[4479] See Book III. ch. xvii.
[4480] St. Matt. ix. 10, 11.
[4481] The only other alternative would seem, if one were to narrow the underlying ideas in a strictly Predestinarian sense. But this seems not only incompatible with the third Parable, where all turns on personal resolve, but runs contrary to the whole spirit of these Parables, which is not of the exclusion of any, but of the widest inclusion.
[4482] St. Luke xv. 4.
[4483] ver. 8.
[4484] St. Luke xiv. 5.
[4485] There is to some extent a Rabbinic parallel Parable (Ber. R. 86, ed. Warsh. p. 154 b, about the middle), where one who is driving twelve animals laden with wine, leaves the eleven and follows the twelfth into the shop of a Gentile, for fear that the wine which it bears might be mixed there.
[4486] 1 Pet. ii.25.
[4487] Siphré, ed. Friedmann, p. 37 a, line 13 from top.
[4488] In St. Matt. xviii. 12-14, the same Parable is used, but with different application - not as here to the loss, but to what men might deem the smallness of the loss, with special reference to the command in ver. 10 (ver. 11 in the text of our A.V. is spurious).
[4489] See Note on p. 255 of this chapter.
[4490] on Ex. iii. 1.
[4491] Shem. R. 2, ed. Warsh, p. 7 b, about the middle.
[4492] on Prov. ii. 4.
[4493] Midr. on Cant. i. 1, ed. Warsh p. 3 a, about the middle.
[4494] Ber. 34 b about the middle.
[4495] Is. lxiv. 4.
[4496] Jer. iii. 12.
[4497] Debar. R. 2, on Deut. iii. 25, which, in general, contains several references to repentance, ed. Warsh. p. 7 b, about the middle.
[4498] See ch. xvi. Note 1.
[4499] But in regard to such disinheriting of children, even if they were bad, it was said, that the Spirit of Wisdom did not rest on them who made such disposition (Baba B. viii. 5).
[4500] It may be interesting here to quote, in connection with the interpretation of Heb. vii. 18, viii. 7-13, this Rabbinic principle: A testament makes void a [previous] testament,' Jer. Baba B. 16 b, below.
[4501] Baba B. viii. 6; Moed K. iii. 3.
[4502] The present Jewish Law of Inheritance is fully given in Fassel, Mos. Rabb. Civil-Recht, vol. i. pp. 274-412.
[4503] St. Luke xiii. 2, 3.
[4504] More literally, was glued.' The LXX. translate thus the Hebrew {hebrew}, to cleave.'
[4505] Baba K. 82 b, and the reference to it in the Midrash on Eccles. viii. 1.
[4506] This prohibition is connected by tradition with Maccabean times.
[4507] Vayyik. R. 35 ed. Warsh., pp. 53 b, 54 a.
[4508] The fruit of the carob-tree is regarded in Jewish and heathen literature as the poorest, and, indeed, only fit for animals. See Wetstein ad loc. According to Jewish ideas, it took seventy years before the carob-tree bore fruit (Bekhor. 8 a). It is at least doubtful whether the tree is mentioned in the Old Testament (the {hebrew} of 2 Sam. v. 23, 24). In the Mishnah it is frequently referred to (Peah i. 5; Shabb. xxiv. 2; Baba B. ii. 7). Its fruit seems to have been the food of ascetics, such as Chanina b. Dosa, &c. (Ber. 17 b), and Simeon b. Jochai (Shabb. 33 b), even as it had been that of John the Baptist. Its leaves seem on occasions to have been used as writing-material (Tos. Gitt. 2).
[4509] Other terms were also substituted (such as Might,' Mercy,' &c.) - with the view of avoiding needless mention of the Deity.
[4510] St. Luke xv. 23.
[4511] Or kissed him much,' katephlesen atn.
[4512] ver. 21. See marg. of R. V.
[4513] Siphré, ed. Friedm. p. 35 a.
[4514] Thus the text correctly. As it seems to me, the words do not, in the first place, point to a moral change. Dogmatically, the inference is no doubt correct, but, as Goebel remarks, they would scarcely have, in that sense, been addressed to the servants.