Critical and explanatory notes on many passages of Scripture

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CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY

Preface

TO THE SECOND EDITION.

It is acknowledged by Christians of every name, that there is no book so important as the Bible. This acknowledgment is grounded on the conviction they have, that the Bible is the word of God ; who, as they rightly judge, would never be concerned in making any communications to mankind, but what were both worthy of himself, and interesting to them. If the Bible be, as it professes to be, a revelation from Heaven, every attempt made for the illustration of its contents must, of course, be laudable ; and if made judiciously, cannot fail to be, in a greater or less degree, beneficial. Let no one conclude from the fact of the divine origin of the Bible, (a fact which is here taken for granted), that it needs no illustration ; that it must be already sufficiently plain and intelligible. The contrary to this would be the more reasonable inference. So far as such a revelation should relate directly to our own duty, and our own most important interests ; so far we might expect to find it plain, and easy to be understood, so that the way-faring man, though a fool, need not err therein. And precisely of this character the JBible is found to be in this view. But a revelation from Heaven must be supposed to relate to other subjects than these, and subjects of far more difficult comprehension. Indeed, if thei scriptures contained nothing but what we could easily and fully understand, it would rather be a presumptive evidence against their divine, and in favor of their mere human origin. For what man can fully comprehend, man might, for aught we know, have also originated. It is accordingly found to be a fact, and it is generally acknowledged, that the scriptures do contain some things

IV PREFACE..

which are hard to be understood. This is expressly declared by St. Peter, in respect to the epistles of St. Paul ; and it is equally true of many other parts of the sacred volume. To us, who live at a period so remote from that when the scriptures were written, the difficulty of understanding correctly and fully some parts of them, must be peculiarly great. Many things related in scripture — the parables, for instance, and many of the metaphors and illustrations there employed — refer to manners and customs prevalent among the Jews and the surrounding heathen nations, in that early age ; and of course cannot be fully understood without a knowledge of those manners and customs, which were in many respects very different from ours. To understand correctly and fully such parts of the sacred volume, and to enter fully into the spirit of them, it is necessary that we should, as it were, forget our own times, and throw ourselves back into the early ages, two or three thousand years ago. It is for want of this preparatory knowledge — this knowledge of ancient and eastern manners and customs — that many things in scripture, which were perfectly familiar and intelligible to the Jews, are so unintelligible and so uninteresting to us. Besides, the scriptures were originally written in languages very different, as to their structure and idiom, from ours ; and this circumstance ought to be remembered by all those who would correctly interpret them. In some instances, (few indeed, comparatively), where our English Bible presents no difficulty, we fail of perceiving the real *' mind of the Spirit," for want of a more correct translation. In such cases, the passages, as we have them, may not indeed be hard to be understood, but are liable to be misunderstood ; that is, to be understood in a sense different from that which the Holy Ghost intended. In other cases, the difficulty attending a passage, as it stands in our version, would be removed by an acquaintance with the original language. It is an auspicious feature of the present age, that so much attention is paid to Jewish antiquities, and to sacred philology, especially in our theological seminaries. No human sciences are so indispensable as these are, to a correct interpretation of the word of God. Sound philology is of far greater use in this business than philosophy. The

PREFACE.

ptovince of the former is to ascertain what the scriptures do mean. The business of the latter frequently is to determine what they should mean, in order that they may support some preconceived sentiments, or some favorite system. Far be it from me to insinuate that the holy scriptures can ever be rightly interpreted, or even understood so as to make us wise unto salvation, without assistance superior to that which mere human learning, or human science of any kind, can give. No ; there must in both cases be divine illumination — the aids of the Holy Spirit. (1 Cor. ii, 11-14.) It would, however, be mere presumption in us, to expect that God will in this case, more than in others, work for us without the use of the appropriate means on our part.

