[1023] Christian writers on these subjects have generally conjoined the so-called woes of the Messiah' with His first appearance. It seems not to have occurred to them, that, if such had been the Jewish expectation, a preliminary objection would have lain against the claims of Jesus from their absence.
[1024] As reported in St. Matt. xxiv. 3-29.
[1025] Their feelings on this matter would be represented, mutatis mutandis, by the expressions in the Sanhedrin, recorded in St. John xi. 47-50.
[1026] Both Meyer and Weiss have shown, that this was not a meeting of the Sanhedrin, if, indeed, that body had anything more than a shadowy existence during the reign of Herod.
[1027] The question propounded by Herod (v. 4), where Christ should be born,' is put neither in the past nor in the future, but in the present tense. In other words, he laid before them a case - a theological problem, but not a fact, either past or future.
[1028] St. Matt. ii. 7.
[1029] v. 16.
[1030] Jer. Ber. ii. 4, p. 5 a.
[1031] In point of fact, the Talmud expressly lays it down, that whosoever targums a verse in its closely literal form [without due regard to its meaning], is a liar.' (Kidd. 49 a; comp. on the subject Deutsch's Literary Remains,' p. 327).
[1032] St. Matt. ii. 6.
[1033] The general pinciple, that St. Matthew rendered Mic. v. 2 targumically, would, it seems, cover all the differences between his quotation and the Hebrew text. But it may be worth while, in this instance at least, to examine the differences in detail. Two of them are trivial, viz., Bethlehem, land of Juda,' instead of Ephratah;' princes' instead of thousands,' though St. Matthew may, possibly, have pointed {hebrew} (princes'), instead of {hebrew} as in our Hebrew text. Perhaps he rendered the word more correctly than we do, since {hebrew} means not only a thousand' but also a part of a tribe (Is. lx. 22), a clan, or Beth Abh (Judg. vi. 15); comp. also Numb. i. 16; x. 4, 36; Deut. xxxiii. 17; Josh. xxii. 21, 30; i Sam. x. 19; xxiii. 23; in which case the personification of these thousands' (=our hundreds') by their chieftains or princes' would be a very apt Targumic rendering. Two other of the divergences are more important, viz., (1) Art not the least,' instead of though thou be little.' But the Hebrew words have also been otherwise rendered: in the Syriac interrogatively (art thou little?'), which suggests the rendering of St. Matthew; and in the Arabic just as by St. Matthew (vide Pocock, Porta Mosis, Notæ, c. ii.; but Pocock does not give the Targum accurately). Credner ingeniously suggested, that the rendering of St. Matthew may have been caused by a Targumic rendering of the Hebrew {hebrew} by {hebrew}; but he does not seem to have noticed, that this is the actual rendering in the Targum Jon. on the passage. As for the second and more serious divergence in the latter part of the verse, it may be best here simply to give for comparison the rendering of the passage in the Targum Jonathan: Out of thee shall come forth before Me Messiah to exercise rule over Israel.'
[1034] Not necessarily by night, as most writers suppose.
[1035] So correctly, and not in the East,' as in A.V.
[1036] Proof of this is abundantly furnished by Wetstein, Nov. Test. t. i. pp. 247 and 248.
[1037] v. 11.
[1038] 2 Cor. v 16
[1039] In this seems to lie the strongest condemnation of Romish and Romanising tendencies, that they ever seek to present - or, perhaps, rather obtrude - the external circumstances. It is not thus that the Gospel most fully presents to us the spiritual, nor yet thus that the deepest and holiest impressions are made. True religion is ever objectivistic, sensuous subjectivistic.
[1040] Archdeacon Farrar.
[1041] Numb. xxiv. 17.
[1042] Strauss (Leben Jesu, i. pp. 224-249) finds a legendary basis for the Evangelic account in Numb. xxiv. 17, and also appeals to the legendary stories of profane writers about stars appearing at the birth of great men.