Mt.xxiii.34. and crucify; and some of them ye shall Scourge in your Jerusalem. synagogues, and persecute them from city to city. 35. 36. 37. 38. That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings", and ye would not! Behold, your house " is left unto you desolate. 14 When a Gentile was converted to Judaism, he was said to have come ɔwn bɔɔ nnn, under the wings of the Shechinah. In using this expression, therefore, our Lord again asserted his divinity, and reminded the Jews of the doctrine he had before taught Nicodemus, that the people of Israel themselves were required to enter into his kingdom as new creatures, as proselytes to a new dispensation. See many instances in Schoetgen. Hor. Heb. vol. i. p. 208. The remark of Dr. Hales on this passage, appears to me to be too refined and hypercritical, and censures unjustly the translation in the authorized version. He observes, "the word in the original is opvic, which is generic; and surely more applicable to that noblest of birds, the eagle and his brood, than to thehen and chickens' of the English Bible." And he supposes that our Lord, "as the tutelar God of Israel, alludes to his former comparison, in the divine ode of the parent eagle, training his young brood, after he had brought them on eagles wings to himself, to Mount Sinai (a)." This learned writer, however, has not taken into consideration, that the comparison of the hen and chickens was known from the earliest times to the Jews, and was frequent and familiar among them; and that this humble metaphor was much more suited to the genius and nature of the Christian religion. When the tribes of Israel, under the guidance of the God of their fathers, departed from the wilderness, with the fierceness and fearlessness of youthful and impetuous warriors; when they seized upon their divinelyconquered provinces, and triumphed in the spoil of their enemies, they were as justly, as they were sublimely, compared to the young eagles soaring from their inaccessible heights at the call of their parent, and darting like lightning upon their ignoble prey. The comparison of our Lord is consistent with the nature and design of his more perfect dispensation of reconciliation and love. His disciples, like their Master, were to be meek and lowly in spirit, and they were to be sheltered and nourished under the saving wings of their kind and merciful Protector. (a) Hales's Analysis of Chronology, vol. ii. part 2. 15 The ancient Jews were accustomed to call the temple an, the House, to shew its great superiority to any other building. They called it likewise domus sanctuarii, pon, and by a, domus æterna (a). And this house, or temple, which has now, for near eighteen centuries, continued desolate, in fulfilment of the prophecy in the next verse, shall be again rebuilt, and on the mountains of Israel the tribes shall again plant the Mt.xxiii.39. Mark xii.41. Luke xxi. 1. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, Jerusalem. till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. MARK Xii. part of ver. 38. and ver. 39, 40. 38-which-and love salutations in the market-place, 39 And the chief seats in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts; 40 Which devour widows' houses, and-make long prayers: these shall receive greater damnation. LUKE XX. part of ver. 45. and ver. 46. 45 -he said unto his disciples, 46 Beware of the scribes, which desire to walk in long robes, and love greetings in the markets, and the highest seats in the synagogues, and the chief rooms at feasts; SECTION XIX. Christ applauds the Liberality of the poor Widow. MARK Xii. 41. to the end. LUKE xxi. 1-4. And Jesus sat over against the treasury, And he looked up, Mark xii.41. and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much. Luke xxi. 2. also a certain poor widow, 43. Mark xii.42, and she threw in two mites 16, which make a farthing. And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury. Luke xxi. 4. For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hatlı cast in Markxii,44. all that she had, even all her living. MARK Xii. part of ver. 44. 44 For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in LUKE xxi. part of ver. 1, 2. ver. 3. and part of ver. 4., 1 -and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury. 2 And he saw also-casting in thither two mites. 3 And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast in more than they all: 4 -all the living that she had. olive and the vine, and offer up their praises and thanksgiving in (a) Schoetgen. Hor. Heb. vol. i. p. 211. 