erunt. Literally-The pastures of the wilderness are parched. Lightfoot has well observed, that these paus did not want their towns and villages. What is called (L. i. 39.) Tv opewny, the hillcountry, where Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth, is included (v. 80.) in rats egois, the deserts, where the baptist continued from his birth, till he made himself known to Israel. In the similitude of the lost sheep, what is in Mt. xviii. 12. Will he not leave the ninety-nine upon the mountains ? eñi va opn is in L. xv. 4. Doth not leave the ninety-nine in the desert, ev în gnu. The man who had the legion is said (Mr. v. 5.) to reside ev Tols Opel, and (L. viii. 29 ) to have been driven by the demon eis das egnμ85. I do not say, however, that the words were equivalent. Every untilled country they called sens, but every puss they did not call ορεινη. The principal difference between the pros and the rest of Judea, was that the one was pasturage and the other arable. In the arable, the property of individuals was separated by hedges, or some other fence; in the pasturage, the ground belonged in common to the inhabitants of the adjoining city or village, and so needed no fences. The word spos in scripture, admits a threefold application. One is, to what is with us called wilderness, ground equally unfit for tillage and pasture, such as the deserts of Arabia. When used in this sense, it is general. ly for distinction's sake, attended with some epithet or description, as howling, terrible, or wherein is no water: it is sometimes used for low pasture-lands; sometimes for hilly. In this application, it oftenest occurs in the gospel, where it appears to be nearly of the same import with our word highlands.

ερημος

4. Publishing. Diss. VI. P. V.-2 Reformation. Ib. P. III. 10. The Spirit descend upon him, to πvevμa natabαivov ex' avVul. Spiritum descendentem et manentem in ipso. So also the Sax. Agreeably to this, we find, in four Gr. MSS. of little account, xa μevov inserted, which is all the authority now known.

του.

11. In whom, εy w. The Cam. and several other MSS. have Ey Vul. in te. So also Sy. Go. Sax. Cop. Arm.

The Vul. adds, et qua

13. Forty days, ή μέρας τεσσαρακοντα. draginta noctibus. Three Gr. MSS. have xa vuNTAG TETTAĻAKOVTO. Conformable to which are also the Ara. Cop. Sax. and Eth. ver

sions.

14. Good tidings. Diss. V. P. II. Reign. Ib. P. I.

15. The time is accomplished, ir TETANGWTαι i nale. E. T. The time is fulfilled. The time here spoken of is that which, according to the predictions of the prophets, was to intervene between any period assigned by them, and the appearance of the Messiah. This had been revealed to Daniel, as consisting of what, in prophetic language, is denominated seventy weeks, that is (every week being seven years) four hundred and ninety years; reckoning from the order issued to rebuild the temple of Jerusalem. However much the Jews misunderstood many of the other prophecies relating to the reign of this extraordinary personage; what concerned both the time and the place of his first appearance, seems to have been pretty well apprehended by the bulk of the nation. From the N. T. as well as from the other accounts of that period still extant, it is evident that the expectation of this great deliverer was then general among them. It is a point of some consequence to the cause of Christianity, that both the time and the place of our Lord's birth coincided with the interpretations then commonly given of the prophecies, by the Jews themselves, his contemporaries.

19. Mending, xaragriovτas. The Gr. word xaragtigen not only signifies to mend or refit, but also to prepare, to make. Interpreters have generally preferred here the first signification. This concurrence itself, where the choice is indifferent, is a good ground of preference to later interpreters. But I do not think the choice in this passage indifferent. A fishing bark, such as Josephus describes those on this lake to have been (lib. ii. ca. 43. De bello), though an improper place for manufacturing nets in, might be commodious enough for repairing small injuries sustained in using.

24. Art thou come to destroy us? Lightfoot (Hor. Heb.) observes, that the Jews had a tradition that the Messiah would destroy Galilee, and disperse the Galileans. He thinks, therefore, that this ought to be considered as spoken by the man, who was a Galilean, and not by the demon, as it is commonly understood. 2 The holy One of God. Diss. VI. P. IV. L. iv. 34. N. 28. Through all the region of Galilee, e15 óλny тny TERIXWROV TRL Faialas. E. T. Throughout all the region round about Gali

187

lee. Vul. In omnem regionem Galilææ. This version of the old La. interpreter entirely expresses the sense, and is every way better than that given by Be. In totam regionem circumjacentem Galilæa, who has been imitated by other translators, both in La. and in modern languages, often through a silly attempt at expressing the etymology of the Gr. words. Had Galilee been the name of a town, Epix must no doubt have meant the environs, or circumjacent country. But as Galilee is the name of a considerable extent of country, the compound ρix denotes no more than the simple xogos, or, if there be a difference, it only adds a suggestion that the country spoken of is extensive. But as the region round about Galilee must be different from Galilee itself, or, which is the same thing, the region of Galilee, the translators that render it so, totally alter the sense. The use of expos in the Sep. manifestly supports the interpretation which, after the Vul. and all the ancient interpreters, I have given. 'H TEρixapos Apy is, in our bible, the region of Argob;

TEPIXWpos T8 logdavs, the plain of Jordan. Other examples might be given, if it were necessary. To express properly in Gr. the region round about Galilee, we should say, "gixwgos, not της Γαλιλαίας, but περι την Γαλιλαίαν, the repetition of the preposi tion being quite agreeable to the genius of the tongue. Thus, Apoc. xv. 6. Περιεζωσμένοι περί τα 5ηθη. There is no occasion, therefore, for Dr. Pearce's correction," rather into the whole 66 region of Galilee, which was round about, i. e. about Capernaum;" a comment which is, besides, liable to this other objection, that, if the lake of Gennesaret was, as is commonly supposed, the boundary of Galilee on the east, it would not be true. that Capernaum, which was situated on the side of the lake, was surrounded by Galilee.

