What are we doing ourselves P This is flie chief ques- tion that the passage should suggest to our minds. Are we likely to be lost or saved ? Are we in the way towards heaven or hell ? Have we received into our hearts that Gos- pel which we hear ? Do we really live by that Bible which we profess to believe P — Or are we daily travelling towards the pit, and ruining our own souls P It is a painful thought that the Pharisees are not the only persons who " reject the counsel of God.'' There are thousands of persons called Christians who are continually doing the very same thing.
Notes. Luke VII. 24—30.
24. — [What went ye out tb see f„.a reed, dc] Let it be noted that both here and in the two following verses the question is equi- valent to a strong and positive affirmation. It is as if our Lord had said, " John the Baptist was not a reed shaken by the wind/' — "was not a man clothed in soft raiment," — "was not merely a prophet."— Such a form of expression is not uncommon in the Bible. A striking example is to be seen in the famous question, " what shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" It is equivalent to saying "It shall profit him nothing at all."
[A reed shaken by the wind.'^ Ghemnitius observes that this is the very same expression which is used by the heathen satirist, Lvician, in describing the unsettled opinion of the philosophical sects.
25. — [TJiey which are gorgeously apparelled.,, delicately.'] The literal translation of the Greek words here would \>e, " they that are in gorgeous apparel, and delicate living."
The words translated " delicate living," is only used in one other place in the New Testament, and there rendered, " riot." (2 Peter ii. 13.)
28. — [Among those.,, bom of women.^ Chrysostom thinks, that by this expression our Lord " tacitly excepted himself. For though He too was bom of a woman, yet not as John, for He was not a mere man, neither was He bom in like manner as man, but by a strange and wondrous kind of birth/' This is not a satisfactory interpretation, and seems to involve. daogerovis con- sequences.