b Exod. xx. 12. Lev. xix. 3. ment of God by your tradition? b 4 For God commanded, с saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that Prov. xxii. curseth father or mother, let him die the death. 5 But Deut. v. 16. 22. Eph. vi. 2. Lev. xx. 9. 16. Prov. xx. d Isa. xxix. 13. EZEK. xxxiii. 31. Col. ii. 18 c Exod. xxi. 17. ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, Deut. xxvii. It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; 20: xxx. 17. 6 and honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. 7 Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, 8 This people [a draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and] honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. 9 But in vain they e Isa. xxix. 13. do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments 10 And he called the multitude, and said unto them, Hear, and understand: 11 Not that which goeth 1 Tim. iv. 4. into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man. 12 Then came his disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying? 13 But he John xv. 2. answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. 14 Let them I render, for the sake of. 22. Tit. i. 14. of men. f Acts x. 15. Rom. xiv. g render, That wherein thou mightest have been benefited by me, is a gift [to God]: [he is free,] and shall not honour his father or his render, for the sake of. mother. 5.] Lord to the divine origin of the Mosaic a omit. ment of the mere nominal Israel, and the this alone: And if the 15 Then h they be blind leaders of the blind. blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. с i k Isa. ix. 16. Ma!. ii. 8. Luke vi. 39. ch. xxiii. 16. answered Peter and said unto him, Declare unto us this parable. 16 And Jesus said, Are ye also yet without ich. xvi. 0. understanding? 17 Do not ye yet understand, that what- 1 Cor. vi. 13. soever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught? 18 But those things which 1 James iii. 6. proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. 19 m For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: 20 these are the things which defile a man but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man. e 21 Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my read, he. the sink, or sewer. b с i. e. m Gen, vi. 5: Jer. xvii. 9. viii. 21. Prov. vi. 14. d render, parts. e render, a Canaanitish woman of those districts came out. f omit. pients and disseminators. See this illustrated in notes on the parable of the sower, ch. xiii. On this verse see John xv. 1, 2. 15.] The saying in ver. 11, which is clearly the subject of the question, was not strictly a parable, but a plain declaration; so that either Peter took it for a parable, or the word must be taken in its wider sense of an hard saying.' Stier thinks that their questioning as to the meaning of parables in ch. xiii. had habituated them to asking for explanations in this form. 16.] The saying in ver. 11 was spoken for the multitude, who were exhorted "Hear and understand:" much more then ought the disciples to have understood it. 17.] "The mouth, through which, as Plato said, mortal things go in, but immortal things go out. For there go in meats and drinks, the perishable food of the perishable body: but there go forth words, the immortal laws of the immortal soul, by which the life of the reason is directed." Philo. 21-28.] THE CANAANITISH WOMAN. Mark vii. 24-30: omitted by Luke. It is not quite clear whether our Lord actually passed the frontier into the land of the heathen, or merely was on the frontier. The usage of "into the parts" in Matthew favours the former supposition: see ch. ii. 22; xvi. 13; also for coasts, ch. ii. 16; iv. 13; viii. 34. Exod. xvi. 35, 'to the bor VOL. I. ders of Canaan,' has been quoted as supporting the other view; but the usage of our Evangelist himself seems to carry greater weight. And the question is not one of importance; for our Lord did not go to teach or to heal, but, as it would appear, to avoid the present indignation of the Pharisees. Mark's account cer tainly implies that the woman was in the same place where our Lord was wishing to be hid, and could not. 22. a Canaanitish woman of those districts came out] i. e. from her house, or town, or village. They were going by the way, see ver. 23. The inhabitants of these parts are called Canaanites, Num. xiii. 29; Judg. i. 30, 32, 33; Exod. vi. 15; Josh. v. 1. St. Mark calls her "a Greek," i. e. a heathen by religion, and "a Syro-Phoenician by nation" and describes her only as having come to our Lord in the house. But by the account in our text, she had been crying after the Lord and the disciples by the way previously; and St. Mark's account must be understood to begin at ver. 25. From Mark iii. 8, Luke vi. 17, we learn that the fame of our Lord had been spread in these parts, and multitudes from thence had come to Him for healing. It was not this woman's dwelling-place, but her descent, which placed the bar between her and our Lord's ministrations. The expression "Son of David" shews her acquaint Ι n ch. x. 5, 6. Acts iii. 26: o ch. vii. 6. daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. 