[1678] For the reasons of this, comp. Sketches of Jewish Social Life,' p. 151.
[1679] St. John 1. 43.
[1680] This may be regarded as another of the undesigned evidences of the Hebraic origin of the fourth Gospel. Indeed, it might also be almost called an evidence of the truth of the whole narrative.
[1681] St. John ii. 1.
[1682] Yet Renan speaks of the first chapters of St. John's Gospel as scattered notices, without chronological order!
[1683] This reticence seems another undesigned evidence of Johannine authorship.
[1684] The Greek has it: John was standing, and from among his disciples two.'
[1685] The word implies earnest, penetrating gaze.
[1686] The precise date of the origin of this designation is not quite clear. We find it in threefold development: Rab, Rabbi, and Rabban - amplitudo,' amplitudo mea,' amplitudo nostra,' which mark successive stages. As the last of these titles was borne by the grandson of Hillel (a.d. 30-50), it is only reasonable to suppose that the two preceding ones were current a generation and more before that. Again, we have to distinguish the original and earlier use of the title when it only applied to teachers, and the later usage when, like the word Doctor,' it was given indiscriminately to men of supposed learning. When Jesus is so addressed it is in the sense of my Teacher.' Nor can there be any reasonable doubt, that thus it was generally current in and before the time noted in the Gospels. A still higher title than any of these three seems to have been Beribbi, or Berabbi, by which Rabban Gamaliel is designated in Shabb. 115 a. It literally means belonging to the house of a Rabbi' - as we would say, a Rabbi of Rabbis. On the other hand, the expression Come and see' is among the most common Rabbinic formulas, although generally connected with the acquisition of special and important information.
[1687] Comp. Canon Westcott's note.
[1688] The common supposition is, that the time must be computed according to the Jewish method, in which case the tenth hour would represent 4 p.m. But remembering that the Jewish day ended with sunset, it could, in that case, have been scarcely marked, that they abode with Him that day.' The correct interpretation would therefore point in this, as in the other passages of St. John, to the Asiatic numeration of hours, corresponding to our own. Comp. J. B. McLellan's New Testament, pp. 740-742.
[1689] v. 41.
[1690] This appears from the word first,' used as an adjective here, v. 41 (although the reading is doubtful), and from the implied reference to some one else later on.
[1691] On the reading of the Aramaic Meshicha by Messias, see Delitzsch in the Luther. Zeitschr. for 1876, p. 603 Of course, both Messias and Christ mean the Anointed.'
[1692] The same word as that used in regard to the Baptist looking upon Jesus.
[1693] So according to the best text, and not Jona.
[1694] Hereafter thou shalt win the name.' - Westcott.
[1695] So in the Greek, of which the English interpretation is a stone' - Keyph, or Keypha, a rock.'
[1696] The evidence for the great historic difference between this call to personal attachment, and that to the Apostolate, is shown - I should think beyond the power of cavil - by Godet, and especially by Canon Westcott. To these and other commentators the reader must be referred on this and many points, which it would be out of place to discuss at length in this book.
[1697] v. 47.
[1698] v. 51.
[1699] Tanchuma on the passage, ed. Warsh. p. 38 a, b.
[1700] Corroborative and illustrative passages are here too numerous, perhaps also not sufficiently important, to be quoted in detail.
[1701] Ewald imagines that this fig-tree' had been in the garden of Nathanael's house at Cana, and Archdeacon Watkins seems to adopt this view, but, as it seems to me, without historical ground.