It was all most fitting. The question of unbelief had struck the Priest dumb, for most truly unbelief cannot speak; and the answer of faith restored to him speech, for most truly does faith loosen the tongue. The first evidence of his dumbness had been, that his tongue refused to speak the benediction to the people; and the first evidence of his restored power was, that he spoke the benediction of God in a rapturous burst of praise and thanksgiving. The sign of the unbeliving Priest standing before the awe-struck people, vainly essaying to make himself understood by signs, was most fitting; most fitting also that, when they made signs' to him, the believing father should burst in their hearing into a prophetic hymn.
But far and wide, as these marvellous tidings spread throughout the hill-country of Judæa, fear fell on all - the fear also of a nameless hope. The silence of a long-clouded day had been broken, and the light which had suddenly riven its gloom, laid itself on their hearts in expectancy: What then shall this Child be? For the Hand of the Lord also was with Him!' [748] __________________________________________________________________
[673] Terrible as it may sound, it is certainly the teaching of Rabbinism, that God occupied so many hours every day in the study of the Law. Comp. Targ. Ps.-Jonathan on Deut. xxxii. 4, and Abhod. Z. 3 b. Nay, Rabbinism goes farther in its daring, and speaks of the Almighty as arrayed in a white dress, or as occupying himself by day with the study of the Bible, and by night with that of the six tractates of the Mishnah. Comp. also the Targum on Cant. v. 10.
[674] The object which the Evangelists had in view was certainly not that of biography, even as the Old Testament contains no biography. The twofold object of their narratives is indicated by St. Luke i. 4, and by St. John xx. 31.
[675] Josh. xix. 10, 11.
[676] The name Nazareth may best be regarded as the equivalent of {hebrew} watch' or watcheress.' The name does not occur in the Talmud, nor in those Midrashim which have been preserved. But the elegy of Eleazar ha Kallir - written before the close of the Talmud - in which Nazareth is mentioned as a Priestcentre, is based upon an ancient Midrash, now lost (comp. Neubauer, Geogr. du Talmud, p. 117, note 5). It is, however, possible, as Dr. Neubauer suggests (u.s. p. 190, note 5), that the name {hebrew} in Midr. on Eccl. ii. 8 should read {hebrew} and refers to Nazareth.
[677] Comp. the detailed description of these roads, and the references in Herzog's Real-Encykl. vol. xv. pp. 160, 161.
[678] Comp. Neubauer, u. s. p. 190. See a detailed account in sketches of Jewish Social Life,' &c. p. 36.
[679] It is strange, that these two circumstances have not been noticed. Keim (Jesu von Nazari i. 2, pp. 322, 323) only cursorily refers to the great road which passed through Nazareth.
[680] The inference, that the expression of Nathanael (St. John i. 46) implies a lower state of the people of Nazareth, is unfounded. Even Keim points out, that it only marks disbelief that the Messiah would come from such a place.
[681] Our description of them is derived from notices by Josephus (such as War iii. 3, 2), and many passages in the Talmud.
[682] These differences are marked in Pes. iv. 5; Keth. iv. 12; Ned. ii. 4; Chull. 62 a; Baba K. 80 a; Keth. 12 a.
[683] The reader who wishes to understand what we have only ventured to hint, is referred to the Mishnic tractate Niddah.
[684] Keth. 12 a.
[685] Keth. 12 a, and often.
[686] Comp. Sketches of Jewish Social Life,' &c., pp. 152 &c.
[687] St. John iii. 29
[688] The best defence of this view is that by Wieseler, Beitr. zur Wurdig. d. Evang. pp. 133 &c. It is also virtually adopted by Weiss (Leben Jesu, vol. i. 1882).