conduct is very ungrateful to God, and very displeasing to him ;
and so he consumed the ringleaders of these murmurers as he did Nadab
and Abihu : "And when the people complained, it displeased the Lord ;
and the Lord heard it ; and his anger was kindled ; and the fire of the
Lord burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost
parts of the camp. And the people cried unto Moses ; and when Moses
prayed unto the Lord, the fire was quenched. And he called the name of
the place Taberah, which means a burning ; because the fire of the Lord
burnt among them." And, by giving the spot this name, they would
remember what they brought upon themselves by murmuring ; and others
would hear and fear, and take warning, not to sin as they did, lest they
should smart as they did.
But what a provoking people were Israel ! How fast one offence followed
another ! They soon murmured again. When they left Egypt " a mixed
multitude went up also with them ; " some perhaps being disposed to leave
their country because it was wasted by plagues, and some hoping to benefit
by sharing in the prosperity of Israel. These people, however, did not fear
God, and they "fell a-lusting" or earnestly wishing for what they thought
better food and for their own country. And the children of Israel followed
Numbers. 179
their bad example; and forgetting how cruel was their bondage in Egypt,
and how great had been their deliverance, began to talk of the fish, the
cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions and the garlics, which formed
their food when they were slaves there. They also spoke contemptuously
of the manna which had proved such nutritious and agreeable food to them.
It is always an indication of very low and grovelling tastes in any people
when they prefer a life of the most abject slavery, with the gratification of
their appetites, to freedom with a more scanty fare. But in this case, the
people had been bountifully fed, and yet they preferred slavery to freedom,
and the onions, leeks and garlics of Egypt to the delicious manna. Per-
haps this is as good a place as any to describe what the manna was, and
what it was not. There are a great many persons, and some very good
people among them, who can never rest contented when they speak of any
miracle of the Bible, unless they can make out that it was only the opera-
tion of natural causes, perhaps somewhat intensified by God's power, but not
in any way a departure from natural laws. Now this is really very foolish.
Did not God make all things at first ? and does he not, by the word of his
power, keep them in existence, or create them anew, if he pleases ? Why
then should we suppose that it required any greater exercise of power on
the part of God to cause this peculiar substance, manna^ to be deposited in
such quantities around their camps wherever they were, six days of every
week for forty years, and then stop it at once, than it would have required
to cause the few shrubs in the peninsula of Sinai to have yielded daily
throughout the whole year a quantity of gum much larger than their entire
bulk? There is a tree of the Tamarisk family in the peninsula of Sinai,
which yields in May, June and July only, a white gum which drops off in
tears from its thorns, and hardens on the leaves, or on the ground. It is
whitish, somewhat sweet, and is used as a laxative medicine. It is found
only on the leaves of this shrub or under it, is not used for food, and the
whole peninsula does not yield over about six hundred pounds of it, even in
moist years. It does not spoil by keeping. Now, the manna of the Bible
was not found on shrubs, but on the sand; it came every morning, except
the Sabbath mornings, through the year for forty years, and then stopped
at once and forever. It came in such quantities that the Israelites used
fifteen million bushels of it a week; if exposed to the sun, it melted and
evaporated; if preserved in the shade, it became spoiled except on Friday;
it was not medicinal, and probably only very slightly, if at all, sweet, except
when cooked. It possessed wonderfully nutritious qualities, which the gum
180
Bible and Commentator.
of the Tamarisk does not, and its name was derived from two Hebrew
words, man hu, which mean, "What is this?" No, the manna was God's
miraculous provision for feeding the Israelites, and there has never been
anything like it before or since.
God also promised to let the Israelites have as much meat as they
desired. Moses wondered how they could get so much meat, and he said,
"The people, among whom I am, are six hundred thousand footmen; and
thou hast said, I will give them flesh, that they may eat a whole month.
Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them, to suffice them ? or shall
all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, to suffice them ? " —
meaning, that if all the sheep, and goats, and bullocks were slain, which
they had for sacrifice, they would not last for a month ; and expressing
surprise how so many fish, as seemed to him necessary, could be caught.
But God fulfilled his word about the meat. "And there went forth a
wind from the Lord, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by
the camp, as it were a day's journey on this side, and as it were a day's
journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two cubits
high upon the face of the earth. And the people stood up all that day, and
all that night, and all the next day, and they gathered the quails: he that
gathered least gathered ten homers: and they spread them all abroad for
themselves round about the camp. And while the flesh was yet between
their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against
the people, and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague."
Numbers. 181
These are believed by naturalists to have been really quails like those we
have, and not grouse or partridges. These quails return from their migra-
tions to Africa at certain seasons, and are found in immense numbers in
Arabia-Petrsea even at this day. This wonderful profusion was none the
less a miracle.
A day's journey in those hot and sandy countries is not far, for people
cannot travel as they do here; but it is supposed that the quails might cover
twenty miles of ground.
Two cubits high was about a yard deep, or half the height of a tall man;
but the meaning probably is that the birds were so weary that they flew
only about this height above the ground, and so were easily caught.
It is very doubtful what quantity a homer really contained. The word
means "a heap." The rabbins make it about five and a half bushels, and
so ten homers would be fifty-five bushels. This seems an immense quan-
tity, but it would require as many as that to feed each family for a month,
as God had promised.
So Moses called the place where this happened by a name that would
ever afterwards make the Israelites remember their conduct to their shame:
and he called the name of that place Kibroth-hat-taavah — that is, "the
graves of lust," because there they buried the people that lusted.
Miriam's Leprosy.
Numbers xii.
MOSES was a very meek man, and he had need to be, for not only was
his patience tried by the murmurings of the Israelites, but even his
kinsfolk, Miriam and Aaron, to whom he had been so kind, made him trouble.
Miriam had sung the song of triumph at the Red Sea, and Aaron was the
high priest. The two had a quarrel with Moses about his wife. Some have
supposed that this wife was Zipporah, the daughter of Reuel, the priest-
ruler of Midian; but Zipporah was a Midianite and not an Ethiopian, and
this chapter says, "for he had married an Ethiopian woman." Josephus says
that after Zipporah's death, Moses married an Ethiopian princess. Whether
this is true or not, it seems that she belonged to the Hamite branch of the
family of Noah, and not to a Midianite, for these were the descendants of
Abraham and of Shem.
It is probable that this displeased Miriam and Aaron ; and as they had
182 Bible and Commentator.
made no alliances with the descendants of Ham, they assumed that they were
equally entitled with Moses to be the leaders of Israel.
And God spoke from the pillar of the cloud, and desired Moses, and
Aaron, and Miriam, to come out of their tents: and he spoke to them before
the door of the Tabernacle, and told them that he was used to speak to
prophets by visions and dreams, but Moses was not so, for with him he
spoke mouth to mouth — that is, he spoke to him with perfect freedom.
And now the cloud withdrew, and Miriam was smitten with the leprosy.
Aaron had been as guilty as Miriam, but he now begged Moses to ask God
to heal her; and Moses prayed for her earnestly. God answered, "If her
father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days?" and
not dare to go into her father's presence. "Let her be shut out from the
camp seven days, and after that let her be received in again." "And Miriam
was shut out of the camp seven days : and the people journeyed not till
Miriam was brought in again.
"And afterward the people removed from Hazeroth, and pitched in the
wilderness of Paran."
T
The Twelve Spies sent to Canaan.
Numbers xiii., xiv.
HE people of Israel, though God had been so kind to them, did not seem
yet wholly inclined to believe all that he promised. So they wished
to send somebody into Canaan to know if it was a country really worth
having.
Accordingly Moses chose a man out of every tribe ; and, as there were
twelve tribes, so of course there were twelve men sent as spies to see the
land. I must tell you that a spy means a person who goes slyly to look at
an enemy's army or country ; for had it been known that these men were in
Canaan to see if it was worth taking, and likely to be conquered, the
Canaanites would soon have killed them, and the Israelites would have
been no wiser for their journey.
"And Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said unto
them, Get you up this way southward, and go up into the mountain : and
see the land, what it is ; and the people that dwelleth therein, whether they
be strong or weak, few or many ; and what the land is that they dwell in,
whether it be good or bad ; and what cities they be that they dwell in,
whether in tents or in strongholds ; and what the land is, whether it be fat
Numbers,
183
or lean, whether there be wood therein or not : and be ye of good courage,
and bring of the fruit of the land."
So the spies went all through the land from the south to the north. It
is thought that they did not all go together ; for then the Canaanites would
have suspected them : but they went in several companies of two or three
each, and so they passed very well for travellers.
"And they came unto the brook of Eshcol, and cut down from thence a
branch with one cluster of grapes,
and they bare it between two upon
a staff; and they brought of the
pomegranates and the figs." A
traveller, who lived not many
years ago, tells us that he saw
grapes in the valley of Eshcol, the
clusters of which weighed ten or
twelve pounds, and another saw
bunches at Damascus that weighed
forty-five pounds. These grapes
might be too large for one man to
carry a great way in a warm coun-
try, or they might have been so ripe
that they were liable to be bruised
to pieces if squeezed in the hands, and so they were carried hanging upon a
staff, one end of which was on the shoulders of one man, and the other end
on the shoulders of another man, just as we sometimes see burdens carried
between two men.
The spies also brought pomegranates. This is a fine fruit, which, grows
in the country which the spies visited, then called Canaan, and now more
commonly known by the name of Palestine. The pomegranate bears a red
blossom like a rose, is about the size of a large apple, and, being full of
juice, is very pleasant, and valuable in a hot country for quenching the
thirst. This fruit being considered handsome in shape, part of the orna-
ments of the high priest's robes were made like it. (Exodus xxviii. 34.)
" The spies returned from searching of the land, after forty days," and
then they said to Moses, " We came unto the land whither thou sentest us,
and surely it floweth with milk and honey ; and this is the fruit of it,"
showing him the fine grapes, and the pomegranates, and the figs. Well,
then, so far they found that what God had told them by the lips of Moses
GRAPES OF ESHCOL.
184 Bible and Commentator.
was quite true. Surely then they were ready to go and take the land.
No; these cowardly spies went on to say, "Nevertheless, the people be
strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled and very great :
and, moreover, we saw the children of Anak there." "And they brought
up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of
Israel, saying, The land through which we have gone to search it, is a land
that eateth up the inhabitants thereof ; and all the people that we saw in it
are men of great stature. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak,
which come of the giants ; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers,
and so we were in their sight." This was a very alarming story, and
frightened the Israelites. They began to think how can we ever take such
a country, where the people are so strong,— so well protected, in towns with
thick and high walls all around their cities, — so tall that we are only little
things by their side, — and where the land is the grave of the inhabitants,
and eats them up, as the
grave seems to swallow up
the dead body that is shut
up in it, the people dying in
great numbers by war and
pestilence ?
Caleb, the spy of the tribe
of Judah, gave, however, a
very different account of the
country ; he " stilled the
people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once and possess it ; for we
are well able to overcome it."
And Joshua the son of Nun, who had been the spy of the tribe of
Ephraim, and Caleb, rent their clothes, which the Jews always did in great
trouble ; "And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel,
saying, the land which we passed through to search it is an exceeding good
land. If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and
give it us : a land which floweth with milk and honey. Only rebel not ye
against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land ; for they are bread
for us," as easily to be consumed as bread is by eating ; " their defence is
departed from them," for God would not protect them as they were so very
wicked a people, " and the Lord is with us : fear them not."
Now this was very kind and encouraging language ; but, instead of
taking it as they ought, what do you think the people were about to do ?
POMEGRANATES.
Numbers. 185
Why they prepared to stone Caleb and Joshua, and would have killed
them ; but just at that moment " the glory of the Lord appeared in the
Tabernacle " before them all, and so they were afraid of being dreadfully
punished for their wickedness.
And, indeed, God resolved that he would punish them, and he said to
Moses, " I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, so that
they shall never possess the promised land, and I will make of thee a
greater nation and mightier than they."
But Moses pleaded with God. And he said that the Egyptians would
delight to learn that the people were all destroyed ; and the other wicked
nations would say that God had brought them so far, but could not take
them into the land he promised to give them ; and therefore he prayed that,
as God was very long-suffering and merciful, he would pardon the people,
as he had done before when they offended him.
So God heard the prayer of Moses, for he is a God that hears prayer, and
he did not cut the people off directly, but he told him that none of them
should ever enjoy the promised land, since they were so mistrustful of him,
and only Caleb and Joshua, of the whole of them, should have possessions
in it ; but having given a true report of the land, and trusted him to help
them to take it, they should have the honor and happiness which the rest
deserved never to enjoy.
And Moses and Aaron were commanded of the Lord to <tell the people,
" Your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness, and all that were numbered of
you" — that is, when the people were numbered — "according to your whole
number, from twenty years old and upwards, which have murmured against
me." And they were also to tell them, that Caleb and Joshua were not to
die in the wilderness, and that the young Israelites should remain Avandering
about in the wilderness for forty years, till all their fathers were dead ; that
is, as many years as the spies were days searching out the land ; so that
they would always remember why it was that God kept them so long in the
wilderness, because their fathers would not trust his word, and were afraid,
on the report of the spies, of going into the land of Canaan.
And that the people might see that God would keep his word, he instantly
punished the ten spies, who gave so ill a report of the promised land ; for
" they died by the plague before the Lord."
The next morning, after the people had heard the news, they resolved to
go and take the land. But God had told them that they should not. Moses
tried to reason with them, and to stop them, and he told them that now
186 Bible and Commentator.
they could not prosper : " Go not up," said Moses, " for the Lord is not
among you ; that ye be not smitten before your enemies."
But away the obstinate people marched up the mountain, by the way
which the spies had before gone, and " the Amalekites came down, and the
Canaanites, which dwelt in that hill, and smote them, and discomfited them."
Korah, Dathan, and Abiram swallowed up.
Numbers xvi.
MOSES, you know, was appointed to be the leader of Israel, and
Aaron, his brother, to be the high priest. The tribe of Levi were
to perform different services about the Tabernacle, such as preparing the
sacrifices, cleansing the vessels, and many other things, mentioned when we
noticed the Tabernacle, its furniture, and priests. It seems, however, that
some of these did not like that they should do such things, while Moses and
Aaron were placed above them.
So one Korah said all the ill-natured things that he could against Moses,
and he got Dathan and Abiram, who were some chiefs of the tribe of Reuben,
to join him, and to rebel against the authority of Moses and Aaron. Then
they got two hundred and fifty princes of the tribes to join them, who,
probably, being princes or chiefs, were the first-born, and, before Aaron was
raised to be high priest, might probably have been priests themselves, as
the first-born then were, but after that they were so no longer. And these
told Moses and Aaron that they took too much upon them ; for all the
congregation were as holy as they, and had an equal right to their honors.
So Moses fell on his face, no doubt to pray to God, and Moses then told
them to wait till the next day, and then, if Korah and the other rebels
would take censers, or pans in which incense is burned, and offer incense
before the Lord, they would see whom the Lord approved.
"And Moses said unto Korah, Be thou and all thy company before the
Lord, thou and they, and Aaron to-morrow : and take every man his censer,
and put incense in them, and bring ye before the Lord every man his censer,
two hundred and fifty censers ; thou also, and Aaron, each of you his censer."
So Korah and his party presumed to do so, and boldly stood in the door
of the Tabernacle with Moses and Aaron.
And God's glory appeared. And God ordered Moses and Aaron to get
out of the way, and he would destroy all the congregation in a moment.
Numbers. 187
And Moses and Aaron, instead of feeling glad that God would so punish
them, did not wish to be revenged, but fell on their faces and prayed to God
for them, and asked that, as they had been misled by Korah, Dathan, and
Abiram, who were therefore chiefly in fault, that God would spare them.
So God heard their prayer. And he desired them to tell the congregation
to come away from about the tents of the rebels, and have nothing to do
with them, lest they should be destroyed with those wicked men.
So the congregation " got up from the tabernacle of Korah, Dathan, and
Abiram, on every side, and Dathan and Abiram came out," as if to dare
Moses and Aaron, and God, by impudently standing alone, and waiting to
see what could be done against them ; " and stood in the door of their tents,
and their wives, and their sons, and their little children."
. Then Moses told the people that, if the chief rebels died a common death,
God had not sent him ; but, if the earth should suddenly swallow them up,
then they would see that they had provoked God, or caused God to act as
men do when provoked, and to punish his enemies ; for God cannot be
provoked as men are.
No sooner had Moses done speaking than they were all swallowed up,
and all that they had. "And all Israel, that were round about them, fled
at the cry of them ; for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also."
Not only did Korah, Dathan, and Abiram perish, but also " there came
out a fire from the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that
offered incense. "
Then " the Lord ordered Moses to tell Eleazar, the son of Aaron, to pick
up the brass censers of the dead men, to throw away the incense, as a token
that he rejected their prayers, — incense having been used to represent the
sweet breath of prayer rising to heaven, — and to make of the censers a
covering for the altar, by having them beaten out flat and thin. There was,
indeed, then a covering of brass on the altar, which, as it was made of
wood, needed that to protect it from the heat of the fire that was continually
burning on it ; but these censers, beaten out and put again upon the brass,
would make the altar still more secure from injury, and this covering would
ever serve to remind the Levites how wicked it was for those to dare to
become priests whom God had not appointed to be so, and what a dreadful
end would be likely to befall them who would dare to burn incense when he
had not ordered them.
And now you will be astonished to learn, that after these things — and
how long after, do you think ? why only on the next day — "All the congre-
Numbers. 189
gation of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying, Ye
have killed the people of the Lord." They charged Moses and Aaron with
killing the rebels, when God had done it before their eyes ; and they called
them the people of the Lord, when they had, by their wickedness, cut
themselves off from him.
So the glory of the Lord immediately appeared in the cloud over the
Tabernacle ; for God heard all that this sinful people said, — "And the Lord
spake unto Moses, saying, Get you up from among this congregation that I
may consume them as in a moment : and they fell upon their faces," to
humble themselves, and to pray for the people.
It was very kind in Moses and Aaron to pray for people that behaved so
badly to them, and so Christ teaches us to pray for our enemies, for all
those who treat us with spite.
But the punishment had begun. The plague had seized them; and
Moses, perhaps, having heard the people crying out in great distress, looked
up, and saw them dying in all parts. So he hurried Aaron away for his
censer with holy fire, which he was to take from the altar, and desired him
to run in among the people, and burn incense, and make an atonement for
their sins ; , " and he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague
was stayed." But so shocking an oifence against God had caused the death
of no fewer than fourteen thousand seven hundred, besides those that died
the day before.
The Wonderful Budding of Aaron's Rod.
Numbers xvn. 8.
TOU may, perhaps, have seen some persons of different sorts of author-
ity, walking with long staves, peeled white, or painted, or gilt ;
something of the kind was in use among the princes or chiefs of the tribes
of Israel ; you know there were twelve tribes, and so among them there
were twelve rods belonging to their twelve princes.
"Well, God told Moses that he would now work a miracle ; that is to say,
he would do something so out of the usual order of things, that he would
so strongly convince Israel that he had chosen Aaron for his priest, that
they should rebel no more on that account.
So he ordered Moses to get the twelve rods of the tribes, which were
merely twelve dry sticks, and " to lay them up in the tabernacle of the con-
gregation before the testimony," meaning the ark, in which the testimony or
190 Bible and Commentator.
tables of the law were kept, and that man whose rod should blossom should
be his priest.
Now the rod of the tribe of Levi was marked with Aaron's name ; and,
after the rods had been laid up for a night, on the morrow Moses went into
the Tabernacle, and " behold the rod of Aaron, for the house of Levi, was
budded, and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded
almonds." This was wonderful — wonderful that a dry stick should bud,
and still more wonderful that the same rod should bear buds, and blossoms,
and fruit at the same time !
Then Moses brought out all the rods which all the princes took, as they
could easily know their own by having their names on them, and Aaron's
wonderful rod was shown to the people. When they saw this rod, they
were sadly frightened, and feared that they were all going to be punished
with death, for having rebelled so against God, who now more plainly than
ever gave honor to Aaron. God, however, did not punish them any
further; but the rod was preserved in the ark for ages, still with its buds
and blossoms and fruit, and there it remained in remembrance of the re-
bellion of Israel, and of God's choosing Aaron.
Provisions for the Priests and Levites.
Numbers xviii.
GOD having fixed Aaron in his office, and now showed to all the people
that he would have him for his high priest to atone for the people,
he gave him very solemn orders to do his work, and for the Levites to do
theirs. And he told Aaron that he and his sons should " bear the iniquity
of the sanctuary," that is, the blame of neglect should fall upon them if
anything was done to defile it and offend God there ; so that they were
obliged to look carefully after everything that was done by the Levites, as
well as what they did themselves.
And then he provided comfortably for the priests from the different
sacrifices ; the parts not burnt with fire, and offered to the Lord, were to be
theirs ; and the best of the wine, and the oil, and the wheat ; and the first
ripe fruits of the land, such as figs, and apples, and plums, and pears, and
pomegranates, and olives, and grapes. So were also the first-born of every
animal, and even the first-born child was redeemed, or a sum of money
given to the priest for him. Besides which they had thirteen cities to live
Numbers.
191
in, with houses and lands, and gardens and fields. (See the twenty-first
chapter of Joshua.) The priests had also many other like means of support.
But Aaron had no inheritance in the land of Canaan when it was afterwards
divided among the tribes ; he was to have only the portion just described.
The Levites also were provided for. They were to have one part out of
ten of all that the ground brought forth — that is, if there were ten bushels
on a man's ground, he was to give one bushel to the Levites, whether
barley, wheat, or any other grain. While employed in the Temple, they
had provisions from its stores, and they were further allowed thirty-five
cities to live in.
Thus God showed that he would have his ministers to keep to their
work and be faithful to their duty, and that he would have them com-
fortably taken care of while they served him.
The Red Heifer:
Numbers xix.
THERE were a great many customs, under the law, to explain which
would take up too much room in this work. But not a few of them
were meant to show us, as in a glass, that we are sinners in the sight of
God, and that, as sin is a defil-
ing thing, we must not only be
pardoned, but also purified.
The law of the red heifer was
of this kind. You may read
the whole of it from the second
to the tenth verse.
The heifer, you know, is a
young cow. This animal was
to be red, which, being a scarce
color, was the most precious.
It was to have no spot, a sign
of purity. It was to be slain
without the camp, as though it
were impure ; for impure things were carried without the camp. The blood
was to be sprinkled before the door of the Tabernacle, to have the virtue
of a sacrifice, and, by being sprinkled seven times, it meant a perfect sacrifice ;
THE BED HEIFER.
192 Bible and Commentator.
for seven times was the number of the days in which God made all things,
and was always considered, on that account, as a sign of perfection. This
heifer was also wholly burnt, and the ashes were to be laid up for the use
of the congregation, as they might be needed, to mix with the water of
purification, when any one who was defiled needed cleansing.
I must here repeat a passage I named to you before, which is in the
Epistle to the Hebrews, and which at once shows you the meaning of all
this ceremony : " For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an
heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how
much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered
himself, without spot, to God, purge your conscience from dead works to
serve the living God."
Here, then, you see, that the " heifer " was meant to signify Jesus Christ ;
the burning of the heifer showed the cruel death of Jesus Christ; the
unclean was meant to signify the sinner ; and the sprinkling of the unclean
with the water mixed with the ashes of the heifer, the applying of the
benefits of Christ's precious blood, to take away the defilement of the soul
by sin.
Moses Smites a Second Rock for Water.
Numbers xx. 1-13.
THE waters out of the rock of Eephidim, of which you read in the
seventeenth chapter of Exodus, had hitherto followed Israel in a
stream through the wilderness. They were now stopped, perhaps to try
if the new race of Israelites would show a better spirit than their fathers
did under the like difficulty; for their fathers were nearly all dead, as God
had threatened, and this was now the fortieth year of their travels about
the wilderness.
However, just as their fathers murmured, so did these children of Israel ;
and they gathered themselves together against Moses and Aaron. And
the people chode with Moses, or quarrelled with him, and spake, saying,
" Would God that we had died when our brethren died before the Lord ; "
for they thought it a much easier death to die as those did who were
probably killed by lightning, or those fourteen thousand seven hundred,
who died by pestilence, than it was to die of fatigue and thirst.
Moses and Aaron humbled themselves before God, and prayed to him as
they had often done at other times.
NUMBfES. 193
In answer to their prayer, the Lord again appeared in the cloud. And
Moses was ordered to take his rod and to speak to the rock, which, as God
commanded it by Moses, should obey its Creator, and give the people water.
So Moses called the people before the rock, and he said unto them,
" Hear now, ye rebels ; must we fetch you water out of this rock ? "
Do not you see that Moses said what was very wrong here ? He said,
" Must we fetch you water out of this rock ? " as though he and Aaron
could do it without God's order. How foolish, and humbled, and disgraced
he would have been, if God had let him smite the rock in vain ! God did
not, however, disappoint him ; he gave the water as he had promised, but
he said, " Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me," or set apart and
show my honor, before " the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye
shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them."
In this chapter we learn that Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron,
died at Kadesh.
And Aaron being stripped of his garments, which were given to his son
Eleazar, at the command of God, went up with Moses to the top of Mount
Hor, where he died; for God said, "Aaron shall be gathered unto his
people ; for he shall not enter into the land which I have given unto the
children of Israel, because ye rebelled against my word at the water of
Meribah."
"And when all the congregation saw that Aaron was dead, they mourned
for Aaron thirty days, even all the house of Israel."
The Brazen Serpent.
Numbers xxi. 4-9.
~TT7"E find Israel again murmuring about having neither bread nor
* ▼ water, and they seemed never to trust in God but just at the
moment when they saw his miracles. This was very wicked ; for he had
promised to take care of them, and they ought to have believed his word.
The Lord did not now kill the people by lightning, or pestilence, or the
sword of their enemies ; but he showed that he could do it by many ways,
if they continued to rebel against him.
"And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the
people ; and much people of Israel died : " that is, he sent serpents, whose
bite was like fire, making a similar wound for pain with that which a
13
194 Bible and Commentator.
burning coal would make. Serpents of this sort are still found in those
parts ; but God doubtless made a great many more than usual, to bite this
murmuring congregation. And this was a punishment that taught them to
see and remember that it was for their crime ; for, as they had murmured
about water, the burning bites of these animals caused the most cruel thirst,
and, without very speedy help, all that were bitten of them must die, so
you find great numbers did perish.
Then the people repented and prayed. "And the Lord said unto Moses,
Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole ; and it shall come to pass
that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it shall live."
This was an odd remedy ; but it would try the sincerity of the repentance
and faith of the people ; it would show if they were now ready to trust
God by looking at it, and, if they were cured, they would know that God
had sent the fiery serpents, and that the cure was not done by the serpent,
but by him.
This serpent had, hoAvever, a very important meaning concealed under it,
and was a sign of the salvation which a poor sinner obtains who looks in
his mind, or by faith, as it is called, to Jesus Christ, who is given to be the
Saviour of sinners. The soul is bitten, as it were, by the serpent sin, and,
if not cured, it must perish forever; but Jesus Christ said, "As Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be
lifted up : that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have
everlasting life."
Balaam and his Ass.
Numbers xxii.
THE Israelites now pitched their tents " in the plains of Moab." And
as the Amorites had been conquered by them, and King Og and his
sons, and all his people slain, Balak the king of Moab was terribly fright-
ened, and the Moabites thought that the Israelites would "lick" them all
up, or destroy them as easily as the ox does the grass in the field.
So what did Balak do, but sent to Balaam, a Midianite prophet, who lived
at a place called Pethor. This man pretended to divine, or to know secret
things, and it was thought could, by cursing anybody, do him he cursed
great harm. However, as he did nothing without money, the king sent
some to him b}' the elders or princes of Moab and of Midian.
If this man had cursed Israel, he could have done them no harm ; but
Numbers
195
God was so tender of the honor of his people, that he would not allow him
even to do this in appearance, and he made him hesitate in his mind what
to do.
So Balaam begged the messengers to wait for a night and lodge with
him ; and then God said to Balaam, perhaps in a dream, " Thou shalt not
curse the people, for they are blessed."
And in the morning, Balaam told the princes of Balak that God would
not let him go ; and they went and told the king that Balaam refused to go
with them to curse Israel.
Now, as Balaam did not tell the princes that he was not permitted by the
Lord to curse Israel, but only that the Lord refused to let him go to Balak,
and as the princes told Balak nothing about God's interference, but only
that Balaam would not go, the king thought he would try Balaam again.
Perhaps, had he known that Israel's renowned God had interfered, he would
have been afraid to try any more.
And now he fancied that, perhaps, he had not paid respect enough to
Balaam. So he sent some princes to him, higher in rank than the first, and
they told Balaam that if he would curse Israel he should be promoted to
great honor. Balaam, however, said, that if Balak would give him a house
full of silver and gold, he could only do what God should bid him. So he
begged them to stop for a night, as he did the former messengers, that he
might again know what he should do.
196 Bible and Commentator.
Now Balaam was not a good man, but " loved the wages of unrighteous-
ness/' and would have been glad to have had Balak's offered honors and
money ; but you see how God has the hearts of all men in his hand, and
Balaam could do nothing to hurt, or even cast seeming disgrace upon Israel,
without God's permission.
When the morning was come, God told him to go with the messengers,
and so he saddled his ass and rode off. In this country it is not usual for
rich people to ride upon asses, but in those times and in the countries
spoken of there were beautiful asses, on which the most distinguished
persons rode.
Nothing could be more plain than that Balaam wished to go to Balak
and to get his rewards, or he would not have delayed the messengers a
second time, when he remembered what God had before told him ; and
though God told him to go if the men called him, yet he went without
being called, which proved that he was quite ready to find any way to get
out of his restraint.
So " God's anger was kindled " because Balaam went ; " and the Angel
of the Lord stood in the way for an adversary against him."
An angel is a spirit, and has not flesh and blood as we have. In those
times the angels of the Lord often appeared for Israel, but God does not
interfere for his people in the same way now, though his care is still shown
towards them. Neither Balaam nor his two servants that were with him
saw the Angel. But we read, "And the ass saw the Angel of the Lord
standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand ; and the ass turned
aside out of the way, and went into the field ; and Balaam smote the ass, to
turn her into the way. But the Angel of the Lord stood in a path of the
vineyards, a wall being on this side, and a wall on that side," so that there
was no going out into the field, as before, to avoid the Angel, with a stone
wall on each side of the path. "And when the ass saw the Angel of the
Lord, she thrust herself unto the wall, and crushed Balaam's foot against
the wall : and he smote her again. And the Angel of the Lord went
further, and stood in a narrow place, where was no way to turn, either to
the right hand or to the left." And when the ass saw the Angel of the
Lord once more, " she fell down under Balaam, and Balaam's anger was
kindled, and he smote the ass with a staff. And the Lord opened the
mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee,
that thou hast smitten me these three times ? And Balaam said unto the
ass, Because thou hast mocked me : I would there were a sword in mine
IDOLS IN HIGH PLACES,
197
198 Bible and Commentator.
hand, for now would I kill thee. And the ass said unto Balaam, Am not
I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this
day ? was I ever wont to do so unto thee ? And he said, Nay. Then the
Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the Angel of the Lord
standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand ; and he bowed
down his head, and fell flat on his face." And then the Angel said to him
the words recorded in the twenty-second and twenty-third verses of this
chapter.
There are two wonderful things here, besides the appearance of the
Angel : that the ass should see the Angel when Balaam could not, and that
a creature made without the power to speak should open his mouth and
reprove Balaam. But the Lord, who afterwards opened the eyes of
Balaam, could as easily open the eyes of the ass ; and as the ass did not
speak of himself, which would, indeed, have puzzled us, but only as the
Lord opened his mouth, we know that " with God all things are possible."
After the Angel had reproved Balaam, he was sorry that he had beaten
the ass, and offered to go back again, if the Angel wished.
However, seeing that Balaam had evidently a great longing to go, he said
he might, but he was to take care what he said. " So Balaam went with
the princes of Balak."
As soon as Balak heard that Balaam was come, he went out to meet him,
being both eager to see him and desirous of paying him honor ; however,
Balaam told him that he could say nothing but what God should permit.
And then Balak offered oxen and sheep in sacrifice to his idols, that he
might be successful in cursing Israel ; and on the day following he took
Balaam into the high places of Baal, where altars were built to the idol so
named, and where, from a great height, he might see all the people of Israel,
as they were encamped beneath, and so pronounce a curse against them.
Balak disappointed in cursing Israel.
Numbers xxiii., xxiv.
~TTT"HEN Balak and Balaam got upon the high places, Balaam desired
V V Balak to build him seven altars, and prepare him seven oxen and
seven rams. And he told Balak to wait by his sacrifice while he went alone
to another high place, to see if God would say anything more to him.
And there God met Balaam in some wonderful way, and Balaam boasted
Numbers. 199
that he had now built his altars, and offered his sacrifices, not to idols, but
to God himself. But " the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the
Lord," and he could still get no leave to curse Israel, for though he would
have been glad to please Balak, yet God put a restraint upon his spirit and
his mouth, and he was obliged to speak what God told him.
So he went back to Balak and took up his parable or speech, and he said,
" How shall I curse whom God hath not cursed ? " And then he foretold
that the people should "dwell alone," and the Jews have been a race
separate from all other people to this day, though it was more than three
thousand years ago when Balaam spoke the prophecy. And he said that
their numbers should be very great, which came to pass ; and he told of their
happiness, and no people on the face of the earth had more reason to be
happy, as long as they serve God with all their heart.
Then Balak was very angry and said unto Balaam, " What hast thou
done unto me ? I took thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast
blessed them altogether."
However, he thought he would try another place, where Balaam would
see only a small part of the people, and that perhaps he would then think
less of them.
"And he brought him into the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, and
built seven altars, and offered," as he had done before. Then Balaam
retired again, to see if God would speak to him. And on his return, Balak
asked him about what he had heard. And he said to Balak, " Behold, I
have received commandment to bless; and he (God) hath blessed, and I
cannot reverse it." He told him God could not lie or change ; that he saw
no iniquity in his people Israel, meaning not any that he would punish by
cursing them, for God often saw iniquity in them, and chastised them for it.
He assured him that God was with his people Israel, and that as their king,
he was stronger than any of their enemies; that his strength, as compared
with that of all other rulers, was like that of the unicorn, or one-horned
rhinoceros, the strongest of beasts, and that no schemes of Balak could harm
Israel; and that, as a courageous lion would eat of his prey, and drink the
blood of the slain, so Israel should beat all their enemies.
Balak, still more vexed than before, then cried out, "Neither curse them
at all, nor bless them at all."
Yet he wished to try once more if Balaam could not get leave to curse
Israel, and so he took him to the top of Peor, a high mountain in Moab, ,
and sacrificed again as before.
200 Bible and Commentator.
But Balaam saw that all his enchantments were useless, and he waited
on the spot to see what God would now do.
And the Spirit of God came upon him, and opened the eyes of his mind,
and he prophesied about Israel. And he foretold their prosperity, by com-
paring them to well-watered gardens by the water side, and to a flourishing
tree, which grew tall, with large leaves at the top, and that without a gar-
dener's aid, the providence of God alone making it grow ; and also to cedar
trees, which were famous for height and grandeur.
He said also, that Israel should pour water out of his buckets, by which
he meant again, that the nation should flourish, as this was a way of water-
ing the land to make its fruits grow ; and he spoke of the chief of Israel
becoming higher and greater than Agag, the king of the Amalekites, who
was then one of the greatest kings in the world. And he further spoke as
before, about their overcoming their enemies, like as a lion overcomes his
prey.
Then Balak could no longer contain his anger, " and he smote his hands
together ; " and he " said unto Balaam, I called thee to curse mine enemies,
and, behold, thou hast altogether blessed them these last three times."
And he sent Balaam away. Balaam, however, stopped to go on with his
prophecy, and he foretold the distant conquest of Moab and Edom, and the
ruin of Amalek, and the wasting of the Kenites, and other great events
that should take place, and did happen in after times, as God had told him.
Thus you see how God protected Israel from the malice and craft of their
enemies, and would not suffer them to receive any harm.
Various Events a little before the Death of Moses.
Numbers xxv.-xxxvi.
~TT"T"E shall now pass on to the end of Numbers, and merely glance, as
V V we pass, at what the other chapters contain.
In the twenty-fifth , we find Israel drawn aside to commit idolatry with
the Moabites.
And God ordered Moses to hang all the ringleaders, and the judges to
slay all the rest of the offenders. And a plague broke out in the camp, and
slew twenty-four thousand persons. These probably had some hand in the
business, by consenting or counselling the other offenders, and so God
visited them also.
Numbers. 201
Some think there is reason to believe that Balaam advised the Moabites
to propose marriages with the Israelites, and as it was against the command
of God that such marriages should take place, the Israelites that were guilty
of breaking his commandment did very wickedly. And this was a wise
command ; for, supposing your parents were divided in opinion, and one
worshipped God, and the other were stupid enough to worship the ugly
idols worshipped by the Hindoos, perhaps you would be in danger of being
taught to worship them, and so you would be ruined by God's displeasure,
as well as your parents. Besides, those that love God truly can never agree
to live all their days with those that show they hate him.
One Zimri, the son of a chief, had, as some think, married a Midianitish
princess, who worshipped the false gods of Moab, and he had the audacity
to take her to his tent in the presence of the people, who were weeping
before God on account of the sins which their brethren had committed.
Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the priest, and grandson of Aaron, seeing
this audacious act of breaking God's law, instantly acted as magistrate on
this occasion, and put God's commandment into execution, by putting the
criminal and the princess to death. As this was not an act of private re-
venge, which would have been murder, but zeal for God's glory, and in
obedience to his law, God was pleased with Phinehas, and promised to
bless him for what he had done ; and, on account of it, he stayed the
plague.
As God had punished the Israelites, he visited also the Midianites, and
commanded Moses to smite them, that they might not any more lead Israel
astray into idolatry.
And God ordered Moses and Eleazar to number the people of Israel ; and
they found that they were " six hundred thousand, and a thousand seven
hundred and thirty," that is, as we should say, six hundred and one
thousand seven hundred and thirty, who were twenty years old and upwards ;
all fit for war, besides twenty-three thousand Levites for the service of the
Temple.
" But among these, there was not a man of them whom Moses and Aaron
the priest numbered, when they numbered the children of Israel in the
wilderness of Sinai : for the Lord had said of them, They shall surely die
in the wilderness. And there was not left a man of them, save Caleb the
son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun."
See how God fulfils his threatenings against sinners. You remember
that all those that were numbered at Mount Sinai, the first year after Israel
202
Bible and Commentator.
came out of Egypt, rebelled against God ; and he declared that they should
wander in the wilderness, but never enter Canaan, and so it came to pass.
O then let us obey his com-
mands, lest he swear in his
wrath that we shall never
enter into his rest.
This numbering is related
in the twenty-sixth chapter.
In the twenty-seventh, we
have a brief account of the
five daughters of Zelophehad,
whose father having died in
the wilderness, and left no
son, were unprovided for in
the promised land of Canaan,
and they asked permission to
take his share, that his name
might not be blotted out, and
forgotten; and in so doing
they showed that they firmly
believed in what God had
said by his servants — that he
would give Canaan to Israel.
So God granted them their
request ; and ever after it was
a law in Israel, that if a man
died and had no son, then his
daughter came in for the in-
heritance.
In this chapter we also
learn that God told Moses to
prepare for death. He was to
go up to "Mount Abarim
and see the land," which God
had given to Israel, but he
MOSES. " & 7
was never to enter it, for you
remember that he offended God, by his anger and haughtiness, when he
smote the rock at Meribah. It was, however, a favor to see the land, and
Numbers. 203
though he was shut out of that, as he had been a faithful servant of God,
he would not be shut out forever from the presence and favor of God,
which was a better portion than the earthly Canaan.
Moses, still concerned for Israel, now prayed God to appoint another
captain, who should still lead them in safety ; and God put his spirit in
Joshua, and Moses at his command appointed him to be leader before all
the people.
As the people were now a new generation, Moses was commanded to
repeat to them all the laws about making offerings and feasts ; and these
are therefore given again, in the twenty-eighth and twenty -ninth chapters ;
and in the thirtieth chapter are laws to be observed in making vows or
promises of anything to be given to God.
In the chapter following, Moses, at God's command, makes war upon the
Midianites, by sending out a thousand men of every tribe against them, that
is to say, twelve thousand men ; and Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the priest,
went to the war with the holy instruments, and the trumpets to blow, in
his hand.
And they slew all the men, and five kings of Midian, and Balaam the
prophet, who was there. And they took the women and children prisoners,
and also all their cattle and goods.
And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the, princes of the congrega-
tion of Israel, went out to meet the conquerors on their return ; but when
Moses saw they had brought the women with them, " he was wroth with
the officers of the host," for through the counsel of Balaam, the women had
before caused Israel to sin, and drawn them aside to idolatry.
So Moses ordered every boy and every woman to be put to death, but the
female children, and the metals, with everything that passes through fire to
be purified, were preserved.
This seemed very severe ; but God commanded Moses, and " shall not
the Judge of all the earth do right?" The women, had they lived, would
have made Israel to sin ; and the boys, had they grown up to be men,
would have avenged the deaths of their wicked fathers and mothers ; and
so God had them slain.
Then God commanded a tribute to be paid to him, out of the prey taken
by the conquerors. And well might they make him an offering of thanks-
giving ; for on mustering the men, not one man was lacking, or had been
lost, though a whole nation had been so completely beaten, and all their
cities destroyed.
204
Bible and Commentator,
And the officers collected jewels and gold, to the amount of nearly eight
thousand ounces ; and Moses and Eleazar laid them up in the Tabernacle,
as a memorial, " or remembrance, for the children of Israel before the
Lord." So ought we always to bear in mind God's kindness towards us,
and our merciful escapes from danger.
In the thirty-second chapter we have an account of the first settlement
made by the Israelites, after their long journey through the wilderness.
The tents of Israel were now pitched in the plains of Moab, where they had
been for some months. The land of Sihon, king of the Amorites, and of
Og, king of Bashan, re-
mained unoccupied,
though conquered b y
Israel. These lands were
fine pasture lands for cat-
tle, and as the children
of Reuben and Gad had
a very great multitude
of cattle, they asked
leave of Moses to possess
them, instead of having
any share in Canaan, or
the other side of Jordan.
Moses suspected that
they were indolent and cowardly, and wanted to escape any danger in
conquering Canaan, so he reproved them, and told them how God had
punished their fathers for such a spirit. But they assured him that he had
mistaken their intentions, for all they wanted Avas to leave their little ones,
and their wives, and their flocks, and their cattle, and they were ready to
go themselves and assist their brethren in getting their possessions. So
when Moses saw that their designs were good, he gave them what they
wished, on their promising to do as they had said.
"And Moses gave unto them, even to the children of Gad, and to the
children of Reuben, and unto half the tribe of Manasseh the son of Joseph,
the kingdom of Sihon, king of the Amorites, and the kingdom of Og, king
of Bashan, the land with the cities thereof, in the coasts, even the cities of
the country round about." And they built sheep-folds for their cattle, and
they rebuilt the cities which were in a ruinous state from the wars ; and in
this way a part of Israel lived out of Canaan, on the other side Jordan.
ERECTING A TENT IN THE EAST.
Numbee^. 205
In the thirty-third chapter is a history of the removals and encampments
of the children of Israel, from the time they left Egypt till they entered
into Canaan, forty-two in all, and the chapter ends with a command from
God to Moses, to tell the children of Israel to destroy all the idolatrous
people of Canaan, and take possession of their land.
In the thirty-fourth chapter God marks out the limits of the promised
land.
In the thirty -fifth the children are commanded not to forget to give a
possession to the Levites, who were their ministers to perform religious
service. These w^ere to have forty-eight cities, six of which were to be cities
of refuge, wliere any person who had accidentally killed another might flee,
to escape being slain, and to have a fair trial of his guilt or innocence.
For if any man killed another, the nearest relation of the person who was
killed pursued the murderer and put him to death. If, then, a man knew
that upon trial he could prove that he had not wilfully killed the person whose
life he had unfortunately happened to take away, he could hasten to the City
of Refuge ; but if he did not, and the avenger of blood overtook him, his
blood was upon his own head, because he had neglected to save himself as
God had appointed. The meaning of this we shall soon explain to you.
The thirty-sixth chapter settles something more about the daughters of
Zelophehad, that they should marry only in the tribe- of Manasseh, to which
they belonged, so that their inheritance should not go from their father's
family into any other tribe.
Thus ends the book of Numbers, containing some most interesting accounts
of the perverseness of the Israelites, and the faithfulness and goodness of
God towards that wonderful nation.
Deuteronomy.
This title means: "the Law a second time,*' or "the Law rehearsed;" and it Las this name because in it Moses
rehearses to the young Israelites who were soon to enter Canaan, the Law given oh Mount Sinai amid such terror
and solemnity. Their fathers who had witnessed the giving of the Law had all died in the wilderness, and the
new generation must be taught to obey it, as well as the ceremonial law. The book has thirty-four chapters.
OSES repeats in this book the laws which God had before
given ; for the old Israelites, to whom they were first spoken,
were all dead in the wilderness, and as the young Israelites
were now about to have Canaan, they were to be taught what
God expected from them if they were allowed to possess it.
Laws for the Israelites, about Cities of Refuge— Holy Scriptures-
cruel Idol Moloch— Conjurers— Landmarks.
The
Deuteronomy i.-xxviii.
IN the first chapters of this book Moses told the Israelites how that God
had told them to go and possess the land of Canaan, and how they had
murmured when ten, out of the twelve spies, brought them a bad report
of the land, and how that God said, " Surely there shall not one of these
men of this evil generation see that good land, which I sware (or promised)
to give unto your fathers, save Caleb, the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it;
and to him will I give the land that he hath trodden upon, and to his
children, because he hath wholly followed the Lord." And that the
Amorites chased them as bees, and destroyed them for being disobedient to
God. And then he told them the story of the Edomites, and of Og, the
king of Bashan ; and of Sihon, the king of the Amorites ; and about their
first conquests, and their being given to the Eeubenites, and the Gadites,
and the half-tribe of Manasseh. And also, how God had chosen Joshua to
be their leader in Canaan. You can read all these things in the first three
2J0Q
Deuteeonomy. 207
chapters of Deuteronomy ; they are very interesting, and will refresh your
memory ; they may properly be called An Abridgment of the Travels of the
Israelites in the Wilderness.
There is one thing which Moses mentions, and which is not before
noticed. It is the bedstead of Og, the king of Bashan, from which it is
guessed what a big man he must have been. You read of it in the third
chapter. " For only Og, king of Bashan, remained of the remnant of the
giants ; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron : is it not in Rabbath
of the children of Ammon ? " Rabbath was a city in which the kings of
the Ammonites lived. " Nine cubits was the length thereof," that is, about
four yards and a half long, or more than twice as long as one of our tallest
soldiers ; " and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man," or
the measurement of a cubit from a man's elbow to the end of his little
finger, which Avould make the bedstead about two yards broad, or about the
length of a tall man. From the length of his bedstead it is supposed that
he must have been eleven feet high, which is as tall again as a common-
sized man. This was a frightful foe to meet in battle, for warriors did not
then fight at a distance with powder and ball, as they do now, but only
with spears, and bows and arrows : yet the Israelites, encouraged by their
God, slew him, and though he had sixty strong walled cities, and perhaps
many tall men in them, as the people seem to have been of large stature,
they easily took their cities too, for God was with them.
In the fourth chapter Moses strongly exhorts the people to serve God and
keep from idolatry. And then we learn that he " severed three cities on
this side of Jordan, toward the sun-rising, that the slayer might flee thither,
which should kill his neighbor unawares, and hated him not in time past ;
and that fleeing unto one of these cities he might live : namely, Bezer in
the wilderness, in the plain country of the Reuberites ; and Ramoth in
Gilead, of the Gadites ; and Golan in Bashan, of the Manassites."
The roads to these cities of refuge were always kept in good repair, that
the man-slayer might easily get to them, if he had killed any one by acci-
dent ; and there were posts, like our hand-posts at the corner of our roads,
to show the way, that no one might lose a moment by being at a stand to
know which road to take ; and on these posts were the words, in large
letters, Refuge, Refuge. The man that fled thither was tried, and if a
murderer, he was executed ; but if guilty of manslaughter, or killing a man
by accident, he lived in the city till the high priest died, when he was
allowed to go home again.
208
Bible and Commentator.
After the Israelites conquered Canaan, three other cities of refuge were
established on the west side of the Jordan — Kedesh, Shechem and Hebron.
This provision of cities of refuge is often used, both in the Old and the
New Testament, to illustrate the safety of the sinner who has fled to Christ
as a refuge from the destruction threatened by the law of God. The man-
slayer could not leave the city of refuge until the high priest died ; but
Jesus Christ, the great High Priest, ever liveth to make intercession for all
who flee to him for safety. To him, then, the trembling sinner must "flee
from the wrath to come." The way is free and open, and if we "flee for
refuge to lay hold on the hope" here set before us, we shall never perish,
_ _^=i=^_==_ but have everlasting life.
This is the meaning of the
city of refuge.
Moses goes on to repeat
the Ten Commandments,
and what happened at Sinai
when God gave them. And
he tells the people particu-
larly to love and serve God
that it may be well with
them. And he does not
forget the little children, for
he says, " These words,
which I command thee this
day, shall be in thy heart:
and thou shalt teach them
diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in
thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down
and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine
hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt
write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates." (See the sixth
chapter.)
These seem to us to be very odd commands, but they were very likely to
make the people and their children remember all about what God did for
Israel in saving them from the Egyptians, taking care of them in the
wilderness, when they served him, and bringing them to the land of
Canaan.
The Jews tied sentences of the law to their wrists, and on their foreheads,
FLEEING TO THE CITY OF REFUGE.
Deuteronomy
209
and wrote them in different parts about their houses, that they might re-
member them ; and all this was good : but Jesus blamed the Pharisees for
doing so, because they cared not about the words they wrote, but thought
that when they had done the thing that was enough; which was a great
mistake, for all this should have been done that they might really remem-
ber God's word.
All the Scripture given by God, up to that time, was written by scribes,
or persons employed to make copies for people, and these laws would have
been seen by few amongst so many, but for this way of writing the most
striking parts, that all might often read them.
Think, my dear reader, how
good is God to you ! He sends
you the whole Bible, and plenty
of copies are now printed, instead
of written, and sold cheap, so
that the poorest may have them.
It was not so, even in England,
in former days, for when laborers
were paid four cents a day, and
the price of a sheep was twenty-
five cents, a Bible sold for eighty-
five dollars; that is to say, for the
value of three hundred and forty I
sheep. This was six hundred
and fifty years ago.
"There shall not be found
among you any one that maketh moloch.
his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an
observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter
with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these
things are an abomination unto the Lord; and because of these abomina-
tions, the Lord thy God doth drive them (the Canaanites) out from before
thee."
The heathen of Canaan worshipped a fancied God, which they called
Moloch, and one part of their worship was to make two large fires, and
their priests led little children between them, and so marked them as his-
servants, as many Christians dedicate their children to God in their early
childhood, while some leave this to be done bv themselves when thev
14
210 Bible and Commentator.
grow up to be men and women. On some occasions the poor children were
put into the fire and burnt to death to please their false god, as their parents
supposed.
Charmers, which they had, were persons who pretended by certain foolish
methods to cure diseases and many other evils. The blacks, in Africa,
have bits of paper on which the priests write some words, and these the
people wear about them, and think they will save them from being drowned
or shot, and from other ills. Some, too, pretend to ask the devil about
things, which they want to find out. A wizard was a kind of conjurer,
and a necromancer one who pretended to talk with the dead.
There is another thing about which I must tell you, and which you will
go back and read about in the nineteenth chapter : " Thou shalt not remove
thy neighbor's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheri-
tance, which thou shalt inherit in the land which the Lord thy God giveth
thee to possess it."
See how particular God was that his people should be honest. The land-
mark was then a great stone, which like our stones now, that mark the
separation of counties and parishes, then served the purpose of a hedge, and
separated lands from each other. If any one was inclined to be dishonest,
he could easily remove the stone, and so by degrees get away a good deal of
his neighbor's inheritance. This was breaking the law, which said, " Thou
shalt not steal," and " Thou shalt not covet," and God therefore commanded
that it should never be done.
In the twenty-eighth chapter there is a remarkable prophecy about the
Jews, in which Moses foretells what happened to them many hundred years
afterwards. If they should disobey God and forsake him, a foreign enemy
should enter their land, which the Eomans did at last, who were then a very
fierce and powerful nation ; their country should be laid waste, and all the
fruits of it eaten up by the army of foreigners ; their cities should be
besieged, or surrounded by their foes to take them, and should fall into
their hands ; and, among other miseries, the tender and delicate woman
even should be so driven by hunger that she should eat her own child,
which really happened ; multitudes should perish, so that they should
become few in number, and when the Eomans besieged Jerusalem, there
were two millions of Jews that perished by the sword, besides those that
died from famine and disease; and, lastly, the remnant, or Jews that
remained, should be scattered into all nations ; and this, too, has come to
pass, for now they do not make a nation living by themselves, as the French,
Deuteronomy. 211
the English, the Spanish, and others ; but though they are still numerous,
they live apart, scattered among all people ; and there are some in Turkey,
in Germany, in Russia, in France, in Spain, in England, in America and
in many other countries ; a wonderful thing, which has not happened to
any other nation in the world. See how true God is to his word, and what
a dreadful thing it is to continue obstinately to sin against his commands.
All these things, and many others of a like kind, Moses wrote, and he
ordered these laws to be read to all the people at one of their solemn feasts,
once in every seven years. Kone were to be without hearing them ; for.
said he, " Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and
the stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear and that they may
learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this
law. And that their children which have not known anything, may hear,
and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as you live in the land,
whither you go over Jordan to possess it."
Moses warned of his Death— Moses's Song.
Deuteronomy xxxi.; xxxii.
THE Lord now told Moses that he soon must die, and he ordered him to
write a song or history in verse, that might remind Israel of all that God
had done for them, and warn them against the danger of forsaking him and
turning to false gods ; and this song would, by being often sung, be fixed in
the people's memories, and hand down their wonderful history from father
to son, and from generation to generation. This song is contained in
the thirty-second chapter ; a few parts you will, perhaps, want to be ex-
plained.
Moses begins by saying, " My doctrine shall drop as the rain : my speech
shall distil as the dew." What he means by this is, that what he should
say should be designed to do the people as much good as the rain and the
dew bring to the barren earth when they descend upon it.
Then he says God is a rock ; that is, God is strong as a rock is strong,
and he is immovable as a rock is immovable ; that they are safe, indeed,
that put their trust in him.
He says also, that with a tender care, like that of an eagle towards her
young ones, God had guarded Israel ; he made him ride on high or proud
places of the earth, as a conqueror on his charger ; " he made him to suck
212
Deuteronomy. 213
honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock/' meaning that in
Canaan he had given him to enjoy that abundance of honey which there
was there, and which the bees sometimes made in the rocks, in the holes of
which they formed their hives; and oil, also, which was got out of trees
found among the rocks.
But he also sings, " Jeshurun " — a name he gives to Israel — " Jeshurun
waxed fat and kicked ; " meaning that when Israel had abundance, then the
nations grew proud or insolent, like an overfed beast, that would turn and
kick the hand that had fed it.
And now God ordered Moses to go up into Mount Abarim, the highest
part of which was Mount !Nebo, and here he might see the land of Canaan ;
but because he had trespassed against God at the waters of Meribah, in the
wilderness of Zin, he was never to enter into it.
Death of Moses— Joshua becomes Leader of Israel.
Deuteronomy xxxiii., xxxiv.
MOSES, inspired from Heaven, now blesses Israel, and like Jacob
foretells the future lot of the twelve tribes. It would keep us too
long to explain all that is here said ; you will, however, read, that he said
of the tribe of Joseph, " His horns are like the horns of unicorns." Horns,
in Scripture, when applied to people, mean power ; and as the unicorn is a
most powerful animal, Joseph's tribe are thus described as being very
strong, so that they shall beat their enemies whenever they assail them.
Again, you will read about Zebulun, that " They rihall suck of the
abundance of the seas ; " for that tribe were to have part of the sea-coast to
live upon, and so to fish, and become merchants, by which they should live,
as infants live by drawing milk from their mothers' breasts ; and Issachar
should get support by treasures hid in the sand, perhaps by pearls and
corals, which are found there by the sea-side.
Further, Dan is called " a lion's whelp ; " meaning that that tribe should
be like a lion, springing suddenly and powerfully upon its enemies. Asher
must " dip his foot in oil ; " that is, the ground to be given to that tribe
should be well planted with trees producing oil, so that it should be
so abundant, that they might be said to tread in it; as we say sometimes of
a rich man, that he rolls in riches, by which we do not mean that he lies
down and turns himself over in his heaps of money, but that he has a very
214 Bible and Commentator.
large quantity. Moreover, it is foretold of this tribe, " Thy shoes shall be
iron and brass;" not that they should have shoes made of iron and brass,
for who could wear them on all occasions ? but that they should tread upon
ground, like our California, where mines of precious metal are in abundance
under the feet.
So, further on, you read of God's riding " upon the heaven." This is
very grand, and is meant to show us that God manages all the affairs of
heaven, and that he directs even the clouds, and the tempests, and the winds,
by his providence, with as much ease as a skilful rider manages a noble
horse, or a skilful driver his chariot.
You will now, we hope, have a kind of key to unlock the meaning of
some expressions of the above kind, which you could not before understand ;
and when any expression of a similar nature happens to puzzle you, and
appear absurd and contradictory, and impossible, only think that it must
mean something of what we have just told you, and then the difficulty will
be overcome.
And now we come to the death of Moses, which you shall have in the
words in which it is described in the Bible : " So Moses, the servant of the
Lord, died there, in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord.
And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor :
but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.
"And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died : his
eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.
"And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty
days : so the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended.
"And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom
the Lord knew face to face, in all the signs and the wonders which the Lord
sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants,
and to all his land, and in all that mighty hand, and in all the great
terror which Moses showed in the sight of all Israel."
Joshua now became the leader of Israel. "And Joshua the son of Nun
was full of the spirit of wisdom ; for Moses had laid his hands upon him,"
to pray to God to give him his spirit, " and the children of Israel hearkened
unto him, and did as the Lord commanded Moses."
Joshua
Takes its name from the pious and brave leader, whose great victories and acts it records, and who succeeded to
Moses in the government of the Israelites. It was written by Joshua, and gives a history of about thirty years.
In it is shown God's faithfulness, and it seems to be a valuable sequel to the Books of Moses, just as in the New
Testament the Acts seem to be to the Gospels. The book is divided into twenty-four chapters.
Joshua passes Jordan— Joshua meets an Angel.
Joshua i.-v.
FTER the death of Moses, God now commanded Joshua
to take possession of the land which he promised that
Israel should inherit; and he told him to be of good
courage, and only to mind the holy law and obey it, and
he should be sure to prosper.
Joshua then gave orders to^the officers of the people to
provide victuals for inarching ; and he desired the Reuben-
ites and Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, who had
already got their possessions, to join their brethren and
assist in taking the land, which they honorably agreed to do, as they had
before promised.
"And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two men to spy
secretly, saying, Go view the land, even Jericho : and they went and came
unto a harlot's house, named Rahab, and lodged there."
A harlot means a very wicked woman, and as persons who kept inns
were not always the most moral, they all got this name. But it is reason-
ably thought, that Rahab was not so bad as the name means, but only an
inn-keeper, where these spies went to lodge ; for it does not seem likely that
good men would, if they could help it, go to lodge with so vile a person as
a harlot means, and much less can we suppose that Salmon, a Jewish prince,
would afterwards have married such an one ; but he did marry Rahab.
(See Matt. i. 5.)
The king of Jericho soon learnt that there were spies entered into his
215
Joshua. 217
city, and finding out where they were, he sent to Rahab to deliver them up.
However, instead of delivering them up, she hid them. And she said that
the men had been there, but they were gone, and if they were pursued, they
would soon be overtaken.
Now all this time she knew that the men were on the flat roof of her
house, for so the roofs are made in that part of the world ; and she had
covered them over with stalks of flax, which she had laid upon the roof, to
dry in the sun, in order to the beating of it, and making it ready for the
wheel — a proof that she was an industrious woman.
We learn in the eleventh chapter of the Hebrews that Rahab saved her-
self and her family by faith. She believed that God would destroy the
wicked people among whom she lived, as he had already destroyed the two
kings of the "Amorites that were on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og ;
and therefore she would not be guilty of giving up his faithful servants to
perish. If this had not been a case quite out of the common way, her con-
duct in preserving men who were going to destroy her country would have
been very wicked, and that of a traitor ; but God worked upon her heart,
made her kind to the spies, and so prepared the way for Joshua to take
Jericho, and to save her and her family.
But, as to the lie which she told, she was to blame, for no one is justified
in telling a lie : as it is a wicked thing, we are sure that God did not prompt
her to that. This was the means which she thought of to save the men,
but God could and would have saved them, without her doing anything so
wrong. What can we say for her ? Why, she had lived among heathens,
and, as yet, knew no better. When she afterwards would live among the
Israelites, she would learn that a lie was a very wicked thing.
Having got rid of the king's officers, Rahab went upon the house-top,
and made a bargain with the spies, that as she had saved them, they would,
in turn, save her and her family, consisting of her father and mother, and
brothers and sisters. This was very affectionate on her part, and as she
had shown the spies so much kindness, they readily agreed to show kindness
to her.
As it would have been dangerous for the spies to have passed through
the streets, she " let them down by a cord through the window : for her
house was upon the town wall, and she dwelt upon the wall." And she
told them to flee to the mountains that were near, and hide there for three
days, and by that time the men who were in pursuit of them would be tired,
and give up the chase, and then they might safely go home.
218 Bible and Commentator.
The spies were, however, afraid, lest by any mistake, in the hurry o\
battle, Rahab and her relations should be killed ; and therefore, to make he,
safety more sure, they agreed that she should tie a line of scarlet thread in
the window, by which thread they were let down, and that all her family
should be brought together under her roof, and no one should dare to ven-
ture into the street, or, if he did, his blood should be upon his own head,
that is, his death would be his own fault, and not theirs. She was, also,
faithfully to keep everything secret which had happened, or to lose their
protection.
So the men hid in the mountains three days, when their pursuers returned;
and they got safe back and told Joshua what had taken place, and what
they had heard from Rahab, that the people had heard of Israel's victories,
and were afraid of them. "And they said unto Joshua, truly the Lord hath
delivered into our hands all the land • for even all the inhabitants of the
country do faint because of us."
The next morning Joshua prepared to set off for Jericho. And he came
to Jordan with all Israel, and after three days the officers went through the
host, and desired them to follow the ark of the covenant, which the Levites
should carry before them. This ark was a sign of God's presence amongst
them, and that he was their chief guide. They were to keep at the distance
of two thousand cubits or three thousand feet, a little more than half a^ mile,
so that the priests and Levites who bore the ark might not be crowded, and
the ark itself could be seen more distinctly by the whole people than if they
all crowded close to it.
So the day following, the priests and the Levites " took up the ark of the
covenant and went before the people."
And God told Joshua that he would now honor him by a wonderful
miracle, which should show Israel that he had chosen him to lead Israel,
as he had before chosen Moses.
And Joshua told Israel what God would do for them, and that, as soon
as the priests who bore the ark should touch the brink of the river with
their feet, the waters of Jordan should stand upon an heap on one side, so
as not to flow down their channel ; while those on the other side should
continue running without any fresh supply ; and so the bed, or bottom of
the river, should be dry for Israel to pass over, as the Red Sea had before
been for their fathers with Moses. Joshua also ordered twelve men to be
selected, perhaps to go near and witness this miracle, for the entire satis-
faction of the rest.
Joshua. 219
So the priests moved forward and stood in Jordan ; and the waters dried
up as Joshua had foretold, although this happened at the time of harvest,
when the river overflowed its banks, from the great quantity of water ;
which made the miracle the more wonderful. "And all the Israelites passed
over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan."
The number of the Israelites at this time was six hundred thousand men,
besides women and children, which was, indeed, a vast army; yet it is
wonderful that the Canaanites did not watch them and try to stop their
crossing of Jordan. But perhaps they thought they could not pass the
river where they did ; and if they saw that the waters yielded to make way
for them, it was quite enough to frighten them, alarmed as they already
were, and to make them run away wherever they could for safety.
It is usual, in all countries, to erect monuments and statues to commem-
orate great historical events ; thus we have the Bunker Hill monument in
Charlestown, Mass. ; the Lincoln and Washington monuments in New
York; the Washington and Battle monuments in Baltimore; the statues
in Washington, monuments in Richmond and Lexington, Va., etc.
The passing over Jordan by the Israelites was one of these events which
deserved commemoration, and Joshua, therefore, commanded twelve men, one
from each tribe, and probably the same men spoken of before, to take twelve
stones from the spot where the priests' feet had stood and to carry them to
their first lodging-place over Jordan, where they were to leave them. And
so, when at any future time their children should ask, " What mean you by
these stones ? " they should be told " that the waters of Jordan were cut off
before the ark of the covenant of the Lord when it passed over Jordan, and
that the stones were a memorial unto the children of Israel forever."
Joshua also set up twelve other stones " in the midst of Jordan, in the
place where the feet of the priests which bore the ark of the covenant
stood ; " and there they were when the Book of Joshua was written.
All the people having passed over, including the children of Reuben and
Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh, who passed over before the rest, being
about forty thousand prepared for war, Joshua then ordered the priests to
come out of Jordan, and its waters immediately flowed as before. So "On
that day the Lord magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel," and owned
him as his servant appointed to lead Israel ; " and they feared (or honored)
him, as they feared Moses, all the days of his life."
And the people encamped in a place which they called Gilgal, in the east
borders of Jericho, where the tAvelve stones brought out of the river were
220 Bible and Commentator.
pitched, " That all the people of the earth might know the hand of the
Lord, that it is mighty ; " and so fear the Lord God of Israel forever.
The drying up of Jordan must have been seen for some miles, and the
news of the wonderful event, with the passage of the Israelites, soon spread
among the Canaanites and filled them with the greatest alarm, "neither was
there spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel."
And God now commanded Joshua to mark the Israelites of the new
generation with the sign of his covenant with them, and they kept a solemn
passover, which they had been denied in their wanderings in the wilderness.
The country people naturally fled away from the invading armies, and all
their corn in the field and in store became the property of the Israelites,
who took it and fed upon it, as part of their promised possession, given
them by that God who caused it to grow ; and having no more need of
manna, that miraculous supply of food ceased, and "they did eat of the
fruit of the land of Canaan that year."
The fifth chapter closes with an account of a wonderful appearance
to Joshua. The person who appeared to him while he was, perhaps,
thoughtfully looking around Jericho and contriving how to take it, was
no common being, or he would not have worshipped him; and from
the command to take off his shoe, which was an act of reverence, it
was that Angel who appeared in the burning bush to Moses. He now
told Joshua that he had come as Captain of the Lord's host, and Joshua
might well be encouraged with the assurance that God would fight for him,
and give him the promised land for his people.
The Taking of Jericho.
Joshua vi.
"VY7~HEN the people of Jericho saw the armies of Israel coming, they
V V shut up the strong gates of their city ; but though this would have
preserved them from usual danger, yet now that God had given them up to
Israel, nothing could save them.
But the city was to be taken in a very wonderful way, to show that, after
all, the hand of God was in it.
Joshua had no orders to batter it, or scale its walls. The men of war
were only to march round it once a day for six days ; and the ark was to be
carried round, and seven priests were to march before it, blowing seven
222
Bible and Commentator.
trumpets of rams'-horns. And on the seventh day they were to walk round
the city seven times, and the priests were to blow with their trumpets : and
at a long blast of the trumpets the people were to make a loud shouting,
when the wall of the city should fall down flat, and every man could get in
without difficulty.
So the armed men went before the priests that blew the trumpets, and a
number of people followed the ark, and they marched round the city daily,
till the seventh day. Then Joshua gave the word, " Shout, for the Lord
hath given you the city." And he commanded that everything should be
^ ^isSi^
MODERN JERICHO.
destroyed in the city, except Kahab and her family, and the valuable metals
that might be found, which were to be preserved for sacred uses.
And when the people shouted, down fell the wall, and then the Israelites
marched in, " and they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man
and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of
the sword."
The city was also burnt with fire, but Eahab and her family were, by
order of Joshua, saved by the spies, who took them without the camp, and
she ever after lived with the Israelites.
Joshua. 223
The Sin of Achan.
Joshua vn.
ALTHOUGH the Israelites had been warned at their peril not to touch
- any part of the spoils of Jericho, yet one was so overcome by his
covetous spirit that he ventured, in spite of God's command.
This sin was, however, soon found out ; for Joshua sent men to view Ai,
another city, about twelve miles from Jericho. And when they returned,
they told him that the people were fled, and that the city would be easily
taken ; so that if he sent two or three thousand men against it, that would
be quite enough.
And Joshua did so, but the men of Ai rushed out of the city, put them
to night, and killed thirty-six of their number. This frightened Israel, for
they thought that, after what had happened to Jericho, the other people of
Canaan would take their revenge, and their hearts lost all courage, and
became as weak as water.
Then Joshua rent or tore his clothes, as the Jews did when they were in
great grief, and he and the elders of Israel put dust upon their heads, and
fell with their faces before the ark of the Lord, to prove how much they
felt humbled before God. And Joshua pleaded with God to save Israel.
Then God told Joshua, in some way, that Israel had sinned, and had
taken what was accursed, and ought not to have been saved, and this was
the reason why they could uot stand before their enemies.
And God ordered Joshua to tell the people to sanctify or wash themselves,
to appear decently on the solemn occasion, and to take the tribes of Israel,
and find out who had been the thief; and after casting lots it was discovered
that Achan, of the tribe of Judah, was the man.
Then Achan confessed his sin, and he said, "When I saw among the
spoils a goodly Babylonish garment/' which some think was, most likely,
the king of Jericho's royal robe, " and two hundred shekels of silver, and a
wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them ;
and, behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the
silver under it.
" So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran unto the tent ; and, behold, it
was hid in the tent, and the silver under it." And they took them out of
the midst of the tent, and brought them unto Joshua, and unto all the
children of Israel, and laid them out before the Lord.
224
Bible and Commentator,
"And Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah,
and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and
his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and
all that he had : and they brought them unto the valley of Achor.
"And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us ? the Lord shall trouble
thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them
with fire, after they had stoned them with stones."
The Taking of Ai.
Joshua viii.
GOD now encouraged Joshua to go and take Ai, the inhabitants of
which were to perish, like those of Jericho.
So Joshua took all the people of war with him, and chose out thirty
thousand brave men, who marched by night to lie in wait behind the city.
Murvr EBAL.
And in the morning he himself went up with a body of men, and
appeared before the city ; and he set another body of men, to the number of
five thousand, to lie in ambush, or concealed, near where the first body was
hidden.
And Joshua retired into a neighboring valley. And when the king of
Joshua. 225
Ai saw the number of his men which he exposed, and was not aware that
any were hidden, he marched boldly out to attack them. Joshua and those
that were with him then ran away, and the king of Ai supposing that they
did so in earnest, pursued them, and all the men of Ai joined the army, and
thought that now they should ruin Israel forever.
Joshua having drawn them all out of the city, made a sign with his spear
which was known to those that were concealed, and as the gates of the city
were left open, they rushed in and set some of it on fire.
The men of Ai happening to look behind, saw the smoke, and they were
so frightened that they knew not which way to run. Then Joshua turned
upon them ; and those in the city ran out and attacked them on the other
side, and they " let none of them remain or escape." So that day there fell
full twelve thousand, even all the men and women of Ai.
And Joshua finished the burning of Ai after taking the cattle and the
spoil, and the king of Ai he hanged on a tree till the evening, when the
body was taken down, according to the custom of the Jews, and was thrown
on the ground at the entrance to the city, and a great heap of stones raised
over it, in memory of the event.
" Then Joshua built an altar unto the God of Israel in Mount Ebal,"
and there the people offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings unto the
Lord, in thankfulness to him for the good land into which he had brought
them.
The Gibeonites saved by Craft.
Joshua ix.
A LARMED at the successes of Joshua against Jericho and Ai, all the
-£-*- kings of Canaan now joined together to fight him.
But the inhabitants of Gibeon, which was supposed to have been the
capital of the Hittites, thought it better to try and make friends with a
people that they might vainly hope to withstand. But what were they to
do ? They, no doubt, understood that the Israelites gave no quarter to the
Canaanites, so they resolved to go to them as strangers from a very far
country. Some think it would have been better if they had honestly
thrown themselves on their mercy, than have practised deceit. However,
of this we know nothing. They tried a trick, and it, in part, succeeded.
They lived only about twenty-four miles off from where the tents of the
Israelites were pitched., and must soon have been destroyed by them.
15
226 Bible and Commentator.
So they dressed up men like ambassadors from a far country, and they took
with them old sacks, to make the Israelites believe that they had carried a
deal of provision with them for a long journey ; and wine bottles, which
were made of goat-skins, and not of glass as ours are, and these were " old,
and rent, and bound up," as if they had tried every method to make them
hold their liquor to the last ; and old shoes or sandals for the soles of the
feet, which they had patched, to make it appear that they had walked very
far in them by the side of their asses ; and old garments worn as by long
travelling ; and lastly, mouldy bread.
And as soon as they arrived at the camp of Israel, they saw Joshua, and
they told him they had come a great way, and wanted him to make a league
with them, that is, an agreement to be friends. The men of Israel seemed
rather to suspect them, and hinted that they probably dwelt near, and then
how could they make a league with them, for they knew that God had said
(Deut. vii. 2), " Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy
unto them."
Being challenged as Canaanites, they made no answer, but turned to
Joshua, whom they found out to be the chief, and they said, " We are thy
servants."
Joshua then asked, " Who are ye ? and whence come ye ? " And they
told Joshua that they had heard of all the fame of the God of Israel, and
what he had done in Egypt, and to the kings Sihon and Og, cunningly
saying nothing about Jericho and Ai, as if they knew nothing about
Canaan. And they added, that their people being desirous of uniting with
them had ordered them to undertake the long journey to get their consent.
And then they showed Joshua the old rubbish they had got with them, and,
to deceive him, they said, "This, our bread, we took hot for our provision,
out of our houses, on the day we came forth to go unto you ; but now,
behold, it is dry, and it is mouldy. And these bottles of wine which we
filled were new ; and, behold, they be rent ; and these our garments and our
shoes are become old, by reason of the very long journey."
So the Israelites then " took of their victuals," which was an act of
friendship, and it is so considered among the people of Asia to this day, and
those who eat even salt together feel themselves bound, by a perpetual
covenant or engagement, to be faithful to each other. In doing this they
placed themselves in a great difficulty ; for, Joshua having made peace
with the Gibeonites, and the princes of the congregation having taken their
oath that they should live — if they had put them to death, they would have
Joshua. 227
broken their oath, and this would have been very wicked; and yet, in
sparing them, they had spared a people whom God had appointed to
destruction, and Israel were to be his executioners. However, there was
this excuse for them, that they did not spare them as Canaanites, as they
thought that they were of another country.
In three days only, the Israelites found out that the Gibeonites had
cheated them, and that they lived close by them. Liars will, sooner or
later, be detected. But as the Israelites had promised to spare their lives,
the princes or chiefs did so ; and when they came to the four cities which
belonged to their people, " they smote them not, because the princes of the
congregation had sworn unto them by the Lord God of Israel."
The congregation murmured at this, for they were not all engaged in the
matter, and it is feared that some of them were displeased that they could
not get the plunder. However, the chiefs quieted the people, and punished
the Gibeonites by making slaves of them all the days of their lives.
They were obliged to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, which
was reckoned a very degrading- employment. So they hewed wood and
drew water for the use of the people, and particularly for the service of the
Tabernacle; and twelve hundred years after, their descendants were still the
servants of Israel.
The Five Kings defeated and executed— The Sun and Moon stand still
for Joshua.
Joshua x. 1-27.
A FTEK the people of Gibeon had united with Israel, Adonizedek, who
-£a- was the king of Jerusalem, " sent to Hoham, king of Hebron, and
unto Piram, king of Jarmuth, and unto Japhia, king of Lachish, and unto
Debir, king of Eglon, saying, Come up unto me and help me, that we may
smite Gibeon : for it hath made peace with Joshua and with the children of
Israel."
So the kings united with Adonizedek, and marched against Gibeon. And
when the people saw so great an army against them, they were again in a
fright, and they sent off to Joshua with all speed, saying, " Come up to us
quickly, and save us, and help us."
Now, as Joshua had given his word, he would not kill the Gibeonites ,
and he would not, if he could help it, let others kill them. So he marched
all night to Gibeon, with all his army, and God told him to fear nothing.
228
Bible and Commentator.
After his march up the rugged hills from Gilgal to Gibeon, Joshua com-
menced the battle with the army of the five kings, very early in the morn-
ing, and by eleven o'clock they were in full retreat, down the steep slopes
of Beth-horon the nether, toward the valley of Aijalon. Here they were
overtaken by that terrible hailstorm (verse 11), which made their flight an
utter rout, and killed many more than the Israelites had slain. At this
moment, Joshua, standing
upon the summit west of
Gibeon, not yet reached by
the storm, fearing that they
might escape, uttered that
ejaculation for Divine help,
which showed his strong
faith : " Sun, stand thou still
upon Gibeon, and thou,
moon, in the valley of Aija-
lon ;•' God granted his prayer;
the day was prolonged ; the
hailstorm, having done its
work, rolled away, and day-
light lasted till the Israelites
overtook the foe, drove them
about fifteen miles through
mountain passes, and made
an end of them at Azekah.
As these Amorites wor-
shipped the sun and moon, it
must have terrified them to
see that these heavenly bodies
were enlisted against them. Just how, and for what length of time, this
day was prolonged, we know not. It may have been by a refraction of the
sun's rays, or by a meteor, or a mock-sun ; but, in some wTay, the daylight
was lengthened, Joshua's prayer answered, and Israel's enemies destroyed.
The five kings being entirely routed, hid themselves in a cave at Mak-
kedah, where the Israelites found them. And Joshua said, "Roll great
stones upon the mouth of the cave," so as to make them prisoners, "and
set men by it for to keep them. And stay you not, but pursue after your
enemies, and smite the hindmost of them : suffer them not to enter into
AT WHICH JOSHUA DEFEATED THE FIVE KINGS.
Joshua. 229
their cities, for the Lord your God hath delivered them into your hand.
And it came to pass when Joshua and the children of Israel had made an
end of slaying them with a very great slaughter till they were consumed,"
so that none but stragglers were left here and there, and no army remained,
" that the rest which remained of them entered into fenced cities."
The people now returned to the camp, and Joshua ordered the kings
to be brought out of the cave. And he desired his captains to come and
put their feet upon the necks of the kings, which was an encouragement to
them to show them that these were but the beginnings of victory, and that
so they should trample under feet all the wicked idolaters of Canaan, till
they had got the whole land for a possession as God had promised.
And then Joshua smote them and slew them, " and hanged them on five
trees ; " and in the evening they were taken down and put into the cave in
which they had hid, and great stones were put before the cave, and there
the bodies remained when the book of Joshua was written.
The Land divided by Joshua among the Tribes.
Joshua xiii.-xix.
THE whole land was not yet conquered ; for God said to Joshua, " Thou
art old and stricken," or grown, " in years, and there remaineth yet
very much land to be possessed."
Now, as Joshua was old, he was not required to fight any more, but to
leave others to do this, and he was only to divide the lots or portions among
the people of Israel, and so there could be no quarrelling amongst them-
selves after his death, about what parts they should have.
Among the portions, he was to give land that was not yet conquered ; but
what God promises he always performs, and the children of Israel were to
take his word, as though the thing were done.
Caleb was one of the twelve spies, and he contradicted the timid spies
that would have made the people afraid of taking Canaan.
In the fourteenth chapter we find him asking Joshua for a particular,
portion which Moses had granted to him for his pious confidence in God.
For Moses had said, " Surely the land whereon thy feet have trodden shall
be thine inheritance, and thy children's forever, because thou hast wholly
followed the Lord my God." Caleb, with gratitude, said — that God had
preserved him to enjoy that lot, and though he had come to be eighty-five
230 Bible and Commentator.
years old, yet he was still ready to fight in his righteous cause, and God
had made him strong enough to drive out the enemy, though the land he
desired was inhabited by some of the most mighty.
And Joshua blessed him for his faith in God, and gave him Hebron, as
he desired, for an inheritance.
And afterwards we read that Caleb conquered Hebron, and "drove
^thence the three sons of Anak."
Then he had to take Debir, or Kirjath-sepher. And he offered a reward
to the captain who should take it, which reward was the gift of his daughter
as a wife. This was a great honor. Supposing a great nobleman were to'
say that he would allow any person of lower rank to marry his daughter,
on condition of his doing something that he wished him : it would just be
the same kind of privilege as Caleb here offered ; for Caleb was the chief
prince of the tribe of Judah, and to become his son-in-law was a great
honor. Well, " Othniel, the son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb," took the
city, and so he married Achsah, Caleb's daughter, who was his first cousin,
and to whom, it is supposed, he wished before to be united, and therefore
he bravely went and >took the city out of regard for her. This Othniel was,
some years after, made a judge or governor of Israel.
The fifteenth chapter marks out very carefully the lot of the tribe of
Judah — all the cities, and towns, and villages, and countries, granted to the
people of that tribe ; but it is said they could not drive the Jebusites out of
Jerusalem, who continued there when the Book of Joshua was completed.
It was in the country of this tribe that Jesus was afterwards born ; that
is, in Bethlehem of Judea.
. The sixteenth and seventeenth chapters mark out the lot of the tribes of the
children of Joseph — Manasseh and Ephraim.
In the lot of the tribe of Ephraim was Kama, the city of Samuel, called
in the New Testament Arimathea, where Joseph belonged, who took care
of the burial of Jesus. Shiloh also was here, where the Tabernacle was first
set up. A palm tree, under which you will by-and-by read that Deborah
judged or governed Israel, was in the land of this tribe. Samaria, a famous
city, was also here ; and Jacob's well, where Christ talked with the woman
of Samaria.
In the eighteenth chapter we find the Tabernacle, which had been often
pitched and removed with the camp of Israel, fixed in Shiloh, a city in the
lot of Ephraim, and lying in the centre of the country now belonging to
Israel, that Israel might meet there to worship God. And at Shiloh it
41 1
1 Pill
232 Bible and Commentator.
remained for three hundred and twenty-five years, till the sin of the house
of Eli, a priest, caused it to be removed.
Seven tribes were yet unprovided for, and Joshua sent out three men
from each tribe to view the land, and when they returned, he divided it
amongst them.
Benjamin's lot included Jericho and Gilgal, of which we have read.
Bethel was also here, and Gibeon.
Simeon's lot included Beersheba and Ziklag, of which we shall read when
we come to the history of David.
In Zebulun's lot was Mount Carmel, in which Elijah, the prophet, after-
wards put to shame the priests of Baal. Here also was Nazareth,' where
Jesus spent so much time when he was upon earth, and the coast of the sea
of Galilee, where he preached, and Mount Tabor, where he was transfigured,
or showed forth his glory.
In Issachar's lot was Jezreel, where was afterwards Ahab's palace, and
also Shunem, where lived the Shunammite that entertained Elisha, and the
mountains of Gilboa, on which Saul and Jonathan were slain.
In Asher's lot was no famous place, but very near it were the famous
Tyre and Sidon, of which we often read in the Bible, and some suppose
that the Canaanites took refuge there when they were driven out of
Canaan.
In the lot of Naphtali stood Capernaum and Bethsaida, in which Christ
did so many mighty works.
Lastly, to the lot of Dan fell the rich country near which was the valley
of Eshcol, where the spies gathered the famous bunch of grapes.
And now Joshua had a right to some portion for himself, and he chose
Timnath-serah, in Mount Ephraim, which was in possession of his own
tribe, and near to Shiloh, where the ark was, and near which Joshua loved
to dwell ; for the good man always loves the spot where God is worshipped.
So Joshua built the city which had been broken down, and dwelt therein,
and it doubtless afforded him an agreeable home while he lived, with such
an income as would furnish him all the comforts needed in his position ;
and also a burial place, as we find in the book of Joshua, xxiv. 30. He
had asked for the portion referred to, as we read in Joshua xix. 50.*
* For many observations on the last two chapters, the author is indebted to Matthew
Henry.
Joshua. 233
Three more Cities of Refuge— Cities given to the Lev ites — Return of
the two Tribes and a half —Death of Joshua.
Joshua xx.-xxiv.
YOU recollect that Moses had set apart three cities on the other side
Jordan, for cities of refuge, called Bezer, Ramoth, and Golan, and
now Joshua fixes on three other cities in the land of .Canaan. As I have
already told you about these cities, I need only name those added by Joshua
and the princes of Israel. "And they appointed Kedesh in Galilee in
Mount Naphtali, and Shechem in Mount Ephraim, and Kirjath-arba
(which is Hebron) in the mountain of Judah."
No part of the country had as yet been given to the Levites, and now
forty-eight cities were divided amongst them out of the lots of all the
tribes.
You recollect also that an army of the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the
half tribe of Manasseh, had left their lands on the other side Jordan, that
they might help their brethren in conquering Canaan, and having honor-
ably kept their word, as all good men will do, Joshua now sends them home,
charging them to love the Lord, to walk in his ways, and to keep his com-
mandments. "And when Joshua sent them away also unto their tents, then
he blessed them. And he spake unto them, saying, Return with much
riches unto your tents, and with very much cattle, with silver and with gold,
and with brass and with iron, and with very much raiment : divide the spoil
of your enemies with your brethren."
You see that nothing is lost by serving God ; for this war was under his
command, to punish the wicked nations of Canaan, and in doing it, the
Israelites had obeyed the divine will.
When the tribes that were sent home reached the river Jordan, which
they had to cross, they built a great altar, probably on their own side, which
they intended should be a monument for future times, to remind their chil-
dren, and their brethren's children, of the other tribes, that they all served
the one true God and not the gods of the heathen.
"And it came to pass a long time after that the Lord had given rest to
Israel from all their enemies round about, that Joshua waxed (or became)
old and stricken (or advanced) in age." So he sent for all the chief men of
Israel, and he exhorted them, as they would be safe and happy, that they
would all obey and serve God. And he again gathered together all the
234
Bible and Commentator
heads of the tribes of Israel, and he told them of all that God had done for
them in old time ; and what he had done in Canaan, where he had sent the
hornets, or great wasps, to sting and drive out their enemies, instead of their
always slaying them with the sword ; and where he had given them a land
full of fruit without their labor, and cities and houses to live in, which they
had never built. And Joshua entreated them to serve so good a God, and
told them that if they served strange gods it would be to their hurt. "And
the people said unto Joshua, The Lord our God will we. serve, and his voice
will we obey." So Joshua made a covenant, or solemn agreement, with the
people that day, that they would serve God with all their hearts. And he
wrote their promise in a book, and set up a great stone, under an oak, near
the sanctuary of the Lord, that it might be a witness to remind them of
what they had promised to do, and that they might see it as often as they
went to worship : "And Joshua said unto all the people, Behold, this stone
shall be a witness unto us ; for it hath heard all the words of the Lord,
MOUNT EPHRAIM, THE BURIAL PLACE OF JOSHUA.
which he spake unto us." A stone, indeed, could not hear ; but Joshua
meant, that it was there when he spoke to Israel, and, as it would stand for
some ages, it should be as good a witness as if it knew every word that was
spoken, inasmuch as his own hand had set it up on the occasion. " It shall
be, therefore," said he, " a witness unto you, lest ye deny your God."
"And it came to pass after these things, that Joshua, the son of Nun, the
servant of the Lord, died, being an hundred and ten years old. And they
buried him in the border of his inheritance, in Timnath-serah, which is in
Mount Ephraim, on the north side of the hill of Gaash."
Joshua.
235
About this time the bones of Joseph, which had been brought out of
Egypt, were buried " in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob had
bought of the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for an hundred
pieces of silver, and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph."
Now, too, Eleazar the priest, and " the son of Aaron, died, and they
buried him in a hill that pertained to Phinehas his son, which was given
him in Mount Ephraim."
VIEW NEAR MOUNT EPHRAIM.
We may here remark that the portion of the Ephraimites was one of a
very extensive and productive kind, extending, as it did, from the Mediter-
ranean Sea to the Jordan River, north of the portions of Dan and Benjamin,
and including such places as Shiloh, Shechem, etc. The range, of which
Mount Ephraim is part, runs through it, and is known generally by the
term of "the mountains of Ephraim/' — the same which, further bouth.
after entering the portion of Judah, are called " the mountains of Judah."
JUDGES:
So styled by reason of its telling the history of the Israelites under thirteen judges, who governed from the time
of Joshua to that of Eli; and who in times of peace administered justice, and in times of war led the soldiers of
the nation against their enemies. The date and authorship of the book are not certainly known, although the
former is fixed at the time of Saul's reign, and the latter is attributed to Samuel. The book is divided into twenty-
one chapters.
King kdonibezek punished— Ehud judges King Eglon.—Shamgar kills
. the Philistines with an Ox-goad.
Judges i., el, hi.
ERE Judges do not mean such judges as we have, who are
only to sit in courts of law, and see that justice is done to
those who are tried before them ; but, as said at the head of
the chapter, the judges of the Israelites were rulers and
chiefs, and, when the Israelites were in distress because of
the attacks of the Canaanites which yet remained, the Lord
raised up these men to deliver Israel and lead them to
battle.
Some time after the death of Joshua, and when the
Israelites were more in number, they asked- counsel of the Lord about going
to battle to get more of the land from the Canaanites which remained.
And God commanded Judah to attack them.
Judah then got the tribe of Simeon to join with them, and promised to
help them to make them stronger in return, when they needed aid.
The Canaanites were soon beaten, and king Adonibezek was taken
prisoner. This king must have been a great conqueror, but now he is con-
quered, and as he had done to others, so God now suffered it should be done
to him. He had no less than threescore and ten, that is, seventy kings, who
were his prisoners, and these he used to feed with the fragments, while they
sat under his table, having first cruelly mangled them by cutting off their
thumbs and their great toes. What he had done to them the Israelites now
did to him, which was, no doubt, an act of God's justice, or else such
cruelty would have been very wicked. The king himself felt that God had
236
Judges. 237
done this : "And Adonibezek said, Threescore and ten kings, having their
thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table : as
I have done, so God hath requited me. And they brought him to Jerusa-
lem, and there he died."
Judah's part of Jerusalem was now completely conquered, a king of which
city Joshua had before taken. The tribe of Judah also took Hebron, and
Gaza, and Askelon, and Ekron, and other places.
We have said that Judah's part of Jerusalem was conquered, for this city
stood partly in the lot of Judah, and partly in the lot of Benjamin, and
Judah had only taken their own part, which was the southern part, but the
northern part they left for the tribe of Benjamin to conquer, but they did
not drive out the Jebusites who dwelt there ; and there they remained when
the Book of Judges was written.
Then the house of Joseph took Bethel, part of which belonged to Benja-
min, and the other part to Ephraim. The tribe of Manasseh were very
indolent, and left the Canaanites to hold several cities in their lot. Eph-
raim, also, neglected Gezer, a large city, and left the Canaanites to dwell
there. Zebulun were alike careless about enlarging their lot, and only made
the Canaanites in it to pay them some taxes for letting them alone. As for
those of Asher they even dwelt among the Canaanites, and let tliem hold
their lot. Xaphtali did the same, except that they made the people pay
them something for remaining quiet. Dan was forced into the mountains,
and durst not go into the valleys given to them.
We shall see, by-and-by, what the Israelites got by their cowardice and
neglect in taking the whole of the lots which Joshua had given them,
and what miseries they brought upon themselves by living among the
Canaanites.
Xow, when Israel " took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their
daughters to their sons, and served their gods," the anger of the Lord was
hot against Israel — that is to say, he treated Israel as one would treat another
when his anger is hot ; though, as I think I have before told you, God can-
not be moved with anger, and sin as we do.
Well, to show Israel how much he was displeased, he sold them, or parted
with them, so as no longer to take special care of them, and let the king of
Mesopotamia rule over them, which he did for eight years. But when they
found that he treated them very cruelly, then they cried to the Lord, and
he was so kind that he pitied them, though they had behaved so ill towards
him, and he gave his spirit to Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger
238
Bible and Commentator.
brother, " and he judged Israel and went out to war," and God delivered
Israel from the cruel king, and " the land had rest forty years."
After Othniel, the first judge, was dead, "the children of Israel did evil
again in the sight of the Lord."
God now " strengthened Eglon, the king of Moab, against Israel." And
he smote Israel, and the people served him eighteen years.
Then Israel cried to God again, and O what a God is he to hear prayer !
for when they prayed to him in earnest, — which is what is meant by crying
to God, — then he raised up another deliverer. This was " Ehud, the son
of Gera, a Benjamite, a man left-handed," or, as some suppose, who could
use his left hand as well as his right.
This Ehud was sent from the children of Israel to take a present, or, a'*
it is thought, to take the taxes which Eglon had made Israel pay. So Ehud
TOMB OF THE JUDGES.
made a dagger of two edges, as long as his arm, and he put it under his
garments, on his right thigh. The sword is mostly put on the left side,
but that is for the purpose of being drawn by the right hand ; here it was
put to be drawn by his left hand ; and perhaps he might bind it for the use
of his left hand, to escape any observation that he wore one. When Ehud
had offered the present, he sent away the people that were with him, and
then going back, he said to the king, " I have a secret errand for thee, O
Judges. 239
king." The king thought he had something very important to say, and
commanded all to be silent, and then sent his state-servants away. Eglon
was in a lonely room, built for the sake of quiet, and made very airy and
cool, to use in the summer, in that part of the world where it is so hot.
Then Ehud went near to him and said, " I have a message from God unto
thee." The king rose to receive him with respect, and at that moment he ran
him through the body, and being a very fat man, he fell heavily and died,
yet no one heard what had happened. Ehud now shut the doors and locked
them, and took the key, and passing quietly by the guards, he escaped.
The servants now returned to attend the king, but, finding the doors fast,
they thought the king was asleep. " He covereth his feet," said they ; for,
as they wore slippers, when they went to sleep on a sofa, they dropped
them,. and wrapped them round in the tail of their long garment. At length,
however, after waiting a very long time, the servants feared that all was not
right, and having got a key they opened the doors, "And, behold, their lord
was fallen down dead on the earth."
All this time Ehud was getting safely away, and, having escaped to his
people, he blew a trumpet in Mount Ephraim, and he said to the children
of Israel that came to him, " Follow after me ; for the Lord hath de-
livered your enemies, the Moabites, into your hands." Now the Moabites
had probably placed soldiers among the Israelites to keep them in slavery ;
so the Israelites went to the fords of Jordan, or places where they must pass
home, and as the Moabitish soldiers were trying to return home on hearing
of the death of their king, Ehud slew them. "And they slew of Moab, at
that time, about ten thousand men, all lusty, and all men of valor ; and
there escaped not a man " of all that had been oppressing Israel. "And
the land had rest fourscore (or eighty) years."
For any man now to do what Ehud did it would be murder ; but he was
the man whom God raised up to punish a wicked king, and act as his
judge ; and God showed his approval of what he did by saving Israel
through his deed.
After Ehud " was Shamgar, the son of Anath, which slew of the Philis-
tines six hundred men with an ox-goad : and he also delivered Israel."
Some think that Shamgar was only a commander under Ehud, and not a
judge. He was, however, a brave man. The Philistines were very trouble-
some neighbors to the Israelites, and plundered them wherever they could
get at them, so that, in the fifth chapter, we read that in the days of Sham-
gar, " the highways were unoccupied ; " that is, people were afraid of going
240 Bible and Commentatoe.
on the great roads, lest they should meet the Philistine robbers, " and the
travellers walked through bye-ways," or roads not generally used.
Shamgar, like most of the Israelites, was engaged in working his fields,
when some of the Philistines came, perhaps, to take away his crops. So
Shamgar and his companions fought them, relying upon God for strength to
drive them away ; and he, being a strong man, seized an ox-goad, which
used to be about three yards long, with an iron pike at one end to drive the
ox, and a sharp spade at the other end, to clean the plough. With this he
himself slew six hundred men ; they having, no doubt, soon taken flight,
and been pursued by Shamgar and his friends. This courageous defence
delivered Israel from these robbers.
Deborah and Barak judge Israel— J ael kills Sisera.Song of Deborah
and Barak— Gideon's Exploits and Death;
Judges iv.-viii.
" A ND the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord
-£j- when Ehud was dead."
As former punishment did not cure the children of Israel, they were made
slaves, and obliged to work to pay heavy taxes to a foreign king called
Jabin, who reigned in a place called Hazor, and he was very powerful, " for
he had nine hundred chariots of iron, and twenty years he mightily op-
pressed the children of Israel."
So God raised up Deborah a prophetess, a woman to whom he gave his
Spirit to foretell things. And, when Israel again cried unto the Lord, she
foresaw their deliverance. And she sent for Barak, and told him to com-
mand the armies, and what he should do, and how God would help him.
So at her desire he collected " ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali
and of the children of Zebulun," and at Barak's request she went with
them to direct them, because God had given her so much wisdom.
Now Sisera, the chief general, or commander-in-chief of the armies of
Jabin, soon heard wThat Barak was doing, and he collected all his chariots
of iron, nine hundred in number, and a large army of foot-soldiers ; and
he thought probably that he could surround the Israelites, who were on
the Mount Tabor.
Jewish writers say, that when Barak saw the large army of Jabin, he
was quite frightened, but Deborah encouraged him, and said, " This is the
Judges. 241
day in which the Lord hath delivered Sisera into thine hand." So Barak
went down from Mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after him. "And
the Lord discomfited (or defeated) Sisera, and all his chariots, and all his
host, with the edge of the sword, before Barak ; " so that, in order to get
MOUNT TABOR.
away faster, " Sisera lighted down off his chariot and fled away on his feet.
But Barak pursued after the chariots, and after the host/' "And all the
host of Sisera fell upon the edge of the sword, and there was not a man
left."
Sisera ran away from his army, and, being invited by a woman named
Jael, he hid himself in her tent, and " she covered him over with a mantle
or cloak."
As soon as Sisera was asleep, Jael took a long nail, which was used in
fastening the tent, and she boldly drove it into his temples, so as to fasten
his head into the ground.
Barak was seeking after Sisera, but could not find him. At last he came
near JaePs tent, and she ran to meet him, and told him she would show
him his enemy ; and there lay the general dead, with the nail driven through
his head.
And now the Israelites were resolved to rid the country of this tyrant of
Canaan. "And the hand of the children of Israel prospered, and prevailed
against Jabin, king of Canaan, until they had destroyed Jabin, king of
Canaan."
Then, according to the custom of the times, the conquerors made a song
16
242 Bible and Commentator.
of victory to sing of the defeat of Sisera ; and that this deliverance might
not be forgotten, but be remembered as in a history. You may read this
song in the fifth chapter of Judges.
Again we find Israel doing evil, "and the Lord delivered them into the
hand of Midian seven years." And the Israelites were so cruelly treated
that they left their towns, and went and hid in caves or hollow places in the
rocks. For, when they had sown their land, the Midianites wantonly
destroyed the crop, and left no food for man or beast.
Now, Israel cried again to God ; and God sent a prophet to the children
of Israel, to tell them of their sins in forsaking him, and to cheer them.
And an angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, the son of Joash, as he
threshed wheat by the wine-press, that the Midianites might not find it
out. "And the Lord looked upon him and said, Go in this thy might,
and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites ; have not I
sent thee? "*
And Gideon asked for some sign, that he might be sure he was right in
trying to become a judge of Israel. Then he went and got something for
the angel to eat, not knowing that he was an angel, as he looked like a man.
And when he brought out a kid and some cakes, the angel told him to put
them on a rock which was close by, and he touched them with a staff,
which he had in his hand, and fire came out of the rock and consumed
them.
Then the angel vanished away, and Gideon knew by this sign that he was
not a man.
Gideon was now frightened, and he thought as he had seen an angel that
he should die, but God spoke to his mind, " Thou shalt not die." And
Gideon was then satisfied, and built an altar to praise God, and he called it
Jehovah-shalom, which means, The Lord peace; or, as we understand it,
" The Lord send peace."
On the same night God commanded Gideon to throw down his father's
altar, built to the false god, Baal ; and to cut down the grove that was
planted round it, and to build an altar to him, and sacrifice his father's
bullock upon it. So Gideon did so by night, and took ten of his father's
servants to help him.
In the morning the men of the city saw what Gideon had done, but they
did not know who did it. And at last they found out that it was Gideon,
and they were very angry, and wanted to kill him. But Gideon's father
said, " Let Baal kill him if he can, but do not you kill him ; " and you
THE FLEECE OF GIDEON.
243
2M Bible and Commentator.
know that a wooden god could not, and so his father saved his life ; and he
called his name, after that, Jerubbaal, which means, let Baal plead, that is,
let Baal defend himself.
Now the Midianites and the Amalekites pitched in the valley of Jezreel,
and the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew the war-
trumpet, and called many of the tribes of Israel to help him. And he
would fain know if God was pleased with what he was doing, and so he
asked God for two signs. First, he would put a piece of fleece of wool off
a sheep's back upon the floor, and if the wool were all wet, and the floor
dry, he should believe that God was with him to help him ; and the fleece
was so wet that he wrung a bowlful of water out of it, while the floor
was dry. Still, Gideon did not know what to do, and he asked God for
another sign, and that was to be the reverse of this, for the fleece should be
dry and the floor wet ; " and God did so that night : for it was dry upon the
fleece only, and there was dew upon all the ground."
Gideon now took his army and pitched by the side of the well of Harod.
And God told Gideon that he had too many soldiers, for they would be apt
to be proud after the victory, and to say, " Mine own hand hath saved me ; "
so Gideon was to tell all that were afraid to go back to their homes, and out
of thirty-two thousand, only ten thousand remained behind, twenty-two
thousand being afraid. Still there were too many ; so God commanded
Gideon to take them to the water to drink, and some lapped or dipped up
the water with their hands, and then lapped it with their tongues, while the
others knelt down to drink it, and God told Gideon that those who lapped
should go with him to the battle, and no more. How many do you
suppose there were that God would have to fight a great army of the
Midianites ? Why, only three hundred ! So the people took victuals in
their hand, and their trumpets, and Gideon sent all the rest away ; " and the
host of Midian was beneath him in the valley."
The same night the Lord told Gideon that he was to beat the Midianites,
but if he had still any fear, he was to take a companion, and go and visit
their camp in secret. And he did so, and the enemy covered the ground,
and their camels which carried their luggage were too many in number.
Now a Midianitish soldier dreamt that a cake of barley-bread tumbled
into the host of Midian, and overturned a tent. And he told it to his
fellow-soldier that was near him, and he said, " This is the sword of Gideon,
for into his hand hath God delivered Midian and all his host." Gideon
was near and heard this, for God made the soldier dream, and taught the
Judges. 245
other to explain it, and caused Gideon to hear it, that his heart might not
be afraid. So Gideon worshipped God, and returned full of courage.
And now he took an odd method to fight the Midianites. He divided his
three hundred men into three companies of one hundred each ; " and he put
a trumpet in every man's hand, with empty pitchers, and lamps within the
pitchers, and he ordered every man to do everything that he should do."
So about midnight, when the Midianites were fast asleep, he marched
quietly with his little army to the outside of their camp. And he blew his
trumpet, and all the three hundred blew theirs. And then he smashed his
pitcher, and all the rest smashed theirs, which they held in their left hands.
And, lo, in a moment there were three hundred lights ! And then they
shouted, " The sword of the Lord and of Gideon." No wonder that the
Midianites were afraid, especially as God had resolved to destroy them, for
they must have thought, at the moment, that there was a large army indeed
behind, when there were no less than three hundred trumpeters, and three
hundred light-bearers besides, as they probably imagined. So they thought
their best way was to flee ; indeed, when a man awakes out of sleep in a
fright, he hardly knows Avhat to do. "All the host ran, and cried, and fled."
And every man killed his fellow, not knowing him from a foe.
And Gideon sent for the men of Ephraim to pursue after the flying army,
and they did so, and they took and slew Oreb and Zeeb, two Midianitish
princes.
The people of Israel were delighted with Gideon's bravery and success,
and asked him to be their king, but he would not.
To keep up the remembrance of this victory, he asked them to give him
the golden ear-rings which they had taken from the Midianites, and he
made out of them a sacred garment, called an ephod; partly, perhaps,
mixing the gold with the garment, and paying for other costly materials
with the rest. This ephod, if nothing else was made out of the gold, was
worth more than fifteen thousand dollars. But some think that he made a
little tabernacle with it, putting in it all the furniture for worship. In
doing so he did what was wrong, because God had fixed one place at his
command, for the purpose of worship, and none were to fix another. The
consequence was, that the people made an idol of the ephod, and foolishly
worshipped it.
Gideon having died in a good old age, was buried in the sepulchre of
Joash his father. But no sooner was he dead than all Israel went again
after the false gods of the heathen ; and as for Gideon, they quite forgot him,
246 Bible and Commentator.
and cared nothing for his family of seventy sons which he had left behind
him, though, through his victories, the land had enjoyed quietness forty
years.
King Abimelech.
Judges ix. 6.
A ND now Israel were all in confusion without a leader, and instead of
-^-*- being given up to foreign enemies, they were punished for their
idolatry by being let loose against each other.
Besides his seventy sons, who were his heirs, Gideon left one by a
concubine, or wife, whose son was not allowed to inherit or share any part
of his property. This young man was, however, very ambitious, or desirous
of being above all the rest in power. So he went to Shechem, where his
mother's brethren lived, and he persuaded them to make him king. " For,"
said he, " if you do not choose me, you will have all Gideon's other sons
for kings, and is it not better to support one than seventy ? Besides, I am
your relation, and they care nothing about you ; if I am king, I may do you
some service." So they gave him money out of their idol's temple, and he
hired a set of base fellows to protect him, and he went and killed his
brethren, that he might have the throne to himself; one only escaping out
of the seventy, which was Jotham, the youngest son of Jerubbaal, or
Gideon.
Now Jotham was a wise young man, and he went and warned the people
against his wicked half-brother. And he told them a parable, to get their
attention. He said that the trees met to choose a king ; but the most noble
trees, the olive, the fig-tree, and the vine, would not be kings, but chose to
do good in a different way ; but a bramble, which is a mean and scratching
thing, and will tear you to pieces, had the audacity to accept of the honor,
and looked very great. Here he meant that neither his father, nor the
other judges before him, would be made kings, but, at last, a mean and
wicked man had taken the high rank which they refused. Well, if they ever
prospered with such a king, they had done well, but time would soon prove.
And when he had warned them he escaped. This is the oldest fable in the
world ; which, under the representation of trees talking, concealed the talk
of men, which all the while he meant. It is very amusing, and was very
wise ; for, not at first knowing his meaning, the people heard all he had to
say, which had he spoken out at first, they would not have done.
Judges.
247
:1|
Abimelech had only reigned three years over Israel when he quarrelled
with the men of Shechem. So Abimelech went and fought them, and
killed them all and destroyed their city, and sowed it with salt, which was
a sign then used that the city should be built no more. Still the tower of
the city was not taken, so Abime-
lech took his men to the top of a
mountain, and took an axe with
him, and told them to do as he did ;
and he cut down a large bough 3jj
from a tree and put it on his shoul- f=g
der, and his men did the same, "ijj
And then they went to the tower, jj]
piled the huge heap of wood round ajj
it, set it on fire and burnt all the J
people that remained there, which J
were "about a thousand men and Ij
women/' Then the king went to a
place called Thebez, and took that,
but the people fled to a strong
tower which was in their city. And
the king thought to burn this as he
had done the other. So he went to
the door to set the wood on fire,
when a woman threw a large mill-
stone from the top, and it fell upon
his head and broke his skull. He had, however, sense enough left to
know who did it ; and, as he thought it was disgraceful to be killed by a
woman, he begged his armor-bearer, or the man that carried his heavy
shield, and perhaps his spear, that he would run him through, and he did
so, and the king died. So God rewarded the wickedness of Abimelech in
slaying his brethren, and the wickedness of the Shechemites in helping him
to do so vile a deed ; " and upon them came the curse of Jotham, the son of
Jerubbaal," as he had'told them: "The Lord is known by the judgments
he executeth ; the wicked is snared by the work of his own hands." It is
thus that wickedness is rewarded at almost every turn in the lives of men
and people who set at naught the teachings and providence by which they
are surrounded ; and God has in no age of the world punished such as were
ignorant of his laws and understood not his purposes in dealing with men.
TOWER OF SHECHEM.
248 Bible and Commentator.
Jephthah's Vow— The Ephraimites Slain.
Judges x., xi., xii.
A FTER Abimelech was dead there arose a new judge named Tola, and
■ -** in his time, which was during twenty-three years, things went on
well in Israel.
Jair, a Gileadite, followed him in office, and judged Israel twenty-two
years. And he had thirty sons that helped him, and rode on asses' colts
from place to place, to see that things were properly done throughout the
kingdom, and that no neighbor was unjust to another.
After Jair died Israel returned again to false gods. Then God let the
Philistines afflict them, and they and the Ammonites troubled them eighteen
years.
And a large army of the Ammonites marched against Israel, who were
greatly frightened, and they cried to the Lord. And the Lord, still
gracious, heard them yet again. Then they confessed their sins, and trust-
ing in God they gathered an army to meet their enemies. But they had
no general. So the princes or chiefs of Gilead offered to make him their
ruler, who would take the command of their armies.
Jephthah, the Gileadite, was a mighty man of valor ; and as he was
famed for his bravery, the Gileadites now thought of him, and they sent for
him and asked him to be their leader. Jephthah told them how ill they
had used him, but if they would promise to obey his commands, he would
come and aid them.
So Jephthah sent to the king of the Ammonites to ask why he had
invaded or entered with armies "into his country. And the king made
some excuses about some quarrels which had happened several hundred
years before.
Then Jephthah accused the king of intending wickedly to shed blood,
and he appealed to God to be his help.
And now the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he resolved to
meet his foe. And he vowed to the Lord that "if he defeated him he
would, on his return, offer to him the first thing he met as a sacrifice of
thanksgiving.
He soon defeated the children of Ammon, and on his return was first met
by his own and only daughter and child. It was often the custom for
women to go out with music and dancing to meet the conqueror on his
Judges.
249
return. She went so to meet her father, and being the first object he
saw, he remembered his vow, and he rent his clothes, which was the sign
of great grief used among the Israelites.
"Alas, my daughter ! " said he, " thou hast brought me very low, and
thou art one of them that trouble me ; for I have opened my mouth unto
V^;..
JEPHTHAH S DATTGHTEB.
the Lord, and cannot go back." And she, a most kind, obedient daughter,
who loved her father, said unto him, " My father, if thou hast opened thy
mouth unto the Lord, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out
of thy mouth ; forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee of thine
enemies, even of the children of Amnion."
Then she begged of her father to let her have two months to mourn over
her early separation from the world, and that she should die without being
a mother, which was a great grief to a woman of Israel ; as each one hoped
that the Messiah or Christ should be born in her family.
"At the end of the two months, she returned to her father, who did with
her according to his vow."
Now some suppose that she was slain and offered up for a burnt-offering ;
but it is strange that any, and more so that many, have had such a notion.
250 Bible and Commentatoe.
The heathen offered human sacrifices, but God would have abhorred so
brutal and unnatural a deed. Besides, Jephthah might have paid a
ransom, and have rescued his daughter from death, if she had even been
so vowed to the Lord. (See Lev. chap, xxvii. 4.) But she was only
separated forever from the world, and made a kind of priestess to serve
God all the days of her life. And every year the daughters of Israel went
to condole with her on her misfortune, in being separated from the mothers
of Israel.
The Ephraimites, who had before quarrelled with Gideon, now quarrelled
with Jephthah. They were offended that they had not been called to share
in the triumphs of Jephthah, when he went out to battle, though, when he
had before asked them, they would not go. So, they abused Jephthah and
the Gileadites, and called them hard names, and represented them as a set
of vagabonds. From words they came to blows, and a great battle was
fought. The Ephraimites were beaten and ran away, and as they had to
pass some of the fords of Jordan, where the water was most shallow, in
order to get home, the Gileadites went and stopped there to meet them.
And, as they tried to pass, they asked them if they were Ephraimites. To
save their lives, they told a lie, and said — ~No. But this would not do. For
there was a word which means a river or stream, which the Ephraimites
pronounced in a particular way : this word was Shibboleth, but they called it
Sibboleth, and could not sound the h. So, you know, in our own country,
people of different States sound some letters in different ways.
Well, when the Ephraimites denied who they were, "Then," said the
Gileadites, " say now Shibboleth," but they said Sibboleth, for they could
not frame their mouths to speak the word. So they were discovered, and
were all slain. And a shocking havoc it was, for " there fell at that time,
of the Ephraimites, forty and two thousand."
And Jephthah judged Israel six years, " and he died and was buried in
one of the cities of Gilead."
After Jephthah, Ibzan was judge for seven years.
After him, Elon for ten years.
After him, Abdon for eight years.
Next followed Samson, whose great strength and strange career have
made his history interesting to many who have not cared to read other parts
of the Bible. In reading of his great deeds, however, we should not for-
get, that he did many things which were wrong, some of them probably
through ignorance of the right way.
Judges. 251
History of the Wonderful Deeds of Samson.
JUDGES XIII -XVI.
THE old and sad story is here again repeated, "And the children of
Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered
them into the hands of the Philistines forty years."
While these evil doings were going on, God still had designs of mercy
towards this guilty people. And he sent an angel to the wife of " a certain
man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah," and
he told her that she should have a son, and that she must bring him
up as a Nazarite ; that is, set him apart for God's service, as he wanted to
employ him. You remember reading about the law concerning the
ISTazarites in the sixth chapter of Numbers.
So Samson was born, and grew up, " and the spirit of the Lord began
to move him at times in the camp of Dan."
When Samson became a young man, he went to a place called Timnath,
which belonged to the Philistines, and there he saw a young woman that he
chose for his wife. This was against the commands of God (see Deut.
vii. 3), but in this case " it was of the Lord," to permit him to please his
eye, as God overruled this event to make Samson the avenger of Israel
against the Philistines.
Samson's father and mother told him that if he married a heathen
woman, he would do a very wrong thing ; but he would have his own way,
and he felt the consequences of breaking God's commands. " Get her for
me," said he, " for she pleaseth me well."
Finding it of no use to argue with him, Manoah and his wife yielded,
and went to Timnath to settle the matter.
On the way to Timnath, Samson was met by a young lion that ran
roaring at him. "And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and
he rent him as he would have rent a kid, and he had nothing in his hand ;
but he told not his father or his mother what he had done."
Then "he went down, and talked with the woman; and she pleased
Samson well : " he liked her conversation as well as her person, and having
settled matters, " after a time he returned to take her, and he turned aside
to see the carcass of the lion : and, behold, there was a swarm of bees and
honey in the carcass of the lion. And he took thereof in his hands, and
went on eating, and came to his father and mother, and he gave them, and
252
Bible and Commentator.
they did eat : but he told not them that he had taken the honey out of the
carcass of the lion," for he meant to make a riddle from it, and that would
have given them the clue.
Samson's father and mother went with Samson, and he made a feast on
the occasion of his marriage, and thirty young men were invited to be at it.
Then they passed their time in making riddles, and Samcon gave one
which he allowed the Philistines seven days to find out ; and he would then
give them thirty sheets or dresses, in which the Easterns wrap themselves at
night, and thirty changes of garments, to wear by day, if they could tell its
meaning ; but, if they could not, then they were to give him the like.
Then he told his riddle, " Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of
the strong came forth sweetness." So they puzzled in vain, for three days,
to find out the riddle, and when they could not .find it, they went to Sam-
son's wife and frightened her, and
told her that they would burn
her, and set fire to her father's
house, if she did not get Samson
to tell her the meaning of his
riddle.
So Samson's wife "wept before
him " till the seventh day came,
and his heart was so touched, that
at last he told her the riddle, and
she told the Philistines.
Then the Philistines went to
Samson on the seventh day, and
gladly told him that they had
found out the riddle. " What," said they, " is sweeter than honey ? and
what is stronger than a lion ? " " If ye had not ploughed with my heifer,"
said Samson, " ye had not found out my riddle ; " meaning, if they had not
used his wife to ask him, they would have been beaten.
Samson seems to have been angry that his wife had told her countrymen
his secret, and so he left her at her father's and went home. After a while,
however, he thought that he would go back for her ; but when he got to her
father's house, he found that her father had married her to another one of
his companions, and wanted him to take her younger sister instead of her.
Samson was then resolved that he would make the Philistines pay dear
for their treatment ; so he went, perhaps assisted by others, and caught three
SAMSON CARRYING OFF THE GATES OF GAZA.
Judges.
253
hundred foxes, or jackals, somewhat resembling foxes, which he might be
some days in collecting, " and took fire-brands, and turned tail to tail, and
put a fire-brand in the midst between two tails ; and when he had set the
brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and
burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards
and olives."
The Philistines, finding that
Samson had done them this mis-
chief, and learning the reason why,
then went and burnt his wife and
her father, probably by setting
fire to their dwelling, and so they
thought that Samson would be
contented as they were punished.
But Samson was not yet satis-
fied. The Philistines had used
him very ill, and though revenue
is not proper, yet, in this case, God
made his anger to work Israel's deliverance. So he fell upon the Philis-
tines and " smote them hip and thigh," or heaps upon heaps, " with a great
slaughter."
After this, Samson went to live in a rock, which was, per-
haps, a fortress, called Etam. And the Philistines got together
a great number of men, and went and pitched in Judah ; and
the men of Judah fearing for themselves, asked the reason of
this visit. And when the Philistines told them they wanted to
find Samson, the men of Judah, three thousand in number,
went to the top of the rock Etam, and told Samson that they
were come to deliver him to the Philistines. Was not this base
of them, because Samson was one of their own countrymen,
and the Philistines were all the time oppressors of Israel ?
Well, the cowards did not like to fall upon him, lest he should
smite them, as he had smitten the Philistines, so they entreated
him to deliver himself up, and he, not wishing to hurt any of his country-
men, agreed to do so, on condition that they would not kill him when he
was in their hands. "And they bound him with two new cords and brought
him up from the rock."
And when Samson came to Lehi, where the Philistines were, they all
254
Bible and Commentator.
" shouted against him ; " when, all in a moment, " the Spirit of the Lord
came mightily upon Samson, and the cords that were upon his arms became
as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands."
Samson had no weapon, but he found the new jaw-bone of an ass lying
near him, and this he made his sword. He "put forth his hand and took
it, and slew a thousand men therewith."
Then, as the conquerors of whom you have before read, Samson made a
song of triumph, and he sung,
"With the jaw-bone of an ass, heaps upon heaps,
With the jaw-bone of an ass have I slain a thousand men."
Samson now threw away the jaw-bone, and in remembrance of the event
he called the place Ramath-lehi, which
means the lifting up of the jaw-bone.
After this battle he was thirsty and ready
to die, and he prayed to the Lord to help
him, and God clave a hollow place in the
place now called by him a jaw-bone, and
there came water thereout, and he revived.
Then he called that spot after a particular
name, that God's goodness to him might not
be forgotten ; the name he gave to it was
Enhakkore, which signifies the well of him
that cried, that is, that cried to God.
Some time after this Samson went to
Gaza, a city of the Philistines, and he re-
mained there for the night. But the Philis-
tines soon learnt that he was come amongst
them, and so they resolved once more to try
and catch him. So " they compassed him
in," by fastening all the gates of the city,
and put guards to lie in wait for him in the
morning, when they intended to kill him.
However, he got up at midnight, having some divine impression on his
mind that warned him of his danger, and he went to the gates of the city,
but found them fast. He made no difficulty on that account, but he laid
hold on the posts and pulled up posts and gates and all, just as a strong
man might a little garden gate, and away he carried them in triumph on
Judges. 255
his shoulders, " bar and all," as conquerors sometimes did their spoils, and
left them On the top of a hill, that many people might see them.
After this Samson chose for his companion one Delilah, a Philistine
woman whom he loved, and who lived in the valley of Sorek.
The lords of the Philistines, who seem always to have been on the watch
for Samson, thought this a good opportunity to take him, so they offered
Delilah a sum of money equal to about thirty-five hundred dollars of our
money, if she would find out where his strength was, and so rob him of it ;
most likely, they thought he had got some kind of charm to enable him to
do such wonders as he did.
Delilah was glad enough to accept of the offer, and she teased Samson to
tell her the secret. Samson vexed her in turn, by telling her first one thing
and then another, as you may read in the sixteenth chapter, and when she
had first bound him with seven green withes, and then again with new ropes,
and then wove his locks and fastened them with a pin in the wall, as he
told her at different times, he set himself free and showed that he was as
strong as ever.
EASTERN LIONS.
Then Delilah told him that he mocked her, and that, if he loved her, he
would not serve her so. So Samson at length told her all his heart, and
said that he was a Nazarite, and his head had never been shaved, but if she
cut off his hair he would be as weak as any other man.
256
Bible and Commentator.
Having long hair was the mark of a JSTazarite, and if this was cut off the
Nazarite's vow would be broken, and God's Spirit would depart from him.
Delilah now believed, from Samson's very sincere manner, that he had
told her all his heart, and she earnestly begged the lords of the Philistines
to come to her and take their captive. So they came and brought the
money in their hand. And she contrived to make Samson fall asleep on
her knees, " and she called for a man, and caused him to shave off the seven
locks of his head," in which his hair was, probably, plaited; "and she
began to afflict him," or insult him, to try if his strength was quite gone.
Samson now aAvoke, and thought he could do as before, but his locks were
gone, of which he was not aware, having been asleep, and now " the Lord
was departed from him."
Then the Philistines took him, put out his eyes, carried him to Gaza
and bound him with fetters of brass, and made a slave of him, " and he
did grind in the prison-house • " for they set their slaves to grind their
corn.
his hair began to grow again.
At length
And about that time, " the
lords of the Philistines
gathered them together
for to offer a great sacri-
fice unto Dagon, their
HP god, and to rejoice; for
they said, Our god hath
delivered Samson, our
|§§||e=f enemy, into our
hand.
EASTERN MILLSTONES.
And when the people saw
him, they praised their
god ; for they said, Our
god hath delivered into
our hands our enemy, and the destroyer of our country, which slew many
of us."
Then, after the sacrifice, they sent for Samson to make sport for them,
probably by ridiculing, and teasing and smiting him. And that he might
be seen by all, they set him in a public part of the building where they were;
6etween two pillars.
Samson then asked a lad that guided him just to help him to lay hold on
the two main pillars that supported the building. " Now the house was
full of men and women, and all the lords of the Philistines were there : and
Judges,
257
there were upon the roof about three thousand men and women, that beheld
while Samson made sport," the roof being flat, and, probably, having open-
ings in it to give a view below.
At this moment, Samson prayed to God to give him strength ; then,
grasping a pillar with each hand, he cried out, "Let me die with the
Philistines." "And he bowed
himself with all his might, and
the house fell upon the lords and
upon all the people that were
therein."
This was a great blow at the
Philistines, for you have just read
that all their lords or great men
were there ; on the roof only were
three thousand persons, besides
all that were inside, so that,
probably, six or seven thousand
were slain in this last effort of
Samson. " So the dead which he
which he slew in his life."
Then Samson's brethren took him and buried him in the burying-place
of Manoah his father. " He judged Israel twenty years."
SLAVES GRINDING CORN.
slew at his death were more than they
The Story of Micah and his Gods.
Judges xvii., xyin.
SOME chapters are put at the end of the book of Judges, which contain
stories of what happened a little after the days of Joshua, and long
before Samson ; but as they do not relate to the rulers of Israel, they are
put here that they might not interrupt their history, by coming between
Joshua and the Judges.
In the sixth verse we learn when the story happened which we are about
to tell. " In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did
that which was right in his own eyes."
"And there was a man of Mount Ephraim whose name was Micah."
And his mother had hoarded up eleven hundred pieces of silver, which she
probably meant to leave him when she died; but he, finding where they
17
258
Bible and Commentator,
were, took and laid them up for his own use. When she missed the money,
she was in a great passion and cursed the thief. Perhaps she suspected
Mi cah, and did so in his hearing that she might terrify him, for it was a
dreadful tiling for him to hear his mother curse him. So Micah, alarmed
at her words, directly told her that he had taken the money, and he restored
it, and she then blessed him.
His mother then told him that she had dedicated the money to the Lord
for her son's benefit, to make a graven image and a molten image, and she
restored the money for that purpose. However, he gave his mother the
money, and she took two hundred shekels of silver, and gave them to the
founder, to melt them into the shape of something to be used in worship.
And Micah, her son, had a house of gods, or idols, and he made an
ephod, or priest's costly gar-
ment, and teraphim, or some
sort of household gods ; and
having himself children
grown up, he consecrated
one of his sons, who became
his priest.
Micah probably designed
to worship the God of Israel,
but as it was some trouble
to go a great way to the
Tabernacle, he thought he
might save that, by having
a priest at home. Now as this was contrary to God's command, who would
have all Israel to worship together, he committed a great fault, and not a
less in making his son to serve as a priest.
However, he soon got another priest instead of his son. A young man
of Bethlehem- Judah, of the family of Judah, who was a Levite, happened
to be travelling that way, and stopped at Micah's house, where we may
suppose, according to the simple customs of that time and country, he
sought a night's lodging and some refreshment. Micah very naturally wished
to know who he was, and found that he was a Levite, who had last dwelt
at Bethlehem, a city in the tribe of Judah, and that he was seeking some
comfortable spot to live in ; from which it appears that the nation being
then without a king or governor, and so all in disorder, the Levites were
not properly provided for as God had commanded by Moses.
MOUNT EPHRA1M.
Judges. 259
So Micah asked him to stop and live with him, and be to him as a father
and a priest, and, said he, " I will give thee ten shekels of silver/' about
eight dollars, " by the year, and a suit of apparel, and thy victuals." In
asking him to be his father, he meant that he might advise with him and
respect him as a father; and as a priest, that he should perform all his rites
of religion ; and though the wages seem small, they were good for that
country in those early times.
So the Levite was satisfied, and Micah consecrated him, or filled his hand
with sacrifices to offer for him, — and the young man became his priest and
was in the house of Micah.
This was all doing what was wrong. Micah had no power given him to
consecrate a priest, and so he did
it without God's command ; and
though the priests were of the
tribe of Levi, yet every Levite
was not a priest, but only such
as were of the family of Aaron.
However, Micah thought him-
self very happy, because he had
got hold of a Levite to worship
in his house, and he said, "Now
I know that the Lord will do
me good, seeing I have a Levite
to my priest."
The tribe of Dan, finding
themselves straitened for room,
sent out five men to spy out the
land, and see if they could discover a good spot. They, like the Levite,
happened to stop at Micah's house. And they happened also to know
the voice of the Levite, and asked him how he got there ; and when they
heard his story, they asked him to act as their priest and to inquire of
God whether they should succeed in their journey. He said they would,
and, as it happened, he told them right.
Well, they went on to Laish, about sixty-five or seventy miles further,
and there they saw the people living very carelessly, quite at ease, and not
on their guard against any attack.
So they went back and told their brethren, and six hundred armed men
joined them, and they set out on their march.
ANCIENT IDOLS.
260
Bible and Commentator
In their way they had, as the five men, to pass by Micah?s house, and
being told about the priest and all his things for worship, they got the five
men to go in and steal them ; and they secured the priest, and told him it
would be much more honorable for him to be priest for so many, rather
than for Micah's family. So he very readily went with them, and ran away
from poor Micah.
As soon as Micah found what they had done, he got his neighbors
together ; and they set off after
the Danites, and overtook them.
" What aileth thee?" said they;
that is, "What is the matter?"
" Matter," said Micah, "ye have
taken away my gods which I
have made, and the priest, and
ye are gone away ; and what have
I more?" But they told him
he had better go back lest he
should get the worst of it ; and
finding they were much too nu-
merous for him, he was obliged
to lose his priests and his gods.
Then the men of Dan went
and took Laish, and killed its idle inhabitants, and burnt the place, and
built a city and called it Dan. And there they set up Micah's graven
images, and Jonathan the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, who had
been Micah's priest, became theirs, he and his sons, until the day of the
captivity of the land, and they had Micah's image with them "all the time
that the house of God was in Shiloh ; " which was till the time of Samuel,
when the ark of God was carried away captive by the Philistines.
Thus ends the history of Micah's gods, showing how the Danites became
guilty of setting up idolatry.
- The best Biblical scholars say that this name Manasseh should be Moses, and that this
Levite who was the priest of the Danites in their idolatrous worship was really a grandson of
Moses, " the man of God."
MICAH'S IMAGES.
RlTTH:
Is named after the woman whose history it gives. It was not written for a good while after the events it records.
Samuel, the prophet, is generally believed to have written it. It not only properly follows the book of Judges, but
is believed to belong to it. Its authority is shown in the fact of Ruth's name being inserted by Matthew in our
Saviour's genealogy. The book has four chapters.
The History of Naomi and Ruth.
Rtjth I -IV.
(HIS book contains a remarkably interesting story.
In the days of the Judges, of whom we have
lately been reading, there was a famine in
the land of Israel, and " a certain man of
Bethlehem-Judah," the place where Christ
was afterwards born, " went to sojourn, or
live for a time, in the country of Moab, he,
and his wife, and his two sons. And the
name of the man was Elimelech, and the
name of his wife Naomi." There the man died, and his two sons married
two Moabitish women, "the
name of the one was Orpah,
and the name of the other
Ruth."
In about ten years the two ^7~~^j
sons died also, so Naomi was gBpE
in a strange country with f- --_
neither husband nor sons.
She, no doubt, longed to
return home, for the people
among whom she lived did
not serve God, and she, who
was an Israelitish woman,
could not feel happy among those who were given to a false worship.
261
VIEW ON FKuM'IEK OF MOAB.
262
Bible and Commentator.
Having learnt that there was bread enough in her own land, she set out
to see it once more ; and her daughters-in-law, that is, her sons' wives, went
with her.
On the way, she advised her two daughters-in-law to go back to their
own country and friends ; and she kissed them to bid them good-bye, and
they all wept together. "And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth
clave unto her." Then Naomi said to Ruth, " Behold, thy sister-in-law
is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods : return thou after thy
sister-in-law." Then Ruth told her that she had fully made up her mind,
and it was of no use to try and persuade her to turn back. " Thy people,"
said she, " shall be my people, and thy God my God ; " "I will have no
more to do with the heathen in my own country, nor will I serve any more
the false gods of Moab."
So they went together to Bethlehem, "in the beginning of barley-
harvest."
On Naomi's reaching Bethlehem, many did not know her; she was so
BETHLEHEM-JUDAH, THE HOME OF NAOMI.
altered by time and sorrow, — for time changes the fine bloom on the face,
just as autumn does the colors of the summer flowers, — and the deaths of
her husband and sons had marked her countenance with lines like those of
age, for sorrow brings many down near to the grave, or sends them there. —
"And they said, Is this Naomi ? And she said unto them, Call me not
Ruth.
263
Naomi, call me Mara ; for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.
I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty ; " — " I
went out with a husband and two sons, and something to buy bread, but
now I am a widow, and childless, and poor ; my name Naomi, which means
beautiful, does not suit me, for my face is wrinkled with grief; call me,
therefore, by another name — call me Mara, which means bitterness, for I am
now a woman of a sorrowful spirit."
Well, now they had arrived at home they must have bread. So Euth
proposed to go and work in the field, and glean some corn with the poor.
And Providence so ordered it that she went into a field which belonged to
Boaz, a relation of Naomi's husband, and a very rich man.
And Boaz found that she was there, and having heard about her, how
good she was to her mother-in-law,
and how sincerely she loved the
true God, so as even to forsake
everything to serve him, he or-
dered that nobody should disturb
her, that she might eat and drink
with his servants; and that she
might be the better supplied, he
commanded the corn even to be
dropped, on purpose, by the way,
for her to glean it.
Having finished gleaning, Ruth
went home with her load, which
" was about an ephah of barley," or a bushel. And so she continued glean-
ing till the end of barley-harvest.
Now, it was a law in Israel for the nearest relation of a deceased person
to marry his widow, if the husband died and left no sons and daughters.
And Ruth being the widow of one of Elimelech's sons, her mother told her
to make known to Boaz, who was Elimelech's relation, that he must marry
her according to the law. We have no such law, and no such custom here,
and therefore it would be quite improper among us to do as Ruth did, but
Boaz in his day could not condemn her.
There was, however, another relation of her late husband's who was
nearer to him than Boaz ; and Boaz said he would see if he would marry
her, and recover the property of the family ; and if he would not, then he
would do as the law commanded.
BOAZ AND RUTH.
264 Bible and Commentator.
So the matter was settled before ten of the elders, or aged chief men of
the city, and the kinsman not being inclined to take Ruth, "he drew off
his shoe," which was a custom to show that all claim to any one in such a
case was given up, and so she became the wife of Boaz, and made Naomi
very happy.
This little history will teach us that good people, like Naomi, may be
very much afflicted for a time, yet God in the end will comfort them : that
God can, by his grace, bring the worst sinners to love and serve him, as he
did Ruth, a Moabitish woman, one of the people of that nation whose king
tried to curse Israel : and that none shall ever lose that give up anything
dear to them in order to serve God, as Ruth even did all her family and
friends, and became at last the wife of a rich man and a pious Israelite,
who loved her. But the greatest event in the story, and the reason
why it is told, is, that it contains something of consequence about Jesus
Christ. For Ruth had a son, and they called his name Obed ; he was the
father of Jesse, and Jesse was the father of David, and Jesus Christ was
called the Son of David, according to the flesh. So he could be traced back
in this history as springing from Ruth — from Ruth who was once a heathen
woman, and from Boaz, a pious Jew ; showing us, who were then a heathen
people, that he is the Saviour of the Gentiles, or heathen, as well as the
Jews. Thus, by leaving her wicked people and not going back with Orpah,
and resolving on living Avith Naomi among the true worshippers of God,
Ruth had the honor of being one of the line from which should spring that
glorious Saviour, in whom all nations should be blessed.
First Book of Samuel-.
Is called after the eminent judge and pr. phet who wrote twenty-four chapters of it. The ancient Jews united th«
First and Second Book of Samuel in one, and gave it the name of the Book of Samuel. This seemed more proper,
as the authorship of Samuel does not extend to its second book, which tells of things that transpired after his
death. Two very old translations call the two books we refer to the First and Second Books of Kings. The con-
cluding part of this book, some say, was written by the prophets Nathan and Gad, 1 Chron. xxix. 29. About
eighty years is contained within the period of this book, running from the birth of Samuel to the death of King
Saul. It has thirty-one chapters, and gives some deeply interesting and important narratives.
Young Samuel, a Servant of God— Eli's wicked Sons.
1 Samuel i., it., hi.
| ""^1. f| HERE was a man of a place in Mount Ephraim,
whose name was Elkanah. And, as we have
before seen, it wTas common in that country to
have more wives than one, and so Elkanah
had two wives, called Hannah and Peninnah.
But Hannah was not a mother, and her heart
was therefore grieved. Peninnah, too, was
unkind to her; and instead of pitying, she
vexed her and provoked her, perhaps telling
her that she would never see the Messiah, or
Saviour, springing from her blood.
So she prayed silently to the Lord, and vowed, that if she should
ever have a son, he should be given up for the entire service of God.
And while she was praying, Eli, the priest, who "sat by a post of the
temple of the Lord," saw her moving her lips and looking much grieved,
and he thought that she was not sober. But he did not know her heart ;
he therefore reproved her ; but when she told him she was praying in her
sorrow — pouring out her soul before the Lord — then Eli pitied her too, and
prayed God to hear her prayer. And so she went away " no more sad."
After a time, she had a son to bless her family, and she called his name
Samuel, which means, " asked of God."
265
266
Bible and Commentator
And when she had weaned Samuel, she took him up with her to Shiloh,
to serve God always in his house.
Hannah then prayed and sang a song of thanksgiving to God; and
Samuel was left to " minister unto the Lord before Eli, the priest."
This priest had sons, but they were " sons of Belial ; " that is, wicked
men, sons of the wicked one. As their father was high priest and judge in
Israel, they were priests by birth ; but they were bad priests.
And now, Samuel, though young, " ministered before the Lord." Some
little services, perhaps, he was employed in about the altar, though much
under the age appointed by the law for the Levite's ministration. He could
light a candle, or hold a dish, or run on an errand, or shut a door ; and,
because he did this with a pious disposition of mind, it is called, ministering
to the Lord, and great notice is taken of it. After a while he did his work
so well, that Eli appointed he
should minister with a linen
ephod, as the priests did —
though he was no priest — be-
cause he saw that God was
with him.
And Samuel's kind "mother
made him a little coat, and
brought it to him from year
to year, when she came up
with her husband to offer the
yearly sacrifice."
And now we learn some-
thing more about Eli's wicked
sons ; there was hardly a wicked deed which they did not commit. And
Eli, their father, talked with them, and tried to persuade them to turn from
their wicked ways, but they did not give heed to his reproofs. So while
" the child Samuel grew up and was in favor, both with the Lord and also
with men/' these sons were quite the contrary, neither beloved by the one
nor the other.
God told Samuel what he would do to Eli's wicked family. You may
read, in the third chapter, how God called to Samuel when he had " laid
down to sleep," and that Samuel supposed it was Eli speaking to him, and
ran to the old man to know what he wanted — and that he did so three
times, till at last Eli saw that God must have said something to him in an
LITTLE SAMUEL ON AN EKEAND
1 Samuel.
267
extraordinary way, and desired him to say, " Speak, Lord, for thy servant
heareth," and to listen to all that the voice should speak. Also, that in the
morning Eli asked Samuel to
tell him all that he had heard ;
and when he found that it was
a message of judgment on his
wicked children, he could
plead nothing in their behalf,
for God was just in all he
meant to do, and he only said;
" It is the Lord ; let him do
what seemeth him good." So
Samuel was known and ac-
knowledged to be a prophet
of the Lord, and his fame
reached from Dan to Beer-
sheba, the two parts of Judea
most distant from each other,
the one the northern, and the
other the southern limit.
TEMPLE CANDELABRA.
The History of the Ark when taken by the Philistines, and of its
Restoration to Israel.
1 Samuel iv.-vii.
THE Israelites were at this time greatly vexed by the Philistines, who
had a sort of rule over them, and they resolved to set themselves free.
So they went out to meet the Philistines, and were beaten with the loss of
four thousand men.
The elders of Israel then advised them to send to Shiloh, and get the ark
of the covenant in the camp — as in the days of Moses and Joshua, when its
presence gave success, it being then a sign of God's own presence amongst
the people. And when the ark had arrived, the Israelites were so rejoiced,
and felt so sure that they should beat the enemy, that they shouted till the
earth seemed to ring like a bell with the sound of their voices. But God
had not told them to fetch the ark, nor had he said he would be with them.
However, when the Philistines knew the ark was there, they were sadly
268
Bible and Commentator
afraid, but instead of answering the purpose which the Israelites intended —
to frighten the Philistines away — they were only provoked to fight the
more desperately. "And Israel was smitten, and they fled every man into
his tent : and there was a very great slaughter ; for there fell of Israel
thirty thousand footmen ;" or, as we should now say, infantry, or foot
soldiers. "And," what was worst of all, " the ark of God was taken ; and
the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas," who had brought the ark,
" were slain ; " so, as God had said, they died " both in one day."
As soon as the defeat had happened, a man of the tribe of Benjamin ran
off to Shiloh, where Eli was anxiously waiting to hear the news, and
especially if the ark of God was safe. And he told the news as he went
along, and the people made a great lamentation, and Eli began to fear all
was not right. Then the
messenger told him that
the troops were beaten —
and great numbers were
slain — and that his two
sons were killed — and last
of all, that the ark of God
was taken. He heard all
with silent grief, but when
he heard that the ark was
taken, his heart sank
within him, and he fell
down off his seat and
broke his neck, and died.
Eli was ninety-eight years old, and had judged Israel forty years.
So died Eli's sons for their wickedness, and so died Eli, because he had
not been earnest enough in rebuking his wicked children.
Nor have we yet heard the whole of this sorrowful tale, for the wife of
Phinehas was ill at the time, and on hearing of his death and of the taking
of the ark, she died also, leaving a son, whom in memory of these painful
events she called Ichabod, which means The glory is departed, for "she
said, The glory is departed from. Israel ; for the ark of God is taken."
The Philistines now foolishly thought that they had got the God of the
Israelites, and they carried the ark in triumph to Ashdod, one of their five
cities, and there they put it in the temple of their idol Dagon, either to
worship it themselves, or rather as a trophy of victory. The next morning
BEARING THE ARK.
1 Samuel. 269
they found that Dagon had fallen on his face before the ark, and they set
their idol up again. And the next morning after that, they found that he
had fallen again, and was so broken that only his stump remained.
This idol of the Philistines was made like one of our fanciful pictures
called a mermaid ; the upper part being a human shape to the middle, and
the lower like a fish : as Horace, a Roman poet, describes it, " a handsome
woman with a fish's tail."
The Philistines would now have done wisely to return the ark, or worship
the God of Israel, whose presence was often with it, or who chose to show
his power where it was; but they were blind idolaters, and they were
punished for hurting Israel, though Israel deserved punishment from God.
Having therefore done that work, they are now punished for their own
crimes in slaying the favored nation, and God sent a disease among them,
and destroyed great numbers. Then they sent the ark away to Gath,
another of their cities, supposing, perhaps, they should be more lucky there,
but there the people died in the same way ; and last of all, they sent it to
Ekron ; but the people were greatly afraid of it, and they had reason to be
so, for there they were smitten like the others, and their cry li went up to
heaven ; " that is, it was very loud and piteous, and, as we say, rent the air.
After this the Philistines kept the ark no more in their cities, but sent it
into the fields, and there God punished them, for there is no escaping from
his judgments when he visits the wicked. He caused mice to spring up in
great multitudes, and destroy their corn.
So at the end of seven months the Philistines asked their priests and
conjurers what they should do with the ark. And they advised that it
should be sent away. And as they knew that the God of Israel accepted
of trespass-offerings from his people, they thought that one should now be
given to him — though they mistook its nature, for without shedding of
blood there was no remission of sin ; the death of the creatures slain, showing
the death of Christ, who was to come and atone for sin. They resolved
that this trespass-offering should be in a shape which should acknowledge
God's hand in their sufferings, and as they had been smitten with a disease
called emerods, they would have five golden emerods made like the shape
of the tumor caused by the disease, and five would be one for each of their
cities ; and then as God had sent what was clearly a miraculous number of
mice to plague them, they would send of these as many golden ones as they
had cities and villages. Then they would take two milch-kine, or cows
that gave milk, and tie the kine to a new cart, and bring the. calves home
270
Bible and Commentator.
from them; and putting the ark in the cart, with the golden mice and
emerods in a coffer or chest by its side, they would let the kine go their
way without a driver.
Now in doing this they thought wisely. For they reasoned that if the
cows did not go home to their calves, as they are always exceedingly fond
«^^
MILCH-KINE IN AN ORIENTAL CART.
of them — why then they should be sure that something wonderful was
about the ark, and that God did all that they suffered ; but, if they did go
home, then it was all mere chance — though this last idea was very foolish,
because they had seen enough to convince any but the most obstinate that
there was no mere chance in what had come upon them.
Well, though the cows had never been trained for the yoke — and had no
driver — and were left to go their own way — and had lost their calves, and
went on lowing for them — instead of turning where they were gone, they
took the straight way to Beth-shemesh, the next city in the land of Israel,
and though it was eight or ten miles off, they never stopped, and the lords
of the Philistines, who watched their motions, saw them cross the border of
Beth-shemesh : "And they of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat
harvest in the valley : and they lifted up their eyes, and saw the ark, and
rejoiced to see it. And the cart came into the field of Joshua, a Beth-
272
Bible and Commentato
shemite, and stood there, where there was a great stone : and they clave the
wood of the cart, and offered the kine a burnt-offering unto the Lord • " for
having carried the sacred ark, they could no more be used for common
purposes.
The Philistines saw all this done, and returned.
And now a dreadful punishment befell the men of Beth-shemesh. They
did not treat the ark with that reverence which God ordered it to have, as
the sign that he was among the peo-
ple, and he visited them with severe
punishment ; for " he smote the men
of Beth-shemesh, because they had
looked into the ark of the Lord, even
he smote of the people fifty thousand
and threescore and ten men." Well
might the men of Beth-shemesh say,
''Who is able to stand before this
holy Lord God?"
The men of Beth-shemesh left the
ark on a stone in an open field; and
the men of Kirjath-jearim fetched it
away, and took it to the house of
Abinadab, and sanctified or set apart
Eleazar his son to keep it, so that it
might not be seized by the Philis-
tines, nor looked into again by curious
Israelites. Here the ark remained
till it was fetched away many years
afterwards by king David.
No wonder that the ark of God
VA.UVJS.
was taken away, and that it was not
restored for the use of the people at Shiloh. For with that foolish inclina-
tion to idolatry which the wicked nations had around, they had now among
them worshippers of idols called Baalim and Ashtaroth. And Samuel told
them to put away these idols, and then, and not till then, would God deliver
them from the Philistines. So they put them away, and met Samuel at a
place called Mizpeh, to worship the Lord.
As soon as the Philistines heard of this, they gathered their troops to-
gether, and marched against Israel, and Israel were afraid, and entreated
1 Samuel. 273
Samuel to pray for them. And Samuel offered a lamb for a burnt-offering,
— here was a reference, my dear reader, to the only Lamb that could take
away sin, the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, whom it shadowed forth ; and on
account of this sacrifice the Lord heard Samuel.
And now, even while the sacrifice was offering up, the Philistines ap-
proached, but just as they probably thought they should slay all their vic-
tims, " the Lord thundered with a great thunder," — and they fled in affright,
and were smitten before Israel. Josephus, a Jewish writer, says, that the
earth quaked under them, when first they made their onset, and in many
places opened and swallowed them up ; and that besides the terror of the
thunder, their faces and hands were burnt with lightning, which obliged
them to shift for themselves by flight.
To keep up the remembrance of this wonderful deliverance, in which
God had so plainly fought for Israel, " Samuel took a stone, and set it be-
tween Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, " which means
the stone of help," saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us."
This victory kept the Philistines out of the coast of Israel all the days
of Samuel, and the cities which had been taken from Israel were now
restored to them.
Saul chosen to be the First King of Israel.
1 Samuel viii -x.
SAMUEL had two sons whom he made judges, because he began to grow
old and unfit for all the cares of his office. But these sons, like those
of Eli, turned out bad ; they " turned aside after filthy lucre," that is, gain,
— they took bribes, and perverted judgment, giving their opinions, in cases
of dispute, in favor of those who would pay them best, and not according to
right. It was not Samuel's fault, as it was Eli's, that he did not properly
notice their conduct, for he was ready to hear any public complaint against
them.
However, the people made the conduct of Samuel's sons an excuse to ask
for a king, which they had never had. God designed that they should
have one after his own heart, when Samuel should die, but they would not
wait till then, and must have one instantly, and so be like the heathen
nations around them.
This behavior displeased Samuel, and he prayed to God for wisdom to
direct him what to do. And God told Samuel that they should have a
18
274
Bible and Commentator
SAUL THE KING.
king, but they should feel for their rash choice. Till this time he had been
their king, and had appointed them governors who had made them pay no
tribute, nor had vexed them by any
tyranny ; but now, as they had
rejected him by rejecting his servant
Samuel, and wanted a king, " like
all the nations," they should know
what sort of kings theirs were. Not
such as govern the people of England,
who are a free people, but such as
still govern in the Eastern parts of
the world, who keep all their subjects
under them as so many slaves ; what
we call absolute monarchs, governed
by no law or parliament gathered
from the people, but doing everything
according to their own pleasure.
Samuel told the people all this,
but they would not mind what he said, and so God said to him. " Hearken
unto their voice, and make them a king."
Now there was a man of the tribe of Benjamin, who was rich and mighty,
and he had a son, who was a very handsome young man, and so tall that
he was a head and shoulders above the height of men in general. The
ancient nations usually chose such men for kings ; and this man was suited
to the taste of Israel, who seemed more
disposed to look for a great man than a
good man, to rule over them.
Saul's father, whose name was Kish,
being " a mighty man of power," had, it
appears, some of the asses of the East,
so beautiful and valuable, and which
formed a portion of the wealth of Job
and other rich men.
By some means these creatures went
astray, "And Kish said to Saul, his son,
Take now one of the servants with thee, and arise, go seek the asses." It
was quite agreeable to the simplicity of those times for persons of equal
or greater substance to be employed in such an affair ; asses were ridden
ASS OF PALESTINE.
1 Samuel. 275
upon by persons of quality, and were fed and taken care of by the sons of
dukes and princes.
Though Saul was now a man, and had children grown up, yet he obeyed
his father's orders ; and so he set an example worthy of imitation, for
parents are always to be respected.
He travelled through various places, which, it is supposed, took about
three days' journey ; but he could hear no news of the asses.
Not being able to find them in this time, he determined to return with
the servant to his father, thinking of his father's tender concern for him ;
supposing " that if they stayed out any longer, the old gentleman would
begin to fear, as Jacob concerning Joseph, that an evil beast had devoured
them, or some other mischief had befallen them."
Saul's servant, however, recollected that they were now near Raman, the
place where Samuel lived, and so he proposed to go and see this " man of
God," and as he was a prophet, perhaps he would be able to tell where the
beasts were to be found.
But according to long-established custom, which still continues in the
East, great persons were not to be approached by strangers without a
present; and as all their provision was gone, what could they j>resent?
However, the servant recollected that he had in his pocket a piece of money,
" the fourth part of a shekel of silver," which was worth about ninepence
of our money ; and this, though trifling and hardly worth acceptance, was
enough to show respect : so it was agreed that he should make Samuel a
present of this piece of money.
And as they went up the hill to the city, they met with some young
women going to draw water, and asked them if the Seer was there — for
that was the name by which Samuel was known — Seer meaning nearly the
same as prophet, a person who sees or foretells things to come.
Now, Samuel was just then going to sacrifice at Raman, for the ark not
being at Shiloh, divine worship was not now confined to that place. And
as they hastened up the hill they met him.
God had impressed on the Seer's mind that he would on that day send a
man to him whom he should anoint on the head with oil — or pour oil on it
according to the ancient custom of appointing kings — and that he should
rule over Israel, whose cry of distress, notwithstanding all their ill conduct,
he had graciously heard, being oppressed by the Philistines ; and this king
should deliver them. As soon, therefore, as he saw Saul, he knew that he
was the man ; and God again impressed it on his mind.
276
Bible and Commentator.
Saul, not knowing Samuel, went up to him, and asked him to direct him
to the Seer's house.
Then Samuel told him that he was the Seer, that he was just going to
feast at the sacrifice, that he must go up with him and partake of it, and he
WOMEN GOING TO DRAW WATER.
should return on the morrow; that he need not trouble himself further
about the asses, for they were found, and that he should be ruler over
Israel.
Samuel's knowledge of his business showed that he was a prophet, but
his telling him that he was to be king of Israel rather surprised him, and
he spoke humbly about his being raised to so great an honor.
There were about thirty persons at the feast, and Samuel put Saul " in
the chiefest place," and gave him the best dish, already doing him honor as
the king appointed by God to rule over Israel.
After the feast Samuel took Saul to the top of his house, which being
1 Samuel. 277
•
flat on the roof, was convenient for walking and taking the air, as we would
in our gardens ; here he communed or talked privately with him, and told
him, no doubt, how God had chosen him to be king ; that he himself was
quite willing to resign the authority of chief to him, and how he ought to
perform his office for the good of the people.
The next morning, as Saul was leaving Ramah, Samuel went with him,
and when they had reached the end of the city, he told him to send his
servant on before, as he had particular business with him.
Then Samuel anointed him, and kissed him, according to the custom of
the East.
Before parting with him, Samuel also gave him some signs of what should
happen to him as he went on, which must further confirm his faith in him
as a true prophet of God. First, he should meet with some who should
tell him that the asses were found, and that his father was in trouble at his
long absence. Then he should meet with others going to Bethel, where
there was a place for the worship of God, to which they would be taking
their sacrifices ; they should have kids, loaves, and a bottle of wine, de-
signed for sacrifice, meat-offerings, and drink-offerings, — and he and the
servant need not fear them, for they would find them to be friends, and they
would show their friendship by bidding them good speed, and also giving
them two loaves, which they would need in the remaining part of their
journey : afterwards they were to come to a high hill, where there was a
company or garrison of Philistines, who probably kept the poor Israelites
there in subjection to them. There was a school of the prophets, where men
were engaged in learning the law of God, and Saul would find himself
strongly moved in his mind to join them, as they should meet them coming
down from the high place : they would probably have been sacrificing, and
they should meet them returning with music, and prophesying or praising
God ; praising God being one sort of prophesying.
After this Saul was to go to Gilgal, and to wait for Samuel to join him
in offering sacrifices to God.
Well, " all these signs came to pass." And when all that knew Saul be-
fore, saw him among the company of prophets, they asked each other in
wonder, " Is Saul also among the prophets ? "
And Samuel called the people together at Mizpeh, and told them of what
great things God had done for them, from time to time, ever since he de-
livered them out of Egypt ; and how ungrateful it was in them to want
a king to rule over them ; and then the king was chosen by lot. By the
flBMHn
I
,n
p
278
1 Samuel. 279
first lot, the tribe of Benjamin was singled out from all the tribes ; then the
family of Matri, of that tribe to which Saul belonged ; and then Saul, the
son of Kish. And he had modestly hid himself among the stuff, supposed
to be the carts and baggage, brought by the people to Mizpeh, and when
he was fetched, " he was higher than any of the people, from his shoulders
and upwards ; " or, as we said before, by his head and shoulders. And
when Samuel showed him to the people, they were quite delighted with him ;
and they all shouted, " God save the king ! "
Then Samuel told the people " the manner of the kingdom ; " that it was
the office of the king to rule justly, and of the people to obey his lawful
commands. These things were written in a book, as a kind of agreement
between them, which was carefully laid up among the records of the kingdom.
Thus you have the beginning of the Kings of Israel, whose history we
shall now for some time have to read.
Saul's Victory over the Ammonites.
1 Samuel, xi.
SAUL began his reign by a very brave action. Nahash, who was prob-
ably a king of the Ammonites, went and encamped, or sat himself
down with his army in tents, round Jabesh-Gilead, a fortified place belonging
to the Israelites, near the country of the Ammonites.
So as he was very strong, and the garrison were very weak, — and still
weaker in faith, or they would have trusted in God, and tried their force
against the enemy, — it was proposed to Nahash that they would surrender and
be his slaves, if he would tell them on what terms he would spare their lives.
Nahash told them that they must all have their right eyes thrust out.
The men of Jabesh then asked for seven days to settle the matter, and
promised that if, at the end of that time, they could get no help they would
surrender.
When the news reached Gibeah, where Saul was, the people, after the East-
ern manner, lifted up their voices and wept so loudly, that when Saul, who
after the simple manner of living in those days, came — not from a palace,
but from the fields where he had been attending to the herds — he was
attracted by their distress, and asked what was the matter. When he was
told what JSTahash intended to do, the Spirit of God came upon him, and
gave him courage and wisdom. "And he took a yoke of oxen and hewed
280
Bible and Commentator
hands of messengers, saying,
them in pieces, and sent them throughout all the coasts of Israel by the
Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and
after Samuel, so shall it be
done unto his oxen : and
the fear of the Lord fell
on the people, and they
came out with one consent."
Saul soon collected an
army of three hundred and
thirty thousand men, and
the messengers went back
to Jabesh-Gilead to tell the
garrison that by the time
the sun was hot,— or about
the noon of the morrow, —
they should have help ; and
they were glad enough at
the news.
Early on the morning
of that day in which the
Ammonites expected to enjoy their cruel triumph over the people of Jabesh-
Gilead, Saul came suddenly upon them with
his great army, which he divided into three
parts, so that it fell upon the foe in three
places at once, and being taken by surprise,
they ran away in all directions, and Saul
chased them till the heat of the day.
Pleased with Saul's bravery and success,
the people now said, " Who is he that said,
Shall Saul reign over us ? bring the men,
that we may put them to death." But
Saul very generously forgave those that
had insulted him, and said, " There shall
not a man be put to death this day ; for
to-day the Lord hath wrought salvation in
Israel."
And sacrifices were offered to the Lord,
and the day was spent in rejoicing.
VICTORY OVER THE AMMONITES.
ARMOR USED IN TIME OF SAUL.
1 Samuel. 281
Samuel's Farewell Address to Israel.
1 Samuel xii.
SAMUEL now grew old ; and, as the people had got the king whom
they had chosen, he gave up the power he had held for their good.
In taking his farewell, as the ruler of Israel, Samuel reminded them of
God's goodness to them and their fathers — of the miseries their fathers had
suffered, when they forsook God — of their repentance — of God's gracious
regard to them, and his glorious deliverances of them from their enemies,
and then, of his even condescending to give them a king, when they so
much wished for one. And now, he would also tell them, that under this
new government they were still not to think themselves free from the
government of God, whom, if they obeyed, they should be happy ; but if
they disobeyed, they must be miserable.
Then, to show that what Samuel spoke was true, and by his direction,
God, at Samuel's word, sent " thunder and rain," at a time of the year
when, in that country, the like was never known. It was the time of
" wheat harvest," which is there about the end of May or beginning of
June ; and one who lived there for several years says that at that time he
never saw any rain in Judea. So " all the people greatly feared the Lord
and Samuel."
Saul rejected from being King.
1 Samuel xiii.
'* Q1 AUL reigned one year," and when he entered upon the second year
f^-J of his reign, he did very foolishly.
He raised an army, much too small to contend with the Philistines, and
then his son Jonathan smote a garrison of them that was in Geba ; and it
is thought that this was done treacherously, while all the parties were in a
state of peace, and resting on each other's word ; for something of the kind
is meant by its being said that " all Israel also was had in abomination with
the Philistines." The Philistines vowed vengeance against them for such
unfair dealing, and abominated them on account of it.
And now "the Philistines gathered themselves together to fight with
Israel, thirty thousand chariots, and six thousand horsemen, and people
as the sand which is on the sea-shore in multitude."
282
Bible and Commentator.
The Israelites now found that though they had a king, like the heathen,
yet he could not give them courage, for never were their hearts so faint.
" For the people were distressed ; then the people did hide themselves in
caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places, and in pits." Some,
also, went a great way off, over Jordan, and all those that stayed with Saul
" followed him trembling."
Now Samuel had told Saul to go to Gilgal and wait there for him seven
days, and he would come and meet him and offer sacrifices for him and the
people. So Saul went to Gilgal, and waited till the seventh day ; but not
having patience to wait till the end of the day, as Samuel had not come —
he thought that he would
not be there at all, and
so he called for the sacri-
fices, and offered them
himself. Now this was
very wicked, for he was
only a king, and neither a
priest nor a prophet: so
that, in offering sacrifices,
he had profaned the most
sacred things, and dared to
take upon himself the most
solemn office without God's
command.
Presently came Samuel,
according to his promise;
and Saul told him that
he had waited so long that
he began to think he would not come, and he was afraid that the Philistines
would fall upon him before the sacrifices were offered up ; and so, much
against his will, he had turned priest himself. Then Samuel told him how
foolishly he had done, and that, for this act of disobedience to God, against
which he had had sufficient warning, he should lose his kingdom, and it
should go to another man — one after God's own heart, who would not so
profane his holy things.
Saul now mustered his army, and found he had no more than six hundred
men left with him. A fine army, indeed, for a king ! so low was the pride
of Israel now brought !
PHILISTINE ARMOR.
1 Samuel,
283
The few Israelites that followed Saul were also without swords or spears ;
for, wheu the Philistines had before beaten them, they had taken away all
their forges to make iron, and their workers in that metal, so that no swords,
spears, or arrow-heads could be made ; and the Israelites even went down
to the Philistines to sharpen their ploughshares and other instruments
which they used to till the field. " So it came to pass, in the day of battle,
that there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the
people that were with Saul and Jonathan ; but with Saul and with Jonathan
his son was there found ; " they only had swords.
Jonathan's bold Attack of the Philistines.
1 Samuel xiv.
JOXATHAN, Saul's son, was a very brave young man ; and God put
it into his heart to fall upon the Philistines, having no other
upon
or the
man that carried his
no
spear and
helper than his armor-bearei\
shield.
When the Philistines saw Jona-
than, they probably laughed at him,
and they said, " Come up to us and
we wTill show you a thing." Per-
haps they thought that Jonathan
would not dare to venture, and so
they mocked him. Now these
words were the sign which Jona-
than had looked for; and by
speaking so the Philistines showed
that they did not care for the Is-
raelites, and seemed to make sure
of beating them. Jonathan boldly
accepted of the challenge, and
climbed up the steep rock on which
the fort was built, where the Philistine garrison was, followed by his armor-
bearer. When they saw him followed by another, they might fancy, at the
moment, that they were taken by surprise by the whole army. God, too,
who had prompted Jonathan to what he did, and gave him and his armor-
bearer courage, made the Philistines become cowards, for " they fell before
5TEEF HOCK WITH FORT.
284 Bible and Commentator.
Jonathan," who, most likely, knocked them down, " and his armor-bearer
slew after him." So Jonathan and his armor-bearer slew about twenty
men in a small space of ground which a couple of oxen might plough
over in a day.
The news of the destruction of this little garrison was immediately carried
to the army; and God so ordered it that they and all the people became
cowards, too, and were what we call, in such a case, panic-struck.
Some of Saul's men were on the look-out, to see that the Philistines did
not surprise him ; and they saw a great movement among their armies,
" and behold, the multitude melted away," grew less and less, like snow
melted by the sun, " and they went on beating one another." The fright
of the Philistines had gone from the garrison to the camp ; the men had run
away, and either in clearing a way to escape, or — by mistake, likely to be
made in a fright — taking their own troops for Israelites, who, they might
suppose, had got in in disguise amongst them, they drew their swords upon
each other and so made terrible havoc in their armies.
Saul, seeing this, wondered which of his regiments had gone out to battle,
and called a muster to examine them, when no men were missing but Jona-
than and his armor-bearer.
Saul was now about to consult the priest what he was to do, but the
confusion among the Philistines having increased, he thought there was
no time to lose, and so he and all his men went to the battle : and all those
who had hid themselves now took courage and came to the battle. " So
the Lord saved Israel that day."
The Amalekites Destroyed.
1 Samuel xv.
IN this chapter we learn that God sent Samuel to Saul with a command
to go and destroy the people of Amalek, and to spare nothing that
belonged to them; even little infants and sucklings, and every kind
of beast.
This sentence was very severe, but God never punishes without a cause,
and Samuel gave the reason for it: " Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I
remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in
the way, when he came up from Egypt."
We have the particular account of what the Amalekites did in the
1 Samuel.
285
twenty-sixth chapter of Deuteronomy, and the seventeenth and eighteenth
verses.
Saul did not, however, slay the Kenites who dwelt among the people of
Amalek, for they had not partaken of their sins ; Jethro, the father-in-law
of Moses, was one of the Kenites.
And now, as God's executioner, " Saul smote the Amalekites," but he
did not do all his work as God had commanded, for he spared Agag,
perhaps because he was a great man : and he thought it a pity that all
the fine cattle should be slain, and so he killed only the worst and kept
the best.
Now, it is very wicked to do just as much of God's commands as we
please, and leave the
rest undone. So did
Saul, and God was dis-
pleased with him. And
God said, " It repenteth
me that I have set up
Saul to be king," mean-
ing, that he would now
act as men did when
they repent and alter
what they purposed.
So Samuel went to Saul and asked how he came to keep the sheep and
oxen. And Saul, to excuse himself, said that " the people spared " them,
and that they were only preserved to offer to God. These were poor
excuses, which Samuel knew were not true ; so Samuel said, " Because thou
hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being
king."
On learning God's displeasure, Saul began to confess that he had done
wrongly, and he tried to get Samuel, as God's prophet, to speak pardon to
him, but he could not. "And as Samuel turned about to go away, he laid
hold upon the skirt of his mantle, and it rent." This, Samuel as a prophet
said, was a sign of what God would certainly do. "And Samuel said unto
him, The Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and
hath given it to a neighbor of thine that is better than thou."
Samuel then did what Saul had left undone, and he passed sentence of
death on Agag. "And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in
Gilgal."
THE CATTLE PRESERVED BY THE KING.
286
Bible and Commentator
Thus the Amalekites were destroyed as a nation, though some are after-
wards mentioned, who probably escaped from the sword of Saul and fled
out of the kingdom.
David anointed to be King of Israel.
1 Samuel, xvi.
SAMUEL had retired to live quietly at Kamah, but God now com-
manded him to take a horn of oil and go to Jesse the Bethlehemite
and anoint one of his sons to be king.
As soon as Samuel had arrived at Beth-
lehem, the people feared, lest perhaps, as
God's prophet, he might have some sentence
to denounce against them for some sins
which they had done, and they asked him
if he came peaceably, and he told them that
he came to sacrifice to the Lord. "And he
sanctified Jesse and his sons, and called them
to the sacrifice."
The first son that made his appearance
was called Eliab, and he was handsome and
tall, and Samuel thought that he must cer-
tainly be the one whom God had chosen to
be king, for people then usually preferred a
fine tall man for this rank. However, God
told Samuel that he did not look at the out-
ward appearance, but at the heart, and that
Eliab was not the man whom he had chosen.
Then seven of Jesse's sons passed by Sam-
uel, one after another, and there were no
more remaining. At last Samuel asked Jesse if he had no other son ; and
he told him there was another, but he was the youngest, and he was then
keeping some sheep. So Samuel desired that he should be fetched. " Now
he was ruddy," or fresh-colored, "and withal of a beautiful countenance,
and goodly to look to. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him, for this is he."
Then Samuel anointed David, and returned to Eamah.
From that time " the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil
spirit from the Lord troubled him." God permitted him to grow " fretful
DAVID, THE KING.
1 Samuel. 287
and peevish, and discontented, timorous and suspicious, starting and trem-
bling." This made him unfit for business, and a burden to himself and
to all around him.
His counsellors, seeing his pitiable state, sought to relieve him, and
knowing his mind to be distressed they advised the king to have a good
harp-player, and whenever he felt his low fits coming upon him, as soon
as he touched the music the evil spirit wT©uld depart and he would be cheer-
ful as others.
The king liked the proposal, and ordered such a musician to be found.
Now David, the son of Jesse, whom Samuel had anointed, was very
skilful in playing the harp, and one of Saul's counsellors told him of it ;
and though he was little of stature, he was a brave man, and this Saul
would also like.
So Sauf, hearing a good character of him, sent for him. And Jesse sent
a few presents with him, in token of respect to king Saul. "And David
came to Saul and stood before him, and he loved him greatly, and he
became his armor-bearer." And he asked David's father to let him stay in
his service. And whenever Saul's evil spirit troubled him, David played
his harp ; " so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed
from him."
David's Victory over Goliath.
1 Samuel xvii.
T I THE Israelites and the Philistines were constantly at war, and here we
-A- find them opposed to each other, having drawn up their armies on
two hills with a valley between ; so that they were near enough to call to
each other, though they must go down into the valley, or both stand on one
or other of the hills to meet in battle.
The Philistines were full of courage, for they had a terrible giant amongst
them, Goliath of Gath. He was the champion of his people, — that is, one
ready to defy any man who dared to meet him in battle, and whom he could
crush with as much ease as any man could crush an infant. Some suppose
that he was twelve feet high, but others think it more probable that he was
about ten feet.
He was not only very tall, but also very strong and well armed. He had
a large brass helmet on his head, and was dressed in a coat of mail, which
was like a jacket or shirt of brass, fastened together in small pieces, like the
288
Bible and Commentator.
scales on a fish or the tiles on the roof of a house. Some of this sort of
armor is to be seen in the tower of London.
He had also greaves of brass upon his legs, and a target of brass between
his shoulders. These greaves were a kind of brass boots, which, however,
only covered the front of the leg from the knee to the instep, so that the
whole shin was protected by them ; the target was something of a covering
to protect his neck and shoulders. "The staff of his spear was like a
weaver's beam," so that he could
easily play, as with a sword, with
a huge piece of wood which an-
other man could scarcely lift.
"And his spear's head weighed
six hundred shekels of iron,"
which is thought to be above
eighteen pounds. The whole
armor which this giant carried
about him with ease must have
weighed about two hundred and
seventy-two pounds, which was
almost four times as much as
that of the best-armed soldiers
of ancient times. He had, as
others, an armor-bearer to carry
his shield.
This daring and terrible man
came forward from the Philistine
army, and called to the Israelites
Ijf to tell them, that if they could
send a man to beat him, the
Philistines should be their ser-
vants; but if rot, they should
serve the Philistines.
Saul and Jonathan, and no
doubt many others, were brave men among the Israelites, but " they were
greatly afraid," on account of this giant.
For forty days did Goliath thus tease and frighten the armies of Israel.
Now three of David's elder brothers happened to be in the army, and
their father Jesse desired David to leave the care of the sheep, and to go and
PHILISTINE SHIELDS AND SPEARS.
1 Samuel
289
take them some food, and inquire if they were in want of anything. And
just as he got to the army, the people were shouting, and were about to begin
the fight. And David ran into the army to give his brothers refreshment
before the battle began. Just at that moment, Goliath appeared again, and
challenged the Israelites as before. "And all the men of Israel, when they
saw the man, fled from him, and were sore afraid."
Saul had offered to give any man great riches, and he should marry his
daughter, and his father's house should also have great honors, if he would
dare to fight and beat this dreadful giant.
So David asked the people what any man would have who overthrew him.
And his brother Eliab, who looked down upon
him with contempt because he was younger and
shorter than he, rebuked him for asking the
question. But David still continued to ask it,
that it might reach the ears of Saul, and he
patiently bore the most ill-natured words from
his brother.
At last Saul sent for David, and David told
him he would go and fight the Philistine. But
Saul said he was only a youth, while Goliath
had long been a man of war ; how, then, could
lie hope to beat him ?
Then David told him that he had more
courage and strength than he supposed, for he
had once fought and killed a lion and a bear,
that came tc steal some of his father's flock,
and, said he, " thy servant slew both the lion
and the bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, see-
ing he hath defied the armies of the living God." And then he told him
why he was so bold, because he trusted in God to help him : " the Lord
that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the
bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine."
Saul could not any longer object. He saw that God was with David to
help him, and he said, " Go, and the Lord be with thee.v
So Saul put his own armor upon David ; but when it was on him, David
said it must be taken off, for he had not proved, or was not used to such a
sort of armor, and therefore it would only be a hindrance to him.
Then " he took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones
19
THE YOUNG SLIXGEE.
290 Bible and Commentator.
out of the brook, and put them in a shepherd's bag which he had, even in
a scrip, and his sling was in his hand, and he drew near to the Philistine."
Now David was very active, and he was clever in throwing a stone from
a sling, and God gave him more than common strength and skill on this
occasion.
The Philistine marched forward in a very stately manner, and his armor-
bearer was before him bearing his shield. And when he saw David, he
disdained him, and seeing the staff in his hand, he asked him if he thought
that he was no better than a dog, that he should dare to come out to fight
him with nothing but a stick ; and he was so enraged that he cursed David
by his gods. And then he said to him in angry ridicule, " Come to me,
and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the
field." This was indeed a frightful threat, uttered perhaps with a hoarse
and strong voice like the growl of a lion ; but David did not fear the boaster,
and he replied, " Thou comest to me with a sword and with a spear, and
with a shield ; but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God
of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. This day will the Lord
deliver thee into mine hand, and I will smite thee, and take thine head from
thee, and I will give the carcasses of the host of the Philistines this day unto
the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth ; that all the earth
may know that there is a God in Israel. And all this assembly shall know
that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear ; for the battle is the Lord's,
and he will give you into our hands."
See how different Avas the language of David to that of the Philistine.
Goliath talked of what he himself would do ; but David said, " The Lord
will deliver thee into my hand," and he did not trust in God in vain.
And now the combat began ; " the Philistine arose and came and drew
nigh to meet David." And David ran to meet this huge man, moving like
a mountain and cased in brass. We may suppose that Goliath reckoned
that in a few moments he should cut off the head of this rash youth, and
laugh at the folly of the Israelites in sending forth such a champion ; while
the Israelites quaked, lest the fair form of such a courageous youth should
fall beneath the sword of this tyrant.
But they had not long to think. " David put his hand in his bag, and
took thence a stone and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead,
that the stone sunk into his forehead ; and he fell upon his face to the
earth." He was covered with brass in every other part but his face, and at
this David took sure aim, and had he failed the first time, he had still four
1 Samuel,
291
stones left. Some think that he had a covering over his forehead called the
visor of the helmet, and that he had put it up, or David's stone would not
have killed him ; but we are told in ancient writings that good slkigers
would even break in pieces shields, helmets, and all kinds of armor, so that,
even then, the stone might have passed through the armor into the forehead.
" So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone,
VALLEY OF ELAH, IX WHICH DAVID AND GOLIATH MET.
and smote the Philistine and slew him." Then, having no sword of his
own, David took that of the Philistine, and cut off his head.
And now, the Philistines having lost their champion, were in a terrible
state of alarm. They were not willing to throw down their arms and be
the slaves of Israel, as had been proposed by Goliath ; and so the Israelites
fell upon them as they fled, and pursued them to the very gates of their
own cities.
David now took the head of Goliath with him to Jerusalem, and Saul
saw him, and though he had played before him when he was melancholy,
owing to his state of mind at that time he did not remember him, and in-
quired whose son he was; and he learnt that this hero was a son of Jesse
the Bethlehemite, who doubtless was well known as a leading and influ-
ential man in his own town ; one not without some degree of reputation,
and even, perhaps, honor, among the chief men who lived at Jerusalem and
elsewhere in the kingdom.
292
Bible and Commentator.
Jonathan's love of David, and Saul's hatred of him, and attempts to
take his Life.
1 Samuel xviii.-xx.
DAVID was now entirely taken into Saul's court, and Jonathan, SauPs
sont seeing him to be so brave and good, loved him very much, and
made an agreement with
him, that let what would
happen they should always
be. friends.
Saul also made David a
commander over all his
troops, and on every ex-
pedition on which he sent
him, he showed himself so
brave and wise that every-
body respected him.
jj| vW/^% Kllllllllli^^ IB Saul now went every-
'•/ H BHMHH . where about his kingdom,
to meet his people in tri-
umph, because the Philis-
tines— the great enemies
of Israel — were so com-
pletely beaten. And the
women, as was usual on
such occasions, "came out
of all the cities of Israe],
singing and dancing, to
meet king Saul, with ta-
brets, with joy, and with
instruments of music. And
the women answered one
another as they played,
and said, Saul hath slain
his thousands, and David
his ten thousands ; " this was probably the chorus of their song of victory.
It was rather vexing to Saul to hear David so exalted above himself, and
JONATHAN AND DAVID.
1 Samuel. 293
perhaps it was not quite wise in the women to praise the general above the
king, especially as Saul's haughty spirit must have been known ; however,
it was a fact, that Saul had only fought with portions of the Philistines,
while, when David beat them, their whole army was drawn out.
From that clay, Saul eyed David with much jealousy, and his evil spirit
returned ; and while David was kindly trying to sooth him by playing his
music, Saul artfully pretended to prophesy or to pray, so that David could
expect no ill design. At the same time, Saul held a javelin or dart in his
hand, and cast it at David, intending to thrust him through, even so as to
fasten him to the wall.
Saul was now afraid of David, and perhaps thought that he would grow
too strong for him, by growing in favor with the people ; so to get rid of
him, and in hopes that he might be slain, he gave him a command, and sent
him out to the wars. But he behaved so well, that he still increased in
favor with Israel.
Saul, as you have been told, had promised the man who should meet
Goliath, that he should marry his daughter as a mark of great honor ;
however, he broke his word, and gave his eldest daughter to another when
she ought to have been David's wife.
But the king had another daughter called Michal, and she was very fond
of David. And Saul said he would give her to him, if, within a certain
time, he would kill a hundred more Philistines. So David killed the
Philistines in the time required of him, and married Saul's daughter.
Saul was no better pleased on this account, for he had now made David
a greater man than he was before ; but he was vexed that his plans to
destroy David had not succeeded, and he became David's enemy continually.
Then " Saul spake to Jonathan his son, and to all his servants, that they
should kill David ; " but Jonathan, like a true friend, told David, and
advised him to get out of his way till he had tried to plead in his behalf.
Then Jonathan spoke to his father. And Saul was persuaded by
Jonathan, and declared that he would think no more of doing him harm.
So after this promise David was permitted to go into Saul's presence as
before.
Soon after this, there was war again, and David triumphed gloriously
over the Philistines, so that Saul was again jealous of him ; and his evil
spirit returned, and David, as before, played his harp to amuse him ; and
again he flung his javelin furiously at him, so that it stuck in the wall, but.
God preserved David, and he slipped away without receiving any harm.
294 Bible and Commentator.
Saul now resolved that David should escape no more, and so he sent
messengers to lie in wait for him at his own house. Michal, his wife, saw
what was going on, and she advised David to escape, and as they guarded
the doors, she " let David down through a window ; and he went and fled
and escaped."
"And Michal took an image, and laid it in the bed, and put a pillow of
goat's hair for his bolster, and covered it with a cloth. And when Saul
sent messengers to take David, she said, he is sick." She meant the ima^e
to appear in the bed like a sick person lying there, so that if the officers
came, they either would not touch a sick man, or perhaps, if they even
stabbed the place, they might go away and suppose they had killed David,
and so seek no more after him. At all events, by framing this excuse, she
gained time for him to escape, and get too far off for his foes to pursue him.
But it was very wrong in her to tell a lie ; for this she certainly did, and
there was not even an excuse for it, for David was already out of harm's
way.
Saul was now so resolved to kill David that if he were sick he could not
wait for him to die, but desired that he might be taken to his sick bed to
kill him.
The next time the messengers went, they looked more closely into the
bed, to see how David was ; and then they found that Michal had cheated
them, and that nothing was there but an image. And Saul, on learning
this, was exceedingly angry with his daughter, who would have been a
very wicked woman indeed, had she delivered up her innocent husband to
be slain.
In the meantime David escaped in safety to Samuel, at Raman ; " and
he and Samuel went and dwelt in Naioth."
When Saul found out where he was, he again sent messengers to take
him ; and they found Samuel's scholars, in his school of young prophets,
prophesying, or praising God, and, probably, David with them ; for it was
a work in which his heart delighted. And " the Spirit of God was upon
the messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied," or praised God. These
not returning, Saul sent again, and it happened the same with them. Then
he sent a third time, and it still happened the same. So at last he resolved
to go himself, and now God touched his heart, and he too caught the spirit
of praise, and began to prophesy with the others, to the wonder of all, so
that they said, " Is Saul also among the prophets ? " And this question is
now turned into a kind of proverb, or common saying, so that when a
1 SA.MU EL.
295
wicked man puts on the pretence of religion, we ask the question, " Is Saul
also among the prophets?"
While Saul was at NaiOth, David escaped to Jonathan, whom he still
found a faithful friend.
David eats the Shew- bread— Feigns himself mad at Gath.
1 Samuel xxi.
AS Jonathan had no power to protect David against Saul his father,
-£-V- David took to flight, and went to Nob to visit Ahimelech the priest,
who " inquired of the Lord for him." As he was very hungry, he also
gave him some of the shew-bread which belonged to the priests, and which
had been set a proper time be-
fore the Lord in the sacred
place, to be replaced by hot
bread, which would likewise
remain a proper time and then
be removed for the priests in
the same way.
Ahimelech also let David
take away with him Goliath's
sword, which, according to the
custom of those times, being a
valuable trophy or proof of vic-
tory, was laid up in the sacred
place.
David next fled into the
country of the Philistines, where
he hoped no one would find him out, for he might reckon that it would
hardly be supposed by Saul that he would go to the people whose champion
he had slain, nor would they be likely to suspect that he had been so daring
as to venture among them. Yet it is thought by some that Achish the
king of Gath, where Goliath lived, knew who David was, and received
him, either admiring his bravery as a soldier, or being pleased that he had
killed Goliath, who, as he was a very terrible person, might have even kept
his own king in fear of him.
However, at all events, the servants of Achish spied David out, and asked
TABLE OF SHEW-BREAD.
296
Bible and Commentator
whether he was not the man whose victory over their champion had lately
made a subject for the songs of their enemies. And David hearing
them talk in this way, began to
be frightened, and so he pre-
tended to be crazy, and Achish
told them to drive him away ;
but it does not appear that they
injured him, for there was a gen-
eral feeling at that time that insane
people were under the special care
of God. In thus pretending to be
insane, David seems to have lacked
that faith which had previously
characterized him, and to have felt
that he must protect himself by
his own cunning and shrewd devices. Here he was wrong; he should have
clung to that trust in God, which he had when he went forth to meet Goliath,
and when perhaps every one in Israel trembled for him but himself.
CARRYING THE SHEW-BREAD.
David in the Gave of Adullam, and the Priests slain by order of Saul.
1 Samuel xxii.
ON leaving Gath, David fled to the cave of Adullam, which was
probably near to the city of the same name in the tribe of Judah,
mentioned in the fifteenth chapter of Joshua. This being a strong place,
and in his own tribe, he might hope to be in greater safety. Here he was
joined by a number of persons who did not like Saul, and he became cap-
tain over them : and there were with him about four hundred men.
Among the rest " his father's house," that is, his family, " went down
thither to him ; " and as Saul, in his rage against David, might have killed
them as he did the priests, David was afraid of trusting them within his
reach ; and yet he did not know what to do with his aged father and mother,
who were too old to endure all the fatigue which he was likely to suffer in
different marches, as well as all the changes of war. So he went to the
king of Moab and asked him to give them shelter ; " and he said unto the
king of Moab, Let my father and my mother, I pray thee, come forth and
be with you, till I know what God will do for me."
1 Samuel.
297
The king of Moab was one of Saul's enemies, and so it was very likely
that he would oblige David, who was now as much disliked by Saul as
himself.
The king of Moab readily consented, and knowing Saul's hatred to David,
he probably thought that he might receive some help against him from
l)avid, some day, in return. And David brought his parents " before the
king of Moab ; and they dwelt with him all the while that David was in
the hold," or fortress of Adullam.
For some time probably Saul had heard nothing of David, but now a
report reached him that he was in arms, and at the head of a number of
men, at which he was greatly alarmed. Being of a jealous disposition, he
fancied that his son Jonathan, and the servants that were about him, had
conspired with David to dethrone him, or take away his kingdom ; and
he accused them all with being traitors, since
no one would tell him anything about the
business. Why, no such conspiracy had ex-
isted, how then could they tell him ?
However, Doeg the Edomite, who was
with him, thought he should get into favor
by telling him about Ahimelech, the priest,
having given David victuals, and the sword
of Goliath — for Doeg happened to be at the
Tabernacle when Ahimelech and David were
there.
As soon as Saul heard what Ahimelech
had done, he sent for all the priests that were in Nob, and on their appear-
ance before him he spoke very rudely to Ahimelech, and charged him with
being a conspirator, and with asking counsel from God against him. Ahim-
elech was no doubt startled and surprised, and defended himself by saying,
that he thought David was on a message for the king, as he had told him.
