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If there be a few more contractions not here specified, they are such only as are in pretty general use. In terms which occur seldomer, the words are given at length.

NOTES

CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY.

THE GOSPEL BY MATTHEW.

THE TITLE.

THE title, neither of this, nor of the other, histories of our Lord, is to be ascribed to the penmen. But it is manifest, that the titles were prefixed in the earliest times, by those who knew the persons by whom, and the occasions on which, these writings were composed. For the sense wherein the word Gospel is here used, see Prel. Diss. V. P. II. § 18.

2 Kara MarJalov, according to Matthew, of Matthew, or by Matthew. These are synonymous, as has been evinced from the best authorities. Cas. rendered it authore Matthæo, properly enough. Nor is this, as Be. imagines, in the least repugnant to the claim of the Evangelists to inspiration. Paul does not hesitate to call the doctrine with which he was inspired his Gospel. Nor does any man at present scruple to call the Epistles written by that Apostle, Paul's Epistles.

3 Το κατα Ματθαίον ευαγγελιον. I have preferred this to every other title, because it is not only the briefest and the simplest, but incomparably the oldest, and therefore the most respectable. All the ancient Gr. MSS. have it. The titles in the old La, version called Itc. were simply Evangelium secundum Matthæum-secundum Marcum, &c. and in the most ancient MSS. and even editions of the present Vulgate they are the same. From the writings of the Fathers, both Gr. and La. it appears that the title was re tained everywhere in the same simplicity, as far down as the fifth rentury. Afterwards, when, through a vitiated taste, useless

epithets came much in vogue, some could not endure the nakedness of so simple a title. It then became Sanctum Jesu Christi Evangelium secundum Matthæum, &c. which is that used in the Vul. at present. The N. T. printed at Alcala (called the Complutensian Polyglot) is the first Gr. edition wherein a deviation was made, in this respect, from the primitive simplicity. The title is there in conformity to the Vulgate, printed along with it, Το κατα Ματθαιον άγιον ευαγγελιον. This mode was adopted by some subsequent editors. Most of the translators into modern languages have gone farther, and prefixed the same epithet to the name of the writer. Thus Dio. in Itn. Il santo evangelio, &c. secondo S. Matteo. The translators of P. R. Si. Sa. Beau. and L. Cl. in Fr. Le sainte evangile, &c. selon Saint Matthieu. Our translators after Lu. have not given the epithet to the Gospel, but have added it to the writer. Yet they have not prefixed this term to the names even of the Apostles in the titles of their Epistles. In this I think they are singular. The learned Wet. in his excellent edition of the Gr. N. T. remarks, that though the term corresponding to Gospel occurs in that book upwards of seventy times, it is not once accompanied with the epithet holy.

CHAPTER I.

1. The lineage, E. T. The book of the generation. Bißhos YEVECES. This phrase, which corresponds to the Heb.

γενέσεως.

sepher tholdoth, is supposed, by some, to be the title of the first seventeen verses only; by others, of the whole book. The former in effect translate it as I have done; the latter The History. That in the first of these senses, and also for an account of progeny, the Gr. phrase is used by Hellenist writers, is undeniable; it is not so clear that it is used in the second, for a narrative of a man's life. It is true we sometimes find it where it can mean neither genealogy nor list of descendants, as in that phrase in the Sep. Βίβλος γενέσεως δρανε και γης, Gen. ii. 4. the meaning of which is, doubtless, the origin and gradual production of the universe, which has plainly some analogy, though a remote one, to an ac count of ancestry. The quotations that have been produced on the other side, from the Pentateuch, Judith, and the Epistle of James, do not appear decisive of the question. Of still less weight is the name Sepher toledoth Jesu, given to paltry, mo

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dern, Jewish fictions, written in opposition to the Gospel; though this also has been urged as an argument.

2 Christ, Xgisos, without the article, is here to be understood, not as an appellative, as it is in almost all other places of the Gospel, but as a proper name. Into this use it came soon after our Lord's resurrection, but not before. Some distinction was necessary, as at that time the name Jesus was common among the Jews. Diss. V. P. IV. § 7.

