Part 20

John xi. 21.

John xi. 26.

John xi. 27.

John xi. 39.

John xi. 39.

John xi. 41.

Rev. iii. 5.

Rom. viii. 34.

John v. 29.

As the Jewish sabbath began at six o'clock on Friday evening, and lasted till six on Saturday evening, we may infer it was after the close of its sacred hours (at "eventide") He reached Bethany.

It is supposed to have been equivalent to £10 of our money.

Tennyson.

An excellent Christian poet has thus amplified this thought:--

"Thou hast thy record in the monarch's hall, And on the waters of the far mid sea; And where the mighty mountain shadows fall, The Alpine hamlet keeps a thought of thee. Where'er, beneath some Oriental tree, The Christian traveller rests--where'er the child Looks upward from the English mother's knee, With earnest eyes, in wond'ring reverence mild, There art thou known. Where'er the Book of Light Bears hope and healing, there, beyond all blight, Is borne thy memory--and all praise above. Oh! say what deed so lifted thy sweet name, Mary! to that pure, silent place of fame?-- One lowly offering of exceeding love."

This was a common opinion among the Fathers of the Church.

Mark xi. 1-12.

Stanley's "Sinai and Palestine," p. 188-191. A work of rare interest, which condenses in one volume the literature of the Holy Land.

"Christian Year."

Bethphage, lit. "the house of figs."

Stanley, p. 418.

"If the miracles generally have a symbolical import, we have in this case one that is entirely symbolical."--NEANDER.

"Trench on the Miracles," p. 444. See a full exposition of the design and import of this miracle in this exhaustive and admirable dissertation.

"The fig-tree, rich in foliage, but destitute of fruit, represents the Jewish people, so abundant in outward shows of piety, but destitute of its reality. Their vital sap was squandered upon leaves. And as the fruitless tree, failing to realise the aim of its being, was destroyed, so the theocratic nation, for the same reason, was to be overtaken, after long forbearance, by the judgments of God, and shut out from His kingdom."--NEANDER.

Psalm i. 3.

"In that of the devils in the swine there was no punishment, but only a permitting of the thing."--See "Stier's Words of the Lord Jesus," vol. iii. p. 100.

Mark xi. 19.

"Sinai and Palestine," p. 165.

"On the wild uplands," says Mr Stanley, "which immediately overhangs the village, He finally withdrew from the eyes of His disciples, in a seclusion which, perhaps, could nowhere else be found so near the stir of a mighty city, the long ridge of Olivet screening those hills, and those hills the village beneath them, from all sight or sound of the city behind; the view opening only on the wide waste of desert rocks, and ever-descending valleys, into the depths of the distant Jordan and its mysterious lake. At this point the last interview took place. He led them out as far as to Bethany. The appropriateness of the whole scene presents a singular contrast to the inappropriateness of that fixed by a later fancy, 'Seeking for a sign' on the broad top of the mountain, out of sight of Bethany, and in full sight of Jerusalem, and thus an equal contradiction to the letter and the spirit of the Gospel narrative."--P. 192.