Saul would hear no defence. A man in a rage is like a wild beast ; " and
the king said, Thou shalt surely die, Ahimelech, thou and all thy father's
house."
Then the king said to Doeg, " Turn thou and fall upon the priests."
The false accuser readily obeyed the brutish order, and, most likely assisted
by some of his servants, Doeg slew eighty-five of the priests who wore the
linen ephod, or priest's robe. After this he went to Nob, where he killed
with the sword all the men, women, and children, and even the cattle, and
LINEN EPHOD.
298
Bible and Commentator
so destroyed the whole population of the place, consisting of the priests and
their families. This was very barbarous and very wicked, and Saul and
Doeg would have to answer for the crime. Yet what God had foretold
against the house of Eli, in which were perhaps many other wicked priests like
his sons, who " made themselves vile," was now all brought to pass. These
priests were of that family, and God had said by Samuel, " I will do a
thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall
tingle. In that day I will perform against Eli all things which I have
spoken concerning his house ; when I begin I will also make an end."
David having defeated the Philistines at Keilah, is still pursued by Saul.
1 Samuel xxiii.
DAVID was now in the land of Judah, according to the orders of the
prophet Gad. He had not long returned before the Philistines at-
tacked a city and fortified place called Keilah, which stood near their
country; and as it was
threshing time, they took
away the corn which the
people were threshing and
winnowing.
David was too much of
a patriot — that is, he loved
his country too much —
patiently to see it robbed
by the Philistines; but
he did not know whether
he ought to oppose them,
as he had no orders from
Saul, who was his king, and as his own army was very small. So he asked
counsel of the Lord, and the answer was, " Go and smite the Philistines and
save Keilah."
David's soldiers were afraid that they were not numerous enough for the
enterprise ; however, David asked counsel again, and God still said, " Go."
So David attacked the Philistines, and beat them, and for his reward he got
the cattle which they had brought to feed their armies, which were most
likely of great service to him.
STRONGHOLDS AT ENGEDI.
1 Samuel. 299
David having saved Keilah, we should have supposed Saul would have
sent to him a message of peace ; but " Saul called all the people together to
war, to go down to Keilah, to besiege David and his men."
So David left Keilah. By this time his men had increased to six
hundred, for perhaps some of the people of that place had united
with him.
David next went into the wilderness or desert of Ziph, and remained hid
there anions: the rocks in a mountain, or sometimes in a wood. Here Jona-
than found him out, and visited him, "and strengthened his hand in God,"
encouraging him to put his trust in him, and he told him that he was sure
God would protect him, and make him at last king over Israel. Then
David and Jonathan made a covenant to be faithful to each other, and Jona-
than returned home.
Then the people of Ziph went and told Saul where David was, and Saul
was quite pleased, and hoped he should soon take him. But by the time
he had arrived, David, having found out that he was approaching him,
escaped into the wilderness of Maon ; and there again Saul pursued him
and nearly overtook him ; indeed, he was so close upon his heels, that his
army was on one side of a mountain, and David's on the other ; and he was
contriving how he could surround the mountain, and so make him prisoner.
At that very moment news reached Saul that the Philistines had " in-
vaded the land," and he was pressed to make all haste with his army and
meet them ; so he was obliged to give up pursuing David " and went
against the Philistines."
Then " David went up from thence and dwelt in strongholds at Engedi,"
another place which lay in the wilderness of Judah.
Saul's Skirt cutoff by David.
1 Samuel xxiv.
"TTTHEN Saul had returned from following the Philistines, he again
V V found where David was. So he " took three thousand chosen men
out of all Israel, and went to seek David and his men upon the rocks of the
wild goats." These rocks were in the wilderness of Engedi, and they were
called " the rocks of wild goats," because these creatures delighted to be
there. They are described by travellers as being very high indeed, and
very rough, so that they are quite awful to look at, and being very difficult
300
Bible and Commentatoe.
to ascend, David and his men thought that they might safely hide in them.
However, Saul was resolved to pursue them even there.
"And he came to the sheep-cotes bv the way, where was a cave ; and
Saul went in to cover his feet : and David and his men remained in the
sides of the cave."
The sheep-cotes were places for the sheep to be led into at noon, to shelter
them from the heat ; the cave was a very large one, for there are caves in
that part which, though very dark, are yet roomy enough to hold many
thousand men. And here Saul laid down to rest, covering his feet, 011
which he probably had nothing but sandals, so
that he might keep them warm with his long
robes and hide his naked limbs. But who
should be in this cave but David and his men,
who, while they were concealed in the farthest
part, could see Saul come in at the mouth, it
being light there, while they at the farthest end
were all in the dark.
David's men were rejoiced, and advised their
master at once to kill Saul ; but David would not
be his murderer, and so he only went quietly up
to where he was stretched upon the ground, —
being most likely asleep,— and he cut off the
skirt of his robe; but he was even afterwards
vexed with himself for doing this, as he thought
it was an insult to him whom God had placed
over him in authority, and who was therefore, in
§s his mind, entitled to all possible respect. Saul
might, however, see by this act of David,
—when he should learn what he had done, —
that he was not a traitor to him, or he might easily have taken his life.
Saul having refreshed himself, left the cave and went on, without having
any notion that David and his men were there.
David now boldly followed him out of the cave, and cried after him
with a loud voice, " My lord the king. And when Saul looked behind
him, David stooped with his face to the earth and bowed himself," to show
that he still wished to treat him with the respect of a sovereign. And then
David asked Saul why he listened to reports against him, that he meant to
do him no hurt. And he showed him his skirt which he had cut off
SAUL'S ARMOR.
1 Samuel.
301
without killing him, though he could then as easily have cut off his head ;
and yet Saul hunted after his life as he would hunt a wild beast.
Though Saul might now have returned and fallen upon David, his heart
was restrained by the power of God, or perhaps his men were at some
distance, and David could
have escaped before he could jpi^|^p====g
collect them. David's' ap-
pearance and kind words,
and the mercy he had shown |M
him also, astonished him,
and softened his heart, am
he called David his son, as
he was, — David having first
addressed him as father,
— as he had married his
daughter, — and he even was
so much affected that he
wept aloud. And he owned
that David was more right-
eous than he, and had re-
warded him good, " where-
as," said he, " I have re-
warded thee evil ; " for
though he had saved Israel by
slaying Goliath, and fought
against the Philistines, and
charmed away his evil spirit,
yet still he had tried to kill one who had done so much for him. And Saul
also confessed that he now believed David would be king, and his conscience
told him that he was the neighbor better than he, to whom Samuel had said
the kingdom should be given when it was taken from him.
In eastern kingdoms it is usual, when a new family comes to the throne,
to have all the children of the old family killed, lest any of them should, in
time, try to recover the throne of their father ; and Saul believing that
David would yet be king, and fearing that he would kill his sons, asked him
to swear that he would show them mercy. So he solemnly declared that
he would, which is what is meant by swearing on this occasion, — making a
solemn promise.
302 Bible and Commentator.
After this conversation Saul went home to his palace in Gibeah, and
David knowing that he could not trust Saul, went with his men to the hold
or place of safety among the rocks.
Samuel's Death— Mahal's Behavior to David.
1 Samuel, xxv.
AT this time Samuel died; and as he had been a good judge when he
-£j- ruled over Israel, and was a pious prophet, his death was lamented
by all the Israelites, and he was buried " in his house at Ramah," — that is,
according to the common customs of those times, within the walls where his
house stood, and most likely in a tomb in his garden.
But this chapter more particularly tells us about a rich man who lived in
Maon, a city of the tribe of Judah, and who had great possessions in Car-
mel, another city of Judah, which stood upon a mountain of the same name.
This Nabal happened to be at Carmel shearing his sheep, and David,
being in great want of provision for himself and his men, sent a very civil
message to him, to ask him to let him have some, for his soldiers had been
very kind to Nabal's shepherds.
Now Nabal, being a very surly sort of a man, " answered David's ser-
vants, and said, Who is David ? — and who is the son of Jesse ? There be
many servants now-a-days that break away every man from his master ; "
meaning that he knew nothing about this David, — though he did know him,
for he called him the son of Jesse ; — and as for his servants, they were a set
of runaway fellows, and he should give them nothing.
So David's servants, being affronted, said nothing to him, but turned
their backs and went and told David how he had behaved.
David then ordered his men to put on their swords, and leaving two
hundred to watch his baggage, he marched with four hundred men to punish
Nabal.
In the mean time, one of Nabal's young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife,
how rudely his master had behaved to David's messengers, and that they
ought to have been better treated, for, said he, " the men were very good
unto us, and we were not hurt, neither missed we anything, as long as we
were conversant with them, when we were in the fields. They were a
wall unto us by night and day, all the while we were with them keeping
the sheep."
1 Samuel. 303
Xabal's servant saw that David must be provoked, and so he advised his
mistress to do something to reconcile him.
" Then Abigail made haste, and took two hundred loaves, and two bottles
of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched corn,
and an hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid
them on asses. And she said unto her servants, Go on before me ; behold,
I come after you. But she told not her husband NafeaL."
Before Abigail could reach David he was on his march to attack Nabal,
but she met him on a hill, and lighted from the beautiful eastern ass on
which she rode, and, according to the manner of the country, in token of
high respect for David, " she bowed herself to the ground, and fell at his
feet : " and then she begged David to blame her, and not her husband, that
nothing was given to his messengers, — for Xabal was a silly man, as his
name signified, and what could he expect from a fool ? — This she said by
way of excuse, and to save Xabal ; which was a good reason for her using
a name she ought not in any other case to have applied to her husband.
Then she told David how glad he ought to be that he had not in his anger
shed blood, and wished that all his enemies were but as insignificant as
XabaL ; and begged him earnestly to accept of her present for the use of his
young men, as being scarcely worth his acceptance for his own use.
See how " a soft answer turneth away wrath." David now blessed God
that he had inclined Abigail's heart to go and meet him ; and he blessed
her and her kind advice, which had prevented him from shedding blood ;
and he took her present, " and said unto her, Go up in peace to thine house :
see, I have hearkened to thy voice, and have accepted thy person ; " that
is, " I am pleased with all your own behavior."
In the morning she informed Xabal of the danger he had escaped from
David and his four hundred men, and he was so struck with his narrow
escape that he fainted away ; perhaps, too, he feared lest David should yet
fall upon him. In about ten days after — he died.
When David heard of Xabal's death, he blessed the Lord. This was not
because he maliciously rejoiced in his death, but because God had visited
him with his own hand, instead of his having slain him himself, while he
was in a dangerous rage.
Abigail's beauty, grace, wisdom, and piety, had won the heart of
David ; and so he sent to her at one of her husband's houses which was at
Carmel, and proposed to marry her. She expressed herself sensible of the
high honor of becoming his wife, of which she in her humility did not
304 Bible and Commentator.
think herself worthy, but rather fit to wash the feet of David's servants ;
and then, according to the custom of the times, she went to David's resi-
dence. So David, most probably, noiv became possessed of all the property
of Nabal, who had denied him the most humble request.
David had also another wife, Ahinoam of Jezreel ; but Michal, Saul's
daughter, who was also David's wife, had been married by her father to
another man, that David might not have any pretension from that to in-
heriting his crown.
David's Flight to Gaih, and Residence at Ziglag.
1 Samuel xxvii.
AS Saul seemed resolved to give David no rest, and there was no reliance
- to be placed upon his word, David thought that he had better once
more seek safety in the land of the Philistines. So he went with all his
men to Gath, and Achish was, no doubt, glad to get such a force of bold
men from the side of King Saul.
CITY»0F GATH.
When Saul found that David had left the kingdom, " he sought no more
again for him," for it was of no use.
David, in all probability, now thought that the lords of the Philistines
would be jealous of him if he continued in their royal city, so he asked
Achish to appoint him a dwelling somewhere else. Achish did so very
1 Samuel. 305
readily, and gave him the city of Ziklag, said to have been about twelve
miles from Gath. This city was in the lot of Judah, when the lands were
divided among the people (see Joshua xv. 31) ; but it had by some means;
fallen into the hands of the Philistines, and now it was restored to one of
Judah's tribe, and became David's own.
The Witch of Endor.
1 Samuel xxviii.
IN this chapter we have an account of a grand preparation for war made
by the Philistines against Israel. David was now in a difficult situ-
ation, for he could not like to join these heathen in fighting against his
countrymen, and yet Achish had a right to look to him for aid, as he had
given him protection. David, on being applied to by Achish to go out to
battle, gave him an evasive reply, or one by which he might suppose that
he would help him, and yet he avoided giving any promise : "And David
said to Achish, Surely thou shalt know what thy servant can do." Achish,
however, trusted in David, and believed that he would help him.
And now the Philistines pitched in Shunem, a city on the borders of
Judah, and Saul gathered his army together in a range of mountains called
Gilboa. aAnd when Saul saw the host of the Philistines, he was afraid,
and his heart greatly trembled."
In his perplexity he would fain have known the will of God as to what
he should do, but he had forsaken God, and so God had forsaken him ; and
he received no answer to his anxious inquiries, either by dreams, in which
God used then sometimes to speak ; or by Urim, which you remember was
something in the priest's breast-plate which was used to direct in times of
difficulty, and which was now in the hands of Abiathar, who was with
David ; or by prophets, for Samuel was dead, and none of his school at
Naioth in Pamah was divinely directed to guide him.
So Saul determined that he would go to a witch, or woman fortune-teller,
from whom he was foolish enough to believe that he should learn all that
he wanted.
Saul knew that it was wicked to go to this woman, for he had even cut
off some people for professing her art, according to God's command in the
last verse of the twentieth chapter of Leviticus — "A man also or woman
that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard (or fortune-teller), shall surely
20
306
Bible and Commentatok.
be put to death : they shall stone them with stones : their blood shall be
upon them."
Saul, however, found out by his servants, that one of these witches lived
at a place called Endor, a city not far from Gilboa. So he disguised him-
self and put on other clothes than he usually wore — perhaps made himself
SITE OF ANCIENT CITY OF ENDOR.
look like a countryman or common soldier — and, taking two men with him,
he went by night to the house of the witch.
The woman knew that Saul had been very severe against such people as
herself, and was afraid that this was only a scheme to ensnare her, and so
inform against her, and she told Saul what she thought. This ought to
have made him ashamed of himself, when he remembered that he had put
others to death for doing what he was tempting this woman to do, and that
he was breaking his own and the divine law. He might also have supposed
that if the woman could not tell that he was Saul — though in disguise — she
was not very likely to tell what would happen to him, or to know whether
he would beat the Philistines or not. But his heart was hardened, and his
mind was as dark as the night.
Saul then made a solemn oath, in the name of the Lord, that she should
not be in any danger from what she might say and do.
1 Samuel. 307
This assurance having been given, the woman demanded whose spirit she
should bring up from the dead. Saul's answer showed what had been the
subject on which his gloomy thoughts had brooded, as in the darkness he
had passed close by the Philistine camp to this obscure village, with its dark
caverns, on the borders of the great plain of Esdrselon. "Bring me up
Samuel." He thought how, at his last interview with the great prophet
(1 Samuel xv. 22-29), Samuel had denounced him for his disobedience in
the matter of Amalek, and had told him that the Lord had rejected him
from being king over Israel, and had given the kingdom to a neighbor of
his, who was better than he. He remembered, also, that from that time for-
ward the communications of God's will to him had ceased ; that disaster had
succeeded disaster; that now the Philistines, his warlike neighbors on the
south, had passed northward to the fertile plains of Esdrselon, and that he
was so completely hemmed in by them, that there was no way of escape pos-
sible except by divine interposition, of which he was hopeless; that he and
his brave sons could only fight and die, and that his death would probably
terminate also the national life. Thus desperate, he sought this woman, who
had a familiar spirit, or, as we should now say, was a clairvoyant. It is now
admitted by all scientific men who have made the subject a study, that per-
sons who possess this clairvoyant power, reproduce, when they are in the
trance state, the thoughts and knowledge real or supposed, of those with
whom they are in communication. This is just wThat this woman did, as
you will see, if you read the whole narrative carefully. Saul asked her to
bring up Samuel to him, and immediately there passed through her mind
the venerable appearance of Samuel as Saul had last seen him — an old man,
covered with a mantle. At this instant she recognized Saul, or if she had
suspected before that it was he, her suspicions were now confirmed. Saul
bowed himself humbly before the alleged Samuel, unaware that it was only
his own vivid conception of the prophet, to which the woman had given
form and shape.
The inquiry which the woman makes. Samuel utter, " Why hast thou dis-
quieted me to bring me up? " may have been the woman's thought, the better
to carry out her imposture, or it may have been suggested by the dread which
Saul evidently had of Samuel. Saul's reply (verse 15) shows alike his
desperation and his conscious foreboding of evil, while Samuel's answer
(verses 16-19) reveals nothing new, but only affirms Saul's own apprehen-
sions. It is worthy of notice that throughout the whole narrative it is evi-
dent that Saul did not see Samuel or any one except the woman, and his
308
Bible and Commentator.
own attendants. He trusted only to her description, and to the words
which she uttered as from Samuel, but which were really only the reflection
of his own thoughts. She told him that the Lord had departed from him
and become his enemy ; that he had rent the kingdom out of his hand,
and given it to David, and that because he had not executed God's sen-
tence against Amalek, on the morrow he should be conquered by the
Philistines, his sons
should be slain, and
Israel fall into the
hands of their enemies.
Saul knew all this be-
fore; but his other great
sins were not rebuked ;
yet he was so terrified
that he swooned away,
for he was very weary
and faint, not having
eaten bread all the day
nor all the night.
Then the woman
told him she was not
to blame, and hoped he
would not punish her, and she urged him to eat something j but he refused,
till his servants at last joined the woman in compelling him; and perhaps
in so doing she had a more certain pledge of her safety, after he had conde-
scended to partake of her hospitality.
Therefore, after having eaten of a fatted calf which she dressed, and some
unleavened bread that she made for him, Saul and his servants went away.
SHUNEM, THE CAMPING-PLACE OF THE PHILISTINES.
David's March along with the Philistines.
1 Samuel xxix.
THE Philistines having drawn up their armies near the city of Aphek,
the Israelites pitched in the valley of Jezreel. And the Philistines
marched under their captains, some commanding hundreds and others
thousands. David also marched with the Philistines, and was the com-
mander of the body-guard of Achish, who greatly confided in him. Pie
must now have been in a great strait, for he could not fight against Israel
1 Samuel.
309
without becoming an ally with wicked idolaters and a foe to his own
country; nor could he desert to the Israelites, for he would then have
thrown himself into the hands of the revengeful Saul, and have proved a
traitor to the hospitable Achish ; nor could he quit his post and go back
without at least exposing himself to the charge of cowardice. What was he
VALLEY OF JEZREEL.
then to do ? We are sure he must have been sorely perplexed if the minds
of the Philistine lords had not been moved to work his deliverance. They
were jealous of David, and they could not forget his cutting off the head
of Goliath of Gath, so that they were very wroth with Achish for trusting
him. And they said, " Make this fellow return, that he may go again to
his place which thou hast appointed him, and let him not go down with us
to battle, lest in the battle he be an adversary to us : for wherewith should
he reconcile himself to his master ? — should it not be with the heads of
these men? Is not this David, of whom they sang one to another in dances,
saying, Saul slew his thousands, and David his ten thousands ? "
Achish was afraid of offending his lords, so he spoke very kindly to
David, and told him to go back, and he gave him a very high character,
which we should remember, because it is such a one as we should try to
obtain : " Surely, as the Lord liveth, thou hast been upright, and thy going
out and thy coming in with me in the host is good in my sight; for I have
not found evil in thee, since the day of thy coming unto me, unto this day ;
nevertheless, the lords favor thee not."
310 Bible and Commentator.
David was no doubt glad enough in his heart at what Achish said, but he
pretended to leave him with reluctance. It is not at all consistent with a
good man to pretend to anything ; he should always be sincere.
But God, who had yet great things for him to do in Israel, delivered him
in this way from what had well nigh been to him a most trying position.
It would have been better for him doubtless to have continued among his
own people instead of going to the Philistines, but great men are not
always wise.
The Amalekites plunder and burn Ziklag, and are pursued and slain by
David.
1 Samuel xxx.
BESIDES delivering him out of his difficulty in fighting with or de-
serting Achish, David's enemies had been the means of sending him
back to Ziklag, at a very important moment. For while he was absent,
some of the Amalekites who yet remained in their land, went to avenge
themselves upon him by plundering and burning the city which he had left
unguarded, and they carried away all the women and children, and David's
two wives were among them.
David and his men were so grieved that they wept bitterly, until they
could weep no more.
David in his trouble knew where to go for help, and so he asked counsel
of God by means of the priest's ephod with the Urim. And God en-
couraged him to pursue the enemy.
As they passed along, not knowing exactly which way to go, David's
men found an Egyptian lying ill upon the road ; and they took him to
David, " and they gave him a piece of cake of figs, and two clusters of
raisins," and the poor fellow revived a little, for he had had nothing to
eat for three days and three nights.
Then David questioned him, to know how he came there, — for he prob-
ably suspected he knew something of the Amalekite army. And he told
him that he was an Egyptian, a servant to an Amalekite, and that he had
fallen sick upon the road, and his master had cruelly left him behind. And
that they had been plundering the Philistines, and part of Saul's dominions,
and David's city of Ziklag ; having no doubt taken advantage of the absence
of all the men of war from these places, who were met for the grand battle
between Israel and the Philistines.
1 Samuel
311
David then thought he could perhaps tell which way the Amalekites
were gone, and he asked him if he could show him the way. The poor
fellow said, that he would very readily do so, if he would promise not to
kill him, and if he would not give him up again to his master, for he had
had such a proof of his cruelty, that he could not bear to think of ever re-
BATTLE WITH THE AMALEKITES.
turning to him. When he was so sick and ill he had left him to perish
alone, when he might easily have placed him on a camel and taken care of
him, and carried him away.
However, God permitted him to leave this young man as a guide for
David ; and he took him to the spot where the Amalekites were encamped,
having most likely been told where he would find his master if he should
happen to revive.
"And when he had brought him down, behold, they were spread abroad
upon all the earth, eating and drinking, and dancing, because of all the
great spoil that they had taken out of the land of the Philistines, and out of
the land of Judah." — And David fell suddenly upon them, when they were
quite unprepared to fight, and perhaps many were wearied and intoxicated :
312
Bible and Commentator
and out of a large army, only four hundred young men escaped, who rode
off on camels, or swift dromedaries used in those parts, — while David
recovered everything that he had lost, and his wives, and all the families
of his men, and they got all the flocks and herds of the Amalekites, which
they drove before the other cattle that had been taken from Ziklag ; and
they gave David the honor of bravely taking them, and said, " This is
David's spoil."
T
Saul defeated and slain by the Philistines.
1 Samuel xxxi.
HE day of recompense is now come, in which Saul must account for
the blood of the Amalekites which he had sinfully spared, and that
of the priests, which he had more
sinfully spilt ; and that of David,
which he would have spilt, must
come into the account.
Israel seems to have fled at the
first onset. Jonathan, Abinadab,
and Melchi-shua, three of Saul's
sons, were the first among the slain,
for the Philistines pressed hard to
slay Saul himself, whom they seem
bravely to have defended while he
escaped.
But, alas, here is good Jonathan
among the slain ! Duty to his
father obliged him to engage in
this conflict against the Philistines ;
and, indeed, he loved his country,
and could not bear to see it invaded
by that wicked people. Well, God
so ordered it that Jonathan did
not see the misery which the sins
of his father had brought upon his
family and upon all Israel ; and
by his death, the way to the throne
Was made open for David; but yet, when the righteous perisheth, and
ASHTAROTH, THE PHILISTINE GODDESS.
1 Samuel.
313
when Jonathan is seen falling under a conquering Philistine, it is a matter
of grief.
Still pursuing Saul, " the archers hit him/' and finding himself wounded,
he did not like to fall alive into the hands of the Philistines, and so he
ordered his armor-bearer to thrust him through. But the armor-bearer
was afraid ; so Saul took a sword and fell upon it, and thus became his own
murderer. His armor-bearer seeing he had slain himself, then in despair
" fell likewise upon his sword, and died with him. So Saul died, and his
three sons, and his armor-bearer, and all his men that same day together."
The Jews report that Saul's armor-bearer was the wicked Doeg, who
killed the priests ; and if so, it was indeed remarkable that Saul and he
should so perish together, and
perhaps both by Doeg's own
sword which he had used on
that shocking occasion.
The day after the battle the
Philistines went and stripped
the bodies of the dead, and
having found those of Saul
and of his three sons, they cut
off his head, and they stripped
him of his armor, and sent it
to be set up as a trophy of their victory in the house of Ashtaroth, their
goddess ; this was an idol which Israel had often shamefully worshipped,
and now their king whom they had desired was made a subject of contempt
before it. And the Philistines sent all over their country to give public
notice of their victory, and to give thanks to their gods. They also
fastened Saul's body, and the bodies of his sons, to the wall of Bethshan, a
city that lay not far from Gilboa, and very near to the river Jordan.
Hither the dead bodies were dragged, and here hung up in chains to be
devoured by the beasts of prey ; so that, though Saul slew himself to avoid
being abused by the Philistines, his sinful deed did not save him, for never
was dead body more abused.
Little more than the river Jordan lay between Bethshan and Jabesh-
Gilead, and Jordan was in that place passable by its fords. The valiant
men of the city therefore made a bold attempt, and passing the river in the
night, took down the dead bodies that they might decently bury them.
They did this because they could not endure to see the crown of Israel so
MOURNERS.
314
Bible and Commentator.
profaned
Saul did
and that
his sins.
by the wicked Philistines, and because — as you must recollect—
them a great kindness when he first came to the throne — as we
have seen in the eleventh chapter — where
he saved them from a disgraceful surrender
to Nahash the king of the Ammonites, and
from having their right eyes thrust out.
Having got the bodies, the putrid flesh
was burnt, and the bones were buried
under a tree, and, in token of sorrow, they
fasted seven days ; not that they ate and
drank nothing all that time, but they fasted
every day till evening, according to a cus-
tom among the Jews.
Thus ends the reign of Saul, and we learn
by it that those who live and do wickedly
must expect in the end to die miserably,
a man's greatness will not save him from being punished for
^t/yy)
IN SACKCLOTH.
PHILISTINE CITY,
Second Book of Samuel.:
Supposed by some to have been written by the prophets Nathan and Gad; by others believed to have been written
by David himself, or some inspired person of his time ; and by others, to have been written as last claimed, and
with such changes made by Ezra as make it appear of later date. At all events the inspired authority of the book
is beyond dispute, as it has been always accepted and cherished with the divine records, and is quoted in Acts xiii. 22 ;
Heb. i. 5 ; and in a number of David's Psalms. The book has thirty-four chapters, and covers the space of forty
years, continuing the history of Israel under the reign of king David, and telling some highly important incidents
from the public and domestic life of that most wonderful of human monarchs.
Execution of the Amalekite who slew Saul.
2 Samuel i.
jN the thirtieth chapter of the book we have just
finished, you will remember to have read of
David's returning to Ziklag, his own city, after
the slaughter of the Amalekites, who had plun-
dered and set fire to it while he was absent.
On the third day after the battle was fought
with the Philistines, in which Saul and Jonathan
were slain, a man arrived at Ziklag from the camp
of Saul, " with his clothes rent, and earth upon
his head," which were his marks of mourning.
And he told David about the battle, and that he
was passing by the spot on Mount Gilboa, where
_r__l_j^J l!i^| gaul^ being wounded, was leaning upon his spear ;
and that " the chariots and horsemen " of the Philistines followed hard after
him ; that he asked him of what country he was, and he told him he was
an Amalekite ; and he desired the man to stand on him and slay him, for
though wounded he might fall alive into the hands of the cruel Philistines ;
and so the man slew him, and took his crown or chaplet from his head, and
his bracelet, an ornament which military men of that country used to wear
on the wrist, and which was probably made of gold ; and he brought them
to David in proof that Saul was really dead.
316
Bible and Commentator.
You are, perhaps, ready to suppose that David was quite pleased to learn
that his persecuting enemy was dead, and that he himself should now
become king in his stead. But David was better taught than to show a
malicious spirit, and, instead of rejoicing, he rent his clothes as a proof of
his grief at what had happened : and he and his men " fasted until even, for
Saul and for Jonathan his son, and for the people of the land," who had
fallen in the unfortunate battle, " and for the house of Israel," who woul(?
now be a derision to their mortal enemies the Philistines.
No doubt the man expected some great reward, and was not a little
surprised to see David's grief. But the affair did not end here. David
had always been very tender of Saul's life as the Lord's anointed, and you
know that when he might be avenged on him, he never would hurt him.
Now, this man said that he had
killed him, and though he might
plead that he did it at his re-
quest, yet that was no excuse,
for it would be very wicked in
you or me to kill any one, if he
desired it. So David said.
" Thy blood be upon thy head ;
for thy mouth hath testified
against thee, saying, I have slain the Lord's anointed." And, at David's
command, one of the young men fell upon him and smote him that he died.
This man was also an Amalekite, of which David had assured himself by
asking him to say it a second time, and the people of this nation, being very
wicked, were all sentenced by their Maker to be put to death.
The man's story is, however, not believed by many, as it does not agree
with the account of Saul's death given in a former chapter, and as he was
not consistent in all he said. You recollect that there Saul is said to have
killed himself, but this man said that he it was that killed him. Then he
said that Saul told him, his life was whole in him, and yet he was sure that
he could not live after he was fallen, and so he slew him. From these
contradictions it is supposed that the man really told a lie to David — that
he happened to find the body of Saul dead on the field after he had killed
himself— that he then took the crown and bracelets from him, and carried
them to David, and — to make his merit appear greater — told him that his
was the hand that gave the king the final blow. David knew not then but
that all this was true, and so he caused him to be executed : thus you see
CHARIOT AND HORSEMEN.
2 Samuel. 317
that the liar is sure to involve himself in trouble. This man framed this
lie, and went to David hoping for a reward ; but it caused his death.
This chapter concludes with an elegy, or funeral song, which David
wrote on the death of Saul and Jonathan.
David anointed King over all Israel.
2 Samuel v.
SAUL being dead, David — having before been anointed king — inquired
of the Lord if he should go up to the cities of Judah, and God
directed his way, and told him to go up to Hebron. So he took his wives
and his friends and followers and went up. "And the men of Judah came,
and there they anointed David king over the house of Judah."
" But Abner the son of Ner, captain of Saul's host, took Ish-bosheth the
son of Saul, and brought him over to Mahanaim ; " and he made him king
over Israel. And when he had
reigned two years, he was then forty
years of age. So David was only
king of Judah in Hebron, while
Ish-bosheth reigned, which was dur-
ing seven years and a half.
But when Ish-bosheth and Abner
were dead, the tribes of Israel re-
solved at once to make David their
king.
So all the elders wTent to Hebron,
and David made a league or agree-
ment with them, promising to do
them justice on his part, while they ^ss^-^
° x ' * WOMEN, WITH TIMBRELS, DANCING.
promised to obey him on theirs. He
had been anointed by Samuel as God's chosen king, and again as king of
Judah, and now a third time as king of all Israel.
At this time he was thirty-seven years and a half old, having reigned in
Hebron from the age of thirty ; after this ahe reigned thirty and three years
over all Israel and Judah," making in the whole forty years' reign.
After David was anointed king, his first exploit was to gain Jerusalem out
of the hand of the Jebusites, — the inhabitants of the land, — that city being
318 Bible and Commentator.
given to the tribe of Benjamin, but they had never wholly made themselves
masters of it.
David conquered, and dwelt in the fort, and called it the city of David.
This was the city which afterwards became so famous, where the Temple
was built, and where the family of David was fixed.
And David built many buildings round about a spot called Millo.
Hiram, king of Tyre, also sent to congratulate him on his accession to
the throne, and as Hiram's subjects were better architects than the Israel-
ites, they were employed in building David a palace suited to his exalted
station.
It was then the custom for kings to strengthen alliances or friendships by
marrying many wives from great families, and David also did so.
The Philistines were, however, jealous of the union of Judah and Israel,
and fearing that David might grow too powerful for them, they made haste
to march their armies against him.
So David asked of God to direct him, and God said unto him, " Go up ;
for I will doubtless deliver the Philistines into thine hand."
And David smote the Philistines ; and in memory of his victory, he called
the name of the place Baal-perazim, which means, the plain of breaches,
because there the Lord had broken forth upon his enemies, just like the
overwhelming waters of a flood, and destroyed them.
Notwithstanding their defeat, the Philistines again came with their
armies, and pitched in the same place as before. Again David asked
counsel of God, and he was commanded to march behind them, and there
should be a rustling among the leaves of some mulberry trees, — which,,
when he heard, he was to fall upon the rear of the Philistines, — who would
probably not hear the movement of the Israelites on account of that of the
trees, — and so the Philistines would easily be overcome, the arm of the
Almighty helping Israel against their foes.
"And David did so, as the Lord had commanded him, and smote the
Philistines from Geba " to Gazer ; or from Gibeah, which was the same
place, and a city in the tribe of Benjamin, to Gazer, a city which was on the
borders of the Philistines, and about eighteen miles from the spot where the
battle was fought. Thus God prospered David continuously in war, as in
peace, because of his trust in him, and his faithful obedience to his com-
mands from time to time. And David's whole life shows that he was
wonderfully favored and honored by the Lord while he kept trusting in
him, and committed no sin.
2 Samuel,
319
HEBREW CAKT.
Removal of the Ark and Death of Uzzah.
2 Samuel vi., vii.
THE ark had remained for fifty years at Kirjath-jearim, the place to
which it was taken when it was fetched from Beth-sheinesh, excepting'
that Saul once had it at Gibeah.
David now resolved that it should be near him in his chief city, for it was
the sign of God's presence, and on that he relied for protection. So he took
thirty thousand choice men to guard it.
And he brought it from Baale of Judah,
another name for Kirjath-jearim, the place
where it was.
"And they set the ark of God upon a new
cart, and brought it out of the house of
Abinadab that was in Gibeah/' a part of
the city of Baale, so called ; — " and Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab,
drove the new cart."
Xow the command originally given for carrying the ark was, that it
should be borne upon men's shoulders, and those men should be Levites only
. __js-^agB-- _____ of the family of Kohath, to
whom no wagons were given
for carrying sacred materials —
so that putting the ark into a
cart was forgetting the command
of God.
The ark moved forward, and
David, and all the house of
Israel, played on jsl number of
musical instruments to express
their joy. But when they came
to Nachon's threshing-floor,
" Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it;" to keep
it from falling, " for the oxen shook it. And the anger of the Lord was
kindled against Uzzah, and God smote him there for his error ; and there
he died by the ark of God." So David ever after called the place Perez-
uzzah, or the breach of Uzzah.
You will wonder what crime Uzzah committed in only trying to keep the
TZZAH AND THE AEK OF GOD.
320 Bible and Commentator.
ark steady : but it was forbidden to touch the ark on pain of death, and
the priests were to carry it on staves only, and not to put their hands to it.
David was frightened at this judgment, and lest he should further err, he
resolved to leave the ark, and wait further directions from God before he
attempted to take it to Jerusalem. So he carried it aside to the house of
one Obed-edom, who was one of the Levites, and it remained under his care
three months ; " and the Lord blessed Obed-edom and all his household."
Obed-edom prospered so greatly that everybody talked about him, and
the news of his success came to the ears of David. This encouraged him
to try further and get the ark nearer to him. " So David went and brought
up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom, into the city of David,
with gladness." Having learnt that none but Levites of the family of
Kohath ought to carry the ark, he had it now borne in a proper manner,
and when they who bare it had gone six steps, " he sacrificed oxen and
fatlings," "to express gratitude to God, and to atone for the former error.
On this occasion David laid aside the distinctions of royalty and put on
a linen ephod : and he danced sacred dances, or expressed his joy by dancing
movements before the ark, while the people shouted and the trumpets sounde^pL
So the ark was brought and set in its place, " and David offered burnt-
offerings and peace-offerings before the Lord," and having blessed the
people and given them refreshment, he " returned to bless his household."
After this, when David was at rest and sitting in the house which
Hiram's servants had built for him, David spoke to Nathan the prophet,
and told him that he did not feel satisfied to dwell in a fine house of cedar,
while the ark of God dwelt only under a tent, for it had no other covering.
And Nathan advised him to do what he wished, and prepare a better place
for it. But God made known his mind to Nathan that same night, and
told him to prevent David from building the new habitation for the ark,
for he had never desired it ; but as he approved of every good desire, he
would build up David's house — meaning that his family should prosper —
and he would establish his throne ; and his son, who should reign after him,
should build him a house for the ark.
And David was very grateful to God for his kind promises, and contented
to leave building the house, since he commanded it, and he offered up a fine
prayer to God, closing it with this petition, — and none of us can ask God
for anything better, — "And with thy blessing let the house of thy servant
be blessed forever." This prayer you will find in the seventh chapter,
with which it ends.
2 Samuel. 321
David's Conquests.
2 Samuel viii.
rriHE Philistines had long been great enemies to Israel. Samson weak-
-L ened them, Samuel and Saul also contended with them, and now David
makes an entire conquest of them ; and he " took Methegammah," which
is supposed to have been an eminence on which Gath was built, that place
so famous on account of Goliath.
David also smote Moab and measured them with a line : he divided the
country into three parts, two of which he destroyed, and he left the people
of the third part to till the ground, and become the servants of Israel.
Thus he also subdued these bitter foes of Israel.
David likewise smote the Syrians, for as he went to settle the border of
his kingdom at the river Euphrates, Hadadezer, the king of Zobah — which
was a part of Syria — opposed him ; he, the king of Zobah, having some of
the land which God designed for Israel. And in the battle the Syrians lost
a thousand war chariots, and seven hundred horsemen, and twenty thou-
sand footmen ; and David crippled all the horses that they might not be
used any more in Avar. And the Syrians of Damascus having joined their
brethren against David, he also beat them, and slew two-and-twenty
thousand men. Thus the Syrians also became servants to David, and
brought him gifts, or paid him tribute. And in this war he got great
riches, for the officers of Hadadezer wore fine ornaments of gold, which he
took to Jerusalem, and out of his cities he obtained "exceeding much brass."'
Besides these spoils, David received large presents from Toi, king of
Hamath, which was also in Syria. For Hadadezer had been a great foe to*
Toi, and was often at war with him, and sought to take his kingdom from
him ; so in gratitude for his deliverance he sent Joram his son to David, to'
congratulate him on his victory, and to beg his acceptance of a number of
vessels of silver, and gold, and brass. But David kept none of this wealth
for himself; he dedicated or set apart all of it for the Lord's service, to be
used when the Temple should be built, — and this accounts for the abun-
dance of precious metals which David left to his son Solomon, for the
purpose of raising that building.
David, moreover, put garrisons in all Edom, to keep the people quiet, and
the Edomites became tributary to him, and he reigned happily and peace-
ably over all Israel.
21
322 Bible and Commentator.
And these were David's chief officers of state :
Joab, commander-in-chief.
Jehoshaphat, recorder, or keeper of the annals, or memorable events of
the kingdom.
Abiathar, high priest.
Ahimelech and Zadok, assistant priests.
Seraiah, scribe, or secretary of state, to correspond with or write to great
persons at home and abroad, about the affairs of the kingdom.
Benaiah, captain of the body guards, who always attended David ; these
were called Cherethites and Pelethites, and are thought to have been those
who accompanied David in his distresses, and perhaps some were Philistines
who had joined him; though some suppose that they were archers, who
used the bow and arrow ; and slingers, who used the sling and stone, as
David did with the Philistine.
David's sons, court attendants, waiting upon the king, and ready to do
what he was pleased to order them.
David's Ambassadors insulted by the Ammonites, who, together with
the Syrians, are defeated by Israel.
2 Samuel x.
A FTER his wars with the Moabites, Syrians, and Edomites, David hav-
-£A- ing learnt that the king of the Ammonites was dead, according to
the custom of friendly princes towards each other — sent to condole with the
new king, Hanun, on his recent loss, and to assure him of his peaceable
disposition towards him. And in this embassy he was influenced by a
feeling of gratitude, recollecting that Nahash, Hanun's father, had formerly
shown kindness to him.
Hanun's courtiers, however, persuaded him that David's messengers
were only spies, sent to see the strength of his city that he might overthrow
it. So Hanun took David's servants, and shaved off half their beards,
which was one of the greatest insults that could be offered in those parts.
And he cut short their garments, so as to make them look ridiculous, and
sent them away.
When David heard how they had been served, he adviteed them to stay
at Jericho, a retired place, till their beards were grown, and they were fit to
appear more publicly.
2 Samuel.
323
The people of Amraon soon learned that they stank before David, or were
disagreeable to him as any vile nuisance — bad neighbors which he could not
like, and expecting he would not forget the insults offered to his servants,
they collected an army of hired Syrians to the amount of twenty thousand
men ; and of the king of Maacah, a place in the tribe of Manasseh, a
SYRIAN ARMY.
thousand men ; and of Ishtob, or Tob, supposed to have been the place
where Jephthah fled from his brethren, situated in the land of Gilead —
twelve thousand men ; making in all thirty-three thousand men.
David heard of these preparations, and he was not idle, but " sent Joab
and all the host of the mighty men " of Israel to give battle to these hired
wretches, who, without even any cause of excuse to provoke them, had sold
themselves, or had been sold by their princes, to slay their fellow-creatures.
"And the children of Amnion came out and put the battle in array at
the entering in of the gate" of their city, while their hirelings from Syria
IllllliilillUllili I
324
2 Samuel. 325
were in the open field, probably intending to attack David's army behind,
while the Ammonites in the city should attack it in front.
Then Joab attacked the Syrians, who instantly gave way, for being but
hired troops, they did not fight very heartily ; and when the Ammonites
saw them run, they took the alarm and fled into the city. So the victory
was won. Joab did not take the city, but was satisfied that he had dis-
persed the armies.
However, the Syrians were so much mortified at their defeat, that they
collected a larger army, and a number of kings now joined together, to beat
the Israelites. We are not here told what was the size of this army, but
Josephus, the Jewish historian, says, it consisted of eighty thousand foot-
soldiers, and ten thousand horse.
David himself now seems to have taken the command of his army, and
went out to meet this powerful force. And now the Syrians, probably very
confident in their numbers, began the battle, and " set themselves in array
against David/7 and they did not run away at first, but " fought with him —
and then the Syrians fled before Israel, and David slew the men of seven
hundred chariots of the Syrians, and forty thousand horsemen, and smote
Shobach the captain of their host, who died there. And when all the kings
that were servants " or tributary " to Hadarezer [called before Hadaclezer]
saw that they were smitten before Israel," and could not dare any longer to
contend with them, "they made peace with Israel and served them,"
becoming tributary to them, and paying them money for- the support of the
state. " So the Syrians feared to help the children of Ammon any more."
The Murder of Uriah.
2 Samuel xi.
THE Ammonites being now left to themselves, David sent out his
general, Joab, Avith a large army, and they destroyed the cities of
Ammon with their inhabitants, and besieged Eabbah their chief city.
Thus was this wicked nation destroyed for their wickedness. Sin always
brings ruin.
While this army was out, David remained at Jerusalem. And as he
walked one evening to enjoy the cool air on the roof of his house, — which,
like those in the East, was quite flat and made to walk upon, — he saw a
woman washing herself in a neighboring house, and as she was very
326
Bible and Commentator.
beautiful he thought he should like to add her to the number of his wives.
So he inquired who she was, and found that her name was Bath-sheba, and
that she was the wife of Uriah, one of his officers who was gone out with
Joab.
And now David, who had hitherto shown himself so good a man, did a
most wicked thing, for he resolved to have Uriah's wife. Then, to cover
his designs, that nobody might suspect what he was about, he sent for
Uriah and treated him very kindly, and told him he might go home to
Bath-sheba, who still remained in her house ; but Uriah slept in the guard-
room, and would not go home while his troops were faring hard in the field
of battle. So David, having outwardly shown great kindness to Uriah,
and indeed sinfully obliged him to drink till he was drunk, wrote a letter
to Joab, which he sent by him, and said, "Set ye Uriah in the fore-
front of the hottest bat-
tle, and retire ye from
him, that he may be
smitten and die."
This was very cruel
and unjust, to \>rder a
brave man and a faith-
ful servant to be killed ;
and, as he knew he did
wrong, he contrived this
method that Uriah might appear to die by what we call the chance of war.
But David gave this order to get rid of Uriah, and obtain his wife.
Joab did not know if Uriah had committed any crime or not, but he readily
obeyed the king's orders, and Uriah was slain.
Then Joab sent a message to David to tell him Uriah was dead ; and
knowing that it was an unfair way of punishing Uriah, even if he had com-
mitted any crime, he concealed the order from the messenger, who did not
go and say, Uriah is dead, as the king commanded ; but, " the shooters shot
from off the wall upon thy servants, and some of the king's servants be dead,
and thy servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also." Joab pretended that the
king might appear angry at exposing Uriah to such a danger, and might ask,
" Who smote Abimelech, the son of Jerubesheth ? — did not a woman cast a
piece of a mill-stone upon him from the wall, that he died in Thebez ? " —
So the king might tell the messenger that Joab should have remembered
Abimelech's fate, and not so have endangered Uriah.
STORMING OF THEBEZ.
2 Samuel. 327
However, the king did not need Joab's pretences to help him out, for he
said, very coolly, " The sword devoureth one as well as another/' and Joab
must take more care in future and make his battle more strong.
All this time David knew that it was not the sword that had devoured
Uriah, properly speaking, — though he had been killed in war, — but his
death was settled by himself, and that poor Uriah was, in reality, as much
murdered as if he himself had shot him.
Uriah now being dead, there was no obstacle in the way to Bath-sheba
marrying David. She put on mourning for a while for her husband, and
then " David sent and fetched her to his house, and she became his wife."
What do you suppose God, who sees all things, thought of this wicked act
of David's? It did not escape his notice, and though David was his
favored servant, the thing that he had done "displeased the Lord," for all
sin is displeasing to God, and will be punished in this world or the next.
The punishment that David brought upon himself will hereafter be related.
Nathan the Prophet's solemn Message to David.
2 Samuel xii.
AFTER a while, — when David would be less likely to suspect the
-£-^- nature of the message and its suitability to himself, and so might
be made to condemn himself, as you will soon learn, — Nathan was sent
to David to speak to him in a parable, and so by telling him a tale which
seemed to refer to some one else bring home the charge of guilt to his own
conscience.
This parable is very tender and pretty.
" There were two men in one city ; the one rich and the other poor. The
rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds ; but the poor man had
nothing save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up :
and it grew up together with him, and with his children : it did eat of his
own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his own bosom, and was
unto him as a daughter. And there came a traveller unto the rich man,
and he spared to take of his own flock, and of his own herd, to dress for the
wayfaring man that was come unto him, but he took the poor man's lamb
and dressed it for the man that was come to him."
When David heard this story, which he thought was about what had
happened to one of his subjects, but which was only a parable about
328
Bible and Commentator.
himself and Uriah, he was very angry at the man that took the poor man's
lamb ; and he declared that he should be put to death for so cruel a robbery,
and make a recompense by giving him four lambs for the one he had lost.
Now here he pronounced sentence against himself; for the two men who
lived in one city meant David and Uriah, who lived in Jerusalem. David
DAVID REPENTING HIS SIN.
was a rich king and Uriah comparatively a poor man, though an officer.
The rich man had many flocks and herds, which were the chief wealth of
rich men in those days ; by which Nathan meant, that David, like the rich
men of his time, had many wives : but the poor man had only one little ewe
lamb, by which he meant, that Uriah had only one wife, which he had
bought, as men did their wives in the East ; and then, what he says further
of the lamb was to show how fondly he was attached to Bath-sheba. Then
there came a traveller to the rich man — an evil desire came to David — and
to satisfy that, he took the poor man's lamb, meaning Bath-sheba, of whom
he cruelly robbed Uriah. This was a very ingenious way of telling David
of his sin, for, perhaps, he would hardly have borne to have been directly
called to an account for it. But after he had pronounced sentence against
2 Samuel.
329
the rich man for taking the lamb, what could he say for himself in killing
poor Uriah and stealing Bath-sheba?
Nathan, the prophet, being helped by God to speak this wise parable,
was now helped to speak boldly and plainly to David. "And Nathan said
to David, Thou art the man." And Nathan told him how many things
God had allowed him to have, and he would have added yet more if
necessary. " Wherefore," then, said he, " hast thou despised the command-
ment of the Lord to do evil in his sight ? Thou hast killed Uriah, the
Hittite, with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast
slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Now, therefore, the
sword shall never depart from
thy house, because thou hast
despised me, and hast taken the
wife of Uriah, the Hittite, to
be thy wife."
Then David confessed his sin
and repented : and his repent-
ance is beautifully expressed in
the fifty-first Psalm, some of
which we may explain when we
come to it.
God, however, visited David
with his displeasure. He had a
son born to him, whose mother was Bath-sheba, but God instantly took him
away, to the great grief of David. However, another son was afterwards
born to him, and him God spared ; so he called his name Solomon, which
means peaceful, because he hoped that God had pardoned him and was now
at peace with him : and the prophet called upon him and desired him also
to give him the name of Jedidiah, which means " beloved of the Lord."
RUINS AT AMMON.
Amnon killed by Absalom.
2 Samuel xiii.-xv.
TWO of David's sons, who had different mothers, were named Absalom
and Amnon. Absalom had a sister on whom Amnon laid violent
hands, treating her in a very cruel manner ; and though he once pretended
to be exceedingly fond of her, he suddenly took so great a dislike to her,
330 Bible and Commentator.
that it is even said, " he hated her/' and he ordered his servants to insnlt
her and turn her violently away from his presence.
Tamar, in her great affliction at his ill-treatment, put on mourning, and
attracted the notice of her brother Absalom, who desired her not to mind
the insult, but secretly intended to take vengeance on his half-brother,
whom he hated for his behavior to his own sister.
So, two years after, when it might have been supposed that -he had
forgotten all that had passed, he invited Amnon to go and -partake of a feast
at his sheep-shearing ; and while Amnon was merry with wine, and probably
intoxicated, Absalom's servants — whom he had previously told what to do
— fell upon Amnon at the feast, before all his brethren, who had also been
invited, and slew him.
The news at first reached king David that all his other sons had been
killed by order of Absalom, and he was in great distress, and according to
custom, as a sign of grief, rent his clothes ; but he soon learnt that Amnon
only was killed.
In the meanwhile, Absalom fled to his mother's relations, and his grand-
father Talmai, king of Geshur, protected him for three years.
David was very fond of Absalom, and at last gave over grieving for
Amnon, and longed to see Absalom again, who seemed to him to have been
absent a very long time.
Joab, David's general, was friendly with Absalom, and being a subtle
man, he contrived to get the king's leave for him to be brought back to
Jerusalem.
Joab humbly thanked the king, and went and fetched Absalom ; however,
David would not allow him to see his face or appear at court, so Absalom
was shut up in his own house.
It appears that this young man was very handsome, and without the least
blemish ; and his hair was so fine that whenever he had it cut, it weighed,
together with the oil and gold dust, which was used for powder, upwards
of three pounds. He was married, and had three sons, and a daughter
named Tamar, who was very fair and handsome like himself.
After Absalom had remained two years in Jerusalem without being allowed
to appear at court, he began to grow impatient, and perhaps thought that
Joab neglected him in not carrying his efforts any further in his behalf.
So he sent for Joab to talk with him about the business, but he had some
reasons why he did not like to go. Then he sent again, but Joab still
kept himself away. So, being resolved to see Joab, he ordered his servants
2 Samuel
331
to set his field of barley on fire, which was near Absalom's, and when Joab
learnt who had done it, he went to complain to Absalom. .
Then Absalom complained of his hard fate, and was bold enough to
excuse himself, and to declare that he was ready to die if he had done
anything wrong. This message Joab gave to David, and he took compassion
on Absalom, and allowed him to leave his house, and in token of reconciliation
" the king kissed Absalom/'
Absalom's Rebellion.
2 Samuel xy.
AFTER David had been reconciled to Absalom, "Absalom prepared
- him chariots, and horses, and fifty men to run before him/' that he
might look very grand before the people, and that they might show that he
was coming. Also, to prove that he was no sluggard, " he rose up early
and stood beside the way of the
gate " of the city or the palace ;
and when people came to com-
plain to the king about any ill
usage from others, he stopped
them, talked to them about it,
and told them their case was
very good and just, and their
complaints were such as ought
to be attended to, — but the king,
he said, would not regard them.
Then he lamented that he was
not appointed their judge to do
them justice. And if any one
approached him he was very
kind to him and kissed him, —
as men embrace each other in
the East, — and by this seemingly gracious behavior he won the hearts of
the people of Israel.
Now, " after forty years," which some suppose was when Absalom might
be about forty years of age, — but this is not certain, — Absalom asked the
king for leave to go to Hebron, to pay a vow which he had made at Geshur,
that he would offer some offering to God at Hebron, if he should be restored
THE WAY OF THE GATE OF THE CITY.
332
Bible and Commentator
to Jerusalem. So David gave him leave. But this was most likely but a
pretence, for as soon as Absalom got to Hebron, which was at the con^
venient distance of only twenty miles from Jerusalem, he began to conspire
to seize his father's throne. And he " sent spies throughout all the land
of Israel," to see how people liked him, and to persuade them to prefer him
to his father ; and these were to say that when they heard the trumpet
sounded anywhere, which he had probably employed men to blow, then they
were to cry out that Absalom was king.
Absalom also got two hundred men of power away from his father, under
the pretence of inviting them to partake of the feast of his peace-offerings ;
and then he invited and gained over Ahithophel, who was David's most
clever counsellor, and by his various arts " the people increased continually
with Absalom."
"And there came a
messenger to David, say-
ing, The hearts of the
men of Israel are after
Absalom." Then David,
and his servants, and his
body guard, instantly fled
from Jerusalem ; and
though David urged
Ittai, the Gittite, who
guarded his person, to leave him, with six hundred other Gittites, this
man, who was one of Gath, would not act unfaithfully towards him, but
resolved, with his soldiers, to live or die with him. Great numbers of
the people, too, went weeping along with him, for it was a very affecting
thing to see an old king driven from his throne by the unprovoked rebellion
of his own son.
Zadok the priest, and Abiathar, and all the Levites, also, took away the
ark, but David advised them to carry it back, being persuaded that if his
conduct now pleased God, God would yet restore him to the spot where it
was kept, and which he was accustomed to love.
And now the procession moved forward up the Mount of Olives, near
Jerusalem; and David and all the people covered their heads as
mourners, and wept ; and David walked with bare feet, in token of his
humiliation.
And one told David that Ahithophel was among the conspirators, and
EASTERN LOAVES OF BREAD.
2 Samuel. 333
David prayed, " O Lord, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolish-
ness ; " meaning, that God would make him appear like a foolish
adviser.
When David reached the top of the mount, he worshipped God and
prayed, and here he was overtaken by Hushai, the Archite, who "came to
meet him with his coat rent, and earth upon his head."
Now Hushai was no warrior, but a wise, prudent man, and so he would
have been of no use to David as a defence. But he told him how he might
serve him. And he advised him to go to Absalom, and tell him he would
be his counsellor as he had been his father's ; and so he might get at the
counsel which the wise Ahithophel might give, and either inform David of
it, or persuade Absalom not to follow it. Moreover, the priests, Zadok and
Abiathar, would help him ; these had two sons, Ahimaaz and Jonathan, and
if Hushai told them what was doing, they could send their sons secretly
with the news ; and this was a good scheme, as no one would suspect what
was going on, as he might have religious matters to engage him with the
priests. "So Hushai, David's friend, came into the city, and Absalom
came into Jerusalem," and both met together at the same time.
Hushai deceives Absalom.
2 Samuel xvi.
" "\\7"HEN ^^ was a little past the top " of the Mount of Qlives>
▼ ▼ which we read of his ascending, " Ziba, the servant of Mephi-
bosheth, met him with a couple of asses saddled, and upon them two hundred
loaves of bread," or, more properly, thin cakes, made without yeast, for such
was the shape, and also the kind of ancient Jewish bread, — " and an hundred
bunches of raisins," which were usually dried in the sun, " and an hundred
of summer fruits," probably cucumbers and water-melons, — which are
about Judea exceedingly fine in flavor, and much in use to quench the thirst
occasioned by the great heat, — " and a bottle of wine," which was a goat's
skin full, that being the bottle of the East, and not one of glass, like our
bottles. This bottle would hold a great deal.
Then the king asked Ziba what he meant by his load ; who replied, that
the asses were for the king's own family to ride on, great personages being
used to ride upon the beautiful Eastern asses. And the bread and fruit
were to refresh the young men who were the king's guards and soldiers.
334
Bible and Commentator
Then David inquired after Ziba's master's son, — meaning Mephibosheth^
the son of Soul, — and he, perhaps, thought he had sent him this present,
but could not account for his not coming along with it. Then Ziba told
David a most wicked falsehood — " Behold, he abideth at Jerusalem : for he
said, To-day shall the house of Israel restore me the kingdom of my father ; "
meaning that Mephibosheth expected, now that David had fled, that he should
recover the throne of his father, Saul. Now, there was no probability of
this, for Absalom would have prevented it, if David could not have returned ;
and this story of the humble, quiet, and grateful Mephibosheth was made up
by Ziba, that he might provoke David to take away all his lands and give
them to him. I am sorry to say that, in this instance, David was too easily
imposed upon ; he took Ziba at his wTord, and supposing that Mephibosheth
_ was guilty of treachery, and aspired
SUsi to his throne, he pronounced his
estates to be forfeited, and said to
Ziba, "Behold, thine are all that
pertaineth to Mephibosheth ; " that is,
I give you all Mephibosheth/s lands.
And the vile man flattered the king,
and hoped that he should yet receive
further proofs of his favor.
While these things happened, Ab-
salom and Hushai met together at
Jerusalem, and Ahithophel also. As
soon as Hushai, David's friend, saw
Absalom, he cried out, " God save the king ! God save the king ! " He,
however, meant king David, for Absalom was no king. Then Absalom,
supposing he meant himself, reproached him with deserting David, and said,
"Is this thy kindness to thy friend?" Hushai again answered very
cautiously, still thinking about David being his rightful king, " Nay, but
whom the Lord, and this people, and all the men of Israel choose, his will
I be, and with him will I abide ; " and if Absalom were king, why should
he scruple to serve him ? Now, he knew that the Lord had chosen David,
and that Absalom was not king, and therefore he did not intend to serve
him. There was a great deal of cunning in all this, which is not a praise-
worthy thing ; but God overruled it all for the good of David.
EASTERN BAKER SELLING THIN CAKES.
2 Samuel. 335
Ahithophel' s wicked Gounsel defeated by Hushai.
2 Samuel xvii.
THE only impediment to Absalom's complete possession of the throne
was the life of his father, for, as long as he lived, there would be
many who would follow him. So the wicked Ahithophel proposed that he
should be allowed to choose a thousand of the bravest men of each tribe,
making twelve thousand, and he would pursue David, and coming up with
him while he was weary and weak-handed, — or guarded by a few men
only, — he would put him to flight, and then pursue him only and kill him.
David being slain, all the people would then acknowledge Absalom as
their king ; for he said, " The man whom thou seekest " — David — " is as
if all returned;" only secure or kill him, and it will insure the return of
all the rest.
If Absalom had ordered Ahithophel's head to be struck off for proposing
to murder his father, and so good a father, too, he would but have done
justice according to the law of God ; but this wicked son was even
"pleased" with the plan. However, God put it into his heart to ask
Hushai's opinion about it. Hushai, you know, was David's friend, whom
he had sent to defeat the counsel of Ahithophel, and he did so most wisely.
" Thou knowest," said he, " thy father and his men, that they be mighty
men," men of great bravery, "and they be chafed," or fretful and enraged
in their minds, "as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field ; " for the she-
bear, when she has any of her whelps hurt, is a most furious creature, and
will then violently attack any person or animal she may meet. Then he
proceeded to say that David was "a man of war," who would not lodge
with the people in the camp, but in some pit, where he might surprise his
enemy, or at least escape being surprised. And if it should so happen that
he should fall unawares upon any of Absalom's men, and they should flee,
it would strike a panic into the whole, and the report would soon spread
abroad that Absalom's army was defeated. Then he advised that "all
Israel," that is, the fighting men, " from Dan to Beersheba," that is, from
one end of the country to the other — where these places stood — should be
gathered together to march against David, and then they might come upon
his army like dew upon the ground, the drops of which are exceedingly
numerous, and so they would easily slay the whole.
God disposed Absalom's mind to prefer this counsel to that of Ahithophel.
336 Bible and Commentator.
While these deliberations were taking place, Hushai informed Zadok and
Abiathar, the priests, — who also were faithful to their king, — and he advised
them to send directly to David and urge him to get out of the plain where
he was, lest, if Absalom should yet follow the advice of Ahithophel, he might
be suddenly overthrown, and to avoid the overwhelming army which, on
his plan, would be sent against him.
David immediately followed Hushai's advice, and, passing the fords of
Jordan in the night, he and his men all got safely over.
Ahithophel was so much mortified that Hushai's counsel had been followed
rather than his, that he went to his house at Giloh, and there, having "put
his house in order," or settled his affairs, he hanged himself. He also fore-
saw that David would now conquer and return to Jerusalem, and then he
must suffer the death of a traitor ; and he would rather become a self-
murderer than fall into the hands of justice.
Absalom's Defeat and Death.
2 Samuel xviii.
DAVID now divided his army into companies of thousands and
hundreds, and set captains over them. Then he divided the whole
into three parts, and appointed three generals to command them — Joab,
Abishai, Joab's brother, and Ittai the Gittite ; and he intended himself to
be commander-in-chief over these, but the people would not let him go, lest
he should be killed, which would have- thrown them all into confusion and
made Absalom king, who would have been avenged on them for defending
David ; and they advised David rather to stay in the city of Mahanaim, and
send them succor by forwarding provisions and recruits.
And now the army marched to meet Absalom, but as it passed through
the gate of the city David commanded the generals to "deal gently" with
Absalom if he should fall into their hands, and rather take him alive than
hurt or kill him.
" So the people went out into the field against Israel ; and the battle was
in the wood of Ephraim." This was not a wood in the tribe of Ephraim,
but in the land of Gilead, across the river Jordan, and was probably called
the wood of Ephraim because, in the time of Jephthah, forty-two thousand
Ephraimites were slain near it by the men of Gilead.
Absalom's army was soon put to flight, and twenty thousand of his
22
338
Bible and Commentator.
soldiers perished. In their flight their ranks became broken, and they ran
over the country in all directions ; but vast numbers tried to escape through
the wood, where they were easily overtaken by being caught in thickets ;
and some might fall into pits, and it is supposed that some were devoured
by wild beasts ; so that " the wood devoured more people that day than the
sword devoured," for there were more people slain in it than in the open
field.
Absalom fled among the rest: in passing through the wood, he met with
some of David's troops, and in hastening from them on his mule, either his
fine hair was caught in the branches of an oak tree, or, as is rather believed,
his neck was stuck fast in a forked branch, and the mule going forward,
left him hanging alive.
One of David's soldiers saw this accident, and ran and told Joab;
who asked the man why he did not kill Absalom ; and told him that if
he had done so, he wpuld have given him ten shekels of silver, — about six
dollars of our money, — and a girdle, which was a mark of great honor and
promotion. But the man told Joab he would not have killed Absalom for
a thousand shekels of silver,
^IZ3-. after David had given so
strict a charge to spare his
life, for he should have ex-
posed his own life to danger
for disobedience, and even
Joab would then have con-
demned him.
So Joab went himself, tak-
ing three darts with him,
and thrust them into Absa-
lom; and ten young men
who attended Joab thrust
darts into him also, so that
they were sure he was dead.
Having slain David's wicked son, the chief of the rebellion, Joab ordered
a trumpet to be blown, to call back his men, that they might pursue the
rebel army no longer, as they would now submit, and he did not want to
shed any more blood.
Then they took Absalom's body and cast it " into a great pit in the
wood, and laid a very great heap of stones upon him," to be a monument
JUEFEAT OF ABSALOM.
2 Samuel. 339
of his villany, and to signify that he ought to have been stoned as a re-
bellious son. (See Deuteronomy xxi. 20, 21.)
Absalom little expected to die such a death, and to be buried in such a
manner. In his pride he had erected a very handsome monument for the
reception of his body when he should die, in a place called the King's
Dale, or valley — the valley of Jehoshaphat ; for he said, " I have no son to
keep my name in remembrance," though he had had three sons, but all were
dead — " and he called the pillar after his own name," and it was still called
"Absalom's place," when this history was written.
Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok, was now with Joab, and he begged him to
let him run and inform David of the victory ; but as Joab did not wish him
to carry news which would displease the king, as Absalom's death would,
he told him not to go. Then he ordered Cushi, an Ethiopian, — or black,
as some suppose, — to hasten with the tidings. After Cushi was gone, Ahi-
maaz still urged Joab to let him go, though he had " no tidings ready," but
what Cushi had ; then he allowed him, and he outrun Cushi, as Cushi took
a hilly road, and Ahimaaz a flat one.
David was anxiously waiting for news, and so he sat between the two
gates of the city ; one gate being within another, between two walls that
surrounded the place. And the watchman mounted the tower over the wall,
and looked to see if any messenger was coming. And when he saw a man
running, he called out to the king; and the king said, if the man was
alone he brought news as a messenger, for if he had had others with him,
it would have been a sign that they were part of his army put to flight.
Presently the watchman called to the porter below, who kept the outward
gate, that there was another man running, and that the foremost looked like
Ahimaaz. And David was pleased, for he said that Ahimaaz was a good
man, and would not run to tell him bad news.
To encourage David's heart, Ahimaaz called out, as soon as he could be
heard, "All is well ; " meaning that the victory was gained. And then he
approached the king, and bowed himself before him, and blessed God for
the victory.
Poor David was, however, alarmed for his wicked son, and his first
question was, " Is the young man Absalom safe ? " Ahimaaz evaded the
question, and David waited for Cushi.
Cushi saluted David in a similar manner to Ahimaaz, and the king asked
the same question about Absalom. And Cushi replied, " the enemies of
my lord the king, and all that rise against thee to do thee hurt, be as that
340 Bible and Commentator.
young man is ; " meaning, in a delicate way, that he was dead, which he
wished were the case with all David's enemies; as they rebelled against a
king whom God had especially set up. And the king ran up to the watch-
man's chamber, and there he wept alone ; but cried aloud in great distress,
" O my son Absalom ! my son, my son Absalom ! would God I had died for
thee, O Absalom, my son, my son ! "
David's Return to Jerusalem.
2 Samuel xix.
THE news reached Joab that David was much grieved for the loss of
Absalom ; the victory was therefore turned into mourning by the
people, instead of being an occasion of joy, which was usual at such times.
Instead of marching triumphantly into the city like conquerors, the people
stole in like cowards, lest they should displease the king : for David would
not see his generals, and covered his face with his mantle, as mourners did,
and still cried, " O my son Absalom ! O Absalom, my son, my son ! ,y
Joab, at last, got leave to see David, and he spoke very boldly to him,
and told him how ill he had used the people that had done him so much
service, and saved his life, and the lives of the other members of his family,
all of whom might have perished, had Absalom gained the victory. And
he urged .him to go and show himself to the people, and speak kindly to
them, instead of lamenting what they had done, or his army would all
desert him.
So the king went and sat in the gate, which was a public place of the
city, where many people were constantly passing ; and there they assembled
and congratulated him on saving his kingdom.
Then the tribes of Israel began to talk about what David had done for
them in saving them from the Philistines, and that something should be
done to convey him back to Jerusalem. And David sent to Zadok and
Abiathar the priests, to urge them to arouse the tribe of Judah, who were
yet negligent to join in restoring him ; for " the speech of all Israel," or
the invitations of the people, had been sent to him to return to his palace
and city.
He also reminded that tribe, by a message, that they were his nearest
brethren, he being of the same tribe ; and as for Amasa, who had commanded
Absalom's army, he would not only pardon him, but make him commander
Mm
44l
if*!-!!
Ill
j'i;Vi!
■'A- M
rm^m
i 11
ii
§
4, II
342
Bible and Commentator.
in-chief, in place of Joab, who had, in many things, displeased him by his
imperious disposition, and had now killed Absalom with his own hand.
So all Judah directly
joined the king, and he
went back to Jerusalem.
Unfortunately, David's
return was not quite in
peace. The men of Israel
were jealous that the men
of Judah should have es-
~wa1^^o7iT- corted the king without
letting them know, and the
men of Judah were very angry at the words of the ten tribes of Israel. We
shall see, by -and-by, what mischief comes from jealousy and quarrelling.
Sheba's Rebellion and Death.
2 Samuel xx.
u A MAN of Belial," that is, a lawless, wicked man, whose name was
-£ji. Sheba, took advantage of the quarrel between Israel and Judah,
and advised the men of Israel to go home to their tents and not guard David
to Jerusalem : and they fol-
lowed his advice, the men of
Judah only remaining with
David.
Then David ordered
Amasa, his new general-in-
ch ief, to collect an army in
three days, and go after
Sheba. But Amasa not mak-
ing as much despatch as he
wished, he feared that Sheba
would get a strong force and
make head against him, and
secure himself in a fortress.
So he desired Abishai to take his body guards and pursue him. Joab was
along with his brother Abishai.
WAR-ENGINE, NO. 2.
2 Samuel. 343
Sheba, as David had apprehended, had taken refuge in a strong place
called Abel. Here Joab and Abishai cast up a very high bank, on which to
place war-engines to break down the walls, which wTere surrounded by a
trench.
While Joab's soldiers were battering the wall, a wise woman — one renowned
for giving prudent advice in difficulties — called from the wralls with a loud
voice, and asked to see Joab. Then she told him that Abel was a place
well known for prudent people, and so, had he asked for a conversation
with some of them before he began to beat it dowm, he might easily have
settled the matter. Moreover, she asked him if he w^ould destroy a city
which was a mother in Israel, and wTas the protector of several other places,
as a mother of her children ; and also a part of the land which was the
Lord's inheritance, net polluted by the heathen, but devoted to the service
of God.
Joab replied, it was very far from his wishes to destroy the city, but
there was a traitor there, and they must deliver him up. The woman
agreed that his head should be cut off and thrown over the wall, and then
told the citizens of the treatv she had made. The order was executed, and
Joab sounded a retreat with the trumpet, and then returned to Jerusalem.
After David's return to his throne, Joab remained commander-in-chief,
having killed Amasa. Benaiah also commanded the body guard. Adoram
was appointed to the new office of treasurer of the taxes. Jehoshaphat was
still recorder. Sheva was yet scribe, and Zadok and Abiathar priests. Ira
was also one of David's counsellors.
Saul's Sons Executed.
2 Samuel xxi.
TOU remember that the Gibeonites deceived the Israelites in the days
of Joshua, by appearing among them with clouted or patched up
shoes, and old clothes, and mouldy bread, as if they had worn out their
dress wTith travelling, and as if their food had become stale owing to the
distance of the way ; and so the Israelites mistook them for a people afar
off, instead of inhabitants of Canaan, whom they were commanded to
destroy. As the supposed inhabitants of a distant nation inclined to be at
peace with them, the Israelites made a covenant not to hurt them ; and then
they found out that they were not from a distance, but Amorites, wThom
344
Bible and Commentator
.gjEgrwpllta ^^
they ought to have slain for their wickedness. However, they would not
break their oath, having sworn not to injure them ; but they made them
servants, "hewers of wood, and drawers of water unto all the congre-
gation."
Now it happened in the days of David that there was a famine for three
years. David remarked this judgment, and was anxious to know for what
particular sin God afflicted the people.
Having " inquired of the Lord " by the
Ephod, he found that the covenant with
the Gibeonites had been broken ; for Saul,
in pretended zeal for the glory of God,
had tried to destroy these people as a
remnant of the Canaanites, and some of
them had actually been slain. To break
a solemn and deliberate oath is a very
wicked thing, and as the nation seemed to
have joined in it — and especially Saul's
relatives — and no atonement had been
made, this punishment was inflicted till
the sin was atoned.
So the king asked the Gibeonites what would satisfy them for the lives
of their fellow-countrymen ; and they replied, the lives of seven of Saul's sons.
Then David took two sons of Bizpah, the daughter of Aiah ; and five
sons, so called, of Michal, but they were the sons of Adriel, who married
her sister Merab ; and therefore, as her sister was dead, she had brought
them up. And these young men were all hanged on the hill of Gibeah,
" before the Lord ; " or to make atonement in the sight of the Lord. As
God does not delight in human blood for sacrifice, and as sin could be
atoned for by other means, the execution of these poor young men seems to
have been a severe and unnecessary measure : but as David inquired of the
Lord, we may believe that he was directed what to do, and that he did not
rashly sacrifice innocent lives. Perhaps these sons of Saul had themselves
been among the murderers of the unfortunate Gibeonites, and so justice
overtook them at last.
Rizpah was deeply afflicted to lose her two sons in so painful a manner;
she pitched a tent of sackcloth near their gibbets, and no doubt being aided
by her friends and servants, she protected the dead bodies from ravenous
birds and beasts of prey.
THE CROW, A WAR-ENGINE.
2 Samuel. 345
David, having no malicious feeling towards the deceased voung men —
having let justice take its course — had their bodies taken down, and to-
gether with the remains of Saul and Jonathan, which had been in the
possession of the men of Jabesh-Gilead, he had them honorably buried in
the sepulchre of Kish, who was the father of Saul.
After this solemn execution, God was entreated for the land, and it
yielded its usual harvest.
The Philistines still annoyed David, and he went out to battle in his old
age ; but he was now weak, and his life had nearly been taken by Ishbi-
benob — supposed to have been a son of Goliath — who seeing David fighting
feebly, Avent up to him to slay him, but DaA'id being quickly aided by
Abishai, the giant Avas slain. This narrow escape of DaATid made the
people of Israel resolve that he should no more go out to battle, lest their
glory should be extinguished by his death.
SeA^eral more battles afterAvards took place between the Israelites and the
Philistines, and several more giants Avere slain; one was called Saph;
another was brother to Goliath ; and another was of such unusual bulk
that he had more fingers and toes than other people, and of such insolence
that though he had seen the fall of the other giants yet he defied Israel.
David's Heroes.
2 Samuel xxin.
IN this chapter we haAX the last words of David ; in which, among other
things, he describes the character of a good king, who must be just —
rule in the fear of God — and be a blessing to his people, as are the cheering
light of the morning, and the herbage springing up from the earth for the
use of man and beast.
Then follows a list of David's most famous soldiers, and the exploits
which they did, which you may read from the eighth ATerse to the end.
Adino sleAv eight hundred at one time with his spear — Eleazar defied the
Philistines, as Goliath had Israel, and while the other men of Israel fled,
he stood his ground alone, and fought them, till his hand was so cramped
that his sword Avas, as it were, fastened in it. "And the Lord wrought a
great victory that day, and the people " who had fled, when they saAV the
Adctory he had gained, "returned after him, only to spoil" them that were
slain, and to strip them of what they had.
346
Bible and Commentator,
Shammah met with a party of Philistines who were out plundering the
fields, and he stood in the midst of a field of lentiles — a sort of pea — " and
defended it, and slew the Philistines ; and the Lord wrought a great victory : "
for these exploits could
not have been performed,
had not God bestowed
upon the men wonderful
strength and courage to
meet the enemies of Israel.
Three of David's heroes
who attended him in his
troubles, when he hid in
the cave of Adullam, also
performed a very great
exploit. It being hot
weather, David was very
thirsty ; and as there was
a very nice well of water
near the gate of Bethle-
hem, where the Philistines
then were, he longed for
some, and said, " Oh, that
one would give me drink
of the water of the well
of Bethlehem, which is by
the gate!" "And the
three mighty men brake
through the host of the
Philistines" that were en-
camped before Bethlehem,
drew water from the well,
and brought it to David.
David, however, would not
drink of it when they had
got it for him ; it was kind
in them to go when they heard him expressing his wish for the water ; but
as they had risked their lives for it, he poured it out before the Lord. He
thought water obtained on such terms was too dear for him to drink. We
DAVID, THE POET.
2 Samuel. 347
admire the love of these soldiers to their prince, but what was it to the love
of Jesus Christ, who left heaven for us, took our nature to die for us, and
then bled and gave up his precious life on the cross, that we might drink of
the water of life, and partake of those joys which shall cheer the soul as water
now relieves the thirst, and that forever and ever.
Abishai was another brave man, and slew three hundred men at once.
And Benaiah slew two Moabites that were as strong and bold as lions. He
also slew a lion in a pit, in a time of snow, when lions are most fierce and
hungry ; and he slew an Egyptian, " a goodly man, large and tall ; " and
though he had a spear in his hand, he met him with nothing but a staff
and overcame him.
Do not let us mistake here ; this history is not told us to teach us to
fight, but only to show us what those men could do when engaged in a good
cause ; and when God helped them against the wicked people who were the
enemies of Israel.
David's Pride in Numbering his People,
2 Samuel xxiv.
AGAIN the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, for Satan
- moved David to number Israel and Judah, as we read in the twenty-
first chapter of the first of Chronicles. Probably he thought of making
some conquests which God had not commanded, and wished to go in his
strength, reckoning on the number of. his troops, while he neither consulted
the Ephod, nor trusted, as he ought, in God.
Even the warlike Joab thought that David was doing a wrong thing, and
tried to dissuade him from it, but he would have his own way. So after
the land had been gone through in nine months and twenty days, " Joab
gave up the sum of the number of the people to the king ; and there were
in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the sword ; and the
men of Judah were five hundred thousand men."
"When David had got the number of the people, his heart smote him that
he had clone what was wrong. He had perhaps felt proud to think what a
number of soldiers he could collect, and what conquests he could make with
them. But now he owns that in what he had done he had sinned. He
had not asked from God direction, and he had acted like one who wished to
do without him. And he earnestly prayed, " I beseech thee, O Lord, take
away the iniquity of thy servant, for I have done very foolishly."
348
Bible and Commentator.
So God sent the prophet Gad to David, and told him he must choose one
of three things : seven years of famine, or to flee for three months before his
enemies, or to have three days of pestilence in the land. David desired to
fall into the hands of God rather than into those of his enemies ; and God
DAVID IN HIS HOUSEHOLD.
sent a pestilence for three days, which swept away seventy thousand of his
men !
David suffered by this, for it was a dreadful lessening of his strength, and
so God humbled his pride. But let us not suppose that God destroyed the
innocent on this occasion. It seems most likely that, owing to their
conquests, Israel had become proud also ; and so God, who hates pride,
punished them in this manner.
God employed a particular divine messenger to produce this pestilence,
and as he was about to destroy Jerusalem, he stopped him. "And th?
angel of the Lord was by the threshing-place of Araunah the Jebusite."
And when David saw the angel, he again confessed his own sin, but pleaded
that the people, who were as sheep under his care, were not guilty of his
sin ; and entreated that they might not be punished, but that the punishment
2 Samuel.
349
might fall upon him. God, however, knew that they had sinned as well as
David.
Gad now advised David to build an altar to the Lord in the threshing-
floor. And David went to Araunah to buy
the threshing-floor, to build the altar that
the plague might be stayed.
And Araunah offered to give him oxen,
and the threshing instruments for wood for
the sacrifice. But David would not use
them till they were paid for, for the sacrifice
would otherwise have been Araunah's, and
not David's.
So David bought the threshing-floor and
the oxen, and built "an altar unto the
Lord, and offered burnt-offerings, and peace-
offerings ; so the Lord was entreated for the land, and the plague was stayed-
from Israel."
ALIAS OF OFFERING.
EOYAL CHA1ES.
First Book of Kings-.
Or, the " First Book of the History of the Kings of Judah and Israel," presenting to us the reigns of the Jewish
kings during a period of about 426 years, from the anointing of king Solomon to the destruction of Jerusalem. It
is supposed to have quite a number of great authors, who are divinely led to the work, among whom are named
David, Solomon, Hezekiah, Nathan, Gad, Isaiah, Iddo, and others, with the final arrangement of the prophet Ezra.
In the old copies of the Hebrew Bible the First and Second Books of Kings form one book. This first book covers
a space of 126 years, and has twenty-two chapters. Our Lord and Saviour has quoted from these books in Matt,
xii. 42, and Luke ix. 24-27, and thus attested to their inspired character.
Adonijah' s Conspiracy— Solomon proclaimed King.
m 1 Kings i.
XNG DAVID was now grown quite an old man; he was
almost seventy years of age, for he began to reign when he
was thirty years old, and he reigned forty years; and the
account in this chapter brings us nearly to the end of his reign.
You remember how active he was when he fought Goliath,
and escaped from Saul, and beat the different enemies of Israel ;
but now it is said, " King David was old, and stricken in years," bent down
with age. "And they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat ; " even
his bed, which is the warmest place when we are cold, gave him no warmth.
So death was chilling his life, and hurrying him into the grave.
You have heard what bad sons Amnon and Absalom turned out, and now
here is another son of David, who was not less wicked, "Adonijah, the son
of Haggith." He was a spoiled child, "and his father had not displeased
him at any time, in saying, Why hast thou done so ?" He had never found
fault with him when he did anything that was wrong; and so, says good
Mr. Henry, " He in return made a fool of his father : because he was old
and confined to his bed, he thought no notice was to be taken of him, and
therefore exalted himself, and said, I will be king. Children that are
indulged learn to be proud and ambitious, and that is the ruin of a great
many young people."
In order to effect his designs, Adonijah "prepared him chariots and
350
1 Kings.
351
horsemen, and fifty men to run before him ; " these were to make him appear
grand, to wait upon him, and to fight for him. He also gained over Joab,
David's famous general, and Abiathar, the high priest. But there were
three chief men who were faithful to David, and these Adonijah could not
get to use him ill ; these were Zadok, the priest, and Benaiah, a brave
soldier, and Nathan, the prophet, together with some others, and especially
.David's mighty men.
And Adonijah " slew sheep and oxen, and fat cattle," to make a feast of
them at a place called En-rogel, and there he enticed all the king's sons
excepting Solomon, and many of the king's servants.
Nathan, the prophet, lost no time in letting Solomon's mother, Bath-
sheba, know what was doing ; for, like all ladies in the East, she lived
quite in retirement, and
was ignorant of Adoni-
jah's conduct. He ad-
vised her to go directly to
the king, and tell him
all about it — or Solo-
mon, to whom David in-
tended to give the crown,
would certainly lose it,
and he and his mother
would both perish ; for
cruel deeds have often
been done, particularly in
the East, by those who
have got their crowns in
an unfair way, lest the
right heirs should rise
against them, and obtain
their rights.
So Bath-sheba went to
the king, and told him all
that happened, and re-
minded him that he had
said that Solomon should
reign, and not Adonijah, and begged him at once to have his successor pro-
claimed. And while she was speaking, Nathan contrived to go in to the
THE PROPHET NATHAN.
352 Bible and Commentator.
king also, and so to urge him the more forcibly to make no delay in so
important a business.
Then David told Bath-sheba that he would certainly not break his word,
which every good man ought to keep, and, therefore, what he had promised
should instantly be done.
And he ordered Zadok, and Nathan, and Benaiah, to take his servants
with them, and cause Solomon to ride upon his mule, — which would other-
wise have been treason, — and to go to Gihon, a place where there were wells
or waters, where many people would be assembled ; — there the priest and
the prophet were to anoint Solomon king, by pouring oil upon his head
according to custom, and to blow the trumpet, and say, " God save king
Solomon."
So they did as David told them ; " and all the people said, God save
king Solomon. And all the people came up after him, and the people
piped with pipes, and rejoiced with great joy, so that the earth rent with the
sound of them."
The news soon came to Adonijah that Solomon was proclaimed king, for
he had but just done feasting, when Joab heard the sound of a trumpet,
and asked what was the cause of it ; then Jonathan, the son of Abiathar the
priest, arrived with the tidings, and mentioned, as the last act of Solomon's
coming to the crown, that he sat upon his father's throne.
All Adonijah's guests were now in a terrible fright, and ran away to
their homes. As for this wicked son, he feared that Solomon would do to
him as he would have done to Solomon, had he got the throne ;' and, lest
he should be instantly killed, he fled away to the Tabernacle, and laid hold
on the horns of the altar, which was always a place of refuge, it being
thought a great crime to kill any one there, — nor did he move from his
place till Solomon gave his solemn word that his life should not be taken
away. However, though Solomon sent for him and saved him for that
time, yet he wTas to behave better in future or take the consequences. " If,"
said Solomon, " he will show himself a worthy man," and never cause any
more disturbance, " there shall not an hair of him fall to the earth ; but if
wickedness shall be found in him," and he does any more such bad deeds,
" he shall die." We find in this act of Solomon a great deal of humanity
and forbearance ; for when we consider the tendency of the times to cruelty,
especially when there was any attempt made upon the throne, and any in-
fluence brought to bear upon the people which might result in division and
endanger the position of the king, we are surprised at the mercy shown.
1 Kings.
353
The Death of David.— The Execution of Adonijah, of Joab, and of
Shimei.
1 Kings ii.
DAVID, finding himself near death, gave Solomon the best advice he
could about managing his kingdom, for he was yet but young, —
about twenty years of age ; and as David knew he was wise and good, he
hoped he would continue so, and, though a child in years, be a man in be-
havior. Especially he told him to walk in God's ways, and keep his com-
mandments, and then he might be sure that God would bless him, and
establish his throne.
But there were several things which David had left undone, and he com-
manded Solomon not to fail to do them.
Joab had been a bad man, and had not only ill-used David as the Lord's
anointed, and disobeyed his
commands in slaying Absa-
lom, but he had cruelly and
deceitfully murdered Abner
and Amasa, as We have be-
fore read — "and shed the
blood of war in peace,
and put the blood of war
upon his girdle that was
about his loins, and in his
shoes that were on his feet ; "
he stabbed them while he
pretended to embrace them,
so that their blood gushed out
on his girdle, and fell into
his shoes.
Now, David ought to have punished Joab before, but his kingdom was
often disturbed, and he perhaps feared the making of fresh enemies ; he,
however, did not forget that he, as a king, must do justice, and now, with
his throne, he transfers his commands to Solomon to execute this wicked
man. " Do, therefore, according to thy wisdom, and let not his hoar head
go down to the grave in peace.''
Shimei had also been a base disturber, and had cursed David when he
23
SEPULCHRAL CAYE IN JERUSALEM.
354
Bible and Commentator,
was in trouble, but, as he had promised to spare his life, he had kept his
word ; however, his son must guard against him as a dangerous subject,
and he would find occasion to visit him at last with the punishment of
death.
While David thus remembered to do justice, he also thought of mercy,
and was not ungrateful to Barzillai, the Gileadite, who had been very kind
to him in his need ; and he ordered Solomon to treat Barzillai's sons with
great kindness in return, and to let them be provided for, and have the
honor of eating at his table.
"So David slept with his fathers," for death is but a long sleep for the
body, which is to rise again, as we do in the morning, after having been as
if dead during the night. And David " was buried in the city of David.
And the days that David reigned over Israel were forty years : seven years
reigned he in Hebron, and thirty and three years reigned he in Jerusalem."
David had not long been dead Avhen Adonijah again plotted against his
brother Solomon, and very cunningly went to Bathsheba, Solomon's mother,
david's tomb at mount zion.
and asked her to beg of Solomon to let him marry Abishag, his father
David's last wife. Now this request was altogether bad, and it proved that
1 Kings. 355
he wanted to make himself more great, and so to increase his power. So
Solomon ordered him to be executed as a traitor, and Benaiah slew him.
Abiathar, the priest, was also probably in this plot, or Solomon would not,
as he did, have ordered him instantly to be banished to Anathoth ; and in
thrusting out Abiathar from the priestly office, he fulfilled the threatening
of God against the sons of Eli. God had told Eli that the priesthood should
depart from his house, and Abiathar, the last of his house, was now, for
his crimes, made to bring the threatening to pass. So will all the threat-
enings of God against the wicked certainly come to pass at last.
The alarm of Joab, who now fled for safety to the horns of the altar,
showed, too, that he had good reason to dread Solomon's vengeance ; and
though this was a very sacred place, yet, so great a criminal was this man,
that the king ordered him not to be allowed to shelter himself even there,
and " Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, went up, and fell upon him, and slew
him ; and he was buried in his own house in the wilderness." Thus was
this wicked man punished at last.
The next criminal that we read of in this chapter was Shimei.
Solomon, having been warned about him by his father, sent for him, and
told him to go and live at Jerusalem, but, if he ever ventured to leave that
place, he would punish him with death. Shimei, who perhaps felt that he
deserved death then, for his conduct towards the Lord's anointed, David,
was very well pleased with this order, which, having sworn to observe, he
went to Jerusalem, and lived there for three years. At the end of that
time, two of his servants " ran away unto Achish, son of Maachah, king of
Gath," and Shimei, either forgetting his oath in his eagerness to get back
his servants, or thinking himself secure after so long a time, rashly ventured
to ride off to Achish, and returned with his servants. Solomon, being
informed of this, sent for Shimei, told him of his wickedness in breaking a
sacred oath, of his disobedience to his royal command, of his past behavior
to his father, which merited death, and of the justice of his sentence, and
then ordered Benaiah to slay him.
Thus, having punished these wicked and troublesome characters, "the
kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon."
Benaiah was now made chief captain in the room of Joab, and Zadok
priest in the room of Abiathar. All things were in peace at home, and
no surrounding enemy dared to attack the wise and prosperous Solomon,
whose tact and power had already begun to be known among his own
people, as also the nations scattered around him.
356
Bible and Commentator.
Solomon's Marriage to Pharaoh's Daughter— His striking Dream and
Prayer for Wisdom— His wonderful Judgment.
1 Kings hi.
SOLOMON now chose a wife, who was no less a person than the daughter
of Pharaoh, the then powerful king of Egypt, a country near Canaan.
This, you know, was a very long time after the reign of the Pharaoh who
lived when Israel left Egypt. It was four hundred and seventy-seven years
after — but still a Pharaoh reigned, for this was a common name given to
the kings of Egypt, as Czar is now to the emperors of Russia. The
Egyptians were heathen, but it is said by the Jews that Pharaoh's daughter
embraced the Jewish religion when Solomon married her, for it would have
been a wicked thing in him,
and contrary to the command
of God, to have married a
heathen.
At this time the Jews had
no temple, and they wor-
shipped on the high places or
hills, among which was Gib-
eon, where there was an altar,
and here Solomon went and
offered a thousand burnt-
offerings.
While Solomon was at
Gibeon he had a remarkable
dream, and God appeared to
him in the dream, and said
to him, "Ask what I shall give
thee." And Solomon said, " I am but a little child," meaning that he
knew but very little, and asked God to give him wisdom. God was pleased
with Solomon's humility, for he is always pleased with the humble : and he
told Solomon that as he had asked neither long life, nor riches, nor to con-
quer his enemies, but had asked only for wisdom, he would give him " a
wise and an understanding heart " beyond every one beside ; indeed, there
never was nor ever again should be so wise a man in the world. He should
also have what he had not asked — he would make him more rich and
EGYPTIAN IxADIES.
1 Kings. 357
honorable than all other kings ; and, if he did but keep his commandments,
he would also add to these enjoyments that of a good old age.
So he went to Jerusalem, and there, in token of his gratitude to God, he
" offered up burnt-offerings," and made a feast to all his servants, which
was probably out of the peace-offerings he had presented, as was often usual.
Solomon's wisdom was now soon tried. Two women, that were harlots,
or inn-keepers, lived in one house, and both of them had little infants. It
happened that one of them smothered her poor little infant, by lying on it
while she was asleep. So, what did she do, but went to the bed of the other
woman, and changed the dead child for the living one that she found lying
in the bosom of its mother ; and as the other mother was fast asleep, she
knew nothing about it till she awoke in the morning. When she awoke,
she discovered how she had been cheated, and went to Solomon to make her
complaint. Each, in his presence, declared the child belonged to her, and
words ran very high. " The other woman said, Nay ; but the living is my
son, and the dead is thy son. And this said, No ; but the dead is thy son,
and the living- is my son. Thus they spake before the king."
This must have puzzled any other judge; for how was it possible to know
which to believe ? However, the king soon settled the matter. " Bring
me a sword," said he ; " and they brought a sword before the king. And
the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and
half to the other."
You are perhaps ready to cry out, Why, surely Solomon would not be so
cruel ! No, he did not intend to be cruel ; he knew what would be likely
to happen to help him to judge aright. As soon as the real mother supposed
that her child was to be cut to pieces, rather than it should be killed, she
was willing to give it up, and she instantly cried out, " O my lord, give her
the living child, and in nowise slay it." But the other said, " Let it be
neither mine nor thine, but divide it ; " which no real mother would have
said, for kind mothers love their children too well to be so cruel.
Solomon then directly saw which was the mother, and he said, " Give her
the living child, and in nowise slay it ; she is the mother thereof."
You may suppose how gratefully she took, and how warmly she pressed
her infant to her bosom ; how her tears were turned into smiles, and her
heaviness into joy. The people, too, were all delighted to see the kind mother
recovering her dear infant. aAnd all Israel heard of the judgment which
the king had judged, and they feared," that is, honored, "the king — for they
saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to do judgment."
358
Bible and Commentator,
Solomon's Prosperity and Honor.
1 Kings iv.
SOLOMON was now king over all Israel, which his father was not
when he began to reign, for he was then only king over Judah ; and,
as we shall find by-and-by, Solomon's son was not, for his kingdom was
divided.
In this chapter we find a list of his chief officers ; besides which, he had
twelve officers, one for each month in the year, who took care to provide
food for his great household ; and one of these, " the son of Abinadab," —
who was probably a very industrious and diligent officer — was honored by
Solomon's giving him his own daughter Tappath, as his wife: so that he
became the king's son-in-law.
And now " Judah and Israel Avere many, as the sand which is by the sea
in multitude ; " they had no war and no pestilence to lessen their large
numbers, and still kept increasing. And
so God blessed them, and they were " eat-
ing and drinking, and making merry,"
cheerfully enjoying the good things
which God kindly bestowed upon them.
And though Solomon was only king
of Judah and Israel, yet he received
tribute from many other kingdoms around
him, and in this way might be said to
reign over them also ; for the princes and
people of those kingdoms " brought pres-
ents, and served him all the days of their
life."
Think how numerous Solomon's house-
hold and attendants must have been,
when his provision for one day only " was
thirty measures of fine flour," each measure being more than seventy-five
gallons ; " and threescore measures of meal ; ten fat oxen ; and twenty oxen
out of the pastures," which were not fatted ; " and an hundred sheep,
besides harts, and roebucks, and fallow-deer, and fatted fowl." So that
they had plenty of beef from the oxen, mutton from the sheep, and venison
from the harts, bucks, and deer. All this quantity of daily provision
EGYPTIAN LADIES' TOILET.
1 Kings.
359'
being put together, it has been reckoned that at least nearly fifty thousand
persons must have been fed daily at the palace of the Israelitish king !.
Most probably, among these were included his guards, each of whom.
received a ration, or soldier's portion, from the king's store.
Every man now dwelt safely " under his vine, and under his fig-tree,"
which grew around the dwellings to afford shelter from the sun, and which
were principal trees in the land of Judah ; and " from Dan even to Beer-
sheba," — the two extreme parts of the land, — the people enjoyed this
blessing all the days of Solomon.
"And Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and
twelve thousand horsemen." Besides these, he had also swift dromedaries,
that might go post for
him, and all these were
constantly well supplied
with barley and straw.
"God gave Solomon
wisdom and understand-
ing, exceeding much, and
largeness of heart," that
is, a capacity of mind to
know everything ; so
that what he knew
seemed countless, " even
as the sand that is on
the sea-shore." "And
Solomon's wisdom ex-
celled the wisdom of all
the children of the East
country," or people of
the East countries — so
called, just as the Israel-
ites were called the children of Israel : and it also excelled " all the wisdom
of Egypt." He must, then, have been wise indeed, for the Arabians
and Persians, who were among the children of the East, were famous for
wisdom ; and Egypt was so renowned for it, that philosophers, or men
esteemed already wise, even went there, from other countries, to get more
wise, — for Egypt was called the mother of the arts and sciences ; all clever
kinds of inventions having had their origin there. "And he spake three
AN EASTERN VINEYARD.
360 Bible and Commentator.
thousand proverbs : and his songs were a thousand and five." Proverbs are
wise sayings ; many of which are to be found in the book so called, and
written by him : and, besides these, he wrote a number of poems. "And
he spake of trees, from the cedar-tree that is in Lebanon," which is a large
and noble tree, one of the finest in the world, " even unto the hyssop that
springeth out of the wall," the lowest and least herb. So that he understood
trees and plants of all sorts and sizes between the greatest and the least ; or,
in other words, he was wonderfully skilled in what is now called botany.
" He spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of
fishes." He understood the nature of all sorts of animals in the earth, air,
and sea, and discoursed of their names, kinds, qualities, and use, with the
greatest ease ; so that he was a complete master of what is called natural
history. And this is the more wonderful, because even the wisest men, who
now study these things with constant attention, can only take some one part
of them, in order to be master of it — one fixing on insects, of which the
numbers are astonishing ; another on birds ; another on beasts ; another on
fish ; and so for the rest.
No wonder that " there came of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon,
from all kings of the earth, which had heard of his wisdom."
Preparation for building the Temple.
1 Kings v.
AS soon as Solomon was fixed upon his throne, Hiram, king of Tyre,
-£-^- sent ambassadors to him, to congratulate him on his peace and pros-
perity. Solomon took the opportunity of sending a letter back by the
ambassadors, to inform Hiram that he intended to build a temple for the
worship of God, which the troublous times of his father's reign had pre-
vented from being done ; but now, all the enemies of Israel having been
put under the soles of his father's feet — that is, in other words, being con-
quered as one trampled upon, and there being " rest on every side," he
would not delay to complete so grand a design. But he wanted some help
from Hiram. There were very fine cedar trees, a most durable wood for
building, which grew on that part of Lebanon belonging to Hiram, and he
asked that he would have such a quantity as Solomon needed, felled for him ;
and that he would furnish Sidonian workmen, who were skilled in hewing
timber, to help Solomon's servants, at such wages as Hiram should appoint.
1 Kings
361
So Hiram, who was very friendly towards Solomon, promised to do as he
wished ; and this was a very important point gained towards building the
temple, for the Jews were mostly employed in agriculture — that is,
ploughing, sowing, and reaping the fruits of the earth, and knew little
about the "art of fine building, or even of hewing down trees, which, to be
done well, should be done at a particular time, and in a certain way, and
then they should undergo some preparations to make them fit for use.
Hiram having kept his word, Solomon paid him for his trees and work-
men's wages, by giving him what was needed in his country, where, though
the people were skilled in growing and working timber, they did not so
well understand how to grow the fruits of the earth. "And Solomon gave
Hiram twenty thousand measures of wheat for food to his household, and
twenty measures of pure
oil; thus gave Solomon
to Hiram year by year."
These measures are not
of the same sort as ours,
but have been carefully
reckoned, and amount to
twelve millions nine hun-
dred and sixty thousand
pounds of wheat, and
twenty-one thousand six
hundred pounds of oil;
so that Hiram was very
well paid, and this pay
was given every year, as long as the temple was in building, and some think
after wards continued as long as Hiram lived.
Besides the help of Hiram's men, Solomon employed thirty thousand
Israelites, ten thousand of whom worked every month in turns ; so that each
one was one month in a quarter of a year laboring for Solomon, and two
months at home looking after his own grounds and family. This was very
kind and considerate, and showed that he was not a tyrant of a king, who
would have allowed them no time for themselves : and he employed Adoni-
ram " over the levy," that is, over those men who, being got together by the
king's orders, were called " a levy ; " and Adoniram had to see that they did
their duty, and rested in their turns.
So Solomon had "threescore and ten/' that is, seventy, thousand men,
SUPPOSED FORM OF SOLOMON'S TEMPLE.
362
Bible and Commentator.
that " bare burdens/' or carried stones from the mountains out of which
they were dug ; and " eighty thousand hewers in the mountains/' that dug
the stones out of the quarries, and made them into proper shapes ; and he
employed three thousand three hundred officers, to overlook them, and see
that none were careless or idle.
"And the king commanded, and they brought great stones, and costly
stones/' such as fine marble, " and hewed stones to lay the foundation of
the house." " So they prepared timber and stones to build the house/' or
temple.
The Building of the Temple.
1 Kings vi.
^~1~N the fourth year of Solomon's reign he commenced the building of
-L the temple." The house which king Solomon built for the Lord
was thirty-six yards long, twelve wide, and eighteen high ; but to this were
added courts and colonnades, where the people might assemble to perform
their devotions and assist at the sacrifices, without being exposed to the
open air. So that the
whole put together was a
very grand object.
There was one very re-
markable thing in the
building of this temple:
" The house, when it was
in building, was built of
stone made ready before
it was brought thither : so
that there was neither
hammer nor axe, nor any
tool of iron heard in the
house while it was in
building." The joints were all made by the clever workmen, God blessing
them particularly in this work with more than usual skill, so that each joint
fitted exactly into the one for which it was made, and required nothing
more than a wooden mallet, at most, to fit it in its place. This temple is
mentioned in Scripture, as a type or likeness of heaven — that is, it was a
place for serving God, and where God particularly blessed his people,
FORM OF SECOND TEMPLE.
1 Kings,
363
and so is heaven ; and this curious fact, about the stones all fitting without
any more noise and labor, had its meaning, and may remind us that all
those who are to be pillars in the. temple of God above, or to remain there
fixed forever, must be first made fit for it ; and this they are by the Holy
Spirit of God making them holy, for nothing that is defiled or wicked can
enter there.
If you read the chapter you will, perhaps, find a few things which you
cannot understand. We are told that "the cedar of the house within was
carved with knops and open flowers." What are knops ? They are said to
have been ornaments of the shape of an egg.
And then we read of the preparing of " the oracle." The oracle was a
place where God, in a wonderful way, spoke his mind and will, as one man
speaks to another.
You must also observe that there was a great quantity of gold used in the
INTERIOR VIEW OF ANCIENT TEMPLE AT JERUSALEM.
building : " So Solomon overlaid the house within with pure gold : and he
made a partition by the chains of gold before the oracle ; and he overlaid it
with gold. And the whole house he overlaid with gold, until he had
finished all the house : also the whole altar that was by the oracle he over-
364 Bible and Commentator.
laid with gold." "And the floor of the house he overlaid with gold within
and without."
Solomon also made two cherubims of olive-tree, a tree that grows com-
monly in that part of the world where Judea was. These cherubims were
tall and large figures, with widely-extended wings, and they stood in the
oracle and are supposed to have been emblems of angels, who always wait
God's commands, and, like winged creatures, are swift in their motions to
do his will. These, too, were overlaid with gold. The whole of this
golden work may teach us — as gold is the purest of metals — that the place
where God will be to give his blessings, and the persons who acceptably
serve him, must all be pure and holy.
This temple was begun in the fourth year of Solomon's reign, and finished
in the eleventh ; " so was he seven years in building it."
The various estimates of the cost of the temple, some of them very
extravagant, are based upon so many uncertainties, that it is useless to record
them. We do not know whether the provision made by David was suf-
ficient for the temple or not ; we do not know what were the quantities or
values of the other metals beside gold and silver, which he provided) nor
whether other quantities of these were furnished ; we do not know whether
the payments (a very large sum) for the timber and stone used in the temple,
were paid from these treasures of David, or from taxes levied by Solomon ;
and finally, we do not know whether the talents of gold (1 Chronicles xxii.
14 and xxix. 4, 7) were the gold talent, worth about $56,000, or the silver
talent, which was worth only $1,760, nor whether the talents were stated
in round or exact numbers. But whatever value may be placed on the sums
expended for the building, we may be sure that it was the most costly temple
ever erected for the worship of Jehovah on the earth.
Solomon's Houses.— The Ornaments and Utensils for the Temple.
1 Kings vii.
A FTER Solomon had built a house for God, and served him first, he
J-A- then erected one for himself; but he did not make that haste to get
it completed which he did to complete the temple, for it took thirteen years
in building. " He built also the house of the forest of Lebanon," which,
from the account given of it in this chapter, was larger than the temple j
1 Kings. 365
and this was necessary, as only the priests went into the temple to perform
the services, whereas into this went not only Solomon's family, but his
courtiers and nobles, and all foreign ambassadors, and whoever had any
business with himN which required various rooms to receive them in. This
house took its name from its being built of wood of the cedars of Lebanon,
and is thought by some to have been Solomon's summer house, where
he could get cool and refreshing air Avhen the weather was exceedingly
hot.
" Solomon made also an house for Pharaoh's daughter, whom he had
taken to wife : " and some think that Solomon's dwelling-house, the house
of the forest of Lebanon, and that of Pharaoh's daughter, all stood close
to each other, — the house of Lebanon being that where Solomon went
to administer justice, if any of his subjects had been wronged or ill-
treated.
"And king Solomon sent and fetched Hiram out of Tyre ; " not the
king, but a man of the same name, who is more particularly described
in the next verse : " He was a widow's son of the tribe of Naphtali, his
father was a man of Tyre ; " his mother was, therefore, a Jewess, but his
father a Tyrian, though some think not a native Tyrian, but a Jew that
resided there and so got the name. He was " a worker in brass ; " or, as
we should have called him, a coppersmith : " and he was filled with
wisdom and understanding, and cunning to work all works in brass ; " that
is, he was very skilful. aAnd he came to king Solomon, and wrought all
his work."
" He cast two pillars of brass," eighteen cubits, or nine yards high, and
more than six yards round. And he made chapiters to set upon them ;
these were large ovals made something like a crown, to set upon the tops.
of the pillars. And he made nets of chequer-work, that is, work very much
varied in its forms — and these are said to have been ornaments like thick
branches of trees : " and wreaths of chain-work," like fringes, as some
think, twisting round the chapiters. He also ornamented the chapiters
with " lily-work," or ornaments made in the shape of lilies. To these
ornaments he also added two hundred in the shape of pomegranates. You
remember, ornaments like this Eastern fruit adorned the dress of the high
priest. "And he set up the pillars at the porch of the temple," and called
the right pillar "Jachin," and the left "Boaz;" or rather, Solomon gave
them their names. These names had meanings of importance : " Jachin "
means, he will establish ; and " Boaz " means, in strength ; signifying, that
366 Bible and Commentator.
as long as God was worshipped there in purity, the building should be
established in strength.
Then he made " a molten sea," the size of which you may guess, by
remembering the length of a man's arm from the elbow to the end of his
fingers, which, you have before observed, was that of a cubit. And this sea
was ten such lengths across it. This was a large vessel, which, on account
of the great quantity of water it held, was called " a sea," for it was capable
of holding about two thousand baths, as the measures were then called :
that is, about two hundred and fifty of our hogsheads, which you know are
very large casks of themselves : what, then, must a vessel be which would
hold two hundred and fifty times what they could contain ! You will read
in the chapter, that " under the brim of it round about, there were knops
compassing it, ten in a cubit." These knops were a sort of ornament so
called, something like the shape of an egg, and were, perhaps, cocks out of
which the water was turned, and of these there were six hundred ! This
sea, as it might well be called, stood upon twelve oxen, cast in the same
way, with their faces all turned towards the outside, and their mouths, also,
might be used as spouts or cocks to let out the water. This vessel was as
strong as it was large, for it was " a hand-breadth thick/' so that a man's
hand might be laid flat upon the edge anywhere round it. And it contained
two thousand baths, so that, though it would hold more, it was not necessary
to fill it, which might have caused inconvenience. This vessel was for the
priests to wash themselves, and, as most of the things of the temple had a
hidden meaning in them, and referred to spiritual blessings which should be
enjoyed from Jesus Christ, it is considered as an emblem of him who is
called, among other names, " the Fountain opened for sin and for unclean-
ness," because his blood, believed in as shed for sinners, cleanses the soul
from guilt and sin, as water cleanses the body.
"And he made ten bases of brass," or, as we should call them, pedestals,
or stands, with wheels to them ; and he made " ten lavers," or basins, " of
brass, each laver holding forty baths," or two hundred gallons, and being
four cubits across : and he set the lavers on the bases or stands, which, hav-
ing wheels, could be easily moved about as they were wanted : these were
used for the priests to wash their burnt-offerings in. The bases were finely
ornamented with cherubims, lions, and palm-trees, and all were cast in one
mould, and exactly of the same size.
Hiram also made other smaller lavers, which, it is said, were used to put
the ashes of the sacrifices into, and shovels, with which the ashes were
1 Kings.
367
collected together, and basins, to receive the blood of the sacrifices and
sprinkle it.
All these things were made of bright brass, and were cast in the clay
ground, or in the plain of Jordan, where a large mould was made for them,
and the melted brass poured in.
Beside the things already named, Solomon made — that is, ordered to be
made — an altar of gold, on which incense was to be offered ; and a table of
gold, on which to set the
shew-bread; and ten gold
candlesticks, ornamented
with flowers, having each
seven lamps, making sev-
enty lights, and tongs of
gold, which were used to
take the wicks out of the
oil, and put into the lamps;
and bowls to keep the oil
in ; and snuffers to trim the
lamps; and basins to catch ill
the blood of the sacrifices; W
and spoons to hold the in-
cense ; and censers of pure
gold, with which to carry
the coals from one altar to
another, and on which the
incense was burnt ; and
hinges of gold for the
doors.
Lastly, Solomon laid up
in the temple all the trea-
sure that remained, and would use none for himself; and this might serve
for purchasing sacrifices, and repairing the house of the Lord.
This temple soon perished, and its worshippers died. It retained its
splendor only about thirty-four years, when Shishak, king of Egypt, took
Jerusalem, and carried away the treasures of the temple ; and, after having
been pillaged at other different times, it was finally burnt and plundered by
the Chaldeans, under Nebuchadnezzar, having stood altogether only about
four hundred years.
BRAZEN LAYER.
368 Bible and Commentator.
The Dedication of the Temple.
1 Kings viii.
THE temple being finished, Solomon got together all the chief men of
Israel, and they attended the priests who brought the ark from out
of the place where it had remained in David's time, in the city of David,
and placed it in the temple. There, also, they put the materials of the old
tabernacle used from the time of Moses, that they might never be employed
for any common purposes ; and all the holy vessels were carefully lodged
there — that is, the candlestick, the shew-bread table, the incense altar, and
other like things. And on this occasion king Solomon and the congregation
of Israel sacrificed sheep and oxen in such numbers, that it is said, they
" could not be told nor numbered for multitude ; " meaning, by these words,
not that they might not have been counted, but that it would have cost
some labor to have reckoned them up, and that they were a very large
number indeed. This was a way of expressing themselves quite common
among the Jews.
The ark was put into that part of the temple called the oracle, the holy
of holies, and the most holy place, where none but the high priest might
enter, and he but once a year • and it was covered over by the spread wings
of the cherubim.
As soon as the priests had settled the ark, and come out of the most holy
place, the Levites, who were singers, arrayed in fine linen and with musical
instruments in their hands, stood at the east end of the altar of burnt-
offering • and one hundred and twenty priests, blowing their trumpets,
praised the Lord, together with the singers. Trumpets, cymbals, psalteries,
and harps, were sounded in sweet and grand accord, and the singers sung
in loud chorus, " Praise ye the Lord, for his mercy endureth forever ! "
Oh, how delightful it must have been to have seen these sights, and heard
these sounds! God was pleased with the people's praises, for now "the
cloud filled the house of the Lord'7 — that token of the Divine presence
which Israel so often saw in the days of Moses. And " the priests could
not stand to minister because of the cloud : for the glory of the Lord had
filled the house of the Lord." More- particulars of this interesting event
may be found in the fifth chapter of the Second Book of Chronicles. But
let it turn our thoughts to reflect for a moment on that blessed state when
all the saints that have ever lived shall unite together in praising Go<i, and.
1 Kixgs. 369
when they shall see his glory forever and ever ; well may it fill the hearts
of those who serve God here with the most lively hopes and the most
cheerful joy.
"When Solomon perceived that the glory of the Lord was present, beaming
forth from out of the thick cloud in which it was veiled, he fell on his
knees before the altar of burnt-offering, and before all the people ; and he
prayed a most devout and solemn prayer, spreading out his hands towards
heaven, while all the people joined him with their minds, being in a standing
posture. He earnestly thanked God for his mercies to his father David,
and to himself, and then implored him to hear all the prayers that might
be put up in that temple, in war, pestilence, famine, and all the variety of
circumstances in which Israel might be placed : and having finished this
beautiful prayer, as you find it in this chapter, he arose from his knees,
and turning round to the congregation, blessed them all with a loud
voice, and exhorted them to walk in God's ways, and keep his
commandments.
Solomon having finished his prayer, now proceeded to offer sacrifice
before the Lord ; " and he offered unto the Lord two and twenty thousand
oxen, and an hundred and twenty thousand sheep/' This was a wonderful
number to slay, but fourteen days were employed in this work, and it could,
therefore, be easily done. God approved of what Solomon did, and showed
that his prayer, as well as his offerings, were acceptable; for, in the seventh
chapter of the Second Book of Chronicles, we read, that " fire came down
from heaven, and consumed the sacrifices."
The king then offered burnt-offerings in other parts of the temple, and
then he and all Israel feasted on those parts of the peace-offerings which
were allowed by the law for their use.
After having thus spent " seven days and seven days, even fourteen days,"
as we read in the fifty-sixth verse — that is, seven days in dedicating the
temple, and seven in feasting at the feast of tabernacles which followed —
the people blessed the king, thanked God for all they had enjoyed, and
returned home with cheerful hearts. So they lost nothing by serving God,
nor shall we, if we really serve him with sincere hearts, and pure minds.
In the history of the Jews connected with Solomon's reign, as in every
other part of the history of that chosen people, we have the plain and
unmistakable evidence that the service of God is the grandest, most profit-
able, most exalting and most beautiful ; and that it alone carries with it all
there is of peace, jov and hope in the world.
24
370 Bible and Commentator.
Solomon's New Cities and Merchant Ships.
1 Kings ix.
A FTER the building of the temple, Solomon had another dream, in
-£^- which God told him that he would establish his throne for himself
and his children, if he faithfully continued to serve him ; but if he and his
people turned to idolatry, and so departed from his commandments, then
Israel should no longer enjoy the land he had given them; and their
beautiful temple should be destroyed in such a manner that all who saw its
ruins should wonder, and ask, "Why hath the Lord done thus unto this
land and this house ? "
Solomon having had a great deal of gold as well as timber, from Hiram,
king of Tyre, to build his houses, gave him, in payment for these, the taxes
laid on twenty cities ; some think, indeed, that he gave him the cities
entirely, they being not cities of Israel, which he durst not give, but cities
which had been conquered on the borders of Israel. Hiram seems not to
have been satisfied with his present, and so Solomon taxed all Israel to pay
his debts to Hiram, amounting to sixscore talents of gold, or about five
million seven hundred thousand dollars, and to enable himself to build a
number of fine cities ; among these was " Tadmor, in the wilderness,"
known now by the name of Palmyra, the ruins of which, in part, remain,
and still give an idea of Solomon's grandeur, — for a more splendid city the
world never saw. As the labor of building was hard work, Solomon em-
ployed the people of the race of the old Canaanites, that yet remained in
the land : and " all the people that were left of the Amorites, Hittites,
Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites," whom the children of Israel were not
able utterly to destroy, were forced into bond-service. As they had no
money to pay Solomon, he obliged them to give him their labor in building,
as the Israelites were aforetime obliged to make bricks and build for the
Egyptians.
Solomon continuing to worship God, went three times a year to the
temple, and offered sacrifices at the Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of
Tabernacles, never neglecting these grand occasions; but these were not
all, for, as one diligently serving God, many other times of worship required
his services.
Solomon had also the first navy that we read of, and in building and
managing his ships he was obliged to have the aid of the Tyrians, as well
1 Kings. 371
as in building the temple. And these ships, which were merchant-ships,
were sent down the Red Sea, under the charge of Hiram's sailors, to fetch
gold from a distant place, perhaps in India, then called Ophir ; and Solo-
KING SOLOMON S SHIPS.
mon's fleet brought him back " four hundred and twenty talents/' which
are reckoned equal to. twenty million four hundred and fifty thousand
dollars.
The Queen of Sheba's Visii to Solomon— Solomon's great Riches.
1 Kings x.
SHEB A, it is now acknowledged by all Biblical scholars, was the same as
Sabsea, the southern portion of Arabia, now called Yemen. Its inhab-
itants were descendants of Ishmael, or of Joktan, and spoke a language
like Hebrew. The queen of Sheba, having heard the fame of Solomon's
wisdom, was resolved to travel into his dominions to see him ; and, according
to a very common custom of the East, she prepared a number of difficult
questions and riddles to put to Solomon, that she might find out whether
he was so wise as report stated him to be.
"And when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him of all
that was in her heart," — that is, she talked with him about everything
372
Bible and Commentator
which she had borne in her memory for the occasion, and about which she
wished to ask him.
"And Solomon told her all her questions ; there was not anything hid
from the king which he told her not." He found out all her riddles, and
PART OF ANCIENT WAK-GA1LEY.
if she asked him about things wonderful in nature, or difficult in religion,
he answered all her questions with equal ease, for God had made him wise
in all these things.
"And when the queen of Sheba had seen all Solomon's wisdom," which
she perceived by his answers, " and the house that he had built, there
was no more spirit in her." She was so astonished that, for a time, she
was unable to speak. At last she said to the king, " It was a true report
that I heard in mine own land, of thy acts and of thy wisdom. Howbeit I
believed not the words, until I came, and mine eyes had seen it : and,
behold, the half was not told me ; thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the
fame which I heard. Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants
which stand continually before thee, and that hear thy wisdom. Blessed be
the Lord thy God which delighteth in thee, to set thee on the throne of
Israel : because the Lord loved Israel forever, therefore made he thee king,
to do judgment and justice."
The queen now, according to the custom of the East, offered this great
man her presents ; and she, as well as Solomon, must have been very rich,
1 Kings
373
for she gave him as much gold as we read, in the last chapter, of his re-
ceiving from Hiram, " a hundred and twenty talents," or about five million
seven hundred thousand dollars. This sum of itself was a noble present, but
this was not all that she gave to Solomon j she also added " of spices a very
great store, and precious stones " — diamonds, and other such rare articles
dug out of the earth. So Solomon had now riches in abundance, for
Hiram's ships brought him gold and precious stones, and a valuable wood
called the almug tree, with which he " made pillars for the house of the
Lord, and for the king's house, harps also, and psalteries for singers."
Josephus, the Jewish historian, says that there were as many as four hundred
thousand musical instruments.
After the queen of Sheba had been so liberal, Solomon might very well
afford to be liberal to her ; and so we read, " King Solomon gave unto the
queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever she asked, beside that which
Solomon gave her of his royal bounty." It is not proper with us for people
to ask us to give them anything of value which they may fancy — to do so
would be very rude; but in the East, especially among the rich, it is
common ; and, therefore, the queen might, with propriety, ask Solomon to
give her many curious pieces of workmanship which she saw, and which
would be highly valued by her, as his gift, and as made by his clever work-
men under his direction. It seems, too, that the queen was not covetous
nor unreasonable in her requests, for Solomon denied her nothing that she
WAK-GALLEY IN SOLOMONS TIME.
asked, and then he added other things " of his royal bounty," or without
asking. No doubt Solomon was liberal to her in return for her liberality
to him, and sent her back well pleased with her visit.
This chapter closes by telling us more about Solomon's great wealth.
374 Bible and Commentatoe.
I do not like to end this story of Solomon's riches without reminding
you that Jesus Christ has told us that while the queen of Sheba came from
afar to hear the wisdom of Solomon, he is a greater person than Solomon,
and far more wise and rich than he. He is so wise that no one ever failed
that sincerely looked to him in prayer, to show him the way to heaven ;
and so rich that he can enrich our lives with peace and happiness here, and
an inheritance of bliss in the world to come, which are better than all the
gold and silver, and other treasures, which Solomon ever possessed.
Solomon's Disobedience to God.
1 Kings xi.
~\TT~E have, in this chapter, a sad record of the fall of king Solomon,
V V whose reign began with such promise of goodness, and prosperity
founded on his obedience to God. The temple dedicated so solemnly to
the service of God, and with such promises and pledges on Solomon's part
that both he, and the nation, would consecrate themselves solely to the
worship of Jehovah, now receives only a portion of the service due to God ;
the rest is divided among the false gods and idols of the heathen, whose high
places and temples he rears over against the sanctuary of the Most High.
What has led him to commit this great sin ? How could a man; brought
up in all the piety and devotion of David's household, taught by a holy
prophet, giving the best evidence of the possession of a devout and humble
spirit, and withal, a man of such vast and varied learning that he must have
understood the folly and imposture of these heathen idols, how could he
bring himself to such degradation as to worship and build altars and tem-
ples to Venus or Ashtaroth, and to Moloch ? It was because, from motives
of policy, he had married wives, the daughters of the kings of the heathen
round about him, women who were idolaters, and whose importunities turned
away his heart from the Lord, and led him into sin. There were very many
of these wives and concubines, though perhaps the seven hundred wives,
princesses, and three hundred concubines spoken of in this chapter, may be
only a round or indefinite number put for a definite one which was smaller.
The Jews were in the habit of speaking in this way, and we do so ourselves
very often, as when we say, " I have called a hundred times," meaning that
we have called a great many times, though perhaps much less than a hun-
dred. A passage in Solomon's Song, vi. 8, is thought to refer to these queens
1 Kikgs. 375
and concubines. " There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines,
and virgins without number." The virgins are those who were reserved
for admission into the harem, if the king was pleased with their appearance.
And here we read that " the Lord was angry with Solomon." I have
told you, more than once, I believe, that God is not angry like us, but, when
he sees sin, he marks it, and — if not repented of most sincerely, and pardon
asked through Jesus Christ — he will not fail to punish it ; and this is what
is meant by his being angry, because he does what we should if we were
angry with a person who grievously offended us. So God told Solomon
that, as he had not kept his statutes or commands, he would rend the king-
dom from his family ; and his son and heir to his kingdom, whose mother
was a wicked Ammonitess, should not reign in peace, but one, who was
then his servant, should take away the greater part of his dominions, and
rule over them. Jerusalem should, however, be spared for David's sake,
and for the sake of the temple there.
Yet, though Solomon did not then lose his kingdom, he lost his peace.
His sin, like all sin, was as a thorn in his side, and brought evil upon
him.
There were two powerful princes who hated Solomon, but God had
hitherto prevented them from hurting or troubling him ; now, however, he
prevented them no longer, and this is what is meant, when it is here said,
" the Lord stirred up an adversary unto Solomon, Hadad, the Edomite ;"
" and God stirred him up another adversary, Rezon, the son of Eliadah."
You recollect that Solomon was told that, for his sins against God, his
son should lose the kingdom, and it should be given to one of Solomon's
servants. That servant was named Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. He had
the good quality of being very industrious and minding his business ; and
Solomon, like a wise man, employed him, rather than an idle person, and
made him a ruler of the charge, or taxes, of the house of Joseph, so that he
collected the king's taxes from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh — for
these were what was called the house of Joseph. "And as he was going to
take possession of his government, he was told by the prophet Ahijah, in
God's name, that he should be king." Prophets spoke by remarkable
signs : "And Ahijah caught the new garment that was on him and rent it
in twelve pieces. And he said to Jeroboam, Take thee ten pieces : for thus
saith the Lord, the God of Israel, Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of
the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee." Then he repeated
what God had before said to Solomon ; and he added that, if Jeroboam
376
1 Kings. 377
vwould walk in God's ways, God would never forsake him and his family,
for it was for sin that David's family was forsaken, yet he would in time
restore it, and not punish it forever.
News of Jeroboam's being thus elected king of the ten tribes came to
Solomon's ears, and he was very angry. " Solomon sought, therefore, to
kill Jeroboam ; " as if he could prevent what God had purposed ; this was a
sign that Solomon had lost his wisdom owing to his sin, or he would not
have thought and done so foolishly. "And Jeroboam arose and fled into
Egypt, unto Shishak, king of Egypt, and was in Egypt until the death of
Solomon."
Solomon now died, after a reign of forty years, and his son Eehoboam
reigned in his stead.
There were other things which Solomon did, and which were written in a
book kept in his time, and called " the Book of the Acts of Solomon ; " that
is, the book of what Solomon did ; but that book was not a divine book,
and so it has long since been lost.
Many persons think that Solomon repented of his sins before he died,
and that God pardoned him as a sincere penitent ; and they suppose this
from what he has written in the book of Ecclesiastes. We hope it was so,
but the Bible is silent about it, and for this reason — to teach us to take care
how we sin against God. Sin is a dreadful thing ; we are not quite sure
but that it ruined Solomon, and we must take great care, and pray often
and earnestly to God that he would keep us from practising it, and that it
may not ruin us.
Jeroboam chosen King of the Ten Tribes, and Rehoboam King of Judah.
1 Kings xii.
A S soon as Solomon was dead, " all Israel " assembled at Shechem, a city
*» in the tribe of Ephraim, of which Jeroboam was ; under pretence of
owning Rehoboam as their king, but they designed only to seek occasion to
quarrel with him.
So they sent for Jeroboam out of Egypt, where he had fled out of the way
of Solomon, and they made him their head to begin a rebellion.
And they began to complain that Solomon had used them ill, and laid
heavy taxes upon them — though they never had a more peaceable and pros-
perous king ; and they promised Rehoboam that, if he would use them
better, he should be their king.
378 Bible and Commentator.
Rehoboam asked for three days to consider what he should do. Reho-
boam now called together the old and wise men who assisted Solomon in
managing his kingdom, and asked their advice what he should do. And
they told him that, if he would agree to be the servant of the people, and
seek their welfare, as a faithful steward appointed to rule their affairs, then
they would be sure to attach themselves to him most loyally as long as he
lived.
This was good advice, but he did not like it, and was too proud to submit
to it ; and so he called his young men together, and they advised him to act
in direct opposition to the opinion of the old men.
So Rehoboam spoke roughly to the people, as the young men advised
him, and he said, " My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your
yoke : my father also chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with
scorpions." This was not speaking with respect of his father, as he ought
to have done.
If the people were not fond of Rehoboam before, this was enough to make
them dislike him still more, and so they cried out, " What portion have we
in David ? " — that is, the house of David does not belong to us — our tribes
have no need to care for a king of that family ; " neither have we inheritance
in the son of Jesse," another name by which they meant David — " now see
to thine own house, David" — or, thou son or grandson of David, take
care of thyself, and of thine own tribe. " So Israel departed unto their
tents " — they went home to their dwellings, and would not choose Rehoboam
to be their king.
So Rehoboam had only Judah to reign over, and part of the tribe of
Benjamin, and such of the children of Israel as dwelt in the cities of Judah
and did not like to go and live in other parts of the land. From this time,
then, we shall read of two kings where one only used to reign — the kings
of Judah and Israel ; the tribes of Israel, with their lands, being divided
between them.
Rehoboam was much mortified to lose so large a portion of the people,
and, to show his authority, he senf to demand taxes of them ; but the angry
people would not pay him taxes and acknowledge him as king, and in their
fury they fell upon the unfortunate Adoram, the tax-gatherer, and pelted
him with stones till he died. Rehoboam, on learning this, gave up
all hopes of success unless by force, and, lest he should be killed as
Adoram was, he "made speed to get him up in his chariot, to flee to
Jerusalem."
1 Kings.
379
And all the people of Israel who lived in distant parts of the country,
being told that Jeroboam was returned from Egypt, assembled and
appointed him king over all Israel; "there was none that followed the
house of David," except — as mentioned before — some of the tribe of
Benjamin, and a few straggling persons of other tribes, "but the tribe
of Judah only."
ANCIENT SHECHEM.
"When Rehoboam got to Jerusalem, which was thirty miles from Shechem,
he assembled all the men fit for war, and was about to march with an army
of a hundred and eighty thousand chosen men, to fight against Israel.
Had he marched directly with these, Jeroboam must have been beaten, for
he had no such forces ready ; but God had designed that this proud young
man should be humbled, and that his word by his prophet should not fail ;
and so Shemaiah, a " man of God," or prophet, was now sent to forbid
Rehoboam's fighting, and to warn the people not to go against Israel; and,
therefore, they did not go.
Jeroboam now began to build and repair some of his cities ; and, fearing
that if his people should go up to Jerusalem to worship — as the tribes had
hitherto done at the command of God — they might forsake his authority,
380 Bible and Commentatoe.
he thought of a scheme to keep them quite separate from Judah. Assisted
by some wicked counsellors, he made two calves of gold, and said to the
people, " It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem," which was a great
way off: "behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the
land of Egypt. And he set the one in Bethel, and the other in Dan."
And he made a house of high places, or a temple, at Dan, and also he
made idolatrous priests, and ordained a religious service and offered upon
an altar that he built, and burnt incense. In all this he did wickedly,
and displeased God, who punished him for his great sin, as we shall
learn in reading the next chapter.
Jeroboam's Hand withered— The disobedient Prophet.
1 Kings xiii.
~TTT"HILE Jeroboam was standing at his idolatrous altar, and offering
▼ * incense displeasing to God, God sent a prophet out of Judah to
reprove him for his sin, and to foretell the destruction of his wicked race
of priests and the ruin of his altars. "And he cried against the altar in the
word of the Lord, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord : Behold, a
child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name ; and upon
thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee,
and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee." The altar could not hear what
he said, but this was the way in which he was to reprove the king and his
priests and people, and pronounce the end of this wickedness. You will,
by-and-by, read about Josiah, a prince of that house of David which Jero-
boam now despised, and how he did what the prophet here said he should
do ; and yet this did not happen till three hundred and sixty-six years after
the prophet had prophesied.
That the king might not have any reason to doubt the prophet's word, he
showed him a sign that God had sent him. "Behold," said he, "the altar
shall be rent, and the ashes shall be poured out."
Jeroboam, who felt that he was reproved and not the senseless altar,
being full of rage, stretched out his hand and cried, " Lay hold on him."
"And his hand, which he put forth against him, dried up, so that he could
not pull it in again to him." The altar also was rent, and the ashes poured
out from the altar, according to the sign which the man of God had given
by the word of the Lord.
1 Kings. 381
Jeroboam was frightened when his hand dried up and became shrivelled,
and then he remembered that his calves could not restore his hand, and he
begged the prophet to entreat the Lord his God that his hand might be
cured. And the prophet forgave his bitter enemy when he showed signs
of sorrow, — as all good men should forgive, — and he prayed to God, and
God restored the king's hand.
Then Jeroboam, to show his gratitude, asked the prophet to go with him
and take something to eat and refresh himself, for he must have been weary
after a long journey. But God had forbidden the prophet to eat with any
one at Bethel, to show how much he detested the ways of the wicked, and
good people should not make them their companions. So he would not go
with the king.
" Now there dwelt an old prophet in Bethel/' one who had probably been
trained up in one of Samuel's colleges ; but he seems to have departed from
God, or he would not have lived among bad people, or at least without
reproving them for their idolatry." When this prophet was told by his sons
of all that had happened at the altar, he was very anxious to see the prophet
of Judah, who, by this time, was on his way home. So he got his ass
saddled, and rode after him as fast as he could. And he found him faint
and weary, sitting under an oak to screen him from the sun, and he
asked him to go back with him and have something to eat. But the prophet
of Judah would not go back, because God had told him not to eat at Bethel.
The old prophet, however, invented a lie, and told him that an angel had
commanded him from the Lord to bring him back.
No doubt he was glad to return, as he was weary and wanted some
refreshment, but he too hastily believed the old prophet, and so disobeyed
God. As God had told him what to do, he ought to have prayed to God
that he might do what was right before he attempted to return ; but he
forgot this, and so you will see what happened for his disobedience.
While he and the old prophet were sitting at table, God spake by the old
man, and he cried unto the man of God that came from Judah, saying,
" Thus saith the Lord, Forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the
Lord," that is, not minded what God had spoken, as is plain from what
follows, " and hast not kept the commandment which the Lord thy God
commanded thee, but earnest back and hast eaten bread and drunk water in
the place of which the Lord did say unto thee, Eat no bread and drink no
water, thy carcass shall not come into the sepulchre of thy fathers ;" that is,
thou shalt die very soon, and shalt not be buried with thy relations. This
382 Bible and Commentator.
seems a very severe sentence, but it shows you and me how much God is
displeased with sin.
The old prophet now lent the man of God his ass, and he rode towards
home, but a lion met him by the way and slew him.
Now, this was not a mere common accident, for if so, the lion would have
devoured the man, and have killed his ass as well as himself, and have
attacked the passengers who saw the lion and the carcass ; but when the
beast had slain the prophet he was like a tame animal, and did no other
harm. " And, behold, men passed by and saw the carcass cast in the way,
and the lion standing by the carcass ; and they came and told it in the city
where the old prophet dwelt."
The old prophet immediately went and took away the body, and mourned
over it, — as well he might, for he had brought the prophet of Judah to
this sad end, — and then he buried him in his own sepulchre.
The Sins of Jeroboam and Rehoboam, and the Afflictions of Israel and
Judah.
1 Kings xiv.
JEROBOAM had a son named Abijah, and now, as a punishment of
Jeroboam's sin, God permitted some disease to fall upon him and
threaten his life.
The king then told his wife to disguise herself, or dress in such way as
that she might not be known, and to take a present with her, and go to
Shiloh, to Ahijah the prophet, — who had told him that he should be king
over Israel, — and the prophet would tell her whether the child would live or
die. Plow silly men often are when they are wicked ! — for if the prophet
could tell what would happen to the child, surely he could tell who brought
Abijah to him ; so that it was a proof of great folly to tell his wife to try
and deceive him.
Ahijah was now blind from age, but God told him that Jeroboam's wife
was about to visit him, and for what purpose, and what he should say to
her.
As soon as he heard the sound of her feet entering in at the door, he
knew who she was, and he said, " Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam ; why
feignest thou thyself to be another ? — for I am sent to thee with heavy
tidings." And then he told her to tell Jeroboam how God was displeased
THE KING ENTBEA1TNG THE PBOPHET.
384
Bible and Commentator
with him for all his ingratitude after he had raised him to the throne of
Israel ; and for all the evil he had done in making other gods, and molten
images ; and that he would cut off all his heirs from the throne, so that
none should remain, — -just as men sweep away from their sight the last
remains of filthy dung. " Him that dieth of Jeroboam in the city," said
the prophet, " shall the dogs eat ; and him that dieth in the field shall the
fowls of the air eat : for the Lord hath spoken it ; " meaning to say that
none of them should be decently buried. One only should be honorably
buried ; the child Abijah should die, and all Israel should mourn for him as
the heir to the throne, and God would take him away in love to him,
because he should not live to suffer the disgrace which should fall upon the
family of this wicked king — " because,"
said the prophet, " in him there is found
some good thing toward the Lord God
of Israel in the house of Jeroboam."
See here how God loves good children
and notices them, and if, like Abijah,
they are taken out of this world when
" some good thing " is in them, they
have nothing to fear, for God will take
them to himself.
Well, as soon as Jeroboam's wife got
home, the child died, as the prophet had
foretold, and all the rest of his words
came to pass.
The length of Jeroboam's reign was
soldiers of shishak, king of egypt. twenty-two years, and Nadab his son
reigned in his stead. He lived longer than Eehoboam, as he reigned only
seventeen years.
Eehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign over Judah :
and as he reigned seventeen years, he was only fifty-eight years of age when
he died. The same evils that were committed in Israel were also done in
Judah — idols were worshipped, and all the sins which made God destroy
Sodom were here practised. So God permitted Shishak, king of Egypt, to
conquer Jerusalem, and he took away all the treasures which David and
Solomon had laid up, and all the rich and beautiful shields of gold which
Solomon had made, and Eehoboam was obliged to have shields of brass
instead of them, to be carried before him when he went out in state.
1 Kings. 385
Thus, on account of his sins, Rehoboam died disgraced by his foes. His
whole life was a scene of trouble, as was Jeroboam's, for " there was war
between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days."
Rehoboam was buried in the city of David, and his son Abijam reigned
in his stead.
The Reigns of Abijam and Asa, Kings of Judah, and of Nadab and
Baasha, Kings of Israel.
1 Kings xv.
YOU remember that Rehoboam, king of Judah, and Jeroboam, who was
made king over Israel, both began to reign at the same time ; but
Rehoboam reigned only seventeen years, while Jeroboam reigned twenty-
two years — five years longer. During those five years, there were two
other kings reigned over Judah — Abijam and Asa. Abijam, the son of
Rehoboam, reigned three years only. He was as wicked as his father ; yet,
for David's sake, did the Lord his God give him a lamp in Jerusalem —
which means, that God did not extinguish his family, as we put out a light,
but let the lamp continue to burn — that is, let the family still reign ; for he
set up his son after him to establish Jerusalem, where were his temple and
altar. Abijam, like his father, continued to go to war with Jeroboam.
Abijam was buried in the city of David, and Asa his son reigned in his
stead.
"And in the twentieth year of Jeroboam, king of Israel, reigned Asa
over Judah." He drove the wicked out of the land, and removed the idols
which his father had made. Xor did he pass by sin in his grandmother
Maachah — for she was the mother of his father, Abijam, though he called
her his mother, because she had, perhaps, brought him up as a mother.
Maachah was fond of idols, and had set up one in a grove, which he broke
to pieces and burnt ; and he took away her royal dignity of queen, that all
might see he wTas resolved to honor his God, and that he would not allow
the great to set an evil example. And whatever spoils had been dedicated
to God, with silver and gold vessels for the temple, he took care to place
there.
It is pleasant, after reading about bad kings, to read of this good king ;
yet even he did what was not right, for he bribed Benhadad to break his
promise of friendship with the king of Israel ; and his bribes were taken
out of the gold and silver that he had given for God's service in the temple.
25
386 Bible and Commentatoe,
Benhadad, in consequence} went and fought against Israel, and rescued
Judah from their encroachments.
Asa, in his latter years, was diseased in his feet — some think he had the
gout ; he reigned forty-one years, and left his throne to Jehoshaphat his son.
Two kings in Israel who succeeded Jeroboam are also mentioned in this
chapter. " Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, began to reign over Israel, in the
second year of Asa, king of Judah." He was a wicked king, and Baasha,
a man of the tribe of Issachar, supposed to have been an officer in his army,
conspired against him, and slew him. He was then besieging, or trying to
take, Gibbethon, a city of the tribe of Dan, which the Philistines had
obtained, and while he was engaged in warring, this man contrived to kill
him. This was what the prophet Ahijah had said, as mentioned in the
fourteenth chapter : " Moreover, the Lord shall raise him up a king over
Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam that day : but what? even
now" — meaning, when will it happen? Why now, very soon. "For it
came to pass when he reigned, that he smote all the house of Jeroboam ; he
left not to Jeroboam any that breathed, until he had destroyed him,
according unto the saying of the Lord, which he spake by his servant
Ahijah, the Shilonite. Because of the sins of Jeroboam which he sinned,
and which he made Israel sin, by his provocation wherewith he provoked
the Lord to anger." This cruelty of Baasha was to prevent any of Jero-
boam's family from recovering the throne ; but while he was guilty of these
murders, God left him to be the executioner of a wicked family. Thus
ended the reign of this Nadab, in two years. God sometimes spares sinners,
but often " the wicked is driven away in his wickedness."
Baasha was at war with Asa, king of Judah, for many years. He
reigned twenty-four years over Israel, and was as wicked as the family of
Jeroboam which he had destroyed.
The History of more Kings of Israel.— The beginning of the Reign of
Ahab.
1 Kings xvi.
WHEN Baasha died, his son Elah succeeded him ; but he reigned
only two years over Israel, for Zimri, one of his chief captains,
killed him while he was getting drunk in the house of Arza, his steward,
and so reigned in his stead.
1 Kings.
3S7
And Zimri, fearing lest any of Baasha's family should conspire against
him, killed them also, as Jehu had foretold, and did just as Baasha had
done to the family of Jeroboam. So here we see two entire wicked families
destroyed for their sins. God would not have let the wicked usurpers seize
the thrones, had they and their families loved and served him with all their
hearts.
Zimri reigned only seven days, yet, during his short reign, he showed
that he was as wicked as those whom God had before punished.
The army, being encamped before Gibbethon, and learning how Zimri
had made himself king by killing his royal master, resolved that he should
not long reign, and so they chose Omri, who also was a captain, and made
him king that day in the camp. The army then left Gibbethon, and
marched to Tirzah, where Zimri was, and besieged it, and took it. Zimri,
seeing that he could not escape, ran to his palace, and set fire to it, and so
perished in the flames.
Omri was not, however, at ease, though chosen by the army of Israel, for
SAMARIA.
a party rose up against him — perhaps some of the friends of Zimri — and
they set up one " Tibni, the son of Ginath," as king ; so that, for a long
time, there were two kings in Israel fighting against each other, till, at last,
Omri prevailed, and reigned over the whole kingdom.
The royal palace having been burnt at Tirzah, Omri built another city,
383 Bible and Commentator.
which became the royal residence, and this was afterwards famous in history.
"He bought the hill Samaria of Shemer for two talents of silver, and
built on the hill, and called the name of the city which he built, after the
name of Shemer, owner of the hill, Samaria." The price he gave for this
ground was thirty-one hundred dollars of our money, which was a small
sum ; but it might have been sold cheap to please the king, as he wanted
the hill for such a purpose.
Shechem was the first capital city of the kings of Israel, then Tirzah,
and, from this time, Samaria. The city at last became so important, that
the middle part of Canaan was called after it, and the inhabitants of the
country between Galilee on the north, and Judah on the south, were called
Samaritans.
Omri reigned twelve years. He was a very wicked man, and " did worse
than all that were before him." He was buried in Samaria, and "Ahab his
sOn reigned in his stead."
Good Asa was yet reigning over Judah, for remember, he reigned " forty
and one years," and so he saw the end of all these wicked kings of Israel,
who had such short reigns.
"And in the thirty and eighth year of Asa, king of Judah, began Ahab,
the son of Omri, to reign over Israel." Bad as Omri was, it is said Ahab
" did evil in the sight of the Lord, above all that were before him." He
married " Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Zidonians," or
people of Zidon ; she was a bad woman, and a great idolater, and, to please
her, he worshipped her ugly idol, called Baal, which she had set up in
Samaria, and he made the people worship it too. Indeed, Israel had now
become so wicked, that in defiance of a curse which had been pronounced
by Joshua when he destroyed Jericho — predicting the death of the eldest
and the youngest sons of the man who should dare to rebuild it — one Hiel,
of Bethel, was now actually bold enough to do so, and, as God threatened
by Joshua, so it came to pass, for his two sons died. This happened five
hundred years after the threatening was pronounced, and, most likely, this
wicked offender laughed at it, and perhaps his sons joined in his wickedness,
and so God punished them both. It is always dangerous to be careless
about God's threatenings, and to laugh at anything that is wicked. The
proof is abundant and varied that God is quick to punish those who, in
violation of his express authority, not only set at naught his purposes, but
make a mock of him, with the miserable intention of gaining favor and
applause from the wicked people of the world. How silly is such conduct!
1 Kings. 389
Elijah miraculously fed— The Widow's Oil and Meal multiplied— The
Widow's Son raised to Life.
1 Kings xvii.
GOD was so displeased with Ahab and Israel for their sins that he sent
a dreadful message to them by a prophet. The name of this prophet
was Elijah, a Tishbite, or native of Tishbeh, a city beyond Jordan, in the
tribe of Gad, and in the land of Gilead. This was Elijah's message, "As
the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew
nor rain these years, but according to my word." Now, you know, if there
is neither dew nor rain, nothing will grow, and so there could be no harvest,
and of course there must follow a dreadful famine.
As Ahab was a very wicked king, he would, no doubt, have killed
Elijah, in his anger, for delivering such a message ; but before he could
scarcely recover from his astonishment, God ordered Elijah to escape, and
hide himself by the brook Cherith, near Jordan. Here God had com-
manded ravens to feed him, " and the ravens brought him bread and flesh
in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening, and he drank of the
brook."
After a while the brook dried up, as there had been no rain to fill it, and
then God told the prophet to go to Zarephath, a town that was near Zidon,
and a widow woman who lived there should feed him. When he got to
the gate of the city, he found the woman gathering sticks, and he asked her
for some water and a morsel of bread. She told him she had no bread, but
only a little handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse, or small
cup; and she was getting sticks to dress this last portion of food to keep
herself and her son alive. The prophet then told her to make him a cake
first, and then she should make another for herself and son, for God would
always provide meal in the barrel and oil in the cruse, till the famine
should be over. The woman saw that this was a prophet, and so she obeyed
him, " and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days. And the barrel
of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word
of the Lord, which he spoke by Elijah."
This woman did not lose by lodging the prophet • she got her provisions
during the time of famine — but she got more reward still. By-and-by her
son fell sick, and "there was no breath left in him," which means that he
died. She then thought that God had sent the prophet to her house to
390 Bible and Commentator.
punish her for her sins, — for perhaps she had bowed to Baal, the false god,
with the rest of the people, and now her conscience smote her, and she felt
that she had done what was wrong. In her distress she complained angrily
to the prophet, and he said nothing to her but " give me thy son." "And
he took him out of her bosom/' to which she fondly pressed him, like a
tender mother, though he was dead, — and he " carried him up into a loft,
where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed." And then he prayed to
God, " and he stretched himself upon the child three times," to warm his
cold body, " and the soul of the child came into him " again, and Elijah
took him and gave him to his mother.
She was delighted enough to see her son restored, and declared that
it was, indeed, a proof that Elijah was a man of God, and that all he
said, as a prophet, would come to pass.
Baal's false Prophets exposed and slam by Elijah.
1 Kings xviii.
AFTEB, Elijah had hid himself from Ahab for three years, God ordered
- him to go to him again. At this time "there was a sore" or
afflictive "famine in Samaria," which was as bad for Israel as it would
be for America, if all the people could get nothing to eat or drink in
Pennsylvania.
Ahab had a chief steward of his palace, whose name was Obadiah. He
was a very good man, though employed by a wicked king ; for bad people
sometimes like to employ those that are good, as they can trust them better
than they can those that are too much like themselves. This Obadiah had
feared God from his youth, from the time when he was quite young ; and
we cannot fear God too soon, for, as a good writer says, " those that are good
betimes are likely to be very good." Among other good things which he
had done, he had hid a hundred of the persecuted prophets of the Lord in
a cave ; and when it was difficult to get anything to eat, he had managed to
feed them with bread and water. These prophets had, no doubt, borne
witness against the idolatry of Ahab ; and his wicked wife, Jezebel, had
caused many of their fellow-prophets to be slain. It was, therefore, very
bold of Obadiah to try and save the rest ; for, if his kindness towards them
had been known, Jezebel would most likely have had him severely punished,
or killed, as well as the rest. Obadiah had now been sent out by his master
1 Kings. 391
to visit all the spots of land by the fountains and brooks, wherever it was
likely that there was moisture enough to make some grass grow, and he
himself went another way for the same purpose, so that something might be
fouud for his horses and mules to eat.
In this journey Elijah met Obadiah, who knew him, and Elijah told
Obadiah to let his master, Ahab, know he wanted to see him. Obadiah was,
hoAvever, afraid that Elijah would be gone from the spot before he could find
Ahab ; and, as the king had sent everywhere to seek the prophet, and even
made people swear that he was not in their country, should Elijah now cheat
him, Ahab would be so enraged that Obadiah had not secured him, that he
would kill him for being so disappointed. Elijah, however, faithfully
promised to meet the king, and so Obadiah found Ahab, and Ahab went to
meet Elijah.
And Ahab said to Elijah, "Art thou he that troubleth Israel ?" Now, it
was not Elijah that troubled Israel, but God troubled Israel for their
wickedness. But if Ahab meant to say — which perhaps he also did —
that Elijah was the cause of Israel's being troubled, he only showed how apt
wicked people are to try and put off the effects of their sin upon others, and
to ascribe them to any but the real cause. Ahab was himself the cause of
the famine, because he made Israel to sin, and this the prophet told him.
Then Elijah told the king to call a general assembly of all the false
prophets of Baal, and of the groves, in number eight hundred and fifty, who
were supported by the wicked Jezebel. The king, having his heart inclined
to obey the prophet's order, called the false prophets together at Mount
Carmel, four hundred and fifty of whom attended.
Now, as we cannot serve sin and serve God too, Elijah spoke to all the
people, and asked them how long they would try to serve both God and
Baal, and pretend to love God, while at the command of Jezebel they wor-
shipped idols. And the people were ashamed to answer him, knowing how
wickedly they had done. Elijah then told the prophets of Baal to get two
bullocks ; and to choose one for themselves, and to dress it, — that is, slay it,
and cut it in pieces, and lay it upon a pile of wood, but without any fire ;
and to call upon their gods to send fire to consume it, and he would do the
same ; and then the God that consumed it should be the people's God ; and
the people agreed to this.
And the priests got everything ready, and they cried, " O Baal, hear us ! "
And they leaped upon the altar, and Elijah mocked them, and told them to
cry louder, for their god was perhaps talking, or running, or travelling, or
392 Bible and Commentator.
sleeping. This was to show that their gods were not like the God of Israel,
who can always see and hear, and is always present in every place, and
knows all that we say or do, and can always listen to us when we pray.
Well, Elijah gave them all day to try what they could do, for he knew they
served a false god, and could do nothing by praying to him ; but this would
prove to Ahab and Israel, more than anything, how foolish and wicked it
was to serve Baal. And the priests were almost driven mad with vexation,
and they even " cut themselves after their manner, with knives and lancets,
till the blood gushed out upon them ; " but all in vain.
Elijah now called all the people around him. And he repaired God's
altar, and he made a trench round it to hold water, and he put wood on the
altar, and he cut the bullock in pieces, and laid him on the wood ; and he
ordered four barrels of water to be poured on the sacrifice and on the wood,
and this he repeated three times, till the water ran round the altar, and the
trench was filled. Then Elijah prayed to God, and God sent fire from
heaven, and it burnt the sacrifice, and it dried up everything about it, even
the water in the trench, as if it had been licked clean. It would have been
wonderful if the fire had descended and consumed the wood even in & dry
state, but it was more wonderful to see it doing so when everything was
drenched with wet : " and when all the people saw it, they fell on their
faces : and they said, The Lord, he is the God ; the Lord, he is the God ! "
Then Elijah, as God's prophet, ordered the peoj}le to take* and slay all
the prophets of Baal, as a punishment for their wickedness in misleading
them, for they knew very well that Baal was no god ; and also to prevent
these wicked men from drawing them away from the true God any more.
So they slew the false prophets at the brook Kishon, not because it was
Elijah's order merely, but because Elijah was acting as God's servant, in
executing this sentence : for in the thirteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, it
was commanded that, if any false prophet led the people's hearts from the
true God, he should surely be put to death, that they might put the evil
away from the midst of them. In taking them to the brook Kishon to slay
them, they would feel how richly they merited their punishment, when they
beheld its channel dried up, as were all the waters of the land, as a part of
the punishment which, owing to their idolatry, they had brought upon a
whole nation, whom they had deluded.
After these false prophets were removed, and the people owned that the
Lord was their God, God sent rain to cause the fruits of the earth to grow.
Elijah saw that the rain was coming, and as Ahab had had nothing to eat
1 KlXGS.
393
and drink during the day, having been at the sacrifice, Elijah told him to
refresh himself. The prophet then went to the top of Mount Carinel, and
threw himself upon the earth,
and he put his face between his
knees, which was a posture in
which he prayed, and humbly
thanked God for honoring him
before all Israel. Then he sent
his servant to look towards the
sea, and observe if any cloud ap-
peared. And when there was
none, he sent him again and
again seven times, till, at last, he
saw one which was about as big
to his eye as the size of a man's
hand. Then Elijah knew that
the torrents of rain would speed-
ily fall, and he urged Ahab to
get into his chariot, and make
all speed to get home, or he
would be drenched with wet, —
for the chariots of those days
were not close like ours, but
open as our gigs, though shaped
more like shells or boats. Eli-
jah also paid all due respect to
the king; and having " girded
up his loins," or tucked up his
long garments round his waist,
he ran along before him, as one
of his attendants, for sixteen
miles, which was the distance
between Carmel and Jezreel, the
place where Jezebel was, and
where her idolatry was practised
in a high degree. Ahab might
have asked the prophet to ride,
to -be his servant
FIHE SEXT DOAVN VPOX
instead of allowing him
but if he did not know how to
394 Bible and Commentator.
respect the prophet, the prophet would not fail to show respect to him as his
king. We must give honor to whom honor is due ; for if bad men are
raised in rank in the world, while Ave hate their wickedness, we must re-
member that it is God that raiseth up one, and putteth down another.
Elijah's conduct explained what is meant by " Fear God, honor the king."
Elijah's Flight from Jezebei.
1 Kings xix.
~TT7~HEN Ahab got home, he told Jezebel of all that Elijah had done,
V V and when she heard that he had slain the false prophets, whom she
protected, she swore by her gods that she would kill Elijah, and sent a
messenger to tell him so.
As in her passion she had let Elijah know what she intended to do, he
made his escape from her, and perhaps she was glad to get him out of the
country. He did not stop in his flight till he had got quite out of the
kingdom of Israel, and had reached Beer-sheba, in the kingdom of Judah,
over which Jehoshaphat reigned ; this place was eighty-four miles from
Jezreel. Here, however, he feared that Jezebel in her rage might pursue
him, as her husband Ahab, and Jehoshaphat, were on good terms, and so
Jehoshaphat might not have quarrelled about pursuing a man into his
territories. Elijah, therefore, travelled yet twenty miles farther, and reached
the wilderness of Arabia or Paran, in which the children of Israel travelled
for forty years. Here he sat himself down to rest under a juniper tree, and
he begged of God to let him die, for he was not stronger than his fathers to
endure sc much fatigue and anxiety. But God had provided an angel to
feed him, and he awoke him from a refreshing rest, and said, "Arise and
eat. And he looked, and behold there was a cake baken on the coals," or
hot stones, after the custom of the East, " and a cruse of water at his head.
And he did eat and drink, and laid himself down again." After he had
slept again, the angel once more awoke him, and told him to take some
more food ; " and he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength
of that meat forty days and forty nights, unto Horeb, the mount of God."
God made this food more nourishing than common food, and so it kept him
alive and well for so long a time.
Horeb was the part of Sinai where the Lord appeared to Moses in the
burning bush ; and here Elijah hid himself in a cave.
1 Kings
395
While he was in this place, God called to him in some way, so that he
knew it was no human creature that spoke, and he said, " What dost thou
here, Elijah?" — for Elijah did what was wrong in running away from
Jezreel. He ought to have continued to reprove Jezebel, and the rest of the
MOUNT HORF.B, A.N'D CAVE OF ELIJAH.
idolaters. He forgot that God had protected him against all the priests of
Baal, who could easily have killed him with their knives and lancets with
which they cut themselves ; and he could as easily have protected him
against the fury of Jezebel. Elijah answered the voice, and gave a sad
account of Israel, that they had forsaken God's covenant and worshipped
other gods ; that they had thrown down God's altars, and so tried to make
his true worship unknown in the land ; that they had slain God's prophets,
that there might be none to reprove their sinfulness ; and that he was the
only prophet remaining, whom they would kill also, if they could find him.
The voice then ordered Elijah to go upon the mount, where Moses had
stood before him. And there was a great wind that split parts of the
mountain, and an earthquake, and a fire, by lightning, and in other ways,
as have been seen in earthquakes ; but the Lord did not speak in the wind,
396 Bible and Commentator.
as he did, which we shall hereafter read, to his servant Job ; nor did he
speak in the earthquake and the fire, as he did to Moses; but Elijah heard
" a still small voice." Then Elijah knew by its sound that it was nothing
human, and he felt his soul and all around him to be very solemn. Under
a sense of his own insignificance before God, he wrapped his mantle around
his face as a sign of humility, for we hide our faces when we are ashamed —
and he went and stood at the entrance of the cave. There God's voice
spoke to him again, and told him to go to the wilderness of Damascus, and
to anoint Hazael king over Syria, and Jehu king over Israel, and Elisha to
be a prophet ; and that each of these should be employed in destroying the
wicked and idolatrous people in Israel. The voice told him, however, that
he was mistaken in supposing that he only was left to oppose Israel's idol,
for there were seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal, nor
kissed their hands to his honor, as though they had kissed the idol.
Elijah having left his hiding-place, met Elisha, who was busy in plough-
ing with twelve oxen, and he cast his mantle, or rather the skirts of it, over
Elisha, which Elisha understood to mean that he was to go under his
protection, and to have the same spirit of prophecy as himself. And Elisha
begged leave to go home and kiss his father and mother, whom, as a good
son, he loved and respected, and when he had told them where he was
going he would follow Elijah. So he slew a yoke of oxen and dressed them
with the wood of the plough, and invited his friends to his farewell feast,
and then he followed Elijah and became his constant attendant as long as
he lived.
The War between Benhadad, King of Syria, and Ahab, King of Israel.
1 Kings xx.
HTYT~E now leave Elijah for a while, and have here the account of the
▼ V war of Benhadad, king of Syria, against Ahab, king of Israel.
Benhadad, under some pretence or other, inarched with a large army against
Ahab, and he had thirty-two kings, or princes, along with him, who had
each brought troops to help him from their little governments.
The Syrian army, or at least a part of it, met the men of Israel, and the
men of Israel " slew every one his man ; " that is, they slew seven thousand
two hundred and thirty-two men, as many as they themselves were. The
Syrians were frightened at such a bold resistance, and turned their backs,
and all the army ran away. " Israel pursued them/' and Benhadad mounted
1 Kings.
897
his horse and rode away as fast as he could, accompanied by his horsemen.
And Ahab smote the Syrian cavalry, both those that rode on horses and
those that rode in chariots ; " and he slew the Syrians with great slaughter."
The Jewish historians say that he plundered their camp, where he found a
great deal of gold and silver, and that he took their chariots and horses. So
Benhadad paid dearly for his insolence towards Israel.
When the battle was gained, the prophet told the king of Israel to be
upon his guard, for Benhadad would return again "at the return of the
year," when the fine spring weather again came round, and kings were used
to go to war, and that he would bring another large army against him ;
and so it was.
The armies faced one
another for seven days,
and at last they fought,
and the Israelites slew a
hundred thousand of the
Syrians, for God had given
up these boasting idolaters
to be punished for their
bold wickedness. Twenty-
seven thousand yet re-
mained, who took shelter
in Aphek, but there the
city wall fell upon them and they also were slain
under some parts of the wall, and so caused it to fall, or God sent a high
wind, or an earthquake, and blew or shook it down.
Benhadad, who would have ruined Israel, was now ruined himself; and
God often permits wicked people to surfer from their own doings, and the
mischief they intended for others falls upon themselves.
either the Israelites dug
Naboth robbed of his Vineyard, and murdered by Ahab and Jezebel.
1 Kings xxi.
A HAB had saved all his dignity and wealth, and even got more by the
-£-A- spoils taken from the king of Syria ; but no sooner was he freed
from the troubles of war than his mind became dissatisfied, because he could
not get possession of a small piece of ground near his palace in Jezreel,
398 Bible and Commentator.
which was a vineyard of Naboth, and which he thought would make a nice
kitchen-garden. He did, indeed, offer Naboth the choice of a better vine-
yard for it, or its value in money, but JNaboth refused, because the people
of Israel were commanded, by God's law, not to sell their lands from their
family, or tribe, except in cases of great poverty — and Naboth was not a
poor man — and, even then, the sale was not to be for more than forty-nine
years at the most. (Lev. xxv. 23, 28.)
Ahab was very much vexed that he could not get the vineyard, and he
went home and threw himself upon the bed, and would not eat ; just like a
poor peevish child that has been disappointed of some toy, or prevented in
having some improper wish gratified.
Then Jezebel, his wife, asked the reason of his sadness, and he told her.
" Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel ? " said she ; then " I will
give thee the vineyard." Meaning that he had nothing to fear about any
way in which he might get the vineyard, so as he got it.
So she contrived a wicked plan to ruin Naboth. She wrote letters, in
Ahab's name, to all the chief rulers of Jezreel, and sealed them with the
king's seal, which made them of the same consequence as if he had written
them himself; and she told them to proclaim a fast, which was under a
pretence that something evil existed in the land, for which they were to
mourn ; and when they were assembled, with Naboth amongst them, some
men were to be ready who should swear that Naboth had blasphemed God
and the king. Two witnesses would be enough by the law to prove him
guilty, and then, by that law, he must instantly be stoned to death, and for
his pretended words against the king his property would be forfeited to
Ahab, and so he would not only get the vineyard, but all that he had.
Now, as Israel, and especially Jezreel, was in a very idolatrous state, it
was easy to find bad rulers to obey these wicked commands of this most
wicked queen ; and two children of Belial — or worthless, lawless, abandoned
creatures, which is what the name means — swore falsely against poor
Naboth, who was instantly taken away and stoned to death.
As soon as the news reached the queen, she told the king, and he went
directly to take possession of the vineyard. But though he had succeeded
in his wickedness so far, God had looked at what was doing all the while,
and he ordered Elijah to go and meet him in the vineyard. As soon as
Ahab saw Elijah, he said, " Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?" Why,
how did he know that he was his enemy ? He might have been commanded
to tell him something good. But Ahab's conscience told him he had done
1 Kings. 399
wrong ; and Elijah told him that God would punish him for this crime, and
that the dogs should lick up his blood, as they had that of the innocent man
whom he had caused to be killed. He also told him that all his family
should be cut off like the families of Jeroboam and of Baasha, because he
had been more wicked than even they were, and that " the dogs should eat
Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel," where she had been so cruel and so wicked.
Ahab was now alarmed, and rent his clothes, and clothed himself in
sackcloth, and fasted, in token of grief and repentance, and walked softly
about, pacing with slow steps, as one who was melancholy. And though he
had been so wicked, God spared him all the evil that was to come upon his
house ; but it came to pass entirely in his son's days, who was nevertheless
deserving of what he suffered for following all the wicked and idolatrous
ways of his father.
Ahab killed in Battle.
1 Kings xxii.
AFTER Ahab made his covenant with Benhadad, they remained at
-£^- peace for three years. It was probably agreed at that time that
Ramoth-Gilead should be restored to Israel, but Benhadad nad not kept
his word. This made Ahab very angry. Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah,
being on a visit to Ahab, Ahab asked him if he would join him in going to
war with the king of Syria, in order to take this city, which, by agreement,
belonged to him. Jehoshaphat agreed, and said, " I am as thou art, my
people as thy people, my horses as thy horses ; " meaning that both he and
all that he had were at his service for the purpose.
Jehoshaphat was, however, a very pious king, and he did not like to go
to battle till he knew whether it was right ; so he advised Ahab to ask
counsel of God. Ahab directly called together four hundred of his false
prophets, and asked them if he should do right in going to Ramoth-Gilead.
And they, willing to please the king, who, as they knew, strongly wished
it, said to him, " Go up ; for the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the
king."
This was like the prophecies of false prophets, spoken in such a way that
it was difficult to know whether the battle should be won or not, or which
king should win it. However, it seemed to lean on the side of Ahab, and
he liked the answer very well, and interpreted it as he wished it to be.
Jehoshaphat was not quite satisfied. He most likely knew that the
400
Bible and Commentator.
prophets which had been collected were not prophets of the Lord, and so he
asked if there were no other prophets whose advice could be taken. And
Ahab said there was another certainly, one Micaiah, but he hated him, for
this prophet never prophesied anything good for him. (See 2 Chron. xviii. 7.)
This was a prophet who had before reproved him for his sins, and wicked
men do not like to be reproved for sin.
Ahab, at Jehoshaphat's wish, sent for Micaiah, who is thought at the
time to have been in prison for his former boldness to the king of Israel.
And now the two kings sat on thrones in great state near the gate of
Samaria, and heard what all the prophets had to say. "And Zedekiah, the
son of Chenaanah, made him horns of iron/' in imitation of the manner of
the true prophets, who prophesied by signs, and he told Ahab that he should
push his enemies as with
those horns till he had
destroyed them. And all
the prophets said, " Go up
to Rainoth-Gilead, and
prosper; for the Lord
shall deliver it into the
king's hand."
The messenger who
fetched Micaiah told him
what the false prophets
said, and advised him to
say the same. However,
Micaiah could only say what God impressed on his mind, and he would not
deceive the king. Yet, as he knew that the king would only follow the
advice of the false prophets, he repeated their words, " Go and prosper ; for
the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the king."
The king saw that he did not speak the words of God, but was only ridi-
culing him and his prophets, and he was angry, and desired him with
authority to tell him the truth. Micaiah then did so, and told him that he
saw all Israel scattered like sheep on the hills, that have no shepherd to
lead them. Though Ahab had desired him to speak nothing but the truth,
and was angry when he spoke the exact words of the false prophets, he was
now angry that he had prophesied evil things ; for he saw that the scattered
sheep meant that Israel were to be defeated, and that their being without a
shepherd meant that he, Ahab, was to be slain. And he turned to Jehosh-
SYRIAM CAVALRY
1 Kings. 401
aphat, and told him lie expected some ill-natured prophecy from Micaiah.
Then Micaiah spoke a parable, and told him he saw a council in heaven.
And the Lord asked his angels who should go and deceive Ahab, that he
might fall at Ramoth-Gilead. And after different opinions had been given,
a spirit came and said, I will go, and I will be a lying spirit speaking by
Ahab's prophets. Micaiah told him, moreover, that God had allowed these
wicked prophets to deceive him.
Then Zedekiah smote him on the cheek, and insulted him on his
prophesying ; and the king ordered him to be sent back to prison, and to be
kept on bread and water till he returned. Micaiah again warned him, and
told him if he returned safe, then God had not spoken by him.
Being hastily bent on having his own way, Ahab went to battle, and
Jehoshaphat went with him. However, he seems to have had some fears
lest what Micaiah said might come true, and so he disguised himself and
advised Jehoshaphat to wear his royal robes. In giving this advice, he
appeared to do honor to Jehoshaphat, but, in reality, he was treacherous
to him, and put him into the danger which he feared himself, hoping that,
if a king was to be killed, Jehoshaphat, having a royal dress, would be
sure to be marked instead of himself.
The king of Syria gave particular orders to his people to look for the king
of Israel, and to fight with him, for he thought that if he were either killed
or taken prisoner, the whole army would be thrown into confusion. As he
was disguised, they mistook Jehoshaphat for him, and had nearly killed
him, till he cried out, and they found that he was the king of Judah, and
not the king of Israel. It was strange that they neither attempted to
kill nor take him, though he was fighting against them, but " turned back
from pursuing him." You see how dangerous a thing it is to be in
bad company. The pious Jehoshaphat had nearly been slain by being
mistaken for the wicked Ahab. " My son, if sinners entice thee, consent
thou not."
With all his cunning and caution, Ahab could not escape. Benhadad's
captains and soldiers could not indeed discover him in his disguise, but God
permitted an arrow that was not shot at him in particular, to give him a
mortal wound. This was the more remarkable, as the arrow was not only
not aimed at him any more than at any other soldier, but he being covered
all otfer with armor, or, as we say, quite cased in it, there were but two or
three places where he could be hit to be mortally wounded ; and just in
one of those places the arrow entered. "A certain man drew a bow at a
26
402 Bible and Commentator.
venture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness/'
or one of the places where a piece of the metal armor fitted with another
piece.
Finding himself wounded, Ahab desired the driver of his war-chariot to
take him out of the thickest of the battle — most likely that he might have
his wound dressed — and then, being propped up, he continued some time
longer on the field, while both sides fought furiously. By the evening he
died, " and the blood ran out of the wound into the midst of the chariot."
The army were ordered to withdraw from the field, and they all marched
home, and, as it had been a severe battle, the Syrians did not pursue them.
Ahab was buried in Samaria. And now what was threatened by the prophet
took place ; he had said, " Thus saith the Lord, In the place where dogs
licked the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine." "And
one washed the chariot in the pool of Samaria : and the dogs licked up his
blood ; and they washed his armor ; according unto the word of the Lord,
which he spake."
Nothing more is said of Ahab, than that he built an ivory house ; or, more
properly, a house inlaid with ivory ornaments in its
wood-work. Ahab was succeeded by his son Ahaziah.
Jehoshaphat, of whom we have just read, was the
son of the pious Asa ; he began to reign over Judah
in the fourth year of Ahab's reign. This reign lasted
twenty-five years. " He turned not aside from doing
that which was right in the eyes of the Lord," and
he turned many of the wicked people out of the
land.
Jehoshaphat did wrong in joining with the wicked
Ahab in battle, and we see he suffered for it ; he also
did wrong in joining Ahaziah, his wicked son, in making a fleet to fetch
gold from Ophir, for the fleet was wrecked ; he, however, refused a second
time to have anything to do with Ahaziah, and would not let any of
Ahaziah's seamen go with his in a new fleet which he seems to have
built. When we see plainly that we have done what is displeasing to God,
we can never act more wisely than Jehoshaphat did in not doing it again.
We should always avoid forming any sort of alliance with the wicked ; it
will be sure to do us some harm. And we should remember, too, that
wicked men are very ready and quick to secure the favor and friendship
of the righteous, when they can use the influence of such to the accomplish-
1 Kings.
403
ment of their own private purposes. It becomes, under these facts, then,
every well and justly-inclined person to use the greatest caution in receiving
proofs of friendship from those who may be regarded as the friends and
allies of Satan, and to consider as insincere all their advances in that
direction. The same pliant spirit which betrays some pious people into
friendship with the enemies of religion also allows, or winks at, the peculiar
and dangerous influences necessarily consequent upon such relationship.
Little, but wicked, concessions are continually made, and often yielded to ;
conversations and acts, such as are against the teachings of truth, are
enforced and gradually entered upon ; and finally, through fear of ridicule
or censure, the man whose heart was filled with good thoughts and influ-
ences is apt to be ready to conceal his dependence upon God and his
attachment to his cause.
Ahaziah began to reign over Israel when Jehoshaphat had reigned nearly
seventeen years over Judah. His reign was very short, being only two
years. He was as wicked as his father, though he saw to what his wicked-
ness had brought him, in disobeying God's voice by his prophet ; and he
walked in his father's ways, and in those of his wicked mother, Jezebel, and
worshipped the idol, Baal, and so provoked God. We shall read his sad
end in the next Book of Kings.
IVORY ORNAMENT.
IVORY ORNAMENT.
Second Book of Kings:
Or the " Second Book of the History of the Kings of Judah and Israel," continues the narrations of the First Book
through the long period of three hundred years, ending with the terrible overthrow of Jerusalem and its splendid
temple by the great Babylonish King Nebuchadnezzar, about five hundred and eighty-eight years before the birth
of Christ, our Lord. It furnishes twenty-five chapters, full of wonderful miracles and highly entertaining events.
Sickness and Death of Ahaziah, and Destruction of a Hundred of his
Soldiers by Fire from Heaven.
2 Kings i.
HAZIAH succeeded his father Ahab, as king over
Israel, and, like his father, he was a very wicked
man. It appears that his reign was disturbed,
and that Moab rebelled against him. — that is, re-
fused to pay a tribute which had been paid from
the times of David, when " the Moabites became
David's servants, and brought gifts."
Most likely, while he was so troubled by the
Moabites, a yet greater trouble came upon him,
for he " fell down through a lattice in his upper
chamber, that was in Samaria, and was sick."
Now we may see what kind of a man he was, for, instead of asking God
to cure him, or to bless the means used for his cure, " He sent messengers,
and said unto them, Go, inquire of Baal-zebub, the God of Ekron, whether
I shall recover of this disease." But who was this Baal-zebub ? An idol
worshipped by the wicked Philistines, who lived in Ekron, a part of the
country belonging to that people. This was so detestable an idol, that, in
the New Testament, his name is given to Satan himself.
While the king's messengers were going to Ekron, God sent an angel to
Elijah, the prophet, to tell him to go and meet them ; and to ask them
whether it was because there was no God of whom they could inquire in
404
2 Kings.
405
Israel, that they were going to Ekron. Elijah also told them, in a par-
ticular manner belonging to the prophets, addressing the king as though he
were there, " Now, therefore, thus saith the Lord, Thou shalt not come
down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die." In
the Eastern countries, the beds were placed in a sort of gallery, railed in,
and so they were got into by steps ; this explains the threat, " Thou shalt
not come down."
The messengers quickly returned, and Ahaziah, wondering why they had
come back so soon, said, " Why are ye now turned back ? " Then they
told him what had passed
between them and Elijah,
but they did not know
who Elijah was. How-
ever, they said, "he was
a hairy man," — most
likely wearing a garment ^^
made of camel's hair, as
the prophets sometimes j|
did; and that he was "girt
with a girdle of leather
about' his loins." And,
from his message, and
their description of his
dress, as Ahaziah had
seen him before, in his
father's court, he said,
"It is Elijah the Tish-
bite."
So the king sent a cap-
tain with fifty men to go
after him, and seize him.
"When they came within call of him, he was sitting on the top of a hill, and
they spoke in a ridiculing way to him, and sneered at him as a man of God.
"Thou man of God, the king hath said, Come down." This was not the
way to speak to one of God's messengers, especially to a prophet like Elijah.
So Elijah said words in reply, which meant as much as to say, " Well,
since you ridicule me as God's prophet, you shall know whether I am or
not, by fire coming down from heaven, and consuming you." Then fire
UPPER CHAMBERS EN ORIENTAL HOUSE.
406 Bible and Commentator.
came from heaven — most likely a flash of lightning — and killed them all
on the spot. Now, Elijah did not punish the men in anger because they
had insulted him ; indeed, he could not do it, God alone could send the fire ;
but he spoke as God's prophet, because they had insulted God, and, as God
sent the lightning, it was he who punished the wicked soldiers as he threat-
ened by his prophet.
Whether the king was impatient at the delay of the soldiers, and so
sent others, or whether he was more enraged at Elijah for the loss of his
men, and so resolved more firmly that he would have him, is not certain ;
however, he sent fifty more men, who behaved in the same way, and met
with the same punishment.
The wicked king was still determined that he would take Elijah, and so
he sent yet a third company of fifty soldiers to apprehend him. The captain
obeyed the king's orders, and went to Elijah, and when he saw his hundred
comrades all lying dead around him, — which he must have done, — he did
not dare to mock, but he fell on his knees before Elijah, and entreated for
mercy.
Elijah now. being ordered by an angel, went down to the king, and, as
soon as he saw him, he repeated to him the word of God which he had sent
before by the messengers. " So he died according to the word of the Lord
which Elijah had spoken. And Jehoram reigned in his stead." This
Jehoram was brother to Ahaziah, he having left no son to reign after him.
There was also another Jehoram who afterwards reigned in Judah, and who
was the son of Jehoshaphat.
Elijah taken to Heaven in a Chariot of Fire— Children who mocked
Elisha killed by Bears.
2 Kings ii.
THE prophet Elijah had done much for the honor of God, and God
has said, " Them that honor me, I will honor." " Enoch walked
with God " by keeping in his ways, " and he was not, for God took him "
— not as he takes us, by death, but he took him to heaven without dying.
So God honored Elijah in the same way. But before he was to leave this
world, Elijah visited the schools of the prophets at Bethel and Jericho. He
would have had Elisha leave him, that he might ascend to heaven unper-
ceived, not wishing to appear proud of the honor God was going to bestow
upon him, for good men always abhor pride. Elisha, however, went with
2 Kings. 407
hini from place to place, where he was asked, by the other prophets, if he
knew that Elijah was going to heaven that day ; and he said he knew it.
After visiting Bethel and Jericho, they came to the river Jordan. Here
fifty of the sons of the prophets, who had followed them six miles from
Jericho, stood at a distance to see if they could behold Elijah's ascent into
glory.
When Elijah and Elisha came to the water, Elijah folded up his robe
and smote the stream, and the river divided, so that he and Elisha passed
over on dry ground, just as the Israelites had done before.
"And it came to pass, as they still went on and talked, that, behold, there
appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder ;
and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven." I cannot attempt to
explain this, and so I have given the account exactly in the words of
Scripture. Whatever this chariot was, looking like fire, it is evident that it
did not burn or hurt the prophet — so that its bright appearance was only to
show that Elijah was going in a glorious way to a glorious place.
Elisha saw this glorious ascent, and he cried, " My father, my father, the
chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof! " by which he is supposed to
have meant that Elijah's counsels and prayers were as much defence to Israel
as an army of war chariots and horsemen. When Elijah wxas gone he began
to feel his loss, and he took his clothes, and, as a sign of grief for losing so
great and good a prophet, he " rent them in two pieces."
The mantle of Elijah fell from him, and Elisha took it up, and, as
Elijah had smitten Jordan and divided the waters with it, Elisha tried
to do the same, and called out while he was trying, " Where is the Lord
God of Elijah ? " — meaning, " Now let God divide these waters by me, his
prophet, as he did by Elijah ; " — for it was not the mantle nor the prophet
that divided the waters, but God did so when the prophets looked to him
to bless the sign they used. "And when he had smitten the waters, they
parted hither and thither." This miracle was seen by the sons of the
prophets from Jericho, and when they saw that Elisha passed over dry land
in the middle of the river, they knew that God had given him Elijah's
power, and they met him and paid him reverence as a great prophet of God
like Elijah.
Then the sons of the prophets wished much to go and seek for the body
of Elijah, which they supposed might have been left on some high moun-
tain while his spirit went up to glory. This wras not unreasonable, for they
knew that the body returned to dust, while the soul of the good man went
408 Bible and Commentator.
to God, and therefore they wished to find Elijah's body and bury it with
all possible respect. Elisha refused, at first, to let them go, but, at last, as
they pressed him very much, he gave them leave. However, after searching
three days, they could not find the body ; and, indeed, how could they, for
Elijah did not die like other men, but was taken at once, body and spirit,
into glory.
Seeing that Elisha had now the spirit of Elijah, who had worked
miracles, or done things which no skill of man can do, the sons of the
prophets at Jericho complained that, though their city was very pleasant
to look at, ^et their water was very bad, and their ground brought nothing
to perfection. This barrenness was, most likely, because Jericho had been
built again, as we have before read, in spite of the curse pronounced against
it by Joshua, the servant of God.
So Elisha took a cruse and put a little salt into it, and then went to the
spring whence the waters flowed, and cast the salt into the spring, and told
the sons of the prophets that the waters were now pure ; and in future they
need not fear to drink them, for they would not produce disease or death as
bad water did ; nor should they complain of their fruit failing, for these
waters should now strengthen all the trees. " So the waters were healed."
Salt, you know, will make water unpleasant to drink, but here it was the
contrary, and this showed that it was a miracle, and that the prophet had a
divine power to make salt produce sweet water.
Elisha went next to visit the sons of the prophets at Bethel. Before he
reached the town it was known he was about to enter it, and some wicked
children went out of the city to meet Elisha, and to laugh at him. Elisha
seems to have had a bald head, and they thought this would do to laugh at,
and so they cried, " Go up, thou bald head ; go up, thou bald head ! " Some
think that they meant to make fun of Elijah's going to heaven, and so they
cried thus, signifying, "Go along with you, after your master Elijah, and
don't come here, you bald-headed fellow."
Now, even if Elisha had not been a prophet of God, this behavior would
have been very rude, and as wicked as it was rude.
Elisha gave them a look of rebuke, and then, as God's prophet, he
" cursed them in the name of the Lord." This means, that he pronounced
God's curse upon them, for it would have been wicked for him to have
cursed them in the way in which bad men curse people, and which can only
do harm to themselves. This was, therefore, not in rage and revenge, for
Elisha would not then have acted like a good man. As soon as he had
CHILDREN-MOCKKRS KILLED BY BEAKS.
409
410 Bible and Commentator.
spoken, " there came forth two she-bears out of the wood, and tare forty and
two children of them." Observe, these were she-bears, and probably had
young ones, and so were more ferocious than he-bears.
After this the prophet returned to Samaria, the chief city of the kingdom
of Israel, where there was much idolatry, and where he was to oppose the
wickedness of the people.
Israel miraculously supplied with Water, and the Moabites defeated.
2 Kings hi.
"TTT"E have before read that Jehoram, the brother of Ahaziah and son
W 0f Ahab, now sat on the throne of Israel. Jehoram was not a
good man, but he was better than his father, as " he put away the image of
Baal, that his father had made " for the people to worship, but he still
worshipped calves as Jeroboam did.
Moab, you remember, was forced by David to pay taxes to Israel.
When Ahaziah died, we told you that the Moabites had rebelled. Taxes
were then often paid in cattle, which were valuable. "And Mesha, king of
Moab, was a sheep-master," he kept a great number of sheep, aand ren-
dered unto the king of Israel a hundred thousand lambs, and a hundred
thousand rams, with the wool."
This tribute was thought by Jehoram to be too valuable to lose. So he
numbered all his soldiers, to see how many he could raise against Moab.
And he asked Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, if he would join him, and
help him, which Jehoshaphat agreed to. Then they set off, and took the
king of Edom also along with them. They had to travel seven days, and
they could find no water, so that the army and cattle had nearly died of
thirst, for want of wells.
The king of Israel was now very much frightened, and knew not what
to do. The good king Jehoshaphat, however, helped him out of his diffi-
culty, by asking if he had not a prophet of the Lord to direct him.
Now, it so happened — or, rather God had so ordered it to save this army —
that Elisha had followed the -king, and one of the king's servants told him
he was there ; " Here," said he, " is Elisha, the son of Shaphat, which
poured water on the hands of Elijah" — meaning that he had been an
attendant upon Elijah, and so poured water on his hands as those who
waited on their superiors used to do. So the kings went to Elisha.
And Elisha spoke very roughly to the king of Israel, and told him that
2 Kings.
411
if the good king Jehoshaphat had not been with him, he would have said
nothing to him.
Then Elisha told the kings to employ the soldiers to dig ditches all about
the valley where they were, and though they should hear no wind to bring
clouds with it, and see no rain falling, yet the ditches should be all filled
MOABITE SHEEP-FOLD.
with water, enough for the whole army and the beasts. Then he told them
that God would defeat Moab, and they were to punish this wicked people,
and destroy their cities, their trees, and their wells of water, and cover their
land with stones, so that it could not be ploughed for anything to grow
upon it.
The Moabites now gathered a large army, and stood on the borders of
their land to defend it ; and, early in the morning, as they were watching
the motions of the kings' armies, they saw the reflection of the sun upon
the water in the ditches, and, as it looked very red, they mistook it for
blood, and made sure that the kings had quarrelled, and that their armies
had slain each other ; so, without giving themselves time to think, they
agreed to go directly and share the spoil.
412
Bible and Commentator,
Then they all hurried, in disorder, to the camp of Israel, when the
Israelites fell upon them, and slew them, and pursued them to their own
country. And they pulled down their cities; and they strewed stones,
perhaps the stones of the houses, on the fields ; which, being done by every
man, soon covered them enough to spoil them for the plough ; and they put
dirt into the wells, and cut down the good trees, and left but one place
untouched, named Kir-harasath, which, however, was knocked down by
machines.
The king of Moab was desperate, and he tried to break through that
part of the army where the king
Mf| of Edom was, taking with him seven
hundred choice men, but he could
not succeed.
Then, in order to get his idol,
Chemosh, to help him, he even took
his own son, heir to his crown, and
offered him up for a burnt-offering,
foolishly supposing that his false
god would then be pleased, and that
he should be able to beat Israel,
against whom he and his people
were now in a great rage.