But waving general remarks on this subject, I proceed to say a few things with more immediate reference to the work now offered for the second time to the public. The object I have in vievs^ in this work is not so much to instruct the learned, (though it is believed some parts of it will prove interesting and useful to them), as to furnish plain common people with a compendious exposition of such passages of scripture, as they are in the habit of proposing to ministers, and as many of them have proposed to me, for explanation. It is not enough, as it respects them, that such passages are explained by our best commentators and critics, so far as the hght they had enabled them to give the explanation. Their works are in general so expensive, that many cannot purchase them. At the same time, they are, at least in many places, so rare as to be accessible only by a few. A compendium of judicious criticism, and of explanatory remarks on important difficult passages of the Bible, adapted to the understandings, and designed for the benefit of the common people, has long appeared to me as a desideratum in theology. Such a compendium I have endeavored to furnish. How successful I have been in the attempt, others qualified to judge must decide. In preparing the following work, I have had in view, also, the benefit of bible classes, and of Sabbath schools. Among all the books introduced into those youthful seminaries, I have never yet either seen or heard of any work like the present. And something of the kind, some convenient manual of sacred criticism, and 1* n ?REEACE.

of explanatory remarks on the scriptures, certainly appears to be mwch needed by them. My concern (so far as exegesis is concerned) has been with such passages only, as ap* peared to me to need explanation, and these I have endeavor?- ed to explain as concisely as possible. To an intelligent and reflecting mind it will readily occur, that the preparation of a work of this kind must be attended with great and peculia!* difficulties. I have found it to be so. On many of the difficult passages of scripture our best commentators themselves are not fully agreed. I can only say I have done what I could. It would be both tedious and needless to enumerate all the various and numerous authors whom I have consulted in reference to the following work, and with the view to render it as accurate as possible. Several of them are mentioned in the body of the work itself. Above all, I have diligently and prayerfully examined the holy scriptures themselves in their original languages, and have made considerable use of the Septuagint. What is here offered to the public-is the fruit of much thought, as well as of much reading. I can truly say with Bishop Home, in the preface to his Commentary on the Psalms, " Much labor hath here been bestowed, where little appears." The first edition of this work was well recommended by judges qualified to decide on its merits, and has proved useful to many. This second edition contains many corrections and improvements on the first, together with much additional matter ; and will, it is hoped, be considered as far more valuable, and prove far more useful than that. No uninspired author is infallible ; and it would be strange indeed, if the following work should be free from errors. It is believed, however, that whatever they may be, they are not such as can materially affect any important article of christian faith or practice. The work, such as it is, I now commend to God, the great source and patron of truth, with the earnest wish and prayer, that it may please Him to make it very useful to all who may have access to it, and who feel desirous to understand the scriptures.

E. J. CHAPMAN.

Manlius, JV. Y. January 1, 1831.

CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY JTOTES, &c.

MATTHEW.

Chapter hi, Verse 12. *^ He will bum up the chaff with unquenchable fire.'^ This prediction of John the Baptist alludes to the following practice of people in his days. Having winnowed the grain, and thus separated the chaff from the wheat, they set fire to the former on the windward side. The fire in that case had such an advantage over the chaff, that it would not cease until the chaff had been utterly consumed. Thus the fire was unquenchable. And thus figuratively and impressively does the Baptist represent the ivorthlessness of hypocrites, (for they in a moral sense are the chaff), and also their complete and eternal ruin. See Burder's Customs.

" Ye are the salt of the earth."

The use of material salt is two-fold — to preserve and to season. For the first of these purposes, we apply it to meats, and to those other substances that we wish to preserve from putrefaction ; and for the latter purpose, it is daily placed on our tables, and is usually considered as an indispensable article for every family. In a sense correspondent to this two-fold use of material salt, true Christians, and christian ministers especially, may be called the salt of the earth ; for when they act as such — act in character, and do not " lose their savor," they are the means, the instrumental causes of preserving this guilty world from destruction. They prove the means of this by their prayers especially, as appears in the case of Moses praying for the Israelites, and in other similar cases mentioned in the scriptures. At the same time, so far as they act in character, they become the means of seasoning the minds of their fellow men with grace and true wisdom. How desirable, then, in this view, is it, that their number should greatly increase !

" Ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, thou shalt not kill."

The original may as well be translated thus : — It hath been said to the ancients, i. e. God hath said to the ancients, thou shalt not kill. The design of our Saviour in this verse, and in those other parts of this chapter where the same phraseology occurs, seems to have been, to remind the Jews of what the Lord had said of those precepts and prohibitions which the Lord had given to their fathers, as well as of those glosses, and erroneous or partial interpretations, which had been put upon them by their fathers and rabbis. At the same time, his design was to explain those precepts and prohibitions ; to illustrate their spiritual and comprehensive import, in opposition to what their Wind guides had said.

" Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy v/ay ; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift."