66

The reading of a single And the versions have ve

38. The neighbouring boroughs, tas exoμevas xaustors. The Cam. εγγυς πόλεις και εις τας κώμας, Vul. proximos vicos et civitates. So also Sy. Go, Sax. and Ara. MS. can have no weight in this case. ry little. The uncommonness of the word nwμswoλ:15, which occurs not in the Sept. and no where else in the N. T. might naturally lead translators to resolve it into κωμας και πολεις. But, as it is understood to denote something intermediate, greater than the one and less than the other, the sense is sufliciently expressed by the Eng. word boroughs.

43. Strictly charging him, eμƐpienoɑuevos aura. Mt. ix. 30. 2 N. 44. To the priest, Twig. Vul. Principi sacerdotum. Two ordinary Gr. MSS. have to appe. The Sax. also follows the Vul. This is all the collateral evidence which has been produced for the reading of the Vul. Wet. adds the Go. version. But if I can trust to the Go. and Anglo-Saxon versions, published by Junius and Mareschal, Amsterdam 1684, the Go. is here entirely agreeable to the common Gr. Indeed there is every kind of evidence, external and internal, against this reading of the Vul. The power of judging in all such cases belonged by law equally to every priest. The addition of the article re, in this passage, appears to have arisen from this circumstance, that, during the attendance of every course, each priest of the course had his special business assigned him by lot. One, in particular, would have it in charge to inspect the leprous and unclean, and to give orders with regard to their cleansing. For this reason it is said the priest, not a priest; but we have reason to think that, except in extraordinary cases, the high priest would not be called upon to decide in a matter which the law had put in the power of the meanest of the order. The Sy. uses the plural number, to the priests.

CHAPTER II.

2. The word of God, tov λoyov. L. i. 2. N.

7. Blasphemies. Diss. X. P. II. § 14.

8. Jesus knowing in himself, επιγνός ὁ Ιησός τω πνευματι αυτό. E. T. When Jesus perceived in his Spirit. There is something particular in the expression of the Evangelist. At first, it would appear applicable only to the perception a man has of what passes within his own mind, when the object of his thought is his own faculties and their operations. This species of knowledge we commonly distinguish by the name consciousness. But this is far from suiting the application of the phrase here, where the thing perceived was what passed in the minds of others. To me it appears manifest, that the intention of the sacred writer was to signify that our Lord, in this case, did not, as others, derive his knowledge from the ordinary and outward methods of disco

very, which are open to all men, but from peculiar powers he possessed, independently of every thing external. I have, therefore, preferred to every other, the simple expression knowing in himself; both because perceiving in, or by, his Spirit, has some ambiguity in it, and because the phrases un auty and to veupa avrs often, in the Jewish idiom, denote himself. May it not be reasonably concluded, that the information as to the source of this knowledge in Jesus, is here given, by the sacred writer, to teach all Christians, to the end of the world, that they are not to think themselves warranted, by the example of their Lord, to pronounce on what passes within the hearts of others, inasmuch as this is a branch of knowledge which was peculiar to the Son of God, whose special prerogative it was, not to need that any should testify concerning man unto him, as of himself he knew what was in man. J. ii. 25.

15. Placed themselves at table.

Diss. VIII. P. III. § 3-7. 17. To reformation), es μetavorov. This clause is wanting here in a greater number of MSS. and ancient versions than in Mt. ix. 13. (See note 3d on that verse.) It is rejected by Gro. Mill, and Ben. It is not improbable that it has originally, by some copyist who has thought the expression defective without it, been borrowed from L. v. 32. about which there is no diversity of reading. But though there may be some ground to doubt of its authenticity in this place, and in that above quoted from Mt. yet, as there can be no doubt of its appositeness, I thought it better to retain it in both places, and distinguish it as of doubtful authority.

18. Those of the Pharisees, Tay Dapitαion. In a considera. ble number of MSS. (some very valuable) we read pi The Vul. has Pharisæi, not discipuli Pharisæorum. This is also the reading of the Cop. Go. Sax. and second Sy. versions. But they are not all a sufficient counterpoise to the evidence wẹ have for the common reading.

19. The bridemen, os vio т8 vuμþær. E. T, The children of the bride-chamber. It is evident that the Gr. phrase di r8 voμwvos denotes no more than the Eng. word bridemen does, namely the young men who, at a marriage, are attendants on the bride