as being now in a degree estranged ; ] yet He does so twice, and adds " MY" with confidence, patience, and self-resignation. Christ was 13JJ, the servant of the Lord :2 and yet He calls Him God, not Master (&0*tfnp>). In Ps. xxii. (xxi.) 1, the LXX. have o o &io5 {AOUj Kpdeyjs [tot, ivari lyy.u.r'tki'xiz ^ '•, uMy God, My j protect Me! Why hast Thou forsaken Me?" where the meaning is evident from the remainder of that and the following verse. He does not only say that He has been delivered by God into the hands of men, but also that He has suffered some thing, to us ineffable, at the hand of God. — ivari, ivhy ?) Jesus knew the cause, and had prepared Himself for all things : but yet the why expresses that the Son would not have had to endure the dereliction on His own account, but that it happened to Him for a new cause, and would last but for a short time ; after which His yearning desire3 towards the Father would be again gratified. — lyxaT-gX/Tss, hast Thou forsaken} The past tense.4 At that very instant the dereliction came to an end, and shortly afterwards the whole Passion. In the midst and deepest moment of dereliction He was silent. He complains of the dereliction alone.5
47. 'HX/av, Ellas) It is impious to distort sacred words, for mularies, and prayers.
1 In the original, "quasi jam alienior." — (I. B.)
3 Isaiah xlii. 1. — ED.
3 In the original, " desiderium" a word which is said by some to have no equivalent in any other language. It implies here longing and love in the highest and fullest degree, accompanied by sorrow for, and privation of, the object desired • and corresponds very nearly with the Portuguese word saudade, which I believe to be utterly untranslatable. — (I. B.)
The Greek Trodo;.— ED.
* Some recent interpreters render it, Why (How) can it (ever) come to pass, that thou shouldest forsake Me? And yet that interpretation, how ever soothing it be to natural weakness (softness), does not satisfy the de mands of divine rigorous strictness in this most momentous transaction. We may term it, as it were, a filial expostulation, wherein, if we may be per mitted to express the sense with some little change of the words, the be loved Son speaks thus to His beloved Father, What is this that thou hast done unto Me ? In truth, the best of deeds ! Most excellently endured ! A brief time so extraordinary, that, on account of it, He is to have [or else feel] everlasting thanks. — Harm., p. 573.
8 Not of His sufferings. — ED.