his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and 22 bury my father. But Jesus said unto him, Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead. 23 And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed 24 him. And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves; but he was 25 asleep. And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, say26 ing, Lord, save us, we perish. And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. 27 But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him? 28 67. And when he was come on the other side, into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, like a [or the] son of man came with the clouds of heaven,' &c. In these words, the subject in the writer's contemplation was the coming of the Messiah to establish the king dom of Heaven. Occurring in a passage of such brilliancy, the phrase Son of Man, though by no means sufficiently specific in its meaning to be restricted into a designation of the Messiah, yet was likely to take a place among those titles which might properly be applied to him." Relation between Judaism and Christianity, pp. 66, 22. let the dead bury their dead] It may be, as Bengel suggests, that this is meant to imply that even the most imperative offices of life-such as the burying such as the burying of the dead should be left to be performed by others, since the comnand to follow him was too immeliately urgent and imperative to be out aside on any such grounds. 'But go, thou, and preach the kinglom of God; that is, arouse those vho are dead; being called to this, eave burying to others, who, alas! o it naturally enough, as long as themselves are as dead as their "Ye are called, as the ving, to diffuse life; leave everying else as burying-work to the ead." Stier. 23. into a hip] The size of the ship or boat ley ead." may be inferred from the size of the lake. There is great weight in a remark of Bengel, which might be carried out more fully than in his words: "Jesus had a moving school (scholam ambulantem); and in that school his disciples were instructed much more solidly than if they had dwelt under the roof of a single college, without any anxiety or temptation." 26. and not rebuked the winds] hushed them, or commanded them to be silent. The word rebuke, éπiтiμáw, is not used to express displeasure or anger, but as a command to cease from what one is already doing or saying. "And he charged [rebuked, Triunσev] them to make him known.” (xii. 16.) 28. the Gergesenes] In Tischendorf, Gadarenes. In Luke it is Gadarenes, but according to Tischendorf, Gerasenes. It is diffireadings. If Um Keis occupies the cult to decide among these different and of that there seems to be little same spot as the ancient Gadara doubt Gadara could not have been according to Thomson, "about three the scene of this miracle; for it is, hours," i. e. about seven or eight miles, " to the south of the extreme shore of the lake in that direction." But Gersa or Chersa, says Thomson, Vol. II. pp. 35, 36, (8 is within coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way. And, behold, they cried out, saying, 29 What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? Art And there 30 thou come hither to torment us before the time? was a good way off from them an herd of many swine feeding. a few rods of the shore, and an immense mountain rises directly above it, in which are ancient tombs, out of some of which the two men possessed of the devils may have issued to meet Jesus. The lake is so near the base of the mountain that the swine, rushing madly down it, could not stop, but would be hurried on into the water and drowned. The place is one which our Lord would be likely to visit, having Capernaum in full view to the north, and Galilee 'over against it,' as Luke says it was (Luke viii. 26). The name, however, pronounced by the Bedawîn Arabs, is so similar to Gergesa, that to all my inquiries for this place they invariably said it was at Chersa, and they insisted that they were identical, and I agree with them in this opinion." two possessed with devils] Mark and Luke speak of only one, and represent him as so wild and ungovernable, that he dwelt without clothing among the tombs, driven by the demon into desert places, (Luke viii. 29), continuing day and night among the sepulchres and on the mountains, crying out and cutting himself with stones (Mark v. 5), so fierce that chains and fetters had been broken by him, and no man was able to subdue him. Yet when he saw Jesus coming, while he was yet afar off (Mark v. 6), he ran and prostrated himself before him, and shrieked out the words, "What hast thou to do with me, Jesus, thou Son of the Most High God? Art thou come hither to torment us before the time? I adjure thee by God, torment me not." Matthew (xx. 30) speaks of two blind men, where Mark and Luke mention but one. In each case their attention may have been confined to the more conspicuous of the two as the one on whom our Saviour's power was most decisively exercised. Matthew, from his office as a publican or tax-gatherer, would be likely to be more precise in the use of numbers, and therefore to mention both, even though the particulars of the account which the other Evangelists have preserved actually applied only to one. They 30. a good way off] μaкрàv, far from them. Mark and Luke say, ekel, "There, on the mountain.” There is no inconsistency. were there, in the distance, on the mountain. This miracle, which has more the air of a legend than any other in the Gospels except the taking of money from the mouth of a fish (xvii. 27), is nevertheless remarkably lifelike and natural in its details, especially as they are given by Mark and Luke. With the exception of his destruction of the fig-tree (xxi. 19), it is the only miracle of Jesus that was not wholly beneficent in its effects. But the very destruction of property, as in similar case (Acts xvi. 16 – 19), ma have been to show how much mor valuable and sacred is a human sou than any amount of gain. It ma have been intended as a rebuke t those who, if Jews, were keepin swine in violation of the law. may, in some way unknown to u have been necessary, in order effect the cure and make it pe manent. Or still more probably, may have been intended, by t very considerable magnitude of t loss, to attract the attention of t community, as the cure of the m niac alone could not do, and prepa them to receive the Gospel at so future day. For such a loss wo produce a lasting impression their sordid minds; and eviden the people in the vicinity w moved with awe and dread by t more than by any other of his n 31 So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer 32 us to go away into the herd of swine. And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine. And, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters. 33 And they that kept them fled, and went their ways into the city, and told everything, and what was befallen to the pos34 sessed of the devils. And, behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart out of their coasts. acles. As to any injustice to the owners, it was "God who inflicted this loss; and, viewed in this light, all inquiry respecting the particular cause why it was inflicted, and all discussion of its reason or justice in reference to the owner, are as much out of place as they would be concerning a fire, or a shipwreck, or an earthquake." Norton's "Internal Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels," p. 282. That the miracle was intended to produce a very strong impression is a suggestion countenanced by the fact that Jesus directed the man (Luke viii. 39) to go home and declare what great things God had done for him. The leper, v. 4, had been commanded to tell no one. But this was on the opposite side of the lake, where Jesus had not the same need of privacy as on the western side. As he was immediately to leave the place, and seldom if ever to visit it again, he may have been desirous of doing what he might to extend the knowledge of his mission in that region. 15* CHAPTER IX. 18-26. — CHRIST'S WAY OF VIEWING DEATH. THE explanation of these miracles will belong more properly to Mark v. 22-43. A single expression will here be noticed (24), “The maiden is not dead, but sleeping." Olshausen supposes that Jesus intended by these words to say that she really was not dead, but only "in a deep trance.” We think the expression is rather to be regarded as indicating the view which Jesus took of death. To him who looked through the shadowy envelopments of mortality, and saw in its higher experience the ongoings of the life here begun, death could not appear as it did to others; and, except when he was specially obliged, as in John xi. 14, and Matthew xvi. 28, to adapt himself to their understanding, he would naturally apply to it forms of speech different from those which were then in use. Here is one of those forms, borrowed possibly from the Old Testament (Deut. xxxi. 16; 2 Kings xx. 21). But the limited expression there, "He slept with his fathers," is taken without any such qualification, and the act of sleep is held up as the peaceful and fitting emblem of death. "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep." The expression fixed itself among his followers. "Many bodies of saints who had fallen asleep arose." (Matthew xxvii. 52.) "And having said this, he fell asleep." (Acts vii. 60.) "Of whom the greater part remain to this day, but some have fallen asleep." (1 Cor. xv. 6.) "They who have fallen asleep in Christ." (1 Cor. xv. (1 Cor. xv. 18.) This softened mode of expression, entering the Christian consciousness, has changed the whole aspect of the grave. The pall of death is but a veil of slumber thrown over the mortal form of those who, having lived in Christ, have now fallen asleep in him. How in harmony is all this with the character of Jesus! He to whom the issues out of this life into a higher realm were as real and visible as its ordinary transactions here, could hardly accept as truthful accounts of death the terms which were employed by men on whom the shadows of the tomb fell with their deep and hopeless mystery. Sometimes he is obliged to adapt himself to the comprehension of others. But usually he speaks of death in other ways. It is a sleep. It is rendering back a gift (Matthew x. 39; Luke xvii. 33; John xii. 25), that it may be safely preserved, or the laying down of a possession (John x. 17), that it may be taken again. It is the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew xxv. 13, 31.) It is the harvest at the end of the world (Matthew xiii. 39), where the reapers are the angels. "The beggar died (Luke xvi. 22), and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom." "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." (Luke xxiii. 46.) There is nothing constrained in his language. The whole subject is transfigured by it; but it flows so easily from his own higher point of view, that we hardly see what power there is in his words, unless our attention is particularly called to them. He does not formally announce the continuance of our being beyond this world, but rather takes it for granted. The doctrine enters into all his conceptions of life, makes up a part of his daily consciousness, and shows itself spontaneously in his words and acts. 66 God s not the God of the dead, but of the living." So, not Moses and Elias alone, but Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the maiden here, and his friend Lazarus at Bethany, ogether with the faithful of all times, were still among he living inhabitants of a living world. Death, in his iew, belonged to the soul as a consequence of sin, and ot to the body. As life with him means spiritual life, › death (a word he seldom uses) means spiritual death. |