but Kpb, before, is added on account of those four hundred and thirty years. The testament was confirmed by the promise itself, and that promise repeated, and by an oath, and that too many years before : en, in ver. 18, agrees with this word before. — ftsra, after) It will be said : The epistle to the Hebrews (vii. 28, note) everywhere prefers to the law those things which were confirmed psr&, after the law ; how then is that preferred here, after which the law was given ? Ans. Those things are noticed there, in which the new confirmation [thing confirmed, cove nant] was expressly derogatory to the old confirmation [thing confirmed, covenant] : but that the law was derogatory to the promise, which is here urged, was added neither in the time of Abraham, nor of Moses. To «cr apyjns, that which was from the beginning, is preferred in both cases : comp. Matt. xix. 8. Everywhere Christ prevails. — 'irrt, years) The greatness of the interval increases the authority of the promise. — /s/oi/wg, which was, came into existence) This also has the effect of attributing inferiority to the law, and of imparting elegance to the personi fication. He does not say, given, as if the law had existed be fore it was given ; nor does he add, by God, as he had said concerning the testament or covenant. There is another reason for these words, John i. 17. — vopog, the law) He speaks in the nominative case ; so that God who promises, and the law which does not detract from that promise, may be distinctly opposed to each other, and the hinge of this antithesis is the personifica tion previously noticed. — ovx axvpoT, does not make void) A metonymy of the consequent [for the antecedent], i.e. the law does not confer the inheritance. — ilc, rb xarap^ttai) to make of no effect the promise. But it is rendered vain or of no effect, if the power of conferring the inheritance be transferred from it to the law.
18. E/, if) A conditional syllogism, of which, when the conse quent is taken away, the antecedent is taken away ; so that the conclusion is, therefore the inheritance is not from the law. —
judged as deserving rather to be omitted, but by the excellent decision of the 2d Ed. they have been received into the Germ. Ver. — E. B.
DGr/cj Vnlg. and both Syr. Versions support the addition in Rec. Text d$ Xo/oroV But ABC, some of the best MSS. of Vulg., Memph., and Syr. re ject the addition. — ED.