lies. They believed them, and spoke of tnem, as historical facts. We never need be ashamed of being on their side.
Let us observe the acquaintance with Scripture which the Jews exhibit. They quote the seventy-eighth Psalm (ver. 24, 25), as a sujBQcient proof of tfhe fact they had just mentioned. A certain knowledge of Scripture, unhappily, may often be found in a very unbelieving heart. Knowledge of the letter of Scrip- ture at any rate seems to have been very common among the Jews. (See Deut. vi. 6, 7.)
Whether or not they apphed the sentence they quoted to Moses, rather than God, 1 think, admits of a question. Our Lord's words, in the following verse, would rather lead one to think that they meant that "Moses gave them bread from heaven."
32. — l^Then Jesns....verily.. ..Moses gave you not that hreadi] The object of our Lord in this verse is very plain. He replies to the argument of the Jews, that the miracle of the manna was a greater miracle than any He had come into the world to work, and that Moses w^as consequently a greater prophet than He was. Yet in the words he uses, it is not very easy to settle where the stress should be laid, and what is the precise word on which the point of the answer rests.
(a.) Some think that it means, — " It was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but God." They lay the stress on Moses.
(b.) Some think that it means, — "Moses did not give you bread from the real heaven of heavens, where God the Father dwells, but only a material food from the upper part of that atmosphere which surrounds this earth." They lay the stress on heaven.
(c.) Some think that it means, — '' Moses did not give the true spiritual bread from heaven, though he gave you bread." They lay the stress on " that bread."
The second of these opinions seems to me quite inadmissible. The distinction between the heaven where God dwells and the upper region of our atmosphere was not, I beheve, in our Lord's mind, when He used the language He uses here. Moreover it cannot be denied that the manna, though only material food, was heavenly food, i. e., food supplied by God's miraculous inter- position.
The true view seems to me to be contained in the first and third opinions taken together. The Greek bears it out by put- ting the word " not" in the very forefront of the sentence. "It was not Moses who gave you that bread from heaven, and even