Bible Commentaries

Exodus 11:3 — (3) The Lord gave the people favour—i.e., when the time arrived. (See below, Exodus 12:36.) The man Moses.—At first sight there seems a difficulty in supposing Moses to have written thus of himself. “The man” is not a title by which writers of any time

Proverbs 1:20 — (b) Second Discourse:—Wisdom Addresses her Despisers (Proverbs 1:20-33). (20) Wisdom.—The form of the Hebrew term (chokhmôth) has been taken for an abstract singular noun, but probably it is the plural of chokhmah (Proverbs 1:2), signifying the multiform

Jeremiah 15:10 — (10) Woe is me . . .—The abruptness of the transition suggests the thought that we have a distinct fragment which has been merged in the artificial continuity of the chapter. Possibly, as some have thought, Jeremiah 15:10-11 have been misplaced in transcription,

Daniel 10:13 — (13) The prince of the kingdom.—Perhaps no single verse in the whole of the Scriptures speaks more clearly than this upon the invisible powers which rule and influence nations. If we were without a revelation, we should have thought it congruent that

Matthew 24:29 — (29) Immediately after the tribulation of those days.—From this point onwards the prophecy takes a wider range, and passes beyond the narrow limits of the destruction of Jerusalem to the final coming of the Son of Man, and the one is represented as

Matthew 27:35 — (35) They crucified him.—The cross employed in capital punishment varied in its form, being sometimes simply a stake on which the sufferer was impaled, sometimes consisting of two pieces of timber put together in the form of a T or an X (as in what

Matthew 6:24 — (24) No man can serve two masters.—Literally, can be the slave of two masters. The clauses that follow describe two distinct results of the attempt to combine the two forms of service which are really incompatible. In most cases, there will be love

Mark 5:7 — (7) Thou Son of the most high God.—This is the first occurrence of the name in the New Testament, and is therefore a fit place for a few words as to its history. As a divine name “the Most High God” belonged to the earliest stage of the patriarchal

John 16:10 — (10) Of righteousness, because I go to my Father.—In the conviction of sin, the world is convinced of its own sin by the Spirit’s representation of Christ to it. That representation of Christ brings also the conviction of righteousness, but this is

John 20:12 — (12) And seeth two angels in white sitting.—Comp. generally on the vision of angels, Notes on Matthew 28:5-7; Mark 16:5-7; Luke 24:4-8. This is to be regarded as a distinct vision to Mary, which, from the fulness with which it is recorded, we must suppose

John 8:59 — (59) Then took they up stones to cast at him.—At last the meaning of His words flashes upon them. They had heard this I AM before (John 8:24) without perceiving that in it He applied to Himself the name Jehovah. Now there is no room for doubt. His own

Acts 12:23 — (23) The angel of the Lord smote him.—The intervention of the angel is obviously regarded by St. Luke as the only adequate explanation at once of the death of the persecutor and of the escape of his victim, and in the former he recognised not only what

Acts 4:24 — (24) They lifted up their voice to God with one accord.—The phrase seems to imply an intonation, or chant, different from that of common speech (Acts 14:11; Acts 22:22). The joint utterance described may be conceived as the result either (1) of a direct

1 Corinthians 11:23 — (23) For I have received of the Lord.—Better, For I received from the Lord. Do these words imply that St. Paul had a direct revelation from Christ of the words and facts which he now recalls, or merely that he knew from the accounts given him by others

Galatians 2:12 — (12) Certain came from James.—The expression used leaves it an open question whether the persons intended brought, or claimed to bring, any sort of official authorisation from St. James (comp. Acts 15:24), or whether they merely belonged to the Church

Galatians 3:1 — (1) Foolish.—The same word as that which is used in Luke 24:25, “O ye fools and slow of heart,” and in Romans 1:14, “wise and foolish,” 1 Timothy 6:9, and Titus 3:3, but not the same as that which is used in Matthew 7:26; Matthew 23:17; Luke 11:40;

Ephesians 2:17 — (17) And came and preached peace.—The word “came” certainly carries back our thoughts to our Lord’s own preaching, when, after the Resurrection, He came “and stood in the midst of them, and said, Peace be unto you” (Luke 24:36; John 20:19; John 20:21).

Ephesians 4:24 — (24) And that ye put on . . .—But this effect of “the putting off of the old man” is at once absorbed in the stronger idea of “putting on the new man.” In the “new man” here is implied not merely youthfulness, but the freshness of a higher nature (as

Ephesians 5:31 — (31) For this cause.—In spite of much authority, it seems far simpler to consider the words “Even as the Lord . . . His bones” as parenthetical, and refer back to Ephesians 5:28-29. In exactly the same way our Lord quotes the same verse of Genesis (Genesis

Revelation 3:3 — (3) Remember therefore how (or, after what sort) thou hast received and heard (or, didst hear—the tense changes).—Remembering that the words are addressed primarily to the angel himself, the change of tense may have been designed to point him back to