All the nations that have not
served God have been very cruel,
and they have offered up human
creatures, that is, killed them on
their altars, that their blood might
be the means, as they fancied, of
getting pardon for the sins that they
knew they had done, and of bring-
ing blessings upon them. The
people called Ethiopians, or Africans, used to sacrifice boys to the sun,
and girls to the moon, and they now often kill great numbers of innocent
men for sacrifice. The Scythians, or old Russians, used to sacrifice every
hundredth man of their prisoners taken in war, as a sign of thanks to their
gods. The Egyptians killed red-haired men as an acceptable sacrifice to
one of their gods : and they used often to sacrifice a beautiful young female
to their river Nile, as a sign of gratitude to the river for watering their
WILDERNESS OE MOAB.
2 Kings. 413
lands ; they dressed her up very richly, and then flung her into the stream,
where she was drowned, or, more likely, devoured by that horrible creature,
the crocodile. The Persians used to bury people alive in honor of their
gods. The Gallic Druids — a set of priests who lived a very long time ago
in France — used to set up an immense and tall figure of a man, made of
wicker-work, and twisted it round about as many as a hundred human
victims, and then consumed the whole as an offering to their gods. And
the Druids, who lived at that time in England, more especially in the Isle
of Anglesea, used constantly to sacrifice the prisoners they took in war.
The Athenians used to sacrifice a man every year, after having first loaded
him with curses, that, as they supposed, the wrath of God might fall upon
his head, and so take it away from them. The Carthaginians, a people who
lived in Africa, were even known to have offered two hundred victims at
one time ; and so cruel were they in their sacrifices, that it was usual for
the father to slaughter the most beautiful of his children, or those he loved
best, because he thought that sacrifice would best please his cruel god. The
Danes, on one occasion, sacrificed ninety-nine slaves. Two hundred chil-
dren were sacrificed at once, in Peru, for the health of one great person,
which, it was fancied, would be gained by the wicked act ; and the Mexicans
used to have thousands of victims. Only a few years ago, the South Sea
Islanders used to sacrifice men, but the preaching of the Gospel by the mis-
sionaries has caused them to throw away their wooden gods, and to destroy
their bloody altars. But, to this day, some African nations kill their pris-
oners ; some people, in the East Indies, fatten human victims for slaughter ;
and some even eat their criminals and prisoners of war as a religious act.
This is done in New Zealand. Had you been born among some of these
people, you might have been butchered in your childhood, or in your youth,
or left to suffer all these cruelties as a man or woman.
Various Miracles by Elisha.
2 Kings rv.
inLISHA had a double portion of Elijah's spirit; and the power God
-JLJ gave him of working miracles was often used by him to do good to
those who were in trouble.
A poor widow of one of the sons of the prophets had been left by her
husband, not only without money, but in debt. Now when people owed
414 Bible and Commentator.
money, at that time, they were not only obliged to give up what they had
to pay it, but even their children to be sold for slaves. This poor widow
had two sons, and the creditor, or person to whom she owed money, as she
had nothing left to pay, came to her and demanded her sons. The poor
widow loved them too well to part with them ; but what could she do, as
she could not pay the debt ? In her distress she thought on Elisha, and ran
to him with her tale. Elisha kindly said, " What shall I do for thee ?
Tell me, what hast thou in the house ? " The poor woman had only a pot
of oil, and that would not pay the bill. Elisha then told her to go and
borrow ever so many empty vessels — pots, or anything else she could find
— and to shut herself up with her two sons, and keep pouring the oil she
had as long as it would run, and she would find all the vessels full. And
when she had filled them, he told her to go and sell the oil, and pay her
debt, and she would then have oil left for herself and sons to live upon, as
oil was, and still is, an important article of food in that part of the world.
In his journeys to visit the schools of the prophets, Elisha often passed
through a place called Shunem. After the hospitable manner of the country
a rich lady, who lived there, seeing him in want of refreshment and rest,
invited him to her house, and, having received a hearty invitation to look
in whenever he passed that way, he often called upon her. She soon found
out that he was a prophet, and saw that he was a good prophet. She,
therefore, begged her husband to build him a little chamber for his own
use, where he might be undisturbed by the family when he passed that way ;
and she would have it furnished with a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a
candlestick, so as to make it quite comfortable for him. And the chamber
was built and furnished, and Elisha, and his servant, Gehazi, used to lodge
there.
Elisha, was very grateful for this kindness, as we ought always to be for
any kindness shown to us. And he desired his servant to ask if he could
do anything to serve the family, and procure any place of honor and profit
from the king for the kind lady's husband.
Gehazi, however, thought that if God gave her a son in her old age, who
should inherit her property, she would be glad ; and, as from that son might
spring the Messiah — the divine Saviour — which every Israelite hoped would
spring from his family, such a blessing would be valued. So, no doubt, the
prophet prayed to God, and God sent her a son.
When this little boy had grown up sufficiently to go to his father into the
fields, lie was out, one harvest day, among the reapers, when he was taken
2 Kings.
415
very ill, and he ran to his father, and cried, " My head, my head ! " His
father ordered a lad to carry him directly to his mother. She fondly took
him up on her knees and tried to comfort him ; but he had not been long
there before he died.
When this Shunammite lost her son, she laid him on the prophet's bed,
and had her beast saddled, and rode in haste to his dwelling, at Mount
MOUNT CAEMEL, THE RESIDENCE OF ELISHA.
Carmel. Elisha saw her as she was coming, and sent Gehazi to ask her if
anything was the matter, and she answered, " It is well." You must not
suppose that this was an untruth, for, as she was a pious woman, she was
sure that whatever happened to her it was well, and that God would make
it to turn out so at last.
However, when she got to the man of God, she told him all that had
happened to her; but she was too much grieved to speak at first, and only
fell at his feet and clung to his knees. Gehazi would have taken her away,
but Elisha desired him to let her alone, for he saw that she was grieved.
The Shunammite then gave him to understand that her child was dead.
Elisha instantly desired Gehazi to take his walking-staff, and to bind up his
long garments round his waist, and set off to the dead child, and to make
416 Bible and Commentator.
all the haste he could ; so that if he met any persons he knew, he was not
even to waste an instant in speaking to them ; and, when he should reach
the Shunammite's house, he told him he must lay his staff on the face of the
child. But the Shunammite was not satisfied that the servant went alone,
and earnestly begged of the prophet that he would go with her. Elisha
then kindly granted her request. In the meantime, Gehazi did as the
prophet had told him ; but the child did not recover. On arriving at the
house, Elisha himself went into the chamber, and, shutting the door, he
prayed, " and he went up and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon
his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands, and
he stretched himself upon the child, and the flesh of the child waxed Warm.
Then he returned and walked in the house to and fro, and went up and
stretched himself upon him ; and the child sneezed seven times, and the
child opened his eyes." Elisha, having restored the boy, gave him to his
mother, who fell at his feet to express her gratitude, as she had before done
to express her grief; and she took up her child, and went out of the
chamber with her heart thankful and glad.
We next find Elisha at Gilgal, when there happened to be " a dearth in
the land," or a famine, owing to the dryness of the ground.
The sons of the prophets being assembled to receive his instructions, he
ordered that some pottage, or broth, might be got ready for them to eat.
And one went out to gather some herbs to put in the pottage ; and, by
mistake, he brought in a lap-full that were poisonous. After they were cut
into the pottage, and boiled, he poured out for the young men to eat ; but,
as soon as they tasted it, they cried out that it was poisoned — " there is
death in the pot " — if we eat any more we shall die.
Elisha then called for a little meal, and cast it into the pot, and the
poisonous and bitter taste was gone ; and they ate of the pottage, and it
hurt none of them. Not that the meal made the pottage better, but God
helped the prophet to work this miracle, to show, as he had shown before,
that Elisha was a man of God : and so they had sign upon sign.
Elisha, also, did another miracle while he was teaching these sons of the
prophets. He received a small present of twenty barley loaves and some
ears of corn, which he desired should be given to the young men to eat.
Now there were as many as a hundred there, and this would be nothing
amongst them ; and so his servant told him. However, he desired him to
give them to the people j and they all ate and had plenty, and some was
left. So God honored his prophet Elisha.
2 Kings. 417
Naaman, the Syrian Captain, cured of Leprosy by Elisha.
2 Kings v.
THE chief commander of the Syrian army was a great officer, and was
covered with honors on account of his victories; his name was
Naaman. But this man, with all his greatness, had that terrible disease,
the leprosy, so that, most probably, nobody liked to touch him, and, as an
old bishop once said, " the basest slave in Syria would not change skins
with him."
There is no doubt but Naaman tried every possible way to get cured, but
all help was in vain. However, God so permitted it, that one of the plun-
dering parties of the Syrians had entered the territories of Israel, and had
carried off a little girl as a prisoner, and she was obliged to be a slave to
Naaman's wife, and to wait upon her. This little maid, though a slave,
did not hate her master for buying her ; but patiently submitted to the lot
which God had appointed for her ; she was more happy in her slavery than
Naaman in all his greatness, for she was not a leper, while he was, and she
knew the prophet of the true God, while he knew nothing about the God
of Israel. Her heart was very kind, and when she saw her master suffering
under his leprosy from day to day, and no one able to cure him, she said to
her mistress, "Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in
Samaria ; for he would recover him of his leprosy."
As soon as Naaman was told about what the little maid said, he told his
royal master, who directly wrote a letter for him to the king of Israel,
supposing that he could as well cure his general as the prophet could.
Naaman now set off and took with him some presents of silver and gold,
reckoned at least worth twenty-two thousand five hundred dollars of our
money, and some suppose worth above seventy thousand dollars, — and also
"ten changes of raiment/' so that the present was in keeping with the high
office of the Syrian, and was very great.
Naaman, on his arrival at the Israelitish court, presented his letter to the
king, in which Naaman's master said he had sent his servant to him to cure
him of his leprosy. When the king of Israel had read it, he burst into a
great rage, and rent his clothes, as the Jews did when they heard or read
anything that was blasphemous, and he asked, "Am I God, to kill and to
make alive ? " He also thought the letter was meant to insult him, and to
make a quarrel. Elisha, however, soon heard of what had happened, and;
27
418
Bible and Commentator.
he sent to the king, begging him to let Naaman go to him, and he should
soon know there was a prophet in Israel that could cure him.
Then Naaman went in a very stately way to the dwelling of the prophet,
" with his horses, and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house
of Elisha." So Elisha sent out to him to tell him to go and wash seven
THE RIVER JORDAN, NEAR ITS SOURCE.
times in the river Jordan, and he would be well. When Naaman heard
this he was extremely angry, for he thought the prophet would have waited
upon him himself, and have waved his hand over his leprosy and called
upon his God, and so have cured him. Besides, there were rivers in Syria
far better, in his opinion, than the river Jordan. And he was going away
quite disgusted when his servants respectfully told him that the remedy was
very simple, and he might as well try it. So he was persuaded, and went
and did as the prophet told him, and was cured.
Naaman .was, nevertheless, grateful when he was cured, as we all should
be for any kindness done to us, — for he returned to the prophet, told him
that he was now sure that the God of Israel was the only God in the world,
and begged him to accept of his presents. Elisha, however, refused every-
thing, for he thought God would be more honored if the cure were wrought
without pay.
Naaman now asked leave to take away a little of the earth of the land of
Israel, that he might build an altar to the Lord with it, for he resolved in
2 Kings. 419
future to worship no other God but the God of Israel. He could as well
have built the altar of any other earth, but he now loved the very soil of
the country in which he was cured, though he had before thought so meanly
of its waters.
As Naaman resolved to worship God only, he did not know what he
should do when he got back to his own country and attended his royal
master in the house of Rimmon, the idol which he worshipped ; and he
hoped that, as his heart would no longer be engaged in the wicked service,
God would pardon his attendance on his master. This was not right, for
he ought rather to have lost his master's favor than to have so much as
appeared to worship an idol ; however, he had just begun to learn his
religion, and so the prophet was not angry with him, but, in pity to him,
told him to go home in peace.
Naaman had not gone far before he was overtaken by Gehazi, the servant
of Elisha. This man thought within himself that his master might as well
have taken some of the presents which he had refused ; and, as he would
not have them, he wished to get a share himself, which he supposed
Naaman was now in a humor freely to give. But, as his master had
refused, what story could he tell if he asked for the money? — why, he in-
vented a lie. Naaman saw him running after him, and got out of his
chariot to know the reason. Then he told him that two young sons of the
prophets had just arrived, and he had come to ask for a talent of silver and
two changes of raiment for them. Naaman would make him take two
talents worth about thirty-six hundred dollars, and two changes of garments,
and he made his servants carry them for him. When they got to a tower
which was at the entrance of Samaria, he stowed the articles away in a
house and sent back the men. Now, he thought that all was snugly done,
and that he might buy olive-yards, and vineyards, and sheep, and oxen,
and men-servants, and maid-servants with the money, and become quite
great. But while he was dreaming in this foolish way, and nattered him-
self that the prophet knew nothing about what he had done, Elisha knew
all about it; and when he went, as usual, to wait upon his master, Elisha
asked him where he had been. He had told one lie, and, like wicked
children who tell one lie, he had now another ready to try and cover the
first, and he said, " Nowhere." " Why," said Elisha, " went not my heart
with thee," — that is, did I not know "when the man turned again from his
chariot to meet thee? " Is it a time to enrich thyself now, when a heathen
has been brought to the knowledge of God, and wouldst thou gain by such
420 Bible and Commentator.
an event as that? So he told the wicked man that he should have
Naaman's leprosy as a punishment, " and he went out from his presence a
leper, as white as snow."
My dear young readers, we are all lepers, like Naaman, but not on our
skins ; our leprosy is worse, and lies in our hearts. It is the foul disease
of sin that infects us. This makes us all as unclean before God as Naaman
was before men. Who, then, can cure us ? There is " a fountain opened
for sin and for uncleanness." What Jordan's waters did for Naaman's
leprosy, the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ can do for our dis-
ease— it can cleanse us from all sin. But we must go, by faith, to the
Saviour, we must seek him in prayer, and if we so seek him, not once, but
seven times, or many times, if it be seventy times seven, God will take away
the stains of sin from our souls, and we shall be made holy and unblamable
before him, " not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing."
An Axe made to swim.— The King of Syria's Secrets told by Elisha —
The Syrian Army smitten with Blindness.
2 Kings vi. 1-23.
ELISHA gave so many proofs that he was an extraordinary prophet,
that large numbers of the sons of the prophets flocked to him for
instruction, so that there was not room for them at Gilgal, where Elisha
used to live. The young men, therefore, proposed to go to Jordan, which
was about six miles off, and by every one cutting a beam from the trees
which grew upon its banks, they thought they could soon build a new house
large enough to hold them all. Elisha approved of the plan, and so they
set off, and began to work. " But as one was felling a beam, the axe-head
fell into the water ; and he cried and said, Alas, master, for it was borrowed ! "
Elisha then asked him to show him the place where the axe was thrown in ;
and then he cut down a stick and threw it after it, and, lo, the iron swam ;
and he got his axe again. Now you know that iron will not swim, but
sink ; but this was a miracle, a thing done contrary to the usual order of
things ; and it was another proof, added to those before given, that Elisha
was a man of God, one on whom he had bestowed extraordinary power.
Elisha's miracles were not yet done. The king of Syria raised an army
against Israel, and advised with his counsellors about the best spots for
fixing his camp, and making inroads upon the country, so as to plunder it.
2 Kings. 421
However, every time he marched to any place, he found that the Israelites
were aware of him. This made him suspect his people of treachery. At
last, one of them, who had heard of Elisha's exploits, told him that he
could easily make it out how Israel happened to know all that the king of
Syria intended to do, for there was Elisha the prophet in Israel, who could
let his king know all that passed, even in the king of Syria's bed-chamber.
The king of Syria then sent a large army to surround Dothan, where
Elisha then was, and to take him prisoner. This was very foolish, for if
Elisha was not the cause of his plans being found out, it was of no use ; and
if he was the cause, why then the prophet would as easily know that he
intended to capture him, and so get out of his way.
One morning early, Elisha's servant being up, was astonished to find the
city surrounded with Syrian soldiers. In his fright he ran to his master,
and told him, and cried out, "Alas, my master ! " for he thought they would
certainly be taken or slain by such a great host. Elisha then prayed to God
to open the eyes of the man's understanding, to see how well he was pro-
tected ; and he saw a host of angels all around, looking like horses and
chariots of fire. The Syrians then descended from a mountain, and approached
the city, and Elisha prayed that God would smite them with blindness, or,
at least, make their eyes so dim that they would be unable to distinguish
any object clearly. God heard Elisha's prayer. Then the prophet went
himself to the army, and told them that the prophet was not in the city,
which was true, for he had now come out of it — and, if they wanted to
know the way to the place where he was to be found, he would lead them
there. So he led them to Samaria : and then he prayed again that God
would open their eyes, and lo, they were in the midst of the capital of
Samaria, surrounded by people and soldiers enough to cut them all to pieces.
The king then asked the prophet if he might kill them, but the prophet
would not let him, for he had only taken them there to show them how
foolish they were : besides, it would have looked very treacherous, after he
had promised to lead them ; so he got them kindly treated, procured bread
and water to refresh them, and then sent them away to their master, glad
enough to escape.
The wonderful power of God, shown in the acts of one of his prophets, is
here placed in bold contrast with the weakness of a great army. There are
other strong instances scattered through God's word ; but, we think, in this
one is set forth, in an unusually clear and strong light, the foolishness and
ignorance of the natural mind when at enmity with God.
422
Bible and Commentator.
Siege of Samaria.
2 Kings vi. 24-vii. 33.
THE Syrians seem to have had a great enmity to the Israelites, and we
here find them suddenly surrounding Samaria, which had, perhaps,,
been short of provisions ; and so laying siege to it to starve the people to
surrender.
As the people of Samaria could not get out of the city to obtain pro-
visions from the fields or other places, the famine was great among them ;
they even ate asses, whose flesh was reckoned unclean and not fit for man's
food ; and these creatures becoming scarce, so many having been killed, an
ass's head, with the little meat it afforded, was at last sold for a large sum
of money. Some think
the value of the Jewish
pieces given for the ass's
head was twelve dollars,
others say twenty-five dol-
lars, and others say it was as
much as forty-five or fifty
dollars. There was also
a very poor sort of peas,
called fitches, or lentiles,
which somewhat resem-
bled dove's dung, and a
fourth part of a cab of
these, which was about
A cab was a measure holding about
WALLS OF SAMARIA.
half a pint, was sold for four dollars,
a quart.
But there was still a worse proof of the distress of the people for food.
The king was passing along the wall of the city, giving his orders for its
defence, when a woman implored his help, considering herself as wronged
by another woman. The case was this :— they had nothing to eat, and
agreed by turns to kill their poor infants and eat them. So this woman
killed hers, and it was eaten up ; but when she asked the other woman to
kill hers, she refused, and hid it, either wanting to keep it for herself,
at so cruel and wicked a deed. The king thought at
or
shuddering
first that the woman wanted food from him, and asked, "Whence shall
2 Kings. 423
I help thee ? out of the barn-floor, or out of the wine-press ? " — meaning,
that there was no corn in the barns, and no wine in the presses, and so
she could have nothing. But when he heard what she had done, he rent
his clothes in great agony; and when they were torn, the people saw that
he was dressed underneath in sackcloth, or rough cloth, which was a sign
of his distress for his people, and of his humiliation before God.
Then Elisha prophesied that on the next day, instead of famine, there
should be such plenty that a measure of fine flour, holding more than a
peck, should be sold for silver worth about fifty-eight cents, and double
the quantity of barley for the same money. What a difference, when, the
day before, half a pint of a miserable sort of pea had fetched at least four
dollars !
The king heard this prophecy, and a nobleman on whose arm the king
leaned would not believe it possible that such good news could be true.
"Aye," said he, " if God should open windows in heaven " — meaning, if he
should rain down the flour and barley, then we may have it. "Well,"
said Elisha, "it shall be as I have said; you shall just live long enough
to know it, but not to partake of the plenty."
Xow there happened to be four men who had the leprosy so very bad
that they were not allowed to enter into the city ; some think these were
Gehazi, Elisha's wicked servant, on whom Naaman's leprosy rested, and
Gehazi's sons. These lepers were starving, and they said, It is of no use
to try to go into the city, for there we shall get no food, and if we stay here
we shall die ; so let us try if the Syrians will help us, for they have food
enough, and if they kill us, why we shall but die at last.
The lepers then went to the camp of" the Syrians, and it was in the dusk
of the evening ; but when they got there, how surprised were they to find
that not a man remained ! The fact was, that God had made the Syrians
to fancy that they heard the noise of a very large army approaching them ;
supposing that the king of Israel had got some other kings to help him, and
that they were marching suddenly upon them to cut them to pieces, they all
fled for their lives and left everything they had behind them — tents, horses,
asses, food, silver, gold, raiment ; and, indeed, a vast treasure. The lepers
now ate and drank plentifully, and then began to secure some of the
treasure for themselves, and hid it. But they forgot for some time that,
while they Avere enjoying themselves, their countrymen in Samaria were
starving. So they said, " We do not well, we ought to tell the good news
to the city, and if we do not, something bad may happen to us." So they
424 Bible and Commentator.
hastened to the sentinel who kept guard at the city gates, and the news was
soon told to the king.
The king directly got up and consulted with his courtiers about what he
should do. " This," said he, " is only a trick of the Syrians ; they are not
far off; they have, most likely, hid themselves somewhere in the fields close
by, and when we go out they will fall upon us." Some of his counsellors
then proposed to send out some horsemen to see if the Syrians were really
gone, and their advice was taken. It was proposed to send out five horse-
men, but there were only two horses remaining, and those chariot horses,
used for drawing and not for riding ; the rest were either in a starving state
or eaten. Two horsemen, therefore, set off and went as far as Jordan, over
which the Syrians had to pass, and they found they were gone and that all
the road was strewed with garments and vessels, which, in their flight, they
had thrown away, supposing the enemy was at their heels.
The messengers now returned and told the king, " and the people went
out and spoiled the tents of the Syrians ; " — that is, they took for spoil all
that the Syrians had left j and they had left so much food, which they had
provided for their men, that " a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel,"
or fifty-eight cents, " and tw*o measures of barley for a shekel, according to
the word of the Lord." So you see God's word came true which he spoke
by Elisha.
But what became of the nobleman who would not believe it ? Why the
king gave him charge of the city gate to keep order, and prevent the rush
of the people, eager to get food ; and, in doing his duty, the crowd was so
great, and in so much hurry, that he was pushed down and trampled to
death. So he saw the quantities of food brought in by the people, but never
tasted any himself, just as Elisha had told him.
Benhadad, King of Syria, murdered by his Servant Hazaei.
2 Kings viii. 7-15.
ELISHA, in his journeys, went to Damascus, the chief city of Syria, and
at that time Benhadad the king was sick. Like all sick people, he
wished much to know if he should get well ; and he sent Hazaei, his chief
captain, to inquire of the prophet. So Hazaei went, and took with him a
number of presents, according to the custom of the East, which is continued
to this day. And he said to the prophet, " Thy son, Benhadad, king of
2 Kings
425
Syria, hath sent me to thee, saying, Shall I recover of this disease ? " — not
that Benhadad was the prophet's son, but it was a respectful way of speaking
in use, when a prophet was addressed. Elisha told Hazael that his master
might recover of his disease, but still he should die. And he looked at
SYRIAN TENTS.
Hazael till the officer was ashamed, or stared him out of countenance, as
we say, as though he would search his very heart ; and then " the man of
God wept."
Hazael asked him why he wept. The prophet then told him that he
foresaw he would do a great deal of harm to Israel ; and he meant by this
that he would have power in Syria, and would go to war with Israel. Then
Hazael answered the prophet, " Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this
great thing ? " By which some suppose he meant, " Do you suppose I could
act so much like a brute?" Though others think, with some reason, that
he rather meant, " What ! shall such a man as I am, not of royal blood, be
raised to power enough to do such things ? " " Yes," said the prophet ;
" the Lord hath showed me that thou shalt be king over Syria."
So Hazael went home, and he told the king that the prophet said he
would recover ; which was not true, for he had only said that he might
recover of his disease, and yet he should die ; but Hazael said nothing about
that.
The next day Hazael took a wet cloth, and laid it on his master's face
426 Bible and Commentator.
under the pretence of cooling his fever, and Benhadad, being weak, could
not throw it off, and so he was smothered. Some think Hazael did this on
purpose, while others suppose that he did not mean to kill him, but,
according to a custom of the East, he tried this means to do him good. It
is, however, certain from what afterwards happened, that he was a very
cruel, hard-hearted wretch, and was quite capable of murdering his master ;
of whose throne he got possession after he had killed him.
Jehu anointed to be King of Israel.— J oram and Ahaziah slain— Jezebel
killed
2 Kings ix.
AT this time, Joram, or Jehoram, the son of Ahab, and brother of
-£-*- Ahaziah, still reigned in Israel ; and Jehoram, the son of Jehosha-
phat, reigned in Judah. He was thirty-two years old when he began to
reign, and reigned eight years in Jerusalem. He married Athaliah, the
daughter of wicked Ahab, and was led into the practice of idolatry.
Edom had been obliged to pay taxes to Judah ever since the time of
David, a space of one hundred and fifty years ; but the people now rebelled,
and elected a king of their own.
Joram, the son of Ahab, had now reigned twelve years, and Ahaziah, the
son of Jehoram of Judah, reigned in Judah. He began to reign at twenty-
two years of age, and reigned only one year ; for " he went with Joram, the
son of Ahab, to the war against Hazael, king of Syria, in Ramoth-gilead ;
and the Syrians wounded Joram : " and Ahaziah went to Jezreel, where he
was lying sick, in order to comfort him.
At this time, Jehu was commander of the forces of Israel, and God
ordered Elisha to send a young prophet to him, and to pour oil on his head,
and inform him that God had chosen him ,to be king over Israel, that he
might cut off all the wicked house of Ahab, which, both in Judah and
Israel, were now equally guilty of idolatry.
Some of the other captains had seen the young prophet come to Jehu,
and wished to know what he wanted. Then Jehu told them ; and though
they were not good men, and did not like the prophet, yet God turned their
hearts towards Jehu, and they spread their garments under him in token of
his dignity, and blew their trumpets, and cried, " Jehu is king."
Jehu then ordered that no soldier should enter Jezreel ; so that the news
2 Kings. 427
might not reach the two kings who were there. Then he took his chariot
and went to Jezreel. As he approached with his company, a watchman on
the tower spied him out, and Joram sent a horseman to ask what the news
was, and whether peace was made. But Jehu told him he had nothing to
do with peace or war, but to go behind him, and follow him. As he did not
return, a second was sent ; and, when he did not return, Joram, accompanied
by Ahaziah, each in his chariot, went out to meet Jehu ; for they now saw,
by his furious driving, who was coming, Jehu being a very rash man.
As soon as Joram saw Jehu he cried out, "Is it peace, Jehu ? " Jehu
then reproached him with his idolatry, and told him " No." Joram's heart
instantly failed him, and he turned round to escape, and said to Ahaziah,
" There is treachery, O Ahaziah ! " At that moment Jehu drew a bow,
and shot the arrow right through Joram's heart, " and he sank down in his
chariot."
Then Jehu tcld his captain, Bidkar, to throw Joram's body into the
ground which had belonged to Naboth, and which was close by ; for, said
he, wmen I and thou rode in attendance upon his father Ahab, the Lord laid
this burden, or passed this sentence, upon him — which he did by Elijah the
prophet — for his cruel robbery and murder of Naboth, to get his vineyard,
and now the sentence is executed: " Surely I have seen yesterday the blood
of Naboth, and the blood of his sons, saith the Lord ; and I will requite
thee in this plat, saith the Lord."
When Ahaziah, the king of Judah, saw that his companion was slain, he
fled, and Jehu ordered his servants to smite him also in his chariot, which
they did, and he fled wounded to a place called Megiddo, and died ; and his
servants took him away, and buried him in Jerusalem.
The wicked queen Jezebel, of whom you before read, was still alive. She
had lived through three reigns, but now God's sentence against her also
must be executed. You remember that she was the wife of Ahab, and that
she had urged him on to do many wicked things ; for " there was none like
unto Ahab, wmich did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the
Lord, whom Jezebel, his wife, stirred up." It was she who set up the
worship of Baal ; it was she who slew the Lord's prophets ; it was she who
planned the murder of Naboth to get his vineyard ; well, therefore, might
Jehu call her " a cursed woman," for the curse of a just God rested upon
her head, who had, by her wickedness, been a curse to Israel.
When Jehu was come to Jezreel, Jezebel painted her face, and dressed
herself up, to awe him by her show and dignity. And then she began to
428
Bible and Commentator,
provoke him, and asked him if Zimri had peace who had murdered his
master. This was just the way to bring God's sentence upon her. Jehu
directly asked the servants who attended her, if they were on his side, and,
if so, to throw her out of the window. In a few moments the proud queen
was hurled headlong from the window, and her brains were dashed against
the wall and the pavement, and her body trampled upon by horses, and
afterwards eaten by dogs ; nothing remaining of her but " the skull, and the
feet, and the palms of her hands." Thus was God's sentence executed
which he spoke by Elijah, as recorded in the twenty-first chapter of the
First Book of Kings, " The dogs shall eat Jezebel, by the wall of Jezreel."
Ahab's Seventy Sons slain.
2 Kings x.
AS God had appointed Jehu to destroy all the house of Ahab that were
- in Israel, he still proceeded with his dreadful work. Ahab had
seventy sons and grandsons, for they are often called by the same name.
Jehu sent to Samaria and
had the seventy sons of Ahab
slain; and their heads were
cut off, and put in baskets,
and sent to him to show they
were really dead.
After this, Jehu destroyed
every portion of Ahab's house
that he found in Israel ; and
all Ahab's priests of Baal.
Ahaziah's house also, being
related to Ahab, and having
fallen into his sin, were like^
wise destroyed.
God approved of all that
Jehu had done, for he had
been the executioner of a vile race of idolaters ; but still he kept the golden
calves which Jeroboam had set up, supposing them a good thing to prevent
the Israelites from going into Judah to worship God in his temple there.
God therefore punished Jehu, and the people of Israel, by allowing their
BURIAL-PLACE OF JEHU.
2 Kings. 429
enemies to encroach upon their borders, and to cut their inhabitants to
pieces, and so "in those days the Lord began to cut Israel short." God,
however, promised to reward Jehu for the good he had done in destroying
idolatry, and that his children, and great-great-grandchildren, called here
the fourth generation, should, for these services rendered to him, sit upon
the throne of Israel. God never forgets to reward those who serve him ;
and if he rewarded Jehu, who, in doing these things, w7as forwarding his
own ambition, how much more will he reward the " works of faith, and
labors of love," performed by those who trust in his mercy, and delight in
his service !
Jehu reigned twenty-eight years ; was buried in Samaria, and succeeded
by his son, Jehoahaz.
Usurpation and Death of Athaliah.
2 Kings xi.
WE now, for a while, leave the affairs of Israel, to see what was done
in Judah, on the death of Ahaziah.
Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, was daughter of the wicked Ahab, and
possessed the same wicked spirit. As soon as she heard that her son was
slain, she cruelly killed Ahaziah's young children, who, of course, were her
grandchildren ; one only escaped. Joash was then a little infant, and was
cast away to die among the slain ; but Jehosheba, the wife of the high
priest, and a sister of Ahaziah, and therefore aunt to the infant, took him
up, and ran away with him secretly, and hid him in one of the priests'
chambers.
For six years the cruel Athaliah reigned, but when the young prince was
seven years old, the priest showed him to the elders of the people ; bound
them by a sacred oath to secrecy ; set guards to the temple, and solemnly
crowned him. The people, tired of the reign of such a base creature, were
delighted at seeing the young Joash, clapped their hands and shouted,
" God save the king ! " Athaliah, hearing the noise, went to see what was
the matter, and when she found Joash made king, she cried out, " Treason,
treason ! " but nobody would help her ; and, if any had dared to do so,
Jehoiada gave orders to have them slain. So they thrust her away from
the temple and slew her. Thus God caused the punishment of a cruel
murderer and usurper. " Verily, there is a God that judgeth in the
earth."
430 Bible and Commentator.
Having restored the rightful family to the throne, the high priest made
the people swear to be faithful to the service of the true God, and then
destroyed the temple and altars of Baal, and slew the wicked priest of Baal,
who had deluded the people, by pretending that an idol was God. So the
people were now peaceable and happy.
The Reign of Joash, King of Judah.
2 Kings xii.
JOASH, or Jehoash, began to reign over Judah in the seventh year of the
reign of Jehu over Israel, Jehu having begun his reign when Joash
was an infant. Though Ahaziah was his father, his mother was not Atha-
liah, so that he was not of the wicked house of Ahab, for " his mother's
name was Zibiah, of Beer-sheba, a city in the tribe of Simeon."
While Jehoiada, the high priest, was his instructor, Joash did what was
right. The people, however, though they worshipped Jehovah, still kept
their high places in imitation of the heathen ; and, as these had now been
long established, they became attached to old customs, and found it more
convenient to worship God there, than in his temple ; but, in so doing,
they were disobeying God's command, and, therefore, could expect no
blessing.
The house of the Lord had now been much neglected, and was out of
repair, and Joash adopted means to save money for it, and had it well
repaired.
Joash, however, afterwards disgraced himself by his cowardly conduct
towards Hazael, king of Syria, of whom we have read ; for Hazael, having
taken Gath, and being upon his march towards Jerusalem, Joash, instead of
boldly opposing him, and trusting to the protection of God, gave him all
the treasures of the temple to induce him to go back. Joash, having de-
clined in his zeal for God's glory, lost the protection of God, and, at last,
his servants conspired against him and slew him, after having reigned forty
years, and his son Amaziah reigned in his stead.
Kings.
431
The Death of the Prophet Elisha.—The Dead Man raised to Life in his
Sepulchre.
2 Kings xhi.
OX the death of Jehoahaz, Jehoash, or Joash, his son, came to the
throne ; and now there were two kings of that name reigning ; for
Joash, king of Judah, was yet living, and in the thirty-seventh year of his
reign. This Joash, king of Israel, reigned sixteen years, and so lived in
the reign of Amaziah, who, we said, at the close of the last chapter, suc-
ceeded his father Joash, as king of Judah.
In the reign of this Joash of Israel, the prophet Elisha died. The king
valued him as a good man and a prophet ; and the king went to see him,
and grieved to think he was about to die ; for now Israel was so weak, he
would have been like chariots
and horsemen to protect it by his
prayers and advice. And the
king "wept over his face, and
said, O my father, my father, the
chariots of Israel, and the horse-
men thereof."
Elisha the prophet, being
taught by God about what would
happen for Israel, now encour-
aged Joash before he died. And
he told him to open the window
eastward, and shoot with an arrow.
Joash did so, and he told him
that was a sign that the Syrians, who ruled to the eastward of Israel, should
be conquered by him. Then he told him to thrust his arrows into the
ground, and Joash did so three times. The prophet was then angry with
him, for he told him this was done by way of a sign, and had he shown
greater earnestness, and thrust his arrows six times into the ground, he
should quite have overcome the Syrians.
Eiisha died, and was buried in a sepulchre, and here is a remarkable
story mentioned of what happened after he was buried :
Some Israelites were carrying a dead body to a grave in the usual burial-
place, when they saw a party of Moabites coming, who were marching about
INTERIOR OF A ROCK SEPULCHRE.
432 Bible and Commentator.
for plunder ; and the Israelites fearing lest they should fall into their hands,
let down the body into the tomb which was nearest to them, instead of pro-
ceeding further. This happened to be the sepulchre of Elisha, and as soon
as the body touched that of the prophet, the dead man came to life, and
stood upon his feet ! It was not, indeed, Elisha's body that made him come
to life, but the power of God, who thus honored the bones of his prophet,
and encouraged Joash to believe that what such a man had told him would
surely come to pass, for he was the servant of God.
Joash found Elisha's words true ; for God had compassion on Israel, and
delivered them from their oppressors, the Syrians ; and Joash beat them
three times, and recovered all the cities of Israel which had been taken
from them.
The Reign of Amaziah, King of Judah.—The Reign of Jeroboam, the
Son of Joash, King of Israel.
2 Kings xiv.
TTTE told you that Amaziah succeeded his father Joash, king of Judahj
» ▼ who was murdered by his servants. He began to reign in Judah,
in the second year of the reign of Joash, king of Israel. He was then
twenty-five years old, and " reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem." This
king kept up the worship of God, but still allowed the people to burn
incense on the high places, which God had forbidden. He did not let the
murderers of his father escape, though they were, probably, great and pow-
erful men in the kingdom. He reconquered the Edomites, who had long
revolted from their subjection to Judah, and slew ten thousand of them in
battle.
Amaziah, however, grew haughty, and, for no cause of offence, sent word
to Joash, king of Israel, that he would fight with his army.
To humble his pride, God allowed him to go to battle, when Joash
defeated him, took him prisoner, marched into Jerusalem by a breach in the
wall, and carried off its treasures, and hostages, or persons of rank, as a
security for better behavior in future.
Thus was Amaziah humbled; and so, some time or other, will all the
proud be abased.
Amaziah lived fifteen years after Joash, king of Israel, had died. Lik^
his father, he then perished from a conspiracy of his subjects. To escape
them, he fled from his chief city, Jerusalem, into Lachish, a fortified city in
2 Kings. 433
the tribe of Judah ; but they followed him there, and slew him : afterwards,
they took his body to Jerusalem, to bury him with the rest of their kings.
The people then declared his son Azariah king, who was then sixteen
years old.
Amaziah had reigned nearly fifteen years when Joash, the king of Israel,
who defeated him, died ; and was succeeded by his son Jeroboam, as before
stated.
Jeroboam reigned in Samaria, the capital of Israel, forty-one years. He
also did evil in the sight of the Lord, like his forefathers ; he was, however,
of some use to Israel ; for notwithstanding their sinfulness, God, who is
rich in mercy, still determined to spare the nation, and he gave Jeroboam
victories over the Syrians, and other nations, their enemies ; and so their
coasts, or borders, were restored, which had been taken away from them.
Jeroboam was succeeded by his son Zachariah.
The Reigns of Azariah, King of Judah ; Menahem, King of Israel; and
of Jotham, King of Judah.
2 Kings xv.
TN the last chapter we learned that Azariah succeeded his father Amaziah
-*- as king of Judah ; and that he became king at sixteen years of age. .
His reign was long, for he governed Judah fifty-two years. Azariah did
some good, like his father, but he displeased God ; and as God then showed
his displeasure by frequently punishing the ungodly even in this life, he
smote this king with a leprosy which he had till the day of his death. As
he was unfit to mix with his court as a king, he was shut up in a lone
house, and his son Jotham managed the affairs of his kingdom. On his
death, Jotham succeeded him.
In Israel there were several kings, during the long reign of Azariah over
Judah.
Zachariah, the son of Jeroboam, reigned over Israel only six months ; he
displeased God by doing evil, and so he gave him up, unprotected, to the
attacks of traitors. This was the last king of the family of Jehu, and
God's word came true by the prophet, that his children should reign to the
fourth generation.
Shallum reigned a month, and was killed by Menahem. Menahem then
became king and reigned ten years.
28
434 Bible and Commentator.
Pekahiah, his son, succeeded him, and Azariah was then still reigning in
Judah. Pekahiah reigned two years over Israel. He also allowed the
people to worship the calves ; and a captain of his, named Pekah, formed a
plot against him, and slew him, and reigned in his stead.
Pekah reigned twenty years, which was a long reign for one who had got
the throne by violence. He also was as bad as the kings of Israel before
him. During his reign, as the people still continued to displease God, and
their wicked kings did not reprove them, God gave them up to be punished
by their foreign enemies ; and Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, conquered
ever so much of the land, and carried away half of the ten tribes of Israel
into captivity, or made prisoners of them. This king, though he reigned
long, was slain at last in a conspiracy, as he had slain his predecessor ; and
Hoshea, who slew him, reigned in his stead.
Azariah, the leprous king of Judah, who reigned so long, was now dead,
and Jotham, his son, who had managed his affairs during his confinement,
was seated on the throne as his father's lawful successor. He began his
reign in Judah when Pekah had been reigning nearly two years in Israel.
He came to the crown when he was twenty-five, and " he reigned sixteen
years in Jerusalem." He did many things that were good ; but still suffered
the high places to remain, where incense was burned, which God abhorred.
You may observe that his father Azariah is here called Uzziah, which was
another name by which he was sometimes called. There was more good in
Jotham than in the other kings, and he took an interest in God's worship,
and " built the higher gate of the house of the Lord."
The Reign of Ahaz, King of Judah.
2 Kings xvi.
TTTHEN Jotham died, his son and successor Ahaz began his reign in
V V Judah, while Pekah still reigned in Israel.
Ahaz was a dreadful idolater. He began to reign when he was twenty
years old, and " reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem ; " so that he must have
done much harm to his people during that time, by setting them so wicked
an example. He even " made his son to pass through the fire," a cruel
ceremony performed in honor of Moloch, an idol-god of the Ammonites,
and as a proof that he devoted his son to his false religion. A writer, who
wrote some hundreds of years ago, says that he had seen in his time, in some
2 Kings.
435
cities, piles kindled once a year, over which not only boys but men would
leap, and infants were carried by their mothers through the flames ; which
seemed to be done to obtain pardon for sin, and to purify the soul; and he
thinks that this was like the custom here practised by the wicked Ahaz.
To punish this wicked king, God sent, or allowed, Rezin, the king of
Syria, and Pekah, the king of Israel, to make war with him. They even
got to Jerusalem, and besieged Ahaz in his capital. They did not, however,
succeed in taking it, and dethroning him ; but Rezin took Elath, a sea-port
on the Red Sea, that formerly belonged to
Edom, but was now in the possession of Judah.
To get completely rid of these attacks, Ahaz
sent to Tiglath-pileser, the king of Assyria, who
was the enemy of Israel, and had carried off
half the people as prisoners, and he offered
to become his servant, or to be subject to him
by paying him rich presents, if he would but
take his part. So he now agreed to give him
the silver and gold of the Lord's house, and of
his own royal house, if he would protect him.
Tiglath-pileser was very well pleased at the
terms, and marched against Damascus, the
capital of Syria, and took the people away into
slavery and killed Rezin, who had probably
hastened back to save his own city, instead of
taking that of Ahaz.
"Evil communications corrupt good man-
ners." By connecting himself with the king
of Assyria, Ahaz plunged more into idolatry.
He paid that king a visit at Damascus, and
there he saw a heathen altar that he liked, and ordered one to be made like
it directly, and to be set up in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem. And he
displaced God's altar, and offered sacrifices upon the heathen altar ; and he
almost broke in pieces the beautiful brazen sea, which was supported by
brass oxen, and took away the oxen, and laid the great laver on the floor ;
and he removed the splendid covering from the king's house to the temple,
which belonged to the temple; and it seems to have been given to the king
of Assyria for his use.
Ahaz was cut off by death in the midst of his days, in the thirty-sixth
year of his age, and his son Hezekiah reigned in his stead.
THE AMMONITISH MOLOCH.
Bible and Commentator
Hoshea, the last King of Israel— The Tribes of Israel carried away
into Captivity.
2 Kings xvii.
PEKAH, king of Israel, was slain by Hoshea, during the reign of Ahaz
in Judah.
This Hoshea reigned nine years over Israel. He was not so bad as other
kings of Israel, but he was not a pious king, and anything short of true
piety is displeasing to God. Israel had now run great lengths in wicked-
ness, and if he did not urge them on as others had done before him, he did
not restrain them from sin, and so God now punished the nation severely
for their sins. He is long-suffering, but when sinners do not repent, his
wrath at length falls upon them, and then he is a " consuming fire."
Shalmanezer was now king
of Assyria, "and Hoshea be-
came his servant and gave him
presents," just as the king of
Judah had done. He, how-
ever, tried to shake off the yoke
of Shalmanezer, and corre-
sponded with the king of
Egypt to invite him to be his
friend, and neglected to pay to
Assyria what he agreed to pay.
Shalmanezer soon found out
what he was doing, and fell
upon him, took him away and
put him in fetters, and thrust him into prison.
The king of Assyria then besieged Samaria, the capital city of Israel,
which held out three years against him ; and, having taken it, he carried
the Israelites away into captivity, and scattered them in various parts of
his dominions. So, even all the people of rank were made slaves and beggars,
and this evil came upon them for trusting in false gods, living in the prac-
tice of sin, and neglecting the Lord God of Israel.
If you read from the seventh to the twenty-third verse of this chapter,
you will see an account of the offences of these people against God, and
how they hardened their hearts against his commandments and followed the
CARRIED AWAY INTO CAPTIVITY.
2 Kings. 437
ways of the wicked heathen. And so " the Lord rejected all the seed of
Israel, and afflicted them and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until
he had cast them out of his sight/''
Thus were the ten tribes of Israel scattered and lost on account of their
sins, and they have never been recovered to this day; and thus their
land became a habitation for idolaters.
The good Hezekiah, King of Judah.
2 Kings xviii., xix.
AT the time that Israel were carried away into captivity by the
^OX. Assyrians, Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, was king of Judah. He
ascended the throne in the third year of the reign of Hoshea over Israel,
at the age of twenty-five, and reigned in Jerusalem, over Judah, twenty-
nine years.
God was pleased with this king, for " he did that which was right in the
sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father did." "He
removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves,"
all of which were devoted to idolatry ; and, among the rest, he " brake in
pieces," or ground to powder, " the brazen serpent that Moses had made ;
for, unto those days, the children of Israel did burn incense to it ; " and he
called it " Nehushtan ; " — which means, brass, a mere piece of brass, which
it is the greatest folly to worship. "And the Lord was with him, and he
prospered whithersoever he went forth," — " he rebelled " and threw off the
yoke of Assyria, which his father had submitted to, when he said to
Tiglath-pileser " I am thy servant ; " and " he smote the Philistines,"
who in his father's time had marched into Judah and taken many places
in it.
However, in order to try Hezekiah's trust in God, and to punish his
wicked subjects, God suffered the king of Assyria, who had destroyed
Israel, to march a large force against him, and he took his " fenced cities,"
or what we call the frontier towns or garrisons, on the borders of the
country.
Hezekiah was frightened ; and he sent to tell the king of Assyria that he
was sorry for having given him offence, and entreated him to go back, and
he would give him anything, for so doing, that he might desire. So he
demanded a sum of money worth about two million dollars. This
438 Bible and Comhentatoe.
obliged Hezekiah to empty the public treasures, and to take all the
gold and silver of the temple, even to the ornaments of the posts and
the doors. Hezekiah was not right in paying all this money, for there
was a prophet then in Judah, and had he gone to him he would have
learnt that God could deliver him without this sacrifice. But. as I have
told you, he was frightened ; and, although he was a good king, he did
what was wrong.
Notwithstanding that Hezekiah had paid the king of Assyria to go back,
yet, when he had got the money, he probably thought to himself, " Xow
Hezekiah's kingdom is surely mine. He has no money to pay an army,
and, if he was so weak before as to be frightened, he must be more so
now I have got his treasures.'' So this base cheating king, instead of
withdrawing his army, as he had agreed to do, sent three generals, with a
large host, against Jerusalem, and kept the money, too, which was paid him
to go back.
Hezekiah now found it was in vain to treat with such a tyrant, and he
did what he ought to have done before — he rent his clothes, and put on
sackcloth as a sign of humiliation, and he went to pray in the house of the
Lord. He also sent messengers to Isaiah, the prophet, who then lived in
Judah, and entreated him to pray that God would direct and protect him,
for he knew not what to do.
God spoke to the prophet's mind, and he told Hezekiah not to fear ; for
the wicked king, who had despised the name of God, should be suddenly
and totally subdued by his almighty power.
As Hezekiah did not send any message to the king of Assyria, he received
another insolent message from him. And he told him, " Let not thy God,
in whom thou trustest, deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be delivered
into the hand of the king of Assyria. Behold, thou hast heard what the
kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly; and
shalt thou be delivered ? "
When Hezekiah received his letter, he went and spread its contents
before the Lord. God knew what it contained, but this was a sign that he
wished to have God's direction.
God heard Hezekiah's prayer, and the very night after the blasphemous
message had been sent from the king of Assyria u the angel of the Lord
went out, and smote, in the camp of the Assyrians, a hundred four-score
and five thousand," or a hundred and eighty-five thousand ; " and when
they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpse- ! "
ASSYRIAN CROWNS.
2 Kings. 439
Hezekiah would have been afraid to fight such an army, but God fought for
him. " The angel of the Lord " is said to have done this, and God perhaps
employed a glorious spirit in this work, but anything that does his purpose
is his angel or messenger. The Scripture does not say what kind of a death
this army suffered ; some think that they died by a plague, for there are
plagues that carry people off in much less time than an hour : a dreadful
pest lately destroyed many inhabitants of Europe, and God could then have
sent it into a whole army.
However, while we may be innocently curious to find out in what way
Sennacherib the king of
Assyria was vanquished,
the word of God came
to pass, and he escaped
among the few that re-
mained alive, and re-
turned whence he came.
This ought to have con-
vinced him that the God
of Israel was the true God, but he returned to his wicked idolatry, and,
" while he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch, his god," two of his
sons " smote him with the sword," and " Esar-haddon, his son, reigned in
his stead." The Jews say that the reason why his two sons slew him was
because he was going to sacrifice them to his god ; he was, indeed, idolater
enough, and tyrant enough, to do so, but of this we have no account in the
Scriptures.
Thus, in Sennacherib you see how God can cast down the proud ; and in
Hezekiah, how he can raise up the humble.
Hezekiah 's severe Sickness and wonderful Recovery.
2 Kings xx.
GOOD king Hezekiah was taken very ill, and had a bad boil, and the
prophet Isaiah went to him and told him to prepare to die. He was
then but a young man and was aiming to improve the condition of his
country, and no doubt felt much pained to leave it before he could do more
in the service of God. When, therefore, he heard he was to die, he wept,
and he earnestly begged of God to lengthen his life. God immediately
440 Bible and Commentator.
heard his earnest prayer, and the prophet went back to tell him that God
would add fifteen more years to his life. He was the only man who ever
knew exactly how long he should live ; and, most likely, he improved the
remainder of his days by still more diligently serving God ; though, in one
instance, he gave way to pride, and did not render to God, who had made
him what he was, all the honor and glory which was due to his name. This
instance I shall soon mention. Isaiah now told the king that although God
would spare his life, he must use means to cure his disorder : so the prophet
told him to take a lump of figs and to apply it to his boil, and by this
remedy he would cure it.
At this time, the king of Babylon, a heathen, wished to make a friend
of Hezekiah, and sent messengers to him with letters of friendship and a
present. Hezekiah received them very kindly, but foolishly and vainly
displayed all his treasures, and showed them how rich he was, that they
might report it to their master.
Then Isaiah visited the king, and told him, that all his treasures should,
by-and-b'y, go to the king of Babylon; and his children, of another
generation, should be made slaves in his palace. This was to humble
Hezekiah's pride, and if his children had been humbled too, the king of
Babylon would not have overcome them ; but they were as proud as their
father of their treasures, without his pious disposition to humble them as he
was humbled, and so the king of Babylon, knowing how rich they were,
went to war with them, and conquered them, as you will hereafter learn.
Manasseh's exceedingly wicked Reign in Judah.—Amon's wicked Reign.
2 Kings xxi.
ON the death of Hezekiah, Manasseh, his son, then twelve years old,
succeeded him. It is supposed that a part of Hezekiah's distress in
that sickness recorded in the twentieth chapter was due to the fact that he had
then no heir. He probably married Hephzibah, the mother of Manasseh,
soon after his recovery from this sickness, and Manasseh was born three years
later ; the prophet Isaiah, the lifelong friend of Hezekiah, in his joy at this
auspicious marriage and the birth of an heir to the throne, wrote that beau-
tiful prophecy of the future glory of Zion (Isaiah, chap. Ixii.), in which,
in the fourth verse, he brings in the name of the queen, in its full signifi-
cance— " but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah ; for the
Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married." But the good
2 Kings. 441
prophet's hopes of Manasseh were doomed to disappointment; for he was
more wicked than any other king of Judah, and was a monster of iniquity.
The people were as wicked as their king, and therefore God threatened
to punish Jerusalem, as he did the city of Samaria, and the house of Ahab.
Judah should be led into captivity, like Israel, for now their crimes had
become exceedingly great; they had "shed innocent blood very much; n it is
supposed that most of the good men who had opposed the idolatry were put
to death by this wicked king, and that among others the venerable prophet
Isaiah, who must have been ninety years old at this time, was sawn asunder.
After a reign of fifty-five years Manasseh died. In this book we hear no
more about him ; but in the Second Book of Chronicles, we learn that, late
in life, he repented and prayed to God for pardon, and his prayer was heard.
Manasseh was buried in the garden of his house, and not in the sepul-
chres of the kings, and his son Amon succeeded him.
Amon began to reign when he was twenty-two years old, and he reigned
only two years. The king was wicked like his father, but he did not repent
like him. He was killed by a conspiracy of his servants.
Josiah, the most excellent King of Judah.
2 Kings xxii., xxiit.
JOSIAH was the next king ; he was Amon's son.
This prince came to the crown at eight years of age, and he reigned
thirty-one years.
He turned out to be a most pious youth. He loved and served God very
early, and he did so all the days of his life.
This good young king repaired the house of the Lord, which had been
suffered to go to decay. And Hilkiah, the high priest, having found the
book of the law, which had long been neglected, the king had it read to
him, and was much grieved to find how the people had broken it, and to
what dreadful punishments they were exposed for their wickedness. Then
he sent to be instructed about God's will, from a holy prophetess whose
name was Huldah, and she foretold what evil was about to come upon
Jerusalem for its sins : but because Josiah's heart was tender, and he had
humbled himself before God, he should die in peace, and should never see
the evil that was threatened.
Then the king, knowing the threatenings of God, tried to bring the
442 Bible a^d Commentatoe.
people over to repentance for their sins. And he gathered together the
elders, and the priests, and the prophets, and a very large number of the
people, and went up to the house of the Lord. Before this assembly, he
stood like a minister and servant of God, and read the book of the law.
Here the king and the people made a covenant or agreement to serve God,
and they knew that his word promised that he would be their God to love
them, and to do them good, if they would be his faithful people.
Then the king began to show how much he was in earnest, and took away
all the temptations to idolatry. Every vessel that had been used for the
serving of false gods was taken out of Jerusalem, that the city might no
longer be denied, and was burned, and the ashes were carried to Bethel,
where one of Jeroboam's calves was placed ; that place being now in the
hands of the king of Judah.
And he put down the idolatrous priests, and he burned a carved imitation
of a grove, used in the idol worship, and strewed the ashes in indignation
on the graves of those who had died idolaters. In fact, every altar, and
every high place, and every image, and every grove, which ^ad been suffered
to remain in Judah for ages, and which former kings had built in their
folly and wickedness, Josiah totally destroyed.
You may remember reading, in the thirteenth chapter of First Kings,
that when king Jeroboam was wickedly burning incense upon an idol-altar,
a prophet from Judah " cried against the altar in the word of the Lord, and
said, O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord, Behold, a child shall be born unto
the house of David, Josiah by name ; and upon thee shall he offer the
priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall
be burnt upon thee." And now the word of God came to pass ; for Josiah
took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned them upon this altar, and
polluted it, u according to the word of the Lord, which the man of God
proclaimed, who proclaimed these words."
Josiah next " slew all the priests of the high places that were there upon
the altars, and burned men's bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem,"
having destroyed " all the houses also of the high places that were in the
cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the Lord
to anger." After the ten tribes were carried away, many of the poor who re-
mained in the land came under allegiance to Judah, and thus the kings of Judah
regained part of their ancient territory ; so that this was Josiah's kingdom.
Josiah, on his return, ordered the solemn ordinance of the passover to be
devoutly kept. This had been appointed in remembrance of God's sparing
2 Kings.
443
Israel, and passing over their dwellings, when the destroying angel killed
all the first-born in the land of Egypt. But the kings of Israel had
despised and neglected this among God's ordinances, and in Judah it had
too often met with the same treatment. Now, however, it was observed
with a reverence with which it had not been treated before since the days
of Samuel, the last of the judges of Israel.
Yet, in secret, the foolish people loved their foolish idols ; and God, who
knew their hearts, determined to punish them, and to reject them, as they
had rejected him.
This punishment was to be as signal and dreadful as their crimes ; and
now God took good Josiah away from the evil to come. Pharaoh-nechoh,
the king of Egypt, was going to war with the king of Assyria, and he began
to march through the terri-
tories of Judah. This Josiah
would not allow, as he was at
peace with Assyria; and he
went to prevent the Egyptian
army from going that way.
At the very first onset good
Josiah was slain. He seems
to have forgotten himself in
this instance, and not to have
consulted God's prophets, whe-
ther or not it was right and
safe to go. However, God
overruled this error, to take
the good king to himself; and his servants took him in his chariot to Jeru-
salem, " and buried him in his own sepulchre."
The people then took Jehoahaz, Josiah's son, and made him king ; but
his reign lasted a very short time — only three months. It is probable that
he marched against Pharaoh to avenge his father's death, and so was made
prisoner by Pharaoh, who also made Judah pay a tribute, amounting, as is
thought, to about two hundred and ten thousand dollars.
Jehoahaz was not Josiah's eldest son, so Pharaoh at once deposed him,
that he might fight no more against him, and he set his brother Eliakim,
who was two years older, upon the throne of Judah ; and he gave him a
new name, and called him Jehoiakim, which would make him remember
that he owed his throne to Pharaoh, who changed his name, as was his
JEHOAHAZ LED CAPTIVE BY PHAEAOH.
444 Bible and Commentator.
custom to do, when he gave any person great honor. You recollect that
a former Pharaoh, in this way, gave a new name to Joseph.
Jehoahaz died a prisoner in Egypt.
" Jehoiakim was twenty and five years old when he began to reign ; and
he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem." He was a wicked king.
Jehoiakim's Reign, and his Son Jehoiachin's short Reign in Judah.—
Zedekiah's Reign.
2 Kings xxrv.
NEBUCHADNEZZAK, the king of Babylon, made war against
Jehoiakim, and for three years he was his servant, or became tribu-
tary to the king of Babylon, paying him money to let him be at peace. At
the end of that time, perhaps, encouraged by the king of Egypt, who had
just put him on the throne, Jehoiakim refused to pay any more tribute ;
" and the Lord sent against him bands of the Chaldees, and bands of the
Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon,
and sent them against Judah to destroy it ; according to the word of the
Lord, which he spake by his servants the prophets." Nebuchadnezzar, in
revenge, sent these bands, or bodies of nations, who were subject to him ;
but it is said to be the Lord who did it, for he suffered it to be done to
punish Judah, as he had threatened. " Surely at the commandment of the
Lord came this upon Judah, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of
Manasseh, according to all that he did ; and also for the innocent blood
that he shed (for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood), which the Lord
would not pardon." Manasseh repented, and was pardoned ; but his wicked
people, who did these cruel deeds for him, and did not repent like him, were
not pardoned : and now, therefore, God punished them.
We read, in the thirty-sixth chapter of 2 Chronicles, that Jehoiakim was
taken prisoner by Nebuchadnezzar, and bound in fetters to be carried to
Babylon.
In the midst of these troubles his son Jehoiachin came to the crown, in
the eighth year of his age, "and he reigned in Jerusalem three months.
He also did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all
that his father had done."
Nebuchadnezzar's servants, or officers and soldiers, now closely besieged
Jerusalem, and Jehoiachin being unable to resist them, went out of the city
2 Kings. 445
and surrendered himself prisoner, with " his mother, and his servants, and
his princes, and his officers." The king of Babylon then took away all the
king's treasures, and all the treasures of the temple, and all the golden
vessels which Solomon had made. So Jerusalem was stripped of its wealth,
and its chief inhabitants, and its soldiers, and "its craftsmen," or clever
workmen, " and smiths," that they might make no more warlike instru-
ments for those that were remaining ; " none remained, save the poorest sort
of the people of the land ; " and ten thousand of its great, and rich, and
brave men, with all the king's family, were carried away to Babylon.
The king of Babylon now set up a poor feeble king, without wealth, and
without weapons of war, just to keep the poor people in order, who remained
in Judah, and were of use to till the land. It is said that he " made Mat-
taniah, his father's brother, king in his stead ; " that is, he made Mattaniah,
brother to Jehoiakim, who was Jehoiachin's father, king instead. And the
king of Babylon changed Mattaniah's name to Zedekiah — a custom which,
I before told you, was often practised in such cases, and which reminded
the king that he only held his crown at the pleasure of the king of Babylon.
Jehoiachin's uncle Zedekiah, as he was now called, was twenty and one
years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem.
He was as wicked as his bad forefathers, and so God gave him up to ruin.
He rebelled against the king of Babylon, hoping to get free from his
power ; but it was in vain. Judah had now come to the day of reckoning ;
and Jerusalem, which once had been the favorite place of God, but which
had, for numerous years, been so depraved, was speedily to be laid in ruins.
The Destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar.
2 Kings xxv.
IN the ninth year of Zedekiah's reign, Nebuchadnezzar marched a largQ
army against the city, built forts, and battered its walls. After two
years' siege the city was taken by storm. It was " broken up ; " that is, the
besiegers made a breach in the wall, by which they entered. Zedekiah and
his soldiers, being unable to resist, escaped out of the city at night, by a
private way ; but they were pursued, and overtaken in the plain of Jericho,
where Zedekiah was made prisoner : he was then tried for his rebellion, and
sentenced as guilty. His sons were executed before his eyes ; and, accord-
ing to a cruel punishment still practised in the East, by way of punishment
446
Bible and Commentator
for rebellion, his eyes were put out, and he was taken prisoner to Babylon.
The king of Babylon afterwards sent Nebuzar-adan, his chief captain, to
destroy what remained of Jerusalem, and every house was burned down.
The wall of the city was also broken entirely down by the army of the
Chaldees. Among other noble buildings, Solomon's fine temple was now
DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM.
completely destroyed, after its being ransacked, and everything valuable
taken out of it, its gold and silver, and brass vessels, and ornaments.
Thus perished the beautiful temple, which had stood four hundred and
fifteen years ; and it is supposed that, among other things that perished in
it, was the ark, with what it contained ; for this ark was the sign of God's
presence when he was worshipped there in sincerity ; but now that presence
was gone, and all was desolation.
Judah was carried aivay out of their land, about a thousand and twenty-
four years after they were put in possession of it by Joshua.
We are told in conclusion, that Jehoiachin, who was made prisoner before
Zedekiah, remained in prison thirty-seven years. At the end of that time
Evil-merodach succeeded his father Nebuchadnezzar, and " he did lift up
the " drooping " head of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, out of prison ; and he
2 Kings
447
spake kindly to him, and set his throne above the thrones of the kings that
were with him," as prisoners, " in Babylon ; and he changed his prison
garments, and he did eat bread continually before him all the days of his
life," being allowed to have a table in his presence in his own palace.
CHAEACTEES OF THE KINGS OF JUDAH.
David The devout.
Solomon The wise.
Rehoboam The simple.
Abijah The valiant.
Asa The upright.
Jehoshaphat The religious.
Jehoram The wicked.
Ahaziah The profane.
Joash The backslider.
Amaziah The rash.
Uzziah. ..' The mighty.
Jotham The peaceable.
Ahaz The idolater.
Hezekiah The reformer.
Manasseh Tile hut penitent.
Amon The evil-disposed.
Josiah The teuder-hearted.
Jehoahaz "|
Jehoiakim [ The last of the
Jehoiachin J wicked.
Zedekiah J
In this list we have given us the distinguishing features of the lives of
kings, some of whom are recognized as the greatest known either to sacred
or profane history. These men have had wonderful power and vast influ-
ence over the minds and hearts of the people who were committed to them
as subjects; and such power and influence has always been exercised in
accordance with the characters given them. They have thus written their
lives not only plainly upon the vast number of minds of the generation to
which they belonged, and with which they have passed away, but upon a
history that doubtless shall make its impress upon all the future ages of the
earth. Those whose lives have been acceptable and good will always com-
mand the admiration, attention and esteem of men ; those whose characters
have been idolatrous and wicked will always arouse thoughts and feelings
of great dislike, if not execration and loathing. Thus, even urging no
argument in regard to the higher and infinitely more important life, the
evidence is plain that good character is above price, even in its uses in, and
effects upon, this life.
ANCIENT JUDEAN RUINS.
First Book of Chronicles:
On " Registers of the Times," or " Genealogies of the Twelve Tribes," was compiled by the prophet Ezra, from the
records of the Hebrew nation, which had been kept by what we may here call the king's historiographers. This
and the second book of Chronicles were regarded by the Jews as one, and called " words of days," or "of diaries "
or "journals." Together they afford us a sort of abstract of sacred narrative from the creation, through a period
of between three and four thousand years. The object of their writing and preservation clearly seems to be the
setting forth of important facts not given in other inspired books. There is much in them that is new and impor-
tant, and they contribute not a little toward making more intelligible certain parts of the New Testament. Our
Saviour and the Apostles have referred to them variously in Matthew, Luke, and 1 Peter.
E left the Jews in a state of captivity in
Babylon; we shall, by-and-by, read of their
deliverance. But before we come to that we
have to glance over the Books of Chronicles,
which were written after the Jews returned
from captivity, in order to preserve the proper
record of their families, and to give a particu-
lar account of the kings of Judah. This was
very important — as from Judah it was expected,
according to prophecy, that the Messiah, or
;- Christ, should spring. These books give some
particulars, in the life of David, which are not
mentioned so precisely in the Kings. They
also furnish us with a fuller description of the
temple than we had before, and a more lengthened account of Solomon.
Some new particulars respecting the kings of Israel are likewise added.
The last two chapters, in particular, speak of the beginning of the release
of the Jews by Cyrus, as we shall soon have occasion to read.
The first nine chapters are all genealogies, or accounts of families in the
order in which one generation lived after another for many ages. We have
here all the families that sprung from Adam, from Noah, from Abraham,
from Judah, from David, and from all the tribes of Israel.
The remaining chapters of this book amount to twenty. They are chiefly
448
1 Chronicles.
449
repetitions of what we have before read in the books of Samuel and Kings.
The tenth chapter gives an account of the fatal battle of Saul with the
Philistines. The eleventh treats of David's being anointed king, and of
his mighty men. The twelfth contains a list of those who joined David
before the death of Saul, when Saul persecuted him from place to place.
The thirteenth informs us of David's taking the ark from Kirjath-jearim,
when Uzzah was struck dead for meddling with it ; and David left it at
the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. The fourteenth chiefly records David's
victories over the Philistines. The fifteenth describes the bringing of the
ark from the house of Obed-edom to the city of David. The sixteenth
contains the account of David's appointing proper ministers to worship
before the ark ; and a thanksgiving psalm composed by him for the occa-
sion. The seventeenth informs us of David's intention to build a house for
God, which he told to Nathan the
prophet, but respecting which God
told him, by Nathan, that his son
should build it. The eighteenth
repeats the tale of David's victories
over his enemies, as recorded in the
Second Book of Samuel. The nine-
teenth mentions again the insult
offered to David's messengers by
Hanun, the son of Nahash, king of
the Ammonites, to whom he sent to
condole with him on the death of
DAVID'S MF.SSKNGF.B8.
his father ; and the subsequent victory gained by Joab over the Ammonites,,
and over the Syrians whom they had hired to fight with them. The twen-
tieth describes some giants who were slain in David's victories. The twenty-
first shows us the sin of David in numbering the people of Israel ; his
repentance ; his choice of three evils as a punishment — when he chose pesti-
lence, and lost seventy thousand men ; the stopping of the pestilence by the
threshing-floor of Oman the Jebusite, and the erection of an altar there for
thanksgiving to God. In the twenty-second, David charges his son to build
a house for God. The twenty-third gives sketches of the Levites, their
descent, and offices in the temple. The twenty-fourth arranges the order
of the priests. The twenty-fifth, the number of the singers. The twenty-
sixth is " concerning the divisions of the porters " of the temple, whose
business it was to open and shut its doors, to keep all impure and improper
^50
Bible and Commentator,
persons from entering into it, or any of the vessels being carried out of it,
and to prevent tumults and riots about it. The twenty-seventh mentions
the twelve legions of soldiers, with their captains, which served David in
rotation every month. The twenty-eighth gives us the exhortation of David
to the principal men of Israel, and to his son Solomon, respecting the
building of the temple. The twenty-ninth continues the same subject, and
then narrates the character of the offerings willingly made by the people ;
describes also the very beautiful mode of thanksgiving and praise resorted
to by the king, together with the solemn worship of God by the people j
refers to the abundant sacrifices and offerings unto the Lord, and the general
gladness of the people ; and, finally, recites the fact of the succession of
Solomon to the throne," and the death of David. The latter is always an
interesting event to the young student and reader of sacred history. And
it may be well for us to make a passing reference therefore to a fact or two
given us at the close of the chapter referred to. David reigned altogether,
we are told, forty years ; seven of these in Hebron, and thirty-three in
Jerusalem. "And he died in a good old age, full of days, riches and
honor."
In the Chronicles, you will find some few little incidents and circum-
stances pointed out with which you were not made acquainted in the former
books, but which you can perfectly understand without further explanation.
In the books which are more particularly the records of Jewish history,
there are very many plain incidents which commend themselves to the under-
standing of every reader — even the most youthful — and in regard to which,
explanation, or even comment, seems unnecessary. It is such alone that we
feel called upon to pass by, unless previously referred to.
BURIAL OF JUDAH'S GREAT KINO.
Second Book of Chronicles:
Or " Kegister of the Times " or " Genealogies of the Twelve Tribes." This was written, as the preceding, or " first "
book, by the prophet Ezra, and, like the former, presents circumstances and events of the most useful and interest-
ing nature, especially the genealogical tables which prove our Saviour to have come directly, in descent, from the
stock of Abraham. For further facts see remarks under heading of the First Book, and read carefully the article
below.
IIS book is a continuation of the former, and there-
fore it bears the same title; but the Second
Chronicles is, mainly, a History of the Kings of.
Judah, from whose line the Messiah sprung. It
says but little of the kings of Israel.
The first chapter relates that Solomon, being
confirmed in his kingdom, went to Gibeon to
sacrifice. The second, third, and fourth relate to
the building of the temple. The fifth states the
carrying of the ark into his temple. The sixth
contains Solomon's beautiful prayer at its dedica-
tion. The seventh has an account of God's accept-
ance of the sacrifices offered at the dedication of
the temple. The eighth mentions the cities which
Solomon built. The ninth informs us of the Queen of Sheba's visit to
Solomon, and his great splendor. The tenth records the revolt of the ten
tribes. The eleventh tells us of Rehoboam's preparing an army of the
tribes of Judah and Benjamin, to fight the other tribes of Israel, but being
forbidden by the prophet Shemaiah, they returned every man to his own
house. The twelfth records the sad fact of the idolatry of Rehoboam and
all Israel with him. The thirteenth chapter tells us of war between Abijah,
king of Judah, the son of Rehoboam, and Jeroboam, the king of Israel.
The fourteenth chapter relates the death of Abijah, and the ruccession of
Asa, in his stead. The fifteenth chapter is a narrative of Asa's commend-
able zeal in destroying the idolatry of his people. The sixteenth records
451
452
Bible and Commentator
the death of Asa. The seventeenth chapter records the accession of
Jehoshaphat. The eighteenth mentions Jehoshaphat' s alliance with the
wicked Ahab, king of Israel, by marrying his son Joram to Athaliah. The
nineteenth tells us about the good conduct of Jehoshaphat in managing his
kingdom. The twentieth chapter states how the Moabites and Ammonites
came against Jehoshaphat. The twenty-first chapter begins with the reign
of Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat. The twenty -second chapter commences
with the reign of Ahaziah. The twenty-third chapter mentions the making
of young Joash king, who was saved from the hands of Athaliah ; and the
punishment of that wicked woman by being slain. The twenty-fourth
chapter records the good reign of Joash during the life-time of Jehoiada.
The twenty-fifth chapter begins with the reign of Amaziah, the son of
Joash ; records his punishment of the murderers of his father, and his
death. The twenty-sixth chapter is a brief history of the reign of Uzziah.
He is sometimes called Azariah, and has been mentioned in the list of the
kings' of Judah, as having been smitten with leprosy. The twenty-seventh
and twenty-eighth chapters treat of the reigns of Jotham and Ahaz.
From the twenty-ninth to the thirty-second chapters inclusive, we have
an account of the reign of the good king Hezekiah. The thirty-third is an
account of that of his son Manasseh ; and in the thirty-fourth and thirty-
fifth chapters are contained the acts of the reign of the pious king Josiah.
The thirty-sixth chapter records the short reigns of Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim,
Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah, the last Jewish king, when Jerusalem was
entirely destroyed, and the king and people carried off as captives into
Babylon.
YOUNG JOASH AT BEST IN THE TEMPLE
EZRA:
Or "the History of the Restoration of the Jews" from their captivity in Babylon; so called after the priest 01
prophet that wrote it. It contains ten chapters, and was called one b >ok with Neliemiah by the ancient Jews, who
med the term " First and Second Book of Ezra," of the two which Roman Catholic writers still call the " First and
Second Books of Esdras." The inspired nature of this book is very clearly proven. Its contents and value are
fully given in the subject-matter annexed.
The Proclamation of Cyrus for restoring the Temple.
Ezra i., ii.
|OW let us return to the Jews. Long had they
wept by the rivers of Babylon, and their musi-
cians, who used to play their sweet harps in
Israel to the praise of God, had hung them upon
the willows growing in abundance upon the banks
of the rivers, expecting never to be called to use
them again. But, after seventy years of cap-
tivity, light broke out on their night of darkness,
and they saw the dawn of another day of hope
and joy ; for their long captivity was more dismal
to them than a dark night is to us, and their pros-
pect of deliverance more cheering than even to
us are the first beams of the morning sun, peeping
into the windows of our chamber.
Before we notice the contents of this book, it may be proper to tell you
who Ezra was. He was a priest very skilful in the law, the son of Seraiah,
the high priest, who was slain by Nebuchadnezzar. He was also a ready
scribe in the law of Moses, and a careful student and collector of the sacred
books. He has been called a second Moses, having been instrumental, like
him, in leading Israel out of captivity ; in preserving the holy law, as
Moses gave it ; and having lived, as it is said, the same number of years,
that is, one hundred and twentv.
453
454
Bible and Commentator.
The first chapter begins with the proclamation of Cyrus, the king of
Persia, who having conquered Babylon, as Babylon had conquered the Jews,
found the Jews captives there, was moved by God to set them all at liberty,
and gave them every encouragement to return to their own country. In his
proclamation, Cyrus says to the Jews, " The Lord God of heaven hath
charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Juclah. Who is
there among you of all his people ? — his God be with him, and let him go
up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God
of Israel (he is the God), which is in Jerusalem."
Most eagerly did " the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin, and
the priests ard the Levites, accept of this release, for God had raised up
their spirits to go up to build
the house of the Lord."
Cyrus also commanded
that those who were rich
should help those who were
poor, and give them silver,
gold, goods, and cattle, to
enable them to return and
live in their own country.
So " all that were about
them," the Chaldeans as well
as the rich Jews, helped for-
ward the return to the deso-
late land.
Besides the money, goods, and cattle, thus given to these people, God also
inclined the heart of Cyrus to give up all the rich plunder of the temple,
which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away. This consisted of golden and
silver chargers or dishes, knives, basins, and other vessels of gold and silver,
amounting in all to five thousand four hundred.
The second chapter tells us how many " went up out of the captivity,"
and begins thus : — " Now these are the children of the province that went
up out of the captivity." The Jews are here called " children of the prov-
ince," because Judah was no longer a flourishing kingdom, but a province
or conquered country, governed by the deputies of the conquerors. Some
of these are called after their fathers, as the "children of Asaph;" and
some after the places from which they were carried away captive, as " the
children of Bethlehem." The whole number that returned to their own
BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON.
EZEA.
455
country is here stated at forty-two thousand three hundred and sixty, besides
seven thousand servants, and two hundred singing men. But then these
were not the whole of the Jews. Many of the lower orders were left in the
country to till the ground ; but all that were ingenious, as artificers, or rich,
or had any influence in the country, were taken away. Moreover, many
now fixed in Babylon, and who had no love for their own country, and no
religion to make them desirous of serving God in his temple, remained be-
hind. Among those named as going out of captivity, you will read of the
Nethinims ; these were they who waited upon the Levites in the temple.
In the sixty-third verse you also read, that " the Tirshatha " would not let
the children of the priests that could not prove their genealogies, eat of the
most holy things, till there stood up a priest with Urim and with Thummim.
ANCIENT BABYLD
The Tirshatha is a word that signifies the governor, and means the chief
man in authority over the Jews, which some suppose to have been ISehe-
miah. Of the Urim and Thummim you have before read, and you may
remember that, through the Urim and Thummim, the priest used to inquire
of the Lord for direction ; but now this means of inquiry was lost, and till
it should be recovered, if it ever should — when it might be found out
456 Bible and Commentator.
whether these doubtful persons had a right to live at the altar — the
governor would not allow them to partake of those parts of the offerings
and sacrifices which belonged to the priests.
See how God can do his people good, when, after offending him, they
return to him with all their hearts ! On account of their sins, they were
chastised, by being made captives, and banished from their country, stripped
of everything. Now they are willing and glad to enjoy their privileges.^
and know how to value them, and wish to return to the service of God, he
makes all things to work together for their good. Their masters set them
free, they are restored to their country, and the hearts of many are opened to
aid them ; and as in the former days the Egyptians aided their fathers with
their "jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment," in escaping from
the house of bondage, God now sends them back abounding in riches. In
the catalogue of their wealth there are mentioned, seven hundred and
thirty-six horses, two hundred and forty-five mules, four hundred and
thirty-five camels, six thousand seven hundred and twenty-five asses, and
gold, silver, and precious stuffs. The amount of their gold has been com-
puted at five million six hundred and ninety thousand dollars, which does
not include the rich vessels of the temple that were restored. Besides the
value of the gold, we must also notice that of the silver, which is reckoned
at more than one million two hundred and forty-five thousand dollars of
our money ; making altogether, exclusive of the temple utensils, the sum of
six million nine hundred and eighty-three thousand dollars in gifts of gold
and silver.
Thus we find God, in the midst of judgments, remembered mercy, and
gave the Jews favor in the land of their captivity.
Before I close this chapter, I must, however, prevent a mistake which
you may be liable to make, without an explanation. The Jews here
released were only those of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, which
formed the kingdom of Judah. These, you remember, were carried away
captives by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon ; and Babylon being con-
quered by Cyrus, king of Persia, they were now released by that conqueror.
But the ten tribes, which formed the kingdom of Israel, were made captives
by the Assyrians, and they were so scattered about by their conquerors, that
they mixed themselves with the heathen, or were transported to very distant
places, and they were never restored. Inquiries have often been made to
see if any remnant of them can be found, but all in vain ; and now for two
thousand years, no one knows anything of them or their descendants.
Ezea. 457
The Laying of the Foundation of the Second Temple.
Ezra hi.
HAVING been restored to their land, the Jews did not long delay the
rebuilding of the temple ; but as the length of time it would take to
rear such a superstructure was too long to wait for publicly worshipping
God, they immediately set to work and prepared the altar, headed by Jeshua
the priest, and Zerubbabel the chief prince.
When the altar was erected they offered up the continual burnt-offering,
and observed all the set feasts of the Lord, and offered every man's free-will
offering. And then they gave money to the masons to buy stones, and to
the carpenters to buy timber, for the new temple. And they gave provis-
ions to the people of Tyre and Zidon — who, probably, liked to be so paid
in preference to receiving money — and from them they obtained cedar.
In the second year of their restoration, and when the materials were
ready and the ground properly cleared, the building was begun j aud all the
Levites of twenty years of age and above were employed in helping on the
work in every way in their power.
And now the priests were appointed to blow their trumpets while the
foundation was laying ; and the Levites to play upon their cymbals, which
were musical metal instruments like hollow basins, held in each hand, and
struck one against another.
And the priests and Levites " sang together by course in praising and
giving thanks unto the Lord because he is good, for his mercy endureth
forever toward Israel." By singing " by course " is meant, that they sang
by turns, and answered one another, praising God for bringing them back
to their own land, and enabling them to rebuild the temple. "And all the
people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the Lord, because the
foundation of the house of the Lord was laid."
It was now between fifty and sixty years since the old temple was
destroyed ; and many of the old men yet lived to remember it ; and when
the foundation of the new house was laid, they " wept with a loud voice."
Why ? Were they not glad too ? Yes, they were glad ; but they had also
reason to weep, for they had seen what their younger brethren had not, and
what they never could expect to see. They had no riches to build so
splendid a temple as that which had been laid in ruins. And if they could
have made it as splendid, its chief glory was departed. The most precious
458 Bible and Commentator.
treasures it contained were forever gone — the heavenly fire, the mercy-seat,
the heavenly manna, Aaron's rod that budded, the divine Shechinah, and,
most probably, the Urim and Thummim : all were lost in the general
desolation.
Thus, with a singular mixture of joy and sorrow, was this second temple
begun ; for " the people could not discern the shout of joy from the noise of
the weeping of the people ; for the people shouted with a loud shout, and
the noise was heard afar off."
The prophet Haggai, however, comforted them on this occasion, by
assuring them that the glory of this latter house should exceed that of the
former, because the Lord (Jesus Christ) was to come to this temple, and fill
it with his glory.
The Building of the Temple hindered.
Ezra iv.
NO sooner had the Jews begun to rebuild their temple than the
Samaritans, who greatly disliked them, and whom they also greatly
disliked, used every kind of artifice to stop their work.
When they heard that these " children of the captivity," who had long
been captives, or were the sons of captives, and who were still subjects of
Cyrus — when they heard that they were building the temple unto the Lord
God of Israel, they went to Zerubbabel, the prince, and to the chief of the
fathers, and said, " Let us build with you." They pretended to want to
share in the temple, which they knew the Jews could not allow ; and they
said, " We seek your God, as ye do." Now this was not true, for they
worshipped idols. " Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the chiefs of
the fathers," very properly refused their aid, and said, " Ye have nothing to
do with us, to build an house unto our God : " for they were neither of the
same nation nor of the same religion.
Then these people, and others that united with them, who had been sent
to occupy the land when Judah was carried into captivity, all united to
thwart the work. They even hired persons to make it their business to
contrive schemes against them. They could certainly impede them in
various ways. Sometimes by quarrelling with the workmen ; sometimes by
hindering the purchase or arrival of materials ; and sometimes persuading
the king's servants not to allow them any aid in carrying the decree of
Cyrus into execution. If Cyrus had been at home, perhaps he would have
EZEA,
459
inquired about their progress ; but history informs us, that about this time
he was engaged in wars abroad with the Lydians and Scythians, and so,
leaving his son — who was no friend to the Jews — to govern in his absence,
the work went on but slowly, and attended by many discouragements.
Ahasuerus — or Cambyses, as he is called in other histories — succeeded his
father Cyrus ; and, as soon as he was placed on the throne, the enemies of
the Jews wrote letters of complaint against them, to make him look upon
them with greater jealousy and dislike.
In the same way they afterwards wrote to Artaxerxes. He is thought by
some to have been an impostor, who, feigning himself to be the brother of
Cambyses — who had been put to death — usurped the empire. Some, how-
ever, think that this is another name given to Ahasuerus, who is also called
Darius ; Artaxerxes being
a common name for the
kings of Persia, just as
Pharaoh was for the kings
of Egypt, and as Czar is
now for the Emperors of
Russia.
TTe have in this chapter
a copy of the letter sent
to the king, and signed
by the principal men who
lived in the land.
The last clause of the
letter was enough to frighten the king, for it warned him that if he did not
take care, the Jews would not only shake off his yoke, and refuse to pay
tribute themselves, but would seize on all his dominions on that side of the
river, and annex them to their own.
So the king directly caused search to be made ; and he found in the
records an account of past efforts made by the Jews to set themselves free
from their conquerors — which certainly was very natural — and he wTrote to
his chief officers in the land of Judsea, and told them he had found that the
Jews had been seditious, and that, in past times, they had had mighty kings,
who had subdued the neighboring nations, and therefore he commanded that
the city should not be built till further orders.
Delighted at their success, the opponents of the Jews now made haste to
Jerusalem, and took with them forces enough to oblige them to give up
their work.
IT.KMAN 3IONAUCH ADI.U-NiSTi.IUNG J I'DG.M i:.NT.
460 Bible and Commentator.
It is computed by the reigns of these kings, that the Jews had now been
employed on their temple during fourteen years, and the work " ceased unto
the second year of the reign of Darius, king of Persia," which was for about
three years.
The Building of the Temple Continued.
Ezra v., vi.
IN the second year of Darius, king of Persia, God stirred up the prophets
Haggai and Zechariah to reprove the Jews for their sloth, and negli-
gence in building the temple, when they were careful enough to raise up
goodly houses for themselves to dwell in.
The prophets roused the spirits of Zerubbabel and Jeshua, and they again
urged on the building of the temple, while the prophets helped them with
encouragement and advice.
The old governors of the land were now dead, or removed by the new
king, but their successors still interrupted the Jews. So Tatnai, the gov-
ernor, and Shethar-boznai, and others, went to them and said, " Who hath
commanded you to build this house, and to make up this wall ? " — that is,
the wall of the temple.
Then the Jews told them who were the persons engaged in erecting the
building. And " the eye of their God was upon the elders of the Jews,"
looking favorably at them, so that they felt a secret comfort from heaven
encouraging their hearts to go on with their work, till the matter should be
settled by Darius, to whom it was referred.
The governor Tatnai then wrote to Darins, and told him that the Jews
were going on with their temple, and that they said that Cyrus had made
a decree to permit them so to do. And they advised the king to have
the records searched, to see whether or not such a decree was really made in
their favor.
Darius, therefore, gave orders to search the place where the government
writings were kept, but where, it appears, the decree of Cyrus was not
found. However, on further inquiry, it was discovered at Achmetha, which
was a city in Media, where the kings of Persia had their summer palace.
Darius, having learned its contents, then ordered the governors not to
disturb the Jews, but to help them with money to go on with their work,
and with cattle, and whatever they wanted for their sacrifices. And he also
threatened that whoever interrupted them from that time should be hung
Ezra.
4fi1
on a gallows made of the wood of his own house, and his habitation should
be completely destroyed, and made only fit for a dunghill. Tatnai imme-
diately obeyed the commands of the king. "And the elders of the Jews
builded, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai, the prophet,
and Zechariah, the son of Iddo. And they builded, and finished it," that is,
the temple — " according to the commandment of the God of Israel, and ac-
cording to the commandment of Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes, king
of Persia." The writer of the history here mentions the different kings who
favored the Jews after their captivity ; respecting the last named there is,
however, some difference of opinion ; Darius had a son named Xerxes, who
was his successor, but some think Artaxerxes Longimanus, his grandson, is
here intended, for history states that he sent Ezra to Judsea with new priv-
ileges, and that he was kind to Nehemiah.
Thus the house was finished
" in the sixth year of the reign
of Darius the king."
When the building was com-
pleted, " the children of Israel,"
TOMB OF CYRUS.
that is, those of the ten tribes
that remained after the body of
the people were carried captive,
or came with the Jews at their
return — "the priests and the
Levites, and the rest of the
children of the captivity," those of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, " kept
the dedication of this house of God with joy." And they offered " an hun-
dred bullocks, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs ; and for a sin-offer-
ing for all Israel, twelve he-goats, according to the number of the tribes of
Israel." And they arranged the order of the priests to do the work in the
temple by turns. And at its proper time they kept the passover. They also
kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with joy. And God turned
the heart of the " king of Assyria to them, to strengthen their hands in the
work of the house of God, the God of Israel." Cyrus and his successors
possessed all the rights of the kings of Assyria as well as of Persia, and
therefore were called by both names.
We should have thought that, after such an instance of severe punish-
ment in being carried into captivity, and after such a display of God's
goodness in their restoration, the Jews would never again have offended so
462 Bible and Commentator.
grievously against God • but, when we come to the New Testament, we shall
have occasion to speak of a second and more terrible captivity and dispersion,
from which they have as yet never recovered.
Ezra's Embassy to Babylon, and Return to Jerusalem, favored by King
Artaxerxes.
Ezra vii.
THIS chapter begins with an account of Ezra himself, tracing back his
descent from Aaron the high priest. It appears that in the reign of
Artaxerxes, or, as some suppose, the seventh year of the reign of Darius,
whom they consider as the same king, Ezra went a second time from
Babylon, having first gone there with Zerubbabel. He was a scribe, as we
have before said. He was a well-instructed scribe, having carefully studied
the law ; and so he was well qualified to teach it to others. It is said that
" the king granted him all his request, according to the hand of the Lord
his God upon him." What the request was is not stated, but without
doubt, by his being again at Babylon, and making his applications there,
he was employed as a sort of ambassador, to obtain royal assistance in
carrying into complete effect all the decrees of Cyrus in favor of the Jews.
God's favor was with him ; and he prospered in his object. On his return,
a great number of the children of Israel — perhaps some of the ten tribes
which had been mingled with Judah and Benjamin — and also many of those
who had to fill offices in the temple, finding it now finished, returned
with him.
It is said that "Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the
Lord.'7 He learned the holy truth of God that he might " teach in Israel
statutes and judgments;" that is, "the laws moral, ceremonial, and civil."
By moral laws are meant those which relate to our duty to God and our
neighbor — not to swear, break the Sabbath, lie, steal, and do other wicked
things, but to love God and to love our neighbors, and to try and do them
good. By ceremonial laws are intended those which regulated all the
customs of Jewish worship. And by civil laws are pointed out those which
regulate our conduct in society towards each other, especially as citizens,
watching over each other's interests as a body of people, and behaving
orderly in our connection with mankind around us.
Such a man as Ezra, who learned, and did, and taught these laws, was
Ezra.
463
indeed a blessing to his nation. To show how God approved of him, he
gave him the greatest success at the court of Babylon ; for the king wrote
a letter granting him a number of favors for his people, and giving him
very great power. He wrote a letter which, you will observe, begins,
"Artaxerxes, king of kings, unto Ezra the priest." This title supremely,
or above all, belongs to Jesus Christ, who is " King of kings, and Lord of
lords." It was, however, neither a profane nor a false title, as used by
Artaxerxes, for he was king over other kings, who having been conquered
by his people, were tributary to him, and held their crowns at his pleasure.
In this letter, the king granted permission to all the Jews which yet remained
JERUSALEM REBUILT.
at Babylon to go to Jerusalem. He also authorized him to inquire into all
the behavior of the Jews at Jerusalem, and to see if it was such as the law
of his God required. He likewise, with his nobles, gave him rich presents,
and he granted him leave to collect gifts of gold and silver, and to take
them to Jerusalem in aid of the temple; particularly to buy beasts for the
purpose of offering them up to God according to the law. The king also
464 Bible and Commentator.
ordered the ministers of the holy religion to be free from all taxes ; and he
authorized Ezra to appoint wise and just magistrates to govern the people,
and to punish those that broke the laws.
When Ezra thought of this kindness of the king, he blessed God, and
owned that it was he who put it into the king's heart. And Ezra gladly
undertook to fulfil all his commission, and for this purpose went to
Jerusalem, accompanied by many chief men of Israel, whom he now
persuaded to accompany him.
Ezra forwards the Work of God at Jerusalem.
Ezra viii.
IN this chapter we have an account of those Jews that accompanied Ezra
from Babylon to Jerusalem ; and how he gathered them together, pro-
cured ministers for the temple, proclaimed a fast to ask for God's protection,
as he would not ask the king for soldiers, lest it should show a want of
confidence in God, and so dishonor him before the heathen : and then how
he divided amongst them the treasures he had procured for the temple
services, the whole of which a learned writer reckons to have been worth
six million ninety-three thousand dollars ; and some reckon it at double
that amount. Then they left the river Ahava, where they had assembled,
went to Jerusalem, took a particular account of the treasure, and " offered
burnt-offerings unto the God of Israel," and "they furthered the people
and the house of God/' adding to the comfort of the former and to the
beauty of the latter.
Judah's Sinful Alliances, and general Reformation.
Ezra ix., x.
WE have more than once said that God had commanded the Israelites
not to marry the people of other lands, which were all heathen,
and therefore served false gods. The reason of this we also think we have
before mentioned to you — it was, lest they should be seduced by such
marriages to forsake God, and to become the worshippers of idols.
When Ezra had settled all that we have seen about the temple, some of
the pious princes went to him in great grief, and lamented that this people
had acted in a very ungrateful manner towards God, and instead of serving
Ezra.
465
him more faithfully, united themselves with idolaters, " doing according to
their abominations." Widowers had even married Canaanitish and other
heathen wives, and sanctioned the same marriages among their sons; not
only so, but some of the princes and rulers, who, from their higher rank,
ought to have set a better example, had been guilty of the like offence
against God's laws.
When Ezra heard these things, he rent his clothes, plucked off the hair
of his head and beard, and sat down silent on the ground. These were all
customs among the Jews
expressive of the greatest
grief. While Ezra thus
grieved, a number of
pious men gathered them-
selves around him; and
at the time of the even-
ing sacrifice, Ezra rose
up, fell upon his knees,
and lamented the sins of
the people, and then left
himself and them in the
hands of God as a God of
mercy.
Seeing his excessive
grief, great numbers had
now gathered around him,
and while he wept they
also wept — men, women,
and children. At length, one whose name was Shecaniah acknowledged the
guilt of the people, and expressed a hope that they would do the evil com-
plained of no more. He, therefore, advised that all the strange wives, which
had been taken against the command of God, should be put away ; and the
chief priests, Levites, and all Israel, swore it should be done as Shecaniah
and Ezra had proposed.
Within three days after this, all Judah and Benjamin assembled, being
called together, — and Ezra told them how they had sinned against God,
and entreated them to put away their heathen wives. And they all said
they would do so.
30
READING OF THE LAW VNDER EZRA.
466
Bible and Commentator.
Proper inquiry was then made about all their marriages, and in three
months the examination was finished.
It was found that all classes had some who were guilty ; and that, in all,
about one hundred and thirteen had married heathen women.
Thus was this reformation
effected. Those who did not
approve of it had no choice
but to be " separated from
the congregation ; " that is,
they were not allowed to
worship God in his temple,
and were to be cut off from
the people, and be left with-
out the hope of true Israel-
ites. Thus, my dear readers, we have no choice between serving sin and
serving God. If we continue to serve sin, we must be forever cut off from
his favor ; but if we forsake sin and serve him, he is full of grace and mercy,
and will not forsake us. When God makes conditions to us, there is noth-
ing left but the most perfect and ready obedience. He is unchangeable in
all his plans and purposes, both in respect to his general government among
men, and his dealings with individuals ; and it will not do for us to cling to
the things that we particularly love, and yet look for favor from God by
serving him in other things. The laws of God are only kept, and the mercy
and favor of God are only obtained, by a full and unqualified acceptance
of all and every condition he makes. Let us then humbly, and with hearts
full of worship, bow to the will of God as we understand it, and be ready
to make any and every sacrifice to honor him who alone is able to honor
us throughout eternity, and make us co-heirs with him who first loved us,
and gave himself for us.
BUINS OF TOMBS BUILT IN TIME OF EZRA.
NEHEMIAH:
So called from the supposed author of it, who really seems, from plain testimony and the simplest rules of criticism,
to he its writer. The major part of the book records Nehemiah's twelve years' administration in Jerusalem, fol-
lowed by his return to Shushan, and eventually his new and energetic reforms after his return. This book has
thirteen chapters, and closes up the history of the Old Testament, at the death of its writer, about four hundred
and six years before the appearance of Jesus, our Lord.
Nehemiah's Affliction at the State of Jerusalem.— The Determined
Conduct of Nehemiah.
Nehemiah i.-iv.
'HIS book begins with the state of the Jews at Jerusalem
about ten years after the period mentioned in the Book
of Ezra, and in the twentieth year of the reign of Artaxerxes.
God so ordered matters that at this time some Jews had
occasion to go to Shushan, or Susa, an ancient city in which
was the winter palace of the kings of Persia. Nehemiah, a
pious Jew, happened to be the king's cupbearer, which was
a place of great honor, and gave him an opportunity of being
frequently in the king's presence, and that at a time when
his heart was cheerful, and he was disposed to be kind and good-natured.
This good man having inquired of his brethren, the Jews, how things were
going on at Jerusalem, was grieved to learn that the people were " in great
affliction and reproach," and that the wall of the city was still " broken
down," and the gates were " burned with fire," as the Babylonians had
left them.
Then Nehemiah was very sorry, and he " wept and mourned " for the
sins of his country, which had been the cause of all its suffering ; and he
" fasted and prayed before the God of heaven," beseeching him in behalf
of his people, and that he might find favor with the king, in trying to do
something for their good.
At length, when he was waiting on the king, as he did not usually look
467
468 Bible and Commentator.
dull, — for good men ought to look happy, — the king wondered to see him
so dejected. And he told him he had great cause to be sad, for he had
learned that the chief city of his beloved country was still in ruins. Then
the king wished to know what he could do for him ; Nehemiah paused a
moment and prayed to God, perhaps thanking him for the favor he had
already found Avith the king, and perhaps, also, asking God for wisdom to
give a right answer. Then he asked the king to let him go to Jerusalem,
and restore it from its ruins. And the king gave him leave to go, and
allowed him to fix his own time for staying. He next asked the king for
letters to the governors of the country through which he should pass, that
he might meet with every help from them in proceeding on his journey ;
and also for a letter to the keeper of the king's forest, that he might obtain
from him any quantity of timber that might be necessary, for the workmen
to use in rebuilding what was broken down. This, too, the king granted.
Nehemiah sees all his success as coming from God, and he says, " the king
granted me according to the good hand of my God upon me."
Nehemiah now set off, accompanied with a guard of honor from the
king, to protect him all the way till he reached Jerusalem.
Nehemiah thought it prudent to make no bustle about what he was going
to do, lest he should be opposed in his work. So he went in the night
time, and looked all over the ruins of the city. And when he had seen
what ought to be done, and laid his plans, he called together the chief men
of the Jews, and he advised them to build up the wall which surrounded
the city ; and he told them of God's goodness to him, and of his success
with the king. They were so much delighted at this news, that they agreed
at once to set to work and build, and encouraged one another in the under-
taking.
Then Sanballat, who was a Moabite, and a governor of the Samaritans,
and Tobiah, an Ammonite, who had been raised from a slave, and who was
now a governor as well as Sanballat, and Geshem, who was, most likely, an
Arab chief— tried all in their power to frighten the Jews, that they might
not go on with their work. But Nehemiah knew what he was about, and
he told them he was sure God would prosper his countrymen, and there-
fore they should certainly build ; and as for those who opposed them, they
had no ri^ht to meddle with the affairs of Jerusalem, and would do better
to mind their own business.
As soon as it was decided that the city should all be built up, every man
took his share in the work, the priests first setting the example by building
Neh-emiah
469
the sheep gate, which was most likely the gate through which the sheep
were brought that were to be sacrificed in the temple. And in addition to
the priests, tradesmen and workmen of all sorts helped to build the walls.
Even the rulers united in this work, and probably not only by giving their
gold and silver, but also their labor. The nobles of Tekoa were, indeed,
exceptions, whose names are mentioned with disgrace, because " they put
not their necks to the work of the Lord " — meaning, that the ox works by
drawing with his yoke on his neck, but they would have no yoke ; or, in
other words, they refused in
any way to afford aid, and
did not care at all about
their city. The daughters
of Shallum, the ruler of the
half part of Jerusalem, were
also among those that as-
sisted.
While this work was go-
ing on, Sanballat, the gov-
ernor of Samaria, was much
mortified, and tried to stir
up the army which he com-
manded ; and he said, "What
do these feeble Jews? will
they fortify themselves? will
they sacrifice? will they
make an end in a day ? " —
meaning, perhaps, that un-
less they made very great
haste indeed, they would find
that a stop should be put to their work. "Will they revive the stones out.
of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned ? " And Tobiah, the Am-
monite, joined him, and laughed at the idea of the Jews being able again
to build up their Avail with such rubbish as they had got : " Why," said he,
" if a fox go up, it shall even break down their stone wall," — it will not
bear his weight.
This came to the ears of Nehemiah, who felt for the honor of his God ;
and he was grieved, and prayed to God to take notice of his adversaries,
leaving it in his hands to do as he in his wisdom and justice should think
right.
ONE OF THE GATES REPAIRED BY NEHEMIAH.
470 Bible and Commentator.
In the meantime the Jews proceeded so rapidly, that they soon carried up
the wall all round the city, to half its proper height. Sanballat and his
companions now found that while they were mocking the Jews were work-
ing, and when they had learned that they had really built so much, their
sneerings were turned into rage: *'they were very wroth." Then they
" conspired all of them together, to come and fight against Jerusalem, and
to hinder it."
Nehemiah, however, still went on with the work, and while his adversa-
ries threatened he prayed. He met the increasing appearances of danger
with increasing caution. He placed people with swords, spears, and bows
behind the lower walls, which might be attempted before they were raised
to their proper height ; and he also put men on the higher places or towers,
to have the greater command of the enemy, and then he encouraged the
people by an animating speech. " Be ye not afraid of them," said he, " re-
member the Lord, who is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren,
your sons and your daughters, your wives and your houses." However,
when the adversaries saw that the Jews were aware of their intentions, they
gave up the contest.
Nevertheless Nehemiah did not give up his caution, for he knew that he
had a bitter and a subtle foe to deal with. Some men were still kept ready
for any conflict, and all worked with one hand, and held a weapon with the
other, or at least had it close at hand, or girt about them; and some of
the more weighty weapons were committed to the care of others near at
hand — the spears, the shields, the bows, and the habergeons, or breast-
plates, or coats of mail. Nehemiah also appointed a trumpeter to stand by
him, and if he should see any danger, or hear any alarm — as the workmen
were divided a great way from each other, all around the city — this
trumpeter could blow his trumpet, and call them all to the place where their
help was needed. He also ordered all the people to continue in Jerusalem
to guard it by night, as well as to work by day. Thus they went on with the
work, and that they might be ready to meet any attack, they never even pulled
off their clothes, except when it was necessary to send them to be washed.
Through the watchfulness and patient care of Nehemiah were the labors
of the Jews not only successful, but they were divinely led and guarded
through the exercise of prayer and faith on the part of their leader. This
same watchfulness and patient care, accompanied by prayer, must mark the
Christian's experience at the present day. There is enmity, subtleness, and
temptation, ever active and present, at almost every turn in life.
Nehemiah, 471
Nehemiah's noble Conduct towards the oppressed Jews.
Nehemiah v.
"TT"7"HILE Neheniiah was going on in his great work, many of the
▼ V people, seeing his zeal for the good of his country, and relying on
his wisdom and piety, flocked to him to make their complaints against their
rich brethren of the Jews. These people had large families, and they were
obliged to provide them with bread to keep them from starving. As there
was a scarcity of corn, the rich had taken advantage of it to charge very
high for what they had in their possession ; and when the poorer people had
no more money left to pay for it, they obliged them to mortgage their lands,
vineyards, and houses.
These people had also other heavy expenses, owing to a tax which they
had to pay the Persian king, under whose authority they now were, and
some had mortgaged their lands and vineyards to help them to pay this tax.
But even this was not the worst part of their distress. For the law
permitting Jewish parents to sell their children in times of great necessity,
they had been obliged to do so, though they loved them as well as the rich
loved theirs, and though they had a right to enjoy the same privileges
which they enjoyed, as a peculiar nation. Nor had they any hope of ever
recovering them, as their lands and vineyards were not now in their hands
to purchase their deliverance.
Then Nehemiah " was very angry," as we may be at sin ; for the rich
men, by oppressing the poor, and exacting usury — that is, a greater profit
for the lending of their money than they ought to have had — had not only
been cruel to their poor brethren, but had broken God's law, which forbade
such conduct. And he rebuked the rich men ; and he had them gathered
together before a number of their countrymen ; and he said to them, that
he and his brethren in the Persian court had done all in their power to
redeem any of their brethren who were sold to the heathen around them, in
order that they might be restored again to their country, and would they
now be so cruel to their own brethren ? And must he, Nehemiah, and his
companions, be obliged to pay them, to redeem their own countrymen and
women ?
To this they could answer nothing, for they felt ashamed. " I pray you,
then," said Nehemiah, " let us leave off this usury." Then he urged them
to restore the lands, vineyards, olive-yards, and houses, and as much of the
472 Bible and Commentator.
people's money as they had unjustly taken from them. So powerful are
good words, connected with a good example, that the rich Jews could not
help doing as Nehemiah desired ; and then he called the priests to take the
oaths of these men that they would keep their promise. After this, he
shook his lap, according to an Eastern custom — that is, he took up the
fore-skirts of his garments, and shaking the dust out of them, as a symbol,
or sign, he said, " So God shake every man from his house, and from his
labor, that performeth not his promise ; even thus be he shaken out and
emptied. And all the congregation said, Amen, and praised the Lord.
And the people did according to this promise."
It is thought that Nehemiah remained a short time only at Jerusalem,
till the building of the wall was completed, and some other things were
arranged ; and that, as he had asked permission from the king of Persia to
be absent but for a short time, he therefore returned, and kept his word.
When the king heard about what he had done, and the state of the people,
it is supposed that he sent Nehemiah back again, with full authority to be
their governor. For in this chapter he says, that he was appointed to be
governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year, even unto the two
and thirtieth year of Artaxerxes the king, that is twelve years ; and that,
during that time, neither he nor his brethren had ever eaten the bread of
the governor. The table of the governor was always supplied by the people
w^ith bread and wine, and besides, he had a daily allowance in money ; but
Nehemiah neither took salary nor bread. Nor did either he or his people
make any profit by purchasing the lands of the distressed poor. And as
for doing the work of the wall, his own servants labored as much as any
others, but no charge was made for it. In addition to this liberality,
Nehemiah kept a good table, which was open to a hundred and fifty guests,
but he made no charge, "because the bondage was heavy upon the people."
For all this he looked for reward from God only, not as if he had done
anything that could merit God's favor ; but as God condescends to approve
of what we do honestly in his sight, Nehemiah prayed, " Think upon me,
my God, for good, according to all that I have done for this people."
Thus we see in Nehemiah a most illustrious reformer and ruler ; one who
not only obtained honor in Babylon because of his wonderful attainments
and high character ; but who readily secured the confidence and love of his
people while governor in Jerusalem, because of his great qualities of mind,
and his noble faith in and dependence upon God. The acts of such a man
always afford delightful subject for contemplation and profit.
N EH EM I AH,
473
Artifices of Sanballat and his Accomplices to ruin Nehemiah.
Nehemiah VI.
"TTT"HEN Sanballat and his party heard that the wall of Jerusalem was
» » completed, though, indeed, the gates of the city were not yet put
up, they sent to Nehemiah, and invited him to meet them on a neighboring
plain, supposing, no doubt, that he would be ready to go, with a design to
be reconciled to them. But this was not their design ; and Nehemiah was
either informed of their wicked plots, or God impressed his mind with a
sufficient warning. So Nehemiah sent a civil answer, without giving any
reason why he would not go. His answer was, " I am doing a great work,
so that I cannot come down ; why should the work cease, whilst I leave it
and come down to you?" So
he would not go down from the
eminence on which Jerusalem
stood, and expose himself to
his treacherous enemies in the
plain.
No less than four times did
Sanballat and his companions
contrive various methods to get
Nehemiah to meet them, but
he very wisely continued to give
them similar answers. At last
Sanballat sent his servant with
an open letter to him, which
every one might read, and in
which he told him that there was a report abroad that he was guilty of
treason. This was the very way in which to spread such a report, and effect
what he wanted — the ruin of good Nehemiah. Besides, this was a gross
insult to a man, of Nehemiah's rank, as letters sent to great men in the East
are always carefully folded up, and put into a handsome silk bag, and then
the bag is carefully sealed. Nehemiah flatly replied to this message that it
was false, and that the whole was the invention of Sanballat himself.
Sanballat was not yet tired of doing mischief, so he thought of other
schemes to accomplish his purpose.
One Shemaiah, supposed to have been a priest, pretended great friendship
TABLES IN TIME OF NEHEMIAH.
474 Bible and Commentator.
to Nehemiab, and tried to persuade him to flee to some place of safety, that
he might hide from his enemies ; for, as they were so persevering, they would
be sure to .take him at last, and kill him. But Nehemiah replied, " Should
such a man as I flee ? " He was the king's agent, he was the leader of all the
work, and if he fled the people would stop the work and flee too ; the enemy
would then, most certainly, enter by the open gates, and Sanballat would
assume the authority, and he and the Jews be involved in complete destruc-
tion. Nehemiah, indeed, perceived that God had not sent this man to save
him from any danger ; God gave him wisdom to see that there was some artful
design hid under his seeming friendship ; and so it turned out, for lo, the
crafty Sanballat had hired him !
In the midst of such difficulties as these the wall was at last completed.
So diligent were Nehemiah and the Jews, that the whole labor occupied only
fifty-two days. Sanballat and the other adversaries were now ashamed and
vexed, that all their efforts had been useless to prevent the work ; but who
can hinder what God designs to be done ? And God was with Nehemiah
to give him wisdom and courage, and to bless him.
Nehemiah's wise Measures to protect Jerusalem.
THIS chapter is supposed to relate to what Nehemiah did just before he
returned to the Persian court, and so before he was appointed governor
of the people. He made Hanini, the person who first told him of the sad
state of Jerusalem, and Hananiah, rulers during his absence. Some seem
to think that both these names mean but one person, who is described as
u a faithful man," and one that " feared God above many."
He also ordered that the gates of Jerusalem should be kept shut every
morning, till the sun became hot ; that is, till it was likely there were plenty
of people risen to defend the city from any attempts to enter it by the gates.
A similar custom is still to be found among the inhabitants in the parts of
the world about Judea ; for travellers inform us, that if a traveller arrives
after sunset he finds the gates shut, and on no consideration will they open
them till the next morning, so that those who come late are obliged to lodge
in the plain. Nehemiah further desired that care should be taken to see
that the gates were kept closed, and that proper persons should be always
on the watch to prevent surprise from their enemies.
Nehemiah,
475
Jerusalem had not yet recovered its inhabitants. The city was still as
large as it was when it was full of people, but the people who returned from
the captivity in Babylon had not all taken up their abode there, " and the
houses were not builded." The number that came out of captivity with
Zerubbabel did indeed amount to forty-two thousand three hundred and
sixty, and many more came with Ezra. Yet a great number chose to settle
in the towns and cities in the country, Jerusalem being in such a desolate
condition. So Nehemiah says, " My God put into mine heart to gather
together the nobles, and the rulers, and the people, that they might be
reckoned by genealogy. And I found a register of them which came up at
the first, and found written therein,
These are the children of the promise,
that went out of the captivity." This
register directed Nehemiah to find
out to what city each family formerly
belonged, and who to the city of
Jerusalem, " that they might be called
upon to come and rebuild their houses,
and take up their residence there."
Nehemiah then gives an account of
the children of the ; province of Judea
as it was now reduced, who came out
of the captivity of Babylon through
the decree of Cyrus. He also tells us
of the liberality of those who subscribed well for rebuilding the city
and the temple ; and he concludes by informing us that in a short time
the children of Israel got all fixed in their own cities.
And now we read of a grand assembly of the people, which took place in
the open street, because, probably, there was no place large enough to hold
them ; and that there, Ezra, at the request of the people, read the law of
the Lord aloud, " from the morning until mid-day, before the men and the
women, and those that could understand ; and the ears of all the people
were attentive unto the book of the law." This was a most serious meeting.
The people all stood up to show respect, " Ezra blessed the Lord, the great
God," who had given them his holy law; " and all the people answered
Amen, Amen, with lifting up their hands, and they bowed their heads and
worshipped the Lord, with their faces to the ground."
There were many others who stood by the side of Ezra, and who most
MATERIALS USED IN WRITING THE LAW.
476
Bible and Commentator.
likely sometimes helped him by reading a few portions while he rested ; for
reading so long in the open air, to so great a number of people, must have
fatigued him very much. These also as well as Ezra explained such parts
as the people could not easily understand.
The people were so much affected that they all wept when they heard
the words of the law, remembering how much they had broken it. And
Nehemiah, the Tirshatha, or governor, " and Ezra the priest, the scribe,
and the Levites that taught the people, said unto all the people, This day is
holy unto the Lord your God ; mourn not nor weep." It seems that this
meeting was kept on the feast of trumpets, which was on the first day of
the Jews' seventh month ; and as that was usually a day of joy, it was not
keeping it aright to show sadness. So Nehemiah said unto them, " Go
your way, eat the fat and drink the sweet,
and send portions unto them for whom
nothing is prepared : for this day is holy
unto our Lord : neither be ye sorry ; for
the joy of the Lord is your strength." So
all the people did as they were ordered to
do, and were happy.
On the second day the chiefs of the
fathers, or heads of the families and tribes,
made further inquiries of Ezra about the
meaning of many parts of the law. "And
they found written in the law which the
Lord had commanded by Moses, that the
children of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month :
and that they should publish and proclaim in all their cities, and in
Jerusalem, saying, Go forth unto the mount, and fetch olive branches, and
pine branches, and myrtle branches, and palm branches, and branches of
thick trees, to make booths, as it is written ; " that is, as it is written in the
twenty-third chapter of Leviticus and the fortieth verse.
You will recollect, my dear young reader, that all this was ordered to be
done for the purpose of keeping the Feast of Tabernacles, which was held to
keep in remembrance the travelling life of the Israelites in the wilderness,
after they had been delivered from Egyptian slavery. Now, having been
delivered from the Babylonish captivity, and the proper time of the year
occurring, it was their special duty to keep the same feast.
So the people fetched the boughs, " and made themselves booths, every
SCROLL OR BOOK.
Nehemiah. 477
one upon the roof of his house, and in their courts, and in the courts of the
house of God, and in the street of the water-gate, and in the street of the
gate of Ephraim. And all the congregation of them that were come again
out of the captivity made booths, and sat under the booths," during the
seven days that the feast lasted, to remind them how their fathers dwelt in
booths in the wilderness. Indeed, since the days of Jeshua, or Joshua,
" the son of Nun, unto that day, had not the children of Israel done so."
Joshua observed the feast when he had brought and settled the people of
Israel in the land of Canaan ; and it had been observed since, but no Feast
of Tabernacles had been so heartily and so piously celebrated.
A solemn Fast of the Jews— The People make a Covenant to serve God.
Nehemiah ix.-xi.
A FTER the Feast of Tabernacles was over, the people had a general
-£-^~ fast, and spent six hours in hearing the law read to them, and in
humbly confessing their sins before God. The ninth chapter chiefly consists
of a solemn prayer which was offered up by the Levites on this occasion.
In this prayer they called to remembrance all the dealings of God with them
as a nation for ages past, acknowledged their faults, owned that God was
righteous, and resolved on serving him with all their hearts, for the time
to come.
For this purpose, they had a solemn covenant, or agreement, drawn up,
in which they promised that they would never again marry the heathen ;
that they would keep holy the Sabbath-day ; and that they would provide
for the continuance and support of God's ministers and ordinances among
them. A few signed and sealed this agreement for the rest, for it would
have been a very difficult thing to have managed it otherwise for so large a
number of people.
Jerusalem was as yet, as you have been told, but thinly inhabited, for
though it had many inhabitants, they were spread over a large space. The
city, though walled round, was weak and despicable, having but few
defenders, compared with its size. Nehemiah, therefore, next proceeded to
take steps for filling it with inhabitants, and so adding to its strength.
For this purpose, he obliged one out of every ten of the country people to
take up his abode there ; and that there might be no partiality shown, in
favoring any who might find it more convenient to live where they had
478 Bible and Commentatoe.
already got comfortable houses, he advised that every ten should cast lots,
and he on whom the lot fell should go and live at Jerusalem. Some, indeed,
went there of their own accord ; and as it was then a place with but few
advantages, and exposed to great dangers, the inhabitants blessed and prayed
for them, for showing so much love to their poor city.
The Dedication of the Wall of Jerusalem— Nehemiah completes the
Reform of the Jews.
Nehemiah xii., xiii.
THE chief thing contained in the twelfth chapter is the account of the
dedication of the wall of Jerusalem.
The wall having been built, the princes, priests, and people were all
gathered together, to express their joy at its completion, and to thank God.
This was the most sure way of securing its protection and defence in all
future dangers. Then they all walked round it in two companies, singing
psalms and sounding trumpets, and other musical instruments, in different
ways, one taking the right, and the other the left, till at last they met again
at one point. The walls being thick, the princes and priests, with the singers,
could walk comfortably upon them ; and it is probable that the people walked
round below, some within the wall, and some without. All that day they
offered great sacrifices ; and not only were the men engaged, but also the
women and children partook of the general joy. The hosannas of infants
are not despised, when they offer them from their hearts to God.
Nehemiah having been called to the court of his royal master, was some
time absent from Jerusalem ; and on his return to see how things went on,
he was greatly grieved to find that many wicked things had been done.
Eliashib, the chief priest, having formed an alliance by marriage with
Tobiah, the Ammonite, which was contrary to the law of God, and wishing
to accommodate him in the city, had even given him a place in the sacred
temple.
Nehemiah very speedily turned out everything belonging to this wicked
Ammonite, and had the chamber well cleansed, as a sign of washing away
its defilement from his footsteps.
Then he found out that the Levites had been neglected, and the people
cared so little about religion, that not having provided for them, as God
had commanded, they had all left the city, and gone into the fields to work
Nehemiah.
479
for themselves. He also soon remedied this evil, and brought back the
Levites, and made the people bring their tithes of corn, wine, and oil, into
their treasuries.
There being no regard paid to religion, the holy Sabbath was shamefully
abused. God had commanded it to be kept as a holy day, and that no
manner of work should be done in it ; but on that day they worked their
wine-presses, to squeeze out the juice of the grapes for the purpose of
making wine ; and they carried their corn, and loaded their asses, and
traded with the men of Tyre, who were a sort of peddlers, having many
wares to sell. Nehemiah reproved all this sin, and especially the nobles,
who ought to have used their authority to prevent it ; and he reminded
them that because their fathers had sinned in the like way, they, their
children, had so long been suffering, and that this was like asking God to
punish them again for their iniquity. To prevent any more trading on the
Sabbath, he ordered the
gates of Jerusalem to be
shut from the evening
before the Sabbath till
the morning after; and,
as he could not trust the
faithless men who had
been porters at the gates,
he set his own people to
keep them, that no one
should enter the city on
the Sabbath with any
merchandise about him.
The Tyrian traders did
not like to be balked in their dealings, and lounged about outside the walls,
on the Sabbath day, hoping to entice some of the people to go out of the
city, and to deal with them. However, Nehemiah was as sharp as they ;
and seeing what they were about, he told them, " if ye do so again, I will
lay hands on you ! " and this frightened them so, that they did not come
any more on the Sabbath.
A great many of the Jews had also married strange wives "of Ashdod,
of Ammon, and of Moab," and their children, instead of understanding
their language, to be able to learn the law of God, were only fit for heathen,
and knew but the languages of their heathen mothers and nurses, which
EASTERN GATE OF JERUSALEM.
480
Bible and Commentator.
they had taught them. So these Jews would be the fathers of idolaters.
With these men Nehemiah also contended, wThen they tried to excuse
themselves. And he " cursed them ; " that is, he denounced the judgments
which God had spoken against them ; and " he smote certain of them," or
ordered them to be beaten, according to the law ; and he plucked off their
hair to shame them, as they had no shame in sinning thus openly against
God. He also obliged them to swear that, for the time to come, they
would never more suffer any such marriages to take place.
Nehemiah, likewise, found out that a branch of the high priest's own
family — one of his grandsons — had married a daughter of Sanballat, that
notorious enemy of the Jews. How little love had that man either to God
or his country, who could make himself, in duty and interest, a friend to
him that was a sworn enemy to both ! It seems this young priest would
not put away his wife, and therefore Nehemiah chased him from him —
deprived him, degraded him, and made him forever incapable of the
priesthood.
Thus did Nehemiah reform and benefit his countrymen the Jews, and
aim to promote the honor and glory of his God ; looking only for his
reward in heaven. This is what he meant when he so often prayed,
" Eemember me, O my God, concerning this." For God does not forget
what we do for his glory, though it is our duty to do it, though what we
can do is but little, and though he has no need of our services for his own
benefit, but all the benefit belongs to ourselves.
TEMPLE CHAPITERS.
Esther
Named after a Jewish captive, who was exalted to the station of queen of Persia, and was thus made the instrument
of saving the lives of her countrymen. Different opinions are held as to the authorship of this hook ; some
ascribing it to Ezra, some to Nehemiah, and some to Mordecai. The most and best of authorities seem to incline
towards the last-named person, as the writer. It gives us a record of the peculiar care that Eivine Providence has
exercised over his chosen people, and thus encourages the church and Christians in all ages to depend upon the
help and favor of Him to whom tbey, especially, belong. The historical nature of the book is beyond dispute>
whilst the strong internal evidences of its inspired nature readily repel and cast aside all doubt in regard to it.
The Royal Feast of King Ahasuerus.
Esther i.
HE wonderful history which we have in this
book is of events which happened in the time
of Ezra; and Ahasuerus, the king men-
tioned, is by some supposed to have
been Xerxes, the renowned Persian con-
queror. Ahasuerus being a common
name given by ancient authors to Per-
sian kings, the Scripture has not particu-
larly indicated which king of them it
was ; it is enough, however, for the inter-
esting parts of this history to know that
these incidents happened in the reign of a Persian king.
We here learn that this prince reigned over a hundred and twenty-seven
provinces, or large tracts of country, managed by different governors.
Ahasuerus had a palace in Shushan, the chief Persian city. In the
third year of his reign he made a grand feast for all the nobles and princes
who governed his hundred and twenty-seven provinces. This feast lasted
"a hundred and fourscore," that is, a hundred and eighty days; and, after
it was over, he gave a feast to all the attendants in his palace, which lasted
seven days.
It is said that it is still the custom in Persia to keep a yearly feast for
31 481
482
Bible and Commentator,
the same time ; for in that country the manners and customs of the people
have not changed as they have with us. It is supposed that in this second
feast many thousands were entertained, so splendid and expensive are the
feasts of the rich Persians.
In the Eastern countries the women never mingle with the men, as they
A ROYAL FEAST.
do with us ; hence the queen, Vashti — or beautiful, which Vashti means —
and the ladies, had a grand feast by themselves, at the same time also, in
the royal house.
After the feast had lasted seven days, Ahasuerus was talking with his
nobles about the beauty of his queen ; and that he might convince them how
handsome she was, he sent some of his officers to fetch Vashti and show her
to the company. Vashti was either too proud to allow herself to be shown
before a set of nobles and strangers, who perhaps were scarcely sober — or,
very likely, she was so modest that she would rather run the risk of
displeasing the king, than join for a moment such a large company of wine-
drinkers, all being men.
On being told that the queen would not come, the king was in a great
rage. So he directly consulted his wise men, or counsellors, that knew the
laws, and asked what he should do with Vashti for not obeying his
commands. One of them, named Memucan, said, that the queen had not
only insulted the king, but had set a bad example to the ladies of the whole
Esther. 483
kingdom, who, if Vashti were not punished, would never mind what their
husbands wished them to do. He therefore thought that the king should
separate himself from Vashti forever, and choose another queen. This
Memucan then advised the king to write a decree to that purport, and to
send it all over the kingdom. Now, when the king had written a law,
according to the custom of the Medes and Persians, he could not alter it,
and so, when he had done this, Vashti could never again be queen. This
is thought to have been very cunning advice in Memucan, for if the king
had not made the decree, he might have restored Vashti to favor, and then
she would have punished her enemies for trying to deprive her of her
dignity. "And the saying pleased the king and the princes, and the king
did according to the word of Memucan."
Esther made Queen of Persia.— Plot against the King.
Esther ii.
"VYXHEN king Ahasuerus got sober, and his anger no longer raged, he
V V began to think how foolish he had been to be offended with his
queen. And he " remembered Vashti," and how much he loved her, and
"what she had done" — only having committed a small offence, if any
offence at all — " and what was decreed against her " — that she should lose
her rank, and that without hope of recovery.
In order to soothe the king's mind, and take away his thoughts from
Vashti, his counsellors advised him to appoint officers all over the kingdom
to look out all the beautiful women they could find, and to send them to
one of the king's chief officers, called his chamberlain ; and he should take
care that they should be properly perfumed and dressed fit to see a king of
the East ; and then the one that the king liked best should be his queen.
At this time God's providence so ordered it that there happened to be
" a certain Jew, whose name was Mordecai," residing in the king's palace
at Shushan. He was a great-grandson of Kish, one of those whom Nebu-
chadnezzar had carried away captive into Babylon. "And he brought up
Hadassah, that is, Esther, his uncle's daughter, for she had neither father
nor mother ; and the maid was fair and beautiful, whom Mordecai, when
her father and mother were dead, took for his own daughter." Hadassah
was the original name of this Jewess, and means myrtle ; and Esther was
her Persian name, signifying a star, because she was a shining beauty.
484 B'ible and Commentator.
When Hegai, the keeper of the women, saw this Jewess, he was pleased
with her ; and so, indeed, were all who saw her ; not only because she was
beautiful, but because she was contented and happy, and " required nothing
but what Hegai, the king's chamberlain, the keeper of the women, ap-
pointed/'' Esther,# however, took care not to say she was a Jewess, for her
uncle Mordecai advised her to keep that a secret, lest she should be despised
for it.
After the ceremony of twelve months' preparation, the king saw all the
women that had been gathered from different parts of the kingdom, and
" the king loved Esther above all the women, and she obtained grace and
favor in his sight more than all the virgins/' or unmarried women ; " so that
he set the royal crown upon her head," and made her queen instead of
"Vashti. And " then the king made a great feast unto all his princes and
servants, even Esther's feast ; " which some think lasted as long as a month ;
u and he made a release to the provinces," that is, he would not take the
taxes which the conquered provinces owed him up to the time ; " and gave
gifts according to the state of the king," or suitable to his grandeur, Esther
sharing of them largely, as Eastern queens usually did.
Mordecai got now to be appointed one of the officers in the service of the
king, which he probably obtained through Esther, though she had not yet
explained her relationship to him. While he was performing his duties, he
found out that Bigthan and Teresh, two officers who kept the door of the
king's bedchamber, had laid a plan to kill Ahasuerus, with whom they
were angry for something he had done to them. Mordecai, like a faithful
servant, immediately let Esther know of the scheme, and Esther directly
told it to the king, and informed him how she knew about it through
Mordecai. So inquiry being instantly made, the whole plot was discovered,
and the two chamberlains where hanged, after which an account of the
traitors, and of their discovery and execution, was written in a book of the
history of the country, which was kept for the use of the king.
Haman's Exaltation, and Plan to destroy the Jews.
Esther hi.
AFTER the marriage of Esther, and the discovery of the conspiracy
-L±- against Ahasuerus, the king promoted " Haman, the son of Hamme-
datha the Agagite, and advanced him, and set his seat above all the princes
Esther.
485
that were with him." This man was, therefore, a very great favorite at
court ; for it was the custom of the kings of Persia to advance those to the
highest seats they thought best deserved it. And all the king's servants
" bowed and reverenced Haman, for the king had so commanded concerning
him : but Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence." It is thought by
some that this reverence was more than that respect which one person pays
to another, and especially which the lower ranks pay to those above them ;
and that Hainan was honored with a sort of adoration which ought alone to
be given to God. Had it been mere respect that he wanted, Mordecai would
certainly not have been so destitute of common decorum as not to have paid
it to him at the command of
the king; but if he wanted
honors which ought to be
given to God only, Mordecai,
as a devout Jew, would not
be guilty of such base idol-
atry.
The other servants of the
king took notice of the con-
duct of Mordecai, and talked
to him about it ; and at last
they told Hainan, that he
might take particular notice
of him, and especially as
Mordecai was a Jew, and the
more likely to excite his dis-
pleasure by his disobedience.
Mordecai had, indeed, told them of what race he was, probably as a reason
why he did not act as they did.
When Haman saw how Mordecai behaved, he was " full of wrath ; " but
as it was beneath his dignity to notice the insult of such a person, he
resolved on taking a dreadful vengeance on all the Jewish people in
Persia.
Having determined the time for executing his plan, Haman complained
to the king that there was a certain people spread all about the provinces,
who disobeyed the king's laws, and that it was dangerous to allow them to
live. He therefore advised that the king should decree their destruction ;
and to make up for the loss of so many people who paid him tribute, he,
PERSIAN KING AND ATTENDANTS.
486 Bible and Commentatok.
Haman, was willing to pay a large sum out of his own purse. This man
must have made great riches at court, for the sum he offered to pay was
"ten thousand talents of silver/' or sixteen million six hundred thousand
dollars of our money ! It is, however, probable that he reckoned on having a
large portion of the spoil of the Jews, notwithstanding that all the murderers
were allowed to share it among them, according to the decree which the
king now issued. Haman was so great a favorite with the king that he
absolutely refused to take his money, and he granted all he desired to the
fullest extent.
So on the thirteenth day of the first month, Haman called together all
the king's scribes or secretaries, and ordered them to write letters to the
officers and governors of all the provinces, in the characters and languages
of their different nations, and these letters were signed and sealed with the
king's ring. As soon as they were ready, they were sent by posts, or
running-men, into all parts where the Jews Avere. The decree which they
contained was of the most cruel kind. It gave orders that oh one particular
day — the thirteenth day of the twelfth month — they were " to "destroy, to
kill, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and
women," " and to take the spoil of them for a prey." Heralds, or royal
criers, were also appointed to proclaim the decree, that everybody might be
ready to execute it, and share in the booty.
After these things were done, the king and Haman feasted together ; the
royal city was, however, only a scene of distress; for the Jews were
numerous there, and their grief affected their friends and neighbors, who
were more humane than Haman, and trembled at the thought of shedding
so much innocent blood.
Haman 's Fall and Execution.
Esther iv.-vii.
MORDECAI soon heard of the decree that was made against his people,
and he rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth and ashes, as signs of
grief, and went out into the city and cried aloud. The Jews in all the
provinces showed the same grief; they fasted, wept, wailed, and many even
made sackcloth and ashes their beds.
That Esther might know what was going on, Mordecai placed himself at
last before the king's gate ; for he durst not go within the walls of the court
in sackcloth and ashes. Here his habit and wailing attracted the notice of
Esther,
487
TRAVELLING POST IN PERSIA.
some of the court, and came to the knowledge of Esther's maids, who told
her of this singular appearance of Mordecai. The queen immediately sent
him some fresh clothing to appear at court, when she might know more of
the cause of his grief. Mordecai, however, refused the clothing. Esther
then sent for Hatach, one of the king's chamberlains, who waited upon her,
and desired him to go to
Mordecai, and find out
what was the matter.
Mordecai told him all
the particulars about Ha-
inan, and sent a copy of
the decree to the queen,
and charged her to lose
no time in seeing the
king, and asking for the
preservation of their peo-
ple, the Jews.
ISTow there was a law
in Persia, which made it
death for any person to go in to the king without being sent for ; this was
to keep up his dignity, and to prevent any person from taking away his life.
Esther, therefore, although queen of Persia, must run a great risk to venture
into the king's presence without being sent for; and being now but coolly
treated by the king, the hazard of incurring his displeasure was great.
Esther therefore sent a message to Mordecai, that she had not been called in
to the king for thirty days, and that she was afraid to venture as a petitioner
before him.
Mordecai sent word in reply, that if her life was in danger by going in
to the king uncalled for, it was more in danger by her not going. For the
decree was made to destroy the Jewish nation, and as Haman perhaps
would begin at the palace, even her life would not be spared, though she
was queen. He also hoped that she was raised to the crown by Providence
for the very purpose of saving her nation ; but if she neglected to use her
influence with the king, he felt persuaded that God would yet save the
people, though she and her family, as a punishment for her indifference,
might probably perish.
Esther then desired that Mordecai should gather together all the Jews
that were in Shushan, and they should fast and pray for her three days
488 Bible and Commentator.
and nights, while she and her maidens would fast also, and then she would
venture before the king, though he might not send for her ; and, said she,
" If I perish, I perish ; God's will be done." " So Mordecai went his way,
and did according to all that Esther had commanded him."
On the third day of the fast, when it was finished, Esther threw off her
mourning dress and put on her royal robes, and she went and stood in the
inner court of the king's house, where none were admitted uncalled for, on
pain of death. The king was seated on his royal throne ; and when he saw
her, her modesty and beauty touched his heart ; and he held out his golden
sceptre, which was the sign that she might approach him, instead of being
put to death for venturing into his presence. Esther touched the top of the
sceptre, as a token of her obedience. The king then said very kindly to
her, " What wilt thou, queen Esther ? and what is thy request ? it shall be
given thee, to the half of the kingdom." Not that he would have given
her half his kingdom, but he meant, "Anything that you want, I am sure I
will most readily do for you : so do not be afraid to ask."
She then asked the king to come and partake of a banquet with her,
and likewise to let Haman share the feast. She thought that would be
the best way to lay her grievances before the king, and that she could then
accuse Haman to his face, when he could have no time to prepare words
for defence.
" So the king and Haman came to the banquet that Esther had prepared."
And while he was drinking wine, he remembered his promise to the queen,
and desired her to let him know what she wished him to do.
Esther was perhaps yet timid, or was trying to win upon the king
sufficiently to allow her to attack his favorite, Haman, with success. She
therefore still put off making her request, but begged the king to favor her
once more with his presence, and she would on the next day prepare another
banquet for him and Haman.
Haman went away quite delighted with his honors ; but his proud heart
was yet unhappy, because, as he passed the king's gate, Mordecai would not
do him reverence. However, he said nothing to him, but treasured up his
malice for a better opportunity. As soon as he got home he was full
of joy at his good fortune at court, and he sent to invite his particular
friends, and his wife and all his children, to tell them of his great
prosperity. "And Haman told them of the glory of his riches, and the
multitude of his children, and all the things wherein the king had pro-
moted him, and how he had advanced him above the princes and servants
Esther. 489
of the king. Haman said moreover, Yea, Esther the queen did let no
man come in with the king unto the banquet which she had prepared
but myself; and to-morrow am I invited unto her also with the king/'
But still, said he, " all this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai
the Jew sitting at the king's gate ; " how great soever my joy, in all my
honors, I have a mortification that spoils all, and whenever I think
of it, I cannot endure it; there is that Jew, Mordecai, who will not
pay me homage as others do ; I shall not be fully happy till he is put out
of the way.
Now, you know, Haman might easily have put him out of the way, for
he had got the king's decree passed against him and his people ; but, by
waiting for his supposed lucky day, he lost his present opportunity, and so
Mordecai remained to humble his pride.
" Oh," said Zeresh his wife, and all his friends, " there is a very short
way of finishing the matter with that Jew ; get a very high gallows made,
and then ask the king's leave to-morrow to hang Mordecai at once ; and
when that is done, you can go to the banquet free from all vexation."
Haman liked the notion, and got the gallows made to hang Mordecai.
On the night before the banquet the king was very restless, and, being
unable to sleep, he ordered the Chronicles, or notes of what happened in
the kingdom, to be brought and read to him for his amusement. In those
Chronicles, you remember, were entered the names of the conspirators
against the king whom Mordecai had discovered, and the account of
Mordecai's fidelity and of their treachery and execution. It happened that
the courtiers fell in with this passage and read it. The king then asked
if any reward had ever been bestowed upon Mordecai for his noble conduct
in saving his life. The lords of his bed-chamber replied, that nothing had
been done for him to raise him above his usual place.
The king was resolved that such conduct should no longer pass un-
rewarded, and asked his lords if any of his attendants were in the outward
court, waiting to be called in. On going to see, they found Haman there,
who had come as soon as he could, with a secret intention to obtain the
king's leave to hang Mordecai. So the king desired him to enter. As soon
as he had entered, the king said to him, " What shall be done unto the
man whom the king delighteth to honor ? " Now Haman thought in his
heart, to whom would the king delight to do honor more than to myself?
he being the king's greatest favorite. So he very readily suggested honors
which he thought he should enjoy. "And he said, let the royal apparel
490 Bible and Commentator. i
be brought which the king useth to wear, and the horse that the king rideth
upon, and the crown royal which is set upon his head. And let this apparel
and horse be delivered to the hands of one of the king's most noble
princes, that they may array the man withal whom the king delighteth to
honor, and bring him on horseback through the street of the city, and pro-
claim before him, Thus shall it be done unto the man whom the king
delighteth to honor."
The king liked the proposal of Hainan, and told him directly to do as he
had proposed — to whom ? Why to Mordecai, the Jew ; to the very man
whom he had come to court to get hanged !
Do you think that all this was chance ? No ; God ordered it all for the
good of his favored people, the Jews. If Mordecai had not discovered the
conspirators against the king — if the king's rest had not been disturbed —
if he had not taken it into his head to have the Chronicles read to him,
where Mordecai's good conduct was recorded — if Mordecai had been
rewarded before— this remarkable honor would not have been bestowed
upon Mordecai at all. So that it depended upon a chain of events all
ordered by God's providence. And then, mark ! the honor was granted him
just at the moment when he was in the most danger, and when his life was
about to be demanded by Hainan, to whom the king would no doubt have
granted it, having forgotten all about Mordecai's having saved his life from
traitors. And what was yet more extraordinary, the man who was about
to destroy him was the man who was made to load him with honors ! So
Mordecai lost nothing by faithfully serving God ; neither will you lose at
last by serving him. " Verily, there is a reward for the righteous."
Hainan, having obeyed the king's command, and honored the man who
would not worship him, went home bitterly mortified, being disappointed in
his vengeance, and thinking himself degraded while Mordecai was exalted.
Instead of repeating the story of his greatness, he now told his wife and
friends of his misfortune, and they could not console him. They had prob-
ably heard how God had often done wonders in behalf of the Jews, and
knowing Hainan's rage against them, and his intentions towards them, they
now saw that, already, ill success attended him ; and they said, " If Mordecai
be of the seed of the Jews, before whom thou hast begun to fall, thou shalt
not prevail against him, but shalt surely fall before him."
While they were talking, the king's chamberlains came to attend Hainan
to the banquet, and, with a heavy heart, he hastened to join the king and
queen.
ESTHEE,
491
While they were feasting, the king again asked Esther — which was the
third time he had put the question — " What is thy petition, queen Esther,
and it shall be granted thee ? and what is thy request, and it shall be per-
formed, even to the half of the kingdom ? " The queen then told him that
she asked for her life, and for the lives of all her nation under the king's
dominion, for they were all devoted to destruction. She intimated that if
they had been doomed to be slaves, they might quietly have submitted ; but
even then the king would have been greatly injured in his revenues by
losing the benefit of the skill and industry of a nation laboring for its own
welfare.
The king was startled at the news, and asked in a rage, " Who is he,
and where is he that durst presume in his heart to do so ? " Now came the
fearful moment for Hainan : "And Esther said, The adversary and enemy
is this wicked Haman."
Haman was so terrified that he could not speak. The king, in the mean-
while, arose from his seat, and went out in haste to walk about the palace
garden, for he would not sit where Haman was ; and if he thought of the
decree he had issued against the Jews, in which Esther was involved, he was
perhaps the more angry that
Haman should coolly have
drawn him into such a plot.
As soon as the king was gone,
Haman stood up before the
queen, and humbly begged for
his life, for he saw by the king's
countenance that he determined
to punish him. The king soon
returned, and Haman, scarcely
knowing what he did, had then -^=ss
thrown himself down upon the _^
knees of the queen, to implore
her mercy. An Eastern prince
can scarcely endure that any one should even look at his princess, much
less touch her, which is considered a great liberty indeed ; and when the
king saw Haman before the queen, he never stopped in his rage to hear his
petition, but instantly gave signs for his execution. The attendants obeyed
his commands, covered his face, which is a sign that the person is con-
demned, and hurried him away. One of the king's chamberlains then
PERSIAN PRESSES OF STATE.
492 Bible and Commentator.
asked him how Haman should die ; and he told him of the high gallows
which he had prepared to hang the honored and faithful Mordecai. " Then
the king said, Hang him thereon." In most Eastern countries, the king's
command is the law, and the life and death of his subjects depend entirely
on his pleasure ; his word was enough, and Haman was executed.
Mordecai 's Advancement—Establishment of the Feast of Purim.
Esther viii.-x,
THE same day on which Haman was executed, the king took all his
property and gave it to Esther. He also gave Mordecai the ring
which he had given to Haman, and which he used to wear as a proof of the
king's favor. And Esther made Mordecai her steward, to manage the
riches of Hainan, which now became hers.
Though Haman was dead, the dreadful decree had yet gone out against
the Jews to destroy them, and the laws of the Persians would not allow of
its being revoked. Esther, however, ventured again into the presence of
the king, fell down before him, and entreated him, even with tears, to prevent
the mischief which Haman had " devised against the Jews." So the king
ordered Mordecai to write another decree, after the manner in which Hainan's
was written, and to send it into the hundred and twenty-seven provinces over
which he ruled. In this decree he gave the Jews leave to arm themselves,
and if any attack them, by the permission of the former decree, they were
to gather together in bodies, and stand for their lives, and the property of all
those whom they defeated was to become theirs.
Mordecai made no delay, but sent off copies of the new decree, sealed
with the king's ring ; and posts on horseback, mules, camels, and young
dromedaries, were despatched with them in every direction.
Mordecai was now promoted to great honor as the king's favorite. "And
Mordecai went out from the presence of the king in royal apparel of blue
and white, and with a great crown of gold, and with a garment of fine linen
and purple ; and the city of Shushan rejoiced and was glad." Haman was,
no doubt, a very austere man, not only to the Jews, but to others; and
most likely got much of his wealth by his severity. All the people of
Shushan were therefore glad to see his place occupied by so good a man as
Mordecai; and "the Jews had light and gladness," that is, prosperity,
" and joy, and honor." And in all places where the decree was sent, the
Esther
493
Jews kept a feast ; " and many of the people of the land became Jews ;
for the fear of the Jews fell upon them." They were made proselytes ;
that is, they, not being born Jews, submitted to all the rites of Jews, and
united in their worship of the true God. Some might do this out of interest,
hoping to gain the favors of the court, and of those who were its officers,
as Esther and Mordecai were in such high favor with the king. Some
might become Jews to save their lives, fearing that they might perish by
their vengeance, when the new decree was acted upon. But Ave may hope
and believe v that not a few were struck with the clear proof of God's pro-
tecting providence over the nation ; and so they desired to cast in their lot
among them, and to have the Jews' God for their God.
As the day approached for the decree of Haman to be executed, the Jews,
aware that they had many enemies, " gathered themselves together in their
cities, throughout all the prov-
inces of the king Ahasuerus, to
lay hand on such as sought their
hurt." And instead of hurting
them, "all the rulers of the
provinces, and the lieutenants,
and the deputies, and officers
of the king, helped the Jews ;
because the fear of Mordecai
fell upon them." Mordecai
being now chief minister of the
king, they did not know how
he might punish them, if they
acted on Hainan's decree ; and the fame of the new minister was spread
everywhere, and he increased daily in power.
Some of the Jews' enemies, however, would not let them alone, and the
Jews slew them. In the city of Shushan they destroyed five hundred men,
who were probably of Hainan's party, and tried to avenge the death of that
bad man. Among these were the ten sons of Hainan. They did not,
however, take their property, though the king's decree allowed it ; and thus
they showed that they were not moved by malice to kill their enemies, but
only acted in defence of their own lives.
When the king learned that the Jews had killed five hundred in the city,
he wished to know how many more of their enemies had fallen. And he
asked the queen if she was now satisfied, or desired anything more. She
MODERN PERSIAN WOMEN.
494
Bible and Commentator.
then asked that Hainan's ten sons might be hanged npon the gallows on
which their father was hung. It was usual among the Persians to hang
criminals even after they were dead, that their bodies might be disgraced.
This request of Esther's was not out of malice, but justice, to make an
example of the wicked enemies of her country. Hainan's sons had most
likely been his counsellors in his wickedness, and had helped to forward his
plans, and they had now shown their malice in fighting against the Jews.
By hanging them, as the last remainder of Hainan's house, they would be
a warning to others to take care in future how they tried to injure the people
of God. The king granted this
request to Esther, and the bodies
of Haman's sons were hanged.
The next day, the Jews had
another battle at Shushan, and
slew three hundred more of their
enemies. Those in the provinces
" slew seventy and five thousand,"
but none of them took any of the
property of those they slew.
Thus, having come off victori-
ous, the Jews " had rest from their
enemies." And some of them
made the fourteenth, and some the
fifteenth day of the month Adar,
" a day of feasting and gladness ; "
and they sent portions of the feast to each other, and especially to the
poor, that they might share in all their enjoyments. So that the very
day when their enemies thought to destroy them, they themselves were
destroyed ; and the Jews, instead of mourning and desolation, were the
subjects of great joy.
Mordecai wished never to forget the goodness of God in preserving him
and his people from such extreme danger ; he therefore sent letters to all
the Jews, desiring them to keep the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the
month Adar, in every year, in order to preserve in their memories the great
goodness of God in saving them from the cruelty of Hainan. We should
never forget remarkable instances of God's goodness to us ; and if we do not
celebrate them with feasting, we should always remember the day in which
they occurred with thanksgiving.
SUPPOSED TOMB OF ESTHER AND MORDECAI.
Esther.
495
The Jews readily agreed to keep the proposed days ; and as Haman had
fixed upon the period by pur, that is, lot, " they called these days Purim,
after the name of Pur." And they ordained that not only themselves, but
their iamilies, in every future generation, should keep this festival to com-
memorate the remarkable providence of God, in saving them from the hands
of the wicked Haman. Esther and Mordecai also wrote letters to confirm
this decree.
Nothing more is said of Mordecai, because this book was written only to
show the care of God over his peculiar people. But there were many other
interesting things about his greatness, as well as about the deeds of
Ahasuerus, which were " written in the chronicles of the kings of Media
and Persia," but which are now lost. How many old histories have
perished, as the world itself must perish ! The memorials of great empires
are gone forever; but the Bible remains, the oldest, the best and the most
interesting of books, giving a history of God's people, even from the
beginning of time ; and shall be an imperishable memorial of his spiritual
dominion over the hearts of men, till all the subjects of his grace shall
reign with him in glory.
A PERSIAN CUP-BEARER.
JOB:
Or, history of Job, the patriarch. This is divided into forty- two chapters, and tells us much that is useful and
attractive in regard to a very ancient post-diluvian character, who seems as the connecting link, in God's church,
between Noah and Abraham. Singular piety, afflictions, misfortunes, riches, and eventual prosperity are all
i-ecorded in this very old and wonderful narrative, all which, with other important facts, are more or less given iu
the matters det died below.
' HE book which we have now to notice is called
Job. It contains a short history of a good man
of that name. He lived in the land of Uz,
supposed to have been part of an Eastern
country called Arabia. The time when he
lived is not exactly known, but, from some
circumstances, it is supposed that he was dis-
tantly related to Abraham, and a descendant
of Nahor, his brother. As he lived to a good
old age, it is thought that he was alive when
the Israelites were oppressed in Egypt, and that he maintained the pure
worship of God in his country, when idolatry was everywhere else over-
spreading the world.
No one knows who wrote this book ; some thinking that it was Ezra,
some that it was Isaiah, some that it was Solomon, some that it was Moses,
some that -ft was Elihu, and some that it was Job himself.
Some have also supposed that it is a parable, intended to set forth the
afflictions to which a good man may be liable — the care of God over him —
and the final deliverance which he shall at some time enjoy. Most who
have written about him, however, agree in thinking that his history is no
parable, but a history of a real person, because he is mentioned as such in
Ezekiel and James.
The book begins with giving us Job's character ; it is such as makes us
at once interested in all that happens to him, for he "was perfect and
upright, and one that feared God and eschewed evil." — Not that he had no
496
Job
497
sin, but his conduct was as sincere as that of a man could be, and he did
everything with the best intent ; while those around him were idolaters,
he served God, and while they lived in sinful practices, he eschewed or
avoided evil.
This good man had seven sons and three daughters ; he was also very
rich, in what made the riches of those days, especially in his country:
" His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels,
and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she-asses, and a very great
household ; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the East."
His children were very happy among themselves, and seemed to have
loved each other, as good brothers and sisters ought, with a sincere affection.
At particular times of the year they had feasts, as we usually have at
Christmas ; and then they all met together, as
many families do at least once a year with us,
and the sisters were invited to meet with the
brothers. Probably the brothers had these
feasts in succession at their houses. And when
they were over> good Job, who loved their souls
as well as their bodies, lost no time in offering
up " burnt-offerings, according to the number of
them all ; for Job said, it may be that my sons
have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.
Thus did Job continually."
From the circumstance of Job offering up
the sacrifice, it is supposed with good reason,
that he lived before the time of Moses, for only
in the days of the patriarchs did good men act
as the priests of their families ; after that time,
God appointed priests "both to offer up gifts and sacrifices for sins."
These sacrifices were types or representations of the sacrifice of Jesus
Christ, and were no doubt offered up in faith, believing that, " in the ful-
ness of time," the sacrifice which they represented would be offered up in
the death of Christ ; and that that sacrifice would make these of benefit, as
they led the soul to rest alone upon it. These sacrifices were a confession
of sin, and of the need of its being done away, in order that those who
offered them might obtain pardon.
As at this time there were good men about Job, who agreed to call upon
the name of the Lord, these " sons of God came to present themselves be-
498 Bible and Commentator.
fore tKe Lord." Satan, too, got into their assemblies, and suggested bad
thoughts to their minds. Satan, however, does not merely mean the name
of the bad spirit, but also signifies an accuser ; and any evil people who
found fault with the perfect Job, and said ill things of him — as they do now
of those who fear God — and accused him of serving God for some selfish
purposes, might well bear the name of Satan. Many, however, think that
the evil spirit is here intended throughout, and, although we cannot tell how
God and Satan could hold conversation, yet that it actually took place, be-
tween the good and evil spirits. It is enough for us, however, to know that
Job was accused in that question, " Doth Job fear God for naught ? " —
meaning, is he not a gainer by it? Does he not prosper? He may then
well serve his God! "Hast thou not made a hedge about him?" that is,
protected him — "and about his house, and about all that he hath on every
side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is in-
creased in the land." But only let his circumstances be changed, and see
if he will serve God then. No, to be sure. "But put forth thine hand
now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face." So
said the accuser.
In order to show that the religion of Job was genuine, and that he could
serve God in a low estate as well as when surrounded by wealth, God
allowed afflictions to come fast upon him. "And there was a day when his
sons and his daughters were feasting and drinking wine in their eldest
brother's house." And just in this happy moment, when Job must have
been delighting himself in the happiness of his children, there came a
messenger unto Job, and said, " The oxen were ploughing, and the asses
feeding beside them, and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them away ;
yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword ; and I only
am escaped alone to tell thee." Here, in one moment, his " five hundred
yoke of oxen," and his " five hundred asses," which formed a valuable part
of Job's substance, were all taken away. This sort of plundering was
practised by these Sabeans, and in the East there are no greater plunderers
to this day than the wild Arabs, who live in the parts near which Job
resided. To add to Job's misfortunes, his servants also were slain, who,
according to the customs of those times, became such by being born in his
house, or bought with his money, and were therefore a part of his property.
This messenger had not done telling his sad story before another arrived ;
and he said, " The fire of God is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up
the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them ; and I only am escaped
Job.
400
alone to tell thee." Thus were his " seven thousand sheep " at once
destroyed by lightning, and he had neither food, nor wool for clothing.
Before this messenger had clone speaking, another yet came from another
part of Job's estates, where his camels were kept, and he said, " The Chal-
deans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried
them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword ; and I
only am escaped alone to tell
thee." Thus Job lost all that he
had, for now his " three thousand
camels" were gone, being stolen
by a people, who, as ancient his-
tory tells us, lived by plundering
others.
Still the good man might have
comforted himself that he was
not left alone in his deep afflic-
tions. He had his seven sons
and his three daughters spared to
him, and though his property was
valuable, they were dearer to him
than all, and children so affection-
ate towards each other would still
comfort and support their vener-
able and beloved parent. But,
while the last messenger was yet
speaking, " there came also another
and said, Thy sons and thy daugh-
ters were eating and drinking wine
in their eldest brother's house.
And, behold, there came a great
wind from the wilderness and
smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and
they are dead ; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee." There are very
strong winds in Arabia, and God now suffered these to blow upon the house
in which Job's sons were, so that all these calamities reduced him from
riches to poverty, and from great happiness to deep sorrow in one day ! O
what a sad day ! Some men, who had no God to whom they could go for
relief, would have gone mad, and some would have raged furiously against
500 Bible and Commentator.
God for suffering all this evil to come upon them. But " Job arose, and
rent his mantle, and shaved his head," in token of his being in great
distress ; " and fell down upon the ground and worshipped," to express the
humility of his mind and his dependence still upon God ; so that he did not
curse him to his face, as the adversary said he would, if God severely
afflicted him. And he said, " Naked came I out of my mother's womb,"
or mother earth, " and naked shall I return thither : the Lord gave, and
the Lord hath taken away ; blessed be the name of the Lord." As if he
had said, "All I had came from God ; he gave it to me, and he has thought
proper to take it away. Whatever he does is all right, though it be ever so
painful to me; so I will not murmur, but still bless his holy name."
How beautiful does the piety of Job here appear ! " In all this Job
sinned not," that is, he uttered no wrong expression about what God had
suffered to be done to him, " nor charged God foolishly."
The adversary was still inclined to accuse Job, and though he had shown
so much piety under his losses, still his tongue was employed in accusing
him of not being sincere before God. We think it very likely that though
Satan is mentioned as doing this, yet it may mean that wicked people, set
on by the workings of his evil spirit on their spirits, might be his accusers,
and so Satan might accuse Job through them. However, the adversary
now said, that if Job's life was in danger from a painful disease, he would
then no longer love God, and so his religion would be at an end. Well,
God then suffered sore boils to smite Job, and to cover him all over from
head to foot. And he was so bad that he took a piece of a broken pot to
scrape himself, and he sat down in a heap of ashes. To add to his misery
yet further, his wife provokingly asked him if he would now be religious
any longer, as he had proof enough that his religion did not save him from
trouble ; she then told him to curse God rather than bless him, and then
die in despair. This wicked woman, however, failed in shaking the piety
of Job. For he said unto her, " Thou speakest as one of the foolish women
speaketh. What ! shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we
not receive evil ? " " In all this did not Job sin with his lips."
In the midst of his trouble three of Job's particular friends, having heard
of what had happened to him, came from their distant places of abode to
visit him. They are called Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite,
and Zophar the Naamathite. When they approached his house they saw
him in his sad condition, but he was so altered, that in any other place they
would not have known him. At this sight they were much affected, and
Job
501
even wept. Then, as a sign of their grief, they "rent every one his
mantle," or cloak ; and they took up handfuls of dust from the ground and
throwing them into the air, let them fall in showers on their heads. Then
" they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights,
and none spake a word unto him, for they saw that his grief was very
great." Not indeed but that they took some food and rest during this time,
or they could not have lived ; but they spent most of the nights, as well as
days, in showing their sorrow. It was customary to mourn seven days on
any occasion of great grief: Joseph "made a mourning for his father seven
days ; " and the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead, after they had buried the
bodies of Saul and his sons, who had been slain by the Philistines, in the
same manner fasted seven days.
Job at last broke the silence, and opened his mouth with cursing the day
in which he was born. He did not
indeed curse and swear — he was too
good a man to do so — but he gave
way to strong expressions of com-
plaint, which is. what is meant here
by cursing. For Ave have his words
put down, "Let the day perish
wherein I was born, and the night
in which it was said, There is a
man-child conceived. Let that day
be darkness ; let not God regard
it from above, neither let the light shine upon it." He thought that his
birth-day, instead of being a day of rejoicing, ought rather to have every-
thing bad said about it, or rather to be forever forgotten, for it had only
brought him into a world of the greatest sorrow. Here, however, though
Job showed impatience, which was wrong, he said nothing against God or
religion, and showed that he was not inclined to depart from the fear of
God, because he had afflicted him.
His friends then spoke to him one after another. But instead of giving
him any comfort, they only irritated his mind. Though they were good
men, they foolishly supposed that Job never could have been so afflicted, if
he had not done something that was very wicked. They therefore told him
that he must have been guilty of being a hypocrite, and that all his religion
was in mere show, and not in his heart. They also accused him, as he was
a great man, of being what great men in power too often are — especially in
HIPPOPOTAMUS, OR SEA-HOIISK.
502 Bible and Commentator.
the East — a great oppressor, and a covetous man. Job could not bear this,
for he knew it was not true, and he was hurt at his friends adding to his
sorrows, by thinking so badly of him. This made him speak of himself in
the high and good terms in which he sometimes did in the course of their
conversation; not that he was vain of his goodness or good deeds, and
loved to talk about them, but he was obliged to do so in his own defence.
Yet he owned, as every good man will, that he was truly a sinner before
God, and this no doubt helped to reconcile him to God's allowing him thus
to be afflicted ; but he still held fast his religion, and he said of God,
" Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." He also comforted himself
in the hope, that when this vain life should be over, he should see his
Kedeemer in a happier and a better world.
At length Job's friends, thinking it was of no use to talk to him any
longer — as they could not make him admit that his sufferings were on
account of his not being sincere before God, as they supposed — the con-
versation was dropped. " So these three men ceased to answer Job, because
he was righteous in his own eyes."
A young man of the name of Elihu, having heard the debate between
Job and his friends, was much vexed at them all. He thought that Job
had been wrong in trying so much to vindicate himself from the charge of
having deserved his sufferings in a particular manner, while he had said
little or nothing to vindicate the character and honor of God, though he
had afflicted him. He was also very angry with Job's three friends,
" because they had found no answer, and yet had condemned Job ; " they
were unable to disprove what he had said about his own uprightness,
and yet they had set him down as a hypocrite, because God had greatly
afflicted him.
The young should always give place to the old, because the old ought
first to be heard, and are expected, from having more years, to have also
more wisdom. Elihu therefore " had waited till Job had spoken, because
they were elder than he," — that is, Job and his friends — and when Job had
finally given over replying, and his friends speaking, Elihu made an apology
for opening his mouth, and then said, " Hearken to me ; I also will give
mine opinion." Then he began to blame Job for saying so much about his
own goodness, and complaining of his sufferings from the hand of God,
though, indeed, he had not murmured against him in a spirit of rebellion.
After remarking on many wrong expressions which Job had uttered, he at
length closed all by vindicating the conduct of God in all his dealings in
Job. ' 503
Providence with sinful men, and showing how impossible it is for us, his
humble creatures, to search his ways even in common things. He pointed
out the wonders of the thunder and lightning ; the snow and the rain • the
wind and the clouds ; and then assured his hearers that such a great God
would not afflict without a just cause.
Elihu having done speaking, God, in some wonderful way, at . length
himself spoke, with a strong voice which proceeded out of a whirlwind that
sprung up at the time. By
this voice he reminded Job
of his divine power and
glory in all the works of
creation, and called upon
him to humble himself be-
fore him as the Judge of all
the earth. Then Job cried
out, " Behold, I am vile ! "
And after the voice from
God had spoken once more, • whale.
Job owned his folly and ignorance, confessed his sins and repented before
God ; for, though he was a good man, the best of men have many reasons
to humble themselves daily before the most holy God, and to say in his
most pure presence, as Job did, that they " repent in dust and ashes " — the
most humbling sign of grief and misery.
Then, as Job's friends had wrongly accused him and judged harshly of
him, God spoke to " Eliphaz the Temanite," and told him that he was dis-
pleased with him and his two friends for what they had said about Job.
And he desired them to go with Job, who should oifer up a sacrifice which
he would accept, in order to take away his displeasure. Thus, after all his
sufferings, God honored Job before his friends. In reading of this sacrifice
offered by Job for his friends, we are also reminded that as we have sinned
against God, and do often offend him, wre must go to Jesus Christ our great
advocate, as Job's friends did to him ; and we must look to his sacrifice as
the never-failing way of obtaining acceptance with God.
So when Job and his friends had done as God commanded, God accepted
of them all and received them into his favor.
And now Job became rich again in this world's wealth, for " the Lord
gave Job twice as much as he had before." " Then came there unto him
ail his brethren, and all his sisters, and all they that had been of his
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Bible and Commentator
acquaintance before, and did eat bread with him in his house, and they
bemoaned him, and comforted him over all the evil that the Lord had
brought upon him : every man also gave him a piece of money, and every
one an ear-ring of gold. So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more
than his beginning : for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand
camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she-asses. He had
also seven sons and three daughters. And he called the name of the first,
Jemima ; and the name of the second, Kezia ; and the name of the third,
Keren-happuch. And in all the land were no women found so fair as the
daughters of Job : and their father gave them an inheritance among their
brethren ; " and so divided a portion of his property among them, as he did
among his sons.
"After this lived Job an hundred and forty years, and saw his sons, and
his sons' sons, even four generations ; " so that he is supposed to have lived
above two hundred
years. His great age is
one reason which guides
us to the time in which
he lived, as, after the
days of Moses, we read
of none living to so
lengthened a period.
"So Job died, being
old and full of days/'
Before we finish with
the history of Job, some
few words must be ex-
plained which you will meet with in the latter chapters, in which God
speaks from the whirlwind.
In the thirty-eighth chapter and thirty-first verse, you will find this
question : " Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the
bands of Orion ?" By Pleiades is meant the seven stars which sometimes
appear close together in one part of the sky; and the question perhaps
meant, Canst thou cluster together such a group of stars as that, Job?
Orion is a large group of stars, amounting to two thousand that may be
seen ; and more not clearly seen : and who can separate or alter them ? In
the next verse we also read, " Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his
season ? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons ? " By Mazzaroth it is
CROCODILE.
Job. 505
thought the South Pole, or the South part of the heavens or sky, is meant,
with its stars. Arcturus is a constellation or number of stars, seen some-
times near the North Pole, or Northern part of the world, and by its sons
are probably meant its stars.
In the thirty-ninth chapter and ninth verse, there is another question
that needs explaining : " Will the Unicorn be willing to serve thee, or
abide by thy crib ? " Here Job is taught God's power by the beasts he has
made. Unicorn means one-horned. Since men have learned more of the
history of the different parts of the world, it has been found out that there
is a creature called the Rhinoceros, which is very strong and fierce, and has
one horn. Such a wild beast, though God made him with ease, Job could
not even have dared to feed loose in his
stable, or to make work in his fields.
In the thirty-ninth chapter and thir-
teenth verse, we read of the Ostrich.
This 's a bird that is now often shown
in this country, and the pictures of which
you must frequently have seen. It is
often taller than a man, with a large
body, thick and long legs, and long neck.
The feathers of its tail are very beautiful,
and being prepared, are among the
most handsome ornaments worn by
ladies.
In the fourteenth chapter and fifteenth verse, wre read of the Behemoth,
in which is described a huge and powerful creature, Avith bones as " strong
pieces of brass/' and " like bars of iron." Many writers think that this
means the Elephant, but it seems most nearly to describe a very powerful
creature called the Hippopotamus, or Sea-Horse.
Lastly, in the forty-first chapter, there is a grand description of the power
of a creature belonging to the water. It is called Leviathan, but whether
it means the Whale or the Crocodile is not certain, both being very large
and powerful creatures, to which many parts of the description will apply.
Many writers are inclined to think that the Whale is intended.
In finishing the history of Job, we learn that good men may be very much
afflicted ; and, that instead of supposing God does not love them because he
afflicts them, we ought to believe that he intends to do them good by it;
just as your kind parents intend to do you good, when they reprove you for
doing what is wrong.
ARABIAN CAMEL.
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Bible and Commentator.
We are also taught that it is God who can make us rich or poor, and so
we ought to be contented with what he sends us. When he thought it right
to make Job poor, how soon he lost his all ! and when he thought it right
to make him rich again, how
soon he recovered his wealth !
God can do everything ; let us
trust in him, love and serve him,
and then we are sure that he
will do everything that is best
for us, and bring us at last to
heaven, where " God shall wipe
away all tears from off all faces ; "
that is, where, what trouble so-
ever may happen to us here, we
shall not have any cause to weep
any more.
A thought or two more before
concluding this book. There
are no trials in this life except
that they have concealed within
them certain blessings. We can
never drink from the cup of
sorrow, except that down within
it somewhere — among its dregs,
it may be — are settled richest
mercies, provided we are true to
our souls, and stand fixed in the submissive faith that should bind every
one to God. The power of our Supreme Ruler may be exercised on the
side of our success in the affairs of life, or it may bring upon us severe afflic-
tions and trials. In either event it becomes us to be contented, remember-
ing that with our success comes greater responsibility ; or with our calami-
ties, higher spiritual profit and advancement.
BEDOUINS IN THE ARABIAN DESERT.
PSALMS:
Oa " The Book of Praises, Hymns, and Prayers." The title, " Psalms," signifies " holy songs," and upon closer
scrutiny we find them to he made up of inspired hymns, songs, meditations and prayers. In them are furnished us
every variety of Hebrew poetry, and from them are reflected the substance of all or nearly all the teachings of the
Bible. They were evidently designed for the instruction and profit of the church in all ages ; and they carry with
them an amount of worship and spiritual strength that tells wonderfully upon every Christian who reads, studies,
and sings them. They are useful, also, in their connection with the sacred book of God, as having very plain types,
shadows, and prophecies, besides other matters of clear confirmation.
Explanation of the Design of the Psalms— Their
Titles.
HE Book of Psalms means "The Book of Praises/'
because they were to be sung in the temple-worship,
and because a great number of them are full of praise.
Many of them are, however, prayers ; many are de-
signed merely to teach important truths, as the provi-
dence or care of God, the necessity of holiness, and the
like; many are prophetical, and sing about things
^2bjC^> which had not happened when they were written, and
SIT especially about Jesus Christ — the glory of his person
— his life, sufferings, death, resurrection, ascension, and kingdom — for David
was a prophet as well as a king, and so God spake by him to his church,
and encouraged their hopes in the Messiah, or divinely anointed Saviour,
who was to rule over his holy people Israel.
As these psalms were to be sung, they were written in poetey, though
they are translated into prose in our Bible, because it was not possible to
translate them word for word in any other way. Our psalms in verse give
the meanings of the Scripture Psalms, but not the exact words.
The Psalms being written in poetry, for the purpose of singing, are full,
of poetical expressions or words not commonly used in prose, or in the
language in which we generally talk. This will account for many
expressions which you, perhaps, do not easily understand ; because, in
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Bible and Commentator.
poetry, what are called figures of speech are used, or one word is employed
to mean another — things seen to explain things not seen, and things of
earth to describe things of heaven.
The titles of the Psalms are often difficult to understand. We must
just look at them. You will observe that many of them were written at
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OF THE ANCIENT JEWS.
the time of particular events which happened to David, of which you have
read in his history. The third psalm is called a psalm of David, when
he fled from Absalom his son. The seventh psalm is concerning the
words of Cush, the Benjamite, who seems wrongfully to have accused David
to Saul. The eighteenth psalm is a psalm of praise to God, written by
David in the day that the Lord delivered him from all his enemies, and
from the hand of Saul. The thirtieth was sung at the dedication of the
house of David, when he had built and finished his house of cedar upon
Mount Sion. The thirty-fourth is called a psalm of David, when he changed
his behavior before Abimelech ; who drove him away, and he departed. You
remember that David fled from Saul to Achish, king of Gath : that being
discovered there, he changed his behavior, and was considered as one mad ;
and so he was driven away, and escaped the danger that he feared. On that
occasion he made this psalm. The thirty-eighth psalm is called " a psalm to
bring to remembrance." David was then in trouble, and brings to remem-
brance why God afflicted him. The forty-fifth is called " a song of loves."
It is a prophecy about Christ, and is quoted as such in the Epistle to the
Psalms.
509
Hebrews j and it shows the love which the church of Christ, that is, his peo-
ple, everywhere have to him, and their delight in his honor and glory.
The fifty-first psalm was written after Nathan had told his parable to
David, when he had caused the death of his faithful soldier, Uriah.
It shows how his heart was broken before God on account of his great
sin. The fifty-second psalm is called "a psalm of David, when Doeg,
the Edomite, came and told Saul, and
said unto him, David is come to the
house of Ahimelech." You recollect
that David, having escaped from Saul,
went to Ahimelech the priest, at Nob,
from whom he received bread and a sword.
Doeg, the Edomite, was present, and he
told Saul of all that had taken place.
Saul instantly charged the priest with
being guilty of treason; and though he
protested he was quite innocent, Saul
would not believe him, but ordered his
men to slay him and all the other priests
that were with him. This they refused
to do ; but Doeg obeyed his command,
slew eighty-five priests, destroyed the city
of Nob itself, and even killed all the
men, women, and little children, oxen,
asses, and sheep. When David heard this
sad account of what the wicked Doeg
had done, he wrote this psalm. The
fifty-fourth psalm was written " when
the Ziphim," or Ziphites, "came and
said to Saul, Doth not David hide
himself with us?" of which you may
read in the fourteenth chapter of the
First Book of Samuel, and in the beginning of the twenty-sixth chapter
of the same book. The fifty-sixth psalm was composed " when the Philis-
tines took him in Gath," of which you may see the account in the
twenty-first chapter of the First Book of Samuel, from the tenth verse.
The fifty-seventh psalm was made " when he fled from Saul in the cave."
The fifty- ninth psalm is a prayer to God for help, " when Saul sent and
MANNA PLANT.
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Bible and Commentator.
they watched the house to kill him ! " See the nineteenth chapter of the
First Book of Samuel, and the eleventh verse. The sixtieth psalm : read
the eighth chapter of the Second Book of Samuel, and the eighteenth chapter
of the First Book of Chronicles, if you would learn all the particulars of
this part of David's history. The sixty-third psalm was composed by David
" when he was in the wilderness of Judah ; " as he fled there both from Saul
and Absalom, we cannot tell on which occasion he wrote it ; but it shows
how much he loved to worship God, and how greatly he was grieved, when
he could not join the people in going to his sanctuary. The hundred and
forty-second psalm by David is called "a prayer when he was in the cave."
Besides these titles, which show on what occasions many of the Psalms
were written, there are other titles which are not given in English words ;
because it was not exactly known, by those
who rendered the Hebrew Bible into
English, what might be the meaning of
those titles. I will tell you, however, what
they are generally thought to mean.
The title to the fourth psalm is, " To the
chief musician on Neginoth." Here I
must remind you that there were many
players upon musical instruments in the
ancient Israelitish worship ; and that these
instruments were made with strings, to be
struck with something to make them
sound ; or they were wind instruments
sounded by the breath, and of other sorts,
something like those which are now used in music meetings. There was
a master, or head, who directed all the players on each particular sort of
instrument, or class of instruments. This was the chief musician. Now, ,
David intended this psalm to be played upon an instrument, or perhaps a
variety of instruments, called Neginoth ; which is understood to mean a
hand or stringed instrument; that is, an instrument made with strings,
and played with the hand, and not with the mouth. The fifth psalm
is " To the chief musician upon Nehiloth," and this word is descriptive of
a hollow or wind instrument, or wind instruments, and the chief musician
of the instrument, or the various instruments blown with the breath, was to
direct the playing and singing of this psalm.
The sixth psalm is addressed, as the fourth, " To the chief musician on
ALMOND BLOSSOM AND FRUIT.
Psalms
511
Neginoth," but it adds "upon Sheminith." Sheminith means "the eighth"
— that is, the eighth string, or the instrument with eight strings. So that
the title means, "To the chief musician upon the stringed instruments,
to be played upon the eight-stringed instrument ; " or, it might mean, to be
played chiefly on the eighth string, in a very high tone. The seventh psalm
is called " Shiggaion of David." The meaning of this word is not very
plain ; but perhaps, as it means " to wander," it signifies a psalm written
like an ode ; that is, with lines of all sorts of length, some very short, and
some very long, instead of continuing all in one steady measure. The
eighth psalm is addressed " To the chief musician upon Gittith." It is
thought likely by some that Gittith was an instrument which Jeduthun,
and his family after him, played upon, and
which was committed to the care of Obed-
edom, the Gittite, and his family. The real
meaning of this word is, however, not well
known. Remember, it is not a part of the
word of God, but only a title to the psalm,
of no more importance in itself than the
number of the psalm, and so we lose nothing
which it is needful for us to know, if we
cannot always understand the meaning of a
title.
The ninth psalm is directed " To the chief
musician upon Muthlabben." This was,
perhaps, the name of a tune, or of an instru-
ment. The sixteenth psalm, and some others,
have the title, "Michtam of David."
Michtam means "A golden or excellent psalm." Some think this was the
name of a tune which, on account of its excellency, was called golden, and
to which David wished the words of his psalm to be sung ; others think it
was a musical instrument, which, being much admired, bore the name of
Michtam. The twenty-second psalm is inscribed " To the chief musician on
Aijeleth Shahar." Some think the words mean, "at the dawning of the
day ; " and so the psalm was intended to be sung by the priests and Levites
every morning, as soon as the day began to appear. The thirty-second
psalm is marked by the word " Maschil," which means instruction. This
title may, therefore, merely describe what the psalm contains, or, like the
others I have noticed, mean the name of the tune to which it was to be sung,
WIND INSTRUMENTS OF DAVID S TIME.
512
Bible and Commentator.
or of the instrument on which it was to be played. The thirty-ninth psalm
was intended for Jeduthun the musician, and the forty-second for the sons
of Korah, who performed in the holy service. The forty-fifth psalm is
addressed " To the chief musician upon Shoshannim," which was either the
name of an instrument of six strings, or the first word in a sacred song, to
the tune of which David might wish this psalm to be sung. The forty-sixth
psalm was most probably intended, by the title, to be played upon an instru-
ment called Alamoth, as it is mentioned in Chronicles. The fifty-third
psalm is directed to the chief musician upon Mahalath, which is thought by
some to have been a wind instrument.
The title of the fifty-sixth psalm has a
very difficult word, and is /or, or " To the
chief musician upon Jonath-elem-recho-
kim." A learned man says that the
words mean, " concerning the mute dove
among them that are in far places ; " and
so they signify that when David wrote
this psalm, he was as a quiet innocent
dove, far from home, among the wicked
Philistines. The fifty-seventh psalm has
this title : " To the chief musician Altas-
chith, Michtam of David," &c. Altas-
chith means, " do not destroy," and is
thought to describe the state of trouble
in which David's mind was when he
wrote the psalm; as if he had said, "A
psalm written in great grief, when I
prayed to God not to destroy me." The
sixtieth psalm is " To the chief musician upon Shushan-eduth ; " which,
perhaps, means a six-stringed instrument. The word i( Neginah," in the
title of the sixty-first psalm, means the same as Neginoth ; that is, a stringed
instrument. The eighty-eighth psalm has this expression in the title : "To
the chief musician upon Mahalath Leannoth." I have already said that
Mahalath is taken for a musical wind instrument, and as Leannoth signifies
to answer, it is likely that this psalm was to be sung in what we call
responses ; that is, by parties of singers singing by turns.
The hundred and nineteenth psalm is divided into as many parts as there
are letters in the Hebrew alphabet ; each part being of equal length, and
PALM TREE.
Psalms.
513
having eight verses. Aleph, Beth, and the other words at the beginning
of every ninth verse, are the names of the Hebrew letters, just as if we were
to proceed in the same way with A, B, C. There are four psalms so divided,
which we call alphabetical psalms. These are the twenty-fifth, thirty-fourth,
thirty-seventh, and hundred and nineteenth ; though only the latter is so
distinguished in our Bibles. The reason for this order seems to have been
merely to help the memory. As the first word of every eight verses began
with the same letter, it would be more easy to recollect what followed.
Here it may be worthy of remark, that the hundred and nineteenth is the
longest of the psalms, and longer than any chapter in the whole Bible. The
hundred and twentieth psalm bears the
name of " a song of degrees," as likewise
do many others that follow. They are
generally supposed to have been sung by
the Levites as they ascended some steps
in the temple when they engaged in the
sacred services; and so they sung them
through as they advanced, by degrees, up
the steps. In many of the psalms, you
will find the word "Selah." It is not
certain what this means, but the most
general opinion is that it was a mark in
music, signifying that the singer should
pause. In the ninth psalm, we have the
words, "Higgaion, Selah." Higgaion
means meditation ; perhaps signifying
that the singers should particularly medi-
tate on what they were then singing, as DATES-
well as pause.
We must now take notice of the authors of the psalms, for though they
are often called David's Psalms, they were not all written by him, and you
will find many of them with other names. Many psalms are by Asaph, who
is mentioned as a seer or prophet in the twenty-ninth chapter of the second
book of Chronicles, and the thirtieth verse. The forty-fifth psalm is by
Solomon, or written by some one for his use. The ninetieth psalm was
written by Moses, and is supposed to have been occasioned by God's
threatening to cut off the people of Israel from entering the land of Canaan,
when they believed the reports of the timid spies about its dangers instead
33
514
Bible and Commentatok.
of trusting in God. Many psalms have not any names of their authors, and
so they can only be guessed at from the subjects of them, and as they refer
to events which happened when David was not living. Thus, the hundred
and thirty-seventh psalm is an affecting account of the sufferings of the
Israelites when they were captives in Babylon, and hung their harps on the
willows which grew there in abundance by the side of the streams, refusing
to play them on account of their great sorrow. As this happened long after
David's time, it is supposed that the psalm was written by some Levite on
his entering as a captive into Babylon. Again ; the hundred and twenty-sixth
psalm expresses joy on return from captivity ; and as Ezra the scribe was
among those released by the
proclamation of Cyrus, it is sup-
posed that he was its author.
With one more observation
we shall finish the Book of
Psalms. You will find some of
them containing some unusually
severe and angry expressions
about punishing wicked men,
and praying that God would do
them all sorts of harm. Now, Jesus Christ tells us to pray for our enemies,
and even to do good to them that hate .us and do us harm. The word of
God does not contradict itself; and very learned men tell us that the parts
which we so read are prophetical, and tell what God will do to the wicked,
and ought not to read in English as prayers for his vengeance to fall upon
them. If, however, it were allowed to a Jew so to pray, it is not allowed to
a Christian. We are to be merciful as our Father in heaven is merciful ;
and there is something very delightful to a pious mind to be able to return
good for evil, and even to pray for a cruel enemy. Without we can do this,
we only mock God, and shut ourselves out from hope of his mercy, when we
pray, " Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us."
* It has recently been conjectured by Biblical scholars, and with very good reason, that the
one hundred and forty-ninth Psalm was composed by some writer, priest or Levite, in the
temple service after, the victories of the Asmonean princes (the Maccabees), not more than
150 years before Christ.
ANCIENT LAMPS.
Proverbs
Or a " Collection of Wise Sayings" made by the wisest of men. The " Proverbs " of any nation are indicative of its
wisest and best thoughts, but those collected and in part framed by Solomon have these advantages over all other
collections, that they are the collected wisdom of a very intelligent and religious people ; that they were arranged
very carefully and with long study, by a man greatly renowned for wisdom ; that the whole book is inspired by the
Holy Spirit ; and that it contains much profound and important instruction, which is- not proverbial in character.
Like the Psalms, the book is poetical in its form and construction. It is divided into thirty-one chapters.
|v\ fjj ^V/y HEIST a wise man speaks, we ought to listen
vfc, W It ^° n^m* God gave Solomon a great deal
-^ j^^«n|r5|l Ik jif-— _ 0I> wisdom — he was the wisest man that
^HmVvfU I ) I filJIlijifilS ever ^ve(^* ^nd I will tell you how he
J^Sw\ • ill I ^ »ot ^s wisdom. He asked for it of God,
jSSNk^WKfiu 1_^ 4 anc^ ^oc^ was pleased with his request, and
H'/^^^^^^^^^^W^^^^f granted it. And if any of you, my young
^^ _w\ i - --= 3$SBSp friends, " lack," or want " wisdom," let him
5-%- ^ " ask of God, who giveth it to all liberally.
We treasure up a great many foolish things in our memories ; here are
some wise things to treasure up. And remember, that though Solomon speaks,
yet as God gave him the wisdom, and it relates to what will make us good
in life, and happy in death and beyond the grave, we ought to regard every
word we here read as if God spoke in our ears.
The Proverbs do not begin till the tenth chapter ; the chapters before
that are only a sort of introduction, to tell you what is coming, and how
and why you ought to attend to it. It is said, "Wisdom crieth with-
out, she uttereth her voice in the streets ; " meaning, that the instruction
of these proverbs is not a secret, but a thing published, that all may
hear and become wise. Here wisdom is spoken of as if it were a female
person.
The thirtieth chapter contains the Proverbs of Agur ; and the thirty-
first of king Lemuel, which is thought to be another name for Solomon.
I pray that God may give you his grace to practise these Proverbs, and
then you may expect to grow up both wise and happy. Amen.
515
EOOLESIASTES:
Or " Book of the Preacher," so named, doubtless, because of the purpose of the writer and the character of its
teachings. Its discourses, through twelve chapters, make up a monument of testimony in behalf of righteousness
and godliness, as against sin, and all the silly pleasures in its train. There are various remarkable things told us
in it, as well as very beautiful descriptions given of man's peculiar position in, and connection with, nature all
around him.
HIS was king Solomon's opinion of the world. He meant by
it that there is nothing in it which can satisfy the wants of the
soul, and that it can never make any one truly happy. It
has many pleasures to offer us ; but then they will do us no
good when we come to die ; and those who live longest will live
but a little time in this world. Then that is the wisest person
**% /$ who is always preparing for the next world. Now this is what
Solomon meant to teach us in writing this book.
He was a rich and powerful king, and if any one could find happiness in
this world, such a one as Solomon could. But after he had tried honors,
and riches, and pleasures, and learning, and knowledge of all sorts, he said
all was vanity.
He meant by this that all were good for nothing. He was too wise a
man not to know that honors are very pleasant things, and riches help to
get many enjoyments ; and pleasures have some charms in them ; and
learning has its delights ; and knowledge is very useful, and makes us
respectable; — but then he would have us remember that we have souls
which require our care, and that if we neglect to take care of these, and do
not pay much attention to their happiness — honors, riches, pleasures, learn-
ing and knowledge, as they must leave us at the grave, will prove in the
end " vanity of vanities."
We must not, then, make our happiness to consist of honors; nor set our
hearts covetously on getting riches ; nor let our time and attention be given
away to silly pleasures ; nor study to get human learning and knowledge,
while we take no pains to become wise unto salvation.
What we have said is the substance of what Solomon has taught us in
516
ECCLESIASTES.
517
this book. But the last chapter is more particularly designed for the notice
of the young. In this Solomon writes as if he would say, " Seeing the
world is all so vain, and that there is nothing in it that remains long, all
its comforts are of a dying sort ; " then we will tell you of the best remedy
to cure these evils. This remedy is to serve God while you are young.
" Kemember now thy Creator
in the days of thy youth. "
Now you are healthy and
strong, remember him, — and
then you will find comfort
and support for your mind
when you become old and
weak. Now before you go
into the world, remember
him, — and then you will have
comfort dwelling in your
mind ready to support it
whenever you meet with
trouble. Now while your
heart is not filled with the
follies of the world, remember him, — and then you will be the more likely
to have room in your hearts for God, and true happiness.
Thus you will bear Solomon's advice in mind, and learn by his experi-
ence, without suffering the pain of his disappointments ; for everywhere in
this . book we not only observe a deep religious sense, but catch a chill
directed against every earthly aim, and every foolish effort in life ; a con-
tempt is gathered here for everything perverse in man, and an earnest desire
for watchfulness after all human vanities and fooleries. In no previous
writing has all cause of pride and vain imagination so roundly and fully
been taken from man ; and no work is so filled with a powerful and telling
outcry of indignation against all the vain things of this lower world.
