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(Lk 2023) when the chief priests tried to catch Him with their question about the lawfulness of giving a tribute to Cæsar. Hence 'just a glance and he is off' (Mayor) expresses the force of the word in James. The man did not come to the glass with the object of seeing himself; the glass happened to be near, and as he went by he glanced at it. His mind was full of other things; the image made no impression on it. His mind ought to have been prepared. So it is with the forgetful hearer: the fault is not in the word, but in the preparation necessary to receive it.

The other man came to the glass with a purpose. He looked' (Tapaκúvas); but in that looking is implied bending over the mirror in order to examine more minutely. His mind has been prepared to receive the impression, and so he does not forget it. The law of liberty appears to be something outside, like a glass. It is the word, the gospel, which he hears; but this word, which is at first outside, remains there, if the man is only a mere hearer. But it will come to be an inner law if the man becomes à doer of the word, as it is the engrafted' word, the rooted word, i.e. the word whose quality is to root itself in the heart. In 212 we can see that this has been accomplished: the law which was outside has become an inner principle of life.

demnation. The inner law takes account first of the spirit; in its reckoning, the effort, though it has been a failure, has a place. To this law we can come and say, 'What I would, that I do not; but what I hate, that I do,' for it is another aspect of mercy. Mercy does not act by lowering the standard; no, its standard is much higher than that of the external law. With an external law with all its precepts a Pharisee could justly lay claim to righteousness, but the law of liberty shows a standard ever becoming higher, 'like as He which called you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living' (1 P 115, R.V.).

When we take the law as an inner law, another contradiction disappears-the law of liberty. External law implies subordination; the ability to do as one wills is impossible as long as the will and the law are in two different spheres. Change the law from being outside, let it be an inner principle, and the will is transformed to act in unison with the law. Liberty is preserved, yea, 'the glorious liberty of the children of God.' The law of liberty, as James calls the gospel, then, is the only power that we can have which will purify It begins by changing our wills, and although we may experience many a failure, still the life is growing, and when the law becomes our liberty, then we shall have attained unto 'the ineasure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.'

us.

Silchar, Assam, India.

J. GERLAN WILLIAMS.

Job rl. 23 and 24.

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river overflow (marg. be violent), he trembleth not; he is confident, though Jordan swell even to his mouth.'

'Judged by the law of liberty' (212). This at first seems to imply that the law is external, it is a standard according to which man is judged; but this meaning only appears when we take 'law' in a sense different to what James takes it. To him the contrast is not between law and freedom, but the law of freedom is contrasted to being without mercy-'judged by the law of freedom' and judgment without mercy.' Thus mercy, R.V. 'Behold, if a becomes equivalent to law. In what sense? If law is external, then there is no room for mercy. The man who keeps the precepts of the law has no need of mercy; the one who fails must bear the penalty. It matters not how near he has come, in fact nearness has no meaning, for 'whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.' Let us change the meaning and regard the law as an inner law of the mind, then we see that the contradiction will disa tempi, Behold, appear. External law only watches for the fulfilment of its letter, it cannot take account of intentions, attempts; even if the spirit is kept and the letter is wanting, there is nothing but con

1. It is doubtful whether pry can be made to have the sense which the context demands, and which the R.V. expresses. We would suggest p; cf. Joel 418 D'ap'n pen, the vats overflow.' 2. The last two words (viz. m ) do not improve the sense or the rhythm of the verse. We would omit them, reading the verse as follows:—

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Euphrates overflows, he is not alarmed; he is confident, though Jordan burst its banks.' is used in poetry, without the article = Euphrates, cf. Is 720, Jer 218. The parallelism is then complete.

times, and on each occasion it is employed as a | אל פיהו): בְעֵינָיו יִכָּחְנוּ בְמוֹקְשִׁים יִנְקָב אַף : .24 .V

R.V. 'Shall any take him when he is on the watch, or pierce through his nose with a snare?'

