the family or all the persons inhabiting the house (Matt. xii. 25; John iv. 58; 1 Cor. xvi. 15; Matt. x. 13). Of property (Matt. xxiii. 14; Mark xii. 40). Here meaning heaven.*
Mansions (oval). Only here and ver. 23. From pévw to stay or abide. Originally a staying or abiding or delay. Thus Thucydides, of Pausanias: “He settled at Colone in Troas, and was reported to the Ephors to be negotiating with the Barbarians, and to be staying there (rhv poviy rrovovpevos, lit., making a stay) for no good purpose” (i., 131). Thence, @ stay- ing or abiding-place ; an abode. The word mansion has a similar etymology and follows the same course of development, being derived from manere, to remain. Manso is thus, first, a stayong, and then a dwelling-place. A later meaning of both mansio and povn is a halting-place or station on a journey. Some expositors, as Trench and Westcott, explain the word here according to this later meaning, as indicating the combi- nation of the contrasted notions of progress and repose in the vision of the future.t This is quite untenable. The word means here abodes. Compare Homer’s description of Priam’s palace :
‘* A palace built with graceful porticoes, And fifty chambers near each other, walled With polished stone, the rooms of Priam’s sons And of their wives; and opposite to these
* The explanation given by Milligan and Moulton is, that the Father’s house includes earth as well as heaven : that it is, in short, the universe, over which the Father rules, having many apartments, some on this side, others beyond the grave. When, therefore, Jesus goes away, it is only to another chamber of the one house of the Father. The main thought is that wherever Jesus is, wherever we are, we are all in the Father’s house, and therefore there can be no real separation between Jesus and His disciples. This is very beautiful, and, in itself, true; but, as an explanation of this passage, is not warranted by anything in it, but is rather read into it.
+ W. Aldis Wright (“‘ Bible Word-Book”) is wrong in calling this ‘the primary meaning” of the word. No authorities for the use of manséo in this sense are quoted earlier than Pliny and Suetonius, and none for this use of uovh earlier than Pausanias (A.D. 180). Canon Westcott’s interpretation is
effectively demolished (usually no easy thing to do) by J. Sterling Berry, in The Expositor, 2a series, vol. iii., p. 397,