THE EOYAL COUCH.
Song of Solomon:
Or " Solomon's Sacred Poem," composed by Israel's wise king, under the endearing figure of a bridegroom and
bx"ide, and setting forth the love of Christ for his church ; he being the heavenly Bridegroom ; ministers being his
friends ; the bride the church of true believers ; and her companions all such as seek the society and friendship
of the church. It has been well and truly said, that no wicked or sensual person can understand this poem. It is
altogether a sublime allegory, furnishing to the thoughtful, spiritual person, lessons of a» very beautiful and
excellent type.
N allegory is rather difficult to understand. This book
is called an allegory. It signifies a writing, the language
of which seems to represent one thing, but really it means
another. The celebrated " Pilgrim's Progress/' by John
Bunyan, is an allegory; and while it describes a journey
over hills, vales and water, it signifies all that happens
to the Christian while he is in this world and on his
way to heaven.
The Song of Solomon signifies the love of Christ to
his church or people, and the love of his church or people to him ; and,
being poetry, it has a number of comparisons with objects in nature and
art, like the Psalms. The sun, the moon, the lily, the rose, the apple-tree,
the beautiful hart, the majestic horse, the fragrant spices, the precious
stones, the lofty towers, the splendid army, — and many objects of superior
excellency or grandeur in Eastern countries, — are all employed by which
to express the language of love and admiration. We can never think too
highly of the blessed Saviour, and we know how tenderly he loves his
church.
We do not suppose you could well understand this book were we to
attempt tc explain it to you. We shall only add, that Christ, in this book,
is represented as the bridegroom or husband of his church, and the church
as the bride or wife ; just as, in other places, God is sometimes called a
Father, and we his sons and daughters ; and so, we learn that the tender
love which exists between affectionate fathers and mothers is a faint
resemblance of that devotedness of heart which the church of Christ have
518
Song of Solomon. 519
towards him, who is " altogether lovely/' and that everlasting love which
he bears to his church.
On account of the excellency and purity of the subject about which
Solomon here sings, this poetical book is called "The Song of Songs/'
which means, " The most excellent Song ; " a song that is far better than
all other songs. It is expressive of the utmost fervor, as well as delicacy of
passion ; it is instinct with all the spirit and sweetness of affection ; it
abounds throughout with beauties, and holds up a delightful and romantic
display of nature, painted at its most interesting season, and described with
every ornament an inventive fancy could furnish. We meet with, in its
objects, the choicest plants, most charming flowers, most attractive fruits,
the vigor of spring, the sweet verdure of fields, the cheering presence of
fountains, the richest odors of gardens, the sweet singing of birds, the soft
notes of the turtle-dove, the sensuous delight of the palate in milk, honey,
and the choicest wine. To these it adds all that is beautiful and graceful
in form. The spiritual allegory thus wrought to the highest condition of
perfection, appropriate to the human understanding, seems especially con-
sistent with the prophetic style accustomed to predict evangelical blessings by
such figures ; and Solomon doubtless found a pattern for such parabolical
representation in the forty-fifth Psalm.
BOYAL CISTEBN AT JEBCSALEM.
The Four Greater Prophets-.
Or the words which were to come to pass, and were uttered by the chosen men of God — Tsaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
and Daniel. The writers were a class of ministers, once called seers, or prophets. They were the special guardians
of God's religion, at times when it seemed most in danger of being overturned and destroyed by the wickedness of
men. There were prophets earlier than these — as Elijah, Elisha, and Micaiah — who committed nothing to writing,
and yet whose deeds were so wonderful that they still hold high places in Scripture and the religious world,
because of the extraordinary favor and power they enjoyed from God. The Four Greater Prophets here given
embrace a large range of subject, relating to the Jewish people, to Jesus Christ, to the Chiistian religion, and to the
empires and nations of the world down to the end of time.
ROPHECIES are words that
tell us of things that are to
come to pass a great while
before they take place ; and
prophets are those who speak
these words. These prophe-
cies, among other uses, serve
to show us that the Scrip-
tures are of no human origin,
but are really the word of
God ; because, as we said
before, none but God can
possibly know what is to
happen many hundreds of
years to come. They prove that " every word of God is true," and, as his
words have come to pass, so all that remain to be fulfilled shall take place.
The prophets most frequently spoke in what is called figurative language,
and so they used figures or similitudes to express things which were to
happen ; and sometimes they were ordered to do so by signs, and at other
times by plain words. As they prophesied under a divine influence, or the
power of God's Spirit affecting their minds, they could not always even
know themselves what was fully meant by their prophecies. By speaking
520
Isaiah.
521
in obscure language, while they said enough to warn the sinful people whom
they addressed, they so concealed the bringing about the events which they
foretold, that no human means could be used to try and baffle them —
though, had they spoken plainer, no device could, indeed, have succeeded
against the determination of God. Kings, queens, and magistrates, are
frequently represented by the sun, moon, and stars ; kingdoms and cities,
by mountains and hills ; God's faithful covenant, or engagements to bless
his people, by the promise of marriage, in which the husband or wife agree
to be faithful to each other as long
as they live ; and idolatry by the
most wicked and polluted deeds in
society.
Some of the prophets spoke of
their prophecies as " the burden of
the Lord ; " perhaps, because they
were a great weight upon their
spirits, when they plainly foretold
heavy punishments to be inflicted
on the people of God, on account
of their sins ; or, perhaps, because
they pronounced a heavy doom,
which should press down the guilty
people, as a burden does an animal
or a man, when it is too weighty
for him to bear.
Most of the prophets lived during
the times of the kings of Israel and
Judah, of which you have read.
There were other prophets besides
those whose writings are here gathered together ; but ail were not com-
manded to write what they wrote, but only those who foretold things which
were far distant.
The prophets are not arranged in the order in which they wrote, but
rather according to the extent of their prophecies, the large books being
placed first.
The books of the prophets are sixteen in number. Four of these are
called the Greater Prophets, not because they were more important than
the rest, but because their prophecies are more extensive. The remain^
BLOWING OF TRUMPET AT NEW MOOX.
522 Bible and Commentator.
ing twelve are, on account of their containing less, called the Minor
Prophets.
The Jews were privileged with prophets to warn them against the conse-
quences of sin, and to stir them up to serve the true God, from the time
they left Egypt, to the time when they were carried away captives into
Babylon, which occupied a period of nine hundred years.
But the written prophecies occupy a period of only three hundred and
fifty-six years. The order in which the prophets wrote will be seen by
the following list :
1. Hose a began to prophesy about the year 3194, in the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz,
Hezekiah, and Jeroboam II.
2. Amos began to prophesy about the year 3219, in the reigns of Uzziah and Jeroboam II.
3. Isaiah began to prophesy about the year 3236, in the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz,
and Hezekiah.
4. Jonah began to prophesy in the reigns of Manasseh, Joash, and Jeroboam II.
5. Micah began to prophesy about the year 3246, in the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and
Hezekiah, at the same time with Isaiah.
6. Nahum began to prophesy about the year 3291, in the reign of Hezekiah, at the same
time with Isaiah.
7. Jeremiah began to prophesy about the year 3375, in the reigns of Josiah, Jehoaz, and
Jehoiakim.
8. Zephaniah began to prophesy about the year 3381, in the reign of Josiah, about the
same time with Jeremiah.
9. Joee began to prophesy in the reign of Josiah.
10. Daniel began to prophesy about the year 3398, and was taken captive into Chaldea in
the reign of Jehoiakim, and prophesied during the captivity.
11. Habakkuk began to prophesy about the year 3394, in the reign of Jehoiakim, at the
same time with Jeremiah.
12. Ezekiel began to prophesy about the year 3409, during part of the captivity.
13. Obadiah began to prophesy about the year 3414, after the taking of Jerusalem.
14. Haggai began to prophesy about the year 3484. Born during the captivity. Prophe-
sied about the same time with Zechariah.
15. Zechariah prophesied about the same time with Haggai.
16. Maeachi, the last of the Jewish prophets, prophesied after the death of Nehemiah.
ISAIAH.
ISAIAH has justly been called " The prince of prophets" from the dignity
and glowing eloquence of his prophecies, the great variety of topics
which he discussed, his clear and minute predictions of the coming Messiah,
and the length of his prophetic career, which probably continued for sixty
or seventy years. He must have been at least ninety at the time of his
Isaiah. 523
martyrdom by the cruel Manasseh. But he was a historian as well as a
prophet, and his annals of the reign of Uzziah and Hezekiah, 2 Chron.
xxvi. 22, and xxxii. 32, though not now extant, except portions in the
books of Kings and Chronicles, show that he possessed rare abilities as a
historian.
The prophecies of Isaiah are too important in all respects to be passed
over without giving a brief account of the principal topics of which they
treat- He commenced his prophetic labors in the latter part of the reign
of King Uzziah or Azariah (see 2 Kings, chapters xiv. and xv., and 2
Chronicles xxvi.), and while yet a very young man seems to have uttered
some of those very beautiful and impressive prophecies found in the second,
third, fourth and fifth chapters of his prophecy. He was a friend, and pos-
sibly an instructor of Micah, and there is in the second chapter of Isaiah,
verses 2-5, a passage of great beauty, which is repeated nearly word for word
in Micah iv. 1—4. The first chapter of Isaiah seems to be a sort of preface
to the whole prophecy. It was undoubtedly written in the last years of his
life, and reviews in a general way the subjects concerning which he had
prophesied. His parable of the vineyard (chapter v.) is one of great power,
and in its denunciations of the sinners in Zion, one of terrible invective.
But the prophet does not seem to have been so fully consecrated to his
sacred mission till the close of the reign of Uzziah. He was yet a young
man when he had that wonderful vision of " the Lord sitting upon a throne,
high and lifted up, and his train filling the temple/' which is recorded in
the sixth chapter. Filled with a sense of his own unworthiness and of the
divine majesty, he exclaimed : " "Woe is me ! for I am undone ; because I
am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean
lips ; for mine eyes have seen the king, the Loed of hosts." But God was
thus graciously preparing him for that complete consecration for his work
which made him thenceforth the greatest of the prophets of the old dis-
pensation. " Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal
in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar ; and he
laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips ; and thine
iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged." It was a natural consequence
of this consecration that he should respond at once to the divine demand,
" Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" "Here am I; send me."
And in the more than sixty years that followed, Isaiah was always ready to
declare the whole counsel of God. In the reign of Ahaz, Pekah, the son
of Remaliah, king of Israel, and Rezin, king of Syria, had formed an alli-
ance to attack and destroy the kingdom of Judah, and Ahaz, the king of
524 Bible and Commentator.
Judah, in great alarm, proposed to ally himself with the king of Assyria, to
compel his enemies to withdraw. Isaiah is sent to Ahaz to warn him
against this measure, and to assure him that Israel and Syria shall both be
destroyed. But Ahaz refuses to hearken, and persists in calling the Assyrian
kino- thither, who comes only to harass and plunder those who had invited
him. Then Isaiah is sent of God to declare the speedy downfall of Syria
and Israel, the destruction of the Assyrian kingdom by Babylon, and, more
important to those who heard than all else, that Judah should be carried
into captivity for the sins of its king and people, but that a remnant should
return, and that to them should come the Redeemer of Israel, the Immanuel
born of a virgin mother, the Prince of Peace. God had directed Isaiah to
name his two sons in accordance with these prophecies, and to make his
naming of them so public that it should be a sign unto his people; and
accordingly the elder was name Shearjashub — "A remnant shall return,"
and the younger, Maher-shalal-hash-baz — " Hasten-booty, speed-spoil," from
the prediction that within three years the spoils of Damascus and the booty
of Samaria should be carried away by the king of Assyria. The chapters
from the seventh to the thirteenth are occupied with denunciations of the
wrath of God on Israel and Syria, and eventually on Assyria, of whom
Judah is exhorted not to be afraid ; and, coupled with these predictions, are
the most glowing prophecies of the Messiah, the rod which should spring
out of the stem of Jesse, and of the glorious times which should come to
Judah, and to all nations when his reign should commence ; and in his
exultant joy the prophet breaks out into rapturous song. The next eleven
chapters contain a number of prophecies, called " burdens," against the
nations adjacent to Palestine, beginning with Babylon, whose glory and final
overthrow were denounced, though as yet Nineveh and not Babylon was the
capital of the Assyrian empire. Philistia, Moab, Syria, Ethiopia, Assyria,
Egypt, Babylonia, Dumah or Seir, Arabia and Tyre, each came in for a
share of the " burdens," and one of them is a prophecy of disgrace and dis-
honor to Shebna, the idolatrous treasurer of Ahaz. As a sign of the disasters
which were to come upon the Egyptians and Ethiopians, then allies of
Ahaz, Isaiah had been directed by God to walk through the streets of
Jerusalem for three years without his outer garment, and barefoot. The
four chapters (xxiv.-xxvii.) which follow are a summary or comprehensive
rehearsal of the preceding burdens ; and chapters xxviii.-xxxv. are occu-
pied with various brief prophecies which are supposed to have been uttered
mostly in the reigns of Jotham and Ahaz. Chapters xxxvi. to xxxix. are
Isaiah. 525
historical, giving an account of the Assyrian invasion, the blasphemy of the
Assyrian king, his utter overthrow, the sickness and miraculous recovery
of Hezekiah, and the visit of Merodach-Baladan to Jerusalem.
The remaining portion, or, as it is often called, the second part of Isaiah,
extending from the fortieth chapter to the close of the book, is distinct in its
character, and is mainly occupied with two great themes, and the warnings,
exhortations and promises to be drawn from them. It is naturally divided
into three sections of nine chapters each, the first two ending with the refrain,
" There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked," and the third with the
same thought in other language. In the whole of these twenty-seven chap-
ters, Isaiah speaks as if the captivity in Babylon, which he had already so
often predicted, were come, and looking forward in prophetic vision, he
assures his people, in the first section, of their deliverance by the hand of
Cyrus, a Persian king, whose birth did not occur till 150 years later. He
describes the deliverer by name, predicts his capture of Babylon and his
return of the captives to their own land, his directions for the rebuilding
of the temple and the lavish gifts he bestowed upon them for this purpose.
Mingled with these prophecies are abundant arguments against idolatry, and
denunciations of the practices then and soon after prevalent among the Jews.
In the second section the prophet passes on from this deliverance to the
coming, the person, the work and mission of the Messiah, the far greater
deliverer not only of the Jews but of all nations. These nine chapters
(xlix.-lvii.) are full of predictions of the coming of the Redeemer, and no
other prophet portrays his whole life and character so perfectly. These
chapters, with Isaiah's other prophecies of the Messiah, may well be called
the gospel of the Old Testament. It is strange that with this prophecy in
their hands, describing Christ as a suffering, meek and lowly Messiah, yet
mighty to save, the Jews in our Saviour's time should have looked only for
a temporal deliverer. In the third section, closing his prophecies, the
prophet draws from his preceding predictions words of warning, denuncia-
tion against idolatry, self-righteousness, and other sins, incitements to holy
living and promises of a glorious future in the spiritual reign of the Messiah.
In one of these chapters, he takes occasion from the then recent marriage of
Hezekiah to Hephzibah, the mother of Manasseh (as already noticed under
2 Kings xxi.), to apply this auspicious event prophetically to the spiritual
union of the true Zion as a bride to her Lord. " Thou shalt be called Heph-
zibah, and thy land Beulah, for the Lokd delighteth in thee, and thy land
shall be married." The prophecy ends with songs of triumph and glory over
the new heavens and the new earth to which God should gather all nations.
526 Bible and Commentator.
JEREMIAH.
JEREMIAH, the sad prophet — sad, because of the judgments which came
thick and fast upon his beloved country and nation, and because of
the sorrows, trials and persecutions which his fidelity to his convictions and
to the voice of God brought upon him — was of priestly birth, being a " son
of Hiikiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth." This little city, only
three miles from Jerusalem, was one of the priestly cities, and was inhabited
by the descendants of Ithamar. Some have supposed that he was the son
of that Hiikiah who was high priest in the reign of Josiah, but this is im-
probable, as the high priests were of the family of Eleazar.
Jeremiah commenced his prophetic life when yet young. He speaks of
himself as but a child (Jer. i. 6), in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah
(625-628 b. a), and was probably at that time not far from twenty years
of age. Like Isaiah he received a special consecration for his work from the
hand of Jehovah ; and through evil report and good report, amid trials and
sorrows, dangers and perils such as seldom fall to the lot of even the prophets
of God, he continued his work through the reigns of Josiah, Jehoahaz,
Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin or Jeconiah, and Zedekiah, the last kings of Judah,
and after Jerusalem was destroyed and many of his countrymen carried into
captivity, he continued with those who remained in the land, and finally
went, against his strong remonstrance, with them into Egypt, where he
probably died. His active life as a prophet continued nearly fifty years,
and he must have been at his death more than seventy years of age. His
temperament seems to have been naturally despondent ; and in his prophecies
we miss the glowing and exultant views of the future prosperity of Israel
which so often meet us in the pages of Isaiah. At times he seems over-
whelmed with anguish, and on one occasion, like Job, he curses the day of
his birth. Except in his prophecies against other nations beside Judah, he
lived too near the time of the fulfilment of his predictions, to see the glory
that should follow. As a sign of the bringing of the people under the
dominion of Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah wore a yoke around his neck. This
yoke a false prophet named Hananiah tore off, and broke it, anu prophesied
of the restoration of the Jews from their captivity. For this act God in-
structed Jeremiah to pronounce his death, and Hananiah died the same year.
After the princes and people were carried away captive with Jeconiah,
Jeremiah wrote to them to comfort them ; and he told them that, in seventy
years' time, they should be restored, if they repented and turned unto God,
Jeremiah
527
and, till that time, they ought to submit themselves to God's decree, and
make themselves as contented as they could in their captivity ; for it is
indeed of no use to fight against God. Jeremiah also told them how God
would punish all the false prophets who should spring up among them in
Babylon, and prophesy their more speedy delivery.
When Nebuchadnezzar was besieging Jerusalem, Jeremiah was im-
prisoned. When the siege was suspended, and Nebuchadnezzar had retired,
Jeremiah was released ; but he foretold that Nebuchadnezzar would return,
and burn the city to ashes. At this time he tried to escape from Jerusalem,
but he was discovered by an officer as he was going out of one of the gates,
and was again thrown into prison, till the king ordered him to be set at
liberty.
Nebuchadnezzar did return ; and as the chief men of the city thought
that Jeremiah's prophecies discouraged the people, they got leave from
Zedekiah to cast him into prison; and
they let him down with ropes, into a
muddy well, where he must soon have
perished, if God had not inclined the
heart of Zedekiah to release him • and he
was kept prisoner in the palace till
Jerusalem was taken.
A little before this last fatal event,
Zedekiah asked Jeremiah what he should
do. And Jeremiah, being instructed of
the Lord, told him to give himself up to
Nebuchadnezzar, and it would be better
for him, and his family, and for the safety
of the city ; but if he persisted in opposing
the Chaldeans, he and his family would
be ruined, and the city wholly destroyed.
Zedekiah now respected the prophet,
yet did not quite like his advice, and so
following his own counsel, instead of be-
lieving the word of the Lord by Jeremiah,
he tried to escape from Jerusalem by
night, but was pursued by the Chaldeans, and being taken, his sons and
nobles were put to death, his own eyes were put out, he was carried to
Babylon bound in chains, and the city was burned.
BALM. (Jer. xiii. 22.)
528 Bible and Commentator.
Jeremiah was taken among the captives, but by order of Nebuchadnezzar,
he was set free, and had the choice of going to Babylon or staying in Judea.
Jeremiah chose to stay in his country. Here he was quiet till the assassina-
tion of Gedaliah, Nebuchadnezzar's officer. When Jeremiah was then con-
sulted whether it would be safest to stay in Judea or escape into Egypt,
the prophet advised the people to stay. They, however, thought proper to
refuse his advice, and even obliged him to go with them. Here he prophesied
also against the king of Egypt, and is supposed to have died in that country.
Though Babylon was now in all its glory, yet the prophets Isaiah and
Jeremiah both foretold its future destruction. It was impossible for any
human being — unless God taught him — to foretell that so mighty a city and
strong a power should at last perish and come to nothing. Yet such is now
the condition of Babylon. Its very name is perished, except in history,
which informs us that it was, and that it is not.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of Isaiah, and in the fiftieth and
fifty-first chapters of Jeremiah, you will read prophecies of Babylon, " the
glory of kingdoms," that it should never more be inhabited — that wild
beasts should dwell there — that it should be a dry land and a desert — and
much more of the same kind. Having been taken by Cyrus, it gradually
sank into decay, and now, for sixteen hundred years, it has been nothing but
a heap of ruins. Its canals are all dried up ; fragments of bricks and tiles,
which once formed its splendid buildings, are all that remain of their gran-
deur. There are many dens of wild beasts in various parts about the place,
and it is the unmolested retreat of jackals, hyenas, and other noxious
animals. The majestic river Euphrates still flows on, the willows grow on
the banks, on which the Israelitish captives hung their harps : but the city,
and the palaces, and the fields, and gardens, which once adorned it, have
forever disappeared ! So at last shall the earth, and all the works that are
in it, be burnt up, on account of the sinfulness of its inhabitants ; for " every
word of God is true."
THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH.
THE Lamentations of Jeremiah are closely connected with his prophecies,
and seem to have been written after the destruction of Jerusalem, and
with a design to bring the people to a state of repentance on account of their
sins, which had been the cause of their desolate condition. Like most of the
prophecies, these dirges or Lamentations have a poetical form, and some of
them may have been among the mournful chants rehearsed by the captives
on the banks of the Euphrates, Psalm cxxxvii.
Ezekiel. 529
EZEKIEL
THIS great though comparatively neglected prophet was, like Jeremiah,
of priestly origin, being the son of a priest named Buzi, possibly of
Jerusalem or its immediate vicinity. He had probably passed his thirtieth
year, when the priests fully assumed their office and duties (since he is called
Ezekiel, the priest), before he was carried into captivity with king Jehoiachin
(599-595 B. c), but his consecration to the prophetic work, which was much
like that of Isaiah (compare Isa. vi. 1-9 with Ez. iii. 1-8), occurred in the
fifth year of Jehoiachin's captivity. He was at that time by the river
Chebar or Chaber, in Babylonia. This first vision and commission was
given him, while Zedekiah was still king of Judah, and about six years
before Jerusalem was destroyed, and the principal inhabitants of Judea were
carried into captivity in Babylon. EzekiePs mission as a prophet does not
seem to have been as long as that of his predecessors, nor as that of Daniel,
who was for a time his contemporary, unless a portion of his prophecies
have been lost, as Josephus states. The duration of his prophetic labors in
this book are but twenty-two years ; yet they give evidence of a life of
great activity. He dealt more in symbolical acts than the other prophets,
having been instructed to do so by God, probably because the "Children of
the Captivity," by whom he was greatly esteemed, watched him much more
closely than the people of Jerusalem would have done, and on every occa-
sion sought to know the meaning of his acts. We know but little of his
private life or history, but there is one incident which he relates with a
pathos which shows how tender were the affections of this stern and res-
olute prophet-priest, whose denunciations of the rebelliousness and idolatry
of the Jewish people had been so harsh and full of threatenings of the judg-
ments of God. We give the narrative in his own words: "Also the word
of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, behold I take away from
thee, the desire of thine eyes with a stroke; yet neither shalt thou mourn
nor weep, neither shall thy tears run down. Forbear to cry, make no
mourning for the dead, bind the tire of thine head upon thee, and put on
thy shoes upon thy feet, and cover not thy lips, and eat not the bread of
men. So I spake unto the people in the morning, and at even my wife
died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded." This was to be a
sign or symbol to the Jews of what should be their condition, within a year,
when Jerusalem should be destroyed ; that then when God should " take
34
530 Bible and Commentator.
from them their strength, the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes,
and that whereupon they set their minds, their sons and their daughters,"
they should have no opportunity for mourning or weeping, but should be
hurried away to escape the destruction which had fallen upon their loved
ones. The prophet obeyed, but his grief was too deep at the loss of " the
desire of his eyes " for expression, and for months thereafter he mourned
in silence over her death, and uttered no more prophecies, until the Lord
in mercy opened his lips again, to speak words of comfort to those who,
like himself, had been bereft. Ezekiel xxiv. 27.
An eminent German commentator, Havernick, divides the prophecies of
Ezekiel into nine sections, as follows : I. Ezekiel's call and consecration,
chapters i.-iii. 15. II. The carrying out of his commission, by visions,
symbols and open prophecies, chapters iii. 16-vii. III. The rejection of
Judah for the idolatry and sinfulness of the people, chapters viii.-xi. IV. A
rehearsal and denunciation of the sins of the age in detail, chapters xii.-xix.
V. The guilt which by long accumulation had drawn down God's judg-
ments upon the nation, chapters xx.-xxiii. VI. The meaning of the pun-
ishment which had now come upon them, chapter xxiv. VII. God's judg-
ment denounced on seven heathen nations, viz. : Ammon, Moab, Edom, the
Philistines, Tyre, Sidon and Egypt; the last two being very remarkable
for their minute details, chapters xxv.-xxxii. VIII. Prophecies concern-
ing the future condition of Israel, chapters xxxiii.-xxxix. IX. The glo-
rious consummation — the new temple and its worship and glory, chapters
xl.-xlviii,
DANIEL
THIS prophet, remarkable alike for his royal lineage, his profound
learning, his earnest piety and prayerfulness, the exalted positions
which he filled, and his comprehensive insight into the future, was essen-
tially a prophet of the captivity, his active life more than spanning the whole
seventy years which preceded the restoration of the Jews.
Unlike his three predecessors, Daniel was not of priestly family, but a
prince of the royal line of David. He and his three companions, Hananiah,
Mishoel, and Azariah, all of princely families, were taken captive by Neb-
uchadnezzar in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim (606-604 b. c.)
and carried to Babylon, where they were educated and trained for the
service of the Babylonian king. This training was very thorough, and
Daniel. 531
their treatment exceedingly liberal. Daniel and his companions were at
this time young; they are called children, Dan. i. 4, 13, 17, and were prob-
ably not iar from eighteen years of age ; but the trials which had already
befallen their beloved country, and the instruction of pious parents, had led
them, in early youth, to consecrate their lives to the worship of Jehovah,
and, under the most trying temptations and the greatest perils, they never
swerved for a moment from their devotion to his cause. Their training
continued for three years, and at the end of that time they were placed in
subordinate positions of trust, about the court and person of the king. It
was so ordered by God's providence, that, very soon after he was thus
called to the court, Daniel had the opportunity to recall to Nebuchadnezzar
an important dream, which had gone from his recollection, and also to inter-
pret it, when the wise men, astrologers and Chaldeans had utterly failed to
do either. This was the dream narrated in the second chapter of Daniel,
and known as that of the four kingdoms. For this interpretation Daniel
was at once promoted to be ruler over the province of Babylon and gov-
ernor, or chief, of the wise men of the court, and at his request, his three
friends were also appointed to places of honor and trust.
Not long after this, but while Daniel was absent on some of his official
duties, Nebuchadnezzar, whose tendency to idolatry was very strong, causeel
an immense image, about ninety feet in height and nine in its greatest breadth,
and covered with gold, to be set up in the plain of Dura, and commanded
that all the officers of his court and the people, who were assembled by
scores of thousands, should fall down and worship the image, when the
signal should be given by the musical instruments, under the penalty of
being cast, on their refusal, into a burning fiery furnace. Here was an oppor-
tunity for Daniel's three young friends to show whether they were really
the servants of the living and true God, or not. If they fell down and.
worshipped this image, they would disobey the first and second command-
ments ; if they refused to do so, they would be cast into the fiery furnace.
But they were God-fearing and holy men, and so they decided, at once,
that they would not fall down and worship the image. King Nebuchad-
nezzar was very angry at their refusal, and ordered the furnace to be heated
seven times hotter than visual, and these three men to be bound and cast
into it. The heat was so great, that the flames flashed out and burned to
death the men who cast these three godly men into the furnace. But very soon
after, Nebuchadnezzar exclaimed in astonishment that he saw four men
loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and the form of the fourth was like
532 Bible and Commentator.
the Son of God. The Lord Jehovah, our blessed Lord and Redeemer,
had indeed appeared for his faithful servants, and by his mighty presence
had prevented the flames from injuring them, or anything which belonged
to them. When, at Nebuchadnezzar's call, they came forth from this ter-
rible furnace, not a hair of their heads was singed, nor was there the smell
of fire upon their garments. Nebuchadnezzar now issued a decree, com-
mending the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego for universal wor-
ship throughout his realm; but he himself soon again lapsed into idolatry.
In the fourth chapter we have another dream of Nebuchadnezzar and its
fulfilment. This dream the wise men of Babylon were unwilling or una-
ble to interpret, and again Daniel was called upon to explain its import.
It foretold, that for his pride and arrogance, Nebuchadnezzar was to become
insane, and be driven from men for seven years; that his kingdom was to be
taken from him, and he would become a wanderer, entirely devoid of reason ;
but that at the end of the seven years, his reason was to be restored and his
kingdom returned to him. This downfall of Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled
a twelvemonth later, and at the end of seven years he was restored to his
kingdom, and we hope became a sincere worshipper of the true God for the
remainder of his life. Within a few years past, there have been discovered
some tablets of baked clay at Babylon, which contain the records of Nebu-
chadnezzar's reign, as dictated by himself; and in these is contained this re-
markable passage, which has no parallel in any of these royal records:
" For four years (the numeral is somewhat doubtful — it may be four or
seven), in all my dominions, I did not build a high place of powrer; the pre-
cious treasures of my kingdom I did not lay up. In Babylon, buildings
for myself and for the honor of my kingdom I did not lay out. In the
worship of Merodach, my lord, the joy of my heart, in Babylon, the city of
his sovereignty and the seat of my empire, I did not sing his praises, and I
did not furnish his altars (with victims), nor did I clear out the canals."
In no other instance in the whole range of cuneiform literature — that is, of
these inscriptions upon tablets or stones, of this wedge-shaped or arrow-headed
writing, which has been found in all cases to be the records of each monarch
of his own doings — is there a description of what they failed to do ; this evi-
dently refers to the period when Nebuchadnezzar was insane. The death
of Nebuchadnezzar is said to have occurred 561 years B. C; and he was
succeeded by his son Evil-Merodach. At the close of the reign of Nebu-
chadnezzar, Daniel seems to have retired from official life, and the twenty-
three years which succeeded may have been passed in that quiet and prayer-
Daniel
533
ful intercourse with God which was his greatest delight. On that eventful
night when Babylon was to be captured by the army of Cyrus, he was sud-
denly summoned again to the court, at the instance of the queen mother, to
explain to her son Belshazzar, who reigned over Babylon, as joint king with
HANDWRITING ON THE WALL.
his father Nabonedus, the portentous inscription traced, by an angelic fin-
ger, upon the wall of the banqueting house, and which had terrified the mad
revellers.
He came, an old man, of certainly more than eighty years of age, yet, like
534
Bible and Commentator
Moses, " his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated j " he waived
aside the offer of the young monarch to make him the third ruler in the
kingdom, himself being the second, for he had stood before mightier kings
than Belshazzar ; and after a stern rebuke to the royal reveller and his com-
panions, for their defiance of God, and their pollution of the vessels sacred
to his service, he announced, as the interpretation of the handwriting on
the wall, that he, Belshazzar, was weighed in the balance and found want-
ing, that God had numbered and finished his kingdom, and that the Medes
and Persians were to succeed to it. The same night the prophecy was ful-
filled, and Daniel, though venerable for
age, passed at once into the favor of the
conqueror, and became the premier of his
kingdom.
It pleased God once more to try the
faith of his aged and beloved servant.
The jealousy of his associates in the gov-
ernment led them to plot his destruction ;
and as their only " occasion against him
was concerning the law of his God," — a
most noble testimony to the holiness and
purity of his life — they united in a re-
quest to the king, to make an irrevocable
decree, " that whosoever should ask a
petition of any god or man for thirty
days, except of the king himself, should
be cast into the den of lions." The
decree was issued, and Daniel, knowing its purport, " his windows being open
in his chamber toward Jerusalem, kneeled upon his knees three times a day,
and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime." His
enemies, triumphant at the success of their scheme, immediately brought
their accusations before the king, saying, in tones of the greatest contempt,
"That Daniel, which is of the children of the captivity of Judah " — not
Daniel, the first president of the realm — " regardeth not thee, O king, nor
the decree that thou hast signed, but maketh his petition three times a day."
The eyes of the king were opened to their malicious purpose, too late; he
struggled against the effect of his own act, till the going down of the sun,
but his decree was irrevocable, and the attempt to set it aside might result
in his own overthrow. He was compelled to execute it, but as he did so,
DANIEL IN THE LION'S DEN.
Daniel. 535
he said to the venerable servant of God, " Thy God, whom thou servest
continually, he will deliver' thee." The God of Daniel did deliver him,
and on the morning of the next day, the king, who had passed a wretched
night, was earliest at the lions' den, and found Daniel safe. His foes were
then consigned to the lions, " who brake all their bones in pieces ere they
reached the bottom of the den." This miraculous deliverance brought
Darius to acknowledge the God of Daniel, as the true and living God.
Daniel continued in power through the reign of Darius, and certainly to
the third year of Cyrus, and was instrumental in influencing that monarch
to fulfil the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, in not only permitting, but
decreeing and aiding, the return of the Jews from their seventy years' cap-
tivity. We have no account of his death, but when it came, he was full of
days and honors, and had seen the desires of his heart gratified. The chap-
ters of the book of Daniel, from the seventh to the twelfth inclusive, record
other visions of Daniel, similar in their general purport to that of Nebu-
chadnezzar, which he interpreted, but much more minute in their details.
So exactly were these fulfilled, that an attempt has been made by rational-
ists in modern times to demonstrate that they must have been written by a
false or spurious Daniel, about one hundred and sixty years before Christ,
after the events prophesied, especially in regard to Antiochus Epiphanes, had
occurred. But this effort is very foolish and wicked ; for the Jews knew and
quoted the Book of Daniel before that time ; the Daniel of the Bible was
known to be a holy and good man before the time specified, while such an
impostor must have been a very bad and unworthy man ; and our blessed
Lord quotes from these very prophecies, as athe words of Daniel the
prophet, " and as inspired.
536
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The Twelve Minor Prophets.
The prophecies of these prophets are not called minor, because they are of inferior importance or less fully inspired
by the Holy Spirit, than those which preceded them ; but because they are briefer, and for the most part devoted to
a single topic, usually that of the transgressions of Judah and Israel, though three or four of them consider only
some foreign nation or city. They differ very much in their style ; some using*the hinguage of every-day life, others
dealing in the most pungent denunciation of the sins and vices of Israel and Judah, and others still, breaking forth
in strains of the loftiest and most impassioned poetry. Some of these prophets deal almost entirely in symbolical
actions, whose application is not difficult of explanation ; others in visions, allegories or parables, while others still
confine themselves to pure matters of fact; but all are in earnest in their utterances, and are evidently inspired of
God to declare his will. In many of them are found predictions of the coming of the Messiah, as clear and
minute, though not as copious, as those of Isaiah ; and they thus aid in the preparation for the coming of Him, who,
by His advent, was to fulfil both the law and the prophets.
HOSEA.
HOSE A was the son of Beeri, and so far as we can judge from his style,
and from his being sent at first to Israel, he must have been a
native of the northern portion of the land of Israel, perhaps of Galilee, or of
the northern portion of Ephraim's territory. As his prophetic life stretches
over about sixty years, and extends a little beyond the carrying away cap-
tive of the ten tribes, it is generally supposed that his later years were spent
in Judah and his later prophecies written there. Hosea was one of the
symbolical, prophets; he was required to do certain acts as signs to the
Israelites of the way in which God regarded their behavior toward him.
If the commands given to him in the first and third chapters were to be
literally obeyed (and the passages seem to admit no other interpretation), his
trials as well as those of several other prophets were very great, and only to
be borne by the consciousness that he was thus obeying the will of God,
and giving to his sinful fellow-countrymen one more warning and oppor-
tunity for repentance. Hosea was, during a part of his career, contem-
porary with Isaiah and with Micah and Amos.
The period during which he uttered his prophecies was one of terribh
wickedness, corruption and depravity in Israel. The kingdom of Israel
was rapidly tending to its utter downfall and extinction, and idolatry, theft,
murder, and unbridled licentiousness, were universal. These sins the prophet
rebukes with the utmost severity of denunciation, and in a style intensely
537
538 Bible and Commentator.
concise, abrupt, bat rugged and effective, though at times so obscure as to
require very close study. It is pre-eminently the book for times of spiritual
declension. It is usually divided into two sections — that from chapter first
to the close of chapter third being symbolical ; and that from chapter fourth
to the end being prophetic and hortatory. The terrible denunciations are
mingled with promises of blessing to the truly penitent.
JOEL
JOEL'S prophecy, though comparatively short, is one of the most clas-
sical and beautiful of all the prophetic books. His description of the
coming of the locusts, in the second chapter, is unrivalled in the poetry of
any language. Comparatively little is known of the history of this poet-
seer. His prophetic life is supposed to have been passed during the reign
of Uzziah (810-758 b. c), and two passages in his prophecy (chapter i. 15
and chapter iii. 16) have been borrowed, in the form of the thought at least,
so closely by Isaiah and Amos, that he must have been very nearly a con-
temporary of theirs, though perhaps a few years earlier. The prophecy
begins with a description, of remarkable vividness and beauty, of the
destruction wrought by the locusts, and other insect plagues in Judah, and
of the misery of drought and famine which had followed. These judg-
ments are declared to have come upon the people for their sinfulness, and
the prophet urges the necessity of speedy and thorough repentance, and
declares that such repentance shall be followed by a restoration of their
previous prosperity. Then looking forward over the time which should
elapse before the coming of the Messiah, he predicts his advent and describes
the blessed results of his reign, in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which
was fulfilled at the day of Pentecost, in the words which were quoted by
Peter at that time. He depicts the gathering of the nations who had been
the enemies of Judah, to receive the judgments which they deserved, but
closes his prophecy with a glowiug description of the glorious time when
Jehovah should dwell in Zion.
AMOS.
THIS prophet, who was called to witness for God during the reign of
Jeroboam II., the grandson of Jehu (about 800 B. a), was not educated,
like most of his fellow-prophets, in the schools of the prophets at Jericho, but
was an humble herdsman or shepherd, and vine-dresser or fruit-gatherer of
Tekoah, a town of Judah. He was probably contemporary with Hosea. His
Obadiah. 539
lano-uacre is less terse than that of Hosea, less sublime than that of Joel, but
his style is clear, forcible, and in some passages grand, particularly in his
description of the majesty and power of Jehovah. His illustrations are gen-
erally drawn from agricultural or pastoral life, but are very effective. Com-
missioned especially to rebuke the sins of Israel, he yet denounces, in chap-
ters i. and ii., judgments on six other adjacent kingdoms, and then reproaches
Israel and Judah in general terms. In chapters iii.-vi. he exposes and
rebukes in detail the sins of Israel, and threatens them with the judgments
of God. These prophecies of judgment, which were especially directed
against the golden calves of Bethel and Dan, and their worship by Jero-
boam II., excited the rage of Amaziah, Jeroboam's high priest, as we find in
the seventh chapter, and after complaining to his master, he attempted to drive
Amos back to Judah whence he had come; but the sturdy prophet defended
his course as commanded by God, and predicted God's judgments upon
Amaziah and his family. The Jewish tradition is that Amaziah and his
fellow-priests drove Amos back to Judah, wounded and half dead, and that
his subsequent prophecies were made at Tekoah. The last three chapters
illustrate, by visions, the judgments of God upon Israel and Judah, and
blend promises with threatenings. He closes with eloquent descriptions of
the beneficent results of the establishment of Messiah's kingdom.
OBADIAH.
THIS prophecy is the shortest book in the Old Testament, having only
twenty-one verses. We know nothing more of Obadiah himself than
what may be gathered from this book. From the references to the captivity,
and to the speedy judgments which were to fall upon Edom or Idumea, we
are driven to the conclusion that the captivity spoken of, was that of Judah
in Babylon, which took place 586 B. c, when it is known that the Idu-
maBans or Edomites, instead of aiding and succoring their kinsmen, the
Jews, took advantage of their disasters from the siege and victory of Neb-
uchadnezzar to swoop down upon them and plunder the little that was left.
The destruction prophesied by Obadiah did come upon the Edomites in large
measure in the year 583 B. c, when Nebuchadnezzar swept through this
whole region and conquered the Iduraseans even in their mountain fastnesses.
But it was at a later date, about 130 years before Christ, that John Hyrcanus,
one of the Asmonasan princes, fulfilled the prophecy to its utmost extent,
reducing the Idumseans to the most abject condition, and allowing them to
540
Bible and Commentator,
remain in their own country, only on condition of their being circumcised
and accepting the Jewish rites. From this time their nationality was
entirely lost.
The prophecy opens with a vivid and powerful denunciation of the
Edomites, which is so similar to that of Jeremiah, xlix. 7-21, that it is
evident that the two prophets had been in communication, as they very well
might have been, being contemporaries. We are inclined to believe that
Jeremiah's prediction was the earlier of the two. After denouncing the
cruelty and bitterness of Edom, and prophesying the judgments of God
which were soon to descend upon her, the prophet turns to the future glories
of Zion after their return from captivity in Sepharad (a place in Babylonia),
and their occupation of the whole territory of Edom, which was fulfilled.
The modern Jews profess to believe that by Edomites, in this prophecy,
are meant Christians, over whom they are to triumph ; but this is very
absurd.
JONAH.
JONAH was a prophet of Israel, and probably the earliest of the prophets
whose predictions are recorded in a book form. He was the son of
Amittai of Gath-hepher, and was born probably between 860 and 850 B. c.
We learn from 2 Kings xiv. 25 that he had prophesied of the extension
of the kingdom of Is-
rael, subsequently ac-
complished under Jero-
boam II.j before this
mission to Nineveh was
committed to him. He
was a timid, fretful,
nervous man, and very
bitter against the Assy-
rians, who he believed
would yet destroy Is-
rael. He tells us that
God commanded him
to go to Nineveh and
preach to the inhabitants of that city, which was the capital of the Assyrian
empire; that instead of going there, he so disliked to deliver his message
that he took a ship and sailed for Tarshish (Tartessus in Spain, perhaps),
ANCIENT SHIP-BUILDING.
Jonah.
541
which was a sad piece of folly, and he suffered, as all will more or less, for
his disobedience to God. On his way to Tarshish, a tempest sprung up, and
the mariners threw everything overboard to save their lives. Still the ship
was in danger, and Jonah all this time was fast asleep, when they came and
summoned him to awake. They then thought that they would cast lots, and
see if they would point out any one in the ship who had displeased God.
This thought was doubtless directed by God himself, that Jonah might be
detected and punished. "The lot fell upon Jonah." Jonah then told who
he was, and confessed what he had done : that he had run away from
delivering God's message. The mariners were shocked, and they asked
what they should do to him. He felt humble for his sin ; and not wishing
that they should perish with him, he desired them to cast him into the sea,
and the sea would then be calm. These men seeing that the God of Israel
was the true God, then prayed God to forgive them for throwing Jonah
overboard, for it was not their wish to commifc marder. Then they cast
Jonah into the sea, and it " ceased raging," and they, with becoming grati-
tude, offered up sacrifice to God. Let us, like them, never forget the good-
ness of God in preserving us from extreme dangers.
Jonah, having been thrown overboard, did not perish, for we are told that
" the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow" him up, and he remained
in his belly three days
and three nights. This
fish is, in our New Tes-
tament, called a whale ;
but it might there also
be called in the English
" a great fish ; " for you
must remember that
the Old Testament was
written in Hebrew, and
the New in Greek, and
that the English is
only a translation.
God, who made the fish, could make it do as he pleased ; and that God
who made the prophet could as well preserve him in the fish as create him ;
and could as well restore him from the fish, as he can raise up the dead
body from the grave.
Jonah was now commanded a second time to go to the great city of
ANCIENT SHIP.
542 Bible and Commentator.
Nineveh, and preach what God told him. So Jonah went, and he cried,
as he passed along in the city, " Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be
overthrown ! "
When the people heard Jonah, they believed he was a messenger from
God ; and they repented, and fasted, and turned from their wicked ways,
and God spared them.
Jonah, instead of being delighted that the people believed his message, -
and that the city was spared, was mortified that his prophecy had not come
to pass ; but God never intended it should, if the people repented.
How much more tender-hearted is God than man ! Even this prophet
could have borne to see a whole city perish, rather than his prophecy
should fail. Surely he ought rather to have been glad that God had
made him the means of bringing these sinners to repentance. So Jonah
said to God, he knew how very merciful He was, and, as he supposed He
wTould not destroy the whole city, he did not like to deliver his message ;
that was the reason why he had run away ; and now what he apprehended
would be the case had really come to pass. Indeed the prophet was so
vexed, that he asked God to let him die. But God was also merciful to the
prophet, and did not grant his rash request. On the contrary, he conde-
scended to reason with the angry man, and asked him, "Doest thou well to
be angry?"
Jonah, however, still seemed to think that something might happen to the
city ; so he went out of it, and made a booth on a spot where he could see
Nineveh. A booth differed from a tent, being made, not of cloth, but only
of branches of trees, something like our arbors in our gardens. In this
situation, God was still kind to him, and he caused a gourd to spring up
and cover Jonah's booth ; so tha»t he was well protected in the day from the
burning sun, and at night from the cold. Jonah was pleased at this com-
fort ; but in the morning God caused a worm to destroy his gourd, and a
strong warm wind drove the heat of the scorching sun full in Jonah's face,
so that he became quite faint ; and he said, " It is better for me to die than
to live." The Lord saM to Jonah, " Doest thou well to be angry for the
gourd ? " and the prophet, vexed, annoyed at the loss of this last comfort,
and suffering very possibly from the scorching heat of the Assyrian sun,
could only reply fretfully, " I do well to be angry, even unto death." This
was not a right spirit for Jonah to manifest toward the Lord, who had so
mercifully preserved and kept him; but the Lord had compassion on this
nervous, irritable man, and condescended to show him how inconsistent he
Micah. 543
was: "Thou hast had pity," he said, "on the gourd, for which thou hast
not labored, neither madest it grow, which came up in a night and perished
in a night ; and should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more
than one hundred and twenty thousand persons that cannot discern between
their right hand and their left hand " (that is, there was this number of
infants in the city, who, at least, had not done wrong), and so, according to
the usual estimate, there must have been a total population of at least six
hundred thousand souls. God was too merciful to destroy the innocent with
the guilty.
We know nothing of the history of Jonah after this, but this story of his,
is full of instruction for us. We learn from it that it is of no use for us to
try to run away from God or duty ; that God can control all things, animate
and inanimate, to accomplish the purposes of his will ; that he had had
thoughts of mercy toward these heathen Ninevites, hundreds of years before
the coming of the Messiah • and that sincere penitence and trust in the mercy
of God will avert great threatened dangers.
Some critics have attempted to throw discredit on this book, and have
spoken of it as a fable ; but this is very weak and very wicked. The nar-
rative has every mark of truthfulness on its face ; the heathen traditions of
that region are definite and clear as to some occurrence of the sort at about
that period ; the name itself is nearly preserved ; the Jews all testify to the
authenticity and inspiration of the book ; and our blessed Lord repeatedly
referred to this incident of Jonah's three days' sojourn in the maw of the
shark, as symbolical and typical of his own death and burial and resurrec-
tion. No ! Jonah's story can no more be given up than the New Testament.
MICAH.
THE prophet Micah was a native of Moresheth, a village of southern
Judah, about twenty-eight miles southwest of Jerusalem. He is called
from his birthplace Micah the Morasthite, and is to be distinguished from
another and brave prophet of nearly the same name of Ahab's time, who
was probably a native of the kingdom of Israel — Michaiah, or Micah, the
son of Imlah. Micah prophesied during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and
Hezekiah, perhaps from 748 to 712 b. c, about thirty-six years. Though
his recorded prophecies are brief — only seven chapters: — he was a prophet
of high reputation in his day, the associate and contemporary of Isaiah, and
a man of most fearless spirit. In Jeremiah xxvi. 18, nearly a hundred
544 Bible and Commentator.
years after his death, one of his prophecies is quoted by the elders of the
people as an evidence of his courage. The passage in Micah iv. 1-4, which
is substantially identical with Isaiah ii. 2-5, may have been a quotation from
some older prophecy, used with a mutual understanding by both prophets.
The first and second chapters contain a magnificent description of the com-
ing of Jehovah to judge Israel and Judah for their idolatries; and a
denunciation of the people for their refusal to repent or to be warned of
the evil of their doings. This passage closes with a promise of future good
if they would turn from their evil ways. The third, fourth and fifth chap-
ters are addressed especially to the princes and heads of the people, rebuking
them for their avarice, rapacity and perversion of justice, and a denuncia-
tion of the false prophets and priests who lay in wait to deceive. In the
third chapter is contained the prophecy quoted in Jeremiah, " Therefore shall
Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps,
and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest." But the
prophet foresees that there shall be a return of prosperity to Zion when the
people have been truly humbled and repented, and his glowing pictures of
that blessed time are among the finest strains of Hebrew poetry. The sixth
and seventh chapters contain an apparent controversy in dialogue form,
between Jehovah and his people, in which he recounts his mercy to them,
and pleads with them for their affectionate service. Their reply shows the
materialism of their ideas, to which Jehovah opposes his requirement of a
spiritual worship, and shows how gross is their disobedience. The prophet
bewails the justice of Jehovah's indignation, but on the profession of repent-
ance by the people, closes with a triumphal song of joy for their future
deliverance.
NAHUM.
THIS prophet is said to have been an Elkoshite, or native of Elkosh;
there has been much dispute in regard to this place, some critics think-
ing it was in Assyria, where there is a village now called Alkush, in which
the tomb of Nahum the prophet is shown ; but this is too modern to be enti-
tled to much credit; others suppose, and with more reason, that it was in
Galilee, where Jerome was told that it was, and recent investigation leads to
the belief that the original Elkosh was upon the site of Capernaum, that city
having in the Aramaic language the name of Kepher, or Kefr Naum, which
means the village of Nahum. He lived probably in the latter part of the
reign of Hezekiah, prophesying from about 711 B. c. to 698 b. c. His only
Habakkuk. 545
prophecy which has come down to us is this one concerning Nineveh. It
is really a grand epic poem, depicting with wonderful vividness and power,
and with an onward rush which is irresistible, the incidents of the siege and
destruction of the great city, and representing Jehovah as fully roused for its
punishment for its wickedness, and as directing from heaven every stage of
the assault and destruction. The overthrow of the Assyrian capital so
forcibly portrayed in this prophecy was accomplished about eighty-five
years later, and every prediction was fulfilled to the letter. The destruction
of No-Ammon, or Thebes (populous No), referred to in the third chapter,
had recently taken place when Nahum wrote, and a king of Assyria had
destroyed it. The terrible outrages by which it had been made desolate
were to be repeated upon Nineveh, and the prophet rejoices that the great
enemy of Israel is doomed to such utter destruction for its great wickedness.
Nahum is the only one of the minor prophets who makes no direct or indi-
rect allusion to Christ.
HABAKKUK.
HABAKKUK was in all probability a Levite, and possibly a priest,
as the arrangement of his prayer or psalm for chanting in the
temple service would indicate. He prophesied shortly before the cap-
tivity of Jehoiakim, about 629 B. c, in the latter part of the reign of
Josiah.
The prophecy is a very remarkable one in every respect. As a whole it
is a poem of great power and beauty, beginning with a lamentation over the
corruption and sinfulness of the people, followed by a revelation of the swift
coming vengeance of God upon them for their sins, which is to be inflicted
by the Chaldeans, a new foe ; the prophet next describes this new enemy
and their boastful impiety, but confident that God will punish them when
he has used them as instruments of correction, hopefully awaits the issue.
In the second chapter the Lord commands him to write out the doom of
the Chaldeans, and the denunciations which the nations they have oppressed
are pronouncing upon them. Their vices and cruelties are thus rehearsed,
and the prophet pauses after this terrible arraignment and exclaims, " But
the Loed is in his holy temple ; let all the earth keep silence before him."
Then follows that sublime psalm or ode in the third chapter, a composition
unrivalled in any language for boldness of conception, sublimity of thought
and majesty of diction. It should be read and re-read till it is learned by
heart.
35
546 Bible and Commentator.
ZEPHAM/AH.
THIS prophet was probably of princely lineage, being, it is supposed, a
great-great-grandson of Hezekiah, the good king of Judah. His
period of prophesying was brief, being between 630 and 625 b. c, as is indi-
cated by the subjects of his prophecies. This was wholly within the reign
of Josiah, and he was a contemporary of Jeremiah, who commenced his efforts
to bring Judah to repentance about the same time. These two good men
aided king Josiah very powerfully in his work of reform, but the whole
nation was too corrupt for anything more than a superficial reformation, and
Zephaniah was therefore commissioned of God to proclaim the coming judg-
ments which should fall upon them for their great sinfulness. These de-
nunciations are accompanied by prophecies of the destruction of adjacent
nations who were guilty of the same sins, and at the close the prophet predicts
the blessings which God would bestow upon the remnant of his people who
should return after their captivity, and these blessings, which should make
Zion a praise in the whole earth, evidently refer to the coming of the
Messiah.
HAQGAI.
HAGGAI, like Zechariah and Malachi, was a prophet of the restora-
tion, or return from the Babylonian captivity. The date of his
prophecies is 520 B. c, sixteen years after the return under Zerubbabel.
He and Zechariah are mentioned in Ezra as having powerfully aided
Zerubbabel the governor, and Joshua the high priest, in stimulating the
people to complete the second temple. His arguments were varied, now
inveighing against their selfishness and indolence in withholding their
labors from this all important work, anon demonstrating to them that their
poverty and distress was a judgment of God upon them for their neglect,
and again promising to them rich blessings if they went forward in this good
work. Haggai and Zechariah are believed to have been the authors, or at
least the editors of several of the Psalms, which were arranged for use in the
service of the second temple, particularly Psalms cxi., cxxv., cxxvi., cxxxvii.,
cxlv.-cxlviii. He is mentioned not only in Ezra but in several of the
apocryphal books, and there is a quotation from Haggai ii. 6, in Hebrews
xii. 26.
Zechabiah — Malachi. 547
ZECHARIAH.
THIS prophet calls himself the son of Berechiah, the sou of Iddo, while
in Ezra he is called the son of Iddo ; but this was the custom of the
Jews, who often spoke of the grandfather or even a remoter ancestor, as the
father, if he was more distinguished than the actual father. As we have
already said, Zechariah and Haggai lived and labored at the same time, about
520 years before Christ. There is some reason for believing that Zechariah
was a priest, and that his influence over the priests was very powerful. The
first eight chapters of the prophecy are devoted to the same general object
as the prophecy of Haggai, viz. : the urging forward of the completion of
the temple. The last six chapters are different in style from the first eight,
are symbolical in their character, and contain many predictions which are
generally and justly supposed to refer to the coming of the Messiah.
One passage, Zech. xi. 13, is quoted, though not exactly, in Matthew xxvii.
9, 10 ; but is there said to be from Jeremy, the prophet. Jeremiah has
much to say of the potter in chapters xviii. and xix. of his prophecy, but
nothing of the thirty pieces of silver. But there is an evident connection
between these words of Zechariah and Jeremiah's prophecy concerning the
potter, and some suppose that this chapter xi. of Zechariah may have really
been one of Jeremiah's prophecies, which was not found till after the return
from captivity, and being approved by Zechariah, became incorporated into
his prophecy. This seems more probable from what Jerome, a Christian
father of the third century after Christ, says in regard to this. passage, that
a Jewish Christian in Judea presented to him an apocryphal book of Jere-
miah, in which the passage was word for word as it is in Matthew. Some
critics have supposed that these last six chapters, or at least a part of them,
may have been written by that prophet Zechariah who is spoken of in
2 Chronicles xxvi. 5, as living in the reign of Uzziah (about 760 B. a), and
of whom it is said " he had understanding in the visions of God," and that
the two Zechariahs were confounded by some later editor ; and such passages
as ix. 13, and x. 7, make this theory possible. Some of the predictions of
the prophet concerning the Messiah are very beautiful, and were strikingly
fulfilled.
MALACHI.
NOTHING is known of the personal history of this prophet, and the
time in which he prophesied is only known from the internal evi-
dence, and from a comparison of his prophecy with the last chapters of
548 Bible and Commentator.
Neheraiah. Nenemiah's second visit to Jerusalem, and his second term of
service as Tirshatha or Governor over the Jews, according to the most
authentic records, seems to have been about 408 B. c, and between that time
and 406 B. c. this prophecy of Malachi was probably delivered. God had
raised him up to aid Neheraiah in bringing back the people, but more espe-
cially the priests, from their corrupt and wicked practices, and the gross sins
into which they had fallen, and to restore a holy and pure worship. The
priests were very greedy of gain, and would not perform the slightest ser-
vice at the temple without being paid for it; they substituted the blind,
sick, lame and diseased animals for the perfect ones brought for sacrifice,
though they knew this was strictly forbidden ; they divorced their Hebrew
wives, and married, often several heathen women, idolaters, in their places ;
and they sought to bring the worship of Jehovah into contempt. During
his first administration, twenty-four years before, Neheraiah had broken up
these evil practices, but they had been resumed by the priests, and now
Malachi joins his power to that of Nehemiah, denouncing God's judgments
upon them for their sins. But this prophecy is rich in its predictions of
good as well as of evil; and of good to the whole family of man. Among
these are the following: chapter i. 11, "For from the rising of the sun
even unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the
Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a
pure offering : for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the
Lord of hosts."
In the third chapter, first verse, and in the fourth chapter, fifth and sixth
verses, the coming of John the Baptist as the forerunner of Christ, is clearly
and explicitly prophesied ; and in the first, second and third verses of the
third chapter, and in the second and third verses of the fourth chapter the
coming of Jesus as the Messiah, and his work and its joyous and blessed
results, are predicted ; and we are told more plainly than anywhere else
in the Old Testament, that the Messiah is the Lord Jehovah, the Messenger
or Angel of the Covenant, Jehovah God. This passage, chapter iii. 1, is a
conclusive proof of the Divinity of Jesus Christ. We have also in chap-
ter iii. 16, 17, a great encouragement to religious worship and religious
meetings, in the prophet's declaration of the Lord's interest in those who
fear him and think upon his name.
The prophecy, though a short one, is full of precious truth and promises,
and worthily closes the Old Testament.
We have thus endeavored to show you that what we told you in our
Mala chi. 549
introductory chapter to the Old Testament was true — that the great object
and aim of all the books of this Old or former Testament have for their end
and aim to trace the lineage, and prepare the way, for the coming of Him
who was, and was to be, " the Desire of all nations," Jesus Christ, our Lord
and Redeemer.
There are a number of books, written mostly between the time of the
prophecies of Malachi and the advent o£ Christ, which, though generally of
a religious character, are not considered, except by the Roman Catholic
Church, as divinely inspired ; though the Church of England and the Prot-
estant Episcopal Church in this country accord to them a spiritual value,
and have them bound up in some of their Bibles. These books, taken
together, are known as the Apocrypha, though they do not include all the
apocryphal books.
The Apocrypha.
THE word Apocrypha means " secret things." This name was given
at first to books which professed to be sacred, but were not generally
regarded as such ; because many of these books had claimed to contain cer-
tain secret or mystical ideas, words or legends, which could be understood
only by those who were specially instructed therein. As these claims were
generally untrue, the word "Apocrypha " came to mean " spurious writ-
ings," and as these books, which were all written between 250 B. c. and
30 B. c, were "spurious" in the sense of not being written by their alleged
authors, and for the most part did not contain authentic history, they came
to be called " The Apocrypha." Four of the books, viz., Judith, Tobit,
First Maccabees, and Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach,
were originally written in Hebrew, or perhaps Aramaic, the language of the
Jews after the captivity ; these were translated into Greek. The other ten
books were written in Greek, and were composed by some Alexandrian
Jews, who, for one reason or another, desired to add something to the books
of the Old Testament. None of these books were ever recognized by the
Jews of Palestine as forming any part of the Old Testament, but the Alex-
andrian Jews, and the other Jews of the dispersion, for whom the Old Testa-
ment had been translated into Greek by seventy-two learned men (this
translation is often called The Septuagint, which means " Seventy "), added
most of these spurious books to the translation. After the death and resur-
rection of Christ, the apostles and the Hebrew Christians never recognized
these apocryphal books, and many of the Christian fathers rejected them.
After long discussion in several councils, the Roman Catholic Church
received them, except the two books of Esdras and the Prayer of Manasses,
as a part of the Bible ; but the Greek Church rejected them, though regarding
some of them as good books for instruction, but not of authority. The
Lutherans hold that they are not inspired, but yet profitable, and the Church
(550)
The Apocrypha. 551
of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States take
substantially the same view. Other Protestant churches reject them entirely.
The character of these books is very diverse; some of them contain wise
and good thoughts, very well expressed, though not comparable to similar
books of the Old Testament ; such are the Wisdom of Solomon, and Ecclesi-
asticus ; some contain historical narratives, either like the first book of
Esdras, compiled from Nehemiah, Ezra and Chronicles, or the work of some
chronicler of his own times, like the first book of Maccabees, which contains
some veritable history ; others, like the second book of Esdras, the rest of
the chapters of the book of Esther, and the second book of Maccabees, though
professing to be historical, are mere trash, and of no value or authority what-
ever. Baruch is a pretended prophecy, but is mostly borrowed from Jere-
miah ; the Prayer of Manasses is sufficiently penitent, but is undoubtedly
spurious. Tobit, Judith, the Song of the Three Children, the History of
Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon, are all oriental fictions, and most of
them very poor and absurd fictions. Taken as a whole, it may be said
that those, whose Bibles do not contain the Apocrypha, suffer no loss.
There are several other of these apocryphal books written within a century
and a half before the birth of Christ, some of which possess considerable
merit, though attributed to authors who could not possibly have written them ;
but which, for some reason, failed to be included in the collection, which we
know as the Apocrypha. Among these were "The Book of Enoch," to
which reference is made in the Epistle of Jude, and which, though based
on an older tradition, was probably first issued as a whole about one hun-
dred and ten years before Christ; "The Book of Jubilees," from 110 B. c.
to 64 B. c. ; " The Jewish Sibylline Books," about 140 B. c. ; and " The Psalms
of Solomon," about 40 B. Q Of these, all except the Jewish Sibylline Books
were probably written in Palestine, and although spurious, so far as their
professed authors were concerned, they manifest, for the most part, a penitent
and devotional spirit, and throw much light on the religious condition of
the Jews of that day, and on their expectations of the coming of the Messiah.
Nevertheless, " wre have a more sure word of prophecy ; whereunto ye do
well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until
the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts."
History of the Jews
From the Captivity to the Destruction of Jerusalem.
| HAT is known in Jewish history as "the captivity" was
not accomplished in a single month or year. The first,
though not perhaps the largest, company of captives was
taken from Jerusalem in the reign of Jehoiakim, 606 B. a,
when Daniel and others were carried away : the second
at the commencement of the reign of Jehoiachin over
Judah, B. c. 599. At this time many of the princes of
the royal family, and the greater part of the nobles and
priests, were among the captives. Zedekiah, a feeble
prince, was left in charge of the kingdom as a vassal, or tributary of the
king of Babylon. He, after a time, rebelled, trusting to receive aid from
the king of Egypt. In 588 B. c, eleven years later, Nebuchadnezzar
returned, besieged Jerusalem, captured it, and, having slain the sons of
Zedekiah in his presence, put out his eyes, and carried him and all the
more wealthy and influential of his people captives to Babylon. There
still remained, however, a considerable body of people, of the middle and
lower classes in Judsea, who tilled the soil, dressed the vines, cared for the
olive crops, and reared their scanty herds. These were under the care and
superintendence of one of Nebuchadnezzar's officers, but were directly gov-
erned by one of their own countrymen, Gedaliah, whom, however, one of
the princes of the royal family, Ishmael, soon after assassinated, when a
large body of these Jews fled into Egypt.
Six years later, in 582 B. a, a fourth deportation of the inhabitants of
Judaea was made at the direction of Nebuchadnezzar; and thus the land
was left almost without inhabitant. This captivity was not one of so great
suffering as would perhaps be supposed ; many of the Jews lived in com-
fort in Babylonia, and some of them were advanced to positions of high
(552)
History of the Jews. 553
responsibility. Their temple was destroyed, it is true, and their opportu-
nities for religious worship were but few ; but they had not prized their
privileges in their own land, but had followed after all the idolatries of the
heathen. Now they mourned over their wickedness, and many of them
abandoned idols forever, and taught their children to do so. There is no
question that the Jews in exile were a much more godly and righteous
nation, than they had ever been in their own land. Forty-four years after
the last deportation, and sixty-eight after the first, when Daniel and his
companions were carried captive, in 538 B. c, the Babylonian kingdom fell
before the army of Cyrus, and the captive Jews and their descendants became
the subjects of the Medo-Persian empire. Two years later, in 536 B. c,
when Daniel's seventy years were accomplished, Cyrus, having probably been
informed of the prophecies which had been uttered by Isaiah concerning him,
two hundred and thirty years before, and perhaps also prompted by the
aged Daniel, who was his prime-minister, issued his decree for the return of
the Jews into their own land, and for the rebuilding of the temple at Jeru-
salem ; for this purpose, he bestowed upon the Jewish leaders vast sums of
money, and the precious vessels of the former temple. But seventy years of
exile had wrought great changes among the captives ; most of those who had
come to Babylonia as captives had died ; their children had been born in the
land where they were, and though they had been taught to pray toward,
and for, Jerusalem, yet they had but slight attachments there. The exiles
had numbered hundreds of thousands ; those who returned at this time
were not quite fifty thousand, all told ; but among them were many choice
spirits, such men as Zerubbabel, their chief, one of the royal lineage of
David ; Joshua, the son of Josedech, the high-priest, and many others, like
minded.
The first care of these returned exiles was to rebuild the temple ; and they
had made commendable progress in this work, when the death of Cyrus,
529 B. c, and the representations of their enemies to his successors caused the
work to cease. At the accession of Darius the Persian (Darius Hystaspes),
521 b. C, the prophets Haggai and Zechariah encouraged the people to go
on again with the rebuilding of the temple. Application was made by their
enemies to Darius to prohibit this work, but his answer was positive and
decided that they should be allowed to go on, and aided in carrying out the
decree of Cyrus, and that these Samaritan rulers should render them ample
assistance, from the tribute due to the king, and should also furnish them
the animals needed for sacrifice. Thus helped and encouraged, the Jewish
554 Bible and Commentator,
leaders pressed forward to the completion of their work, and in 515 b. c,
twenty years after its commencement, the second temple was dedicated.
It was not, however, till long after this time, that the Jews were allowed
to rebuild the walls of their city. In the year 457 b. c, Ezra, the learned
scribe and priest and the historian of his nation, was sent by Artaxerxes
Longimanus to visit Jerusalem; and was armed with authority to rectify all
abuses and to govern the people. Nearly 2,000 Jews, many of them of
priestly families, went with him, and he was intrusted with a large amount
of money, and golden and silver vessels for the use of the temple. The
value of these has been variously estimated ; the lowest valuation exceeding
four millions of dollars. Ezra did all that he could, but he was a scholar,
a priest, and not a man of affairs; and after thirteen years of his adminis-
tration, there were still gross abuses, and the walls were not built. Arta-
xerxes then sent JSTehemiah, his cup-bearer, a man of deep and earnest piety,
but also a man of great executive ability, who came to Jerusalem with the
authority of a Tirshatha or governor, and by his zeal, tact, and courage, the
walls were completed, the temple worship organized, and evils and abuses
corrected, although the jealousy and enmity of the Samaritans were constantly
exerted to their injury.
Nehemiah returned to Persia, to resume his duties at the court, about
435 b. c, but after the lapse of some years, possibly as many as twenty-four,
he visited Jerusalem again, to find that the old sins and crimes were again
rife ; that his old enemies, the Samaritans and Ammonites, had gained a
foothold in Jerusalem, and even in the temple; and that Eliashib, the high-
priest, and one of his grandsons were allied with them in marriage. He
found also that the temple tithes were not paid; that very many of the
people had married heathen and idolatrous wives; and that there was a
general falling away from the pure worship of Jehovah. Though an old
man, yet with the assistance of the prophet Malachi, he succeeded in
reforming these grievous errors, and at his death left the people in a better
condition, spiritually and temporally, than they had been since their return
from exile.
Still the people, as well as their leaders, were perverse, and ready at the
first opportunity to lapse into the crimes which had polluted their national
life before the captivity, and they needed and received abundant chastise-
ment, during the four hundred and seventy years which followed before
their existence as a nation was blotted out by the Romans. There was little
desire on their part to have kingly government again ; they had felt too
HlSTOEY OF THE JEWS. 555
severely the oppression of their monarchs in former times ; but from the
restoration from captivity onward to the time of Herod, their high-priests
were their potential rulers. At times these were princes as well as priests ;
military leaders, as well as the representatives of Him who was to come,
and make the atonement once for all ; but not by their own will did they
acknowledge auy ruler as of higher authority than their own high-priests.
Yet during most of this time they owed allegiance to one or another
foreign power— to the Persians till the end of the Persian empire under
Darius Codomanuus, 331 B. c. ; to the Greek empire in Asia (Alexander
the Great and his successors), from 331 to 167 b. c. ; to their own Asmo-
nsean princes, with varied fortunes, during which they were now under
Syrian, now under Egyptian, and anon under Roman rulers, from 167
to 63 B. c. ; and finally under Antipater, Herod and his descendants,
from 63 b. c. to A. d. 70, the Romans during most of this period
maintaining a controlling authority, and looking upon the family of Herod
as vassals whom they could remove at pleasure. The seventy years, more
or less, from the time of Neherniah to the end of the Persian empire,
were not marked by many prominent events; the mild administration of
the Persian satraps gave them ample opportunity for the development of
their internal resources, and their religious institutions. The high-priests
during this time were, possibly, Eliasliib, certainly Joiada, Jonathan or
Johanan, and Jaddua. It was a son of Joiada, called Manasseh by the
Jews, who had married, in Nehemiah's time, the daughter of Sanballat the
Horonite, the Samaritan chief. For this offence, Nehemiah expelled him
from Jerusalem. He went at once to his Samaritan friends, carrying with
him, it is said, a copy of the Pentateuch, or the Books of the Law. This
was probably the first copy of the Pentateuch which the Samaritans had
had, and from it, though the text was frequently tampered with, the various
copies of the Samaritan Pentateuch have been made. Manasseh was made
the high-priest of the Samaritans, by his father-in-law, Sanballat, and
worship according to the law, established on Mount Gerizim. About 400
B. c, or perhaps a little later, Manasseh obtained permission from Darius
Nothus to erect a temple on Mount Gerizim, and the hostility between the
Jews and the Samaritans became thenceforth more bitter than ever. The
Samaritans had fabricated traditions, which represented them as being the
genuine descendants of Jacob, and branded the Jews as impostors; they
claimed, when it suited their purpose, to keep the law more strictly than,
the Jews, and once or twice defiled the temple at Jerusalem with dead men's
556 Bible and Commentator.
bones. There was no limit to the hatred of the one nation for the other,
and, in many instances, this hatred led to bloodshed and murder. Jona-
than, another son of Joiada, was high-priest for thirty-two years of this
period of seventy, and was the first, though by no means the last, of these
priestly rulers, who imbrued his hands in a brother's blood. Suspecting his
brother Joshua of an intention to obtain the high-priesthood, through the
favor of Bagoas, the Persian satrap, Jonathan slew him in the temple. This
was about 366 b. c. Bagoas avenged the murder by imposing a tax of fifty
shekels ($26.50) on every lamb offered in sacrifice, and entered the temple,
and the Jews said polluted it, with his presence ; but in reply to their pro-
tests he asked them the very pointed question, "Am I not purer than the
dead body of him whom ye have slain in the temple?"
But the days of the Persian empire were numbered. Alexander the
Great had started on his career of conquest, which was to extend over all
the known empires of the East, about 333 b. c. He was besieging Tyre, in
332 b. c, when he sent to Jerusalem to demand the submission of the Jews.
Their high-priest, Jaddua, the son of Jonathan, made answer that they
were the faithful vassals of Darius. Alexander was angry, and having
reduced Tyre, he followed the coast to Gaza, the old capital of the Philis-
tines, and then a large city, which he captured, and marched against Jeru-
salem. The high-priest caused the city to be hung with garlands, and
forming a procession of the priests in their sacred robes, and of the people in
white garments, went forth at their head in the magnificent dress of the high-
priests, to Sapha, an eminence southwest of the city, to meet the conqueror.
On meeting him, Alexander fell prostrate in adoration, and rising embraced
the high-priest. Turning to his friend Parmenio he explained that he
worshipped, not the priest, but the name of Jehovah engraved on his
frontlet; and that he recognized in him a figure that had appeared to him
in a vision in Macedonia, and had bidden him to conquer Persia. Entering
Jerusalem, he offered sacrifice, and was shown the prophecies of Daniel
relating to himself. He granted the Jews, not only in Judasa, but in
Media and Babylonia also, the free enjoyment of their own laws, and
exemption from tribute during the Sabbatic year. This account, for which
we are indebted to Josephus, has been discredited by some of the critics,
but is substantiated in so many points by contemporary writers, that it seems
worthy of belief. The Samaritans claimed the same privileges as the Jews,
but Alexander, after a careful scrutiny of their pretensions, refused to grant
their requests. Thereupon they murdered the Macedonian governor,
THE HIGH PRIEST IN ROBES.
557
558 Bible and Commentator.
Andromachus, burning him alive, and Alexander retaliated by destroying
Samaria.
Jaddua was succeeded by his son, Onias I., in the high-priestly office
about 330 b. c, and Palestine remained quiet until the death of Alexander,
323 B. c. ; but after that event it became the prey of the contending forces
of Egypt and Syria. At first it was assigned to Syria, and was regarded
as a part of the kingdom of Laomedon, but in 320 B. c. he was dispos-
sessed by Ptolemy Lagus, the powerful king or satrap of Egypt, who
assaulted Jerusalem, on the Sabbath, when the Jews would offer no resist-
ance. He carried off a large number of Jewish and Samaritan captives
(some say 100,000) to Alexandria, where he gave them full citizenship; and
many others migrated to Egypt of their own accord.
During the next twenty years, Palestine was alternately the prize of
victory to Antigonus and Ptolemy, though the battles were mainly fought
on the sea-coast, and for the strong cities of Gaza, Joppa, and Tyre ; Jeru-
salem being out of the line of march of the combatants. In 301 B. c, after
the battle of Ipsus, Palestine, Phoenicia, and Ccele-Syria were assigned to
Ptolemy, and became dependencies of Egypt ; to which they continued in
allegiance for about a century.
Simon I., surnamed the Just, succeeded Onias I., as high-priest, in 300
B. C, and continued in office for eight years. This was the golden period of
high priestly rule. The tendencies to idolatry were very thoroughly
eradicated, and while Greek art and Greek culture had, to some extent,
liberalized and enlarged the minds of the Judsean Hebrews, as they had, in
a still greater degree, those of Alexandria and other lands, they had not
led them away from the purity of their faith, or their reverent worship of
the God of their fathers. The canon, or list of inspired books which com-
posed the Old Testament, was at this time thoroughly settled, and copies of
the law, the prophets, and the poetical books or " writings," were multiplied,
until there were copies in every synagogue, and in most of the wealthier
families. The worship of the temple was maintained in its purity, and the
altars daily smoked with the sacrifices, which were offered by willing
worshippers. The three great feasts were maintained each year, and Jews
from Egypt, Babylon, Persia, and other lands came up to Jerusalem to
attend them. The temple revenues were large; the priesthood intelligent,
and devoted to their duties, and the people more devout than at any pre-
vious time.
Eleazar, the brother of Simon the Just, succeeded him 292 B. c, and ruled
History of the Jews. 559
for forty-one years, during which Judaea was profoundly tranquil, under
the mild government of Ptolemy Soter, and his son Ptolemy Philadelphus,
who reigned from 285 to 247 B. c. It was during the reign of this latter
monarch, and probably commencing about 280 B. c, that the Greek trans-
lation of the Old Testament, which we know as the Septuagint, was made.
Although we cannot receive, as correct, all the traditions and legends of the
Jewish writers on this subject, it is certain that the translation was made
from the Hebrew, at about this time, by learned Jews, mostly resident at
Alexandria; and that this translation, though marred by slight errors, was,
in the main, a faithful representation of the original Hebrew text, and as
such, was constantly quoted by our Saviour, the apostles, and the early
church ; and that in consequence of its translation and wide diffusion among
Jews, and proselytes to the Jewish faith in all lands (the Greek being at
this time the language universally spoken throughout the then known
world), the conversion of the nations to Christianity was greatly aided and
promoted. President Edwards, in his " History of the Work of Redemp-
tion," makes special mention of this, as one of the most effective means of
the promulgation of Christianity.
But these times of peace and prosperity were too good to continue long.
Eleazar was succeeded by his brother Manasseh till 240 B. c, when Onias
II., a weak and incapable son of Simon the Just, and at this time between
sixty and seventy years of age, became high-priest. His most conspicuous
failing seems to have been avarice, and this led him to neglect to pay the
very moderate annual tribute (about §33,000) of the temple to the Egyptian
king, Ptolemy Euergetes. This avarice caused an interruption of the
kindly feeling which had existed between the Egyptian kings and the Jews
for more than sixty years. The adroitness of his nephew, Joseph, who not
only appeased the anger of the king, but succeeded in obtaining for him-
self the farming of the revenues of Palestine, Phoenicia and Coele-Syria
(offering to pay the king more than twenty-six millions of dollars annually),
averted the peril for the time, but a few years later swift destruction came
upon this family of the high-priests.
Onias II. died 226 B. c, and was succeeded by his son Simon II., a
judicious and faithful priest, but one who lived in troublous times. Ptolemy
IV. Philopator had succeeded to the Egyptian throne, and Antiochus the
Great, the ablest of the Syrian kings of the family of the Seleucidse, thought
it a good opportunity to recover Phoenicia, Coele-Syria, and Palestine. He
was defeated by Ptolemy, at Raphia, near Gaza, 217 B. c. After this vie-
560 Bible and Commentator.
tory, Ptolemy went to Jerusalem, and attempted to force his way into the
Holy of Holies, but was driven out by a supernatural terror. On his
return to Egypt, he gave vent to his resentment, by a cruel persecution of
the Jews at Alexandria, by which he alienated the entire Jewish nation
from their allegiance to him. Ptolemy Philopator died 205 B. c, and was
succeeded by his son Ptolemy V. Epiphanes, who was only five years old; and
Antiochus the Great again attempted, and this time successfully, the capture
of Coele-Syria and Palestine. The war between him and Scopas, Ptolemy's
general, raged severely for seven years, and Judaea suffered terribly during
the contest; but in the end she welcomed Antiochus as a deliverer. He
granted the Jews an annual sum for the sacrifices, and forbade foreigners to
enter the temple. In the same year (198 B. c.) Onias III. succeeded his
father Simon II. as high-priest. The provinces, conquered by such a lavish
expenditure of blood and treasure, were nominally restored to Ptolemy
JEpiphanes, as the dowry of his bride Cleopatra, the daughter of Antiochus,
but the wily Syrian king concluded to hold them in trust for his daughter.
He died in 187 B. c, and was succeeded by his son Seleucus IV Philopator,
whose representative in the expenditure of the annual sum allowed for the
sacrifices, one Simon, a Benjamite, fomented a quarrel with the high-priest,
and at last prompted a Syrian to seize the treasures of the temple. This
attempt was frustrated, Jewish traditions say miraculously; but more
probably by the determined resistance of the priests.
Seleucus Philopator died 175 B. c, and was succeeded by his brother,
Antiochus IV. Epiphanes, or, as he was more appropriately named,
Epimanes, or the madman, whose name has come down to posterity as the
rival in infamy of those of Nero, and Ivan the Terrible.
In the beginning of his reign a feud broke out between the high-priest
Onias III., and his three unscrupulous and wicked brothers — Joshua, who
had changed his name to Jason, Menelaus, originally Onias, and Lysimachus.
Jason proved himself a traitor to his family and nation, offering an enormous
bribe and promises of annual tribute to Antiochus, to induce him to oust
Onias III., and grant him the high-priesthood; surrendering the privileges
of free worship obtained from former kings; training the Jewish youth in
the athletic games of the Greeks, and encouraging the worship of the Tyriau
Hercules. His brother Menelaus, three years later, outbid him and obtained
the high-priesthood, selling the sacred vessels of the temple to obtain the
money to pay his bribes. His elder brother, Onias III., charged him with
the sacrilege, and Menelaus caused him to be put to death. A civil war
History of the Jews. 561
followed ; Menelaus fled, but returned to Jerusalem, where Jason attacked
him, and drove him into the citadel, but having to fly in turn, he escaped
at first to the Ammonites and afterward to Sparta, where he perished.
Antiochus Epiphanes was now called to Jerusalem by Menelaus, under
the pretence that Judaea had revolted. He came, took the city by storm,
slaying 40,000 persons, a large proportion of them women and children, and
as many more were sold as slaves. Then, guided by the base Menelaus, he
entered the temple, profaned the altar, by the sacrifice of a swine, and having
caused part of its flesh to be boiled, he sprinkled the broth over the whole
sanctuary, and polluted the Holy of Holies with filth. He carried off the
sacred vessels and other treasures, to the amount of about three millions of
dollars. The Samaritan temple was profaned in the same way ; and
Antiochus returned to Antioch, leaving a savage Phrygian named Philip
as governor at Jerusalem, and Andronicus, a base and covetous wretch, as
ruler at Gerizim.
But this fiend in human form had not yet satisfied the malice of his evil
nature. Two years later, in 168 B. c, he was driven out of Egypt by the
Romans, and, partly from rage at his discomfiture, partly from a fear that
the Romans might weaken his kingdom, by fomenting insurrection in
Judsea, but, more than all, from the malignity and depravity of his disposi-
tion, he resolved to exterminate the Hebrew race from the face of the earth.
He intrusted the execution of this sanguinary purpose to Apollonius, one
of his creatures, who had always been noted for his enmity to the Jews ;
and he could not have found a more willing, more cruel, or baser tool for
the work. Apollonius waited for the Sabbath, when all the people were
occupied with their religious duties, and then let loose his soldiers against
the unresisting multitude, slew all the men, till the streets ran with blood,
and seized all the women as captives. He proceeded to pillage, and then
to dismantle the city, which he set on fire in many places ; lie threw down
the walls, and built a strong fortress on the highest part of Mount Sion,
which commanded the temple and all the rest of the city. From this
garrison he harassed all the people of the country, who came in to look
fondly upon the ruins, or to offer a stealthy worship in the sanctuary. These
were slain without mercy.
But the infamous malignity of the persecutor did not end with these cruel-
ties. Antiochus had not only vowTed to exterminate the Hebrew race, but
also to destroy every vestige of the Hebrew religion. He accordingly issued
an edict commanding uniformity of worship throughout his dominions, and
36
562 Bible and Commentator.
requiring that this uniformity should consist in the worship of the most
revolting and licentious of the gods of Greece. The temples were to be
consecrated to Jupiter in some of his grosser manifestations ; and with true
Syrian depravity, the worship of Baal and Ashtaroth was to be renewed
under the Greek names of Dionysus or Bacchus, and of Venus Anadyomene.
One AthenaBiis, an aged man, but a fanatic in this idolatrous worship, was
charged with the duty of carrying into effect this iniquitous decree. The
Samaritans submitted without any opposition, and their temple on Mount
Gerizim was formally consecrated to Jupiter Xenius. Proceeding thence
to Jerusalem, Athena3iis, with the assistance of the garrison, prohibited and
suppressed every observance of the Jewish religion, forced the people to
profane the Sabbath, to eat swine's flesh and other unclean food, and
expressly forbade the national rite of circumcision. The temple was
dedicated to Jupiter Olympius; the statue of that deity was erected on
part of the altar of burnt-offerings, and sacrifice duly performed. " The
abomination that maketh desolate was set up, the sanctuary was polluted,
and the daily sacrifice taken away." The solemn feasts of Passover and
Pentecost, and the rejoicing gathering of the harvest festival or feast of
tabernacles, were prohibited ; the debauching and unclean orgies of the
Bacchanalia, and the worship of Venus, substituted for them ; while the
Jews were compelled to carry the ivy, and join in the degrading and pollut-
ing worship of these heathen divinities.
Yet in this time of the trial of their faith, there were not wanting those
who preferred death, even with the severest tortures, to the abandonment
of their religion ; i( who were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that
they might obtain a better resurrection." In the noble army of martyrs,
who stand before the throne of God, and serve him day and night, will
most assuredly be reckoned the brave women who, defying the tyrant's
command, circumcised their children, and were led around the city with
their babes hanging to their breasts, and then cast headlong from the wall ;
the aged Eleazar, a venerable scribe, who, bending under the weight of ninety
years, sooner than even to appear to eat swine's flesh, gave his body to the
torture, saying that he " desired to leave a notable example to such as be
young to die willingly and courageously for the honorable and holy laws,"
and who, with his expiring breath, uttered this noble testimony : " It is
manifest unto Jehovah, that hath the holy knowledge, that whe'reas I might
have been delivered from death, I endure sore pains in my body by being
beaten; but in soul, am well content to suffer these things because I fear
History of the Jews. 563
Him." Nor shall that heroic mother and her seven sons be forgotten, among
those of whom the world was not worthy ; who were brought into the king's
own presence, and having refused to eat swine's flesh, were put to death,
with the most cruel tortures ; and who, from the eldest to the youngest, dis-
played not only constancy but triumph ; and the mother, after encouraging
each in his turn, herself suffered last.
But God, the God of Israel, saw and knew all the sorrows and sufferings of
his people ; he desired to bring them into closer union with himself, to banish
from their hearts, not only all tendencies to idolatry, but those other sins, to
which they were most strongly inclined — the greed of gain, pride, haughti-
ness, and Inst ; and to prepare them for the coming of his Son, who should
be the Prince of Peace, the King who should sit upon the throne of his
father David, and rule over a spiritual Zion. In the past, he had wrought
miracles for their deliverance ; now he was about to raise up deliverers of
their own countrymen, and endow them with wisdom and grace, to accom-
plish his purposes of mercy.
The emissaries of Antiochus and his lieutenant Athenseus were active
and persistent in their determination to extinguish, everywhere, the traces
of the Jewish religion ; and they penetrated into all the towns of Judsea,
with their bands of soldiers, and compelled the people to eat swine's flesh,
and to offer sacrifices to idols. Among the places thus visited was Modin,
a town on an eminence on the road to Joppa, near the city of Lydda, the
present Ludd, about twenty miles from Jerusalem, and commanding a view
of the Mediterranean. In this town lived Mattathias, a man of the priestly
line of Joarib, of great dignity and piety; and, though himself advanced in
years, having five sons in the prime of life, and in character and ability
worthy of such a father. Their names were Johanan, Simon, Judas, Eleazar
and Jonathan. When Apelles, the officer of Antiochus, arrived at Modin,
he made splendid offers to Mattathias, as a man of great influence, to induce
him to consent to abandon his faith, and lead others to submit to the royal
decree. Mattathias not only rejected very promptly all his advances, but
publicly avowed his determination to live and die in the faith of his fathers ;
and when an apostate Jew was about to offer sacrifice to the heathen deity,
the old priest, in a transport of indignant zeal, struck him dead upon the
altar. He then fell upon the king's commissioner, Apelles, put him to
death, and summoned all the citizens, who were zealous for the law, to
follow him to the mountains. Their numbers rapidly increased ; but the
Syrian troops having surprised a thousand of them in a cave, attacked them
564 Bible and Commentator.
on the Sabbath day, and meeting with no resistance, slew them without
mercy. Thenceforth, Mattathias and his followers asserted the legality of
defensive warfare on the Sabbath day, and acted upon it.
Under the guidance of the wise Mattathias, the insurgents against the
atrocious tyranny of Antiochus manifested equal enterprise and discretion.
Collecting their forces in the mountain fastnesses, so abundant in Judsea,
they descended upon the towns ; destroyed the heathen altars ; enforced
circumcision; punished all apostates who fell into their hands; recovered
many copies of the law, which their enemies had wantonly defaced ; and
re-established the synagogues for public worship — the temple being defiled,
and in the possession of the enemy. But the age of Mattathias was
ill-suited to tins active and laborious warfare; and having bequeathed the
command to Judas, the third but most valiant of his sons, he sank under the
weight of years and toil, with his hopes unfulfilled, and his country as yet
unredeemed from the power of the tyrant.
Among those who rallied under the banner of Mattathias and his sons,
the bravest and most zealous were the austere and abstemious Chasidim the
holy, who adhered strictly to the letter and spirit of the law, but added to
it the traditions and observances of the fathers, or what was called the oral
law. Subsequently these took upon themselves the name of Pharisees, and
were known by that name when our Lord was upon the earth. At that
time they had lapsed into formalism, and a most odious self-righteousness,
but though they had existed in small but increasing numbers, since the
Babylonish captivity, they were, in the time of Mattathias and his sons, the
best patriots and the most earnest and devoted servants of God in the
Jewish nation, and they constituted a majority of the people. The
Zadikim, or righteous, who observed only the letter of the law of Moses,
and cared little for its spirit, and who were afterwards known as Sadducees,
comprised most of the nobles and more wealthy citizens, and very many of
them were ready to obey the decrees of Antiochus, if by so doing they might
save their wealth and social position.
The new general of the insurgents, Judas, unfurled the banner on which
was inscribed the name by which he and his brethren were afterwards
known, that of the Maccabees, a word whose derivation is uncertain ; but
under the circumstances, the explanation which refers it to the first letters
of a sentence in Exodus xv. 11, " Who is like unto thee among the gods,
O Jehovah ? " seems the most probable one. Judas possessed his father's wise
discretion, and mingled with it an almost superhuman daring. Having
History of the Jews. 565
tried his soldiers by many gallant adventures, surprising a number of cities,
which he garrisoned and fortified, he determined to meet the enemy in the
field. Apollonius, his old enemy, now governor of Samaria, first advanced
against him, and was totally defeated and slain ; Seron, another of the
generals of Antiochus, attempted to avenge the defeat of Apollonius, but
was met by Judas, in the strong pass of Bethhoron (where, many centuries
before, Joshua had defeated the Canaanite kings), and he, too, was destroyed.
Antiochus was furious ; the insurgents were threatening the recapture of
Jerusalem, and Philip, the brutal governor of that city, was clamoring for
help. But the provinces of Armenia and Persia had revolted, and Anti-
ochus must hasten to subjugate them. He, however, divided his army, send-
ing Jsicanor and Ptolemy Macron, with 67,000 troops, into Palestine, accom-
panied by a large number of slave-merchants, who proposed to purchase
their Jewish captives. To meet this formidable force, Judas had but 6,000
men, whom he assembled at Mizpeh. There they fasted and prayed, and
offered sacrifices to their covenant-keeping God. Then with a sublime
audacity, which showed how fully he appreciated the power of great moral
motives, and the glory of a great example, Judas issued his proclamation in
the very- words of the law, commanding that all who had married wives,
built houses, or planted vineyards, or were fearful, should return to their
homes.
His force dwindled to 3,000 ill-armed men ; but they were strong in
their almost fanatical zeal for the law, and every one of them would fight
for their leader to the death. Learning that Gorgias, one of the Syrian
generals, had been detached, with 5,000 picked soldiers and 1,000 cavalry,
to surprise him by night, Judas formed the daring resolution to elude
his attack, by falling on the main camp of the enemy, with his 3,000
heroes. It was morning before he arrived, but animating his men for the
onset, they charged, shouting, and with all their trumpets clanging, upon
the Syrians, who fled after a feeble resistance, and were pursued into the
waterless plains of southern Judsea. Three thousand Syrians fell that day
in battle; but Judas was as wary as bold, and having scattered the foe
thoroughly, he recalled his men, and by his strict discipline kept them from
plundering the Syrian camp, until Gorgias should return from his attempt
to surprise them. Then his soldiers, flushed with victory, fell upon the
wearied Syrian soldiers, who were dispirited at finding their camp in the
hands of the Jews, and after a brief conflict routed them also, and drove them
across the Jordan. The Jews then gathered a rich spoil, and distributed a
566 Bible and Commentator.
liberal share to the wounded, the widows and orphans ; and seizing the slave-
merchants who had come to purchase Jewish captives, they sold them into
slavery. The remnant of the Syrian army and those who had not yet been
in battle had rallied on the other side of the Jordan, but Judas crossed,
attacked and defeated them, killing two of their generals, and compelling
Nicanor to escape to Antioch, disguised as a slave. The next year, Lysias,
the Syrian general, returned to the attack in southern Judsea, with a force of
65,000, a large part of them Idumaeans. Judas met him with 10,000 of his
invincible troops and defeated him, leaving 5,000 Syrians dead on the field
of battle. He now took possession of Jerusalem, though the Syrians still
held the citadel. He re-established the temple worship, replaced, from the
booty he had won, the vessels of the temple, and held a feast of dedication
of eight days. The succeeding year he drove out the predatory bands of
Syrians, Idumseans and Ammonites who ravaged Galilee, and fell upon
the Jewish towns east of the Jordan. He was successful wherever he
commanded in person, or intrusted the command to his brothers; but some
of his lieutenants were less wary and suffered defeats. But he had substan-
tially delivered his country.
In the year 164 B. c. Antioch us Epiphanes died. He had been a monster
of iniquity in his life, and his end was miserable, as Daniel had predicted
three hundred years before. Repulsed in his attempt to plunder a rich
temple in Persia, he received intelligence, while smarting under this defeat,
of the disastrous state of his affairs in Palestine, and immediately hastened
to return, but was seized with an incurable and loathsome disease, in a small
town in the mountains of Paretacene. There, consumed in body by a fast-
spreading ulcer, racked with the most horrible pain, and afflicted in mind
by ghastly apparitions and the tortures of remorse, now blaspheming, and
anon promising to the Jews, and to their temple, the most magnificent gifts
and privileges, if only their God would deliver him from his torments, he
died, unwept and unhonored by even the poorest of his subjects.
The troubles which ensued in regard to the Syrian succession, which was
claimed by Antiochus V. Ewpator, and Demetrius I. Soter, son of Seleucus
IV., did not bring peace to Judaea. Lysias, who supported Antiochus,
marched with a force of 100,000 foot, 20,000 horse and 32 elephants against
Jerusalem, and having reduced Bethsura, after a long siege, in which the
Maccabees performed prodigies of valor, and Eleazar, one of the brothers,
was slain (crushed to death by the fall of an elephant which he had killed),
the Syrian army laid siege to Jerusalem ; but it was not captured, as Lysias
History of the Jews. 567
was compelled to return to Antioch, and Antiochus made a hollow peace with
the Jews. His rival,, Demetrius, however, came in 162 b. c. to Antioch,
seized and put to death Antiochus and Lysias, and finding that Onias IV.,
'the last of the high-priests of the family of Josedech, had forfeited his
position, by becoming the high-priest of a temple, which the Jews in Egypt
had built near Heliopolis, he assumed the right to appoint a new high-priest,
Eliakim or Joachim, who assumed the Greek name of Alcimus. He was of
Aaronic descent, but was a base, bloody man, and commenced his career
by murdering sixty of the most devout priests in one day. Again Judas
rallied the patriots against this false high-priest, and when Nicanor, the old
enemy of the Jews, was sent from Antioch to support Alcimus, Judas
defeated him in two battles — the second at Adasa in February, 161b. c, the
most glorious of the Maccabsean victories, in which Nicanor was slain, and
the independence of JiKhea substantially achieved. At this time Judas
sent two of his nephews to Rome to make an alliance with that power ; but
before their return, his noble and patriotic career was closed. Demetrius,
determined to maintain the cruel and ruffianly Alcimus as high-priest, sent
a large force into Judsea to accomplish that result. The negotiation of a
treaty with Rome had oifended some of the more rigid of the followers of
Judas, while others were dissatisfied at his stern discipline, and sighed for a
rule which should give them greater license. As a consequence, he had but
3,000 men to oppose the 22,000 sent against him, and these by desertions
dwindled to 800 ; but the hero knew no fear, and when urged to fly and
seek a better opportunity to defend his country, replied : " If our time
be come, let us die manfully for our brethren and not stain our honor."
He fought with the old lion-like courage, and defeated the right wing of
the Syrians, their choicest troops, and drove them to Azotus ; but the
Syrian left wing was not resisted, and fell upon the rear of the victorious
Jews, and in the disaster Judas was slain. His brothers, Jonathan and
Simon, recovered his body and buried it with honor in his father's sepulchre
at Modin. As a patriot, a statesman, a hero, and a devout and consistent
servant of God, there is no name in history which deserves to stand higher
than that of Judas Maccabseus.
But though their leader was slain, the Maccabees were not disheartened.
There yet remained, of the sons of Mattathias, Jonathan, the youngest son,
John (who was soon after treacherously killed by the Arabs), the eldest,
and Simon. Of these Jonathan, who possessed much the same qualities as
Judas, was chosen the leader, and Simon assisted him by his counsel.
568 Bible and Commentator.
After several battles, Bacchides, the Syrian general, returned to Antioch,
his protege, Alcimus, having died at Jerusalem, in grea^t torment. For two
years there was quiet, and in a final battle Bacchides was defeated, and
made peace with Jonathan, giving up all his prisoners, and promising not
again to molest the Jews. For six years Jonathan governed the nation,
making Mich mash his capital, as Jerusalem was yet in the hands of the
Syrians. In 153 B. c. Alexander Balas, a pretended son of Antiochus
Epiphanes, laid claim to the Syrian throne, and was supported by Borne.
Both he and Demetrius, the reigning monarch, made lavish promises to the
Jews, whose assistance they sought. The forces of Demetrius were with-
drawn from Judsea, Jerusalem surrendered to Jonathan, territory offered
for annexation, and the whole guaranteed to Jonathan and his heirs, if he
would assist the Syrian king. Alexander Balas, on his side, offered the
high-priesthood to Jonathan, and guaranteed the nation many privileges.
Jonathan preferred Alexander to Demetrius, and rendered him aid. Three
years later Demetrius was defeated and killed by Alexander, and in 146
B. c. Alexander's turn came. He was defeated and slain by Demetrius II.
Nicator. With that king Jonathan maintained friendly relations, and
secured from him the evacuation of the tower at Jerusalem, which had
been so long occupied by a Syrian garrison. His wise policy enabled him
also to secure the favor of the usurper Tryphon, though eventually that
treacherous knave enticed him to Ptolemais, made him prisoner, and finally
put him to death. Simon, the last of the brothers, succeeded Jonathan in
143 B. c. His administration was generally peaceful and prosperous, but
in 136 B. c. Antiochus VII., from motives of greed, sent a large force to
harass the Jews. The sons of Simon, Judas and John, attacked Cende-
beus, the general of Antiochus, and completely routed and defeated him.
But, in the providence of God, all the sons of Mattathias, brave and good
as they were, met with a violent death. Simon and his sons Judas and
Mattathias were treacherously slain at Jericho by Ptolemy, Simon's son-in-
law, in 135 B. c. John Hyrcanus, the second son of Simon, succeeded his
father in the priesthood and the government, which he held for thirty years.
The first seven years of his rule were disastrous. His attempt to punish
the murderer of his father was unsuccessful, and Antiochus so far prevailed
against him as to compel him to dismantle the fortifications of Jerusalem
and return to a tributary condition. In 128 B. c. the death of Antiochus
and the waning power of Syria gave John Hyrcanus the opportunity for
recovering the independence of Judsea, of which he promptly availed him-
History of the Jews. 569
self. Having become independent, he determined upon the subjugation of
his former foes. He reduced and laid waste two considerable cities east of
the Jordan, and then turning his arms against the Idumseans, he completely
destroyed their cities, compelled the people to receive circumcision, and
adopt the Jewish religion, and completely wiped out the Idumsean kingdom
from history. He next visited Samaria, took Sichem (the modern Sychar
or Nablous), and destroyed and razed to the ground the hated Samaritan
temple on Mount Gerizim. At a later period (109 B. c.) his sons, Aris-
tobulus and Antigonus, conquered the city of Samaria, ploughed its site,
and converted it into pools of water. He also brought under his sway most
of Galilee, and renewed the alliance with Rome. He erected the Tower of
Baris, afterward the Castle Antonia of Herod, at the northwest corner of the
temple enclosure.
But if there was no outward disturbance of the peace in Judsea in the
latter part of the reign of John Hyrcanus, there was a rupture of the
religious unity of the nation, which brought manifold disasters upon it in
the next generation. The Maccabees had been, alike from principle and
policy, closely united with the Chasidim or Pharisees, the religious zealots
of that time, who, not content with obedience to the mere letter of the
Mosaic law, contended for the observance also of the traditional or oral
law, and were austere in their requirement of all the minutiae of ceremonies,
which ages of tradition had attached to it. They differed widely in these
matters from the Zadikim, Tseduhim, or Sadducees, whose whole religion
consisted in an observance of the letter of the Mosaic law, and who formed
the courtly or noble party. They were indifferentists both in religion and
policy. The Chasidim had been the brave and devoted soldiers of Judas
Maccabseus, and while they attached undue importance to matters of trivial
observance, they were patriotic, earnest, and generally God-fearing men.
An affront from one of these men to John Hyrcanus, near the close of his
administration, led that able and generally wise prince to abandon them and
throw himself completely into the hands of the Sadducees, and from that
time the fortunes of his house and of the nation began to wane.
Aristobulus I., the son of John Hyrcanus, the first of the Asinonsean
prince-priests who assumed the title of king, reigned but one year — a year
fruitful in crimes : he starved his mother to death, imprisoned three of his
brothers, and through his jealousy caused the assassination of his favorite
brother, Antigonus. He subdued Itursea, and while dangerously ill his
death was hastened by remorse.
570 Bible and Commentator.
He was succeeded by his eldest surviving brother, Alexander Jannseus,
who reigned twenty-seven years, 105-78 B. a, but signalized his succession
to the throne by putting his next brother to death. These twenty-seven
years were marked by wars without and commotions within the kingdom.
He was hated and despised by the Pharisees, and on one occasion revenged
himself for their insults, by slaughtering 6,000 of them in the court of the
temple. Not long after, when he had been defeated in one of his schemes
of conquest, the whole nation rose against him, and there was civil war for
six years. He was compelled to fly to the mountains, but, by a reaction in
the public feeling, he regained his power, and brought his prisoners in
triumph to Jerusalem. " Then was seen the incredible spectacle of a high-
priest, the grandson of Simon the Maccabee, sitting at a banquet, with his
wives and concubines, to gloat his eyes upon the crucifixion of eight hundred
of his enemies, and the massacre of their wives and children/7 The
remainder of his reign was undisturbed by open revolt. On his dying bed,
he advised his wTife, to whom he left the civil government, to become
reconciled to the Pharisees. Alexandra ruled from 78 to 69 B. c, and
though she ostensibly complied with his advice, she secretly aided her
younger son, Aristobulus, in thwarting it. Her elder son, Hyrcanus II.,
was the high-priest, and, after his mother's death, the nominal king ; but
he was a weak, indolent prince, and relinquished for six years both offices
to his more ambitious brother, Aristobulus II. Meantime a new power
was coming to the succession in the person of Antipater, an Idumsean noble,
but professedly a Jew, and the bosom friend of Hyrcanus, whom he used as
his tool to gain for himself and his sons the supreme power over Palestine.
He plotted the overthrow of Aristobulus, and after intrigues with Aretas,
king of the Nabatheans, and conciliation of Pompey, the Roman triumvir,
he succeeded in effecting his deposition. Hyrcanus II. was made prince-
priest of Judaea, but was forbidden to assume the crown. Pompey visited
and entered the Most Holy Place of the Temple, but did not plunder it.
Antipater wTas the real monarch, and through the conflicts of Pompey,
Mark Antony, Crassus and Caesar, he managed to be always on the popular
side. More than once was the temple besieged, and more than once was it
plundered ; but while Aristobulus and one of his sons were murdered, and
Hyrcanus kept in an honorable durance, Antipater was made, in 48 B. c,
procurator of Judaea and a Roman citizen. Soon after he made his elder
son, Phasael, governor of Jerusalem, and his younger son, Herod, then not
more than twenty-five years of age, governor of Galilee. Hyrcanus, too
History of the Jews. 571
feeble to resist these encroachments, submitted, and Antipater ruled. The
death of Julius Caesar, 44 B. c, was a great misfortune for Judaea. His
successor, Cassius, was one of the most rapacious of the Roman praetors.
He demanded an enormous annual tribute from Judaea, which, from previous
famines, was collected with great difficulty, the entire population of some
towns being sold as slaves to raise the amount. Malichus, the leader of the
Pharisees, had pledged himself for one-half of the tribute, but was unable
to obtain the money, and would have been put to death by Cassius, if
Antipater had not persuaded Hyrcanus to supply the deficiency. Malichus
was one of the most bigoted and fanatical of the Pharisees, all of whom
hated Antipater, and he repaid the kindness of the Iduraaean by taking his
life by poison. This was in 43 B. c. Herod and Phasael succeeded to
their father's power, Herod gradually assuming the greater part, from his
dexterity in managing the successive Roman leaders. Herod procured an
order from Cassius for the death of Malichus, whom he caused to be slain
in the presence of Hyrcanus. After the battle of Philippi, though Herod
secured the favor of Mark Antony, the Pharisees revolted, and Hyrcanus
placed himself at their head. But Herod was equal to the occasion. He
won the feeble prince-priest back by offering to marry his granddaughter,
who was also the granddaughter of Aristobulus on her father's side. By
this alliance Herod connected himself with the i^smonaean family. Antony
made Herod and Phasael tetrarchs of Palestine, and conferred many favors
on Hyrcanus and the nation.
But the next year (40 B. c.) came a new disaster. Syria had revolted
from Antony's rule and called in the aid of the Parthians. Antigonus, the
son of Aristobulus II., and nephew of Hyrcanus, had been for several years
attempting to regain the throne of Judaea, which his father had lost, and at
last, in desperation, he sought the aid of the Parthian general, offering him
an enormous bribe to reinstate him. The Parthian accepted, and Antigonus
marched upon Jerusalem, where the two factions, Pharisees and Sadducees,
came to open wrar. Herod controlled them for a time by great severity,
but at length Phasael and Hyrcanus were induced, against Herod's advice,
to submit their cause in person to the Parthian general. Herod fled to
Masada, and placed his mother, his sister, and his betrothed bride, Mariamne,
under the protection of his brother Joseph and an Idumaean force, and
himself departed for Rome. Meanwhile, the Parthian general, finding that
Herod, whom alone he cared to secure, had escaped, threw both Phasael and
Hyrcanus into prison, cutting off the latter's ears and thus disqualifying
572 Bible and Commentator.
him for the priesthood. Phasael committed suicide in prison. Meantime
Herod, at Rome, had artfully advocated the claims of Aristobulus, his
brother-in-law and grandson of Hyrcanus, but had been himself appointed
by the Roman senate king of Judaea. He returned at once, and though
Antigonus maintained a nominal sovereignty for three years, Herod, with
the aid of the Romans, constantly gained on him, and at length, in 37 B. c,
captured Jerusalem, took Antigonus prisoner and sent him in chains to
Antony, who put him to death at Herod's instigation, and in 37 B. c. Herod
was undisputed king of Judaea. Herod's reign continued until 4 B. c,
according to the common reckoning ; but our Lord was born in Bethlehem
four years before the commonly received era, and Herod died a few months
after his birth.
In his vigorous administration, his earnest efforts to promote the pros-
perity of his kingdom, his beneficence in times of famine and distress, his
careful protection of all forms of industry, his reduction of the taxes, and
his lavish expenditure in rebuilding the temple and rearing anew the
ruined cities of Palestine, Herod perhaps deserved the title of " the Great,"
which has been bestowed upon him ; but with all these good qualities he
was a tyrant and despot, envious, cruel, lustful and blood-thirsty. He put
to death the venerable Hyrcanus, his best-beloved wife, the beautiful and
innocent Mariamne, and her mother, his three favorite sons, his own
brother, the brother of his wife, the young Aristobulus, and many thousands
of his people, including a part of the Sanhedrim, or Grand Council of the
nation. Among his latest acts of cruelty was the slaughter of the children
of Bethlehem, in the hope of thereby destroying the infant Messiah. He
had planned, at the very day of his death, other and more extended mas-
sacres, from the execution of which he was only prevented by the hand
of the death-angel. His sons and descendants who succeeded to portions
of his sway, though more completely vassals of Rome than he had ever been,
inherited most of his vices of lust, cruelty and love of display, without a
tithe of his ability. Several of them died in exile and disgrace ; among
others, Herod Antipas, the murderer of John the Baptist. Herod Agrippa
I. (the Herod of Acts xii. 20), like his grandfather, Herod the Great,
perished from a most loathsome disease. His son, Herod Agrippa II., the
best of the family, the King Agrippa of Acts xxv. and xxvi., survived the
destruction of Jerusalem, and died in Rome, A. I). 100.
With the destruction of Jerusalem, A. D. 70, the Jewish nation, as such,
came to an end. Their mission, as the chosen people of God, from whom,
History of the Jews.
573
according to the flesh, Christ, our Redeemer, came ; to whom were con-
signed the oracles of God, to whom were sent prophets, apostles and seers,
to declare to them the will, the promises, and the threatenings of the
Almighty, was completed. The Christ, the Anointed One, had come, and
they, who for ages had been taught to look for his appearing, had not
received him. Always a stiff-necked, rebellious, and disobedient people,
they had added to their other sins that they crucified the Lord of Glory,
and henceforward they were to be scattered among all nations, till the
fulness of the Gentiles was brought in.
Palestine, or the Holy Land
Its Geography, Climate, Productions, Topography and History.
HE Holy Land! How expressive the title, and how true!
Holy, because it was set apart by a holy God, as the home
of his chosen people ; because, throughout the ages, holy
men, patriarchs and seers, prophets and sweet singers, apos-
tles and evangelists, have proclaimed on its hill-tops, and in
its valleys and plains the visions and revelations of the divine
will ; but holiest of all, because, in its temple, Jehovah was
worshipped ; and for thirty-three years, in its cities and
villages, the Son of God, in human flesh arrayed, lived, taught,
preached, and practised the will of God, and after performing many mira-
cles, suffered and died in its chief city, the shameful death of the cross, rose
again, and ascended to heaven, not as a martyr, not as a teacher, but as
the one atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Other lands, and, indeed, some portions of our own land, may have fairer
skies, a more equable climate, loftier forests, birds of sweeter song or more
exquisite plumage, flowers of more resplendent beauty, fruits of more luscious
taste, spices of richer fragrance, or grains containing greater nutriment; the
scenery of mountain, valley, and plain, the landscape of river, lake, and
waterfall, may be more lovely in other lands, than in this ; there may be
more of awful grandeur and sublimity in the Himalayas, the Andes, the
Rocky mountains, or even in the Alps, the Carpathians, the terrible gorges
of the Caucasus, or the wondrously varied summits and ravines of the
Tuolumne and the Yellowstone; but, in one respect, the Holy Land has
no rival, no peer. There, and there only, the Son of God came down to
earth, and lived, walked, and conversed with men. The prints of his feet,
the paths he trod, the mountains he climbed for intercourse with heaven,
the hill-sides where he preached to the multitudes, and from which he
(574)
Palestine, or the Holy Land. 575
miraculously fed them, the higher slopes where he was transfigured, and
from whence he ascended to heaven, the very places where he sat, and the
objects on which he looked, have consecrated that land, and made it more
precious than any other on which the sun ever shone.
Where was this Holy Land ? What were its boundaries, its relations to
other lands and countries? and what were its special characteristics of
climate, soil, vegetation, and animal life ? " In the centre of the world,"
say the Jews; "in the centre, or very near the centre of the three great
continents of the old world/' say the ablest of modern geographers, with the
vast mass of the Asiatic continent stretching far away, northeastward, east-
ward, and southeastward from it ; Africa, almost as large, at the south and
southwest, while Europe and the isles of the Atlantic, and the Frozen sea,
extended westward and northward, far beyond where man had ever trod.
Asiatic in its location, yet European in its geographical character and
affinities, and African in its earlier inhabitants, its desert surroundings, and
its philosophic tendencies, it bore the impress of the three continents, to
which it seemed about equally allied.
Let us draw a little nearer, and look more closely at its boundaries.
However varied may have been the territorial limits assigned at different
periods of its history to the name of " Palestine," now restricting it to the
coast and to the land of the Philistines, and, anon, extending it across the
desert to the Euphrates, there has always been a very definite limitation of
the term, " The Holy Land," which has been considered as comprising the
region assigned by Moses and Joshua to the twelve tribes, and held, in the
most prosperous days of David and Solomon, as their own land, in distinc-
tion from the tributary nations around them.
Thus defined, we may say that the northern boundary was the river
Leontes (now called the Litany), from its mouth to the point where the
northern branch of that river turns sharply westward; thence east along the
southern slope of Mount Hermon to about the thirty-sixth meridian of east
longitude, where the wilderness and sandy desert of the northern part of
Bashan, and the Hauran commence. On the east, except for a short dis-
tance, where the volcanic district of the Hauran is more fertile, a vast,
sandy, arid desert stretches southward to Sinai, and the northern extremity
of the Red sea, forming a part of the great Arabian desert. On the south, a
similar sandy desert extends across the whole region, to the isthmus of Suez
and the Mediterranean. On the west, the Mediterranean sea is its boundary
throughout its entire length. On the north, Hermon, nearly 9,000 feet in
576 Bible and Commentator.
altitude, and the frowning heights of Lebanon, render all approaches by
land impossible. At the northeast, the great road from Damascus, and the
more distant Nineveh and Babylon, passes across a short tract of sand, and
reaches the Jordan, below the sea of Galilee. The deserts on the south and
east formed an almost impassable barrier to all approach in those direc-
tions, and as yet the Mediterranean or Great sea was not vexed by the
keels of ships of war. The great road from Damascus, after crossing the
Jordan and the plain of Esdraelon or Jezreel, reached the Mediterranean, and
followed the coast plain to Egypt. This was the only practicable route for
a large military force, or any great body of men.
When God chose Israel to be his peculiar people, knowing their weakness
and proneness to imitate the idolatrous nations around them, he gave them
this land of Palestine as their heritage, that they might be isolated, or cut
off from the heathen nations, who would lead them to sin. Had they been
planted on the Assyrian plain, or in the Nile valley, or placed in Greece,
they would have speedily become idolaters, above and beyond all the nations
around them. They would have multiplied their false gods till, like the
people of India, their number exceeded that of the inhabitants of the land.
As it was, they were tempted and fell into too frequent idolatries, by the
Canaanite and other tribes which occupied the country, and which they
failed, according to the divine command, to extirpate. But though, in the
time of the judges, and too often in the period of the kings, they lapsed into
the worship of Baal and Astarte, of Moloch and Am on, yet there were
always a large body of sincere worshippers of the true God ; and this was
due in part, at least, to this isolation in their position.
But while it was the purpose of God to keep his people from entangling
alliances with foreign nations, it was equally necessary that they should be
brought into occasional contact with remoter tribes and peoples, that they
might take a part in the great movements by which he was bringing the
whole world into a state of preparation for the coming of his Son. The
monarchies of Assyria, Syria, Babylon, Media, Egypt, Greece, and Rome,
must, each in turn, be brought in contact with this little state, whose shores
were washed by the farthest waves of the Great sea; and the peculiar
people of God were to be subject to each of these nations. It wras necessary
that thus the knowledge of the only living and true God should be diffused
through all these countries, and that they should be prepared to receive the
gospel, when it should be preached unto them. The highway of the Gen-
tiles, or " of the nations/7 as it should rather be called, was thus kept open,
Palestine, oe the Holy Land. 577
and was constantly traversed by armies who sometimes met in fierce con-
flict, within the bounds of Palestine.
The greatest length of the Holy Land is about 130 miles. Its breadth
varies from 70 miles in the south, to 40 miles in the north, and its entire
area is about 7,150 square miles, or G50 square miles less than that of the
State of Massachusetts.
The whole country is divided into four nearly parallel belts from north
to south, the only break being in the plain of Esdraelon. These are, 1st.
The coast plain, a narrow strip at the north, scarcely anywhere more than
two miles wide, and often much less, from the mouth of the Leontes or
Litany to the southern end of the Ladder of Tyre. The hills come close to
the Mediterranean, at this point forming bold bluffs, and the plain, what
there is of it, is mostly only drifting sand, thrown up by the sea. Below
the Ladder of Tyre, this maritime plain spreads out into broad fertile fields,
elevated only a few feet above the Mediterranean, and from eight to twelve
miles in breadth, watered by many small streams from the hills. This
plain of Akka, rich and fruitful in grains, extends to the mouth of the
Kishon, and the northern base of Carmel. After passing the bold headland
of Carmel, which extends far out into the Mediterranean, the plain again
becomes narrow and sandy, nowhere more than two miles in breadth, and
even this, mostly drifting sand and dunes or sand-hillocks, which have
almost entirely covered the ruins of Csesarea. The few streams which flow
from the hills form marshes and quicksands. Below Csesarea, it again
expands into the broad plain of Sharon, and farther south, into the still
wider stretch of fertile and rolling lands, which were anciently known as
the " Shephelah," or " low country/' " the land of the Philistines." This
is tolerably well-watered, as far south as the Wady Ghuzzeh and the
Wady Seba, the ancient brook Besor, which forms the boundary of the
desert at the south-southwest. It was once very fertile, but on the sea-
coast the sands have invaded it, and the orchards of Joppa, the fields, vine-
yards, and olive groves of Mejdel, Hamameh, and other villages are nearly
buried in sand, and Ashdod (or Azotus) and Askelon, with their vast ruins,,
are completely overwhelmed ; even Gaza, the strongest of these cities,
three miles inland, is suffering the same fate. This region, which once sus-
tained a vast population, is now almost uninhabited. The plain of Sharon,
formerly so fruitful, now produces little else than forests of gigantic thistles,
and, in early spring, wild flowers of the brightest colors • but the whole
country is dotted with tells, or heaps of ruins of cities and towns, which
37
578 Bible and Commentator.
show how thickly it was peopled, two thousand years ago. 2d. From this
coast plain, at varying distances from the sea, hills begin to rise, mostly
with gentle slopes on the western side, and gashed at frequent intervals
by streams which find their way from the central table-land to the sea.
The hills rise to an average height of about 1,800 or 2,000 feet, and form
a table-land or plateau of undulating surface, and containing many valleys
and plains, especially on its western side ; from this table-land rise a con-
siderable number of peaks and ridges to a height of from 2,500 to 4,000
feet above the sea ; Little Hermon (Jebel-ed-Duhy) being the highest.
Other notable peaks and ridges of this plateau are the heights of Hebron,
over 3,000 feet, those of Bethlehem, 2,704 feet; the ruins of Ramah near
Hebron, 2,800 feet; the Mount of Olives, 2,665; Jerusalem, the highest
point, 2,585 feet; Neby Samwil (the tomb of Samuel), about 2,700; Bethel,
2,401 ; the ridge of Sinjil near Shiloh, 3,108 ; Mount Ebal, 2,700, and
Mount Gerizim, 2,650 ; Jebel Haskin, the highest point between Ebal and
Gilboa, 2,000 ; Mount Gilboa, 2,200 ; Mount Carmel, 1,800 ; Mount Tabor,
1,865 ; The Horns of Hattin (supposed to be the scene where the " Sermon
on the Mount" was delivered), 1,096 ; Safed, 2,775. The plains or broad
valleys of this central ridge are usually less elevated ; the plain of Mukhna
or Shechem, at the base of Mount Gerizim, is 1,595 feet above the sea; that
of Sanur, 1,330 feet; the great plain of Esdraelon, which forms the principal
pass across this central plateau, and gives access to the Jordan valley, is
only 382 feet above the sea ; Nazareth, a valley nestled in among the moun-
tains, and having behind it a hill of considerable elevation, is 1,237 feet
above the sea. The plain of El-Battauf, north of Nazareth, is considerably
elevated, but was very fertile anciently. While the western slopes of this
elevated table-land, for the most part, gently decline to the maritime plain
below, and chariots can ascend and descend them, especially in the valleys of
the streams, the eastern slopes are extremely steep and rugged, and, at most
points, impassable for chariots, wagons or an armed force. Only at four
points was the passage of an army from the Jordan valley to the table-land
possible ; and even at three of these points, a small force could effectually
resist the passage of a large one. These passes were : above the conflu-
ence of the Wady Jalud with the Jordan, nearly opposite Bethshean, or
Scythopolis, which communicates directly with the plain of Esdraelon ; at
the crossing of the Damascus road, about ten miles below the lake of
Tiberias, which though very hilly is the best of all ; the ferry at Bethbarah,
on the route leading to Es-Salt, the ancient Raraoth-Gilead, over which
Palestine, or the Holy Land. 579
David passed, when he was flying from Absalom ; and the crossing on
the Roman road at Shafir, on the route from Jerusalem, by Jericho, to
Damascus. At the northern extremity of the Dead sea, and at the mouth
of the Wady El-Ghur, at Engedi (now Ain Jidy), about midway of the
western shore of that sea, are two other so called passes, through which
the Moabites and Edomites are said to have swarmed in the days of the
kingdom of Jsdah ; but the passage seems only practicable for the ibex or
chamois.
On this table-land, thus defended by nature, for more than 1,600 years
the Hebrew nation dwelt, and for nearly 700 years the kings of Israel and
Judah ruled. Not only were these kingdoms nearly inaccessible to foreign
nations from these natural barriers, but their cities and towns were strongly
fortified, and the people were desperately brave and persistent fighters, so
that their repeated defeats and captivities indicate more sturdy fighting and
more determined valor, than has been exhibited in any war of modern times.
3d. The valley of the Jordan and of the Dead sea next claims our atten-
tion. There is no river valley like this in the world. Rising on the
northern slopes of Hermon, by several mountain torrents, it is at first above
the level of the Mediterranean sea, but falling soon to the level and marshy
plain of Dan (now Tell-el-Kady), it enters the basin of Lake Merom (now
El-Huleh) at an elevation of only twenty feet above the sea, and in the 130
miles of its subsequent course, falls more than 1,300 feet, entering the Dead
sea, with its surface 1,292 feet below that of the Mediterranean sea. Neither
the Dead sea nor the river Jordan are navigable to any extent, the former
from its peculiar character, the latter from its extreme crookedness and its
numberless cataracts. From its deep depression, and its sources and afflu-
ents in the mountains, the river is liable to sudden and extraordinary floods,
which often drive the wild beasts, which abound in the rugged and cav-
ernous sides of its banks, from their lairs, and make them dangerous to the
inhabitants of the high-lands. Its atmosphere and climate are extremely
hot and enervating. This is due, both to the depth of the river valley, and
its inaccessibility to healthful breezes ; but its soil is one of the most fertile
in the world, and its productions are wholly of a tropical character. The
palms, balsams, spices, roses, indigo, sugar, and other tropical products of
Jericho and the Jordan valley, have been famous for ages. The cultivators
of this rich soil have usually been the hardy peasants from the hill-country,
the inhabitants of the valley being a feeble and effete race, as vicious and
depraved as their predecessors of Sodom and Gomorrah.
580 Bible and Commentator.
4th. The table-land east of the Jordan differs materially from that on
the west. Its western declivity is steep and precipitous, except at a few
points, but the general elevation is about 2,500 feet above the sea, and is
nearly all an undulating plain, furnishing rich and abundant pasturage for
herds of cattle, and flocks of sheep and goats, and capable of sustaining, as
it has in times past sustained, an immense population. Its northern section
is well adapted to the culture of grain, and is to this day the granary of
Damascus. In the northeast there is a large tract formerly called Argob,
now known as El-Lejah, which seems to have been, ages ago, the scene of
volcanic convulsions. It is one of the most forbidding and savage regions
on the earth's surface. Both Bashan and the Hauran have very rich and
deep soils, and extensive forests. Water is not plentiful, but the lands do
not require irrigation.
Owing to this great diversity of altitude, to the exposure on the one side
to the sea, and on the other to the hot and steaming exhalations from the
Jordan valley, the climate of Palestine exhibits a greater variety than can
be found elsewhere in any territory of ten times its size. The snow lies
upon the head of Hermon, till late in the summer, and frequently through-
out the whole summer. In both the plateaus, east and west of the Jordan,
there is snow usually for three or four days in each winter. On the mari-
time plain, it is hot in summer, as the latitude (31° 5' to 33° 30') requires,
but the heat is somewhat modified by the sea breezes. The Jordan valley
is one of the hottest places on earth, and the heat is not moderated by any
breeze. The hill country, as the plateaus are called, is perhaps as healthy
a climate as can be found anywhere. It certainly was so, two thousand
or three thousand years ago. When its forests were standing, its hills
terraced, its lands irrigated, and its waters pure, and its people were leading
an essentially outdoor life, the rapid and enormous increase of the population
was a sufficient evidence of the healthfulness of the climate. The tribe of
Benjamin, in about the year of the world 3,000, was reduced to six hundred
men and their wives ; two hundred and fifty years later, the same tribe
could bring into the field four hundred thousand fighting men, indicating
a population of more than two millions ; and this without any expansion of
territory, and after many desolating wars.
The productions, vegetable and animal, of this little country were as
remarkably diversified as its climate. - In the north the cedar, the oak of
several species, the terebinth, pine, maple, ash, juniper, dwarf-elder, sumac,
and hawthorn flourish, and, generally, the plants and shrubs of central
Palestine, or the Holy Land. 581
Europe and our own northern States; the arbutus, hawthorn, holly oak,
pistachio, the "Christ's thorn," and the carob or locust tree are found in
considerable numbers, in the central and southern portions of the table-land,
and with them, as cultivated trees, the olive, grape, apple, peach, pome-
granate, apricot, walnut, almond, quince, mulberry, fig, sycamore and
oleander. The willow is found on the banks of streams, as are also brakes
or gigantic reeds. On the maritime plains are found the olive, apple, peach,
orange, lemon, citron, banana, prickly pear, and date palm. In the Jordan
valley and along the Dead sea are seen the nubk, a spinous thorn tree, the
papyrus, tamarisk, acacia, sea pink, Dead sea apple, styrax, and bay tree ;
and of cultivated trees, shrubs and vines, the palm, sugar cane, banana,
indigo, melons, gourds, and cucumbers of immense size. Tobacco, hemp,
cotton, flax and silk are produced in large quantities; the last becoming, of
late years, a staple product. All the
grains and esculent vegetables of
temperate and of hot climates are
produced abundantly. The cultiva-
tion of the olive for its oil is still, as it
has always been, one of the chief in-
dustries; and the culture of the grape,
both for fruit and raisins and for
wine, is nearly as great as in olden
times. The wild flowers and shrubs
of Palestine are very numerous. Of
its 2,500 species of flowers, 500 are
said to be common to it and to Great
LION.
Britain. Aromatic shrubs and plants
are abundant on the hills, and the great plains, like Sharon, Esdraelon and
El-Battauf, are covered with gigantic thistles, and, in their season, with
brilliant flowers.
While the wild animals of Palestine are not very numerous, they belong
to very diverse and widely scattered families. The Asiatic lion is rare,
though occasionally found in the Jordan thickets; the panther is more
common there, and also in the hills of Judaea and Samaria; the Syrian bear
is found in upper Galilee; wolves, hyenas, jackals and foxes abound; the
wild boar is seen in large numbers in the marshes of the Jordan and in the
thickets of Bashan and Gilead; badgers in the vicinity of Hebron; the
ibex or wild goat in the wilderness of Judaea; gazelles and fallow deer on
582
Bible and Commentator.
the plains ; a great variety of rodents, some of them belonging to distant
families, as the jerboa or jumping rat, which much resembles the kangaroo
rat of Australia ; the hyrax, translated coney in our Bibles, but which is the
smallest of the thick-skinned animals, found only in Palestine, Abyssinia
and South Africa, and is a kind of rhinoceros in miniature; hares, squirrels,
moles, bats, mice, porcupines and hedgehogs. Of domestic animals there
are the horse ; the ass, often white and of great beauty and docility • the
mule; the camel; the ox, tall, long-horned, but generally lean ; the buffalo,
partially domesticated ; large-tailed and other sheep, the long-eared Syrian
goat, and the dog and cat. The
dogs of the shepherds are of an
excellent breed and very intelli-
gent, but the rest of the dogs and
the cats, like those of Constanti-
nople, have no owners, and are
half-starved, wild and worthless.
There are a great variety of
reptiles: serpents, both venomous
and harmless; lizards of many
species, scorpions, chameleons,
frogs, toads, tortoises, turtles and
terrapins. The crocodile inhabits
one of the streams that cross the
plain of Sharon — the Nahr Zurka.
Birds of prey, and all the varie-
ties of song birds and game birds
to be found in Europe and western
Asia, are found here in great
numbers. The stork, the white
ibis, the heron, the pelican, and
many species of eagles, vultures,
hawks and owls, are among the biras of the country. The Mediterranean
and the Sea of Galilee both abound in fish, and furnish palatable food to a
large part of the inhabitants. Insects, especially the destructive and annoy-
ing kinds, are found in such numbers as to be almost a plague. The fly,
mosquito, bee, wasp, and hornet, horse-fly, ants, spiders, grasshoppers,
beetles, glow-worms, and numberless species of butterflies abound; but
the most formidable and destructive of all the insect tribes there is the
vultube. (Isaiah xxxiy. 15.)
Palestine, or the Holy Land. - 583
locust, which is never absent, though it is only rarely that they come in such
numbers as to produce a famine.
Considerable portions of the Holy Land give evidence of volcanic action,
and earthquakes of great severity have many times visited it. On both
sides of the Jordan there must have been active volcanoes, long ages ago,
and their extinct craters still exist. The whole Jordan valley is an
immense rent or fissure in the elevated rocky plain, which once extended
across from the Mediterranean to the Arabian desert. This gigantic cleft
is about a hundred and fifty miles in length, from north to south, and, in
its lower portion at the Dead sea, four thousand feet deep. Along the whole
valley, the hot mineral springs, the trap rock, and the masses of lava, show
its volcanic character. The underlying rock throughout Palestine, except
where volcanic action has changed it, is limestone, sometimes changing to
chalk, oolite or dolomite ; and in the vicinity of the Dead sea bituminous lime-
stones and shales. Farther east, in the land of Edom, there are red sand-
stones. The superficial deposits of the Jordan valley are alluvial, with some
chalky layers washed down from the upper valley, and accompanied by
decomposed vegetable matter, rendering it exceedingly fertile. Nearly all
the underlying limestone is cavernous. In the south, the wilderness of
Judaea, and, indeed, almost the whole kingdom of Judah, abounds in caverns,
often of large extent, in some of which considerable armies have been
sheltered. Some of these caverns were used as dwellings or stables. The
birth-place of our Lord is supposed to have been in one of these caves.
We have been thus particular in our description of the physical geography,
productions, animals, etc., of Palestine, because of their bearing on the compo-
sition and history of the Bible. All the other, so called, sacred books of differ-
ent nations and religions have been local in their character ; written by one or
more persons, in a country and climate which had many local peculiarities,
they were unfitted for other lands, peopled by differing nations, living under
other skies, and accustomed to a different temperature, to different forests,
fruits, grains, flowers, and shrubs, and to a different class of animals. The
Koran, written in and for Arabia, loses most of its interest and intelligi-
bility, when offered to nations living in a colder and moister, or a more
western climate, than that of Arabia. The oriental imagery, drawn from the
fervid character of the eastern clime, is tame and meaningless, in a country
like western Europe. The same is true of the sacred books of India and
China. But the Bible, though mostly written in Palestine, is a book for
all lands, for all climates, and all times. Its prophets, poets, and historians,
584 Bible and Commentator.
reared under the shadow of Hermon, could speak feelingly of the snow and
vapors; the stormy wind fulfilling His word; "they had seen the snow
like wool, the hoar frosts scattered like ashes, and the ice like morsels," and
shivering in the severity of a winter in the hills of northern Galilee, they
were prompted to exclaim/ " Who can stand before His cold?" or amid
the burning heats of a sandy and parched Negeb, or south country, they
have longed for "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land," and have
celebrated His goodness, who "turneth the wilderness into a standing water,
and dry ground into water springs." In the hot and dank Jordan valley,
they could cry out, " My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of
the Lord;" and when its floods carried destruction to all those who were
within their reach, they saw in the flood, the manifestation of the power of
that God, who had divided Jordan, that his people might pass over. The
natural scenery, the caverns, the climate, the fruits, crops, pasturage, forests,
shrubs and flowers, and the animals and insects of Palestine, furnish thou-
sands of themes of illustration to the sacred writers; and because these were
so diversified, that they were adapted to the people of all lands, and each
could find in them something which had commended itself to their experi-
■^/ence or observation, the Bible has been a favorite book in all lands, and
readily understood by the people of all countries.
And while the Jew was isolated from other nations, and proud of his
isolation, he was yet brought into contact and communication, in spite of
himself, with all the nations adjacent, as their armies passed along the coast-
plains, crossed the great plain of Esdraelon, often fighting fierce battles at
Megiddo, forded the Jordan, and made their way to and from Damascus,
or Nineveh, or Babylon. This was the great thoroughfare of all the most
powerful nations of antiquity, and the Jewish prophets had abundant
opportunities of studying their characteristics, and of learning their history.
The wonderful minuteness of the descriptions of the judgments that were
to fall on these nations, has often attracted the attention of scholars, and
without lessening in the least our reverence for the inspired character of
these prophecies, we may well attribute many of these details to their fre-
quent and thorough observation of them, and their customs and traits of
character.
In these acts of his providence, God displayed his wisdom and power,
in that, while devoting so large a portion of his word to the Hebrew
nation, its history, wanderings, sins, repentances, and captivities, he still
made it a book for all times, all circumstances, all countries, and all
peoples.
Palestine, or the Holy Land. 585
History. — This may properly be divided into six distinct periods, four
of which belong to Biblical times. 1. The Patriarchal period, extending
from the earliest ages to its conquest by the Israelites under Joshua.
Palestine was settled by Canaan, the fourth son of Ham and grandson of
Noah, and his eleven sons. Some of the descendants of Mizraim, an elder
brother of Canaan, whose principal seat was in Egypt, settled in the
southern part of Palestine — among them the Philistines, the Anakim, and
perhaps the Zamzummim. The country was called the land of Canaan,
but the Canaanite settlements extended through a large part of Syria and
far up into the Lebanon mountains. This migration to Palestine seems
to have taken place during the lifetime of Canaan, and so, perhaps, within
two hundred years after the flood. Eventually the descendants of Canaan
became very numerous there, and were divided into ten or twelve tribes,
each of which took a name derived from those of his sons or grandsons.
The Zidonians, who occupied what wTas afterward known as Phoenicia,
were the descendants of Sidon, the eldest son, the Hittites of Heth, and so
on. In the days of Abraham, the Canaanites were, in central Palestine,
altogether agricultural in their habits, and very few in numbers ; the vast
flocks and herds of Abraham and Isaac were not restricted in their
pasturage, and except the Philistines (who were descendants of Mizraim),
and a few Hittites in the southwest, and the Amorite inhabitants of the
cities of the plain in the southeast, the land had but a very scanty popula-
tion. In Isaac's time, Esau intermarried with the daughters of Heth, and
in Jacob's later life there was a Hivite town at Shechem, of no great size,
since two of his sons, with their servants, destroyed all its inhabitants.
At a later period, during the bondage of Israel in Egypt, several of these
Canaanite tribes became both numerous and powerful, the Amorites in the
southeast being perhaps the strongest, and next to these the Hittites,
Jebusites, Hivites, Perizzites and Girgashites, who occupied most of
western Palestine. The Philistines wTere a powerful tribe in the southwest,
and the Zidonians had already commenced their career as a great maritime
power. Aside from these there were in wrestern Palestine a few families
of a gigantic race, who seem to have preceded the Canaanites in their
possession of the land. They were called by different names, as Anakim,
A vim, Pephaim, Emim and Zuzim. The last three occupied the plateau
east of the Jordan, and Og, king of Bashan, and the builders of those giant
cities in Bashan and the Hauran were of these races ; so were Goliath and
the other giant warriors of the Philistines of a later date. Of the origin
T
586 Bible and Commentatoe.
of this gigantic race we know nothing. They had attained to a somewhat
higher civilization than the Canaanite tribes, but in morals both races were
sadly depraved. When the Israelites came out of Egypt, these tribes were
broken up into small districts, usually containing a fortified town and its
suburbs, each with its petty chief, and all in some sort independent, though
they occasionally united in groups to resist a common foe. The Philistines,
who were, like the Hanse towns in Germany in the Middle Ages, a con-
federation of free cities, and the Zidonians, were more highly civilized, and
had a more efficient government. With the exception of these two nations,
and the Gibeonites, who escaped by false representations, and a few Jebu-
sites, who retained their stronghold at Jerusalem, the whole Hamitic race
in the Holy Land, were wiped out in the time of Joshua and the Judges.
Zidon never troubled Israel seriously ; the Philistines alone, of the descend-
ants of Ham, remained as their persistent enemies. The other tribes and
nations around Palestine, which gave them so much trouble and with whom
they waged so many wars, were, with the possible exception of the Amale-
kites, like themselves, descendants of Shem ; thus Midian was a son of
Abraham by his wife or concubine Keturah ; Amnion and Moab, children
of Lot ; the Arabians, descendants of Ishmael, and the Edomites of Esau.
Even Syria, which had been settled at an early period by sons of Canaan,
had received so large an infusion of Shemitic blood, that its inhabitants
were entitled to be regarded as descendants of Shem. Though the country
had been promised to the seed or descendants of Abraham by Jehovah,
yet it did not come into their possession, except two or three places of
burial, until the time of Joshua, about 466 years later.
At the time of its conquest by the Israelites, the population could not
have been very dense, and there were few large towns. Those of the
greatest note were : Gerar, in the southwest, apparently the capital of the
Hittites, and Beersheba, belonging to the same tribe, the southernmost
town in Palestine ; Kirjath-Arba, afterward Hebron, in the same region ;
Libnah, Makkedah, Lachish, Eglon, and Adullam, Hittite cities captured
by Joshua ; Ephrath, afterwards Bethlehem, never a large town, but one
of special note in all periods of the history of Palestine; Salem or Jeru-
salem ; Luz or Bethel, consecrated by Jacob's dream, though then not even
a village ; Jericho, the principal city of the plain or circle of Jordan, and
tainted with all the vices of the cities of that plain ; Gilgal, the head-
quarters of Joshua after the destruction of Jericho ; Ai, near Bethel, con-
quered by Joshua, after a severe struggle ; Timnath, a Philistine city, and
Palestine, or the Holy Land. 587
Gath, Askelon, Ekron, and Ashdod, also Philistine cities and fortresses ;
Shechern, the modern JNablous, near which was Jacob's well ; Megiddo,
Taanach and Endor, in or near the plain of Jezreel or Esdraelon ; Debir,
another of the fortified towns of central Palestine, captured by Joshua ;
Succoth and Peniel, both towns on the river Jabbok, east of the Jordan.
There was probably a considerable population in the vicinity of the Sea of
Chinneroth, afterward better known as the Sea of Galilee, or Lake Genne-
saret ; but there are no data for locating the towns. The rock Etam,
Eshcol, Mamre, Moriah, Dothan, Engannim, and Hadad Rimmon, seem
to have been rather names of trees, rocks, fountains, etc., than names of
cities.
2. The conquest of Canaan by the Israelites, a nation who had been for
hundreds of years enslaved in Egypt, and, for forty years, wanderers in the
terrible desert south and southeast of Palestine, a nation, numbering perhaps
nearly three millions, but not of warlike training, nor of high civilization,
was one of the most remarkable events in human history. The people
whom they conquered were warlike, and apparently outnumbered the
invaders; they occupied a country more strongly defended by nature
than almost any other in the world, regarded as accessible only from the
northeast — a direction from which the invaders did not come ; their towns
and cities were so strongly fortified as to be considered impregnable, and
though broken up into petty chieftaincies, they were mostly in alliance with
each other ; yet within six years, thirty-one of these chiefs and nearly the
whole of the Canaanite population, were swrept away like chaff, and the
tribes of Israel, slaves and then wanderers, had settled down in the rich
pastures, and fertile lands of Gilead, Bashan, Esdraelon, and the hill country
of western Palestine, a free people, ruled only by Jehovah, and pledged
to his worship alone.
Two and a half tribes occupied the table-lands and fertile pastures of
Palestine, east of the Jordan • nine and a half tribes had their allotted terri-
tory west of that river, stretching from the base of Hermon to the el-Negeb
or south country, bordering on the wildernesses of Paran and Shur, and
extending from the Jordan valley to the Mediterranean. The division
seems unequal, for the eastern section was both larger and richer than the
western ; but as in other lands and times, there was a strange preference for
the more inaccessible and less valuable territory. Western Palestine was
to them the Land of Promise ; it had been promised to Abraham, confirmed
to Isaac, and settled upon the descendants of Jacob. There were the tombs
588 Bible and Commentator.
of the fathers ; there the resting-place of Rachel. On the hill of Moriah,
an altar had been reared for the sacrifice of Isaac; under the oak at
Ma rare, Abraham, the friend of God, had held intercourse with Jehovah ;
at Luz, that wondrous ladder by which heaven held communion with
earth, had been seen by Jacob in his night vision; from the heights of
Hebron, Abraham and Lot had looked off upon the fertile plain of the
Dead sea, and the circle of the Jordan, and had seen how rich and
well watered it was ; and from those same heights, a few years later,
Abraham had descried a smoke overhanging the whole country, as the
smoke of a furnace, and knew that there were not ten righteous 'men
in all the cities of the plain. Farther north, at Shechem, was Jacob's well,
from whose cool waters they hoped to drink ; and Dothan, on the great
highway from Damascus to Egypt, where Joseph was sold as a slave by
his unnatural brethren, to be carried into Egypt; on the borders of the
great plain of Jezreel was the fountain of Engannim, at whose sweet waters
the sons of Jacob had often slaked their thirst. After the country was thus
occupied by Israel, there soon grew up new points of interest, which were
identified with the history, the trials, the victories, and the worship of the
people. Such were Gilgal, on the brow of the hill country, the western
plateau overlooking the lately captured Jericho, the principal camp of
Joshua, from whence he climbed the heights of Gibeon and Bethhoron the
upper, to achieve further victories ; Ai, where he met his first repulse, but
eventually conquered ; Gibeon, overlooking the slopes of Bethhoron the
nether, and the valley of Aijalon, where, as he looked down upon the flying
host of Canaanites, driven to swift destruction by the mighty hailstones, he
invoked a longer day, and an apparent arrest of the laws of nature, to enable
him to complete the work of entire overthrow upon these enemies of God
and of Israel. There were also Shiloh, where the tabernacle and the ark
of the covenant were set up, and the permanent worship of Jehovah was
established ; the twin mountains, Ebal and Gerizim, on whose opposing
slopes the hosts of Israel were gathered, while in the valley of Shechem
below, Joshua, by divine command, read the blessings and the curses, to
which the occupants of one mountain and the other gave the sanction of
their united "Amen." Turning now westward, and descending the slopes of
the table-land to the maritime plain, we find the light-armed troops of
Israel unable to cope successfully with the mailed warriors of the Philis-
tines, and their chariots of iron ; yet they gained, at least, a temporary pos-
session of the important cities of Gaza, Ashkelon and Ekron. Jerusalem
Palestine, or the Holy Land. 589
was not as yet the holy city, and its citadel, which was very strong, was
still held by a resolute band of Jebusites. Northward again, Bethel was
captured and held by Ephrairn ; bat the towns of the rich and fertile plain
of Esdraelon, Bethshean, Taanach, Dor, Ibleam and Megiddo, still retained
in part their Canaanitish inhabitants, though, at a later period, they were
put under tribute. In these early days of the rule of the judges, or rather
before the death of Joshua, one' place, whose exact location is not now known,
deserves mention. It was Bochim, " the place of weeping or repentance/'
not far from Gilgal, where the angel of the Lord rebuked ^the assembled
hosts of Israel, for their neglect and disobedience to the commands of God
in not driving out the Canaanites ; and brought them, repentant and weep-
ing, to pledge themselves anew to his service. During the time when they
were ruled by the judges, though these rulers possessed but limited authority,
and seldom governed the whole of the twelve tribes, often only one or two,
there were occasionally battles or other incidents in their administration,
which made certain places famous. Among these incidents let us recall a
few. The captain of the host of Jabin, king of Hazor (one of the Canaanite
kings beyond Palestine), was Sisera, who had his camp at Harosheth, on
the river Kishon, at a point commanding the important pass leading from
the plain of Esdraelon through the Kishon valley to the plain of Akka.*
The army under his command had grievously oppressed Zebulun, Naphtali,
and the peace-loving tribe of Issachar, as well as the wealthier tribes of
Manasseh and Ephrairn farther south. An energetic and far-sighted
woman, Deborah, ruled or judged Israel at this time, and she sent a mes-
senger to Barak, a soldier and prince of Kedesh in Naphtali, a town north-
west of the Lake of Merom, asking him to assemble ten thousand of the
fighting men of Naphtali and Zebulun, and meet her at or near Mount
Tabor. Their object was to draw Sisera away from his strong position, to
the more open region around Tabor. They were successful in this, and
delivered so terrible a blow on Sisera's troops, that they were routed and
fled, being followed and destroyed by Barak. Their commander dis-
mounted, fled northward on foot, and met his fate at the hands of a
Midianite woman, Jael, the -wife of Heber, the Kenite, near Kedesh, the
* There is a little doubt in regard to the location of Harosheth, some explorers thinking
that it was near Lake Merom or El-Huleh. But Dr. Thomson, author of "The Land and
the Book," gives the weight of his authority to the location on the Kishon, and so do the
members of the Palestine exploring expedition.
590 Bible and Commentator.
home of Barak. The song of Deborah is one of the most graphic pictures
of life in Palestine at that day which has been preserved.*
The name of Gideon recalls that of his native place, Ophrah, in
Manasseh, a site now lost, but which then marked a prominent place;
while Shechem and Thebez are linked, not very reputably, with the name
of his natural son, the usurper Abimelech. Penuel and Succoth, towns on
the east of the Jordan, in the territory of Gad, were severely punished for
churlishly refusing food and succor to Gideon's men, when pursuing the
Midianite kings. The victory of Jephthah over the children of Ammon and
their subjugation occurred east of the Jordan, though there is a little doubt
whether the Mizpeh of Judges x. 17 was Mizpeh in Benjamin near Jeru-
salem, or Ramath-Mizpeh — Mizpeh of Gilead — mentioned in Judges xi. 29.
Jephthah seems to have attacked the Ammonites in the rear, on Mount
Gilead, and to have driven them, first southwest and then southeast, for a
distance of nearly forty miles, and out of twenty of their walled towns.
The subsequent conflict between the Gileadites and the Ephrai mites would
seem to imply that Jephthah had passed through the territory of Ephraim,
on his way to fight the Ammonites ; but the fight at the fords of the Jordan
serves to show, that the tribes had lapsed into a condition similar to that of
the Arab or Bedouin tribes at the present day, when each tribe is under the
control of its own sheik or chief. The exploits of Samson are connected
with his birth-place, Zorah, in that part of the territory of Dan which lay
nearly due west from Jerusalem ; Eshtaol, not far distant, then the chief
town of Dan ; Timnath, one of the cities of the Philistines, three or four
miles southwest of Zorah ; Ashkelon and Gaza, chief cities of the Philistines
on the coast ; the rock Etam, a little south of Bethlehem ; Ramath-Lehi and
En-Hakkore, in the south of Judah, or possibly in the northern border of
Simeon, in the Negeb or South country ; and the valley of Sorek, probably
not far from Gaza. The other events recorded in the book of the Judges
occurred in Mount Ephraim, the central portion of the table-land stretching
from Bethel to Engannim ; in Bethlehem-Judah, in Zorah and Eshtaol,
towns of Dan, already mentioned ; in Laish or Dan, in the extreme north
of Palestine, among the sources of the Jordan, the place where Jonathan,
* Meroz, mentioned in that song, and denounced with a bitter curse, was a populous town,
southeast of Mount Tabor, whose inhabitants had so little patriotism that they refused to
render any assistance to their brethren who were struggling, at great odds, against the enemies
of Israel. The tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali alone seem to have deserved credit in this
well-fought battle.
Palestine, or the Holy Land. 591
the grandson or great-grandson of Moses, beeame the priest of an idolatrous
worship ; in Mizpeh of Benjamin, already mentioned ; in Gibeah and Ramah
of Benjamin, in Jabesh-Gilead, east of the Jordan, in the territory of Gad,
and in Shiloh, and Lebonah in Mount Ephraim. The beautiful episode of
Ruth, has its location in Bethlehem-Judah, though Naomi's previous sojourn,
and Ruth's home, had been in Moab, east of the Dead sea. The early his-
tory of Samuel calls attention to Ramathaim or Ramah, in the northern
portion of Mount Ephraim, just south of Engannim, to Shiloh, then the
religious capital of the nation, where the tabernacle worship was maintained,
and later, as connected with the disastrous battle, Ebenezer and Aphek,
places a short distance northwest of Jerusalem ; Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron,
cities of the Philistines ; Bethshemesh and Kirjath-Jearim, both in the
northern border of Judah, where the ark of the Lord rested, when the
Philistines returned it to the Israelites. Bethshemesh and the district
around it must at this time have been very populous, for an agricultural
district ; for the temerity of its inhabitants, in looking into the ark, was
punished by a sudden pestilence or destruction, which caused the death of
more than fifty thousand of its inhabitants. The ark remained at Kirjath-
Jearim or Baale for twenty years; but at some time, perhaps soon after Saul
became king, it was removed to Nob, a Levite village, perhaps four miles
north of Jerusalem, and near Gibeah, which was Saul's royal residence, and
Ramah, the home of Samuel. Here was its home until the cruel and bloody
destruction of Nob, by Doeg the Edomite, at the command of Saul, in
revenge for the succor given to David by the priests ; it was then removed
back to Kirjath-Jearim, where it remained till David had captured and
partially rebuilt Jerusalem.
It is to be remembered that for more than eighty years after Samuel
became the judge and seer of Israel, Jerusalem was only a Jebusite village,
with a strong citadel or fortress held by the Jebusites, and that though the
surrounding country was somewhat densely inhabited by Israelites, this
town remained in the possession of the heathen by a sort of permanent
truce; no effort being made on their part to extend their limits, nor on the
part of the Israelites, to capture what, from its commanding position, was
their natural capital. After Saul became the first king of Israel, and during
the forty years of his reign, Gibeah, usually called Gibeah-of-Saul, to dis-
tinguish it from a Gibeah farther north, was the capital and royal residence.
It was three miles nearly due north of Jerusalem. At times, Saul seems to
have spent a few months in Geba and Michmash, two or three miles farther
592 Bible and Commentator.
north. David's first capital was Hebron, and Jerusalem was not captured
til] nine years after he became king.
Saul seems to have been rather a chief than a king, ruling, indeed, the
whole nation, which at this time could hardly have exceeded some three
millions in number; and the remoter tribes were not very obedient subjects.
His court was not brilliant, nor was there much of royal state maintained.
His army was at times pitifully small, and his most extraordinary efforts
did not enable him to bring into the field a force sufficient to cope success-
fully with the Philistines of the Shephelah, or maritime plain. These,
though inhabiting a small territory, traversed the Israelite country pretty
much at will, and had, by their superior skill in the mechanic arts, reduced
the Israelites to a condition of dependence on them, even for their weapons
of war.
One of Saul's earliest victories was the raising the siege of Jabesh-Gilead,
an important town on the east side of the Jordan, about eighteen miles south
of the Sea of Galilee. It had once suffered from a raid of the western tribes
of Israel, because it had not sent its quota of troops for the destruction of
the Benjamites, but had recovered itself when it was besieged by the Am-
monites under their king, Nahash. Finding the besieging force too strong
for long resistance, they sought to obtain honorable terms of surrender, but
Nahash only proposed to put out the right eyes of all the inhabitants.
They appealed to Saul, and he, who had been personally attending to his
herds of cattle, hewed a yoke of oxen to pieces, and sent messengers with
the pieces in all directions, to say that whoever would not come forth after
him should have his oxen destroyed in the same way. This summons
throws light on two points: the Israelites were at this time almost entirely
a pastoral people, and so slightly civilized, that they could only be moved by
such an appeal to the senses, and to their fears. In five days 330,000 men
had assembled at Bezek, only about a day's march from Jabesh-Gilead.
These were evidently but an undisciplined rabble, very poorly provided
with arms, but they were probably about as well equipped as the Ammonite
forces. At all events, they were successful in defeating and scattering the
Ammonites. Only a year later the old enemies of the Israelites, the Philis-
tines, came up in large force and encamped in Michmash, within two or
three miles of the royal residence, and less than ten miles from Gilgal, where
Saul was, with only 3,000 troops, and those greatly terrified, while the
great mass of the people had fled, and hid themselves in caves, thickets,
rocks, high places, and pits. Yet this formidable Philistine force was finally
Palestine, or the Holy Land. 593
routed, and driven back to Beth-Aven by the courage of two men, Jona-
than and his armor-bearer. The battle which followed did not seriously
cripple the Philistines, and very soon they reappeared at Ephes-dammim, be-
tween Shoco and Azekah, about fifteen miles southwest from Jerusalem, and
this time with Goliath, a giant of the original race who has preceded the
Philistines in settling this part of Palestine, as their champion. The defeat
which followed the death of Goliath at the hands of David, was the severest
blow which they had received, and served to keep them quiet for several
years.
Daring Saul's persecution of David, which occupied several of the later
years of his reign, the places, to which he pursued David, are all within the
hill country or wilderness of Judah, in the south of Palestine ; Keilah,
which David and his men so bravely rescued from the Philistines, only to
be obliged to escape from its treacherous inhabitants, who sought to betray
him to Saul ; Ziph, the hill of Hachilah, Jeshimon, Maon, a wild, dense
forest; Carmel, near by, a more open hill-slope, were all in the wilderness
of Judaea, that wild, mountainous district, half desert, half forest, but with
fertile oases, and thousands of caves, which forms the southern portion of
the table-land west of the Jordan, and stretches the entire length of the
Dead sea, which lies thousands of feet below, in the deep cleft which earth-
quakes have rent for it. Beyond the Dead sea, on the east, rise the hills
of Moab, and still beyond, the great and terrible desert ; while at the south-
east are the rock-carved dwellings of Petra, the caves of the Horites, the
heights of Mount Seir, and the pasture lands of Edom. The wilderness of
Engecli, where Saul " went to seek David and his men upon the rocks of
the wild goats," wTas a part of the rocky and beetling line of cliffs which
form the eastern wall of the table-land, where it descends precipitously to the
Dead sea. The pass of Engedi is about midway of the western shore of the
Dead sea, and though the Moabite armies are said to have repeatedly scaled
it, to attack Israel from the south, the pass is so steep and difficult that it
seems to have been only practicable for wild goats. In one of the largest
of the numerous caves of these cliffs David and his men were concealed
when Saul and his staff entered it. Here, a second time, Saul was at his
mercy, but he contented himself with cutting off a portion of his robe, and
a second time brought the king to confess his wrong. After a time, David
escaped to Gath, and acquired the good will of the Philistine king. Here
he busied himself in the destruction of the old and bitter enemies of Israel,
the wandering tribes of the Southern desert, the Amalekites and their kin-
38
594 Bible and Commentator.
dred. As these were not related to the Philistines, but belonged to the still
earlier race which had inhabited that region, there was no danger of the
Philistines taking offence.
But Saul's career was about to close. After years of peace, though not
of happiness to the moody and half-insane king, the Philistines again de-
clared war against him, and passing along the plain, by the coast of the
Mediterranean sea, marched with a very large and well-equipped force
across the plain of Esdraelon and pitched their camp in Sbunem, on its
eastern border. Saul had gathered his forces on Mount Gilboa, some six
or eight miles farther south : but he was suffering from despair and the
belief that God had forsaken him. Prompted by this conviction, he went
with trusted attendants by night from his camp on Mount Gilboa, past the
outskirts of the Philistine camp at Shunem, to the little village of Endor,
on one of the slopes of the hill of Moreh, which abounds in caves and water
springs, to consult a somewhat famous witch, as to the result of the next
day's battle. The disasters of the battle need not be recouuted here. The
defeat was so complete that the Israelites, of the cities near the battle-field,
fled and abandoned their homes, which were occupied by the Philistines.
The bodies of Saul and his sons were fastened to the walls of the town of
Beth-Shan or Beth-Shean, a fortified town southeast of Gilboa, and over-
looking the Jordan valley, from whence they were rescued by the brave
inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead, in gratitude for his deliverance of their city
many years before.
While this battle was in progress, Ziklag, a town in the extreme south,
given to David by Achish, king of Gath, had, in the absence of its defenders,
been stormed by the Amalekites, as an act of revenge, and all its women
and children and property been carried away. David promptly pursued
these freebooters and recovered all their prey, and that which they had
taken from other towns, and sent portions of the booty to the elders of the
numerous small towns of southern Judah whom he knew — a wise act of
policy.
3. David was anointed king in Hebron, but for seven and a half years ruled
only over the southern tribes, Judah and Simeon and portions of the other
tribes, the greater part being adherents to Ishbosheth the son of Saul, and
his general, Abner. The violent deaths of Abner and Ishbosheth, however,
caused the transference of the whole kingdom to David ; and one of his first
acts was the capture of Jerusalem from the Jebusites, and its establishment
as the national capital. His old enemies and whilom friends, the Philis-
Palestine, or the Holy Land. 595
tines, came up to assault him twice in the valley or plain of Rephaim, four
or five miles southwest of Jerusalem, and were signally defeated ; the second
time being driven back to the maritime plain. The subsequent wars of
David were mostly with nations outside of Palestine, as with the Ammon-
ites, the Syrians of Zobah and Damascus, Edom or Idumsea, Hamath, etc.
Among his numerous wives one was the daughter of Talmai, king of
Geshur, a tract thought to be in the northeast of Bashan, or, at all events,
east of the upper Jordan. This daughter of Talmai was the mother of
Absalom, and when that proud and ambitious young prince was in disgrace
with his father, he fled to his grandfather's court, whence he was brought
back by Joab, and where he plotted the conspiracy to dethrone his father.
When that conspiracy ripened, and David was forced to fly from Jerusalem,
as he descended the farther slope of the Mount of Olives, on his way to the
Jordan, at Bahurim, Shimei came out and cursed him. It was a sad journey
which David and his brave and true friends made that night to the fords of
the Jordan below Jericho ; and almost as sad, that long and wearisome
march among the hills, and over the highland plain, to distant Mahanaim,
among the hills of Argob in eastern Gilead, about seventy miles northeast
from Jerusalem ; but once arrived there, he was surrounded by warm and
powerful friends, and his spirits revived. The battle which followed was
fought in "the wood of Ephraim," an extensive forest, probably on the high
plateau west of Mahanaim, and not far from that city, and there occurred
Absalom's death. After David's return to Jerusalem, and the revolt of
Sheba, the son of Bichri, the scene of battle and siege changed to Abel-Beth-
Maachah, near Dan, in the extreme north of Palestine.
Solomon's domain was larger than his father's, and his reign was so peace-
ful that there is very little of geographical interest in it. His strong alliance
with Hiram, king of Tyre, brought that maritime power into prominence
in the Biblical history; and Tyre, Zidon, Zarephath, and other cities of
Phoenicia, and the forests of Lebanon, became at once renowned. Ezion-
Geber, the port at the head of the Red sea, is also noticed as a newly-
acquired seaport of Solomon's, from whence he and Hiram sent ships on
trading voyages into the Indian ocean. The erection of the temple, and
of Solomon's palaces, made Jerusalem the religious as well as the civil
capital, and with its new and larger wall, rendered it a city of remarkable
beauty and of great strength. Solomon also built Baalath and Tadmor in
the wilderness, cities of great extent and beauty, beyond the bounds of
Palestine, and rebuilt, as massive fortresses, Gezer; and Bethhoron the
596 Bible and Commentator.
nether, Hazor and Megiddo, fortified towns, which were intended to be im-
pregnable defences of the passes, which led from the maritime plain to the
summit of the western slope of the hill country, or table-land, west of the
Jordan.
The revolt of the ten tribes under Jeroboam, after Solomon's death, led
to some changes, and the eventual separation, in this small territory, of the
kingdom of Israel from the kingdom of Judah. The boundaries of the
latter kingdom varied at different times, but the lands claimed by Israel,
though not always held by it, during the two hundred and fifty years of its
separate existence, did not greatly vary. The boundary between the two
kingdoms extended from the mouth of the El-Aujeh, about three miles north
of Joppa, to and below Bethel, in a southeast direction, and thence a little
south of east to the fords of the Jordan, and east of that river, the country
of Moab as far as the Arnon, about midway of the eastern shore of the
Dead sea; while this and all of the region claimed by the Hebrews, east of
the Jordan, was nominally a part of the kingdom of Israel. In reality,.
Syria, Amnion or Moab held actual possession of most of this region east
of the Jordan, the greater part of the time that the kingdom of Israel
existed. The kingdom of Judah, occupying originally only that portion of
Palestine west of the Jordan and south of the line above described, and
having a territory about as large as that part of the State of Connecticut
west of the Connecticut river, eventually, under Jehoshaphat and Asa,
extended its bounds to Elath, at the head of the Red sea, taking in the
greater part of the Edomite kingdom.
The two kingdoms were, at some periods of their history, densely peopled.
At one time the kingdom of Israel must have had nearly six millions of
inhabitants, and Judah over five millions. Desolating wars, famines and
pestilences, subsequently greatly reduced their numbers.
The southern kingdom (Judah) did not add much to the number of its
notable towns and cities, though they became larger as the population in-
creased. Jerusalem, Jericho, Bethshemesh, Geba, Mizpeh, Libnah, Hebron,
Beersheba, and Bethlehem, were all that attained any historic notoriety.
The northern kingdom, on the contrary, built many new cities. Jeroboam,
the founder of the kingdom of Israel, had his capital at Bethel, and erected
the two golden calves there, and at Dan, in the extreme north of Palestine.
His successors reigued at first at Tirzah, north of Mount Ebal, but Omri, the
father of Ahab, purchased the hill Samaria of Shemer, and erected his cap-
ital there, which was greatly beautified by his successors. Shechem (the
Palestine, or the Holy Land. 597
present Nablous), near Samaria, was also a large city, and the towns of the
north, Abel-Meholah, Kedesh, Abel-Beth-Maachah, Hazor, Ijon, Janoah,
as well as Jezreel, on the plain of Esdraelon, and Megiddo, west of that
plain, were fortified towns of great strength, though some of them, as well as
several of the strong towns east of the Jordan, were captured and depopu-
lated by Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, during the reign of Pekah.
Two hundred and fifty-four years after the revolt of Jeroboam, the king-
dom of Israel was utterly blotted out, by Shalmaneser, king of Assyria ; its
capital, Samaria, taken and razed to its foundations; all the cities destroyed,
and all the principal inhabitants of the kingdom to the number of some
hundreds of thousands carried as captives into Assyria, and either slain or
scattered in different provinces of Assyria and Media. The poorer classes,
and especially those who had attempted to observe the pure worship of
Jehovah, drifted back to the kingdom of Judah, which thenceforward ex-
ercised a kind of protectorate over them, and extended its sway northward
to Bethel and other towns in the southern part of Israel. After some years
the king of Assyria attempted to colonize some of his other captives, mostly
from the banks of the Euphrates, and the Orontes, in the cities and towns
of Israel. These were idolaters, and at first many of them were destroyed
by wild beasts. Eventually, they were partially instructed by Israelite
priests sent to them by the Assyrian king, and professed to worship Jehovah,
but mingled their own idolatrous worship with his. From these mixed
races, who also intermarried with the Jews who remained in the land, sprang
the Samaritans, a nation thoroughly hated and despised by the Jews, and
who repaid that hatred with the bitterest malice. Samaria was rebuilt by
them, though in a poor fashion, and they became a somewhat numerous
though still a tributary people to the Assyrian, Babylonian or Medo-Per-
sian power.
The kingdom of Judah lasted one hundred and thirty-two years longer
than that of Israel, though, for much of that time, it had been, in some sort,
tributary to the Assyrian and Babylonian kings. But at length the time
came when the long prophesied captivity commenced. Jerusalem wTas
destroyed, and three successive trains of captives, within a period of twenty-
four years, took away all its principal inhabitants, and the land lay waste,
except such cultivation as the very poor bestowed upon it, for about fifty
years.*
* The seventy years of the captivity were reckoned from the first deportation of captives,
eighteen years before the destruction of Jerusalem.
598 Bible and Commentator.
4. After the almost miraculous return of the captives and their children,
the temple and the city of Jerusalem were rebuilt, and many new towns were
founded. The region occupied by the returned captives was not the whole
of Palestine, for the Samaritans, who, like them, acknowledged the authority
of the Medo-Persians, and, later, of Alexander, of the Syrian or Egyptian
kings, and finally of Rome, claimed and held the central portion, west of
the Jordan ; and though Galilee in the north, and portions of the lands east
of the Jordan, were claimed by the Jews, yet considerable portions of the
inhabitants of all of Palestine except Judsea (as the former kingdom of
Judah was now called) were Greeks, Romans, Idumseans, Egyptians, the
various nations of Asia Minor, Arabs, and Ethiopians ; who mingled with
the Jews, and made up a medley of peoples, who had no common sympa-
thies. The Jewish element was predominant in Judsea, and in Galilee
was perhaps as numerous as all the others, but east of the Jordan it was
in a small minority. The Galileans made up in patriotism and fierce fanati-
cism, for their lack of numbers. For more than 350 years they were gov-
erned by satraps, but their own high-priests were their real rulers, except
in the last resort. These became unworthy to rule, and were the mere tools
of the monarchs, Persian, Greek, Syrian, and Egyptian, into whose power
they fell. The temple was polluted, the worship of Jehovah forbidden, and
the Mosaic laws trampled upon, until a revolt, headed by Mattathias, an old
but heroic and God-fearing priest, commenced, and the Syrian kings were
resisted by him and his brave and patriotic sons, the Maccabees, or Asmo-
nsean princes. During the hundred and thirty years which followed, B. c. 1 67
to B. c. 37, the Jews never had a completely independent government; but,
except for the tribute money which they had to pay, they were substantially
their own rulers. But in the fourth or fifth generation, the Asmonsean
dynasty had become weak and worthless, and Antipater and his son Herod,
Idumsean adventurers, usurped the power, the latter eventually as a vassal
of the Romans, and held it till after the birth of Christ. Indeed, Palestine
was ruled partly by his descendants, and partly by Roman governors, until
the destruction of Jerusalem, A. D. 70.
This period of five or six hundred years from the captivity to the destruc-
tion of the Jewish capital had wrought many changes in the names and
location of places in Palestine. Jerusalem, Jericho, Bethlehem, Hebron,
Gaza, Shechem or Sichem, Mizpeh, Bethhoron, Bethel, and Bethshan, still
retained their old names, though many of them were greatly changed in
all but the name. The temple built by Herod on Mount Moriah was
Palestine, or the Holy Land. 599
almost as gorgeous as that of Solomon ; the other public buildings and
palaces of Jerusalem were even more magnificent than in his time; and its
new and solid walls and towers were far stronger than ever before. Jericho,
too, had been rebuilt, to suit the voluptuous tastes of the Egyptian queen ;
and several of the other cities had been greatly improved and strongly
fortified. Modin had come into notice as the home and birthplace of the
Maccabees; Bethsura, south of Jerusalem, was a fortress of immense
strength ; Azotus (the ancient Ashdod) was one of the chief cities of the
sea-coast, and Herod and his sons had multiplied beautiful cities, with a
lavish expenditure. On the ruins of Samaria, which had been plowed and
sown with salt by John Hyrcanus, had risen the city of Sebaste, named in
honor of Augustus Caesar ; on the coast, Joppa, with its orchards and
gardens, presented a pleasant sight; and a short distance north of it,
Csesarea, another of Herod's cities, named in honor of his patron, an im-
portant port and the subsequent capital of the province, looked out upon
the sea ; while above the bold headland of Carmel, Ptolemais (the present
Akka), named in honor of the Egyptian kings, had an active commerce.
On the western slope of the hill country or plateau, west of the Jordan, werer
beginning nearly opposite Jerusalem, Nicopolis, Lydda, Arimathea, the
home of Joseph, the councillor, Antipatris, another of the Herodian cities,*:
and on and above the plain of Esdraelon, Nain, distinguished by the mira-
cle of bringing the dead to life, Nazareth, the boyhood's home of our Lord,
Cana, the site of the wedding miracle, Sepphoris, a city founded by Herod.
The sea of Chinneroth, Gennesaret, the sea of Tiberias, or the sea of Galilee,
for by all these names it was known, comes, for the first time in Jewish
history, into marked prominence. On its southwest shore, Herod Antipas
had built Tiberias, a beautiful city, but long shunned for its unhealthiness,
and because it was built over the graves of the dead. Farther north,, on the
west shore, were Dalmanutha, Magdala, Bethsaida, Capernaum, and at a
short distance from the lake, Chorazin and the northern or upper Bethsaida^
On the eastern shore were Gergasa, Gamala, and a little farther south, Gadara.
Still farther to the north, close to the foothills of Mount Hermon, was
Csesarea Philippi, or Paneas, a city and temple to the honor of the Caesars,
built by Philip, another of Herod's sons. All these towns are mentioned,
and some of them many times, in the Gospels. With the- exception of
Tiberias, which He never entered, the streets of these cities and villages
were trodden by those blessed feet, which for our sins were nailed unto the
cruel cross. Other and smaller villages or towns connected with the gospel
600 Bible and Commentator.
history are : Bethabara, in Perea, on the east side of the Jordan, and at one
of its principal fords, where our Lord was baptized ; the Mountain of the
Temptation, generally believed to be Mount Quarantania, northwest of
Jericho ; Beth phage and Bethany, on the eastern slope of the Mount of
Olives ; the Mount of Olives itself, opposite Jerusalem, across the brook or
stream Kidron, with its thousand sacred associations, and above all, with
its Garden of Gethsemane, amid the shadow of whose olive trees that night
of agony was passed. Emmaus, eight or ten miles northwest of Jerusalem,
whither the two disciples went after the resurrection ; Ephraim, about
twelve miles north-northeast of Jerusalem, where Jesus remained for a time
during the winter before his crucifixion (John xi. 54); Jacob's well, near
Sychar or Shechem, now Nablous, where He met the Samaritan woman ;
near by, Joseph's tomb, spoken of in the Old Testament ; and some distance
to the northeast, Shalem or Salim or Aenon, where John baptized.
Machaerus, a fortified castle on the frowning and overhanging cliffs east of
the Dead sea, though not mentioned by name, is identified as the prison in
which John the Baptist was confined, and in which he was beheaded.
Juttah, south of Hebron, in the hill country of Judsea, is supposed to have
been the home of Zacharias and Elizabeth, the parents of John the Baptist,
and the place visited by Mary, the mother of Jesus ; and the wilderness of
Judaea, east of Juttah and Hebron, with its caverns and beetling cliffs, was
the place of his hermit life "till the day of his showing unto Israel."
The route taken by the parents of our Lord in the flight into Egypt from
Bethlehem was almost due south from Bethlehem, the place of his birth,
through Hebron and Juttah, to the isthmus of Suez and the Nile. Thus,
in its length and its breadth, the Holy Land was traversed by our blessed
Lord. Most especially are its mountains identified with his presence. The
rounded dome of Tabor, Nebi Ismail, and the other elevated summits in the
vicinity of Nazareth, must have been his chosen places of prayer in his
youth and early manhood; the Horns of Hattin were the scene of the
delivery of the "Sermon on the Mount." The mountains east of the sea
of Galilee witnessed some of his greatest miracles; on one of the summits
of Hermon he was transfigured; as we come southward, it was under
the shadow of Gerizim, and with the ruins of its temple in full sight, that
he held his conversation with the Samaritan woman ; Mount Quarantania,
north of Jericho, was the scene alike of his temptation and triumph ; the
heights around Bethlehem were covered with the angel choirs, who greeted
the world at his advent; the skull-shaped hill north of Jerusalem, named
Palestine, or the Holy Land.
601
Calvary, witnessed his crucifixion ; while the Mount of Olives, most blessed
of all, was the scene alike of his coronation, of his frequent and fervent
prayers, of the agony of the garden, and of his ascension to the glory and
majesty of his throne on high. The footprints of his feet are on the hills,
in the plains and in the valleys of Palestine, and the echoes of his voice, in
prayer, in blessing, and in warning and entreaty, have been heard through-
out all its borders. Blessed and holy indeed is that land, whatever disasters
may have since befallen it, for it has been consecrated by the presence of the
Son of God.
As we draw nearer to the period of the overthrow of the Jewish power,
and the destruction of Jerusalem, we find that the landscape widens, and
JOPPA FROM THE EAST.
Palestine is not the chief seat of the Christian church, nor the mother-land
of Christianity. The apostles did, indeed, as they were commanded, begin
at Jerusalem, and the converts went from thence to all parts of the known
world ; but very early, Antioch, with its hundred thousand disciples, be-
came the chief city of the Christian faith, and Ephesus, Philippi, Corinth,
Thessalonica, Alexandria, Edessa, Pella, Babylon, Laodicea, Philadelphia,
Smyrna, and Pome, were more conspicuous than Jerusalem for their Chris-
tian inhabitants, even in the lifetime of the apostles. Besides Jerusalem,
the only places in Palestine named in the Acts of the Apostles, or the
remaining books of the New Testament, are : Samaria, where there was a
602 Bible and Commentator.
great revival under the preaching of Philip ; Joppa, where Peter had his
vision; Gaza and Azotus, Philistine cities incidentally mentioned ; Lydda
and Saron or Sharon, cities of the Sharon plain ; Ptolemais and Caesarea,
the latter the Roman capital of the province of Syria; and just beyond the
borders of the Holy Land, Tyre and Sidon, and at the northeast, Damascus,
the scene of Paul's conversion.
5. After the death of Herod, surnaraed the Great, the Romans made a new
division of Palestine; the province of Judaea, which included Samaria, was
under a Roman governor, Pontius Pilate filling that office during most of
our Lord's life; Galilee with Decapolis (the ten cities), and Perea, the
ancient Gilead, and Moab, forming the tetrarchy of Herod Antipas ; while
the region north, northeast, east, and southeast of the sea of Galilee, extend-
ing to the desert, was the tetrarchy of Philip, another son of Herod. Herod
Agrippa I. maintained a sort of sway as a vassal prince over most of Pales-
tine. After A. D. 52, another change was made ; Judaea, Samaria, Galilee,
Perea and Idumaea, were included in the province of Judaea, under Felix
and Festus, while the kingdom of Agrippa II. comprised only what had
been the tetrarchy of Philip. These divisions were annulled after the
destruction of Jerusalem, A. D. 70. For the next two centuries Palestine
was but an obscure and poor province of the Roman empire, until after the
conversion of Constantine, when it became a land of pilgrimage for Chris-
tians from all lands ; Christian temples were reared on its holy places, and
every place connected with the history of our Lord was eagerly sought out.
In the seventh century after Christ, the country was invaded by the Per-
sians, and Jerusalem captured in A. D. 614; it was retaken by the imperial
forces of the eastern empire ; again attacked by the Arabs, and was finally
surrendered to the Khalif Omar and the Saracens, in A. D. 637. It re-
mained in possession of the Moslems for four hundred and sixty-two years,
when the crusaders carried it by storm, after the most frightful slaughter,
in July, A. D. 1099. It was recaptured by Saladin in A. D. 1187; was
annexed to the Ottoman empire in 1517, and has remained under the
Turkish control to the present time. The country is not densely inhabited,
for wandering Arab tribes traverse it, and rob and plunder most of its
inhabitants, the greater part of whom are Syrians, who speak Arabic; the
Christian Syrians being of pure descent, and the Mohammedans of mixed
races. The other inhabitants are a few Jews, Armenians, and Turks, some
Druses, especially in the Hauran, and in Galilee and Carmel ; and a small
number of English and American settlers, missionaries, etc.
Palestine, or the Holy Land. 603
6. The only places of note now are Jerusalem, Gaza, Hebron, Joppa, Acre
or Akka, Nablous, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Beirut, and beyond the border,
Damascus. The population of Palestine does not probably exceed 900,000,
of whom from 80,000 to 90,000 are Christians, 12,000 Jews, and the rest
Mohammedans. A Mohammedan mosque occupies the probable site of the
temple, and many former Christian churches have been converted into
mosques. The Holy Land is regarded as sacred, alike by Greek and
Roman Catholics, Armenians, Protestants, Jews and Mohammedans; but
the Turkish rule has made much of it a desert. The labors of English
and especially of American missionaries in Palestine, in Mount Lebanon,
Beirut and other portions of Syria, have been greatly honored of God in
the conversion of many of the people, and have also been the means of
aiding in the understanding of God's holy word.
Within a few years past societies have been organized, both in England
and the United States, for the purpose of a thorough scientific exploration
of Palestine, and their efforts have been crowned with great success. We
shall soon have a large map of Palestine, on which will be recorded with
accuracy every place named in the Scriptures as belonging to Palestine; and
the elevations and depressions of the country will be given by faithful and
repeated measurements. So shall we learn to understand God's word better,
and comprehend more fully his wonderful works among his ancient and
covenant people.
The New Testament.
S was set forth in the introduction to the Old Testament,
the two divisions of the Scriptures represent, not the old
and new wills of God, in his benevolent intentions toward
men, but rather the earlier and later portions of that will •
both are inspired of God ; both are valid, and to be con-
sidered in any study of his disposition and dispensation of
love toward us. But while the former may be regarded as
the main body of his will, the latter (the New Testament)
may with equal propriety be regarded as the codicils, duly
attested, and of equal validity with the previous will ; while they provide
for a different and greatly wider distribution of the inheritance.
But the New Testament has its scope and character enlarged in another
direction, thus rendering it an integral part of the divine will. In the
Old Testament, the great Gift, which was to include and surpass all other
gifts, had not yet been bestowed upon man ; it was only promised; while
in the New Testament, the Saviour, " the gift of God," has come ; is made
flesh and dwells with man. In the Old Testament, this gift is promised
only to the Hebrew nation. " The star is to arise out of Jacob" " Unto
us" says Isaiah, " a child is born, a son is given ; of the increase of his
government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and
upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and
with justice from henceforth, even forever." See also the eleventh and the
fifty-second chapters of Isaiah ; and indeed most of the Messianic prophecies
in the prophets. In the few instances, like that of Isaiah xi. 10, "And in
that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of
the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek; and his rest shall be glorious,"
where the extension of the plan of redemption to the Gentiles is mentioned
or suggested, the Jews regarded it, as only signifying a large accession of
proselytes from the heathen.
(604)
The New Testament. 605
But in the New Testament we find not only that the Messiah, the Saviour
and King, has come, but that his chosen people — they who have been for
nearly two thousand years the sole recipients of God's revealed word, and
to whom this wondrous Gift and inheritance had been primarily promised —
have rejected the Gift, and refused to own the Messiah. A few hundreds
or thousands of Jews have received him, and rejoice in the mercy and good-
ness of God ; but the greater part of the nation, including all its rulers,
reject and crucify him.
The offer of the heavenly inheritance was first made to the Jews, but on
their blind and wicked refusal of it, God offers it to the Gentiles, and adds
this codicil to his will, cutting off the Jews, till after the fulness of the
Gentiles shall have been gathered into the household of faith, and made
heirs of the promises. We find this expressly declared in Acts xiii. 46, 47 :
"Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the
word of God should first have been spoken to you (the Jews): but, seeing
ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo,
we turn to the Gentiles. For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I
have set thee to be a light to the Gentiles, that thou (Christ) shouldest be
for salvation unto the ends of the earth."
"When God gives, he gives liberally and bountifully ; more bountifully
than we can ask or even think. And so it was in this offer of salvation to
the Gentile or heathen world. They had been great sinners; not liking to
retain God in their knowledge, they had made to themselves idols of wood
and stone, of silver and gold, and had worshipped and adored them ; but
now, as they accepted the offer of salvation, God gave to them, not only
this redemption through the blood of his Son, but a place and inheritance
among the sanctified or holy ones.
Henceforth they were the spiritual Israel, the heirs of the promises ;
Abraham was their father, and Christ, the promised seed, in whom all the
nations of the earth should be blessed, was their elder brother ; they were to
sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven, while
the natural descendants of these patriarchs were to be cast out. Included
in their inheritance was the blessed remembrance of Enoch, who walked
with God ; of Noah, the preacher of righteousness ; of Moses, the meek but
wise lawgiver of Israel; of Joshua, the valiant leader; of Samuel, the
prophet; of David, the poet-king and sweet singer of Israel ; theirs, by a
strong and peculiar tie, were the memories of Isaiah, the noblest of the
prophets; of Daniel, greatly beloved of God; of Habbakuk, whose grand
606 Bible and Commentator.
hymn of praise and prayer reverberates forever through the vault of
heaven ; of Malachi, last of the prophet band ; and of the host of apostles
and martyrs of the new covenant. Whatever might be their lot here,
crowns and thrones of glory awaited them above; and Jesus, who calls him-
self their elder brother, will draw them around his throne, to be the wit-
nesses and participants of his glory.
The whole world is thus infinitely the gainer by this enlargement of the
apparent scope of the divine will, in these New Testament codicils. The
resurrection and the blessed life of the righteous in heaven had been dimly
foreshadowed in the Old Testament, but life and immortality were brought
to light by the gospel ; and not only the life beyond, but the city of God
above, with its jasper walls, its pearly gates, its golden streets, and the light-
giving throne of the Lord God and the Lamb, are all parts of the inheritance,
bequeathed to those who are called to be saints, by this revelation of the
divine will.
Let us now examine briefly into the contents of this new or later will of
God, as contained in the New Testament. We have, first, four separate
biographies of our blessed incarnate Lord, portraying his character from as
many different positions, neither of them complete as a biography, nor the
one attempting to supply the deficiencies or omissions of the other; written
at considerable distances of time and place from each other, and under cir-
cumstances and conditions, which made any collusion impossible ; and yet
the four together giving us a more comprehensive and satisfactory idea
of his character, than any single memoir, however carefully compiled,
could do.
These biographies are undoubtedly by the persons whose names they bear.
Matthew, sometimes called the " publican," from his being the chief collector
of the Roman taxes at Capernaum and its vicinity, was one of the twelve
apostles sent out by Christ; he wrote with the fulness of knowledge which
came of personal intimacy, and in the Hebrew, or rather the Aramaic, a
corrupt dialect of Hebrew, spoken by the 'Jews after the captivity; his
gospel has been called the Jewish gospel* because it was addressed to the
Jews who believed on Christ, and because it spoke of him from the Jewish
point of view, making frequent references to the prophecies concerning him,
and alluding, without explanation, to the customs, habits, and religious
practices of the Jews of Palestine; it has also been called the kingly gospel,
* Rev. H. G. Weston, D. D., President of Crozer Theological Seminary, in " The Gospel
according to Matthew."
The New Testament. 607
because its references to Christ are invariably to his kingly office. To
Matthew, our Lord is always the King in Zion, the royal heir, David's
greater Son. But it is pre-eminently the gospel of the rejection. A tone of
sadness pervades it, that, coming to his own peculiar people, they rejected
him and his message of love, and this rejection of Christ gives the tone and
key-note to the whole gospel.
