24. Tossed with waves. Violently tossed with the waves, for so the original authorizes us to translate it. This lake was subject to sudden squalls and frequent gusts of wind from the surrounding mountains. Dr. Clarke says that a boisterous sea is instantly raised, when the strong current made by the Jordan is opposed by contrary winds, which sometimes blow here with the force of a hurricane from the south-east.

25. Fourth watch of the night. Anciently the Jews divided the night into three parts; the first lasting till midnight, Lam. ii. 19; the second, from midnight till cockcrowing, Judg. vii. 19; the third or morning watch, from cockcrowing till the rising of the sun, Ex. xiv. 24, 1 Sam. xi. 11. But after the conquest of Palestine by Pompey, this mode was superseded by the Roman division of the night into four watches, which furnishes an incidental evidence of the period when these events took place, and authenticates the Gospel history. By this last division, 1st, the evening watch was from six to nine o'clock; 2d, midnight watch, from nine to twelve; 3d, cock-crowing, from twelve to three; 4th, morning, or fourth watch, from three to six. It was, therefore, after three in the morning, when Jesus came to them. So long had he been engaged in communion with God; finding thus his rest in prayer, as at another season he found it to be his meat and drink to do the will of his Father. Upon a previous occasion, Luke vi.

12, just before the choice of his twelve Apostles, he continued all night in prayer.-Walking on the sea. This was an undoubted exhibition of supernatural power. The Egyptian hieroglyphic for an impossibility was the figure of two feet walking upon the sea. Jesus comes down from the mount of prayer, to still the boisterous lake and relieve his endangered disciples.

26. It is a spirit, i. e. a spectre, apparition. The ancients believed that the spirits of the departed reappeared to the living; and the unusual circumstances under which they saw the figure of a man on the billows, in the darkness of the night, at once suggested that here was such an appearance, the most appalling in nature.

27. It is 1; be not afraid. Jesus does not attempt to correct their philosophical error respecting ghosts, but simply to banish their fears. In like manner, he did not disabuse his hearers of the popular but false notions of possessions by demons. We have an illustration in this narrative of the terror produced by superstition.

"When power divine, in mortal form,
Hushed with a word the raging storm,
In soothing accents, Jesus said,
'Lo! it is I! be not afraid.'

"Blessed be the voice which breathes from
heaven,

To every heart in sunder riven,
When love, and joy, and hope are fled,
Lo! it is I! be not afraid."

"And when the last dread hour shall come,
While shuddering nature waits her doom,
This voice shall call the pious dead:
Lo! it is I! be not afraid." "

28. If it be thou, bid me come unto thee, &c. Peter, with his characteristic impetuosity, as soon as he recovered from his fear, gives loose to his ardor, and wishes to be better assured that it was Jesus. He was tempted, perhaps, also, to exhibit his faith ostentatiously. In the individuality of character which is preserved of all those persons in troduced into the New Testament, we have a proof, of immeasurable and undeveloped strength, of the truth of the book.

29. He said: Come. Our Lord gave permission to his rash and ardent disciple to make the attempt, principally, we may conjecture, in order to test his character, and acquaint him with its weaknesses.Walked on the water, &c. It appears that Peter succeeded for a time, and actually walked upon the fluid surface, as upon a solid floor.

30. But when he saw the wind boisterous, &c. He was terrified by the rough appearance of the sea, and began to sink, though he still retained faith enough in Jesus to call upon him to rescue him. "Whilst he believed, the sea was brass; when he began to distrust, those waves were water." But his want of faith was the occasion, not the cause, of his sinking. As long as his confidence continued, he was sustained by supernatural power; but when it ceased, that power was withdrawn by the will of Jesus, to teach his disciple his own defective character, and the necessity of faith

in him. This whole account is in perfect keeping with Peter's character, as elsewhere recorded in the New Testament. All his bold and headlong acts are kindred to each other. It is the same spirit under different circumstances; first rash, then "easily daunted, and prone to fall." We are led to remark how many persons in life sink in the sea of troubles and difficulties, for lack of faith. A distinguished lady, who exhibited uncommon force of character, and steady devotion to noble objects, once observed, that she drew, in her youth, a vital lesson of the importance of courage and faith, from this narrative.

31. Immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, &c. There was no real danger of his drowning, while such a friend was near him. His call for help is instantly answered, and he is taught the feebleness of his own faith.—Wherefore didst thou doubt? The Greek for doubt is taken from a word descriptive of a person's standing where two ways meet, hesitating which to choose, inclining sometimes to the one and sometimes to the other, with a doubtful, swaying motion, as of a balance. "Christ's mild rebuke, so unlike the denunciations which his. professed followers in other ages have launched at what they have been pleased to call, but could not with certainty know to be deficiencies of faith, that mild rebuke from him who did know all things, was the only punishment for the failing

whole.

faith of the disciple. Wherefore didst thou doubt ?' wherefore, after seeing what thou hast seen, and hearing what thou hast heard, couldst thou doubt?"

32. The wind ceased. Was hushed or lulled. He who could walk upon the waves could by the same power calm the winds and smooth the waters. John mentions that the ship arrived immediately at its destination, vi. 21.

33. They that were in the ship. Probably the disciples.-Worshipped him. They did not offer Christ divine worship, of which there is no example in ancient times, and for which there is no authority in modern, but they did him obeisance, probably by prostrating themselves before him, according to the eastern custom of paying respect to kings and great men. Mark describes their amazement as great, and assigns as one cause of it, that, hardened in their hearts, they had forgotten the miracle of the loaves. -The Son of God, i. e. the Messiah. Mat. xxvi. 63. John i. 49. If Jesus Christ was God himself, is it not incredible, that they should never have suspected that he was God, or addressed him thus, but called him the Son of God, or the expected Messiah?

34. The land of Gennesaret. Called, in the Old Testament, Chinnereth. Deut. iii. 17. Numb. xxxiv. 11. 1 Kings xv. 20. It was a small district of Lower Galilee, adjacent

to the lake, on the western side. It was sometimes called, on this account, the lake of Gennesaret. The towns of Capernaum and Tiberias were situated in this territory. Hence, John, vi. 17, says, they "went over the sea, toward Capernaum," and Mark, vi. 45, that they were to go to Bethsaida, which was on the west side, in the satne region. From Bethsaida, on the east of the lake, they go to the land of Gennesaret, containing the towns of Capernaum and Bethsaida on the west. How shall we account for the geographical accuracy with which the Evangelists wrote, otherwise than by supposing that they were contemporaneous with the events they describe, and competent to give an independent and exact narrative?

35. Had knowledge of him. Knew him again, for Jesus had often performed miracles there before, and taught in the neighborhood. The daughter of Jairus had been cured in the vicinity, and the diseased woman also came behind him trembling and touched the hem of his garment, which may incidentally account for the request in the next verse.

36. Might only touch the hem of his garment, i. e. the fringe or tassel of the outer garment. They asked but the smallest favor of his miraculous power, confident that that would be sufficient for their relief.

As many as touched were made

THEN

perfectly whole. Not by any inherent virtue in the garment, but through the distinct volition and exercise of miraculous power by Jesus himself.

Every chapter contains some lesson of truth, or pleadings of love, or motives to duty. We are in this one reminded, by the death of John the Baptist, of the persecutions and martyrdoms which have in every age befallen the most illustrious servants of God. The world has hated and killed them because they were not of the world. Yet their memories flourish green in all ages, and twine themselves deep around the affections of the human heart. What a kingdom is their posthumous one over the wills and sentiments of their race!

Whilst the miracles of Christ should win our assent to his divine authority, they should also impregnate our breasts with the feelings of a divine benevolence. concern our hearts as much as our heads.

CHAP. XV.

