Cu. X.] . a MATTHEW. 61
worst of demons. Beelzebul was Beelzibbul. What, then, might his household expect at their hands?” (“ Life and Times of Jesus”’).
27. Preach («npvEate). Better Rev., proclaim. See on Matt. iv. 17.
29. Sparrows (crpov9ia). The word is a diminutive, Jctéle sparrows, and carries with it a touch of tenderness. At the present day, in the markets of Jerusalem and Jaffa, long strings of little birds, sparrows and larks, are offered for sale, trussed on long wooden skewers. Edersheim thinks that Jesus may have had reference to the two sparrows which, according to the Rabbins, were used in the ceremonial of purification from leprosy (Lev. xiv. 49-54).
Shall not fall. A Rabbinic legend relates how a certain Rabbi had been for thirteen years hiding from his persecutors in a cave, where he was miraculously fed; when he observed that when the bird-catcher laid his snare, the bird escaped or was caught, according as a voice from heaven proclaimed “Mercy ” or “ Destruction.” Arguing that if even a sparrow cannot be caught without heaven’s bidding, how much more safe was the life of a son of man, he came forth.
32. Confess me (dpuoroyjoer ev uot). A peculiar but very significant expression. Lit., “Confess in me.” The idea is that of confessing Christ out of a state of oneness with him. “ Abide in me, and being in me, confess me.” It implies iden- tification of the confessor with the confessed, and thus takes confession out of the category of mere formal or verbal acknowl- edgment. “ Not every one that sath unto me, ‘Lord! Lord !’ shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.” The true confessor of Christ is one whose faith rests in him, Observe that this gives great force to the corresponding clause, in which Christ places himself in a similar relation with those whom he con- fesses. “I will confess én him.” It shall be as if I spoke abiding in him. ‘I in them and thou in me, that they may be
62 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. (Cu. X.
perfected into one, and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me” (John XVli. 23).
34. To send (Banreiv). Lit., to throw or cast. By this word the expectancy of the disciples is dramatically pictured, as if he represented them as eagerly looking up for peace as something to be flung down upon the earth from heaven. Dr. Morison gives the picture thus: “All are on tiptoe of expectation. What is it that is about to happen? Is it the reign of peace that is just about to be inaugurated and consummated? Is there henceforth to be only unity and amity? As they muse and de- bate, lo! a sword is flung into the midst.”
35. Set at variance (dvydca). Lit., part asunder. Wye., to depart = part.
Daughter-in-law (viudnv). So A. V. and Rev.; but the full force is lost in this rendering. The word means bride, and though sometimes used in classical Greek of any married woman, it carries a notion of comparative youth. Thus in Homer, “ Odyssey,” iv., 743, the aged nurse, Euryclea, addresses Penelope (certainly not a bride) as vipda iry (dear bride), of course as a term of affection or petting. Compare “ Iliad,” iii., 130, where Iris addresses Helen in the same way. The radical and bitter character of the division brought into households by the Gospel is shown by the fact of its affecting domestic rela- tions in their very freshness. The newly-married wife shall be set at variance with her mother-in-law. Wryeliffe’s rendering is peculiar: And the son’s wife against the wifes or husband's mother.
38. His cross (Tov oravpdv aitod). This was no Jewish proverb, crucifixion not being a Jewish punishment; so that Jesus uses the phrase anticipatively, in view of the death which he himself was to die. This was one of those sayings described in John xii. 16, which the disciples understood not at the first, but the meaning of which was revealed in the light of later