The Gospel according to Mark was written by that disciple, probably
" John, whose surname was Mark," sister's son or cousin to Barnabas, and a
companion of Paul, Barnabas and Peter. He is generally supposed to have
been longest with Peter, and to have written out the history of the Saviour's
life, substantially, as Peter was in the habit of preaching it, before there
were any written gospels. There are, however, many things, both in his
gospel and in the brief notices of him, which we find in the New Testament,
leading us to believe that he was an eye-witness of some of the events he
so vividly describes. The object of his biography of Christ seems to be to
exhibit our Lord in action ; to show his miracles and mighty works. He
omits nearly all his discourses, like the sermon on the mount, or many of
the addresses in the Gospel according to John, and most of the parables.
His style is terse and comprehensive, and his description vivid. As this
gospel was intended for the Gentiles, and especially for those of Italy and
the west, it was written in Greek, but with many Latin expressions and
words, and Jewish words or names are often explained.
Luke, the writer of the third gospel, was probably a Greek of Troas or
Philippi, possibly a Jewish proselyte, certainly a Christian convert, and
in some of Paul's journeyings and imprisonments, his most intimate and
trusted companion. It is an old tradition, that this gospel was suggested
and in part dictated by Paul, but the gospel itself gives no evidence of it.
The writer had evidently spent much time in Judaea and Jerusalem, and
the minute accuracy of his description of persons and places, and especially
the fulness of his narrative of the birth of John the Baptist, and of Jesus,
which could only have been derived from members of the family of Jesus,
indicate conclusively that he possessed other sources of information than
those derived from Paul.
His gospel has been called the universal gospel, and also the gospel of
acceptance, for, while Matthew chronicles sadly the rejection of the Lord of
life, by the Jewish nation, Luke exults that the offers of salvation are open
to all the family of man ; and that a great host whom no man can number
will accept the proffered salvation. He does not exclude the Jew from
608 Bible and Commentator.
this great blessing, but he finds room for the belief that, at the name of
Jesus, every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess, to the glory of God
the Father. The parables and miracles are very fully detailed in this gospel ;
the discourses not so much so ; but two things are conspicuous in it : its full
account of the circumstances attending the birth of Jesus and John, and the
minute narrative of all the events of that last journey of the Saviour, from
Galilee to Jerusalem, by way of Perea, just before his crucifixion. None
of the other gospels give this. Tins gospel was probably written about
A. D. 56 ; before the Acts of the Apostles, of which he was also the author.
It is supposed to have been written at Rome; though this is not certain.
These three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are often called the
synoptic gospels, because they bear a resemblance to each other, in treating
of the life of Christ from the human point of view, and while agreeing in
regard to his divine character and origin, make his human nature and his
earthly life, sufferings and death, their principal topic.
The fourth gospel, that according to John, differs from the other three in
many respects, yet it is as essential to the complete view of the life and
character of our Lord as any one of them, or, perhaps, as all of the other
three. It was written by the apostle John, who had not only been an eye-
witness of the things concerning which he wrote, but had been admitted to
that closer intimacy with the Saviour, which caused him to be known as
" the disciple whom Jesus loved." His opportunity for knowing all that
any man could know of Christ, was far greater than that of any other
person who ever lived.
This gospel was written considerably later than the others; probably
some time after the destruction of Jerusalem ; and its writer undoubtedly
had the other gospels before him when he wrote. He omits many things
which they have related, as not caring to repeat them, and narrates many
important miracles, which they had overlooked. He gives also many con-
versations, discussions, addresses, and prayers of Christ, which they had not
inserted, and gives prominence to the Judsean portion of our Lord's ministry
as the others had to the Galilean. In all these particulars this gospel is
invaluable, as giving us the facts of those portions of our Lord's active life,
which, without it, would have been unknown to the world.
But the most important characteristic of this gospel, and the one which
has caused the fiercest assaults on its authenticity and inspiration, by
sceptical writers of the present day, is its full and unequivocal declarations
concerning the divinity of Christ. The other evangelists, while they speak
The New Testament. 609
of Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ of God, usually call him " the Son of
man," sometimes " the Son of David." With John, he is " The Word, who
was in the beginning with God, and who was God." " The Son of God,"
who was made flesh and dwelt among us, " God manifest in the flesh."
" He and his Father are one." " God speaks from heaven, and declares him
his beloved Son, in whom he is well pleased." This gospel is, then, peculiarly
the gospel of the divinity of Jesus Christ.
With these four gospels, the revelation of the biography of Christ is
complete. Whether we desire to look at Christ as the Messiah, the promised
King and Deliverer of the Jews, and rejected by them ; as the miracle-
worker, who had power on earth to forgive sins ; as the Saviour of all who
would believe on him, as the God-man incarnate in our nature, the Babe of
Bethlehem, the carpenter's son, the Nazarene, the Lamb of God who taketh
away the sins of the world, the meek and patient sufferer at Gethsemane
and Calvary, or the Son of God, one with the Father, who hath brought life
and immortality to light, the Abolisher of death, the risen, triumphant, and
ascended Lord, we find the whole story in these four gospels, and only
there.
Other pretended gospels there were, indeed, and many of them ; some, the
work of good but weak-minded men, who had gathered the most absurd
traditions of the infancy and childhood of Christ, and some, the work of
wicked blasphemers and enemies of Christ, who sought to throw contempt
on his blessed name ; but the perusal of a single page of any one of them
was sufficient to show that they were neither inspired nor true ; and no one
of the early churches was ever deceived into accepting any of them.
After this fourfold biography comes "The Acts of the Apostles," also
written by Luke, the companion of Paul, and author of the third gospel ;
a history of the formal organization of the Church of Christ, the heir, with
her blessed Lord, of this glorious inheritance, devised to her by the will of
God. This book has for its main object and aim, to narrate the fulfilment
of the promise of God, as declared by our Lord just before his ascension, of
the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples; the complete organization
of the Christian Church, and the results of the outpouring of the Holy
Spirit, in the conversion of great numbers, who very soon carried the glad
tidings to all parts of the Roman empire. In the first part of the book, the
interest centres in Peter, the bold and fearless leader, who opens the door of
salvation to both Jews and Gentiles. As the Jews, as a nation, reject Christ
and his gospel, another leader is raised up, from the strictest sect of the
39
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Jews, and himself for some years a fierce persecutor of the disciples, but
who becomes, by God's grace, the great apostle to the Gentiles ; and the
remainder of the book is occupied with the labors, trials and triumphs of
Paul. Incidentally, it sets forth all the difficulties and troubles which
attended the establishment of Christianity, both among the Jews and Gen-
tiles ; the heroism and manliness of the great apostle, and his manifold trials
and persecutions ; and presents, as no mere history could do, the growth and
orderly development of the Church of Christ.
There were, of course, apocryphal imitations of the Acts, professing to
give accounts of the labors and sufferings of others of the apostolic band.
Writers on the New Testament enumerate thirteen of these, some of them
written within a hundred years after this book, and a part of them possibly
written by men of good intentions ; but they are all so silly and childish,
and the stories they contain are so absurd, that none of them were ever
received as either inspired or true by the churches.
Next follow the epistles, twenty-one in number. Of these, thirteen were
certainly written by Paul — nine of them to various Christian churches, one
to a private individual (Philemon), and three, generally called Pastoral
Epistles, to Timothy and Titus, as pastors or bishops of churches. The
Epistle to the Hebrews does not bear the name of its author; but while it
has been attributed variously to Paul, to Luke, to Clement, to Barnabas,,
to Apollos, and to other prominent Christian leaders, its inspired character
has not to any considerable extent been called in question. Seven other
letters, all of them brief, and usually called General Epistles, bear the
names, one of James, the brother of our Lord ; two that of Peter ; three
of John the Divine, the author of the gospel, and one of Jude or Judas,
the brother of James.
These epistles or letters are varied in their character, but all breathe the
spirit of Christ, and many of them are specially devoted to the defence of
particular Christian doctrines. Those of Paul, which are addressed to the
different churches, mostly founded by his labors, are full of instruction, both
doctrinal and practical, as to their future lives. The teachings of Christ in
all the doctrines which they are to believe are rehearsed and explained ;
the duties of the Christian life, and especially of life in the family and the
church, are clearly laid down, and the necessary discipline of the church is
enforced. To those just converted from heathenism and its gross vices,
there was great need of this instruction ; and there was a necessity for guard-
ing them, also, against the teachings of those who still regarded the Jewish
The New Testament. 611
ritual and traditions as binding upon all Christian disciples, as if they were
only proselytes to the Jewish faith ; and of those who were seeking to com-
bine Greek philosophy with Christianity, and thus of leading the people
astray. The Pastoral Epistles wTere primarily intended to define the duties
of the pastors or bishops, and of the other office-bearers of the church,
though the second letter to Timothy is largely occupied with exhortations
to Christian firmness and endurance, in the violent persecutions under which
the church was then suffering, at the hands of the cruel Roman Emperor
Nero.
The Epistle to the Hebrews, addressed to the Jewish Christians, and
other Jews in and out of Palestine, probably shortly before the destruction
of Jerusalem, is a most masterly argument to prove that the old or Jewish
dispensation, with its ceremonial law, its sacrifices and traditions, was com-
pleted, fulfilled and closed in the coming of Christ, whom all these sacrifices
typified ; and that the new or Christian dispensation, with its one Great
Sacrifice and its universal scope, had taken its place ; and that henceforth
there was to be no more sacrifice of animals, and no more of the temple wor-
ship, as an atonement for sin. The doubts in regard to its authorship
have not prevented its being regarded in all quarters as divinely inspired,
and the internal evidence is conclusive on this point.
Of the seven General Epistles, that of James is intended to impress upon
the early church the necessity of practical godliness, good works, to illustrate
and adorn the Christian profession ; a very important point, since many of
the converts, both from Judaism and heathenism, had been inclined to the
belief that, professing faith in Christ, they were freed from the restraints of
the moral as well as of the ceremonial law. This dangerous idea — that
Christianity had no necessary connection with morality, and that a pro-
fessing Christian may, without reproach, lie, steal, commit adultery, or break
any other of the commandments — has been too prevalent in all branches of
the church in all ages, and shows the absolute necessity of James' warnings.
James was the chief pastor of the church at Jerusalem for many years.
The two Epistles of Peter are characteristic of that fervid and earnest
apostle ; full of exhortations to sound doctrine and holy living, strong de-
nunciations of heretical and false teachers, and with many references to the
second coming of our Lord.
The three Epistles of John, " the beloved disciple,'" are also characteristic
of his ardent and loving nature. One of them is addressed to the churches
generally : the other two, which are very brief, to individual Christians.
612 Bible and Commentator.
The General Epistle of Jude, supposed to have been a younger brother of
our Lord, is very brief, and consists mainly of warnings to the churches
against false teachers, and denunciations of them, even more vigorous than
those of Peter, while it closes with a beautiful and touching benediction.
Of these seven general epistles, two, the first of John and the first of Peter,
were at once received by all the churches as genuine and inspired ; two more,
the second and third of John, were so received as soon as they became
widely known ; concerning the remaining three, viz., the Epistle of James,
Second of Peter, and the Epistle of Jude, there was more or less dispute ; the
objection to James being a supposed difference between his teachings and
those of Paul; but eventually it was heartily received by all the churches.
To the Second Epistle of Peter, it was objected that it differed greatly in
style from the first epistle ; that the second chapter was substantially like
most of the Epistle of Jude, and that its references to Paul were not like
Peter. But these objections, on closer examination, mostly disappeared ; and
the general tone of the epistle was so full of the gospel spirit that it finally,
after long controversy, came to be universally received, and was sanctioned
as a part of the New Testament by the great councils of the church.
The objections against the Epistle of Jude were its brevity, its alleged
reference to apocryphal books, and its repetition of the ideas of the second
chapter of 2 Peter. The usual and undoubtedly the true explanation, of
this similarity is this : Jude wrote his epistle before the Second Epistle of
Peter was written, and it was sent to Alexandria, where the Christian
churches were strong, but where also these false teachers were numerous.
Peter and Jude were at this time in Babylon or its vicinity, and being in
frequent intercourse with each other, the Epistle of Jude was read to Peter,
and pleased him, and Jude, being considerably the younger, was employed
by Peter as his amanuensis or writer; this Second Epistle of Peter being
addressed to the churches in Asia and Asia Minor, Peter desired Jude to
communicate these warnings to those churches also in his name. The
reference to the prophecy of Enoch could not have been to the apocryphal
book of Enoch, for that was not then written. By the voice of the churches
as expressed in the several councils, after the most rigid examination, all these
epistles were finally received as inspired books.
There are also several epistles which circulated largely among the early
churches, most of them, probably, written by good men, though not all by
those whose names they bear, and all designed apparently for the edification
of the churches. These are : The First Epistle of Clement of Borne to the
The New Testament. t 613
Corinthians ; the so-called Epistle of Barnabas ; the Epistle of Ignatius to
the Ephesians, and also to the Romans and to Poly carp ; the Epistle of
Polycarp to the Philippians, and the Shepherd of Hernias. Of these the
Epistle of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Epistle of Ignatius,
were probably written in the second century, though, perhaps, neither of
them by those whose names they bear. The First Epistle of Clement of
Korae to the Corinthians is probably genuine, and the earliest of these
apocryphal epistles. That of Polycarp is also genuine, but is hardly earlier
than A. D. 140. But while the good intention of all these epistles may
be admitted, they were so far below the epistles of the New Testament in
their tone and character, so lacking in force and spirit, and most of them
so wanting in sound doctrine, that they were never, by any considerable
number of persons, regarded as inspired. There are still other epistles
which have been preserved in an incomplete state, but these are of less value
than those we have mentioned.
There were, then, no other epistles, as we have already shown; there
were no other gospels, or records like the Acts of the Apostles, which in the
judgment of the early Christian fathers, or the early churches, had any
claims to be regarded as divinely inspired, and necessary or "profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." God
in his providence so ordered that the examination of these books by the
fathers and the early churches should be very searching and thorough, and
their decision and that of the councils in regard to them was nearly
unanimous.
But that there might be no doubt on the subject, since the invention of
the art of printing, and particularly within the last two centuries and a
half, the whole questions of the authenticity and inspiration of the books of
the New Testament, have been gone over anew by hundreds of the most
eminent Biblical scholars, with a zeal and carefulness to which no other
books have ever been subjected, and the result has been to confirm them
all, and their readers, in the conviction that in the New Testament, as we
have it, there are all the books that have come down to our times which
were truly inspired of God; that all of these were so inspired, and that the
other books of the first two centuries after Christ, which professed to divine
inspiration, were none of them entitled to be so regarded.
One book more remains to be considered, The Revelation of Saint John
the Divine, or, as it is often called, the Apocalypse. That this book was
written by John, the son of Zebedee, the apostle and evangelist, and that it
614 Bible and Commentator.
was divinely inspired, was the full conviction of all the early fathers and
of the early churches. The attempt of Dionysius, the Bishop of Alex-
andria, in A. D. 255, to maintain that it was written by another John,
and that its inspiration was doubtful, was solely caused by his vexa-
tion at the millennial theory, which was then advocated by some other
bishops, and for which they quoted John's authority in the Revelation.
The book was rejected by several heretical sects, who also repudiated all the
epistles except those of Paul ; while it was received by others, who rejected
all the New Testament except this book and the four gospels.
Its authenticity and inspiration have been admitted by all the councils,
and by all the Biblical critics of modern times. Its contents are, as the
apostle himself says (i. 19), The things which he saw — the glorified Christ
standing in the midst of his churches • the things which were — the condi-
tion of the seven churches ; and the things which should be hereafter — the
progress of* Christianity, the judgments to come upon the nations, the final
struggle with the powers of evil, the first resurrection, the final judgment,
and the glory of the heavenly city and of the redeemed. The style of the
book is lofty and glowing; some of its descriptions are among the grandest
efforts of human composition, and through it all there runs the* fire of a
divine inspiration. No one who reads it can doubt that it was written under
the influence of the Divine Spirit.
Of course, there have been several attempts to imitate this wonderful
book ; there are apocalypses of Moses, of Paul, of Ezra, of Peter and of
John ; spurious books of such utter worthlessness, that it seems a waste ever
to have published them. No church, no apostolic father, and no critic of
modern times, ever thought of claiming that any of these were inspired.
Thus, then, we have passed in review the books comprising this later
portion of the divine will or Testament. We have shown that it describes
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ as the Saviour and Redeemer, the Mes-
siah or Anointed ; his rejection by his own nation, the Jews ; his sufferings
in the garden ; his crucifixion, resurrection and ascension ; the coming and
outpouring of the Holy Spirit; the offer of salvation to the Gentiles and its
acceptance ; the formation, organization, and growth of the Christian church :
its doctrines, ordinances and practice: its persecutions and its present and
future triumphs, till the heavenly inheritance shall be bestowed upon the
church of the redeemed, and they enter the city of God to be kings and priests
forever. What earthly inheritance is to be for a moment compared with
this ? Yet this glorious heritage belongs to every true believer in Jesus.
(6163
THE
^
EW IlESTAMENT
%£
WITH
Illustrations and Comment
con^sECTJTirviEix.ir.
617
Gospel According to St. Matthew:
This, the opening book of the New Testament, the Genesis of the later revelation, corresponds, in many points,
■with the first book of the Old Testament. It was originally written in Hebrew, or rather Aramaic, a corrupt dialect
of Hebrew, spoken at that time by Syrian Jews, and was afterward translated into Greek. As the purpose of Gen-
esis was, to show how, to a particular family, race, and tribe, the great Redeemer was to be sent, anc how, through
all the earlier ages, the promise made in the Garden was to be amplified and extended, so in the Gospel according to
Matthew, we have the history of the coming of the Messiah, the King of Israel, to His own chosen people ; of their
final and conclusive rejection of Him as their King; and of the extension of His dominion, and the offers of salva-
tion to all nations. It is the beginning of a new and more glorious era; and yet, more than any other book of the
New Testament, except, perhaps, the Epistle to the Hebrews, it connects itself with the Old Testament, in its appli-
cation of prophecies, in its genealogies, its references to Jewish laws and customs, and in its constant use of Old Tes-
tament forms of expression concerning the Messiah. It contains more of the discourses or sermons of Christ, more of
His miracles, and a larger number of His parables, than either of the other gospels ; and it presents all in a system-
atic order, not chronological, but with the distinct purpose of showing their relations to each other, and to the gen-
eral object of the gospel. It has twenty-eight chapters, and is particularly full on those points on which the other
gospels touch but lightly. It was probably written, primarily, for the Jewish disciples, perhaps within six or eight
years after the ascension of Christ, and, at all events, several years earlier than either of the other gospels.
The Brih and Infancy of Jesus Christ
Matthew i., n.
HIS opening book of the New Testament introduces us into a
new era and a new condition of things. When this book was
written, nearly four hundred and fifty years had passed since
Malachi, the last of the Old Testament prophets, had com-
pleted his prophecies ; the Jews had been governed by their
high-priests, under the authority of foreign monarchs ; had
<5> <^T; <j been oppressed, persecuted, and slain, and many of them com-
pelled, under fear of death, to deny the God who had pre-
served and kept them ; then they had been for nearly one
hundred and fifty years under the government of prince-priests, who, at first,
were wise, and patriotic, and good, but after three or four generations had
become corrupt and vile ; and they were now ruled by a very wicked king,
Herod, who was himself a vassal of the Romans. In these four hundred
and fifty years they had become fanatical in their observance of the traditions
of the elders or rabbis, insisting on the minutest obedience to them, while
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620 Bible and Commentator.
they openly disobeyed the great principles of the moral law. The Pharisees,
the leading sect among them, were self-righteous and hypocritical; they
believed in a coming Messiah, but thought he would be a temporal king,
and would deliver them from the Romans. They believed also that they
alone would have a right to be the officers of the new kingdom which he
would set up, and that the common people and all the Gentiles would be
shut out from it.
We shall see, as we study this and the other gospels, how different was
Christ's kingdom and mission from what they had supposed ; and we shall
also see what it really was. As we have said, in our Introduction to the
New Testament, this first book or gospel is addressed to the Jews, and hence
may be called a Jewish gospel ; it presents the Messiah in his kingly char-
acter,* and hence is the kingly gospel ; but more than all else, it shows sadly
but truly, how the Messiah was rejected by his own people, the Jews, and
hence has been fittingly called " the Gospel of the rejection." The word
" Gospel " has been variously defined ; it comes from the old Anglo-Saxon,
and signifies good news, tidings or history ; it is properly the good news, or
history of Christ's taking our nature and becoming our Redeemer, and this
is the way in which it is used in these four books. It is sometimes used in a
larger sense, as meaning all of God's word or revelation to man. The Greek
word which is translated gospel means rather the evangel, or good message,
implying that it is a message sent from God.
Matthew, whose surname was Levi, was a native of Galilee. Although
a Jew, he had been appointed a publican or tax-gatherer by the Romans,
who then ruled over Palestine. These publicans were much hated by the
Jews. The taxes were of various kinds ; a personal or poll-tax, licenses for
fishing, or for trade ; export and import duties, etc. All these taxes Matthew
collected at his office iu Capernaum, when Jesus called him to leave them
all, and to follow him. He obeyed the divine call, became one of the apostles,
and recorded for the use of the Jewish disciples what he heard, and saw,
and knew of the Messiah.
The first chapter of this gospel tells us from whom Jesus descended. It
was the first step toward proving that he was the Messiah predicted by the
prophets. Messiah means anointed. The prophets, priests, and kings of Israel
* Kead Matt. ii. 2, ii. 6, 13, iii. 2, iv. 11, 23, v. 22, vi. 13, vii. 28, 29, ix. 35, xiii. 33, 44-47,
xiii. 19, 41, xvi. 19, xix. 28, xxi. 5, 9-16, xxiv. 14, xxv. 31, 34, 40, xxvi. 53, xxvii. 51-53,
xxviii. 19. Kead also, " The Gospel according to Matthew, a Lecture," by Rev. Henry G.
Weston, D. D., to whom the writer is indebted for some of these thoughts and references.
ANNUNCIATION.
621
622 Bible and Commentator.
were anointed with oil, to signify that God would so pour his holy blessings
upon them ; and it showed that they were set apart for their particular offices,
to attend to those alone. The Messiah, as Jesus is calledy more especially bore
that name, which is in other words the anointed, or the anointed one. Christ
is a name which has also the same meaning. None were ever anointed with
such an abundance of gifts and of grace as he was. He was a Prophet, a
Priest, and a King at the same time : a prophet, because he taught the way
to heaven, besides foretelling many things which were to happen on earth
— a priest, because he offered up a sacrifice, and such an one as made all
sacrifices of an inferior kind of no use in future, so that they ceased when
he offered up himself — and a king, because he was to reign over many hearts,
and his subjects should yield him willing obedience in all times to come,
and in all parts of the world.
Matthew traces the line of Jesus Christ from Abraham ; for God promised
to Abraham, in the twelfth chapter of Genesis, " In thee shall all the
families of the earth be blessed." It was, therefore, understood by Abraham
that one should spring from him, who should indeed bless all the world, —
not the Jews only, but the nations of the Gentiles. Matthew, then, in
showing that Christ was the Messiah expected, here proves, in the first place,
that he had one mark of the Messiah, for he sprang from Abraham.
But this was not enough : Abraham's family branched off in different
lines, Isaac's in one branch and Ishmael's in another; and so with the
families that followed. But there was one particular line in which the
promise was made, and among those of that line from Abraham was David ;
God had promised him, as we are told in the seventh chapter of the Second
Book of Samuel, that he would set up his seed — or one of his race, after
him, and "establish the throne of his kingdom forever." Matthew proves
that Christ sprang from David, as well as from Abraham ; and therefore
proves that he was of a race from which the Messiah was to come.
It was necessary for Matthew to be thus particular in tracing the entire
genealogy from Abraham to David, and from David to Christ, in order to
demonstrate to the Jews, who were great sticklers for pedigree, that Christ
was descended on his reputed father's side, and on the mother's also, from
David and Abraham.*
* Some of those people who are very anxious to find errors and contradictions in the Bible
have pointed out the objections to this genealogy, that it did not agree with that in Luke iii.
23-38, and that in this several names were omitted ; and they have urged that this was a proof
that this gospel was not inspired, nor true. These objections are very easily answered. In
Matthew. 623
The next proof was that, as the prophet Isaiah had foretold, Isa. vii. 14,
he was born of a virgin, or of one that was unmarried ; for though Joseph
was the husband of Mary, he was only her betrothed husband, that is, he
was only engaged to her, as we say ; — yet that engagement, according to the
custom of the Jews, could not be broken, and so he was, to all intents and
purposes by law and right, the husband of Mary, though she was a virgin,
or as yet not in reality married. Now, Jesus Christ was "conceived" or
formed " by the Holy Ghost,'7 or the Holy Spirit. It was the Holy Ghost
who formed the body of the blessed Son, who was born of the Virgin Mary ;
and St. Matthew tells us, " Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled
which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin
shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name
Immanuel, which, being interpreted, is, God with us." " God with us "
means again — God in flesh, God in our nature.
It was revealed to Joseph, in a dream, that this child was the Messiah ;
and after Jesus was born, Joseph went to live with Mary.
There was a third sign that Jesus was the Messiah — the anointed and
expected Saviour, and this St. Matthew also takes care to tell us. He was
" born in Bethlehem of Judsea." There were two places called Bethlehem,
and the place where Christ was born was called Bethlehem of Judaea, to
distinguish it from another Bethlehem in the tribe of Zebulon, which is
mentioned in Joshua xix. 15.
The place where Christ should be born was also mentioned in prophecy ;
" for thus it is written by the prophets ; and thou, Bethlehem, in the land of
regard to the first, it may be said that the Jews, like all oriental nations, kept two distinct
genealogies, both official, of their royal families — the first showing the line of succession ; the
second, the private or family genealogy, showing the collateral branches from which the suc-
cession was to be continued, if the main line ran out from want of heirs. This was just the
case with David's line. Matthew gives the line of royal succession as it stood in the genealogy
of the house of David ; Luke gives the private or family record, showing that Joseph was
descended from Nathan, the elder brother of Solomon, by the same mother (1 Chron. iii. 5),
who was entitled to inherit the kingdom on the failure of the line of Solomon. That line did
fail in the case of Jeconiah or Jechonias, who was written childless (Jeremiah xxii. 30), and who
adopted as his heir, Salathiel, the son of Neri, of the house of Nathan ; who was the father
of Zerubbabel, the Ehesa or ruling prince after the captivity. There is a mistake here in
Luke iii. 27, as Ehesa is not a man's name, but Zerubbabel's official title. Another Jewish law
explains the other difficulty, viz., that when the elder son failed to have a son, the son of his
brother became his heir, as in the case of Matthan and of Heli, in the genealogy in Luke.
Mary, the mother of our Lord, is, by general tradition, said to be the daughter or grand-
daughter of Jacob, the elder brother of Heli, and to have married Joseph, the son of Heli.
624 Bible and Commentator.
Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah : for out of thee shall
come a governor that shall rule my people Israel." Micah v. 2.
At the time when Christ was born " there came wise men from the East
to Jerusalem," to inquire about him. The place from which these wise men
came is supposed to have been Persia, because that lay east of Judaea. Here
they saw a wonderful star shining in the heavens, and it appeared to them
to be exactly over the land of Judaea. They, therefore, thought that some-
thing extraordinary had happened there ; and it is supposed that they now
remembered a prophecy of Balaam, who lived in the East — which prophecy
might have been handed down to them — " There shall come a star out of
Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel." Numb. xxiv. 17.
Herod the Great — as he was called — then reigned over the Jews ; and
when the wise men inquired after this new king, and the news came to the
ears of Herod, he was " troubled, and all Jerusalem with him." Herod
was troubled for fear that he should lose his crown ; and all Jerusalem was
troubled lest there should be a civil war about who should have it, Christ
or Herod. Now Christ came not to be the king of the Jews, as Herod was,
but to be a spiritual king — to reign, not over territories, but over hearts;
and to conquer, not the surrounding nations, but to overcome sin, death,
and the powers of hell.
But Herod did not understand this, and he therefore very craftily set
about, if possible, to destroy Jesus. And first he inquired of the chief
priests and scribes, where Christ was likely to be born ; and they referred him
to the prophecy of Micah, and told him — at Bethlehem of Judaea. So Herod
sent for the wise men, and informed them that he had found out the place
after which they inquired, and he wished them to go and see the new king;
and when they had found him they were to let him know, that he might wor-
ship him ; but his real design was, not to worship Jesus, but to kill him.*
Having received Herod's commands, the wise men took their leave, and
set off for Bethlehem, which was only six miles from Jerusalem.
* The exact date of the birth of Christ has occasioned much dispute. Dionysius Exiguus,
a Syrian monk of great learning in the sixth century, published as the result of his researches,
the opinion that Christ was born 753 years after the founding of Home — or as you will some- "
times see in the books, A. u. c. — Anno Urbe Condita — 753. As no one could then prove to the
contrary, that year was after a time generally adopted by the nations of Europe as the year 1
of the Christian era. But within the last two hundred years, Biblical scholars have discovered
by comparing the death of Herod, the date of which is known absolutely, and the date when
certain Koman governors ruled in Judaea, that the date of Dionysius was several years too
late. It is now generally believed that Christ was born in 749 A. u. c, or four years before
our era, though Lewin and some others say it was six years.
626 Bible and Commentator.
When the wise men departed, the star directed them to the house, where
"they saw the young child, with Mary his mother, and they fell down, and
worshipped him." Then, according to the custom in that part of the world,
when great persons were approached, and espe-
cially kings, they " opened their treasures, and
presented unto him gifts; gold, and frank-
incense, and myrrh," the frankincense and myrrh
both being valuable gums from Arabia, and
other parts of the East.
The wise men having seen Jesus, and left this
suitable supply to his parents, who, though
descended from King David, were but poor,
departed for their own homes. Their nearest
way was that which they took, and so they had
no need to return to Jerusalem, as Herod desired
them to do ; but the grand reason why they did
not was because God warned them, in a dream,
not to return to Herod.
God then spoke to Joseph by an angel in a
MTRRH- dream, and ordered him to leave Bethlehem
directly, with the infant Jesus and his mother, and go into Egypt, which
was not far from Judea, and was out of Herod's dominions, and there to
remain till he should receive a like command to return, for Herod would
seek to kill the child. So Joseph got up directly, and escaped by night
into Egypt, where he, Mary, and the infant, remained till the death of
Herod.
When Herod found that the wise men did not return, he was in a great
rage ; and supposing that Jesus was at Bethlehem, he was resolved yet to
carry his wicked design against him into effect. He could not, indeed,
'learn which was the infant he wanted; but to make sure of his mark, he
ordered some of his officers to go to Bethlehem, and kill all the children
that were two years old and under, thinking that by killing the children of
that age he should be sure to kill the new king. The wicked king Herod
was so cruel that history tells us he even slew three of his own sons ; no
wonder he had a heart so hard as to kill the little infants in Bethlehem.
When Herod was dead, Joseph was again spoken to by an angel in a
dream ; and being ordered to return, he left Egypt and went to live at
Nazareth.
Matthew. 627
Account of John the Baptist, the Forerunner of Jesus Christ.
Matthew hi.
ANOTHER testimony to Jesus being the Messiah is stated by St.
- Matthew. It is that the Messiah was to have a forerunner ; or, as
great men used to have footmen or heralds going before them to clear the
way for them, so Jesus was to be announced to the world by a prophet.
And " in those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness oi
Judea." This was " the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare
ye the way of the Lord ; " which the prophet Isaiah foretold in the
fortieth chapter of his prophecy.
John the Baptist — the name by which he is distinguished from John the
Evangelist — was a priest of the order of Aaron, though we do not find that
he ever ministered in the temple ; but we shall have occasion to notice more
about him as we proceed through the four Gospels.
The subject on which John the Baptist preached was repentance ; the
theme of his discourses was — " Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at
hand."
The dress of John the Baptist appears to have been singular enough ;
but it was the dress in which the prophets usually appeared — perhaps a
camel's skin with the hair on it, or a garment of hair, which was very
rough ; for in such plain robes the prophets used to dress. John's meat
was also as singular as his dress, for he lived chiefly on " locusts and wild
honey."
It appears that John by his preaching attracted great crowds. " Then
went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the region round about
Jordan ; " not that every person in Jerusalem and Judea, and round about
them, heard him at the same time, nor that every person heard him at all,
— but Matthew means that the crowds were great from all parts of Jeru-
salem and Judea, and they were of all sorts, men and women, young and
old, rich and poor, Pharisees and publicans. To these he spoke in bold
language, and warned them to flee from the wrath to come ! And he told
them not to boast about Abraham being their father, — that is, not to boast
that they were Jews descended from Abraham ; but to bring forth good
fruit, that is, good works, as a good tree brings forth good fruit ; and so, if
they wished to be thought the children of pious Abraham, they must be
pious like Abraham.
628
Matthew.
629
Our Lord Jesus from his childhood till now, when he was almost thirty
years of age, had lain hid in Galilee.
" It is supposed that John the Baptist began to preach and baptize about
six months before Christ appeared." Prior to his entering on his ministry,
Christ came to John to be baptized of him ; and John baptized him, though
he felt reluctant to do it, and thought it too great an honor when Christ
went to him for that purpose. After this was done, John saw the heavens
opened, as it were ; the sky looked all clear, and bright, and glorious, to
his eyes, and the sweet influences of divine grace were coming gently and
yet strikingly upon Jesus, " like a dove " — that is, in some form of light
resembling the appearance of a dove, and mild as a dove, — or as a dove
descends, and hovers, and lights.
John also heard a voice speaking from
heaven, "This is my beloved Son, in
whom I am well pleased."
Thus was Jesus declared to be the Son
of God.
In this chapter you read of " the Phari-
sees and Sadducees;" their names will
often occur in these Gospels. We will
next tell you who they were.
The " Pharisees " were a sect or set of
men among the Jews, who professed to
observe the law of God more than any
others ; they made a great show of their
religion outwardly, and took care that
everybody should take notice of them
when they prayed, or did any religious
service. They contrived, by these means, to gain the favor of the multitude,
and their influence was at last so great that they filled many of the best
offices. They taught that men could merit heaven, without a Saviour.
The " Sadducees " were a sort of infidels. They believed that the soul
died when the body was dead, and denied that the body would rise again.
As they believed there was neither reward nor punishment in another
world, they did not leave sinners to humble themselves before God, or to
receive their deserts from him, but punished offenders against the law in
the severest manner. While the Pharisees believed in traditions, these
people believed only in the written law of Moses.
CHRIST DISPUTING IN THE TEMPLE.
630 Bible and Commentator.
The Temptation of Jesus Christ
Matthew iv.
JESUS, after his baptism, withdrew into the wilderness, for a period of
fasting and prayer, before entering upon his work as a divine teacher.
It is generally believed that the place where he went was what is now known
as Mount Quarantania, northwest of Jericho, a very wild and forbidding
region, inhabited only by wild beasts. Here, at the end of his forty days
of fasting, Satan, who was not quite certain that he was really God manifest
in the flesh, assailed him with his sharpest temptations. It is probable that
two at least, and perhaps all the three of these temptations were visions, in
which the tempter assumed a bodily form ; but in the weakened condition of
the body of Jesus, after this long fast, these visions might be the most try-
ing of temptations. The first was an appeal to his creative power to furnish
himself with food, for he was exceedingly hungry. The tempter suggested :
" If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread."
It was in a desert region not far from this that God had provided by a
miracle that bread from heaven — the manna — which had fed Israel ; and
i'f he was really the Son of God, why should he not repeat the miracle
in another form? Jesus could have turned the stones into bread if he
would, for he afterwards turned water into wine; but he was not willing to
lower his divine dignity at the suggestion of the tempter, and he said, " It
is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that pro-
ceedeth out of the mouth of God." By this he meant, that God's word told
us to rely upon him to find us bread when we wanted it, and that those who
trusted in him need not require the power of working miracles to produce
bread from stones, but only let them trust in God, and he would provide
for them. The passage which our Lord quoted you will find in the eighth
chapter of Deuteronomy, and in the third verse.
Satan then carried Jesus in vision to the pinnacle, or the top of the
temple in Jerusalem, which was not far off. While he was here, standing
over the holy city of Jerusalem, Satan proposed to him to cast himself
down ; and then further suggested that it was written in the word of God,
" He shall give his angels charge over thee," so that he could try by this
whether what God's word said was true. Jesus directly replied, with an
answer from Scripture, " It is written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy
God." To tempt is to try, or put to the test; and we are never to run into
Matthew.
631
danger to see if God can bring us out of it. The above words are quoted
from the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy, and the sixteenth verse.
Christ was still assailed by Satan, who carried him in vision to a very
high mountain, which commanded a view of the surrounding countries,
and, while viewing their extent, he showed Him " all the kingdoms of the
JERUSALEM, WITH TEMPLE IN THE DISTANCE.
world," and presented to His mind their vast dominion, if He would only
serve him. Perhaps his suggestion was something like this : that with his
mighty power he should have all the idolatrous world immediately for his
subjects, if he would conform to their customs, and justify their rites, and
give honor to their false gods. Here Jesus both baffled and drove the
tempter away; for he said, " Get thee hence, Satan : for it is written, Thou
shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." Here,
finally, our Lord referred to the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy, and the
thirteenth verse.
Thus this vile enemy was driven away, and offered no more suggestions,
for he saw that he could make no impression upon the mind of Christ, as he
too often does upon our minds, when we think and do what is evil.
After this Jesus was comforted and fed by angels.
Jesus commenced preaching soon after this, and a few months later John
was cast into prison. The early labors of the Saviour were in Capernaum
and its vicinity, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, a few miles from Naza-
reth ; and thus a prophecy was accomplished about his appearing there to
give the light of knowledge to the darkened understandings of men.
Now it was that Jesus began to choose some disciples who should attend
632 Bible and Commentator.
him on his journeys, learn his doctrines, and see the wonderful things he
would do, so that they might bear witness about them after he had left the
world.
Walking by the sea of Galilee, he saw Peter and his brother Andrew,
fishing ; and so — for the reason just named — he bade these fishermen follow
him, for he would make them " fishers of men ; " meaning, that they should
no more catch fish, but he would employ them to bring sinners to be saved
by him. Soon after, he saw James and John, who were fishermen also,
and were in a ship, with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he
called to them in the same way, and they also followed him.
Jesus now proceeded in preaching ; and, in addition to this, he worked
miracles, or did many things beyond the reach of natural means to do ; and
so St. Matthew gives us yet another evidence that he was the Messiah — the
Anointed Saviour.
w
Jesus Christ 's Sermon on the Mount
Matthew v., vi., vn.
E now come to what is called our Lord's Sermon upon the Mount.
It contains the beatitudes, or declarations of blessings made by
Jesus. His first words are — " Blessed are the poor in spirit : for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven." By these he means all humble souls who feel
their need of a Saviour, as a truly poor man feels his need of charity.
While many a proud rich man, and many a proud poor man too, shall be
shut out of heaven, such a humble poor soul shall have a rich portion
there.
Then he proceeds : " Blessed are they that mourn : for they shall be com-
forted ; " that is, they that are sorry for their sins, and grieve that they have
offended against a good God, shall be pardoned for Jesus Christ's sake. —
" Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth ; w angry persons,
full of resentment at every affront, can never enjoy any comfort of life ;
but meek spirits, having the temper of Christ, really inherit all the good that
is around them, and enjoy it for themselves. — " Blessed are they which do
hunger and thirst after righteousness : for they shall be filled ; " those who
find themselves guilty before God, and with a desire strong as a hungry man
has for meat, or a thirsty man for drink, look for acceptance with God
through a better righteousness — or better merits than their own — shall be
•satisfied with the righteousness of the Saviour. — " Blessed are the merciful :
Matthe w
633
for they shall obtain mercy/' those who show mercy and kindness towards
the bodies and souls of their fellow-creatures, for Jesus Christ's sake, shall
receive mercy from him. — " Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall see
God ; " and none else shall see him in glory, but those whose hearts or dis-
positions are made clean and new by the Divine Spirit. — " Blessed are the
peace-makers : for they shall be called the children of God." Those who
do all they can to make men live quietly and harmlessly, like real Chris-
tians, and to stop strife whenever they see it, God will bless, and they shall
be owned as his children, who so strikingly bea^ one of the marks of his
image; so you see that those who
love to quarrel have no right to look
for the Saviour's blessing. — "Blessed
are they which are persecuted for
righteousness' sake : for theirs is the
kingdom "of heaven ; " this means,
that those who are ill-treated by
wicked people, because they are
religious, shall be rewarded at last
with the blessings of glory, which
their persecutors, except they repent,
can never enjoy. — " Blessed are ye
when men shall revile you, and per-
secute you, and shall say all manner
of evil against you falsely for my
sake." Those who are called ill-
natured names, or names intended to
reproach them, because they serve
God in sincerity, shall be blessed too.
"Rejoice and be exceeding glad," if this is the case, "for great is your re-
ward in heaven : for so persecuted they the prophets ; " and, if they did so
to the holy prophets, you must expect that they will not spare you.
Our Divine Teacher then goes on to show what he expects from those
who are his disciples.
He removes every ground of mistake about his doctrine, and shows the
people that his disciples must reverence the holy law of God, and the truths
taught by the prophets, and have a better righteousness or holiness than the
Scribes and Pharisees, who were men that made only an outside show of
religion, while, in their hearts, they did not love the law of God.
SERMON ON THE MOUNT.
634 Bible and Commentatoe.
To help you better to understand our Lord's discourse, I must just notice
these two classes.
The one class of persons is called " Scribes." They wrote copies of the
Scriptures long before printing was known in the world, and whatever they
heard of traditions, or things in the Jewish history which God's word did
not record ; they also read and explained the Scriptures to the people,
giving their own fancied meaning to them, while the people listened to their
comments with great reverence. Many of these Scribes were Pharisees,
and so our Lord often couples them together.
The other class of persons is called publicans. By publican we under-
stand a person who keeps an inn ; but these publicans were not inn-keepers,
but tax-gatherers employed by the Romans to collect taxes of the Jews,
who were then subject to Rome. They were not liked by the Jews, and, in
gathering the taxes, very often cheated the people, dealt hardly with them,
and took more from them than they ought, for the purpose of putting the
money into their own pockets.
In continuing his sermon, our Lord warns against making a show of our
charity, and also against making a show of prayer.
And here our Lord tells us what kind of petitions are to be offered,
in what we call " The Lord's Prayer," which, as .you probably know, we
wish you well to understand. Here you address God as your Father ; for,
as a father, he provides for you ; you look to him in heaven, the holj
dwelling of his glory ; you express a desire that his name may be treated
with reverence ; you wish that he may reign over your heart, and over the
hearts of others everywhere, and that his holy law may be done among all
mankind ; you acknowledge that you live by his bounty, who gives you
daily bread ; you confess your sins, which are debts to God, because they
have left you short in paying God the duties you owe to him, and you ask
him graciously to pardon them, as you pardon those who offend you — which
we hope you do ; you ask God to preserve you from doing sinful things,
which is meant by " lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,"
or from the evil one, who is Satan ; and you express your full belief that
God can do all that you ask, and your desire to give him honor and praise,
by ending the prayer with saying, " For thine is the kingdom, and the
power, and the glory, forever. Amen."
Other warnings given by our Lord are against being covetous. Jesus
Christ tells such persons, that, if their treasures consist in fine garments,
like those laid up by rich people in the East, the moth will by-and-by eat
Matthew.
635
them up ; or, if in precious metals, they will at last canker ; or, in other
treasures, they may be robbed of them; and it is, therefore, much wiser to
look for a lasting portion of better treasure — the happiness of heaven ; the
love and favor of God forever is far better than all the riches that ever
were got together in this world.
He then goes on to warn against being insincere in religion — against
thinking uncharitably of others — against doing harm to anybody — against
being deceived by false prophets, that is, false preachers or teachers — and
also against deceiving ourselves.
Lastly, our dear Saviour concludes his sermon by a pretty and striking
comparison, taken from fishermen in the East, who, to be near the sea at
mMv^^^^rh,
MOUNT TABOR, IN GALILEE, OFTEN ASCENDED BY CHRIST.
fishing time, build their huts on the sands, when the storms come, and, in
a moment, sweep them all away. So, he tells us, will the hopes of all those
perish, who are contented with hearing what he taught but never doing it ;
but those who mind his sayings and do them shall be like a wise man,
who built his house on a rock, which floods, rain, and wind, could never
sweep away. The house of the wise man fell not, for it was founded upon
a rock ; the house of the foolish man fell, and great was the fall of it, for it
was built upon the sand. Christ himself is as a rock, on which thousands
636 BiBtE and Commentator.
have safely rested their hopes for eternity; but this world, with all its
hopes of pleasure, is but as sand ; and those who build upon it for happi-
ness must at last lose everything, and be ruined forever.
Thus Christ ended his divine sermon, and the people were astonished at
hearing him. All he said was so wise, pure and good ; all he said was so
different from what the Scribes and Pharisees had taught. And he still
preaches to us in this sermon : he still preaches to us in his holy word.
May we learn of him, for he is still, by his Holy Spirit, ready to teach us
— he is " meek and lowly of heart, and we shall find rest for our souls."
Miraculous Cures performed by Jesus Christ.
Matthew viii., ix.
"TTT"HEN Jesus came down from the mount, the people did not like to
V V leave him, they were so delighted with what he had said. Crowds
followed him wherever he went.
Matthew now tells us about a wonderful cure which Jesus performed.
A poor creature afflicted with leprosy earnestly cried to him for help. If
we had seen him our hearts would have felt the greatest pity for him, for
the leprosy was a most miserable disease. We think we see him, with his
white skin covered all over with scurf, which, had it been taken off, would
have shown a body full of raw wounds. Perhaps he could hardly drag
along his swollen limbs, with deformed joints, the effect of his horrible
disease ; and every one stood away from him, lest he should be infected by
him. But Jesus, whose
" Heart is made of tenderness,"
was ready at once to help him ; and if others pitied him, and could not
help, Christ both pitied and helped him too. He touched him, and he was
cured; his word was enough to remove the disorder — "I will, be thou
clean."
Matthew here tells us of another wonderful cure which he did. A
Centurion, or officer in the Roman army, met him in a place called
Capernaum, where he was dwelling ; and, doubtless, having heard of his
fame and readiness to do good, he humbly asked him to cure his servant.
"Lord," said the officer, "my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy,
grievously tormented." It is not quite certain that Matthew meant by the
palsy, in this chapter, the disease which we call by that name ; for the names
Matthew.
637
of diseases, and the diseases themselves, change, from age to age ; but the
disease was, at all events, very distressing and generally considered incur-
able ; but Christ could cure it as well as he did the leprosy ; so he said?
" I will come and heal him." The officer thought it was too great an honor
for Christ to visit him, and again humbly asked him only to command the
disease to go, and it would obey him, as readily as his soldiers did when he
gave them the word of command. This was great faith in his power, to
believe that he could cure the man, though the man was not there. But he
knew that Christ could see the man, though the man could not see him ; and,
as Christ delights in those who fully trust in him, he praised the man's faith
to his disciples, to teach them to trust him with the same confidence ; and he
told the Centurion to go home,
and he would find his servant
well ; and so he was, for he awas
healed in the self-same hour."
The next account of Christ's
curing the sick informs us, that
the mother of Peter's wife was
"sick of a fever" — a disorder
that is often very severe and
killing, and, if cured, it is not
to be cured in a moment. But ==
Jesus only touched her hand, and
the fever left her.
At that time Satan and his
wicked spirits tormented the
bodies of some persons in a surprising wTay, as though they would prevent
Christ from gaining honor by curing these victims. But these were nothing
before him, for " he cast out the devils with his word."
Perhaps you have seen the sea, and how rough are its weaves. If you
ever saw it in a storm, it foams most furiously, and its waves swell like
high mountains. It dashes against the rocks as if it would even crush them
to pieces. When this is the case the winds blow with a force that scarcely
anything can resist. In such a storm the disciples were when Christ was
with them in a ship, crossing the sea of Tiberias into the country of Gadara.
While they were all in alarm, and " the ship was covered with waves," he
was in a sweet sleep. The disciples, whose faith in his divine power was
now fully strengthened, having seen what wonderful things he did, imme-
KOMAN CENTURION.
638
Bible and Commentator
diately awoke him, and cried, " Lord, save us, we perish ! " His tender
heart felt pity for their distress, and he instantly commanded the winds and
the waves to be still, " and there was a great calm." Well might they
wonder and say, " What manner of man is this, that even the winds and
the sea obey him ! "
The next instance of our Lord's power is the cure of two men possessed
of devils. These men lived in caves of the rocks, where the Jewish people
used to make their tombs to bury their dead, and they were so " exceeding
fierce " that " no man might pass by that way." The wicked spirits that
were in these unhappy bodies were in a still greater rage when they saw
Christ approaching them, and they said, " What have we to do with thee,
Jesus, thou Son of God ? Art
thou come to torment us be-
fore the time ? " From which
question it is believed that
wicked spirits will be more
tormented after the day of
judgment than they ever yet
have been. Since these devils
found that Christ would not
let them keep possession of
the bodies of these poor men
whom they tormented, they
asked to go into a herd of
swine that they saw near
them — for they would rather
torment these poor animals
than be prevented from doing any harm at all. Now, as these swine
belonged to Jews, and were kept contrary to God's law, who would not
allow them to partake of them, being reckoned among the unclean
beasts, Jesus, to punish their owners, suffered the devils to go into
the swine, which they so tormented that they " ran violently down a steep
place into the sea, and so perished in the waters."
The covetous Jews were very angry that they had lost their swine, though
two of their people had been saved from cruel torments by the loss, and
having besought Jesus to leave them, he went home again to Capernaum.
Jesus, having returned to Capernaum, another man, " sick of the palsy,"
Was brought to him on his bed, or mattress, which, in the Eastern countries,
WINE SKINS.
Ma tthew. 639
is very light and thin. Our Lord, seeing that the man himself, and his
friends, believed in his willingness and power to cure him, instantly gave
him relief, both in soul and body — he pardoned his sins, and he sent him
home, carrying the bed on which he was brought. Some of the wicked
Scribes who were present, when they heard Christ tell the man that his sins
were forgiven him, charged him with blasphemy, because none but God
could forgive sins, and they knew not that he was " God manifest," or seen,
" in the flesh." But they must have been ashamed of themselves, and put
to silence when our Lord afterwards cured the man ; for as none but God
could forgive sins, so none but God could say with effect to one sick of the
palsy, "Arise and walk."
At this time Matthew was called to be one of Christ's disciples ; Luke
calls him Levi, for the Jews often had two names. He was sitting taking
taxes at " the receipt of custom," or a custom-house, where duties on goods
are paid to the king, when Jesus said to him, " Follow me. And he arose and
followed him." So, when his grace touches the heart, sinners now leave all
their wicked connections, and are ready to give
up all their worldly gains, if they stand in their
way, and follow the Lord Jesus Christ, by
openly professing him, and declaring in their
lives whose they are, and whom they serve.
"We next find Jesus at a feast given by
Matthew to his friends, as appears from the fifth chapter of Luke. Perhaps
he wished to do them good on this occasion, and wanted them to hear what
his Lord would say. His companions were publicans, or tax-gatherers, a set
of men greatly despised, because they pressed people so hard to get all the
money they could from them. The proud Pharisees, who thought them-
selves the best of men, were astonished that Christ, who taught the people
to be holy, should sit down with such company. But our Lord did not go
there to countenance any wickedness, but with the design to teach them the
way to be saved.
The seventeenth verse of this chapter refers to a custom not known in
America, and for that reason some have not understood it. Our Lord says,
" Neither do men put new wine into old bottles, else the bottles break, and
the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish ; but they put new wine into
new bottles, and both are preserved." He said this to signify that his
disciples — being men taken from active business, and not accustomed to
fast, as were the disciples of John — were not fit to bear the severity of it,
LEATHER BOTTLES.
640 Bible and Commentator.
any more than an old bottle could bear new wine ; and, in a verse preced-
ing— than an oldr rotten garment would bear mending with a strong new
piece. Now we can see why an old garment must not be mended with a
strong new piece of cloth, because the new piece would tear away the rotten
part, by its strength and weight ; but how can new wine hurt old bottles ?
An old American bottle is as good as a new one, and perhaps, indeed, better,
because it is seasoned, — has been tried and found good. But the bottles
used in the East were made of the skins of goats or kids, which were taken
off whole and dressed ; all the legs but one and the neck being tied up, were
used till the leather became tender and easily rent by strong pressure.
A certain ruler of the synagogue, where the Jews worshipped, had a
daughter lying dead ; and, having heard of the wonderful things which
Jesus did, he believed that he was able to restore his daughter, even from
death itself, and so went and worshipped him,
and asked him for his almighty aid. Jesus arose
from Matthew's table, where he was then sitting,
and, following the ruler, went with him to his
house.
On his way to the ruler's house, a poor woman
that had had " an issue of blood twelve years," and
which she could get no one to cure, came behind him,
and, being full of faith in his power to cure
her, she thought she would touch the hem of his
garment, — the fringe which our Lord wore, as a
Jew, — and even that garment, hanging about his sacred person, might be
the channel of conveying the healing virtue which he possessed to her
poor diseased body. Jesus knew all about what she was doing, and why
she did it, and he graciously turned round to her and said, " Daughter, be
of good comfort, thy faith hath made thee whole." He, indeed, had made
her whole ; but by her believing in his power to heal her she had received
the cure.
Jesus then went to the ruler's house, and when he came there he " saw
the minstrels and the people making a noise." This was a proof that his
daughter was really dead; for the minstrels were pipers who played mourn-
ful tunes, and the noise was such as was made by mourning women, who
were always employed among the Jews to groan and cry over deceased
persons. So he stopped their playing and mourning, and told them that
the little maiden was not dead, but only slept ; — for she was not dead to
FILLING A BOTTLE.
Matthew.
641
him, since he could at once restore her ; but, as they had seen that she was
dead, they laughed at him for saying the contrary. However, he soon gave
proof that death to him was no more than a sleep ; and though no merely
human being could awake the dead, he could. And, going in, he took her
by the hand, and she rose up : and
the fame of this cure went abroad
everywhere.
When he left the ruler's house
two blind men followed him, and
they cried, "Thou Son of David,
have mercy upon us." These men
believed that Jesus was the true Mes-
siah, or anointed Saviour, — and, as
he was to be of the family of David,
they addressed Christ, "Thou Son
of David." He let them follow
him into the house, and then he
asked if they really believed he could
cure them. And they said, "Yea,
Lord ; " and, having merely touched
their eyes, they received sight.
The blind men had hardly left
the house when the people brought
Jesus "a dumb man, possessed with
a devil." It is thought that the
wicked spirit had taken away his
power of speech. "And when the
devil Avas cast out the dumb spake :
and the multitudes marvelled, saying, It was never so seen in Israel."
Moses, Elijah and Elisha were great prophets, and did wonderful things, —
but so many such things, and done in so wonderful a way, were never
before known in Israel. And these same multitudes were doubtless greatly
influenced to regard Christ as being sent from God, and as being all he
claimed for himself; but were so rigidly held by the power of the synagogue,
and the Jewish priesthood, that they hesitated, and even feared, to harbor
such conviction— much more, to give utterance to it, in a way that would
be likely to reach the ears of those in authority. Only the careful Bible
student can properly estimate the force of this.
41
HEALING THE BLIND.
642 Bible and Commentator.
Christ's Twelve Disciples.
Matthew x.
w
E have here a list of the twelve apostles, which, for the sake of
memory, we put down in three columns, and divide into three fours :
1. Simon, called Peter.
2. Andrew, his brother.
3. James, Son of Zebedee.
4. John, his brother.
5. Philip.
6. Bartholomew.
7. Thomas.
8. Matthew.
9. James, Son of Alpheus.
10. Lebbeus, surnnmed Thaddeos.
11. Simon, the Canaanite.
12. Judas Iscariot.
Of these, the first two, Simon Peter and Andrew, were brothers. The
next two were also brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and John.
The last among the next four was Matthew, the writer of this gospel ;
and the last of the last four was Judas Iscariot, who afterwards betrayed
his divine Master.
In the first verse these are called disciples, which means persons who
learn of a teacher; for Christ was their teacher, and they learned from him.
In the second verse they are called apostles, which means persons who are
sent. These twelve were chosen as Christ's disciples, that they might be
always with him, and see the wonderful things which he did, and hear the
divine doctrines which he taught; and afterwards they went forth as
apostles to tell the world what they had heard and seen, and so to deliver
his message as servants whom he had sent
Christ's Character of John the Baptist.
Matthew xi.
JOHN THE BAPTIST was at this time cast into prison. The cause of
his imprisonment is given in the fourteenth chapter. The wonderful
things which Jesus did were, however, told him in that place, and as he de-
sired that his disciples should become acquainted with Christ, he sent them to
hear from his own lips what proofs he could give that he was the long-
hoped-for Messiah. Jesus both told and showed them what wonderful
things he performed on the blind, the lame, the lepers, the deaf, the dead ;
and how he preached the glad tidings of heavenly mercy to the poor. These
Were proofs enough.
Then as soon as John's disciples were gone, he took occasion to show the
Matthew.
643
character of this good man, on whose faithful ministry many of the people
had attended. " What," said he, " went ye out into the wilderness to see ? "
when ye went to hear John the Baptist. "A reed shaken by the wind ? "
They understood the meaning of his question, which was, that John the
Baptist was not a timid, wavering preacher, weak and shaking like a reed —
but they had had the benefit of the boldest warnings from his lips.
" But what went ye out for to see ? A man clothed in soft raiment ?
Behold, they that wear
soft clothing are in
kings' houses." If they
had gone to see such an
one when they went to
see John the Baptist,
they had found them-
selves mistaken, for he
was quite a plain man,
who was not concerned
to make a show of him-
self in the world, but to
prepare the hearts of the
people to receive Christ.
Yet again he asked,
" But what went ye out
for to see ? a prophet ? "
If this had been their
expectation, they had
been even more highly
privileged than those
who had heard the
prophets, for, in hearing
John the Baptist, they
had heard more than a prophet, a person more excellent than a prophet —
his "messenger" — one whom God had sent to be the forerunner of his own
Son when he came into the world to preach glad tidings to the lost.
They had indeed heard the greatest man that ever was born ; for he was
prophesied of by the prophets, and pointed to the very object himself before
the people which the prophets had never seen, but were only honored to
foretell.
DANCING IN THE EAST.
644 Bible and Commentator.
Thus you see that true greatness does not consist of riches, or show, or
talents, but it consists in our being servants of Christ ; and he who is the
most faithful of his servants, and is honored with divine intercourse with
him, is raised to the most exalted rank. Indeed, though John the Baptist
was so great a man, Jesus said even of him, " Notwithstanding, he that is
least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." The little infant in
heaven is greater than John was, for he was then exposed to the faults which
belong to the best of men, while the infant that is in heaven is free from all
siii. and forever near and like his glorious Creator.
The Pharisees' Enmity against Christ
Matthew xii.
ONE Sabbath-day Jesus was going through a corn-field in his way to the
synagogue, and his disciples who were with him, being hungry,
plucked some ears of corn, and ate them. Now the Pharisees, though they
were wicked in their hearts, were very particular about some outward things,
wishing people to think them the most pious men in the world. So they
found fault with Jesus for letting his disciples pluck the corn on the
Sabbath, which they considered as a sort of work, forbidden by the fourth
commandment, which says, " Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy —
in it thou shalt not do any work." (See the twentieth chapter of Exodus.)
Jesus, who was always full of wisdom, gave them a prompt reply, to which
they could not make any answer, for he reminded them how David ate the
shew-bread when he was hungry, and that bread God had commanded to be
given only to the priests, yet the priest gave it to David and his men. He
also told them to recollect that the priests did work on the Sabbath-day, and
that within the temple too, for they could not kill and sacrifice the beasts
without doing work, and yet they were not doing wrong. This silenced
them, and he went to the synagogue.
When he arrived at the synagogue they resolved on renewing their attack
upon him : and as there was a man there with a withered hand, they asked
him if it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath-day. This they did " that they
might accuse him," for they even taught that no medicine was to be given
on the Sabbath. Our Lord asked them whether it was not lawful to save a
sheep on the Sabbath-day, when it had fallen into a pit ; and, if a sheep, why
not a man, who was of so much more value than a beast ? " Wherefore,"
Matthew.
645
said he, " it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath-days." We may not only
worship God on that day, but we may relieve the poor, visit the sick, and
do other works of kindness and charity. This Christ has taught us by
healing the sick, for he said to the man, " Stretch forth thine hand : and he
stretched it forth ; and it was restored whole like as the other."
As breaking of the Sabbath was a crime punished by death (see the
thirty-fifth chapter of Exodus), the Pharisees, instead of being thankful for
the good done to the man,
sought to destroy Christ for
curing him, declaring that he
had broken the Sabbath. Oh,
how far will men go in wick-
edness when their hearts are
hardened ! How blind the
Pharisees must have been not
to have seen that none could
have done such a cure but God,
or by his power ! Jesus, how-
ever, went away from them,
and multitudes followed him,
who, hearing what he had
done, took their sick with
them, " and he healed them
alL" That was, indeed, a
happy Sabbath to all these poor creatures ; they would remember it as long
as they lived. However, " he charged them that they should not make him
known." He did this, perhaps, for two reasons : the one to prevent the
Pharisees having any more proofs of who he was, since they had already
refused to believe in him from what they had seen ; and the other to teach
us that when we do good we ought not to publish it abroad in every place
like the Pharisees, who did all their works " to be seen of men."
Among those our Lord healed was " one possessed with a devil, blind
and dumb." This cure, more than all the rest, quite astonished the people,
and they said that Christ was certainly " the Son of David," meaning the
Messiah, for he was to spring from David, and so Christ was his son. The
Pharisees heard of this cure, but they said Christ did it by the aid of the
false God Beelzebub, whom they styled " the prince of devils." Now, the
devil does much evil, but never any good, and it was the height of malice
ANCIENT JEWISH SOBLRES.
646
Bible and Commentator.
to accuse Christ of doing that by the power of the devil which every one,
tvhose heart was not obstinately set against him, must have seen was done
by the power of God. This was so wicked that our Lord passes sentence
against these hardened men, and since they sinned against the Holy Ghost
— the Spirit of God — in saying that the devil did what none but the Al-
mighty could do, he declared that such could have no pardon.
Some Scribes and Pharisees having now surrounded him, asked him to
give them some other signs, besides those which he had given, before they
would believe in him. Christ
would not gratify their vain
curiosity, but he tells them
that they shall have one sign
more, and that as Jonas, or
Jonah, was three days and
three nights in the whale's
belly, so shall the Son of Man
be three days and three nights
in the heart of the earth. By
this he meant his resurrection
from the dead — the greatest
proof that he was the Messiah.
Then, as he was speaking of
Jonah, he told them that they,
the Pharisees, were so obsti-
nate and wicked that even the men of Nineveh would rise up against them
as witnesses in the day of judgment, and condemn them, for they had re-
pented at the preaching of Jonah, while they, the Pharisees, remained im-
penitent, though a greater than Jonas was there. Jonah is the Hebrew
name of that prophet, but Jonas the name he bore among the Greeks.
ANCIENT ROMAN SCRIBE.
Parables.— The Sower: The Tares: The Mustard- seed: The Leaven:
The Hidden Treasure: The Pearl: The Net.
Matthew xiii.
WE now come to our Lord's parables ; and they are very interesting
indeed, as well as instructive. But do you know what a parable
means ? It is a sort of fable, and, by feigned stories, teaches us true things.
Matthew.
647
Parable sometimes has other meanings in Scripture, but this is the meaning
of our Lord's parables. You have perhaps been amused with iEsop's or
Gay's fables, and they teach us many good lessons about how we should
conduct ourselves in going through the world; but our Lord's parables
teach us how we may find a better world. The finest fables are compara-
tively nonsense by the side of Christ's parables. They are so simple, so
natural, so tender, so beautiful — and yet some of them are so grand.
The first parable in this chapter is that called " the Sower."
Our Lord explains this parable. The Sower was himself, and it may also
mean every minister of his gospel; the seed which he sows when he preaches
is th e best of seed — God 's word. The ground
on which he sows is the heart. Now, when
he sows, sometimes " the wicked one " comes
and takes away the seed ; and when we do
not pay attention, we let the devil get into
our minds, and, like the little birds with
the seed, he carries away from us all the
good we might get. At other times we hear
the word with great pleasure ; but if any
wicked persons find fault with us that we
are too religious, then we are in danger
of minding what they say, and of thinking
too lightly of the joy we felt when we" heard
the gracious truths of the blessed gospel ; and so we are like the stony-
ground hearers, for the seed withers in our hearts, instead of taking root.
At other times we let bad, foolish and vain thoughts enter into our minds
while we are hearing, and these become so numerous that there is not room
for anything better to enter. Then it is that the word in our hearts
resembles the seed sown among thorns. But if we hear the word, if we
understand it, and if we bring forth fruit, and are holy in our thoughts and
lives, then the good seed takes root, and we show that we have not received
it in vain.
The next parable is " The Wheat and Tares." You may read it from
the twenty-fourth to thirtieth verses.
You will often find our Lord using the expression, " the kingdom of
heaven." But he does not mean by it the state of blessedness to which all
that are made holy go when they die. That, too, is the kingdom of heaven,
which we may call the kingdom of heaven above; but there is a kingdom
648
Bible and Commentator
of heaven below. All that hear the gospel are within the boundaries of this
kingdom. Christ, in his gospel, asks them to become his subjects ; and
those who submit to his laws in this
kingdom below are prepared for the king-
dom above. There are, however, many
that do not submit to them; these are
mixed with those that do, and are like
bad seed among the good. Well, they
must both grow together now, but they
will not always grow together. The day
of judgment is coming, and that will be
the harvest. Then the wicked will be
burned, and the good will be laid up
like precious wheat, as treasure in a
storehouse.
We have then a short parable of " The
Treasure." In the kingdom of heaven
there is a rich treasure. The gospel is
the field where it is to be found. Here
are " durable riches."
We have another parable of " The
Merchantman." He was trying to find out some goodly pearls, that he
might gain by them ; and at last he met with one, and parted with every-
thing he had that he might get it for himself.
" My heart exulting sings,
For I this precious pearl have found."
"Jesus Christ," says Mr. Henry, "is a pearl of great price, a jewel
of inestimable value, which will make those that have it rich, truly rich,
towards God : in having him, we have enough to make us happy here, and
forever."
The parable of " The Net " follows next. After explaining the wheat
and the tares, you will at once see the meaning of this parable.
Then comes "The Householder." "Every Scribe which is instructed
unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, which
bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old." The teachers
among the Jews were Scribes. Our Lord, therefore, was now bringing up
his disciples to be teachers, and he meant by this that if they were good
BLACK MUSTARD.
Matthew. 649
teachers, they would be like a good householder, who had both old and new
things to set at his table.
We are told, at the close of this chapter, that people were everywhere
astonished at Christ's wisdom ; especially were they surprised who heard
him speak where he was brought up. His reputed father was a carpenter ;
and they said, " Is not this the carpenter's son ? " But the knowledge of
Christ was that of the Son of God. Yet, because he did not take the form
of a rich man, but "for our sakes became poor," the silly people thought it
strange that he should know so much, and be able to teach the way to
heaven even better than the learned Scribes. "And they were offended in
him." They did not like to be taught by him, and so, as they despised his
teaching, " he did not many mighty works there, because of their unbelief."
The Martyrdom of John the Baptist— Christ feeds the Multitude.—
Christ walks on the Sea.
Matthew xiv.
THE first thing that is related in this chapter is the martyrdom of John
the Baptist. He was killed by Herod the Tetrarch. This was not
the Herod who killed the infants of Bethlehem, but one of his sons. That
Herod was called Herod fhe Great, but this was called Herod Antipas.
When his father died he divided the kingdom into four parts among his
four sons, and this son had Galilee, of which he was tetrarch, that word
signifying that he had a fourth part of the government.
This Herod, like his father, was a bad man. His brother Philip having
lost his power and retired into private life, Herod lured away his wife
Herodias, who, being a wicked woman, was easily induced to leave Philip,
and married Herod. John the Baptist had boldly reproved him for this
crime, and he cast John directly into prison, and, indeed, would have killed
him at once : but as John was esteemed by the people as a great prophet,
he feared that they might rise and rebel, and so he contented himself with
confining him.
At last his death was determined. Herod kept his birth-day with all the
splendor of a prince, and there was a merry dance. Among the rest, " the
daughter of Herodias was there." She, too, had deserted her unfortunate
father. We are not then surprised that she could be guilty of the cruelty
she afterwards displayed, for she seems to have been an apt scholar in
650
Bible and Commentator.
following the wicked example of her mother. This young creature danced
before the court, and Herod was so much delighted that, to show his satis-
faction, he declared, with an oath, that she should have anything she asked,
even to the half of his kingdom : not that he would have given half his
kingdom away, but this was an Eastern method of speaking, which allowed
the person to whom it was addressed to ask a very great favor. You
remember that Ahasuerus made the same promise to Esther. Esther,
however, saved many lives by her request ; but this wretched young creature
asked for the life of one of the most excellent of men : she asked for the
head of John the Baptist.
Her mother urged her on to
make this request, but she
was as wicked as her mother
in making it. When we are
told to sin, even a parent's
commands are not to be
obeyed, because God is above
our parents, and all sin is
an offence against God. It
was not, however, enough
that she should ask the head
of John the Baptist, but she
must have it in a charger,
or large dish. This was to satisfy her mother that there was no delay, but
that John was actually put to death ; and also to prevent Herod changing
his mind, that, on more sober reflection, his heart should not shrink back
from the murder. The Evangelists say, " the king was sorry ; nevertheless,
for his oath's sake," he granted the request. Such an oath had better have
been broken than kept. The deed was a far more wicked thing than
breaking his word. However, he " sent and beheaded John in the prison ; "
and the young Salome took the head and handed it to her mother, who
satisfied her evil eyes with the sight of her faithful reprover's countenance,
quiet in death.
And now for a while Herod, Herodias, and Salome were most likely at
ease — for conscience often goes to sleep, but only to wake again in a greater
fright ; but at last it must have been let loose upon them like a roaring lion,
when God punished them for their sins. History tells us that when Herod
had put away his lawful wife to make room for Herodias, Aretas, king of
PRISON IN WHICH JOHN WAS BEHEADED.
Matthew. 651
Petrea — who was father of the former — made war against Herod, and
totally destroyed his army. Moreover, at the instigation of the wicked
Herodias, he tried to dethrone his brother Agrippa, who ranked higher
than he, bearing the royal title, and not that of Tetrarch. Agrippa,,
however, outwitted him, and procured his banishment to Lyons, where he
and Herodias disgracefully died. Salome is also reported to have come to
an awful end, and if she had a moment for thought, she must have remem-
bered her cruelty to John the Baptist ; for going over the ice in winter, it is
said the ice broke, and she slipped in up to her neck, and her head was cut
off by the sharpness of the ice. "Thus," says a great writer, " God required
her head for that of John the Baptist, which, if true, was a remarkable
providence."
When Jesus heard that John was cruelly put to death, he left the place
to avoid Herod, for he had yet many works of mercy to do before he should
leave the world. On his departure, multitudes followed him, and "he
healed their sick."
Having led them into a desert place, the people were very hungry and
weary, and Jesus felt compassion for
them. But there were no less than
" five thousand men, besides women and
children ; " and how were so many to be
fed? All that the disciples had were
five loaves and two fishes; and what
were they among so many ? With Jesus
nothing was impossible. "He com-
manded the multitude to sit down on the
grass, and took the five loaves and the
two fishes, and, looking up to heaven, he
blessed and brake, and gave the loaves
to his disciples, and the disciples to the CHEIST AND PETEK 0N THE WATER.
multitude." You see Jesus would not
take a meal without looking up to heaven for a blessing. "And they did
all eat, and were filled • and they took up of the fragments twelve baskets-
ful." This was indeed a miracle ; and no one could have done this, if he
had not had power from on high.
Jesus now dismissed the multitude, and sent his disciples across the sea
of Galilee, while he went up into a mountain to pray.
In the midst of this night the ship in which the disciples were sailing
652 Bible and Commentator.
was overtaken with a violent storm, and they were in the greatest danger of
going to the bottom. The Jews divided the night into four parts, relieving
their guards on the watch-towers every three hours, and so they reckoned
time by these watches. "And in the fourth watch of the night," which
was between three and six in the morning, Jesus went to the disciples,
"walking on the sea" — another proof of his divine power, who could make
SEA OF GALILEE.
the sea, where he pleased to tread, as solid as the earth itself. The disciples
were more frightened at the appearance of Christ than at the storm ; but
Christ spoke kindly to them. And Peter, having asked his leave, went to
meet him on the water, for he could make it as firm for Peter as for himself.
Peter went a little way, but his faith in Christ's power failed him, and he
began to sink ; and then he cried out, " Lord, save me ! " Jesus caught
him by the hand, lifted him up, reproved him for his want of faith, and led
him safely to the ship. As soon as they were in the ship the sea was calm.
All the passengers and crew saw most plainly that Jesus possessed nothing
less than Almighty power, to do what he did, and they then "came and
worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God."
After this they landed in Gennesaret, where Christ performed more
miracles.
Matthew.
653
Christ Cures the Daughter of the Syro- Phoenician Woman, and Feeds
the second Multitude.
And a woman of Canaan, or Phcenicia-
or
—a
for
BRIDGE NEAR TYEE.
Matthew xv.
JESUS now left the land of Gennesaret, and went into the coasts
borders of Tyre and Sidon, two principal cities of Phoenicia-
renowned country at that time,
both names meant the same
— met him. You have ,
probably often heard her j
called the Syro-Phcenician !j
woman, a name given to J2
persons in that part, be- ^
cause Phoenicia bordered jj
on Syria, and indeed it
had formerly been a part
of it by conquest. This
woman, it seems, had heard
of the fame of Jesus, and
she believed, very strongly,
that he could help her out of the greatest distress.
She had a daughter grievously tormented by a violent disorder, resembling
madness, and the evil spirit ruled over her troubled mind and body. The
instant she saw Jesus, she cried earnestly to him to have mercy on her, and
cure her daughter ; and she called him " Lord/' showing her faith in his
divine power, and " Thou Son of David," owning him as the Messiah, the
anointed great deliverer who was to save from sin. Jesus, however, did
not notice her; but he knew how great was her faith, and he wished to
show it to his disciples. Still she cried out, and still he was silent. The
disciples then entreated him to grant her request, and send her away. But
he said he was only sent " to the lost sheep of the house of Israel/' mean-
ing that he intended to confine his own ministry to the Jews, and not then
to have anything to say to the Gentiles — the people who were not Jews.
The woman was not, however, to be silenced ; " she came and worshipped
him, saying, Lord, help me ! " This was a very short prayer, but it was a
very. fit one, and a very earnest one; and if you do but offer up this prayer
from your heart, it must and will succeed, and the Lord will help you.
654
Bible and Commentator.
BAKER AT THE OVEN.
Jesus said, " It is not meet " or proper, " to take the children's bread, and
cast it unto dogs." By the children he meant the Jews, the only nation that
maintained amongst them any of the pure worship of God their heavenly
Father; by the bread he meant the word of truth and life which he
preached, and which was bread to the believing soul ; and by dogs, the
Gentiles, for so they were esteemed by
the Jews, being so unclean in their
worship and practices. The woman
knew what he meant, for in this way
the Jews spoke of the Gentiles, and as
she lived near them, she knew their
way of speaking.
Well, she would not take any de-
nial. She knew that Christ could help
her, and she still pleaded with him.
" Truth, Lord," said she, "yet the
dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table." As if she had
said, I own all this, I am a Gentile, and thy favors belong to the Jews ; I
am no better than a dog, for I feel that I am a vile creature before thee who
knowest the heart — a miserable sinner — yet as dogs may pick up the
crumbs, though they may not sit at their master's table, so in mercy grant
me the smallest favor, and I shall be happy.
Christ had now fully shown her faith — he commended it — he granted her
request, and he cured her daughter.
This story teaches us to be earnest and persevering in prayer, and,
though ever so vile, a
gracious Saviour will at
last have mercy on us.
From the coasts of
Tyre and Sidon, Jesus
went to the sea of Gali-
lee— to the parts near it ;
and there, upon a moun-
tain, he was visited by " great multitudes," and he cured numbers in all
sorts of disorders. There wTere at this time four thousand men wTith him,
" besides women and children." After being on the mountain for three
days, and using the little provision they might have with them, they needed
some refreshment ; and here again Jesus performed a great miracle, and
COMMON FISH OF PALESTINE.
Matthew. 655
multiplied seven loaves, and a few little fishes, so that " they did all eat
and were filled. And they took up of the broken meat that was left seven
baskets-full."
After this he removed to Magdala, a plaee not far from Tiberias, and
after which it is thought Mary Magdalen was named, of whom we shall
read by-and-by.
Peter's Confession about Christ.
Matthew xvi.
"TTTHEN Christ came into the coasts of Cesarea Philippi, he put his
V V disciples' faith to the test ; and after asking them what the people
in general thought and said about himself, he put the question to them,
" But whom say ye that I am ? " He knew well all that men said, but he
asked the question to lead tc the second question, by which he might get a
confession of their faith, after all they had seen him do. Peter, who was
always forward in speaking, said, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the liv-
ing God ! n that is, thou art the anointed, by the Holy Spirit of God, to be
the King of thy spiritual people Israel ; — the true Messiah, and not a mere
man, but the divine Son of God. Jesus then commended his faith, and for
the information of the disciples around, told him that such knowledge was
only given from heaven. Many saw Christ do his miracles, but they did
not see his divine glory as Peter did. On this rock, on the dignity and
glory of Christ, the Son of God, as on a sure rock, will he build his church;
on him all believers rest, who are what make up his church, and hell, with
all its powers, shall not prevail against it. Christ told Peter also that he
would give him the keys of the kingdom of heaven. You know that I
told you, in explaining the parables, what the kingdom of heaven meant,
and that all that heard the gospel were in the boundaries of this kingdom,
so that it means the spiritual privileges which Christians enjoy in this
world, as well as their happy state in the next. Mow, there are no keys
used in this kingdom ; the expression is what we call a figure of speech.
The keeper of the key of a city is a person of authority, and when Christ
told Peter he would give him the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and
whatsoever he should bind on earth should be bound in heaven, and so on,
he merely meant that he would intrust him, as his faithful servant, with the
preaching of his gospel, so that he should have authority to explain what
Was his truth, since he had so nobly declared it, and what, under the
656 Bible and Commentator.
guidance of his Spirit, he declared to be so, should be so, and whatsoever
he declared not to be so, should not be so.
Christ then commanded his disciples to be still for the present, and not
to make him known as " the Christ, the Son of the living God ; " for, had
they done so, the Jews would have proclaimed him as their king, but he
came into the world for a very different purpose than that of reigning as an
earthly monarch. From this time, therefore, he more fully explained to
his disciples why it was that he would not be an earthly king, and that he
must suffer, be killed, and raised again the third day. Peter, indeed, could
not bear to hear of this, for he loved his Master, and could not without
grief think of his suffering, besides which, he would rather have seen him
king over the Jews. But our Lord reproved him, and said, " Get thee be-
hind me, Satan ! " intimating that the evil spirit had suggested the thought
of opposing his final suffering, for with that he was to triumph over Satan's
kingdom.
He then warned his disciples of the great dangers to which they would
be liable if they were true to his cause, and that they must always consider
themselves like men having a cross to carry, on which they were to be
executed, an allusion they well understood as a mode of execution then in
practice.
The Transfiguration of Christ.
Matthew xvii.
TTTE come next to one of the most interesting and impressive scenes in
» V our Saviour's life on earth. He had drawn from the willing lips of
Peter, and with the free assent of the others, the frank avowal of their
belief, that he was the Son of God ; he had told thern, once and again, the
story which had saddened their hearts, of his coming death by crucifixion
at the hands of his cruel persecutors ; and when they had urged that this
must not, should not be, he had calmly, but decidedly, rebuked their lack
of faith.
But his heart was full of tenderness, and that they might more clearly
comprehend the glory which he had left in coming to earth, and the glory
which should follow the completion of his plan of redemption, when he
should return to heaven, he determined to give them such a glimpse as they
should be able to bear, of the condition of the glorified saints above, and of
the necessity of his death, resurrection and -ascension.
Matthew. 657
For this purpose, he takes with him the three favorite disciples, Peter,
James and John, and as the evening shadows are falling, leaves the neigh-
borhood of Csesarea Philippi, in the extreme north of Palestine, where he
had been staying for several days, and commences the ascent of one of the
southern elopes of Mount Hermon. Wearily did he and his chosen disciples
climb the lofty mountain, till at last, toward midnight, they are within full
sight of the highest of the snow-clad summits of the mountain, which, under
the bright light of the moon, towers up nearly nine thousand feet above the
sea. Here, perhaps, beneath the friendly shelter of some wide-spreading
cedar, he withdraws a little from them, to engage, as usual, in prayer. The
three disciples, meanwhile, wearied with their climbing, cast themselves
down, and are speedily wrapped in slumber. After a while they are conscious
of an intense light, which penetrates even through their closed eyelids; and,
half-dazed by the suddenness of their awaking, they gaze, astonished, at the
scene before them. It is not the light of the moon, though that is shining
high in the bright sky of the mountains of Palestine ; it is the face of their
glorified Lord, shining more brightly than the sun, and illumining the whole
atmosphere about them ; on that glorious face there are no marks of weari-
ness, care, or sorrow ; it is radiant with beauty and joy. The poor, travel -
stained robes, in which he had climbed, with them, the hills that night,
are no longer soiled or frayed, but " white as the light," " shining, exceeding
white as snow," more brilliant, far, than the pure snows on Hermon's sum-
mit, above them; and while his whole person thus glows with heavenly
light, two other forms, glistening, though less brilliantly, with the same
heavenly radiance, stand on either side of him. By a sudden intuition, the
disciples at once recognize them as Moses and Elijah, the greatest lawgiver
of Israel and the most renowned and honored of the prophets ; they had been
in heaven, the one fifteen hundred, and the other nine hundred years, and
now they have come to do homage to him who had left his throne above, to
fulfil the provisions of the law, and the predictions of the prophets.
The disciples are dumb with astonishment and awe; they seem to them-
selves to be in a dream ; yet every sense is widely and intensely awake.
As they gaze, they listen, and lo ! these heavenly visitants are talking, in
tones of reverence, with their Master; they are speaking of his coming
death at Jerusalem, and the glorious redemption which he will thereby
accomplish. Peter, uplifted by the ecstatic vision, and " not knowing what
he said," exclaims at once, " Lord, it is good for us to be here : if thou wilt,
let us make here three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one
42
658
TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST.
Matthew. 659
for Elias." His idea seems to have been, that, in such goodly company, and
with so much of heaven's own glory around them, it was far better for them
to remain permanently, than to go back to Galilee, or to Jerusalem, and to be
subjected to the cruel persecutions of the Scribes and Pharisees. No answer
was made to the bold speech of the impulsive disciple, and suddenly a bright
yet dense cloud overshadows the whole group, and a still deeper awe over-
whelms them as they pass into the cloud ; and from the cloud proceeds a
voice, tender, yet terrible in its tenderness, and it utters these words :
u This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased ; hear ye him." The
affrighted disciples fall upon their faces, and so remain until Jesus comes
and touches them and says, " Arise, and be not afraid." Then lifting up
their eyes they see their Lord and Master only, and in his ordinary apparel.
These three disciples never forgot that scene. Two of them, John and
Peter, referred to it, expressly, in their writings,* and the third, the first
apostolic martyr, f was very soon admitted to see the glory of his ascended
Lord, in the sanctuary above. But the object which Jesus had in view, to
confirm their faith in him, as the Son of God, the Redeemer from sin, and
the one atoning Sacrifice, was accomplished. Thenceforth, in a higher sense
than the other disciples or apostles, they were his witnesses ; for them, Moses
and Elijah had appeared in adoring reverence of their Lord ; for them, they
had spoken of his death and sacrifice; to them, there had come " the voice
from the excellent glory," proclaiming Jesus as the Son of God ; they had
been, above all others, the eye-witnesses of his majesty.
As Jesus and his three disciples descended from the mountain in the
morning, they found themselves suddenly translated from the glory of the
heavenly state, to the cares, anxieties and distresses of this mortal life. The
nine disciples who had been left behind, in the vicinity of Csesarea Philippi,
had found their faith tested, and proved insufficient, in a case of possession
by evil spirits, accompanied by epilepsy. It had been brought to them by
the father and some cavilling Scribes, and they had attempted to cast out the
evil spirits, perhaps relying upon their own power, perhaps with but weak
faith in the power of Christ, and had failed utterly. Taunted by the
Scribes, surprised and mortified at their failure, they were utterly despondent,
when Jesus appeared upon the scene, and, with a word, cast out the spirits,
and healed the child. To these weak disciples, he administered, in private,
a mild reproof for their want of faith, but showed them the necessity of
prayer and fasting, to accomplish the desired miracle.
* John i. 14 j Kevelation i. 14 ; 2 Peter i. 17, 18. f Aet3 xii. 2.
660 Bible and Commentator.
In this chapter we also read of Christ's paying the tribute money at
Capernaum. This was a half-shekel, paid yearly, for the service of the
temple. As he was the Son of God
he was not liable to pay a tribute,
but lest offence should be taken on
account of his refusal, he preferred to
do it. Yet it appears, he who had
the world at his command chose to
be so humble and poor for our sakes,
that he had not the small sum wherewith to pay this tribute money. So
he worked a miracle to obtain it. He chose so to do, to show his disciples
that if he was poor, it was not because he was obliged to be so, but because
he chose to be so, and to give them additional proofs that he knew all
things, and could do all things. He knew that in the midst of the sea there
was a fish that had swallowed the sum of money he wanted, and he told
Peter to go and cast in his hook, and catch him, and pay with the money
the tax that was demanded for him and Peter.
THE JEWISH SHEKEL.
Christ teaches Humility, Kindness, Self-denial, and Forgiveness of
Injuries.
Matthew xviii.
CHRIST here teaches us not to be proud. His disciples asked him, " Who
is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven ? " Our Lord knew their
thoughts, he knew also that they had been talking to each other about this
subject. They did not yet clearly understand that his kingdom was to be a
spiritual kingdom : and, supposing that he would yet reign over the Jews
in Jerusalem, they had almost quarrelled among themselves about who had
the right to be his chief officers in managing his government.
" Peter was always the chief speaker, and already had the keys given
him, and he expects to be Lord Chancellor, or Lord Chamberlain of the
Household, and so to be the greatest. Judas had the bag, and therefore he
expects to be Lord Treasurer ; which, though now he come last, he hopes
will then denominate him the greatest. Simeon and Jude are nearly related
Matthew. 661
to Christ, and they hope to take place of all the great officers of state, as
princes of the blood. John is the beloved disciple, the favorite of the
prince, and, therefore, hopes to be the greatest. Andrew was first called,
and, therefore, why should he not be preferred ? "
Mr. Henry supposes that some such thoughts as these passed between
them when they asked Christ to settle the matter. A little child happened
to be near, and Jesus took and set him in the midst of them, and told them
that unless they were as humble as that little child they could never enter
into his kingdom — the kingdom of heaven, and that the humblest among
them was the greatest.
Again, Christ here teaches us not to give offence. We should be careful,
as much as possible, to offend nobody in any way. But the offence of which
he here speaks is particularly against his humble followers and servants.
We must not despise one of these his little children, how poor and despised
soever he may be by a wicked and sneering world.
Christ also here teaches us self-denial, to part with things that we even
dearly love, rather than lose our souls. He tells us that we are to cut off
our hand and foot, and pluck out our eye, rather than let them stand in the
way of our salvation. He does not, however, mean that we should really
do so, but he does mean that whatever hinders it, if it be even as dear to
us as these parts of our body, we must be ready to give it up.. An amuse-
ment, though ever so delightful, if it leads us into sinful habits and
company, must be parted with. A friend and companion that would draw
our hearts away from Christ, though we love him ever so much for his
kindness in other respects, must also be parted with. Many such right
hands must be cut off, and many such right eyes must be plucked out.
Another thing here taught is forgiveness of injuries. And this is a very
hard thing indeed to learn. When Christ talked on this subject, Peter
wished to know how many times he might be offended by another, and yet
forgive him, — " Seven times ? " said he. " Yes," said Jesus, " as much as
seventy times seven." It is not likely that any one would offend so often as
this, so that our Lord meant that we should always be ready to forgive
those that injure us.
Our Lord enforces forgiveness by a parable about a steward that owed
his lord ten thousand talents, and yet he forgave him his debt; but a
fellow-servant happening to owe the steward only a hundred pence, though
he had been so kindly treated by his lord under like circumstances, yet
cruelly threw his poor fellow-servant into prison till he should pay him
— •— : _^s- .^J&'^S
CHEIST BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREH.
662
Matthe w. 663
every farthing. His lord, however, heard of it, and, as the steward's debt
was still due in law, to punish him for his cruelty he laid hold of him and
threw him into prison also.
God forgives us our sins, though they are great as the ten thousand
talents ; we ought, therefore, surely to forgive the hundred pence due tc us
from others, and to pass by their little offences, when they are ready to
express any sorrow that they have done us injury; and, even if that be not
the case, we should not render evil for evil, but contrariwise blessing. We
have seen a hard-hearted man softened by receiving kindness for injuries.
Christ receives Little Children— Converses with a Rich Young Man.
Matthew xix. 13-30.
IN this chapter we read of little children being brought to Christ, that he
might bless them, and pray over them, as it was usual with the Jews
to do. Most likely they were parents, or it might be friends, who brought
these children to Jesus. Children should feel themselves very happy when
they have parents or friends who take them to Christ and ask for his
blessing upon them. They can-
not now do this exactly in the
same way, for Christ is ascended
up into heaven, but they can
take them in prayer, and,
though Christ is in heaven, he
can still bless them there.
The disciples thought that
these parents were troublesome,
but Christ did not think so, nor
will he ever think you trouble-
some for going to him. He says, " Whosoever cometh unto me I will in no-
wise cast out." What he said to the disciples he says now, " Suffer little
children, and forbid them not to come unto me : for of such is the kingdom
of heaven."
Another thing here recorded is a conversation of Christ with a rich young
man. This young man was desirous of going to heaven, and wished to
know what he should do to enable him to get there. In this respect he was
better than some people, who hope to go to heaven when they die, but live
EASTERN GOLD.
664 Bible and Commentator.
all their days as if they cared nothing about it. He called Christ "Good
Master/' — or good Teacher , — but Christ told him there was no one good
but God, and as he only considered Christ as a teacher, and did not see his
divine glory, he was wrong to give any human being the title of good.
Jesus told this young man, who had no notion of believing in him as a
Saviour, but only thought of doing something to become eternally happy,
that if he would keep the commandments, all would be right. The young
man said that he had kept them all. He did, indeed; but knew little of
his own heart to say so, for a wrong thought breaks the commandments, as
well as a wrong word or deed. He should, as Mr. Henry observes, instead
of saying, "All these have I kept, what lack I yet ? " rather have said, with
shame and sorrow, "All these have I broken, what shall I do to get my sins
pardoned ? " and thus have, at least, avoided his claim of self-righteousness.
Christ, however, soon put him
to the test. He proved that he
was an idolater, and so broke
the very first commandment.
" Thou shalt have no other gods
before me." He did not, indeed,
bow to idols wrought out of gold
and silver, as the heathen did, but
still he loved his gold and silver
above everything besides — he
gave his heart to his riches, and
that was sin enough. Jesus told him to sell everything he had, and
give to the poor, and follow him. Not that Christ requires this of us,
he leaves us to enjoy what his providence gives us, and be thankful for it ;
but here was a particular case, which put this young man's heart to the
test, for " when the young man heard that saying, he went awTay sorrowful :
for he had great possessions ; " and he could not give these up to enter into
life.
After the young man was gone, our Lord showed his disciples, from this
example, how difficult it was for a rich man to enter heaven. " It is easier
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter
into the kingdom of God." That is, it is a great difficulty for a rich man,
surrounded with the snares of riches, to enter into the kingdom — for this is
what the words mean.
This incident led Peter, who was as impulsive as ever, and had, moreover,
Matthew. 665
some of the oriental disposition to extol his own sacrifices, and seek to have
them noticed and rewarded, to ask, " Behold, we have forsaken all, and fol-
lowed thee : what shall we have therefore ? n Of this boasting inquiry, Mr.
Henry well remarks: "Alas! it was but a poor all that they had forsaken;
one of them (Matthew) had, indeed, quitted a place in the custom-house ;
but Peter and the most of them had only left a few boats and nets, and the
appurtenances of a poor fishing trade; and yet see how big Peter there
speaks of it, as if it had been some mighty thing : ' Behold, we have for-
saken all ! J " However, what they had left was their all, and Christ accepts
of a little sacrifice, where we cannot make a great one ; and in answering his
question, Christ wisely reminded him that his rewards were mainly in the
future life, and that many who had supposed themselves to be first should
be last, and the last should be first.
The Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard.— Christ foretells his
Sufferings— The two Blind Men.
Matthew xx.
THIS chapter contains four things, wThich we shall briefly notice in the
order in which they stand.
First, — The Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard.
Here our Lord compares the kingdom of heaven — or the season of pro-
claiming the gospel to poor sinners — to a person who kept house and hired
servants. Being in want of some to work in his vineyard, he " went out
early in the morning to hire laborers." "And when he had agreed with
the laborers for a penny a-day, he sent them into his vineyard." Our
Lord here means a coin called the Roman penny, which was of more value
than ours, and equal to about seventeen cents of our money ; this, indeed,
was low for wages, but they differ very much in all parts of the world, and
even in our own country, in some parts not being more than half what they
are in others.
Several hours after, the householder went out, and finding more laborers
wanting work, he hired them also. Three hours after that he employed)
some more to work, and three hours after that still more. And now it drew
toward the end of the day. "And about the eleventh hour, and within an
hour of finishing work, he seeing some more standing idle, hired them also."
After they had done their work he paid them, and gave every man a
penny ; so that you see he gave just as much to those he employed last as
QM
Bible and Commentator.
to those he employed first, though, of course, they had done but very little,
while the others had done much work.
Those that had done much work began to complain on seeing the others
paid as much as they were ; but the good man of the house told them
they had no right to do so, for he had done them no wrong ; they agreed to
work for a penny, and he had given them their penny ; and if he chose to
pay the others as much as he had paid them, though they had done less, he
had a right to do as he pleased with his own.
Now the Jews were very jealous of the Gentiles, or nations not of the
Jews ; and so selfish that they could not bear to hear of the grace of God
being bestowed upon them, after they themselves had, for so many ages,
been ranked among the ser-
vants of God. This para-
ble was, therefore, to re-
prove their selfishness, and
to show that God has a
right to do with all nations
as, in his grace, he pleases ;
and, also, it teaches us that
if he gives us any mercies,
and especially the blessings
of heaven at last, it is not
according to what we have
done — for our services are
but poor at the best — but
according to his own great
generosity and grace.
The second thing our Lord here mentions is the sufferings which were
coming' upon him. These he had twice before named to his disciples, and
so he prepared their minds for the terrible event of his death.
The third thing is a singular petition made to him, through their mother,
bj the sons of Zebedee, James and John, who were two of his first
disciples. It was no less than that they should have the first places of
honor in his kingdom ; for, though he had told them of his death, they
seemed either not to understand it, or to suppose — which was most probable
— that after his death he would mount the throne of Judah, and become
king of the Jews : so they asked that they might sit nearest to him when
he should be king — the one on his right, and the other on his left hand.
FRUITS OF THE VINEYARD.
Matthew. 667
The right hand of a person of rank was always considered to be a place of
honor ; and Cyrus, the great Persian king, of whom we read in Scripture,
used to place the guests he valued near his left hand, because his heart was
on that side of him, and he thought that being placed near that was a great
sign of his affection.
Our Lord replied to the ambitious disciples, — " Ye know not what ye
ask." They were pleasing themselves with the prospect of honors, when
all the time there was nothing but suffering before them. And he said,
"Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized
with the baptism that I am baptized with ? " To this they replied, " We
are able." They thought that if they could have the dignity at last, a
little pain or suffering would be of no consequence in the way. Jesus then
let the disciples know that they should, indeed, drink of the saine cup with
himself, and so be partakers of a great honor ; but that cup should be
sufferings ; and, " if we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him."
The honors of the kingdom of heaven were, however, not given by him,
who was in our flesh, but by his Father, God, who is a Spirit ; and mortals
were not to have their pride and curiosity gratified about what he would
please to do in heaven.
The fourth thing in this chapter is the petition of two blind men, who
were " sitting by the way-side," and " when they heard that Jesus passed
by, cried out, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou Son of David ! "
This was a request that Jesus would not deny. " The multitude rebuked
them." Some who were his real friends thought, perhaps, that they were
troublesome, and his enemies did not like their honoring him by calling
him "Lord," and "Son of David;" but "Jesus had compassion on them,
and touched their eyes; and immediately their eyes received sight, and they
followed him."
" Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou Son of David ! " is a cry that Jesus
still hears.
Christ's triumphant Entry into Jerusalem.
Matthew xxi.
THE first thing which is related in this chapter is the triumphant entry
of Christ into Jerusalem.
Having commanded two of his disciples to go into a neighboring village,
where they would find an ass tied, and a colt with her, which they were to
668
Matthew. 669
bring to him, they did as they were told ; and there — as he had said who
knew all things — they found the beasts ready for his use. "And they
brought the ass and a colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him
thereon."
Christ was followed by a multitude wherever he went. His fame in
doing good caused many to go to him to receive benefits, and others went
to see this wonderful person. These strewed the way on which he was to
ride, some with their garments and some with branches of trees, among
which it is supposed were quantities of beautiful roses, which grew in those
parts. This was a method of paying honor to great persons, and is still
practised in the same parts of the world, and was intended to be in honor
of Christ. And the people cried, " Hosanna to the Son of David : blessed
is he that cometh in the name of the Lord ; Hosanna in the highest ! "
Hosanna means "Save, I beseech," or "help us, we beseech thee, thou Son
of David, the Messiah ! " words which were used by the people at the feast
of tabernacles.
Now " all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by
the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy king cometh
unto thee meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass."
The prophecy here quoted is found in Zechariah ix. 9, and by Sion is
meant Jerusalem. Here Christ claimed authority, being King over
his church, and in token of it he rode, as the judges of old, on an ass.
At this time, indeed, the great, and they only, rode upon horses ; so that
Christ did not enter Jerusalem in worldly splendor, but still he entered it
like one bearing a high dignity. And this fulfilment of prophecy was one
of the many marks which the prophets gave, by which the Messiah was to
be known. Had not Christ so gone into Jerusalem, one of the marks to
show him as the true Messiah would have been wanted ; while every mark
which so distinguished him was a confirmation of his character and office,
and so must establish our faith in him.
Another thing here recorded is Christ's entrance into the temple, or
rather that part of its courts in which were daily sold frankincense, oil,
wine, and other requisites for sacrifice, such as doves, lambs, and oxen. It
was near the time of the passover, and as many of these were then wanted,
the courts were well stocked. This custom was most likely in imitation
of the heathen, who did the same in their temples. Among the traders were
also money-changers ; these were persons who accommodated the people with
proper coin for any foreign coin which they had taken frorn any of the
670
Bible and Commentator.
neighboring nations with whom they traded, and in so doing they over-
reached their customers, and were guilty of shameful extortions. All these
things made our Lord very indignant ; he could not bear to see the house
of God profaned, and such wickedness practised ; and he cast out the dealers,
and " overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and the seats of them
that sold doves • and said unto them, It is written, My house shall be
called the house of prayer ; but ye have made it a den of thieves : " — a
place as bad as the caves in which robbers hid who infested Judea.
That Christ should have disturbed these people, and, though numerous,
have driven them out in the midst of their gains, and for the time have
spoiled their trade, is a
proof that they were over-
awed by something in him,
while their own consciences
being guilty, they were the
more easily affrighted when
they were so attacked.
Returning in the morn-
ing to Jerusalem, having
slept in the quiet village of
Bethany, which was only
two miles from the city,
it is said "he hungered."
Jesus hungered ! Think on
this ; he who was the bread
of life was himself hun-
gered! Seeing a fig-tree
growing in the way, he would
have refreshed himself with a fig : but though it had plenty of fine leaves,
it appears that it had no fruit, and he pronounced sentence upon the tree :
" Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward forever. And presently the fig-
tree withered away." This was a sign by which he taught his disciples that
the Jewish nation, which made such appearance of being as the garden of
the Lord, were like nothing but the fig-tree, which bore only leaves, and no
fruit. And it teaches us also that mere show is not what Christ looks for,
but he expects us to bear something good, if we profess to bring forth the
fruits of holiness.
The chief priests could not let Christ alone, and as soon as he had returned
KOBBJiUS HIDING.
Matthew.
671
to the temple, and began to teach the people the way to heaven, they beset
him, and wished to know who authorized him for his work. Xow they
might have easily seen by the miracles that he did, that he was divinely au-
thorized, and if any doubt had been in their minds, and they had humbly
asked him for information, he would have given it ; but knowing the obsti-
nate hatred and malice of their hearts, that they would not be convinced, he
gave them no direct reply, but only put a question to them which obliged
them to keep silence.
They, the chief priests, had hated John the Baptist, and, it was believed,
had urged Herod to imprison him, but the people had always regarded
him as a prophet, and would not allow
him to be spoken against. So Christ
asked them whether John's baptism
was from heayen or of men ? One
of the two it must be. Xow they felt
that they could not say it was from
heaven, for then Christ and the people
could justly haye reproached them
for not believing on him, and for
persecuting a prophet of God, and
yet, if they said it was from men,
they would equally expose themselves
to difficulty, since the people believed
otherwise, and would have been enraged
against them. So they told a falsehood,
and said, " We cannot tell." Then our
Lord told them that as they would not
answer his question, he would not answer theirs, and so he confounded
them.
After this he instructed the people by interesting parables. The first of
these is usually called " The Two Sons." By this he taught the sin of
pretending to works of righteousness, and not doing them.
Our Lord afterwards said, " Hear another parable ; " and then spoke the
parable of " The Husbandmen."
This parable was to show how they had treated the servants of God whom
he had sent to them ; for they had ill-used and killed his prophets, one
after another, and in the end God had sent himself, the Son of God, but
they used him no better, and were now conspiring to put him to death.
FIG BRANCH.
672 Bible and Commentatok.
We should have supposed that the priests and Scribes would have felt
ashamed when they found that the parable described their wickedness;
instead of which, they even then sought to lay hands on him, " but at the
time they were afraid lest the multitude should take his part, as he was then
high in favor with them/'
There are two verses near the end of this chapter which we must just
explain. In the forty-second verse you read, "Jesus saith unto them,
Did ye never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected,
the same is become the head of the corner ? " This is a figure of speech,
and refers to some words in the hundred and eighteenth Psalm. The
church of Christ — or "the congregation of faithful men" of which it is
formed — is compared to a building ; and, as there is one stone which is of
great importance to a building, and is called the chief corner-stone, because
it supports the building, so Christ is the support of all his church, and the
whole building rests upon him. But the Jewish builders — the Scribes,
Pharisees, and priests — would have had a church without him. They
rejected Christ; and so he was the stone which these builders refused, but
which was, nevertheless, the chief foundation which God laid in Zion, or
his church, on which sinners, in every age of the world, must build their
hopes of salvation. Our Lord goes on to say in the next verse but one,
the forty-fourth, " Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken ; but
on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder." The Jews knew
very well what our Lord referred to. They had two ways of stoning
criminals ; the one was by throwing stones upon them, the other was by
throwing them from a high place down upon stones ; and as in both cases
the criminal died, so he intimated to the Jews that, as the person falling
on the stone does not hurt the stone, but only himself, so those who opposed
him would be their own ruin, and, on whomsoever his power fell, it would
be like the falling stone crushing the individual beneath its weight.
The Parable of the Marriage Supper— Conversations of Christ with
the Pharisees.
Matthew xxii.
THIS chapter begins with another parable known by the name of " The
Marriage Supper ; or the Great Supper."
This parable had a like meaning with the last. The blessings of Christ's
Matthe w.
673
kingdom were offered to the Jews, but they rejected them, and ill-treated
his servants, who invited them to feed on the bread of life. Their city Jeru-
salem would therefore be attacked by the Eoman armies, and their city
burned. The heathen nations, who were as the people on the highways,
poor and wretched, without the knowledge of God, were then to learn about
Jesus Christ, and when they should hear the glad news of salvation through
dim, declared by his faithful servants, they would accept of his invitation,
and so hasten to the feast.
We must now notice the conversations of our Lord with his adversaries.
Mortified at his parables, the Pharisees took counsel together to try and
catch him saying something that they might accuse him of speaking against
the emperor at Rome.
The Jews had then a
king, Herod; but he
held his crown under
the Roman emperor —
the people having been
so far conquered as to
pay tribute to him. So
the Pharisees took with
them some of Herod's
cunning courtiers, and
asked Christ if it was
lawful to pay tribute to
Caesar or not? — that is,
whether, according to
the law of Moses, they
should pay tribute to a heathen ? Now if our Lord had said it was lawful,
the people would have been enraged at him, for they did not like Caesar,
who was a Roman, taxing them, who were Jews ; and, if he had said it was
not lawful, they would have carried him before the Roman magistrates, and
have had him put to death for teaching rebellion against Caesar's authority.
By such a subtle question, therefore, any other person would have been liable
to be entrapped ; but our divine Lord " perceived their wickedness, and said,
Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites ? Show me the tribute money. And they
brought unto him a penny. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image
and superscription?" meaning, whose likeness was that stamped upon the'
penny, as the queen's head is stamped upon the English coin, with her-
43
AN EASTERN DINING-ROOM.
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Bible and Commentator.
name and dignity around it. " They say unto him Caesar's. Then saith he
unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and
unto God the things that are God's."
Now, they could not say that he had taught rebellion against Caesar, for
having his coin in circulation among them was a sign that they were subject
to his authority; and so he hinted as much as that they were to give
him his dues, while he left them to think what were the dues of Caesar.
And they could not say that he had set Caesar above their divine law ; for he
told them they must at the same time give to God all that was due to him.
This prudence and wis-
dom confounded them,
and they left him.
By-and-by the Saddu-
cees came to him. This
sect among the Jews de-
nied the doctrine of the
resurrection of the body
at the last day ; indeed,
they denied even a future
state, and supposed that
when they died there was
an end of them forever.
Now, they thought that
they should perplex our
Lord in teaching this
doctrine, if they ques-
tioned him about a cu-
rious case that perhaps
had or at least might happen. Seven brothers had had the same wife,
the first brother dying, and then the second, on to the last; and so
they married her one after the other, which they could do by the Jewish
law. Then, said they, if the resurrection is to take place, what a curious
difficulty she and they will be in, for whose wife is she then to be ? Our
Lord, in reply, told them that they were quite mistaken ; that there was no
marrying in heaven, and that all there were as angels — happy without the
need of those domestic comforts which are wanted here. And, with respect
to the resurrection, he referred to the language of their own Scriptures in
such a way that they could not possibly contradict him — " Have ye not read
lllllllilll'llllilll||!|!|ll||illll
ROMAN MAGISTRATE.
Matthew.
675
that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham,
and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ? " This was the language of
God to Moses at the burning bush ; and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were
then all dead. Now, added Jesus, " God is not the God of the dead, but of
the living ; " if these were never to rise again, and their
spirits were not still living, he could not be called
their God. Therefore God is not the God of the dead,
who are not, but of the living, who now exist. Our
Lord would give no direct answer on state matters
when asked about Caesar, for his kingdom was not of
this world ; but, when the Sadducees disputed a great
truth, he directly declared it, for he came to bring
" life and immortality to light," or to make them clear
as the light of day, " by the gospel." The Sadducees
supposed that when the body died the soul died with
it ; but Christ gave them to understand the very con-
trary— that the soul did not die, and that the body would live with it. The
spirit lives, but the spirit is not a perfect man, and so there shall be a
resurrection of the body to unite it to the spirit forever.
The Sadducees had nothing to say, and the people were all surprised at
the powerful teaching of Christ.
The Pharisees were much vexed to find that our Lord had so put the
Sadducees to shame, for they thought that he would gain all the people
over to him ; and being jealous of his popularity, they resolved to try what
further could be done to confound him. So they set their heads together,
and got a clever lawyer of their body to attack him. But by a lawyer you
must not understand one who practised the common law of the land, as our
American lawyers do, but one who understood well the law of Moses, arid
was accustomed to be looked up to by the people to explain it. The
question which the lawyer put to Christ was, " Which is the great com-
mandment in the law ? " The Jews were used to quibble and dispute about
a number of trifling things, and there were many opinions among them on
this question, and so the lawyer hoped that by obtaining an answer from
Christ, he should set all those against him who held the opinions which he
opposed. But our Lord did not hesitate one moment to reply, and he said
that the great commandment was to love God with all the heart ; and who
could dispute this, that God has the first claims on the love of his creatures?
However, as all the commandments are great, he added, " The second is
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Bible and Commentator,
like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself ; " and what could they
say against that being a great commandment? for if all men were to be
guided by it, no one would ever do wrong to another. You know, indeed,
that there are ten commandments, but all the rest are to prevent our
oppressing, or doing wrong to our neighbor, and so our Lord made here
two great commandments. The question, however, was, which one was the
great commandment, and his answer did not evade it, for the whole signified
as much as this — That love to God is the great commandment ; for love to
our neighbor, if it be of the right sort, can only be exercised by him who
truly loves God.
Christ now turned the tables, as we say, and on his part he began to
question his adversaries; but they were equally defeated whether he
answered or proposed the question. The question was, " What think ye of
Christ ? Whose Son is he ? " As Christ means the Messiah, whom they
were expecting, the teachers of the
people and this skilful lawyer ought
to have been able to make some
reply to his question ; but what they
said was what any little child could
have answered : " The Son of David."
Now every one who had learned the
least about the Messiah must have
known that he was to spring out of
the family of David. But on their
answering this question, which they
could not avoid, our Lord then
added another, which arose out of it,
and to which they found it difficult
to reply : " He saith unto them, How
then doth David in spirit call him
Lord, saying, The Lord said unto
my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand,
till I make thine enemies thy footstool ? If David then call him Lord,
how is he his son?" The words quoted are in the one hundred and tenth
Psalm. The Jews understood these words to describe the Messiah, and
they understood rightly — though now they did not receive that Messiah
when they saw him, notwithstanding that he worked so many miracles
among them, which showed him to be a most extraordinary person. Now
READERS OF THE JEWISH LAW.
Matthew. 677
the Messiah was to spring from the line of David, and so he was his son
after the flesh, though many generations in distance from him ; yet David
called him Lord. The great Jehovah is represented speaking to him, and
telling him to sit upon his seat of dignity and power ; and, in describing
this, David, a prophet, speaking of what was to come to pass, said, " The
Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand." JSow if he were
David's Son, said Christ, how could he be his Lord ? Is a son lord over
his father ? Certainly not. The Pharisees were puzzled, for they looked
for some great man to come to be their Messiah, and did not see that the
Messiah-Christ was to be not only man in his flesh, but also the Sox of
God, the Lord — Him in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead
bodily. Since, therefore, they could not see this grand part of the descrip-
tion of the Messiah, they could not make out how David called his son
Lord, and so could not answer Christ, and were put to shame and silence.
They who truly know Christ know him now to be David's Son and
David's Lord ; the Son of David as he was a man of his race, and yet
the Son of God, and the "Lord of all" — reigning over all things, and
the great Governor of his Church. And on this account they own and
adore him.
After this no man durst ask Christ any more questions.
Christ's Discourse respecting the Wickedness of the Pharisees.
, . Matthew xxiii.
WE need only notice, in this discourse of our Lord respecting the wick-
edness of the Pharisees, the principal charges he makes against them.
Verse the fifth. — But all their works they do to be seen of men ; they make
broad their jihyladeries, and enlarge the borders of their garments. They
were fond of making a show of religion, and did everything before men,
instead of secretly before God. They wore great phylacteries, or pieces of
parchment on their foreheads, and on the wrists of their left arms, on which
were written certain words of the divine law, to make the people believe
how much thev tried to remember it. And as the Jews wore fringes on the
edge of their garments, to distinguish them from the heathen nations round
about, so they, to distinguish themselves from others of their own country-
men, wore broader fringes than others.
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Bible and Commentator,
Verse the thirteenth. — But woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites !
for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men : for ye neither go in your-
selves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. By woe is here meant
sorrow, misery, and a threatening of dreadful punishment for such great
wickedness as hypocrisy. By the kingdom of heaven is meant — not heaven
itself, for happily no man has power to shut another out of heaven — but
what is called "the gospel dispensation," or the time of preaching the gospel
to perishing sinners, as I have before explained it to you. Now, by trying
to prejudice the people against Christ — the Messiah who came into the
world to open the gates of this kingdom and to preach the gospel to the
meek — they did as it were shut the gates of this kingdom against them ;
and, not contented with
refusing to enter in them-
selves, they both ruined
themselves and others by
persuading them not to
enter in.
Verse the fourteenth. —
Woe unto you, Scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! for
ye devour ividows' houses,
and for a pretence make
long prayers; therefore ye
shall receive the greater
damnation. It is said
by some writers that the
Pharisees, to seem very holy, prayed three times a day, and three hours at a
time, so that they must have prayed nine hours a day. But they did not
pray from the heart. They repeated, over and over again, some forms of
prayer, without their souls going out towards God in what they said. They
also made money by their prayers, and this was their object, which was a
vile abuse of the design of prayer, which is to ask blessings of God for our-
selves and others. And what was worse, under this pretence of praying,
they devoured widows' houses ; that is, they imposed upon poor widows,
from whom they very often took much of the money left to them for their
support, by pretending to pray for them better than they could pray for
themselves.
Verse the sixteenth. — Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, whosoever
JEWISH SCRIBES IN THE TIME OF L'Jlil
M A T T H E W.
679
shall swear by the temple it is nothing, but whosoever shall swear by the gold
of the temple he is a debtor. People were accustomed to offer gifts of gold
for the use of the temple, aud sometimes to swear or make
oath that they would give certain gifts. Now, if they made
oath to do anything, and merely said, " By the temple, or
in the name of the temple, I will do it," the Pharisees
said they might break their promise if they pleased ; but
if they swore in the name of the gold vessels of the temple
they must keep their oath sacred. But our Lord said
this was wicked, for one sacred promise should be kept as
much as another ; and if there was any difference in point
of dignity between the gold consecrated to the temple and the temple itself,
the temple was the most noble, and the promise made by it ought rather to
be kept. But He who knows men's hearts saw that this was all hypocrisy,
and that they made this distinction, as they did that regarding the altar and
the gift upon it, from corrupt and hypocritical motives. Christ called these
men blind guides, since they pretended to guide others in the way to heaven,
and could not see it themselves.
Verse the twenty-third. — Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
for ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, and have omitted the
weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. Mint, anise, and
cummin, are herbs. The Pharisees were
very particular in giving the priests and
Levites the tenth part of the value of every-
thing that made their income, even to these
small herbs ; and they did not lose by it,
for the priests made them due returns for
setting this example. But they were un-
just, unkind, and unfaithful to others; and
so while they minded trifling things that
cost them nothing, and turned to their advantage, they neglected to do jus-
tice and to be merciful, kind and righteous in their dealings with others.
HEBREW FKILSXS.
Christ foretells the Destruction of Jerusalem.
Matthew xxtv.
THE temple of Jerusalem was a most splendid building, and king Herod
had expended a great deal for its improvement, so that it was so
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A LEVITE.
grand that the Jews used to say, he who has not seen the Temple of Herod
has never seen a beautiful building.
The disciples one day, having taken particular notice of its fine marble
columns and curious workmanship, pointed them out to Christ, that he
might admire them too. Our Lord then told them, " There shall not be
left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down ; " which
really took place not a very long time afterwards, though there was then no
probability that so fine and firm a building would or
could be so easily destroyed.
The disciples were then more curious to know when this
wonderful destruction should happen. Our Lord did
not satisfy their curiosity, but gave them warning how
they might know when it was coming on ; that there
should first be false prophets arising, who should deceive
the people ; and so it was. Then there should be wars;
and there were terrible wars for a long time between the
Jews and the Romans, who then ruled over them, as
between them and several other nations. There should
also be " famine, pestilences, and earthquakes." There should likewise be
cruel persecutions and murders of the followers of Christ ; and finally the
gospel should be preached to all other nations as well as to the Jews.
, This would be a dreadful time. The Jews must then expect miseries
never known before in the whole world. God was about to punish them
for their many and great sins against him, but especially for the greatest of
all sins, that of rejecting and hating Jesus Christ, the only Saviour. So
dreadful would be the vengeance of the Roman armies when once Jerusalem
should be besieged, that the moment there was an appearance of it, all
Christians were advised to escape, and lose not a moment, but flee and hide
themselves in secret places in the mountains. If they were walking to cool
themselves on the tops of their Eastern houses, they must not even return
to pack up anything, but hasten down outside ; if at work in the field, and
their clothes lay at a distance, it would be unwise to risk delay by going
after them ; and unfortunate would the mother be that then had to escape
with the burden of a child at her bosom ; or if the siege should happen in
winter, miserable Avould it be for the poor creatures who had to hurry over
bad roads and amidst swelling floods ; or if on the Sabbath-day, when they
were limited by the law to a short journey, it would hardly be possible to
escape at all.
Matthew.
681
Then Jesus spake a parable or comparison about the fig-tree, and told
them that these signs of the destruction of Jerusalem which he had given
them would be as sure guides as were the leaves of the fig-tree, when they
broke out, guides of the approach of the summer. But the exact time was
THE CONQUERORS.
a secret known only to God, though it would be sudden as the destruction
of the world in the days of Noah.
The desolation should also be so great that, if but two were together,
even one of these should perish while the other escaped, whether they were
laboring in the field, or grinding at the mill : " the one " should " be taken
and the other left.'7
Hence he told them all to " watch," and be on the look-out for these
signs, that they might be ready to escape.
The Parable- of the Ten Virgins —The Parable of the Talents.— The
Day of Judgment.
Matthew xxv.
THIS chapter is a continuation of the last, and refers to the same terrible
event — the destruction of Jerusalem. But our divine Lord clearly
glides from that awful subject, into the destruction of the world and the day
of judgment.
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We must ask you to read the first thirteen verses of the chapter, or we
shall have no pages to spare to explain much of the parable which they
contain. It is usually called " The Parable of the Ten Virgins." It refers
to a custom among the Jews, and still practised among people in Eastern
nations. When two persons are married, the bridegroom goes out at night
to meet his wife. He has his friends with him, and she has hers, called
here " ten virgins," or young unmarried women. Torches and lamps are
always carried in these processions.
Our Lord represents five of the
virgins as foolishly forgetting to
take any oil with them. When,
therefore, the party were all in a
bustle to trim their lamps and
light those which had gone out,
while they had fallen asleep — and
to go to meet the bridegroom on
his arrival at the house of her
father, where the bride was — they
had no time to buy or get oil
elsewhere, and asked the other
virgins to supply them. But, as
the others had only oil enough for
themselves, they could not spare
any to their foolish companions.
So the foolish virgins had to leave
the company to get oil ; but, be-
fore they could get back, the
procession was gone, the party had
entered the bridegroom's house,
and, agreeably to their custom, the door was shut, and no further admit-
tance given to any.
By this our Lord teaches us that if we are not prepared with grace or
holiness in our hearts when Christ comes to judgment, we shall be able to
get none after ; and, as the foolish virgins were shut out of the bridegroom's
chamber, so must we in such a case be shut out of heaven.
There is also another parable, which is known by the name of " The
Parable of the Talents."
The design of Christ in this parable is to teach us all to use our time,
ANCIENT LAMPS.
Matthew. 683
and abilities, and money, and whatever we have, diligently, in the best way
we can, to promote his glory. These are our talents intrusted to us to use
properly. The talent was a fixed weight of gold or silver; a golden talent
was worth nearly fifty-seven thousand dollars, and a silver one about sixteen
hundred and sixty dollars; but some of our talents are of much more value
than gold and silver, and must be answered for by even the poorest amongst
us, for through them we must expect to secure to ourselves such unending
pleasures and joys as all the wealth of earth could not purchase — no, not so
much as a tithe of.
The last thing in this chapter is a grand description of the day of judg-
ment. Passing from the destruction of Jerusalem to that of our sinful
world, our blessed Lord describes his second and final coming in all his glory,
attended by all his angels, and seated on his judgment throne. All nations,
of all times, shall be raised from the dead, and appear before him; and then
he shall make one grand division between them, and separate forever the
righteous from the wicked, just as a shepherd would divide his sheep from
the goats.
Sheep and goats are not, indeed, generally seen together amongst us ; we
have very few goats, but in some countries abroad, especially about the
hilly countries in Greece, there are flocks of both sorts of animals feeding
together. Now, the righteous are often called in Scripture by the name of <
sheep, because they are thought to be good emblems of innocent, harmless,
and pure persons, while goats, from various causes, are emblems of the
opposite characters.
Having separated the two, the great and heart-searching Judge will place
the righteous at his right hand, which is considered as the place of honor,
and the wicked at his left hand, as a sign of their dishonor ; or, to speak in
other words, he will mark the righteous with his approval, and the wicked
with disgrace and shame. He will then invite the righteous, and say to
them, " Come, ye blessed " — and introduce them to his heavenly kingdom ;
while to the wicked he will say, " Depart from me, ye cursed ! " He will
even notice and reward the acts of kindness done to those who love him, as
if done to himself, and will say, " Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of
the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." While neglect,
unkindness, and cruelty, shown towards those who love him, will equally be
marked and punished ; for he will say to the guilty, " Inasmuch as ye did
it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me." "And these shall
go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal."
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The Passover— The Sufferings of Christ
Matthew xxvi.
"TT7"HEN our blessed Jesus came into the world to save sinners, he knew
V V what he had to suffer. He was to die that we might live. And
now the time of his death began rapidly to approach : and he told his dis-
ciples that in two days the passover was to be eaten, in remembrance of the
eating of the lamb at the escape of the children of Israel out of Egypt,
and that then he was to be betrayed, that he might be crucified.
The disciples soon found that it was but too true they must lose their
beloved Lord and Master. For " the chief priests, Scribes, and elders of
the people," who had so often shown their hatred to Jesus, because he ex-
posed their wickedness to the people, and reproved them for their hypocrisy
and other crimes, now assembled together in the palace of the High Priest,
called Caiaphas, and consulted that they might take Jesus by subtlety and
kill him. They, however, did not like to venture to do so just at the pass-
over, for they feared lest there should be " an uproar among the people."
The people had received great benefits from Jesus ; many of them and their
friends, who would travel from all parts of Judea to the feast, had been
cured of their diseases by his kindness, and had seen the miracles which he
Matthew.
685
had done, and it was, therefore, natural to suppose that if they had any
gratitude about them, they would avenge any insults offered to him.
A few days before the passover, Jesus came to Bethany, a village near
Jerusalem, and was invited to eat at the house of Simon the leper ; — very
likely one who had been a leper, and whom he had cured, and so he showed
him this gratitude for his kindness. At all events he entertained Christ,
and it is here related to his honor.
While Jesus was eating, a woman approached him and poured some
precious ointment on his head, which she had brought in an alabaster box.
According to our customs, this would seem very rude, and particularly free
behavior in a female. But it was different in the Jewish country, and was
a mark of very high respect, the ointment being expensive, and the
fragrant smell proceeding from it most grateful to all present. Some
of the disciples thought the woman was extravagant ; but Christ knew her
motive in what she did, and commended her love. Who she was is not
exactly certain, as some suppose she was Mary Magdalene, out of whom
Christ had cast seven devils, and others that she was Mary, the sister of
Martha and Lazarus. The fame of her kind act — her liberal token of love
to Jesus — was, however,
well known and spread
abroad at that time; and
wherever the gospel was
preached this was men-
tioned to her praise.
And now the moment
arrived when the sufferings
of our gracious Saviour be-
gan. One of his disciples,
Judas, the wretched man ! went to the chief priests, and offered to deliver
up Christ to them for thirty pieces of silver — the paltry price paid for a
purchased servant — about eighteen dollars and fifty cents ! They durst not
take Christ publicly for fear of the people, but Judas offered to take them
to one of his private retreats, and there to deliver him up.; and with the
greatest care, he watched for the most favorable opportunity.
There were seven days in which the Jews ate their unleavened bread, —
or bread not made of yeast or anything to ferment it, and during this time
the passover was celebrated. You remember that the reason of eating this
bread was to keep the Jews in mind that they were delivered from Egyp-
t'NLEAVENED BREAD.
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ANCIENT WIN
tian bondage in the greatest haste, so that they had not even time to mix
the leaven with their dough, ready made in their troughs.
Jesus sat or more properly leaned or laid down at the passover with his
disciples. The first passover was eaten
standing, as another additional sign of the
haste in which the people were to escape,
but this sign was afterwards not used, and
now they lay down, leaning on their
elbows, just as we do on a sofa, this being
the fashion in the Jews' country, and is
still so in that part of the world. While
our blessed Saviour took the passover, he
said to his disciples, " One of you shall
betray me." So that he showed that he
knew what wickedness was in the heart
of Judas, and that he could have escaped from his treachery if he pleased;
but he came into the world to give his precious life a ransom for sinners.
His disciples were very sorrowful, and all were afraid lest they should be
tempted to do so wicked a thing as to betray their beloved Lord ; and they
asked with great concern, " Lord, is it I ? " Then he said to them, " He that
dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me." They
would all do this, for this was the way of
eating, taking it out of one dish with their
fingers, and not with knives and forks as
we eat ; but then this was to show how vil-
lanous the man would be; for to eat to-
gether was the greatest sign of friendship,
and so this showed his conduct to be as bad
as it possibly could be. Yet Judas, in order
to disguise himself before the other dis-
ciples, daringly asked, " Master, is it I ? "
and Christ said it was he.
Jesus then took bread and blessed it, and
brake it, and gave it to the disciples, as is
now done, after his example, at the Lord's
Supper ; and in like manner he took the cup.
said, " This is my body w-
y^\\\\\\\\\y^\\i!/j///f//nfff/u///f/^
ANCIENT WINE-PRESS, NO. 2.
When he gave the bread, he
-meaning, this represents my body to be broken
for you — it could not actually be his body, for his body remained the same.
Matthew. 637
So, also, he said, when he took the cup, " This is my blood, of the New Tes-
tament"— that is, this represents my blood to be shed for sinners, and repre-
sents it by a different sign from that which has been used ; hitherto the
blood of beasts was shed as the sign that he was to die, but now and hence-
forth wine, the blood or juice of the grape, was to be the sign. Both of
these — the bread and the wine — were to be taken, and afterwards to be con-
tinued in the church, and received by Christians in remembrance that Christ
died for them — " for the remission of sins," that is, the pardoning of sins.
Gethsemane.—The Sufferings of Christ.
Matthew xxvi. — Continued.
IT was now evening, and probably as late as ten o'clock, or the fourth
hour of the night, according to the Jewish reckoning, when Jesus, after
a long and tender conversation with his disciples and an earnest prayer for
them in their trouble, now so close at hand, left the upper chamber, where
the Passover feast had been eaten, and the Lord's Supper instituted, and
passed through the narrow streets of Jerusalem, to the eastern gate which
led to the Mount of Olives. On their way he continued his loving exhorta-
tions and warnings to them. "All ye shall be offended because of me this
night," he said ; " for it is written, I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep
of the flock shall be scattered abroad. But after I am risen again, I will
go before you into Galilee." How merciful and gracious was our blessed
Lord in this ! He knew that these disciples, strongly as they were attached
to him, would, when the actual time of danger came, all forsake him and fly.
Yet, knowing that he would be left alone in his worst sufferings, he pitied
their weakness, and promised to meet them again with blessings, after his
resurrection. But Peter felt too strong in his love for Christ, to believe
that he should abandon his Master. " Though all men," cried he, " shall be
offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended." The Lord knew
Peter better than he knew himself, and saw, perhaps, in this very vehe-
mence of his protestations, that the evil in his heart was struggling with the
good, and would for the time overcome it. He therefore said, very quietly,
"Verily I say unto thee, that this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt
deny me thrice." So near was the time of Peter's fall and disgrace, and yet
so wholly unconscious was he of its approach. " Though I should die with
688 Bible and Commentator.
thee/' he protested, "yet will I not deny thee." Likewise also said all the
disciples.
They had by this time descended the slope from the city gate to the bridge
which spanned the Kidron ravine, crossed it, and were ascending the oppo-
site slope of the Mount of Olives. Their destination was an enclosed garden
or olive orchard, known as Gethsemane, from the oil-press which was near
it, in which the oil was expressed from the ripe olives which abounded in
that vicinity. It was in one of the secluded hollows of the western slope
of the mountain, and was well known to the disciples, as a place where their
Master often went to pray.
As they drew near to it, Jesus began to be in great distress of mind, and
said to the disciples, while they were yet without the enclosure, "Sit ye
here, while I go and pray yonder." His anguish of soul increased, and
taking with him Peter, and James, and John, the three who had witnessed
his transfiguration, he entered the enclosure. Turning to them with every
feature indicating his agony of spirit, he said, " My soul is exceeding sor-
rowful, even unto death ; tarry ye here, and watch with me." This craving
and longing for human sympathy is perhaps the strongest evidence we could
possibly have, that he, the Son of God, had taken upon him our nature;
that he was, in reality, the Son of God and the Son of Mary, and was a man
of like passions with us, yet without sin, while he was also the Divine
Redeemer. Having made this touching appeal to the three disciples for
sympathy, " he went a little farther, (Luke says, " about a stone's cast,")
and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let
this cup pass from me ; nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt." After
this earnest petition, he rose and came to the three disciples and found them
sleeping, and said unto Peter, "Simon, sleepest thou? Couldst not thou
watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into tempta-
tion; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." "He went away
again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not
pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done." Luke adds these
particulars : " that there appeared an angel unto him from heaven strength-
ening him," a rebuke to his disciples, who, notwithstanding his earnest
appeals, had not even watched with him. "And being in an agony, he
prayed more earnestly; and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood,
falling down to the ground." Amid all this agony, he came again to his
disciples, and again found them asleep; and when they were roused, they
were still so dazed and heavy with sleep, that they did not know what to
1E8PS PlRAYDNGflKI TH EM
Matthew. 689
answer him. A third time he departed to his chosen place of wrestling
prayer, perhaps under the shadow of one of the old and spreading olive
trees, and asked that the divine will might be accomplished, at whatever
cost of suiFering to him ; and this time his prayer was heard and answered :
strength was given to the weakened body, and thenceforth he welcomed the
pain and suffering, for the sake of the redemption that should follow. Now,
as he returned to his disciples, he saw the lights and torches borne by the
multitude descending from the gate of the city to the Kidron ravine and
bridge, and knew that this was the company led by Judas. Addressing his
disciples, he said, " Sleep on, now, and take your rest." The agony which
had so crushed his spirit was gone, and he now needed not their watchful
care, which hitherto they could not bestow. Angels had ministered to him,
and he had been heard in that which he feared. But it was now his turn
to watch over them, for their enemies, as well as his, were at hand : the hour
of their supreme temptation was coming, as for him it had passed ; and
therefore he says, " Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is
betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going ; behold, he is at
hand that doth betray me."
Let us pause here, and inquire what was the cause of this terrible anguish
of soul, which thus for a time overwhelmed our Lord, and made his "soul
exceeding sorrowful, even unto death ! " That it was not the fear of death, not
even the painful and ignominious death of the cross, is evident from several
considerations ; he had known from the first that he should thus die, had con-
versed about it with his disciples, and with Moses and Elijah, if not without
emotion, yet without fear and without distress ; in the twelve or fifteen hours
which followed his arrest, amid the insolence and insults of priests and
rabble, of Roman soldiers and malefactors, amid the cruel tortures of the
thorny crown, the scourging, and the terribly painful death of the cross,
he manifested not the slightest fear ; his calm and dignified demeanor awed
his judges, and on the cross his pardon of the dying thief, his care for his
mother, his sublime prayer for his murderers, and his calm announcement
of the completion of the work of redemption, all showed a spirit incapable
of fear.
Weakness and exhaustion of body may have had some, though, probably,
but a slight, influence. The previous week had been one of great excitement
and weariness; vast multitudes had listened to his teachings; even the
Greeks, first fruits of the Gentiles, had sought an interview with him ; the
Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians had combined to entangle him in his
44
690 Bible and Commentator.
talk, and all had completely failed ; more than once the officers of the temple
had been sent out to arrest him, and had been prevented only by some
sudden change of base, or by his eloquence, which disarmed them. The
knowledge, on his part, of every step of Judas in Letraying him, had added
to his cares and anxieties ; but none of these troubles could have so weighed
down his spirits, or whelmed him in such deep distress. The great cause
of this fearful anguish was, that he, the Sinless One, to whom all sin was so
loathsome and hateful, was to satisfy the divine law by taking, upon him-
self the burden of the sins of the whole world; he, the guiltless and Holy
One, was to bear the guilt and impurity of the sinners of all the ages. He
was to be wounded for our transgressions, to be bruised for our iniquities;
the chastisement of our peace was to be upon him, and with his stripes we
were to be healed. But under this terrible pressure, it was not the divine
nature that faltered; that had from eternity determined on this plan of
salvation, and had foreknown all its details ; it was the human body and
the human soul, which stretched its arms outward and upward, for sym-
pathy and comfort, under this dreadful load, and found it at last, in sweet
submission to the divine will. Once more, and but for a moment, in the
hours of torture which followed, did this " horror of great darkness " fall
upon the dying Redeemer ; it was while he was on the cross, when he uttered
that bitter cry, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani f " My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me?" But the everlasting arms were again around him, and
the racked and tortured body rested in the embrace of death.
But we, too, in this discussion of the causes of his terrible agony, have
left the Saviour, as the betrayer approached him. Judas now drew nigh,
at the head of a rabble, composed of the officers of the temple, the night
watch, a small party of Roman soldiers, and such servants and hangers-
on of the hi^h-priest as could be conveniently assembled. The Roman
soldiers and perhaps the officers of the temple wore swords, the rest of the
party were armed with sticks or cudgels. Judas, with an infamous hypocrisy,
had proposed, that in order that the officers might be able to recognize Jesus,
he would go up to him boldly, and kiss him. Accordingly, as soon as they
were come to the garden, the traitor hurried forward, and exclaiming, " Peace
be to thee, Rabbi" (the true translation of the "Hail, Master," in the text),
kissed him. Jesus replied with perfect dignity, "Comrade (not "friend,"
as our version has it, but an entirely different word), for what art thou
come?" The other evangelists give a few items which Matthew has
omitted. After this treacherous kiss, Jesus stood before the multitude, and
Matthew. 691
asked, "Whom seek ye? They answered, Jesus of Nazareth." "Jesus
answered, I am he," and such was the dignity and power which accom-
panied the answer that the crowd, awe-struck, retreated, and many of them
fell to the ground. When they had recovered themselves, he again put the
question, " Whom seek ye ? " and again they answered, with bated breath,
" Jesus of Nazareth." Jesus, ever thoughtful of others, and especially tender
of his disciples, said, " I have told you that I am he ; if therefore ye seek
me, let these (my disciples) go their way." As the Roman soldiers advanced
to seize him, Peter, as recklessly and imprudently brave as ever, drew his
sword and cut off the ear of a servant of the high-priest. Jesus instantly
commanded him to put up his sword into its sheath, and apologizing to the
soldiers for the rashness of his follower, touched and healed the wound.
While they were binding him, Jesus remonstrated with the multitude, saying,
"Are ye come out as against a thief, with swords and staves, for to take me?
I sat daily with you, teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on mf.
But this is your hour and the power of darkness." When the Roman
soldiers had bound his hands behind his back, and moved forward with their
prisoner to the high-priest's palace, all the disciples fled, under the appre-
hension that they too would be arrested ; but John and Peter, loth to
leave their Lord, followed on at a safe distance, and John first, and Peter
later, entered the palace hall; Peter sitting with the servants to see the end.
In the meantime the priests and elders tried to obtain some witnesses to
testify that Christ had said something in their hearing that was very wicked,
and according to their law deserved death. Now none could say this in
truth ; so they were obliged to get false witnesses — that is, pay some bad men
to say anything they wished, to justify them in pronouncing sentence on
him. These vile men then declared that they had heard Christ say, that he
could destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. Christ had, indeed,
said to the chief priests, more than three years before, when he had driven the
traffickers and money-changers out of the temple, and they asked him for a
sign of his authority, " Destroy this temple; and in three days I will raise
it up ; " but this saying of his had reference to his own body, the temple
which enshrined the living God, as the temple at Jerusalem was supposed to
enshrine the divine Shechinah ; and he had not said that he could destroy that
temple. But it was evident, even to them, that this testimony was worthless ;
so the high-priest tried if he could get Christ to say something that would
suit their purpose better, and adjured him to tell them whether or not he was
" the Son of God." " Thou hast said," said Jesus ; that is, thou art right — " I
HALL OF JUDG9LENX.
692
Matthe w.
693
am the Son of God." Then the High Priest rent his clothes, declared he
had spoken blasphemy, and that there was no further need of witnesses.
Had he not been the Son of God, he would, indeed, have spoken blasphemy,
but they would not believe that he was so, though he had done miracles enough
GETHKEHAJfE.
in the land to prove it, and therefore they now seized the opportunity of
putting to death the Lord of Life and Glory.
And now the servants and soldiers spit in his face, struck him, slapped
his cheeks, and having blindfolded him, asked him to tell them who did it.
This was horribly wicked ; and they are as horribly wicked who make
sport with the name of Jesus, and use it triflingly or in jest : take care
never to sport with sacred things.
Peter was all this while sitting among the servants of the High Priest,
when one of the maids espied him out; and accused him of being a disciple ;
but Peter was afraid of suffering in the same way, and so denied it. He
then left his seat and went to the porch or entrance of the High Priest's
hall ; but there he was again discovered by another maid, and then he swore
that he knew nothing of Christ. After this some more persons charged
him with being one of Christ's followers, and they said that his dialect
proved he came from the same part of the country. Peter again cursed
and swore, probably worse than before, and said he knew nothing of Christ.
694 Bible and Commentator.
Those that curse and swear show most plainly that they cannot belong
to Christ, so Peter took a most effectual and wicked method to disguise
himself.
Jesus had warned him of this, and told him, that before the cock should
crow twice he would deny him thrice. His words now came to pass ; the
cock crew — Peter remembered it — his heart was ready to break — he thought
how wicked he had been, and, going away, he " wept bitterly." This was
a sign that he sincerely repented ; but no weeping bitterly can ever wash
away the foulness of your sins and of mine ; that can only be done by faith
in the blood of Jesus Christ, which alone can bring healing to the wounded
soul, and take away its guilt and defilement, and which "cleanseth from
all sin."
The Sufferings of Christ— His Death.
Matthew xxvit.
TTTE left Christ in the hands of the chief priests and elders, condemned
▼ V to die, but they had not full power to kill him ; they could only
show how much they desired to put him to death. About two years before
this, the Romans who had conquered the Jews had taken from them the
power to execute any, and therefore another council was held, to know what
further to do. So they bound Jesus and led him to Pilate, the Roman
Governor, who was placed over them, in order that he might execute the
sentence which they had passed upon him.
While this was doing, Judas's conscience became so troubled for having
basely delivered up his innocent Master, that he went and threw down the
money which, for his wicked act, he had received from the chief priests
and elders, and he said, " I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the inno-
cent blood." But the priests, even more hardened than he, said, " What is
that to us ? see thou to that." As much as to say, that is your concern,
Judas, and not ours ; our end is served, and so you may do as you please ;
and if you have betrayed the innocent, the fault is yours, and not ours.
Christ having declared himself to be the Christ or Messiah — the Son of
God — the Jews thought they had excellent grounds on which to accuse him
to the Romans. They had a notion in their heads that the Messiah was to
be their king, as David and others had been before, and so they thought
that by Christ owning himself to be the Messiah, he professed also to be
their king. This was their own fancy, for his kingdom was not of this
Matthew.
695
world, but spiritual ; he never intended to sit upon an earthly throne, but to
reign in the human heart, making it obedient to him from love. This fancy
of theirs they told to Pilate as truth ; and as the Romans would be jealous
of any one claiming the throne — as Herod was when Christ was born —
they thought they could bring a charge of treason against Christ. Pilate
being informed of this, asked, "Art thou the King of the Jews?" Jesus
said unto him, " Thou
sayest;" meaning, "I
am." He explained,
as John tells us, to
Pilate that his king-
dom was not of this
world, and Pilate un-
derstood it. To the
other false charges of
the Jews, he would
make no reply.
Now there had been
a custom introduced
by the Romans — per-
haps to win the hearts
of the lower orders of
the Jews — to release \
some prisoner at the
time of the passover.
So Pilate fixed upon
Barabbas, a most noto-
rious thief and mur-
derer, and proposed to
the Jews to determine
which of the two
should be set at lib-
erty, Barabbas or Christ. He believed Christ to be innocent, and proposed1
this Barabbas, whose life none could well wish to be spared, that the inno-
cent Saviour, whom he set in contrast to him, might escape. But the chief
priests and elders managed to persuade the people to demand Barabbas..
Astonished at their choice, Pilate then asked what was to be done with.
Jesus, and they said, " Let him be crucified ! "
CHRIST BEARING THE CROSS.
FORMS OF CROSSES.
696 Bible and Commentator.
Crucifixion was a cruel, lingering, and disgraceful punishment. Cruel,
for the criminal had to bear his cross to the place of execution, and then,
faint and weary, and heartbroken, he was stretched upon the wood, which
was something like the letter T. On the
top part his arms were extended and his t 1 I .
hands nailed to the wood;* and on the
upright part his body was to hang, sup-
ported by his nailed hands, and, being at
full length, his feet were nailed to the
lower part. The cross was then lifted up,
and with a jerk it was thrust into a hole
in the ground, thus adding to the poor
victim's sufferings. The criminal sometimes lingered a long time before he
expired, and was killed at last. This mode of putting to death was only
practised on wicked servants, thieves, robbers, and murderers, and the vilest
of men ; and it showed, indeed, the bitter and horrid malice of the wicked
Jews against the innocent Saviour, that they wished him to suffer no less a
punishment ; and they thought that this would frighten all his followers, as
well as make them ashamed of him.
Pilate was shocked at the Jews, yet he had not courage nor uprightness
enough to refuse them their wicked request ; so, to quiet his own conscience
in giving up the innocent Saviour to be put to death, he took some water
and washed his hands before all the people, which, was a custom to show
that a man took no part in the murder of any person ; and he said, " I am
innocent of the blood of this just person, see ye to it." Then answered all
the people and said, " His blood be on us and on our children ; '■'■ that is,
" we will bear the blame, whatever may happen from it, so let him die ; we
care nothing for the consequences, we are not afraid of them."
Oh miserable people ! His blood was afterwards upon them indeed !
Nearly their whole nation were butchered, enslaved, driven into perpetual
banishment, and scattered among all nations, as they are to this day : and
the Romans, whom they used as the tools to do their wicked deed, were the
men that afterwards executed the Divine vengeance. " It is a fearful thing
to fall into the hands of the living God."
Jesus was scourged ; stripped ; dressed in mockery in a scarlet robe, like
a pretended king ; a crown of thorns was made and put upon his head, that
his tender temples might be pierced and made to bleed ; and a reed, or cane,
was put in his hand as a sham sceptre. All of this the Saviour submitted
Matthe w.
697
to with the greatest meekness. Then, to finish their mockery, the Jews
bowed their knee to him, and cried," Hail, king of the Jews ! " Now they
spit upon him out of contempt, and smote him on the head with the reed,
and finally took off his mock robes, and led him away to be crucified.
On their way to the
place of execution, they
met with a man of Cyrene,
named Simon, thought by
some to have been at-
tached to Christ ; and as
they feared that our
blessed Lord could hardly
live to be crucified, having
suffered so much, they
made Simon carry the
cross.
At length they came
to a spot called Golgotha,
and there "they gave him
vinegar to drink mingled
with gall; and when he
had tasted thereof he
would not drink." Com-
passionate people usually
mixed a drink to cheer
the spirits of the victims
going to execution, and to
stupefy their griefs; but
none offered to soothe the
blessed Jesus. Vinegar
would have quenched his
thirst, but gall mixed with it was nauseous indeed !
And now he w*as stripped naked, and his garments were parted by lots
among the soldiers who were engaged in his execution ; and, being crucified,
the soldiers sat down to watch him, lest his disciples should take him.
It was usual to w^rite the offender's accusation, and to have it affixed to the
cross; Pilate wrote that of Christ, " This is JESUS, the King of the Jews."
Two thieves were crucified with him, at the same time and place.
THORN-CROWNED CHRIST.
Wliiililillilli ii i illi M-1' .'.HP"'^ !!-■'"■■ ^Iil";::,;-!',!!!,
698
Matthew.
699
As the cross was placed by the roadside, the mob from Jerusalem that
passed by it wagged their head in derision at Jesus, and reviled or blas-
phemed him, and told him that if he was the Son of God, he ought to show
it, by coming down from the cross ! He was, indeed, soon to show that he
was the Son of God, but it would be in another way, after their malice was
satisfied, by rising from his tomb. The chief priests and scribes also united
in mocking him, and said, if he would come down from the cross they
would believe him. These priests and Scribes knew that he had wrought
wonderful miracles, yet they would not believe him ; and now they had
filled up the measure of their iniquity, and must bear their guilt. One of
the crucified thieves also mocked him.
At noon-day, called by the Jews " the sixth hour," there came on a
darkness, which lasted for three
hours, and spread over all the land.
And at the ninth hour, or " three
o'clock in the afternoon," Jesus
cried with a loud voice, saying,
" My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me ? " and so his human
nature sank upon the cross. Some
thought that he cried out from
being; so thirsty, and handed him
some vinegar in a sponge put upon
a reed ; and now Jesus cried with
a loud voice, and gave up the
ghost, or yielded up his spirit.
Oh, what were his sufferings !
His bodily sufferings were indeed
great, but these were nothing com-
pared with those of his soul. For
God to forsake him at that mo-
ment, how awful ! But why did
God forsake him ? God hates sin.
The innocent Jesus then bore our
sins. This was the reason why he
crucifixion. yielded to death. The Jews were
wicked in killing him, and did it all of their own accord and out of the
malice of their own hearts ; but they could not have killed Christ if he had
THE VEIL OF THE TEMPLE RENT.
700
Matthew. 701
not willingly given himself to their malice and cruelty. And this, that in
his death, he might bear the sins of all his people, for he himself was inno-
cent, and it was these sins that caused God to withhold his comforts from
him. Well may we adore the blessed Jesus' for such a display of love.
But, if he cried out beneath the weight of man's guilt, what must those
sinners endure, who will not believe in him and be saved, and so doom
themselves to bear the weight of their own guilt forever ?
But besides the great darkness, the veil of the temple was rent from top
to bottom, the earth quaked, and even the rocks were split asunder. The
thick tapestry veil was rent, as a sign that all that was sacred in the cere-
monies of the law was now over, and those ceremonies of no use ; for the
great Saviour and sacrifice whom all signified was now come, and had
finished his work for guilty men. The earth quaked, perhaps as a sign of
the dreadful shaking which was soon to befall the whole Jewish nation; and
the rocks were split asunder to shame the hearts of the people, more
hardened than those rocks.
These things convinced the soldiers who watched Jesus, and the centurion
who commanded them, that he was no common person; and they were
struck with fear, and said, " Truly, this was the Son of God."
Many women also, who followed him from Galilee, were witnesses of his
crucifixion ; among whom " was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of
James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's children."
On the evening of this day, when the Jewish Sabbath was about to begin,
the body of Jesus was obliged to be removed; and Joseph of Arimathea, a rich
man, and secretly attached to Christ, went to Pilate and begged his body,
which could not be taken down and buried without permission being given
by the Roman governor. Leave being granted, " he wrapped it in a clean
linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the
rock" — for the sepulchres of the Jews were made in rocks; — "and he
rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed."
The day following, the chief priests and Pharisees went to Pilate, and,
fearing lest the disciples should steal the body of Christ and say it was
risen, they begged that they might have the tomb guarded. So they made
all as sure as they could, and sealed the stone that nobody might remove it,
and set a watch or guard of soldiers to prevent any one approaching. This
was one of the happiest events that could have taken place, because it fur-
nished in the end the surest proofs that Jesus was not stolen away, but that
he arose from the grave.
702
Bible and Commentator.
The Resurrection of Christ.
Matthew xxviii.
IT is reckoned that Christ lay in the tomb thirty-six or thirty-eight hours.
At the dawn of day, on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene,
and Mary, the wife of Cleophas, went to the sepulchre, still desiring to see
the dear remains of their beloved Lord. "And, behold, there was a great
earthquake : for the Angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came
and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance
was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow : and for fear of him the
keepers did shake, and became as dead men." These keepers were Roman
soldiers, the most courageous men in the world ; but they were frightened
at the scene. If the resurrection of Christ was so awful, what must his
coming to Judgment be ! How will the guilty quake then !
When the women approached the sepulchre, the Angel spoke kindly to
them, and told them that the Lord was risen, and desired them to tell the
glad news to the disciples, who were greatly discouraged at his crucifixion
and death, and they were to assure
them he would soon meet them in
Galilee.
The women ran with all speed to
tell the disciples, but on their way
Jesus himself met and saluted them;
and they fell at his feet, and held
them, and worshipped him : and he re-
peated the orders to go into Galilee.
But what did the Roman soldiers
do ? They were set to guard the body
of Jesus, and yet he had escaped.
How could they escape punishment
for this ? They went into the city and
told the simple story how it happened,
and how terrified they were. " They
showed unto the chief priests all the
things that were done ;" how that there had been a very great earthquake,
and a very surprising appearance; for one like a young man descended from
the clouds, whose countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as
ROMAN GUARDS.
Matthew.
703
snow, which filled them with astonishment and dread ; that he rolled away
the stone from the sepulchre, and then sat upon it j and that some women,
coming to the sepulchre, were shown by him where the body had been laid,
but was now gone ; and how,
that after they had recovered
themselves from the fright,
they had themselves exam-
ined the sepulchre, and the
body was certainly gone ;
and sure they were that the
women did not carry it
away, nor any others ; all
which they thought proper
to relate to the chief priests ;
partly on their own account,
to clear themselves from the
charge of bribery, corrup-
tion, sloth and negligence;
and partly that the chief
priests might consider what E0MAN )1CT0RS.
further was best to be done.
Now it would not do to bring the guards to trial for letting Jesus escape,
for they would have defended themselves by telling the truth, and only
have spread the account of the resurrection more abroad. So it was settled
that a story should be made up, that the disciples came by night and stole
the body away while the guards slept ; and the elders gave the soldiers a
large reward to keep the resurrection secret. But this story, after all, was
a very poor one ; for it was not very likely that the timid disciples, who all
forsook Christ and fled, would have stolen his body from the Roman
soldiers ; nor that all the guards would have been asleep ; and even if they
had, it was more than probable that some would have roused up, and the
disciples would then have endured their vengeance. And then it was very
strange that the Roman soldiers should have been saved from punishment,
after they had slept upon their watch, which by their laws was deemed a
heavy crime : but it was settled that the Jewish elders should explain the
matter to the Roman governor if the affair came under his notice, and that
so the soldiers should not be injured. The bungling nature of the story
shows that the soldiers told a lie,, and that they could not prevent the resm>
704 Bible and Commentator.
rection of our blessed Saviour, though they were even set to watch his tomb.
Either they were asleep or awake ; if awake, why should they suffer the
body to be taken away ? If asleep, how could they know that the disciples
took it away ? How could they then depose that it was stolen ? Then,
again, the evidence of the apostles furnishes us with arguments of the clearest
and most powerful kind : 1st. They were poor, uninfluential and timorous
creatures ; 2d. The number of them forbids collusion, for the witnesses to the
resurrection were very many; 3d. The facts they avow were apparent to
their own eyes; 4th. The concurrence of all their testimony; 5th. They
gave their evidence before Jews, heathens, philosophers, rabbins, courtiers
and lawyers ; 6th. They bore evidence right at Jerusalem, in the synagogues
and the prsetorium ; 7th. Their evidence was just at the time of the occurrence,
when everything was being investigated, or seemingly so, by those in
authority ; and 8th. The motives prompting the testimony must have been
for truth's sake, for all knew that in so testifying they were exposed to the
enmity and persecution of the Jewish authorities.
The story, reported by the Jews even to this day, is a delightful encour-
agement to our belief that Jesus Christ arose from the dead on the
third day, but not the only proof we possess; for the eleven disciples
went into Galilee, and there he met them after his resurrection, and he
commanded them to go and preach the gospel to every creature ; to tell men
the glad tidings, or good news, that he had died to save sinners, and that
whosoever believed in him should never perish ; and that he had risen
again, and was therefore an ever-living Saviour, to whom all sinners might
look for salvation, to the end of time. When any professed sincerely to
believe their message, they were to baptize them, in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; i. e., in the name of the blessed
Trinity ; and this was to show, that, in like manner, the Holy Spirit would
purify their hearts who truly believed in him, and was to be a bold avowal
before the world, that they were the followers of Him who was crucified. As
a further proof that those baptized were his followers, they were to do all
his holy commands, and then all of them might expect his blessing and
favor, " even unto the end of the world. Amen."
Gospel According to St. Mark:
Or written by Mark, under the direction of the apostle Peter, through whose ministry doubtless Mark was
converted. That this gospel received the sanction, aud was received into the Christian Church upon the authority,
of Peter, is conceded. St. John had seen it, with the other two gospels, and wrote his own as supplementary tc
them. Papias speaks of the writings of Matthew and Mark as existing at the beginning of the second century,
when he talked with the disciples of the apostle. This, with the other gospels, whs known to Justin Martyr in the
second century, when it was read in all the churches. And during the latter part of the first, and the former part
of the second century, the apostolical authors, Clemens, Hermes, Barnabas and Ignatius made use of it, as also the
other gospels. But we need not add to these statements the list of evidence showing that this gospel, though not
written by an apostle — as in the case of Luke's gospel — was received as authentic, was divinely inspired, and was
indorsed as such by the apostles themselves: this latter fact inducing the early church to receive it at once into the
canonical books. It carries with it the stamp of the Holy Spirit, and stands before the mind of man as a monument
with foundations deeper and summit higher than any human conception. It is remarkable for its simplicity and
clearness, and is usually regarded as a model record of facts. It is divided into sixteen chapters, and furnishes
most of the things given in Matthew, adding thereto some further particulars.
ARK is shorter than Matthew. It is a repetition of the
same history by another hand, with here and there some few
facts not mentioned by Matthew. Some of these are all
that need therefore be added in this place.
In the fourth chapter we have the Parable of the Seed.
which appears to have been delivered at the same time
that the Parable of the Sower was, as we have read
in Matthew, but was not mentioned by him with that
parable. Thus, that nothing important might be lost,
one evangelist has supplied what another has omitted, as well as confirmed
the truth of all that the other has said.
The parable given by Mark is contained in the verses between the twenty-
fifth arid the thirtieth, of the fourth chapter.
In the seventh chapter, Mark gives us the particulars of Christ's curing
a deaf man. "And' he put his fingers in his ears, and he spit, and touched
his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Be
opened," and his deafness was cured, and " he spake plain." Most likely
he might have once had his hearing, and had learned to speak a little, but
45
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706
Bible and Commentator
SOWING GRAIN.
having lost his hearing early in life, he could learn no more ; but now with
his hearing he learns also to speak. This kind action of Christ made the
people look upon him with admiration, and they said, " He hath done all
things well; he maketh both
the deaf to hear, and the dumb
to speak."
In the eighth chapter is re-
lated the cure of a blind man
at Bethsaida, on whose eyes he
spit, and he put his hand upon
them. And the man directly
saw men as trees walking : he
could not exactly make out
their shape from a tree. He
put his hands on his eyes a
second time, and then he saw
clearly: teaching us, perhaps, to persevere in the • use of proper means.
But both in this case and in that of the deaf man, the means were only
signs ; they could never have cured the man if administered by a common
physician ; these were miracles — things not of a common kind, and showed
that he who performed them could only be the Son of God.
In the last chapter we have some further particulars about Christ's resur-
rection, and his encourage-
ment to his disciples to
preach his gospel and work
miracles in his name, which
would prove that their
message was divine, and
establish the truth of it at
its beginning, before all the
world. They were to cast
out devils, who then pos-
sessed the bodies of men,
just as Jesus had cast them
out ; they had to speak new
languages which they had never learnt, so as to be able to tell men of every
country about the way of salvation through Jesus Christ ; they were to take
up serpents without being bitten or endangered by them ; if any attempt
EASTERN MODE OF THRESHING.
Mark. 707
should be made to poison them, the deadly potion, which would kill other
persons, should do them no harm ; and if sick persons were brought to them
to be cured, they should only lay their hands upon them, and they would
recover. You must, however, remember that there was this great distinction
between the miracles performed by Jesus and those performed by his disci-
ples, that Jesus did all his by his own power, and without using any other
name ; but the power which the dis-
ciples had was not their own, but
only what he gave them, and they
were to work miracles only in his
name. These miracles are not now
needed, because we have so many
proofs left us that they were done by
the first ministers, and the religion
of Jesus is everywhere spread and
spreading without them.
Mark further informs us more
than Matthew, as he not only men-
tions Christ's command to his disci-
ples, but the effect of their obeying it, and preaching the gospel to every
creature ; for " they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working
with them, and confirming the word with signs following." Amen.*
* As the observance of the Christian Sabbath, — the first day of the week, — instead of the
Jewish Sabbath — the seventh day, or Saturday — commenced soon after the ascension of Christ,
it may be as well to explain the reason of the change here. The setting apart of one day in
seven for the worship of God is older than the Hebrew nation or the Jewish religion. It
dates from the creation of man ; and at first was, unquestionably, the seventh day, as that was
the day of the completion of the creative work. All nations, which are wholly or partially
civilized, adhere to this practice, which is founded in nature, as well as in revelation ; but in
the lapse of time they have selected different days ; so that almost every day of the week is
the Sabbath of some nation. The Jews adhered to the seventh day ; but the early Christians,
and especially the Gentile Christians, felt that they should rather observe the first day of the
week (our Sunday), since our Lord rose from the grave on that day, and his resurrection was
a cardinal point in their faith. Some of the Jewish Christians, in the apostles' time, observed
both days ; but it was not easy to do this ; and very early the Christians were distinguished
from the Jews, as those who observed the first day of the week for religious worship. God
requires one-seventh of our time for his service, and that day is best for it which commemo-
rates the resurrection, and is most generally observed.
ANCIENT MODE OF BINDING.
Gospel According to St. Luke-.
Or, written by Luke, the companion of Paul during Lis most active labors and severe sufferings. It was extant at
a very early period, and was received as of divine authority by the infant church from the time of its publication.
Some uncertainty hungs about Luke's early history, and his position among the followers of Christ. The sanction
of the apostle Paul, and the early and unanimous reception of the Gospel of Luke as divinely inspired, and its
insertion into the Scripture canon, are alone sufficient proof of its heavenly origin. It furnishes many parables,
discourses, miracles, and events omitted by the gospels preceding it; whilst some already recorded are omitted.
The style of Luke is distinguished from that of other New Testament penmen by its pureness and classical finish,
aside from its occasional use of Hebrew and Syriac idioms. It is divided into twenty-four chapters, evidently written
for the instruction of Gentile Christians.
The Birth of John the Baptist.
Luke i.
"^UKE is thought to have been the same mentioned by the
apostle Paul in the last chapter of his epistle to the Colossians,
where he speaks of " Luke the beloved physician."
This Evangelist tells us some particulars about the birth
of John the Baptist, which are not mentioned by the other
three. That his father was a priest of the name of Zacharias
— that his wife's name was Elizabeth, and that she was sprung
from the race of Aaron — that they were both very good people,
and walked together in the holy ways of God — and that John
the Baptist was born when they were " well stricken in years," or quite
old.
This remarkable forerunner of Christ was born, like him whom he was
to honor and proclaim, in a very honorable and wonderful way. John's
father, Zacharias. was burning incense in the temple, while the people "were
praying without," when an angel appeared to him, and told him that his
son should be born, and that he must call him John — a name which means,
the grace and favor of God; and this was to show, that God's grace would
be upon him in a very striking manner. He was to be separated from the
world, like the ancient Nazarites (Numbers vi. 3), to drink "neither wine
nor strong drink ; " and God would bless his preaching, so that he should
708
7oy
710
Bible and Commentator,
turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He should
have the same holiness, courage, and zeal, as Elias, or Elijah, to turn the
disobedient into the ways of wisdom. Zacharias, though a good man,
doubted the truth of what the angel told him, and asked for some sign
from which he might have better reason to believe that what he said would
come to pass. The angel told him he should be dumb till the child was
born, and this should be a sign, and, at the same time, a reproof for his
doubting the message which God had sent.
The people wondered that Zacharias should remain so long in the temple,
and when he came out he had lost his speech, as the angel had said.
Elizabeth, his wife, at length had a son ;
and when he was to be circumcised at
eight days old, he had his name given
to him. It was usual to name the son
after the father, and the friends and re-
lations present would have had him
called Zacharias, but Elizabeth having
been informed in writing, by her husband,
of all that had taken place, — in obedience
to the command of the angel, would have
him called John. The friends, however,
asked the father what he would have
him called; and he by signs asked for
a writing-tablet, or little table made of
brass, wood, or wax, used in those days, —
and wrote or scratched upon it, as they
then did with an iron pen, " His name
is John. And they marvelled all."
No sooner had Zacharias obeyed the divine command, than his tongue
was unloosed, and he spake as before.
This event, which caused so great wonder among all present, was soon
reported throughout the hill country of Judea, where they dwelt ; and all
that feared God were filled with awe at this extraordinary child, and
anxiously waited to see for what purpose he had been sent into the world.
His father, Zacharias, was then " filled with the Holy Ghost," or the
Holy Spirit inspired him to prophesy about the coming of Christ. And
John grew up, but loved retirement, and went into desert and lonely places,
no doubt God holding sweet communion with his spirit, or talking as it
THE INFANT JOHN.
712 Bible and Commentator.
were with his holy mind ; and so he remained till he , came to proclaim
Christ's coming, " preaching in the wilderness of Judea," as we have al-
ready seen in Matthew.
The Birth and Early Days of Jesus Christ.
Luke ii.
A BOUT the same time that John the Baptist was born, Jesus was born
-£jL- also ; John was born not more than six months before Christ. At
this time Csesar Augustus, who was the second Emperor of Eome, reigned
over that empire, which had become so large from its conquests that it was
called " all the world." Judea, you know, was then tributary to it, or paid
taxes to the Roman Government. But a particular sort of tax was now
determined on by the Emperor, which is called a poll-tax, or tax upon the
head of every person ; and to make sure of all the subjects in the empire,
they were obliged to attend in person at an appointed place, and be enrolled,
or entered in a book.
It is a remarkable fact, that the Emperor had 'resolved on this tax
twenty-seven years before ; but disturbances in the empire distracted his
attention, and it was only now, when all the world were at peace, that he
had time to attend to it. See here how Providence overrules all things.
Had he been able to carry his purpose into effect before, then the mother of
Jesus would not have been there with her husband Joseph, and Jesus would
not have been born in Bethlehem, but at Nazareth, where he was afterwards
brought up. But if he had been born at Nazareth instead of Bethlehem,
then the prophecy respecting him would not have been fulfilled, as recorded
in the fifth chapter of Micah, and the second verse, and the fact that he was
the true Messiah would have so far been doubtful. But here the ambitious
views of a Roman Emperor to fill his coffers with money/ were made to
bring about the fulfilment of God's promise to his church, by bringing the
parents of Jesus to Bethlehem, the place prophesied of, where he was born.
At this time one Cyrenius was governor of Syria, which was annexed to
Judea, and he had the management of the tax. And every one went to his
own city where he was born, or the place where his inheritance lay ; and as
Joseph's family sprang from David's city, and, indeed, from David himself,
though he was now a poor man, — he had to go up to Bethlehem.
The city was so crowded that there wras no room for the infant Saviour
and his mother in the place called by us the Inn, though rather a sort of
Luke. 713
lodging-place only. He was, therefore, born and lodged in a place for the
accommodation of cattle.
Now there were some shepherds in the fields near Bethlehem, who were
on the hills watching their flocks at night, to preserve them from beasts of
prey, when an angel appeared to them, surrounded with a bright glory, and
NAZARETH.
told them not to be afraid, for he came not to hurt them, but to tell them
the glad news, that the long-expected Saviour was born. And a multitude
of other happy spirits joined the first messenger, and sang in the sweetest
strains — " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will towards
men " — that is, glory be to God in the highest heavens, and let all the
happy spirits there praise him, for peace is now to dwell upon earth in
Christ, the great peacemaker between God and guilty men, and every kind
of blessing will proceed from him.
And when the angels departed, the shepherds went to Bethlehem and saw
Jesus, as the messenger had exactly described him, " wTrapped in swaddling
clothes," or bound closely up, as was the custom in England, about a hun-
dred years ago, instead of infants having their limbs free, as they are now,
— and he was " lying in a manger." And they told every one they knew
what wonderful things they had seen, and praised God for his great mercy
in sending a Saviour into the world. Let us praise him too.
After this, Jesus was circumcised, and by this rite became a Jewish citizen,
entitled to the covenant blessings promised to Abraham and his seed. Then
714
Bible and Commentator.
he was redeemed, another custom of the Jews ; for when God slew all the first-
born of the Egyptians, he protected the Israelites, who, according to his com-
mand, given through Moses, had sprinkled the lintels and posts of their
doors with the blood of the passover Lamb ; and from that time he kept up
the remembrance of this mercy, by demanding the first-born to be conse-
crated to him ; " for," said he, by Moses, " all the first-born of the children
of Israel are mine, both man and beast : on the day that I smote every first-
born in the land of Egypt, I sanctified them for myself." Instead of giv-
ing them up, however, to the service of the tabernacle, which was conse-
crating them entirely to God, as the Levites were, — " the first-born of man
might be redeemed for five shekels," or
about two dollars and eighty cents of our
money, which went to the service of the
sanctuary. As no mention is, however,
made here of the performance of this cus-
tom, it is supposed by some, that " in case
of poverty, the priest was allowed to take
less, or perhaps nothing." Our Lord's
mother also presented her offering, a fur-
ther custom usual on such an occasion.
Had she been able she ought to have
presented a lamb for a burnt-offering, and
a dove for a sin-offering ; but as she
was poor, and not able to purchase a
lamb, she took two turtle-doves ; for so
the Lord had ordered by Moses, " If she
be not able to bring a lamb, then she shall
bring two turtles, or two young pigeons ;
the one for a burnt-offering, and the other for a sin-offering : and the priest
shall make an atonement for her, and she shall be clean." This custom was
to teach the Jews, and us also, that we ought to thank God for all our mer-
cies, and that we should express our unworthiness of them by confessing our
sins — we must present the sin-offering together with the burnt-offering.
While the infant Jesus was in the temple, there came in a good old man
named Simeon, who had been anxiously waiting for the coming of the
Messiah ; and God having shown him by his Holy Spirit that the Saviour,
whom his heart desired to see, had come, he took him up in his arms, and
blessed God that he had lived to see him, and said, he could now depart in
TURTLE-DOVE.
SIMEON AND INFANT SAVIOUR.
715
Luke
717
peace, since he had seen God's salvation. " One Anna, a prophetess/' who
was eighty-four years of age, also entered the temple, and " gave thanks
unto the Lord, and spake of" Jesus "unto all them that looked for redemp-
tion in Jerusalem."
After these things Joseph and Mary, with the infant Saviour, " returned
into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth."
And the child Jesus was brought up at Nazareth, under the care of his
parents, and he waxed, or grew, " strong in spirit," giving signs of a won-
derful mind, and of great piety, for " the grace of God was upon him."
When Jesus was twelve years old, his parents went up to the temple, to
the feast of the passover, in remembrance of the deliverance from Egypt,
and he went with them. Probably this was his first Passover, and something
now occurred which made the Evangelist Luke take notice of him at this
age. . For when the feast was over, and they returned with a number of
other families that had gone for the same purpose, Jesus remained behind.
His parents did not miss him till the end of the day ; for as he was amiable,
and beloved by all who knew him, they supposed that he was among some
of their friends and acquaintances on the road ; but not hearing anything of
him, they became uneasy, and went back the next day to Jerusalem, and it
was not till the third day that they found him. But where was he ? Not
in bad company, for he never stood in the way of sinners ; nor was he at
play, for he was of an age to learn, and he was improving his time, and
getting knowledge from
the doctors of the temple.
The teachers of the law
were used to instruct the
young there, and they
were allowed to ask any
questions they pleased,
for the purpose of learn-
ing. Jesus had, there-
fore, placed himself at
their feet, and was "both
hearing them and asking
them questions." "And
all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers."
His parents wondered to find what he was about, and to see how much he
was approved. And his mother gently chided him for having given them
JEWISH SCROLLS USED IN TEACHING THE YOUNG.
718 Bible and Commentator.
so much alarm for his safety ; but he replied, " Wist ye not/' or, know ye
not, "that I was about my Father's business," or, " in my Father's house?"
His mother remembered this and other sayings, and Avaited to see what
more wonderful would happen as he should grow up to become a man.
So they returned to Nazareth, and there he lived obedient to his parents,
and growing in favor " both with God and men ; " his behavior, says the
pious Dr. Doddridge, " being not only remarkably religious, but so benevo-
lent and obliging as to gain the favor and affection of all that were about
him."
You will observe that most of these interesting facts about the birth and
early days of Jesus Christ are not mentioned by the Evangelists Matthew
and Mark, and are only given us by Luke.
Christ persecuted at Nazareth.
Luke hi., iv.
WE shall now glance at some other matters mentioned by this Evan-
gelist which have not been before noticed, and run through many
chapters.
Luke tells us the exact time when John the Baptist made his first public
appearance. It was in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Csesar,
Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea ; and, as the dominions of Herod
the Great had been divided after his death, Herod Antipas, one of his sons,
was tetrarch of Galilee and Perea ; or ruler of one-fourth of Herod's king-
dom ; and his brother Philip tetrarch of another fourth part, which was the
region of Iturcea and Trachonitis, — the name which was now given to the
tract of land on the other side of Jordan, which had formerly belonged to
the tribe of Manasseh ; and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, a province of
Syria, whose territories extended to Lebanon and Damascus, and had many
Jewish inhabitants. At that time, also, Annas and Caiaphas were high-
priests ; not that there were two high -priests at one time, but Annas, who had
been high-priest several times, had so managed as to have five of his sons and
one son-in-law (Caiaphas) appointed high-priests when he was not in office
himself; and he generally ruled, when they were high-priests in name.
The third chapter contains a long list of names, like the first chapter of
St. Matthew. They are, however, reversed in their order, and somewhat
different, but both are designed to trace up the genealogy of Jesus Christ
Luke. 719
through its proper line — that is, to show who were his forefathers after the
flesh. Matthew traces it forward from Abraham down to Joseph ; and Luke
traces it backwards from Joseph, the son, by adoption, of Heli, who was the
brother of Jacob, the real father of Joseph, to Adam. It is supposed that
Heli was the elder brother, but had no sons, and so Jacob's son was called
his, according to the Jewish law. There is a tradition that Mary was the
daughter of Heli, which may be true, but this genealogy does not state it.
John the Baptist having been thrown into prison by the wicked Herod.
Jesus left Perea and went into Galilee.
There his fame had already spread, and he went from place to place,
teaching in the synagogues, while every one admired him, and declared
" they never heard such preaching in all their lives." "And he came to
Nazareth," where he had been brought up, and, as his custom was, " he
went into the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up for to read," for this
was a constant part of the Jewish worship. "And there was delivered unto
him the book of the prophet Esaias," or Isaiah — the former being the
Greek, and the latter the Hebrew for the prophet's name — -just, for instance,
as Louis Philippe was the French name for the king of the French, and
Lewis Philip the English name for the same king. "And when he had
opened the book/' or unrolled the volume — for the Hebrew Scriptures were
written on long pieces of parchment, fastened at each end on sticks, and so
720 Bible and Commentator.
rolled up — he found the place where it was written as in the forty-first
chapter of Isaiah, and the first, second, and third verses. Having read the
passage, " closed the book," and rolled it up, he " sat down," as the Jews
used to do, to preach, while " the eyes of all them that were in the syna-
gogue were fastened on him/' being very curious to know what he was
going to say about a text which they knew described the Messiah. And he
then discoursed upon the passage, and told them that the Scripture was that
day fulfilled in their hearing.
His words were . so full of grace, both in the precious truths which he
uttered, and in the way in which he uttered them, that all his hearers were
exceedingly surprised ; but yet they could not forget that he was the son of
the humble Joseph, and had been brought up at Nazareth under his care,
" and they said, Is not this Joseph's son ? "
Jesus knew what they thought. And he said, " Ye will surely say unto
me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself." You have worked miracles
abroad, now do so at home. " Whatsoever we have heard done in Caper-
naum, do also in thy country." And he said, " Verily, I say unto you, no
prophet is accepted in his own country," which was another proverb, or
common saying. By this he meant, that his miracles would be thrown
away upon them ; for they would still think from whom he was descended,
and wonder at what he did as they now wondered at what he said^but
they would not believe in him as the true Messiah. In the days of Elias,
or Elijah, though there were many widows living in Israel, he performed
the miracle of multiplying the cruse of oil for a widow ,of Sarepta, a city of
the Gentiles ; and in the time of Eliseus, or Elisha, the prophet, though
there were many lepers in Israel, he cured none but Naaman, who also was
a Syrian, and a heathen. So our blessed Saviour intimated, he would do
miracles for and in the presence of heathen rather than before them, for he
knew they were so hardened that they would not believe in him.
This faithful address turned their admiration into rage, and, rising up in
a tumultuous manner, without any reverence to the place or day, they
violently cast him out of the synagogue, and out of the city too, and brought
him to the very brow of the mountain on which their city was built, that
they might cast him down headlong, and dash him to pieces. But Jesus,
when he had permitted their madness to go thus far, confounded their sight
in such a miraculous manner, that he passed through the midst of them
unknown, and went away to the neighboring city of Capernaum, where he
abode for some time.
Luke. 721
We have given you the latter part of this account in the words of Dr.
Doddridge, because we think we cannot possibly make it more plain.
Christ's Miracle of the Draught of Fishes— Christ Raises the Widow's
Son.— The Penitent Woman.
Luke v.-ix.
WHILE our Lord was at Capernaum, we find him continually engaged
in doing good, teaching in the synagogue, and instructing the
people at all other opportunities. Where he went he was attended by
crowds, and on one occasion they were so great that they " pressed upon
him to hear the word of God, as he stood by the lake of Gennesareth."
Seeing two fishing vessels near the shore he went into one of them, and,
pushing off a little way from the shore, he there " sat down and taught the
people out of the ship."
The fishermen who owned the vessels had been very unsuccessful in their
last uight's labors, for they had toiled all the night, and taken nothing.
When Christ had done preaching, and feeding them with food for their
souls, he now thought of their bodies also, and he desired them to launch
oat into the deep, and let down their nets for a draught of fishes. They
had little hope of success, but, in obedience to Christ's word, they were
disposed to try. The nets were let down, and they drew them up so full of
fishes that one of them brake, and the fishes taken so overloaded both the
vessels that they began to sink. All were astonished ; and Simon Peter,
who was one of the party, with his partners, James and John, the sons of
Zebedee, fell down on his knees, and cried out, " Depart from me, for I am
a sinful man, O Lord ; " — meaning that he was not worthy of the high
honor of having Jesus on board his vessel, and of continuing in his presence.
Jesus encouraged the timid man, and told him that he would employ him
in a far nobler work, and that henceforth he should catch men. And so it
came to pass when — if we compare ^the gospel to a net — he caught three
thousand souls at once by his preaching, as we shall read in the Acts of the
Apostles. Matthew and Mark have given no more of what happened at
this time than merely that Christ sat down in the ship and taught; so
Luke has supplied what they omitted.
In the sixth chapter of Luke we find a beautiful discourse of our Lord's,
something like that which we call the Beatitudes, in the beginning of
46
MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES.
722
Luke.
723
Matthew. That, however, was delivered on a mount, and this on a plain ;
and on examining them and comparing them together, we find them differing
very much, though parts of the former discourse were repeated in this, it
being another assembly.
In the seventh chapter, the Evangelist informs us of Christ's raising to
life the son of the widow of Nain. He was just at the moment entering
into that city, and a number of his disciples and followers were with him ;
and on approaching the gate he met a funeral procession. The dead person
was a young man, the only son of a widow. The custom was not to enclose
the body in a coffin, as with us, but to carry it on an open bier, borne on
the shoulders, just merely covering the corpse with a cloth. The poor widow
followed in great sorrow, weeping intensely, over her great and overwhelm-
ing loss ; and who could help her ? She seems to have been much respected
and so was her son, by the large concourse that attended the funeral ; but
her friends and neighbors could only pity her. Jesus pitied her too, for
he had a heart full of tenderness, as he has now ; but he could do something
CITY OF NAIX.
more for her than mere mortals, he had power even over death ; and so he
said kindly to the widow, " Weep not. And he came and touched the bier,
and they that bare him stood still, and he said, Young man, I say unto
thee, Arise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak ; and he
delivered him to his mother."
721 Bible and Commentator.
In the same chapter, we have also an account of a woman that had been
a notorious sinner, who entered the house where Christ was dining with
one of the Pharisees. He, as usual, was engaged in speaking the words of
instruction, and she listened to him with the greatest attention. Every
word touched her heart, and as his feet lay bare on the couch, according
to custom, the tears fell in a shower from her eyes, and bathed them all
over. She, perceiving this, wiped them with the tresses of her hair, which
hung loose about her shoulders, and then, not thinking herself worthy to
anoint his head, she kissed his feet, and poured upon them some liquid
perfume. The Pharisee was surprised that a holy prophet, as Jesus pro-
fessed to be, should allow a woman of such a class to approach him ; and
though he did not speak, Jesus knew what he thought. And he told him
there were two debtors ; and the one owed five hundred pence, and the
other fifty. As they were unable to pay, their creditor kindly forgave
them. Now, he would ask the Pharisee, which of these was likely to love
the kind creditor most ? " Why," said the Pharisee, " the one who had
most forgiven him." " Rightly said," answered our Lord ; " now thou hast
not had the sense of pardon as this woman. My words touched her heart;
she has sincerely repented ; her many sins are forgiven her, and she therefore
loves me much."
Some think that this is the same woman that we read about in the twenty-
sixth chapter of Matthew ; but many who have carefully studied their Bible
think otherwise, and for these reasons : the story told by Matthew happened
in Bethany, this in Galilee ; that in the house of Simon the leper, and this
in the house of Simon the Pharisee; that was but two days before the
death of Christ, and this a considerable time before; the ointment that
woman poured was poured upon his head, and this upon his feet.
In the second verse of the eighth chapter we have mention made of
" Mary called Magdalene," or Mary of Magdala, so called, just as Jesus
was called Jesus of Nazareth ; for Magdala was the place of residence of
this Mary, as Nazareth was that of Jesus. Out of this woman our Lord
cast seven evil spirits, which, I have before remarked, were suffered then
in an extraordinary manner to torment the minds and bodies of men. Few
persons can, without considerable reflection, form the slightest idea of the
gratitude and love that must have moved the poor afflicted creatures toward
Christ whose lives were converted from misery to a full degree of health and
bodily comfort. Among them not the least favored by this " Physician of
all physicians " was this Mary, who became a faithful follower of her Lord.
Luke
725
The Seventy Disciples sent forth.— The inquiring Lawyer— The Good
Samaritan— Martha and Mary.
Luke x.
IN the tenth chapter we are told, that, besides the twelve apostles, whom
Jesus chose to be witnesses to his truth, and to declare it to the world,
he also sent forth seventy disciples, who were to go in company with each
other, two one way and two another way, and so with the whole.
And now he mentioned the awful state of Chorazin, and Bethsaida, —
cities where he had preached and performed his glorious miracles, so that
the inhabitants, if they had reflected, must have seen that he was the true
Messiah, the Son of God, and have repented and believed his words. In-
stead of which they rejected him in spite of all the words he spoke, and the
mighty deeds he performed, to prove that his message was divine, — and so
now they must perish. Tyre and Sidon were very wicked cities, but these
were more wicked ; for Tyre and Sidon had never heard nor seen such things
as were made known to the people of Capernaum and Bethsaida.
Encouraged by their divine Lord, the disciples went forth ; and, having
gone on their circuit, they returned and told their Master of their great
success, and that they had even cast out devils at the mention of. his
726 Bible and Commentator.
authority. He then told them that he saw Satan, when he was, for rebel-
lion, cast out of heaven quick as lightning, and he still foresaw that his
power on earth should be destroyed. They should trample on venomous
creatures, and receive no hurt, but much more should the preaching of his
word break down the power which evil spirits might have over the minds
MOUNTAINS ABOUT JERICHO.
of men. Yet they were not to glory in being able to perform miracles, for
they could do nothing without his aid and might ; but they ought indeed to
glory, when he told them that their names were " written in heaven ; " and
that as citizens were often enrolled, or their names written in the books of
cities where they dwelt, so they were considered by him as the citizens of
that happy place, as much as if such a boo!?: of their names were actually
kept there.
While our Lord was talking to the seventy disciples, a lawyer — or one
of the writers and expounders of the Jewish law — came to him and said,
" Master," or Teacher, " what shall I do to inherit eternal life ? " Our
Lord asked him what he read in his own law? And he said he found
there, that he was to love God with all his heart, and his neighbor as him-
self. " Do this," said Jesus, " and thou shalt live." This is the grand
Luke. 727
proof of our religion, if we truly love God, and endeavor to do the best
sort of gooa to our neighbors. The lawyer next inquired, "And who is my
neighbor?" Jesus told him in the interesting parable of the Good
Samaritan.
This parable begins at the thirtieth verse of this tenth chapter. I must
merely tell you that the road from Jerusalem to Jericho was, and still is,
very dreary, and has always been a lurking-place for robbers, so that it was
called the " bloody way ; " that priests and Levites often travelled that road,
for some thousands of them lived at Jericho, and they had frequent occa-
sions to go to Jerusalem ; that the Jews and Samaritans hated each other
greatly, and so the kindness of the good Samaritan, in relieving a poor in-
jured Jew, while even his own priest and Levite cruelly passed him by, was
so much the more to be admired ; and that the two pence mentioned by our
Lord mean Roman pence, which were worth about seventeen cents each. We
will end all we shall say about this parable by the words of our divine Lord
to the lawyer ; and when you meet with an enemy in distress, do not be re-
venged upon him, but " Go and do likewise."
This chapter closes with an account of a visit which Jesus paid to Martha
and Mary, two pious sisters who lived at Bethany, a village about two miles
from Jerusalem.
May my young readers all have grace to choose Mary's good part, and
like her, by faith, sit at Jesus's feet and hear his word !
Jesus teaches his Disciples to pray— The Parable of the Rich Fool.—
The waiting Servants.
Luke xi., xii.
