The sun., 1884-02-24

| among the announced blessings OF the coming
time Of glory for Israel the prophet Is commits
stoned TO comfort all that mourn" Again.
Happy are the merciful for they shall obtain
mercy" is manifestly transplanted from
Psalms xviii. 25. with the merclful thou wilt
show thyself mercful" In Happy are the
| pure In heart. for they shall see God" we have
a paraphrase Of Psalms xiv, 3-5. where 1t Is
said that tho pure In heart shall stand In
Gods holy place." that is. in Gods presence.
In like manner with Happy are the peace
makers" " may be compared Proverbs xiii. 20.
" To the counsellors OF peace there is joy."
There Is a papable disbursement for Mes
sianic purposes In the passage Matt XII. 10l.
" Behold. I send my messenger before thy face.
who shall prepare thy way before thee" whore
the purport meant TO be infused Ia that tho
prophet had foretold tho coming Of John tho
Baptist as herald OF the Christ. What Mala-
chi tii. II really said was-ns the Hebrew and
| Septuagint texts concur in proving" Behold.
| tYahwel send mU messenger. and he shall pre-
pare ny way before me-" We may remark that
here and elsewhere Prof. Toy. who is not un-
| naturally uneasy about tho reception OF his
| book by orthodox readers. partially extracts
the force from his own roasonings by over
| liberal and seemingly perfunctory concessions.
| He concludes his discussion Of the passage Just
cited with the remark that Matthews quotation
faithfully preserves the spirit of Malachis
demonstration that no thought of n Messiah.
and much less Of John the Baptist. In Mala-
| chi's mind.
| There is little relevancy in the application OF
| the somewhat distorted quotation from Xecha-
riah improperly credited by the evangelist to
jeremiah to tho story OF Judas by Matthew
| txxvi o. l0l: And they took the thirty
pieces OF silver-the price OF Him who was
priced. whom they priced on the part Of tho
children OF 1srael-and gave thom for the pot
ter's field. ns the Lord commanded no." Place
beside this tho Hebrew text of ncch. xi.. 13-
the Septuagnt Is even more rr"concilabe with
Matthew: And Ynhwe said to me. Throw it
TO the potter. n goodly price at which am
priced by them. And took the thirty pieces
Of silver and threw them into tho house OF
Yahwe to the potter" Instead OF potter"
for which the Srptuagint has furnace y tho
author of the book under review thinks that
we should read "treasurY." an emenda.ion
| that involves tho change OF only one Hebrew
letter. The meaning of tho passage is thus
explained by Prof Toy from the context. The
| prophet represents himself under the figure OF
a shepherd. who. disgusted with the unfaith-
fulness Of his flock Israel. breaks his staff and
demands his wages. He receives thirty pieces
of silver. which he is directed by Yahwe to
turn into tho temple. where 1t properly bo-
| longed as tho nations payment to God. There
| is here not the fa!ntcst foreshndowing of Il be-
trayed Messiah and an aposta'o Judas recciv-
| ing the blood money.
Ii is Of COURSE understood that in such OF
| Matthew's quotations from the Old Testament
as agree with the Hebrew text against tho Sep
tuaEint the evangelist il presumed to be citing
a written Arnmaic version or. wha. Prof. Toy
deems much moro probable to b" drawing on
his roc, lection Of oral trGnslations into the
| Aramaic vcrnacular made by the readers in the
synagogue. Contrurwise Luke and hn
Mark makes but one independent quotatoni
almost always uote from the Sept 1ngint. This
fact has given rise to Ii somewhat difficult
problem in connection with tho passage from
Isaiah which.Iuko (iv.. 1919, makes Jesus read
III the synagogue: The spirit Of tho Lord is
upon me, because Ilo has anolnted me to an
nounco good news to the poor: He has sent mo
to proclaim reIanse to cartves and recovery
of sight Ia Ute bind to re'pdse those Uho t.re
cruSled to proclaim tho acceptable year OF the
Lord" that is to say. IA year OF Jubilee"
From what text lid Jesus read these words
He could not have used the Septuagint. icr,
however fami'a ar might be tho Greek version
to the Paestinian Jews. they did not tolerate it
| in the Palestininn synagogue. On the other
hand what a.. thority is there for the supposi-
ton that jesus could read Hebrew. which. Us
we have seen. had long been dead ton .rue and
was only intelligibs to those who had received
| p rabt incal education Was it, then. u written
| Aramaic version from which lie read? but
there is no proof that any such thing existed in
the tim, Of Jesus. much less that. in defiance
of the super,ti,ious prejudice against written
targums 1t would be accessible to every chance
visitor o. the synagogue No doubt Prof. Tor is
warranted by all the facts and prob .bilities in
| propounding the suggestion that Luke gives
only the genera outline Of tho incident tsuM
cient for his Greek public. and that in reality
tho synagogue reader read ,he extract from
Isaiah. and rem lsred it into Arnmac. after
which Jesus gave his exposition" 1t is worth
, noting with regard TO tho passage above quoted
/, from Luke that tho pieonastic clause. to
release those who arc crushed is either an
addition of tho evangelist or tho hlundor of Z
yist. having 10 corrolativo either in the
Hobrew or III the Greek text. Luke also repro
ducrs from tho Scptuagint the word poor " in
, plnce OF tho Hebrew mock" and tho clause
, recovery of sight to tho blind" for which tho
Hebrew givDs no warrant
, Passing. finally. from the third to tho fourth
. evangelist We will merely note that Johns dis
covery o. minute predictions with reference to
certain incidents Of the crucli son does not
bear tho tests o! scientific eXegesis. For
example. in Psalms xii. 1s tIebrow text.
alluded to in John XIX. "a. They divide
| my garments among thea and on my clothing
! do th,y cast lots" tho psalmist Is represented
s as surrounded by fierce enemies. who demon
a s'ra'e their ferocty by stripping OF his cloth
y ing and sharing IL among themselves. There
l. IS scarcely any paralleism here to the action OF
n the Roman soldiers. who without tho slightest
t enmity to tie man who had been executed in
y compliance with tho forms of law. took h 's
: garments rs their customary perquistes. As
" to the imagined prophecy recited in John
o XIX. 49, "A bone of him shall not bH
= broken" il this Is taken from Exodus txi.
@ 46 it relates simply to tho pascha
i lamb which was 70 be cooked and oatsr
o whole; " citcd from tho Psalms txxxiv.. 2i il
= only means that Cod exercises care over all his
o servants In neither case is thore any refer
& en"e to Messiah. 1t may bo added tha
% Johns apparent quotation from Xechariah
y They shall look on hnn whom they pierced.
= Is An unmistakabe pervcrsion to Msssianit