18. The sea (rv Sddaccav). The small lake of Gennesa- ret, only thirteen miles long and six wide in its broadest part,
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Cu. IV.] MATTHEW. 31
is called the sea, by the same kind of popular usage by which Swiss and German lakes are called See; as the Adngsee, the Trauensee. So, also, in Holland we have the Zuyder Zee. The Latin mare (the sea) likewise becomes meer in Holland, and is used of a lake, as Haarlemmer Meer ; and in England, mere, as appears in Windermere, Grasmere, ete.
A net (audiPrnoTpov). From audi, around, and Badd, to throw. Hence the casting-net, which, being cast over the shoulder, spreads into a circle (aug). The word is sometimes used by classical Greek writers to denote a garment which en- compasses the wearer. In ver. 20, the word ne¢ again occurs, but representing a different Greek word (8¢«7vov) which is the gen- eral name for all kinds of nets, whether for taking fish or fowl. Still another word occurs at Matt. xiii. 47, cayjvn, the draw- net. See farther on that passage.
21. Mending (xataprifovras). Not necessarily repacring ; the word means to adjust, to “put to rights.” It may mean here preparing the nets for the next fishing.
93, 24. Sickness, Disease, Torments, Taken, Lunatic. The description of the ailments to which our Lord’s power was applied gains in vividness by study of the words in detail. In ver. 23, the Rev. rightly transposes sickness and disease; for vooos (A. V., sickness) carries the notion of something severe, dan- gerous, and even violent (compare the Latin noceo, to hurt, to which the root is akin). Homer always represents vocos as the visitation of an angry deity. Hence used of the plague which Apollo sent upon the Greeks (“ iad,” i. 10). So Sophocles (“ Antigone,” 421) calls a whirlwind Jelav vocov (a divine visita- tion). Disease is, therefore, the more correct rendering as ex- pressing something stronger than sickness or debility. Stck- ness, however, suits the other word, paraxiav. The kindred adjective, wadaxds, means sqft, as a couch or newly-ploughed furrow, and thus easily runs into our invidious moral sense of softness, namely, effeminacy or cowardice, and into the physical
32 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. [Cu. IV.
sense of weakness, sickness. Tence the word emphasizes the idea of debility rather than of violent suffering or danger.
In ver. 24 we have, first, a general expression for ailments of all kinds: all that were sick (lit., all who had themselves in evil case ; TavTas Tovs KaKas éyovtas). Then the idea of suffering is emphasized in the word taken (cuveyouévous), which means literally held-together or compressed ; and so the Rev. holden is an improvement on taken, in which the A. V. has followed Wye. and Tyn. The word is used of the multitude thronging Christ (Luke viii, 45). Compare, also, “how am I straztened (Luke xii. 50); and l amen a@ stract (Philip i. 23). Then fol- low the specifie forms of suffering, the list headed again by the inclusive word vooous, diseases, and the cal following hay- ing the force of and particularly. Note the word torments (Bacdvos). Bacavos originally meant the “ Lydian stone,” or touchstone, on which pure gold, when rubbed, leaves a peculiar mark. Hence, naturally, a ¢est ; then a test or trial by torture. “ Most words,” says Professor Campbell (‘On the Language of Sophocles”) “have been originally metaphors, and metaphors are continually falling into the rank of words,” used by the writer as mere vehicles of expression without any sense of the picturesque or metaphoricalelement at their core. Thus the idea of a test gradually passes entirely out of Bdcavos, leaving merely the idea of suffering or torture. This is peculiarly noticeable in the use of this word and its derivatives through- out the New Testament; for although suffering as a test is a familiar New Testament truth, these words invariably express simply torment or pain. Wycliffe renders, “ They offered to him all men having evil, taken with divers sorrows and _tor- ments ;” and Tyndale, “ All sick people that were taken with divers diseases and gripings.” - Zwnatic, or moon-struck, (cernviatouévous), is rendered by Rey. epileptic, with reference to the real or supposed influence of the changes of the moon upon the victims of epilepsy.