It is well known to be the practice of individuals in some of our churches, to absent themselves from communion at the Lord's table, because some others who approach that sacred ordinance have either injured them personally, or have in other respects acted in a manner unbecoming their christian profession ; and that these passages have been sometimes mentioned or referred to, in vindication of such a practice ; but surely without reason. For a moment's careful attention must convince us, that the direction before us respects not the aggrieved party, but the one who had caused grief. These words of Christ relate not to the one who had received the offence, but to the one who had given the offence. He (the latter, and not the former) is the one who is to defer the offering of his gift ; or (as it may mean in reference to us Christians) the coming to the Lord's table, until he shall have become reconciled to his brother ; or at least until he -shall have faithfully endeavored to become so, by making all reasonable acknowledgments and concessions, or explanations, as the case may require. No one has a right to stay away from the sacramental communion, and so disobey a plain command of Christ, (1 Cor. xi, 25), merely because another has done wrong.

" But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil ; but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."

The word evil in this passage denotes not the evil One, for him we are expressly commanded to resist, (James iv, 7) ; nor the evil thing or moral evil, viz. sin, for this we are commanded both to resist and to mortify ; but it denotes the evil man, the unreasonable and angry assailant. For proof of this, nothing more is necessary than a mere attention to the whole passage : — " I say unto you, that ye resist not (or rather not to resist) evil ; but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."

"Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, ye of little faith."

From Drs. Russell and Shaw, we learn, that on account of the extreme scarcity of fuel, the orientals use the dry stalks of herbs and flowers, of rosemaiy, and of various other plants, to make fire, and to heat their ovens. To common readers, casting grass or herbage into ovens, sounds strange ; but such, for the reason just mentioned, has long been the practice in Judea, and in the countries adjacent.

Verse 34.

" Take, therefore, no thought for the morrow." In the delivery of this precept, our Saviour did not design to prohibit, or discourage absolutely, all care and concern about our future worldly condition, but merely to repress solicitude or anxiety about it ; as must be evident both from the precise import of the original verb, which signifies to take anxious thought, and also from the fact that such absolute indifierence would be altogether inconsistent with our performing, as we ought, our proper business in life, and even with our very subsistence.

Chap, vii, 21.

" Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven ; but he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven."

The Jews (says Thomas Hartwell Home, in his Introduction to the Study of the Bible), "had a notion that all Jews would certainly be saved. Turretin brings a passage from the Codex Sanhedrim, which affirms that every Jew had a portion in the future world, and another from the Talmud, viz. that Abraham is sitting near the gates of hell, and does not permit any Israelite, however wicked he may be, to descend into hell. Now, in opposition to such traditions as these, Jesus Christ says — Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven." But though our Saviour might have alluded primarily to such notions as these, we are not to suppose that this solemn declaration of his concerned the Jews only. It is as true of us, as it ever was of them, that not every one that saith, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Let us not satisfy ourselves with a mere profession, nor with any thing short of doing the will of our heavenly Father, remembering it is they only that do his commandments, that will have right to the tree of hfe, or that can enter in through the gates into the city. (Rev. xxii, 14.)

Verse 23.

" I never knew you :" — Not that Christ never knew them as creatures, as men. The meaning is, he never knew them in the sense of approbation, i. e. he never approved of them. In this sense is the word repeatedly used in scripture, as in 1 Cor. viii, 3 : — " But if any man love God, the fame is known of biro," i, e. approved of him ; and in GaU iv, 9 : — " But now after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God" — approved of God.

" Let the dead bury their dead ;" i. e. let the spiritually dead, those dead in trespasses and sins, bury their dead. They are competent to that business ; they can perform all the necessary funeral rites for their departed friends. But thou hast other business — " Go thou, and preach the kingdom of God."

" And Jesus saith unto him, see thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and^ offer the gift that Moses commanded for a testimony unto them."

The gift here mentioned denotes the gift or offering of birds and lambs, as prescribed in Lev. xiv, 1 — 32, for the cleansed leper. These he was to offer in presence of the Jewish priest, whose official duty it was, to pronounce him in that case legally clean ; and all this was to be done " for a testimony unto them," i. e. the Jews, that the leper was legally cleansed. From the whole system of divine institutes relative to the plague of leprosy, and particularly from the extreme caution and diligence with which the priest was to proceed in his examination of the person suspected to be the subject of it, we may learn how careful and how faithful ecclesiastical judicatories should be, in examining and disciplining the members of the church, and especially those of them whose " spot is not the spot of God's children." For the loathsome disease of leprosy undoubtedly represents sin, the still more loathsome disease of the soul. Once more : From our Lord's particular direction to the healed leper, it is demonstrable, that the Jewish dispensation was not then abohshed ; that, on the contrary, its ceremonial injunctions remained in undiminished force.

*' Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the Sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless ?'

It is well known that under tjie Jewish economy, the profanation of the Sabbath was uniformly represented and universally considered as a very heinous sin. So heinous was it, that next to idolatry it seems to have been to the Jews the most procuring cause of divine judgments. How, then, could the profaners of that holy day have been pronounced, and by Christ himself too, as blameless 1 Or was there any thing in the character, circumstances, or official prerogatives of the priests, which allowed them to transgress, with impunity, an express command of Jehovah, and that, too, in the very sanctuary — in the sacred temple itself? Our Lord in this place evideatly refers to those sacrifices, in the offering of which, the priests, by virtue of their office, were to be engaged. As if he had said, " Do not the priests on the Sabbath kill, flay, and burn the beasts devoted to sacrifice, and do other such like things, which, in a common case, and where divinely instituted worship was not at all concerned, would profane the Sabbath? And if they could, with impunity, thus violate the rest to be observed on the Sabbath, certainly a compassionate God, who requireth mercy and not sacrifice, or mercy before sacrifice, would not condemn, nor ought the Pharisees to condemn, a man, merely because to satisfy the cravings of hunger, he had plucked and eaten \a few ears of corn on that day. " The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath."

" For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."

A serious difficulty seems to attend the last part of this verse, viz. in reconciling it with the account given by the Evangelists, respecting the time of our Lord's continuance in the grave. On first view, there is certainly an apparent discordance between the prediction of the Master and the statements of the disciples. According to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Christ was crucified on Friday at the ninth hour, or at three o'clock, P. M., as we reckon time ; and all the Evangelists agree in stating, that he arose on the first day of the week, before the approach of day-light. How, then* could he have been three days and three nights in the heairt

SlXPLANAtORT NOtES. 13

^f the earth, or in the grave ? Strictly speaking, he was there only eight or nine hours of the first day, the whole of the second day, and perhaps four or five hours of the third day. The embarrassment caused by this passage may be at once removed, by only attending to the chronological reckoning of the Jews. What that was, we may learn from a careful consideration of a few such passages as the following : — 1 Kings, XX, 29. '' And they pitched one over against the other seven days, and so it was that in the seventh day the battle was joined." Esther iv, 16: " Go gather together all the Jews th^t are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I, also, and my maidens, will fast likewise." Compare this with chapter v, 1 : " Now it came to pass on the third day^ that Esther put on her royal apparel, and stood in the inner court of the king's house." Luke ii, 21 : ** And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called Jesus." Now the general remark, which the above texts and others like them manifestly suggest and justify, is this, viz : — The Jews sometimes reckoned ii, part of a day for the whole day. The truth of this appears from each of the above mentioned texts. In the first of them, seven days are mentioned ; but it could not have been seven whole days, because on the seventh day " the battle was joined" — drew on, or came on. On that day, then, the encampment ceased, and actual engagement ensued.

At what particular part of the seventh day, the fighting comfnenced, we are not informed ; but any one acquainted with the usual practices of belligerents would conclude, of course, that it must have been some considerable time before dark. But still the encampment is said to have lasted seven days. In the second of these passages, we have Esther's proposal or direction to Mordecai, to gather together the Jews, that they might fast for her three days, both night and day, neither eating nor drinking during the whole of that period ; also, on account of her own resolution to subject herself to the same self-denying regimen. But it is • said, " Esther put on her royal apparel, and stood in the inner court of the king's house." If, then, Esther executed H^her resolution, (which none, I believe, denies), she muet have fasted three days and three nights. But this, in the literal sense of the words, was impossible, because on the last of these days she put on her royal apparel, and appeared in the presence of king Ahasuerus, to see whether she might obtain favor in his sight : In plain English, she ceased fasting before the third day closed. Still, according to the Jewish reckoning, which frequently acknowledged a part of a dtiy for the whole day, she might be said to have fasted three days. In the last of these passages, we are told that '^ w^hen eight days were accomplished, for the circumcising of the child, his name was called Jesus," i. e. he was circumcised with that name. But, surely, there could not have been an interim of eight whole days (each consisting of twenty-four hours) between the time of his birth and that of his circumcision ; for on the first of these days he was born, and on the last of them he was circumcised ; and it would be very absurd to suppose, that his birth took place the very first hour and first minute of the first day, and that his circumcision was put off until the very last hour and last minute of the eighth day. In strict accordance, however, to the idiom of the Hebrew, it might be said, " eight days were accomplished" between these two events. Enough has been said to show, that according to the Jewish reckoning and phraseology^ Christ might, with propriety, be said to have been " three days and three nights in the heart of the earth," or in the grave. I may add, that the Jews never brought any objection against Christ, to prove he v/as a false prophet, from these words of his,' or from this his prediction respecting himself; which they surely would have done, if the prediction itself had not been fulfilled ; that is, if he had not in fact lain three days and three nights in the grave, according to their method of reckoning time, \

