fruitfulness of its cornfields, while the general richness of the soil gave rise to the older name 'Ephrath' or 'Ephrata,' 'fruitful.' There are now some 3000 inhabitants, all Christians. Herod the king] Herod the Great, son of Antipater the Edomite, whom Julius Caesar made governor of Judaea. Herod received, at the age of 15, the government of Galilee, and afterwards that of Coele-Syria. After the death of Antipater, Antony gave to Herod and his elder brother Phasael joint rule over Judaea; but an invasion of Parthians in support of the deposed Maccabee dynasty caused the death of Phasael and flight of Herod to Rome. There he was created by the senate king of Judaea, and having with Roman help taken Jerusalem (B.c. 37) was speedily acknowledged by the Jews. Augustus confirmed and enlarged his possessions. His authority was supported by Roman soldiers quartered in Jerusalem, while his subjects paid a poll-tax to Rome and took oaths of fealty to himself and (seemingly) to Augustus. He was a professed Jew (for the Idumaeans had been circumcised by Hyrcanus more than a century back), and rebuilt the Temple with great magnificence. At the same time he restored the Samaritan temple, and is even said to have made offerings to Juppiter on his accession. His tastes and sympathies were decidedly un-Jewish, His reign was that of a splendid tyrant. He rigorously persecuted the priests and old Jewish party on account of their attachment to the deposed Maccabees. He put to death his own wife Mariamne, the last member of that family, in a fit of jealousy-having previously killed her grandfather. He afterwards slew Aristobulus and Alexander, his two sons by her, and last of all his eldest son Antipater, their chief accuser. Five days after Antipater's death, he too died (B.c. 4) at the age of fifty-eight, and is said by Josephus to death to be followed have ordered during his last illness a massacre of all the leading Jews in the kingdom, that his death might be attended by the mourning of his people it As Herod, professing Judaism, did not eat swine's flesh, Augustus is reported to have said that it was better to be Herod's swine than his son (porcum quam filium-but he probably spoke it in Greek/ hyn è hyion). For a table of the Herod family see Appendix I. to this Gospel. wise men] The word magoi, Magi,' rendered wise men' throughout this chapter, was strictly the name of a religious caste of Persia famous for their astrological knowledge. It was afterwards applied to those who practised similar arts ('magic,' Simon' Magus,' and the Greek of Acts xiii. 6, 8). The usual Greek for 'wise men' is altogether different, and our English rendering should be altered: but in old English, and at this day in parts of the country where a - which order, however, was not обещани : Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. belief in witchcraft is not extinct, wise man''wise woman' are synonymous with 'astrologer' 'magician'-just as wizard itself is connected with wise. We find in Jer. xxxix. 3, 13, the name Rab-Mag, said to mean 'chief Magus.' And in Dan. i. 20 the Septuagint had rendered 'astrologers' into Greek by magoi. The rank, number, and country of the Magi are neither stated nor implied in the N. T. The tradition that they were three kings is comparatively late. The idea that they were three probably arose from the number of their gifts; that they were Arabian kings from Ps. lxxii. 10 (Septuagint), the kings of Arabia and Saba shall bring gifts.' Their gifts might come from any eastern country. 2. King of the Jews] The following quotations, though they were written with reference to the times of the siege of Jerusalem and the accession of Vespasian to the empire, are consistent with the supposition that a like expectation had long been awaiting fulfilment. Josephus (Wars, vi. 54) But what most stimulated them [the Jews] to the war was an ambiguous oracle likewise found in the sacred writings, that about that time some one from their country should rule the world.' Tacitus (Hist. v. 13) 'In many there was a persuasion that it was contained in the ancient books of the priests that the East would wax mighty and comers from Judaea sway the world.' Suetonius (Vesp. 4) The entire East had been pervaded by an old and stedfast belief that it was in the fates that at that time comers from Judaea should sway the world.' In the 3rd book of the Sibylline Oracles, and in a passage clearly written by an Egyptian Jew somewhere about B.C. 25, we are told. that 'when Rome shall rule even Egypt,' which became a Roman province B.C., 30, 'then in sooth the mightiest kingdom, that of an immortal king, shall appear among men. And an holy king shall come to hold the sceptre of all the earth unto all ages of on-pressing time.' This Sibylline oracle' may be the oracle referred to by Josephus, though to apply it, as he does, to Vespasian he cannot have recollected it very accurately. his star] A conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in Pisces took place thrice in B.C. 7, first on May 29, the last on December 5— from 2 to 3 years before what has seemed the probable period of the birth of Jesus. Such a conjunction is said by the Jewish writer Abarbanel to have happened 3 years before the birth of Moses, and its recurrence in his own time, A.D. 1463, was believed by him to herald the coming of the Messiah. There was also a like conjunction (closer than in B.C. 7) in A.D. 66, some 4 years before the time referred to by Josephus in the passage quoted above. "Carry whitel. Mer-see Smith's Bib. Dict. iii. 1374. 