His purple garments, and his golden hairs, Iliad xviii. ver. 23. Agreeably to this practice our Lord, in declaring the miserable state of Chorazin and Bethsaida for disregarding his miracles and ministry, says, if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon which have been done in you, they had a great while ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. No. 445. x. 42. Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her.] The Jews had commonly every one his table; and this custom was not peculiar to them, for Tacitus says the same thing of the Germans. Ulysses, in Homer, treating the deputies of the isle of Corfu, ordered as many tables to be set as there were persons, and caused every one to be served with his portion of wine and meat. Elkanah gave Hannah, whom he loved rather than Peninnah, a worthy portion in the meal that followed the sacrifice. (1 Sam. i. 5.) David sacrificing after he had danced before the ark, gave the people a feast, in which every one had his bread and his flagon of wine. (2 Sam. vi. 19.) It is thought that David alludes to this custom when he says, the Lord is the portion of mine inheritance, (marg. of my part) and of my cup; thou maintainest my lot, (Psalm xvi. 5.) and that Christ also referred to this practice in saying that Mary had chosen the good part. This custom has however now ceased among the Jews, and at present they eat at the same table, like other nations. BASNAGE'S History of the Jews, chap. xvi. § 1. No. 446.-xí. 7. He from within shall answer and say, trouble me not, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed.] Maillet informs us that it is common in Egypt for each person to sleep in a separate bed. Even the husband and the wife lie in two distinct beds in the same apartment. Their female slaves also, though several lodge in the same chamber, yet have each a separate mattrass. (Lett. xi. p. 124.) Sir John Chardin also observes, that it is usual for a whole family to sleep in the same room, especially those in lower life, laying their beds on the ground. From these circumstances we learn the precise meaning of the reply now referred to: he from within shall answer and say, trouble me not, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed: I cannot rise and give thee: it signifies that they were all in bed in the same apartment, not in the same bed. When Solomon speaks of two lying together in one bed to get heat, we must suppose that he means it for medicinal purposes, as it was sometimes done with that view, but hardly ever else. (Eccles. iv. 11. 1 Kings i. 1, 2.) HARMER, Vol. i. p. 164. No. 447-xi. 52. Key of knowledge.] It is said that authority to explain the law and the prophets was given among the Jews by the delivery of a key; and of one Rabbi Samuel we read, that after his death they put his key and his tablets into his coffin, because he did not deserve to have a son to whom he might leave the ensigns of his office. If the Jews really had such a custom in our Saviour's time, the expression, the key of knowledge, may seem a beautiful reference to it. No. 448.-xii. 35. Let your loins be girded about.] They who travel on foot are obliged to fasten their do at other times. ing up their loins. garments at a greater height from their feet than they This is what is understood by girdChardin observes, that "all persons that travel on foot always gather up their vest, by which they walk more commodiously, having the leg and knee unburthened and disembarrassed by the vest, which they are not when that hangs over them." After this manner he supposes the Israelites were prepared for their going out of Egypt, when they eat the first passover. (Exod. xii. 11.) HARMER, Vol. i. p. 450. No. 449.-xiii. 8. And he answering, said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it; and dung it.] Dandini tells us, (ch. x. p. 43.) that in Mount Libanus they never use spades to their vineyards, but they cultivate them with their oxen; for they are planted with strait rows of trees, far enough from one another. As the usages of the East so seldom change, it is very probable a spade was not commonly used in the time of our Lord in their vineyards. We find the prophet Isaiah, (ch. v. ver. 6.) using a term which our translators indeed render by the English word digging, but which differs from that which expresses the digging of wells, graves, &c. in other places, and is the same with that used to signify keeping in rank. (1 Chron. xii. 33.) When then Jesus represents the vine-dresser as saying to his lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it, it should seem that we are not to understand the digging with a spade about the fig-tree, planted in a vineyard according to their customs; but the turning up of the ground between the rows of trees with an instrument proper for the purpose, drawn by oxen-in other words, ploughing about them. HARMER, vol. ii. p. 432. No. 450.-xiv. 13. When thou makest a feast, call the poor.] Notwithstanding there is so much distance kept up between superiors and inferiors in the East, and such solemnity and awfulness in their behaviour, yet we find them in some cases very condescending. As an instance of this, Dr. Pococke assures us that they admit the poor to their tables. In his account of a great entertainment made by the governor of an Egyptian village for the cashif, with whom he travelled, he says, the custom was for every one, when he had done eating, to get up, wash his hands, and take a draught of water, and so in a continual succession, till the poor came in, and eat up all. The Arabs never set by any thing that is brought to table, so that when they kill a sheep, they dress it all, call in their neighbours and the poor, and finish every thing. (Travels, vol. i. p. 357.) The same author also mentions what is still more surprising; for in giving an account of the diet of the eastern people, (p. 182.) he informs us that an Arab prince will often dine in the street, before his door, and call to all that pass, even beggars, in the usual expression of Bismillah, that is, in the name of God, who come and sit down, and when they have done, retire with the usual form of returning thanks. The picture then, which our Lord draws, of a king's making a great feast, and, when the guests refused to come, sending for the poor, the maimed, and the blind, is not so unlike life as we have perhaps been ready to imagine. HARMER, vol. ii. p. 125. No. 451.-xv. 12. He divided unto them his living.] The principles of inheritance differ in the East from what are established among ourselves. There is no need of the death of the parent before the children possess their estates. The various circumstances connected with this subject are clearly laid down in the following extract from Mr. Halhed's Code of Gentoo Laws, (p. 53.) "The rights of inheritance, in the second chapter, are laid down with the utmost precision, and with the strictest attention to the natural claim of the inheritor in the several degrees of affinity. A man is herein considered but as tenant for life in his own property; and as all opportunity of distributing his effects by will, after his death, is precluded, hardly any mention is made of such kind of bequest. By these ordinances also he is hindered from dispossessing his children of his property in favour of aliens, and from making a blind and partial allotment in behalf of a favourite child, to the prejudice of the rest, by which the weakness of parental affection, or of a misguided mind in its dotage, is admirably remedied. These laws also strongly elucidate the story of the prodigal son in the scriptures, since it appears from hence to have been an immemorial custom in the East for sons to demand their portion of inheritance during their father's life-time, and that the parent, however aware of the dissipated inclinations of his child, could not legally refuse to comply with the application. "If all the sons go at once in a body to their father, jointly requesting their respective shares of his fortune; in that case the father shall give equal shares of the property earned by himself, to the son incapable of getting his own living, to the son who hath been particularly dutiful to him, and to the son who hath a very large family, and also to the other sons who do not lie under any of these three circumstances; in this case, he shall not have power to give to any one of them more or less than to the others. "If a father has occupied any glebe belonging to his father, that was not before occupied, he shall not have power to divide it among his sons in unequal shares, as in the case of property earned by himself." |