[5521] St. Matt. xxiv. 36-51.
[5522] St Matt. xxv. 6.
[5523] Jer. Yoma 41 a, line 24 from top.
[5524] Kel. ii. 8.
[5525] See the Arukh, ad voc.
[5526] The better reading in ver. 1. and again in ver. 7, is not atn their,' but autn.
[5527] The word atn in ver. 4, their vessels,' is probably spurious. In both cases, as so often, the improving' copyists have missed the deeper meaning.
[5528] In ver.2, according to the better reading, the clauses should be inverted, and, as in ver. 3, the foolish' first mentioned.
[5529] St. Matt. v. 16.
[5530] quæcunque, eæ omnes quæ.
[5531] So especially Goebel, to whom, in general, we would acknowledge our obligations.
[5532] Mpote. See Grimm, ad voc. But it is impossible to give the full force of the word.
[5533] The better reading is o m, which double negation I have rendered, for want of better, by never.'
[5534] The clause in which the Son of Man cometh' is spurious - an early gloss crept into the text.
[5535] St. Matt. xxv. 14-30.
[5536] kat tn dan dnamin.
[5537] Some critics and the R.V. have drawn the word straightway' to the next verse, as referring to the activity of the first servant. The reasons urged by Goebel against this seem to me quite convincing, besides the fact that there is no cause for thus distinguishing the first from the second faithful servant.
[5538] krdesen - in the case of the first it was poesen, although even there krdesen is probably the better reading.
[5539] sunarei lgon, confert, vel componit, rem seu causam.
[5540] p' atos should, I think, be retained in the text. It must at any rate be supplied.
[5541] diaskorpzein here in the same sense in which the LXX. render the Hebrew {hebrew} in Ezek. v. 2, comp. Trommius Concord., and Grimm ad verb.
[5542] Goebel exaggerates in supposing that the servant had done so, because any possible returns for the money would not be his own, but the Master's.
[5543] Babha Mez. iv. and v., especially v. 6, and the Gemara, especially Babha M. 70 b &c.
[5544] Comp. Marquardt, Handb. d. Röm. Alterth. vol. v. 2, pp. 56-68.
[5545] Jos. Antiq. xviii. 6. 3.
[5546] perisseuthsetai.
[5547] So the better reading, to d m chontos.
[5548] St. Luke xix. 11-28. __________________________________________________________________
CHAPTER VIII. THE FOURTH DAY IN PASSION-WEEK - JESUS IN HIS LAST SABBATIC REST BEFORE HIS AGONY, AND THE SANHEDRISTS IN THEIR UNREST - THE BETRAYAL - JUDAS: HIS CHARACTER, APOSTASY, AND END.
(St. Matt. xxvi. 1-5, 14-16; St. Mark xiv. 1, 2, 10, 11; St. Luke xxii. 1-6.)
FROM the record of Christ's Sayings and Doings, furnished by St. Matthew, we turn once more to that of public events, as, from one or another aspect they are related by all the Evangelists. With the Discourses in the Temple the public Teaching of Christ had come to an end; with that spoken on the Mount of Olives, and its application in the Parables of the Virgins' and the Talents,' the instruction of the disciples had been concluded. What follows in His intercourse with His own is parænetic, [5549] rather than teaching - exhortation, advice, and consolation: rather, perhaps, all these combined.
The three busy days of Passion-Week were past. The day before that on which the Paschal Lamb was to be slain, with all that was to follow, would be one of rest, a Sabbath to His Soul before its Great Agony. He would refresh Himself, gather Himself up for the terrible conflict before Him. And He did so as the Lamb of God - meekly submitting Himself to the Will and Hand of His Father, and so fulfilling all types, from that of Isaac's sacrifice on Mount Moriah to the Paschal Lamb in the Temple; and bringing the reality of all prophecy, from that of the Woman's Seed that would crush the Serpent's head to that of the Kingdom of God in its fullness, when its golden gates would be flung open to all men, and Heaven's own light flow out to them as they sought its way of peace. Only two days more, as the Jews reckoned them [5550] - that Wednesday and Thursday - and at its Even the Paschal supper! And Jesus knew it well, and He passed that day of rest and preparation in quiet retirement with His disciples - perhaps in some hollow of the Mount of Olives, near the home of Bethany - speaking to them of His Crucifixion on the near Passover. They sorely needed His words; they, rather than He, needed to be prepared for what was coming. But what Divine calm, what willing obedience, and also what outgoing of love to them, with full consciousness of what was before Him, to think and speak of this only on that day! So would not a Messiah of Jewish conception have acted; nay, He would not have been placed in such circumstances. So would not a Messiah of ambitious aims or of Jewish Nationalist aspirations have acted; He would have done what the Sanhedrin feared, and raised a tumult of the people,' prepared for it as the multitude was, which had so lately raised the Hosanna-cry in street and Temple. So would a disillusioned enthusiast not have acted; he would have withdrawn from the impending fate. But Jesus knew it all - far more the agony of shame and suffering, even the unfathomable agony of soul. And the while He thought only of them in it all. Such thinking and speaking is not that of Man - it is that of the Incarnate Son of God, the Christ of the Gospels.