V.21 Then .Jesus went thence, v. 24 And from thence he and departed into the coasts of arose, and went into the bor- Tyre and Sidon. v.22 And, ders of Tyre and Sidon, and behold, a woman of Canaan entered into an house, and came out of the same coasts, would have no man know it : etc. but he could not be hid. For
a certain woman, etc. [A Greek].
V. 29 And Jesus departed v.3i And aprain, departin<r from thence, and came niprh from the coasts of Tyre and unto the sea of flalilee ; and Sidon, he came unto the sea of went up into a mountain, and Galilee, throusrh the midst of sat down there. the coasts of Decapolis. [East
of the .Jordan].
After the Revisers' most conscientious work, with their better evidence, this is the form in which we read the same :
And Jesus went out thence, And from thence he arose, and withdrew into the parts of and went away into the bor- Tyre and Sidon. And, behold, ders of Tyre and Sidon. And a Canaanitish woman came out he entered into an house, and from those borders, etc. would have no man know it :
and he could not be hid. But strai<fhtway a woman, etc. [A Greek].
Marg. 'Some ancient authori- ties omit and Sidon.'
And Jesus departed thence, And again he went out from and came nigh unto the sea of the borders of Tyre, and came Galilee ; and he went up into through Sidon unto the sea of the mountain, and sat there. Galilee, through the midst of
the borders of Decapolis.
B. Weiss sides completely with the ' some ancient authorities' of RVm, and reads: Jesus 'went away into the borders of Tyre. . . . And again he went out from the borders of Tyre, and came through Sidon unto the sea of Galilee,' etc. Thus the primary Gospel of Mark, the more ancient Sinaitic and Vatican MSS, Professor Weiss, and the Revisers do not hesitate to depict Jesus as entering Gentile territory (twice), entering a (probably) heathen house, and dispensing blessings upon a pagan woman, going then yet farther 'through Sidon ' and Decapolis. The more theological First Evangelist, however, and the judicious transcribers disliked so to state the case. So Edersheim : the ' house in which Jesus sought shelter and privacy would, of course, be a Jewish home ' ; and ' by "through Sidon" I do not understand the town of that name, which would have been quite outside the Saviour's route, but the territory of Sidon' {Life and Times, ii. 38, 44).
Anything like a direct ' route ' from the Israel- itish borders of Tyre, or of Tyre and Sidon,— for Edersheim emiihasizes Matthew's indication that the woman came from her territory to that of Jesus, — Avould take one in a south-easterly direction, and therefore away from Sidon. Accordingly, Jesus' choice to go in a northerly direction, ' through Sidon,' shows that He was not taking any near and direct and usual 'route,' but for a reason was seeking travel into heathen territory. ]\Ik.'s con- nexion indicates that Jesus journeyed into the Gentile land with His disciples, on the occasion of the abolition of the Levitical distinctions as to the ceremonially clean and unclean, so as to give to His followers an example and object lesson as to the same. Sidon on the far north was for this reason included, as was the hog-herding Decapolis. It was at Csesarea, a similar Gentile city almost 100 miles nearer Jerusalem, that St. Peter received his fuller lesson on the same subject.
Wilbur Fletcher Steele.
SIFTING.— The vb. 'sift'(Gr. (nvidi-w, fr. cnviov, a late word for a sieve) occurs only in Lk 22^^ Two varieties of sieve were used for separating the finer particles of substances from the grosser (see art. Agriculture). Scripture refers to the sieve and the process of sifting only rarelv (Is 30-^, Am 9^ Lk 223'), |jut is full of the idea of sifting. In this i)rocess the methods of difTerent industries join to give force to the metaphor which they supply. Of these farming is the chief, with its floors, fans, etc. (Mt 3'-, Lk 3^'^). The preparation of wine also enters in with its emptying from vessel to vessel (Jer 48"). The refining of metals (Is \-^, Mai .3-'-), too, contributes to the contents of the idea of sifting. All these moralize it. It con- centrates on character. St. Peter and his fellow- disciples [plur. vfias] are sifted ; Pharisees strain out gnats (INIt 23-'*) ; evil work avoids the sifting of the light (Jn 3-*'). The ministries of John, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit ( Jn 16^), all have this trait — they sift men. Yet Jesus is Himself .sifted by Satan, whose 'findings' are nil (.In 14^"), while, calso, the disciples are not above the Master. ' As the wheat in the sieve is shaken backwards and
624
SIGHING
SIGHT
forwards, and thus the refuse separates itself from the grain, and falls out ; so Satan wishes to trouble you and toss you about (by vexations, terrors, dangers, afflictions) in order to bring your faithful- ness to me to decay' (Meyer's Luke 22^^).* The case of St. Peter is not singular. St. Paul under- went the process (Ph 3'^, 2 Co 6^*^-)- The sifting is a law of life. All the Father's chastenings are with a view to sift His children as wheat. It is of the essence of the ways of God with men alike in pro- vidence and gi-ace. Its place in that economy is among the final, not initial, processes. Readier and rougher means of grace liave their earlier day ; this is a delicate, even final, means of dealing Avitli the finest of the wheat.