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XII.-20. "Certain Greeks." Persons who were descended from Grecian parents, and used that language, but had forsaken the idolatry of their ancestors, and devoted themselves to the God of Israel.-Ostervald.

XII.

38. "That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled."-See remark at Matt. i. 22.

XII. 39. "Therefore they could not believe." This does not imply an absolute impossibility, but that they, having long wilfully opposed the sufficient methods of conviction, were at length given up by God to a judicial hardness and blindness; as Pharoah's heart was suffered to be hardened.-Ostervald.

It may be further observed, that the gracious purposes of God to save a ruined world, have their laws as well as Nature hers. So long, therefore, as men oppose or check these, their salvation may, with propriety, be said to be impossible. The methods by which God proposes to save sinners, are of his own appointment. They are truly amazing and passing all bounds of benevolence: they are calculated to give light to the mind, holy affections to the heart, to quicken us to spiritual life here, and at last, to conduct us to a glorious state of immortality. Although God's methods are calculated to effect all this-to soften the heart and save the soul, yet, if man wilfully hardens the one and destroys the other, he need not marvel if God should refuse to work a miracle for his recovery. The 40th verse is quoted at Matt. xiii. 15. and at the Acts xxviii. 27. the passage, at those two places, is taken from the Septuagint, and may afford a comment on that of St. John.

XIII.- -3. "Come from God and went to God." Went to God, is erroneous: the verb in the Greek is in the present tense, and should be rendered :— -was going, or about to go to God. Thus we often express ourselves in English, when the future action, or event, is not far distant.

XIII.- -10. "He that is washed, needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit." The Jews had two

sorts of washing; one, of the whole body by immersion, which was used by the priests at their consecration, and by the proselytes at their initiation; the other, of the hands or feet, called dipping or pouring of water, and which was of daily use, not only for the hands and feet, but also for the cups and other vessels used at their meals, Matt. xv. 2. Mark vii. 3, 4. The six water pots of stone, used at the marriage-feast of Cana in Galilee, John ii. 6. were set for this purpose. Το these two modes of purification Jesus Christ seems to allude in John xiii. 10; where the being wholly washed implies one who had become a disciple of Christ, and consequently had renounced the sins of his former life. He who had so done, was supposed to be wholly washed, and not to need another immersion, in imitation of the ceremony of initiation, which was never repeated among the Jews. All that was necessary in such case was, the dipping or rinsing of the hands and feet, agreeably to the customs of the Jews.-Horne's Introduction, vol. iii. p. 325. On the above passage, Bp. Hall says, "In respect of the main business of regeneration, washed from your sins; yet there are some remains of worldly affections, some worldly defilement, which must still be purged away, i the best of men. And such is your condition at this time. Ye, my disciples, are clean: and yet not all of you."

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XIII.- -19. "That I am he." In the Greek there is no word for he. It is probable that there is here an allusion to the name of God in Exod. iii. 14. respecting which, see remarks at John viii. 58.

XIII.-26. "When he had dipped the sop." They used to dip morsels of bread in a thick kind of sauce, made of dates, raisins, and other ingredients, beaten together, and properly diluted.-Ostervald.

XIV. 2. "In my Father's house are many mansions." This was literally true of the temple and its out buildings, which our Lord frequently calls his Father's house.

XIV.-6. "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." This appears to be spoken according to the Hebrew style, which indulges in the use of substantives for adjectives; as, a man of sin, for a sinful man. This manner is not confined to the Hebrew, but is recognized also in the French language, for instance, where we say a brick house, they would say, Une maison de brique, i. e. a house of brick. The above passage will therefore run thus: I am the true and the living way.

XVI. 8. "He will reprove the world of sin." Rather, he will convince the world, &c.—Ostervald.

XVI.—25. "These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs." A proverb, or parable, denotes a speech out of the ordinary way, as the Greek word imports, illustrated with metaphors, or rhetorical figures.-Lowth.

XVIII. 38. "What is truth?" L'Enfant thinks that Pilate was one of those academics, or disciples of Socrates, who thought that they ought to affirm nothing, and that, among so many different opinions, it was impossible to discover the truth.-See the following lines in Cowper, The Task, book iii.

But what is truth? 'twas Pilate's question put
To Truth itself, that deign'd him no reply.
And wherefore? will not God impart his light
To them that ask it! Freely 'tis his joy,
His glory, and his nature, to impart.
But to the proud, uncandid, insincere,
Or negligent inquirer, not a spark,

XIX. -13. "Called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha." The word Gabbatha means, an elevated place; perhaps a stage, or scaffold, in the midst of some area belonging to the palace.-Ostervald.

XIX.-17." And he bearing his cross." This was usual for malefactors to do, as Lipsius shews from Artemidorus and Plutarch: the former says, The cross is like to death, and he

that is to be fixed to it first bears it. The latter says, and every one of the malefactors that are punished in body carries. out his own cross.-See Burder's Oriental Customs, vol. ii. page 351.

By the cross, however, we are to understand merely that transverse piece of wood, to which his arms were afterwards fastened; and which was called furca, going across the upright beam which was fixed to the earth: this the criminal used to carry, and was therefore called furcifer.-See Kennett's Roman Antiquities, under the word-furca.

XIX.- -20. "And it was written in Hebrew, and Greek and Latin." It was written in Hebrew, because it was the language of the place; in Greek, for the information of a great number of Hellenists who made use of that language; and in Latin, in honour of the Roman empire.-Ostervald. -See notes on the superscription at St. Luke xxiii. 38.

XIX. -23. "The coat was without seam." This must be the tunick. The garments of the Jews consisted of the robe or mantle, which was the upper garment; the tunick which was under it and reached from the neck to the heels; under that, linen, in the manner of a shirt; the girdle, a sort of drawers; the tiara, and the sandals.-Ostervald.

XX.-25. "And thrust my hand into his side." Dr. Stevenson justly observes, that the Greek word rendered into signifies upon; and, therefore, the passage may be rendered thus, And put my hand upon his side.-See Doddridge.

XXI. -14. "This is now the third time that Jesus shewed himself to his disciples, after that he was risen from the dead." It was in reality, the seventh appearance, at least, that Jesus had made since his resurrection. But we must observe, that as St. John had particularly mentioned before, the two appearances which Jesus made to his disciples, when they were together, it seems most reasonable to conclude, that he reckons this the third, as referring to these.-Doddridge.

XXI.-25.

"The world itself could not contain the

books." Most interpreters look upon this as a noble hyperbole; though some explain it thus: If they were all to be particularly written, the unbelieving world would not admit them; not for the greatness of the books, but for the greatness. of the works recorded in them.-Ostervald.

ACTS.

1.-12. "A sabbath day's journey." A sabbath day's journey was one mile; and this should be reckoned from the foot of mount Olivet. The expression of a sabbath day's journey is derived from the camp of the Israelites being at the distance of a mile from the tabernacle, where they went each sabbath to worship.-Valpy's Greek Testament.

I.—13. "They went up into an upper room." In the very first ages of Christianity we see in the sacred writings more than probable footsteps of some determined places for their solemn assemblies, and peculiar only to that use. Of this nature was that upper room into which the apostles and disciples, after their return from our Saviour's ascension, went up as into a place commonly known and separated to divine use. Acts i. 13. Such another (if not the same) was that one place, in which they were all assembled on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost visibly came down upon them, Acts ii. 1; and this is the more probable because the multitude who were mostly strangers of every nation under heaven, came so readily to the place, upon the first rumour of so extraordinary an incident, which supposes it to be commonly known as the place where Christians used to meet together.-Horne's Introduction, vol. iii. page 217.

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