«3ο ~25.
καὶ ἄφες τοὺς νεκροὺς θάψαι τοὺς ἑαυτῶν νεκρούς. ἐμβάντι αὐτῷ εἰς τὸ 1 πλοῖον, ἠκολούθησαν αὐτῷ οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ. Ch. 24. καὶ ἰδού, " σεισμὸς µέγας ἐγένετο ἐν τῇ θαλάσσῃ, ὥστε τὸ πλοῖον ” καλύπτεσθαι ὑπὸ τῶν κυμάτων ' αὐτὸς δὲ ἐκάθευδε. 2
καὶ προσελθόντες of μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ
1 πο omitted in ΝΡΒΟ 33.
143
23- Kat w here only =tempest. xxiv.
7; Xxvii. 54 al. (earth- 25. quake). . 5 x Lk. viii. ἤγειραν αὐτόν, λέγοντες, 16 (ri rem) 26.
axe 2 Cor. iv. 3 (hide from knowledge).
2 or µαθηται αυτου wanting in $B; added for clearness, but not needed.
ἐπίτρεψόν pot: he wished, before setting out from home to enter on the career of discipleship, to attend to an urgent domestic duty; in fact to bury his father. In that climate burial had to take place on the day of death. Per- mission would have involved very little delay of the voyage, unless, with Chrysos- ‘tom, we include under θάψαι all that goes along with death and burial, ar- ranging family affairs, distribution of inheritance, etc. There would not pro- ‘bably be much trouble of that sort in the case of one belonging to the Jesus- circle.—Ver. 22. ᾿Ακολούθει pot: the reply is a stern refusal, and the reason apparently hard and unfeeling—ades τοὺς νεκροὺς . . . νεκρούς: word for word the same in Luke (ix. 60), an unforgettable, mystic, hard saying. The dead must be taken in two senses = let the spiritually dead, not yet alive to the claims of the kingdom, bury the naturally dead. Fritzsche objects, and finds in the saying the paradox: ‘let the dead bury each other the best way they can,” which, as Weiss says, is not a paradox, but nonsense. Another eccentric idea of some commentators is that the first ψεκροὺς refers to the vespillones, the ccorpse-bearers who carried out the bodies of the poor at night, in Hebrew phrase, the men of the dead. Take it as we will, it seems a hard, heartless saying, difficult to reconcile with Christ’s de- nunciation of the Corban casuistry, by which humanity and filial piety were sacrificed on the altar of religion (Matt. xv. 3-6). But, doubtless, Jesus knew to whom He was speaking. The saying can be understood and justified ; but it ean also very easily be misunderstood and abused, and woe to the man who does so. From these two examples we see that Jesus had a startling way of speaking to disciples, which would create reflection, and also give rise to remark. The disctple-logia are original, severe, fitted to impress, sift and confirm.
Vv. 23-27. Storm on the lake (Mk.
iv. 35-41, Lk. viii. 22-25). Ver. 23. ἐμβάντι αὐτῷ might be called a dative absolute ; if taken as dative after ἠκολού- θησαν, the αὐτῷ after this verb is superfluous. This short sentence is overcharged with pronouns (αὐτοῦ after μαθηταὶ).---τὸ πλοῖον (τὸ omitted in Lk.), the ship in readiness in accordance with previous instructions (ver. 18). Ver. 24,
80d indicates sudden ΟΠΟΟΤΩΕ.-- σεισμὸς
ἐν +. θ., literally an earthquake of the sea, the waters stirred to their depths by the winds referred to in vv. 26, 27; λαῖλαψ in Mark and Luke= hurricane, — Sore, here with infinitive, used also with finite moods {ε.ρ., Gal. ii. 13). In the one case ὥστε indicates aim or tendency, in the other it asserts actual result (vide Goodwin, p. 221, also Batimlein, Schul- grammatik, §§ 593,594). Klotz, Devar., li. p. 772, gives as the equivalent of ὥστε, with infinitive, ita ut; with in- dicative, itaque or ΦΗαγε).---καλύπτεσθαι, was covered, hidden, the waves rising high above the boat, breaking on it, and gradually filling it with water (cf. Mark and Luke).—avrdés δὲ ἐκάθευδεν: dramatic contrast = but He was sleeping (im- perfect), the storm notwithstanding. Like a general in time of war Jesus slept when He could. He had fallen asleep before the storm came on, pro- bably shortly after they had started (Lk. viii. 23, πλεόντων αὐτῶν ἀφύπνωσεν: while they sailed He went off to sleep), soothed by the gliding motion. It was the sleep of one worn by an intense life, involving constant strain on body and mind. The mental tension is apparent in the words spoken to the two disciples (vv. 20-22). Words like these are not spoken in cold blood, or without waste of nervous power. Richard Baxter de- scribes Cromwell as ‘of such vivacity, hilarity, and alacrity as another man hath when he hath drunken a cup too much” (Reliquiae Baxt.). ‘ Drunken, but not with wine,” with a great epoch- making enthusiasm. The storm did not wake the sleeper. A tempest, the sublime