720
TESTAMENT
TESTAMENT
have been present (20" 27')> of the heads of the accusation. IJiit tliese are carefully jireservcd : I'anl is (1) a stirrer up of ffrdo-fis, (2) the rinj;- Icader of a sect, and (3) guilty of an attempt to profane the temple. The ch.-irges are most skilfully chosen. Felix, with his experience (v.'") of Jewish all'airs, would realize how dangerous such a prisoner was to the peace of his province. TertuJlus is a competent counsel, and knows his man.
The grammar of the speech is dislocated, the participle of
V. 16 haa uo projier principal verb ; tlie interpolated passage only partially supplies this defect. Cases of broken construction are somewhat frequent in the speeches of the latter part of Acts: see 21i8f- 262- 18 23. (an obvious condensation) 28. The author had not woriced up his drafts into tiieir final form, or at any rate the finislniit^ touches were not given. A more remark- able example of this may be found in the eighth booli of Thucydides, where all the speeches are left in the form of rough abstracts.
On fanciful etymologies suggested for the name (Tfparo\(57ot, Ter-Tullius) see Basil Jones in Smith's DB, s.v. A. Robertson.
TESTAMENT.— This word does not occur in the EV of the OT ; and, whereas in the AV of the NT it occurs 13 times, this number is reduced to 2 in the RV by the substitution of 'coYenant' in 11 places. In the NT the Gr. equivalent both of 'testament' and of 'covenant' is invariably Jio- BriKTj. In tlie LXX the same Gr. word is the equivalent of bcrith ('covenant') except in two passages, Dt 9" (iiai>Tiipi.ov , pi.) and 3 (1) K 11" (eVroX^, pi.), while it represents no other Heb. word, according to the best authorities, except about 8 times : Ex 27-' 31' 32"^ {'edilt/i, 'testimony '), Dt 9' {dabar, 'yvord '), 2 Ch 25'' (kafMb, 'what is written '), Jer 41 (34) '* {dibrS habberith, ' words of the cove- n.ant '), Dn 9" (turah, ' law '), and Zee H" {'alidvdh, 'brotherhood'). This double exclusiveness is a peculiarity of the LXX version, for berith is often represented in the later versions of Aquila, Sym- inachus, and Theodotion by <rvi>6^Kri, the common Gr. word for ' covenant ' in its more exact sense of compact between parties. Apparently, then, the choice of SmOiiK-q was deliberate, and has severely ruled out awB-fiKr), even where the latter would have been more strictly correct, as Ps 82 (83)° the compact made with one another by Edora, Moab, etc. ; 1 K (S) 23'* the covenant between David and Jonathan. Why this deliberate determina- tion, extending even to solecism ? The idea mainly associated witli bf.rUh was religious, that of an independent, voluntary engagement or settlement on the part of God, and the 'least unsuitable' Gr. equivalent for this was SiaS^xj;, an arrange- ment by one, not awOifKri, an agreement between two ; for though JmS/jvi; meant, in ordinary Greek, a disposition by will, the verb hiaHBtaSm covered authoritative arrangements generally. This ' one- sided' sense of SiaS^Ki) (the acceptance of which is in harmony with Dr. Davidson's interpretation of hh-ith in art. Covenant) comes out very clearly in such uses of it as in Sir 14"- " ' the coven.'int of the grave' (the imposition of death), 'the covenant . . . "Thou sh.ilt die the death."' In Sir •242» oiaBiiKyi is made equivalent to the Law, and in 3(1) K 11" birith is ivroXai (commandments), which Solomon had not kept. But the Divine ' arrange- ment ' was a gr.acious one : ' the Divine SmS-^Ki] is a promise' (Vaughan on Ko O*, cf. Epli 2'-); hence St. Paul, wliilc he uses SiaO-iiKri only 9 times, uses iirayyeXla 2o times, because it lays stress on God's free grace ; cf. Gn 15'" (' the Lord made a covenant n-ith Abraham ... I will give,' etc.). Ex 34"' ('I will make a covenant ... I will do mar\els'), Is 59" ('This is my covenant . . . my spirit shall not depart'). It is true that there are conditions to be fulKUed ; but the idea is that God imposes
these as part of His beneficent arrangement ; jnrt as a will imposes conditions, but is not a covenant in the strict sense of the term. (Cremer asserts that Philo u.ses dLaOriK-q in no other sense than that of 'one-sided' disposition).
The LXX translators made their choice of Jio- SiJki) before its older signification was seriously allected by the extensive spread of -will-making among the Greeks, and the assimilation by thera of 'Roman ideas on wills' (Ramsay, Galatians, p. 3G0). Thus they had still at their disposal in the word the connotation of tlie solemnity and publicity of an irrevocable disposition by which, as a religious act, the maker of the disposition voluntarily, and by his own authority, bound his heir and, concurrently, himself in the presence of the community and its gods, assigning to the heir primarily the religious duties and rights of the family, and imposing arrangements which the heir had to carry out, and which he could at once undertake, and into the a^i vantages of which he could at once enter, wliile he who made the dis- position was still living. A word with such a connotation suited the idea of an irrevocable promise made by God to His chosen people, freely and on His own absolute authority, a promise of a religious inheritance into which they could at once enter by fulfilling the conditions which God, on the same absolute authority, imposed (Ramsay, Galatinns, p. 3G1 ff.).