'When he is on the watch' could only be expressed by . The use of in Pr 117 is ambiguous, and does not justify the rendering of R.V. in this passage. The alternative is to take as of instrument. By his eyes will one take him or pierce his nose with a snare?' the question being indicated by the tone of the voice. (To take the verse as a statement of fact is contrary to the whole sense of the passage.) Nevertheless, the above rendering is not satisfactory. Had the writer of Had the writer of the passage intended to convey such a sense to his hearers, he would have used some more explicit phrase than pya. Moreover, the usual words for capture are and ns. The context demands

.in clause b במוקשים ינקב אף some phrase parallel to

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for form of) לֹא בְפַח עֵינָיו יְנַקֵרוּ בְּמוֹקֵשׁ מִי יִנְקָב אָף: (כִּי אֵין בַמָּוֶת זִכְרְךְ בִּשְׁאוֹל מִי יוֹדֶה לָּךְ: 66 sentence cf. Ps בְפַחִים עֵינָיו יְנַקֵר [אוֹ] בְמוֹקְשִׁים or as an alternative לא The versions do not presuppose a text יִנְקָב אָף:

T

figure of God's expulsion of the enemies of Israel. Its usage may be traced to the one source. It is first used by E (Jos 2412), is borrowed from him by D (Dt 720), and then by P (Ex 2328). It thus began in the northern kingdom, and probably originated as a proverbial saying, in the successful revolution of Jeroboam. The first king of Israel is said to be the son of Zeruah, though why the mother's name should be mentioned is not clear, unless it be the family name, which, being feminine, led later historians to regard it as having been the mother's name. No good explanation of the meaning of Zeruah (y) has been yet found, and it is most likely a corruption of the word for hornet (y). This conclusion is confirmed by the genealogical tables (1 Ch 219. 50-54), which show that the Zorites (Hornets) were descendants of Ephrath, a wife of Caleb, which simply means that the Zorites were a sept of the Ephrathites, a clan in the great Calebite, or Dog phratry, one of the most important tribes in Judah. The Hebrew text (1K 1126) says that Jeroboam was an Ephrathite, which brings him very close to the Zorites. As each member of a house bearing an animal name is himself popularly known as the animal of his clan, thus a member of a lion clan is a lion, and so on; so Jeroboam would be known as a hornet, and the revolution and expulsion of the Davidic dynasty would be known as the work of the hornet. This would speedily pass into a proverbial expression, and was so used by E, who applied it to the expulsion of the enemies of Israel. Why the Revised Version should change Ephrathite to Ephraimite is not clear, although in one instance the names are confounded. From the character and policy of Solomon, it is very unlikely that an Ephraimite would stand so high in the royal favour, or be advanced to such work and high honours as was Jeroboam. Absalom found his help mainly in the north, so also did Jeroboam, likewise a Judaite, and probably near of kin to the Davidic house. Ross G. MURISON.

University of Toronto.

different from M.T., and the above suggestions are purely conjectural, guided by the light of the context and the requirements of Hebrew parallelism. L. H. C. SHUTTLEWORTH.

Oxford.

The Hornet.

PECULIARLY, except in proper names, the hornet is mentioned in the Old Testament only three

The Unjust Steward.

I.

I HAVE noticed the various expositions of 'The Unjust Steward.' None of them fully meets the difficulty arising from Christ's admonition to 'make friends with the mammon of unrighteousness.' Kindly allow me to suggest an explanation that lies on the surface of the occasion, and eliminates this difficulty.

The chapter opens with 'And he said to the

disciples.' (R. V. reads the disciples, not His disciples as in the A.V.; the might embrace a larger circle.)

Our Lord's audiences may not have changed with our modern chapters. His audience on this occasion was composed of those mentioned in chap. 151 and chap. 161. Some of these publicans, who came to hear Him, heard to their profit; and in chap. 161 they are entering the circle of disciples. (Was not this always the case when publicans and sinners came to hear Him?) But their newly awakened conscience was bringing to light the besetting sin of the publican-extorting more than was legitimate-and was threatening to impede their coming. What should they do? Merely confess and retain their unrighteous extortion? Jesus perceives their dilemma and chooses this story to point the way of duty. Common report had accused them of doing just what was charged against the steward. Hence its fitness. He called to him all his lord's debtors. No halfway measures will clear the conscience. But two samples were sufficient to show the method. The amount which the steward rebated was the amount that he had overcharged each individual on previous occasions. They must go and do likewise-make restitution; set themselves right with those whom they had defrauded. Nothing would so surely prove their sincerity and make for themselves lasting friends. Now this was necessary before they could be of any use in His kingdom.