16 A curious law, which prevailed among the Jews at that time, prohibited one mite, as we translate the word λentov, to be put into the treasury. The poor widow, therefore, in casting two mites, her little all, into the treasury, gave the smallest ,לא יתן אדם פרוטה לארנקי של צדקה: .sum permitted by the law non ponat homo Trò in cistam eleemosynarum. Bava Mat.xxiv.1. Mark xiii. 1. SECTION XX. Christ foretells the Destruction of Jerusalem-the End of MATT. XXIV. 1-35. MARK xiii. 1-31. LUKE XXI. 5-33. 17 In the ancient times of the world, when all mankind began to apostatize from the faith of their fathers, it pleased the true God to select the illustrious ancestor of the now scattered sons of Israel, to maintain and perpetuate the true religion. Thus for a long series of ages, the God of Nature demonstrated to the whole world that He was the God of the Church also, by the most stupendous miracles in favour of the chosen family of Abraham. For them the sea was divided, the tides of rivers were stopped, and the waters rose up in heaps. Fountains broke forth in the desert; decay approached not their garments, nor fatigue their limbs. The God of the idolaters stood still in the temple of Heaven, and the moon pansed in her course at the voice of a mortal. For them the fire descended from heaven. God himself reigned over them, enthroned in a pillar of fire at night, and a cloud by day. He was their king -He was their deliverer. Whatever were their wanderings or deviations from his institutions; continued miracles, and the spirit of prophecy, demonstrated the perpetual superintendence of a presiding Providence. The records, handed down from their fathers, have been faithfully preserved; and we are there assured that the same power which ordained these wonders for the family of Abraham in the olden times, will never leave them, nor forsake them: "Can a woman forget her sucking child? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee." Is God unchangeable. Is Hea man that He should lie, or the son of man that he should repent? To what condition are his people reduced? Nearly two thousand years have elapsed since their holy city was burnt with fire, and their nation scattered among their insulting Gentile brethren. To the intole rable sufferings of the sons of Israel during this long period, it is not necessary to make further allusion. They are stamped on every page of history. The Jews are still dispersed over every part of the known world. "Among us, but not of us," they wander over the earth, banished from their holy cityfrom that city which was the joy of the whole earth-the residence of their prophets-the seat of the greatness of their kings-the home, and the capital, as they fondly believed, of their expected Messiah. From the contemplation of the former splendour, and present depression of the house of Israel, I would request the modern Jew, who believes in the truth of those sacred books which have been transmitted to him from his illustrious ancestors, to propose to himself this question, "Whether it is probable that the God of their fathers should thus consign the peculiarly favoured family of Abraham to exile and misery the most intolerable, for so long a space of time, without some adequate cause?" Is it probable that Jerusalem, the holy city, the city of the great king, should be burnt with fire, and be trodden under foot of the Gentiles, and no warning voice be given, either by miracle, or by prophecy? When the Chaldeans polluted the sacred territority, and destroyed the carved work of the first temple, Ezekiel denounced the coming ven Jerusalem. Mat.xxiv.1. (his disciples) came to him for to shew him the buildings Jerusalem. of the temple; geance; and Jeremiah wept night and day for the transgression At this time the Jews, through all ranks and classes, were They Let us now consider the occasion on which the predictions were Lukexxi. 5. how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts, cluded in, either of those events. They imagined, perhaps, a The coming of Christ, and the end of the world, being there- Of the same stamp and character was also Dositheus, the Samaritan, who pretended that he was the Christ foretold by Moses. About twelve years after the death of our Lord, when Cuspius Fadus was procurator of Judea, arose an impostor of the name of Theudas, who said he was a prophet, and persuaded a great multitude to follow him with their best effects to the river Jordan, which he promised to divide for their passage; and saying these things, says Josephus, he deceived many almost the very words of our Lord. A few years afterwards, under the reign of Nero, while Felix was procurator of Judea, impostors of this stamp were so frequent, that some were taken and killed almost every day. Jos. Ant. b. xx. c. 4. and 7. It was a just judgment for God to deliver up that people into the hands of false Christs, who had so wilfully rejected the true one. The next signs given by our Lord, are, Wars and rumours E e Jerusalem. |