They

1-29. Parallel to Mark vii. 1-31. 1. Scribes and Pharisees. See note on Mat. iii. 7, v. 20.-Of Jerusalem. Belonging to Jerusalem. A deputation had been sent from the metropolis, where the most learned men resided, perhaps with the express design of watching Jesus, whose fame was now spread abroad from one end of the country to the other. He was at this time in Galilee, as mentioned in the last chapter.

2. Transgress the tradition of the elders? The elders are those distinguished for their wisdom and virtue, who had flourished in the past ages of the Jewish commonwealth. Their wise sayings and maxims relative to the Mosaic law and institutions acquired, in the course of time, great_authority in the eyes of the Jews. They were attributed to Moses, who, it was said, received from God an oral, as well as a written law, at Mount Sinai. The oral communications were explanatory of the written laws. They were said to have been given by Moses to Aaron and his posterity, passing from one to another, through priests, prophets, and rabbins, to Rabbi Judah, in the second century of the Christian era, who committed to writing the traditions, as the oral law was called which existed in the time of Christ and is referred to in the text, and thus formed what is now called the Mishna, which means miscellanies. This volume contains explanations of all the precepts of the Mosaic law. About a century after, another Jewish Rabbi, Jochanan, composed another volume, supplementary to the Mishna, called Gemara, i. e. completion or perfection, which contained illustrations and comments on the Mishna. These two, the Mishna and the Jewish Gemara, compose the Jerusalem Talmud. Long after, Rabbi Asa composed the Talmud of Babylon in a celebrated Jewish school near that city. This consisted of the aforesaid Mishna as the text, and a new Ge

mara as commentary or supplement. These works are all written in the Hebrew language, and are in even higher estimation among the Jews than the Scripture itself. In these Talmuds is found the Cabala, or mystical method of explaining the law, by which abstruse and mysterious significations are formed by ingenious combinations of letters composing a word or words in the law. The criminality, in the judgment of the Scribes and Pharisees, of transgressing any precept of this body of traditions of the elders may be estimated from these sentences in their writings:-"The words of the Scribes are lovely above the words of the law, for the words of the law are weighty and light, but the words of the Scribes are all weighty": "The words of the elders are weightier than the words of the prophets": "The written law is narrow, but the traditional is longer than the earth and broader than the sea." Jews compared the Bible to water, the Mishna to wine, and the Gemara to hippocras.-Wash not their hands, when they eat bread. Or, eat food. The Scribes and Pharisees, according to Mark, had already observed that the disciples ate bread with unwashen hands. In the Talmudical writings there were many minute and ridiculous directions given respecting washing the hands, upon the ground that some uncleanness might be contracted. He was thought worthy of excommunication and even death, who broke the custom. An evil spirit called Shibta was said to sit on the food of him who ate without washing, and

The

to make the food hurtful. A story is related in the Talmud of a man's perishing in prison, because, part of the water brought him being spilt, he preferred using the rest rather to wash than to drink, and so lost his life.-Mark, writing for the benefit of the Gentiles, went into a fuller account of the ceremonies of washing than Matthew, who was writing for the Jews, where these customs were known.

3. Transgress the commandment of God, by your tradition? Jesus did not commence with a vindication of his disciples, for the observance had the sanction of great authority among the Jews; but he first destroyed the very foundation on which their reasoning depended. He showed that in their adherence to the traditions of men they were guilty of violating the commandments of God. His answer was virtually: You accuse my disciples, and through them me, of violating the traditions of the elders; but I will point out a case, where, by these very traditions you value so much, you transgress the infinitely higher laws of God. You are the most guilty, for you break the moral law.

4. For example: Honor thy father and mother, &c. This was the fifth commandment. Ex. xx. 12, xxi. 17. Lev. xix. 3. This precept included not only filial respect, but also a proper care and maintenance of parents. For instances of this sense of the word honor, see 1 Tim. v. 3, 17.-Curseth. Revileth.-Die the death, i. e. let him surely die. Ex. xxi. 17. We learn from this verse the high and holy nature of