'And his lord commended him.' Yes, and so will Christ commend you; so will everybody,-an excellent opportunity to get good from evil. Will they be able to rise to it? The emphatic teaching on honesty, which immediately follows, shows that His thought was far from endorsing the use of unjust wealth for spiritual purposes. Again, His remark that 'the children of this world are wiser than the children of light,' may indicate their slowness to see their proper course towards which the firm extortion to faithfulness was intended to stimulate them. Recall the case of Zacchæus. He, however, saw immediately the proper course which he ought to take to become a follower of Christ; nor did he need a parable of this kind to direct him.

This interpretation of the parable, it seems to me, would better accord with our conception of the character of Christ. It teaches an important lesson in practical Christianity. JOHN GRANT. Cleveland, Ohio.

gloss of a dull allegorizer? If not, perhaps an où is to be inserted at the beginning of the injunction or a note of interrogation at the end? But to accept the latter correction throws the Lord's commendation out of gear, and ignores the evident purpose of the Speaker to state at this point the moral of His story. On the other hand, if the words 'steward of unrighteousness' merely refer to the man's inefficiency, are we also to say, 'he that is incompetent in a very little is incompetent also in much'?

The section Lk 161-31 might be headed ‘Teaching about Money.' The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard and scoffed. That sentence near the middle of the section throws into relief the main idea. Of the two vivid pictures of selfishness in the chapter, the one depicts a calculating forethought which succeeded in making friends by means of money, and the other a careless indifference which failed in the same object. The failure in the latter case is shown on the background of the eternal tents, where Dives knew no one who would welcome him. That which mars the success in the former case is, 'seeing only what is near.' Yet the steward's method was successful. Employ it then in such a way that there 'shall be richly supplied unto you the entrance into the eternal kingdom.' Our Lord would have us steadily to aim at a welcome, a reward. We prefer our nobler ethics, minus all prizes for the race, but still

In short, why not take the peculiar saying simply as a lengthened form of 'Make eternal friends out of money,' the strongly emphasized word being placed in a setting to correspond with the story? Friends for eternity,-it is the introduction of the new factor which silences our instinctive comment, 'a questionable policy to gain a questionable end' (THE EXPOSITORY TIMES for June, p. 427).

An English gentleman supports a Chinese preacher year by year and does not forget. His forethought in such a very little thing gain for him-what? Much, the real, that which is his own. First he wins himself, but then also-a Chinese friend. Supposing the English Christian continued, year in year out, faithfully to give his donation for his unknown friend, with little thanks and no éclat, in the hope of a handshake and a smile from him when donations should have failed for both, would his Lord commend the steward because he had done wisely or not? F. W. S. O'Neill.

Manchuria.

II.

THAT 'they may receive you into the eternal tabernacles' as if the Divine welcome alone were not enough! The emphatic 'I say unto you,' followed by what seems something of a bathos,-is it the

Printed by MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED, Tanfield Works, and Published by T. & T. CLARK, 38 George Street, Edinburgh. It is requested that all literary communications be addressed to THE EDITOR, St. Cyrus, Montrose.

THE EXPOSITORY TIMES.

Notes of Recent Exposition.

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Is it necessary in a translation to mark words which have no equivalent in the original? The most recent translators do not seem to think so. Three translations of the New Testament into English have recently been made, and not one of them uses italics for this purpose. Mr. Ferrar Fenton, in his Bible in Modern English, uses no italics at all, except where he has something to say himself. In Weymouth's New Testament in Modern Speech there is the rare occurrence of an italic word. But it is not a word which has no equivalent in the Hebrew or the Greek. When Weymouth uses italic words he uses them for emphasis, 'in accordance with modern English custom.' In The Twentieth Century New Testament italics are found in great abundance. But they are not used for the purpose for which they were introduced by the Geneva Version. The only purpose for which they are used is to indicate quotations from the Old Testament. VOL. XVI.-6

