the prophet Isaiah (as I have long since been of opinion) :l how ever it is not without show of probability, that Beza conjectures that the passage of Malachi crept from the blank space in the margin [ex albo] into the context of Mark. Isaiah is more copious and better known, and his testimony, which has been quoted by Mark, used to be read in public on the Sabbath ; and Mark here produces the testimony of Malachi in a kind of parenthetic way, equivalent to a supplement, intending, as he did below, to omit that section of the Gospel history in which Malachi is properly [in the peculiarly appropriate place] quoted in Matt. xi. 10, and Luke vii. 27 : whereas the quotation of Isaiah, as in Matthew, Luke, and John, so also here in Mark, is peculiarly appropriate to this place. John the Baptist him self quoted Isaiah, not Malachi, concerning himself.
3. <I>w^, the voice) see Luke iii. 4, notes. — Jc ry sp JJ/AW, in the wilderness) This is repeated in the following verse, where pre sently after also that expression, preaching (xqpvffauv), answers to, the voice of one crying, in this ver.
4. 'EysKsro, came forth [not the same as rjv]) The event is pointed out as answering to the prophecy. — xqpvtffuv fidKriopa, preaching the baptism) An abbreviated expression for, preaching the preaching of repentance, and baptizing the baptism of repen tance ; Luke iii. 3. — ei$t unto [for]) Construe with the baptism of repentance ; Acts ii. 38. — apmv, remission) without [the need of] Levitical sacrifices.
5. 'louSa/a %ui^a, the land of Judea) So, rqv lovdaiav ySjv, John
1 Porphyry, an infidel of the third century, in charging Mark, on the ground that he has ascribed to Isaiah the words ftou — Trpoaavov aw, by the very fact of this charge establishes the fact, that the reading at that early date in the Greek or Syriac copies was ev ' Hamiu ru -Trpotpqry, and therefore that it was not a reading spuriously reproduced from the Latin copies, as may be seen at greater length in J. D. Michaelis' Enleitung, etc., T. i., p. m. 162, 586, 587.— E. B.
'Ev ry 'Haoti'a TM Trpotptiry is the reading of BD (omitting the second ry) LA Vulg. be, Syr. Memph. Origen, Iren. 191 : " in Eseiam (Esaiam) pro- phetam" in ad. But Rec. Text kv rol; TrpotpyTeti;, with A P, and Iren. 187, 205, expressly. Lachm. from Orig. 4,15e, which represents Mark, in accord ance with his wonted style, abruptly to pass from " the beginning of the Gospel," etc., ver. 1, to ' John,' ver. 4, is of opinion ver. 2 and 3 were inserted by pious readers. See Lachm. Gr. Test., vol. ii. p. 6. — ED. and TRANSL.