the plain of Esdraelon, had probably orial been a fortified and inhabited a thirty years after this time, Josephus, intain, strengthened the existing for.. This, therefore, was not a spot to have taken the three Apostles "apart Nor, again, is there the slightest intisix intervening days had been spent thwards from Cæsarea Philippi, the ned; on the contrary, it is distinctly Mark (ix. 30), that Jesus did not "pass ' (in which Mount Tabor is situated) ts here narrated. Nor again does the significant hill Paneum, which is close ppi, fulfil the requirements of the narrarefore, much more natural to suppose xious to traverse the Holy Land of His hern limit, journeyed slowly forward till lower slopes of that splendid snow-clad e glittering mass, visible even

he Dead Sea, magnificently closes the er of Palestine-the Mount Hermon of Its very name means "the mountain," which it witnessed would well suffice to e distinction of being the only mountain pture is attached the epithet "holy." On turages, cool and fresh with the breath d heights above them, and offering that among the grandest scenes of Nature,

,

red as the refreshment of His soul for the

abor (Josh. xix. 12; Judg. iv. 6).

The town is called on coins Καισάρεια ὑπὸ Πανείφ.

mighty struggle which was now so soon to come, Jesus would find many a spot where He could kneel with His disciples absorbed in silent prayer.

And the coolness and solitude would be still more delicious to the weariness of the Man of Sorrows after the burning heat of the Eastern day and the incessant publicity which, even in these remoter regions, thronged his steps. It was the evening hour when He ascended,1 and as He climbed the hill-slope with those three chosen witnesses-"the Sons of Thunder and the Man of Rock"-doubtless a solemn gladness dilated His whole soul; a sense not only of the heavenly calm which that solitary communion with His Heavenly Father would breathe upon the spirit, but still more than this, a sense that He would be supported for the coming hour by ministrations not of earth, and illuminated with a light which needed no aid from sun or moon or stars. He went up to be prepared for death, and He took His three Apostles with Him that, haply, having seen His glory-the glory of the only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth-their hearts might be fortified, their faith strengthened, to gaze unshaken on the shameful insults and unspeakable humiliation of the cross.

There, then, He knelt and prayed, and as He prayed He was elevated far above the toil and misery of the world which had rejected Him. He was transfigured before them, and His countenance shone as the sun, and His garments became white as the dazzling snow-fields above them. He was enwrapped in such an aureole of glistering brilliance-His whole presence breathed so

1This is evident from Luke ir. 32 37 conociall— —L.

HE TRANSFIGURATION.

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27

-that the light, the snow, the lightning1 gs to which the Evangelist can comllustre. And, lo! two figures were by hen, in the desert, He was girding HimI of life, angels of life came and minis; now, in the fair world, when He is I for the work of death, the ministrants from the grave-but from. the grave from that tomb under Abarim, which ad sealed long ago; the other from the He had entered without seeing corruppod by Him Moses and Elias, and spake

And when the prayer is ended, the task first since the star paused over Him at full glory falls upon Him from heaven, ony is borne to His everlasting sonship Lear Him.' ye

"3

from the fuller narrative of St. Luke, Apostles did not witness the beginning of s transfiguration. An Oriental, when his

s (Matt. xvii. 2); λevrà λíav ús Xxiv (Mark ix. 3); λeukds Luke ix. 29). It is interesting to observe that St. Luke, s and Romans, avoids the word μeteμoppúon used by the because his readers would associate that word with with which they were familiar in Nicander, Antoninus vid. (See Valcknaer, quoted by Bishop Wordsworth,

of Matt. xvii. 3 shows how intense was the impression had made on the imagination of those who witnessed it. appeared to Him were the representatives of the Law :both had been removed from this world in a mysterious both, like the greater One with whom they spoke, had pernatural fast of forty days and nights; both had been on n the visions of God. And now they came, solemnly, to 8 hands, once and for all, in a symbolical and glorious heir delegated and expiring power.” (Alford.)

prayers are over, wraps himself in his abba,1 and, lying down on the grass in the open air, sinks in a moment into profound sleep. And the Apostles, as afterwards they slept at Gethsemane, so now they slept on Hermon. They were heavy, "weighed down" with sleep, when suddenly starting into full wakefulness of spirit, they saw and heard.2

In the darkness of the night, shedding an intense gleam over the mountain herbage, shone the glorified form of their Lord. Beside Him, in the same flood of golden glory, were two awful shapes, which they knew or heard to be Moses and Elijah. And the Three spake together, in the stillness, of that coming decease at Jerusalem, about which they had just been forewarned by Christ.

4

And as the splendid vision began to fade-as the majestic visitants were about to be separated from their Lord, as their Lord Himself passed with them into the overshadowing brightness-Peter, anxious to delay their presence, amazed, startled, transported, not knowing what he said—not knowing that Calvary would be a

1 Hence the merciful provision of the Mosaic law, that the outer robo was to be restored at night if taken as a pledge for debt. (See Exod. xxii. 26.) 2 So I would render διαγρηγορήσαντες in Luke ix. 32. It is a nonclassical word, and has this meaning in Byzantine writers. Or perhaps the dia may imply "waking after an interval "-" in the middle of it all." Both the context and the grammar sufficiently show that (though it occurs here only in the N. T.) it cannot mean "having kept awake," as Alford and Archbishop Trench (following Rost and Palm) render it.

3 ὀφθέντες ἐν δόξῃ (Luke ix. 31).

♦ Tò öpaμa (Matt. xvii. 9). The word, which occurs eleven times in the Acts, but not elsewhere in the N. T., is applied to dreams (Acts xvi. 10; xviii. 9) and ecstacies (Acts xi. 5), but also to any impression on the spirit which is as clear as an impression on the senses (Acts vii. 31). Henco Phavorinus says, δράματά εἰσι προφητῶν, ὅσα ἐγρηγορότες βλέπουσι οἱ προφῆται,

* This touch in all probability comes to us from St. Peter himself

HE TRANSFIGURATION.

29

y more transcendent than Hermon-not Law and the Prophets were now fulnowing that his Lord was unspeakably Prophet of Sinai and the Avenger of ed, "Rabbi, it is best for us to be here;1 three tabernacles, one for thee, and one e for Elias." Jesus might have smiled posal of the eager Apostle, that they six ever in little succóth of wattled boughs Hermon. But it was not for Peter to iverse for his personal satisfaction. He e meaning of Calvary no less than that Not in cloud of glory or chariot of fire ass away from them, but with arms outony upon the accursed tree; not between as, but between two thieves, who "were Him, on either side one.'

was vouchsafed to his wild and dreamy wen as he spake, a cloud-not a cloud of s as at Sinai, but a cloud of light, a adiance-overshadowed them, and a voice tuttered, "This is my beloved Son; hear fell prostrate, and hid their faces on the as-awaking from the overwhelming shock voice, of that enfolding Light-they raised d gazed suddenly all around them, they

New Testament seems sometimes to have a superlative xviii. 8; xxvi. 24, &c., and Gen. xxxviii. 26, where i as "bona," in Plaut. Rud. iv. 4, 70. (Schleusner, s. v.)

¿¿átiva tepißλeyáμevo: (cf. Matt. xvii. 8), one of the many nic touches of truthfulness and simplicity-touches never "myth" since the world began-with which in all three narrative abounds. We have proofs that on two of the