meat and drink, etc. Elsewhere it is said that those who obtain the life to come, will be like God : but, since God has one Son and many sons, in this passage, where there is question concerning begetting, it is said that they will be as angels ; and simultaneously the existence of angels also is defended against the Sadducees who ignored it. — eiei, are) sc. both men and women.
31. l 'T/A/V, unto you) To you He says, not to us. They were not written for Christ.2 To you the descendants of Abraham.
32. 'O ®fb$, the God) see Ex. iii. 6. These words are not put only once, but three times, because Jacob did not hear the promise of God merely from Isaac, or Isaac merely from Abra ham, but each of them separately also from God Himself; and Abraham's name was Divinely changed, Isaac's Divinely given, that of Israel Divinely added to Jacob: see Gen. xvii. 5, 19, xxxii. 28. — O-JK tan ©EOS vtxpuvf He is not God of the dead} i.e., God is not God of the dead. There is an ellipsis as in Rom. iii. 29. The value of inferential4 reasoning is seen by this example, — " God is thine" This phrase expresses both a Divine gift and a human duty. The Divine gift (for that is considered in this passage) thus expressed, is infinite, everlasting, and one which could never be fully realized to us by an earthly life, however long or happy (see Ps. cxliv. 15, and Luke xvi. 25), much less by a pilgrimage of a few and evil days, such as were the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and above all, Jacob, compared with those of their ancestors,5 who, nevertheless, had not ob-
1 Tripl 5s T»J£ dvaarctaiu;) Jesus not merely refuted the objection of those in error, but also demonstrates the truth to them. — V. g.
2 Nor were they written even for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who had lived before that the Vision was vouchsafed to Moses, which was subse quently committed to writing. — V. g.
8 The reading of E. M. is " ovx 'iartu 6 &soc &io; vtxpuv" rendered in E. V. " God is not the God of the dead." — (I. B.) BLA&c Vulg. omit the second fco;: so Iren. Hil. 77, 484, 500, 722. But Orig. 3,828b ; 8296 support it, with the Rec. Text.— ED.
4 Bengcl means to say, that we are bound to receive not only what is actually written totidem verbis in Scripture, but also what may be logically inferred from the words of Holy Writ — not merely what " is contained therein," but also what " may be proved thereby." — (I. B.)
5 Comp. Gen. xlvii. 9. — ED.