The Pulpit Commentary — Luke — Volume 1 — Section 269

CHAPTER L ful preparations should be made before he personally visited the place. ViJlagee and Ve!'II. 1-24.-The mwi-On of the •eeenty. towns, too, where his presence was found, 118 The Lord'~ w,,rd. to tli.em of i,uitructwn and in the case of the Samaritan village, un- direction and warning. welcome, would he thus carefully noted, and Ver. 1.-After thet1e things the Lord ap,- no time would needlessly be lost. pointed other seventy also. Thnt is to say, Ver. 2.-Therefore said he unto them, The after the events j11St relat.ed which had ta.ken harvest truly is great, but the labourer• are place in the north of the Holy Land. •• After few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the these things " formally began the solemn harvest, that he would send forth labouren marche.11 in the direction of Jerusalem, which into his harvest. This and many of the ended, as we have stated, in the la.4 Po.,;s- sayings reported on this occasion had been over. Roughly speaking, the seventy were said apparently before, when the twelve had first sent out ahout tl..ae October of the last been sent out on a similar mission. n yee.r of the public ministry. The manu- seems almost certain that, on several ooca- scripts vary between seventy and seventy- sions, the Lord repee.ted the same expressions two. The preponderance of authority is in containing great truths, with sca.rcely any favour of seventy. The Sanhedrin num- variation in language. The harvest simile bered seventy-one. The elders appointed WM evidently a favourite one of the Master. by Moses were seventy. There was a Jewish .. The field i■ the world" he told them in saying alBO that the number of peoples on the parable of the sower. It is reproduced earth were seventy or seventy-two. Four- by St. John (Rev. xiv. 14-19). teen descended from J aphet, thirty from Ham, Ver. 3.-0o your ways: behold, I seLcl twenty-six from Shem. In the' Clementine you forth as lambs among wolves. These Recognitions,' a writing of the first half of jir,t misBionaries were to go forth unarmed the t.hird century, tht: number of peoples is and unprovided. They were to be a type given as seventy-two. The Fathers dwell on of the strange, aeemingly weak Christian the sacred symbolism of the desert-we.nder- prrachers of the next two hundred years, ings especially mentioned at Elim-" twelve before whose simple words and unarmed well.B and seventy palm trees," alluding to presence the great system of paganism was the two groups of Christ-sent missionaries, to go down. Oue of the rare but be!lutiful the twelve apostles e.nd the "seventy" here traditiO'Tlal sayings of the Lord is roferred mt:ntioned. Two and two. As in the case \o the first occasion of his speaking the of hill apostlee sent forth previously, for words of this third verse. Peter is said mutual help and comfort. Before hia fa.oe to have asked him, "But how, then, if the into every city ud pla.ce, whither he him- wolves tee.r the lambs?" And the Lord self would oome. By their mean11, a.11 the said, " Let not the lambs fear the wolves, time left L.i.w w11.11 now 10 sho1t, all the need- when the lam be are once dead;" and then CIT. X. 1-42.) TllE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. LUKI?.. 271