이 Certain fancies that the two planets would look like a single star, and would 'come and stand over where the young child was' (v. 9), have been completely refuted by the Rev. C. Pritchard, the astrong The planets were never so near as 'double the distance of the sun's apparent diameter,' and when the Magi reached Bethlehem would be 'visible far away beyond the hill to the west, and far off in the heavens at an altitude of 57° a star at an altitude of 57° could appear to stand over no house or object in the immediate neighbourhood of the observer.' And Alford's proposal to render astera not 'star' but 'conjunction' is unsupported by a single example of such an use. ... It has been said above that according to Münter the Chinese astronomical records speak of a new star as shining for 70 days in B.C. 4, while the cometographer Pingré states that a comet appeared in April of that year. The hypothesis of a new star is the better suited to the narrative, for there is no hint that the phaenomenon in question was seen by any one but those practised astrono mers the Magi. Vanishing stars, sometimes very brilliant, have often been observed: the Magi might see one in their own country, and after disappearing it might again start suddenly into sight in such a position as to be in the zenith at Bethlehem when due south. It has been supposed that the conjunction, though not identical with the star, led the Magi to believe that a great king of the Jews was born or about to be born and led them to look upon some remarkable heavenly body as his star.' In support of this hypothesis it has been said that the sign of Pisces has a special astrological connexion with Judaea, but no evidence beyond the personal fancy of the Jew Abarbanel is brought to prove such connexion. And if the conjunction pointed simply to the birth of a king the Magi would be as likely to bend their steps to any other country on the same parallel of latitude. Judaea, however, might have been nearest to them, or they might already have searched other countries in vain. in the east] When they were in the east: had they meant that they had seen it in the direction of Judaea, they must have said 'in the west.' to worship him] It is necessary to observe that 'worship' was formerly synonymous with honour,' and not limited to the service of God. Of this wider meaning instances remain in the marriage service, 'With my body I thee worship,' the phrase 'Your worship,' and the adjective 'worshipful.' In our version the word is used to すい 3 When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judæa: for J. vii. 49. thus it is written by the prophet, 6 And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the Mic. v. 2. least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel. render two different Greek verbs, one of which expresses adoration of the 24 hedri scribes of the people] See note on v. 20. 5. Bethlehem of Judaea] 'The same answer is equally returned in many Talmudical passages, and with the same reference to Micah v. 2'-Edersheim, Jewish Social Life, 79: see also Drummond. And in John vii. 42 some of the people are represented as alleging 'the scripture' as the authority for this belief. by the prophet] Render 'through the prophet,' and see note on i. 22. 6. Render this verse as follows:-'And thou Bethlehem, country of Juda, art no wise least among the leaders of Juda: for out of thee shall come forth a leader, the which shall shepherd my people Israel.' This passage is quoted from Micah v. 2, a verse which, however, appears in four different forms-here, in the Greek of the Soptu gint, in the present Hebrew text, and in the extant Targum or Aramaic Or, feed. demanded] Simply "asked, the old use, cf. Fr. demander 7 Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. paraphrase. This, therefor, is a suitable occasion on which to lay before the reader some account of the phaenomena of quotations from the O. T. in the New. The N. T. writers used as the ground of their quotations the Septuagint (see Chief Authorities for the Text,' § 1). From the investigations, however, of Mr. D. M. Turpie (The Old Testament in the New) it seems that they have departed from the Septuagint in 36 per cent. of their quotations, have altered it to a less accordance with the Hebrew in nearly 28 per cent., to a closer accordance in nearly 4 per cent., and have kept it unaltered in not quite 33 per cent. With the Hebrew text only 23 per cent. of the quotations exactly 'correspond. As against these somewhat startling figures it must be observed that many of the differences between the quotation on the one hand and the Greek or Hebrew text on the other are very slight indeed. Again, it must be borne in mind that (as Dr. Sanday in his/Gospels in the Second Century, p 29, puts it) 'the ancient writer had not a small compact reference Bible at his side, but, when he wished to verify a reference, would have to take an unwieldy roll out of its case and then would not find it divided into chapter and verse like our modern books, but would have only the, columns, and those perhaps not numbered, to guide him. We must remember too that the memory was much more practised and relied upon in ancient times, especially among the Jews.' Thirdly, it must be considered that at the beginning of our era Hebrew had already ceased to be a living speech, that various Targums or paraphrased versions of the Old Testament in Aramaic (the language of Palestine after the Captivity) were read in the synagogues, and that many of the quotations may taken from some one or other of these. Lastly, it must be added that no Hebrew MSS. more than 1391 years old (the age of a single roll of Deuteronomy) are known to us, and that such critical research as has yet been bestowed upon the text of the Old Testament has brought to light numerous variant readings upon the commen text: in the present state of our knowledge on these matters it would be hazardous to deny that some of the New Testament quotations may have been derived from Hebrew MSS. at least 800 years older than any which we now possess. 7. enquired diligently] We should maybe render 'ascertained exactly' both here and in v. 16. what time appeared] An impossible rendering: render 'the |