OUR blessed Saviour often retired to pray ; and he taught his disciples
to pray what we call the Lord's Prayer ; which is repeated here, and
which we have before seen in the sixth chapter of Matthew. In this,
however, are not mentioned all the things we may ask ; for we find many
other prayers, or parts of prayer, in Scripture, as David's, and Solomon's,
and Daniel's, and those contained in the epistles, especially of the apostle
Paul.
And here he particularly reminds his disciples, that when they pray, they
must be in earnest. And he tells them, that if any one of them happened
to be out of bread, and a friend should come to see him late in the evening,
728
Bible and Commentator,
and he should be obliged to borrow some, as the Jews used to do of each
other, it might happen that the house would be shut up, at which he might
knock. But then, what will he do, will he go away ? No, he will knock
and knock again.
By this our blessed Lord would teach his disciples, and us also, that we
must not pray in a hurry, but keep on knocking at the door of mercy, and
earnestly ask, as if we wanted indeed to have ; and if the man's friend was
obliged to give him bread on account of his pressing him so much, then
much more would our gracious Father in heaven give good things to them
that ask him.
In the twelfth chapter Luke relates the parable of the Rich Fool, as we
call it. I should like you to read it from the sixteenth to the fwenty-first
verse. Our Lord describes in it a rich man, who had large barns, full of
what his lands had produced, and so much stock that he did not know
where to put it. So he resolved to build new barns in the room of the old
ones, and to make them larger. And then he thought, " How happy I
shall be ! I have many years yet to live, and my soul and body may be both
at ease : so I will eat, drink, and be merry." But he never thought of
thanking God for his wealth, or laying any of it out for his glory. So just
as he fancied he had got all things to his mind, God sent death to him, and
spake to his conscience by his Providence, " Thou fool, this night thy soul
shall be required of thee ! " How important is gratitude to God !
In the thirty-fifth verse,
our
Lord
says,
"Let
your
loins be girded about, and
your lamps burning, and ye
yourselves like unto men that
wait for your Lord, when
he will return from the wed-
ding." Among the Jews,
weddings took place at night.
The servants, therefore, would
have to sit up for their mas-
ters, and must keep their
lamps trimmed ready to light
them. If the lamps went out, it would be a sign of negligence, or that, in-
stead of watching, they were asleep. The garments being long, like a morn-
ing gown, it was also usual to tuck them up and gird them close round the
MASTER AND SERVANT.
Luke. 729
waist, if anything needed to be quickly done. By mentioning these customs,
our Lord would show the disciples and us that, as his servants, we should
always be ready to meet nim at his coming. Death, at his command, will
take away all that we have ; but as one would watch a thief, expected to come
at midnight, so ought Ave to be upon our watch, and then, when called to
die, we shall not be taken by surprise. The faithful steward, who uses his
time and talents for the divine glory, shall be richly rewarded ; but he who
presumes on his Lord's delaying, and does wicked things, must suffer the
most dreadful consequences. As the faithless and disobedient servant was,
by the Jewish people, scourged with stripes, so shall all such receive the
sorest punishment, and that punishment shall be the greater for those who
have been taught good things, and choose to do those that are bad.
The Parable of the Barren Fig Tree— Of the highest Seat— Of the
lost Piece of Money— Of the Prodigal Son.
Luke xni.-xxrv.
MY limits now oblige me unavoidably to pass over many things in this
gospel which I should be glad to explain to you ; but there are many
parables given by this evangelist which we do not find in the others, and as I
wish particularly to explain them, I must beg you to place your Testament
before you, and refer to and read them before you read my short remarks,
which I hope, by God's blessing, will be some help to you in the right
understanding of them.
The first is the Barren Fig-tree (chap. xiii. 6-9).
Explanation. — The tree referred to by our Lord was a sort of white fig,
which, if it did not bear fruit in three years, rarely bore any at all. This
tree represented the unbelieving Jews, whom God had favored with great
privileges ; and sent his prophets and his Son among them, to call them to
repentance ; but still they had not glorified him. Still he had been patient
with them, and had not punished them as they deserved, but all in vain.
His kind care over them must therefore soon cease, and they be ruined like
a tree cut down.
In the fourteenth chapter, from the seventh to the eleventh verse, we
have the parable of the Highest Seat.
Explanation. — We have some ceremonies among us about taking a seat,
but in the East the ceremonies are much greater. The Persians in par-
730
Bible and Commentator.
ticular, when invited to a feast, will wedge themselves in at the table just
at the place where they suppose their rank entitles them to sit. The master
of the feast may, however, raise any one as high up the table as he pleases.
The Greeks have the same custom at their wedding feasts, and if any take
a place higher than they ought, they are very likely to get put lower
down.
Our Lord here teaches us, " that pride will have shame, and will at last
have a fall."
Tlie Prodigal Son is a most delightful parable, from the eleventh verse to
the end of the fifteenth chapter.
Explanation. — This parable represents to us the Jews under the character
of the eldest son ; they having long been treated as God's children, while
the Gentiles were not so ; and how they felt themselves mortified when our
blessed Lord gave them to understand that the Gentiles should be also
blessed in the Christ, the true Mes-
siah. It shows us also how the
sinner, choosing his own ways, goes
afar from God, our common Father,
and so from real happiness. And
it points out the folly of those young
persons who will break through
every restraint, and have their own
way, which most frequently brings
on misery, and often ruin. It like-
wise teaches us at the greatest
extreme of misery and wretched-
ness, not to despair, but to go to a
merciful God, who will look upon
our tears, will hear our supplica-
tions, and will yet receive us
graciously in his tender mercies,
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.
The sixteenth chapter begins
with the Unjust Steward, and it is
contained in the first eight verses.
Explanation. — "This world," says one, "is a house; heaven the roof; the
stars the lights ; the earth, with its fruits, the table spread ; the Master of the
house is the holy and blessed God; man is the steward, into whose hands the
CAROB FRUIT (HUSKS OF PRODIGAL SON) AND LEAVES.
Luke.
731
goods of this house are delivered ; if he behave himself well, he shall find
favor in the eves of his Lord ; if not, he shall be turned out of his steward-
ship." We see in this parable that one step of sin leads on towards another,
and that he who begins to cheat will soon easily go on cheating. Roguery
is, however, sooner or later discovered, and then it ends in the disgrace of
the offender. Yet bad as it is to act unjustly towards man, it is worse when
we consider that we cannot do wickedly towards others without breaking
God's law. Such a steward must break the sacred command, " Thou shalt
not steal ; " and God marks those who wickedly break his righteous laws.
In the nineteenth and following verses we have the parable of the Rich
Man and Lazarus.
Explanation. — The expression, "Abraham's bosom," used here, was used
among the Jews to express heaven.
We must remember that this is only
a parable, and that the happy in
heaven, and the wicked in hell, are
too far apart ever to talk with each
other.
In the seventeenth chapter is a
short parable, which we call the Ser-
vant in the Field. It is to teach us
that when we serve God ever so diligently, we have only done our duty,
and have merited nothing from his hands.
In the eleventh and following verses, we read of ten lepers whom Christ
cured, but out of the ten only one gave him glory for what he had done.
Was not this ungrateful ? But ask yourself, how many mercies have I
received and have forgotten to praise God for them ? " In everything give
thanks," and bless the kind Giver.
The eighteenth chapter begins with the parable of the Unjust Judge,
which, as the introduction of it tells us, is to teach us " that men ought
always to pray and not to faint," for if the unjust judge could be wearied- to
do what the poor widow needed, surely God will not suffer those who love
him to plead with him in vain.
The last parable that requires our notice in this book is that of the
Pharisee and Publiean. It is included in the tenth and following verses.
The Pharisee represents those who think there is merit in their performing
their religious duties, and who hope to be saved by them; while the publican
represents the humble-hearted sinner, who feels no pride in praying, but
only feels his need of God's mercy.
ANCIENT SIGNET RINGS (Luke XV. 22).
732
Bible and Commentator.
" God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble."
In this gospel there is an account given of Zaccheus the publican, or
tax-gatherer, who was very rich : and as Jesus was passing through Jericho,
he wished much to see him. But he was a very short man, and could not
see among the crowd, so he got up into a sycamore or kind of fig-tree.
Jesus looked up, and called him, by name, to come down, for he meant to go
with him to his house. Zaccheus was delighted at this, but many were
mortified, and, no doubt, many of the Pharisees, for they said that Jesus
was gone to be a guest with a sinner. Yes, Jesus Christ "came into the
world to save sinners." And now the heart of Zaccheus was touched by
his grace. He had been an oppressive and unjust tax-gatherer, and had
wronged those of whom he had collected, to enrich himself. But he was
not ashamed to confess his sins, and
to make recompense to those whom
he had injured, and so to repent.
Jesus saw that he was sincere. He
knew, too, that his heart was ready
to receive him as his Saviour. Zac-
cheus becoming blessed, would now
be a blessing to others. " This day,"
said Jesus, " is salvation come to this house, forasmuch as he also is the son
of Abraham." Publicans, though Jews, were reckoned by them but as
heathens ; but now Zaccheus is blessed with faithful Abraham ; like him,
he would command his children and his household to walk in the ways of
holy obedience. The salvation of Zaccheus was an example of Christ's design
in coming iuto the world, "to seek and to save that which was lost."
In this gospel there are also several particulars concerning the crucifixion,
the resurrection, and the ascension of Christ which are not found in the
other gospels. Among those relating to the crucifixion are: his praying for
his murderers : " Father, forgive them ; for they know not wh^t they do ! "
The petition of the dying thief, and his prompt pardon by the Saviour; the
commending his spirit into the hands of his Father just before his death.
In regard to the resurrection, we have two angels appearing to the women ;
Christ's appearance to the two disciples going to Emmaus ; and to the eleven
in Jerusalem. As to his ascension, Luke gives a more particular account of
it, both here and in the first chapter of Acts, than any of the other Evangel-
ists. He is also the only Evangelist who gives the command of Christ
that they should remain in Jerusalem until they received the Holy Spirit.
ANCIENT SIGNET KINGS (Luke XV. 22).
Gospel According to St. John:
Written by John, "the disciple whom Jesus loved," the son of Zebedee, brother of James, and cousin of our Lord.
His relations to the Saviour were more intimate even than those of his brother James, and of Peter. He wrote this
gospel probably twenty years or more after the otber gospels were in circulation. His purpose in writing it seems
to have been, not to repeat the incidents of the birth and youth of Christ which the other Evangelists had already
given with sufficient fulness, nor to describe many of his miracles (he mentions only eight, six of which are not
found in the other gospels), or recount his parables, which had already been done ; but to demonstrate to the disciples
at Ephesus, and to the world, that Jesus was the Son of God. In doing this he necessarily supplies many particulars,
which his more intimate intercourse with Christ enabled him to know more fnlly than the other Evangelists, and
he gives special prominence to those teachings of Christ, in which his divine nature was asserted and demonstrated.
As instances of this, his conversation with his earliest disciples, with Nicodemus, with the Samaritan woman, with
the Jews after the miracle of healing the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda, after the feeding of the five thou-
sand, and on several other occ isions at Jerusalem ; at the raising of Lazarus, in the temple, and in his long and
tender interview with his disciples, the evening before his betrayal, may be adduced. It was incidental to this
purpose, that John gives a much fuller account of the Saviour's labors in Judaea than the others, their narratives
being mostly occupied with his life and labors in Galilee. His accounts of the trial, the crucifixion, and the resur-
rection of Christ, are, as was becoming in the principal eye-witness of all three, more full and definite than those of
either of the other Evangelists ; and this also aids his main purpose — to demonstrate that " the Word was made flesh
and dwelt anions!; us." This gospel has always been accepted by the church as authentic and inspired; of late years
infidels and rationalistic writers have attempted to show that it was written in the second or third century after
Christ, and was not genuine ; but they have signally failed. It is divided into twenty-one chapters. The last two
verses of the twenty-first chapter are supposed to have been added by the elders of the church at Ephesus, at whose
request the gospel was written.
Account of John the Evangelist— John the Baptist's Testimony to
Christ.
John i.
HE Evangelist John was distinguished as "that disciple
whom Jesus loved." Jesus loved all his disciples, but John
was particularly honored by him, sat near him, and leaned
upon his bosom. When Jesus shone in such glory on the
" high mountain," John was one of the three disciples that
saw him. He was, likewise, one of the three that saw his
agony in the garden. To him also was committed the care
of Mary, the mother of Jesus, when he died on the cross.
History informs us that he lived till he was very old, and
while the other disciples were martyred, he was suffered to die a natural
death. 733
734 Bible and Commentator.
As we find things in Mark and Luke which are not in Matthew, so we
find things in John which are not in either of the other Evangelists.
John does not repeat the account of the birth of Jesus Christ, for that
had been sufficiently done by the other three Evangelists ; those who fol-
lowed the first having told us about matters omitted by him, that nothing
important might be wanting. And throughout this Evangelist, the history
of what Jesus did is not so much related as what he said.
In the other Evangelists, we are told about the things which Jesus
performed, from which we must conclude that he was more than a mere
man, for no man could do the miracles which he did ; and there are also
expressions used at different times which point out that he was a divine
person. But John treats more largely on this point, and begins his gospel
by declaring that Jesus Christ is God.
Christ is here called " the Word." We will tell you why : because he it
is that speaks all divine things to us ; we only know the word of God
through him.
He who is called " the Word" is also called God ; "and the Word," says
John, « was God."
He was in " the beginning ; " in the beginning of time, and therefore he
was from eternity, before time begun. The world was not " in the begin-
ning," as eternity is called, but was from the beginning. The world can-
not have existed as this divine Word has existed, because — as is elsewhere
said of him — "he was before all things, and by him all things consist."*
He must have been before the world, because he made the world ; for John
* It has been well said, that " while Matthew begins his genealogy of Christ with Abraham,
and Luke traces it back to Adam, John goes back to ' the beginning/ before the creation of
the earth or the universe. To him the creation of man seems to be a modern and recent
occurrence. His genealogy dates from eternity." Our readers should also notice the similarity
between the commencement of this gospel, and that of the book of Genesis. The old revela-
tion of God's will and the new both start from "the beginning" of all things; but while the
Old Testament only brings us to the hiil-tops, from whence we may see the first signs of the
dawning of the Sun of Righteousness — the coming of the light of the world — the new bears us
up, as on angel's wings, till we can see, from the walls of the Jerusalem above, the end of all
earthly things, and the creation of the new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth
righteousness. In the Scriptures, then, we have the whole history of God's dealings with man,
past, present and future ; from that remote period far back of the ages of the geologist, when
the plan of salvation was first conceived in the mind of God, to that period in the future, when
the earth and heaven, that now are, shall pass away, and the judgment being ended, the saints
of all ages shall reign forever with their glorified Lord.
John
735
adds, "All things were made by him; and without him was not anything
made that was made." Now we have seen in Genesis, that " in the begin-
ning God created the heaven and the earth ; " so that it is clear, he who is
here called " The Word " is the same that is there called God.
John further says, " in him was life : " all living beings derive their life
from him, and nobody can give life but God. Men can make a fine statue,
but all the men in the world cannot give it life ; God alone must do this.
But in this divine " Word was life."
"And the Life was the Light of men." The world must have been in
gross darkness without him. We could have known nothing about God
and the way to heaven, but through Jesus Christ. Where he is not known,
even the wisest men did and still do worship carved figures of different
materials, believing them to be God.
This " light shined in darkness, but the darkness comprehended it not."
"The world by wisdom
knew not God." When
Jesus Christ appeared, the
world could not see his
glory ; they were even so
blind, that the miracles
which proved him to be
no mere man could not
convince them.
" There was a man sent
from God, whose
was John,
came for a
name
same
witness, to
The
bear witness
— that ail
of the
him might believe.
ight
men through
He"-
SHOES AND SANDALS.
-John-
" was not that light, but was sent to bear
witness of that light. That was the true light which lighteth every man
that cometh into the world." The heathen have the light of reason, which
God gave to them, and we have the light of revelation, or of the gospel,
revealed— or made known to us — by his Holy Spirit.
"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us : and we beheld his
glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and
truth."
Now think a little on what John has here said. Though his language^
736 Bible and Commentator.
being about uncommon matters, is expressed in a way not directly to be
understood on account of our being so used chiefly to common concerns ; yet
by a little thought it becomes very clear.
The Word, which spoke the mind of God, and was God ; which made all
things, and is the life and light of all men ; was borne witness to by John
the Baptist, who came preaching a few months before Jesus openly showed
himself in his ministry ; and that " Word " was the Lord Jesus Christ
himself, who " was made flesh," when he took our nature, and was born in
Bethlehem; who "dwelt" some time in the world; whose "glory" the
apostles saw — in the deeds he did, in the heavenly truths which he taught,
in his transfiguration on the mount, and in his ascension to glory — of which
we shall hereafter read.
John attracted much attention by his bold and singular way of preaching;
and the Jews made inquiries of him if he was the Christ — the Messiah
foretold by the prophets. John replied that he was not, that he was only
like the forerunner of a prince, in his processions or travels, going before
him and saying, "Make straight the way of the Lord;" remove every
impediment out of the way to receive him ; or, as a king's servants say,
" Make room." Men must turn out their sins, by repenting of them, and
so make room in their hearts for Jesus Christ. He, who was the Christ,
was speedily coming to preach his gospel, and he was far greater than he ;
so much so, that he was not worthy of being honored as his servant to
unloose even the straps of his sandals — or shoes without the upper leathers,
as worn in the East.
The very next day Jesus made his appearance, and John pointed to him
and said, " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the
world ! This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is pre-
ferred before me : for he was before me." But why did John call Jesus
" The Lamb of God ? " Because he came into the world to die for sinners.
Every morning and evening the Jews offered up a lamb in sacrifice ; which
sacrifice in the morning took away the guilt of the night ; while that of the
night took away the guilt of the morning. So God appointed, and so the
Jews sacrificed. But Jesus Christ was now to be the Lamb slain. What
those lambs did only in type, or as a sign, he came to do in reality, for all
who by faith behold him as " the Lamb of God " — the only Lamb that can
take away sin — or, in other words, the only sacrifice that can be truly
effectual, and on whose account alone all the old sacrifices were of any use.
The Jews would in vain have offered their lambs in sacrifice, if Jesus
John.
737
Christ had not died ; and the truly pious Jews believed this, and looked
to something more that was to take place when the Messiah should finish
his work.
John, moreover, declared that he knew nothing of Christ any more than
other people — there was no scheme between them, that he should make out
Christ to be the Messiah, for he declared him to be such, because he had
seen the Holy Spirit rest upon him in -
some extraordinary appearance, resem-
bling a meek and innocent dove, yet, at
the same time, all glorious and divine.
On this account he " bare record" or
declared of Christ that he was " the Son
of God."
John's disciples, on hearing this testi-
mony / wisely left John, as John wished,
and followed after Jesus, and were soon
joined by other disciples, whom Jesus
added to them to be witnesses of what he said and did.
After this Jesus soon gave his disciples a proof that they had not been
mistaken in following him as the true Messiah. Nathaniel was invited by
Philip to come to Christ, and to follow him.
Nathaniel went to Jesus, and when Jesus saw him approaching, he said,
Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile! This wTas a
proof that he was more than a mere man, or how should he have known
anything about Nathaniel, whom he had never before seen ? By this he
meant, that Nathaniel did not merely pretend to serve God as an Israelite,
but that he served him from his heart. There was no guile or deceit about
him, but he wTas truly sincere.
The good man was surprised at our Lord's knowledge, and asked,
" Whence knowest thou me ? " Jesus said, " When thou wast under the
fig-tree I saw thee." This was probably some spot where Nathaniel re-
tired to meditate and to pray, and where he was so shut out from the world
that he knew no eye could possibly see him but the eye of God.
Nathaniel needed no further proof that Christ was the Messiah, and so>
he directly cried out, (f Babbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the king
of Israel." That is, " My Master, thou art a divine person, thou art the
Messiah, prophesied of to rule over Israel."
Many suppose Nathaniel to have been the same disciple which is called
47
738
Bible and Commentator.
Bartholomew j because Bartholomew being called to be a disciple is never
mentioned, and so they think that Nathaniel must have been the proper
name of Bartholomew, for Bartholomew is not a proper name, but signifies
the son of Ptolemy. The Evangelists who speak of Bartholomew never
mention Nathaniel ; and John, who mentions Nathaniel, never mentions
Bartholomew ; so that it is thought the one name is mentioned for the
other ; and, lastly, John seems to rank Nathaniel among the apostles, when
he says, that Peter, Thomas, the two sons of Zebedee, Nathaniel, and two
other disciples having gone a-fishing, Jesus showed himself to them. See
the twenty-first chapter and the second verse.
Marriage at Gana, in Galilee.
John ii.
~TT7~E have here an account of the first of Christ's public miracles, which
VV he performed at a marriage feast at Cana in Galilee, to which he
and his disciples were invited, and his mother Mary was also there.
There being more guests than were probably at first expected, the wine
was soon consumed. Mary mentioned this lack of wine to Jesus. Some
think that Mary having seen him perform some miracles in private, she now
expected to see him perform
another by supplying the wine.
And they suppose this, because
Mary could have no other reason
for mentioning it to him than
3 that he should take notice of it,
and because he checked her for
intimating it to him, probably
1 to induce him to work a miracle.
%u Jesus saith unto her, Woman,
irf what have I to do with thee ?
mine hour" — that is, my time
.^■^s^
HOUSE AND WAT KK- POTS AT CANA
for working any miracle here—
" is not yet come." I wish you
just to observe, by the way, that this language seems rather rude, and for
us to say to any one, but especially to a mother, " Woman," would show a
very great want of respect ; but it was a manner of speaking which in that
John.
'39
society implied no rudeness, for even princes addressed ladies of rank in
the same way, and servants employed the same word to speak to their
mistresses ; just as people address a lady by the name of Madam, or a ser-
vant by the same word shortened into Ma'am.
His mother left him to perform his own pleasure, and told the servants
just to mind what he should say if he gave them any orders.
Now there were six stone water-pots there, which had been used for water
for various purposes, especially for purifying or washing the hands and feet.
and the cups and platters. These
water-pots, or jars, learned men
have reckoned, from the size of
the measures used at that time,
to have held about fifty-four
gallons. " Jesus saith unto them,
fill the water-pots with water.
And they filled them up to the
brim. And he saith unto them, yij
Draw out now, and bear unto
the governor of the feast. And
they bare it." When the gov-
ernor had tasted the wine, he
was delighted with the flavor,
but did not know whence it
came, and he said, " Every man
at the beginning doth set forth good wine, and when men have well drunk,
then that which is worse, but thou hast kept the good wine until now."
Some persons have argued from this miracle, that our Saviour approved
ANCIENT CUPS AND AYATER-JARS.
of the use of intoxicating wines ; but this is w
for tl
ie common wines
of Palestine were not as intoxicating as our cider, and the Jewish people
were very temperate ; and besides Ave have no warrant for thinking that
this wine, miraculously changed from water, by our Saviour, contained any
intoxicating princip'e; though tasting like their wine, it was not the fruit of
the vine, nor had it been fermented ; furthermore, to draw from this an argu-
ment in favor of indulgence in intoxicating drinks, is to contradict the spirit
of Christ's teachings. He requires us to deny ourselves, take up our cross,
that is, avoid the indulgence of selfish and sensual appetites, and follow him.
Doing this, we are in no danger of using intoxicating drinks freely.
740
Bible and Commentator.
Christ's Conversation with Nicodemus.
John hi.
IN this chapter we have an interesting conversation which our Lord held
with Nicodemus, one of the sect of the Pharisees, and " a ruler of the
Jews ; " that is, a member of the great Sanhedrim — a sort of parliament,
consisting of seventy-one or seventy-two members, and consequently he was
one of considerable authority in Jerusalem; though this parliament was
perhaps now somewhat altered in its character, and allowed only to meddle
with religions matters, the government being under the Romans.
Nicodemus being afraid of incurring the displeasure of the Jews by going
to see Jesus, went to him " by night." He respectfully addressed him by
the name which the Jewish Doctors
bore, and called him " Rabbi," by
way of distinction. He told him he
believed him to be "a teacher sent
from God," and that he had given
proof of it by the miracles which he
had wrought, and which no common
|B& person could do.
Jesus replied, that this was not
enough to save him, but he must be
" born again : " that is, born anew :
in other words, he must undergo as great a change nrhis heart, as if his old
life had come to an end, and he had been born anew into the world. He
must be quite a different creature from what he had been. He was born in
sin, but he must be born of the Holy Spirit, or he could never enter heaven.
Nicodemus could not understand him ; but Christ told him not to " mar-
vel," or wonder, at what he said ; for as the wind blew which way it would,
never seen by our eyes, yet felt in its power upon our bodies, so the Divine
Spirit works unseen, yet powerfully felt on the heart of the sinner, before
he can be saved. So, that as by nature he cannot love God, now by grace
he loves him ; as by nature he practises sin, so by grace he practises holi-
ness ; as by nature he delights in folly, so by grace he delights in that which
is good. This change of the mind is equal to a new birth, for none can
understand it, but those who have felt it ; and those who have felt it know
that they are " born again," are " new creatures in Christ Jesus."
FOUNTAIN AT CANA.
John.
741
The Woman of Samaria— The Nobleman's Son cured.
John iv.
THERE is a very pleasing little narrative in this chapter, about a
woman of Samaria. She lived at a city called Sychar : Jacob
formerly had purchased a piece of ground here, and gave it to his beloved
son Joseph ; and here was a well, which still bore the name of Jacob's
well.
Jesus having occasion to pass that way on a journey, being hungry,
thirsty, and fatigued, sat down by this well just at the moment the woman
of Samaria went to it to draw water, and Jesus asked her to give him
some to drink. The woman wondered at such a request from Jesus, he
being a Jew, and the Jews and Samaritans having a very bitter dislike to
each other ; for the Samaritans had
in various ways endeavored to in-
jure the Jews. Jesus then said to
her, " If thou knewest the gift of
God"— that is, that God has giv-
en his own Son to save lost men
of every nation — "and who it is
that saith to thee, Give me to
drink, thou wouldest have asked
of him, and he would have given sS^llIP^
thee living water ; " by this he jj
meant the Holy Spirit's influences,
which, because they are refreshing
to the thirsty soul of man, in search
of peace and happiness, are often compared to water.
The woman did not understand him, and asked him how he could draw
water elsewhere, having neither well nor bucket at hand ; and if he thought
himself wiser than Jacob, who had drunk the water of that well, and left it
as a valuable gift to his family.
Jesus told her that those who partook of that water would grow thirsty
again, but that which he could bestow would afford full and everlasting
satisfaction.
Still the woman could not comprehend his meaning, and either supposing
he might know of some extraordinary water, or might be boasting of what he
742 Bible and Commentator.
could not give, she proposed patting him to the test, and said, " Sir, give me
of this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw."
Jesus then began a conversation which convinced her that he was no com-
mon man, and told her all about her private concerns.
She then said, " Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet ; " and not liking
to talk about some things which she had wrongly done, she asked him to
inform her which place of worship was most pleasing to God, that in which
the Samaritans worshipped on Mount Gerizim, or that in which the Jews
worshipped at Jerusalem.
Jesus told her that the time was now coming when no one place in par-
ticular should be more holy than another, but every spot would be the
same in the sight of God in which the worship was sincere ; for " God
is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in
truth."
The woman further answered him, that she believed what he said was
right ; but the Messiah was expected soon to come, and then he would clear
up all difficulties about the matter.
Imagine how surprised the woman must have been when Jesus said, " I
that speak unto thee am he." The disciples, however, who were gone away
to buy food, now returned, and so the interview ended.
Seeing Jesus thus engaged in what appeared to be an interesting conver-
sation with a Samaritan woman, the disciples were quite amazed ; but they
would not take the liberty of asking Jesus why he did so.
In the meantime the
woman, leaving her water-
pot, hastened to the city,
and told all her acquaint-
ance there that she had seen
the Messiah; for a person
she had talked with had
told her the most wonderful
things ; and they must come
along with her, and see and
hear him too.
While this was taking
place the disciples begged
of Jesus to eat of the food they had brought ; but he said, " I have meat to
eat that ye know not of ; " and his mind was so intent on his work of doing
COUNTRY AROUND SAMARIA.
John. 743
good, which he called his meat, that he cared not about eating. The disci-
ples, however, were often dull of understanding, and so they were now, for
they thought that he had got some other meat, and wondered how he could
have procured it. Jesus then explained to them his meaning : " My meat
is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." It wanted
then four months of harvest-time, but he nevertheless had a great harvest to
gather in — not of barley, but of souls. It was not a time then to eat and
to drink, but to work ; for the Samaritans were ready to receive him and to
believe on him, and these were his precious fields, which were white and
ready for harvest. And so it came to pass, for " many of the Samaritans
of that city believed on him."
Having been prevailed upon to stop at Sychar two days, he then pro-
ceeded on his journey into Galilee ; and going again to Cana, " where he
made the water wine," he performed another miracle by curing the sick
son of a nobleman of Herod's court. This nobleman, hearing that Jesus
was there, took a journey from Capernaum to see him, and to implore him
to cure his son. Jesus knew how unbelieving the people of Capernaum
were, and perhaps that he had been so among others, so he reproved him,
and did not say he would cure his son, but told him, " Except ye see signs
and wonders, ye will not believe." The nobleman, however, urged him to
return and save his child. The kind heart of Jesus could not resist the
yearnings of the fond parent over his beloved son, and he said, " Gc thy
way, thy son liveth." The nobleman relied on his word, and hastened
home. But before he got home some of the servants were sent on the road
to meet him, and to tell him the joyful news that his son was recovered ;
and on his inquiring at what time it took place he found it was exactly at
the time which Jesus had said.
Owing to this remarkable miracle, the second which Jesus performed at
Cana, not only did the nobleman believe, but all his family were convinced
that Jesus was the true Messiah ; that is, " The Christ, the Saviour of
the world."
Christ cures the disabled Man at the Pool of Bethesda.
John v.
~\TT"E now behold Jesus going, according to custom, and in obedience to
* V the law, to the feast of the passover at Jerusalem, on which occa-
sion a vast number of persons being assembled, he had the greater oppor-
tunity of doing good.
744 Bible and Commentator.
There was at Jerusalem a pool, which on account of some medical
properties in its waters was a sort of bath, to which persons with com-
plaints of various kinds went, in order to obtain a cure, and many had been
^-^ cured by bathing in it.
^=AJ _^^- It seems, however, that
it was necessary they
should go in just at a
certain time, when the
waters were agitated by
an extraordinary cause.
Jesus arriving at the
pool, saw a poor_ man
there who had been dis-
abled during no less
than thirty-eight years,
and having no money
to pay any one to wait
upon him and put him
bethesda. ^0 j-^q water whenever
it began to stir, some other person always hurried into the pool before him
just at the proper moment, and obtained cure instead of himself.
Jesus talked to him about his complaint, and learning his hard lot, asked
him if he would like then to be cured ; and then he commanded him to
take up his bed and walk. We have noticed a similar cure in the ninth
chapter of St. Matthew, and there told you, that the bed used was a sort of
mattress., or, Ave may add, if you have ever seen a sailor's hammock, it was
something of that kind, so that a man in health could carry it without any
great inconvenience.
This happened on the Sabbath-day. Now the Jews were very strict ob-
servers of the Sabbath, and so far they were right ; and they would not
allow any one to carry a burden on that day. So seeing this man carrying
his bed, they told him that he was breaking the Sabbath. The man then
excused himself for what he was doing, and intimated as much as that he
could not in that instance be doing wrong, for he who had power to cure
him had certainly a right to order him to carry his bed. The poor man
'could not afford to lose it, he was not going to leave it by the pool, and as
he did not carry it for the purpose of business, but only in a case of entire
necessity ; — all works of necessity and mercy are lawful on the Sabbath.
John. 745
These were probably Pharisees, who, guessing that it was Jesus who cured
this man, endeavored thus to prejudice him, for they took every opportunity
to show their hatred to our divine Lord.
The. man afterwards finding that it wTas Jesus who had cured him, went
and told the Jews, hoping, no doubt, that they would raise the fame of his
divine Saviour ; instead of which these wicked people only hated him the
more, and sought to kill him by bringing him before their Sanhedrim or
court of justice, to have him condemned for breaking the Sabbath.
As yet, however, they could only threaten to stone him or to use mob
violence toward him, for the plans afterward concocted by the Pharisees
and priests for his destruction had not then been matured.
Christ compares Himself to Bread.
John vi.
SOON after the events mentioned in the last chapter, Jesus had left Jeru-
salem and gone into Galilee, and at Capernaum and Bethsaida, and
other towns on and near the sea of Galilee, had taught and performed
miracles. Withdrawing at last, to the hilly region northeast of the sea of
Galilee for a short period of rest and quiet, he had been followed by a great
multitude, and had taught and healed them for two or three days, finally
feeding five thousand men, and many women and children, with five loaves
and two small fishes, as you read in the fourteenth chapter of Matthew.
The people who had been fed thought this an easy way to obtain a living,
and as he could so easily work miracles, they followed him across the sea
to Cauernaum, whither he had gone the night after the miracle. Here he
took occasion to tell them, that he knew they sought only their own gratifi-
cation in following him, and that their motive was wrong; they thought to
make themselves rich and great by following him, but they were mistaken.
He then told them not to labor so much for the body, as to forget to feed
their souls : that to do this they must believe on him. They ungratefully
replied, that if he would rain manna from heaven they would. Jesus replied,
that his Father had sent them bread from heaven — the bread of life: they
asked to be fed with it. Then Jesus said, " I am the Bread of Life." Yes, my
dear young readers, those who believe in him find life for their souls. Bread
sustains the body, and Christ only can sustain the soul.
Many of the Jews were so much displeased at the spiritual character of
746 Bible and Commentator.
Christ's teachings, that though they had previously professed to be his dis-
ciples, they now " went back and walked no more with him." Jesus said to
the twelve whom he had chosen, Will ye also go away ? Peter replied, Lord,
to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we know
and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.
Christ the Spring or Fountain of Happiness.— The Jews try to stone
Christ.— Christ gives Sight to a Man born Blind.
John vii .-ix.
JESUS had left the province of Judea for that of Galilee ; for while he
remained in Jewry, or Judea, " the Jews sought to kill him ; " but he
soon afterwards returned thither at the feast of tabernacles, when all
the males went to Jerusalem, and when the Jews erected tents, or booths,
RUINS OF CAPERNAUM.
in which they dwelt and ate their meals, in commemoration of the Israelites
dwelling in booths in the wilderness. Here Christ went into the temple
and taught the people ; and they wondered at the divine truths which he
told them. He also repeated his reproofs to the Jews, and they still tried
John. 747
to get a favorable opportunity to kill him, but they could not then do it.
And in the last great and solemn day of the feast, he stood up and cried
aloud, " If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink/' You un-
derstand what you have read about the woman at the well ; Christ here
means the same, that all true life proceeds from him ; and that if any man
wished then to be happy, by coming to him he could make him so ; from
him he could always be supplied, as a thirsty man could from an overflowing
spring ; he should be brimful of happiness, which he expresses by saying,
that " out of his belly " should " flow rivers of living waters." Springs
make rivers, and the more plentiful the springs the larger or more numerous
the rivers. Thus his very heart and soul should abound with comfort
and joy, always flowing like a fresh spring, and not like waters that might
be dried up.
In the following chapter, a woman was brought to him who had forsaken
her husband and lived with another man. This was forbidden by the laws
of God, and was to be punished with death. The Jews brought this woman
to Christ, that he might say whether she ought to be punished or not.
Now, if he had said that she ought, they would have accused him to the
Sanhedrim and to the Roman government, of taking upon himself to sit
in judgment without any authority, which would have been a high crime ;
and if he had said she was not punishable, they would have accused him
of contradicting the law of Moses. In both cases, therefore, they would
have taken an advantage of him ; but with his usual wonderful wisdom, he
defeated their design, and instead of answering their question for his opinion,
he said, " He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at
her." Jesus knew that her accusers were as wicked as she, and this answer
made them quite ashamed of themselves ; so they all slunk away one by
one, leaving the woman with Christ, who faithfully and tenderly admonished
her to " go and sin no more."
Jesus still continued to exhort in the temple, and pointed to himself as
" the light of the world," and " many believed on him." He also further
reproved the Jews, who became so enraged with what he said to them, and
especially when he spoke of his own eternal existence as the Son of God,
that they took up stones with which some builders were repairing the
temple, that they might throw them at him ; but Jesus escaped again from
their hands, for his work on earth was not yet done.
And as Jesus passed by from the temple, he saw a man who was born
blind ; and he wet some clay with his spittle, and putting it on his eyes,
748
Bible and Commentator.
commanded him to go to the pool of Siloam and wash there. The man
accordingly obeyed him, " and washed, and came seeing."
Now, the putting of clay on the man's eyes could not give him sight, nor
could the washing in the fountain called Siloam ; but this was done to show
us that we ought never to despise the use of any means, how simple soever
they may seem, if those means are divinely commanded. Praying to God,
and hearing and reading the word of God, can never save our souls ; but
they are all means which we are commanded to use, and in using them,
with a dependence upon God's grace, he is pleased to give his blessing.
This miracle attracted much notice, for the man was a public beggar, and
everybody knew him, and now everybody asked, " Is not this he that sat
and begged ? " Then the people wished to learn in what wonderful way he
had got his sight ; and he told them. The Pharisees also soon heard about
it, and they were also very inquisitive in the matter. The man told them
the same story. Now this miracle, like that
of curing the impotent man, was done on
the Sabbath-day ; and being still full of
malice against Jesus, these wicked Pharisees
said, that though Jesus might have cured
the man, yet nevertheless he was a bad man,
for he had broken the Sabbath. Some few,
however, thought differently, and they quar-
relled among themselves about it. As for
the blind man, he made up his mind at once
that Jesus was a prophet ; for he knew that
no common person could do what he had
done to his heretofore sightless eyes.
The Pharisees then sent for the man's parents, to know if he had really
been born blind ; or if so, whether perhaps some means had not been used
to cure him, to which they might ascribe his cure rather than to Jesus.
The parents were as much surprised as the Pharisees, but as they knew
nothing about the cure, they were obliged to set them again inquiring of the
man ; and besides, had they known more about it, they were afraid to say
what they thought of Jesus, for the Pharisees had threatened severely to
punish any who should own that he was the true Messiah : they were liable
to be put out of the synagogue, which was a sentence that did not exclude
them from going to the synagogue, but was only so called. It was, how-
ever, very severe. After this sentence no one durst hire the punished
TENT OR BOOTH.
John. 749
person to work, no one durst trade with him, and his goods were confiscated
or taken away from him.
The Pharisees again, therefore, spoke to the man who was cured, and
told him to praise God for it, and not Jesus, for he was no more than a
sinner. But the man thought more highly of him. He who had opened
his eyes had thrown some light of knowledge into his mind, and given him
to see that he was no sinful creature who had cured him. And after dis-
puting their opinion, he at once asked them if they would become disciples
of Jesus. This was more than their malicious and proud spirits could bear,
and they then reviled him and Christ too. The man, however, reasoned
well with them, and said it was very strange indeed that they could not take
a different view of Christ's character, for it was plain enough, that by no
human power he could have opened his eyes; "Since the world began was
it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind."
Being unable any longer to reason the point, they had recourse to
violence, and they said, " Dost thou dare to teach us ? " and so they cast
him out of the synagogue.
In this pitiable condition, the Saviour sought for him and found him;
and he said to him, " Dost thou believe in the Son of God ? " that is, Dost
thou expect the Messiah? Wilt thou trust in him? for in the prophecies
he was called the Son of God. The poor man's heart was made ready to
receive Christ's instructions, and he said, " Who is he, Lord, that I may
believe in him ? " Jesus then told him that he himself was the Son of God,
and the man worshipped him.
Christ compares himself to a Door— Christ the Good Shepherd.
Johx x.
rTlHIS is still a continuation of our Lord's conversation at the temple, at
J- the time that the blind man received his sight ; for though it is here
divided into chapters, for the convenience of our reading it in smaller por-
tions, it was not formerly so.
We find Christ here comparing himself to a door, through which it was
necessary to enter properly into a sheepfold ; for any one climbing over
into it did so from bad designs, he was a thief and a robber. We have
doors of entrance to our houses, and none but thieves and robbers think of
getting into them by climbing up to the windows.
The allusion was well understood by the Jews. The sheepfold was " an
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Bible and Commentator,
enclosure, sometimes in the manner of a building, and made of stone, and
sometimes was fenced with reeds, and in it was a large door, at which the
shepherd went in and out when he led in or brought out the sheep."
Now the real shepherd would always enter in by that door, that is, by
the proper way, and the man who watched the door inside, and watched the
sheep there, would always open the door on bearing his voice. The sheep,
too, would directly know
him, when he called them by
name ; for in Eastern coun-
tries the shepherds know
their sheep as Ave know our
dogs, and they give them
names, and when they are
called, they will come to the
shepherd out of the flock,
and answer to their names,
as a dog we know will an-
swer us. With the same
familiarity they would also
follow their shepherd, who
frequently, in old times,
went before them, playing
some musical instrument.
But if a stranger attempted
to lead them, they took
fright at the sound of his
voice, and ran away.
By the sheepfold Christ
meant his church, to which
he was the only way of en-
trance; and he tells the
Pharisees and people, that
.whoever before claimed to be the Messiah had deceived them, for he alone
was the Saviour of the world ; therefore he alone that went in and out of
this fold, under his guidance, would find happiness and peace.
Again Christ says, " I am the good shepherd : the good shepherd giveth
his life for the sheep." So you read that David exposed his life, and fought
with wild beasts to save his father's flock. Christ our good shepherd actu-
THE GOOD SHEPHERD.
John.
7ol
ally gave himself up to death that his sheep might not perish, unlike the
hireling, that cares not for them ; and if his life is endangered by protecting
them, hastily flees and leaves them to the devouring wolf.
Thus he loved his ^^
church, and gave him- SH
self for it. Among the
Jews he had manv
sheep, whom he came
to save ; but not among
them only, but also
among the Gentiles —
among the heathen, that
is, the nations that were
not Jews, of which we
form a part. Jesus
SHEEP-FOLD.
further says, "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; them
also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice ; and there shall be one fold
and one Shepherd."
Christ raiseth Lazarus from the Dead.
John xi.
AT a village called Bethany, about two miles from Jerusalem, there lived
-£A- two sisters, Martha and Mary, of whom we have read in the tenth
chapter of Luke. They had a brother named Lazarus, and he seems to
have been an excellent man, for Jesus loved him, as he did also Martha and
her sister, who were pious women.
Lazarus was taken ill, and his sisters went unto him, saying, " Lord,
behold, he whom thou lovest is sick." But Jesus delayed going to see him,
till he was dead. This he did that he might try the faith of his sisters, and
see if they really believed in his divine power to raise him again ; and also
that he might perform another miracle, to confirm the faith of his disciples.
When Jesus arrived at Bethany, Lazarus had lain in the grave four days;
and there were many Jews at the house of his friends, comforting the
bereaved sisters. As soon as Martha heard that he was coming, she
hastened out to meet him, and perhaps to warn him, in case he might
consider himself in danger from the Jews. Mary continued a mourner in
752
Bible and Commentator,
the house, as she did not know that Jesus had arrived, for she had a most
sincere love for him.
Martha complained, " Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not
died/' This proved how high an opinion she had of his power to save
him ; and she seems to have had faith enough to believe it possible that he
might raise him from the dead.
After some further conversation with Jesus, Martha hastened to call her
sister, who, suddenly leaving the house, wTas supposed by the Jews to have
gone to weep over her brother's grave, and so they followed her.
As soon as Mary came to Jesus, she also said as her sister had said,
"Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died;" showing by
this, that she had the same belief in his power. The blessed Jesus, who
had all the feelings of our nature, was tenderly touched at the affecting
scene, and going to his sepulchre, " Jesus wept." Oh, the kindness of his
heart ! Who could but love him !
Some of the Jews, who did not like him, reasoned wisely enough, and
said, that since he had opened the eyes of the blind, surely he might as
easily raise the dead ; but they said this in order to raise a doubt whether
he ever had done such a thing in reality as made the blind to see.
Jesus now went to the
cave, in which, according to
Jews, the
a custom of the
body was placed, "and a
stone lay upon it," or
rather upon the mouth of
the cave. Jesus immedi-
ately desired the stone to be
removed, and "cried with a
loud voice, Lazarus, come
forth. And he that was
dead came forth, bound
hand and foot with grave-
clothes ; " having several
folds of linen wrapped about
him, which was another cus-
tom of those times, " and his face was bound about with a napkin," that is,
round the forehead, and under the chin. Jesus then said to the persons at
the grave, " Loose him, and let him go."
ANCIENT TOMBS IN THE ROCKS.
John. 753
This miracle made many more Jews believe in Christ ; but some remained
so astonishingly obstinate, that still they would not believe he was the
Messiah ; and being filled with hatred to him because he was becoming so
popular, they went and told the Pharisees, probably that they might adopt
more crafty or active means to take him and put him to death.
The Pharisees were more alarmed than ever, and began seriously to think
what it was most wise to do, to prevent the people from becoming the dis-
ciples of Jesus. They acknowledged that he did many miracles, and that
if he proceeded in this manner, all men would believe in him. This was a
reason why they themselves should have believed in him, as the promised
Messiah ; but it showed the blindness of their hearts that they did not.
" Jesus, therefore, walked no more openly among the Jews," at or near
Jerusalem ; he did not teach in their streets, nor work miracles, nor appear
in public company ; but went and resided in a little and obscure city called
Ephraim.
The Precious Ointment— Christ's Entry into Jerusalem— Some Greeks
desire to see Him— The Voice from Heaven— He Washes His Disciples'
Feet— More about Judas— Christ's tender Address to His Disciples.
John xii.-xiv.
TTTE have in this twelfth chapter a more particular account of the pour-
» * ing of the precious ointment of spikenard on the feet of Christ, as
he reclined at the table in the house of Simon the leper, of which some
notice was taken in the notes on the twenty-sixth phapter of Matthew. We
are told here that it was Mary, the sister of Lazarus, who thus showed her
affection for her Lord, and her gratitude for his miraculous restoration of
her brother to life. We are also informed that it was Judas Iscariot who
complained of the waste, and said it might have been sold for three hundred
pence (about $51), and given to the poor. What he really wanted was that
the value of it should be intrusted to him, and he would have stolen it. He
was so angry at our Lord's rebuke of his greedy spirit, that he immediately
began to plot to betray his Master. The Pharisees now, and especially after
his entry into Jerusalem, already described in the twenty-first chapter of
Matthew, were so much displeased at Christ's popularity among the people
that they wanted to kill not only him, but Lazarus also, whom he had raised
from the dead.
There were some Greeks (probably Jewish proselytes) who had come up
48
754 Bible and Commentator.
to attend the feast of the Passover at Jerusalem at this time, and they came
to Philip, one of the apostles, and said they wanted to see and talk with
Jesus. They were, perhaps, the first fruits of that abundant harvest of
Gentile souls, which were soon to be brought into the fold of Christ. This
gave our dear Lord great joy in the midst of all his trials. And while he
was thus rejoicing and praying in the court of the temple, there came again
to him, in the presence and hearing of the people, a voice from heaven, from
the excellent glory, such as had been heard before, at his baptism, and his
transfiguration ; and the voice said, in reply to his prayer, " Father, glorify
thy name " — " I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.'7 But not-
withstanding these repeated attestations from heaven to his divine mission,
the unbelieving Pharisees and Jews would not, with a few exceptions,
receive him as the Messiah. Since he would not be the temporal ruler for
whom they had hoped, to free them from the power of the Romans, they
cared nothing for him.
A short time before the feast of the Passover, we are told in chapter
thirteenth, that Jesus, in order to teach his disciples humility, and to pre-
vent them from having such jealousies, as they had hitherto manifested
toward each other, in regard to the places they wTere to occupy in his king-
dom, after supper, girded himself with a towel, and proceeded to wash his
disciples' feet, and on their expressing surprise, he said to them : " If I, then,
your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one
another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I
have done to you." Some excellent Christian people think that Christ
intended to establish this as an ordinance to be practised by the church in
all ages, and they do practise it accordingly. Others think that he meant
to teach us humility, and to show us that if we were truly his disciples, we
would be willing to do even humble and menial things for those who are his
disciples, in his name, and for his sake.
We also learn from this chapter, in relation to the wicked traitor, that
Christ pointed out Judas as his betrayer to the other disciples, by saying, in
answer to the inquiry of John, "Lord, who is it?" "He it is to whom I
shall give a sop " (the unleavened bread folded up and dipped into the stew,
or the gravy of the meat), " when I have dipped it. And when he had
dipped the sop he gave it to Judas," who went immediately out. The
ordinance of the Lord's Supper was not, it is supposed, instituted until after
Judas had withdrawn from the room. After Jesus had thus distributed the
bread and the wine, he commenced a most touching and tender discourse
John. 755
to his disciples, answering their questions and removing their doubts and
fears. He told them of his death and resurrection, and of his ascension
to- heaven to intercede for them, and of the coming of the Holy Spirit, the
Comforter, to teach and guide them. In the progress of this discourse he
gave them the parable of the vine, of which we speak in the next chapter,
and closed this beautiful address to them by a prayer of the deepest earnest-
ness and the most tender pathos, with and for them, in which, after extolling
the obedience and love which they had manifested and would yet manifest
for him, he commended them, and all who should believe on him through
their word, to the tender love and keeping of his heavenly Father. As
the scene in the garden of Gethsemane had already been fully described by
the other evangelists, John does not dwell upon it, though himself an eye-
witness of the agony of that hour ; but he is more full and minute in his
account of the circumstances of the arrest and trial, as well as of the fall of
Peter, of the whole of which he was the only observer on the side of oar
Lord. He does full justice to the hesitation and unwillingness of Pilate to
give judgment against the Saviour, and the consciousness of his own mis-
deeds, which made him afraid to be just to his prisoner.
The Parable of the Vine and Branches.
John xv.
CHRIST here speaks the parable of the Vine. The wine which had
just been drunk at supper with his disciples afforded our divine Lord
an opportunity of comparing himself with it. He had said he was Bread
and Living Water to them that believed on him ; and now he says, " I am
the true Vine." He also compares his Father to the Husbandman.
You know that most of the wines, and all those which were drunk at
this supper, were made of the fruit of the vine — that is, the grape. Christ
compares himself to the vine, because he wished to show his disciples how
closely by faith they were united to him. He therefore compares them to
branches ; and he says, " Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he
taketh away ; and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it
may bring forth more fruit." Fruit is that which the tree produces of any
^eal value. Now, in like manner as the branch united to the vine is ex-
pected to bring forth fruit, so those who are by faith united to Jesus Christ
are expected to bring forth their fruits. What these fruits are we may
756
Bible and Commentator,
learn from the like expressions in other parts of the sacred Scriptures —
" fruits meet for repentance — fruits unto holiness — the fruits of righteous-
ness, which are by Jesus to the praise and glory of God."
Now, if we profess to belong to Christ, and do not bear these fruits, we
are cut off, as the husbandman cuts off the useless or withered branch ; for
we have no proper union with him, and receive no more life from him^
than a withered branch does from the tree. And if we belong to Christ,
and really are his disciples from the heart, yet his heavenly Father purges
the branches of the true vine. By purging is here meant pruning. The
vine is taken much care of in the East. It is of great importance there,
because it furnishes refreshing drink. Its grapes are very large indeed,
and full of fine juice. But in a wild state it would not produce in this
manner. All this fruitfulness is effected by cultivation ; and if it have too
many branches, the fruit becomes weakened ; for the fewer the branches
the more juices the root sends up
into those which remain, and the
stronger the fruit which they yield.
For this reason the knife is freely
used to cut off the superfluous
^^^RI^^K branches which are not likely to
bring forth good fruit.
You must recollect all this is
merely the language of com-
parison ; that is, " like as the
husbandman prunes the vine, my heavenly Father will prune you who
are my disciples ; " and by pruning, cleansing, or purging the vine, as
it is here called, we are taught that there is much in us that requires
often to be removed, even if we are Christ's real disciples ; and it is chiefly
by afflictions that God will prune us, so that we must not wonder when
good people suffer under trials — they are the pruning-knives which purge
or take away the branches that are useless.
Christ proceeds, urging that his disciples should therefore abide closely
in him, living by faith on him as the Son of God, cleaving with all their
hearts to him ; and he tells them, " as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself
except it abide in the vine : no more can ye, except ye abide in me." Thus,
too, we draw from him such life as is necessary to our increase here and our
rejoicing hereafter. The power of his truth continually flows into the
branches that abide in him, and through this fruits are continually produced.
THE HUSBANDMAN.
John,
(bi
Christ's certain Death from the Soldier piercing • his Side— His Appear-
ances after his Resurrection.
John xvi.-xxt.
~TT^E have now gone through the principal passages of the four Evan-
* » gelists : a few things only remain in John of which it may be
necessary that we should take a short notice.
The first is in the nineteenth diopter, and twenty-fifth and following
verses. We here learn that three Marys stood by the cross of Jesus when
he was nailed upon it, and dying with his crucifixion : Mary his mother —
FBTTT OF THE YISZ.
Mary his mother's sister, who was the wife of Cleophas — and Mary Mag-
dalene. As for our sakes the blessed Jesus became poor, he had nothing
to leave his mother : and as Joseph was without doubt now dead, and she
was getting old, he was affectionately concerned for her, that she should
not want for comfort and support in her last days. This, I think, is a
most lovely trait in the character of Jesus. Though he was then in the
deepest agony of body on the cross, he forgot his pains to think on his
poor afflicted mother. He therefore commended her to the care of his be-
loved disciple, John. " Woman," said he, — and you remember that I have
before told you that this name, so spoken, was a title of respect — ''behold
758
Bible and Commentatok.
thy son ! " as much as to say, " I am going away from earth, and thou canst
therefore have this body with thee no longer, but look upon John as thy
son ; and I know the kindness of his heart, that for my sake he will love
thee, and treat thee as a son." And then he said to John, " Behold thy
mother ; " meaning, " behave towards her as a son ; take care of. her ; com-
fort her in her old age." Some writers say that Mary lived with John at
Jerusalem eleven years, and then died ; and others say that she lived longer,
and removed with him to Ephesus ; but the Scripture gives us no more
information on this subject. Jesus knew that John loved him, and would
therefore obey him ; and no doubt he behaved to her as a kind son to the
day of her death.
In the thirty-first and following verses of the same chapter, we also read
some particulars respecting the crucifixion of the blessed Jesus which are
not mentioned by the other Evangelists. " The Jews, therefore, because it
was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on
the Sabbath-day (for that Sabbath-day was an high day), besought Pilate
that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away." It
was now the preparation time for the Sabbath-day, which at the period of
the Passover was a grand festival — it was one of the days of unleavened
bread, and some reckon, the day of the offering of the first-fruits. The Jews
were therefore afraid of a breach of the law on that day ; for, according to
FIRST-FRUITS.
the Jewish law, Deuteronomy xxi. 22, 23, the body of one hanged on a tree
was not to remain all night, but to be taken down that day and buried.
Among the Romans the carcasses remained to be eaten by birds ; but the
John. 759
Jews were taught to consider them as defiling the land, and viewed it as
still more shocking for such a thing to take place on their sacred Sabbath.
Now, this circumstance led to a certain proof that Jesus had really died
for us on the cross ; a fact very important, for, when he rose from the grave,
it mio^ht have been said that he was not then dead, and so it was no resur-
rection, but only a recovery from the faintness occasioned by his sufferings.
The Jews took care that the bodies should not be taken down alive,
and that the criminals should not escape, so to hurry their death they used
to break their legs ; and this they now begged permission of Pilate to do.
" But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they
brake not his legs. But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side,
and forthwith came there out blood and water." The soldier did this to
try if he were dead or not ; and at all events he seemed resolved that he
would give a finishing stroke to his life. The mixture of blood and water
showed that the wound was of such a nature that, had he received it at
any time, it was sufficient of itself to kill him. Now his death was of the
utmost importance to us. If Jesus had not died we must have perished.
If he had not so died, we should, as just intimated, have had no such strong
proof of his living again, which is equally important for our salvation ; for
now we who trust in him may rest on his word, " Because I live ye shall live
also." And on these accounts the Evangelist John is very particular, not
only in stating this fact, but in adding that he had it not from mere hear-
say, but that he himself saw it, being near the cross at the time, "And he
that saw it bare record, and his record is true : and he knoweth that he
saith true, that ye might believe."
The Evangelist John tells us of a very particular circumstance that
happened after the resurrection of Jesus. Thomas would not believe what
all the rest told him ; and declared that nothing should satisfy him about
the Saviour's resurrection short of seeing; and touching: him himself:
"Except," said he, "I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and
put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hands into his side,
I will not believe." Eight days after this Jesus appeared among the
disciples, when Thomas was with them ; and he said to Thomas, " Reach
hither thy finger, and behold my hands ; and reach hither thy hand, and
thrust it into my side ; and be not faithless but believing." Thomas was
astonished, and instantly confessed that it was indeed his divine Master who
was alive again ; and he said to him, full of love, and gratitude, and praise,,
" My Lord and my God ! "
760
Bible and Commentator.
John also relates another appearance which took place at the Sea of
Tiberias. There were then present six disciples. Peter went a fishing,
and not having succeeded, he and his companions were desired by Jesus,
who stood unknown on the shore, to cast their net on the right side of the
ship, and then they caught so many that they were unable to draw them
up. John, "the disciple whom Jesus loved " in a very particular manner,
on seeing this miracle, said directly, " It is the Lord ; " and Peter instantly,
without waiting to get ashore in the ship, cast off his fisherman's coat, and
swam ashore to meet Christ. It is said " He was naked," but this does not
mean quite so, but only that he had thrown off his cumbrous upper garment;
so we call a person stripped who has thrown off his coat, though he has
many other garments remaining on him.
The other disciples soon after landed with the fish, and " they saw a fire
of coals there, and fish laid
thereon, and bread," which Jesus
had also miraculously prepared.
Jesus then invited the disci-
ples to dine. This was "the
third time that Jesus showed
himself to his disciples." He
had been often seen by individ-
uals or small groups, but this
was the third time he had showed
himself to them when many of
them were together.
And now he asked Peter to
say if he still loved him. And
he asked him three times, be-
cause he had denied him three
times. He did this, perhaps, to
humble Peter for his offence, and,
at the same time, to show his
disciples that he was yet a true
disciple, whom they should not
reproach, since he had forgiven
Ihim; for after each answer he commanded him to feed his lambs and his
sheep, meaning the young and the old of his sincere followers, who are
called his flock.
FIRE Of COALS IN THE EAST.
John. 761
The Evangelist in conclusion tells us, that " there are also many other
things which Jesus did, the which if they should be written every one,"
" even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written."
John simply meant, that there were many more prayers, many more conver-
sations, many more miracles, many more kind acts of Jesus, which would
have filled an immense number of volumes, had they been recorded ; but as
we can remember a few better than all, enough only are related that we
" might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing"
we " might have life through his name."
Surely, too, we ought always to lift up our hearts and praise God, who
evidently provides for our necessities, even to the least, that he has given
us so much of sure and faithful testimony ; so much that is comprehensive
and soul-satisfying ; so much that is written and adapted to the wants of
every age, as well as every individual, notwithstanding that every creature
differs more or less in mind, body and estate. It clearly would not answer
our condition in life, our surroundings, our capabilities, our wants, to have
a fuller and more extensive or elaborate revelation than has been given.
And we even bear within us the consciousness that, in the infinite goodness
and love of our God, we have dealt out to us with a profuse and liberal
hand everything — every line and word — that it is well for us to have in
regard to our souls, or their eternal concerns ; indeed, all that we are able
to bear. We can well fancy the All-wise Ruler moved with compassion
toward us, in not being able to confide to our limited and narrow under-
standings more of the great and grand truths of his glorious and limitless
kingdom. We may, however, sit down and look out, in our imagination,
into the distant realms of our future homes with rejoicing, knowing that
after a few fleeting years we shall have a more complete knowledge of the
life and work and teachings of Christ, as well as all his wonderful dealings
with us. May this be the experience and joy of every reader of this work
is the prayer of the writer.
The Acts of The Apostles:
Or, a history, by Luke, of the ministry and labors of the Apostles of Christ. This fills the position in the New
Testament of a needful supplement to the Gospels, and an important and indispensable introduction to the Epistles.
It begins with the ascension of the Messiah, and continues its history through about thirty years, to the end of the
first imprisonment of Paul at Rome, a. d. G3. Its inspired character has never been doubted in the Christian Church.
The first twelve chapters are mainly devoted to the spread of the Gospel in Palestine, and to the earnest labors of
Peter, James and John, and their associates, in Judaea and Samaria. From the thirteenth chapter to the close, it
is almost exclusively occupied with the work of the Apostle Paul as a missionary to the Gentiles. The graphic and
interesting account of the descent of the Holy Spirit, and the conversion of thousands on the day of Pentecost, and,
subsequently, of the zeal, and miracles performed by Peter and John, of the martyrdom of Stephen, and the conver-
sion of Saul and of Cornelius, render it one of the most attractive books of the New Testament; and the career of
the Apostle Paul, his perils, sacrifices, and triumphs, are not less entertaining and delightful. Of all the inspired
writers of the New Testament, Luke possesses the greatest descriptive power, and the most lucid and finished style.
History of what the Apostles of Christ said and did immediately after
his Death, Resurrection and Ascension.
Acts l, ii.
T is generally agreed by writers on Scripture, that this book
was written by the Evangelist Luke. As " the former trea-
tise," or his Gospel, was written respecting " all " — meaning a
great number of things — " that Jesus began both to do and
teach/' as were also the treatises of Matthew, Mark, and John,
so this was written to relate the " acts," or what his faithful
servants did from the time of his death, and gives the history
of about thirty years.
I told you in my remarks on the tenth of Matthew, tnat
"Apostles" means persons who are sent; that is, in other language, messen-
gers. The first disciples were Christ's messengers, as all good ministers
must be, declaring to men the message of mercy, which he wished them to
know, when he said, " Go ye out into all the world, and preach the gospel
to every creature ; " tell every creature the glad tidings — the good news —
which I have told you.
Now we shall see how the apostles obeyed their divine Master, and what
success attended their labors.
762
Acts.
763
In this chapter we learn that Jesus appeared to his disciples at different
times, duriDg forty days after his resurrection, and taught them niany im-
portant " things pertaining to the kingdom of God ; " or, as it means, the
period of preaching the Gospel, commonly called "the Gospel Dispensa-
tion ; " — that he told them to remain together at Jerusalem, and to " wait
for the promise of the Father ; " that they should have another comforter
when he was gone — the Holy Spirit — whose comforts they should feel in
their hearts ; — that he should give them such power, that nothing should
hinder or discourage them in preaching the Gospel in all parts of the world.
While Christ Avas giving these instructions, he finally left them, ascending
up into heaven in a way like to that in which the prophet Elijah ascended,
" and a cloud received him out of their sight." Two angels then appeared,
and as they gazed with won-
der at the sky, they told them
that in the same manner Jesus
should again appear, meaning
at the time when he shall
come to judge the world. The
account of his being "taken
up," which is here given, is
that which we commonly call
the ascension, and the event
happened on the Mount of Olivet, a spot distant from Jerusalem " a Sab-
bath-day's journey," or the distance allowed for a Jew to walk on a Sabbath-
day, which was a mile, or perhaps something less.
After Jesus had ascended to heaven, his disciples assembled together in
" an upper room," which was a retired place, where they might pray, having
those women who had so much loved the Saviour joined with them.
Peter now observed to those that were met together, that one of the
twelve disciples being deficient, from the treachery of Judas, it was desirable
to choose another, and they therefore cast lots to know who they should
choose : " and the lot fell upon Matthias."
In mentioning Judas, Peter says, that he purchased a field with the
money which had been given him by the Chief Priests, " and falling head-
long, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out." Xow
we know that he returned the money to the Chief Priests, so that he could
not have paid for the field ; but as they afterwards purchased a field with
the money, it could be said that he bought it ; this field was on the brow
ANCIENT MESSENGERS IN THE EAST.
iiiii i
Viii
•":/ ' ">
iiP'^^'iVr''''':'
764
Acts. 765
of the precipice which extended to the deep valley of Hinnom, southwest of
the city ; and Judas, hanging himself there, fell into that deep and foul ravine.
The day of Pentecost was the fifteenth and last day from the day on
which the Jews offered the first-fruits of their harvest, as a token of grati-
tude to God ; and that day of offering the fruits was the second day of the
feast of the Passover. On that day the disciples of Jesus were all met to-
gether " in one place ; " and while they were so met, a singular sound filled
the house, as though a wind were rushing through it, and flames, like fire,
appeared on each of those assembled, having the shape of tongues, cloven,
or divided. This was a miraculous token, that " the Holy Ghost/' whose
divine influences Jesus had promised, to comfort, strengthen, and instruct
his disciples, had now come among them, in proof of which they " began
to speak with other tongues " than their own.
Now, you must know, that it requires some time, and labor, and
diligence, to learn different languages, but these disciples spoke several
languages at once ; and the reason of this was, that they might directly
tell people of different countries who came to Jerusalem, about all the great
things that Jesus had done, and what had happened to him, that sinners of
mankind, in every country, might be saved.
At this time a great number of Jews, who inhabited various countries of
the world, as they do now — though the nation was not then entirely dis-
persed— had visited Jerusalem, most likely to be present at the passover ;
and hearing of the wonderful event which had taken place, they ran to the
house where the disciples were, and there was universal astonishment when
they found that these disciples could speak the languages of all the countries
whence they had come. Some of the people of Jerusalem, who hated
Christ and his disciples, mocked, and said that they were drunk. They
were more like drunken men themselves, who could suppose that men could
speak other languages than their own merely because they were tipsy ; and
if they had not been full of prejudice and hatred against Christ and his
disciples, they would never have suggested such a reason for this miraculous
gift. The apostle Peter, who from this time, as the oldest, and perhaps the
most thoroughly instructed in his Master's will and purposes, took the lead
of the apostolic band, thought it best to preach to the multitude. And " when
they heard it, they were pricked in their heart ; " that is, " the word of God
entered into them, which cut and laid open their hearts, and the sin and
wickedness of them ; " and they felt as you have perhaps felt when you
have been detected in doing something you ought not to have done, and
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Bible and Commentator.
perhaps something very bad indeed ; for shame and guilt pierce and wound
the soul, as a sword cuts and pains the body. And they " said unto Peter,
and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?"
Peter told them they must " repent ; " that is, their minds must be changed ;
they must seek forgiveness and pardon from Christ for the wickedness they
had done, and they must be " baptized," as a proof that they had embraced
the religion of Jesus, and then the Holy Ghost would work in their hearts,
and make them both holy and happy.
In the course of the day no less than " three thousand souls " repented
and believed, from the preaching of Peter, and were baptized.
The lame Man restored at the Gate of the Temple— Peter and John
taken before the Jewish Sanhedrim.
Acts hi., iv.
"T"T"TE have here the account of a miracle wrought by the apostles Peter
▼ V and John. We are told that they went up to the temple at the hour
of prayer, and there they saw a poor man who was born lame, and who was
daily carried to the gate of the temple which was called " Beautiful," on
account of its being more hand-
some than the other gates. As
he was unable to work, here he
was to be seen begging alms of
the charitable. As the two
apostles entered, he asked them
also to give him something.
Little did he expect what he
should get by that supplication.
" Peter said, Silver and gold
have I none; but such as I
have give I thee : in the name
of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,
rise up and walk. And he
took him by the right hand,
BEAUTIFUL GATE.
and lifted him up: and immediately his ankle-bones received strength.
And he, leaping up, stood and walked, and entered with them into the
temple, walking and leaping, and praising God."
Acts. 767
The cure of the man drew together a great number of people, all wonder-
ing at what they saw ; and Peter again embraced the opportunity of
preaching a sermon to them, in which he told them the same truths as
before, and urged them to repent of their sins, and to submit to Jesus as
the Saviour of sinners, that Almighty Saviour, by whose power he had
performed this cure.
The Jewish priests, who had opposed Christ, now tried to stop the
mouths of his apostles, so they laid hold of them to prevent them from
preaching again ; and well might they fear the success of the apostles, for
under this sermon no less than five thousand souls were converted !
The next day the apostles, with the man that was cured, were taken
before the Jewish Sanhedrim at Jerusalem, where were assembled together
their rulers, elders, scribes, and priests ; and the apostles were asked by
what power they had cured the man, whether by the help of the devil, as
they thought, or by the help of God. At this moment the Holy Ghost
filled Peter's heart with the greatest courage, and he again preached, having
the rulers and priests to hear him. These were not converted, but never-
theless they were struck with wonder at " the boldness of Peter and John/'
for they recollected them as having been among the timid disciples of Jesus,
who once all forsook him and fled.
The apostles being set free, again joined their brethren, and told them of
their treatment and escape. Then they all united together in prayer to
God, to give them courage still to speak his word, and to enable them to
show it was his word by performing more miracles. And God gave them
another sign as on the day of Pentecost, — a mighty shaking of the place
where they were assembled, such as when a house is shaken with the wind,
and by this sign they knew that the Holy Ghost would give them new
power and energy, which immediately was the case, " and they spake the
word of God with boldness."
Ananias and Sapphira struck dead for lying— The Apostles Peter and
John thrown into Prison— Released by an Angel.
Acts v.
T I ^HERE were now above eight thousand Christians ; and, as they were
-*- liable to great afflictions and persecutions, in embracing the faith of
Christ, they all readily agreed to sell their possessions, and to put all their
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money into one common stock, and so help each other, just as they might
stand in need.
But a man named Ananias, and Sapphira his wife, while professing to
do as the rest did, gave only a part, and slily kept back the rest.
Liars think they cannot be found out ; but God can always find them
out. And so he did here. It was revealed to Peter that Ananias had kept
back part of his money; and he told Ananias that Satan had got possession
of his heart, to do so wicked a thing.
Ananias was terrified at this discovery ; he was convicted of his sin, and
instantly fell down dead.
In about three hours after this Sapphira made her appearance, and, not
having heard of the death of
her husband, she expected to
see him among the disciples of
Christ, received as one of his
sincere and liberal followers.
Peter asked her for how much
the land was sold, for which
Ananias kept back the money.
And she told him the same lie
as Ananias, having agreed with
him to deceive the apostles.
Peter then rebuked her for
daring to tempt or try the
Spirit of the Lord, by seeing
if it were not possible to con-
ceal from his inspired apostles
so base an action ; and he said,
"Behold, the feet of them
which have buried thy hus-
band are at the door, and shall
carry thee out. Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up
the ghost : and the young men came in and found her dead ; and carrying
her forth, buried her by her husband. And great fear came upon all the
church, and upon as many as heard these things." And well might they
fear. These were awful examples of the hatred which God has to lying;
for Peter could not have killed Ananias and Sapphira merely by what he
said : it was God's hand that killed them.
ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA.
Acts,
769
The apostles continued working miracles and preaching, " and believers
were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women/'
The people also, learning what cures the apostles performed in the name of
Jesus, thronged to them with their sick, and were happy if they could get
within reach of the shadow only of Peter's body, supposing that there must
be some virtue in it, not understanding how he cured only by the power of
the blessed Jesus.
The Jewish rulers were now greatly enraged, that after they had so
strongly commanded the apostles to be quiet, they still continued preaching
about Christ, and working miracles in his name ; and they " laid their
hands on the apostles, and put them in the common prison," where they
put their malefactors, as if they had done the very worst deeds, instead of
kindly curing the sick
and the lame.
But God sent an
angel, who opened the
prison-door at night,
and set the apostles free,
desiring them to go to
the temple, and preach
again to the people.
All that now hap-
pened to the apostles
our Lord had foretold,
as Matthew informs us
in the tenth chapter of
his gospel : " But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to the
councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues. And ye shall be
brought before governors and kings for my sake.v The apostles/ therefore,
rejoiced " that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.
And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and
preach Jesus Christ." Thus, from morning to night, every day, they
continued at the work of preaching, and embraced every opportunity to
teach, even in the temple itself, as well as from house to house. They made
it the great business of their lives to exhibit Jesus to the people as the
promised Messiah ; also to clear from their spiritual eyes, beclouded by the
forms and ceremonies and customs of the fathers, all that was dark and
incomprehensible, so that they might appropriate him to their souls.
49
CHAINED TO A GUARD IN THE PKISON.
770 Bible and Commentator.
The Death of Stephen— Saul of Tarsus— Persecution of the Christians.
—Simon Magus— Philip and the Eunuch.
Acts vi.-viii.
IN the sixth chapter we are told that the disciples chose seven men out
of their number to take care of the poor among them, that they should
not be overlooked; Stephen, who was afterwards martyred, was among
those now chosen. It is one beautiful feature of Christianity that it never
overlooks the poor.
The disciples of Jesus still continued to increase in numbers, and even
many of the priests were at last converted.
Stephen was a man very " full of faith," and he " did great wonders and
miracles among the people." Like Peter and John, therefore, he was
dragged before the council; and as there was no crime committed by him
to condemn him, false witnesses were procured ; and wicked men, for the
sake of a reward, made up a story against him, that he had spoken blasphe-
mous words against the temple and the law. Stephen was quite calm and
happy ; " and all that sat in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his
face, as it had been the face of an angel." The good man made a noble
reply, and boldly told them of their wickedness, and of that of their fathers
before them. He charged them with being " the betrayers and murderers "
of Christ, and cut them so to the heart with what he said, that in their rage
they, like a pack of dogs, " gnashed on him with their teeth." Then,
thrusting him out of the city, they stoned him, while he called upon God,
and said, " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." And while they yet stoned him,
he kneeled and prayed for his persecutors, and then " fell asleep." " Fell
asleep." Stephen was amidst a shower of stones, and he fell asleep ! Saints
when they die fall asleep. When we sleep Ave rest ; and death to them is
no punishment, but only a rest. Stephen was the first Christian martyr.
And here begins the history of the most extraordinary man among all
the apostles. At this time he was " a young man, whose name was Saul,"
and who was an enemy to Jesus, and took care of the clothes of the false
witnesses that had pulled them off, that they might the better stone the
pious Stephen. Indeed he "was consenting to his death," which means
here, that he even "took pleasure" in it. "And at that time there was a
great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem ; and they
were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria,"
Acts.
771
fleeing wherever they could to escape the fury of their enemies : the apostles
only remained at Jerusalem, still to bear witness in behalf of Jesus. Among
the persecutors none were more active than this Saul ; for " he made havoc
of the church/' falling on them like a wild beast on his prey, " entering into
every house, and haling men and women/' that is, dragging them by force,
" committed them to prison."
This persecution, however, turned out for good. Instead of checking the
progress of the religion of
Jesus, it only spread it
abroad the more ; for the
disciples being driven
from Jerusalem, " went
everywhere preaching the
word." And among those
who preached with very
great success was Philip,
one of the seven who went
to Samaria, and preached
Christ unto the people.
And they all with one
accord gave heed unto
those things which Philip
spake, hearing and seeing
the miracles which he
wrought. "And there
was great joy in that
city."
And there was a man
at Samaria named Simon,
whom we are accustomed
to call Simon Magus, that
is, Simon the magician or conjurer ; because he used cunning arts like the
magicians of Egypt. This man "bewitched," or astonished the people with
his tricks, and they thought he was some most wonderful person. But when
they heard the wonderful things about Jesus which Philip had to tell, and
saw how he cured the lame and the sick, and others, they would no longer
believe in Simon Magus, but became disciples of Jesus ; and Simon professed
to be a disciple also.
PRACTISING THE CUNNING ARTS.
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Bible and Go mmentator.
The apostles at Jerusalem being informed of the great things doing at
Samaria, sent Peter and John to assist Philip in his work. And they laid
their hands on some of the disciples, as a sign of imploring the Holy
Spirit to give them peculiar courage and abilities, that they might become
fellow-laborers in their great work ; and the Holy Ghost gave them extra-
ordinary powers, as had been done to the disciples assembled on the day
of Pentecost. Simon seeing this, and having been left out of the number,
offered Peter money if he would enable him to do the wonderful things
which he saw the others could
do, that is, speak in different
tongues, and heal diseases, and
the like. Here he showed that
his heart was awfully darkened,
or he must have seen that no
money could purchase such
power, and that it could only
have been given from above.
This Peter told him, and ex-
horted him to repent, and pray
God to forgive him for such
wicked thoughts. It is most
likely that Simon Magus, seeing
lie had lost his chance of being popular, and of making money by his old
tricks, wished now to attain the same ends by means of the gifts of speaking
and healing, having no design to glorify Jesus by what he might say and
do ; and it is generally believed that he died a bad man, for we never read
of his heart having been changed.
But we have directly after a more pleasing account in the narrative of the
Ethiopian eunuch.
Philip having been ordered by an angel to take a journey on the road
from Jerusalem to Gaza, was travelling in obedience to the divine command,
when he met with an Ethiopian dignitary, an officer " of great authority
under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her
treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship." He was now return-
ing, and was sitting reading in his chariot. Philip was inclined, by a
peculiar impression made upon his mind by the Spirit of God, to hold
conversation with this eunuch ; and, approaching his chariot, he found that
he was reading aloud from the prophet Esaias, that is, Isaiah — the former
SOOTHSAYERS.
Acts. 773
being the Greek, and the latter the Hebrew name for the prophet. And
Philip said, " Understandest thou what thou readest ? " Now the eunuch,
though riding in a chariot, was a very humble man ; and sensible that he
needed to learn all that he could, especially about the Saviour, he replied,
" How can I, except some man should guide me ? And he desired Philip
that he would come up and sit with him." And he was reading the prophecy
about the blessed Jesus being led as a sheep to the slaughter, and like a
lamb dumb before his shearer — but he was at a loss to know whether it spoke
about the prophet, or about any other person. Philip then explained it to
him, and preached about Jesus. No doubt he told him, that the prophet
was setting forth the purity, innocency, meekness, and patience, of the
suffering Jesus — "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the
world ; " — and showed him how he was led to be crucified, and so shed his
precious blood for us, as the Lamb's blood was shed upon the Jewish altars.
No doubt he also told him of the command given to the disciples, to go and
teach all nations, and to baptize them in the name of the Father, of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost. For, on arriving where there was some
water, he desired to be baptized, and declared his firm belief that Jesus
was the son of God, and, therefore, he was willing to become one of his
disciples ; so Philip baptized him. Philip was now miraculously removed
from his presence all on a sudden, a circumstance which must have satisfied
the eunuch's mind that he was no inferior person, but a messenger sent
from God, to teach him the way of salvation. So the eunuch went on
homewards, rejoicing that he had been favored with such news of salvation,
and had found the knowledge of Christ crucified. The Scripture does not
tell us, but some respectable ancient writers do, that this eunuch founded
a flourishing church in his own country. Those who know Christ will
try to make others know him also.
Remarkable Conversion of Saul of Tarsus— Peter cures Eneas of Palsy.—
Raises Dorcas to Life.
Acts ix.
"TTTE shall now hear more about Saul of Tarsus, whose history has been
y V interrupted by noticing the persecutions of the Christians, and the
labors of Philip.
" Not satisfied with the murder of Stephen, and with the havoc he made
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at Jerusalem," Ave learn here, that Saul was " yet breathing out threaten-
ings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, and he therefore went
to the High Priest, and begged him to give him authority to go to
Damascus, the capital city of Syria, that he might there search out for the
Christians, and take all that he could find bound to Jerusalem.
But the grace of God stopped him, as it has many a wicked person, in
his career. "As he journeyed, he came near to Damascus : and suddenly
there shined round about him a light from heaven : and he fell to the earth,
and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?"
Now, you must observe, that Saul did not know Jesus ; that Jesus was in
heaven, and therefore he could not persecute him in person ; but Jesus so
loves those who love him, that in persecuting his sincere followers, he felt
the cruelty of Saul as if it had been inflicted upon himself. And Saul said,
" Who art thou, Lord ? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou perse-
cutest : it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks," or goads, as a restless
bullock would against the spiked stick with which his driver would urge
him on with his work in the plough. Saul's spirit was immediately subdued ;
and he who had made others tremble now trembled himself, and said, like
a submissive servant, " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? " The great
light which had flashed upon him from heaven had blinded his eyes, and
he was obliged to be led into Damascus as a blind person; and there, during
Acts. 775
three days, he could neither see, nor eat, nor drink. The Lord, now seeing
Saul humbled and praying for mercy, commanded a disciple of the name of
Ananias to search him out, and to speak comfortable things to him.
Ananias knew what a bitter persecutor Saul was, and was afraid to go near
him, but the Lord told him that he was one of his chosen vessels ; and as
men put treasure into urns, and such things, so he would put the treasures
of his grace into the heart of Saul, and make him one of his most eminent
ministers. So Ananias went to the house where Saul was, and restored him
to sight as he was commanded to do, and the Holy Ghost gave sight at the
same time to his before darkened mind, and taught him everything that
could qualify him to preach Christ to sinners, and show them how he was a
Saviour. And Saul was at the same time baptized as another disciple of
Christ. Instead of persecuting the olisciples, Saul now joined himself to
them, and remained a while with them at Damascus. And there "he
preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God."
The Jews now tried to kill him, as he had tried to kill others, and they
hid themselves in certain places, to put him to death by suddenly falling
upon him ; and they watched the gates of Damascus night and day, that he
might not escape. However, the disciples, notwithstanding their vigilance,
managed to get him out of the city ; for the house of one being built on the
city wall, he was let down by a basket from a back window, and so got
away from the city without passing through either of the gates.
Saul then went to Jerusalem ; but his name was so terrifying there as a
persecutor, that when he offered to unite with the disciples they were all
afraid of him. They most likely supposed that he only professed to be a
Christian that he might the better come at their secrets, and so play the
pait of a spy, and inform against them, and get them to be imprisoned and
put to death. At length Barnabas told the disciples not to fear, and what
wonderful things had happened to Saul, " and how he had nreached boldly
at Damascus in the name of Jesus."
At Jerusalem also the new apostle met with the most violent enemies,
who seemed the more enraged against him, because he was a deserter from
their ranks. Here the Grecians, as they are called, or Jews, that used the
Greek language, and not Greeks, who were heathen, " went about to slay
him," and he found no rest till he went to his own city of Tarsus. After
this the churches were allowed for some time to enjoy a little rest.
We now leave Saul at Tarsus, and return to notice what Peter was doing.
We are told that he paid a visit "to the saints which dwelt at Lydda."
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Bible and Commentator.
Lydda, where Peter went, was a city about thirty miles from Jerusalem.
Here Peter worked another miracle in the name of Jesus, and cured a cer-
tain man named Eneas, who had kept his bed eight years, and was sick of
the palsy
We are next informed about a good woman, whose name you may often
have heard mentioned, because her memory is held in great repute on
account of her being very charitable. Her name was Tabitha, in the Syriac
language, and means a roe; and because a roe in the Greek is called
Dorcas, that was the name which she bore among the Jews that spoke
Greek. She lived at Joppa, a town now called Jaffa. This excellent
woman died, and was laid out. Peter being then at Lydda, which was near
Joppa, the disciples sent to him to tell him of their grief, and no doubt with
a view to his restoring her
to life. Peter hastened to
Joppa, and there he found
the dead body in an upper
chamber, "and all the
widows" to whom Dorcas
had been very kind and
charitable, "stood by him
weeping, and showing the
coats and garments which
Dorcas made while she was
with them." It is from this
circumstance that we call
some of our societies for giving clothes to the poor — Dorcas societies.
Peter ordered every one of the widows to leave the room, that he might,
in a more undisturbed way, kneel down and pray to God ; and having done
so, he said to the dead body, " Tabitha, arise. And she opened her eyes :
and when she saw Peter, she sat up. And he gave her his hand, and lifted
her up ; and when he had called the saints and widows he presented her
alive."
These miracles caused many more to believe in Jesus : and Peter con-
tinued for some time at Joppa, with one Simon a tanner, no doubt busily
engaged in following up these miracles and conversions, by exhorting the
disciples to continue firm in their attachment to Jesus, from which they
would be liable to be shaken by future persecutions, which were to be expected
from the envious Jews.
Acts.
777
Cornelius's Dream— Peter's Vision.
Acts x., xi.
THERE was a man living at Cesarea, commonly called Cesarea Philippi,
on the borders of Syria, whose name was Cornelius, and he was a
centurion, that is, an officer commanding a hundred men, who were Italians,
subject to the Roman government. This man was very pious and charit-
able, and particularly fond of
praying to God. Now while
he was devoutly engaged in
one of the hours of prayer,
an angel of God spoke to him
in a vision ; that is, he saw
the angel, not in a dream by
night, but in broad day ; and ^
the angel said to him, "Thy /|g|||j
prayers and thine alms are
come up for a memorial be-
fore God ; " meaning, that the
prayers which he had put up
in faith, for himself and
family, and the charitable actions he had performed from a principle of
love, wrere like sacrifices upon the altar, which ascended to God with accept-
ance. And he desired Cornelius to send men to Simon the tanner's house
at Joppa, where Peter resided, and Peter would teach him about those
great things which he was desirous of learning. So he sent two of his
servants, and a pious soldier, to make inquiries for him at Joppa ; these
wTere, no doubt, all concerned faithfully to do the business about which
Cornelius had informed them.
These messengers went to Joppa on the next day after the vision of Cor-
nelius, and reached it at another hour of prayer used among the Jews, and
Peter at that moment was praying, and fell into a trance ; that is, he lost
all sense of what was doing here, and felt as if he were a happy spirit,
departed from the body; and he saw heaven opened, and a large sheet let
down to earth and spread out before him as a table-cloth, in which were
wild beasts and creeping things, as well as tame beasts and fowls ; and a
voice desired him to kill and eat. Peter, who had strictly observed the
JOPPA, FROM THE SOUTHWEST.
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Bible and Commentator.
Jewish law, had never eaten anything which it forbade and called unclean,
and he hesitated to touch the offered food. The voice then said, " What
God hath cleansed, that call not thou common." This vision seems to have
been repeated three times, to impress his mind the more strongly. Peter,
on coming to himself, could not think what all this could mean ; but while
he was thinking upon it, the messengers from Cornelius arrived at his
door, and he was urged by a secret impression of God's Spirit to meet
them, and go with them.
When Peter arrived at the house of Cornelius, the good man had assem-
bled his relatives and friends, supposing that some blessing from God would
attend this extraordinary meeting, and he wished them to enjoy it as well
as himself.
On seeing Peter, Cornelius fell at his feet " and worshipped him," or
paid him reverence. He was not a foolish heathen, who paid him worship
as if he had been a god,
but he paid him very high
respect as a servant of
God, sent to instruct him.
Peter, however, thought
^Kffj^^ff^K, 1 that he paid him more
reverence than he ought,
and fearing that he might
rob Christ of the honor
cesarea. which was really due to
him, and none other, he
" took him up, saying, Stand up ; I myself also am a man."
And now Peter saw the plain meaning of the sheet, with the unclean
creatures of which he was to eat. This was a sign to teach him, that
though he was a' Jew, yet he was now to unite with those who would be-
lieve in Christ of all nations ; and he said to the company, " Ye know how
that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew, to keep company, or
come unto one of another nation ; but God hath shown me that I should
not call any man common or unclean."
Cornelius now told Peter for what reason he had sent for him, and that
his little company were assembled to hear from him any words which God
might speak through his lips.
Peter then preached to this Gentile company the same truths which he
had preached to the Jews, and encouraged them to believe in Jesus as a
Acts.
779
Saviour, assuring them, that "in every nation he that feareth" God, "and
worketh righteousness, is accepted with him ; " and that whosoever believed
in Jesus should receive remission, or enjoy the putting away of their sins,
so that they should not be brought against them in the day of judgment.
While this honored apostle was preaching, the Holy Ghost also came
upon these Gentiles, as on the Jews assembled on the day of Pentecost.
They also were now filled with zeal for the honor of Christ, and could
speak in tongues they had never learned, so as to explain to all they might
meet, of any country, the great things about their salvation. " They of
the circumcision," that is, the Jews who were present, were astonished ; for
they had no notion that the Gentiles would receive the Spirit, but thought
that this blessing was to belong to the Jews only. These persons having
received the Spirit were also baptized, to show that they were the disciples
of Christ.
The apostles, who were scattered at the time of the persecution of Stephen,
still continued " preaching the word ; " but they confined their labors to the
Jews only, and to the Grecians, or Jews which spake the Greek language,
commonly called Hellenist Jews, which means Grecian Jews. These
apostles preached at Phenice, Cyprus, Antioch, and elsewhere : " and a
great number believed, and turned unto the Lord." And Barnabas being
sent from Jerusalem, paid a visit to the new disciples at Antioch, where he
was much delighted, for he " saw the grace of God," in its holy and happy
JMi
effects, in the lives and dispositions of the people, and this made him
" glad ; " and while he preached, " much people " were also " added unto
the Lord." Barnabas also got Saul of Tarsus to help him, and they
labored together for a whole year, " and taught much people."
It was at this time that " the disciples were called Christians first at
Antioch."
780
Bible and Commentator,
The eleventh chapter closes by telling us about a kind act of the Chris-
tians at Antioch, in sending needed comforts to their brethren in Judea.
At this time Agabus, who was endowed with the spirit of prophecy, fore-
told that a famine would shortly take place all over the world, " which
came to pass in the days of Claudius Csesar," a Roman emperor. The
Christians at Antioch, which was a fine city in Syria, had some reason to
believe that their brethren at Jerusalem would suffer much from this
famine, and so they made no hesitation, but sent them what money they
could spare to meet their wants, when the time of need should come.
The Apostle Peter's Imprisonment, and miraculous Escape— Herod's
miserable Death.
Acts xii.
THE Herods were all bad men. Herod the Great slew the infants at
Bethlehem, Herod Antipas beheaded John the Baptist, and Herod
Agrippa " killed James, the brother of John, with the sword/' which was
ANCIENT BETHLEHEM.
one of the modes of putting to death among the Jews that was considered
very disgraceful, and was especially inflicted on those who deceived the
people.
As he saw that the wicked Jews were pleased at his murder of one of our
Acts. 781
blessed Lord's apostles, he proceeded next to persecute Peter, and by his
orders this faithful servant of Christ was thrown into prison, and carefully
guarded by "four quaternions of soldiers/' that is, sixteen — a quaternion
consisting of four; and these quaternions relieved each other's guard, and
so watched him by turns, night and day. It was impossible that he could
escape but by some miracle, for his hands were chained, and when he slept
at night, he had two soldiers lying by him, one on each side, and the chain
on each hand was fastened to a hand of each soldier.
But nothing can withstand the power of God ; and when the Christians
met together to pray for Peter's deliverance, God heard their prayers, and
sent his angel to set him free. The very night that this happened was to
have been Peter's last night in prison ; for on the next morning, Herod
intended to have exposed him to the people, and to have put him to death,
as he did James. When the angel appeared surrounded with brightness,
which illuminated the prison, he awoke Peter by touching his side, and
raising him up, " his chains fell from off his hands ; " and having put on
Ms girdle and his sandals, he followed the angel out of the prison. All this
was so sudden and surprising, that Peter scarcely believed it was real, and
thought he must be dreaming. When they had passed the first and second
ward, or watch, they had to escape through the strongest gate of the prison,
a gate made of iron, and through which they could enter directly into the
city. This gate opened of its own accord, and so Peter escaped from the
hands of his enemies. What was the state of the guards during this time
is not said : perhaps a deep sleep came over them, or their sight was
darkened so much as to be unable clearly to distinguish objects at the
moment.
The angel having left Peter in the street, he begin to recover from his
astonishment, and comforted himself that God had really interposed to save
him. Then, without loss of time, he hastened to his fellow-Christians, who
were just then met together for prayer at the house of " Mary, the mother
of John, whose surname was Mark." Having knocked for admission, a
young woman named Rhoda, or Pose — for that is the meaning of Phoda —
coming to the gate, asked from within who was there, and on hearing
Peter's voice, was so overcome with joy, that she ran in and told the com-
pany instead of stopping to let him in. Though they were praying, and no
doubt praying for his release, yet they could hardly believe that it
happened so soon, and they said to the young woman, " Thou art mad ; "
and when she assured them it was true that Peter was at the gate, they said,
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" It is his angel :" they thought it was some heavenly messenger that had
assumed his form to bring them some news about him.
As Peter continued knocking, they went and opened the door, and, to
their astonishment, they saw Peter himself, and he then told them how he
had escaped.
When daylight came, Peter being missed from the prison, the soldiers
were all in alarm ; and Herod, on being told what had happened, was so
enraged, that he ordered the poor soldiers to be put to death, or executed,
as we say, for their negligence.
Herod now left Jerusalem, and went on a journey to Cesarea, a city about
fifty-five miles from it. Here he was visited by some persons of impor-
tance, who were sent from the people of Tyre and Sidon, to reconcile him
after some offence which he had taken, and on account of which they feared
he would make war against them. This would have been ruin to them, for
they lived by merchandise, which they could not then so extensively sell ;
and as they were not accustomed to the labors of the field, they were also
" nourished by the king's country ; " that is, received their food from it,
especially their corn. Herod appointed a day to receive the supplicants, as
he sat on his throne,
and being very splen-
didly dressed with robes
which Josephus, the
Jewish historian, says
were richly worked
with silver, that spar-
kled brilliantly in the
sun, he delivered a
speech to the ambassa-
dors of Tyre and Sidon,
in the presence of a
great multitude of peo-
ple. The foolish peo-
ple, in order to compli-
ment the king, cried
out, " It is the voice of
a god, and not of a
man." The more foolish king was delighted with this praise, and instead
of reproving, them for their blasphemy, in so extolling a poor dying mortal
HEROD RECEIVING SUPPLICANTS.
Acts. 783
like themselves, he silently heard and rejoiced in their flattery. But God
can punish kings that offend him, as well as poor men ; and while this
impious king was setting himself up for a god, an angel secretly smote him
" because he gave not God the glory " in reproving the profane people,
" and he was eaten of worms," and died.
The Travels, Sufferings, and Success of Paul and Barnabas.
Acts xiii., xiv.
IN this chapter we find Barnabas and Paul travelling about together to
preach the gospel. They went to Seleucia, a city of Syria, and thence
" they sailed to Cyprus," an island in the Mediterranean Sea. There they
visited Salamis, a chief city of Cyprus ; and thence they proceeded to
Paphos, on the same island.
We are here told that Saul was also called Paul. It was common to
have two names of these kinds ; for Saul was the Hebrew name by which
this apostle was known among the Jews, but Paul was his Roman name.
From Paphos they next " came to Perga, in Pamphylia," a country in
Asia, of which Perga was the chief city ; and from Perga " they came to
Antioch in Pisidia," so called to distinguish it from Antioch in Syria. Here
they went into the synagogue on the Sabbath-day, and were invited by the
rulers to speak ; and Paul preached a sermon to the people, the design of
which was to show that Jesus was the Messiah, the anointed one of God,
for whom the Jews had long looked; that he was of the seed of David, as
foretold by the prophets ; that though he had died, he had also risen again,
and that now they were come to preach salvation in his name.
The people were so struck with this sermon that they wanted to have
another on the next Sabbath ; but the rulers would not allow of it, for they
were jealous because the preacher had attracted so much attention. Then
Paul and Barnabas told them that since they had refused to hear any more
about Christ, they should carry the glad tidings to the Gentiles or heathen,
which the heathen, at Antioch, were glad to learn ; and many of them heard
the holy preachers and believed.
The Jews then raised a persecution . against Paul and Barnabas, and got
some women who had gained fame as devout women from their attention
to the laws of their religion, and who were also of rich families, to help them
in driving these servants of Christ out of the city. So they shook the dust
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Bible and Commentator
off their feet, as Christ had told them to do if their message was not re-
ceived in any place, as a sign of displeasure against it, and they "came unto
Iconium," another place on the borders of the country.
At Iconium they again went into the Jews' synagogue, and " a great
multitude," both of the Jews and also of the Greeks, believed their divine
message.
But the Jews and Greeks were now greatly divided among themselves ;
some of them believed, and some of them did not believe, notwithstanding
all the divine proofs of
the heavenly message ;
and as parties rose very
high, and it was deter-
mined by some that they
would even stone Paul
and Barnabas, they left
the place, that they might
carry the gospel else-
where, where the hearts
|y of many more would be
ready to receive it.
They now "fled unto
Lystra and Derbe, cities
of Lycaonia," at no great
distance, " and there they
preached the gospel."
Here a man, who was
born a cripple, was sit-
ting to hear a discourse,
when the apostle Paul,
perceiving that he had
faith in the truth of his message, addressed him before all the people, and
" said, with a loud voice, Stand upright on thy feet ; and he leaped and
walked."
The heathen people were so astonished and delighted, that they said,
" The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men." They thought
there were many gods, and that these were two of them. They knew no
better, not having the Scriptures; and they took Barnabas for Jupiter, one
ef their gods, and Paul for Mercury, another of them ; and according to
WORSHIPPING JUPITER.
Acts. 785
their custom of worshipping and honoring their deities, the priest of Jupiter,
which was before their city, brought oxen and garlands unto the gates, and
would have done sacrifice with the people, that is, have sacrificed the oxen
to Paul and Barnabas ; but the apostles rent their clothes, as the Jews did
when they heard blasphemy, and showed what horror they felt, that the
people should make such a mistake. They then declared they were only
men, and exhorted them to cast off their false gods, and believe in " the
living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that
are therein." The people were, however, even then with difficulty pre-
vented from worshipping the apostles. Yet notwithstanding this servile
adoration of them, when, soon after, some Jews arrived in the city from
Antioch and Iconium, who told them how the apostles had been driven from
those places, and spoke against them — these same people who had seen the
miracle performed on the lame man, and would then have adored the
apostles, now were persuaded to stone Paul, so fickle were they ; and they
hurt him so much that he appeared to be dead, and his body was dragged
by them out of the city. He must have been dreadfully injured by this
treatment ; but God left the people without excuse for future punishment,
in thus treating his servant, and tried the boldness of Paul in his cause ; and
when he was left for dead, he wonderfully restored him, so that he was
immediately able to pursue his journey to another place; "and the next
day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe," a city of Lycaonia, as mentioned
in the sixth verse, and there they made many disciples ; and then they
revisited Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, to instruct, comfort, and establish
the minds of those that had believed, that they might not be frightened at
their persecutions.
Here the Christians now formed themselves into churches, congregations
of faithful men ; and the apostles having taught them and prayed with them,
set them in order, and appointed proper persons from among them to
manage the worship of God, and for other Christian purposes.
Then they passed through Pisidia, the country where Antioch was, and
came to Pamphylia, in Asia, and preached at Perga in that country, and
thence went into Attalia, a sea-coast town on the borders of the Mediter-
ranean Sea. Then they took shipping and sailed to the other Antioch,
which was in Syria, and delighted the Christians there by telling them of
their travels, and of the great success which, notwithstanding all opposition,
had attended their preaching of the gospel of Christ — aAnd there they
abode a long time with the disciples."
50
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Bible and Commentator
Disputes among the Christians at Jerusalem settled by the Apostles.
Acts xv., xvi.
WHILE Paul and Barnabas were at Antioch, in Syria, some persons
from Jerusalem came to Antioch, and raised a dispute. Paul and
Barnabas, therefore, went to Jerusalem, to settle the question.
The affair being quietly settled, Paul and Barnabas now resolved on
revisiting all the places where they had preached the gospel ; and Barnabas
wished John, whose surname was Mark, to accompany them; but he
having been their companion on a former occasion, and left them to bear
their labors and dangers alone, in a manner that did not quite please Paul,
who perhaps thought him timid, or not sufficiently zealous, Paul did not
wish to have his help. This caused a misunderstanding between Paul and
Barnabas, and so they parted company. Barnabas, taking Mark with him,
sailed to Cyprus, an island in the Mediterranean Sea, aud, as we learn in
the latter part of the fourth chapter, the native place of Barnabas. Paul,
accompanied by Silas, took another route, and went through Syria and
Cilicia, which was his native country, and visited the churches or assemblies
of Christians, whom he had before brought, through his preaching, to
receive the religion of Christ.
Among the places visited again by the apostle Paul were Derbe and
Lystra. At the latter place he found a young disciple named Timotheus,
or Timothy — the same
to whom he afterwards
wrote the Epistles. The
mother of this young
man was a Jewess, but
his father was a Greek ;
and so it happened that
he was not circumcised.
Now, as Paul wished to
have his aid as a fellow-
laborer, seeing that he was
a youth of fine talent and
spirit, but as the Jews would not have allowed him to speak in the syna-
gogues unless he had been circumcised, Paul therefore " took and circumcised
him, because of the Jews which were in those quarters ; " who, knowing that
RUINS OF TROAS.
Acts. 787
his father was a Greek, and therefore had not had the rite performed upon
him, would have raised objections to his preaching.
And now they travelled throughout Phrygia in Asia, and the region or
country of Galatia, in that part called Asia Minor ; then they came to Mysia,
another country in Asia Minor, and "assayed" or attempted, to go into
Bithynia, another country also in Asia Minor, but were prevented by a par-
ticular impression made on their minds by the Spirit of God. Perhaps
had they gone, their lives would have been taken, and these God designed
to spare for future labors. So they did not stop at Mysia; but "came
down to Troas," then a colony of the Romans, now called Alexandria.
Being prompted by the Spirit of God in a vision, or sort of trance, which
happened in the night, and in which a man of Macedonia appeared before
Paul, and said, " Come over into Macedonia and help us," Paul proceeded
thither, which was a very large country in Europe. He loosed, or set
sail, from Troas, and reached Samothracia, an island in the Archipelago,
and the next day Neapolis, a seaport, which was a part of Macedonia.
From thence he went on to Philippi, the chief city of that part of Macedonia,
and stopped there some days. Here, on the Sabbath day, they visited one
of the spots where the Jews worshipped, and "spake to the women which
resorted thither."
Among these women was one named Lydia. She was a seller of purple
— most likely of purple dye, which was a valuable article at that time — -
and she belonged to a place called Thyatira, a large city in the province of
Asia, in Asia Minor. She was a worshipper of the one true God, but
knew nothing of Jesus Christ. But now she heard him preached, the
Lord opened her heart, like a door, to let him into it by faith ; and she
received Jesus there, and embraced all the important truths spoken about
him by Paul. And she was baptized, and received the sacred messengers
into her house, while they remained in that neighborhood.
The apostles regularly went to a place used for prayer; and a girl, who
knew their custom, followed them, as they went every day, and cried after
them, " These men are the servants of the most high God, which show
unto us the way of salvation." This girl was one of a certain class of
people of those days, who pretended to be divinely inspired, and who might
possibly have been permitted to perform some astonishing things by the aid
of the devil, who seems to have had full possession of her mind. By her
predictions she gained much money. It seems that she was not free,
but belonged to masters who received what she gained. Paul, perceiving
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Bible and Commentator
what kind of a person she was, was grieved at her condition, and, in the
name of Jesns Christ, he commanded the evil spirit to come out of her.
" And he came out the same hour."
Her masters were greatly enraged that they had now lost their gains, for
the girl could serve the devil no longer. They therefore seized Paul and
Silas, and carried them before the magistrates,
accusing them of teaching doctrines and
customs contrary to the laws. Then the
magistrates had them stripped, by tearing
off their clothes; and commanded them to
be beaten with rods, after which they were
| cast into prison, and the jailer had orders to
take the greatest care that they should not
escape. So he thrust them ainto the inner-
most prison n — one that, lying beyond others,
and having more bolts and bars, was the
r, more secure. And still, to add to their se-
curity, he put their feet fast into heavy wood
stocks, and thus they lay, as it is supposed,
in the most painful position, with their sore
and naked backs stretched upon the cold
and dirty stones — the prisoners not sitting, as in modern times, when the
stocks are used, but being compelled to occupy the most painful and
unnatural position suggested by the mode of punishment.
In this situation, which would have made most men groan and weep,
Paul and Silas, being comforted in their minds in an extraordinary way,
sang praises to God in the middle of the night : it is thought that they sang
one of David's Psalms, which is not unlikely. "And suddenly there was a
great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken : and
immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed."
The keeper awoke with the noise, and seeing the doors open, and the
prisoners free, he drew his sword, and would have killed himself, fearing
that he should be dreadfully punished for their escape. But Paul cried out
to him, "Do thyself no harm ; for we are all here." Then he called for
a light, sprang in and " came trembling;" and, according to the Eastern
custom of showing respect, fell down before Paul and Silas, and bringing
them out of the inner prison, he began to talk to them directly about his
poor soul, and asked, " What must I do to be saved ? " The apostles told
IN THE STOCKS.
Acts.
789
him to " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ ; " and they also preached to his
whole family. Then the jailer washed their stripes, which had perhaps
begun to fester, and showed them every kindness. They had done good to
his soul, and to the souls of his family, as well as saved his body, when he
was about to destroy himself ; and the least he could do for them, was to
show them kindness by comforting their bodies. The people's hearts were
all ready to receive the gospel from their lips ; and having renounced their
idolatries, they declared their readiness to become Christians, and were all
of them baptized. Then the jailer took his prisoners into his house, and
set meat before them, to refresh their wearied bodies, and they all rejoiced
together.
In the morning, the magistrates thought that Paul and Silas had had
punishment enough, and so sent orders for them to be released. But Paul,
being a Roman citizen, now
maintained his privilege ; teach-
ing us, that Christianity is not
at all opposed to our claiming
and defending our civil rights,
that is, those which belong to us
as men and citizens. " They
have beaten us openly uncon-
deinned," said he, "being Ro-
mans, and have cast us into
prison ; and now do they thrust us
out privily ? Nay, verily ; but let
them come themselves and fetch
us out." The magistrates had
taken upon themselves to do
what they were not authorized to do ; for the magistrates were not to try-
prisoners, but only to see that the lawless were seized and secured, and that
the law was properly put into execution when the prisoners were condemned.
Paul, therefore, on account of others, as well as on his own account, would
not sanction such shameful proceedings; he did not, however, demand
revenge upon them, though he might have got them severely punished for
what they had so unjustly done, but he required that they should acknowl-
edge themselves wrong, and with all respect, make amends to them by
fetching them out. So the magistrates, being now greatly frightened, went
to the prison, and begged Paul and Silas to forgive them, and that they
BOHAN CITIZENS.
790
BlBftE AND COMMENTATO
would leave the city as soon as possible, that nothing more might be said
about the matter.
When they had quitted the prison, they paid another visit to their kind
hostess, Lydia, and then pursued their journey.
Paul preaches at Thessalonica, and is persecuted there.
Acts xvii., xviii.
PaUL and Silas, having passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia,
both considerable cities in Macedonia, " came to Thessalonica, a free
city of the same country," where the Roman governor resided. Here there
THESSALONICA.
" was a synagogue of the Jews," and, during three successive Sabbaths, Paul
went in and reasoned with them about what the Scriptures said of the
Messiah, and proved that Jesus was he. His facts and arguments were so
forcible, that, accompanied by the power of the Spirit of God, many Jews,
and Gentiles who had become Jews, were converted.
This enraged the unbelieving part of the Jews ; and they, supposing Paul
to be at the house of Jason — one of their number, whose heart had been
brought to trust in Christ — they violently beset his house, and dragged him
out, with others, to the rulers of the city, and charged them with turning
Acts. 791
the world upside down, or throwing every place which they visited into
confusion by their doctrines. The magistrates, however, acted on this
occasion with great propriety, and as these Christians were accused of being
troublers, they only required pledges of them that they would not in future
disturb the peace of the city, but did not attempt to punish them, where
they could not see they had committed any crime.
Paul and Silas having left the city quietly during the night, proceeded
next to Berea, another city in Macedonia, and there also they " went into
the synagogue of the Jews." Here the gospel was readily received by the
people, who heard Paul and Silas with attention, and then examined the
Scriptures for themselves, to see if what was said about the Messiah agreed
with the character of Jesus Christ; and so many of them became true
Christians.
The Jews of Thessalonica, hearing of their success, followed them to that
place, and stirred up the unthinking part of the people to disturb the
apostles.
The apostle Paul was therefore sent out of the way, because against him
the bitterest enmity prevailed ; and Silas and Timotheus remained behind
to explain things further to the young converts, who would have many
questions to ask about what Jesus Christ taught and did.
Paul next went to Athens, a city in Greece, exceedingly famous for its
knowledge and learning. When he arrived there his spirit was grieved
and provoked, to see the stupidity of the people, notwithstanding all their
knowledge, for the city was full of idols : it had more images called gods
than all the rest of Greece, so that one humorously said of it, it was easier
to find a god there than a man. Here Paul, according to his custom, dis-
puted with the Jews in their synagogue, and with " the devout persons,"
or Jewish proselytes, who had left heathenism and embraced Judaism ;
and he also took every opportunity of conversing about Christ with the
Athenians, whom he met in the great market-place.
In this city he was violently opposed by the heathen philosophers, called
Epicureans and Stoics.
The Epicureans were so called from their first teacher, Epicurus.
Though they believed there was a God, they were foolish enough to believe
that the world was made by chance, and that no Providence ruled over it.
See how ignorant the wisest of men were without the Scriptures. The
Stoics received their name, not from their founder, whose name was Zeno,
but from a Greek word, Stose, which signifies a portico, or piazza, because
792 Bible and Commentator.
it was customary for Zeno to walk under a portico, and teach his scholars.
He was wiser than the Epicureans, since he believed that God did make
the world ; but he, like them, denied that he cared anything about it after
it was made ; and so, instead of being ruled by His Providence, it was left
to Fate.
These were the men with whom Paul had here chiefly to contend. They
were, however, disposed to hear him; for though they despised him, and
called him a babbler, yet, as he brought with him doctrines new to them —
and they were fond of " some new thing " — they thought at least that they
should be amused.
There was at Athens a celebrated place called the Areopagus, " in the
midst of Mars' Hill." This building was used as a court of law, and was
adapted to accommodate a large concourse of people. Here it was deter-
mined that Paul should publish his opinions. It was a fine opportunity,
and he embraced it.
He told them that he had observed they were very superstitious, or
given to the worship of many and false gods ; and that in passing through
their streets, he had even seen an inscription — " To the unknown God "
— which perhaps meant the God of the Jews, of whom they had heard, but
did not know. Now, he came to tell them who he was, and that instead
of the world being made by chance, as some among them believed, He it
was who made all things, and all men ; and whose providence, so far from
not noticing the world he made, even notices every individual, and fixes
the boundaries of every man's life, and the very spot where he shall reside.
And as we spring from God, our spirits being breathed into us by his
Spirit, nothing could be more absurd than to imagine, that stone, carved
into different images, should represent God, many of them being even un-
worthy to represent men, whom God has made. For a long while God had
borne with this idolatry, but now Paul declared he had sent his apostles to
bear witness against it, and called upon men everywhere to repent, for he
has determined to judge the world, and Christ will be the judge, who is
now risen from the dead.
On mentioning the subject of the resurrection the whole assembly seem
to have been in a tumult. It was a doctrine either disbelieved or never
thought of by the Grecian philosophers. " Some mocked ; and others said,
We will hear thee again on this matter." So, as they were not disposed to
hear any more at that time, and received his message so unfavorably, Paul
left them Yet his address was not altogether useless : " Howbeit, certain
793
794 Bible and Commentator.
men clave unto him, and believed ; among the which was Dionysius, the
Areopagite," or a judge in the court of Areopagus : " and a woman named
Damaris, and others with them."
Paul next proceeded to Corinth, another Grecian city of considerable im-
portance. Here he took up his abode with a Jew named Aquila, and his
wife Priscilla, who had lately left Rome in consequence of a decree of the
Emperor that no Jews should remain there any longer. From what is re-
ported by historians, it is supposed that this decree was made because the
Jews were so violent in opposing the Christians, that they caused continual
disturbances. It appears that Paul and Aquila were of the same craft, or
trade, tent-makers, and this was one reason which brought them together.
It was no disgrace among the Jews to be of a trade but rather a disgrace to
be without, and therefore every one was brought up to a trade, that he might
never want the means of procuring his livelihood ; and so the apostle Paul,
though a learned man, and brought up at the feet of the learned Gamaliel,
that is, as his pupil, was nevertheless taught the craft of tent-making.
Tents, in hot countries, are very common and useful, and it was by this
trade that the apostle supported himself while preaching the gospel.
While at Corinth, Paul as usual visited and " reasoned in the synagogue
every Sabbath ; " and here he was joined by Silas and Timotheus.
The Jews having refused to hear what he had to say about Christ, Paul
" shook his raiment," it being loose about him, as a sign that he would
shake them off, and have no more to do with them, and went to the
Gentiles who were in the city. For this purpose he took up his abode at
the house of a man named Justus, who, though not a Jew, was a sincere
man, and worshipped the true God, having learned about him from the
Jews, his house being near the synagogue. His labors were, however, not
altogether useless among the Jews, for " Crispus,the ruler of the synagogue,
believed on the Lord, with all his house : " many Corinthians also believed.
Paul was, indeed, particularly encouraged in his labors at Corinth, for
God told him in a vision, " I have much people in this city." "And he
continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among
them."
The success of Paul excited the enmity of the Jews, whose rage against
Christ was as bitter as it still is. They therefore rose up against Paul, and
accused him before Gallio, the Roman officer, who at that time presided
over Achaia, in which the conquered province of Corinth was. Gallio saw
their wicked rage, and told them that if Paul had done any bad thing he
Acts. 795
would have taken notice of it, but as they accused him only about religious
matters, he had nothing to do with such disputes, and so he drove the Jews
away from his presence. The Greeks, seeing how he treated the Jews,
and knowing that they were not now in high favor, immediately fell upon
Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the synagogue, and beat him severely ; so that
the harm they wanted to do to Paul now fell upon themselves ; " and Gallio
cared for none of these things," but looked on with total indifference.
PauPs next journey was into Syria, and he took with him Priscilla and
Aquila. Then he came to Ephesus, the metropolis of Asia, where he still
reasoned with the Jews, by entering into their synagogue.
Having left Ephesus, he landed at Cesarea, and visited the Christian
church there. Thence he went to Antioch, " and after he had spent some
time there, he departed, and went over all the country of Galatia and
Phrygia in order, strengthening all the disciples."
While Paul was engaged elsewhere, Apollos visited Ephesus. This was
a most eloquent Jew, who had been taught about Christ by John the
Baptist. Here he preached boldly, urging men, no doubt, to repentance
and faith in the Messiah. But Aquila and Priscilla having been instructed
by the apostle Paul, knew more than he did, and they therefore assisted in
showing him " the way of God more perfectly," and about Christ as the
Saviour of sinners.
After this, Apollos visited different parts of Achaia, and strengthened
the minds of those who believed in Christ, and " he mightily convinced the
Jews, and that publicly, that Jesus was the Christ."
Paul's extensive Travels to preach the Gospel.
Acts xix.
IN the last chapter we learnt that Apollos visited different parts of Achaia,
and here we are informed that he also paid a visit to Corinth, which
was the capital of Achaia. During this time Paul " passed through the
upper coasts," or countries, to the north of Ephesus, called Phrygia, Ionia,
Mysia, Caria, and Lydia (See Asia Minor, at the end of Acts), and then
again to Ephesus. He here instructed some of John the Baptist's disciples,
and baptized them "in the name of the Lord Jesus;" and he "spake
boldly " in the synagogue " for the space of three months concerning the
kingdom of God," that is, the reign of Christ the Messiah.
796
Bible and Commentator.
However, at length he gave over instructing the Jews in this place, since
their hearts were so much hardened against Christ ; and " one Tyrannus "
having a school of public instruction and disputation, he went there and
taught his disciples about the way of salvation, and in this manner he passed
two years. Ephesus being a place of great importance, and numbers of
persons, both Jews and Greeks, visiting it for purposes of trade and
information, the doctrines of the apostle were heard by most of these, and so
conveyed abroad and spread in all the cities and towns of Asia.
Seeing the wonderful things done by the apostle, some " vagabond Jews,"
who strolled about from place to place, like our vagabond mountebanks, to
gain a livelihood by their tricks, and who were " exorcists," or a sort of
conjurers, tried to do a like thing in a similar way. Among these were
seven sons of a Jew, and a " chief among the priests " at Ephesus ; and
they attempted to cast out evil spirits from those who were tormented with
them, and said, " We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth." They,
however, were soon proved to be impostors, to their injury and shame, to
the honor of the apostle and advancement of the cause of Christ.
This affair was soon spread over the city of Ephesus, and produced a
great change in many persons, both among the Jews and Greeks. Indeed,
u many of them which used curious arts brought their books together, and
Acts. 797
burned them before all men ; and they counted the price of them, and found
it fifty thousand pieces of silver." This was a glorious triumph over Satan
in his dwn territories, for Ephesus was a very wicked and idolatrous city,
where magic was taught, and it was a deadly blow to the wicked art when
the books were destroyed by which the people had learned how to perform
it. The price of the books now burned has been reckoned, at the lowest
rate, at about eight thousand eight hundred dollars ; but some think it was
not less than thirty-one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars. Books
were extremely dear before the art of printing was invented, and books on
curious arts were dearer than others.
The apostle Paul now began to think about visiting some other parts,
and having decided to go through Macedonia and Achaia, and thence to
Jerusalem, and then to Rome, he sent forward Timotheus, or Timothy, to
whom he wrote two epistles, and Erastus, who was chamberlain of the city
of Corinth, as we learn in the sixteenth chapter of the Romans ; and so
these gave notice of his visit, and collected the Christians to receive him.
While the apostle was about to leave Ephesus, there was, however, " no
small stir " about the religion of Jesus ; for the makers of images, which the
idolatrous people called gods, having lost much of their custom, endeavored
to excite a tumult, and to drive him out of the city.
Before we notice this affair, it may be necessary just to give you a short
account of this famous city of Ephesus, and of its celebrated temple.
We have before said that Ephesus was the metropolis of Asia, and, indeed,
it was the most famous place of trade in all Asia Minor. The ancient city
stood about fifty miles south of Smyrna. It has long gone to decay, like
many other once splendid cities of the East. The chief ornament of this
city was the Temple of Diana, to erect which all the states in Asia were
made to contribute a portion of their wealth This temple was reckoned
one of the wonders of the world. It was nearly as long as St. Paul's
Cathedral in London, and nearly as wide as St. Paul's at its greatest
breadth. It was supported by one hundred and twenty-seven marble
pillars, seventy feet high, or twelve times the height of our tallest men, and
these were either most curiously carved or highly polished. From accounts
given by ancient writers this temple was two hundred and twenty years in
building, and was continually improved for four hundred years. The
imaginary goddess, Diana, was represented by a small statue made of ebony
— a hard, black, and valuable wood — and the people were weak enough to
believe that this piece of carved wood was sent down to them from heaven
798
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by Jupiter, a name by which they distinguished one of the heathen gods,
and whom they supposed to be the father of Diana. To this statue, there-
fore, they paid a great deal of reverence. It had been formerly placed in
the trunk of an old elm, but,
from the honors paid to it, it
was at length provided with
this magnificent building. All
the inhabitants of Ionia went
every year to Ephesus to sol-
emnize a festival to " the great
goddess Diana," and wives
and children carried their
offerings to her temple, mauy
of which were exceedingly rich
and valuable. Priests who
officiated on this occasion were
liberally maintained by the
people; and the citizens, no
doubt, made much money by
the gathering together of so
large a number of people, many
of whom were wealthy, and who remained during the continuance of the
sports which accompanied their offerings.
The throngs that yearly visited Ephesus furnished the silversmiths with
plenty of employment to make silver models of this famed building, which
they so much venerated, and they brought no small gain to the craftsmen.
One of these silversmiths in particular, whose name was Demetrius, called
together his fellow-workmen, and told them of the injury they suffered by
the reduced sale of their silver temples, in consequence of the apostle Paul
having " almost throughout all Asia persuaded and turned away much
people, saying, that they be no gods which are made with hands." And he
showed that the temple itself was in danger of falling into contempt and
neglect, -owing to the success of the apostle/s preaching. His interested
auditors felt the force of what he said, and " they were full of wrath, and
cried out, saying, Great is Diana of the Ephesians ! "
Their noise and shouting roused the whole city, and having put many
others in a rage against the apostle's preaching, the mob caught Gaius and
Aristarchus, two of Paul's companions, and they rushed with them into the
DIANA, JOVE AND MINERVA.
800 Bible and Commentator.
theatre, where public plays were acted in honor of the goddess, and where,
among other things, men were set to fight with wild beasts; and very
probably it was intended to hurry the servants of Christ thither to throw
them to the wild beasts.
Paul, not in the least afraid, would have followed them into the theatre
to preach the gospel even to this enraged multitude ; but the Christians at
Ephesus advised him not to expose himself to danger, and probably thought
the people were not in a mind to attend to anything he might say.
When the people were got together in the theatre, a great many of them
did not know why they were there, and as one asked another what was the
matter, all were in confusion. f
In the meantime Alexander, who was a professed Christian, was dragged
into the theatre, the Jews helping to push him in, and so uniting in their
wicked deeds with the Ephesian idolaters. Here Alexander would have
defended his faith, but when he attempted to speak, the mob drowned his
voice, and cried out, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians ! " They knew that
they could say nothing in their own defence in reply to Alexander, and so
for two hours he tried in vain to speak, and they roared out against him.
At length " the town clerk " interfered. (This was a person of some
influence and authority ; and he hit upon a very good method to restore
quietness.) " Why," said he, " you know that everybody worships the god-
dess Diana ; there is no need to dispute about that ; and you know that her
image came down from Jupiter, and as nobody can contradict it, what need
is there of all this noise?" (This is just what he would have said in
English, for his words are to the same purport.) " Besides," he added,
" these men have done no harm to our goddess ; they have neither robbed
the temple of her wealth, nor said anything that T know of against her
dignity. However, if they have, done any harm, the law is ready to appeal
to ; but if they have not, the injury will fall upon your own heads for dis-
turbing the peace and making this terrible uproar ; and if you do not
immediately depart quietly home, you will all be in danger of being taken
up as rioters." Having spoken to this effect, the people grew a little cool,
and, seeing that they could do nothing to stop the doctrines of the apostle,
and might injure themselves, they quietly departed to their homes. The
foolishness of their proceeding was thus quickly made very apparent to the
idolatrous multitude. In fact, there is nothing that can be made to appear
so ridiculous to the least reflective mind, as the enmity that would overcome
truth by the merest outcry and passion.
Acts. 801
Paul's Travels and Preaching— His Arrest and Trial at Jerusalem —
Taken to Cesarea and Pleads in his Defence.
Acts xx.-xxvi.
~TTT~E have now to follow the apostle Paul rapidly through some more
W 0f his travels ; and, except a few occasional remarks, shall merely
notice the places where he went, so as to explain their situation and import-
ance, if they have not been noticed before.
Paul, having taken leave of the disciples at Ephesus, now went into Mace-
donia, and having visited the disciples there — at Philippi, Thessalonica,
and Bersea, of which we have lately read — " he came into Greece," or, as
some think, Achaia. Here he remained three months, and was preparing
to sail for Syria, when he heard that the Jews were watching for him to
•kill him if he went in that direction ; and so he resolved not needlessly to
put himself into danger, but returned by land through Macedonia to visit
the churches there. He was now accompanied into Asia by Sopater, of
Bersea, and Luke, the writer of the Acts, who includes himself as one of the
party when he speaks of " us ; " and Aristarchus, and Secundus, of Thessa-
lonica ; and Gaius, of Derbe ; and Timothy, and Tychicus, and Trophimus,
of Asia, went On to prepare matters for the apostle's reception at Troas.
They sailed from Philippi, as the apostle had intended to do, and it being
a short way they reached Troas in five days. The apostle, however, was
not many hours behind them, since he joined them there and spent a Sabbath
with them, and they remained there altogether but seven days.
The companions of Paul now took a passage in a ship to go from Troas
to Assos, a city of Asia by the sea-side; and here the apostle, having
travelled on foot, shortly joined them; when, having been taken into the
ship, they sailed for Mitylene, a city in Lesbos, an island situated in the
iEgean Sea, now known by the name of the Archipelago, being that part
of the Mediterranean Sea which divides Greece from Asia Minor. Thence
they continued their course " over against Chios," another island in the
JEgean Sea, and the next day they reached Samos, another island in the
same sea, and anchored or stopped at Trogy Ilium, a small island near
Samos, for there was a bay here convenient for vessels to anchor in ; and
the next day they came to Miletus, the chief city of Ionia. In his way to
this place he passed by Ephesus, for he had determined to sail past it,
"because he would not spend the time in Asia," wishing to be at Jerusalem
51
802
Bible and Commentator.
at the great feast of Pentecost, that he might have an opportunity of
preaching the gospel to a great number of Jews, out of all countries,
whom he knew would come to that feast.
Miletus being only about twelve miles from Ephesus, the apostle sent
for the elders or managing members of the church in that city, and he
most affectionately addressed them, urging them to hold fast their profession
of faith in Christ ; and he told them this was the last time he should
see them, for he knew that he was about to go where he must become a
great sufferer and a prisoner for the sake of the Lord Jesus, for whom
he was even willing to lay down his life; "and then he kneeled down
and prayed with them all." We are not told what his prayer was ; but
we may readily suppose that it was one of the most earnest, affectionate,
and tender prayers that was ever offered up to God, for he seemed to love
the Ephesians most sincerely, and was deeply concerned for their happi-
ness; "and they all wept sore, and fell on Paul's neck, and kissed him."
In this way Esau fell on Jacob's neck, and Joseph on his brother Benja-
min's ; it was, as you have heard before, the Eastern way of showing great
affection.
Having parted with these elders, who accompanied Paul to the ship, and
did not leave him till the very last moment, he and his companions sailed
Acts.
803
straight for Coos, or Cos, another island in the JEgean sea, and the day
following they reached Rhodes, a celebrated island, which had a city of the
same name. Here was that famous statue called the Colossus of Rhodes,
which cost twelve years of the sculptor's labor, and five hundred and twenty-
eight thousand dollars. Its height was seventy cubits, or one hundred and
five feet. It was esteemed one of the seven wonders of the world. As it
lay along it astonished all beholders, for few men with their arms stretched
out could embrace the thumb.
They next proceeded to a place called Patara, a city of Lycia, which was
a country of Asia Minor, bounded on the south by the Mediterranean.
Here they found a ship for Phoenicia, and thither they sailed, and passing
Cyprus stood for Syria, and landed at Tyre, the chief city of Phoenicia.
Having met with some Christians here, they stayed to establish them in
their faith, and were with them seven days.
Then they sailed from Tyre to Ptolemais, a city of Galilee, on the sea-
coast, where they remained with some fellow-Christians during one day.
And the day following Paul's company stopped at Cesarea, " and entered
into the house of Philip the Evangelist," undoubtedly the same who had
baptized the eunuch, and there they took up their abode while they remained
in that place. It is worthy of remark that Philip had four daughters who
had the gift of prophecy, or were inspired by the Holy Spirit to foretell
events which should happen to the Church of Christ.
While the apostolical travellers were at Cesarea, the prophet Agabus
arrived from Judea, and foretold the treatment Paul would meet with from
the Jews at Jerusalem; ,- - ^^r-
at the same time, taking
the girdle which fastened
Paul's robes around his
body, he expressed it by
the significant sign of
binding his own hands
and feet. This made
Paul's companions weep
and entreat him not to go
to Jerusalem ; but the
holy servant of God, bent upon the conversion of men, would not be dis-
suaded from his purpose on so important an occasion, when thousands of
Jews would be collected together at the feast, and he answered, " What
APPROACH TO JERUSALEM.
804 Bible and Commentator.
mean ye to weep and to break my heart ? for I am ready not to be bound
only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus."
Shortly after this the party took their carriages, or rather, "their
baggage/' and went to Jerusalem, accompanied by some disciples of Cesarea,
and one Mnason of Cyprus, an old disciple, who happened to reside at Jeru-
salem, and who accommodated them at his house.
When Paul visited the temple the Jews "laid hands on him," and
treated him so cruelly, that they would have killed him had not the Koman
commandant rushed in among them with some soldiers and rescued him.
He, however, supposed, from their treating Paul in this manner, that he
might have been doing something wrong, and ordered him to be bound with
chains, and so the prophecy of Agabus was fulfilled.
Paul was now, with some difficulty, carried prisoner to the castle, for the
Jews still pressed upon him to murder him. Here he conversed with the
commandant, who fancied he might be an Egyptian robber that had done
much mischief, and, accompanied by four thousand desperate men, had
lately troubled the neighboring country. Paul then informed him that he
was mistaken, for he was a citizen of Tarsus, no mean city in Cilicia, and
begged to be allowed to address the people, which he did, as he stood on
the steps of the ascent to the castle. He then told them that he was
brought up " at the feet of Gamaliel," a learned Jew ; that is, he sat to
receive his instructions, as scholars then sat beneath their masters ; that he
had been as zealous as any Jew could be in behalf of his religion, but that
he was converted on his way to Damascus, as he was going to persecute the
Christians, and that now he was an apostle of Jesus Christ, sent to preach
to the Gentiles. This they could not bear, for they fancied themselves to
be the only people whom God would honor with a divine message ; and now
again they broke out into a rage and tumult. The chief captain then
ordered Paul to be scourged ; but while they were binding him he said he
was a Roman citizen ; and it was a great crime to scourge such a person
without a trial. Tarsus was a free city, and PauPs parents being citizens
of Tarsus, he was born free; so Paul escaped being scourged, and the
captain was greatly frightened that he had even bound him ; for it was also
a great offence against the Roman law to bind a Roman citizen.
On the morrow, Paul was taken before the chief priests and council, or
Jewish Sanhedrim. While he was attempting to address them, the high
priest, Ananias, commanded some to give him a slap in the face, which the
apostle resented as a violation of the law, and called the priest a whited
Acts. 805
wall, meaning that he was a hypocrite, looking fair without but bad within.
The Jews then reproved him for reviling God's high priest, when he
acknowledged that he would not have done it, but he was not aware that he
was the high priest.
The apostle, finding that the Jews would not hear him, wisely bethought
himself to divide his enemies among themselves ; and as one thing which
had offended the Jews was his preaching the resurrection of Jesus, he called
out that he was brought there for professing his hope in the resurrection of
the dead. Now the Sadducees denied that there was any resurrection, but
the Pharisees believed it, and immediately, as Paul had foreseen, they fell
out among themselves ; and the Scribes in the council, who were Pharisees,
declared that Paul was unjustly accused.
As the parties became violent, Paul's life was in danger amongst, them,
and the chief captain, now fearing the consequences of his being injured as
a Roman citizen, commanded the soldiers again to rescue him, and take
him into the castle. Here Jesus appeared to him in a vision, and told him
he must preach his gospel yet at Rome.
Above forty of the Jews, enraged at the deliverance of the apostle, now
took a solemn oath that they would neither eat nor drink till they had
killed Paul ; and they proposed to the chief priests and elders, that if they
would make an excuse to have him once more before the council, they
would take care that he should not again escape alive. However, God
defeated their wicked purpose, for, providentially, a sister of Paul's had a
son at Jerusalem, who, having learned the intended plot of these men, went
himself and informed the apostle, who sent him to tell the chief captain.
The captain then lost no time to protect him, but ordered a body of
soldiers to take him at night to Cesarea, a place which was seventy-five
miles from Jerusalem, and where Felix resided, who was governor of Judea.
The captain, whose name was Claudius Lysias, also sent a favorable letter
to Felix, which you may read in the twenty-third chapter.
At Cesarea Paul was kept for five days in " Herod's judgment hall," or
court for holding trials. At the end of this time Ananias, the high priest,
and the elders had travelled from Jerusalem, accompanied by an orator, or
sort of counsellor, named Tertullus, for the purpose of prosecuting Paul.
Tertiillus, appearing in court, delivered a very flattering speech to Felix,
and then accused Paul of being " a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedi-
tions," and " a ringleader of the Nazarenes," a name of contempt given by
the Jews to the Christians, derived from Jesus being brought up at
806
Bible and Commentator.
Nazareth. Paul, in reply, defended himself Avith great eloquence, and his
speech agreed with what the captain had said about him in his letter.
Felix would not, therefore, hastily condemn him, but put off the business
till he had inquired and thought more about it, and had seen the chief
captain, who could more particularly explain what he knew of the matter.
In the meantime he ordered a centurion to keep guard over Paul, but
allowed him to go unfettered, and to see any of his friends.
Some days afterwards Felix, accompanied by his wife Drusilla, sent for
Paul, and had some private conversation with him " concerning the faith in
Christ." His wife was a Jewess, the daughter of Herod Agrippa, who was
eaten by worms, and sister of the king called Agrippa ; and probably Felix
wished to satisfy his curiosity, and that of his wife, about the new faith,
which she could better understand than he, knowing something about the
prophecies of the Messiah. Paul's
reasoning was most powerful ; and
while he took this opportunity of
striking at some vices which he knew
had disgraced the character of Felix,
and showed him that, though a ruler
himself, he must be judged at last for
all his crimes before the Judge of the
whole-earth, the guilty " Felix trem-
bled," and then put off the conversa-
tion for another opportunity ; but he
lulled his conscience to rest and never
met Paul again, except on common
matters, when he hoped he might
in some manner bribe him to gain his liberty.
In this unjust way was Paul kept a prisoner during two years, when
Porcius Festus was appointed governor of Judea in the room of Felix.
Felix did not even then set the apostle at liberty, but left Paul bound, to
please the Jews. This was, however, of no advantage to him, for he was
himself accused by some of the Jews of oppressive conduct, and taken
before Csesar, to answer for his own real offences ; and had it not been that
he had a brother named Pallas, who had great influence in the court, he
would have been severely punished.
The new governor, Festus, arriving at Jerusalem, the Jews had great
hopes that they should now accomplish their wicked purposes against Paul;
FOUNTAIN AT NAZARETH.
Acts. 807
and "the high priest and chief of the Jews" even begged it as a favor of
Festus, that he would send for Paul back to the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem to
be tried, where they would foot have failed to have murdered him. Festus,
however, thought he would first go to Cesarea, and inquire into the merits
of the case, and he wished the Jews to accompany him thither, and bring
forward their charges against Paul. On reaching Cesarea he took his seat
as judge, and the apostle was brought before him ; but his accusers were
not able to prove anything against him. Notwithstanding this, the wicked
governor, who ought to have set him free, proposed, after all, to send him
before the Sanhedrim, wishing by so doing to gratify the great persons
among the Jews. Paul, howTever, again took shelter under his rights as a
Roman citizen, and demanded that he should at once go before the emperor,
Nero, then in the seventh year of his reign, which completely defeated the
malicious schemes of his adversaries, and left no means of evasion for
Festus.
Agrippa, who ruled over the northeastern portion of Palestine, with the
title of king, and his sister Bernice, came now to pay a visit to Festus,
and congratulate him on his new dignity. Festus told Agrippa how much
he was perplexed about Paul, that he had been tried before him and
appeared to be an innocent man ; but that, as the matters in dispute were
chiefly things which concerned the Jews, and which he did not well under-
stand, he had washed to have sent him before the Sanhedrim, but Paul had
resolved to appeal to Csesar.
Agrippa, being a Jew, had his curiosity excited, and wished to examine
Paul himself; so he was, on the next day, brought before the jmblic court,
where Agrippa, and Festus, and Bernice, and all " the chief captains and
principal men of the city," were assembled together. Festus then openly
declared his opinion of Paul's innocence ; but since he had appealed to
Caesar, he said he must now send him to Rome, but he really did not know
what to say to the emperor as an excuse for sending him thither. He had,
therefore, assembled this court for advice, and especially wished for that of
Agrippa, an illustrious person, and who was capable of entering better into
the matters in dispute.
After Festus had spoken, Agrippa told Paul he might speak ; when the
apostle again eloquently pleaded his own cause, stated his early life, his
conversion, his mission to the Gentiles, his sufferings from the Jews, and
the doctrines which he preached. At length he wTas suddenly interrupted
by Festus, who said, with a loud voice, " Paul, thou art beside thyself ;
808 Bible and Commentator.
much learning doth make thee mad." To whom Paul replied that he was
perfectly in his senses, and his doctrines were the words of truth. The
apostle also so closely pressed his address upon Agrippa, that he forced him
to cry out, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." Paul said to
the king, " I would to God that not only thou, but also all that hear me
this day, were both almost and altogether such as I am, except these
bonds."
After breaking up the council, Agrippa told Festus that if Paul had not
appealed to Caesar, he should certainly have advised his being set at liberty,
for he was without doubt an innocent man.
Paul's dangerous Voyage to Rome— His Miracles at Melita.
Acts xxvii., xxviii.
PAUL was now given in charge of Julius, a Roman centurion, and sent
on board a ship of Adramyttium to sail for Rome. Adramyttium
was a seaport town in Mysia, a part of the province of Asia. He was accom-
panied in his voyage by a Christian brother named Aristarchus. They
touched at Sidon, a famous city of Phoenicia, where Paul having some
friends, Julius handsomely allowed him permission to go and visit them.
Thence they sailed under the island of Cyprus, and crossed the sea of
Cilicia and Pamphylia, and then came to Myra, a city of Lycia. Here the
centurion found a ship of Alexandria which was bound for Italy. Alexan-
dria was the chief city of Egypt, built by Alexander the Great, immediately
after his conquest of Egypt, and it was peopled with Greeks. It had many
magnificent buildings, and a library built by Ptolemy
Philadelphus, one of the kings of Egypt, containing
seven hundred thousand volumes, which was unfor-
tunately burnt in a war between Julius Caesar, who
was the Roman dictator, and Pompey, a great
Roman general.
In order to make a short cut to Italy, the master
of the ship now stood towards Cnidus, a place in
Asia Minor, but the wind being contrary, he altered
his course, and so sailed below Crete, one of the noblest isles in the Medi-
terranean Sea, which is now better known by the name of Candia, and then
he passed over against Salmone, known latterly by the name of Capo
PTOLEMY PHILADELPHUS.
Acts.
809
Salmone, a piece of land in the island of Crete. They next came to a place
called the Fair Haven, near Lasea, a city on the sea-shore of Crete.
Having lost much time in sailing slowly against the wind, or stopping at
the Fair Havens, the captain wished to proceed on his voyage, although the
time of the year was now very unfavorable. Paul advised the centurion
not to proceed, for there was great danger ; but the captain persisted, and in
the end found he had done wrong in not taking the apostle's advice. Rash
people have often to repent of not taking kind and wise advice, when it is
too late.
As the haven was not commodious to winter in, they proceeded on
their course towards Phenice, a haven of Crete, having a favorable wind0
In a short time, however,
the wind changed, and __=-.;■._-- 2c_
"a tempestuous wind" ^ ^ _T" ^ ^ ^^
blew, "called Eurocly- =HH^- ^ BSgL*'-
don." Here the ship, Jg-^ g vgjjgpjff L ^
becoming unmanageable,
was let to take her own
direction, when she ran
under an island called
Clauda. Fearing they
should be wrecked, with
some difficulty they se-
cured their boat to go
ashore ; and they passed
ropes and chains round
about the ship to keep her from going to pieces, and they took doAvn their
sails, and so were driven about in the sea, wherever the wind might bear
them, having only what the sailors call bare poles.
Still the tempest increased, and it was found necessary to throw every-
thing burdensome overboard to lighten the ship, that she might the more
easily float on the tossing waves. The sailors, in that age, steered their
course by the sun, moon, and stars ; but the skies were so darkened by this
storm, and that for many days, that they could see none of the heavenly
bodies, and therefore knew not whither they went ; and in this uncertain
state they gave themselves up for lost, expecting that the ship must at last
strike on rocks or quicksands.
While they were all in a state of despair, God showed Paul in a vision
810 Bible and Commentator.
i
that lie should not perish by the storm, but should yet bear witness to his
truth before Csesar at Rome. Then Paul told his companions that they
would have acted wisely to take his advice • however, now they must be
shipwrecked, but their lives would all be saved.
On the fourteenth night the seamen found, by sounding, that they were
approaching some land, and so to prevent being wrecked they cast anchor.
In sounding, a weight attached to a rope is cast into the sea, and by the
depth to which it sinks, as indicated by the marks or knots on the rope, the
sailors know whether they are near land. The iron anchor, whose shape
every one knows, is attached to a heavy rope cable, and thrown into the sea,
and its flukes burying themselves in the sandy or gravelly bottom of the
sea, it holds the ship, so that it cannot be easily moved from its place or
drift upon the rocks or sand. In this case four anchors were cast, to hold
the ship the more firmly.
The sailors now attempted to escape for their lives, and Avere stealing off
with the boat, when Paul declared that their continuance was absolutely
necessary to save the resl ; so the soldiers cut the rope by which the boat
was tied to the ship, and let it go, that the sailors might not get into it.
They had now all fasted a long time, and the apostle urged them to eat
before the ship was wrecked, and to gather a little strength for the toils they
would have to undergo; and then he solemnly gave God thanks before them
all, and be^an himself to eat. We ougdit never to take our food without
giving God thanks ; for, as good Mr. Henry says, we cannot put a morsel
of food into our mouths till God first puts it into our hands.
The number of the crew and passengers wTas two hundred and seventy-
six. Having satisfied their appetites, the last thing which they could do to
lighten the ship was to throw away the wheat and provisions ; this they now
did.
At daylight they saw a little creek of water, with a shore, and taking up
the anchor, hoisted a sail, and tried to run the ship in. In doing this they
ran upon some sands, where two seas met, and the fore part stuck fast, but
the hinder part was broken by the furious waves.
The soldiers now proposed to kill the prisoners, lest any of them should
escape, and they should be answerable for them ; and the apostle Paul was
to have been killed among the rest. But the centurion, who, by this time,
greatly respected Paul, opposed the wicked, cruel, and ungrateful scheme ;
he therefore ordered those who could swim to escape to the shore, and that
the others should ride on boards and broken pieces of timber from the ship,
and escape the best way they could ; and so they all got " safe to land."
Acts.
811
THE VIPER.
The place at which they landed was called Melita, which has generally
been supposed to be the island now called Malta. Here the natives, though
uncivilized, showed the shipwrecked mari-
ners a great deal of kindness ; and as it
was rainy, and they were fatigued and
cold, they made a fire to warm them. As
all helped to gather wood for it, Paul had
also gathered a bundle, and while he was
laying it on the fire a viper came out of
it, being driven by the heat, and fastened
upon his hand. The bite of this serpent
is exceedingly venomous, and its poison
the most dangerous. The natives, being
very superstitious, thought that this was
a judgment on Paul, whom they took for
some murderer God was now punishing, though he had escaped shipwreck.
Paul shook off the reptile into the fire, and they all looked on expecting to
see him fall down dead ; but when they saw he had received no hurt, they
then looked upon him as no less than a god.
This island had a governor named Publius, who very hospitably received
the unfortunate strangers. But his hospitality was well repaid ; for the
father of Publius, lying at the time sick of a fever, Paul " prayed, and laid
his hands on him and healed him." As soon as this was known, many
applied for and obtained a cure, and so the apostle and his companions were
much respected during their stay, and received help for their voyage.
Here they remained during three months, when they sailed in a ship of
Alexandria, which had wintered in the isle. They next landed at Syracuse,
a famous city in Sicily, where they stopped three days. They then sailed
round Sicily, and came to Rhegium, a city in Calabria; thence to Puteoli,
a large sea-port town not far from where Naples now stands; here Paul met
with some Christian brethren, and stayed seven days with them, Julius most
probably kindly consenting to gratify their wishes that Paul might so stay.
Thence they went to Appii Forum, which was fifty miles from Rome, and
to which place some of the Christians of Rome, hearing of their approach,
went to meet the apostle, as others did also at the Three Taverns, which
was thirty miles from Rome. The sight of these Christians greatly encour-
aged Paul's heart, for he was glad to see they were not ashamed of him as a
prisoner for the cause of Christ.
812
Bible and Commentator,
On arriving at Rome, Paul was allowed to have an apartment to himself
that he might not be annoyed by the common prisoners ; perhaps he owed
this favor to the kindness of Julius, the centurion, who had behaved
towards him very handsomely throughout his whole voyage. He had,
however, a soldier with him, and according to the Roman custom, this man
was constantly chained to the apostle, as men are handcuffed together in our
country.
Here Paul sent for the Jews at Rome, and told them how unjustly he had
been treated by their brethren, and how he had been obliged to appeal to
Caesar ; and he informed them about Christ, the true Messiah ; and finding
them disposed to hear him he met many that visited him, and instructed
them in the gospel, and numbers of them believed in Jesus. "And Paul
dwelt two Avhole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in
unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which
concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him."
In these facts we have constantly presented to our minds the faithfulness
of this great and valiant worker in the establishment of Christianity ; and
therein, too, are reminded of the similar energy and steadfastness of others
of the apostles, shown in their unconcern for the threatenings and persecu-
tions directed against them. It seems truly wonderful that those who were
selected to do the work of the Master were not only inspired and strength-
ened for it, but Avere also filled with a boldness that shrank not from the
face of kings and emperors, and turned not away from the gaze of death.
This especially appears in the case of several who, unlike Paul, seemed influ-
enced by ignorance and temerity.
HUMANS AT TABLE IN TIME OF PAUL.
Asia Minor,
The Scene of the Labors of Ihe Apostles Paul, Peter and John.
N the fulfilment of our purpose of furnishing all necessary
assistance to our readers, for understanding and being profited
by the word of God, we have thought it best to give such a
description of the regions in which the gospel was preached by
the apostles and especially by Paul, John, and Peter, as should
enable those who may read the Acts of the Apostles and the
£(*Q7 Epistles, to know definitely where, and under what difficulties,
(yofc) they performed their labors.
The missionary labors of Paul commenced at Antioch
(which was his Christian home in a higher sense than Jerusalem), and
extending at first to his native city, Tarsus, and his native province,
Cilicia, led, in his successive missionary journeys, to his traversing five of
the seven provinces which then comprised the peninsula now known as
Asia Minor, and his subsequent visits to Macedonia, Attica, Achaia, and
eventually Illyricum, and his compulsory residence in Pome. That he
extended his labors in later life to Spain, and perhaps to other portions of
western Europe, is possible, but not certain ; but we can only, in this place,
concern ourselves with his work in Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Greece.
The Apostle John, after many years of active labor in Jerusalem and Judsea,
subsequent to the destruction of Jerusalem, continued his work in Ephesus
and its vicinity, and after the martyrdom of Paul and Timothy, continued
their work in the Roman province of Asia, the western province of Asia
Minor, of which Ephesus was the capital. The seven churches of Asia were
all in this province. He was banished by Domitian to the isle of Patmos in
the iEgean sea, at no great distance from Ephesus, but returned to that
city after the deat,ji of the tyrant. The Apostle Peter, aside from occasional
visits to Antioch, spent the earlier years of his ministry in Palestine, but
finally crossed the Tigris into Mesopotamia, and at Edessa, Nisibis, and
815
816 Bible and Commentator.
Babylon, preached, founded schools, and wrote his epistles, visiting also
Ephesus and Corinth, and ending his ministry by imprisonment and
martyrdom at Rome.
It will be seen, then, that the regions which we have to describe in con-
nection with the apostolic labors, as recorded in the New Testament, are
Asia Minor, Macedonia and Greece, and Syria and Mesopotamia. Let us
first understand where Asia Minor is. If you will look at any good map
of Asia, or, what will be better, at any good map of the Turkish empire, and
the seat of the war which has been going on in 1877, between Russia and
Turkey, you will notice that the Mediterranean sea extends almost due east-
ward to the Syrian coast, and that the coast line runs nearly from north to
south, as the eastern boundary of the great sea. Now look farther north
on the same map, and about 350 miles to the north you will find the
Black sea, which in old times was called the Euxine sea. Running your
finger westward, along the south shore of the Black sea, you come to the
Bosphorus, or strait leading into the sea of Marmora, in which Constanti-
nople is situated. Passing down this strait, into and through the whole
length of the sea of Marmora, which in Bible times was called the Propontis,
you come to another strait now called the Dardanelles, but in former times,
the Hellespont, which leads into a sea full of islands, called the iEgean sea
or Archipelago, which is really a part of the Mediterranean. If you have
followed my directions carefully, you will see that you have passed around
three sides of a peninsula or tract of land bounded by water, on the north,
the west, and the south sides. This great peninsula, nearly 700 miles long
from east to west, and about 400 miles wide, is Asia Minor. It is separated
from Syria and Armenia on the east by the mountains of the lofty Taurus
range. Its history for the past two thousand years has been full of interest ;
some of the most renowned cities of the world, such as ancient Troy,
Ephesus, Tarsus, and Smyrna, were within its boundaries; many of the
largest and most influential of the early Christian churches were founded
here by the apostles and their successors ; for five or six hundred years after
the Christian era, f.\ie churches of Asia Minor exerted a powerful influence
over all Christian Europe. At a later period, the country fell into the hands
of the Turkomans, and finally was conquered by the Ottoman Turks, who
have held it to the present time, and have reduced much of it to the condi-
tion of a desert. It is still, however, the most populous and wealthy part
of their empire.
But we have only to describe the country as it was in the time of the
Asia Minor. 817
apostles. If you will Iook again at the map (our map of Asia Minor in this
book), you will see in the northeast corner of the Mediterranean sea that
there is a gulf projecting into the land ; this is called the gulf of Issus,
and that part of the Mediterranean below it, the sea of Cilicia. From the
south a river flows down from the Syrian mountains, and discharges its waters
into this Cilician sea ; it is the river Orontes, and a few miles above its
mouth, you will find the city of Antioch. That city did not belong to Asia
Minor, but was one of the capitals of Syria. It was a very rich, beautiful,
and populous city. Here the disciples of Christ were first called Christians,
and the Christian church of Antioch, soon after Paul's time, had a hundred
thousand members, and three thousand pastors and teachers. At this point
were started the first Christian missions to the heathen. This was not far
from a. D. 45. Previous to this time, Paul (or, as he was then called, Saul)
had spent considerable time in his native city of Tarsus in Cilicia, preaching
the gospel, and probably establishing churches in that city and its vicinity,
among the refined and intelligent people, who had made it noted for its
learning. But the first missionaries sent out from Antioch were Saul, or
Paul, Barnabas, a converted Levite from Cyprus, and his nephew John
Mark (the evangelist), a native of Jerusalem. Passing down the Orontes to
Seleucia, the magnificent port of Antioch, they sailed from thence to Salamis,
in the island of Cyprus, and commenced their labors among the kinsmen
and friends of Barnabas. After spending a few days there they passed
along the southern coast of the island, which was then very populous, to
Paphos, at its western end. Paphos was a large and very wicked city,
wholly given up to the worship of the heathen goddess Venus ; here Paul, by
a miracle, caused a Jewish magician, who was opposing the work of Christ, to
become blind, and the word preached was blessed to the conversion of many
of the people of Paphos. We have recently had the most convincing proofs
of the idolatry of the people of Cyprus, in the discoveries made by General
di Cesnola of temples, idols, shrines, amulets and votive offerings, at Paphos,.
which is now in ruins, and in other parts of the island.
Without visiting the northern portion of the island, Paul and his com-
panions sailed directly from Paphos to Perga, a city of Pamphylia, situated:
on the river Cestrus, on the main land, northwest from Paphos. Here they
first entered Asia Minor, Cyprus being a separate Roman province, governed
by a proconsul, or officer appointed by the Roman senate. Asia Minor, as
we now call this peninsula, consisted at the time it was visited by Paul and'
his companions of seven Roman provinces, which, beginning at the west, were
52
818 Bible and Commentator.
named Asia, Bithynia, Galatia, Pamphylia, Cilicia, Cappadocia and Pontus.
These provinces, some of them under other names, had been independent king-
doms before the time of Alexander the Great, and some of them had continued
to be tributary kingdoms, first to Alexander and his successors, and afterward
to Rome, till near this time. We find the old names remaining, though
without definite boundaries, in the western provinces, at the time of Paul's
journeys through them. Thus, Antioch in Pisidia is spoken of (in distinc-
tion from the Syrian Antioch), Pisidia being the old name for the northern
part of the province of Pamphylia, as Lycia (whose chief cities, Myra and
Patara, were visited by Paul at a later period) was, of the southern part of
that province. Iconium, Lystra and Derbe are said to be cities of Lycaonia,
that being the former name of the south westeru part of the province of
Galatia. Phrygia was the old name of the eastern half of the province of
Asia, and the Phrygians, like the Galatians, were a tribe or nation of different
origin from the peoples who surrounded them.* Mysia was the former
name of a tract in the north of the province of Asia, and extending to the
shores of the Hellespont and the Propontis, the present Dardanelles, and sea
of Marmora. Of these seven provinces, Paul, in his several missionary jour-
neys, traversed five. There is no evidence that he ever entered Pontus or
Bithynia, though he attempted to go into both. These two provinces,
forming the entire northern districts of Asia Minor, have for their northern
boundary the entire southern shore of the Euxine or Black sea, and the now
important cities of Trebizond, Tocat, Batoum, and Erzeroom, are within
their limits.
Of the southern and western provinces, Cilicia was his native province
and often the scene of his labors ; Cappadocia, north of Cilicia, was visited
and crossed in his second and third journeys ; Galatia was traversed and its
principal cities visited in his first, second and third journeys ; and to the
churches in Galatia his Epistle to the Galatians was addressed ;f Pamphylia
* The Galatians were of the same stock as the Gauls, or inhabitants of France, and the
resemblance between the two nations was very strong in form and figure, in language and in
their excitability and emotional tendency, and their fickleness and levity. The Epistle to the
Galatians gives many illustrations of these traits of character.
f Paul's first visit to the cities of southern Galatia, or Lycaonia, as the region is called in
Acts xiv. 6, was connected with his early experiences of the hostility and malignity of the un-
converted Jews, which grew in intensity with every subsequent year of his life. Driven by
their persecutions out of Antioch in Pisidia, where he had established a large and growing
church, he was followed by his persistent foes to Iconium, and after long and successful labors
there, forced to fly from a mixed mob of Jews and Gentiles, to Lystra, where a miracle of
Asia Minor. 819
was crossed in his first journey, both in going and returning, and its two
principal cities, Perga and Attalia, visited; in his third journey he spent
some time at Patara, and crossed thence to the island of Rhodes ; in his last
journey recorded in the Acts, that from Jerusalem to Rome, he touched at
Myra, in the southern part of the province, and was there transferred to
another ship. The province of Asia was the scene of his longest and most
arduous labors. In three of his missionary journeys he passed through
portions of its territory ; in his first journey visiting some of its eastern
cities ; in his second, traversing the northern part, or Mysia, stopping for
some time at Adramyttium, Assos, and Alexandria Troas, from whence he
first entered Europe; in his third journey he entered the province from
Galatia, visiting Philadelphia and Sardis ; making his head-quarters for
two or three years at Ephesus, and preaching and organizing churches at
Trogyllium and Miletus, and possibly also visiting Crete, whither he after-
ward sent Titus. Mytilene, in the island of Lesbos, Mas visited, possibly
twice, in these journeys, and very possibly Samos also. Laodicea and
Colossse, to the churches in both which cities he addressed epistles (the so-
called Epistle to the Ephesians having been probably a circular letter written
to the several churches in Asia; see Colossians iv. 13-16), had not been
visited by Paul in either of these journeys, nor, apparently, had Hierapolis,
a large city near Laodicea, noted for its mineral springs. Philemon, to
whom a short epistle is also addressed, was a convert under Paul's preach-
ing, perhaps at Ephesus, and seems to have been the founder of the church
at Colossse.
His second and third missionary journeys extended into Europe; in the
second he went, by way of Samothracia andNeapolis, to Philippi, the chief
city of eastern Macedonia, where he and Silas were imprisoned in violation
healing wrought by him caused the heathen inhabitants to attempt to pay divine honors to
him ; but Jewish malignity again prevailed, and he was stoned by the mob. Escaping with
his life .by a miracle, he went on to Derbe, where he was not molested, and after planting a
church there, he went back to Lvstra, Iconium and the Pisidian Antioch, and confirmed the
disciples in their faith. In his subsequent journeys (his second and third) he returned first to
Derbe, Lystra (where he found among the converts his young, but greatly beloved companion,
Timothy), and Iconium, and thence proceeded through the mountain passes into the ancient
Phrygia, now the eastern part of the province of Asia, and after planting some churches there,
turned northeastward to Pessinus and Ancyra, cities of Galatia, to the churches in which the
Epistle to the Galatians may have been addressed. In his third journey he is supposed to
have visited also Tavia, another Galatian city, almost on the border of Pontus. It is sup-
posed that there were Christian churches in Pontus at this time, for among the 3,000 converted
at the day of Pentecost were Jews from Pontus. Acts ii. 9.
820 Bible and Commentator.
of the Roman law, and the next day, after a miracle, and the conversion of
the jailer and his family, were released with honor, by the terrified magis-
trates. The epistle of Paul to the Philippian church was one of the results
of his labors here. From thence they proceeded to Amphipolis and Apol-
lonia, and, without much delay, went forward to Thessalonica (the Salonika
of the present day), where their labors were abundantly blessed. The
church at Thessalonica became one of the largest and most efficient of those
planted by the apostle in Europe. To it were addressed two of his epistles.
Driven from this city by the persecution of the Jews, Paul and Silas went
on to Berea, where another church was planted. These Macedonian churches
were revisited several times by the apostle, and there is reason to believe
that after his acquittal at Rome he went to Macedonia, and from thence into
Illyricum (the present Dalmatia and Montenegro).
From Berea Paul went alone by ship to Cenchrea, where he planted a
church, and thence to Athens ; and in that chief city of the Greek learning
and philosophy, preached Christ before its most brilliant scholars. His suc-
cess here, however, was not so great as in Corinth, which he next visited, and
where he remained nearly two years, and founded a church, which was for
several centuries the largest and most influential in Greece. To this church
his two longest epistles are addressed. His labors at this period were not
confined to Corinth. Other cities of Achaia had the benefit of his zealous
efforts. More than once he visited Ephesus, and continued his watch-care
over the churches of Asia. In his last return to Jerusalem he was unable
to stop at Ephesus, but met the elders of the Ephesian church at Miletus,
and gave them his parting blessing. If our readers have followed, on our
excellent map of Asia Minor, these journeys of the Apostle Paul, they
cannot fail to have formed a very clear idea of the regions traversed by this
early missionary.
Let us now briefly refer to the labors of the Apostle John in the province
of Asia, at a considerably later date. As the chief pastor or bishop at
Ephesus, the apostle's age and infirmity of body seem to have restricted him
to a much narrower sphere of action than that of the Apostle Paul. Still
the province of Asia was at this time very populous, and the great church
at Ephesus, and the large and flourishing ones at Trogyllium, Miletus, Lao-
dicea, Hierapolis, Colossse, Philadelphia, Smyrna, Sardis, Thyatira, Per-
gamos and Mitylene, all of them within a distance of about one hundred
miles, might well require all his waning strength. To seven of these
churches he addressed those letters dictated by our Lord, and recorded in
Asia Minor. 821
the Revelations. Those churches, so flourishing and prosperous at that
time, were a few centuries later extinct, and the cities themselves are nearly-
all now in ruins.
The journeyings of Peter outside of Palestine were perhaps less extensive
than those of Paul. He was often at Antioch, was probably for a time in
Corinth, from which he departed in consequence of the attempt of Jewish
partisans to make out that there was a conflict between his teachings and
those of Paul. There is a possibility, but very little probability, that he
visited Rome at this time ; his later years were spent in Mesopotamia, prob-
ably in Edessa and Nisibis, where he is said to have founded schools of
Christian disciples, and in Babylon, from whence his epistles were written.
In the year of his death he was taken to Pome, where, after being at liberty
for a short time, he was sentenced to death, and was crucified, tradition says,
with his head downward. His intercourse with Paul, in the later years of
his ministry, was frequent and cordial. There is no reason to suppose,
indeed, that it was ever otherwise, except on the occasion at Antioch, when
Paul, though much younger, " withstood him to the face, because he was to
be blamed." Galatians ii. 11-19.
Of the journeyings and missionary labors of the other apostles we have
no certain knowledge. Two of them, James, the son of Zebedee, and James,
the brother of our Lord, died in Jerusalem, one slain by Herod Agrippa I.,
the other by the Jews. Jude, the brother of James, from certain passages
in his epistle, is supposed to have been with or near Peter in Mesopotamia.
Of the rest we have only vague and conflicting traditions.
THE EPISTLES:
Are letters, either to particular persons or churches; or, are what is sometimes called "circular letters" to the
churches iu general. It is believed they were all written by apostles ; and, indeed, each has the name of an apostle
affixed to it, excepting that to the Hebrews, and the two ascribed to John. Paul is named as the writer of thirteen
of them. The epistles were certainly divinely inspired. The churches, in the early times, received them as the
word of God ; and neither heretics nor opposers of the ancient churches denied that they were the genuine writings
of the apostles, and the plain truths of Christianity. All the epistles, excepting the several mentioned above, begin
with the names of the writer, and of those to whom the epistle is addressed ; then follows the salutation ; then the
letter; and then the individual messages. It is everywhere agreed to that this part of the New Testament shows
the fulfilment of the ancient prophecies even more than what is called the historical part. These epistles also
contain a number of wonderful prophecies, thus proving that they were inspired by our God, who alone sees the
end from the beginning.
cHT^
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.
'HIS Epistle is placed first in the list of the Epistles, probably
because Rome was a place of very great importance, but the
Epistles to the Thessalonians, Corinthians, and the first
Epistle to Timothy, that to Titus, and perhaps some others,
were all written before it.
It is generally thought that the apostle Paul had never
seen the Roman Christians when he wrote to them, but he
felt a great interest in them ; and they must have loved him
much for it, for they travelled from thirty to fifty miles from
that city to meet him, when he was going as a prisoner there.
You are not to suppose from the title, that the people to whom this
Epistle was written were native Eomans ; some of them were so, and were
converted from heathenism — but they were merely persons dwelling in
Rome, most of whom were converted Jews. The apostle calls them neither
Jews nor Romans, but addressed them, as " all that be at Rome, beloved of
God, called to be Saints."
The chief design of this Epistle was to show these dwellers at Rome and
us, how a poor sinner may be justified or accounted righteous and good in
the sight of God. Then, as in the other Epistles, after having explained
822
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Bible and Commentator.
the grand subject he had in his mind, he exhorts the Christians to practise
various duties. These duties are named frequently in his various Epistles,
and are such as, obedience to parents and rulers, respect to ministers, kind-
ness and charity toward each other, and love to all saints.
THE FIRST AND SECOND EPISTLES OF PAUL TO THE
CORINTHIANS.
CORINTH has been noticed when we treated on the Acts. It was a
large and crowded city, and the capital or chief city of Achaia ; and
Achaia was a province of Greece. The apostle Paul was at this place about
two years, and having converted many Jews and Gentiles, and left them
VICTOR IN THE RACES RECEIVING HIS CROWN.
united together in a Christian church, he now wrote to them to correct some
wrong things which he heard were practised among them.
Corinth was celebrated for its games, called the Isthmian games, because
the place itself stood on an isthmus, or neck of land joining it to a continent,
or very great extent of land, containing many countries. These games
were practised every fourth year. There were other games of a similar
kind celebrated in Greece, called the Olympic, Pythean, and Nemsean.
Those who engaged in these games were trained for twelve months before ;
and they had suitable food and exercise, to prevent them from growing too
fat, or too indolent, and so becoming unfit to endure the hardships they had
Epistles. 825
to undergo ; for they had to run, to wrestle, to leap, and to box. The
boxers used their arms, frequently beating the air, as if they were beating
their opponents, that so they might be skilful and strong. The path of the
racers was marked out by white lines, or posts ; he who did not keep within
them, though he was first at the goal, or winning post, lost the prize.
Garlands or crowns made of pine leaves, olives, laurel, and parsley, were
given to the conquerors by the judges appointed to decide who had won;
and other honors and privileges belonged to them. Large numbers of
spectators were present to see these games, which drew as much attention in
Greece as the greatest sights do among us.
The apostle Paul often alludes to these games, to show how much the
Christian should struggle, by prayer, self-denial, and other means, against
sin, in order to obtain superior honors. So you will, from knowing what
has been here mentioned about them, understand his meaning in many parts
of his Epistles, where otherwise it would not have appeared quite plain.
The following texts are among those in which the apostle alludes to these
games. 1 Cor. ix. 24, Gal. v. 7, Phil. ii. 16, iii. 13, 14, Heb. xii. 1.
THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE GALATIANS.
GALATIA was a province of Asia Minor, and this Epistle was not
written to the inhabitants of any particular city or town, but to the
Christians in the whole province. It is not certain by whom their several
churches were founded, but it is thought probable that they were founded
by the apostle. The reason why the Epistle was written was this : some
converted Jews had joined the Galatians, and not having a clear knowledge
of the gospel of Christ had taught them they must, in becoming Christians,
attend to some things which were peculiar to the religion of the Jews. Now
as Christ had done away with all the rites of the Jewish Church, which
were only shadows or types and figures of the spiritual worship of his new
church, this was a great mistake ; and the apostle wrote to correct it.
THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE EPHESIANS.
SOME account of the city of Ephesus has been given in the remarks on
the nineteenth chapter of the Acts. The apostle Paul went to- this
city after he had been at Corinth, but he made only a short stay. The next
time he visited it he found twelve disciples, and made many more. He
continued two or three years, and formed a Christian church, to whom this
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Epistle was written. The apostle foresaw that teachers of untruths would
spring up after his death, and his design in writing to the Ephesians was to
fix their minds in the pure truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPICS.
YOU read something about Philippi in the commentary on the six-
teenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. Philippi was a Roman
colony, which had, for several reasons, received great favors from the Roman
emperors and senate. It was situated in Macedonia, a country near Greece.
The gospel was first preached here by the apostle Paul. The design of this
Epistle was to exhort the Philippians to live in love towards each other,
and to comfort them under those troubles which they were called to endure
from the persecutors of the Christians.
THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE COLOSSI ANS.
COLOSSE was a city in Asia Minor, which perished by an earthquake
with several other cities. Soon after this Epistle was written a new
city was built on its ruins. It is not known how the Christian faith reached
this place, and it is thought by some that the apostle Paul was not known
there in person, because in the second chapter and first verse, he seems to
imply that they had not seen his face in the flesh ; but this language is not
quite certain, and does not exactly state any such thing. Some, therefore,
think, that the apostle Paul did preach here, for during three years that he
dwelt at Ephesus, he employed himself with so much zeal and diligence, that
we are told in the nineteenth chapter of the Acts, that " all they that dwelt
in Asia, heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks."
This, like some of the Epistles, is chiefly written to warn against making
mistakes in religion, and to encourage to constancy in the profession of
faith in Christ. It is to be noticed, that this Epistle, and that to the Ephe-
sians, are very much alike, from which it is thought that they were both
written at the same time, while the same inspired thoughts were fresh on
the mind of the apostle.
THE FIRST & SECOND EPISTLES OF PAUL TO THE THESSAL0NIAN8.
THESSALONICA was a very large and flourishing city, where trade
was free, and the capital of Macedonia. The place is now called
Salonica. Here the apostle came after he had been at Philippi, and stayed
Epistles. 827
there about three weeks, and preached every Sabbath-day. Many Jews,
Greeks, and chief women of the place readily received the glad tidings of
salvation, which he declared, and the foundation was laid of a gospel church.
The wicked Jews, who despised the apostle's message, raised a mob, and
assaulted the house of Jason, where Paul and Silas were, and they were sent
away for safety by night out of the city. Timothy was soon after sent by
the apostles to comfort and instruct the converts at this city. He was
pleased with what he saw, and took back to the apostle a report of the faith
and charity which appeared among the Thessalonians. The apostle then
wrote the First Epistle, and some months afterwards he also wrote a Second,
comforting the Christians in their troubles, and urging them to hold fast
their profession.
THE FIRST AND SECOND EPISTLES OF PAUL TO TIMOTHY.
TIMOTHY was remarkable for his early piety and acquaintance with
the Scriptures. The apostle in writing to him says, " From a child
thou hast known the Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto
salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus." His mother, Eunice,
was a Jewess, and his father was a Greek. When in his travels the apostle
Paul came from Antioch the second time to Lystra, Timothy was so warmly
recommended to him by the church in that place, that he took him with
him as a travelling companion. He was set apart for the work of an Evan-
gelist, in order to be a fellow-laborer with Paul in preaching the gospel.
The apostle evidently had a tender regard for him, and these Epistles were
written to him to give him useful advice in the work of the ministry.
THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO TITUS.
TITUS was a Greek, to whom the apostle Paul had been the honored
messenger of preaching the Gospel, and he had not received it in vain.
Paul dearly loved him, and employed him much in assisting him to do his
work ; we read of his sending him to Corinth, to finish a collection there to
assist the poor saints at Jerusalem, and to Dalmatia, to inquire after the
saints there, and to comfort them. We do not read in the apostle's history
that he was ever at Crete, but from this Epistle it is thought that he was,
for he says to Titus, " I left thee at Crete, that thou shouldest set in order
the things that are wanting, and ordain elders, or ministers, in every city,
as I had appointed thee." Crete is the largest island in the Mediterranean
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Sea, and is now called Candia. This island has a considerable number of
inhabitants, and is remarkable for producing no ferocious or poisonous
creature. This Epistle was evidently written to teach Titus how to choose
good men for pastors, and how to act himself as a minister of Jesus Christ.
THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO PHILEMON.
THIS is a very short, but a very interesting Epistle. It is, in fact, a
story about Onesimus, a converted slave, who ran away from his
master Philemon, whom some think he robbed, and then went to Rome,
where he heard the apostle Paul preach, when his heart was changed. The
kind apostle then wrote this most tender Epistle to Philemon, whom he
knew, begging him to take his slave back into his service, for he was now
become a truly good man, and what loss he had sustained by his absence
the apostle assured Philemon he was quite ready to pay. It is supposed
that Philemon lived at Colosse.
THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE HEBREWS.
THIS does not bear the name of the apostle Paul, but, if not written by
him, it manifests much of his spirit. The design of writing it was to
explain to them, the converted Hebrews, or Jews, the superiority of Christ
to Moses, to Joshua, or Aaron ; to prove that in his priesthood and death,
all the work of the priests was completed, that he had made a perfect
offering for sin, and that from henceforth there was no other way in which
salvation could be expected but through Christ. With these remarks you
will be able to understand the general scope of this Epistle, many things to
which it refers having been explained when we were treating on the book
of Leviticus.
THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF JAMES.
THE Epistle of James is called " general," because it was not written to
any particular person. It was addressed " to the twelve tribes which
are scattered abroad." These were not Christian Jews scattered abroad by
persecution, but Jews who had been scattered over all countries by
the captivity, numbers of whom never returned in consequence of Cyrus's
decree, but remained among the Gentiles. The author of this Epistle is
thought to be James the brother 01 Jude, and is known by the name of
James the Less, probably because he was less in stature, or younger than
Epistles. 829
James the son of Zebedee, who was slain by Herod. Some of the Jews
here addressed were pious men, and some not. This is clear from the
different sorts of address which we find in the Epistle, some consoling and
comforting, others warning and rebuking.
THE FIRST AND SECOND EPISTLES GENERAL OF PETER.
THESE Epistles, like that of James, were addressed to scattered Jews,
"strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia,
aud Bithynia." These might include some remains of the ten tribes carried
captive by the Assyrians, and of the two tribes carried captive by the
Babylonians; but more especially are the Epistles addressed to suffering
Christians, chiefly converted Jews, and some Gentiles, who were scattered
abroad in the early persecutions of the Christian Church.
The apostle Peter was more especially sent to minister to the Jews, as
the apostle Paul was to the Gentiles; and Peter meeting with a faithful
brother, Sylvanus, who had been the companion of Paul, takes an oppor-
tunity of sending a letter by him, chiefly addressed to the converted Jews,
dispersed among the Gentile countries, where he with Paul and others
travelled; the design of which was to show that both taught the same
glorious doctrines. This was the First Epistle.
The Second Epistle was to urge those to whom the apostle wrote to be
anxious after divine knowledge, to fix their minds on the gospel, to guard
them against teachers that would instruct them in error, and to warn them
of the approaching end of all things.
THE FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL OF JOHN.
THE author of this Epistle was John, the son of Zebedee, the disciple
whom Jesus loved : he was the youngest of the apostles, and survived
them all. It was called " general," because it was not sent to any particular
church or person. The design of writing it was to promote brotherly love,
to warn against doctrines that allowed men to live in sin, and give clear
notions of the nature of God, and the divine glory of Jesus Christ. There
is an anecdote of this apostle worthy of being remembered, both by young
and old, whom the venerable John was used to address alike by the tender
names of little children. It is said, in some early histories, that he spent
his last days at Ephesus, where he died ; and then when he was too old to
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walk, he was carried to the place of worship in the arms of some of the
disciples. He could then only speak a few words very feebly ; and these
words always were, " Little children, love one another."
THE SECOND EPISTLE OF JOHN.
THIS, you see, is not called " general." It was written to a pious lady.
The scope of it is to urge this pious lady to hold fast her Christian
faith, to avoid error, and to love God and those who loved him.
THE THIRD EPISTLE OF JOHN.
THIS Epistle was to a particular person also. His name was Gaius or
Caius, and, most likely, the same mentioned by the apostle Paul for
his kindness in receiving, and lodging, and entertaining good people. See
the sixteenth chapter of Romans, near the end. In this Epistle, John
speaks of one " Diotrephes," who was a very haughty man, which was not
a proper mark of a Christian, and of one " Demetrius," who had a good
report of all men, as every Christian should have, as far as respects his
life, temper, and behavior. The former he mentions, that Gaius may not
imitate him ; and the latter he holds up as an excellent example. We
should always imitate the example of the truly wise and good.
THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF JUDE.
THIS is also an epistle written to no particular person, but chiefly de-
signed for the Jews who believed in Jesus Christ. Jude, or rather
Judas, was the son of Alpheus, and brother of James the Less, or the
younger. He was also called Lebbeus, and Thaddeus, for it was a frequent
custom in those days to have two or more names ; so Peter was sometimes
called Simon, and sometimes Cephas.
SEALS AND SCROLLS OF BEGINNING OF OUR ERA.
Revelation of St. John the Diylne:
Or. " the Revelation of Jesns Christ," etc., "unto his servant John,'" as is told ns in the first verse of the first
chapter. It was written by John, and divinely given to him to show the prophetic history of Christ's church in the
world to the end. Many things in this book seem dark and hard to understand, because they tell of things that
have not yet happened ; but if we will read and study devoutly, we will gather as much of instruction from them as
the old Jews did from their prophetic writings — enough to cause us to praise God, and clivg closer to our glorified
Saviour in love and worship. The descriptions given in this book of our Heavenly Father and his kingdom, of our
Messiah King and his glory, of the eternal joys and grandeur belonging to his followers, as well as of the
confusion and terrible ruin of the wicked, are highly interesting, and will call forth healthful thought and inquiry,
even in the minds of careless readers; whereas the devoted, humble, and prayerful will be improved by a continual
insight into new and fresh truths of the most comforting nature.
OMITIAN, a Roman tyrant, banished the apostle John for
being a Christian, to a solitary and rocky island called
Patmos, about thirty miles from the western coast of Asia
Minor. The good man is never alone, for God is with him
everywhere. Here God favored John with wonderful
visions of what should hereafter happen to the Church and
the world.
The first three chapters of this book contain a sort of
preface, addressed to the Seven Churches in Asia Minor 5
namely, Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis,
Philadelphia, and Laodicea. The remaining chapters are accounts of his
vision.
\Ye shall first notice the Seven Churches in Asia. These were not the
only Churches in Asia Minor ; for there were Churches in Phrygia,
Pamphylia, Galatia, Pontus, Cappadocia, etc., etc., which were also in Asia
Minor ; but the apostle knew and wrote to these Seven Churches in par-
ticular. The first was Ephesus, of which we have made mention on several
occasions. The second is still known as Smyrna, the largest and richest
city of Asia Minor. It contains about one hundred and ninety thousand
inhabitants, the largest number of which are Greeks, the rest are Turks,
Jews (of whom there are eleven thousand), Armenians, Roman Catholics,
and Protestants. It is a beautiful city, but frequently ravaged by the
plague, and has suffered by repeated earthquakes.
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The third Church named is that of Pergamos. This city is now called
Bergamo. It must in John's time have been a city of great importance, for
it then had a manuscript library of two hundred thousand volumes, which
Antony and Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, sent to Alexandria. It has now
fourteen thousand inhabitants of different nations, but the houses are of
wood, and look small and mean.
The fourth Church named is Thyatira. This place is situated in the
midst of an extensive plain, which is nearly surrounded by mountains. Its
houses are low, and chiefly of mud or earth. It now looks poor and mean.
It Avas anciently, and still is, famous for dyeing, especially in scarlet.
The fifth Church mentioned is Sardis. This famed city was once the
capital of King Croesus, the richest monarch that ever lived. He was de-
feated in the plain before the city by Cyrus, when it passed to the Persians.
After the Persians were defeated by Alexander the Great, it surrendered to him,
and then in time to the Romans. It was destroyed by a terrible earthquake
in the reign of Tiberias, the Roman Emperor, who rebuilt it. Afterwards
the different nations of Goths, Saracens, and Turks, one after another, ruined
it in their wars, and it is nothing but desolation. A mere sprinkle of ruins
of its former greatness remains. No Christians dwell on the spot; two
Greeks only were lately living there to work a mill, and a few wretched
Turkish huts were scattered among the ruins.
The sixth Church addressed was in Philadelphia. The Turks call this
place Allah Shehr, or " city of God." There are now about three thousand
houses on the spot, covering a space of ground running up the slope of three
or four hills. The streets are filthy and the houses mean.
The seventh Church was that of Laodicea. There were two places so
called in Asia Minor. This place is more desolate than any of the others,
having been completely ruined by earthquakes. Its ruins cover three or
four small hills, and are of very great extent, consisting of an aqueduct,
theatre, amphitheatre, and other public buildings.
Some remarkable fulfilments of what God said by the apostle John must
also be noticed.
The Ephesians had gone back in their religion, which is what is meant by
leaving their first love. God threatened them by his prophet, and he told
them that he would remove their "candlestick out of its place," if they did
not repent. By this he meant, that he would take the light of the gospel
away from them ; and he did so. Ephesus is now a forlorn spot — it is no
more. Its ruins are of vast extent.
Eevelation, 833
Smyrna was mentioned in terms of approval, and no judgment was de-
nounced against it. So, though they have but little gospel light, yet the
candlestick has not been wholly removed out of its place, and the city itself
is still large and flourishing. Of this Church, the venerable Polycarp was
one of the pastors. In the year one hundred and sixty-two, about seventy
years after this Epistle was written, a persecution broke out against the
Christians at Smyrna ; and the Roman Emperors, who had then dominion
of those parts, treated them with shocking cruelty because they would not
serve their idols. The grey-headed Polycarp was marked for destruction.
His friends concealed him in a village, but they were put to the torture to
make them tell where he could be found. The old man could not bear that
they should all suffer for him, and delivered himself up, saying, " The will
of the Lord be done." When he was brought before the proconsul, one of
the governors of Smyrna wished him not to be injured, and, when he was
examined, made signs that he should deny he was Polycarp, but Polycarp
would not tell a falsehood. He then urged him to deny Christ, and promised
him safety. " No," said the brave old man, " fourscore and six years have
I served Christ ; neither hath he ever wronged me at any time ; how then
can I deny my Saviour and King ? " He was threatened with being thrown
to the wild beasts, being burned and tormented, but he stood unmoved,
saying, " You threaten me with fire, which shall last but an hour, and is
quickly quenched ; but you are ignorant of the everlasting fire of the day
of judgment, and of those endless torments which are reserved for the Avicked !
But why do you delay ? appoint me what death you please." The proconsul
was astonished. He then commanded the crier to proclaim three times that
Polycarp owned himself a Christian, and he was sentenced to the flames.
In the midst of the flames he thus prayed to his Father in heaven : " O
God ! the Father of thy beloved Son, Jesus Christ, and through whom we
have received the knowledge of thee ! O God, the Creator of all things,
upon thee I call, thee I confess to be the true God; thee I glorify! O Lord,
receive me, and make me a partaker of the resurrection of thy saints,
through the merits of our Great High Priest, thy beloved Son, Jesus
Christ, to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory
forever, Amen." Here was courage more than mortal ; God helping his
servant to put on the martyr's crown : and here was fulfilled what God
said to Smyrna, " Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown
of life."
The rest of this book is very difficult to explain, and can only in part be
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understood by those who are of riper years, and who well study and pray
over it. We have already said, on the Prophecies, that they are written in
dark terms, on purpose, because otherwise all the world would know them ;
and they are only designed to be a guide to those who wish to know the
mind of God, and to mark his providence in his dealings with his Church.
We cannot therefore attempt to do more than to tell you, that most of the
language here used is the language of signs; that is, certain things are
used to signify other things. John in his inspired visions saw all that he
states ; but then what he saw only represented realities in other forms.
In the eighth chapter, the seven seals which were opened, and the seven
trumpets which were to be blown, are descriptions of seven periods of
Christ's Church on earth, and of the divisions of those periods. They tell
of the setting up of Christ's kingdom in the world — of the triumphs of
Paganism, and rise and fall of Popery, and other great errors ; of the final
triumph of the Gospel ; the happy state of the Church of Christ ; the Day
of Judgment, and the eternal blessedness of the saints.
May we, dear young readers, be found among the happy number,
adoring Jesus, "the Lamb of God," who died for sinners, and singing
forever, " Salvation to our God, which sitteth upon the throne, and unto
the Lamb ! " And may we, more than this, so try to do and finish our
life's work that we shall reap the reward set before us in one of the most
beautiful of the Old Testament prophecies : "And they that be wise shall
shine as the brightness of the firmament ; and they that turn many to
righteousness, as the stars forever and ever."
St. John, the Beloved Disciple-.
The Apostle, Prophet, and Evangelist: His Life, Character, and Example.
N this wonderful book, the New Testament, the life, the teach-
ings, the sufferings, death, resurrection, and ascension of the
divine Redeemer, necessarily and appropriately occupy the
first place ; and are followed by a history of the origin and
development of the church of the Redeemed, which he
founded. But in his work and mission here on earth, and in
the work which he committed to his disciples to be done after
his ascension, we find three persons named with especial honor,
and their labors narrated with particular care and minuteness.
These three were: Peter, bold, impulsive, warm-hearted, but fickle and
wavward in his early career ; the apostle of the circumcision ; John, ardent,
manly, loving and beloved, and modest and retiring in his disposition; but
with strong prejudices and ambitions ; the man who had understanding of
the visions of God; Paul, stern, resolute, uncompromising, and heroic, yet
tender and sympathizing with those who were in sorrow; the great apostle
to the Gentiles. All of the three were apostles, though one received his
commission from his risen and ascended Lord. All contributed to the
number of the inspired books of the New Testament ; Peter, according to
generally received tradition, furnishing to his young companion, Mark, the
material which was wrought so skilfully into the second gospel ; and, in
his later years, writing those two general epistles to the churches, which are
so full of instruction, reproof, and consolation ; John, writing, first, that
remarkable collection of prophecies and warnings, which we know as the
Apocalypse, or Book of Revelation, and, some twenty years later, the fourth
gospel, so full in its demonstrations that Jesus Christ is the Son of God;
and, later still, when he had upon his head the snows of nearly a hundred
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years, those three epistles, whieh fitly and fully round out the gospel he had
given to the church ; Paul, in the midst of his arduous and incessant labors,
writing thirteen and perhaps fourteen epistles to the churches which he
had founded, and the individuals converted under his preaching; epistles
which contain in themselves a whole body of divinity, and are profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness.
