NOTES, CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY. NOTE I. Page 4. THE venerable Author very properly adverts to those preludes of his intended advent which the Messiah was pleased to give, by appearing in a human form to Abraham, Jacob, and others. These appearances, he adds, prepared the way for the prediction in Isaiah lii. 8. "Thy watchmen lift up the voice; with the voice together do they sing; for they behold before their eyes"-or as the expression might possibly have been better rendered, for they see face to face; or as it is in the common version, they shall see eye to eye. At all events, the Author considers these words, and those which he immediately quotes from the 6th verse of the same Chapter, as referring to that manifestation of the Son of God in human flesh, of which these ancient appearances were remarkable anticipations. The whole passage of which these verses are a part, without doubt, relates, in the first instance, to that striking display of Jehovah's presence, power, and goodness, which the watchmen and other friends of Zion had the happiness to behold, at the restoration of the Jews from their Babylonish captivity. It ought, however, to be ultimately referred to a more glorious salvation than that temporal deliverance; and whilst the expression "they shall see eye to eye," may justly be applied to those clear spiritual discoveries of the character of the Messiah, and of the glory of the Divine perfections, as manifested in him and his work, with which the watchmen of Zion were to be blessed in latter days, it cannot well be deemed unnatural to include those opportunities of seeing and conversing with Christ in his human nature on the earth, which were granted to Apostles and some other primitive preachers of his Gospel. These holy men saw the King of Zion with their own eyes, and were permitted to eat and drink with him, not only during his abasement, but even after his resurrection from the dead. Being eye and earwitnesses of his words and works, they were the better prepared to "lift up the voice" with confidence; and their testimony was the more valuable and satisfactory. See John i. 14. Acts iv. 20. 1 John i. 1. The Hebrew expression translated eye to eye, occurs also in Numb. xiv. 14. though rendered differently in that passage. It may be compared with Jer. xxxiv. 3. We read also of seeing face to face in Gen. xxxii. 30. and Exod. xxxiii. 11. and of speaking mouth to mouth Numb. xii. 8. Jer. xxxii. 4. The expression under consideration, as Parkhurst remarks, may be rendered eye with eye, i. e. with both eyes, agreeably to the Targum, and to the French translation de leur deux yeux. It denotes, at any rate, clear vision, or familiar and distinct knowledge. See Pool's Synopsis and Annotations, Vitringa on the place, and Parkhurst's Hebrew Lexicon on Mr. NOTE II. Page 7. Whatever veneration be due to the ancient writers of the Christian Church, and however excellent and useful their works may be in many respects, it cannot be denied that these Fathers often exhibit marks of human infirmity; and that their comments on Scripture are sometimes more fanciful than just. This remark seems fairly to apply to the notion to which our Author here refers in too favourable terms, that the three Angels, who, as we read in Gen. xviii. appeared to Abraham in the plains of Mamre, were the three persons of the sacred Trinity. That one of these Angels was the Angel of the covenant, the second person of the Trinity, agreeably to the views of Calvin and many other judicious Interpreters, is indeed highly probable, if not incontestably evident. For that Angel, in the course of his interview with the Patriarch, ascribed to himself Divine characters and works, and also received and answered Abraham's earnest supplications on behalf of Sodom. It is sufficiently manifest, however, from the narrative itself, that the other two who accompanied him in his visit to Abraham, and then proceeded by themselves to the habitation of Lot, were only created Angels.— Since neither the Father nor the Spirit was to become incarnate, it might not have been so proper that these Divine persons should appear even for a little in a human shape. Some writers have endeavoured to find a mystery in Abraham's bowing himself towards the ground before the Angels at their first appearance, Verse 2. and alleged that, while he adored one of the three, he by faith discerned Three Persons in one God. But Calvin justly remarks, that this idea is frivolous, and obnoxious to the scoffs of adversaries; and adds, that Abraham was not immediately aware that these "strangers" were more than men, and that his bowing himself was only an expression of civil respect. * * The notion that the Father and the Holy Spirit were, at all, two of the three Angels who appeared to Abraham in a human form, seems equally illfounded, and equally calculated to expose the truth to the ridicule of enemies. NOTE III. Page 14. The passage in Zech. vi. 12, 13. relative to "the man whose name is the BRANCH," is one of the most pleasant and most remarkable Old Testament predictions. That the Messiah is in reality its subject, few have ventured to deny. Some of its clauses, however, have been variously understood by various Interpreters. The most obvious sense of the expression, " he shall grow up out of his place," seems to be, that, whatever difficulties might intervene, and whatever improbability might attach to the event, the Son of God should certainly appear in human nature at the appointed place of his birth-that, however low might be the state of the Jews, and however hopeless the condition to which the family of David might be reduced, this glorious Branch should spring up in due season in the land of Canaan, and in Bethlehem the city of David. This interpretation is justified by comparing the original with the same and similar expressions, as in Exod. x. 23. xvi. 29. Lev. xiii. 23. Josh. v. 8. The interpretation, at the same time, which the Author quotes with approbation from Aben Ezra, and which is adopted too by Calvin and Drusius, † cannot be considered as either unjust or unnatural. The expression may fitly be rendered de sub se, ex seipso, that is, of himself, by his own proper power; and in this view it may be referred to his miraculous conception. From this comment of Aben Ezra, too, we may remark in passing, it appears that even posterior to the publication of the Christian religion, it has been admitted by some learned Jews, that the Messiah was to be born of a Virgin. On this point compare Doddridge's Paraphrase and Note upon John vii. 27. Witsius, as the reader will observe, understands that part of the VOL. II. • Calvin. Commentar. in Gen. xviii. 37. |