23 But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. 24 But he answered and said, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 25 Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. 26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's Phil. iii. 2. bread, and to cast it to 8 dogs. 27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table. 28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour. 29 And Jesus departed from thence, and came nigh unto the sea of Galilee; and went up into a mountain, p Isa. XXXV. 5, and sat down there. 30 P And great multitudes came unto 8 render, the dogs. 6. ch. xi. 5. h render, for even. i render, for perspicuity, the table of their masters. ance with Jewish expressions and expecta- 25.] came she, i. e. into the house where our Lord was. See Mark vii. 24. 26. dogs] literally, little dogs. No contempt is indicated by the dimi nutive, still less any allusion to the daughter of the woman: the word is commonly used of tame dogs, as diminutives frequently express familiarity. 27. The sense of the original is not given by yet' in the E. V. The woman, in her humility, accepts the appellation which our Lord gives her, and grounds her plea upon an inference from it. Her words also have a reference to "let the children first be filled," expressed by Mark vii. 27. It is, Yea, Lord: for even the dogs eat: or, for the dogs too eat. Our Lord, in the use of the familiar diminutive, has expressed not the uncleanness of the dog so much, as his attachment to and dependence on the human family: she lays hold on this favourable point and makes it her own, If we are dogs, then may we fare as such;-be fed with the crumbs of Thy mercy. She was, as it were, under the edge of the table-close on the confines of Israel's feast. Some say that the crumbs are the pieces of bread on which the hands were wiped; but the "which fall" looks more like accidental falling, and the Greek word better expresses minute crumbs. 28.] In Mark, "For this saying, go thy way." The greatness of the woman's faith consisted in this, that in spite of all discouragements she continued her plea; and not only so, but accepting and laying to her account all adverse circumstances, she out of them made reasons for urging her request. St. Mark gives the additional circumstance, that on returning to her house she found the devil gone out, and her daughter lying on the bed. 29-39.] HEALING BY THE SEA OF GALILEE. Peculiar to Matthew (see Mark vii. 31-37). FEEDING OF THE FOUR THOUSAND. Mark viii. 1-10. 29.] the mountain is the high land on the coast of the lake, not any particular mountain. From this account it is uncertain to which side of the lake our Lord came; from Mark vii. 31 we learn that it was to the eastern side, through the him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus' feet; and he healed them: 31 insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see: and they glorified the God of Israel. 32 Then Jesus called his disciples unto him, and said, I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to eat and I I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way. 334 And his disciples say unto him, Whence should a 2 Kings iv. we have so much bread in the wilderness, as to fill so great a multitude? 34 And Jesus saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven, and a few little fishes. 35 And he commanded the multitude to sit down 43. on the ground. 36 And he took the seven loaves and the rch. xiv. 19. fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them, and gave to his $1 Sam. ix. 13. 1 render, am not willing to. midst of the coasts of Decapolis. 30.] The maimed are properly persons maimed in the hands. The word is also sometimes used of the feet. The meaning need not be, that a wanting member was supplied to these persons; but that a debility, such as that arising from paralysis or wound, was healed. cast them down, not in neglect, but from haste and rivalry. 31.] St. Mark (vii. 32—37) gives an instance of dumb speaking. the God of Israel] Perhaps this last word is added as an expression of the joy of the disciples themselves, who contrasted the fulness and abundance of the acts of mercy now before them, with the instance which they had just seen of the difficulty with which the faith of a Gentile had prevailed to obtain help. 32.] The modern German interpreters assume the identity of this miracle with that narrated in ch. xiv. 14 ff. If this be so, then our Evangelists must have invented the speech attributed to our Lord in ch. xvi. 9, 10. But, as Ebrard justly remarks, every circumstance which could vary, does vary, in the two accounts. The situation in the wilderness, the kind of food at hand, the blessing and breaking, and distributing by means of the disciples, these are common to the two accounts, and were likely to be so: but here the matter is introduced by our Lord Himself with an expression of pity for the multitudes who had continued with Him three days: here also the provision is greater, the num Luke xxii. 19. bers