The Paschal Lamb, according to Moses, is the highest sacrifice, and whatever relates to sacrifices in general, must apply to that of the Paschal Lamb in detail. In many passages of the New Testament, which are not in themselves perfectly clear, it is held forth as the type of Christ (1 Cor. v. 7,) and according to my judgment also in John vi. 4, 51-58, 63, as well as ini. 29. Here it strikes John, that a collateral circumstance, which was ordained on account of the Easter Lamb, had shown itself in the case of Christ, namely, that as it was to be eaten in one house, and no part of it taken into another house, Moses commanded no bone of it to be. broken, and that consequently, when Pilate gave orders for the bones of the crucified persons to be broken, Providence prevented, in an unexpected manner, the execution of this order upon the person of Christ. In the common edition of the New Testament the words run thus, a bone of him shall not be broken." In the Septuagint it stands, "and ye shall break no bone of him." But, according to another reading, for which Wetstein quotes high authority, it approaches nearer to the Septuagint. This was likewise the Latin version, prior to Jerome. There is this difference, the Septuagint says

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"Ye shall not break;" John says, " it shall not be broken;" it may be that he expressed the sense, without adhering literally to the words. The Latin translations of John seem to have been copied from the Septuagint, but as it stands in no Greek manuscript, I can only suppose him, in deviating from the Septuagint, to have quoted under the impression of the sense. It has been a favourite notion with some that John does not quote this passage in allusion to the Paschal Lamb, but in allusion to a passage in the Psalms xxxiv. 20, which conforms to the Greek," He keepeth all his bones, not one of them is broken." This passage certainly approximates in one word, "broken," to the text of John, a circumstance of little moment, as John does not always follow the Septuagint, and the words are in other respects different, but it is inapplicable as relating to the fact itself. It relates, according to the inscription of the Psalm, not to Christ, but to David, when he fortunately escaped from Gath; if we admit David to have been a type of Christ, he could not have been, in this case, a type of Christ suffering upon the cross, as he escaped the greatest personal danger, and returned from Gath uninjured. The sense is also different;

in the Psalm, it says "thou preservest all his bones, that not one of them shall be broken," which is as much as to say that "thou preservest him from all species of injury whatever." To apply these to a person dying upon the cross, and whose bones were not broken, because he was dead already, would be much the same quibble as if a man was promised a safe conduct, with the assurance that not a hair of his head should be injured, and yet be afterwards executed, with the accompanying care that the hair should be kept in perfectly good order.

37. This passage occurs Zechariah ii. 10, and is quoted not from the Septuagint, but from the Hebrew. The first translates it" and they shall look upon me, instead of their having danced." It is plain to me they have made some mistake in the Hebrew, but this does not affect my statement. John in this place, as he has done in others, gives his own translation of the Hebrew text, and it was here indispensable, because, according to the Septuagint, the translation would have been unintelligible. It is now my duty to compare it with the Hebrew, and the more so, because this has never been done in a satisfactory manner, and indeed, could not have been done so, previous to the year 1781. As the

Deity speaks in the preceding text, it could scarcely have been translated “ they shall look upon me, whom they have pierced;" but rather

they shall look upon me with him, whom they pierced;" that is, they shall fix their eyes and their hopes upon me, and upon him whom they have pierced. The latter person might certainly be the Messiah; but John does not so translate it, but" they shall look upon him whom they have pierced." There had been long an opinion that John read the Hebrew in this way, and I made known to the learned world, from two Erfurt manuscripts, and on many satisfactory grounds, that such reading existed. (Oriental Library, p. 210.) But what are two manuscripts in the decision of an important inquiry? The last time, therefore, I gave a course of lectures upon this subject in 1777, I own I had my doubts; but the case is now different, since the publication of the second part of Kennicott's Hebrew Bible. The multiplicity of manuscripts decides in favour of my supposition, and that John, in deviating from the Septuagint, still retained the original sense. The question now, however, is " Does this passage of Zechariah relate to Christ?" Not to adopt the revolting and decisive tone which I have blamed in others,

I make two questions of it. "Does it actually relate to Christ?" and "Does it not relate to him?" To answer this decisively would be answering precipitately, unless we at once admitted the infallibility of John; we understand the last chapter of Zechariah (the most difficult of the prophets) much too little; and no commentator has hitherto been satisfactory. But if the question is confined to this," Does the passage relate to Christ, or is it a palpable error, when John applies it to Christ?" I answer to the first," Yes; it can easily relate, and probably does relate to Christ." It has been said, it cannot relate to Christ, because in the preceding text the times of the Maccabees constitute the subject. I admit in the chapter which precedes, but in the eleventh chapter the prophet advances into later times (v. 5 and 6,) and contemplates the injustice of the Asmonæan dynasty subsequent to Alexander Iannæus, and, finally, the tyrannical government of Herod. But I have not room to enter upon it here. The beginning of the twelfth chapter, which has no connection with the eleventh, does not appear to me to coincide with the history of the Maccabees. Indeed, I should say distinctly the reverse; I conjecture, therefore, that it relates to