The question then arises, If italics are to be used in the next translation of the Bible, for what purpose should they be used? The Twentieth Century New Testament employs them to mark quotations from the Old Testament. And it is undoubtedly important to have quotations indicated, if there were some simple and unostentatious way of doing it. But the italic type is too conspicuous for the purpose. In The Twentieth Century New Testament the effect of it is sometimes almost ludicrous. This is how the first and third verses of the Magnificat appear :

Mary's Song. Then Mary said—

My soul extols the Lord,

My spirit exults in God my Saviour;

For he has remembered his servant in her lowliness;
And from this hour all ages will count me happy!
Great are the deeds of his arm;

He confounds the headstrong with their own device,
He dethrones princes, and exalts the lowly,
The hungry he loads with gifts, and the rich he sends
empty-handed away.

The translators themselves must have seen that this was not satisfactory. In the second edition, which has just been published, they have discarded italics entirely.

Weymouth uses italics for emphasis. That is the modern use. And there is much to be said in favour of it.

There is first of all the fact, that it is the almost universal modern use. When we see an italic word on a page we take it to be an emphatic word. But in the Authorized and Revised Versions it is all the other way. The words in italics are thrown in merely to fill out the sense or satisfy the English idiom. On a strict theory of verbal inspiration they would have difficulty in justifying their existence at all.

to print them in the ordinary roman type. That is what the Revisers have done. The Hebrew language needs no copula, while the English language does. The Revisers saw that it was quite unnecessary on every such occurrence to print the is or the be in italics. The Greek language uses the personal pronoun before the verb for emphasis; the English idiom requires it everywhere. The Revisers saw that to draw attention to it in cases of this kind, as if it were an omission in the original, was not only useless but misleading.

And there is this other fact, that in the Bible, as elsewhere, it is sometimes necessary to make a word emphatic to the eye. It is true that a good writer does not require to use italics for emphasis. He marks his emphasis by the arrangement of his words. But in a translation this perfection of style is scarcely possible. In the translation of Scripture, where the demand is made for almost verbal accuracy, it is altogether impossible. It may be true that the Authorized Version comes as near to idiomatic perfection as translation has ever come. But it is well known to every scholar that there are many places in which the emphasis The choice between them is due to interpretation. of the original is left altogether unexpressed.

Weymouth is almost miserly in his use of italics. But in this case miserliness is a less offence than prodigality. When he uses them he uses them with effect. He translates Jn 846, 'Which of you (Tís è iμv) convicts me of sin?' and Jn 136, 'Master, he said, are you going to wash my feet?' (σύ μου νίπτεις τοὺς πόδας;). He translates 1 Ti 66, 'And godliness is gain (otiv de Topiσμòs) when associated with contentment.' And he translates Mt 1128, 'Come to me, all you toiling and burdened ones, and I will give you rest.'

Suppose, then, that italic type is to be retained. for emphasis, what is to be done with words which have no equivalent in the original? An enormous number of such words are found in the Authorized Version. And not only words, but sometimes whole clauses are found. What is to be done with them? There is no doubt that in a great number of cases the best thing to do with them is

But now the question arises, and it is a question which has seriously to be considered, What is to be done when there is doubt as to the word to be inserted in the English? The Greek ordinarily omits the personal pronoun, the English inserts it: what if there is doubt as to which personal pronoun should be inserted? There is nothing for it but to know the grammar and consider the context. One pronoun or another must be used.

Thus there are two kinds of English words which have no equivalent in the original. There are words which are required merely to make out the English idiom. To print such words in a separate type seems needless, if not pedantic. But there are words which involve an interpretation. Now there is one rule which the future translators of the Bible must obey though they disregard every other rule. It is that, as far as possible, their translation must be a translation and not an interpretation. And if ever they have to resort to interpretation they must frankly mark the fact.

Take an example of both kinds. In Acts 6o we read: 'Then there arose certain of the synagogue which is called the synagogue of the Libertines.' The Authorized and Revised Versions both print the words 'the synagogue,' on their second occurrence, in italics. But it is quite unnecessary. It is otherwise, however, with

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