Thus, with the exception of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, the Acts, the
short Epistles of James and Jude, and possibly the Epistle to the Hebrews,
the whole New Testament was written by these three men, and the book of
Acts is almost wholly occupied with the record of their labors.
Of these three mighty leaders of the sacramental host, the pillars of
the early church, we have elsewhere given the principal particulars in the
life of Peter; we have traced, in following the sacred record, the abundant
labors, toils, sacrifices, trials, and triumphs, of the heroic and undaunted
Paul ; and it now only remains to us to portray, as well as we may, the
exquisite beauty of the life and character of " the disciple whom Jesus
loved."
In doing this we must of necessity go back to his birth and childhood,
and see for ourselves what were the circumstances by which these were sur-
rounded : for the early training has often much to do with the later char-
acter and life of the man.
Those of our readers who have become interested in our History of the
Jews after the Captivity, and our History and Description of Palestine (both
in this volume), will be aware that Galilee, the region in which James and
John, Peter and Andrew, and indeed most of the apostles, were born, was, in
the time of our Lord, very populous, and its population, far from being
wholly Jewish, was made up of a great variety of nationalities. This was
particularly true of the cities and towns around the sea of Galilee, or lake of
Gennesaret, as it was often called. Here might be found, jostling each other
in the narrow streets, Syrians from Damascus ; Greeks from Antioch, Asia
Minor and the Grecian isles ; Arabs from the Eastern desert, on errands of
plunder; Idumseans and Moabites from the regions around the Dead sea;
the various tribes of Asia Minor, Galatians, Phrygians, Cappadocians,
Cilicians, Lycaonians, Mysians and Ionians; and mingling with them as
fishermen, carpenters, farmers, tent-makers, and sometimes bankers, tax-
gatherers, and usurers, the Jews, who here made up perhaps one-third or
one-half of the population ; while in the towns and villages of the hills
they were much more numerous. Above all in power and authority,
St. John, the Beloved Disciple. 837
though but few in number, were the hated Romans, the rulers of this
mixed population.
But what the Galilean Jews lacked in numbers they made up in their
ardent patriotism, and their abundant religious zeal. Though it was the
habit of the proud and conceited Pharisees of Jerusalem to speak slightingly
of the Galilean Jews, to ridicule their peculiar dialect, and to represent them
as ignorant of the law, there was really no occasion for such reproaches.
The Galilean Jew could generally speak Greek, while the Jew of Judsea
was often ignorant of it; to the wider culture which he thus obtained, he
added a most thorough knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures, which
were taught, both in the families and synagogues of Galilee, more carefully
than anywhere else in Palestine. There had also been made there very
thorough provision for a good general education in all the studies of that
time; and the rabbis of the temple at Jerusalem had established every-
where schools and colleges, for instruction in those traditions of the elders
known as the oral or unwritten law, with which they sought to burden the
consciences of devout Jews, "teaching for doctrines the commandments of
men." Nowhere in Palestine were there to be found men more zealous for
the law, or more ready to suffer imprisonment, tortures, and death for their
religion, than among the Jews of Galilee. And with them, religious zeal
and the love of freedom went hand in hand. They were the brave and
patriotic soldiers of the Maccabsean brothers, men who had no idea of defeat,
and who would attack and conquer an army of ten times their number ; men
like Cromwell's Ironsides, who would go into battle singing the Psalms of
David, while, with giant strokes, they hewed down their enemies. And
when their country came under the power of the Romans, they were rest-
less and constantly rising in insurrection. To them, the idea of a coming
Messiah was ever present, and as they would only recognize the rule of
God himself, through his priests, their idea of the Messiah was, that though
he should possess divine, or at least arch-angelic attributes, he should be to
his chosen people a deliverer from the Roman despotism, and should rule
and reign over them, as a temporal prince, and high-priest on the throne of
David, exalting to positions of trust and power in his kingdom or govern-
ment, those devout and patriotic Jews whom he might select as best quali-
fied for such a service. That the Messiah would be a spiritual prince, that
his dominion was to be over the minds and souls of men ; that he would
have nothing to do with the administration of temporal power, and that the
Gentile believer would enjoy equal privileges with the Jew, who trusted in
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him, both in this life and the life to come, and that he was to redeem to
himself a chosen people, a spiritual Israel, from all nations that dwelt on
the face of the earth — were ideas which the Galilean Jew was incapable of
comprehending, until his heart was enlightened from on high ; and even
then, he would ever and anon turn back to his old belief in a temporal
Messiah.
The country or region of Galilee, which comprised the ancient territory
of Issachar, Zebulun, Asher and Naphtali, was, in the time of our Lord,
surpassingly beautiful. The combination of lake, river and sea, of elevated
mountain slopes, broad fertile plains, and valleys clad in living green, made
up landscapes of remarkable loveliness. The hills were terraced almost to
their tops ; and the latitude, which was that of Florida, was rendered more
diverse in its temperature and its productions by the varying heights of sur-
face found within a few miles. Little Hermon, the loftiest mountain west
of the sea of Galilee, was about 4,000 feet above the sea ; Tabor and Car-
mel, the one overlooking the sea of Galilee, the other the Mediterranean,
were about 1,800 feet above the Mediterranean, while the sea of Galilee
was 653 feet below that level. Yet the mountain slopes are not usually
precipitous, and on some of these plains, valleys, and hillsides, were to be
found the fruits, grains, flowers, and forest trees of most of the temperate
and semi-tropical countries of the world.
In the small city of Bethsaida, on the northwest shore of the sea of
Galilee, resided at this time two Jewish families, both strict observers of the
law, and remarkable, even among their countrymen, for their patriotism
and devotion. The names of the heads of these families were Jonas and
Zebedee, or Zabdai, as his Jewish neighbors preferred to call him. Each
had two sons ; those of Jonas were named Simon, afterwards called also
Peter or Cephas, and Andrew ; those of Zabdai, James and John. Neither
family was abjectly poor; that of Zabdai was, for the time and place, com-
paratively wealthy ; owning not only some property at Bethsaida, but also
a dwelling at Jerusalem. Both, in accordance with the Jewish custom, that
every man must have a trade or calling, pursued the business of fishing in
the lake or sea of Galilee, at that time a profitable occupation, followed by
many of the inhabitants on the shores of the lake. The sons of Jonas were
somewhat older than those of Zabdai, but the two families were very inti-
mate. They were all taught to read the law before their sixth year, and
were then sent to the synagogue school, where they remained till they were
fourteen or sixteen, and acquired a good general education. If either of
St. John, the Beloved Disciple. 839
the four ever attended the higher schools or colleges of the rabbis, of which
there was one at Sepphoris, some eighteen miles away, and possibly one also
at Capernaum, it must have been John, whose disposition for study was
strongly marked, and who in later years was a scholar of good repute. As
they grew up the young men adopted the calling of their fathers, and were
for a time in partnership. Of the two sons of Zabdai, James, the elder,
was about the age of Jesus, while John was four or five years younger.
Their mother, Salome, a woman of great energy and perseverance, and
withal of an earnest and devotional spirit, was, according to the universal
tradition ot the early church, a kinswoman of Mary, the mother of our Lord,
though there is a difference of opinion as to what was the exact relationship.
Some believe her to have been a daughter of Joseph by a former wife, while
others, with more probability, regard her as an elder sister of Mary. The
intimacy between the two families may not have been kept up during the
childhood of the sons of Zabdai, as Nazareth was among the hills, twelve
or fifteen miles from Bethsaida; but that John, and probably James, were
among the earliest disciples of Jesus, that Salome had become well ac-
quainted with Jesus, and claimed from him the privileges of kinship for her
sons, and that, apparently after her husband's death, she devoted her time
and her property to ministrations to the bodily welfare of our Lord, and,
with the constancy and love of a faithful woman's heart, followed him to the
cross and the tomb, we know from the gospels.
John and his brother James had undoubtedly, in accordance with the
custom of the devout Jews, gone up to the temple at Jerusalem at the great
feasts, and especially at the passover, from the time they attained their
twelfth year. The journey, the songs of their pilgrimage, the first sight of
Jerusalem, and of the temple, which was then nearing its completion, the
architectural beauty of the buildings of* the holy city, and the grand sub-
limity of the temple worship, were all well adapted to impress deeply the
thoughtful mind of a child like John, and these impressions would be ren-
dered more permanent by his subsequent visits. That they did thus im-
press him is evident, not only from his eager inquiries of his Divine Master
concerning the temple and the city, and their predicted destruction, but also
in a greater degree from his vivid descriptions of the New Jerusalem, with
its gates of pearl, its walls of precious stones, and its streets of gold, all
written at a time when both the city and the temple of Jerusalem were
tottering to their downfall.
But as they attained to the years of manhood, and the rumors began to
840 Bible and Commentator.
gather strength that the Messiah, so long promised, was coming, and was
perhaps indeed already upon the earth; that the fulness of time had come,
and that possibly from their own kindred (for rumors of the wonderful
events at Nazareth could hardly have failed to reach the ears of Salome)
was to spring that blessed one, the Hope of Israel, the expectation of whose
birth had beautified and glorified the face of every mother of the tribe of
Judah for centuries ; these young men began to watch eagerly for the dawn
of the Messianic day. In their early childhood had come into their own
vicinity a brave, patriotic man, a hero of the Maccabgean type, Judas of
Gaulonitis, oftener called Judas of Galilee ; a man whom their fathers had
hoped was he that should deliver Israel ; and the sons of Galilee, ever eager
for freedom, had gone out to swell his ranks by thousands, in the expecta-
tion that they should succeed in throwing off the Roman yoke ; but the
Roman legions under Cyrenius proved too strong for the unskilled insurgent
leader, and he and his troops perished, or were scattered, at the first shock
of battle. Would such a fate befall the coming, the promised Messiah?
Not if he were indeed the chosen of God, the great deliverer, who, as they
read the prophecies, was to be their champion against the Roman hosts.
The blood thrilled through the veins of these sons of Zabdai, as they thought
of the coming of this prince Messiah ; for they were young and brave, they
loved their country and their faith, and as Galilean Jews they were willing
to fight to the death under a gallant leader, to throw off the Roman yoke,
and to restore the sway of Jehovah over the chosen people of God.
Tell me not that this fervid, warlike spirit is inconsistent with the char-
acter of the pure, gentle, lamb-like John ! John was a Galilean and a
Pharisee ; to him there was no holier cause than that of insurrection against
the hated Roman, no duty more sacred than that of fighting for his country,
his faith, and his God. For these he would have fought to the death, would
have endured the severest tortures, or suffered death on the cross. There
was nothing weak, cowardly, or effeminate about this young man. We
shall see evidence enough of this farther on.
But just at this time there comes intelligence to him which changes the
whole current of his thoughts. A great prophet and reformer has appeared
at the fords of the Jordan — perhaps the upper ford, only thirty-five or forty
miles distant; he is urging upon the people that they should repent and be
baptized as the indication of their purpose to begin a new life ; and as a
reason for this repentance and baptism, hitherto only required of proselytes
to the Jewish faith, he tells them that the kingdom of heaven is at hand;
St. John, the Beloved Disciple. 841
that the Messiah is coming speedily, and this repentance must precede his
coming. This reformer's name is John, and because of his practice of bap-
tizing he is called "John the Baptist; " he is of priestly family, though he
does not himself engage in the work of the priesthood, but appears like one
of the old prophets; most of all like Elijah, whom in his rough dress and
his coarse and sparing diet, his earnestness, and his fearful denunciations of
sin and hypocrisy, he strongly resembles. John, and Andrew, his friend
and townsman, resolve at once to go and listen to this new prophet. Pass-
ing along the plain of Gennesaret, on the western shore of the lake, they
soon come to the Jordan valley, with its rough and volcanic rocks, its fre-
quent cataracts, and its thick jungle-like forests. By what road they find
their way to the wider plain at the ford we know not, but they reach it at
last, and listen with intense interest to the ringing appeals of this "voice
from the wilderness." Their own life, which they had deemed so pure and
blameless, now presents itself to them as full of sin ; and with repentant
hearts, and an earnest desire to do the will of God, they present themselves
to the prophet for baptism. They are accepted, and seal their vows before
God and men in the waters of the Jordan. To the major part of the mul-
titudes who listened to the preaching of John the Baptist, his constant
references to him who should come after him, one far mightier than himself,
the latchet of whose sandals he was not worthy to unloose, were but imper-
fectly comprehended. They knew, indeed, that the Messiah was soon to
come, and that these words probably referred to him, but they believed that
the Messiah was to be a temporal prince; and while they were impressed
with the earnestness of him who proclaimed himself as merely the fore-
runner of this Messiah, they half believed that he was himself the long
predicted prince, and that ere long, casting away his rough robe of camel's
hair, and abandoning his scanty desert-fare of locusts and wild honey, he
would appear as the glorious Messiah, the King of kings ; and till this trans-
formation took place, having taken all the steps of preparation for his
coming which they knew, the confession of their sins and baptism, they
were content to await, at their own homes, the commencement of his reign.
But there were some who — reverencing and honoring the son of Zacharias as
a true prophet and the forerunner of the Messiah, and believing that his
holy and abstemious life, his humble and devout spirit, and his evident
consecration to the service of God, had given him a clearer insight into the
mysteries of the future — desired a nearer intimacy with him, and sought
from his lips fuller instruction and information concerning this coming
842 Bible and Commentator.
Messiah. Among the most earnest and eager of these were the two young
Galileans, John and Andrew, whom he had so recently baptized ; and their
simple and ingenuous natures, and their evident desire for instruction, won
the heart of the great reformer. In his wild desert life, John the Baptist
had been a zealous student of the Scriptures, and God had revealed to him,
as he always does to those who seek wisdom from above in an humble spirit,
much of the character and work of the Divine Kedeemer. To him Jesus
was the Light of the World, the Ancient of Days, the Judge who should
discriminate between the wheat and the chaff, the pure and holy and the
hypocritical. He did not fully comprehend the plan of salvation, but he
knew that Jesus was the one sacrifice, the atoning lamb, whom all the sacri-
fices slain on Jewish altars typified, who should take away the sin of the
world. All this and more he communicated, in the intervals of his preach-
ing, to the two disciples, who drank in his words with the deepest interest.
He told them, moreover, that, six or seven weeks before, there had come to
him for baptism one whom from his wondrous grace and dignity he be-
lieved to be the Messiah, and that he at first refused to baptize him, saying,
" I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me ? " but that
this gracious and God-like one had said, " Suffer it to be so now, for thus it
becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." "It had been revealed to him,"
he said, " that he should be able to recognize the Messiah when he should
be called to baptize him, by the descent of the Holy Spirit in the semblance
of a dove, and its resting upon his head." When he baptized this myste-
rious person, not only was there this manifestation of the descent of the
Holy Spirit in visible form, but the heavens opened above him, and from
out of the excellent glory there came a voice, which said, " This is my be-
loved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Then John the Baptist knew that
on him had been conferred the highest honor which had ever been bestowed
on mortal man, that of administering baptism to the Son of God. And from
this time he had ever been ready to testify that the Hope of Israel had
come.
On the next day after this interview with the two disciples, Jesus, who
had but just returned from the mount of the temptation, passed near
where John wTas baptizing, and John immediately pointed him out to the
wondering multitude with the impressive words, " Behold the Lamb of God,
which taketh away the sin of the world !" He then explained briefly what
he had already stated more fully to the two disciples, of the circumstances
attending Christ's baptism. It is hardly probable that Andrew and John
St. John, the Beloved Disciple. 843
were present on this occasion; but the next morning John was standing
near the river's bank with the two disciples, and Jesus again passed, and
he pointed him out to them, saying, " Behold the Lamb of God." This was
enough for them ; their eyes were greeted with the sight of the long-
expected Messiah. Eagerly, yet timidly, they followed his footsteps, and
presently he turned and said to them in that gracious voice of his, " What
seek ye ? " Awe-struck, yet encouraged, they answTer his question by an-
other, " Rabbi, where dwellest thou ? " His answer was still more gracious,
" Come and see." Thus encouraged they followed to his temporary home,
and as it was but ten o'clock in the morning,* they had nearly the whole
day for their interview with him. What a visit that was ! How did the
hearts of these young men burn within them as they realized that they had
thus held converse with the Messiah, he whose coming patriarchs and
prophets, kings and holy ones, in all the ages, had so longed to see, and yet
had died without the sight. It does not seem that either John or Andrew
ever doubted, from that time, that Jesus was the Messiah, though it was not
till long after that they fully realized who and what the Messiah was.
Much as they had been drawn to John the Baptist, and greatly indebted
as they were to him for thus bringing them to Christ, they had now found a
new and higher love, a Master to whom they were drawn by a stronger and
more enduring tie. Henceforward they were the disciples, not of John, but
of Christ. And their zeal constrained them, as the love of Christ has
always since done, to bring their friends to him. Andrew sought for his
brother Simon, who was among the multitude who were listening to John,
and having found him, brought him at once to Jesus, saying only, " We
have found the Messias." Jesus welcomed him with a new name, Cephas,
or, in its Greek translation, Peter. John, with that modesty which is one
of his most beautiful traits, savs nothing of his own efforts to bring his
kindred to Christ, but we may well believe that if James was anywhere
within his reach, at the fords of the Jordan, as he may very well have been,
he did not rest till he had brought him also to Christ, with the announce-
ment, " We have found the Messiah."
Jesus had determined the next day to leave Bethabara for his old home
in Galilee, and his new disciples were delighted to accompany him. On
* John says in his gospel, "It was about the tenth hour," but it is to be observed that,
unlike the other evangelists (probably from the fact that his gospel was not written till some
years after the destruction of Jerusalem), John always uses the Roman reckoning, which made
the day begin at midnight, instead of the Jewish, which began at six o'clock in the morning.
844 Bible and Commentator.
the way two more were added to their number, Philip and Nathanael, or
Bartholomew, both afterwards apostles.
Immediately on his return to Galilee, Jesus and his disciples were in-
vited to a wedding at Cana, a small town not far from Nazareth. Here was
performed the miracle of changing the water into wine, of which John was
an eye-witness, and which is recorded only by him. After this miracle
Jesus went with his family and his disciples to Capernaum, then the princi-
pal city of the Gennesaret plain, and not far from Bethsaida. This was
subsequently his Galilean home, and the place where many of his miracles
were performed. His stay there at this time was brief, probably mainly for
the purpose of joining one of the great caravans or companies which were
going to Jerusalem to the feast of the passover. Their route would be, at
this time, through the Jordan valley, at least from Bethshan or Scythopolis,
in order to avoid going through Samaria. John had doubtless been often
to Jerusalem at the season of the great feasts, but never before in such
goodly company as at this time. As a constant companion of his Master,
he was privileged to hear from his lips such words of wisdom and instruc-
tion "as never man spake;" and as they climbed the rugged cliffs from
Jericho to Jerusalem, how his heart must have leaped for joy as the temple
came in sight from the height of Olivet, for, for the first time in the world's
history, could it be said that the vision and the words of the inspired
prophet were about to be fulfilled, " The Lord is in his holy temple ; let all
the earth keep silence before him/' But, alas ! though a few devout souls,
like John, had recognized the Lord of the temple, and were prepared to give
him their worship and homage, yet Israel did not know, his people did not
consider. The priests and Levites, who ministered at the altars and per-
formed the service of the sanctuary, were wholly unaware that he, to whom
that temple was dedicated, had come down from the temple not made with
hands, and had deigned to grace this earthly house with his presence. He
came unto his own, and his own received him not. There was, how-
ever, one scene in connection with this passover feast, which made so vivid
an impression upon John that, more than fifty years later, he describes it as
if it had occurred but the day before. Jesus, on his arrival at Jerusalem,
had entered the temple as its rightful heir. It was his Father's house, the
one temple in the wide world consecrated to the pure worship of Jehovah ;
and yet there in its courts were lowing oxen, calves and heifers, sheep and
goats, lambs and kids ; and on-one side great numbers of doves and pigeons,
which the high-priest himself had caused to be brought there for sale from
St. John, the Beloved Disciple. 845*
his own extensive dove-cotes on the Mount of Olives ; and the bargain-
ing of the men who had these in charge with the eager worshippers created
the greatest confusion ; added to this was the babble of the money-changers,
Jewish usurers, who made large commissions by exchanging shekels of the
sanctuary, which alone could be paid for the temple dues, for the Roman,
Greek, and other foreign coins, brought by the Jews of the dispersion who
thronged to Jerusalem at these times from all parts of the Roman empire.
All this traffic was forbidden by the law, but the Jews, and especially the
priests, were proverbially greedy of gain, and Annas, the high-priest, cared
more for gold than for the honor of God or the purity of the sanctuary.
All this desecration of the temple was apparent to Jesus at a glance, and
it roused his righteous indignation. Seizing some of the small cords or
bands of rushes, which bound the animals to be sacrificed, he plaited them
into a scourge or whip, and as the dignity and sublime anger of the divine
nature gleamed forth from those eyes, ordinarily so mild and gentle, he
drove the animals and their owners out of the temple area, and into the
streets of Jerusalem ; poured out the changers' money, overthrew the tables,
and said unto them that sold doves, " Take these things hence ; make not
my Father's house an house of merchandise." The venders of this mer-
chandise, and the money-changers, awe-struck by his evident right to com-
mand, and fearing to encounter those terrible eyes, fled in haste, and ventured
no resistance or even remonstrance; and it was not till hours after that some
of the priestly party, who had probably been heavy losers by this summary
ejection, ventured, without questioning the righteousness of the transaction,
to ask for some sign or proof of his authority to thus drive out those who
desecrated the temple. His reply was a memorable one : " Destroy this
temple, and in three days, I will raise it up." The answer was an enigma
to them ; he who had called the world into existence could doubtless have
reared anew the beautiful temple of Herod, in three days or three hours,
had it been needful to do so, but there was a deeper and holier meaning to
his words. The temple of Herod was but the outward covering or shell,
in whose Holy of Holies, the Jews believed, was enshrined the divine
Shechinah ; so now he, the God whom they professed to worship, had
come to earth in human form ; his body, a nobler temple than that of
Herod, enshrined the divine nature ; and as they would, within a short
time, destroy this human temple, he would demonstrate to them his
divine authority, by raising it from the tomb in a more wondrous body
within three days after its destruction. The saying was not forgotten by
846 Bible and Commentator.
the priests or by John, who had listened to it. The former sought to make
it the ground of a charge against him, just before his crucifixion, of con-
spiracy to destroy the temple ; while to John, after the event, it was seen to
be a prophecy of the resurrection of Christ.
The miracles wrought by Jesus in the temple and in Jerusalem had
attracted the attention of many of the ruling class ; and one of them, Nico-
demus, the teacher or " wise man " of the Sanhedrim, or great council of
Jerusalem, the third officer in rank of that body, ventured to visit Jesus by
night, during his stay in Jerusalem, impelled by a variety of motives. He
had admitted to himself, evidently, that Jesus might be the Messiah ; if he
should prove to be (and, like all the Pharisees, he had no other idea of the
Messiah than that he was to be a temporal prince, and the deliverer of the
Jewish nation from the Romans), there would be a fine opportunity for him,
a counsellor, a Pharisee, and a man of learning and influence, by attaching
himself thus early to his cause, to become one of the chief officers of his
realm. There may have been, also, some desire to know more of this king-
dom of heaven or of God, of which both Christ and John the Baptist had
so much to say, and a lurking suspicion down in the depths of his heart that
even he, with all his strictness of ritual observances, was not quite perfect,
and that this great Teacher might be able to fill an aching void which he
found in his heart. John was present at this interview, and his interesting
narrative of Christ's method of laying bare the needs, cravings and experi-
ences of a self-righteous soul, though written after the lapse of half a cen-
tury, show that even then he had a very clear conception of the omniscience
of his Divine Master. The stay of Jesus at Jerusalem was brief; he had
declared himself as the Messiah, by his deeds and miracles, and had awak-
ened the active enmity of the Pharisaic or priestly party thereby ; and not
being desirous of further provoking their hostility at this time, he withdrew
quietly to one of the towns of Judaea, north of Jerusalem, where, very soon,
the people flocked to him to receive instruction in even greater numbers
than had attended the preaching of John the Baptist. Here, under his
direction, his disciples, and John among the number, administered baptism
to those who acknowledged him as the Messiah, and ere long his personal
following had exceeded that of his forerunner. An incident which occurred
at this time, and is recorded in the Gospel of John, indicates very clearly
that neither jealousy nor envy had any place in the soul of John the Bap-
tist. Some of his disciples, who had been having an angry discussion with
the Pharisees about the oral law and the traditions of the rabbis, came to
St. John, the Beloved Disciple. 847
John the Baptist with a grievance, which had evidently been aggravated by
the taunts of their adversaries : "Rabbi," said they, " he that was with thee
beyond Jordan, to whom thou barest witness, behold the same baptizeth, and
all men come to him." John calmly replied, " that he had always declared
that he was not the Christ, but only his forerunner; and that, as the Christ
or Messiah was now come, his own mission was drawing to a close. Christ
must increase, he must decrease, and that he rejoiced in this result" He
continued with an ascription of praise to Jesus, fully recognizing his divine
nature and origin, and silencing forever the complaints of his disciples.
Shortly after this, John the Baptist was seized and imprisoned in the castle
Machserus by Herod Antipas, probably in part, at least, at the instigation
of the Pharisees, and a few months later beheaded. The hostility of the
enemies of Christ was so strongly manifested that he left his retreat, in the
foot-hills of Mount Ephraim, and set out on his return to Galilee. "And
he must needs go though Samaria." This was not the usual route from
Judaea to Galilee, as the hatred which existed between the Jews and
Samaritans was so intense, that it often led to bloodshed, and almost always
to the withholding of all the courtesies of life between the two nations. The
Jews, under John Hyrcanus, had burned the Samaritan temple on Mount
Gerizim, and the Samaritans, within a few years before the public ministry
of our Lord, had by some means entered the temple at Jerusalem at night,
and strewed dead men's bones in the holy place, and on the altar of sacrifice.
It was therefore, undoubtedly, a surprise to John and the other disciples
of Jesus, when he announced his determination to return to Galilee by way
of Samaria. The sons of Zabdai and the sons of Jonas, as devout Jews,
entertained, as in duty bound, the bitterest hatred of the Samaritans, and
must have been reluctant to pass through their country; but they were too
much attached to their Lord, to draw back from any peril to which he saw
fit to expose himself.
It was on this journey, and during the absence of his disciples in the
neighboring city to purchase provisions, that Jesus held that conversation
with the Samaritan woman, at Jacob's well, which John has so faithfully
reproduced, in the fourth chapter of his gospel, and the rehearsal of which
he doubtless received from the lips of his Divine Master. Their journey
was delayed for two days, while the first fruits of his labors in Samaria were
gathered in, and the foundation laid for that extensive work of grace in
Samaria, six or seven years later, when John and Peter reaped an abundant
harvest.
848 Bible and Commentator.
The journey to Galilee was now resumed, and Jesus entered upon his benefi-
cent work of preaching the gospel, and performing miracles of healing, and
blessing the multitudes who thronged around him in Capernaum, Bethsaida,
Chorazin, and the other populous towns of the plain of Gennesaret. His
home, at this time, was at Capernaum, whither Andrew and Peter certainly,
and James and John probably, had removed. During this period of six
or eight months, before Jesus again visited Jerusalem, he was very active.
Beside his labors at the towns and cities around the lake, he had delivered
his sermon on that mount which, from its double peak, was known as the
Horns of Hattin j had visited and taught the people on the eastern and
northeastern shores of the lake ; had selected and commissioned his twelve
apostles, and had made, either in person, or by his disciples, whom he
sent out two and two, a circuit of the Galilean towns. In all this time,
except possibly a very few weeks, John was his constant companion, and
received, perhaps in larger measure than either of the other apostles, constant
instruction from his lips. Peter, Andrew and James, who were next to
him in their intimacy with their Lord, had for a time, and until they
received a second call, resumed their former occupation ; but after they were
chosen apostles, they too were constantly in attendance upon him, or engaged
in missionary labors, performed at his command. The two sons of Jonas and
the two sons of Zabdai hold the first place in all the lists of the apostles,
and were undoubtedly the first chosen by Jesus. Of the four, Peter, both
from age and impulsiveness, was the acknowledged leader, though John was
the most beloved and cherished. An English writer of great ability, Pro-
fessor PI umptre, draws a very fine distinction between the relation which
these two disciples held to the Lord : " Peter," he says, " was the friend of
Christ as the Messiah, the first to acknowledge his divine character, and to
adore him as the Son of God ; John on the other hand was the friend of
Jesus; clinging with the most intense affection to his humanity, and recog-
nizing him as the incarnate Saviour." It is a somewhat remarkable com-
mentary on these ideas, that the gospel, which is regarded as containing in
substance Peter's narrative of the life of Christ, speaks of him most fre-
quently as the Son of man, and is most definite in its descriptions of his
earthly life; while the Gospel of John is almost wholly occupied with the
demonstration of his divine nature. To John he is the "Son of God," "the
Word who was with God and who was God," but who " was made flesh and
dwelt among us."
Whatever we may think of this distinction, it cannot be denied that to
St. John, the Beloved Disciple. 849
Peter, James and John was granted a closer special intimacy with their
Master, than to any other of the apostles. They were with him in the
chamber of death (Mark v. 37) ; in the glorious scene of the transfiguration
(Matt. xvii. 1) ; when he forewarned them of the destruction of Jerusalem
(Luke xxi. 7); and in the agony of Gethsemane (Matt. xxvi. 36-56); John
was the disciple who reclined next to Jesus at the passover feast, and at the
Lord's supper then instituted ; and it is noteworthy that when Jesus had
declared to the twelve, in that sad hour, "Verily, verily, I say unto you,
that one of you shall betray me," and the other disciples were questioning,
"Lord, is it I?" as if in doubt of their own fidelity under the pressure of
a terrible temptation, John, alone, of them all, does not ask this question ;
the union of soul between him and his Master is so complete that, as he
himself said long afterward, in his first epistle, " perfect love casteth out
fear." He knows that it is impossible for him to betray Christ, and though
not boastful like Peter, he looks up frankly and lovingly into the eyes of
Jesus, and when Peter, who understood the intimacy of his relation to
Christ, beckons to him, he asks with perfect confidence, " Lord, who is it? "
And yet, we grieve to say, that ardent as was his love for Jesus, he could
not maintain his watchfulness for even an hour, when his Lord was passing
through that fearful agony in the garden of Gethsemane. This may have
been the result of intense weariness and sorrow ; to this cause Jesus, in
mercy, attributed it ; but he was more self-possessed and brave than any
other of the disciples after the arrest of his Lord. He followed him to the
palace of the high-priest, and having been in former years acquainted with
the high-priest, he readily obtained admission, and seems to have been the
only one of the disciples who witnessed the entire trial, both before the high-
priest and before Pilate; for though Peter was, for a short time, in the ante-
room of the palace, he was in such fear, and so frequent in his denials of
Christ, that he could hardly be said to be a witness. John followed on to
the cross, where again he was the only one of the twelve who was present,
his companions being those noble women, who, more courageous than any
of the chosen apostles, except John, were " last at the cross and earliest at
the grave ; " and it was there, amid his dying agonies, that Jesus committed
to this faithful disciple, the sacred trust of caring for that dear mother whose
heart was so rent with sorrow.
On the morning of the resurrection, when the first tidings came that the
grave had been despoiled of its prey, John and Peter set out for the sepul-
chre, and for once John's zeal surpassed that of Peter, and out-running him,
54
850 Bible and Commentator.
he came first to the sepulchre. His recognition of his risen Lord was
perfect, and in that memorable interview after the resurrection, at the sea
of Galilee, his quick and loving eye detected his Master, before Peter or
any other of the seven disciples, who were in the company. It was at this
time that our Lord, by those searching questions, tested the love of Peter
for him, and then revealed to him his future, with the martyr's pains and
the martyr's crown, and to John the prolongation of his life beyond the
period of Jerusalem's destruction.
But in thus rapidly glancing over the evidences of the intense love which
filled the hearts alike of the disciple and his Master, we have passed over
several incidents in his early training as an apostle, which show most con-
clusively that John's was no soft, impressible, plastic nature, which adapts
itself readily to each new impress of a stronger mind, without possessing
any positive character of its own. On the contrary he was a man of great
energy, and of a fiery, ambitious nature, full of strong prejudices, retaining
writh great tenacity his early ideas, and even recurring to them again and
again after their falsity had been demonstrated to him. That these traits
of a wilful and perverse disposition were in the end so completely eradicated
as to make him an example to the church in all ages, of all that was pure
and lovely and of good report, is due, in the first place, to the moulding and
controlling influence which Jesus exerted over him in a greater degree than
over any other of his disciples ; and, in the second place, to the affection
which this intense love of Christ for him had developed in his soul, and
which made it his highest ambition to do always those things which would
please his Lord and Master. "We love him because he hath first loved
us."
He who " knew what was in man w better than any man could know, and
who read the entire nature and history of every man who came into his
presence at a glance, when he called James and John to be apostles, named
them Boanerges, "sons of thunder," a title indicative of their character.
They were not like the fleecy cloud, which melts and disappears when the
sun's rays fall directly upon it, nor like those cloud-banks that lie athwart
the western sky at the close of day, and clad, in hues of purple and gold
and violet, make more beautiful the sun's decline ; rather, they were the
dark, threatening clouds, heavy with the coming rain, and from out whose
jagged rifts, leap the live thunder and the swift lightning-stroke; vehe-
ment for the right,' like the old prophets; men of strong, earnest, intense
natures, who would "not handle the word of God," the truths which he
St. John, the Beloved Disciple. 851
had revealed, " deceitfully." Very soon did they give evidence that the
name he had bestowed upon them was not misapplied.
It was not till the two brothers had been for nearly a year under his
training, that he sent them forth to preach and teach in the towns and vil-
lages of Galilee ; and their first mission was one of many limitations. They
were not to enter any Samaritan or Gentile village; full well he knew their
bitter hatred and contempt of the Samaritans ; and though he had showed
them, by his own labors in Samaria, that these despised people were not
beyond the pale of his mercy, their prejudices were as yet too strong to
make it safe to trust them, even with the gospel message, to those for whom
they entertained such loathing ; they were sent at this time only to their
Jewish brethren, who were already to some extent informed concerning the
character and mission of Christ; they were to proclaim him as the Messiah,
and, where it was needful, to perform in his name the simpler miracles of
healing. They knew and comprehended but little of the scheme of salva-
tion, but what they knew they told correctly. On their return from this
circuit, they came to Jesus, somewhat elated, not that so many had received
the gospel message, but that the devils, the demons which had taken pos-
session of the bodies of men, had been subject to them through his name.
Gently rebuking their exuberant joy at this result of their labors, Jesus re-
minded them that they had occasion for a higher joy, that their names were
written in heaven. They proceeded with their report, and here it is John
that speaks, " Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he
followeth not us ; and we forbad him, because he followeth not us.7' Jesus
said, " Forbid him not; for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my
name, that can lightly speak evil of me."
In their second mission the powers of the apostles were somewhat en-
larged, and in a part, at least, of this circuit of Galilee, which extended also
to Tyre and Sidon, and to the half-heathen villages of the eastern side of
the lake, Jesus himself accompanied them. They saw the miracles which
he did, heard his parables, and listened to his explanation of them, and
were daily instructed by him in private ; yet as they journeyed by his side,
or followed in his footsteps, what was the most common theme of their dis-
cussion, and sometimes of angry debate? not the salvation of the souls of
those to whom they proclaimed the gospel, not the overthrow of the powers
of evil, or the banishment of the sins which were everywhere so rife.
None of these. It was, which of them should be ' the greatest, should
occupy the highest station in the coming reign of the Messiah, and receive
852 Bible and Commentator.
the highest rewards of money and power for their fidelity to Christ. " Lo ! "
said Peter, "we have left all and followed thee; what shall we have there-
for ?" The idea that the Messiah was to be a temporal prince, who should
deliver them from the sway of the hated Romans, and should thereafter
reign in great glory and power over the Jews, sitting on the throne of
David, was thoroughly ingrained into their minds; Jesus, they were sure,
was the Messiah, and they were daily looking for his assumption of kingly
power; and when the multitudes were disposed, with loud acclaim, to take
him by force and make him king, they were rejoiced, and wondered at his
refusal to yield to their urgency. If he did, as they were persuaded he
would, at last accept the offered throne, they, who had abandoned all to
serve him, were entitled to the best places in his kingdom, and the only
question was, what should be the division of the offices? It is. painful to
think that James and John, who had seen so much of the meek and humble
spirit of Christ, who had so often been assured by him that his kingdom
wTas not of this world, but that it was a rule and government over the hearts
and minds of men, and that the whole nature must be renewed before any
one could enter it, should have engaged in this unseemly wrangle ; but so it
was. Jesus had said, perhaps before this time, for the encouragement of the
twelve, " Verily, I say unto you, that ye which have followed me, in the
regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye
also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And
every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or
mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an
hundred-fold, and shall inherit everlasting life.77 Overlooking the wholly
spiritual character of this promise, and regarding it solely as the guarantee
of temporal advancement soon to come, the disciples looked forward eagerly
to their several shares in the offered rewards. Among the twelve none had
been nearer or apparently dearer to Christ, than the two sons of Zabdai, and
their ambition was roused to obtain the highest places in this new kingdom,
Accordingly they communicated their wishes to their mother Salome,
who had followed Christ throughout Galilee, and had ministered to him of
her substance or property. The mother was not less ambitious for her sons
than they were for themselves; and the three came to Jesus when he was
alone and offered their request, the mother urging and the sons seconding it.
At first she desired a certain thing of him, but seemed reluctant to name
her request, but when Jesus said to her, " What wilt thou ? " she answered,
u Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the
St. John, the Beloved Disciple. 853
other on the left, in thy kingdom." The immediate right and left hands of
the monarch were the places of highest honor; and thus these two young
men desired for themselves — for they repeated the request — the highest po-
sitions in that kingdom, which they persisted in believing he was about to
found in Palestine. The reply of Jesus was a sterner rebuke than he had
yet given to any of his disciples, yet it was administered in love. "Ye
know not," he said, " what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I
shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized
with?" Utterly ignorant of the sorrow and suffering which these signifi-
cant words included, they replied confidently, " We are able." Jesus said
unto them, " Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the
baptism that I am baptized with ; but to sit on my right hand and on my
left is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is pre-
pared of my Father." The other members of the apostolic band were very
indignant at this request of the two brothers ; not that they had any
clearer ideas of the spiritual character of the kingdom of Christ, but that
they regarded this as an effort, on the part of James and John, to steal a
march on them and prefer a prior claim to the dignities of the new king-
dom. And this was after these two disciples and Peter had witnessed the
glories of the transfiguration, and but a few weeks, or months at the farthest,
before his crucifixion !
We may notice, incidentally, that even the crucifixion and resurrection
of our Lord did not wholly dispel this idea of the temporal kingdom of the
Messiah from the minds of his disciples. The two disciples who went to
Emmaus, on the day of the resurrection, said to Jesus, of himself, " We
trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel," that is,
from the Roman power ; and the question put by the eleven to our Lord, on
the very day of his ascension, after having received from his lips the great
commission, shows with what tenacity they still clung to the idea of a tem-
poral kingdom: "Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom unto
Israel?"
One more example of the fiery spirit and the abiding prejudices of James
and John, will show how much need there was of a deeper sanctification in
their hearts ; when Jesus had commenced that last journey toward Jerusalem,
which was to close with his arrest and crucifixion, he sent James and John
into a village of the Samaritans to make ready for his stay over night; but
the inhabitants, supposing that his intention was to go to Jerusalem, refused
to receive him. This was churlish ; yet had it occurred in any Jewish vil-
854 Bible and Commentator.
lage, the disciples would have found some excuse for it, but it was the hated
Samaritans who had refused shelter to the Messiah • and the loyalty of the
brothers to their Master joined with their hate of these people, and they
asked, and we may easily believe that it was John who put the question :
"Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and
consume them, even as Elias did?" But Jesus turned and rebuked them,
and said, " Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of
man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." And they went
to another village.
We might multiply these instances, which illustrate the narrow and
sordid views which, at times, gained the ascendancy over the minds of the
twelve disciples, and James and John nearly as much as the others, up to
the very day of the ascension ; but what we have already adduced are
sufficient to show that, notwithstanding all the preaching and teaching of
Christ, notwithstanding their daily personal intercourse with him for three
years, and the powerful influence he exerted over them, they were still under
the bondage of Jewish prejudices, of personal and unhallowed ambition, and
of a zeal not according to knowledge. They were not as yet wholly sanctified
nor consecrated for the work in which they were to engage. Our Lord
knew this, and hence he commanded them to remain at Jerusalem, until
they should receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost.
They obeyed, and after ten days of earnest prayer, the promised descent
of the Holy Spirit came, and they were fitted to enter upon their great work.
A wondrous change had come upon them all. They were in the city of
Jerusalem, and it was the feast of Pentecost, one of the great Jewish feasts,
when, from all parts of the Roman empire, the Jews of the dispersion came
up to Jerusalem, and presented themselves at the temple. Fifty days before,
these eleven apostles, and the believers who were now with them, had fled
affrighted, at the arrest of their Master ; far from attempting any resistance
or rescue, they had concealed themselves, and met but stealthily, with
barred and bolted doors, lest they also should suffer arrest. Their Master
had been crucified by Roman authority, at the urgent solicitation of the
Jewish Sanhedrim; and their hopes had fallen to the dust. But he had
risen from the dead, and though he had not, as of old, led them through the
streets of Jerusalem and the villages of Galilee, showing himself openly to
the multitudes, his resurrection and his ascension had put new faith and
courage into their hearts, and this mysterious but all powerful influence
which they now experienced had consecrated them to their work, and they
St. John, the Beloved Disciple. 855
were ready for any labor, any sacrifice, which might be required of them.
The most timid of the apostolic band was now ready to face the Sanhedrim,
or the Roman authorities, charge upon them the murder of Jesus, and defy.
their power. To the multitudes who thronged the Jewish capital, they
preached boldly the crucified and risen Christ, and urged them to repent
and believe on him.
And if this change had come upon all the disciples, it was especially
marked in the case of Peter and John. Peter was, as before the crucifixion,
the leader, but his boastful spirit was gone j he was meek and humble, yet
full of zeal, courage and energy, and henceforth his chosen associate was
John ; together the two preached unto the people, administered baptism to
the new converts, performed miracles in the name of Jesus Christ, charged
home upon the rulers their responsibility for the death of Christ, stood un-
daunted before the Sanhedrim, endured their threatenings without alarm,
and without yielding for a moment to their demands ; suffered imprisonment,
and were beaten with rods, but rejoiced that they were counted worthy to
suffer shame in and for the Master's name. Meanwhile, the church, which
they, in accordance with their Master's command, had founded at Jerusalem,
had grown so rapidly that it numbered many thousands of joyful believers;
it was fully organized, and had been consecrated by the blood of its first
martyr, and a violent persecution had scattered many of its prominent
members ; but Peter and John remained at Jerusalem, and cared for the
remainder of the flock. Xow came one of those questions which tested the
completeness of the change wrought in them. Philip, one of the seven
deacons (not the apostle), had left Jerusalem in consequence of the persecu-
tion, and gone to Samaria, where he had preached Christ with great suc-
cess,— the recollection of the Saviour's visit there, undoubtedly rendering
the people more ready to receive the gospel. He had baptized great num-
bers, and was in need of assistance. Thereupon, the church at Jerusalem
sent their two chief pastors to aid Philip in his work. Peter and John
hastened on this mission of love, received the Samaritans warmly as brethren
in Christ, and ere they returned preached the gospel in many of the Samaritan
villages. And yet this same John, only six years before, had desired to call
down fire from heaven on one of these Samaritan villages for a real or
fancied slight.
Other events, following thick and fast, gave evidence of the great change
which had come upon these two apostles ; Saul the persecutor had become
Paul the apostle, and was received lovingly by John and Peter and James ;
856 Bible and Commentator.
Peter had had his vision of the beasts let down from heaven, and its fulfil-
ment, in the conversion and admission into the church of Cornelius, the
Roman centurion ; Herod Agrippa had seized and put to death James, the
brother of John, and had then seized Peter, intending to kill him also, and
martyrdom seemed to await John and the other apostles; but, unmoved by
his personal danger, he and the whole church wrestled in prayer for Peter's
deliverance, and it came. Peter left Jerusalem for a time, but John remained
at his post, and the persecutor soon died.
For the next fifteen or twenty years we have but very slight record of the
labors of John ; he was not, probably, at the council at Jerusalem, which de-
cided the important question of the relations between the Gentile churches and
those composed of converted Jews, or we should have heard from him as well
as from Peter ; but, before their departure from Jerusalem, Paul speaks of
John as having given the hand of fellowship to Barnabas and himself. John
remained at Jerusalem, it is supposed, with occasional visits to other parts of
the great field of labor before him, until perhaps A. D. 64, when the evi-
dences of the speedy destruction of Jerusalem led the Christians there to
obey the Saviour's command and flee to the mountains. Many of these, and
probably the apostle among the number, took refuge in Pella, a mountain
fastness on the east side of the Jordan, about eighteen miles south of the
sea of Galilee. His stay here could not have been long, and having learned
that, by the imprisonment of Paul, and possibly of Timothy also, the
great church of Ephesus, as well as the other churches of the province of
Asia, was left without a chief pastor, he departed for that city, sailing prob-
ably from Csesarea some time in the year A. D. 65. Soon after his arrival at
Ephesus he was, by the orders of Nero, banished to the little rocky islet of
Patmos, about sixty miles southwest of Ephesus.* His banishment lasted
probably three or four years, terminating with the death of Nero. It was
during his exile on this island that he wrote the Book of Revelation, in
which, after detailing the view he had of his now glorified Master, a view
far more sublime and overwhelming than that which he had witnessed on
Mount Hermon at the transfiguration, though one in which he recognized
at once his adorable Lord, he gives the messages received from him to the
* This date accords with one tradition, though another makes the banishment to Patmos
the result of some local persecution, and to have occurred several years later, and possibly in
the time of Domitian. The date of the banishment really turns upon the question whether
the Apocalypse or Revelation was written before or after the fall of Jerusalem. The weight
of evidence seems to favor the idea that it was written before that event.
St. John, the Beloved Disciple.
857
seven principal churches of the province of Asia, messages of warning,
reproof, exhortation, and encouragement. In his subsequent visions he was
permitted to see the glories of heaven, and to see and hear the events and
judgments which were to come on the earth ; before his eyes was un-
rolled the vision of the future progress of the church militant; the rise,
growth, progress, and final destruction of the papal power; before him the
judgment was set, and the books were opened; the dead, small and great,
were raised from their graves, and the terrors of that fearful day were
all portrayed; the names written in the Lamb's book of life were
rehearsed in his hearing; the first resurrection, the millennial glories, the
final destruction of the wicked, and the unspeakable and indescribable
THE EIVER OF THE WATER OF LIFE.
beauty of the new Jerusalem, illumined by the radiance which proceeded
from the throne of God, whose walls were of precious stones, whose gates
were pearls, and whose streets were of pure gold, were shown to his
eager eyes. The river of the water of life, pure as crystal, its banks shaded
by the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded its fruit
every month, the whole illuminated by the divine Light, and needing no
temple, since the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb were the only objects
of worship, were also presented to his enraptured vision.
Little need we wonder that the rough and rocky island of Patmos lost all
its roughness and discomfort to him in these visions, which transformed it
into the very gate of heaven; nor that, when recalled to his apostolic work
at Ephesus, he should have left with reluctance its rugged cliffs.
858 Bible and Commentator.
But there was yet much for him to do. Paul and Peter, his own brother
James, and James, the Lord's brother, that James the Just who had so long
and ably presided as the chief pastor of the church at Jerusalem, had all
gone, through the martyr's chariot of fire, to their home above. To him
there was given a longer service, more abundant trials, but at last a peaceful
and quiet death. He probably returned to Ephesus about the beginning
of the year A. d. 69, and though not far from sixty-eight years of age, " his
eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." Vigorous and active, he
visited in turn the fifteen or twenty churches of the province of Asia, coun-
selled their pastors, and very possibly extended his apostolic labors to Crete,
to Cenchrea, to Athens, to Corinth, and to the churches of Macedonia. The
destruction of Jerusalem, and the wide dispersion of the Judsean Christians,
many of whom migrated to Asia Minor, Macedonia and Greece, must have
greatly increased his labors, since to most of them he was personally known.
There seems to be good reason to believe the testimony of the early
fathers, some of whom were in direct communication with the now venera-
ble apostle, that his gospel was written about A. D. 85 or 86, at the request
of the elders of the church at Ephesus, who, though possessing the other
gospels, desired to preserve his recollections of his beloved Master, and to
obtain from him also those particulars which had not been recorded by the
others. His own purpose in writing it seems to have been, not so much to
supplement the other gospels, though he does this incidentally, as to prove,
in this life of Jesus, that he was the Christ, the Son of God, God manifest in
the flesh. Having this object in view, he divides his gospel into two parts:
the first, extending from the first to the thirteenth chapter, consists of a
series of proofs or signs that Jesus was the predicted Messiah, the appointed
Saviour of the world ; or, in other words, it is a record of what Jesus made
known of himself to convince the unbelieving; the second part, extending
from chapter thirteenth to the end of the book, consists of evidence that
Jesus is the Saviour of the world, derived^from his intercourse and discourses
in private with his chosen friends, and especially as seen in the great sacri-
fice offered by him, and its acceptance for the salvation of the world. When
we consider that this gospel must have been written when he was eighty-five
or eighty-six years old, and possibly nearer ninety ; that its detail of these
conversations and discourses of Christ is very clear and minute, and not
marred in the slightest degree by the garrulity of old age, and that the style
of its composition is superior, even, to that of the accomplished and learned
Paul, while the Greek, in which it is written, is as pure as that of the best
St. John, the Beloved Disciple. 859
classic Greek writers ; we can come to no other conclusions than these : that
John was intellectually a man of remarkable genius and extensive culture,
and that he was especially inspired of the Holy Spirit to write this and the
other books which he contributed to the New Testament.
The Gospel of John is, indeed, so far as any book or document can be,
one of the main pillars of the Christian system. More than any other of
the books of the New Testament it is devoted to the doctrines of the divinity
of Jesus Christ and of the Trinity in unity, and hence it has been the citadel
against which infidelity and rationalism have made their most vigorous
and determined assaults; but they have assailed it in vain: it stands to-
day unharmed, as it has stood through all the Christian ages, and as it
shall continue to stand, until the last foe shall have hurled his last missile
against it.
But, though already past the allotted age of man, John had still work to
do for the Master he loved, and for the church of God. He was, it is sup-
posed, past his ninetieth year when he wrote the three epistles which bear
his name. They show on their pages evidence of advanced age, but not of
senility or weakened mental powers. The theme of the first epistle is
fellowship, the union of believers with God and his Son Jesus Christ, and
their union with one another. Like all of John's writings, it is thoroughly
systematic. He treats first of the nature of fellowship, in both its aspects ;
second, of its fruit, holiness ; third, of its law, truth ; fourth, of its life,
love; fifth, of its root, faith. In reading it we are often reminded, by the
vigor and almost explosive force of its language, that this old man, whose
head has been whitened by the snows of almost a hundred winters, has not
yet wholly lost that fiery zeal which gave him, in his youth, the title of
Boanerges, a "son of thunder." His heart, great and loving as it is, has
been sorely wounded by the professions of false disciples, who claim to be
the children of God, and to be perfect and sinless, while their lives are
impure and their hearts full of malice, bitterness and hate; and he de-
nounces them in such terms as these: "If we say that we have fellowship
with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth. . . . If we say
that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. . . . If
we say that wre have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not
in us. . . . He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments,
is a liar, and the truth is not in him. . . . Who is a liar but he that denieth
that Jesus is the Christ? He is Antichrist, that denieth the Father and
the Son. . . . He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever
860 Bible and Commentator.
hateth his brother is a murderer; and ye know that no murderer hath
eternal life abiding in him." The honor of his blessed Lord was assailed,
and this loving and gentle disciple was roused to wrath and denunciation,
as he was in his youth, when a word was said against him whom he loved.
And yet, in other portions of this epistle, how tender and sweet is his
spirit ! " Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and
sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved
us, we ought also to love one another." . . . " There is no fear in love ; but
perfect love casteth out fear ; because fear hath torment. He that feareth
is not made perfect in love."
The second and third epistles are short, and addressed to individual dis-
ciples. They were probably written at a date still later than the first, but
breathe the same spirit.
The exact date of the death of the loving and venerable apostle is un-
known ; different authorities differing more than twenty years in their dates;
but the most probable conjecture seems to be that he died at Ephesus, in
the third or fourth year of Trajan, and after passing his hundredth year.
Jerome relates that when, in extreme old age, he was too weak to walk
into the church, he was still borne thither ; and unable to deliver a long
discourse, he would lift his trembling hands and simply say, " Little children,
love one another ; " and repeat these words again and again. When asked
why he constantly repeated this expression, his answer was, "Because this
is the command of the Lord, and nothing is done unless this thing be
done."
So passed away the last and most Christ-like of the apostles. From the
day of his Lord's ascension to that in which he too joined the assembly and
church of the first-born, whose names are written in the book of life, there
is no stain or blemish on his character. His life, for that period of more
than seventy years, was as pure and spotless as any recorded in the Scrip-
tures, except only that of the Blessed One, to whom through life he clung
in adoring love. Innumerable are the legends which have come down to
us concerning this holy servant of God ; some of them are absurd and puerile,
and unworthy to be recorded, as they are totally at variance with his char-
acter. These are probably the inventions of idle monks, who, in the fifth
and sixth centuries of our era, spent their abundant leisure in the concoction
of all manner of legends concerning the apostles, and even concerning Christ
himself. A few are deserving of notice because of their apparent harmony
with the spirit of the apostle, and because, from their earlier date, there is
St. John, the Beloved Disciple. 861
a stronger possibility of their truth. Whether true or not, they are not
inconsistent with his character.
The tradition of his shipwreck on his first voyage to Ephesus, when near
that port, is not improbable, for the ^Egean sea was often a tempestuous one,
and its many rocky islands, and its harbors and roadsteads, so liable to be
filled up with silt from the mountain streams, made shipwrecks there very
frequent. The legend that he was taken to Rome, and, by the orders of Xero,
or some other Roman tyrant, plunged in a caldron of boiling oil, from which
he emerged entirely uninjured, rests only on the doubtful authority of Ter-
tullian, and is believed by many of the most careful critics to be a misinter-
pretation of the words of some earlier wrriter.
One of the most beautiful, as it is one of the most probable of these tradi-
tions, is that W'hich relates that, as he was visiting the church at Pergamos,
he saw a young man in the congregation to whom he was powerfully drawn,
and that, turning to the pastor of the church, he said, " I commit this young
man to you before Christ and the congregation." The minister accepted
the charge, took the youth home, instructed, and finally baptized him.
Subsequently he fell into bad company, led a profligate life, and at last,
renouncing all his religious professions, joined a band of robbers, and be-
came their captain. After some years John again visited Pergamos, and
while there, made inquiry of the pastor concerning the young man wThom
he had committed to his charge. The minister sighed heavily, and his
tears flowed, as he replied, u He is dead." " Dead ! " said John ; " in what
way did he die ? " " He is dead to God," answered the pastor ; " he became
godless, and finally a robber, and is now with his companions in the fast-
nesses of the mountains." The venerable apostle, hearing this, started at
once, and saying, "I must go after this lost sheep," procured a horse and
guide, and went to the mountain in which was the robbers' haunt. Being
seized, as he had expected, by the band, he demanded to be carried into the
presence of their captain. The outlaw chief, recognizing John as he ap-
proached, attempted to fly; but John hastened after him, crying, " Why do
you flee from me ? Stop ! stop ! Do not be afraid. If need be, I will
lay down my life for you, as Christ laid down his life for us. Believe,
Christ hath sent me to you." The robber stopped, threw away his arms,
and began to tremble and weep bitterly. John finally led him back to the
church, of which he subsequently became one of the pillars, demonstrating
the genuineness of his penitence and conversion by his holy life and earnest
zeal.
862 Bible and Commentator.
It remains that we should seek to ascertain what are the lessons to be
drawn from the character and example of this beloved and eminently holy
servant of Christ.
We have seen that, though possessed of rare gifts and of a tender and
loving nature, he was in his youth impulsive, full of strong prejudices, and
ambitious. Yet withal, there must have been something very attractive in
him, some winning charm in his ways, which, with his strong affections and
his pure and truthful disposition, drew the human heart of Jesus to him in
a love which many waters could not quench. He was the most loyal to
Jesus of all the disciples, and he gives this grand reason for his loyalty :
" We love him because he hath first loved us/' His fidelity to his Lord
wTas unquestioned and unquestionable. No doubts of the perfect and
abiding love which existed between them ever caused a shadow upon his
brow, or for a moment beclouded his spirit.
And yet it required three years of instruction and training by the divine
Master, and the death, resurrection, and ascension of that Master, to rid
him of his expectations of the temporal reign of the Messiah, to overcome
his narrow and bitter prejudices, and to control his vehement and passionate
nature.
But when the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, had come, and imparted its
sanctifying and elevating influences to his soul, he was created anew in
Christ Jesus. He was no longer a Boanerges, a " son of thunder," but " a
son of consolation.7' He had power with God and prevailed. Where
miracles were needed for the confirmation of the truth, they were wrought
in the name of his Master ; but to those with wThom he was brought in
contact his pure and holy life was. greater than any miracle. Both Peter
and John had been toith Jesus, as the Sanhedrim perceived (Acts iv. 13),
and from him they had learned far better than the Jewish rabbis could have
taught them, to rebuke sin, but to love and labor for the sinner • and by a
pure and holy example to enforce the truths they preached.
We cannot suppose that any man, except our adorable Redeemer, has ever
trod our earth who was perfectly free from sin, but it is worthy of notice
that the inspired writers, who, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, no-
ticed so freely the errors and shortcomings of even the purest and holiest,
and were most severe of all upon their own sins, nowhere, after the day of
our Lord's ascension, pass a word of censure upon John. Peter, the great
apostle of the circumcision, was led astray in his course in regard to the
Jewish and Gentile disciples at Antioch ; and even Paul, with his zealous
St. John, the Beloved Disciple. 863
and fervent spirit and his overcoming faith, was not wholly exempt from
those infirmities of the flesh, which at times led him to cry out, "Oh!
wretched man that I am ! Who shall deliver me from the body of this
death?" But John dwelt perpetually in that higher atmosphere of the
divine love. No cloud obscured the Sun of Kighteousness from his vision ;
and cheered by its blessed rays, toil for his Lord was a delight, pain was a
pleasure, and he could say with the poet:
" E'en sorrow, touched by thee, grows bright
With more than rapture's ray ;
As darkness shows us worlds of light
We never saw by day."
Nor can we doubt that the visions of God which were set before him in
Patmos were among the minor rewards, the " hundred-fold in this life/7
which were given to him for his unfaltering faith and his undying love for
his Redeemer. To him, as to Daniel, the message might have come, " O
man, greatly beloved, fear not."
And when this " disciple whom Jesus loved " was at last received into
the mansion prepared for him above, does it transcend the grace of our
blessed Lord to suppose, that the position which he ignorantly sought on
earth, in the days of his early ambition, was reserved for him in the heavenly
kingdom? That, having drank of the cup of Christ's earthly sufferings,
and having undergone his baptism of sorrows, this saint of God, so greatly
beloved, was called, not as a matter of right, nor because of any claim he
could bring, but of the free grace of the Redeemer, to sit at his right hand,
as one of the prime ministers of the now glorified and reigning Messiah ?
If .ouch is his blessed lot, no seraph of the heavenly host will utter with
more melodious notes the new song, or with a more reverent and adoring
spirit will ascribe " blessing, and honor, and glory, and power unto Him that
sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever."
The lessons of this beautiful life, then, are briefly these : That, however
pure and amiable are our natural dispositions, we need to be taught of
Christ, and to be regenerated by the Holy Spirit, before we can do our
Master's work effectively.
That, since Christ hath loved us and given himself for us, the only
measure of our love for him should be his love for us ; and that the nearer
we attain to a perfect and all-absorbing love for him, the fewer will be the
clouds and doubts over our pathway, and the more perfect and complete our
peace and joy.
864 Bible and Commentator.
That it is only to those who, by long and constant trust in Christ, have
won this peace which passeth all understanding, that the heavens are opened
and they are permitted to know the blessedness of the redeemed in glory,
while they are still within this earthly tabernacle.
That if we would have an open and abundant entrance administered to
us into the New Jerusalem above, we must imitate the example of the obe-
dient, faithful, loving and holy John, and, like him, be known to all around
us, as the disciples whom Jesus loves. God has promised, " He that over-
cometh shall inherit all things ; and I will be his God, and he shall be my
son."
May God give to each of the readers of this book grace thus to overcome.
THE
WONDERFUL LIFE
BY
HESBA STRETTON,
Author of "Jessica's First Prayer," "Lost Gip," "The King's Servants," etc.
'His Name shall be called Wonderful."
Isaiah ix. 6.
55 865
7i
Preface
HE following slight and brief sketch is merely the stoi%y of
the life and death of our Lord. It has been written for
those who have not the leisure, or the books, needed for
threading together the fragmentary and scattered incidents
recorded in the Four Gospels. Of late years these records
have been searched diligently for the smallest links, which
might serve to complete the chain of those years passed
amongst us by One who called himself the Son of man, and
did not refuse to be called the Son of God. This little book is intended
only to present the result of these close investigations, made by many
learned men, in a plain, continuous narrative, suitable for unlearned readers.
There is nothing new in it. It would be difficult to write anything new of
that Life, which has been studied and sifted for nearly nineteen hundred
years.
The great mystery that surrounds Christ is left untouched. Neither love
nor thought of ours can reach the heart of it, whilst still we see him as
through a glass darkly. When we behold him as he is, face to face, then,
and only then, shall wre know fully what he was, and what he did for us.
Whilst we strain our eyes to catch the mysterious vision, but dirnly visible,
we are in danger of becoming blind to that human, simple, homely life,
spent amongst us as the pattern of our days. " If any man think that he
knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. But if
any man love God, the same is known of him." Happy they who are
content with being known of God.
867
CONTENTS.
BOOK I -THE CARPENTER.
CHAP. PAGE
I. The Holy Land, - - - 869
II. Jerusalem and Bethlehem, 872
III. In the Temple, - 877
CHAP.
PAGE
IV. The Wise Men, -
- 879
V. Nazareth, -
- 883
VI. The First Passover, -
- 886
BOOK II.-THE PROPHET.
I.
John the Baptist,
891
IX.
At Nam,
- 920
II.
Cana of Galilee,
893
X.
Mighty Works,
- 922
III.
The First Summer,
897
XI.
A Holiday in Galilee,
- 926
IV.
Samaria, -
901
XII.
In the North, -
- 931
V.
The First Sabbath-Miracle
904
XIII.
At Home Once More,
- 936
VI.
His Old Home,
908
XIV.
The Last Autumn,
- 941
VII.
Capernaum, ...
910
XV.
Lazarus, -
- 948
nii.
Foes from Jerusalem,
915
XVI.
The Last Sabbath,
- 952
BOOK III.-VICTIM AND VICTOR,
I. The Son of David, - - 956
II. The Traitor, ... 962
III. The Paschal Supper, - 964
IV. Gethsemane, - - - 969
V. The High-Priest's Palace, 973
VI. Pilate's Judgment -Hall, 976
VII. Calvary, .... 980
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
In the Grave, -
The Sepulchre,
Emmaus,
It is the Lord,
His Friends, -
His Foes,
985
988
994
997
1001
1004
The "Wonderful Life.
BOOK I.
THE CARPENTER
CHAPTER I.
The Holy Land.
ERY far away from our own country lies the land where
Jesus Christ was born. More than five thousand miles stretch
between us and it, and those who wish to visit it must journey
over sea and land to reach its shores. It rests in the very
heart and centre of the Old World, with Asia, Europe, and
Africa encircling it. A little land it is, only about two hun-
dred miles in length, and but fifty miles broad from the
Great sea, or the Mediterranean, on the west, to the river
Jordan, on the east. But its hills and valleys, its dusty roads,
and green pastures, its vineyards and oliveyards, and its village-streets have
been trodden by the feet of our Lord; and for us, as well as for the Jews, to
whom God gave it, it is the Holy Land.
The country lies high, and forms a table-land, on which there are moun-
tains of considerable height. Moses describes it as " a good land, a land of
brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills ;
a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates ; a
land of oil olive, and honey ; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without
scarceness. A land which the Lord thy God careth for : the eyes of the
Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year, even unto
the end of the year." The sky is cloudless, except in the end of autumn and
in winter, and no moisture collects but in the form of dew. In former
times vineyards and orchards climbed up the slopes of every hill, and the
869
870 Bible and Commentator.
plains were covered with wheat and barley. It was densely peopled, far
more so than onr own country is now, and over all the land villages and
towns were built, with farm-houses scattered between them. Herds of sheep
and goats were pastured in the valleys, and on the barren mountains, where
the vines and olives could not grow.
There are two lakes in Palestine, one in the northwest, the other south-
west, with the river Jordan flowing between them, through a deep valley,
sixty miles long. The southern lake is the Dead sea, or Sea of Death. No
living creature can exist in its salt waters. The palm-trees carried dowTn by
the floods of Jordan are cast up again by the waves on the marshy shore,
and lie strewn about it, bare and bleached, and crusted over with salt.
Naked rocks close in the sea, with no verdure upon them ; rarely is a bird
seen to fly across it, whilst at the southern end, where there is a mountain,
and pillars of rock-salt, white as snow, there always hangs a veil of mist,
like smoke ascending up forever and ever into the blue sky above. As the
brown and rapid stream of Jordan flows into it on the north, the waters
will not mingle, but the salt waves foam against the fresh, sweet current of
the river, as if to oppose its effort to bring some life into its desolate and
barren depths.
■ The northern lake is called the sea of Galilee. Like the Dead sea, it lies
in a deep basin, surrounded by hills ; but this depth gives to it so warm
and fertilizing a climate, that the shores are covered with a thick jungle of
shrubs, especially of the oleander, with its rose-colored blossoms. Grassy
slopes nere and there lead up to the feet of the mountains. The deep blue
waters are sweet, clear, and transparent, and in some places the waves ebb
and flow over beds of flowers, which have crept down to the very margin
of the lake. Flocks of birds build among the jungle, and water-fowl skim
across the surface of the lake in myriads, for the water teems with fish. All
the early hours of the morning the lark sings there merrily, and through-
out the live-long day the moaning of the dove is heard. In former times,
when the shores of the lake were crowded with villages, hundreds of boats
and little ships with white sails sailed upon it, and all sorts of fruit and
corn were cultivated on the western plain.
The Holy Land, in the time of our Lord, was divided into three prov-
inces, almost into three countries, as distinct as England, Scotland, and
Wales. In the south was Judsea, with the capital, Jerusalem, the Holy
City, where the temple of the Jews was built, and where their king dwelt.
The people of Judaea were more courtly and polished, and, perhaps, more
The Wonderful Life. 871
educated than the other Jews, for they lived nearer Jerusalem, where all the
greatest and wisest men of the nation had their homes. Up in the north
lay Galilee, inhabited by stronger and rougher men, whose work was harder
and whose speech was harsher than their southern brethren, but whose spirit
was more independent, and more ready to rebel against tyranny. Between
those two districts, occupied by Jews, lay an unfriendly country, called
Samaria, whose people were of a mixed race, descended from a colony of
heathen who had been settled in the country seven hundred years before,
and who had so largely intermarried with the Jews that they had often
sought to become united with them as one nation. The Jews had steadily
resisted this union, and now a feeling of bitter enmity existed between them,
so that Galilee was shut off from Judsea by an alien country.
The great prosperity of the Jewish nation had passed away long before
our Lord was born. An unpopular king, Herod, who did not belong to the
royal house of David, was reigning;- but he held his throne only upon suf-
ferance from the great emperor of Rome, whose people had then subdued all
the known world. As yet there were no Roman tax-gatherers in the land,
but Herod paid tribute to Augustus, and this was raised by heavy taxes
upon the people. All the country was full of murmuring, and discontent,
and dread. But a secret hope was running deep down in every Jewish
heart, helping them to bear their present burdens. The time was well-nigh
fulfilled when, according to the prophets, a King of the house of David,
greater than David in battle, and more glorious than Solomon in all his
glory, should be born to the nation. Far away in Galilee, in the little
villages among the hills, and the busy towns by the lake, and down in
southern Judaea, in the beautiful capital, Jerusalem, and in the sacred cities
of the priests, a whisper passed from one drooping spirit to another,
"Patience! the kingdom of Messiah is at hand."
As the land of our Lord lies many hundreds of miles from us, so his life
on this earth was passed hundreds of years ago. There are innumerable
questions we long to ask, but there is no one to answer. Four little books,
each one called a gospel, or the good tidings of Jesus Christ, are all we have
to tell us of that most beautiful and most wondrous life. But whenever we
name the date of the present year we are counting from the time when he
was born. In reality, he was born three or four years earlier, and though
the date is not exactly known, it is now most likely 1891, instead of 1878,
years since Mary laid him, a new-born babe, in his lowly cradle of a manger
in Bethlehem.
872 Bible and Commentator.
CHAPTER II.
Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
JERUSALEM was a city beautiful for situation, built on two ridges of
rocky ground, with a deep valley between them. It was full of
splendid palaces and towers, with aqueducts and bridges, and massive walls,
the stones of which are still a marvel for their size. Upon the ridge of
Mount Zion stood the marble palaces of the king, his noblemen, and the
high-priest; on the opposite and lower hill rose the temple, built of snow-
white marble, with cedar roofs, and parapets of gold, which, glistening in
the bright sunshine and pure moonlight, could be seen from afar off in the
clear, dry atmosphere of that eastern land. From ridge to ridge a magnifi-
cent viaduct was built, connecting the temple mount with Mount Zion and
its streets of palaces.
Every Jew had a far more fervent and loyal affection for the temple than
for the palace of the king. It was in fact the palace of their true King,
Jehovah. Three times a year their law ordained a solemn feast to be held
there, grander than the festivities of any earthly king. Troops of Jews
came up to them from all parts of the country, even from northern Galilee,
which was three or four days' journey distant, and from foreign lands, where
emigrants had settled. It was a joyous crowd, and they were joyous times.
Friends who had been long parted met once more together, and went up in
glad companies to the house of their God. It has been reckoned that at the
great feast, that of the Passover, nearly three millions of Jews thronged the
streets and suburbs of the Holy City, most of whom had offerings and sac-
rifices to present in the temple ; for nowhere else under the blue sky could
any sacrifice be offered to the true God.
Even a beloved king held no place in the heart of the Jews beside their
cemple. But Herod, who was then reigning, was hateful to the people,
though he had rebuilt the temple for them with extraordinary splendor.
He was cruel, revengeful, and cowardly, terribly jealous, and suspicious of
all about him, so far as to have put to death his own wife and three of his
sons. The crowds who came to the feasts carried the story of his tyranny
to the remotest corners of his kingdom. He even offended his patron, the
emperor of Rome ; and the emperor had written to him a very sharp letter,
saying that he had hitherto treated him as a friend, but now he should deal
with him as an enemy. Augustus ordered that a tax should be levied on
The Wonderful Life. 873
the Jews, as in other conquered countries, and required from Herod a return
of all his subjects who would be liable to the tax.
This command of the Roman emperor threw the whole nation into dis-
turbance. The return was allowed to be made by Herod, not by the
Romans themselves, and he proceeded to do it in the usual Jewish fashion.
The registers of the Jews were carefully kept in the cities of their families,
but the people were scattered throughout the country. It was therefore
necessary to order every man to go to the city of his own family, there to
answer to the register of his name and age, and to give in an account of the
property he possessed. Besides this, he was required to take an oath to
Csesar and the king j a bitter trial to the Jews, who boasted, years afterwards,
under a Roman governor, "We are a free people, and were never in bondage
to any man." There must have been so much natural discontent felt at this
requirement that it is not likely the winter season would be chosen for
carrying it out. The best, because the least busy time of the year, would
be after the olives and grapes were gathered, and before the season for sow-
ing the corn came, which was in November. The Feast of Tabernacles was
held at the close of the vintage, and fell about the end of September or
beginning of October. It was the most joyous of all the feasts, and as the
great national Day of Atonement immediately preceded it, it was probably
very largely attended by the nation ; and perhaps the gladness of the season
might in some measure tend to counteract the discontent of the people.
But whether at the Feast of the Tabernacles, or later in the year, the
whole Jewish nation was astir, marching to and fro to the cities of their
families. At this very time a singular event befell a company of shepherds,
who were watching their flocks by night in the open plain stretching some
miles eastward from Bethlehem, a small village about six miles from Jeru-
salem. Bethlehem was the city of the house of David, and all the descend-
ants of that beloved king were assembled to answer to their names on the
register, and to be enrolled as Roman subjects. The shepherds had not yet
brought in their flocks for the winter, and they were watching them with
more than usual care, it may be, because of the unsettled state of the country,
and the gathering together of so many strangers, not for a religious, but for
a political purpose, which would include the lowest classes of the people, as
well as the law-loving and law-abiding Jews.
No doubt this threatened taxing and compulsory oath of subjection had
intensified the desire of the nation for the coming of the Messiah. Every
man desires to be delivered from degradation and taxes, if he cares nothing
"And there were shepherds abiding in the fields." — Luke h. 8.
874
The Wonderful Life. 875
about being saved from his sins. It was not safe to speak openly of the
expected Messiah : but out on the wide plains, with the darkness shutting
them in, the shepherds could while away the long chilly hours with talking
of the events of the passing times, and of that promised king who, so
their teachers said in secret, was soon, very soon to appear to crush their
enemies.
But as the night wore on, when some of them were growing drowsy, and
the talk had fallen into a few slow sentences spoken from time to time, a
light, above the brightness of the sun, which had sunk below the horizon
hours ago, shone all about them with a strange splendor. As soon as their
dazzled eyes could bear the light, they saw within it a form as of an angel.
Sore afraid they were as they caught sight of each other's faces in this
terrible, unknown glory. But quickly the angel spoke to them, lest their
terror should grow too great for them to hear aright.
"Fear not/7 he said, " for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy,
which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of
David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto
you : Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a
manger."
Suddenly, as the angel ended his message, the shepherds saw, standing
with him in the glorious light, a great multitude of the blessed hosts that
people heaven, who were singing a new song under the silent stars, which
shone dimly in the far-off sky. Once before " the morning stars sang
together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy7' because God had created
a world. Now, at the birth of a child, in the little village close by, where
many an angry Jew had lain down to a troubled sleep, they sang, " Glory
to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."
The sign given to the shepherds served as a guide to them. They were
to find the new-born babe cradled in the manger, with no softer bed than
the fodder of the cattle. Surely, the poorest mother in the humblest home
in Bethlehem could provide better for her child. They must, then, seek
the Messiah, just proclaimed to them, among the strangers who were sleeping
in the village inn. All day long had parties of travellers been crossing the
plain, and the shepherds would know very well that the little inn, which
was built at the eastern part of the village, merely as a shelter for such
chance passers-by, would be quite full. It was not a large building ; for
Bethlehem was too near to Jerusalem for many persons to tarry there for the
night, instead of pressing forward to the Holy City. It was only on such
an occasion as this that the inn was likely to be over-full.
876 Bible and Commentator.
But as the shepherds drew near the eastern gate, they probably saw the
glimmering of a lamp near the inn. It is a very old tradition that our
Lord was born in a cave ; and this is quite probable. If the inn were built
near to a cave, it would naturally be used by the travellers for storing away
their food from the heavy night dews, although their mules and asses might
stay out in the open air. A light in the cave would attract the shepherds
to it, and there they found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a
manger. A plain working man, like themselves, his wife, and a helpless
new-born child ; how strangely this sight must have struck them, after the
glory and mystery of the vision of angels they had just witnessed! How
different was Mary's low, hushed voice as she pointed out the child born
since the sun went down, from that chorus of glad song, when all the heav-
enly host sang praises to God.
A strange story they had to tell Mary of the vision they had just seen.
She was feeling the first great gladness and joy of every mother over her
child born into the world, but in Mary's case this joy was brightened beyond
that of all other women, yet shadowed by the mystery of being the chosen
mother of the Messiah. The shepherds' statement increased her gladness,
and lifted her above the natural feeling of dishonor done to her child by the
poor and lowly circumstances of his birth; whilst they, satisfied with the
testimony of their own senses, having seen and heard for themselves, went
away, and made known these singular and mysterious events. All who
heard these things wondered at them ; but as the shepherds were men of
no account, and Joseph and Mary were poor strangers in the place, we may
be sure there would be few to care about such a babe, in those days of
vexation and tumult. Had the Messiah been born in a palace, and the
vision of the heavenly host been witnessed by a company of the priests, the
whole nation would have centred their hopes and expectations upon the
child; and unless a whole series of miracles had been worked for his preser-
vation the Roman conquerors would have destroyed both him and them.
No miracle was wrought for the infant Christ, save that constant ministry
of angels, sent forth to minister unto Him who was the Captain of salvation,
even as they are sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of
salvation.
The Wonderful Life. 877
CHAPTER III.
In the Temple.
JOSEPH and Mary did not remain in the cave longer than could be
helped. As soon as the unusual crowd of strangers was gone, they
found some other dwelling-place, though not in the inn, which was intended
for no more than a shelter for passing travellers. They had forty days to
wait before Mary could go up to the temple to offer her sacrifice after the
birth of her child, when also Joseph would present him to the Lord, accord-
ing to the ancient law that every first-born child, which was a son, belonged
especially to God. Joseph could not afford to live in idleness for six weeks ;
and as he had known beforehand that they must be detained in Bethlehem
so long, he probably had carried with him his carpenter's tools, and now set
about looking for work. It is likely that both he and Mary thought it
best to bring up Jesus in Bethlehem, where he was born ; for they must
have known the prophecy that out of Bethlehem should come the Messiah.
It was near to Jerusalem, and from his earliest years the child would become
familiar with the temple, and its services and priests. It was not far from
the hill country, where Zacharias and Elizabeth were living, whose son,
born in their old age, was still only an infant of six months, but whose future
mission was to be the forerunner of the Messiah. For every reason it would
seem best to return no more to Nazareth, the obscure village in Galilee, but
to settle in Bethlehem itself.
At the end of forty days, Mary went up to Jerusalem to offer her sacrifice,
and Joseph to present the child, and pay the ransom of five shekels for him,
without which the priests might claim him as a servant to do the menial
work of the temple. They must have passed by the tomb of Rachel, who
so many centuries before had died in giving birth to her son ; and Mary,
whose heart pondered over such things, may have whispered to herself as
she clasped her child closer to her, " In Eama was a voice heard ; lamen-
tation and weeping, and great mourning ; Rachel weeping for her children,
and would not be comforted, because they are not." She did not know the
full meaning of those words yet; but, amid her own wonderful happiness,
she would sigh over Rachel's sorrow, little thinking that the prophecy linked
it with the baby she was carrying in her arms.
At this time the temple was being rebuilt by Herod, in the most costly
and magnificent manner, but we will keep the description of it until twelve
878 Bible and Commentator.
years later, when Jesus came to his first passover. Mary's offering of two
turtle-doves, instead of a lamb and a turtle-dove, proves the poverty of
Joseph, for only poor persons were allowed to substitute another turtle-dove
or young pigeon for a lamb. These birds abound in the Holy Land, and
were consequently of very small value. After she had made her offering,
and before Joseph presented the child to the Lord, an old man, dwelling
in Jerusalem, came into the temple. It had been revealed to him that he
should not see death before his eyes had beheld the blessed vision of the
Lord's Christ, for whom he had waited through many long years. Now,
seeing this little child, he took him into his arms, and blessed God, saying,
" Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen
thy salvation." Whilst Joseph and Mary wondered at these words, Simeon
blessed them, and speaking to Mary alone, he continued : " Behold, this
child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel ; and for a sign
which shall be spoken against; (yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own
soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed."
This was the first word of sorrow that had fallen upon Mary's ears since
the angel had appeared to her, more than ten months before, in her lowly
home in Nazareth. Hitherto, the great mystery that set her apart from all
other women had been full of rapture only. Her song had been one of
triumphant gladness, with not a single note of sorrow mingling with it.
Her soul had magnified the Lord, because he had regarded her low estate ;
she was hungry, and he had filled her with good things. She had heard
through the countless ages of the future all generations calling her blessed.
A new, mysterious, tender life had been breathed through her, and she had
been overshadowed by the Highest, whose shadow is brighter than all earthly
joys and glories. Now, for forty days she had nursed the Holy Child, and
no dimness had come across her rapture. Yet, when she brings the child
to his Father's house, the first word of sorrow is spoken, and the first
faint thrill of a mother's ready fears crept coldly into her heart.
So as they walked home in the cool of the day to Bethlehem, and passed
again the tomb of Rachel, Mary would probably be pondering over the
words of Simeon, and wondering what the sword was that would pierce her
own soul. The first prick of that sharp anguish was soon to make itself
felt.
Besides Simeon, Anna, a very aged prophetess, had seen the child, and
both spoke of him to them that looked for redemption or deliverance in
Jerusalem. Quietly, and in trusted circles, would this event be spoken of;
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for all knew the extreme danger of calling the attention of Herod to such a
matter. They were too familiar with the cowardice and cruelty of their
king to let any rumor reach him of the birth of the Messiah. It does not
appear, moreover, that either Simeon or Anna knew where he was to be
found. But a remarkable circumstance, which came to pass soon after,
exposed the child of Bethlehem to the very peril they prudently sought to
shield him from, and destroyed the hopes of those who did not know that
he escaped the danger.
CHAPTER IV.
The Wise Men.
AMONG the many travellers who visited Jerusalem, which was the most
magnificent city of the East, there came at this time a party of dis-
tinguished strangers, who had journeyed from the far East. They were soon
known to be both wise and wealthy ; men who had given up their lives to
learned and scientific studies, especially that of astronomy. They said they
had seen, in their close and ceaseless scrutiny of the sky, a new star, which,
for some reason not known to us, they connected with the distant land of
Judsea, and called it the star of the King of the Jews.
There wTas an idea spread throughout all countries at that time that a
personage of vast wisdom and power, a Deliverer, was about to be born
among the Jews.- These wise men at once set off for the capital of Judaea ;
for where else could the King of the Jews be born? Possibly they may
have expected to find all the city astir with rejoicings ; but they could not
even get an answer to their question, " Where is he ? " Those who had
heard of him had kept the secret faithfully. But before long Herod was
told of these extraordinary strangers, and their search for a new-born King,
who was no child of his. He was an old man, nearly seventy, and in a
wretched state, both of body and mind ; tormented by his conscience, yet
not guided by it, and ready for any measure of cunning and cruelty. All
Jerusalem was troubled with him, for not the shrewdest man in Jerusalem
could guess what Herod would do in any moment of rage.
Herod immediately sent for all the chief priests and scribes, who came
together in much fear and consternation, and demanded of them where the
Messiah should be born. They did not attempt to hesitate, or conceal the
birth-place. If any of them had heard of the child of Bethlehem, and
880 Bible and Commentator.
Simeon's and Anna's statement concerning him, their dread of Herod was
too powerful for them to risk their own lives in an attempt to shield him.
"In Bethlehem," they answered promptly. Right glad would they be
when Herod, satisfied with this information, dismissed them, and they went
their way safe and sound to their houses. Thus at the outset the chief
priests and scribes proved themselves unwilling to suffer anything for the
Messiah, whose office it was to bring to them glory and dominion.
Privately, but courteously, Herod then sent for the wise men, and inquired
of them diligently how long it was since the star appeared ; and bade them
seek the child in Bethlehem, and when they had found him to bring him
word, that he might go and do homage to him also. There was nothing in
the king's manner or words to arouse their suspicions of his real purpose,
and no doubt they set out for Bethlehem with the intention of returning to
Jerusalem.
Still it appeared likely that there would be some difficulty in discovering
the child, of whom they knew nothing certainly, except that they were to
search, and to search diligently, for him in Bethlehem. They rejoiced with ex-
ceeding great joy, therefore, when, as they left the walls of Jerusalem behind
them in the evening dusk, they saw the star again hanging in the southern
sky, and going before them on their way. No need now for guides, no need to
wander up and down the streets, asking for the new-born King. The star,
or meteor, stood over the humble house where the young child was, and,
entering in, they saw him, with Mary, his mother, and fell down, doing him
homage as the King whose star was even now shining above the lowly roof
that sheltered him. There was no palace, no train of servants, no guard,
save the poor carpenter, whose day's work was done, and who was watching
over the young child ; but they could not be mistaken. The future glorious
King of the Jews was here.
They had not come from their distant country to seek a king empty-
handed. Royal presents they had prepared and brought with them ; and
now they opened their treasures, and offered costly gifts to him, gold, and
frankincense, and myrrh, such as they would have presented, had they found
the child in Herod's own palace in Jerusalem. Then, taking their leave,
they were about to return to Herod, when a warning dream, which they
could not mistake or misinterpret, directed them to depart into their country
another way.
The hour was at hand when the costly gifts of the wise men would be
necessary for the preservation of the poor little family, not yet settled and at
The Wonderful Life. 881
home in its new quarters. Even as a babe the Son of man had not where to
lay his head ; and no spot on earth was a resting-place for him. After the
wise men were gone, the angel of the Lord came to Joseph in a dream,
saying, "Arise, take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt,
and be thou there until I bring thee word : for Herod will seek the young
child to destroy him."
Mary's chilly fears then were being realized, and she felt the first prick
of the sword that should pierce her soul. The visit of the wise men from
the far East had been another hour of exultation and another testimony to
the claims of her Son. Possibly they may have told her that the king
himself wished to come down from Jerusalem, and worship him ; and
dreams of splendor, of kingly and priestly protection for the infant Messiah
might well fill her mind. But now she learned that Herod was seeking the
child's life, to destroy him. They could not escape too quickly ; there was
no time to be lost. The angel's words were urgent, "Arise, at once."
It was night ; a winter's night, but there must be no delay. At day-
break the villagers would be astir, and they could not get away unseen.
Before the gray streak of light was dawning in the east, they ought to be
some miles on the road. Mary must carry the child, shielding him as best
she could from the chilly dampness of the night ; and Joseph must load
himself with the wise men's gifts. Little had she thought, when those rich
foreigners were falling down before her child in homage, that only a night
or two later she would be stealing with him through the dark and silent
streets, as if she was a criminal, not the happy mother of the glorious Mes-
siah. And they were to flee out of the Holy Laud itself, into Egypt, the
old land of bondage !
Unseen, unnoticed, the flight from Bethlehem was made. They were but
strangers there ; and very few, if any, of the inhabitants would miss the
strangers from Nazareth, who had settled among them so lately, and who
had now gone away again with as little observation as they came.
Herod very soon came to the conclusion that the wise men, for some
reason or other unknown to him, did not intend to obey his orders. They
could very well have made the journey to Bethlehem in a day,. and when
he found that they did not return to him, he was exceeding wroth ; for kings
do not often meet with those who disregard their invitations. He quickly
made up his mind what to do. If the wise men had brought him word
where the child was, he would have been content to slay only him ; now he
must destroy all the infants under two years of age, to make sure of crushing
56
"He came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them." — Luke ii. 5i.
882
The Wonderful Life. 883
that life which threatened his crown. There was ample margin in the two
years for any mistake on his own part, or that of the wise men. The child
must perish if he put to death all the little ones of the unhappy village.
We wonder if the news reached Mary in her place of refuge and safety
in Egypt. Whilst she went about the streets of Bethlehem she must have
seen many of those little children in their mothers' arms ; their laughter and
their cries had rung in her ears ; and with her newly-opened mother's eyes
she had compared them with her own blessed child, and loved them dearly
for his sake. Now she would know the dire meaning of these words, "In
Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourn-
ing, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because
they are not." A, mystery of grief began to mingle itself with the mystery
of her Son's life. In her heart, which was forever pondering over the
strange events that had already befallen him and herself, there must always
have been a very sad memory of the children who had perished on his
account; and it may be that one of the first stories her lips uttered to the
little Son at her knee was the story of their winter's flight into Egypt, and
the slaying of all the children under two years of age who lived in Beth-
lehem, the place where he was born.
CHAPTER V.
Nazareth.
HEROD died a shocking death, after terrible suffering both of mind and
body. Once even, in his extreme misery, he attempted to put an
end to himself, but was prevented by his attendants. A few days only
before he died he put to death his son Antipater, and appointed his son
Archelaus to succeed him as king in Judsea ; but he separated Galilee from
the kingdom, and left it to another son, Herod Antipas. He was in his
seventieth year when he died, after reigning thirty-seven years ; one of the
most wicked and most wretched of kings.
It was now safe for Joseph and Mary to bring the child back to their
native land. They seem to have had the idea of settling in Judgea again,
instead of taking Jesus to the despised province of Galilee ; but when they
reached Judaea they heard that Archelaus reigned in the room of his father,
Herod, and that during the passover week he had ordered his guards to
884 Bible and Commentator.
march into the temple amid the throng of worshippers, where they had
massacred three thousand of the Jews. Such news naturally filled them
with terror, and they might have sought safety again in Egypt; but Joseph
was warned in a dream to go on into the land of Galilee. He was left to
choose the exact place where he would settle down, and he returned to
Nazareth, his and Mary's early home, where their kinsfolk lived. There
was every reason why they should go back to Nazareth, since Jesus could
not be brought up in his own city, the mournful little village of Bethlehem,
where no child of his own age was now alive.
Here, in Nazareth, they were at home again ; and long years of the most
quiet blessedness lay before the mother of Jesus, though the trifling daily
cares of life may have fretted it a little from too perfect a bliss for this
world. The little child who played about her feet, who prattled beside her
as she went down to the fountain for water, who listened with uplifted eyes
to every word she spoke, never gave her a moment's pain, or made her
heart ache by one careless or unkind word. Never once had the mother's
voice to change its tone of tenderness into one of anger. Never had a frown
to come across her loving and peaceful face when it was turned towards
him. As he grew in wisdom and favor with God and man, she could rest
upon that wisdom and grace, never to be disappointed, never to be thrown
back upon herself. The most blessed years ever lived by woman were those
of Mary, in the humble home in Nazareth.
It lay in the heart of the mountains, at the end of a little valley hardly a
mile long, and not more than half a mile broad, with the barren slopes of
hills shutting it in on every side. The valley was as green and fertile as a
garden ; and the village clung to the side of one of the mountains, half
nestling at its foot. From the brow of the hills rising behind the village a
splendid landscape was to be seen, westward to the glistening waters of the
Mediterranean, with Mount Carmel stretching into them; northward as far
as the snowy peaks of Hermon ; and southward over the great plain of
Jezreel, rich in cornfields ; all the country being dotted over with villages
and towns. The landscape is there still, and the deep blue sky hanging
over all, and the clear atmosphere through which distant objects seem near,
and the sighing of the wind across the plains, and the hum of insects, and
the songs of birds; all is as it was when Jesus Christ climbed the moun-
tains, as he loved to do, and sat on the summit, with a heart and spirit in
full harmony with the loveliness around him, and with no secret sadness of
the conscience to make him feel that he was not worthy to be there.
The Wonderful Life. 885
It was no lonely life that Jesus led. We read again and again of his
brethren and sisters ; and though it is not generally thought that these could
have been Mary's children,* but the children of her sister, they were so
associated with him that all his life long they acted as his own brethren and
sisters. With them he would go to school, and learn to read and write, for
all Jews were carefully educated in these two branches. The books he had
to study we know and possess in the Old Testament. Very probably he
would own one of them, though they would be so costly as to be almost
beyond his means, or those of his supposed father. We should like to know
that he had the Book of Psalms, those psalms which Mary knew so well
and had sung to him so often ; or the prophecy of Isaiah, in which his.young,
undimmed eyes, that had hardly looked upon sorrow yet, and had never
smarted with tears of penitence, would read and read again the warning
words of the Messiah's sufferings, " a man of sorrow, and acquainted with
grief." When he was alone yonder on the breezy summit of the mountain,
did he ever sing, " The Lord is my Shepherd ? " And did he never
whisper to himself the awful words, " My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me?"
Besides his cousins there wfere his neighbors all about him, quite common-
place people, who could not see how innocent and beautiful his life was.
They were a passionate, rough race, notorious throughout the country, so
that it had become almost a proverb, " Can any good thing come out of
Nazareth ? " Jesus dwelt among them as one of them ; Joseph the carpen-
ter's son. He could not yet heal the sick ; but is there no help and comfort
in tender compassion for those who suffer ? The widow's son at Nain was not
the first he had seen carried out for burial. The man born blind was not
the only one groping about in darkness who felt his hand, and heard the
pitying tones of his troubled voice. We may be sure that amongst his
neighbors in Nazareth Jesus saw many a form of suffering, and his heart
always echoed to a cry, if it were but the cry of an animal in pain.
In one other way Jesus shared the common lot of boys. He had to take
to a trade which was not likely to have been his choice. Whether as the
eldest son of a large family, or the only son of a woman left a widow, he
had to learn the trade of his supposed father. The little workshop, where
* I agree in this opinion, chiefly for the reason that when Jesus died he committed Mary
to the care of his young disciple John, which would seem unnatural to any tender-hearted,
good mother, who had at least four other sons and two daughters liviug. Our Lord would
hardly throw so much discredit upon such relationships.
886 Bible and Commentator.
neighbors could always drop in with their trifling gossip, or at work in their
own houses, where they could grumble and find fault; this must have been
irksome to him. The long, monotonous hours, the insignificant labor, the
ceaseless buzz of chattering about him ; we can understand how weary and
worn his spirit must have felt as well as his body. If he could have been
a shepherd, like Moses, the great lawgiver, and David, his own kingly
ancestor, how far more fitting that would have seemed ! How his courage
and tenderness toward his flock would have been a type of what he would
be in after life ! The solitude would have been sweet to him, and the
changing aspects of the seasons from year to year. In after life he often
compared himself to a shepherd, but never once is there any reference to
his uncongenial calling in the hot workshop of Nazareth, where the only
advantage was that it did not separate him from his mother.
Does a blameless life win favor among any people ? There was one
man in Galilee, one only in the wide world, who never needed to go up to
Jerusalem to offer any sacrifice for sin. Neither sin-offering nor trespass-
offering had this man to bring to the altar of God. The peace-offering he
could eat in the courts of the temple as a type of happy communion with
the unseen God, and of a complete surrender of himself to his will. But, let
the people scan his conduct as closely as village neighbors can do, not one
among them could say that Jesus, the son of Joseph, had need to carry up
to Jerusalem an offering for any trespass. Did they love him the better for
this? Did he find honor among them? Nay, not even in his father's
house.
CHAPTER VI.
The First Passover,
THERE is one incident, and only one, given to us of the early life of
our Lord.
It was the custom of his parents to go up to Jerusalem once a year, to the
feast of the passover. For the Jews living in Galilee it was a long journey ;
but the feast came at the finest time of the year for travelling, after the
rains of winter, and before the dry heat of summer. It was a great yearly
pilgrimage, in which troops from every village and town on the road came
to swell the numbers as the pilgrims marched southward. Past the corn-
fields, where the grain was already forming in the ear; under the mountain
slopes, clothed with silvery olive trees and the young green of the vines ;
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across the babbling brooks, not yet dried by heat ; through groves of syca-
mores and oak trees fresh in leaf, the long procession passed from town to
town ; sleeping safely in the open air by night, and journeying by pleasant
stages in the day, until they reached Judaea; and, weary with the dusty
road from Jericho to Jerusalem, shouted with joy when they turned a curve
of the Mount of Olives, and saw the Holy City lying before them.
Jesus was twelve years old when, probably, he first made this long yet
joyous march up to Jerusalem. We can fancy the eager boy " going on
before them," as he did many years later when he went up to his last pass-
over; hastening forward for that first glorious view of Jerusalem, which met
his eye from Olivet, the mount which was to be so closely associated with his
after life. There stood the Holy City, with its marble palaces crowning the
heights of Zion ; and the still more magnificent temple on its own mount,
bathed in the brilliant light of the spring sunshine. The white, wondrous
beauty of his Father's house, with the trembling columns of smoke ever rising
from its altars through the clear air to the blue heavens above, rose opposite to
him. We know the hymn that his tremulous, joyous lips would sing, and
that would be echoed by the procession following him as they too caught
sight of the house of God, " How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of
hosts ! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth, for the courts of the Lord :
my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God ! " Thousands upon
thousands of pilgrims had chanted that psalm before him; but never one
like that boy of twelve, when his father's house was first seen by his happy
eyes.
Perhaps there was no hour of perfect happiness like that to Jesus again.
Joseph was still alive, caring for him and protecting him. His mother,
who could not but recall the strange events that had accompanied his birth,
kept him at her side as they entered the temple, pointing out to him the
splendor and the sacred symbols of the place. The silvery music of the
temple service; the thunder of the amens of the vast congregations; the
faint scent of incense wafted towards him; all fell upon the vivid, delicate
senses of youth. And below these visible signs there was breaking upon
him their deep, invisible, spiritual meaning; though not yet darkened with
the shadow of that awful burden to be laid upon himself, when he, as the
Lamb of God, was to take away the sins of the world. This was the time,
perhaps, when "he was anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows"
more than at any other season of his life.
The temple had been rebuilt by Herod in the vain hope of winning popu-
888 Bible and Commentator.
larity among his people. The outer walls formed a square of a thousand
feet, with double or treble rows of aisles between ranks of marble pillars.
These colonnades surrounded the first court, that of the Gentiles, into which
foreigners might enter, though they were forbidden to go further upon pain
of death. A flight of fifteen steps led from this court into that of the
women, a large space where the whole congregation of worshippers assem-
bled, but beyond which women were not allowed to go, unless they had
a sacrifice to offer. The next court had a small space railed off, called the
Court of Israel ; but the whole bore the name of the Court of the Priests,
in which stood a great altar of unhewn stones forty-eight feet square, upon
which three fires were kept burning continually, for the purpose of con-
suming the sacrifices. Beyond these courts stood the actual temple, con-
taining the Holy Place, which was entered by none but a few priests, who
were chosen by lot daily ; and the Holiest of Holies, open only to the
high-priest himself, and to him but once a year, on the great day of
atonement.
It was here, in the temple, that Jesus loved to be during his sojourn in
Jerusalem ; but the feast was soon ended, and his parents started home-
wards with the returning band of pilgrims. Probably Jesus set off with
them from the place where they had lodged; and they, supposing him to
be with some of his young companions, with his cousins perhaps, went a
day's journey from Jerusalem. But when the night fell, and they sought
him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance, he was nowhere to be found.
A terrible night would that be for both of them, but especially for Mary,
whose fears for him had been slumbering during the quiet years at Nazareth,
but were not dead. Was it possible that any one could have discovered
their cherished secret, that this was the child whom the wise men had come
so far to see, and for whom Herod had slain so many infants in Bethlehem ?
They turned back to Jerusalem seeking him in sorrow. It was the third
day before they found him. Where he lived those three days we do not
know. Why not "where the sparrow hath found a house, and the swallow
a nest for herself? " It was in fhe temple that Joseph and Mary found
him; in one of the public rooms or halls opening out of the court of the
Gentiles, where the rabbis and those learned in the law were wont to
assemble for teaching or argument. Jesus was in the midst of them asking
questions, and answering those put to him by the astonished rabbis, who
had not expected much understanding from this boy from Galilee. His
parents themselves were amazed when they saw him there; and Mary,
The Wonderful Life. 889
who seems to have had no difficulty in approaching him, spOKe to him
chidingly.
"Son," she said, " why hast thou dealt thus with us? behold, thy father
and I have sought thee sorrowing."
The question fell upon him as the first dimness upon the glory and glad-
ness of his sojourn in the temple. The poor home at Nazareth, his father
Joseph, the carpenter's shop, the daily work, pressed back upon him in the
place of the temple music, the prayer, the daily sacrifice. There they stood,
his supposed father, weary with the long search, and his mother looking at
him with sorrowful, reproaching eyes. He was ready to go back with
them, but he could not go without a pang.
" How is it that ye sought me ? " he asked, sadly ; " did you not know
that I must be in my Father's house ? "
But he had not come to this earth to dwell in his Father's house ; and he
must leave it now, only to revisit it from time to time. "He went down
with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his
mother kept all these sayings in her heart."
Eighteen more years, years of monotonous labor, did Jesus live in Naza-
reth. Changes came to his home as well as to others. Joseph died, and
left his mother altogether dependent upon him. Galilee was still governed
by Herod Antipas ; but in Judaea the King Archelaus had been dethroned,
and the country was made a province of Rome, under Roman governors.
This had happened whilst Jesus was a boy, and a rebellion had been
attempted under a leader called Judas of Galilee, which had caused great
excitement. Though it had been put down by the Romans, there still
remained a party, secretly popular, who used every effort to free their
country from the Roman yoke. So strong had grown the longing for the
Messiah, that a number of the people were ready to embrace the cause of
any leader, who would claim that title, and lead them against their enemies
and masters.
There was a numerous class of his fellow-countrymen to whom Jesus
must have been naturally drawn during his youth, and to whom he may
have attached himself for a time. This was the sect of the Pharisees, noble
and patriotic as our Puritans were, in the beginning; and at all times living
a frugal and devout life, in fair contrast with the Sadducees, who were
wealthy, luxurious, and indifferent. The Pharisees wTere mostly of the
middle classes; and their ceaseless devotion to religion gave them great
authority among the common people. To the child Jesus they must have
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appeared nearer to God than any other class. There were among them two
parties : one following a rabbi of the name of Hillel, who was a gentle,
cautious, tolerant man, averse to making enemies, and of a most merciful
and forgiving disposition. Some say that he began to teach only thirty years
before the birth of Christ ; and it is certainly amongst his disciples that Jesus
found some friends and followers. The second party was that of Shammai,
who differed from the other in numberless ways. They were well known
for their fierceness and jealousy, for stirring up the people against any
one they hated, and for shrinking from no bloodshed in furthering their
religious views. They were scrupulous about the fulfilment of the most
trivial laws which had come down to them through tradition. These had
grown so numerous through the lapse of centuries, that it was scarcely
possible to live for an hour without breaking some commandment.
Yet among the Pharisees there were many right-minded and noble men,
to whom Jesus must have been attracted. " The only true Pharisee," said
the Talmud, that collection of traditions which they held to be of equal
authority with the Scriptures — " the only true Pharisee is he who does the
will of his Father which is in heaven because he loves him." Such Phar-
isees, when he met with them, as he did meet with them, won his love and
approbation. It was the " Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites" whom he
hated.
book: ii.
the prophet.
CHAPTER I.
John the Baptist.
ESUS was about thirty years of age when a rumor reached
Nazareth of a prophet who had appeared in Judaea. It was
more than four hundred years since a prophet had arisen ; but
it was well known that Elias must come before Messiah as his
forerunner. Such a prophet was now baptizing in Jordan ;
and all Judaea and Jerusalem itself were sending multitudes
to be baptized by him. Before long his name was known : it
was John, the son of Elisabeth, Mary's cousin, whose birth
had taken place six months before that of Jesus.
We have no reason to suppose that any person living at this time, except
Mary, knew Jesus to be the Son of God. Those who had known it were
Joseph, Zacharias, and Elisabeth ; and all these were dead. John, to whom
we might suppose his parents would tell the mysterious secret, says expressly
that he did not know him to be the Messiah until it was revealed to him
from heaven. He was familiar with his cousin Jesus, and felt himself, with
all his stern, rigid life in the wilderness, to be unworthy to stoop down and
unloose the latchet of his sandals ; although he was a priest, who was known
throughout the land as a prophet, and Jesus was merely a village carpenter,
whose life had been a common life of toil amidst his comrades. Mary alone
knew her son to be the promised Messiah ; and though the long years may
somewhat have dulled her hopes, they flamed up again suddenly when the
news came that John the forerunner had begun to preach " The kingdom
of God is at hand," and that multitudes, even of the Pharisees, were flocking
to his baptism, so to enlist themselves as subjects of the new kingdom.
But this news did not make any change in our Lord. There was not less
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tenderness and pity in his heart when he lived among his neighbors in
Nazareth than when he healed the sick who came to him from every
quarter. Neither was there any more ambition in his spirit when he passed
from town to town, amid a throng of followers, than when he climbed up
into the loneliness of the mountains about his village home. How could he
be touched by any earthly ambition, who knew himself to be not only a Son
of God, but the only-begotten Son of the Father ? He had been waiting
through these quiet, homely years for the call to come, and now he was
ready to quit all, with the words in his heart, " Lo, I come : in the volume
of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God ! "
It may well be that Mary went with him a little way on his road towards
Jordan, on that wintry morning, when he quitted his workshop, and the
familiar streets of Nazareth, to dwell in them no more. There was no sur-
prise to her in what had come to pass; but there must have been a thrill of
exultation mingled with fear. He had been her son all these years, but now
he was to belong, not to her, but to the nation. What sorrow and triumph
must have been in her' heart when at last he bade her farewell, and she
watched him as long as he was in sight, clad in the robe she had woven for
him without seam, like the robe of a priest. Was he not a priest and a
king already to her ?
It was winter, and though not cold in the valley of the Jordan, the heavy
and continuous rains must have dispersed the multitudes that had gone out
to John, leaving him almost in solitude once more. There could have been
no crowd of spectators when Jesus was baptized. Yet even in January
there are mild and sunny days when he and John might have gone down
into the river for the significant rite which wTas to mark the beginning of
his new career. But John would not at first consent to baptize his cousin
Jesus, declaring that it would be more fit for himself to be baptized by one
whose life had been holier and happier than his own. The rich and
powerful and pious Pharisees John had sent away with rebukes, yet when
Jesus came from Galilee, he forbade him.
But Jesus would not take his refusal. For some months John had been
waiting for a sign promised to him from heaven, which should point out to
him the true Messiah ; and the people of the land looked to him to show
them the Christ, whose kingdom he was proclaiming. Now, after he had
baptized his cousin in the waters of the Jordan, already troubled with the
rains from the mountains, and they were coming up again out of the river,
he saw the pale wintry sky above them opening, and the Spirit of God de-
The Wonderful Life. 893
scending, visible to his eyes in the form of a dove, which lighted upon Jesus,
whilst a voice came from heaven, speaking to him, and saying, "This is my
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." What passed between them
further, the Messiah and his forerunner, we are not told. Jesus did not
stay with John the Baptist, for immediately he left him and the place where
he had been baptized, and went away into the wilderness, far from the busy
haunts of ordinary men, such as he had dwelt among until now. His
commonplace, everyday life was ended, and had fallen from him forever.
A dense cloud of mystery, which no one has been able to pierce through,
surrounds the forty days in which he was alone in the wilderness, suffering
the first pangs of the grief with which he was bruised and smitten for our
iniquities, being fiercely assailed of the devil, that he might himself suffer
being tempted, and so able to succor all those who are tempted. The com-
passion and fellow-feeling he had before had for sufferers he was henceforth
to feel for sinners. There was to be no gulf between him and the sinners
he was about to call to repentance ; he was to be their friend, their com-
panion, and it was his part to know the stress and strain of temptation
which had overcome them. Sinners were to feel, when they drew near to
him, that he knew all about them and their sins, and needed not that any
man should tell him. He had been in all points tempted as they had been.
CHAPTER II.
Gana of Galilee.
WHEN Jesus returned to Jordan the short winter of Palestine was
over, and already an eager crowd had gathered again about John.
On the day of his return a deputation from the Pharisees had come from
Jerusalem to question John as to his authority for thus baptizing the people.
They were the religious rulers of the nation, and felt themselves bound to
inquire into any new religious rite, and to ask for the credentials of any
would-be prophet. These priests who had come to see John knew him to
be a priest, and were, probably, inclined to take his part, if they could do
so in safety. They asked him, eagerly, "Art thou Christ?" "Art thou
Elias ? " "Art thou that prophet ? " And when he answered, " No," they
ask again, " Who art thou ? What sayest thou of thyself ? " The crowd
was listening, and Jesus, standing amongst them, was also listening for his
894 Bible and Commentator.
reply. " I am a voice/' he said, " the voice spoken of by Isaiah the
prophet, crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the ways of the Lord." The
priests were disappointed with this answer, and asked, " Why baptizest thou
then?" They had not given him authority to appear as a prophet, yet
here he was drawing great multitudes about him, and publicly reproving
the most religious sect of the nation, calling them a generation of vipers,
and bidding them bring forth fruits worthy of repentance. From that time
they began to throw discredit upon the preaching of John the Baptist, and
spoke despitefully against him, saying, "He hath a devil." Nothing is
easier than to fling a bad name at those who are not of our own way of
thinking.
Two days after this, John the Baptist pointed out Jesus to two of his dis-
ciples as the Messiah whose coming he had foretold. These two, Andrew
and a young man named John, immediately followed Jesus, and being in-
vited by him to the place where he was staying, they remained the rest of
the day with him ; probably took their first meal with him, their hearts
burning within them as he opened the Scriptures to their understanding.
The next morning Andrew met with his brother Simon, and said, "We
have found the Messiah," and brought him to Jesus. The day following,
Jesus was about to start home again to Galilee, and seeing Philip, who
already knew him, he said to him, "Follow me!" Simon and Andrew,
who were Philip's townsmen, were at that time with Jesus; Philip was
ready to obey, but he first found Nathanael, and said to him, " Jesus of
Nazareth, the son of Joseph, is he of whom Moses and the prophets did
write ! ". " Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" cried Nathanael,
doubtingly; but he went to Jesus and was so satisfied by the few words he
spoke to him, that he exclaimed, "Kabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou
art the King of Israel ! "
With these five followers Jesus turned his steps homewards, after an
absence of nearly two months. All of them lived in Galilee ; and Simon
Peter and Andrew, who had a house in Capernaum, at the head of the
lake of Galilee, appear to have turned off and left the little company at the
point where their nearest way home crossed the route taken by the others.
Jesus went on with the other three: Philip, whom he had distinctly called
to follow him ; Nathanael, whose home in Cana of Galilee lay directly north
of Nazareth ; and John, who was hardly more than a youth, and as yet
free from the ties and duties of manhood. A pleasant march must that
have been along the valleys lying south of Mount Tabor, with the spring
The Wonderful Life. 895
sun shining overhead, and all the green sward bedecked with flowers, and
the birds singing in the cool, fragrant air of morning and evening.
But they did not find Mary at Nazareth. She was gone with the cousins
of Jesus to a marriage at Cana in Galilee, the town of Nathanael, where he
had a home, to which he gladly urged his new-found rabbi to go. He could
not have foreseen this pleasure ; but now, as they went on northward to
Cana, the Messiah was his guest, and, with Philip and John, was to enter
into his house. But no sooner was it known that they were come into the
village than Jesus was called with his friends, one of whom was an- old
neighbor of the bridegroom, to join the marriage feast.
There was very much that Mary longed to hear from her son after this
long absence; but the circumstances could not have been favorable for it.
In his beloved face, worn and pale with his forty days of temptation and
fasting in the wilderness, her eyes saw a change which told plainly that his
new life had begun in suffering. He looked as if he had passed through a
trial which set him apart. Perhaps he found time to tell her of his hunger
in the desert, and the temptation which came to him to use his miraculous
powers in order to turn stones into bread for himself. It seems that, in
some way or other, she knew that, like Elijah and Elisha, the great prophets
of olden times, he could and would work miracles as a sign to the people
that he came from God ; and she felt all a mother's eagerness that he
should at once manifest his glory.
So when there was no more wine she turned to him, hoping for some open
proof to the friends about her that he possessed this wonder-working power.
Besides, she had been accustomed to turn to him in every trouble, in any
trifling, household difficulty; casting all her cares upon him, because she
knew he cared for her. So she said to him quietly, yet significantly, " They
have no wine." Some of Elisha's miracles had been even more homely ; he
had made the poisoned pottage fit for food, and had fed a company of people
with 4)ut a scanty supply of barley-cakes. Why should not Jesus gladden
the feast and save his friends from shame, by making the wine last out to
the end ?
A few days before our Lord had been in the desert, amid the wild beasts,
with the devil tempting him. Now he, who was to be in all things one
with us, was sitting at a marriage feast among his friends ; his mother and
kinsfolk there, with his new followers; every face about him glad and
happy. It was not the first marriage he had been at, for his sisters, no
doubt, were married, and living at Nazareth ; and he knew what the mor-
896
The Woxderful Life. 897
tification would be if the social mirth came too suddenly to an end. He
cared for these little pleasures and little innocent enjoyments, and would not
have them spoiled. The miracle he refused to work to satisfy his own severe
hunger he wrought for the innocent pleasure of the friends who were re-
joicing around him. There were six water-pots of stone standing by for
the use of the guests in washing their hands before sitting down to the
table, and he bade the servants first to fill them up again with water to the
brim, and then to draw out, and bear to the ruler of the feast. Upon
tasting it he cried out to the bridegroom, " Every man at the beginning
doth set forth good wine ; but thou hast kept the good wine until now."
So Christ changes water into wine, tears into gladness, the waves and
floods of sorrow into a crystal sea, whereon the harpers stand, having the
harps of God. But he can work this miracle only for his friends ; none but
those who loved him drank of that wine. It was no grand miracle of
giving sight to eyes born blind, or raising to life a widow's son. Yet there
is a special fitness in it. He had long known what poverty, and straitness,
and household cares were, and he must show that these common troubles
were not beneath his notice ; no, nor the little secret pangs of anxiety and
disappointment which we so often hide from those about us. We are not
all called to bear extraordinary sorrows, but most of us know what trifling
cares are ; and it was one of these small household difficulties the Son of
man met by his first miracle.
After this, Jesus, with his mother, and brethren, and disciples, went down
to Capernaum for a few days, until it was time to go on their yearly pil-
grimage to Jerusalem, to the feast of the passover, which w^as near at hand.
Peter and Andrew were living there, and might join them in their journey
to Judaea ; though they do not seem to have stayed with our Lord, but
probably returned after the passover to their own home until he considered
it a fit time to call them to leave all and follow him.
CHAPTER III.
The First Summer.
FOR the first time Jesus went up to Jerusalem with his little band of
followers, who knew him to be the Messiah ; and his cousins, who did
not yet believe in him, but were apparently willing to do so if he would act
as they expected the Messiah to act. If he would repeat his miracle on a
57
898 Bible and Commentator.
large scale, and so convince the mass of the people, they were ready enough
to proclaim him as the Messiah.
Would not John the Baptist be there too ? He as a priest, and as a
prophet, would no doubt be looked for, as Jesus afterwards was, at the feast
of the passover. He must have had a strong impetuous yearning to see
him who had been pointed out to him as the Lamb of God that should take
away the sin of the world. Maybe he ate the paschal supper with Jesus and
his disciples. We fancy we see him, the well-known hermit-prophet from
the wilderness, in his robe of camel's hair, with its leathern girdle, and his
long, shaggy hair, and weatherbeaten face, following closely the steps of
Jesus, through the streets, and about the courts of the temple, listening to
his words with thirsty ears, and calling himself " the friend of the bride-
groom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoicing greatly because of the
bridegroom's voice." . It was the last passover John the Baptist would ever
?elebrate ; though that he could not know.
Upon going up into the temple, Jesus found the court of the Gentiles
thronged with sheep, and oxen, and doves, animals needed for the sacrifices,
but disturbing the congregation, which assembled in the court of the women,
by their incessant lowing and cooing. Money-changers were sitting there
also; for Roman coins were now in common use instead of the Jewish
money, which alone was lawful for payment in the temple. ~No doubt
there was a good deal of loud and angry debate round the> tables of the
money-changers ; and a disgraceful confusion and disorder prevailed. Jesus
took up a scourge of small cords, and drove out of the temple the noisy
oxen and sheep, bidding the sellers of the doves to carry them away. The
tables of the money-changers he overturned ; and no one opposed him, but
conscious of the scandal they had brought upon the temple, they retreated
before him. " Make not my Father's house a house of merchandise," he
said. To him it was always his " Father's house ; " and before he could
manifest forth his glory, his Father must first be glorified. The disciples,
looking upon his face, remembered that it had been written, " The zeal of
thine house hath eaten me up."
But the priests and Levites of the temple, to whom this traffic brought
much profit, were not so easily conscience-pricked as the merchants had been.
They could not defend the wrong practices, but they came together to ques-
tion the authority of this young stranger from Galilee. If John the Baptist
had done it, probably they would not have ventured to speak, for all the
people counted him a prophet. But this was a new man from Galilee!
The Wonderful Life. 899
The Jews held the Galileans in scorn, as only little better than the Samari-
tans. " What sign shewest thou," they ask, "seeing that thou doest such
things ?" The things were signs themselves ; the mighty, prevailing anger
of the Lord, and the smitten consciences of the merchants, if they had not
been too blind to see them. Jesas gave them a mysterious answer, which
none could understand. "Destroy this temple," he said, "and in three
days I will raise it up." What ! were they to pull down all they most
prided in, and trusted in : their temple, which had been forty and six years
in building ! They left him, but they treasured up his words in their
memories. The disciples also remembered them, and believed them when
the mysterious sign was fulfilled.
But Jesus did not seek to convince the people without signs, and signs
which they could understand. He worked certain miracles in Jerusalem
during the week of the feast, which won a degree of faith from many. But
their faith was not strong and true enough for him to trust to it, and he
held himself aloof from them. What they looked for was an earthly king,
who should plot and conspire for the throne ; and the Roman soldiers, who
garrisoned the strong fortress which overlooked the temple, would not have
borne the rumor of such a king. There was at all times great danger of
these expectations reaching the ears of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor,
who was not a man to shrink from needless bloodshed. For the sake of the
people themselves Jesus did not.commit himself unto them.
Amongst those who heard of the miracles he had wrought was one
of the Pharisees, a member of the great religious committee among them
called the Sanhedrim. His name was Nicodemus, and he came to our Lord
by night, to inquire more particularly wmat he was teaching. Jesus told
him more distinctly than he had yet done what his new message to the
Jews and to the whole world was : " For God so loved the world, that he
gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not
perish, but have everlasting life." Nicoclemus went away strongly impressed
with the new doctrine, though not prepared to give up all for its sake, and
not yet called upon to do so. But from that time Jesus had a firm friend
in the very midst of the Pharisees, who used his powerful influence to pro-
tect him ; and the feast passed by without any further jealous interference
from the priests.
But it was not quite safe or suitable to remain in Jerusalem ; and after
the greater number of their friends and kinsmen had returned home, Jesus,
with two or three of his disciples, sought the banks of the Jordan, whither
900 Bible and Commentator.
John the Baptist had already returned. The harvest was beginning, for it
was near the end of April, and bands of harvesters passed to and fro from
uplands to lowlands until all the corn was gathered in by the end of June.
Down in the valley of the Jordan the summer is very hot; and the wants
of life are few. They could sleep in the open air, or in some hut of branches
rudely woven together ; and their food, like John the Baptist's, cost little
or nothing. There was to be no settled home henceforth for any one of
them. The disciples had left all to follow the Son of man, and he had not
where to lay his head.
Crowds of eager and curious followers came to Jesus, as the year before
they had flocked to John the Baptist, who had now moved some miles far-
ther up the river, and was still preaching " The kingdom of God is at
hand." But John did no miracle, and the crowds that followed Jesus were
greater than those who followed him. In the eyes of the Pharisees it must
have seemed that the two prophets were in rivalry • and many a jest and a
sneer would be heard in the temple courts and in the streets of Jerusalem
as they talked of those "two fanatics'7 on the banks of the Jordan. Even
John the Baptist's disciples fancied that a wrong was done their rabbi by
this new teacher, who had been with him for a while, and so learned his
manner of arousing and teaching the people. They went to John, and said,
" Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou bearest wit-
ness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come unto him."
Now was John's opportunity to manifest a wonderful humility and devo-
tion. " I am of the earth, earthy, and speak of the earth," he said ; " he
that cometh from heaven is above all. The Father loveth the Son, and
hath given all things into his hands. I am but the friend of the bride-
groom ; I stand and hear him, and rejoice greatly because of his voice. This
my joy therefore is fulfilled."
Did he hear that voice often, and rejoice in it? There were not many
miles separating them, and both of them were hardy and used to long
marches. It may well be that during those summer months they met often
on the banks of the river — the happiest season of John's life. For he had
been a lonely, unloved man, living a wild life in the wilderness, strange
to social and homelike ways ; his father and mother long since dead, with
neither brother nor sister, he would find in Jesus all the missing relation-
ships, and pour out to him the richest treasures of a heart that no loving
trust had opened until now.
So the summer passed away, and the autumn with its vintage ; then the
The Wonderful Life. 901
i
rainy months drew near. Bands of harvestmen and bands of pilgrims had
gone by, tarrying for a few hours to learn truths they had never heard
before, even in the temple. Many of them were baptized by the disciples,
though Jesus baptized not. The new prophet had become more popular
than the old prophet, and John's words were fulfilled, " He must increase,
but I must decrease."
CHAPTER IV.
Samaria.
T I ^HERE were several reasons why our Lord should leave the banks of
-J- the Jordan, besides that of the rainy season coming on. The Phari-
sees were beginning to take more special notice of him, having heard that
he had made more disciples even than John, whom they barely tolerated.
Moreover, this friend and forerunner of his had been seized by Herod, the
tetrarch of Galilee, and cast into a dreary prison on the east of the Dead
sea. This violent measure was likely to excite a disturbance among the'
people; and Jesus, whose aim was in no- way to come into collision with the
government, could not prudently remain in a neighborhood too near the
fortress where John was imprisoned. He therefore withdrew from the
Jordan, in the month of December or January, having been in Judsea since
the feast of the passover in the spring.
One way to his old home, the place where his relatives were still living,
lay through Samaria, a country he had probably never crossed, as the in-
habitants were uncivil and churlish towards all Jewish travellers, especially
if their faces were towards Jerusalem. But Jesus was journeying to Galilee,
and did not expect them to be actively hostile to him and his little band of
companions. It was an interesting road, and led him through Shechem,
one of the oldest cities in the world, lying between Mount Ebal and Mount
Gerizim, in a vale so narrow at the eastern end, that when the priests stood
on these mountains to pronounce the blessings and the curses in the ears of
all the children of Israel, there was no difficulty for the people standing in
the valley to hear distinctly. Two miles away was a very deep well, the
waters of which were cool in the hottest summer; a well dug by the patri-
arch Jacob upon the same parcel of a field where he built his first altar to
the God of Israel. Here too were buried the bones of Joseph, which had
been carried for forty years through the wilderness to the land his father
B I B L E A >- D C 0 MMENTATOB.
Jacob ha a to him aD<:l to his children specially. Shiloh also lav along
the route; and Jes ~. ho possessed every innocent and refined taste, must
have enjoyed passing through these ancient places, so intimately connected
h the early history of his nat:
Shechem layabout eighteen or twenty mil - I stant from the fords :
J : Ian. near which we suppose Jesus to have been dwelling. By the time
he and his disciples reached Jacob's well, after this long m _'s march,
it was noonday, and he was wearied, more wearied than the rest, who appear
always to have been stronger than he was. They left him sitting by the
side of the well, whilst they went on into the city to buy food for their
mid-day meal. Their Master was thirsty, but the well was deep, and :
had nothing to draw up the water. They hastened on, therefore, eager to
return with food for him whom they loved to minister to.
Not long after a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and was much
Dished when this Jew asked her to give him some to drink. She was
y less churlish than a man wc ill I have been, though she was .rely
civil. But as Jesus spoke with her she made the discovery that he was a
id immediately referred to him the m st vexing question which
rated the Jews from the Samaritans. The latter had a temple upon
Monni Gerizim, which had been rebuilt by Herod, as the temple at Jerusa-
lem had been : and she asked which :~ the place where men ought to wor-
ship? Here, or a: Jerusalem? She c dd only expect one answer from a
Jew: an answer to excuse hei i :\ and send her away from the well
without satisfying his thirst. But Jesus had now forgotten both thirst and
weariness. He knew that many a sorrowful heart had prayed to God as
truly from Mount Gerizim as from the temple at Jerusalem. There is no
special place, he answered, for in every place men may worship the Father :
the true worshippers worship him in spirit and in truth. : r G 1 is a Spirit.
This was no such answer as the woman looked for; and her next words
were spoken in a different temper. •'• TTe are looking for the Messiah,
well as : - " she said, "and when he is come, he will tell us all things
that we do not yet know." Jesus had already t Id her the circumstances
of her own life, and she w - king at him wistfully, with this thought of
the Messiah in her mind, when he said to her more plainly, more distinctly,
perhaps, than he had ever done before to any one, " I that speak to thee
am he."
By this time the disciples had come back, and were mucli astonished to
rind him talking to the woman. If they heard thes - words thev would
The Wonderful Life. 903
marvel still more, for Jesus generally left men to discover his claims to the
Messiahship. The wrong impression prevailing among the Jews concerning
the Messiah was not shared by the Samaritans. The latter kept closely to
the plain and simple law of Moses, without receiving the traditions which
the Pharisees held of equal importance with the law, and were thus more
ready to understand the claims and work of Christ. The woman therefore
hurried back to the city, leaving her water-pot, and called together the men of
the place to come out and see if this man were not the Christ. They besought
him to stay with them in their ancient city under the Mount of Blessing ;
and, no doubt very much to the amazement of his disciples, he consented,
and abode there two days, spending the time in teaching them his doctrine,
the very inner meaning of which he had already laid open to the woman.
" God is a Spirit ; he is the Father, whom every true worshipper may worship
in the recesses of his own spirit." Many of them believed, and said to the
woman, " "We have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the
Christ, the Saviour of the world." Wonderful words, which filled the heart
of Christ with rejoicing. Xot his own nation, not his own disciples, not
even his own kinsmen, had learned so much of his mission as these Samari-
tans ; ever afterwards he spoke of them with tenderness, and when he would
take a type of himself in the parable of the man fallen among thieves, he
chose not a Jew, but a despised Samaritan.
From Sychar Jesus passed through one of the long deep valleys which
lead to the plain of Esdraelon, where he was once more in Galilee. It was
winter, and the snow was glistening on the lower mountains, as well as upon
the distant range of Lebanon. The heavy rains had swollen the brooks
into floods; and all the great plain before him, which in four months' time
would be ripe for harvest, a sea of golden grain, scarcely rippled by a gust
of wind, was now lying in wintry brown ness and desolation, and swept by
the storms of hail and rain. He seems to have passed by Nazareth, staving,
if he stayed at all, for a few hours only, and to have gone on with Xathanael
to his home in Cana, where Jesus had many friends, especially the bride-
groom whose marriage-feast in the spring he had made glad with no common '
gladness.
He had not been long in Cana before the streets of the little village wit-
nessed the arrival of a great nobleman from Capernaum, who had heard of
the fame of Jesus in Judaea, and the miracles he had wrought there. Until
now, with the exception of Xicodemus, it would seem that none but people
of his o^vn class had sought him, or brought their sick to be healed bv him.
904 Bible and Commentator.
But this nobleman had a son, whose life all the skill of the Jewish physi-
cians could not save ; and his last hope lay with Jesus. His faith could
not grasp more than the idea that if Jesus came, like any other physician,
to see and touch the child, he would have the power to heal him. " Sir,
come down," he cried, " before my son is dead." " Go thy way," Jesus
answered ; lt thy son liveth." What was there in his voice and glance
which filled the father's heart with perfect trust and peace? The nobleman
did not hurry away, though there was time for him to reach home before
nightfall. But the next day, as he was going down to Capernaum, he met
his servants, who had been sent after him with the good news that the fever
had left his son yesterday at the seventh hour; that same hour when Jesus
had said to him, " Thy son liveth."
Now he had a friend and disciple amongst the wealthiest and highest
classes in Capernaum, as he had one amongst the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem.
Both protected him as much as it lay in their power; and it is supposed by
many that the mother of the child thus healed was the same as Joanna, the
wife of Chuza, Herod's stewrard, who, with other women, attended our
Lord during the last year of his life, and ministered to him of their sub-
stance. Thus, on every hand, Jesus was making friends and enemies. A
year had scarcely passed since he quitted his humble home in Nazareth ; but
his name was already known throughout Judaea, Galilee, and Samaria; and
everywhere people were ranging themselves into two parties, for and against
him. Amongst the common people he had few enemies ; amongst the
wealthy and religious classes he had few friends. He felt the peculiar
difficulty these latter classes had in following him ; and expressed it in two
sayings, "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance," and
" It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich
man to enter into the kingdom of God."
CHAPTER V.
The First Sabbath Miracle.
AFTER staying a short time in Cana, Jesus went once more to Jeru-
salem, about the middle of March, a month or so before the pass-
over. At this time there was a feast of the JewTs, not a religious, but rather
a national feast, in celebration of the deliverance of their race in the days
of Esther. It drew together many of the poorer and lowrer classes, among
906 Bible and Commentatoe.
whom our Lord's work specially lay, and so offered to him, perhaps, unusual
opportunities for mingling with the common people living near Jerusalem.
For we do not suppose that the Galileans went up to this feast ; only the
country-folks dwelling in Judaea, within a few miles of their chief city, who
could make a holiday at that time of the year. Either upon the feast-day
itself, or the Sabbath day nearest to it, Jesus walked down to the sheep-
gate of the city, near which was a pool, possessing the singular property, so
it wTas believed, of healing the first person who could get into it after there
had been seen a certain troubling of the water. A great crowd of impotent
folk, of halt, blind and withered, lay about waiting for this movement of
the surface of the pool. There was no spot in Jerusalem where we could
sooner expect to find our Lord, with his wondrous power of healing all
manner of diseases. Not even his Father's house was more likely to be
trodden by his feet than this Bethesda, or house of mercy. Probably there
was a greater throng than usual, because of the feast, which would offer an
opportunity to many to come out of the country. Jesus passed by until he
singled out one man, apparently because he knew he had now been crippled
for thirty-eight years, and had been so friendless that during all that time
he had no man to help him to get down first to the water. The cripple
was hopeless, but still lingered there, as if to watch others win the blessing
which he could never reach.
Upon this miserable man Jesus looked down with his pitying eyes, and
said, as though speaking to one who would not hesitate to obey him, " Rise,
take up thy bed, and walk."
It seems as though Jesus passed on, and was lost in the crowd; but the
cripple felt a strange strength throbbing through his withered limbs. He was
made whole, and he took up his bed, to return home, if he had any home,
or at least to escape from that suffering multitude. Then did the Pharisees
behold the terrible spectacle of a man carrying his bed through the streets
of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day ! They cried to him hastily, " It is not
lawful for thee to carry thy bed on the Sabbath day." He answered them
by telling the story of his miraculous cure, though he did not know who
the stranger was, for Jesus was gone away. No doubt he put his burden
down at the bidding of the Pharisees, but he did not lose the new strength
that had given him power to take it up.
The same day Jesus found him in the temple, whither he had gone in his
gladness. Once more those pitying, searching eyes were fixed upon him,
and the voice that had spoken to him in the morning sounded again in his
The Wonderful Life. 907
ears. " Behold," said Jesus, " thou art made whole ; sin no more, lest a
worse thing come unto thee." The man departed and told the Pharisees
who it was that had made him whole, thinking, no doubt, to bring praise
and glory to his deliverer.
Possibly until now the presence of Jesus at this feast had not been known
to the Pharisees. The last time he was in Jerusalem he had solemnly and
emphatically claimed the temple as his Father's house, and had indirectly
reproved them by assuming the authority to rid it of the scandals they had
allowed to creep into it. Now they found him deliberately setting aside one
of their most binding rules for keeping the Sabbath. John the Baptist,
though both priest and prophet, had never ventured so far. Their religion
of rites and ceremonies, of traditions, of shows and shams, was in' danger.
With their religion, they firmly believed their place and nation would go,
and Jerusalem and Judaea would become like the heathen cities and coun-
tries about them. It was time to put a stop to it. John the Baptist was
in prison. What if Jesus of Nazareth could be slain quietly, so as not to
disturb the common people, who heard him gladly?
Jesus then, forewarned, it may be, by a friend, found himself compelled
to quit Jerusalem hastily, instead of sojourning there till the coming
passover. He was now too well known in the streets of the city to escape
notice. More than this, if he stayed until the Galileans came up to the
feast, there would be constant danger of his followers coming into collision
with the Pharisees. Riots in Jerusalem at the time of the feasts were not
uncommon, and often ended in bloodshed. Not long before, Pilate had
slain eighteen Galileans in some tumult in the temple courts ; and there
was every probability that some such calamity might occur again should
any provocation arise.
Jesus, therefore, retreated from Jerusalem with a few friends who
were with him. He had not yet chosen his band of twelve apostles,
but John, the youngest and dearest of them all, was with him, for it is he
alone who has given us this record of the first year of our Lord's ministry.
Philip, also, we suppose to have been his disciple from the first, in obedience
to the call, "Follow me;" for Jesus seems to have been particularly grieved
with his dulness of mind, when he says to him, "Have I been so loner time
with you, Philip, and yet hast thou not known me?" Moreover, when
Jesus was next at Jerusalem for the passover, those Greeks who wished to
see him came and spoke to Philip as being best known as the attendant of
our Lord. Whether there were other disciples with him, or who they were,
908 Bible and Commentator.
we do not know. It was a little company that had lived together through
eleven months, most of which had been spent on the banks of the Jordan,
in a peaceful and happy seclusion, save for the multitudes that came to be
taught the new doctrine, or to be healed of their afflictions. Now they
were to be persecuted, to have spies lurking about them, to be asked treach-
erous questions, to have perjured witnesses ready to swear anything against
them, and to feel from day to day that their enemies were powerful and
irreconcilable. With a sad foresight of what must be the end, our Lord left
Jerusalem and returned into Galilee.
CHAPTER VI.
His Old Home.
JESUS came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. His aunt,
Mary Cleophas, was still living there with her children, if his mother
was not. The old familiar home was the same, and the steep, narrow
streets of the village in which he had played and worked. Coming down
to it from the unfriendly city of Jerusalem, it seemed like a little nest of
safety, lying amongst its pleasant hills. Here, at least, so his disciples
might think, they would find repose and friendship ; and the soreness of
heart that must have followed the knowledge that the Jews sought to slay
their Master would here be healed and forgotten.
The Sabbath had come round again; a week since he had given strength
to the cripple. It was his custom to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath ;
and the congregation which met there had been familiar with him from his
childhood, when he went with his supposed father, Joseph. The rabbi, or
ruler, could not but have known him well. These rulers of the synagogue
had a certain power of both trying and scourging heretics in the place
itself. They could also excommunicate them, and lay a curse upon
them ; and Jesus knew that they would not be averse to exercising
their power. But now he went to his accustomed place, looking round
with a tender yearning of his heart towards them all ; from those
who sat conspicuously in the chief seats, to the hesitating, inquisitive
villager, seldom seen in the congregation, who crept in at the door to see
what was going on.
For all the people of Nazareth must have been filled with curiosity that
day. Their townsman had become famous ; and they longed to see him,
The Wonderful Life. 909
and to witness some miracle wrought by him. Almost all had spoken to
him at one time or another ; many had been brought up with him, and had
been taught by the same schoolmaster. They had never thought of him as
being different from themselves, except perhaps that no man could bring an
evil word against him; a stupendous difference indeed, but not one that
would win him much favor. Yet here he was among them again, after a
year's absence or so, and throughout all the land, even in Jerusalem itself,
he was everywhere known as the Prophet of Nazareth.
When the time came for the Scriptures to be read, Jesus, either called by
the minister, or rising of lib own accord, stood up to read. It must have
been what all the congregation wished for. The low platform near the
middle of the building was the best place for all to see him; their eyes were
fastened upon him, and their satisfaction was still greater when he sat down
to teach them from the words he had' just read. They were astonished at
the graciousness of his words and manner, and before he could say more
than', " This day is this Scripture fulfilled," they began whispering to one
another, " Is not this Joseph's son ? "
There is nothing strange or unnatural in this conduct, nor indeed any-
thing very blamable. It is precisely what would take place araono-
ourselves now under the same circumstances. Jesus was grieved, though
we cannot suppose him to have been disappointed. He knew thev wanted
to see him do something like what he had done in Capernaum. His sinless
* life had been neither a sign nor a wonder to them; so blind were they and
so hard of heart. But if he would do some astonishing work they would
believe in him. "No prophet is accepted in his own country," he said and
leaving the verses he was about to explain to them, he went on to remind
them that both Elijah and Elisha, their wonder-working prophets of olden
times, had passed over Jewish sufferers to bestow their help on Gentiles.
They could not miss seeing the application. If they rejected him, he would
turn to the Gentiles.
A sudden and violent fury seized upon all who were in the synagogue.
This threat came from the carpenter's son ! They rose up with one accord
to thrust him out of the village. As they passed along the streets the whole
population would join them, and their madness growing stronger they
hurried him towards a precipice near the town, that they might cast him
down headlong. But his brethren and disciples were there, and surely
among the people of Nazareth he had some friends who would protect him
from so shocking a death at the hands of his townsmen. He passed
910 Bible and Commentator.
i
through the angry crowd, and went his way over the green hills, which not
long before had seemed to promise him rest and shelter from his bitter foes.
He had been accused of breaking the Sabbath seven days ago ; who was
breaking the Sabbath now ? The full time was come for all this formalism
of worship to be swept away, and for Christ to proclaim himself Lord also
of the Sabbath. . Did Jesus linger on the brow of that eastern hill looking
down upon the village which nestled at the foot of the cliff? So quiet it
lay there, as if no tumult could ever enter into it. The little valley, green
and fresh in the cool spring-time, was bright with flowers, like a garden
amid the mountains. He had loved this narrow glen as only children can
love the spot where they first grow conscious of the beauty of the world
around them. Here his small hands had plucked his first lilies, more
gorgeously apparelled than Solomon in all his glory. Here he had seen for
the first time the red flush in the morning sky, and the rain-clouds rising
out of the west, and had felt the south wind blow upon his face. Upon
yonder housetops he had watched the sparrows building ; and upon these
mountains he had considered the ravens. The difference between now and
then pressed heavily upon him; and as he wept over Jerusalem, he may
have wept over Nazareth. No place on earth could be the same to him ;
and when he lost sight of it behind the brow of the hill, he went on sadly
and sorrowfully towards Capernaum.
CHAPTER VII.
Capernaum.
THOUGH Galilee was somewhat larger than Judgea^it was in reality
but a small province, not more than seventy miles in length, or thirty
in breadth. This again was divided into Upper and Lower Galilee; the
latter called Galilee of the Gentiles. The district in which Jesus worked
most of his miracles, and went preaching from town to town, was very small
indeed, a circuit of a few miles tending south and west of Capernaum, which
for a short time now became his home. This part of Galilee is a lovely
country, abounding in flowers and birds; and at his time it was thickly
populated, with small towns or villages lying near one another, and farm-
houses occupying every favorable situation. The lake or sea of Galilee is
about thirteen miles long, six broad, and all the western shore was fringed
with villages and hamlets. Nowhere could Jesus have met with a more
The Woxdeeful Life. 911
busy stir of life. Not only Jews dwelt in this region, but many Gentiles
of all nations, especially the Roman and Greek. His ministry in Judaea,
if the Pharisees had suffered him to remain in Judaea, would not have been
so widely beneficial as in this province, where the people were less in
bondage to Jewish customs and ritualism.
It is at this point that Matthew, Mark, and Luke alike begin the history
of our Lord's work. What we have so far read has been recorded for us in
John's gospel alone, with the exception of the visit to Nazareth, which we
learn from Luke. Jesus had already some friends and believers in Caper-
naum. There was the nobleman whose son he had healed several weeks
before. There were Andrew and Peter, to whom he had been pointed out
by John the Baptist as the Lamb of God. It was quickly noised abroad
that Jesus of Nazareth was come to the town, and multitudes flocked
together, though it was no holy day, to hear the words he had to teach them
from God. They found him upon the shore of the lake, and in order that
all might see and hear him, he entered into a boat belonging to Peter, and
asked him to push out a little from the bank. It was early in the morning
of the day after he had been thrust out of his own village ; and now, sitting
in the boat with a great multitude of eager listeners pressing down to the
water's edge, he spoke to them the gracious words which the people of
Nazareth would not hear.
The sermon wras soon over, for the listeners were working men, and had
their trades to follow. Jesus then bade Peter to put out into the deep
waters, and let down his net for a draught. Peter, who must have heard
of the miracles Jesus wrought, though he had never seen one, seems to have
obeyed without expecting much success. But the net enclosed so many
fishes that it began to break, and his own boat, as well as that belonging to
his partners, John and James, became dangerously full. No sooner had
Peter reached the shore, where Jesus was still standing, than, terrified at his
supernatural power, he fell at his feet, crying, " Depart from me, for I am a
sinful man, O Lord." "Follow me," answered Jesus, "and I will make
you fishers of men." Andrew and Peter immediately forsook all to attach
themselves closely to Jesus ; and the same morning John and James left
their father Zebedee for the same purpose.
The next Sabbath day, which was probably not a weekly but a legal
Sabbath, coming earlier than the end of the week, Jesus entered the syna-
gogue at Capernaum with his band of followers, four of whom were well
known in the town. The synagogue here was a much larger and more
912 Bible and Commentator.
imposing place than the one at Nazareth ; and no doubt it would be filled
with a congregation as crowded and attentive. Whilst Jesus was teaching
them, an unlooked-for interruption came, not this time from the fury of his
listeners, but from the outcry of a poor man possessed of a devil, who had
come in with the congregation. Jesus rebuked the evil spirit, and the man
was cast down in the midst of the synagogue in convulsions, with the people
crowding round to help. But when the devil had come out of him the man
himself was uninjured and in his right mind. Such a miracle, in such a
place, spread far and wide, and with great swiftness, for all who had seen
it wrought would be eager to speak of it.
At noon Jesus went with Peter to his house for the usual mid-day meal.
Here he healed the mother of Peter's wife of a great fever so thoroughly
that, feeling neither languor nor weakness, she arose and waited upon them.
In the afternoon probably he went to the synagogue service again, to be
listened to more eagerly than ever.
We can imagine the stir there would be throughout Capernaum that after-
noon. Fevers were very prevalent in the spring and autumn, and it is not
likely that Peter's mother was the only sufferer. There was no one there
as yet to cavil at miracles being worked on the Sabbath-day; still the
people waited until the sun was set, and then in the brief twilight a long
procession threaded the streets to the house where Jesus was known to be,
until all the city was gathered about the door. And as the light faded in
the clear sky, a number of little twinkling lamps would be kindled in the
narrow street, lighting up the pale sickly faces of the patients who were
waiting for the great Physician to come by. We see him passing from one
group to another, missing not one of the sufferers, and surely saying some
words of comfort or warning to each one on whom he laid his healing hand
— words that would dwell in their memories forever. All had faith in him,
and all were cured of whatsoever disease they had.
It must have been late before this was over, and the crowd dispersed
to their homes. It seems as though our Lord, after this busy day of active
ministry and untiring sympathy, was unable to sleep ; for, rising a great
while before the dawn, he sought the freshness of the cool night air and the
quiet of a lonely place, where he could pray, or rather speak to his Father
unseen and unheard. He trod softly through the silent streets, lately so
full of stir, and made his way to some quiet spot on the shore of the lake,
pondering, it may be, over the strange contrasts in his life, his rejection by
the Nazarenes, and the enthusiastic reception of him by the city of
Capernaum.
The Wonderful Life. 913
As soon as it was day, however, the grateful people, discovering that he
was not in Peter's house, urged his disciples to lead them to the place where
he had found a brief repose. The disciples would probably require little
urging, for this was the homage they expected their Master to receive.
They came in multitudes, beseeching him to tarry with them ; for, like
Nicodemus, they knew him to be a teacher from God, by the miracles he
had done. This host of friends crowding about him to prevent him from
departing from them must have given him a moment of great gladness.
But he could not stay with them, for he must go to preach the kingdom of
God in other cities also, and if he found faith there, to perform the same
wonderful and tender miracles he had wrought in Capernaum.
For the next few days Jesus, with five or six disciples, passed from vil-
lage to village on the western coast of the lake, and in the plain of Gen-
nesaret, a lovely and fertile tract of land, six or seven miles long, and five
wide, surrounded by the mountains which fall back from the shore of the
lake to encircle it. It was thickly covered with small towns and villages,
lying so near to one another that the rumor of his arrival brought the in-
habitants of all the cities to any central point where they heard that he was
staying. Herod had built a city at the south of the plain and called it
Tiberias, after the Roman emperor ; but probably our Lord never entered
its streets, though all who desired to see and hear him could readily find an
opportunity in the neighboring villages. It was in one of these places that
a leper, hopeless as his case seemed, determined to cast himself upon the
compassion of this mighty prophet. ISo leper had been healed since the
days of Naaman the Syrian ; yet so wonderful were the miracles wrought
by Jesus, so well known, and so well authenticated, that the man did not
doubt his power. " If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean," he cried. He
soon discovered that Christ's tenderness was as great as his power. He
touched him ; and immediately the sufferer was cleansed. The leper noised
it abroad so much, that Jesus was compelled to hold himself somewhat aloof
from the town, and keep nearer to the wild and barren mountains, where
the plain was less densely peopled, until a day or two before the Sabbath
he returned to Capernaum, at the northern extremity of the plain. During
those few days his journeyings had been confined to a very limited space, the
beautiful but small plain of Gennesaret, with its thick population and nu-
merous villages, where he could teach many people, and perform many
miracles with no loss of time in taking long journeys.
During the week Capernaum had been in a fever of excitement. It was
58
914 Bible and Commentator.
quite practicable for many of the inhabitants to go out three or four miles
to the spot where Jesus was, for the day, and return at night with the story
of what he was doing. The excitement had not been lessened by the arrival
of a party of Pharisees from Jerusalem itself, who were openly unfriendly to
the Galilean prophet and his new doctrines. The Galileans naturally looked
up to the priesthood at Jerusalem, especially to the Sanhedrim, as the great
authorities upon religious points. There were, moreover, plenty of Phari-
sees in Capernaum, as in every Jewish town, who readily took up the
opinions of these Pharisees from Judsea, and joined them eagerly in forming
a party against Jesus and his innovations. No doubt they discussed the
miracle wrought in their own synagogue on the first Sabbath day that Jesus
was there; and were the more zealous to condemn him, because none of them
had seen the sin of it before it was pointed out by their keener and more
orthodox brethren from Jerusalem.
No sooner, then, was Jesus known to be in the house at Capernaum than
there collected such a crowd that there was no room to receive them ; no,
not so much as about the door. But some of the Pharisees had made good
their entrance, and were sitting by cavilling and criticising in the midst of
his disciples. At this time the friends of a paralytic man who were not able
to bring him into the presence of Jesus, carried him to the flat roof of a
neighboring house, and so reaching the place where he sat to teach all who
could get within hearing, they took up the loose boards of the roof and let
down their friend before him. Jesus, pausing in his discourse, said first to
him, " Thy sins are forgiven thee ! " words that filled the Pharisees with
horror, yet with secret satisfaction. "Who is this? " they say to one an-
other ; " who can forgive sins but God alone ? " " You cannot see that his
sins are forgiven," answered Jesus, " but I will give you a sign which you
can see. It is easy to say, Thy sins be forgiven ; but T say unto thee, O
man, arise, and take up thy couch, and go into thine house." Even the
Pharisees, the less bitter Pharisees of Galilee at least, were silenced by this,
and were for once touched with fear of this Son of man, who had power on
earth to forgive sins. They glorified God, saying, " We have seen strange
things to-day."
But the day was not ended. Jesus, as his custom was, went down to the
shore, where he could teach greater numbers than in the narrow streets. As
he was passing along he saw a tax-collector sitting in his booth gathering
tolls for the hated Roman conquerors. Such a person was singularly offen-
sive to all Jews, but especially so to the Pharisees, who looked upon publi-
The Wonderful Life. 915
cans as the most vicious and degraded of men. Mark tells us this man was
the son of Alpheus, or Cleophas, the uncle of Jesus by his marriage with
Mary, his mother's sister. If so, he was a reprobate son, probably dis-
owned by all his family, to whom he was a sorrow and disgrace. The
presence of Jesus and his brethren in Capernaum must have been a trial to
him, bringing back to mind the days of their happy boyhood together in
Nazareth, and making him feel keenly the misery and ignominy of the
present. But now Jesus stands opposite his booth, looks him in the face,
not angrily but tenderly, and he hears him say, " Levi, follow me ! "
And immediately he arose, left all, and followed him.
The same evening, Levi, or Matthew as he was afterwards called, gave a
supper at his own house to Jesus and his disciples ; and, no doubt with our
Lord's permission, invited many publicans like himself to come and meet
him and hear his teaching. The Pharisees could not let such a circumstance
pass uncriticised. For their part, their religion forbade them eating even
with the common people, and here was the prophet eating with publicans
and sinners. This was a fresh offence; and Jesus answered only by saying,
" They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. I came
not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." No defence was
offered, and no excuse made. But there was a sad sarcasm in his reply
which must have stung the consciences of some of them. Were they the
righteous, whom he could not call into the kingdom of God ?
CHAPTER VIII.
Foes from Jerusalem.
A S spectators at Matthew's feast were two of John's disciples, who had
-£j- been sent by their master with a strange question, "Art thou he
that should come, or look we for another?" John had now been im-
prisoned for some time in a gloomy dungeon on the desolate shores of the
Dead sea. His disciples, who were inclined to be somewhat jealous of the
younger prophet, had brought him word of the miracles wrought by Jesus,
but wrought upon the Sabbath clay in direct antagonism to the Pharisees,
and, as it seemed, to the law of Moses. The very first miracle at Cana of
Galilee was altogether opposed to the austere habits of John, who had never
John calling unto him two of his disciples sent them to Jesus." — Luke vii. 19.
916
The Wonderful Life. 917
tasted wine. There was something perplexing and painful to him in these
reports; and he had nothing else to do in his prison than brood over them.
Was it possible that he could have made any mistake — could have fallen
under any delusion in proclaiming his cousin Jesus as the promised Messiah ?
Had he truly heard a voice from heaven ? Could this be indeed the Son
of God, who mingled with common people at their feasts, and visited
Samaritans ? He, who all his life long had lived in the open air, free from
even social restraints, was becoming morbid in his captivity. It grew
necessary to him at last to send his disciples to Jesus for some comforting
and reassuring message.
When John's disciples came to Jesus, they seem to have found him feast-
ing with the publicans — a circumstance utterly foreign to their master's
custom. They felt themselves more akin to the Pharisees, and asked him,
" Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not?" Jesus
answered them that he was the bridegroom of whom John himself had
spoken, and that as long as the bridegroom was with them they could not
mourn. But the days would come when he should be taken away, and then
they would fast. He would have no pretence at mourning or fasting to be
seen of men. He would have no acting. These were days of joy, and it
was meet to make merry and be glad when a brother who had been lost
was found. Matthew was their brother, and he was restored to them ; how
could they mourn ?
But Jesus kept John's disciples with him for a short time, that they might
see how miracles were his everyday work, not merely a wonder performed
in the synagogues on a Sabbath day, before sending them back to the poor
prisoner in Herod's fortress. The next day was a Sabbath. The Pharisees
kept closely beside Jesus, following him even when he and his disciples were
walking through the fields of standing corn, possibly after the synagogue
service, but before the Sabbath was ended. It was the second week of
April, and the grain was growing heavy in the ear; perhaps a few ears of
it were ripe, for in the lowlands about Capernaum it ripened earlier than in
the uplands of Galilee. The disciples plucked the ears of corn, rubbing
them in their hands with the careless ease of men who thought it no harm,
and who had forgotten the captious Pharisees beside them. The latter ac-
cused them sharply of breaking the law, and aroused Jesus to defend
them by giving them instances from their own Scriptures and observances
of the law of Moses being broken without blame. Then, pausing to give
more weight to his last words, he added, " The Son of man is Lord also
918 Bible and Commentator.
of the Sabbath." He did not acknowledge their authority to make laws
for the Sabbath. Nay, more, he claimed to be Lord of it himself.
Without doubt this answer deepened the enmity and opposition of the
Pharisees ; nor can we wonder at it. There was now no middle course they
could take. If they acknowledged Jesus to be a prophet sent from God,
they must own him as Christ, the Messiah, with a Divine authority over
their laws and traditions. He was setting these at defiance, asserting him-
self to be Lord of the temple and Lord of the Sabbath. John had made
no such claims, though it was well known that his birth had been foretold
by the angel Gabriel to Zacharias, his father, when he was ministering in
the Holy Place. But John's career was at an end ; and if Jesus wras not
taken out of the way he would turn the world upside down, and the
Eomans would bring them into utter subjection. Both religion and
patriotism demanded that they should seek his death.
A day or two after this weekly Sabbath came a legal Sabbath, one of the
holy days among the Jews. Jesus was in the synagogue ; and there also,
probably in a conspicuous place as if to catch his eye, sat a man with a
withered hand. It seems almost as though he had been found and posted
there in order to test Jesus. The Pharisees were growing eager to multiply
accusations against him before they returned to Jerusalem for the approach-
ing feast of the passover. Even they might feel that the sin of plucking
ears of corn was not a very gras^e one. Here was a man for Jesus to heal.
The case was not an urgent one ; to-morrow would do as well as to-day for
restoring the withered hand. But Jesus will show to them that any act of
love and mercy is lawful on the Sabbath day, is, in fact, the most lawful
thing to do. God causes his sun to shine, and his rain to fall, on that day
as on any other. He looked round upon them all with their hard faces set
against him ; and he was grieved in his heart. Then, with the authority
of a prophet, he bade the man stand up and stand forward in the midst of
them. If they had been secretly plotting against him in bringing the man
there, he was not afraid to face them openly. " Is it lawful on the Sabbath
day to do good or to do evil ? to save life or to destroy it?" he asked. But
the Pharisees from Jerusalem could not answer the question ; and when
he healed the man in the sight of all the people, they were filled with
madness.
Possibly they had reckoned upon the miracle failing, for by this time it
was understood that only those who believed in the power of Jesus could
be healed, and they had not expected this man to have faith in him. It
The Wonderful Life. 919
seems that they left the synagogue at once, and though it was a Sabbath
day they held a council against him how they might destroy him. They
even entered into an alliance with the Herodians, their own opponents. For
the Herodians favored the adoption of Roman laws and customs, against
which the Pharisees had formed themselves into a distinct sect. But they
were now ready to join any party, or follow any plan, so that they might
destroy this common enemy.
It became impossible for Jesus to remain in Capernaum, and he left it
immediately, probably the same evening, withdrawing to some mountain
near the lake, where he continued all night in prayer to God. To a nature
like his this bitter and pitiless enmity, aroused by acts of goodness only,
must have been a terrible burden. They were his own people, not the
heathen, who were hunting him to death — men who all their lives long had
heard and read of God, his heavenly Father, who offered sacrifices to him,
and gave tithes to his temple of all that they possessed. They knew, or
ought to have known, what they were doing. There was no excuse of igno-
rance for them. All night he prayed, with the bright stars glittering above
him in the blue sky, and the fresh breeze from the lake and the mountain,
laden with the scent of flowers, breathing softly on his face. No sounds near
him save the quiet sounds of night on the mountain side, and the wail of
the curlew over the lake. This was better than sleep to him ; and as the
day dawned he was ready once more to meet his disciples, and to face the
numerous duties coming with the sunrise.
His first act was to call his disciples to him, and from them he chose
twelve to form for the future a group of attached followers and friends, who
would go with him wherever he went and learn his message, so as to carry
it to other lands when his own voice was silenced. Him his foes might and
would destroy ; but his message from God must not perish with him.
Philip was one of them, he who had been with him from the first; and
John, the youngest and most loved, who sat nearest to him at meal times,
and who treasured up every word that fell from his lips, so that, when he
came to write the history of his Lord, so many memories crowded to his
brain of things Jesus had said and done, that he cried in loving despair,
"All the world could not contain the books that might be written ! "
Two at least, if not three, of our Lord's own family were amongst the
chosen twelve : James, his cousin, of whom it is said he was so like Jesus as
sometimes to be mistaken for him ; and Judas not Iscariot, who, like the
other kinsmen of Christ, asked him, even on the last night that he lived,
920 Bible and Commentator.
" Why wilt thou manifest thyself to us, and not unto the world ? " Levi,
if he was the son of Alpheus, was a third cousin, and each one wrote for
us a portion of the New Testament. How much might these three have
told us of his early life in Nazareth if no restraint had been laid upon them !
Then there was Peter, always the leader among the apostles, impatient
and daring, so eager that he must always meet his Lord, and not wait for
him to come to him ; walking upon the sea, or casting himself into it to
reach more quickly the shore where Jesus stood, exclaiming rapturously at
one time, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," and at an-
other, with oaths and curses, repeating, " I know not the man." Of the
rest we know little, save one dark name, read amidst the blackest shadows
of the past. Why did Jesus call Judas Iscariot ? Why did he make
him a familiar friend, in whom he trusted ? They went up together
into the house of God, and took sweet counsel together. He gave and
received from Jesus the kiss of friendship. To him was intrusted the
wealth of the little band, and every trifling want of his Master's he had to
supply, an office that brought him into the closest intimacy with him. Why
was he chosen for this service ? Was he the eldest amid this company of
young men ? a wise, shrewd man, cautious and prudent, where others might
have been rash or forgetful? We do not know; but whilst Peter, James,
and John followed their Lord into the chamber of Jairus' little daughter
and up to the Mount of Transfiguration, Judas had the bag, and bore what
was put therein.
CHAPTER IX.
At Nain.
IT was broad daylight now, no time for secret assassination, and, sur-
rounded by his twelve devoted friends, Jesus returned to Capernaum,
where his mother would probably be waiting in a state of anxious restless-
ness. As soon as it was known that he was entering the town, some of the
rulers of the synagogue came to meet him, beseeching him to work a miracle
in favor of a Roman centurion, whose servant was likely to die. The most
bigoted amongst them could not deny that Jesus of Nazareth did many
mighty works; and they could not decline to offer this petition to him
when the centurion, who had built them a synagogue, commissioned them
with it. The servant was healed without Jesus going to the house, the
The Wonderful Life. 921
centurion sending to say that he was not worthy that the Lord should enter
under his roof. Even Jesus marvelled at the man's faith, and though he
had just chosen twelve of his most trustworthy disciples, he cried, "I have
not found so great a faith ; no, not in Israel."
The next day, Jesus, followed by many disciples, both men and women,
went out to visit the towns and villages lying westward of the hills which
enclose the plain of Gennesaret. As he passed along his company grew in
numbers, for everywhere had men heard of him, and those who had sick
friends brought them out to the roadside that they might be healed. This
day his journey was a long one, and he could not tarry by the way, except
to work some such loving miracle. He was to rest in the little village of
Nain that night; a place he knew quite well, for it was only five miles
from Nazareth, and probably he had some friends there. Much people
had gathered around him when he trod the steep path up to Nain; but
before they reached the gate another multitude appeared coming out as if
to meet them, yet there was no shout of welcome; instead there were cries
and wailings for one whom they were carrying forth to the tombs outside
the village.
Possibly Jesus knew both the young man who was dead and his mother.
He hastened to her side, and said, " Weep not." Then he touched the bier,
and those who were carrying it stood still. What was the prophet about
to do? He could heal any kind of sickness, but this was death, not sick-
ness. It was a corpse bound up, and swathed with grave-clothes; the eyes
forever blinded to the light, and the ears too deaf to be unloosed. An
awful silence must have fallen upon the crowd ; and they heard a calm,
quiet voice saying, "Young man, I say unto thee, Arise!" He spoke
simply, in a fewT words only; but the quiet voice pierced through all the
sealed deafness of death, and the dead sat up, and began to speak. Then
Jesus, perhaps with his own hands freeing him from the grave-clothes, gave
him back to his mother. A thrill of fear ran through all the crowd, and
as they thronged into Nain some said, "A great prophet is risen up among
us," and others, "God has visited his people."
It has been thought that here, at Nain, dwelt Simon the Pharisee, who
now invited Jesus to his house to eat meat with him. He was not one
of our Lord's enemies from Jerusalem, but merely a member of the sect,
which was numerous throughout all Judaea and Galilee. He probably re-
garded Jesus as a workingman from the neighboring village of Nazareth,
though now considered a prophet by the people : and he did not offer to
922 Bible and Commentator.
him the courteous attentions he would have shown to a more honored
guest. After his long and dusty walk Jesus sat down to Simon's table
without the usual refreshment of having his feet washed, and his head
anointed with oil.
But this slight, passed over by Jesus, was more than atoned for by a
woman, who, coming in to see the supper with other townspeople, stood
behind him at his feet, and began to wash them with her tears, and to wipe
them with her long hair, kissing them again and again. Caring little who
was watching her in her passion of repentance and love, she brought an
alabaster box of precious ointment, and poured the costly contents upon
the feet she had washed and kissed. Yet the prophet seemed to take no
notice of her and her touch. But Simon, the host, said to himself, " This
man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of
woman this is that toucheth him; for she is a sinner." The sinful woman's
unheeded touch was more conclusive against him than all his miracles were
for him. Simon did not have her thrust from his house; but there was a
secret satisfaction in his heart at finding out that Joseph's son after all was
not prophet enough to know who she was-.
Did not Jesus know? Had he not felt every tear that had fallen upon
his feet, and the touch of the trembling lips which dared not speak to him?
He spoke a short, simple parable to Simon, and asked him a question, the
answer to which condemned the self-righteous Pharisee. And then, turn-
ing to the weeping woman, he said, " Thy sins, which are many, are for-
given; thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.' Those who sat about him
began then with their old murmur, " Who is this that forgiveth sins also?"
But he gave them no sign this time. No sign could be greater than the
miracle wrought that day. As Jesus himself said in one of his parables,
" They will not be persuaded, no, not if one rise from the dead."
CHAPTER X.
Mighty Works.
LEAVING Nain, Jesus, with a large number of followers, including
the apostles, and certain women who ministered to them of their
property, passed through all the villages of that neighborhood, gradually
working their way back to Capernaum. It was some time during this
The Wonderful Life. 923
week that Jesus dismissed the disciples of John the Baptist, bidding them
tell him all they had seen and heard, and adding to his message a gentle
reproof, " Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me." He knew
how many were already offended; and how the cause of offence must take
deeper and deeper root, until the scandal of the cross came to eclipse every
dream of glory in his* followers. The message thus sent to John in his
prison, with the marvellous tidings of the signs and wonders wrought, and
the report of the new doctrines, must have greatly strengthened and com-
forted the prophet during the short time that remained to him of life.
The circuit from Nain to Capernaum, though short, was one of great
exertion and fatigue; yet when they reached the latter town, and were in
need of rest, so great a multitude came together again immediately, that
they could not so much as eat bread. Jesus could not attend to his own
needs, whilst others were crying to him for help, or crowding round him
for instruction. His meat was to do the will of him that sent him, and to
finish his work; and the bitter eumity of the Pharisees warned him that
what he had to do must be done quickly. But his relations thought it was
quite time to interfere with this self-forgetful zeal, and they sought to take
hold of him, saying, " He is beside himself." They did not yet believe in
him, for they could not get over the impression made upon them by his
homely simple life amongst them, when he worked at a trade like them-
selves, apparently unconscious of being different from them. Probably
their words only meant that he was carried into extremes by his burning
enthusiasm. But the Pharisees from Jerusalem, who were still hanging
about him, caught up the hasty words, and bitterly exaggerated them.
aHe hath Beelzebub," they cried, "and by the prince of the devils he
casteth out devils." Jesus then called them to him, bidding the crowd
make way. It was an extraordinary scene. There stood the powerful
enemies from the chief city and the chief priests of the nation, strong in
their reputation for religion and for righteousness, face to face with the
young but well-known prophet of Nazareth, who boldly and solemnly in
the hearing of all the people warned them of the sin they were committing,
blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, and declared that if it was persisted in
there was no forgiveness for it.
In the meantime his mother, whose spirit could not be as brave for her
son as his was for God, came to the outskirts of the throng with some of
his cousins, and sent a message to him, which reached his ears as he finished
his warning to the Pharisees. "Behold," they said, "thy mother and thy
924 Bible and Commentator.
brethren stand without, desiring to see thee." It was no moment for such
a message to come. His kinsmen, though we cannot think his mother
could have taken a part in it, had given occasion to the Pharisees to say that
he had a devil ; and it was necessary that all should know that he owned
no authority in them, and could not submit to any interference. Dearly as
he loved his mother, even she must cease to look upon him as a son whom
she might command. Solemnly and emphatically he pointed to his apostles,
and to the women who had come into the city weary and hungry as him-
self. "Behold my mother and my brethren," he said, "for whosoever
shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother,
and sister, and mother."
The remainder of the day was one of ceaseless activities. So many
persons came in from other towns that Jesus, as his custom was, led them
down to some convenient spot on the shore, and there entered into a boat,
so as to be seen and heard by all. He taught them by parables, by many
parables, and by nothing else than parables; a charming and fascinating
mode of teaching to these imaginative eastern people, who carried them
home in their minds to ponder over, and find out their hidden meaning.
There was no need for them to be learned in the law : the common occupa-
tions of every day served as lessons for them; sowing their seed, or mixing
their meal with yeast, was the symbol of the kingdom of heaven which
had come among them.
At last the sun sank behind the western hills, and evening closed in.
The disciples sent away the crowds from their exhausted Master. One of
his hearers, a scribe even, for he had won some friends among the ranks of
his foes, came to him, saying, " Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou
goest." Jesus was weary in body, and depressed in spirit. Capernaum lay
there close by, but it was no safe place for him to spend the night in. He had
already decided that it was better to cross over the lake to the eastern side,
where his enemies might not care to follow him ; and he answered the scribe
in those mournful and most memorable words, " The foxes have holes, and
the birds of the air have nests ; but the Son of man hath not where to lay
his head." The sky was darkening, and the stillness of night coming on ;
the birds were singing their last songs ; and the wild beasts were creeping
forth out of their dens which had sheltered them all day. But for him
there was no place of rest, save the deck of tl^ boat; no bed, except a
pillow, on which his aching head could lie. Yet perhaps the scribe fol-
lowed him : for a little fleet of fishermen's boats sailed out after him into
The Wonderful Life. 925
the gathering darkness, following the bark, in which the Master was soon
sleeping, for very weariness, near the helmsman who was steering for the
eastern shores.
The lake of Galilee, like all inland lakes, is subject to sudden storms of
wind, which sweep down the ravines between the mountains with great
force. Such a gale came on this night with so much fury, that even those
disciples who, as fishermen, were quite at home on the water, were filled
with terror. The eager followers in the other boats must have been still
more alarmed as the waves beat over them, and filled their small vessels.
No one but Jesus could have been asleep, but he slept soundly ; and it was
not till they called him that he awoke. " Master," they cried, " carest thou
not that we perish ?" Yes, he cared. He cared even for their fears ; and
though there was no danger of their perishing wmilst he was with them in
the boat, he arose, and rebuked the wind and the sea, and immediately
there was a great calm. Probably he fell asleep again ; but all the crews
of that little company of boats were exceedingly afraid, asking one another,
" What manner of man is this, hungry and thirsty, and worn out with
weariness like ourselves, yet even the wind and the sea obey him?"
The early morning found them on the eastern shore near Gergasa, which
was in the tetrarchy of Philip, a just and moderate prince, very different
from his brother Herod, who ruled over Galilee. Here, at least, Jesus might
expect to find shelter and rest. But no sooner had he landed than a terrible
demoniac, whose dwelling was among the tombs near the town, rushed down
to the shore to meet him. So fierce and violent was he that no man dare
pass that way, and always, day and night, the unhappy wretch was crying
and cutting himself with stones. Jesus at once commanded the legion of
evil spirits to come out of the man ; but gave them permission to enter into
a herd of swine that were feeding near at hand ; upon which the whole herd,
in number about two thousand, ran violently down a steep place into the
lake, and were choked in the waters. Those who kept them fled into
Gergasa, and the inhabitants immediately came out to see who it was that
had done this mischief. But upon finding their fierce and powerful country-
man clothed, and in his right mind, they were afraid ; and learning by what
miracle he had been restored, they confined their resentment at their loss to
beseeching Jesus to quit their coa§t.
Wet and hungry as he was, Jesus returned to the boat, bidding the poor
man, who wished to follow him, rather to go home to his friends, and tell
them what great things the Lord had done for him. Though the Gerga-
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series would not receive him, he would leave them a witness to tell of his
love and power. And now, driven away from that inhospitable coast, he
returned towards Capernaum, giving up the hope of a few days' rest, far
away from his knot of enemies, and his thoughtless crowd of followers.
No sooner was it known that his boat was on the shore than one of the
rulers of the synagogue hastened clown to him. His little daughter was
lying at the point of death, and there remained no hope but in Jesus. He
went at once with the father; yet he paused on the way to heal a poor
woman who touched in secret the hem of his garment as he passed by.
She had been suffering as many years as the child had lived, and Jesus
could not neglect her for a ruler's daughter, though he should gain a power-
ful friend by it. There was a great tumult about the house when they
reached it ; the child was just dead, had died while Jesus lingered on the
way to heal this poor woman, who had spent all that she had on physicians.
" She is not dead, but sleepeth," he said ; and they laughed him to scorn,
knowing she was dead. Into her chamber he passed, suffering no one to go
in but her father and mother, and his three most favored disciples ; and
taking the girl's hand into his own, he called to her, and her spirit
came back again over the mysterious threshold it had just crossed.
But Jesus charged her parents that they should tell no man what was
done ; he charged them straitly. He would not have this young and happy
life burdened with the weight of such a mystery ; if possible the girl herself
was not to know it. The widow's son at Nain might bear the burden, and
meet the curious eye bent upon him, and answer as he could the eager
questions asked about that other life of which he had caught a glimpse.
But this child, just on the verge of happy girlhood, must be spared it all.
" She is not dead, but sleepeth," he said, and he called her back to her place
on earth as one who had only been wrapt in a deeper slumber than is
natural.
CHAPTER XL
A Holiday in Galilee.
JESUS seems only to have entered Capernaum for the sake 'of Jairns;
for he did not stay there ; but going away immediately, he went once
more to Nazareth, where some of his cousins were still living. Very
probably he knew from them that his townsfolk were now ashamed of their
The Wonderful Life. 927
savage assault upon him three weeks before. Since then they had heard
of his wisdom and his mighty works, especially of that one at Nain, a village
within sight of their own town. They were even hoping to have their own
curiosity gratified by some wonder performed among them ; but they could
not get over the fact that he had been a carpenter in Nazareth, and that all
his relations were known by them, poor, undistinguished people, who were
considered of no account. Jesus himself marvelled at their unbelief, sur-
passing any he had yet contended against; and he could not do any mighty
work, save that he healed a few sick folk, probably poor people, who knew
him better than the wiser and richer men.
From Nazareth he sent out his apostles by two and two to make a short
circuit of the towns lying about before meeting him again on an appointed
day near Capernaum ; for it was safer to be close upon the shores of the
lake, whence at any time he could seek refuge in the dominions of Philip,
rather than in any of the country places from which there could be no speedy
way of escape from his enemies. He himself went round the villages teach-
ing. The district travelled over thus was a small one, and by the separation
of the apostles into six parties, every village would be quickly visited.
These little places lay close together, and only a central spot would be
needed* for the gathering of congregations ; the Galileans seeming to be
always ready to flock together at the first hint of any excitement.
The first news that reached Jesus, when he returned to the neighborhood
of Capernaum, was that of the cruel death of his cousin, friend and fore-
runner, John the Baptist, whose disciples were come to bring him the
tidings. The murder of their prophet must have stirred the people to deep
indignation, and wounded the tender heart of Christ most keenly. But at
the same time his apostles met him, full of triumph at the wonders they
had themselves performed during their short separation from him. To
some of them John the Baptist had been almost as dear as Jesus was now ;
and thus two currents of strong agitation ran counter to one another. Jesus
himself felt in need of some hours of quietness in which to mourn over his
loss, and to hear from his apostles what they had done and taught. But so
long as they remained on the western shore of the lake there was no hope
of gaining any such leisure time ; and he entered into a boat with his dis-
ciples and passed over to the other side.
They landed in a solitary spot on the north of the lake, not more than
three or four miles east of Capernaum, where the hills shut in a small plot
of tall green grass, not yet dried up by the summer's heat. But the multi-
928 Bible and Commentator.
tndes of people from whom they had intended to escape for a little while,
seeing them depart, set out on foot along the shore, and keeping the boat
in sight, with its sails fluttering over the glistening water, they outwent
it in speed. It was probably the day before the passover supper, which was
kept at Jerusalem ; a day on which no work was done in Galilee : and thus
the people gathered from every village and farm-house, and from every
fishing hamlet on the shore, until when Jesus reached the desert place near
Bethsaida, one of the largest crowds that could ever have collected about
him, numbering five thousand men, besides women and children, were wait-
ing to receive him.
He was filled with compassion for them, for they were as sheep having no
shepherd. No doubt the tidings of John's murder in prison was fresh among
them ; and our Lord knew how deeply their hearts felt the loss of such a
teacher. He began to teach them in this little temple with the clear blue
sky above them ; and was not weary of teaching, nor they of listening, until
late in the afternoon, when his disciples asked him to send them away before
nightfall. There was a lad in the crowd who had brought with him five
barley loaves and two small fishes, most likely in the hope of selling them
among so many persons, and pushing himself forward in the crowd, as lads
are apt to do. Jesus bade the disciples bring them to him ; Judas perhaps
grudging the money he was called upon to spend for such a purpose. Then
he told them to make the company sit down in fifties, the tall, green grass
forming couches for them on which they could rest, as in the Paschal supper
they were enjoined to "sit down leaning,'7 not standing, as if they were
slaves. The command of our Lord was well understood by them; they sat
down leaning upon these natural couches as their brethren up in Jerusalem
would so rest, when in a few hours they would eat the Paschal supper.
It was a suitable ending for the holiday. The sun was still shining in
the west, nor when it went down was there any fear of the crowd missing
the way to their homesteads, for the full moon was ready to rise beyond the
eastern hills, flooding every mountain track, and every narrow village
street, with its silver light. The season was the most delicious of all the
year; and thu cool air from the lake was sweet and fresh, not chilly or damp.
Children were there, some stealing up to the Master's feet, and may be get-
ting a piece of bread from his hand ; their laughter and their voices mingling
with the graver hum of older people. What a surprise too for the disciples
as they began to understand their Master's purpose! This was such a
miracle as the Messiah was expected to perform. A table furnished in the
The Wonderful Life. 929
wilderness, as in the times of Moses, when he gave them bread from heaven
to eat. What was giving sight to a few blind folk, or even raising from
the dead a widow's son in a distant village, compared to this large, public,
kingly miracle of feeding thousands of his followers with so small a store of
provisions ?
There was but one happier hour for them in the future, when they
followed their Master in his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, a year later.
But now as they went about among the companies, they spread the story
of the wonder then being wrought, until the enthusiasm of the people out-
grew all bounds. They resolved to take him by force, and make him a
king, sure that thousands would now flock from all quarters to hail him as
the Messiah. This was the very danger Jesus had sought carefully to avert,
as it would bring him and his party into collision with the Roman govern-
ment, whose soldiers were garrisoned in many parts of the country. He con-
strained his disciples, who were unwilling to lose this hour of promised
greatness, to set sail, and go on before him, whilst he sent the multitude
away. When they were gone, whose wishes and plans were so different from
his own, he dismissed the crowds, who obeyed him the more readily as now
the night was at hand, and many of them had far to go on foot.
At last, then, Jesus was alone, and, in need of rest more than ever, in
need of a moment or two'in which he could mourn over his friend, in need
of close communion with his Father, he went up into the mountain, at the
foot of which he had been laboring all day. The Easter moon shone down
upon him full and clear out of the cloudless sky, and lighted up the waters
of the lake in which his disciples were rowing hard against the wind to
reach the point of the shore he had directed them to steer for. He saw
them driven out of their course by the wind into the midst of the lake; but
still he lingered on the mountain side hour after hour. Is it possible that,
bowed down by the death of John, a foretaste of his agony in Gethsemane
made this season of solitude one of bitterness and sorrow? Was his soul
exceeding sorrowful within as he watched his faithful followers toiling on
the lake apart from him? When the next passover came, the eternal
parting would come, when they must sail out into the fierce storm of life
alone, without him in the ship ; living by the faith, of which they yet
showed so little sign. Next passover ! Where would they be ? What loss
would they have to bear then ? How would they bear it?
Still he saw them tossing about on the rough moon-lit sea, until, when the
fourth watch of the morning was near, he resolved to give them a proof
59
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of his power, which, in after years, every moonlight night, and every fresh
burst of life's storm, would bring to their minds. They, looking across the
stormy waves, beheld him walking towards them on the sea; and they cried
aloud with fear and trouble, for their Lord was coming to them strangely,
in no familiar manner. Peter, bolder than the rest, attempted to go to meet
him, but his courage failed, and he would have sunk but for the outstretched
hand of his Master. When they entered into the boat, the wind ceased,
and they, not considering the miracle of the loaves and fishes, were sore
amazed within themselves, beyond measure. Their Master, possessing this
marvellous power, still refused to be made a king ! Their hearts, too hard
yet to understand, could not perceive why he steadily opposed all such
ambition.
They landed on the plain of Gennesaret, and walked northward to Caper-
naum, where they were met by numbers of those who had been fed in the
desert the day before. It was the first day of the passover, a solemn Sab-
bath, and Jesus taught in the synagogue openly, and without any opposition,
except the murmurs of those who were disappointed by his steady rejection
of their desire to proclaim him king. His most hostile enemies, the Phari-
sees, were necessarily absent at the passover in Jerusalem. But from that
day many of his disciples in Galilee left him, not being able to hear or
rather to understand the hard sayings, and the reproaches with which he
met them. " Ye seek me," he said, " because ye did eat of the loaves, and
were filled." Their love for him was too earthy to bear the test he pro-
posed to them, so they went back, and walked no more with him.
"Will ye also go away?" asked Jesus, sadly, of his twelve apostles.
"Lord, to whom should we go?" cried Peter; "thou hast the words of
eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son
of the living God." "Not all," he answered; "have not I chosen you
twelve, and one of you is a devil ? " Already he could point out the traitor
in his little camp. Probably Judas had made himself unusually busy the day
before in urging on the crowd to make him king by force. They all longed
for him to assert his claims; his brethren were constantly urging him to
manifest himself; John and James asked him to promise them the chief
places in his kingdom ; but Judas looked forward to be the treasurer of all
the wealth of the Messiah King of Judaea, and no voice had been louder the
day before, and no disciple so reluctant to obey, when he constrained them
to set sail and leave him alone with the multitude. " Have not I chosen
you twelve, and one of you is a devil ? " Judas was to live in close fellow-
The Wonderful Life. 931
ship with hini for a whole year longer ; but even Christ could not cast out
of hin
heart.
of him this demon of covetousness, whilst he was cherishing it in his secret
CHAPTER XII.
In the North.
DURING this quiet week, with his enemies away, Jesus was busily
occupied in the plain of Gennesaret and the region lying about,
where, as he passed along the roads or through the streets, sick people were
laid, that they might touch if it were but the hem of his garment. But this
undisturbed, unopposed course of kindly healing and of teaching ended as
soon as the Pharisees hastened back from Jerusalem, not willing to remain
at home until they had got him into their power. They began by accusing
him of setting aside the tradition of the elders — an accusation he did not
deny. But he answered them sternly, calling them hypocrites, and pointing
out how they set aside the commandments of God. He deeply offended
them by this reply, and the old danger of dwelling in Capernaum revived
in greater force. Besides this, it was well known that Herod, the murderer
of John, had a great desire to see Jesus ; Joanna, the wife of Herod's
steward, probably warning him of this danger. Herod's city, Tiberias,
was on the western coast of the lake, south of the plain of Gennesaret, where
Jesus had lately been journeying. It was not more than ten miles from
Capernaum ; and our Lord must often have been very near it, though it
does not seem that he ever entered it.
It was only a few weeks since Jesus had been compelled to quit Jeru-
salem and Judaea ; and now he found it needful to withdraw from the busy,
crowded coasts of the lake of Galilee, and to seek the west of Galilee, where
he was less known, and where he could quietly instruct his apostles, who as
yet knew little of the message they were to teach when he was gone. He
went farther north than he had ever travelled, to the very confines of the
Holy Land, and to the shores of the Mediterranean sea, so vast and limit-
less, compared with the little lake of Galilee. But even here he could not
be hid ; for a certain woman, no Jewess, but a Gentile, who had already
become acquainted with his name, no sooner heard of him than she came, and,
falling at his feet, besought him to heal her daughter, who was possessed by
a devil. Jesus did so, as a recompense of her own faith, praising it, as he
932 Bible and Commentator.
had done the faith of the Roman centurion, no doubt to the bewilderment
of his disciples, who did not yet know, what the Samaritans had known,
that he wTas the Saviour of the world.
From this northwestern limit Jesus and his disciples, probably never
staying long in the same place, made their way gradually back to the eastern
shore of the lake of Galilee, where they were in the tetrarchy of Philip.
The country through which they passed was still more beautiful than the
more southern parts of Galilee. They journeyed under the range of Hermon,
and passed the high hill of Bashan, with the upper Jordan and the waters
of Merom on their left hand, in the month of May, whilst the harvest was
going on. A time of rest and possible happiness. Who was there besides
the chosen twelve we do not know. Where they tarried and lodged, what
route they took, we do not know. But at length they reached that inhospi-
table coast, wThere once before the inhabitants had besought the Lord not to
sojourn with them.
But the fierce demoniac, whom Jesus had left to bear witness of him, had
changed the minds of the people with regard to a second visit from this
mighty prophet. They were now willing to receive him, and they brought
to him a man who was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech. He led
him away from the crowd, who in this country must have been half of them
heathen, with no motive influencing their coming to him save that of
curiosity. For the same reason, probably, to avoid the danger and distrac-
tion of a number of curious followers, he bade the man and his friends to tell
no one of his cure ; but they, not at all understanding his motive, proclaimed
the miracle about all that region. Great multitudes in consequence came
unto him, having with them lame, the blind, dumb, maimed, and many
others, and he healed them all, even though many of them were heathen, as
if now he would teach his disciples that the blessings he brought to earth
were not to be confined to the Jewish nation. And the people glorified the
God of Israel.
Three days this mixed multitude remained with Jesus. He appears to
have been dwelling upon one of the mountains on the shore -of the lake,
sleeping in the open air, as they must have done, for it was now the early
summer, and the nights were warm. On the third day, when their provisions
were exhausted, he said to his disciples, " I have compassion on this multi-
tude, and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint by the way."
We often wonder how the disciples could have been so dull as to answer in
the manner they did, after the feeding of the five thousand on the passover
The Wonderful Life. 933
eve. Bat we must remember that in the former case the crowd consisted only
of Jews, to whom they considered the Messiah sent ; in this the multitude was
more than half heathen, of the same race as those who had rejected Christ when
he first landed on their shores. The disciples were jealous of these heathen
followers, who brought discredit upon their Master among his own nation.
They probably thought it impolitic for him to eat as he did with publicans
and sinners, though they were at least sons of Abraham, whilst these were
Gentiles, who had no part in the Messiah. More willing would even Judas
have been to exhaust their little purse in buying bread than see him feed
them as he had fed his own people.
But Jesus could not be influenced by any such reasons. These, like
the Jews, were also as sheep without a shepherd. He repeated his miracle
for them, spreading a table for them in the wilderness, as he had done for
his fellow-countrymen, noticing the women and children, who were won to
him by his tenderness, giving thanks to the Father of all, as though all there
were his children, as well as the descendants of Abraham, his ancient friend.
