9. These stones. Pointing, as he spoke, to the pebbles on the beach of the Jordan.
10. Is laid (xetras). Not, 7s applied, as “She layeth her hands to the spindle ” (Prov. xxxi. 19), but és lying.
Is hewn down and cast. The present tense is graphic, denot- ing what is to happen at once and certainly.
Cu. III.] MATTHEW. 25
11. To bear. Compare to wnloose, Mark i. 7. John puts him- self in the position of the meanest of servants. To bear the san- dals of their masters, that is, to bring and take them away, as well as to fasten or to take them off, was, among the Jews, Greeks, and Romans, the business of slaves of the lowest rank.
12. Fan, floor (Wye. has corn-jloor). The picture is of a farmer at his threshing-floor, the area of hard-beaten earth on which the sheaves are spread and the grain trodden out by animals. His fan, that is his winnowing-shovel or fork, is in his hand, and with it he throws up the mingled wheat and chaff against the wind in order to separate the grain.
Throughly cleanse (Siaxa9apé). Throughly (retained by Rey.) obsolete form of thoroughly, is the force of the preposi- tion Sed (through). In that preposition lies the picture of the farmer beginning at one side of the floor, and working through to the other, cleansing as he goes.
The whole metaphor represents the Messiah as separating the evil from the good, according to the tests of his. kingdom and Gospel, receiving the worthy into his kingdom and con- signing the unworthy to destruction (compare Matt. xiii. 30; 39-43 ; 48-50).
14. Forbad (Svexdavev). The A. V., following Wye. and Tynd., misses the meaning of the verb. As in so many in- stances, it overlooks the force of the imperfect tense, which ex- presses past action, either in progress or in process of concep- tion, in the agent’s mind. John did not forbid Jesus, but had it in mind to prevent him: was for hindering him. Hence Rey., properly, would have hindered him. Again, the prepo- sition (6d) intensifies the verb, and represents strong feeling on John’s part. He was moved to strenuous protest against Jesus’ baptisin by him.
16. As a dove (ace) mepictepav). In the form of a dove, and not, as some interpret, referring merely to the manner of the descent—swiftly and gently as a dove (compare Luke iii. 22 “ Jn
26 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. (Cu. III.
a bodily form, as a dove”). The dove was an ancient symbol ef purity and innocence, adopted by our Lord in Matt. x. 16. It was the only bird allowed to be offered in sacrifice by the Levitical law. In Christian art it is the symbol of the Holy Spirit, and that in his Old Testament manifestations as well as in those of the New Testament. From a very early date the dove brooding over the waters was the type of the opening words of Genesis. An odd fresco on the choir-walls of the Cathedral of Monreale, near Palermo, represents a waste of waters, and Christ above, leaning forward from the circle of heaven with extended arms. From beneath him issues the divine ray along which the dove is descending upon the waters. So Milton:
“¢Thou from the first Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread Dove-like sat’st brooding on the vast abyss And mad’st it pregnant.”
In art, the double-headed dove is the peculiar attribute of the prophet Elisha. A window in Lincoln College, Oxford, repre- sents him with the double-headed dove perched upon his shoulder. The symbol is explained by Elisha’s prayer that a double portion of Elijah’s spirit might rest upon him.
It has been asserted that, among the Jews, the Holy Spirit was presented under the symbol of a dove, and a passage is cited from the Talmud: “ The Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters like a dove.” Dr. Edersheim (“ Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah”) vigorously contradicts this, and says. that the passage treats of the supposed distance between the upper and the lower waters, which was only three finger- breadths. This is proved by Gen. i. 2, where the Spirit of God is said to brood over the face of the waters, “just as a dove broodeth over her young without touching them.” “Thus the comparison is not between the Spirit and the dove, but between the closeness with which a dove broods over her young withont touching them, and the supposed proximity of the Spirit to the . lower waters without touching them.” He goes on to say that the dove was not the symbol of the Holy Spirit, but of Israel. “Tf, therefore, rabbinic illustration of the descent of the Holy