are less than on the former occasion. But there is one small token of authenticity which marks these two accounts as referring to two distinct events, even had we not such direct testimony as that of ch. xvi. 9, 10. It is, that whereas the baskets in which the fragments were collected on the other occasion are called by all four Evangelists cophini, those used for that purpose after this miracle are in both Matt. and Mark spyrides. And when our Lord refers to the two miracles, the same distinction is observed; a particularity which could not have arisen except as pointing to a matter of fact, that, whatever the distinction be, which is uncertain, different kinds of baskets were used on the two occasions. Perhaps the strangest reason for supposing the two identical is an imagined difficulty in the question of the disciples, " Whence should we have" &c., so soon after the former miracle; as if the same slowness to believe and trust in divine power were not repeatedly found among men, and instanced in Scripture itself;-compare Exod. xvi. 13 with Num. xi. 21, 22: and read in Exod. xvii. 1-7 the murmurings of the Israelites immediately after their deliverance at the Red Sea. And even could we recognize this as a difficulty, it is not necessarily implied in the text. Our Lord puts the matter to them as a question, without the slightest intimation of His intention to supply the want supernaturally. They make answer a ch. xii. 38. 1 Cor. i. 22. disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. 37 And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets full. 38 And they that did eat were four thousand men, beside women and children. 39 And he sent away the multitude, and took ship, and came into the coasts of m Magdala. XVI. 1 The a Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting desired him that he would shew them a sign from heaven. 2 He answered and said unto them, [" When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. 3 And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?] 4 A wicked and adulterous gene : m read, Magadan. n omitted in some of the oldest authorities: see the similar place, ch. xii. 38. in the same spirit, without venturing (as indeed it would have been most unbecoming in them to do, see John ii. 3, 4) to suggest the working of a miracle. 37.] The basket here spoken of (spyris) was large enough to contain a man's body, as Paul was let down in one from the wall of Damascus, Acts ix. 25. Greswell supposes that they may have been used to sleep in, during the stay in the desert. 39.] Of Magadan nothing is known. Lightfoot shews Magdala to have been only a Sabbath-day's journey from Chamnath Gadara on the Jordan, and on the east side of the lake: but probably he is mistaken, for most travellers place it about three miles from Tiberias, on the west side of the lake, where is now a village named Madschel. Dalmanutha, mentioned by St. Mark (viii. 10), seems to have been a village in the neighbourhood. CHAP. XVI. 1-4.] REQUEST FOR A SIGN FROM HEAVEN. Mark viii. 11-13, but much abridged. See also Luke xii. 54 and notes. 1.] See notes at ch. xii. 38. There is no ground for supposing that this narrative refers to the same event as that. What can be more natural than that the adversaries of our Lord should have met His miracles again and again with this demand of a sign from heaven? For in the Jewish superstition it was held that dæmons and false gods could give signs on earth, but only the true God signs from heaven. In the apocryphal Epistle of Jeremiah, ver. 67, we read of the gods of the heathen, "Neither can they shew signs in the heavens among the heathen. . . ." And for such a notion they alleged the bread from heaven given by Moses (see John vi. 31), the staying of the sun by Joshua (Josh. x. 12), the thunder and rain by Samuel (1 Sam. xii. 17, compare Jer. xiv. 22), and Elijah (James v. 17, 18). And thus we find that immediately after the first miraculous feeding the same demand was made, John vi. 30, and answered by the declaration of our Lord that He was the true bread from heaven. And what more natural likewise, than that our Lord should have uniformly met the demand by the same answer,-the sign of Jonas, one so calculated to baffle His enemies and hereafter to fix the attention of His disciples? Here however that answer is accompanied by other rebukes sufficiently distinctive. It was now probably the evening (see Mark viii. 10, "straightway"), and our Lord was looking on the glow in the west which suggested the remark in ver. 2. On the practice of the Jews to demand a sign, see 1 Cor. i. 22. 2.] Mark viii. 12 adds " He sighed deeply in his spirit omitting however the sentences following. The Jews were much given to prognosticating the rains, &c. of the coming season in each year. 3.] of the times, generally. The Jews had been, and were, most blind to the signs of the times, at all the great crises of their history ;-and also particularly to the times in which they were then living. The sceptre had departed from Judah, the lawgiver no longer came forth from between his feet, the prophetic weeks of دو |