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versions. To this reading also Nonnus the Gr. versifier and paraphrast, who commonly keeps pretty close to the sense, has also given his sanction:

Έρις δε τις αμφι καθαρμό

Επλετο μυςιπολοίσιν Ιωάννας μαθηταις

Εβραιο μετα φωτα.

Add to these some of our best modern critics, as Gro. Cocceius, Ham. Mill, and Wet.

2 About purification, wıgı nabagious: that is, as appears from the sequel, about baptisms and other legal ablutions.

29. The bridegroom is he who hath the bride, i exor the sureDav, vuμdi esiv. E. T. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom. As the manifest intention here is to point out the distinction between Jesus the bridegroom and John his friend, the arrangement I have given the words is more suited to the Eng. idiom. The other way appears to us an inversion of the natural order, and is consequently less perspicuous.

32. Yet his testimony is not received. This, compared with the clause, He who receiveth his testimony, which immediately follows, is a strong evidence that the words of Scripture ought not to be more rigidly interpreted, than the ordinary style of dialogue; wherein such hyperboles as all for many, and none for few, are quite familiar.

33. Voucheth the veracity of God, peayi OTS Oε annons E5IV. E. T. Hath set to his seal that God is true. As sealing was employed for vouching the authenticity of writs, to seal came, by a natural and easy transition, to signify to vouch, to Our acceptance of God's message by his Son, through an unshaken faith, vouches, on our part, the faithfulness of God, and the truth of his promises.

attest.

34. For he whom God hath commissioned, relateth God's own words. Ον γαρ απέτειλεν ὁ Θεό, τα ρηματα το Θε8 λαλες. There is the same kind of ambiguity here which was remarked in ch. ii. 24. The version may be, God's own words relate whom God hath commissioned. Here also translators appear unanimous in preferring the former version, which is likewise more agreeable to the usual application of the terms. It is more natural to re

present a person as speaking words, than words as speaking a person. It is, besides, favoured by the connection. Wa. seems to have declared himself an exception from the unanimity in both cases, but without assigning a reason. See his New Translation,

CHAPTER IV.

1. Jesus, i Kvgi. E. T. The Lord. But the Cam. and ten other MSS. read Ins. It is thus read also in the Vul. both the Sy. the Cop. the Arm. the Ara, and the Sax. versions. Chr. has read so, and it is also in some printed editions. As this difference in reading makes not the smallest change in the sense, but a change to the better in the composition of the sentence, I thought the above mentioned authority sufficient for adopting it. The way in which the sentence runs in the E. T. would naturally lead the reader to think that one person is meant by the Lord, and another by Jesus. When, therefore, the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made Several of the au thorities aforesaid drop Ins in the latter part of the verse. I am surprised that this has been overlooked by Wet.

5. Near the heritage, #λnσlov T8 xwp18. E. T. Near to the parcel of ground. This application of the word parcel is very unusual. The word grey means an estate in land; and as the estate here spoken of was given by the Patriarch to his son Joseph, to be possessed by him and his posterity, it is properly de nominated heritage, agreeably to what we are told, Josh. xxi. 32. It is so rendered into Fr. by Beau. Sa. P. R. and Si.

9. For the Jews have no friendly intercourse with the Samaritans, 8 γας συγχρωνται Ιεδαίαι Σαμαρειταις, Ε. T. For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. That the word dealings implies too much to suit the sense of this passage, is manifest from the preceding verse, where we are told that the disciples were gone into the Samaritan city Sychar to buy food. The verb συγχρα και is one of those called άπαξ λεγομενα : it does not oc. cur in any other place of the N. T. or in the Sep. The Phari. sees were, in their traditions, nice distinguishers. Buying and selling with Samaritans was permitted, because that was consi

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dered as an intercourse merely of interest or conveniency; borrowing and lending, much more asking or accepting any favour, was prohibited; because that was regarded as an intercourse of friendship, which they thought impious to maintain with those whom they looked upon as the enemies of God.

10. The bounty of God, ray dwęɛav 78 O18. E. T. The gift of God. The word dagen means not only a particular gift, but that disposition of mind from which the gift arises, bounty, liberality, goodness. In this sense it is sometimes used by the Apostle Paul, as Eph. ìii. 7. iv. 7. Most translators, not attending to this, have rendered these verses by tautologies and indefinite expressions, to the great hurt of perspicuity. The meaning of the word is, I imagine, the same in Heb. vi. 4. But the plainest example of this acceptation we have in the Apocryphal book of Wisdom, ch. xvi. 25. where the care of Providence in supporting every living thing is, in an address to God, called ǹ avtorgop c Supea, literally, in Eng. thy all-nourishing bounty. This mean ing appears also more pertinent and emphatical in the passage under consideration. A particular gift cannot be understood as referred to, when there is nothing in the context to suggest it. But there seems to be intended here a contrast between the munificence of God, which extends to those of all regions and denominations upon the earth, and the contracted spirit of man, who is ingenious in devising pretexts for confining the divine liberality to as few objects as possible. To this train of senti. ment the preceding words naturally lead. The woman had expressed her astonishment that a Jew could ask even so small a favour as a draught of water from a Samaritan. Jesus tells her, that if she had considered more the bounty of the universal Parent, from which none are excluded by the distinction of Jew, Samaritan, or Heathen, than maxims founded in the malignity of man, and if she had known the character of him who talked with her, she might have asked successfully a gift infinitely more important.

