[3591] This appears from the whole context. Comp. Bp. Ellicott's Histor. Lect. pp. 220, 221, and notes.
[3592] For a summary of the great differences between the two miracles, comp. Bp. Ellicott, u. s. pp. 221, 222. The statements of Meyer ad loc. are unsatisfactory.
[3593] The kphinos (St. Matt. xiv. 20) was the small handbasket (see ch. xxix), while the spurs (the term used at the feeding of the four thousand) is the large provision-basket or hamper, such as that in which St. Paul was let down over the wall at Damascus (Acts ix. 25). What makes it more marked is, that the distinction of the two words is kept up in the reference to the two miracles (St. Matt. xvi. 9, 10).
[3594] See ch. xxix.
[3595] St. Mark viii. 6, 7.
[3596] St. Matt. xiv. 19; St. Mark vi. 39; St. John vi. 10.
[3597] Literally, upon the earth.'
[3598] The word remia means a specially lonely place.
[3599] Of Bleek.
[3600] By Dean Plumptre, ad loc.
[3601] Ezek. xxxvii. 3.
[3602] Compare, however, vol. i. pp. 238, 240, and Book V. ch. iii. Where the political element was dominant, the religious distinction might not be so clearly marked.
[3603] St. Matt. xv. 39.
[3604] It need scarcely be said that the best reading is Magadan, not Magdala.
[3605] It has been ingeniously suggested, that Magadan might represent a Megiddo, being a form intermediate between the Hebrew Megiddon and the Asyrian Magadu.
[3606] St. Mark viii. 11.
[3607] Canon Cook in the Speaker's Commentary,' ad loc.
[3608] Sepp, ap. Böttger, Topogr. Lex. zu Fl. Josephus, p. 240.
[3609] Bearing in mind that Tarichæa was the chief depôt for salting the fish for export, the disciples may have had some connections with the place.
[3610] The word here used would, to judge by analogous instances, be {hebrew} (Oth), and not {hebrew} (Siman), as Wünsche suggests, even though the word is formed from the Greek semeon. But the Rabbinic Siman seems to me to have a different shade of meaning.
[3611] Sanh. 98 a last 4 lines.
[3612] However, this (and, for that matter, the next Haggadah also) may have been intended to be taken in an allegoric or parabolic sense, though there is no hint given to that effect.
[3613] Baba Mez. 59 b, line 4 from top, &c.
[3614] St. Mark viii. 12.
[3615] See ch. xxvii. vol. i. p. 647.
[3616] Although some of the best MSS. omit St. Matt. xvi. 2, beginning When it is evening,' to the end of ver. 3, most critics are agreed that it should be retained. But the words in italics in vv. 2 and 3 should be left out, so as to mark exclamations.
[3617] So according to the best reading.
[3618] St. Mark viii. 12.
[3619] St. Luke xix. 41-44.
[3620] St. John vii.
[3621] The figurative meaning of leaven, as that which morally corrupts, was familiar to the Jews. Thus the word {hebrew} (Seor) is used in the sense of moral leaven' hindering the good in Ber. 17 a while the verb {hebrew} (chamets) to be come leavened,' is used to indicate moral deterioration in Rosh haSh. 3 b, 4 a. __________________________________________________________________
CHAPTER XXXVII. THE GREAT CONFESSION - THE GREAT COMMISSION - THE GREAT INSTRUCTION - THE GREAT TEMPTATION - THE GREAT DECISION.
(St. Matt. xvi. 13-28; St. Mark viii. 27, ix. 1; St. Luke ix. 18-27.)
If we are right in identifying the little bay - Dalmanutha - with the neighbourhood of Tarichæa, yet another link of strange coincidence connects the prophetic warning spoken there with its fulfilment. From Dalmanutha our Lord passed across the Lake to Cæsarea Philippi. From Cæsarea Philippi did Vespasian pass through Tiberias to Tarichæa, when the town and people were destroyed, and the blood of the fugitives reddened the Lake, and their bodies choked its waters. Even amidst the horrors of the last Jewish war, few spectacles could have been so sickening as that of the wild stand at Tarichæa, ending with the butchery of 6,500 on land and sea, and lastly, the vile treachery by which they, to whom mercy had been promised, were lured into the circus at Tiberias, when the weak and old, to the number of about 1,200, were slaughtered, and the rest - upwards of 30,400 - sold into slavery. [3622] [3623] Well might He, Who foresaw and foretold that terrible end, standing on that spot, deeply sigh in spirit as He spake to them who asked a sign,' and yet saw not what even ordinary discernment might have perceived of the red and lowering sky overhead.