Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

No. 1377.-1 JOHN iii. 17.

Bowels of compassion.

THE inhabitants of Otaheite have an expression that corresponds exactly with this phraseology. They use it on all occasions when the passions give them uneasiness; they constantly refer pain from grief, anxious desire, and other affections, to the bowels as their seat, where they likewise suppose all operations of the mind to be performed. Cook's Voyage to the Pacific Ocean.

No. 1378.-JUDE, ver. 4.

Who were before of old ordained to this condemnation.

THOSE who were summoned before courts of judicature were said to be προγεγραμμενοι εις κρισιν, because they were cited by posting up their names in some public place, and to these judgment was published or declared in writing. Such persons were by the Romans called proscriptos, or proscribed. They were doomed to die, with a reward offered to whoever would kill them. The persons spoken of by St. Jude were not only those who must give an account to God for their crimes, and are liable to his judgment, but, who, moreover, are destined to the punishment they deserve as victims of the divine anger. PARKHURST'S Greek Lex. p. 586.

No. 1379.-ver. 12. These are spots in your feasts of charity.] It is commonly supposed that St. Jude here refers to the primitive christian love-feasts. But Lightfoot and Whitby apprehend the allusion is rather to a custom of the Jews, who on the evening of the sabbath had their ovvia or communion, when the inhabitants of the same city met in a common place to eat together.

If

No. 1380.-ver. 23. Hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.] In all holy worship their clothes were to be without spots or stains, loose and unbound. they had been touched by a dead body, or struck by thunder, or any other way polluted, it was unlawful for the priest to officiate in them. The purity of the sacerdotal robes is frequently insisted on in the poets :

Casta placent superis; purâ cum veste venito.

POTTER'S Archæol. Græc. vol. i. p. 224.

No. 1381.-REVELATION ii. 1.

The angel of the church.

NEXT to the chief ruler of the synagogue was an officer, whose province it was to offer up public prayer to God, for the whole congregation, and who on that account was called the angel of the church, because as their messenger he spake to God for them. Hence the pastors of the seven churches of Asia are called by a name borrowed from the synagogue.

JENNINGS's Jewish Ant. vol. ii. p. 55.

No. 1382.-ii. 10. I will give thee a crown of life.] A crown of life is promised to those who are faithful unto death as an everlasting reward for their fidelity. Dr. Gill considers it to be an allusion to the practice of some nations, who used to crown their dead. See Minut. Felix, p. 42.

No. 1383.-iii. 5. The same shall be cloathed in white raiment.] The allusion seems to be to the custom of the Jewish sanhedrim in judging of priests fit for service. Maimonides says, "they examined the priests concerning their genealogies and blemishes: every priest in whom was found any thing faulty in his genealogy was clothed in black, and veiled in black, and so went out of the court: but every one that was found perfect and right was clothed in white, and went in and ministered with his brethren the priests." GILL, in loc.

No. 1384.-iv. 1. After this I looked, and behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me.] This

[blocks in formation]

may probably allude to the custom of the Jewish church, that upon opening the gates of the temple the priests sounded their trumpets, to call the Levites and stationary men to their attendance. LOWMAN, in loco.

No. 1385.-iv. 3. A rainbow.] The whole race of mankind being deeply interested in this token of divine favour, it is not at all surprising to find the signification of such an important emblem preserved among various nations. Homer (Il. xi. v. 27.) with remarkable conformity to scripture, speaks of the rainbow which Jove hath set in the cloud a token to men. Iris, or the rainbow, was worshipped not only by the Greeks and Romans, but also by the Peruvians in South America when the Spaniards came thither. (L'Abbè Lambert, tom. 13.)

*

No. 1386. v. 14. And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that liveth for ever and evers] It was the custom in the temple worship for the singers to make pauses. In every Psalm, say the Talmudists, the music made three intermissions; at these intermissions the trumpet sounded and the people worshipped. See LIGHTFOOT's Temple Service, c. 7.

No. 1387.-vi. 2. A white horse.] White horses were formerly used in triumphs in token of victory. To see a white horse in a dream was accounted a good sign by the Jews and Astrampsychus says, a vision of white horses is an apparition of angels. One of those angels, which the Jews suppose to have the care of men, is said to ride by them and at their right hand upon a white horse. GILL, in loc.

No. 1388. vii. 2. And I saw another angel ascending from the East, having the seal of the living God.]

The bearing of a seal is a token of a high office, either by succession or deputation. Gen. xli. 42. Esther viii. 2. Josephus gives several instances of this, lib. xi. cap. 6. lib. xii. cap. 14. Thus in Aristophanes, the taking away of the ring signifies the discharging of a chief magistrate.

No. 1389. vii. 9. A great multitude-stood before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes.] At the feast of tabernacles they walked every day round the altar with palm-branches in their hands, singing hosannah: during this ceremony the trumpets sounded on all sides. On the seventh day of the feast they went seven times round the altar, and this was called the great hosannah. Upon the last day of the feast they used to repeat their hosannah often, saying, for thy sake, O our creator, hosannah: For thy sake, O our redeemer, hosannah: For thy sake, O our seeker, hosannah. See the Jewish Rituals. There seems to be

an allusion in these words to this custom.

No. 1390.-vii. 9. And palms in their hands.] Conquerors used to carry palm-tree branches in their hands, (A. Gell. Noct. Att. l. iii. c. 6.) Those who conquered in the Grecian combats not only had crowns of palmtree given them, but carried branches of it in their hands, (Alex. ab Alex. Genial. Dier. 1. v. c. 8.) The Romans did the same in their triumphs. They sometimes wore toga palmata, a garment with the figures of palm-trees upon it, which were interwoven in it. GILL, in loc.

No. 1391.-viii. 1. There was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.] Most interpreters agree,

that this silence in heaven for half an hour is an allusion to the manner of the temple worship; while the priest

« ZurückWeiter »