2 Living water, idap Zwv. It may surprise an English reader, unacquainted with the Oriental idiom, that this woman, who appears, by the sequel, to have totally misunderstood our Lord, did not ask what he meant by living water, but proceeded on the supposition that she understood him perfectly, and only did not conceive how, without some vessel for drawing and containing

that water, he could provide her with it to drink. The truth is, the expression is ambiguous. In the most familiar acceptation, living water meant no more than running water. In this sense the water of springs and rivers would be denominated living, as that of cisterns and lakes would be called dead, because motion. less. Thus, Gen. xxvi. 19. we are told that Isaac's servants digged in the valley, and found there a well of springing water. It is living water both in the Heb. and in the Gr. as marked on the margin of our Bibles. Thus also, Lev. xiv. 5. what is ren. dered running water in the Eng. Bible, is in both these languages living water. Nay, this use was not unknown to the Latins, as may be proved from Virgil and Ovid. In this passage, however, our Lord uses the expression in the more sublime sense for di vine teaching, but was mistaken by the woman as using it in the popular acceptation.

11. Thou hast no bucket, &ʊE AVTÀNμA EXES. E. T. Thou hast nothing to draw with. Arranua, from avtλew, haurio, is haustrum. situla, vas ad hauriendum; which is the definition of a bucket. So Dod. also renders the word.

20. This mountain, to wit, Gerizim, at the foot of which Sychar was built, and on which the Samaritans had formerly erected a temple, though not then remaining. For they pretended that this was the place where the Patriarchs had offered sacri. fice, and which God himself had set apart as the only place con. secrated for the performance of the most solemn and public ceremonies of their religion. In support of this their opinion, they quote some passages from the Pentateuch (the only part of Scripture which they acknowledge), particularly Deut. xxvii. 4. where, instead of Ebal, as it is in all the Jewish copies of the Heb. Scriptures commonly received, the Samaritan copies of the same scriptures read Gerizim.

22. Ye worship what ye know not; we worship what we know ύμεις προσκυνείτε ὁ εκ οίδατε· ἡμεις προσκυνέμεν ο οίδαμεν. Ε. Τ. Ye worship ye know not what; we know what we worship. There is apparently no difference between these two versions, except that the first keeps closer to the arrangement of the Gr. But in effect this makes here a considerable difference. The same thought is conveyed in both; but in the former with the simplicity of the original, wherein great plainness is used, but nothing that

savours of passion; whereas it is impossible to read the latter without perceiving much of the manner of a contemptuous reproach, and what would have therefore more befitted the mouth of a Pharisee than of our Lord. So much in language depends often on a very small circumstance. What ye know not, contrasted to what we know, implies, in the Heb. idiom, not total igno. rance, but inferior knowledge. Thus love and hatred are op posed (see L. xiv. 26.), to denote merely greater and less love. Now, if the writings of the Prophets were of importance for conveying the knowledge of the perfections and will of God, the Samaritans, who rejected all those writings (receiving only for canonical the five books of Moses), must, on this head, have been more ignorant than the Jews, which is all that our Saviour's words imply.

2 Salvation is from the Jews.-The Saviour or the Messiah must be of that nation, of the tribe of Judah, and posterity of David.

25. I know that the Messiah cometh; (that is, the Christ.). Οιδα ότι Μεσσίας ερχεται, ὁ λεγόμενα Χρις. Ε. Τ. I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ. In the manner wherein the last clause, which is called Christ, is here expressed, it appears to have been spoken by the woman: yet, it is manifest that that could not have been the case. Our Lord and the woman spoke a dialect of the Chaldee, at that time the language of the country, and in the N. T. called Hebrew, wherein Messiah was the proper term, and consequently needed not to be explained to either into Greek, which they were not speaking, and which was a foreign language to both. But it was very proper for the Evangelist, who wrote in Greek, and in the midst of those who did not understand Chaldee, when introducing an Ori. ental term, to explain it for the sake of his Gr. readers. Ch. i. 43. N.

27. That he talked with a woman, ÓTI META YUVAIX☞ £à¤àes. E. T. That he talked with the woman. The learned reader will observe, that yuvain here has no article, and is consequently better rendered a woman. We need not be surprised that it should be matter of wonder to the disciples, that their Master was talking with a woman; for so great, at that time, was the pride of the learned, in that nation, that they imagined that to have a dialogue with such, on any serious and important matter,

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