corresponds to that of the thousands, so does that of the cophini to that of the apostles ; so that each of them had the cophinus
" These words, although the same in our version, are not so in the original. That is to say, the 'baskets' in which the fragments were deposited on these two occasions are denoted by different words, both here and in the regular narratives of the transactions to which our Saviour refers. The first (xotpivoi), was proverbially a Jewish travelling-basket, and is mentioned as such by Juvenal (iii. 15; vi. 542), where the word rendered 'basket' is cophinus, the same as this : —
' Banish'd Jews, who their whole wealth can lay
In a small basket.'
" The other passage we are tempted to cite entire, as it applies to the con dition of the Jews after the desolation of their city and temple, and the ruin of their nation ; when it is well known that such numbers of them gained a wretched subsistence by pretending to tell fortunes, that 'Jew' and 'for tune-teller ' became almost synonymous : —
' A gipsey Jewess whispers in your ear,
And be^s an alms : a high-priest's daughter she,
Versed in the Talmud and divinity,
And prophesies beneath a shady tree.
Her goods, a basket, and old hay her bed,
She strolls, and, telling fortunes, gains her bread :
Farthings, and some small monies are her fees ;
Yet she interprets all your dreams for these/
" The other word, also rendered basket, in ver. 10, is awpig: it appears, from the citations of Wetstein, to have been a kind of basket for storing grain, provisions, etc. ; and therefore larger than the former, probably much larger. Campbell translates this by 'maund,' and retains 'basket' for the former ; and observes, that although these words are not fit for answering entirely the same purposes as the original terms, which probably conveyed the idea of their respective sizes, and consequently of the quantity contained ; still there is a propriety in marking, were it but by this single circumstance, that there was a difference." — Kitto's Illustrated Commentary, in loc. -(I. B.)
It is a remarkable instance of undesigned coincidence — one of the best indirect proofs of genuineness — that all the four Evangelists uniformly apply the term wtyivot to the twelve baskets in the miracle of the five thousand fed ; and the two Evangelists, who record the miracle of the four thousand, apply the term anvpfoes to the seven hampers mentioned in that miracle, Matt. xiv. 20 j Mark vi. 43; Luke ix. 17; John vi. 13 (so here also Matt. xvi. 9, 10) : and Matt. xv. 37 ; Mark viii. 8. Clearly, the two miracles were distinctly impressed on the minds of the Evangelists as distinct and real events ; the circumstantial particulars peculiar to each miracle being noted with the accuracy of an eye-witness, even to the shape and size of the bas kets. A teller of the tale, at third or fourth hand, would have lost this