3 Son, is indefinitely, not r8 is the son emphatically. The sense is rightly rendered by Cas. prognati Davide, a descendant of David. There is a modesty and simplicity in the manner in which the historian introduces his subject. He says no more than is necessary to make his readers distinguish the person of whom he speaks, leaving them to form their judgment of his mission and character, from a candid but unadorned narration of

the facts.

2. Judah, &c. My reason for preferring the O. T. orthography of proper names you have Diss. XII. P. III. § 6, &c.

6. By her who had been wife of Uriah. Εκ της το Ουρίδ. Literally, By her of Uriah. It is not just to say that the feminine article thus used denotes the wife. The relation is in this phrase neither expressed, nor necessarily implied, but is left to be supplied from the reader's knowledge of the subject. We have no idiom in English entirely similar. That which comes nearest is when we give the names, but suppress the relation, on account of its notoriety. Thus, if it were said, that David had Solomon by Uriah's Bathsheba, every body would be sensible that the expression does not necessarily imply that Bathsheba was the wife, more than the widow, the daughter, or even the sister of Uriah. We have an instance in Mark xvi. 1. Mapia "n T8 laxaẞ8, where the void must be supplied by the word матив то ther. The like holds of the masculine. In Acts, i. 13. Iaxwß8 Axpaix, must be supplied by , son; and in Luke, vi. 16. 18dav Iaxaß8, by adeλpov, brother. What therefore is really implied, in any particular case, can be learnt only from a previous acquaintance with the subject. Hence we discover that the ellipsis in this place cannot be supplied by the word wife; for when Uriah was dead, he could not be a husband. Those therefore who render x TAS T8 Oupi8 of Uriah's wife, charge the historian

with a blunder of which he is not guilty, and mislead careless readers into the notion that Solomon was begotten in adultery. The common version exhibits the sense with sufficient exactness.

8. Uzziah, Tev Olav. So the Sep. renders this name in Gr. 2 Chr. xxvi. 3. Whereas Ahaziah is by them rendered Oxas. Some names are omitted in the line, in whatever way it be rendered here; for though Ahaziah was indeed the son of Joram, Uzziah was the father of Jotham.

11. Some copies read, Josiah begat Jehoiachin; Jehoiachin had Jeconiah, &c. and this reading has been adopted into some editions. But there is no authority from ancient MSS. translations, or commentaries, for this reading, which seems to have sprung from some over-zealous transcriber, who, finding that there were only thirteen in either the second series or the third, has thought it necessary thus to supply the defect. For if Jehoiachin be reckoned in the second series, Jeconiah may be counted the first of the third, and then the whole will be complete. But as, in very early times, the Fathers found the same difficulty in this passage which we do at present, there is the greatest ground to suspect the correction above mentioned.

Μετα

11, 12. About the time of the migration into Babylon. After the migration into Babylon, επι της μετοικεσίας Βαβυλων την μετοικεσίαν Βαβυλων. In the La. versions, the word μετοικεσία is differently translated. The Vul. Arias, and Leo de Juda, render it transmigratio, Be. transportatio, Pisc. deportatio, Er. Cal. and Cas. exilium, Lu, in Ger. calls it gefangnifs, Dio. in Itn. cattivita, Si. and L. Cl. in Fr. transmigration. G. F. P. R. Beau. and Sa. adopt a circumlocution, employing the verb transporter. The E. T. says, about the time they were carried away to Babylon. After they were brought to Babylon. In nearly the same way the words are rendered by Sc. Dod. renders them, About the time of the Babylonish captivity. After the Babylonish captivity. Wa. says, the removal to Babylon. It is evident, not only from the word employed by the sacred historian, but also from the context, that he points to the act of removing into Babylon, and not to the termination of the state wherein the people remained seventy years after their removal, as the event which concluded the second epoch, and began the third, mentioned in the 17th verse. Whereas the La. exilium,

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