illustrating the saying of our Saviour.-See Valpy's Greek Testament.

XXV. 33. "He shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left." This seems to allude to the custom in the Sanhedrim, where the Jews placed those to be acquitted on the right, and those to receive sentence of condemnation on the left hand.-Burder's O. Customs, vol. i. page 287.

XXVI.-3. "Who was called Caiaphas." Josephus Caiaphas was made high priest by Valerius Gratus, as we learn from Josephus, and afterwards deposed by Vitellius: he was of the sect of the Sadducees. Acts. v. 17.—Ostervald.

XXVI.-8. “But when his disciples saw it they had indignation." Dr. Clark in his Paraphrase, says, one of his disciples, viz. Judas; the plural number being sometimes put for the singular.

XXVI.-12.

"She did it for my burial." The original word does not properly signify to bury, but to embalm. Beza says, ad funerandum me.-See Horne, vol. iii. page 506.

XXVI.-15. They covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver." If these were shekels, as is generally supposed, then the amount would be three pound fifteen shillings, which was also the price of a slave.

XXVI.-20. "He sat down with the twelve." Or lay down, as the word signifies; for the posture of the Jews, at the passover table especially, was not properly sitting, but reclining or lying along on couches on their left side. This posture was reckoned so necessary, that it is said, "the poorest man in Israel might not eat, until he lies along." This was to be done in the manner of freemen, in remembrance of their liberty. One of the Jewish writers says, are bound to eat lying along, as kings and great men eat, because it is a token of liberty." This custom was uniformly observed at the passover.-See Burder's Oriental Customs, vol. ii. page 313.

we

XXVI. 29. "I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom." This declaration of Christ is in allusion to a usage at the passover, when after the fourth cup they tasted of nothing else all that night but water. It intimates that he would drink no more, not only that night, but ever after. Burder's Oriental Customs, vol. ii. page 315.

In

XXVI. 36. -36. "Unto a place called Gethsemane." Hebrew, this word signifies the oil press; for as the mount had its name from the quantity of olives that grew upon it, it is probable that this garden, which was at the foot of it, had a press in it; and this supposition reconciles the evangelists, two of whom mention only the mount, another the garden, and the fourth Gethsemane.-Ostervald.

XXVI. 69. "Now Peter sat without in the palace." Namely, without, in reference to the company of judges, witnesses, and soldiers, around our Lord.

XXVII.- -5. "And went and hanged himself." There seems to be a difference between this passage and Acts i. 18. which may be reconciled by this very probable supposition, that Judas first hanged himself on some tree growing out of a precipice, and then that the branch or rope breaking, he dashed himself to pieces, so that his bowels gushed out.-Valpy's Greek Testament.

XXVII. 9. "Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet," &c. This prophecy is found only in Zechariah xi. 13. St. Matthew often omits the name of the prophet, so that, in copying, the word Jeremiah might be inserted by mistake instead of Zechariah.

XXVII. -19. "For I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him." Probably, that morning since Pilate arose. As the heathens imagined those dreams most significant which came about break of day, she might on that account lay the greater stress upon it.-Ostervald.

It is more probable, however, that he had an eye to the custom of the Jews founded on Deut. xxi. 6, 7.

66

XXVII.-25. His blood be on us and on our children." Josephus, De Bell. Jud. lib. v. c. xi. s. 1. speaking of the crucifixion of the Jews, says,-The soldiers, out of the wrath and hatred they bore the Jews, nailed those they caught, one after one way and another after another, to the crosses, by way of jest; when their multitude was so great, that room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses wanting for the bodies. Reland very properly takes notice here, says Whiston, how justly this judgment came upon the Jews, since they had brought it on themselves by the crucifixion of their Messiah. An excellent remark on this imprecation may be seen by Newton on the Prophecies, vol. ii. page 354.

XXVII. 33. "A place called Golgotha." Towards the west and without the walls of the city, agreeably to the law of Moses (Levit. iv.) lay Calvary or Golgotha, that is, the place of a skull, so called by some from its fanciful resemblance to a skull, but more probably, either because criminals were executed there, or perhaps because this place contained sepulchral caverns for the dead.-Horne, vol. iii. page 19.

XXVII. 34. "They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall." This vinegar, or sour wine, mingled with the bitter drug, was a stupefying potion given to criminals in order to make them insensible of the horrors of death. It might be offered to our Lord by some who were friendly to him, as it is not probable that his most bitter enemies would have

administered any anodyne draught from any compassionate motives. Valpy's Greek Testament.

XXVII.45. "From the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour." This darkness was the more miraculous, because it happened at the time of the opposition of the two luminaries, and consequently could be no eclipse of the sun; for the passover began in the full besides the total darkness of the sun's eclipse never lasts more than fifteen minutes, whereas this darkness lasted from twelve o'clock till three.-Ostervald.

These

XXVII.—46. "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani." words are part of the 22nd Psalm, spoken by our Lord in the popular language of the country, which was a mixture of Syriac and Chaldee, properly termed Syrochaldaic. It is not improbable that our Lord repeated the whole of this Psalm; since it is a custom with the Jews, in making quotations to mention only the first words of the psalm or section which they cite.

XXVII. -62. "The day of the preparation." The sabbath commenced at sun-set, and closed at the same time on the following day. (Matt. viii. 16. Mark. i. 32.) Whatever was necessary was prepared on the latter part of the preceding day, that is, of our Friday; hence, the day, preceding the sabbath, is, in the New Testament, termed the preparation. Horne, vol. iii. page 292.

XXVII.63. "After three days I will rise again." Abenezra, an eminent Jewish commentator, on Levit. xii. 3. says, that if an infant were born in the last hour of the day, such hour was counted for one whole day. This observation critically reconciles the account of our Lord's resurrection in Matt. xxvii. 63. and Mark. viii. 31.-See Horne, vol. iii. page 174.

XXVIII.1. "The first day of the week." The following translation of the antient Syriac Calendar extracted

from Horne's Introduction, vol. iii. page 164, will throw light

upon many passages of the New Testament:

"And he did eat locusts." Locusts are flying

insects, most destructive to the fruits of the ground, particuularly vines, and corn after it is in the ear: they are of divers kinds; are very fruitful, and go forth in bands. The great green locusts with a sword-formed tail, are near two inches long and about the thickness of a man's finger. In A. D 1556, there appeared locusts at Milan in Italy, of a span long; and Pliny speaks of locusts in India about a yard long. Lo custs hatch about the beginning of April, and in May set on their ravaging courses, and continue about five months in the summer season, and are very numerous in Asia and Africa; but in cold countries, their eggs are often ruined in the winter. The locusts were ceremonially clean; John the Baptist a many others, particularly in Abyssinia, eat them.-Brown.

set off

and

I.-26. "When the unclean spirit had torn him." More - properly convulsed him. At St. Luke iv, 35. we learn that -no injury was done to the body, for he says, "And when the