" When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into mine house from whence I came out ; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished," &c.

^rom the expression in our English Bible, *' he waiketh througli dry places, seeking rest," &c. many readers probably suppose, that the dispossessed man is here meant. But this is a mistake. It is not the man, but the unclean spirit, who is here figuratively represented as walking through dry places, seeking rest, and finding none. One proof of this is, that in the original Greek, the participles rendered seeking, having come, are in the neuter gender, and must, of course, according to the rules of syntax, agree with the antecedent, 'ff'vsujxa — spirit. By this parable, our Saviour meant to represent the moral state and final doom of the Jews, as a people. Having remarked that the evil spirit went, and took with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and thus fortified, re-entered his old habitation ; He added, " even so shall it be also unto thisiviched generation.''^ As applied to them, it denoted that the hosts of hell and powers of darkness perceiving that they were unable to withstand the artillery of truth, as managed by John Baptist, Jesus Christ, and his apostles, would flee for safety to the Gentile nations, which had always been in the moral sense "dry places," having never yet been watered from '' the, river of God." There, however, they would be as unable to find rest as before. Nay, as the triumph of the gospel among the Gentiles would be both more decisive and more general than it had been among the Jews, the evil spirit would perceive himself to be in greater danger, and be moro alarmed than before, and would therefore return with sevenfold rage and violence to his former possession, the Jewish nation ; a prediction, which, with awful exactness, has been fulfilled upon that devoted people. The parable is also applicable to individuals, as such. And 0, how many there are among ourselves, of whom it is but too just a representation ; who hear the word of God, and are convinced of its truth, and of their own great wickedness and moral ruin, and become indeed partially reformed ; so far, at least, that the evil spirit leaves them. They leave off* and forsake their former wicked practices. But as they are not truly converted, as no good spirit enters into them, and they have '' no root in themselves," their reformation, such as it is, proves of short duration : And how often, after the Holy Spirit has ceased to strive with them, do they become seven* fold worse than they were before ! Reader, is this the case with you 1 Pause, and think.

Chap. XIII, 30.

" Let both grow together until the harvest ; and in the time of harvest, I will say to the reapers, gather together tirst the tares, and bind them in bundles, to burn them ; but gather the wheat into my barn."

It is not my present design to explain particularly " the parable of the tares of the field." An infallible expositor hath already done this, as you may see by consulting that^ paragraph of this chapter which commences with the 36th, and ends with the 43d verse. One or two sentences, however, in our Lord's exposition, it is to my present purpose here to insert, because they furnish an explanation, and of course a correct one, of several terms used in the passage before us, viz : — *' The good seed (i. e. the wheat) are the children of the kingdom, but the tares are the children of the wicked one ; the harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels." We have, then, Christ's authority for understanding the terms tares and ivheaf, as denoting saints and sinners, the righteous and the wicked. But why then, it may be asked, is it necessary to be so particular and so strict, as many ministers and ecclesiastical judicatories are, or at least profess to be, in regard to the moral qualifications of candidates for church-membership and com-!- munionl For does not Christ here, in the person, of the householder, direct that both sincere Christians and hypocrites be permitted to belong to his visible church, until the, time of the general harvest, (or end of the world, verse 39), when, and not before, the separation is to be made ? In reply to this query, which appears at first very plausible, the following very important remark must be made, viz : that this direction has no reference to the introduction of persons into the church ; it does not specify, nor does it at all refer to the qualifications which persons must have, in order to join the church of Christ.