The glory of the court of Solomon is twice referred to in the Gospels, and that in words of Christ. The first instance is the unfavourable comparison between the splendour of the great monarch and the beauty of the field flowers (Mt 6^9, Lk 122^). The second occasion is the reference to the story of the visit of the 'queen of the South' to the court of Sofomon, and the argument that inasmuch as 'a greater than Solomon is here,' she will bring into condemnation Christ's contemporaries. A general reference to the ill-treatment of the prophets at the hands of their countrraien is made in the pathetic lament over Jerusalem, attributed to our Lord in Ml 23^', Lk 13*i, while a more specific reference is contained in the immediately pre- ceding verses in Mt. —a passage, however, that is fraught with peculiar difliculties. The whole section is that which contains the woes uttered against the scribes and Pharisees, and bears considerable trace of later editing, even if it is to be attri- buted, in very much of its present form, to the writer of the Gospel. The passage referred to is contained in Mt 232S-36, where the religious teachers are spoken of as those who ' build the sepulchres of the prophets and garnish the tombs of the righteous, and who say. If we had been in the days of our fathers, we should not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.' The passage then proceeds to a prophecy of what is to happen later to further witnesses that will be sent, and of their ill- treatment ; they are to be scourged and persecuted from city to city — an obvious reference to the treatment of the early Christian missionaries, and, in all likelihood, with the knowledge of their fate before the writer's mind. The conclusion of the passage speaks of the judgment that is to come upon the men of that generation for all the blood shed on the earth, from that of ' Abel the righteous unto the blood of Zachariah, son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the sanctuary and the altar.' It is very difficult to decide what is meant by this last reference, the supposed original passage (2 Ch 24'-i) having a different name for the father of Zachariah (see Barachiah). In John's Gospel there is a reference (Si-*) to the brazen serpent raised by Moses in the wilderness, and in His controversy with the Sadducees our Lord shows His acquaintance with the passage in the life of Moses that relates the revelation at the burning bush (Mk 12a;).
These historical references may seem very slight, but they are sufficient to show Jesus' intimate acquaintance with tlie history of His people, seeing that He was able to employ at -will illustrations from ■what one might consider remote and un- likely incidents in the national story. We must remember also that He was not dealing with historical questions in His teaching, and that all references to these are purely casual. He seems to have accepted the history as it stood recorded, and not to have dealt with it in any critical spirit ; for what concerned Him most was its spiritual significance, and tliis He could best show by accepting the narratives as they stood in the recognized Scripture.
((■) It is of extreme interest to discover, if we can, what books of the OT Jesus turned to vith the greatest ititerest and affection. So far as the avail- able evidence is concerned, it would seem, as we might e.\pect, that the writings whicli were most familiar to Him were those in which the spirit of the prophets reached its highest level, and on which His country-men and fellow-religionists had most perfectly matured tlieir own spiritual life — such books as Isaiah, the Psalms, and that most spiritual setting forth of the Law, the Book of Deuteronomy. There is another of the prophet.s — in all likelihood a native of Galilee, where our
Lord Himself -was brought up — wlio seems to have influenced His tliought and teaching not a little, viz. Hosea. Out of the 39 books which compose the OT, 14 are directly quoted by Jesus in the records we possess. These are Gen., Ex., Lev., Num., Deut., Sam. -Kings, Ps.,Is., Jer.,Dan., Hos., Zech., Malachi. His particular interest in Ueut. is shown in tlie fact that in the narrative of the Temptation all the quotations with whicli He meets tlie a.-^satilts of Satan are taken from tliat book ; and when He declares the essence of the Law to inquirers wlio ask for it. He invariably stales it in the Deutero- nomic form. Passages from the Psalms were ap- parently not onlj- frequently upon His lips, but He used their language on various occasions to describe the real .-*igniticance of His mission, as when He refers (Mt ^l"*'-,) to the ' stone Avhich the builders rejected ' as being significant of Himself, and so consecrated the passage to the later usage of the Chtuch. That He used the Psalms to strengthen His own spiritual life, is pretty clear from various instances in His recorded language of their fihra-'se- ology underlying His own forms of expression ; but most clearly from His words upon the cross, where it seems that one of the Psalms, tlie 2-2nd, was the subject of His reflexion in that supreme hour. Of the prophet Isaiah He evidentlj- made frequent use. According to the narrative' in Lk. (4^''-), His ministry opened with an appropriation and inter- pretation of the great passage in Is 61, which is elsewhere (Mt IF) employed as part of the proof that He Himself is carrying out the Messianic pro- gramme. If the reference to the ' keys of the kingdom of heaven' (Mt 16'^) be authentic, the phrase probably comes from another passage in Isaiah (2'2"), which reads, ' The key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder, and he shall open and none shall shut, and he shall shut and none shall open.' In the case of Hosea it is not onlj- that the suggestive words from G*" are twice quoted (Mt 9^^ 12'), but that the words in which He is accustoiued to speak of His resurrection are also found in Hos 6-. Hosea is a prophet wlio is fond of parables, and some of his illustrations from nature are those also emploj-ed by Jesus ; e.g. husbandry (Hos 10^-), grape culture (14"), the flowers of the field (lO-*), the chaflon the threshing- floor (13^ ; see, further, E.rpT x. [1S99] p. 281). It is verj- remarkable that the "Wisdom literature of the OT should not be directl}- quoted bj- Jesus, and that, in particular, there should be no specific qtiota- tion from the Book of Proverbs, though it will be shown in a later section of this article that much of its language finds an echo in His teaching. We shall find, too, traces of the later "Wisdom literature in the words of Jesus, Avho came Himself to be regarded as the incarnate Wisdom.