There seems to have been no excitement among them as there had been
among the Galileans, who had wished to make him a king by force. The
disciples themselves did not seek to fan any such excitement. The crowd
separated at his bidding, and he passed over the lake into the near neigh-
borhood of Magdala, a village within two miles of Tiberias, Herod's chief
city. We know he had friends in Herod's household ; and during the three
days he had been staying on the opposite shore he might easily have1
received tidings that there was no immediate danger in thus venturing into
the close neighborhood of Tiberias.
But though we cannot suppose that the Pharisees from Jerusalem had
remained so long in Galilee, other Pharisees, whose hostility they had
aroused against Jesus, very soon discovered his return among them, and
came to him with the old demand for some sign from heaven. Some
Sadducees were now joined with them, a sect with still greater political
power than themselves, as the high priests and their families and most of
the aristocracy were at this time belonging to it, though it possessed very*
much less religious influence over the nation. This union of political with
religious power made the danger still greater to Jesus ; and once more he was
compelled to leave the western shores and seek safety in the comparatively
friendly country of Philip, the tetrarch of Iturea.
On the eastern banks of the upper Jordan, close upon its fall into the
lake of Galilee, still in Philip's dominions, stood Bethsaida ; and our Lord,
934 «* Bible and Commentator.
who was now retracing his steps to the north, where he had before spent
some time afar from his enemies, came to this place on his way. A blind
man was brought to him, and he took him by the hand and led him out of
the town to restore to him his sight; then bade him neither to go back to
the town, nor to tell it to any of the townsfolk. He wished to avoid, if
possible, any stir in this place, where he was so well known ; for it was not
more than an hour's walk to Capernaum, which he had not visited since the
Pharisees had returned to it, after the passover. Almost as a fugitive now
he was passing through a town where he had done many of his mighty
works, and many of whose inhabitants had eaten of the food he had multi-
plied by miracle in the wilderness. Already his heart was heavy with the
woe he afterwards pronounced against it. Here he must hide his miracle of
restoring sight to one blind man, where hundreds had been witnesses of
greater works than this.
Heavy-hearted, his disciples following him with bewildered spirits and
disappointed hopes, Jesus went on northwards to the villages near Csesarea
Philippi, a summer city, which Philip the tetrarch had built amongst the
hills of Hermon, close to the easternmost source of the Jordan, where a
number of rivulets form first a small pool of water and then a stream,
rushing through the thickets on the hill-side. It was the loveliest spot
whither the wanderings of Jesus had led him. The sultry heat of the
lake of Galilee was here exchanged for the cool shadows of groves of trees,
and its sandy shores for a carpet of turf. Numberless brooks wound
through the fields, scarcely to be dried up by the summer sun ; for far above
them rose the snowy peak of Hermon, glistening against the burning sky.
It was such a place as he must have delighted in, if his heart had been less
wounded by enmity, and his spirit less clouded by the sure end which he
saw coming nearer and nearer upon him.
He did not here hide himself, as he had done near Capernaum. He
called the people about him — the summer crowds, who had probably come
north from the hotter atmosphere of the lower lands — and asked them,
among other teaching, " What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole
world and lose his own soul ? " a solemn question for these holiday-makers
to consider. It was here that Peter declared emphatically that he believed
his Master to be the Messiah, the Son of the living God, in spite of all his,
own disappointment, and the mysterious deeds and sayings of his Lord.
But when Jesus proceeded to speak more plainly to his apostles of the
certain death which must be the end of the enmity which he excited, Peter
" He took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town." — Mark viii. 23.
935
936 Bible and Commentator.
could Dot bear it. He knew that as the Messiah his Lord had power to
subdue his foes ; nay, the prophecies declared that so should the Messiah
act. It seemed to him so extraordinary a contradiction, not only of his own
hopes, but of all the prophets had said concerning it, that he began to
rebuke his Lord. Jesus so answered him that never more did any of his
disciples interfere by remonstrance or objection to anything their Master
did. "Let us go also, that we may die with him," was all they could say,
when he seemed to run into needless danger.
CHAPTER XIII.
At Home Once More.
BUT though Jesus had rebuked Peter, he knew well the condition of
mind that had made him speak so rashly. Six days after he took
him with John and James into one of the high, solitary peaks of the range
of Hermon, under which they had been sojourning. The ascent was a long
one, and all the stillness of the mountains gathered round them as they
climbed higher and higher into the purer air. They could see stretching
southward their own land, which offered no sure" resting-place to their
Master. The white snows glistened above them, and all the solemn influ-
ences of silence, and loneliness, and separation, wrapped them round. They
forgot the sorrows of the past weeks as the Lord prayed with them on the
mountain-height, lifted far above all the cares and ambitions of the earth
beneath. Then, as Jesus prayed, a glory shone about him, which trans-
figured his beloved face, and made his raiment white and glistening as the
snow, which dazzled them in the sunshine. And whilst, with dazzled eyes,
they gazed upon him, two forms of Moses and Elias, the greatest of the
prophets, appeared to them talking with Jesus. Their wondering ears
heard them talk, not of the triumphs and conquests of Messiah's kingdom,
but of the death which they shrank from thinking of. How long they lis-
tened to this heavenly discourse we do not know ; but at length, sore afraid
as they were, Peter spoke, not knowing what to say. " Master," he said,
" it is good for us to be here ; and let us make three tabernacles, one for
thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias." Never would he choose to go
down to the earth and common life again, if this heavenly vision would
but remain. Even then, as he finished speaking, a cloud overshadowed
The Wonderful Life. 937
them, and a voice was heard to come out of the cloud, " This is my beloved
Son ; hear him." And suddenly all had vanished, and there was no man
any more, save Jesus only, with themselves.
It seems as if they stayed all night in the solemn stillness of the moun-
tain, listening to much their Master had to tell them, and asking him such
questions as came first to their minds. He told them that he should rise
again the third day after the chief priests and Pharisees had slain him • but
they kept that saying with themselves, questioning what it meant, and not
venturing to ask him for his meaning. When the morning came they
began their long descent to the valley below, at every lingering step draw-
ing nearer to the stir and tumult of life, which they had desired to escape
from, and which seemed so much poorer and more paltry than it had ever
done before.
As they drew near to the valley they saw a great multitude of people
surrounding the rest of the disciples ; but as soon as they themselves were
in sight, all the crowd, beholding Jesus, were greatly amazed, and, running
to him, saluted him. It would seem as though some gleam of the inde-
scribable glory still lingered in his face, as the face of Moses shone when he
had been speaking witli the Lord in Mount Sinai. Some scribes were there
who had been questioning the nine apostles, and Jesus asked them what they
had wanted. One of the crowd replied that he had brought his son, who
was possessed with a devil, and as the Master was away, he had asked his
disciples to cast him out, and they could not. Very probably they had
attempted to do so, and had failed, so arousing a great excitement among
the bystanders. The poor father's hope had been crushed, and his faith
weakened, if not destroyed. " O faithless generation ! " cried Jesus, " how
long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him unto
me." Then, speaking to the father, he said, " If thou canst believe, all
things are possible to him that believeth." He, looking into the divine face
before him, cried out with tears, aLord, I believe; help thou my. unbelief."
That was enough ; his son was restored to him, and Jesus, passing on, went
into the house where he and his disciples were sojourning, worn out with
the exhausting events of the last twenty-four hours.
After this Jesus returned quietly through Galilee, wishing no man to
know it. Some of his disciples, on this journey, disputed among themselves
as to which should be the greatest, so little prepared were they for the end
which he foresaw so plainly. He taught them what that end must be, but
they did not understand him, and were afraid to ask him. But we must re-
938 Bible and Commentator.
member that the nine had not heard of the solemn transfiguration on
the mount; for Jesus had straitly charged the three that they should tell
no man.
As they approached Capernaum they found that at last it was safe to
enter it, after their wanderings, and to be at home once more. The hottest
months of the year were come, when there was almost a burning heat in the
valley of the Jordan, and on the shores of the lake of Galilee ; and very
likely the wealthiest and most influential persons of the towns on the lake
were gone away, or, at least, were less inclined to active exertions. Neither
do any crowds seem to gather about Jesus, who indeed kept himself aloof
from any public display. He spent his time in teaching his disciples and
such persons as came to him, trying to prepare their minds for what was
to come, and to fit them for their future work. A peaceful, happy few
weeks for Mary, who had her Son again beside her for a little while ; yet
her heart would sink often as she heard his sayings, and began to see with
a mother's fearful eye that no throne awaited him in the city of David.
It seems to have been his last sojourn in Capernaum, a quiet breathing
time, in which he could taste once more the peace and rest of a home.
Children were about him ; and besides his mother, the women who were his
friends and disciples, and whose greatest gladness was to minister to him.
We may suppose that some of the apostles would resume for the time their
fishing on the lake, and that James and John would dwell again under
their father's roof. When they gathered together in the cool of the evening
Jesus taught them the mysteries of the kingdom of God, not in parables, as
he taught others. Now he put into precept and commandment that which
he had set before them by his example. They were to tread in his steps,
to go about doing good ; to find it more blessed to give than to receive; to
forgive their enemies ; to be perfect even as their Father in heaven was
perfect. Hard lessons ! Yet the seed fell upon good ground, and, hidden
there for some months, finally brought forth fruit a hundred-fold.
Before long, however, the peace of this short truce with his foes was dis-
turbed by the approach of the autumnal Feast of Tabernacles. It was that
joyous feast, after harvest and before the rains of winter, which attracted
so many of the country folks up to Jerusalem, to dwell in booths for a week ;
when each worshipper carried to the temple branches of citron and myrtle,
willow and palm, in his hands; and each day a glad procession attended a
priest to fetch water from the pool of Siloam in a golden pitcher, to be
afterwards poured at the base of the altar. Even the nights were made
The Wonderful Life. 939
jubilant with services in the temple, the lights in which lit up the house-
tops of Jerusalem, with their booths of thick branches, and shone afar off
in the darkness ; whilst the sound of song, and the music of harps and
lutes, cymbals and trumpets, echoed far and near in the stillness of the
night.
The cousins of our Lord, who would naturally be more impatient even
than his other disciples for a public assertion of his claims, now began to
urge him to go up to the feast, which they were about to attend. We
cannot suppose that they did not believe in him at all; they knew him to
be mighty in works and in words ; and they desired ambitiously that he
should display his power to his disciples in Judasa, though they could not
have been ignorant of the danger he must run. But as yet they did not
believe him to be the Son of God. They could not understand his conduct,
in claiming so much, yet refusing to be made a king, or at least the leader
of a popular party against the Romans. Possibly they may have thought that
if Jesus joined the caravan of pilgrims starting for the feast, he would not
be able to withdraw himself from their enthusiasm, and would be carried
forward to Jerusalem as their Messiah, when multitudes, who hated the
Roman yoke, would rise to join him, and he would be forced to assume
the position they wished for him to take.
But Jesus, discerning their motives, bade them go up to the feast alone ;
whilst he remained behind in Galilee, until after the caravan, with its ever-
increasing band of enthusiastic pilgrims, had gone on. Then, with his own
little band of faithful friends, he set out for Jerusalem through Samaria, the
nearest and least frequented route. In fact, no other pilgrims were likely
to choose this way ; for when Jesus himself sent forward some messengers
to a village in Samaria, to make ready for them, the inhabitants would not
supply them with any necessaries, would not even receive them into the
village, because their journey was toward Jerusalem. But when James
and John asked if they should not copy the example of Elijah, and call
down fire from heaven to consume them, Jesus rebuked them, uttering one
of the sayings which all his life through had been his motto, " The Son of
man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." And they went
to another village less bigoted, where, perhaps, he was known as the prophet
who had passed by that way early in the year.
At the feast there was a good deal of argument and discussion about Jesus.
He was sought for in the temple, amid the worshippers with their palm
branches, but he was not to be found. Quietly all the people were talking
940 Bible and Commentator.
about him, some saying, " He is a good man ;" others, " Nay, but he de-
ceiveth the people." The Pharisees had already widely spread their opinion
that he was an impostor, and his miracles deceptions, by which the people
were misled. But no one spoke openly of him for fear of the Sanhedrim,
who possessed the dreaded power of casting an offender out of the synagogue,
a punishment similar to that of excommunication.
In the midst of the feast, however, Jesus appeared in the temple, not
quietly either, but openly in his office as teacher and prophet. The people
were amazed at his boldness, and equally amazed at the inactivity of the
Sanhedrim, who seemed reluctant to interfere with him at the first. They
were in truth privately planning how to take him ; but the feasts were so
often the occasion of riot and confusion that they sought rather to lay hands
on him in secret, so as to avoid any open disturbance. This the constant
presence of his disciples and friends from Galilee made impossible during
the week of the feast. On the last day, that great day of the feast, when
the priests marched seven times round the altar, singing Hosannah, and
the leaves were shaken off the willow boughs in the hands of the worship-
pers, and the water from Siloam was poured for the last time on the altar,
then Jesus stood forth, before the crowded congregation, and cried, " If any
man thirst, let him come unto me and drink."
Many of the people upon hearing this saying, and feeling the awful
courage of any prophet standing thus in their midst, and crying aloud
words of such meaning, could not but believe that he was of a truth the
Christ. Others asked, " Shall Christ come out of Galilee?" And there
was a division among them, some being even willing to take him ; but no
man laid hands on him. The temple officers, who had been sent by the
Sanhedrim to arrest him and bring him before them, were so impressed by
his words and manner of speaking, that they dared not touch him, but
chose rather to return to their masters, and own that never man spake like
him. The Pharisees answered sharply that they, too, were deceived,
though none of the rulers or Pharisees had believed on him ; none but the
common people, who were too ignorant to know the law. Nicodemus, who
was his disciple, though secretly, now ventured to remonstrate, but met
with a sharp and sneering reply. After which every man went home; and
Nicodemus probably took care that Jesus should be warned of the plots of
the Pharisees,
The Wonderful Life. 941
CHAPTER XIV.
The Last Autumn.
FROM that time Jesus appears to have spent his nights out of Jeru-
salem, only venturing to appear there in the daytime, when his
friends were about him. On the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, about
two miles from Jerusalem, was a small village called Bethany. This low
mountain was henceforth to be his favorite haunt, and this village his most
frequent home. There lived in it a family of friends whom he loved
dearly, with a marked and special friendship. They were people of some
importance, and were well known in Jerusalem ; and it was now, probably,
that they often received him into their house as their beloved guest.
Early on the first Sabbath day, after the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus
came to the temple, and sat down to teach in the treasury, which was a
colonnade surrounding the court for women, the usual place for worship.
Here, of course, most of the congregation could both see and hear him ; and
especially those who paused to cast in their gifts into the trumpet-shaped
chests which stood against the wall. His teaching was interrupted by the
questions and remarks of the Pharisees, who grew more and more mali-
cious, until, at length, after calling him a Samaritan, and telling him he
had a devil, they madly gathered up the stones which were lying by to be
used in repairing part of the building, and would have stoned him to death
in the courts of the temple itself, had he not hid himself from them, and
passed by through their midst. ~No riot ensued, for, now the feast was over,
the great mass of people were dispersed ; and this, probably, gave them the
courage to attack him thus suddenly and openly.
But no danger to himself could hinder him from a work of mercy. As
he was passing from the temple his disciples called his attention to a blind
man, who was, perhaps, begging at the gate by which they left the temple.
From this gate, which was at the northwest of the temple enclosure,
there ran a causeway down into the lower city, where the poorer classes? to
whom the blind beggar belonged, had their shops and houses. The
disciples asked him which had sinned, the man or his parents, that he
should be born blind. Jesus answered them this blindness was no effect
of sin either in himself or his parents ; and, repeating the words with which
he had begun his sermon in the temple, " I am the light of the world/'
he anointed the poor man's eyes with clay, and bade him go to wash in
942 Bible and Commentator.
the pool of Siloam. Siloam lay south of the temple mount, and many a
joyous procession had gone down to it for water during the feast. The
blind beggar had to make his way through the busiest streets of the lower
city, his eyes smeared with the clay. He must have been very well known
in this poor neighborhood, and when he came back from Siloam, with his
sight restored, there was a great excitement. Some among them disputed
whether he was the blind beggar or no. They gathered about him, asking
how his eyes had been opened, and he told them frankly all he knew.
This Jesus, who was spoken of as one of those impostors who deceived
the people of Galilee by false miracles, was he who had restored sight to
him, although he had been born blind.
The escape of Jesus from their sudden attack must have left the Phari-
sees in a state of irritated disappointment; and their vexation was certainly
not lessened when a throng of people from the lower city brought to them
a man upon whom such a wonderful miracle had been wrought at the very
moment of his escape. They had been carefully fostering the opinion that
Jesus was an impostor, and here was direct proof to the contrary. They
could seize only upon the one point which might be made to bear an evil
aspect — "This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the Sabbath day."
But some of the Pharisees themselves objected to this, asking, "How can a
man that is a sinner do such miracles ? " There was a division amongst
them. They even referred to the beggar, asking him what he said of
the man who had opened his eyes. "He is a prophet," he answered
unhesitatingly.
Upon this they professed not to believe that the man had been blind,
and they sent for his parents,. both father and mother. They were timid
people, poor, of course, in circumstances, and therefore the more afraid of
being turned out of the synagogue, and so of losing their livelihood. They
could not afford to be bold in behalf of their son. "He is of age," said
the poor, trembling parents; "we know he is our son, and that he was born
blind, but we do not know anything else. He shall speak for himself." It
may have been, it probably was, the first time the man's eyes had seen his
father and mother; he knew their voices, but their faces he now looked
upon with his new power of sight, marvelling, no doubt, at the strange
world at once opened to him, and unable to read as we do the expression of
those about us. The frowns of the Pharisees, the downcast timidity
of his parents, the eager gaze of his old neighbors, were a strange language
to him.
The Wonderful Life. 943
The Pharisees questioned and cross-questioned the poor beggar, but he
was a man of shrewd common sense, and of great courage, perhaps the
courage of ignorance. He maintained firmly, that one thing he did know,
whereas he was blind, now he could see. The blue heavens above, the
splendor of the temple, the smoke rising from the altar, all those things
of which he had heard so often, he could now see. At length, after being
badgered into what seemed an outbreak of insolence from so mean a person,
he cried, " Why, herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from
whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes. Xow we know that God
heareth not sinners : but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his
will, him he heareth. Since the world began was it not heard that auy man
opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God,
he could do nothing." Not long before the Pharisees had said to Jesus,
"Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil!" These last words of the
beggar so exasperated them that they immediately pronounced against him
the sentence of excommunication, which, besides depriving him of his right
as a Jew, would make him an alien and outcast in his father's house,
amongst those kinsmen whose faces he had never yet beheld, but who
would now turn away from him with shame and terror. Better for him if
he had been left a blind beggar sitting at the gate of the temple.
But Jesus, who had bestowed upon him this blessing, now turned by the
bigotry of the Pharisees into a curse, no sooner heard that he had been cast
out of his synagogue, than he sought for him in his loneliness and misery.
The blind man had boldly maintained that Jesus of Xazareth was a prophet
come from God, in the face of those who were striving to put him to death.
So when Jesus found him, stript of love and religious rights, without father
or mother in the world, and shut out from the temple and its sacrifices for
sin, he revealed himself to the wretched man as being not a prophet merely,
but the Son of God, that God from whom the sentence of excommunication
seemed to cut him off. There was no need of the temple and the sacrifices
for him, if he would but believe in the Son of God, who was greater than
the temple. " Lord, I believe!" cried the man, as he worshipped him who
had opened his eyes. And now, probably, as he was cast out of all other
fellowship, he would be admitted into the circle of the disciples, who were
willing to brave any penalties threatened by the Pharisees, and who already
formed a little society of their own.
From amongst the disciples who had been with him at the Feast of
Tabernacles, Jesus had chosen seventy, and sent them by two and two on a
944 Bible and Commentator.
similar missionary tour to that short journey of the twelve apostles, which
had been made in Galilee in the spring. The Jewish tradition was that
God had ordained seventy nations to inhabit the earth, and Jesus may have
chosen this number to indicate that his mission was not to the Jews only,
but to all the world. The seventy were directed to visit certain villages,
whither Christ intended to go himself, chiefly in Judsea, where he appears
to have remained until about the middle of December.
Judaea had little of the beauty which made Galilee so dear to Jesus ; and
it possessed none of those early associations, which make all men cling to
the place of their early childhood. The hills of Judsea are bleak and bare;
the season was that of the sad and waning autumn, when the drought of
summer was not repaired by the winter's rains. The people, though more
polished, were less trustworthy and less independent than the Galileans.
Society was more corrupt and artificial ; and Jesus mournfully likened the
religious leaders to whited sepulchres, full of dead men's bones, and declared
that they made their proselytes tenfold more the children of hell than
themselves. The political condition of the country was even- worse than in
Galilee, where there was at least a Jewish tetrarch. Judsea was under a
Eonian ruler, and its fortresses were filled with Roman soldiers. Riots
against Pontius Pilate were frequent. Robbers infested the roads; and
even between Jerusalem and Jericho, a highway between two chief cities, it
was no uncommon occurrence to fall among thieves.
How Jesus avoided the snare of his enemies during these two months we
are not told. But we must recollect they had no legal power to put him to
death ; they had failed in crushing him by a sudden outbreak in the temple;
and the number and faithfulness of his followers preserved him from secret
assassination. He passed from village to village, always dogged by the
Pharisees, who hoped to catch something out of his mouth, that they might
accuse him to Pilate, who, though he did not trouble himself to interfere
with a Jewish prophet, would speedily put an end to any political agitator.
There was constantly some danger of Jesus appearing to him in this char-
acter, from the innumerable multitudes which gathered about him wherever
he appeared ; always a perilous sign when a country is ripe, as Judsea was,
for rebellion.
It was during this time that Jesus probably made that visit to Bethany,
when Martha is first mentioned as receiving him into her house, and being
so much cumbered about much serving as to speak somewhat sharply to
him, though he was both her Lord and her guest. " Lord, dost thou not
The Wonderful Life. 945
care that my sister hath left rne to serve alone ? " she asked. " Bid her
therefore that she help me." No doubt he had seen all this house- pride
and hospitable impatience before, when his cousins in Nazareth had made
feasts for their friends ; and we can fancy him smiling at the hurried and
weary woman. " Martha, Martha," he answered, gently, " thou art careful
and troubled about many things ; but one thing is needful : and Mary hath
chosen that better part, which shall not be taken away from her."
Once again, during these two months, the old blasphemy revived, that he
was casting out devils by the prince of devils. The old accusation of
breaking the Sabbath was also renewed. He was in some village synagogue,
where he saw a poor woman bowed together so that she could not lift up
herself. He did not wait for her to ask for help, but called her to him, and
laid his hands upon her, and immediately she was made straight. The ruler
of the synagogue was very indignant, and addressing the people forbade
them to come to be healed on the Sabbath day. " Hypocrite ! " cried the
Lord ; " doth not each of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from
the stall, and lead him away to watering ? And ought not this woman,
being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen
years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day ? " For once all his
adversaries were ashamed ; and all the people rejoiced for the glorious
things that he had done.
The winter was now come, and with it the Feast of the Dedication of the
Temple. This feast, like that of Purim, was not one appointed by the law
of Moses, and therefore it was not generally kept by the Galileans, or the
Jews living far from Jerusalem. It was celebrated in honor of the reconse-
cration of the temple after a terrible and shameful pollution of it a hundred
and sixty-six years before Christ. Comparatively a modern festival, it was
however a time of great mirth and gladness ; and it was called the Feast of
Lights, from the custom of illuminating the city during its celebration.
Once more Jesus resolved to show himself openly amidst his deadliest foes.
There was a colonnade running round the court of the Gentiles, called
Solomon's porch, which afforded shelter from the cold winds of winter.
Here he chose to walk to and fro, teaching, as was his custom, those who
crowded about him to learn. The Pharisees surrounded him in this place,
asking him to say plainly if he were the Christ, or Messiah, probably with
the hope that he would claim this kingly title, and so lay himself open to
an accusation before Pilate. The Lord's reply afforded them no such
ground, but he uttered words which excited their fiercest anger. Again they
60
946 Bible and Commentator,
took up stones to stone him ; but he escaped out of their hands, and left
Jerusalem to enter it but once more.
Jesus now withdrew altogether from Judsea, into the place beyond Jordan,
where John had at first baptized. It was in the same valley, beside the
same river, where he had spent the first summer of his public life, whilst
John was still alive, and teaching and baptizing not far from him. Only
twelve months had passed since he had left that quiet retreat, to enter upon
a career full of change, of wanderings, of increasing difficulties and dangers.
His enemies had laid wait for him; had never wearied of hunting him
from place to place • had three times attempted his life at the feasts. His
own kinsmen did not fully believe in him ; his numerous friends were be-
wildered and dissatisfied; and his disciples, though still faithful to him,
were disappointed, and looked anxiously into the future. It was wintry
weather; the sky was heavy with clouds, and storms swept across the land.
The summer seemed also to have faded out of his life; all that gladness
with which his God had crowned him above his fellows. Poor, homeless,
and an exile ; rich only in the friendship of a few fishermen and peasants
who made themselves homeless and exiles for his sake ; with a traitor always
at his side, and a host of deadly foes conspiring against him : thus Jesus
passed the last winter of his life.
Whilst he was in Perea many people came to him, who remembered
what John the Baptist had said of him. John had not yet been dead
twelve months, and the anger of the people against Herod had not died
away. Many of them believed on Jesus, as he went about, according to his
custom, from village to village, teaching, in homely parables, which took
firm hold of the minds and memories of his hearers. Very possibly the
Pharisees sought to get Herod to arrest him ; but this he dared not do, so
unpopular had he become by the murder of John. They tried, therefore,
to frighten Jesus back into Judaea, and they came to him with a warning.
"Get thee out, and depart hence," they said, "for Herod will kill thee.'7
But Jesus had certain work to do in that country, and he was not to be
driven from it by their cunning or Herod's. One of the miracles he
wrought at this time in Perea was in the house of one of the chief Pharisees
of that neighborhood, wThere he had been invited, that they might watch
him. It was the Sabbath day, and a man was set before him afflicted
with dropsy. As usual, Jesus did not hesitate to heal him, the law-
yers and Pharisees finding nothing to say against his doing so. After
this he gave both to the guests and to his host certain rules concerning
947
948 Bible and Commentator.
feasts, which were very different from those usually observed. To this
period also belong the parables of the Great Supper, the Lost Sheep, the
Lost Coin, the Prodigal Son, the Unjust Steward, and the" Rich Man and
Lazarus.
CHAPTER XV.
Lazarus.
LAZARUS, that name which Jesus had given to the poor beggar carried
by the angels into Abraham's bosom, was also the name of a friend
whom he loved dearly, and of whom his mind was at this moment full.
About the same time that the Pharisees had come to him with their
cunning stratagem to drive him into Judaea, there had reached him a mes-
sage from the home in Bethany : " Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is
sick." Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, did not, because they
could not, urge their Lord to come to them. The peril was great. Nay,
if he had gone at once he would have fallen into the very snare his enemies
had laid for him. He stayed, therefore, two, days where he was, teaching
the people as usual, and betraying no design of leaving that place. But
on the third day, when the danger was somewhat passed by, though his
disciples still remonstrated with him for venturing again to Judsea, he set
out for Bethany. Thomas, the most timid and doubtful of the disciples,
said to his companions, in a despair which proves the strength of his attach-
ment to his Master, " Let us also go, that we may die with him."
It was a toilsome journey, hurriedly and secretly taken. • The disciples,
like other men in a country of foes, must have been anxious and uneasy,
not altogether seeing the necessity of this new peril. The Lord himself
was probably troubled and sorrowful, for he knew that Lazarus was dead,
and he sympathized with the grief of his sisters. On the fourth day after
his death he reached the village, but did not enter it, only sending a mes-
sage to the sisters that he had come. The house was filled with Jews from
Jerusalem, which was only two miles away, and Martha, as soon as she
heard that Jesus was near, rose up, and went out to meet him, lest he should
be unaware of the risk he was running. But Mary was too deeply sunk in
sorrow even to hear that he who loved them was so close at hand. It was
not until he sent Martha to her, who told her secretly, " The Master is come,
.and calleth for thee," that she knew he was there.
The Wonderful Life. 949
Mary did not possess Martha's characteristic caution and prudence. She
rose up quickly, and hurried to seek Jesus outside the town where he was
staying, without attempting to conceal her movements. A number of the
Jews followed her, thinking she was going to her brother's grave to weep
there. The whole company, weeping and mourning, came to the place
where Jesus was wraiting for Mary, in the midst of his anxious disciples.
But the grief of the two sisters, and his own tears, saved him at this
moment. They even wept with them, and exclaimed, "Behold, how he
loved him ! " In a sacred brotherhood of grief they led him to the cave
where his friend had been lying for four days.
Some of them, who had known of the miracle performed on the blind
beggar, asked among themselves if he could not have saved Lazarus from
dying. But it was too late now. Here was the grave, with the stone laid
upon it, beneath which the dead body had been decaying these four days.
Even Martha objected to having the stone taken away. It may be that
some among them had heard how the widow's son, at Nain, had appeared
to come to life again when he was about to be buried ; but how different
that was to the case of a man so well known, wrho had been dead so long !
Close by Jerusalem, too, where the rulers were seeking to put Jesus to death
as an impostor !
But the stone wTas taken away, and all stood silent, looking on with awe.
Did Jesus wish to see once again the form of his friend, now conquered by
the last enemy, Death ? He did not enter into the cave, but crying with a
loud voice, which rang through the silence of the crowd and the stillness of
the grave, he said, " Lazarus, come forth ! "
How every heart must have throbbed ! Was it possible that the dead
ear could catch the sound, and the dead form move ? Did they press round
the cave, or shrink away in fear? We cannot tell; but the moment of
suspense was short. They could hear a stir and movement within the sep-
ulchre; and Lazarus, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, and his face
hidden from them by a napkin, appeared in the doorway on which all eyes
were fastened. The deathly pallor of his face had vanished, and his eyes
wrere bright again with life, before they could take away the cloth that hid
it ; and the limbs that had been bound in grave-clothes for four days wrere
strong enough to carry him home to his house, across whose door-sill they
had borne him in the stillness and helplessness of death.
Many of the people from Jerusalem who saw this miracle believed in
Jesus. We may confidently suppose that for this night at least he was
950 Bible and Commentator.
secure from all attempts to arrest him ; and that he could safely stay with
the friends he had so marvellously blessed. But some of the bystanders
went their way at once to the Pharisees to tell them what had been done.
The time was at last come when the chief priests began to take a more active
interest in crushing this prophet from Nazareth. They were mostly Sad-
ducees; Caiaphas the high-priest, and Annas, his father-in-law, a most
powerful man, being at the head of the Sadducees. Hitherto they had
regarded Jesus with contempt, as one beneath their notice. But one of
their leading tenets was the denial of the resurrection ; and this strange story
from Bethany could not but be exceedingly repulsive and alarming to them.
They took counsel together with the Pharisees to put him to death; and as
they, the aristocracy of the temple, had much more political power than the
middle-class Pharisees, their antagonism greatly increased the peril of Jesus.
Caiaphas, the high-priest, was exceedingly emphatic upon the necessity of
destroying him, saying sharply to the counsel, " Ye know nothing at all,
nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the
people, and that the whole nation perish not."
Jesus had two friends among these counsellors thus plotting his death,
Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea ; and possibly they gave him instant
warning of his increasing danger, for he left Bethany immediately, and that
home which he had made so happy, to withdraw to Ephraim, a town on the
borders of Samaria, where at any hour he could cross the frontier and place
himself beyond the reach of both Sadducees and Pharisees. He stayed
there not many weeks, and then began his last farewell circuit through
Samaria and Galilee, as it would seem rather for the purpose of visiting
these places once more, than of teaching or of healing. It was now the
early spring, and the corn-fields of Samaria and Galilee would be already
springing into life under the ripening sun ; half-opened leaf-buds were
green upon the trees ; and the grassy turf was strewn with daisies, and lilies,
and anemones of all colors. Probably he crossed the plain of Esdraelon,
over which he had so often gazed from the hills of Nazareth. But we do
not find that he ventured into any of the familiar villages ; but rather, like
one hunted as a partridge upon the mountains, the wandering Son of man
turned aside out of Galilee, and descending into the deep valley of the
Jordan, waited on the eastern bank of the river for his hour to come; that
hour which was very soon to strike.
But even here he was not left alone in peace with his disciples. The
spies, with whom he was always surrounded, came to him as usual with
The Wonderful Life. 951
.perplexing and difficult questions. "Is it lawful for a man to put away
his wTife for every cause?" they asked. Herod, as we know, had put away
his wife to marry Herodias, much to the displeasure of his people, who
regarded it as a scandalous act. This question of divorce was one angrily
disputed among the people, and especially among the Pharisees. It could
scarcely be answered without giving deep offence to large numbers of
persons. For once Jesus took the side of the bitter and bigoted Pharisees
of the school of Shammai ; and by so doing gave occasion to his own dis-
ciples to venture upon a remonstrance to him, saying the case of the man
was hard. But the women, who were the real sufferers under the law,
were greatly pleased ; and immediately upon his answer, so wise and just,
becoming known, they brought to him their little children, both girls and
boys, that he might pray for them. The disciples somewhat bitterly
rebuked their enthusiasm, and would have sent them away, had not Jesus
interfered, being much displeased. He had come to raise woman to her
proper position, and to make little children the care of all who would enter
the kingdom of God. He ordered them, therefore, to be brought to him,
and having laid his hands upon their heads, and blessed them, he left the
place ; probably lest the enthusiasm of the women should create too great a
commotion.
Not long after this there came to him a rich young man, a ruler of a
synagogue, who had kept the law from his youth up, and wanted some
good thing yet to do. Quickly, Jesus put him to the test. " If thou wilt
be perfect," he answered, "go and sell all that thou hast, and give to the
poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." He
was exceedingly grieved at this reply, and wrent away sorrowful. Jesus,
who, when he saw him, loved him, exclaimed mournfully, "How hardly
shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!" Upon that,
Peter began to contrast himself and his fellow-disciples with this rich
ruler, saying, "Lo, we have left all to follow^ thee !" It was true; and
Jesus must have felt deeply the faithfulness of his simple-minded followers.
He promised them that they should receive the reward the young ruler had
been seeking to obtain, even eternal life. But, as though he must check
the vain hopes always at work in their hearts, he told them many that
were first should be last, and the last first.
952 Bible and Commentator.
CHAPTER XVI.
The Last Sabbath.
LINGERING on the eastern banks of Jordan till a few days before the
passover, Jesus was there no doubt joined by his mother, 'his kins-
men, and the women from Galilee, who had so often ministered to him, as
they went up to Jerusalem for the feast. Numbers of pilgrims had
already gone up before the feast-day to purify themselves; and both the
chief priests and Pharisees had given commandment that if any man knew
where he was, he should tell it. They wished to take him quietly, before
the great masses of the people were gathered together in the Holy City;
but they began to fear that he would stay away, as he had done the year
before. They asked one another in the temple, " What think ye, that he
will not come to the feast?"
Already Jesus was on his way, and was pressing onward, his face set
towards Jerusalem. He went before his bewildered and troubled disciples,
as though eager to get to his journey's end. The disciples were often de-
pressed by his incomprehensible warnings, but still oftener they seem to
have been dazzled by visions of some approaching splendor. Amongst the
women who had joined them from Galilee was Salome, the mother of James
and John. She came to beg a boon from him — that her sons might sit on
his right hand and on his left in his kingdom. Though the rest were
much displeased with James and John because of this petition, they had
frequently discussed among themselves which should be the greatest; and
possibly Judas, who kept the common purse, felt himself of more impor-
tance than the others, and at least certain of being treasurer in the coming
kingdom. Jesus called them to him, and after telling them that whosoever
among them would be the chiefest must be the servant of all, he added the
beautiful saying, " For even the Son of man came not to be ministered
unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many."
But what did his mother think of this kingdom of her son's? We do
not know. She was now once more with him, treading the familiar, yearly
pilgrimage which they had taken together for so many happy spring-tides.
Probably, she partook more fully of the mood and spirit of Christ than his
other friends; and though now and then there might be a flutter of timid
hope in her mother's heart, his grave, sad face, and solemn warnings, must
have prepared her for the darkness, not the splendor, of the coming hour.
The Woxdeepul Life. 953
The city of Jericho was a few miles from the Jordan, on the way to
Jerusalem, standing in a magnificent grove of palm-trees, and amid gar-
dens of balsam. Jesus was passing through the city, surrounded by a
multitude of followers and curious spectators, when the chief of the tax-
gatherers, a rich man, who was desirous to see him, ran before, and climbed
into a tree; for he was little of stature, and, in spite of his wealth, possessed
no favor or influence with his fellow-countrymen, that they should make
way for him in the press. Jesus, coming to the place, looked up, and
called him by name. " Zaccheus, make haste, and come down," he said ;
"for to-day I must abide at thy house." Joyfully he descended from
among the branches, and led the way to his dwelling-place. But at this
all who saw it. murmured. The man was a notorious sinner, one who had
enriched himself by unfair means, besides engaging in an infamous trade.
But Jesus had not called him without knowing his nature, and what in-
fluence he could exercise over him. A day or two before, when the rich
young ruler had come to ask what more good things he should do, having
kept the law from his youth up, Jesus had proposed to him as a test that
he should sell all that he had, and give to the poor. We know how he
shrank from giving up his riches. This very test Zaccheus adopted of his
own choice. He stood up in the midst of his accusing fellow-citizens, and
said, "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I
have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him four-
fold." If the cheating of Zaccheus in his tax-gathering had been on any
large scale, this restitution would leave him a poor man indeed. Jesus,
knowing how hard it was for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of
heaven, said to him, " This day is salvation come to this house, forasmuch
as he also is a son of Abraham;" and he finished by perhaps his most
beautiful and most characteristic saying, " For the Son of man is come to
seek and to save that which was lost."
Probably Jesus stayed that night in the house of Zaccheus, and set out
the next morning for Bethany. A numerous body of friends and pilgrims
as usual gathered around him to accompany him up the steep and rocky
road, which led to the Mount of Olives, under the brow of which stood
the little village where Lazarus lived. The day before, as he entered into
Jericho, a blind man had heard him passing by, and asked who it was coming
thus surrounded by a crowd. Now this blind man, with a comrade in the
same plight, sat by the wayside, waiting for his approach. No sooner did
they hear that Jesus of Nazareth was nigh, than they began to cry out to
954 Bible and Commentator.
him, a shrill, piercing cry, which reached his ear, even amid the babble of
the crowd. It was a strange cry in Judaea. "Jesus, thou Son of David,
have mercy on us ! " " Son of David ! " All who heard it knew what it
meant : and many amongst them must have been offended. They rebuked
the blind men, and charged them to hold their peace. One of them was a
well-known beggar, blind Bartimeus; but he was the loudest in his petition,
crying out a great deal the more in spite of their displeasure, " Son of
David, have mercy on me ! " Jesus stood still, and called the blind men
to him, having compassion on them; and they, receiving their sight, fol-
lowed him up the steep ascent to Bethany, glorifying God.
It was probably Friday when Jesus entered Bethany; and one quiet
Sabbath day he spent there with his friends, Lazarus and his sisters. No
doubt they had been forewarned of his arrival, and Martha, as once
before, had been cumbered with household cares in his honor. For they
made him a feast, in the house of Simon, a leper who had been restored to
health by the Lord; and Martha served at this supper. It was only a few
weeks since Lazarus had been called back from the grave; and this was the
first opportunity they had had of giving him public honor and thanks-
giving. The Sabbath was always a day of feasting and rejoicing among
the Jews; and no doubt a large company was invited on this occasion — so
large, perhaps, that Simon's house was chosen as being more commodious
than their own. It is specially noticed that Lazarus sat at the table with
Jesus; and that much people of the Jews knew that the Lord was there,
and came out to see not him only, but Lazarus, whom he had raised from
the dead.
Mary, wishful to show her love and devotion as well as Martha, who
was waiting upon their Master, and counting nothing too costly to be spent
for such a purpose, brought an alabaster box of very precious ointment,
and breaking the box, anointed both his head and his feet with it, caring
not to save a drop of the rare perfume for any other use. The fragrance
of it filled the whole house where they were assembled. Some of the
disciples, specially Judas Iscariot, felt indignant at this extravagance. For
they were poor men, unaccustomed to luxury, and naturally intolerant of
expensive whims, such as this act of Mary's seemed to them.
"Why was this waste of ointment made?" they asked. Judas calcu-
lated how much it was worth, and said it might have been sold for three
hundred pence, and given to the poor. These murmurs troubled Mary,
who had thought of nothing but how she could best show her love to the
The Wonderful Life. 955
Master. "Let her alone/' said Jesus; "against the day of my burying
hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you, but me ye have
not always." They were mournful words for Mary to hear. Was she
indeed anointing her Lord beforehand, as if already death had laid its hand
secretly upon him? Was it for this she had saved her precious ointment?
She had kept it carefully to be used on some rare occasion, and now that
she had poured it all without stint upon his head and feet, he said it was
for his burial ! But to take away if possible the sting of his sad words,
Jesus said tenderly, " Wheresoever the gospel shall be preached in the
whole world, this shall be told as a memorial of her."
This feast, given so publicly to Jesus, aroused the anger of the chief
priests against Lazarus. The miracle had been so manifest, and so difficult,
if not impossible, to gainsay, that by reason of him many of the people in
Jerusalem believed in Jesus. That Lazarus also must be put to death was
the decision arrived at by the chief priests; though the Pharisees do not seem
to have had anything to do with this resolve. He was too well known at
Jerusalem for him to be left as a witness to the miraculous powers of Jesus
of Nazareth.
book: hi.
victim and victor,
CHAPTER I.
The Son of David.
HE pilgrims who had left Jesus at Bethany, and gone on to
Jerusalem, carried with them the news of his arrival, and
excited considerable interest in the city. On the next day
many people, hearing that he was on the road from Bethany,
went out to meet him, and as they passed through the cool
groves and gardens of Olivet, they plucked branches of
Ctf^Js palms and olives, andywove them together as they climbed
l c the hill. Soon they saw him coming round the brow of the
mountain along the road thronged by the bands of pilgrims,
amongst a crowd of them, though easily discerned, as he was no longer on
foot, but riding on the colt of an ass, upon which the disciples had cast
their garments. At the sight of him they broke into a shout, which might
readily have been heard in the temple courts. They shouted "Hosanna!"
and the cry was taken up by the crowd surrounding Jesus, and echoed far
in the clear atmosphere. " Hosanna to the Son of David ! Blessed is the
King of Israel, that cometh in the name of the Lord!" The road was
quickly strewn with mats of palm branches, and with the garments of the
excited throng. The disciples, hearing the shout of the Messiah, the battle-
cry of the nation, must have felt that at last the kingdom was truly nigh at
hand, and that their Master was about to take to himself his throne and
sceptre, and to fulfil his promise to them that they should sit upon twelve
thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
But neither joy nor triumph was seen on the face of Jesus. As they
wound slowly round the mount, a sudden turn of the road brought them in
956
The Wonderful Life. 957
sight of Jerusalem, with its palaces and temple in all their glory of marble
and gold. It was a, city worthy of being the capital of a great nation,
beautiful for situation, the perfection of beauty in Jewish eyes; but when
he beheld it thus lying before him, he wept over it. ' He foresaw the Roman
legions casting a trench about it, besieging it straitly, and leaving not one
stone upon another, and the day of salvation was passed, the things which
belonged to its peace were now hidden. His mother, and those nearest him,
heard the lamentation he uttered, and saw his tears falling, but the great
crowd swept on, shouting and singing, down into the valley, and up again
to the gate of Jerusalem.
All the city was by this time in a stir, asking, "Who is this?" The
Galileans, proud of their prophet, were the most eager in their reply.
" This is Jesus, the Prophet of Nazareth in Galilee," they answered, as the
procession threaded the narrow streets, and thousands of people gazed down
upon it from the house-tops, whilst the question ran along from house to
house, "Who is this that cometh?" No marvel that shortly afterwards we
find Greeks going to Philip, and saying to him, "Sir, we would see Jesus."
Soon the temple courts were flooded by the crowd. The children, always
difficult to silence, did not cease to shout for any dread of the priests, or
awe of the sacred place. They continued to cry, " Hosanna to the Son of
David!" Some of the Pharisees had asked him to rebuke his disciples on
their way from Bethany, but now the powerful chief priests and scribes of
the temple came to him in sore displeasure. "Hearest thou what these
say?" they asked. "Yea," answered Christ, "have ye never read, Out of
the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?" He would
neither forbid them, nor refuse to receive the title of Son of David, that cry
which displeased his enemies so greatly. But as evening was near, and it
was not safe for him to stay in the city during the night, he left the temple
and returned to Bethany.
Probably, to avoid a repetition of these exciting occurrences, Jesus
returned to the city very early the next morning. He had never omitted
any opportunity of warning his disciples against hypocrisy ; and this day,
by a singular and symbolic act, he impressed his lessons on their memory.
Being hungry on the way, and seeing a fig-tree in leaf, he turned aside to
see if there were figs upon it; for the fruit of this tree precedes the opening
of the leaf. There was nothing but leaves only — a fit emblem of the nation
which, alone among all nations, professed the service of the one true God.
958 Bible and Commentator.
" Let no fruit grow upon thee from henceforth forever ! " he cried ; and
the next time they passed by, the disciples saw the fig-tree withered away.
Upon reaching the temple, once again he drove out the merchants and
money-changers from the outer court. He had done this the last time he
had come to the passover, two years before, saying, " Make not my Father's
house a house of merchandise." Now, in bolder language, he told them
that they were making it a den of thieves. By the time the court was
cleared, it was known throughout the city that Jesus was in the temple, and
the blind and the lame came to him to be healed in the sight of those deadly
foes who represented him as an impostor. It was in vain they sought to
seize him. The multitudes ever about him made it impossible to take him
openly and by day. The chief priests were as much baffled as the less
powerful Pharisees, for an uproar in the temple would inevitably bring
down the Roman garrison dwelling in the tower of Antonia close by. At
night they did not know wmere to find him; and soon it became plain that
they must seek for a traitor among his most trusted followers.
The next day (Tuesday) Jesus again appeared very early in the temple;
the people also hastened thither, eager and very attentive to hear him. He
began to teach them, but he was soon interrupted by a party from the Great
Sanhedrim, the highest legal and religious court of the nation, demanding
by what authority he did such things, and who gave him this authority.
Jesus replied, " I will also ask you a question. The baptism of John, was
it from heaven, or of men ? " It was their special province to decide such
a matter, but they dared not answer according to their judgment, for they
feared the people, who held John as a prophet. When they said, " We
cannot tell," Jesus declined to answer their question concerning his authority.
But in their hearing he uttered the terrible parable of the wicked husband-
man, and the parable of the marriage of the king's son. They knew that
he spoke of them, and their enmity grew, if possible, more vehement. But
they stayed to listen no longer. They could not cope with such a speaker :
his wisdom and skill in weaving parables turned the scale against them.
The mass of the people might not catch the deeper meaning of his words,
but there were many there wrho could not fail to see how keenly they were
driven home against him.
The Pharisees, upon this discomfiture of the Sanhedrim, took counsel
how they might entangle him in his talk. They sent some spies, feigning
themselves to be honest, anxious-minded men, troubled with a scruple of
conscience. Ought they to pay tribute to the Roman emperor? Jesus,
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who cared for no man, but taught the way of God truly, should decide for
them. It was a clever, cunning question. Many really devout Jews were
not easy in their minds about this paying of taxes to a foreign power. The
Galileans especially, among whom were his supporters, had risen again and
again in rebellion on this very point. The kinsmen of those Galileans who
had perished in these insurrections were at that moment among his hearers,
ready to take fire at any judgment adverse to their martyred friends. The
disciples themselves must have been listening eagerly for his reply. All,
except Judas Iscariot, belonged to Galilee; and one of them, Simon the
Zealot, appears to have once belonged to a fierce and cruel party, sworn both
to slay and to die in defence of the law. Was it lawful to pay tribute to a
foreign kino;?
Jesus himself was in a singular position. He had permitted the Galileans
to carry him in triumph into Jerusalem, amid the significant shouts of
" Hosanna to the Son of David ! " He had spent two long days openly in
the temple, teaching and working miracles in the face of his powerful
enemies, who appeared paralyzed in their efforts to check or arrest him.
His followers could not fail to see in these things that at last he claimed
the Messiahship. Had he then resolved to gird his sword upon his thigh,
and ride forth prosperously, with sharp arrows in the hearts of his adversa-
ries ? Was that right hand, which had been laid upon so many sufferers
with a tender touch, about to learn terrible things ? They dared not yet
answer " Yes " to these questions, but they longed to do so. Yet the escape
every evening from the city and their Master's solemn prophecies answered
" No." Now he was asked, in the presence of foes, friends, and followers,
" Is it lawful to give tribute to Csesar? "
His reply disappointed them all, and served to diminish his popularity,
though not to any dangerous extent. No uproar followed it. He bade
them bring to him the tribute money, and they showed him a Koman coin,
which was in common use in the country; a sign of their subjection to a
foreign power. This subjection had been permitted by their king, Jehovah,
who was still ruling them, as well as all the nations upon earth. If they had
been more careful to render unto God the things that were God's, they might
not now have to pay tribute to Caesar. It had become their duty to render
unto Csesar the things that belonged to CaBsar.
There was nothing in this answer which could be made a ground of com-
plaint to Pilate. The Pharisees and Herodians found themselves baffled.
But now the courtly and polished Sadducees came forward, seeking to put
960 Bible and Commentator.
into an absurd light the doctrine of the resurrection, one of the points upon
which he most insisted. Very likely Lazarus was standing near Jesus, the
object of much interest and curiosity. The Sadducees, with the tact of men
of the world, knew that nothing damages a cause as ridicule does. Jesus
answered them solemnly, unveiling a little the mystery that enshrouds the
state of the dead. They can die no more, neither marry. But they are
equal to the angels, and are the children of God. Then referring them to
their own Scriptures, and their lawgiver, Moses, whose authority they were
bound to receive, he pointed out that when God spoke to him from the
burning bush, he said, " I am the God of Abraham." "He is not a God
of the dead," added Jesus, " but of the living : for all live unto him." The
multitude were astonished at this answer ; and certain of the scribes, who
were standing by, whose lives had been spent in poring over the sacred
books, cried out, " Master, thou hast well said ! "
The Pharisees enjoyed hearing the Sadducees thus silenced ; and one of
them, a scribe, thought this a good opportunity for asking Jesus a question
vehemently disputed among them: which was the chief commandment?
aAll the law and the prophets hang on two commandments," replied Jesus,
" and these two are alike. i Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind : and thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself.'" The scribe listened to this answer with the
approval of an honest man ; and the Lord said to him, " Thou art not far
from the kingdom of God."
It is probable that it was on this day that a party of Pharisees dragged
before him in the temple a miserable woman, detected in adultery. They
set her in the midst, and called upon him to pass judgment on her. The law
of Moses commanded that she should be stoned ; but this law had fallen
into complete disuse, and to revive it would shock the whole nation. Yet
if he, as a prophet, set himself against Moses, they would have some ground
for accusing him. He seems to have been filled with shame at the way this
case was brought before him ; and stooping down, he wrote with his finger
upon the ground, giving no answer until they continued asking him. Then,
lifting up himself for a moment, he said, " He that is without sin among
you. let him first cast a stone at her." The hardened consciences of these
men, even of the eldest, convicted them so poignantly of sin, that they
stole away one by one, leaving the unhappy woman alone with him. When
in the silence he lifted up himself a second time, he said to her, "Woman,
where are those thine accusers ? Hath no man condemned thee?" "No
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man, Lord," she answered. " Neither do I condemn thee," he added, "go
and sin no more."
This was the last effort of his enemies to tempt him ; and they durst ask
him no more questions. Jesus, some time during this day, put a question
to them, which must have made his followers' hearts beat high. " What
think ye of Christ?" he asked. "Whose Son is he?" An extraordinary
question ! He knew very well that by all, except a few, he was looked
upon as the Son of Joseph, the carpenter of Nazareth. His question drew
attention to one of the most striking flaws in his own claim to the title of
Messiah. " The Son of David," answered the Pharisees promptly. Surely
Mary, and those who knew the mystery of his birth, now expect him to
proclaim it. Simeon and Anna were dead ; but there might still be persons
about the temple, who would bear testimony to their prophecies when the
child Jesus was brought to be presented to the Lord. But no ; this was
not the point Jesus had in view. He showed the scribes how David in the
spirit called Christ his Lord, and intimated that there was some meaning in
the words which they had not fathomed. He said no more; and they could
not answer him ; but the common people heard him gladly.
At length, moved to the utmost indignation against the Pharisees, who,
as the most religious class, ruled over and deceived the nation, he broke out
into a vehement and unrestrained rebuke of their hypocrisy in the hearing
of all the people. It was in the temple itself -f and the day was far spent.
Presently he was about to quit it, to seek shelter and safety out of the city,
and he was never again to visit his Father's house. He rebuked them
passionately, and ended his protest by lamenting once more over Jerusalem.
" Behold, your house " — no longer calling it his Father's house — "is left
unto you desolate ! For I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth, till
ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord."
And now Jesus departed from the temple, never more to tread its courts.
As he wTent out, his disciples, who were all amazed at hearing him say that
house should be made desolate, pointed out to him the goodly stones and
gifts, and enormously strong masonry of the walls. It was, in fact, a fortress
all but impregnable; the defence of the city on the eastern side, where it
stood on the brow of a precipitous rock. The stones of which the fortifica-
tions were built were of an extraordinary size. " Look, Master," they cried,
" what manner of stones, and what buildings are here ! " " Seest thou these
great buildings?" he answered, mournfully, "There shall not be left one
stone upon another that shall not be cast down."
61
962 Bible and Commentator.
CHAPTER II.
The Traitor.
QUITTING the city, Jesus went up the slope of the Mount of Olives,
and sat down there over against the temple, looking across upon its
marble walls and golden pinnacles. It was evening, and the setting sun
touched it with level rays, whilst the valley beneath lay in deep shadow
and gloom. It seems as if he could not turn away from it, though he had
left it forever. • It was now a den of thieves, the house of hypocrisy, not
his Father's house. The disciples sat apart from him, distressed and dis-
couraged. It had been altogether an agitating day. Their Master had had
opportunities again and again of proclaiming his Messiahship, and had
neglected or avoided them. His last vehement denunciation of the scribes
and Pharisees had probably given as much offence to the people of Judaea
as his answer about the tribute money had done to the Galileans. He
seemed bent upon alienating his followers, and upon thrusting back the
greatness offered to him.
At length Peter and Andrew, with James and John, came to him
privately to ask when these things that he had spoken of should come to
pass. He spoke to them in terms so clear of the immediate future that
they could no longer hope to see him ascend an earthly throne, such as they
had been dreaming of. He foretold sorrows such as had not been from the
beginning of the creation. But he distinctly declared himself to be that
Judge and King before whom all nations should be finally gathered for
judgment and for separation. As he finished his long and sorrowful dis-
course, he said to these four favorite disciples, " Ye know that after two
days is the feast of the passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be
crucified."
This was probably the first word they had heard of treachery, and it
could not but have shocked and troubled them greatly. Who among his
friends, those who were trusted with the secret of his hiding-places, could
be base enough to turn traitor ? It was a terrible thought. A spy was
among them who was about to betray their Lord. Who could it be?
Hastily they would run over the list of his nearest and most trusted fol-
lowers, but they could not fix upon any one. Yet from that moment there
was no rest for them from suspicion and dread of the unknown betrayer,
from whom their Master could not be secured.
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The next day, Wednesday, and most of Thursday, seems to have been a
time of rest and peaceful retirement for Jesus. Probably he passed the
hours chiefly with his disciples and his mother, in quiet conversation, or in
silent thought, concerning all he had done and taught, and all they were
to do when he was gone. Somewhere on the Mount of Olives, perhaps in
the house of Lazarus, the solemn hours glided by, neither wholly sorrowful,
nor wholly glad. Their Lord was still with them, and it was hard to
believe that days of mourning were about to dawn. They could not see
the coming sorrow, whilst their eyes still caught the light of his tender
smile. They could not hear the murmur of the gathering storm, whilst
they were listening to his gracious words. A happy, sorrowful, solemn
time, such as never was so spent on earth, before or since. His loved ones
were around him, those whom his Father had given to him, and none of
them were lost, save one.
That lost one was not with them the whole of the day. Judas, the purse-
bearer, had business to do in Jerusalem ; so he left the friends and the
Master, with whom he had ate and drunk, and wandered to and fro for
twelve months, knowing them more intimately than many a man knows
his brothers. He was weary of it all, and yesterday he had seen every
vision of wealth fade away into a too certain prospect of persecution as a
follower of the Prophet of Nazareth. The purse at his side felt empty; it
would always be empty, unless he took care to fill it for himself. Probably,
on his way to the city, he had to pass by a field he had set his mind on, and
which he had perhaps partly purchased. It was not his yet, and it did not
seem likely it would ever become his whilst he served his present Master.
He entered Jerusalem with his mind made up. He knew one way by which
he could get money to buy that field.
A council of the Great Sanhedrim was being held in the palace of the
high-priest. The important question laid before the seventy-one chief men
of the nation was how Jesus might be taken by craft and killed. Not on
the feast day, lest there should be an uproar among the people ; it must be
done by subtlety, in the absence of the multitude. But when was Jesus
alone? Where did he conceal himself when he left the city at nightfall?
There were thousands of tents and booths erected round the city by the
pilgrims, who could find no lodging-place within the walls ; and it would
be impossible to find him. They needed some one to betray him.
This need was met in Judas. They had not even to seek him, for he
came voluntarily to bargain with them how much they should give him
964 Bible and Commentator.
for delivering his Master to them. They were glad, and promised to give
him thirty pieces of silver, to be paid when they had their prey in their
hands. Possibly Judas felt in a measure justified by his knowledge of the
miraculous powers of Christ, if he only chose to use them for escaping from
his enemies, or even for destroying them ? He, wTho could call Lazarus
from the dead, had but to speak the word, and no foe could stand before
him. And if Jesus were bent upon death, it was but prudent to secure
himself, and make some provision for the dreary future, in place of that
which he had forsaken to follow him.
Did Judas go back in the fall of the evening to the tranquil company on
Olivet, and take his place among them, with a smile upon his face, and
news from the city on his lips ? Did he sit down with them to their simple,
homely supper, listening to catch up what arrangements had been made for
the night; where his Master should sleep, and who would be nearest to him
within hearing? Did he see the worn, anxious face of Mary, smiling only
when she met the eyes of her Son, who had lived with her so many peaceful
years under their lowly roof at Nazareth? Did he join in the evening
hymn sung before they separated for the night, the last they would thus
spend together? We must suppose that he did something like this; that
he was still their comrade and fellow-apostle, Judas; and that none guessed
the business that had taken him to Jerusalem, nor the bargain he had
made there.
CHAPTER III.
The Paschal Supper.
A LL the next day Judas was seeking a convenient opportunity to betray
-£JL Christ. He soon discovered that it was his Master's purpose to eat
the Paschal supper in Jerusalem; for there, and there only, could it be eaten.
No doubt Mary, with that band of timid and faithful women, now gathered
about him, would urge him to forego his determination, so great was the
danger of venturing into the city and passing a night there. But with a
strong desire had he desired to eat that passover with his disciples; the
first and only one they could celebrate with him. He called Peter and
John to him, and bade them go and prepare the passover. At last, then,
Judas was satisfied that he would be caught in the double snare of the city
and the feast.
The Wonderful Life. 965
It was the day on which the passover must be killed. At noon all work
was laid aside, and all leaven destroyed, unleavened bread alone being
lawful food for the next eight days. In the temple the evening sacrifice
was oifered an hour earlier than on other days, for the number of passover
lambs to be slain before nightfall was immense. During this week the
whole company of the priests was on duty ; and the courts of the temple
were crowded with the multitudes of Jews who had come up to the city to
keep the passover, and brought their lambs to slay for the Paschal supper,
which had to be eaten that night; the first day of the passover beginning as
soon as the stars became visible in the sky.
Peter and John, not Judas the purse-bearer, had been sent by Jesus to
prepare the feast. They had to choose and buy a suitable lamb, carry it up
to the temple, and see that it was roasted for supper. They had asked where
they were to prepare it. Their Master had friends in Jerusalem, but some
prudence was needed in the choice of the house where he would celebrate
the feast. He probably chose the house of some old friend, where, perhaps,
he had in former times eaten many a joyous passover with his mother and
cousins ; for in solemn hours we choose rather to be in familiar places than
strange ones. "'The good man of the house," he said, "will show you a
large upper room, furnished and prepared ; there make ready."
On this day the evening sacrifice was oifered about half-past two,
immediately after which the slaying of the passover began. Probably the
disciples were in the first division of those who brought their lambs; for at
the fall of evening, as soon as the stars shone in the sky, the feast was
ready. Christ had been lingering on Olivet, where the hymns and hallelu-
jahs from the temple might reach his ear, with the blast of the silver
trumpets which told that the Paschal lamb was slain. But as the evening
drew on, he descended the mount with his disciples, and entered the city
unobserved in the twilight. Most likely Judas did not know till then at
what house the passover was to be eaten, and he had not yet found the
convenient season he was seeking.
The preoccupation of the people freed the little group of men from
observation, as well as the twilight which was darkening the streets. Every
Jew must eat the passover that night, in his best and festive garments.
Many of those who had been latest in the temple were hurrying homewards
with the lamb that had yet to be roasted for the supper. All of them were
too much engrossed in the celebration of the feast to give more than a
passing thought to the band of Galileans, but dimly seen, who were
966 Bible and Commentator.
following the prophet of Nazareth through the streets. None were with
him save the twelve apostles. Lazarus, whom he had called from the dead,
Mary, his mother; his kinsmen from Nazareth were not there. In some
other guest-chamber, under another roof, they would keep the feast that
night; they had seen him for the last time, until they saw him again next
morning on the way to Calvary.
It was still early in the -evening when they reached the large upper
chamber, where the feast was prepared for them. It was enjoined that the
Paschal supper should not be eaten standing, as slaves eat their food; but that
all, even the poorest, must sit down leaning, as free men, who have time to
feast. Again, four cups of wine must be drunk, though money must be had
out of the poor-box for its purchase. No one was allowed to eat after the
evening sacrifice until this meal was ready, that all might come to it with a
hearty appetite. It was a festival for gladness; a solemn day of joy; and
hymns of praises were to be sung.
Jesus was the head of this company, and he took the first cup of wine
into his hand, and gave thanks over it; then passing it to his disciples, he
said, " Take this, and divide it among yourselves; for I say unto you, I
will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall
come." This was the beginning of the feast. After it, all were enjoined
to wash their hands, before the Paschal meal of bitter herbs, unleavened
bread, and the passover lamb was eaten. It was now that the Lord rose
from the supper, and laid aside the white festive robe he was wearing, and
pouring water into a basin, washed and wiped the feet of his disciples.
There had been a strife amongst them again as to which should be the
greatest; or, probably, which should have the chief places at the table. To
see him rise, and thus minister to them, filled them with shame; but Peter
alone ventured to protest against it. "Thou shalt never wash my feet!" he
cried, impulsively. But when Christ said, "If I wash thee not, thou hast
no part with me," he prayed, "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands
and my head ! " " He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet,"
answered Jesus ; " and ye are clean, but not all." It was the first word of
heaviness at the thought of the traitor, whose feet he had washed with the
rest. Sitting down again to the table, he bade them do as he had done to
them, and remember that the servant is not greater than his Lord ; neither he
that is sent greater than he that sent him. "I speak not of you all," he
added : " I know whom I have chosen. The scripture must be fulfilled, He
that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me."
The Wonderful Life. 967
This heart-heaviness deepened as the feast went on ; the voice of Judas
mingling in the hymns of praise — for he dared not be silent — must have
jarred upon the ear of Jesus. He broke one of the cakes of unleavened
bread, and distributed it, with the bitter herbs, to his disciples, saying plainly
to them, "One of you shall betray me." At last, then, they knew that the
traitor was amongst the twelve. This filled them with surprise and exceed-
ing sorrow; and they not only began to inquire among themselves who it
should be, but every one of them, even Judas, said to him, " Lord, is it I?"
Jesus was himself greatly troubled in spirit, and the joyousness which
should have marked the feast fled, and was succeeded by a heavy gloom.
The youngest of the disciples, John, was reclining next to his beloved
Master, near enough to whisper to him unheard by the others. Peter
beckoned to him to ask who the traitor was, and Jesus said, " He to whom
I shall give this sop, when I have dipped it." He was then dipping
portions of the unleavened cake into a preparation of raisins and dates,
mixed with vinegar, and distributing them to the apostles. He gave it to
Judas, who just then was asking him, "Master, is it I?" There was
nothing in the action to call attention to the guilty man ; but John knew
certainly, and Peter guessed, that it was he who was about to betray his
Lord.
The supper was only just beginning; and Judas considered the present
opportunity to be too good to be lost, even though he should miss the
Paschal meal. Jesus was within the walls of the city, with none but his
little band of apostles around him. Moreover, he now felt sure that his
treachery was suspected, if not known ; and he must succeed at once, if
he wished to succeed at all. He rose from the table whilst they were still
in excitement as to who was the traitor among them. Such a movement,
so suspicious and unaccountable, must have increased their excitement, and
probably have caused an attempt at interfering with him, if Jesus had not
said to him, "That thou doest, do quickly." They supposed something had
been forgotten that was necessary for the feast, or that there was some poor
person -who depended upon their assistance to celebrate it ; and that Judas
would return in time to partake of the Paschal lamb. " Do it quickly,"
Jesus said. No doubt the guilty and miserable man hurried along the
streets, now dark, but with the ringing notes of the hallelujah sounding
from every house as he passed by, the only Jew in the city who did not eat
the passover that night.
The moment the traitor was gone, Jesus recovered his serene composure.
968 Bible and Commentator.
He spoke to his disciples tenderly ; though when Peter boasted that he
would lay down his life for him, he forewarned him that he would that
very night deny him thrice. The supper was almost over, the lamb was
eaten, whep Jesus, taking into his hands the third cup of wine, called the
cup of blessing, said, " Drink ye all of it. This is my blood of the new
testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. This do ye, as
oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me." He did not partake of it him-
self, and he repeated what he had said at the beginning of the feast, that he
would drink no more of the fruit of the vine until they drank it with him
in his Father's kingdom.
He then addressed to them words of surpassing tenderness, beginning
with, "Let not your heart be troubled : ye believe in God, believe also in
me." Thomas put in a doubtful question ; Philip, who had been so long with
him, asked him to show to them the Father of whom he spoke ; and Judas,
his cousin, once more inquired why he did not manifest himself to the world ;
but for each he had only a gentle reproof that could not grieve them. He
promised them all a Comforter, who should never leave them, as he was
leaving them. There was not now much time for him to talk with them.
The prince of this world was coming. "Arise," he said, as though he
would not have Judas find him lingering in the guest chamber; " let us go
hence."
But still, as though reluctant to break up that loving circle, he lingered
amongst them, to speak more comforting words, calling them no longer his
disciples, but his friends. Possibly he shrank from quitting that quiet
upper room for the scene of the mysterious agony that was coming. His
work was almost finished; there was nothing for him now to do, save to
suffer. ~No more blind eyes would he open ; no more deaf ears unstop.
The leper would not come to him for cleansing, nor the lame and palsy-
stricken crowd about him to be healed. Neither would he teach any more
by parables. The next crowd of faces surrounding him would not be those
of eager listeners or faithful friends. How bitter the next few hours would
be, he knew already. He lifted up his eyes and prayed ; yet not for him-
self, but for those whom his Father had given him out of the world.
The last cup of the passover was now taken by the disciples, and the last
hymn sung. Then they went down into the streets, echoing with the songs
of those who kept the feast. The full moon flooded them with light;
and the little company, feeling safer perhaps as they left the city walls
behind them, crossed the brook Kedron, and passed on into the garden of
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Gethsemane, where their Master was wont to lead them often. They were
on Olivet again, near their places of refuge ; and their hearts were lighter
than whilst they were in the city. There was not much danger here.
CHAPTER IV.
Gethsemane.
BUT what had hindered Judas all this time? Jesus had not hastened
from the guest-chamber to escape from his treachery. It was no
great distance to the high-priest's palace, or to the temple, where there were
guards on duty. But all were occupied in celebrating the passover, and
none could sit down to it earlier than the Lord seems to have done. They
must keep the feast first; the murder must be committed afterwards.
As soon, however, as the feast was over, the temple guards hurried to
their task. Possibly Judas may have discovered before they started that
Jesus had left the city already, and it became necessary to procure a detach-
ment of Roman soldiers from the tower of Antonia, overlooking the temple.
The plea that they were about to arrest a dangerous leader, popular with
the multitude, who must be taken by night, readily secured their aid. As
the soldiers and the temple guard passed through the streets, a number of
fanatical Pharisees, armed with swords and staves, joined them ; a few even
of the chief priests and elders were there. Judas probably counselled them
to carry also torches and lanterns ; for, though the moon was at the full,
there were dark and gloomy shades in the garden, where Jesus might escape
from their search.
In the meanwhile Jesus, having left most of his disciples in the open part
of the garden, had taken with him Peter, and James, and John, and with-
drawn into the more distant and darker glades, as Judas had foreseen.
"Tarry ye here," he said to his favorite friends, "whilst I go and pray
yonder." It was no solitary mountain by the lake of Galilee, such as had
been his place of prayer the last passover night. But he must be alone ; no
one must be too near to him in that hour of agony. A mysterious anguish,
i sorrow like no other sorrow, was crushing him down. A degrading and
jainful doom was at hand ; but first his soul must be poured out unto death.
le had been despised and rejected of men : but now he was to be bruised
f»r the iniquities of the world, wounded for its transgressions, put to grief
970 Bible and Commentator.
by God. Even he began to be sore amazed at the profound gloom spread-
ing over his soul. " My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death/7 he
said to his disciples.
Withdrawing from them about a stone's cast, he fell on the ground, and
prayed that if it were possible, this hour might pass from him. "Abba,
Father," he cried, " all things are possible to thee ; take away this cup
from me ; nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt." But, rest-
less in his great anguish, Jesus returned to his three friends, whom he had
left sitting under the trees, and found them sleeping. He said to Peter,
"Simon, sleepest thou? couldst thou not watch with me one hour?" Then
he added gently, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."
Back into the solitude and gloom he went again to suffer alone the unut-
terable agony. None could help him to bear that burden. He prayed
more earnestly. " Oh, my Father, if this cup may not pass from me,
except I drink it, thy will be done." Then, returning to seek some sym-
pathy with his disciples, he found them again asleep, and they knew not
what to say, except that their eyes were heavy. Now utterly alone, con-
scious that these, his dearest friends, could take no part in his sorrow, he
went away the third time, and prayed, saying the same words. At last one
angel, one alone of all the heavenly host that sang at his birth, appeared to
him, strengthening him to endure that anguish worse than death.
Strong enough now to meet the bitter end, Jesus came the last time to his
sleeping disciples. Waking them, he said, " The hour is come. Lo, he
that betrayeth me is at hand." Even as he spoke, before they had time to
shake off their drowsiness and bewilderment, they heard the tramp of many
feet coming near, and saw the glimmering of torches among the trees. Jesus
went forward to meet the band of soldiers, asking, " Whom seek ye?"
"Jesus of Nazareth," they answered. "I am he," he said, calmly. There
was something in his manner which so overawed them that they shrank
back from him, and recoiling upon the crowd that pressed behind, cast
some of them to the ground. But as they recovered themselves Judas came
to the front, and too familiar to be swayed as they had been by the hidden
majesty and the sacred dignity of great sorrow in his Lord, he stepped forth
and kissed him, saving, "Master, Master ! " It was the sign he had giver
to those who were come to arrest Jesus. " Whomsoever I shall kiss, tha
same is he : hold him fast, and take him away safely." "Judas," asked hs
Master, marvelling at the depth of his villany, " betrayest thou the Son g*
man with a kiss ? "
971
972 Bible and Commentator.
Still the temple guards hesitated to seize him. They had heard his
teachings, and seen his miracles in the temple, and possibly they were
afraid lest he should work by his miraculous power against them. There
was something terrible about a man who could make the dead obey, or
could convey himself away unseen amid a throng of foes. They were re-
luctant to lay hands upon Jesus, though the traitor, who had kissed him,
still stood before them unhurt. "Whom seek ye?" he asked, again.
"Jesus of Nazareth," they repeated. " I have told ye that I am he," he
answered ; " if therefore ye seek me, let these go their way." His three
disciples were probably hemmed in by the multitude, and the rest were
looking on, terrified, from behind. Peter, with reckless desperation, drew
a sword, and striking wildly, smote a servant of the high-priest, and cut off
his ear. Jesus rebuked him, and healed the man; his last miracle, wrought
upon an enemy at the moment he was betrayed into their hands. He was
yet free to do good : -but now the captain and the temple guard laid hold of
him and bound him. "Are ye come out as against a thief?" he asked, in-
dignantly, yet patiently. " I was daily with you in the temple, and ye
took me not. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness." Seeing
that he suffered himself to be bound, and that no legion of angels came to
deliver him, all the disciples, even Peter, even John, forsook him, and fled.
None of his twelve apostles remained near to him but Judas.
Scattered were the disciples, every man fleeing where his fears led him.
Some, perhaps, sought a secret and safe retreat among the farmhouses on
Olivet; some returned to the city tremblingly, to convey the bitter news to
the other friends of Christ. Mary, his mother, with her sister, and many
other women from Galilee, were lodging in Jerusalem during the feast, and
would quickly hear what had come to pass. His cousins, who had been so
long in believing on him ; his secret disciples, such as Nicodemus and
Joseph of Arimathea; all must have felt that no common danger, no slight
catastrophe, was at hand. There was one hope still in his favor. The
Jews had not the power to put him to death legally ; and even if they had,
their traditions laid it down as a law, that whenever a criminal was con-
demned to die, he should not be executed on the same day as that when the
verdict was passed, and that the judgment should be reconsidered by the
great Sanhedrim on the day following. Jesus could not in any case be put
to death before the first day of the week : and in the mean time heaven and
earth must be moved to deliver him out of the hands of his adversaries.
He had a powerful party in his favor j and it was never difficult to stir up
The Wonderful Life. 973
a popular agitation during the feasts. The dark hours of the night passed
by too rapidly as they consulted together concerning what must be done.
CHAPTER V.
The High-Priest's Palace.
ALONE, save for Judas, bound, followed by a rabble of scoffing par-
tisans of the chief priests and elders, Jesus was led away from the
garden of Gethsemane. The guards took him first to the house of Annas,
the father-in-law of the high-priest, a haughty and powerful man. The
chief offices of the temple were filled by members of his family, who were
all Sadducees, and had not been vehemently opposed to Christ until his in-
fluence with the people began to threaten their own, and to endanger the
revenues of the temple, from which they drew their wealth. Annas, who
was an old man, probably did not trouble himself to see the prisoner at
that hour of the night, but sent him on to the palace of Caiaphas, the
high-priest, where the Great Sanhedrim would assemble as soon as they
could be summoned from their various homes.
By this time Peter and John had fallen in with one another; and recov-
ering somewhat from the panic that had seized them, they followed their
Master to the high-priest's house. John knew Caiaphas so well as to find
easy admittance into his palace, and he went in with Jesus, as near to him
as he could get, that he might see that his beloved disciple had not altogether
forsaken him. But Peter had been unable to get in, and after a while John
went and spoke for him to the woman who kept the door, and brought him
into the open court of the palace.
The chief priests and elders, who had gone out to Gethsemane with the
officers and soldiers, now formed themselves into a preliminary council to
examine Jesus, before the Great Sanhedrim could meet. Caiaphas was at
the head of it, and asked him of his disciples and doctrine. As to his dis-
ciples Jesus said nothing, but about his doctrine he answered, " I spoke
openly to the world ; I ever taught in the synagogue and the temple,
whither the Jews always resort ; and in secret have I said nothing. Why
askest thou me? ask them which heard me." Most of those who were
present had heard him in the temple; the guards had once said, "Never
man spake like this man." But now one of them struck him for answering
974 Bible and Commentator.
the high-priest so. It was yet an hour or two before daybreak, at which
time the Sanhedrim was to assemble, and it would seem that Caiaphas at
this time left Christ to the wicked cruelties of his servants. Probably they
led him from the hall, where this brief examination had taken place, into
the open court, when they blindfolded him, and striking him on the face,
cried mockingly, "Prophesy, who is it that smote thee?" Other insults
they heaped upon him, with the rude brutality of men who knew that they
should not offend their masters by such misconduct.
It was a chilly night, and the servants had kindled a fire in the court,
Peter standing with them to warm himself. Before his Master wTas brought
out to be mocked and insulted, one of the maids of the high-priest, looking
at him, said, " Thou also wert with Jesus of Nazareth." He was instantly
and naturally filled with fear, and denied it at once, saying, "I do not
understand what thou sayest. I am not one of his disciples." He felt it
to be wisest to withdraw from the circle round the fire, and retreated into
the darkness of the porch. It was already drawing near to daybreak, for a
cock crew as he stood in the gateway. Then the woman who kept the door
asked him again, "Art thou not one of this man's disciples?" " I am not,"
he replied shortly. Once more feeling nowhere safe, yet reluctant to quit
the palace, he returned into the court, where, it may be, his Lord was now
standing, bearing in silence the cruelties of the servants. A kinsman of
Malchus, whose ear he had cut off in Gethsemane, soon asked him, "Did
not I see thee in the garden with him ? " They that stood by said confi-
dently, " Surely thou art one of them, for thou art a Galilean, and thy
speech betrayeth thee." Then Peter began to curse and to swear, "I know
not this man of whom ye speak." His Lord, who heard his oaths, turned,
and looked upon him, and he remembered the word he had spoken, "Before
the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice." He had not believed
himself so cowardly and disloyal. Even now he dared not stand forth and
own himself a disciple of the mocked and despised prophet of Nazareth ;
but creeping away from the palace, with that last look of his Master
haunting him, he went out into the dawning of the day, and wept bitterly.
Worse than the insults of the servants must have been the vehement denials
of his disciple, and Peter could not fail to remember the awful saying,
" Whosoever shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, in this adulterous
and sinful generation, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he
cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."
By daybreak the Sanhedrim were assembled, and Jesus was brought
The Wonderful Life. 975
before them. They had all been seeking witnesses against him, but none
could be found whose witness agreed. It was necessary that at least two
should agree. After a while there came forward two men, one of whom
testified he had heard him say, " I will destroy this temple, that is
made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without
hands.'1 The accusation took a more doubtful form with the other witness,
" I am able to destroy this temple of God, and to build it in three days."
Even this testimony did not agree sufficiently. Neither the high-priest,
nor the Sanhedrim, eager as they were to convict him, could be satisfied to
do so on such paltry evidence. Jesus was standing before them, ques-
tioning nothing, answering nothing; giving them no chance of fastening
upon any indiscreet words. The scene altogether must have been unutter-
ably painful to him, apart from his own position. The great religious body
of the nation, the most learned in the law, the most irreproachable in char-
acter, the men presumed to be the wisest and best of the nation, were shame-
lessly seeking evidence by which they might condemn to death a prophet,
of whom no man knew any evil.
At last Caiaphas stood up in the midst, in his office as high-priest, and
adjured Christ by the living God to tell them whether he was the Messiah,
the Son of God. " I am," he replied ; " and ye shall see the Son of man
on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." There
was no further need of perjured witnesses. All had heard the awful words.
Caiaphas rent his clothes, crying, " He hath spoken blasphemy ! What
think ye?" With one voice they all declared him to be worthy of death.
Jesus knew when he uttered these words that he was pronouncing his
own sentence. Until that question was asked him he had been dumb,
opening not his mouth. But the form in which the question was put left
him no choice but to answer. The moment in which he most distinctly
claimed to be the Christ, the .Son of God, was the moment when such a
claim was his death-knell. Until now he had left his works to speak for
him. Even with his disciples he had seldom insisted on being the Messiah ;
he had never held himself aloof from them in kingly state. With them he
was the Son of man, their brother ; before the Sanhedrim he called himself
the Son of God, their Judge.
976 Bible and Commentator.
CHAPTER VI.
Pilate's Judgment Hall.
QTTRAIGHTWAY, in the light of the rising sun, the whole multitude
r^-J of them arose, and led Jesus away to Pilate's judgment-hall. It was
early, and the city would hardly be astir after the feast last night. The
friends of Jesus were still buoyed up with the thought that, at the earliest,
the crime of his death could not be committed until after the Sabbath was
ended. The haste of the Sanhedrim was not only indecent, but it was
illegal, according to their own traditions. They had taken no time to
reconsider their verdict. The judges had not fasted for a whole day, as
they were bound to do after sentencing a man to death before he was led
away to execution. The death of Christ was a judicial murder of the
blackest dye.
But at the threshold of Pilate's judgment-hall a difficulty presented itself.
If they entered it they would be defiled, and could not partake of the feast
of that day. On this day the Chagigah was offered, which was strictly a
peace-offering, and symbolized their unbroken and undimmed communion
with God. A portion of the offering was burnt upon the altar, and a por-
tion eaten as a feast in the temple itself, or, at least, within the walls of
Jerusalem. Probably the Great Sanhedrim kept this feast in some stately
chamber of the temple; for did not they stand nearer to God than any
other of the people? But if they went into Pilate's judgment-hall with
their prisoner they would be defiled, and rendered unfit for its cele-
bration.
Pilate had had many a serious conflict with the Jews on subjects of their
religion, which he despised and misunderstood; yet he now yielded so far
as to go out to these wealthy and noble citizens. " What accusation bring
ye against this man?" he asked. They did not wish to make any definite
accusation, and they answered sharply, that if he had not been an evil-
doer, they would not have taken the trouble to deliver him up to him.
"Take him yourselves/' said Pilate, "and judge him according to your
law." " It is not lawful for us to put any man to death," they said.
No doubt Pilate knew already something of Jesus, the prophet of Naza-
reth, who had entered the city in what appeared to him a mock triumph
only five days before. This reply of the Sanhedrim showed him at once
what they wanted. The prophet must be put to death, and he must bear
The Wonderful Life. 977
the blame of it. Bat upon what grounds was he to crucify this man?
The Sanhedrim were not at a loss, though they could say nothing here of
the charge of blasphemy. " We found him," said these religious rulers
of the country, "we found this fellow perverting the nation, and for-
bidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he is Christ, a King." All
there must have known how Jesus had disappointed his followers by
bidding them render unto Caesar the things that were Caesar's. Pilate
returned to the judgment-hall, and looked upon the weary frame and worn
face of him who all night long had been passing through agony after
agony. He still wore the festive robes in which he had eaten of the
Paschal supper; but even these were only the clothing of a poor man, a
man of the people, not those of any kingly pretender. "Art thou the King
of the Jews?" he asked. The Roman governor seems to have felt kindly
towards him, as a harmless fanatic, whose vague language had brought him
into danger. Jesus told him he had indeed a kingdom, but it was not
of this world. True men alone could hear his voice. " What is truth ?"
asked Pilate, mockingly. He had not found it among the Romans; and
certainly it did not exist among the Jews. He could not but suspect the
whole charge against Jesus to be a skilfully-framed falsehood. But he was
prepossessed in his favor, and more than willing to disappoint his accusers.
He left Jesus, and went out again to the pavement, or terrace, before his
palace. By this time a rabble of citizens had gathered, among whom the
partisans of the Sanhedrim were scattered, artfully exciting them against
Jesus, as one who had deceived the people and threatened to destroy the
temple. Probably a small number of his friends were also among the
crowd, bewildered and shocked to find their Master handed over to the
Roman power. But when Pilate was seen all were still; a few in breath-
less hope, the many in silent hatred.
" I find in him no fault at all," said the governor. A thrill of great joy
must have run through the heart of John, who had followed his Lord
faithfully. But a fierce clamor began; and the chief priests wrould not
suffer their accusation to fall to the ground.
" He stirreth up the people," they cried, "teaching throughout all Jewry,
beginning from Galilee, even to this place."
Here was a loop-hole for Pilate to escape from his difficulty. If Jesus
came from Galilee, he belonged to Herod's jurisdiction. Herod was come
up to the passover; and Pilate would pay him a compliment by referring
the case to him. They were not friends at this moment, probably because of
62
978 Bible and Commentator.
those Galileans whom Pilate had slain during one of the riots at some feast;
but the Koman governor was anxious to be at peace with him. He there-
fore sent Jesus to Herod, who had for a long time wished to see the famous
prophet of his own country, whose miracles were noised abroad so much.
The priests and scribes violently accused him before Herod ; but Jesus
spoke not a word. He had never before seen the face of the man who had
murdered John the Baptist in prison; and none of his questions would he
answer, though he answered Pilate's. But even Herod dared not condemn
him to death on charges so frivolous and false as those urged against him.
He had already exasperated his people by John's assassination, and he could
not venture to return to Galilee stained with the blood of Jesus. Yet he
would not offend the Sanhedrim by releasing the prisoner; and he deter-
mined to send him again to Pilate. But to gratify his own paltry pique
and disappointment, and to cast ridicule upon Christ, he arrayed him in a
gorgeous robe, and joined with his men of war in mocking him, before send-
ing him back.
Pilate was troubled by the return of the prisoner and his accusers. He
knew that the leading men of the nation were unfriendly to him. They
had already succeeded in bringing him into difficulties with his emperor, and
they were eager to have him disgraced and removed. Yet he shrank from
the injustice of putting Jesus to death. There was one chance left in an
appeal to the people^ who had so lately assisted in his triumphal entry in
Jerusalem. He called them together, with the chief priests and elders, and
said, "Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the
people, and, behold, I, having examined him, find no fault in him at all,
concerning those things whereof ye accuse him; no, nor yet Herod, for I
sent you to him, and lo, nothing worthy of death is found in him. I will
therefore chastise him and let him go."
It had of late years been the custom of the governor to allow the people
at this feast to choose a prisoner, whom they would, who was immediately
set free. There was a notorious man lying in prison at this time, guilty
of robbery, sedition, and murder. The chief priests suggested to them
that they should choose Barabbas. A loud uproar was made, all crying
out at once, "Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas." But
Pilate, still willing to save Jesus, yet desirous to sneer at the accusations
made by the Sanhedrim, asked them, " Will ye that I release unto you
the King of the Jews?" The taunt irritated the mob, and they shouted,
"Crucify him; crucify him." "Why, what evil hath he done?" pleaded
The Woxdeeful Life. 979
Pilate. But they cried out the more exceedingly, with loud voices,
"Crucify him."
Yet still Pilate seems to have had a lingering hope that the punishment
of scourging, which was at once most painful and degrading, might satisfy
their enmity. He delivered Christ to his soldiers, who platted a crown
of thorns, and put a reed into his hand as a sceptre; he was still wearing
the gorgeous robe in which Herod had sent him back to Pilate, and thus,
after he had been scourged, he was brought forth for the mob to see him.
"Behold the man," said Pilate. It was he whom they had seen healing
the lame and blind in the temple, and to whom they had listened gladly
not long ago; for it was amongst the poorest and most wretched of the
people that his mighty works had been wrought. But at the sight of him
a maddened yell arose, "Away with him! away with him! crucify him!
crucify him ! " Their violence prevailed. But Pilate still shrank from
taking upon himself the guilt of such a crime against justice. He had just
received a message from his wife: "Have thou nothing to do with that just
man ; for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him."
He may not have been superstitious, but he felt it would be painful to
return to her stained with the blood of an innocent man for whom she had
interceded, with no other excuse than that the people of Jerusalem were
too strong for him. " Take ye him, and crucify him, for I find no fault in
him," he said.
This did not suit the priestly party at all. Their law did not permit of
crucifixion, and they were bent upon this degrading punishment. Neither
did they wish to incur the odium of bloodshed, though they did not shrink
from the guilt of it. In their anxiety to urge Pilate on, they forgot for a
moment their political charge against Jesus, and returned to their religious
accusation. "He made himself the Son of God," they cried, "and by our
law he ought to die." Upon this Pilate returned into the judgment-hall,
and had Jesus brought again to him. "Whence art thou?" he asked.
But he was silent; and Pilate, astonished and somewhat indignant at his
silence, reminded him that he had power to release him or to crucify him.
This was no longer true. He had lost his power by not exerting it at once,
and he felt it. He could not let Jesus go now, without stirring up a riot
of a desperate character in Jerusalem. Jesus answered him in words almost
of sympathy, that he could have no power at all against him, unless it had
been permitted; and that his sin was small compared with that of the
Sanhedrim.
980 Bible and Commentator.
Again Pilate sought to release him. But the people cried out, "If thou
let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend : whosoever maketh himself
a king, speaketh against Caesar." This cry at once sealed the doom of
Christ. Pilate ordered his judgment-seat to be set on the pavement before
the judgment-hall. When Jesus came forth again, he said, "Behold your
King!" A wilder shout than ever rang in the ears of Christ: the shouts
of those for whom he had spent his life. " What, shall I crucify your
King?" asked Pilate. " We have no king but Caesar," answered the chief
priests.
Then fearing, and seeing that he could not prevail against fanatics who
could utter such an answer, Pilate took water, and washed his hands before
the multitude.
"lam innocent of the blood of this just person," he said ; "see ye to it."
"His blood be on us, and on our children," answered all the people.
CHAPTER VII.
Calvary.
NO time was lost between the passing of the verdict and the execution
of it. The cross was ready; and two thieves were only waiting for
this trial to close before they met their punishment. Calvary was not far
from Pilate's palace; it was only just beyond the city walls, near the high-
way leading from one of the gates. Christ was in the hands of the Roman
soldiers; but the chief priests and elders could not trust them to do their
work unwatched. The cross was laid upon him, but he was too feeble and
worn-out to bear it; and when he sank under it, the soldiers seized upon a
man, coming in from the country, and him they compelled to carry the
cross to Calvary. Whether the man was a disciple or not, we are not told :
but no doubt there were many disciples by this time mingling with the
crowd, who would willingly have borne the cross after Jesus. There were
many women among the people, who bewailed and lamented him openly;
daughters of Jerusalem, who had not turned against him as the fickle mob
had done. Possibly it was wThen he sank under the weight of his cross
that their lamentation broke out most loudly; and Jesus turned to them,
and said, " Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your chil-
dren." The fate of the guilty city was heavier to him than his cross. It
The Wonderful Life. 981
was still early in the day; about the hour when the morning sacrifice was
offered. He was nailed upon the cross; and as it was lifted and let fall
into the hole prepared for it, a moment of extreme torture, he cried,
" Father, forgive them ; they know not what they do." After this was
done, the four soldiers, whose duty it was to watch under the cross until
the person upon it was dead, began their usual custom of dividing the
clothing among them. A title also was brought to be put over the head
of the criminal, giving his name and crime. Pilate had sent for the cross
of Christ, written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin, so that all should be
able to read it, this title, " Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." It
irritated and offended the chief priests; but Pilate would not have it altered
into "He said, I am the King of the Jews."
The haste with which the trial and the execution had been hurried on
makes it probable that not many of the Galileans knew of the arrest of their
prophet. Some of them possibly knew nothing of it until they heard that
he was dead. But as the terrible tidings ran through the city, those who
heard it would speed to Calvary with despair in their hearts, to find him
whom they loved and trusted in hanging upon a cross between two thieves,
with a circle of enemies around him, even of chief priests and elders, mocking
at him and jibing him. The soldiers at the foot casting lots over that
priestly robe of his, which his mother had woven without seam ; and the
title over his head, " Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews : " the unclouded
sun, growing hotter and hotter every minute, shining down upon all the
fearful scene, as it was shining on their own beloved lake and hills of Galilee.
John had been near him all the time. Now three women forced their
way through the circle of mocking priests ; Mary, his mother, Mary
Cleophas, her sister, and Mary of Magdalene. Other women from Galilee
stood afar off, watching through the ^ weary hours. Peter, perhaps, was
somewhere on the outskirts of the crowd, seeing, though not daring to go
near him, whom he had denied thrice. Possibly Judas himself was drawn
thither, against his will, to look once more on him whom he had betrayed
with a kiss.
The sun shone hot and clear. When they brought Jesus to the place of
execution, they had offered to him a drugged draught, which was given to
criminals to dull their sense of pain ; but having tasted thereof, he would
not drink. He could see, and hear, and feel as keenly as when he had been
in his quiet home in Nazareth. The mocking faces of the chief priests ; the
unconcerned faces of the soldiers ; the soul-strickened face of his mother ;
" There were also women looking on afar off." — Mark xv.
40.
982
The Wonderful Life. 983
his eyes rested upon, as they looked up to him from below. His ears heard
the jeering of the people as they went to and fro along the highway, reviling
him, and saying, "Ah! thou that destroyest the temple!" Now and then
the blast of the silver trumpets and the voice of song from the temple
reached him. After a while the first pangs of bodily pain had dulled a
little; and he could again show his compassion and tenderness for others.
The thieves hanging, where James and John had wished to sit, the one on
his right hand, the other on his left, had reviled him as well as his enemies.
" If thou be the Christ, save thyself and us," they cried. But one of them,
lifting up his dim eyes to the face of Christ, and to the title above his head,
saw that it was Jesus of Nazareth who was suffering death with them.
" Dost thou not fear God ? " he cried to his fellow-thief, "seeing thou art
in the same condemnation. And we indeed justly, for we receive the due
reward of our deeds ; but this man hath done nothing amiss." Jesus of
Nazareth, King of the Jews ! There was one, even here, ready to own him
King. " Lord," said the dying thief, " remember me when thou comest
into thy kingdom." " Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with
me in Paradise," answered Jesus. Before the sun, which was now beating
upon the shameful crosses where they hung, had gone down into the western
sea, both of them would be in Paradise ! His mother heard him say it as
she stood beneath his cross.
But Jesus knew his worst anguish was yet to 'come, worse than the pain
he felt in his body, or the bitterness of the contempt poured upon him, and
he would not have his mother witness it. She had borne much, and per-
haps could not bear more, and live. We can well believe no other being
on earth was so dear to him. None had shared his whole life as she had
done; none could understand him, and his purpose, so well. Did he not
remember their home in Nazareth, where the peaceful, monotonous days
followed one another so quietly that she had almost forgotten whose son he
was? All was over between them now: there was but one more duty for
him to discharge : one more look for her to take of her son Jesus. John
stood near to her: his youngest and best beloved disciple. Looking down
upon them, with his matchless tenderness, he said to her, " Woman, behold
thy son." "Behold thy mother ! " he said to John. She looked up to him
as his failing, loving voice fell upon her ear : and she understood him, and
his love, better than she had ever done before. The look that passed
between them was their farewell. John led her away from the cross to his
own dwelling-place ; and the last earthly care was gone from the heart of
Jesus.
'And from that hour, that disciple took her unto his own home." — John xix. 27.
984
The Wonderful Life. 985
About noon a strange gloom spread over those skies, usually so blue and
cloudless. There was darkness over all the land until the hour for the
evening sacrifice. Probably the crowd melted away in fear of a coming
tempest, or in dread of the inexplicable obscurity ; and we do not find that
the chief priests lingered longer on Calvary. An extraordinary anguish, a
mysterious darkness, as of despair, filled the heart and mind of Christ. His
soul, which in Gethsemane had been sorrowful even unto death, was now
poured out unto death. He had borne the mockery of the people, had seen
them stare upon him with cruel eyes, and heard their roaring against him.
But now God seemed to hide his face from him, and to hearken no longer to
his cry. This he could not bear; his heart was breaking under this sorrow.
He cried with a loud voice, which rang mournfully through the darkness,
" My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? " There were still about
the cross some Jews who could make jest of this awful cry. They knew
Elias was to come to prepare the way for the Messiah, and they said, " Be-
hold, he calleth Elias ! " Jesus, whose last moment was at hand, and whose
throat was parched, cried, " I thirst." One of them, touched with pity, ran
and took a sponge, and, filling it with vinegar, lifted it to his mouth on a
reed. But the rest cried, "Let him be ; let us see whether Elias will come
to save him, and to take him down."
It was now the hour of the evening sacrifice. Once again Christ was
heard to say, " It is finished." Then with a loud voice, he cried, " Father,
into thy hands I commend my spirit." He bowed his head and died. He
gave up his spirit, bruised and tormented, and poured out unto death, into
his Father's hands.
CHAPTER VIII.
In the Grave.
A T the third hour, when Jesus was dying on Calvary, the priest was
-*—*- offering up incense in the holy place of the temple. All the con-
gregation, and the sacrificing priest in the outer court, were waiting for him
to reappear. Suddenly an earthquake shook both the temple mount and
the whole city of Jerusalem. The veil, which separated the holy place from
the holiest of holies, was rent in two, from the top to the bottom, laying
open the sacred spot, which none ever entered except the high-priest on the
Dav of Atonement.
986 Bible and Commentator.
On Calvary, those who had gathered to see the sight were at last terrified,
and returned to the city, smiting upon their breasts. The centurion in
command of the Roman soldiers, who had probably watched and listened to
the dying prophet with interest, was struck with fear, and said, " Truly this
was the Son of God!"
But before sunset, the Pharisees, always very scrupulous not to break the
law, came to Pilate, and besought him that all three of those who were
being crucified should be put to death at once, because the next day was a
Sabbath, and their bodies ought not to be hanging on the crosses on the
Sabbath day. The soldiers were ordered to despatch the dying men by
breaking their legs; but wThen they came to Jesus, and found that he was
dead already, they refrained from mutilating his body ; yet, lest any spark
of life lingered which might be fanned into a flame, one of them pierced his
side with a spear. Thus they made sure that he was dead.
In the meantime another applicant had gone to Pilate. This was Joseph
of Arimathea, a well-known man, rich, honorable, and good, one of the
Sanhedrim itself, though he had not consented to the death of Christ. He
was a timid man, and a secret disciple ; but shocked by the deeds of his
fellow-councillors, he went boldly in to Pilate, and begged that he might
take away the body of Jesus. Pilate marvelled whether he were yet dead,
and called the centurion to ask him if it were so. He then willingly granted
the body to Joseph, who had already provided himself with fine linen for
the entombment. When he returned to Calvary, Nicodemus accompanied
him, bringing a large quantity of spices. The women from Galilee were
lingering about the place ; and now, in the cool and gloom of the evening,
they took the body down from the cross, and wrapped it, with the spices
scattered amid the folds, in the linen cloth. Close by was a garden belong-
ing to Joseph, and in it a new tomb, which he had hewn for himself in the
midst of his garden. No man had ever lain in it. No taint of death pol-
luted it. Here they buried their Lord hastily, for the Sabbath was near.
Mary Cleophas and Mary Magdalene sat close by, watching, but perhaps
too overcome with grief to give any active assistance. The women from
Galilee also saw the sepulchre, and how his body was lain. Then all of them
returned to the city, to prepare spices and ointments for the embalming of
the corpse as soon as the Sabbath was over.
The enemies of Christ had not been prepared for this honorable burial of
their victim. If Joseph of Arimathea had not interfered, his body would
have been carried away from Calvary, with those of the thieves, and care-
The Wonderful Life. 987
lessly laid in a common grave, where criminals, who had died a shameful
death, were flung together. The followers of Jesus, poor obscure Galileans,
could not have had influence enough to save the corpse from this degrading
fate. But the Sanhedrim found that two of their own chief men, startled
by their fierceness and injustice into open discipleship, had interposed
promptly to claim the body of their Lord, and to lay it in the new tomb of
a rich man, amidst the cool and quiet fragrance of a garden, where those
who loved him might visit his resting-place unnoticed and unmolested.
The Sabbath was come ; a high day. The Sabbath of the passover was
no doubt the most important of all the weekly Sabbaths in the year. The
immense multitudes that thronged Jerusalem, and dwelt even in tents out-
side the walls, because there was not room enough in the city, filled the
temple courts, and crowded into the synagogues. Sabbath days were
especially days of feasting and rejoicing with the Jews ; friends met together;
no work at all was done ; both men and women were dressed in their best
apparel, and desired to see and to be seen. Probably, too, this Sabbath fell
upon the day for waving the first-fruits before Jehovah. At the hour when
Christ was buried, a sheaf of standing corn had been reaped with special
rites for the purpose in a field near Jerusalem ; and possibly this ceremony
had been one reason why Joseph and Nicodemus had been left undisturbed
in their burial of the body.
How the friends of Jesus passed this mournful day we can only faintly
imagine. "Whether there was any brighter hope, or more perfect under-
standing, in Mary's mind jof what was to follow, we do not know. But the
rest were insensible to every consolation ; they forgot altogether the words
Jesus had spoken to them about rising again. They had so long refused to
believe that he would give himself up to death that now they were too
stunned to remember that he had promised to return to them.
But Christ's enemies did not forget this. Towards the close of the
Sabbath the chief priests and leading Pharisees came together to Pilate.
One tremor had seized upon them in their hour of triumph. "Sir,
we remember," they said, "that that deceiver said, while he was yet
alive, After three days I will rise again. Command, therefore, that the
sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by
night and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the
dead : so the last error shall be worse than the first." Pilate cared little
for any error, but he could not afford to offend the chief priests. " Ye have a
watch," he answered, " go your way, make it as sure as ye can." The watch
988 Bible and Commentator.
consisted of Roman soldiers, not of the temple guard, who, as Jews, could
not touch a sepulchre without being defiled. The soldiers made the
sepulchre sure, sealing the stone ; and when the watch was set, the priests
and Pharisees went their way, satisfied that no second error could arise to
deceive the people. It was the Sabbath, and therefore it was unlawful to
touch the dead, or they might have removed the body to the common
grave of executed criminals.
No doubt there must have been much discussion that day throughout
Jerusalem. None of these things which had come to pass were done in a
corner, in some remote place in Galilee, but in the holy city itself, during
the passover week. Jesus was well known as a prophet of the most blame-
less life. Every one had heard before, or heard then, of Lazarus, who was
probably hiding from the malice of the chief priests and Pharisees. Rumors
would run along, from one to another, of the indecent haste with which the
execution had been hurried on. The bargain with the traitor would be
whispered about ; the midnight arrest in Gethsemane ; the meeting of the
Sanhedrim, not in the temple, but in the high-priest's palace: the early and
hasty trial before Pilate, and the swift execution of the sentence : all these
would be discussed passionately in favor of, or against Christ, during the
leisure of that Sabbath. Thousands among them were disappointed. Those
who were not the professed followers of Jesus had been ready to follow him,
if he would but make himself intelligible to them. They were longing for
a Messiah ; and if he had been such a Messiah as they expected, and could
understand, they would have joyfully flocked under his banner, and fought
for his kingdom. But he, who might have been dwelling in regal splendor
under the roof of the royal palace, had been hung upon a shameful cross
between two thieves. They had seen the end of Jesus of Nazareth — a bitter,
ignominious death. Was he not, then, what the chief rulers of the people
called him, a deceiver ?
CHAPTER IX.
The Sepulchre.
N Friday evening, while Joseph and Nicodemus were laying the body
of the Lord in the grave, his aunt, Mary Cleophas, and Mary of
Magdala were sitting over against the sepulchre, watching. The other
women from Galilee also saw the place where he was laid. Probably they
o
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all returned to the city together, to buy spices and ointments for the
embalming; and before they separated made arrangements for meeting again
early, after the Sabbath was ended. As nothing could be done before day-
break, we may easily conjecture that they agreed to meet soon after the
dawn, either in the garden itself, or by the city gate nearest to it.
But upon Sunday morning, whilst it was yet dark, over-early or before
the appointed time, Mary Magdalene and Mary Cleophas, restless in their
sorrow, started off to see the sepulchre beforehand. On their way they
were joined by Salome, the mother of John, who was probably staying in
the same house as Mary, the mother of Jesus. They had bought sweet
spices, but the other women were to bring them to the sepulchre. No
light yet shone in the sky, except the first faint gray of the morning in the
east. But possibly they may have seen a sudden light gleaming in the
direction of the garden, and felt the shock of an earthquake, like that which
had rent the rocks on Friday. If so, they would naturally pause for a
while, terrified; yet, when all was calm again, and the quiet dawn grew
stronger, waking up the birds, whose twittering was the only sound to be
heard, they would go on, though troubled and trembling, to the sepulchre.
But what had caused the shock of earthquake ? The Roman guard,
possibly the same that had watched under the cross, and divided the Lord's
garments among them, were already looking forward to being relieved from
their watch, when they saw an angel, whose face was like lightning,
descend from the dark heavens above them, and they felt the earth quake
and tremble beneath their feet. He rolled back the stone from the
sepulchre they were guarding : and for fear of him they became as dead
men. They saw nothing else than the bright, awful face and the glistening
whiteness of the form that sat on the stone near them. They did not see
Christ quit his tomb.
By the time the two Marys and Salome reached the garden, the dawn
was light enough for them to see objects at some distance. They do not
seem to have known of the guard being set to watch the grave ; for their
talk was only of the difficulty of removing the large stone which filled the
opening of the cave. Probably their special purpose in coming to view the
sepulchre was to ascertain whether the women alone could roll it away, and
effect an entrance without aid. On Friday evening, in the twilight, and
overwhelmed as they were with grief, they had not sufficiently noticed this
difficulty. Now, as they drew near, what was their amazement and dismay
to see the stone already removed^ and the cave open !
990 Bible and Commentator.
Their fears sprang to one conclusion, and only one. The beloved body
of their Lord had been violently taken away — stolen by his implacable
enemies — during the night. It had been still further degraded and dis-
honored by being cast into the common grave of criminals. Mary
Magdalene, leaving the other Mary and Salome, fled back into the city to
seek Peter and John, and arouse them to help, if help were not too late.
Very probably these two disciples were lodging in the same house ; for at
the time of the feasts every dwelling in Jerusalem was crowded with guests.
" They have taken away the Lord," cried Mary, when she found them,
" and we know not where they have laid him."
In the meantime Mary Cleophas and Salome went on to the sepulchre.
They were women past middle life, with the calmness and passiveness of
years and sorrows, and they did not shrink from entering into the sepulchre.
They had set out, indeed, with the intention of preparing the body for a
second burial. But there was no lifeless corpse there. They were affrighted,
however, by seeing an angel, clothed in white, sitting on the right side.
" Fear not," he said to them, " for I know that ye seek Jesus, who was
crucified. He is not here » he is arisen. Come, see the place where the
Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples and Peter that he is risen
from the dead; and behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye
see him, as he said unto you. Lo, I have told you." Salome and Mary
Cleophas fled from the sepulchre trembling and amazed ; and probably
passing by John and Peter in their bewilderment, they said nothing to
them about what they had seen, but went on into the city, in fear and great
joy, to bring the disciples word.
Now, when they were going, some, but not all, of the Boman guard
hastened to the chief priests, and told them what had come to pass. A
council was immediately summoned; and, after much discussion, they seem
to have persuaded themselves that the soldiers had been sleeping, and that,
as they slept, the disciples had stolen away the body. The guard owned to
having been like dead men from fright; and none of them professed to have
seen Jesus leave the grave. The council gave them large sums of money
to spread about this report, which they did so successfully, that those who
thought better of the testimony of two or three heathen soldiers than of that
of hundreds of their own countrymen, who had nothing to gain but every-
thing to lose by their testimony, believed the saying, and commonly reported
it as a fact.
Very shortly after Salome and Mary Cleophas left the grave, John and
The Wonderful Life. 991
Peter reached it. John had outrun Peter, but with the sensitive shrinking
of a young nature, unused to death, he did not go in. Stooping down, he
saw the linen clothes, that fine linen Joseph had prepared, lying on the floor
of the cave. It was quite evident his Master was not there. But Peter,
coming up, stepped at once into the sepulchre, to look round it. There was
no sign of haste or violence, as there must have been if a band of rough
foes had trampled in to steal away the body. The fair linen cloth was
unsoiled, and the napkin that had been bound about the worn and
anguished face had been wrapped together, as if his mother's gentle hands
had folded it up tenderly, and laid it aside by itself. There was nothing
terrifying about the quiet, empty tomb; and John, with all his sensitive love
for his Lord, might enter and feel no shock. He also went in, and looking
round, felt a gleam of faith, like the dawn of a new and splendid day,
breaking upon him. But they could not linger in the empty grave. Mary,
the mother of Jesus, ought to hear these strange tidings ; and they went
away to tell her.
Now, Mary Magdalene stood without, at the door of the cave, weeping.
Like John, she did not venture to go in. She was alone ; Peter and John
were gone, and the other women were not yet come. The garden was a
solitude. Nothing had occurred to deliver her from her agonizing fears.
To her it was her Lord, not his body merely, that they had taken away.
The hurried departure of Peter and John, and the absence of Salome and
Mary Cleophas, must have confirmed her suspicions. She stooped down, as
John had done, to look at the place where he had lain. There was the
spot where his thorn-crowned head had been pillowed, and his pierced feet
had rested. But the grave was no longer empty. At the feet, and the
head, where the body of Jesus had lain, sat two angels, bending over the
place, as if still watching him, just as she would have sat and watched him
if she might but have stayed beside him, even in the sepulchre. The angels
neither astonished nor affrighted her ; she was too engrossed in her sorrow.
" Woman, why weepest thou?" they asked. She answered them without
fear — the only human being who has spoken to angels with no tremor —
"Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have
laid him." She even turned away from them, as from those who could
give her no comfort, while her Lord was lost. Dimly through her tears
she saw some one standing near her, and heard the same question, " Woman,
why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?" These last words gave her
the idea that it must be the gardener, who would know all that had taken
992 Bible and Commentator.
place in the garden under his care. " Sir/' she cried, " if thou have borne
him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, that I may take him away."
She had but one thought in her mind : where was her Lord ?
"Mary/' said the voice behind her — a familiar voice ; and she turned
quickly, crying gladly, passionately, "Kabboni!" He called her from the
abyss of despair to a rapture of joy beyond words. She sprang towards
him to touch him, to make sure that it was he himself whom she had seen
die upon the cross. In a moment she was back again to the happy hours
in Galilee, when she had ministered unto him, before all this agony came.
As before, one thought alone possessed her soul. Here was her Master, he
who had saved her in the old bad days.
But Christ was not the same. A solemn change had passed over him,
which must alter all his relations with his old friends. She was too excited
to feel this ; but his first words arrested her. " Touch me not," he said ;
possibly meaning, " Stay not to touch me now, for I am not yet ascending
unto my Father; but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto
my Father, and your Father ; unto my God, and your God." He was
their elder brother, who could remain with them but a little while, and then
they would see him no more, but he would represent them in the Father's
house, where he was going to prepare a place for them. Mary knew she
also should see him again ; and when he vanished out of her sight, she
stayed not a moment longer at the sepulchre, but went to tell them she had
seen the Lord.
All these circumstances had followed one another rapidly ; and it may be
that the women who were to bring the spices and ointments had been de-
layed, or perhaps had waited some little time for Salome and the two
Marys at the appointed place of meeting. Joanna, the wife of Herod's
steward, was the chief person among them, as the woman of greatest wealth
and rank. They were not at allsurprised at finding the stone rolled back
from the door of the sepulchre, supposing that it had been done on purpose
for them. But they found the body they had come to embalm taken away.
This very much perplexed them ; though they were not afraid until they
saw two men standing by them, in shining garments. So terrified were
they, that they bowed their faces to the earth before them. The angels
said to them, as if marvelling at these repeated visits to the grave, " Why
seek ye the living among the dead ? He is not here, but is risen ; remem-
ber how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, saying, ' The Son
of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified>
The Wonderful Life. 993
and the third day rise again/ " Then the women remembered these words,
wondering at their own forgetfulness. They returned at once to the city ;
and as they were not likely to single out Peter or John, as Mary Magda-
lene had done, to be the first hearers of their tidings, they went quickly to
some common place of meeting among the disciples, and there found a
large party assembled, which had been probably called together by Peter,
to hear that the body of the Lord was gone no one knew whither. The
women told the vision they had seen ; but the disciples could not believe
them, and their words seemed as idle tales. Peter, however, hearing of
the appearance of angels, arose, and ran again to the sepulchre for the
second time; but stooping down, he saw no such vision, only the linen
clothes laid as he had seen them before. He returned to the assembly of
the disciples, full of wonder at what had come to pass.
It is natural to suppose that Mary Magdalene, who had hastened to
John's house when she knew the grave was open, would also go there after
she bad seen Christ. Mary, his mother, would thus hear first of the
appearance of her Son. Finding there that Peter and John had left to call
together the disciples at some appointed place, Mary Magdalene followed
them ; and soon after Joanna and the women from Galilee had told of
their vision of angels, she entered to relate the appearance of the Lord
himself to her in the garden. She had even a message to deliver to them.
But the incredulous and bewildered disciples could not believe her, and
probably said among themselves that grief had distracted her mind. When
Peter returned from the sepulchre, having seen nothing, this conviction
would naturally be deepened.
But presently Mary Cleophas and Salome, the aunt of Jesus, and the
mother of James and John, women not likely to be deceived, or to mistake
a stranger for their Lord, came in with another account of having seen him,
and of receiving a message from him for his brethren. But still the in-
credulous disciples refused to believe. Mary Magdalene owned that she
had not touched Jesus, had indeed been forbidden to touch him ; but these
two women declared that they had not only met him, but that when they
heard his greeting, they had fallen down to worship him, being afraid, and
had held him by his feet. "Be not afraid," he had said, "go, tell my
brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me."
There was this excuse for the unbelief of the disciples that as yet the only
manifestations, either of angels or of the Lord himself, had been to women,
who are always more excited, and more open to superstitious fancies, in
63
994 Bible and Commentator.
hours of sorrow, than men are. The simple facts, as known to the disciples,
were, that the sepulchre was open at daybreak, and the body of their Master
missing. Who had broken open the grave they could not tell ; but their
suspicion must have been that some enemy had done it.
The news spread rapidly throughout Jerusalem, and no doubt crowds of
curious spectators flocked to the garden to see the open tomb. Amongst
them the partisans of the Sanhedrim diligently spread the report that the
body was stolen away by the disciples, while the guard slept. It would be
no longer prudent for the well-known followers of Jesus to be seen near
Calvary and Gethsemane ; but those who were less marked among his
friends probably mingled with the throng, and from time to time brought
tidings to the assembly of disciples of what was going on. The hours
wore away, and still they were in perplexity and unbelief. Three women
only had seen him ; one of these had not touched him, and the other two
had been so bewildered and amazed, as to have kept their interview with
him to themselves, until after Mary Magdalene had given her account.
CHAPTER X.
Emmaus.
"YTT"HEN the disciples were first called together by Peter and John,
▼ V there were among them two friends, one of whom was named
Cleophas, not the husband of Mary, but probably a native of Emmaus,
a village about nine miles from the city. They were present when the
party of Galilean women, with Joanna, came to tell of seeing two angels in
the sepulchre. Possibly they went with Peter, when he ran a second time
to the grave ; but they did not return with him, as they did not hear the
statement of Mary Magdalene, or of Salome and Mary Cleophas. Very
likely they lingered about the garden amongst the crowd, listening to
the various guesses and rumors concerning the strange event, until it was
time to start on their long walk homewards. Calvary lay north or north-
east of the city walls, and Emmaus to the east ; there was no need therefore
for them to return through the busy streets, where they might have heard
that their risen Lord had appeared to, not one, but three of the women,
who had loved him so faithfully, and ministered to him so long. Sad,
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though it was a feast time when joyousness was a duty, these men might
well be.
It is a toilsome road, and the afternoon sun beat hot upon them. But
they heeded neither the heat of the sun nor the roughness of the road.
They were reasoning and pondering over the events that had followed
quickly upon one another, since they had entered Jerusalem to eat the feast
of the passover. There had been the betrayal, the arrest, the mock trial
before the Sanhedrim, the real trial before Pilate, the scourging, the cruci-
fixion, the darkness at noon-day, and earthquake, all hurried one upon
another. They might well be sad and downcast as they communed about
these things.
Presently a stranger, journeying the same toilsome road, drew near and
asked them how it was they could be thus sorrowful during the feast.
Cleophas answered him, "Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast
not known the things that are come to pass there in these days?" All
Jerusalem was busy about them, and this stranger, who seemed to be
coming from the city, might surely guess what they were talking about.
Yet he said, " What things?" And now Cleophas, concluding that he was
indeed a stranger, told him of Jesus of Nazareth, the mighty prophet, who
had been condemned to death by the Great Sanhedrim, their rulers. "But
we trusted," he went on, sorrowfully, " that it had been he that should
have redeemed Israel." Then he narrated how certain women had aston-
ished them that morning, who did not find his body in the sepulchre, but
came saying they had seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive.
" But him they saw not," added Cleophas to the stranger walking at
his side.
" O foolish men ! " he answered gently, " and slow of heart to believe all
that the prophets have spoken ! Ought not Christ to have suffered these
things, and to enter into his glory ? " They, like all other Jews, were well
versed in the writings of Moses and the prophets ; but as this stranger
explained to them passages perfectly familiar to them, they stood out in a
new light, with deeper meaning than any they had had before. Their
hearts, slow to believe, burned within them. Was it, then, true that Jesus
was that Holy One whose soul should not be left in hell, nor his flesh see
corruption ? The long road seemed short ; the rocky path no longer rugged
to their feet; the heat of the sun was unfelt. How fast the time fled!
How quickly Emmaus was seen on its hill before them ! Who could this
stranger be, so wise and gracious, wThom they loved already, and could listen
to unweariedly, almost as if he wTere the Lord himself?
996 Bible and Commentator.
They were close to the village now, and he made as though he would
have gone farther; but they could not part with him yet, stranger though
he was. It was getting on for evening, and the day was far spent.
"Abide with us," said both of them ; and he went into tarry with them, as
they hoped, until the morning. He had charmed away their sadness, and
taught them what they had never known before. How gladly would they
minister to this new friend ! When they sat down to supper they set him
in the most honorable place, to preside over their evening meal. He took
bread, blessing and breaking it with some words or gesture peculiar to Christ
and gave it to them, as he had been wont to do when he sat at meat with
his disciples. Now their eyes were no longer holden that they should not
know him. It was he himself; their crucified and risen Lord. For one
brief, glad moment they saw his beloved face, and the pierced hands, which
had given to them the bread. Then he vanished out of their sight ; but
this was yet another proof to them that it was indeed the Lord.
At once they rose up to return to Jerusalem, thinking nothing of the long
walk and the coming night, when they had such tidings to carry to the
disciples, and the mother and kinsmen of Christ. It must have been late
when they reached the city, but they found ten of the apostles, with a num-
ber of the disciples, gathered together, though with closed doors, and pre-
cautions taken, for fear of the Pharisees. Who was there? The women
probably, Lazarus from Bethany, Nicodemus, perhaps, and Joseph of
Arimathea, whose garden had been trampled by so many feet that day.
There was great agitation among them still. Had the body of Jesus been
stolen away from the grave? Was it not his spirit only which had been
seen by the women ? Even Peter, who had also now seen the Lord, the
apostle who denied him being the first to whom he revealed himself; Peter
could hardly believe that it was his Master, and not a spirit. Yet when
the two disciples from Emmaus entered, they were met by the cry, " The
Lord has arisen indeed, and appeared unto Simon." But Cleophas and his
companion had something more to tell of than a mere brief appearance.
They described the stranger joining them, and walking mile after mile with
them, conversing all the while familiarly ; how he went into tarry with
them, and sat down to meat, and was known to them in the breaking of
bread. This the disciples could not believe. Cleophas and his friend do
not seem to have been very renowned followers of Jesus, and the other
disciples were hard of belief. Those among them who had seen him had
caught but brief glimpses of him. Mary Magdalene had not been allowed
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to touch him; Salome and his aunt Mary had only held his feet; to Peter
he had appeared certainly, but not in this homely manner as a fellow-
traveller along the same rough way.
They were still speaking incredulously about these new tidings, when sud-
denly, with no opening of the fastened doors, and no sound of entering,
they saw Jesus himself standing in the midst of them, and heard his voice,
saying, " Peace be unto you." But they were terrified and affrighted, sup-
posing that they saw a spirit. There was none bold enough to try to touch
him, and no one dared to speak. With great gentleness and tenderness he
reproached them. " Behold my hands and my feet," he said, showing them
the print of the nails ; " handle me, and see. It is I myself. A spirit hath
not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." Their terror and trouble were
pacified, but still they were not calm enough for faith. They could not
now believe for joy. But to give them time to collect themselves, he asked
for food, as once before he had commanded something to eat to be given to
the ruler's little daughter, when he called her back from the grave. He ate
before them, a convincing proof that he was no spirit; and then he was
seen no more by them. But there was no room for unbelief among them
now. The load upon their hearts, like the great stone of the sepulchre, was
rolled away forever. Their Lord was arisen indeed.
CHAPTER XL
It is the Lord.
THOUGH the chief priests and Pharisees carefully reported that the
disciples had stolen the body of Jesus of Nazareth, they took no steps
to prove the fact, or to punish the violators of the grave. The whole num-
ber of the disciples remained in Jerusalem during the feast, and the Sabbath
following the feast. Even on the first day of the week after it, when the
bulk of the Galileans had started homewards, the eleven apostles still lin-
gered in the city. Thomas, who had vehemently refused to believe in the
resurrection of his Master because he had not seen him, had passed the
week in alternate mourning and disputing with those who vainly sought to
convince him. He saw Mary, the mother of Christ, comforted, and full of
gladness; his fellow-disciples rejoicing and exultant; yet to all they urged
he answered, " Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put
The Wonderful Life. 999
my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I
will not believe." It was a miserable week for him, for he was deeply
attached to his crucified Master, and timid and despondent as he was, he
had once said, " Let us also go, that we may die with him." But he could
not be persuaded that he had risen from the dead.
Eight days had passed since Jesus had been seen ; and the eleven apostles
were sitting together, the doors being shut for fear of the Pharisees, as on
the week before, when once more he s'.ood in their midst, with no sign or
sound of coming, and said, " Peace be unto you." Then turning to
Thomas, and speaking directly to him, he added, "Reach hither thy
finger, and behold my hands, and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into
my side, and be not faithless, but believing." But he did not now need
the evidence he had demanded ; it was enough to see his Master, and
hear him speak. Jesus wished to prove to him he was the very Son of
man, who had died upon the cross. Thomas cried, " My Lord and my
God!"
The apostles no longer lingered in Jerusalem. They were needed in their
homes in Galilee, and it was safer for them to assemble together there,
where the chief priests had less power than in Judaea. Moreover, there
would be many arrangements to make for their families, before they could
set out on those missionary journeys which soon scattered them into far
countries. They scarcely yet knew what their Lord would have them to
do, but for a short time longer they were sent to dwell in their own homes,
among their own people, following their old trades amid familiar scenes.
Seven of them were dwelling near Capernaum, on the shores of the lake,
where they had earned their livelihood by fishing. Peter said to his com-
rades, one evening after their return from Jerusalem, "I go a fishing."
Thomas and Nathanael, James and John, with two others, joined him, and,
entering into a boat, launched out upon the dark waters, and toiled all
night, but came back to the land with empty nets. In the cold gray of the
morning they were going ashore, disappointed and hungry men, when they
saw on the dim beach a man standing to watch them. It was still too dark
for them to see clearly. "Children, have ye any meat?" his voice called
across the water. There is nothing unusual in such a question from a
bystander, who has been looking on while men are fishing. " No," they
shouted back ; for they were still some distance from the land. " Cast the
net on the right side of the boat, and ye shall find," was the advice given.
He might see signs of fish which had escaped them ; and they obeyed, feel-
1000 Bible and Commentator.
ing that though their toil had been in vain all night, one chance cast of the
net might atone for their want of success. If not, they could but return
empty, as they were now doing.
"While they cast their net the light grew stronger, and the morning
shone upon the lake and shore, upon the disciples in their boat, and the
solitary stranger looking on. But soon the net was so full of fish, that they
could not draw it; and quickly there flashed through the mind of John the
memory of that morning, when Jesus had called them to leave their nets,
and follow him. " It is the Lord," he said to Peter. There he stood in
the morning light at the edge of the waters where they were fishing.
Possibly, nay probably, there was already shining about him a transfiguring
glory, such as they had witnessed on the mountain, when his face was as
the sun, and his raiment as white as the glistering snow. Peter at once
threw himself into the lake, that he might the sooner reach the Master he
had once denied ; and the rest followed in their boat, dragging their net
with them.
Just such a reception met them as may have welcomed them often in the
old days, when, though disciples, they still had to earn their bread. No
doubt their Lord had often ministered to them before he washed their feet
at the Last Supper. There was a fire already kindled on the beach, lit for
them whilst they were toiling, hungry and weary, in the darkness ; and fish
was broiling on it, and cakes of bread were baking in the hot ashes. It was
a homely, simple welcome, such as one of themselves might have prepared
for his comrades. They and their Master had often eaten their meals
together thus in the open air, beside a little fire on the ground. " Bring of
the fish which ye have now caught," said Jesus to them ; and Peter ran and
drew the net to land, counting the fish as he took them out of the unbroken
meshes. Presently Jesus said to them, " Come and dine." But none of
them durst say, " Who art thou ?" They were silent in happy awe.
The meal was ready, and they hungry with their night's toil. They were
at home on the shores of their own lake. Every hill, every village, every
landmark about them, lying clear in the early light, was as familiar to them
as the faces of old friends. The freshness of the morning air brought to
them the scent of flowers such as they had plucked when children. The
little waves of the lake ripplel up against the margin, chiming as it had
done to them when they were boys. The larks sang overhead, and the
waterfowl cried across the water. How different was this from that upper
chamber in Jerusalem, when their Master's soul was troubled, and exceed-
The Wonderful Life. 1001
ingly sorrowful, as he said there was a traitor among them. There was no
traitor now, no agony in Gethsemane, no cruel foes, no cross. All these
were forever past.
Once again Jesus took bread, and, breaking it, he gave it to them. In
silence, blissful, yet reverent, they took their food from his hand, and
satisfied their hunger. They knew that it was the Lord, and that was
enough. When the meal was over, three times Christ asked of Peter the
question, "Lovest thou me?" until at the third time Peter was aggrieved.
" Lord," he cried, "thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love
thee." Jesus bade him feed his lambs and his sheep ; and signified to him
what death he should die for his sake. By this time the morning had ad-
vanced, and the people were waking up to their day's work in the fields, or
upon the lake, and Jesus withdrew from his disciples, saying to Peter,
" Follow me." All of them were about to enter upon the life he had
quitted ; they would be persecuted, cast out of the synagogue, and put to
death as he had been. The servant could not be above his master, nor the
disciple above his Lord. They must all, even Peter, who had denied him,
follow him through shame and suffering to a bitter end. Peter understood
Christ's words literally, and rose up to follow him ; John also could not
stay behind if he might but be with his Lord in that mysterious solitude
whither he was about to vanish, and whence he came so suddenly among
them. But here they could not follow him. Peter asked a question as to
what John should do in the perilous future they were about to enter ; but
Jesus checked his curiosity by a vague, indefinite answer before passing out
of their sight. This was the third time that Jesus showed himself to his
disciples after he was risen from the dead.
CHAPTER XII.
His Friends.
TWICE had the Lord been seen by the women who ministered unto
him ; three times by the apostles. But a still larger assembly were
to have proof that he had indeed risen from the dead. Whilst Jesus was
yet in Galilee, before his crucifixion, he had told not only his twelve
apostles, but the mass of his disciples, that he should be crucified, and rise
again on the third day. He had also fixed upon a mountain where he would
1002 Bible and Commentator.
appear unto them after this resurrection, probably a mountain in some central
point, where all could assemble to meet him. More than five hundred
disciples flocked to this appointed place, men and women, those whom he had
delivered from blindness, sickness, sorrow, even from evil spirits. None
would be absent who could possibly reach the quiet mountain, where their
crucified Lord would meet them in his own person ; no spirit; no illusion.
A few even yet doubted ; but the rest worshipped him. Speaking to them
all, not to the apostles merely, he bade them teach all nations to observe
whatsoever he had commanded. Each disciple was to be a messenger of the
good tidings for him ; though only a chosen few were to forsake all to
become his ambassadors to distant lands.
There was one of the Lord's disciples, who had been his companion, not
for a few months only, nor for two or three years, but during his whole life.
They had been boys together, dwelt in the same village, climbed the hills
side by side, learned from the same schoolmaster, gone together to the syna-
gogue Sabbath after Sabbath ; perhaps worked at the same carpenter's bench.
This was James, the son of his aunt, Mary Cleophas, of whom tradition
says he closely resembled the Lord in his personal appearance. Jesus
appeared alone to him, in some quiet, unknown hour, which would have
remained a secret from us if James had not himself told it to Paul some
years afterwards. Jesus had not ceased to love those whom he had loved
in his early life; and it may be he appeared to James to satisfy some
passionate yearning of his cousin's heart, for one more hour of such com-
munion as those they had had together on the hills round Nazareth.
For forty days after his resurrection Christ remained upon earth, showing
himself alive by many infallible proofs, eating and drinking with his
disciples; being seen of them, and touched by them ; teaching them, and
speaking to them things pertaining to the kingdom of God, which they were
to preach. He had said, "I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice :
and your joy no man taketh from you." His words were fulfilled. The
joy of his resurrection had made them strong to face the perils they had
once dreaded ; and by many a proof he made this joy unspeakable, and full
of glory. No king, no high-priest, no emperor, not all the powers and
principalities of the whole world, could take this joy from them. Now the
time was come when Christ could trust his message with them, and leave
them to go to the Father. '
The mission of the apostles was to begin at Jerusalem — the city of his
crucifixion. There, some days before the feast of Pentecost, they were once
The Wonderful Life. 1003
more gathered together, with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and other women,
and his kinsmen, waiting for his last revelation of himself. Jesus came to
them and led them out as far as Bethany, on the Mount of Olives ; but
whether all were there, or his apostles only, we cannot tell. Seen and
heard by them, but invisible to eyes that had no love for him, he passed
along that road, down which the thronging multitudes had swept in glad pro-
cession, waving palm branches, and shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of
David ! " Once more he looked upon the doomed city, over which he had wept,
and which was now crowned by its blackest sin. " Begin at Jerusalem/' he
said. Even yet the apostles did not fully understand him. "Lord/' they
asked, " wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel ? " They
beheld their beautiful city, with its magnificent temple and gorgeous palaces,
and still thought it, blood-stained as it was, a fitting throne for their
risen Lord. Again, as once before, he told them they were not to know the
times and seasons which the Father had kept in his own power.
Past the home at Bethany, which he had loved so much, and blessed so
wondrously, Jesus led his disciples to some solitary spot on the mountain,
where Jerusalem, the guilty city, with Calvary at her gates, was hidden
from their view. Lifting up his pierced hands, he blessed them, his friends
who had been with him in his tribulation ; but whilst he was yet speaking
a cloud came down to overshadow them, as they had been overshadowed in
the Mount of Transfiguration. Their loving hands could clasp him no
longer; they could hear him no more, but falling down, they worshipped
him, as he was thus carried away from them. Even when all was lost to
their sight, that bright chariot of cloud in which he was ascending on high
amidst thousands of angels, and leading captivity captive, when that had
faded in the deep blue of the heavens, they stood gazing steadfastly toward
the point where it had vanished, until two men in white apparel spoke to
them, saying, " Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven ?
This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come
again in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven."
In great joy they returned to Jerusalem, along the well-known road, with
Gethsemane not far off, and Calvary in sight. With one accord they, with
the women, and Mary, and all the kinsmen of the Lord, continued
together in prayer and supplication, going up constantly to the temple to
praise and bless God.
1004 Bible and Commentator.
CHAPTER XIII.
His Foes.
BUT what of the enemies of Christ ? the traitor, the priestly persecutors
the unjust judge, the cowardly tetrarch, nay the city itself, which
could suffer such crimes ? A few years after the crucifixion, Herod Antipas,
the murderer of John the Baptist, was goaded on by Herodias to solicit the
rank and title of king from the Roman emperor. Her brother, Herod
Agrippa, had been made king of those provinces which had been governed
by Philip the tetrarch ; and he arrived in Palestine, A. D. 38. His kingly
state excited the ambition and jealousy of Herodias, who at last succeeded
in carrying Herod Antipas to Rome to supplant Agrippa in the favor of the
emperor. But Agrippa's influence proved stronger than theirs ; and instead
of being allowed to return to Palestine, Herod Antipas was banished, and
from that time till his death dragged out the life of an exile in Gaul and
Spain. Herodias did not forsake him ; the only good thing we know of
that wicked woman.
Pilate had sacrificed Christ to his fears of being misrepresented to the
emperor. The very fate he dreaded befell him ; for riots becoming more
and more frequent under his rule, both in Judaea and Samaria, his superior,
the prefect of Syria, sent him to Rome for trial. He arrived there just
after the death of Tiberius, who had been his friend and patron ; and Cali-
gula, his successor, banished him also to Gaul, where, it, is said, he died by
his own hand, unable to bear his disgrace and exile.
After the departure of Pilate, the prefect of Syria visited Jerusalem, and
removed Caiaphas from his office as high-priest. But a son of Annas was
put in his place, and the chief power of the priesthood remained in -the
family for a long period. Annas himself died in extreme old age, and was
considered by his countrymen one of the happiest men of his time and
nation.
or a brief space under Herod Agrippa, who was made king of Judaea
and Samaria, as well as of the provinces east of the Jordan, Jerusalem en-
joyed prosperity, whilst the early Christians suffered many persecutions,
Herod putting James, the brother of John, to death, to please the Jews.
But immediately after this, upon the death of Herod, A. D. 45, a severe
famine, lasting two years, befell Judaea. Soon afterwards, at the feast of
the passover, many thousands of the people perished in a tumult caused by
The Wonderful Life. 1005
the intrusion of the Roman soldiers into the temple. A set of fanatics and
assassins began to infest Jerusalem and its neighborhood, some of whom
slew the high-priest, a son of Annas, whilst sacrificing. Riots and massacres
became more and more common. False Messiahs sprang up. Rival high-
priests headed different parties, each bent upon plunder. At last the Jews
broke out into open insurrection against the Roman power ; but they were
also divided among themselves, and separated into many factions, at deadly
enmity with one another. The Roman army besieged Jerusalem, A. D. 70,
when it was crowded with strangers and pilgrims come up to keep the pass-
over. Thousands perished in battle, thousands more by famine and murder
within the walls, and when the city was taken, the old and sickly were
massacred, children under seventeen years of age were sold into slavery, and
the rest were sent in multitudes to make up gladiatorial shows in the amphi-
theatres of Rome and the provinces. " The whole of the city was so
thoroughly levelled and dug up, that no one visiting it would believe it
had ever been inhabited." It is said that not one of the Christians perished
in the siege, as they fled from the doomed city before it was surrounded by
the Roman army.
But a far swifter and more direct destruction befell the man, who knew,
and knew distinctly, what he was doing when he betrayed- his Lord into
the hands of his enemies. Judas was not ignorant of the purposes of the
Sanhedrim; he .was no stranger to Jesus. He had even been one of his
familiar friends, in whom he trusted. He had been an eye-witness, like the
other apostles, of the wondrous life of Jesus from the beginning. He had
himself preached the gospel, and done works of mercy in the name of his
Master. Yet he clearly understood that the bribe for which he bargained
to betray him was but the price of his blood. For he had been with Christ
when he was hiding from his enemies, who sought to kill him by any
means, by private assassination, or by sudden tumult. To sell Jesus to the
chief priests, he knew, was to betray innocent blood.
We are led to suppose that Judas accompanied the band which carried
Jesus from Gethsemane to the palace of the high-priest, a dark-spirited,
anxious, skulking villain, already hearing a low whisper of that storm of
remorse which was soon to drive him to despair. The wages of his sin
were promptly paid to him ; yet still he seems to have lingered about the
spot where his Master was, watching how things went on. It was night, and
he was friendless. All his old comrades would now turn from him in terror.
He was not a stupid man ; he could feel keenly. There was but one spark
1006
Bible and Commentator.
of comfort — his purse was no longer empty, and the little field he coveted
could now be his. As soon as the day dawned he would go and see
about it.
Possibly there was a faint, lingering hope that Jesus might deliver him-
self. Once before he had passed invisibly through the midst of his foes,
when they took up stones to kill him. Perhaps he had heard Jesus say to
Peter, " Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall
presently give me more than twelve legions of angels ?" But the faint
hope died away as the cruel hours sped on ; and when Jesus suffered them
to lead him away, bound, before Pilate, Judas knew he would not save
himself. He ought to have known it before. A fierce passion of remorse
seized upon him. Wildly he fled to the temple, where the priests, his tempters,
were already preparing to celebrate their solemn day of peace-offering for
the nation. He forced his way into the inner portions of the sacred place,
probably into the hall of the Sanhedrim, where the priests assembled early
every morning to cast lots for the services of the day. He flung down the
thirty pieces of silver, crying, " I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the
innocent blood!" The priests heard, and answered him with a. sneer.
"What is that to us? " they asked ; "see thou to that ! " Judas left the
money, the price of his Lord, and departed forever from the temple.
It may be he lingered through the terrible morning of the crucifixion,
until after the awful crime in which he had had a chief share was completed.
Then, seeking out the field he had coveted, and which was all but pur-
chased, he put an end to his miserable life. Not without warning had this
bitter end come, a merciful warning from his Lord, who had said, whilst
there was yet time for him to repent, " The Son of man goeth as it is
written of him : but wo unto that man by whom the Son of man is
betrayed ! it had been good for that man if he had not been born."
ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL AIDS
TO THE
STUDY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.
ARRANGED SO AS BEST TO ASSIST RESEARCH AND CONTRIBUTE
TO A
FULLER UNDERSTANDS OF TOE INSPIRED WORD.
BIBLE SYNCHRONOLOGY.
IN TEN PERIODS.
PERIOD.
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
FROM THE CREATION, B. C. 4004, TO THE DELUGE, B. 0. 2348
FROM THE DELUGE TO THE CALL OF ABRAHAM, B. C. 1921
FROM ABRAHAM TO THE EXODUS OF THE ISRAELITES, B. C. 1491
FROM EXODE, TO THE ENTRANCE INTO CANAAN, B. C. 1451
FROM ENTRANCE, TO THE KINGDOM OF SAUL, B. C. 1095
FROM SAUL TO COMPLETION OF SOLOMON'S TEMPLE, B. C. 1004
FROM TEMPLE TO BABYLONISH CAPTIVITY, B. C. 588
FROM CAPTIVITY TO CLOSING OF OLD TESTAMENT CANON, B. C. 420. .
FROM CLOSING OF OLD TESTAMENT CANON TO CHRISTIAN ERA, A. D.
FROM CHRISTIAN ERA TO END OF COMPLETED CANON, A. D. 100
YEARS.
1656
427
430
40
356
91
416
168
420
100
ANTEDILUVIAN PATRIARCHS.
Period I. 1656 Y"ears.
BIRTH.
BIRTH.
DEATH.
DEATH.
AGE.
B. C.
4004
A. M.
"iso
235
325
395
460
622
687
874
1056
1558
1656
B. C.
(Adam) 3074
2962
2864
2769
2714
2582
(Transi.) 3017
2348
2353
1998
1846
A. M.
930
1042
1140
1235
1290
1422
987
1656
1601
2006
2158
930
3874
Seth
912
3769
3679
3609
Enos
Cainan
905
910
895
3544
3382
Jared
962
365
3317
3130
Methuselah
969
777
2948
2446
Noah
950
COO
2348
The Deluge.
1007
1008
Chronological Tables
TABLE, SHOWING HOW THE EARTH WAS REPEOPLED BY THE DESCEND-
ANTS OP NOAH.
The sons of Noah were
SHEM, HAM, JAPHETH.
Skew's sons were
El am,
Asshur,
Arphaxad,
Lud,
Aram.
Tliey settled
Assyria,
Syria,
Persia,
Northern Arabia,
Mesopotamia.
The principal nations which sprang from, them, were
Persians,
Assyrians,
Chaldasans,
Lydians,
Armenians,
Syrians.
Ham^s sons were
Cush,
Mizraim,
Phut,
Canaan.
They settled
The Continent
of
Africa
and
A rabia.
Tlie principal nations which sprang from them, were
Ethiopians,
Egyptians,
Libyans,
Canaanites.
The sons of Japheth were
Gomer,
Magog,
Madai,
Javan,
Tubal,
Meshech,
Tiras.
They settled
Asia Minor,
Armenia,
Caucasus,
Europe.
The principal nations which sprang from them, were
Russians, Germans, Gauls, Britons, Scyth-
ians,
Medes,
Ionians and Athenians,
Iberians,
Muscovites,
Thracians.
POST-DILUVIAN PATRIARCHS.
Periods IT. and III. Period to call of Abraham, 427 Years. Thence to Exode, 430 Tears.
BIRTH.
BIRTH.
B. C.
A. M.
2948
1056
2446
1558
2346
1658
2311
1693
2281
1723
2247
1757
2217
1787
2185
1819
2155
1849
2126
1S78
1996
20 '8
1896
2108
1836
2168
1743
2201
1571
2433
Noah
Shem
Arphaxad
Salah
Eber
Peleg
Ken
Serug
Nahor
Terah
Abram (called 1921 B. C.) i
Isaac
Jacob
Joseph
Moses (Exode 1491 B. C.)
Conquest of Canaan, begun under Joshua
DEATH.
DEATH.
B. C.
A. M.
1998
2006
1846
2158
1908
2096
1878
2126
1817
2187
2008
1996
1978
2026
1955
2049
2007
1997
1921
2083
1821
2183
1716
2288
1689
2315
1633
2371
1451
2553
950
600
438
433
464
239
239
230
148
205
175
180
147
110
120
THE WANDERING IN THE WILDERNESS.
Period IV. 40 Years.
Chronological Tables.
1009
GOVERNORS AND JUDGES OVER ISRAEL.
DATE OF
REIGN.
1451
1405
1323
1305
1285
1245
1236
1232
1210
11*8
1182
1175
1105
1157
1137
1116
1U95
Period Y. 356 Years.
REMARKS.
Pied at age of 110.
First Judge. Judged 40 years.
Rest of 80 years in the land.
Ehud.... )
Shamgar. j
Judged 40 years.
" 3 years.
" 23 years.
Tola
" C years.
" 7 years.
" 10 years.
" 8 years.
High Priest 40 years.
Elon
y\i
Judged 20 years.
Last Judge. He filled his office long
after Saul became King, B. C. 1095.
Saul (anointed King).
The periods unaccounted for belioecn the
Judges were passed in servitude to
neighboring nations.
TABULAR ARRANGEMENT OE OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY.
Probable Authors, and Time Covered by the Writings.
TITLES
Authors.
Compil'd by Samuel, Na-
than, Gad, or others.
Probably Jeremiah
2 SAmuei
1 Kings
2 Kings
1 Chronicles
::■:}
2 Chronicles ........
Esther
In doubt
Years B. C.
From
From
From
From
From
From
From
From
fFrom
1 From
4001 to If 35.
1635 to 1491.
1491.
1491 to 1451.
1451.
1451 to 1425.
1425 to 1120.
1241 to 1231.
1135 to 1055.
1055 to 1016.
1016 to 889.
8S9 to 588.
From 4004 to 532.
From 536 to 456.
From 456 to 433.
From 521 to 495. (Out of line of narraliv.)
AUTHORSHIP AND DATES OF POETICAL BOOKS.
TITLES.
Job
Psalms
Solomon's Song
Proverbs
Ecci.fsiastes. . . .
64
Years B. C.
Unknown, but before the Exode, B.C. liiil
Written at various times, those by David
between 10C0 and 1016.
About 1016.
About. 1000.
About 970, or in Solomon's old age.
1010
Chronological Tables.
CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER OP PROPHETICAL BOOKS.
TITLES.
Dates.
B. C.
Between
Jonah
856—784
810—735
Hosea ....
810—725
810—698
Joel
810—660
758—699
Nahum
Zephaniah ....
Jeremiah
720—698
640—609
628—586
Lamentations..
628— 5S6
Habakkuk
Daniel
612—598
6U6— 534
Obadiah
588—583
EZEKIEL
Haggai
Zeciiariah
Malachi
583—562
520—518
520—518
436— 420
Kings of Judah.
Joash, Amaziah or Azariah
Uzziah
Uzz ah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah
Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah. .......
Uzziah or Manasseh
Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah
II ezekiah -.
Josiah
Josiah .
J S~q)posed to have been written on the death
\ of Josiah.
Jehoiakim.
During the Captivity.
f After the, capture of Jerusalem,
X Nebuchadnezzar.
Captivity.
After the return from Babylon.
Kings of Israel.
{Jehu & Jehoahaz, or Joash & Jero-
boam II.
Jeroboam II.
Jeroboam II.
fZechariah, Shallum, Mennhem, Pe-
\ kahiah, Pekah and Hoshea.
Same as above.
Pekah and Hoshea.
Israel led captive.
PROPHECIES IN HISTORICAL BOOKS OF OLD TESTAMENT.
Where Found.
Genesis xv. 5
Genesis xv. 13
Genesis xv. 14-16. . .
Genesis xviii. 10
Genesis xxxvii. 7. . .
Joshua vi. 26
1 Samuel ii.34
1 Samuel xxviii. 19.
1 Kings xiii. 2
1 Kings xiii. 22
1 Kings xiv. 10.
1 Kings xvi. 3
1 Kings xvii. 1
1 Kings xx. 22
1 Kings xxi. 19.
1 Kings xxi. 21
1 Kings xxi. 23
2 Kings iii. 17
2 Kings vii. 1
2 Kings vii. 2
2 Kings x. 30
2 Kings xix. 7. . . .
2 Kings xx. 17
SUBJECT.
Posterity of Abraham
The Bondage
The Deliverance
Concerning Isaac
Joseph's advancement.
Building of Jericho
Death of Eli's sons
Death of Saul
Josiah and his mission
Death of a Prophet
Extinction of the House of Jeroboam
Destruction of House of Baasha
Drought in Ahab's reign
Syrian Invasion .
Penalty for murder of Naboth
Destruction of House of Ahab
Jezebel's death
Miraculous supply of water
Supply of food
The unbelieving lord (death of)
Reign of Jehu's sons
Death of king of Assyria
Babylonish Captivity
Wherk Fulfilled.
1 Chron. xxi. 5-6.
Genesis xlvi. 3-7.
Exodus xii. 34-41.
Genesis xxi. 1-3.
Genesis xiii. 6.
1 Kings xvi. 34.
1 Samuel iv. 11.
1 Samuel xxxi. 3-6.
2 Kings xxiii. 15.
1 Kings xiii. 24-26.
1 Kings xv. 29.
1 Kings xvi. 11.
1 Kings xviii. 41.
1 Kings xx. 26.
1 Kings xxii. 38.
2 Kings x 11.
2 Kings ix. 35-37.
2 Kings iii. xx.
2 Kings vii. 18.
2 Kings vii. 17-20.
2 Kings xv. 12.
2 Kings xix. 35-37.
2 Kings xxiv. 10-16.
PARABLES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
SUBJECT.
Concerning Israel and Moab
Trees making a King
The Strong bringing forth Sweetness
The Ewe Lamb
Strife of the Two Brothers
The Escaped Prisoner
The Thistle and the Cedar
Vineyard yielding Wild Grapes
Comparison of Israel with a Vine.. . .
The Vine
Eagle and the Vine
The Lion's Whelps
Wasted Vine
The Boiling Pot
Holy Flesh
By Whom Spoken.
Balaam
Jotham
Samson
Nathan
Woman of Tekoah.
A Prophet
Jehoash
Isaiah
David
Ezekiel
Ezekiel
Ezekiel
Ezekiel
Ezekiel
Haggai
Where Spoken.
Mt. Pisgah
Mt. Gerizim
Timnath
Jerusalem
Jerusalem
Near Samaria. . . .
Jerusalem
Jerusalem
Jerusalem
Jerusalem
Babylon
Babylon
Babylon
Babylon
Jerusalem
Text.
Num. xxiii. 21.
Judges ix. 7-15.
Judges xiv. 14.
2 Samuel xii. 1-4.
2 Samuel xiv. 5-7.
1 Kings xx. 35-40.
2 Kings xiv. 9.
Isaiah v. 1-6.
Psalm lxxx. 8-16.
Ezekiel xv.
Ezekiel xvii. 3-10.
Ezekiel xix. 2. 9.
Ezekiel xix. 10-14.
Ezekiel xxiv. 3-5.
Haggai ii. 11-14.
Chronological Tables
1011
MIRACULOUS EVENTS IN OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY.
SUBJECT.
The Deluge
Confusion of tongues
Sodomites smitten with blindness
Destruction of the cities of the plain
Lot's wife turned to pillar of salt
The burning bush
Moses' rod turned into a serpent
The leprous hand
Aaron's rod turned into a serpent
The ten plagues of Egypt
The pillar of cloud
Passage of the lied Sei
The bitter waters made sweet
Quails and Manna
Water from the rock
Destruction of Nadab and Abihu
Cure of Miriam's leprosy
Destruction of Korah and his adherents
The visitation of the plague
Fructification of Aaron's rod
The brazen serpent
Balaam's ass speaks
Passage of the Jordan
Destruction of the walls of Jericho
Sun and moon stand still
Slaking of Samson's thirst
Philistines slain before the Ark
Smiting of the Bethshemeshite.>...
The harvest rain
Uzzah killed
Jeroboam's hand withered
The widow's meal increased
"Widow's son raised from the dead
Consumption of Elijah's sacrifice
Destruction of Ahaziah's captains and fifties.
The Jordan divided
Translation of Elijah
ElMia parteth the waters
"Waters of Jericho made sweet
The army supplied with water
The cruse of oil faileth not
Shunammite's son restored
Miracle of the twenty loaves
Naaman healed in Jordan
Gehazi made leprous
The axe floats
Syrians smitten with blindness
Syrian army overthrown
A dead man restored
Destruction of Sennacherib's army
The shadow goes back on the dial
Uzziah's leprosy
Escape from the fiery furnace
Daniel escapes from the lions
Jonah in the whale's belly
Jonah delivered
Place.
Text.
World
Babel
Sodom
Sodom and Gomorrah.
Near Sodom
Horeb
Horeb
Horeb
Egypt
Egypt
Egypt
Egypt
Marah
"Wilderness
Wilderness
Sinai
Ilazeroth
Kadesh
Kadesh
Kadesh
Wilderness
Pethor
Jordan
Jericho
Gibeon
Lehi
Ashdod
Beth-Shemesh
Gilgal
Perez
Bethel
Zarephath
Zarephath
Mt. Carmel
Samaria
Jordan
Jordan
Jordan
Jericho
Moab
Moab
Shunam...
Gilgal
Jordan
Samaria
Jordan
Dothan
Samaria
Jerusalem
Jerusalem
Jerusalem
Babylon
Babylon
Mediterranean.
Mediterranean.
Genesis vii.
Genesis xi. 7-9.
Genesis xix. 11.
Genesis xix. 24-25.
Genesis xix. 26.
Exodus iii. 2.
Exodus iv. 2, 5.
Ex-dusiv. 6-7.
Exodus vii. 10-12.
Exodus vii. — xii.
Exodus xiii. 2U-21.
Exodus xiv. 21-30.
Exodus xv. 23-2.\
Exodus xvi. 13—35.
Exodus xvii. 5-7.
Leviticus x. 1-2.
Num. xii. 10-13.
Num. xvi. 31-35.
Num. xvi. 41-50.
Num. xvii. 1-8.
Num. xxi. 8-9.
Num. xxii. 28-31.
Joshua iii. 14-19
Joshua vi. 6-21.
Joshua x. 12-13.
Judges xv. 19.
1 Samuel v. 1-12.
1 Samuel vi. 19.
1 Samuel xii. 18.
2 Samuel vi. 7.
1 Kings xiii. 4—6.
1 Kings xvii. 14-16.
1 Kings xvii. 17-24.
1 Kings xviii. 30-38.
2 Kings i. 9-12.
2 Kings ii. 8.
2 Kings ii. 11.
2 Kings ii. 14.
2 Kings ii. 21.
2 Kings iii. 16-20.
2 Kings iv. 1-7.
2 Kings iv. 32-37.
2 Kings iv. 42-44.
2 Kings v. 10-14.
2 Kings v. 20-27.
2 Kings vi. 5-7.
2 Kings vi. 18.
2 Kings vii. 6-7.
2 Kings xiii. 21.
2 Kiugs xix. 35.
2 Kings xx. 9-11.
2 Chron. xxvi. 1C-20.
Daniel iii. 19-27.
Daniel vi. 16-23.
Jonah i. 17.
Jonah ii.
CHRONOLOGY 0E NEW TESTAMENT BOOKS.
Place Where Written, and Authors.
HISTORICAL BOOKS.
DATE
A. D.
38— Gl
61
63—04
04
97
TITLE.
Gospel of St. Matthew
Gospel of St. Mark
Gospel of St. Luke
Acts of the Apostles. .
Gospel of St. John ,
Author.
St. Matthew.
St. Mark....
St. Luke....
St. Luke
St. John
Where Written.
Jerusalem.
Alexandria.
Rome.
Rome (probably).
Ephesus.
1012
Chronological Tables.
THE PAULINE EPISTLES.
DATE.
A. D.
52
52
56—57
57
58
58
61
62
62
63
63
64
64
65
95—96
Published
in 97.
TITLE.
First Epistle to the Thessalonians.. .
Second Epistie to the Thessalonians.
Epistle to the Galatians
First Epistle to the Corinthians
Second Epistle to the Corinthians. .
Epistle to the Romans
Epistle to the Ephesians
Epistle to the Philippians
Epistle to the Colossians
Epi>tle to Philemon
Epistle to the Hebrews
First Epistle to Timothy
Epistle to Titus
Second Epistle to Timothy
Revelation
Author.
St. Paul.,
St. Paul.
St. Paul.
St. Paul .
St. Paul.
St. Paul.
bt. Paul .
St. Paul.
St. Paul.
St. Paul.
tit. Paul.
St. Paul.
St. Paul.
St. Paul.
~St. John.
Where Written.
Corinth.
Corinth.
Ephesus.
Ephesus.
Philippi.
Corinth.
Rome.
Rome.
Rome.
Rome.
Rome.
Laodicea.
Ephesus (probably).
Rome (probably).
Patmos.
THE GENERAL EPISTLES.
DATE.
A. D.
61
63
65
65
97—98
97—98
97—98
TITLE.
Epistle of St. James
First Epistle of St. Peter. . .
Second Epistle of St. Peter.
Epistle of St. Jude
First Epistle of St. John. . .
Second Epistle of St. John.
Third Epistle of St. John.. ,
Author.
Where Written.
St. James
Jerusalem.
St. Peter
Babylon.
St. Peter
Babylon.
St. Jude
Syria.
St. John
Ephesus.
St. John
Ephesus.
St. John
Ephesus.
CHK0N0L0GY OF 0U3 LOKL'S LIFE. J (Lewin.)
B. C. 6 (about Feb. 22). Birth of John the Baptist; the time of Elizabeth's conception being inferred from the
calculation that the course of Abia went out of office on May 22, b. c. 7.
B. C. 6 (a'Hrnt Aug. 1). The Nativity of Jesus Christ; nearly two years before the death of Herod (Matt. ii. 16).
The Census under Sentius Saturninus, who displaced Varus before Sept. 2, b. c. 6.
B. C. 4, April 1. Death of Herod at Jericho. Return of the Holy Family from Egypt.
A. D. 6. Banishment of Archelau* Cyrenius, prefect of Syria.
A. D. 7. Completion of the Census of Cyrenius. Christ at the Passover (April 9th).
A. D. 28 (about August or September). Preaching of John the Baptist, in the first year of the Sabbatic cycle, in the
sixth year of which our Lord's Ministry closed.
A. D. 29 (February). Baptism of Jesus. Age 33.* (February to March.) The Temptation/
A. D. 29 — A. D. 33. The Duration of C/irisfs Ministry, from Passover to Passover, four full years, in accordance
with Luke xiii. 7.
A. D. 29. First Passover, ending April 2.
Opening of our Lord's Ministry at Jerusalem. Imprisonment of John.
A. D. 29 (Autumn). Beginning of Christ's Ministry in Galilee. Its duration — three years and 6ix months.
First Circuit in Galilee, including (about October) his rejection at Nazareth.f
A. D. 29 to A. D. 30 (Spring). Second Galilean Circuit : duration— four or five months.
A. D. 30 (Spring). Third Galilean Circuit.
April 22. The SevTepoirpajTov ad^arov, i. e., the first Sabbath of the second month (Jyar).
May 27. The Pentecost, this year on a Sabbath. The " Feast " of John v.
Jesus returns to Galilee.
Sermon on the Mount.
A. D. 30. Fourth Galil»an CircuiK
(Autumn). Return to Capernaum.
A. D. 31 (About April). Death of John the Baptist.
April 19 (10 of Nisan). Feeding of the Five Thousand.
April 21. The discourse of John vi. on the Sabbath before the Passover.
Sept. 20. Feast of the Tabernacles (John vii. 1).
Sept. 23 (about). Jesus reaches Jerusalem. He withdraws, probably to Bethabara.
Nov. 28 to Dec. 5. Feast of Dedication (John x.)
Jesus returned to Bethabara (John x. 31).
* Mr. L,ewin gives this latitude to the about thirty (uxrei) of Luke iii. 23.
t Mr. T, "win's authority for this date is in the fact that Isaiah lxi. was the appointed lesson of the daily service about the Feast of
Tabernacles, which in this year fell on October 11.
1 It is right to say that this chronology, though prepared with great care, differs materially from those of Greswell, Ellicott, Andrews,
Mimpriss, Geikie, and others who have bestowed equal research on the subject. There is a strong probability that the date of the birth
of Christ is too early, and of his death too late.
Chronological Tables
1013
CHRONOLOGY OF OUR LORD'S LIFE. (Lewin.)— Continued.
A. D. 32 (beginning). Death and raising of Lazarus.
Jesus retires to Ephiaim, and thence to Caesarea Philippi.
Return to Capernaum. Tribute Money.
Passover, April 13. Beginning of our Lord's last circuit, occupying a year, and terminating at Jerusalem.
A. D. 32 (Autumn). The warning to flee out of Galilee.
A. D. 33 (Spring). The circuit resumed from West to East, along the borders of Samaria and Galilee, in tho
direction of Perasa, and so across the Jordan.
Recrosses the Jordan to Jericho.
Friday, March 27. Arrives at Bethany, six days before the Passover.
Saturday, March 28. Rest at Bethany on the Sabbath evening. Supper at the house of Simon.
Palm Sunday, March 29. Jesus enters Jerusalem.
Monday, March 30 — Thursday, April 2. As in our narrative.
Thursday, April 2 (evening). The Passover and Lord's Supper.
Good Friday, April 3. The Crucifixion. Jesus expires at 3 p. m.
Easter Sunday, April 5. The Resurrection.
Thursday, May 14. The Ascension.
Sunday, May 24. Day of Pentecost
PARABLES OF JESUS CHRIST.
Place.
Galilee
Galilee
via
Galilee
Galilee
Galilee
Galilee
Galilee
Galilee
Galilee
Galilee
Galilee
Capernaum )
and via J "
Capernaum . . .
Jerusalem
via
via
Capernaum . . .
via
Jerusalem
Jerusalem-i'ia,
via.
via
via
via
via
via ,
via
via ,
via
via ,
via
via
via
Jerusalem
Jerusalem . . .
Jerusalem . . .
Jerusalem . . .
Jerusalem . . .
Jerusalem . . .
Jerusalem . . .
Jerusalem . .
SUBJECT.
Mote and Beam
Foundation of Rock and Sand.
The two Debtors
The Barren Fig-tree
The Sower
Wheat and Tares
Seed cast in the Ground
The Mustard-seed
The Leaven
The buried Treasure
Pearl of Great Price
Casting of the Net
Parables of the Lost Sheep
The Merciless Debtor
Good Samaritan
Chief Seats at the Wedding. . .
The Midnight Friend
Return of Unclean Spirit
The Rich Fool
The Shepherd and Sheep
The Faithful Servants
The Faithful Steward
The Closed Door
The Great Supper
Building a Tower
A King going to War
The lost Piece of Money
The Prodigal Son
The Unjust Steward
Rich Man and Lazarus
The Unjust Judge
Pharisee and Publican
Laborers in the A'ineyard
Ten Servants and Ten Pounds
The two Sons
The leased Vineyard
The Marriage Feast
The Fig-tree
Faithful and false Servant
A\ ise and foolish Virgins
The Talents
Sheep and Goats
T£XT.
Matt. vii. 3-5 ; Luke vi. 39-il.
Matt. vii. 24-27 ; Luke vi. 48-49.
Luke vii. 41-50.
Luke xiii. 6-9.
Matt. xiii. ; Mark iv. Luke viii.
Matt. xiii. 24-30.
Mark iv. 26-29.
Matt. xiii. 31-32; Mark iv. 30-32;
19.
Matt. xiii. 33; Luke xiii. 20-21.
Matt. xiii. 44.
Matt. xiii. 4-^-46.
Matt. xiii. 47-50.
Matt, xviii. 12-14 ; and Luke xv. 3-7.
Matt.
Luke
Luke
Luke
Luke
Luke
John
Luke
Luke
Luke
Luke
Luke
Luke
Luke
Luke
Luke
Luke
Luke
Luke
Matt.
Luke
Matt,
Matt.
Matt.
Matt.
Matt.
Matt.
Matt.
Matt.
xviii. 23-35.
x. 30-37.
xiv. 7-12.
xi. 6-13.
xi. 24-26.
xii. 16-21.
x. 1-18.
xii. 37-39.
xii. 42-48.
xiii. 24-27.
xiv. 16-'J5.
xiv. 28-::0.
xiv. 31-33.
xv. 8-9.
xv. 11-32.
xvi. 1-8.
xvi. 10-C1.
xviii. 1-8.
xviii. 9-14.
xx. 1-16.
xix. 12-27.
xxi. 2-32.
xxi. 3 -M0.
xxii. 1-14.
xxiv. 32.
xxiv. 45-51.
xxv. 1-13.
xxv. 14-30.
xxv. 31-46.
1014
Chronological Tables.
MIKACLES OP JE£US-0HRONOLQGI0ALLY AKKANGED.
MIRACLES.
Conversion of water into wine
Cure of the nobleman's son at Capernaum
The miraculous draught of fishes
Man possessed with the devil healed
Peter's mother-in-law cured of a fever
A leper healed
The Centurion's servant healed
The widow's son raised from the dead
The tempest calmed
The demoniics of Gadara cured
Man with the palsy cured
Jairus' daughter raised from the dead
Woman with an issue of blood healed
Two blind men given their sight. ...
The dumb man given his speech
An infirm man of Bethesda healed
The withered hand made whole
Man with a devil healed
Five thousand people fed
Daughter of woman of Canaan healed
Deaf and dumb man cured
Four thousand persons fed
A blind man given his sight
Boy with a devil cured
A man born blind is made to see
A woman with an infirmity of eighteen years' standing
cured
The dropsy cured ....
Ten lepers cleansed
Lazarus raised from the dead
Two blind men given sight
The fig-tree blasted ...
Malchus' ear healed
Second miraculous draught of fishes
Place of Occurrence.
Where Described.
Cana of Galilee
Cana of Galilee
Sea of Galilee
John ii. 1-11.
John iv. 46-54.
Luke v. 1-11.
Mark i 22 28
Capernaum
Capernaum ..
Mark i. 30-31.
Mark i. 40-45.
Nain
Sea of Galilee
Gadara
Luke vii. 11-17.
Matt. viii. 23-27.
Matt. viii. 28-34.
Matt. ix. 1-8.
Matt. ix. 18-19, 23-26.
Luke viii. 43-48.
Matt. ix. 27-31;
Capernaum
Judea
Matt. xii. 10-13.
Matt xii 22 23.
Decapolis
Near Tyre
Decapolis
Matt. xiv. 15-21
Matt. xv. 22-28.
Mark vii. 31-37.
Matt. xv. 32-39.
Betlisaida
Tabor
Jerusalem
Mark viii. 22-26.
Matt. xvii. 14-21.
John ix.
Luke xiii. 11-17.
Galilee
Samaria
Bethany
Luke xvii. 11-19.
John xi.
Matt. xx. 30 34.
Olivet
Matt. xxi. 18-22
Luke xxii. 50-51.
Sea of Galilee
John xxi. 1-14.
THE TWELVE 0KIGINAL APOSTLES.
NAME.
Peter
Andrew
James
John
Philtp
Bartholomew
Thomas
Matthew
James
JtJDK
Simon
REMARKS.
Originally called Simon. Son of Jonas. Occupation, a fislierniau. About the same age as
Lhrist. Piubably suffered martyrdom at Rome, with Paul.
Brother of Peter. Same occupation. Said to have been crucified at Patrae in Achaia, on a
cross shaped like X, hence, St. Andrew's Cross.
Son of Zebedee. A fisherman. Put to death iu a. d. 44, by Herod Agrippa.
Younger brother of James. Same occupation. Driven to Patmos. Lived to a great age,
and died the last of the apostles, as Lite as A. D. 09 or 100.
Of Bethsaida. History uncertain, before and after his call.
Of Cana. Probably went eastward to India. Tradition says he was flayed alive, and
afterwards crucified with his head downwards.
Preached in Persia. After history uncertain.
The Publican. A tax gatherer. Author of thi Gospel according to St. Matthew. Preached
iu Judea, and among foreign natio..s. '± hue and manner of death uncertain.
Son of Alpheus. Younger brother of Jude. Preached at Jerusalem. Was thrown from
the Temple and killed.
Called also Lebbeus. After history unknown.
A Canaanite. Labored in Egypt, and supposed to have been crucified in Judea during the
reign of Domitian.
Called also Tscariot. Son of Simon. The treasurer of the Twelve. Betrayed Christ.
Attempted suicide by hanging, but the rope breaking, his abdomen was lacerated by
the fall, and he died a double death.
Chronological Tables.
1015
TABULAE MEMOIR OF THE APOSTLE PAUL.
ACCORDING TO THE PRINCIPAL AUTHORITIES.
CONYBEARE & H0WS0NT
A. D.
About 5 or
36.
37.
39—40.
40.
44.
44.
44 or 45.
48—49.
50.
51.
52.
54.
(Pentecost.)
54.
(Latter half.)
55—57.
57.
57—58.
68
58.
60.
61.
63.
Lewin.
TABLE OF ST. PAUL'S LIFE.
A. D.
About 11.
Birth of Saul at Tarsus.
36 or 37.
Martyrdom of St. Stephen.
37.
Conversion of St. Paul.
39.
His first visit to Jerusalem.
(Feast of Tabernacles.)
39—40.
Rest of the Jewish Churches.
40.
Conversion of Cornelius.
43.
Barnabas fetches Saul from Tarsus to Antioch.
44.
Famine; and death of Herod Agrippa I.
44.
Barnabas and Saul go to Jerusalem with the collection. (Paul's
(Before tbe Passover.)
second visit.)
45—46.
Paul's Mrst Missionary Journey.
48.
Paul and Barnabas go up to the Council at Jerusalem.
Paul's third visit.*
49.
Paul's Second Missionary Journey.
52.
(February.)
53.
Paul arrives at Corinth, where he stays 18 months.
Paul arrives at Jerusalem.
( Tabernacles.)
His fourth visit, f
Winters at Antioch (Lewin).
54.
Paul's Third Missionary Journey.
(Beginning.)
54.
He reaches Ephesus, where he stays three full years
(May.)
(Lewin).
54—57.
57.
Leaves Ephesus for Macedonia,
(About Pentecost.)
57—58.
Winters at Corinth (three months).
58.
Reaches Philippi at the Passover.
(March 27.)
58.
Beaches Jerusalem at Pentecost.
(May 17.)
Paul's fifth visit, and arrest in the Temple.
58—60.
Imprisonment at Cresarea.
60.
Festus succeeds Felix.
(About y idsummer.)
60.
Paul sails for Rome.
(End of August.)
(About Nov. 1.)
His shipwreck at Malta,
61.
Paul reaches Rome.
(Beginning of March.)
61—63.
His first imprisonment (two years).
63.
On his release, Paul
(Spring.)
goes to Macedonia 1 sails for Jerusalem, and visits Antioch,
and Asia Minor. Colossa? and Ephesus.
(C. & H) 1
64.
(Lewin.) Paul, after visiting Crete, leaves Ephesus for Mace-
donia.
64—65.
Winters at Nicopolis.
65.
(Lewin.) Visits Palmatia, and returns through Macedonia and
Troas to Ephesus, where he is arrested and sent to Rome.
66.
Martyrdom of St. Paul, at Rome.
- (June 29.)
64—66.
(In Spain?)
67— 6S.
(May or June.)
*Dr. Howson identities this visit with that of Galatians ii., and places the collision with Peter at Antioch after it.
)Mr. Lewin identifies this visit with that of Galatians ii., and places the collision with Peter at Antioch after it
1016
Chronological Tables
THE WORDS OP JESUS-
-A TABLE OP HIS DISCOURSES, IN THEIR PROPER
ORDER.
TITLE.
Remarks to Nicodemus
Conversation with the woman of Samaria.
Remarks in the Synagogue at Nazareth
The sermon on the mount
Charge to the Apostles
Doom of Chorazin, Bethsaida, etc
Declaration after healing the infirm man of Bethesda
Comments on ihe conduct of the disciples in the corn field,
Denial that His miracles were due to the powerof Beelzebub
The bread of life
On internal purity
Concerning the forgiveness of injuries
Declaration at the feast of tabernacles ■
Concerning the woman taken in adultery.
Words referring to His sheep
The Scribes and Pharisees denounced
About humility and prudence
How to reach heaven.
Remarks upon His sufferings
The Pharisees denounced
The destruction of Jerusalem foretold. ...
Words of comfort to His disciples at the Last Supper.
Remarks on the way to Gethsemane
Last words to His disciples on earth
Place of Delivery.
Where Recorded.
Jerusalem
John iii. 1, 21.
Sycliar
John iv. 1, 42.
Nazareth ...
Luke iv. 16,31.
Mount of Olives
Matt, v., vi., vii.
Galilee
Matt. x.
Galilee
Matt. xi. 20, 24.
Matt, xii.,1, 8.
Capernaum
Matt. xii. 25-46.
John vi. 25-71.
Capernaum
Matt. xv. 1, 20.
Capernaum
Matt, xviii.
Jerusalem
John vii.
Jerusalem .
J.hn viii.
Peraja
Luke xi. 29, 36.
Galilee
i Luke xiv. 7, U.
Pera>a
Matt. xix. 16, 30.
On way to Jerusalem.
i Matt xx. 17, 19.
Jerusalem
Matt, xxiii.
Jerusalem
i Matt xxiv.
Jerusalem
| John xv.. xvi., xvii.
Matt. xxvi. 31, 36.
Jerusalem
i Matt, xxviii. 16-23.
ANALYSIS OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.
BOOKS in the Old Testament 39
Chapters 929
Verses 23,214
Words 592,439
Letters 2,728,100
BOOKS in the New Testament 27
Chapters 260
Verses 7,9*>9
Words 181 ,253
Letters 838,380
The Apocrypha hath 183 chapters, 6,081 verses, and
152, 1S5 words.
The middle chapter and the least in the Bible, is Psalm
ex vii.
The middle verse is the 8th of Psalm cxviii.
The word and occurs in the Old Testament 35,543 times.
'1 he same in the New Testament also occurs 10,684 times.
The word Je.lunah occurs 0,N55 times.
The middle book < f the Old Testament is Proverbs.
The middle chapter is Job xxix.
The middle verse is 2d Chron., chapter xx., the 17th
verse.
The least verse is 1st of Chron , chapter i., and 1st verse.
The middle book in the New Testament is 2d Thessa-
lonians.
The middle chapters are Romans xiii. and xiv.
The middle verse is Acts xvii., 17th verse.
The least verse is in John xi., veise 35.
The 21st verse, chapter vii. of Ezra, has all the letters of
the alphabet.
The xixth chapter of the 2d of Kings and chapter
xxx vii. of Isaiah are both alike.
PLAN FOR READING THE BIBLE THROUGH IN A YEAR.
The following plans for reading the Bible may be pursued with profit:
Regarding the cxixth Psalm as consisting of eleven chapters, each containing two parts or subdivisions of the
same, the whole number of chapters in the Old Testament equals 939. By reading three of these chapters on each
of the 313 week days of the year, the whole number will be exhausted (313 X 3 = 939).
So in the New Testament, there are 260 chapters. By reading five of these on each of the 52 Sabbaths of the
year, the whole will be exhausted (52 X 5 = 260).
Or, the following plan may be adopted, observing the division of the cxixth Psalm already indicated. Read
three chapters each week day and five on the Sabbath, thus : — two each day from the Old Testament, and one (three
on the Sabbath) from either Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Solomon's Song, or the New Testament.
Without those books, the Old Testament contains two chapters a day for the year. By placing them with the
New Testament, there are sufficient chapters to admit of reading one each week day and three on each Sabbath,
less eight chapters.
Psalms cxvii. and exxxi. should be read together. Also Psalms exxxiii. and exxxiv. Tabulated, this plau
appears thus:
Chronological Tables
1017
January.
. 1.
Genesis i
Psalms i.
July 2.
1 Chron. xxvii.
Matt, xxvii.
8.
Genesis xv
Psalms x.
9.
2 Chron. xii.. .
Mark viii.
15.
Genesis xxix..
Psalms xix.
16.
2 Chron. xxvi.
Luke i.
22.
Genesis xliii. ..
Psalms xx\iii.
23.
Ezra iv
Luke x.
29.
Exodus vii
Psalms xxxvii.
30.
Nebemiah viii.
Luke xix.
February
. 5.
Exodus xxi. . .
Psalms xlvi.
August 6.
Esther ix
John iv.
12.
Exodus xxxv.
Psalms lv.
13.
Job xiii
John xiii.
19.
Leviticus ix.. .
Psalms lxiv.
20.
Job xxvii
Acts i.
Acts X.
26.
Leviticus xxiii.
Psalms lxxiii.
27.
Job xli
March
. ».
Numbers x.
Psalms lxxxii.
September.. 3.
Isaiah xiii
Acts xix.
12.
Num. xxi v.. . .
Psalms xci.
10.
Isaiah xxvii.. .
Acts xxviii.
19.
Denteron. ii.. .
Psalms c.
17.
Isaiah xli
Romans ix.
26.
Dent, xvi
Psalms cix.
24.
Isaiah lv
1 Cor. ii.
Apiul....
. 2.
Deut. xxx
Psalms cxviii.
October 1.
Jeremiah iii.. .
1 Corinth, xi.
9.
Joshua x
Psalms cxix.
8.
Jer. xvii
2 Corinth, iv.
16.
Joshua xxiv. .
Psalms cxxvii.
15.
Jer. xxxi
2 Corinth, xiii.
23.
Judges xiv.. . .
Psalms cxxxviii.
2'.
Jer. xiv
Ephesians iii.
30.
1 Samuel iii. . .
Psalms cxlvii.
29.
Ezekielii. ...
Colossiansii.
May ....
. 7.
1 Sam. xvii
Proverbs vi.
November.. 5.
Ezek. xvi
2 Thess. ii.
14.
1 Sam. xxxi.. .
Proverbs xv.
12.
Ezek xxx
2 Timothy ii.
21.
2 Sam. xiv. . . .
Proverbs xxiv.
19.
Ezek. xliv
Hebrews iii.
28.
1 Kings iv
Ecclesiastes ii.
26.
Daniel x
Hebrews xi.
June ....
. 4.
1 Kings xviii..
Ecclesiastes xi.
December. . 3.
Hosea xi
1 Peter iii.
11.
2 Kings x
Sol. Song viii.
10.
Amos ix
1 John iv.
18.
2 Kings xxiv..
Matthew ix.
17.
Nehemiah i. ..
Revelation v.
25.
1 Chron. xiii. .
Matthew xviii.
24.
31.
Zechariah v. ..
Malachi iv. . . .
Revelation xiv.
Revelation xxii.
But no plan for reading the Bible should be adopted which tends to sacrifice an understanding of its contents.
Let your study of the Holy Word be constant and earnest, and more good will be accomplished than if its pages
were hurriedly scanned.
MIKACLES PEEPOKMED BY AND AMONG THE APOSTLES.
RECORDED IN THE ACTS.
MIRACLES.
A lame man healed by St. Peter
Death of Ananias and Sapphira
Wonderful deeds done by the Apostles
St. Peter and St. John impart the Holy Ghost
Conversion of St. Paul
Eneas healed of a palsy by St. Peter
Tabitha or Dorcas raised from the dead by St. Peter
St. Peter rescued from prison by an angel
Herod punished with death
El ymas the sorcerer is stricken with blindness
A cripple healed by St. Paul
Spirit of divination ejected by St. Paul
Doors of the prison of St. Paul and Silas opened by an earth-
quake
St. Paul imparts the Holy Ghost
Many persons healed by St. Paul
St. Paul raises Eutychus from the dead
St. Paul renders a viper harmless
St. Paul cures Pnblius' father and others
Place of Occurrence. Where Described.
Jerusalem
J erusalem
Jerusalem
Samaria
Between Jerusalem &
Damascus
Lydda
Joppa
Jerusalem
Jerusalem
Paphos
Lystra
Philippi
Philippi
Corinth
Corinth
Troas
Melita
Melita
Acts iii. 1-11.
Acts v. 1-10.
Acts v. 12-16.
Acts viii. 14-1
Acts ix. 1-9.
Acts ix. 33-34.
Acts ix. 3C-41.
Acts xii. 7-17.
Acts xii. 21-23.
Acts xiii. 6-11.
Acts xiv. 8-10.
Acts xvi. 16-18.
Acts xvi. 25-40.
Acts xix. 1-6.
Acts xix. 11-12.
Acts xx. 9-12.
Acts xxviii. 3-6.
Acts xxviii. 7-9.
TABLE,
Showing, at one view, which of the Patriarchs were contemporary with each other, and
consequently how easy it was to hand down from Adam to Jacob the particulars of the
Creation, and fall of Man.
ADAM
tvas contemporary
vjith
Years.
.. 56
NOAH
was contemporary
Lamech
with
Tears.
.. 595
. . 600
SHEM
was contemporary with
Year*.
.. 243
.. 470
.. 535
.. 605
.. 695
. 98
Jared
Mahalaleel
Cainan
Enos
Jared
Mahalaleel
Cainan
Enos
.. 366
.. 234
. . 179
. . 84
Noah
and after the Flood with
Abraham
and Isaac
.. 443
.. 150
.. 50
1018
Chronological Tables.
FROM THE BIRTH OF CHRIST TO THE CLOSING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
CANON, A. D. 100.
Period X. 100 Years.
B. C.
JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH HISTORY.
CONTEMPORANEOUS EVENTS.
5
Birth of Christ, probably Dec. 25th.
28th year of reign of Augustus Caesar at Rome.
4
His circumcision, presentation in Temple, and
flight
Herod orders the massacre of all male infants
of his family to Egypt.
under two years old.
2
Return from Egypt.
Death of Herod and his son Antipater, and divis-
ion of his kingdom.
A. D.
6
Judea annexed to Roman province of Syria.
Famine in Rome.
8
Jesus being 12 years old, is taken by his parents to
the Temple.
9
Birth of St. Paul.
26 ,,
Christ baptized by John. His public ministry be-
Death of Augustus.
28
gins.
John the Baptist beheaded.
Tiberius, emperor at Rome.
29
Crucifixion of Christ, probably on Friday,
April
Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea. Tiberius
15th.
friendly to the Christians.
30
Office of Deacon created.
31
Martyrdom of St. Stephen.
Pilate deposed, and commits suicide.
33
Conversion of Saul.
Agrippa made king of Judea.
38
St! Matthew writes his gospel.
Death of Agrippa.
42
Rise of term Christian.
41
St. James beheaded.
45
Famine in Judea.
Emperor Claudius. London founded.
62
St. Mark dies.
61
Persecution of the Jews.
Nero, emperor at Rome.
66
Jews at war with Rome.
Great slaughter of Jews in Syria.
67
Second imprisonment of Paul at Rome.
Defeat of Jews by Vespasian.
68
Martyrdom of Paul and Peter.
Nero deposed, and commits suicide. Vespasia?
emperor at Rome. Jerusalem taken and d<
stroyed by Titus.
95
Second persecution of Christians.
Plague in Rome. Vespasian dies.
96
St. John released from banishment.
Domitian killed. End of reign of Caesars.
100
Death of St. John at Ephesus.
Trajan, emperor of Rome.
PROPHECIES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT RELATIVE TO THE ADVENT, PER-
SON, OFFICES, SUFFERINGS, RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION OF THE
MESSIAH, AND THEIR FULFILMENT IN THE NEW TESTAMENT.
Prophecy.
Fulfilment.
Prophecy.
Fulfilment.
Gen. iii. 15.
Gal. iv. 4.
Isa. xxxv. 5, 6.
Matt. xi. 4, 5.
Gen. xlix. 10.
Luke ii. 1, 3-5; Heb. vii. 14.
Isa. xl. 3, 11.
( Luke vii. 27, 28 ; John x
I 11, 14-
Gen. xii. 3 ; xviii. 18.
Acts iii. 25.
Deut. xviii. 15, 18, 19.
J John iv. 19; vi. 14; Luke
\ vii. 16.
Isa. Ii. 1.
Mark i. 14.
(Mark xv. 19, 25: Luke ix
Psalms ii. 2, 6, 7.
j Heb. i 8; Matt. xxvi. 63,
\ 64 ; Luke i. 32, 33.
Isa. liii. 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10-12.
J 58 ; Luke xxiii. 34 ; Matt.
1 xxvii. 38, 57-60 ; Eph. v
Ps. viii. 5.
Heb. ii. 9; xii. 2.
{ 2; Philip, ii. 8-10.
Ps. xvi. 9, 10.
Acts ii. 31.
Isa. lix. 20.
John iv. 42.
(John xix. 1, 2, 23, 24;
Jer. xxiii. 5, 6.
John xviii. S3, 36, 37.
Ps.xxii.7,8,12,13,16,17,18.
1 Matt, xxvii. 39-42 ; Luke
Jer. xxxi. 22,
Luke i. 26-35.
( xxiii. 35-37.
Daniel vii. 13, 14.
Eph. i. 21.
Ps. xxxiv. 20.
Ps. xli. 9 ; lv. 12-14.
John xix. 32, 33.
Luke xxii. 3, 4.
Daniel ix. 4, 17-19.
J Heb. x. 12; John xv. 16;
\ xvi. 23, 24.
Ps. lxviii. 18.
1 Cor. xv. 4 ; Acts i. 9.
Micah v. 2.
Luke ii. 4-6.
Ps. lxix. 21.
John xix. 29 ; Matt, xxvii. 48.
Joel ii. 28.
Actsii. 1-4; iv. 31.
Ps. Ixxx. 27, 36.
1 Tim. vi. 15.
Zech. ix. 9.
Matt. xxi. 7-10.
Ps. ex. 4.
Heb. iv. 14; viii. 1.
Zech. xi. 12, 13.
Matt, xxvii. 3-8.
Isaiah vii. 14.
Matt. i. 24, 25.
Zech. xii. 10.
John xix. 34.
Isa. ix. 1, 2, 6, 7.
f Matt. iv. 12, 17 ; John i. 1,
| 14; xii. 4G; Heb. vii. 14.
Haggai ii. 7.
Luke ii. 10.
Malachi iii. 1.
Matt. ii. 1-10; iii. 1.
Isa. xxix. 18.
Matt. xv. 30, 31.
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