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over into that of inheritance. Thus, too, in the OT the blessings of the people of God, recognised to be possessed by God’s free gift and not by the people’s merit, came to be describedin terms of a heritage, and God Himself, the Giver of all, was looked to as the supreme portion of His people, the possession that made their inheritance (Ps. xvi. 5-11). But in the OT there was also the counter idea that Israel was the portion or inheritance ot the Lord, chosen by Himself to be His peculiar possession. At times these two ideas meet in one statement (Jer. x. 16). The question, therefore, is—which of these two conceptions is embodied in the ἐκληρώθημεν here? Or may it be that the word. has a sense somewhat different from either ? Some take this latter view, understanding the word to mean appointed by lot, or elected by lot, sorte vocati sumus as the Vulg. makes it. So Syr., Goth., Chrys., Erasm., Estius, etc. So also the Genevan Version gives ‘‘ we are chosen,” and the Rhemish “ we are called by lot”. The point thus would be again the sovereignty of the Divine choice, the Christians in view being described as appointed to their Christian position as if by lot. But when our appointment or election is spoken of it is nowhere else said to be by Jot, but by the purpose or counsel of God. Retaining, therefore, the general conception of an inheritance, some take the passive ἐκληρώθημεν for the middle, and render it simply ‘‘we have obtained an inheritance” (AV., Conyb.). The passive, however, must be accepted as a real passive, and the choice comes to be between these two interpretations: (a) we were made partakers of the inheritance, in hereditatem adsciti, en- feoffed in it (Eadie), and (δ) we were made a heritage (RV), God’s λαὸς ἔγ- κληρος, taken by Him as His own peculiar portion. The former is the view of Harl., Mey., Haupt, etc., and so far also of Tyndale and Cranmer, who trans- late “we are made heirs”. It deals with the pass. κληροῦσθαι on the analogy of such passives as πιστεύομαι, φθονοῦμαι, διακονοῦμαι; it has the advantage of being in accordance with the idea regu- larly conveyed by, the cognate terms κληρονομία, κληρονομεῖν ; and it points to a third gift of God of the same order with the previous two—forgiveness, wis- dom, inheritance. The other interpre- tation, however — ‘made a heritage,” “taken for God’s inheritance ””—is to be preferred (with Grot., Olsh., De Wette, Stier., Alf., etc.) as being on the whole more consistent with usage; more in
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