The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 2 — Section 399

tation beoomeajudgment. To have B man'■ ture, and regarding the Book! or Chronicle■ blood upon oue'a head ia to be helcl guilty BB the conclusion of Jewish history. Thia of the orl.me of murder, and lo be liable to (thongh it would exclude the murder of make the required atonement for it. Bo in other prophet&, e.g. Jeremiah, Ezekiel, etc.} their blind fury, taking the punishment on would all be plain enough and quite appro- themselves, the Jews B liUle lo.ter oriod, priate to the context were it not that the "His blood be ou us, and on our children I " Zechariah thne referred to wBB the son of (eh. JUvii. 25). B.ighteou, blood. Bo in the J ehoiado., not of Baraohio.s. But there are Old Testament we often find such exprea- two solntiona of tliis difficnlty suggested ; aiona aa "innocent blood" (2 Kinga xx.i. 16: and, allowing either of these, we may con- :uiv.4: Jer.xltVi.15); "blooclofthejust" ficlently assert that the above-namecl pro- (Le..m. iv. 13): comp. Rev. vi. 10 ancl uili, phet is the personage intended. (1) The 24, where it is written the.tin Babylon "WBB words, "son of Barachias" may be an early found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and interpolation, introduced by a copyist who of all them that were ale.in upon the earth." WBB thinking of the minor prophet. They Bighteoua Abel. The first ot' the murdered, are omitted by the first corrector of the the prototype of the death of Christ and of Binaitic Mannsoript, aze not found in the all good men who have died for truth, parallel passage of Bi;, Luke (xL 51), and religion, and just.ice (Gen. iv. 8: 1 John Jerome remarks that in the 'Gospel of the iii 12). The oatalogue of such is long and Nazarenes' waa read "son of Joi.Bela.." (2) terrible. Our Lord BSSigns B period to its There may have been family reasons, un- dimensions, commencing with the first death known to ns, why Zachariah was thus- mentioned in the Bible, and ending with designated (see the commentators on our the murder of ZaohariBB son. ot Baraohias, Lord's genealogy in St. Luke iii, especially whom ye slew between. the temple (Toii on ver. 23, "son of Hell." ver. 27, "son or vczoii, the sanctuaf'!I) and the altar. Our Salathiel,'' and ver. 86, " son of Co.inan "). Lord is spee.king of B pBSt event well known Or Jehoiada may have had two names, aa to his bearers: but who this Zache.riaa WBB so many Jews had. Indeecl, the two appel- is much disputed. Origen mentions a lo.tiona a.re not altogether d.isei.Inilar in tradition, otherwise entirely unsupported, meaning, Jehoiada signifying "Jehovah. that Zachariah, the father of John the knoweth,'' and Barachiah, " J ebovah Baptist, wBS the son of Be.raohiah, o.nd WBB blesseih." Or ago.in, Barnchiah may have murdered in the temple, But the story been the father of Zeohariah, and J ehoiada looks as if it was made to relieve the the more famona grandfather. It has been difficulty of identification ; neither, 11,1 far suggested (by Morison, in loc.) that one of as we know, wBB he a prophet. Zeobariah, the monuments recently erected in the the minor prophet, WBB the son. of Bere- neighbourhood of Jerusalem was dedicated ohiah ; but we read nothing of his being to Zaohariaa. Such a one still bears his Blain in. the temple or elsewhere, It is true name. Hence Christ's allusion is very that Josephus (' Bell, Jud.,' iv. 5. 4) tella natural after his statement in ver. 29. The how a " Zacharias, son of Baruch," an eoene of the murder WBB the open space in honourable man, was slain by the zealots the priests' court, between the holy place and in the temple. But this murder took place the great altar of so.orifice. The sanctity of .a..n. 68, and onr Lord oould not number it this spot made the crime abnormally atro- among pBBt crimes, or speo.k of it as an cious. event familiar to those who heard him. Ver. 36.-All these thinga. A.II the crimes The only other prophet of this no.me in the committed by their forefathers shall be visited Bible is one mentioned in 2 Chron. u.iv. npon this generation by the destruction of 20-22, as atoned by the people at the com- the Jewish city and polity, which took mand of Joaah, in the court of the house of place within forty years from this time. the Lord, "And when he died," it is The blood of the past was req nired from the added, "he said, The Lord look upon it, Jews of the present time, because they and and require it.'' This makes his oase cor- their evil ancestors were of one family, and respond to that of Abel, the voice of whose were to be dealt with BS a whole. In spite blood cried unto God from the ground. He of the teaching of history and e:mmple, in is also the le.et prophet whose cleath is spite of the warnings of Christ and hie recorded in the Ohl Testament, and the o.poetle11, they were bent on repeating the guilt of whose murder, the Jews say, was acts of their forefathers, e.nd that in an not purged till the temple wo.s burned aggravated form o.nd against increased light under Nebuchadnezzar. It seems to be a and knowledge. The punishment bore kind of proverbio.1 saying which the Lord announced is the temporal reward. Christ here uses, equivalent to "from the first here sa}'B nothing of the final judgment. 111urdered saint w tile last," taking the Ver. 37.-0 leruBBlem, lernso.lem I Pa- arrangement of the Hebrew canon of Scrip- thetio iteration I As he approaoheJ the  4-04 THE GOSPEL ACOORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. [oH. nm. 1--39,