Bible Commentaries

Psalms 132:17 — (17) Horn of David.—The sprouting or growing horn is an image of young, vigorous life. (See Note, Psalms 75:5.) The Messianic application of this prediction comes out in Zechariah’s song (Luke 1:69). I have ordained a lamp.—Or, I have trimmed a lamp;

Isaiah 14:14 — (14) I will be like the most High.—The Chaldaean king is rightly represented as using a Divine name (Elîôn), which was not essentially Israelite, but common to the Phœnicians and other kindred nations. (See Genesis 14:18; Daniel 4:24; Luke 8:28; Acts

Jeremiah 16:2 — (2) Thou shalt not take thee a wife . . .—The words came to an Israelite and to a priest with a force which we can hardly understand. With them marriage, and the hopes which it involved, was not only a happiness but a duty, and to be cut off from it

Matthew 11:25 — (25) Answered and said.—The phrase is more or less a Hebraism, implying that the words rose out of some unrecorded occasion. St. Luke connects them (Luke 10:17-24) with the return of the Seventy; but as their mission is not recorded by St. Matthew,

Matthew 22:2 — (2) Which made a marriage for his son.—The germ of the thought which forms the groundwork of the parable is found, in a passing allusion, in Luke 12:36—“When he shall return from the wedding.” Here, for the first time, it appears in a fully developed

Matthew 26:20 — (20) He sat down with the twelve.—Reserving special Notes for the Gospels which contain the narratives, we may call to mind here the words of strong emotion with which the feast was opened (Luke 22:15), the dispute among the disciples, probably connected

Mark 1:24 — (24) What have we to do with thee?—The cry is identical with that of the Gadarene demoniacs (Matthew 8:29). Here, as there, the possessed man has a preternatural intuition of our Lord’s greatness. The Holy One of God.—The name occurs, as applied to

Luke 12:11 — (11) And when they bring you unto the synagogues.—See Note on Matthew 10:18-19. What had been a special promise to the Twelve is now extended to all whom the Lord calls His friends. Note, as characteristic of St. Luke’s phraseology, the combination

Luke 23:56 — (56) They returned, and prepared spices and ointments.—This seems at first inconsistent with their “buying” spices after the Sabbath was over (Luke 24:1). Possibly, we have two groups of women—the two Maries and “Joanna and the others” (Luke 24:10)—taking

Luke 4:6 — (6) For that is delivered unto me.—Better, hath been delivered unto me. The specific assertion of the usurped dominion, though implied in St. Matthew, is in its form peculiar to St. Luke. (See Note on Matthew 4:9.) The notion that any such delegated

Luke 8:3 — (3) Joanna, the wife of Chuza.—Here again we have a convert of the upper class. The name was the feminine form of Joannes, and appears in modern languages abbreviated into Joanne, Joan, or Jane. Nothing further is known of Chuza—but the “steward” (the

John 15:27 — (27) And ye also shall bear witness.—The tense is present, and ye also bear witness; or, and ye also are witnesses. (Comp. Notes on Luke 24:48-49.) The Apostles themselves distinguished between their own witness of things which had come within their

Acts 1:13 — (13) They went up into an upper room, where abode . . .—Better, into the upper room, where they were abiding. The Greek noun has the article. The room may have been the same as that in which the Paschal Supper had been eaten (Mark 14:15). On the other

Acts 10:1 — X. (1) There was a certain man in Cæsarea.—We enter on a new stage of expansion in the Church’s growth, the full details of which St. Luke may have learnt either from Philip the Evangelist during his stay at Cæsarea (Acts 21:8; Acts 24:27) or, possibly,

Acts 11:28 — (28) There stood up one of them named Agabus.—The same prophet appears again in Acts 21:10 as coming down from Jerusalem to Cæsarea. Nothing more is known of him. The prophecy of the “dearth” or “famine” was in part an echo of Matthew 24:7. Throughout

Acts 16:26 — (26) And suddenly there was a great earth quake.—Both the region and the time were, it will be remembered, conspicuous for convulsions of this kind. Cities in Asia, such as Sardis, Apamea and Laodicea, and in Campania, suffered severely under Tiberius.

Acts 2:3 — (3) There appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire.—Better, and tongues as of fire were seen by them, parted among them. The word translated “cloven” cannot possibly have that meaning. It is not uncommon (e.g., Acts 2:45; Matthew 27:35; Luke

Acts 5:24 — (24) The high priest.—The Received text gives “the priest,” but the use of that word as meaning the high priest has no parallel in the New Testament, and the word is omitted by many of the best MSS. The captain of the temple.—The commander of the Levite

Acts 8:9 — (9) But there was a certain man, called Simon.—The man who is thus brought before us in a brief episode, occupies a prominent place in the history and the legends of the Apostolic Church. For the present it will be convenient to deal only with the materials

Judges 13:24 — (24) Samson.—Josephus renders the word “strong” (ἰσχυρός), deriving it from a root (shameem), and perhaps not unwilling to suggest an analogy between Samson and the Greek Hercules. St. Jerome, rendering it “strength of the sun,” derives it from shemesh,