and journeying toward Jeru salem. r cities and villages, teaching, the house is risen up, and a hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, s I know you not whence ye are: 26 Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. n 23 Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them, 24" Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. 25 P When once the master of n Matt. 7. 13.-o See John 7. 34, & 8. 21, & 13. 33; g Matthew 25. 10.-r Chapter 6. 46.8 MatRom. 9. 31.p Psa. 32. 6; Isa. 55. 6. villages This is Luke's general heading for the Peraan ministry of Jesus. The cities and villages were those of the Transjordanic region, including Bethabara and the localities generally of John's baptisms. See map. But Luke really gives the teachings of Jesus for the closing two days of the Perean ministry. See note on verse 31. $89. ARE THERE FEW SAVED? HEROD'S MESSAGE TO JESUS, 22-35. 23. Lord-The respectful address, and the confidence of the inquirer in our Lord's ability to furnish an authoritative answer, show that he is a believer. The question was much debated by the Jewish doctors, some maintaining that all Israelites are saved by birthright, others asserting that the saved will be few; just as but two of the original Israelites arrived in Canaan. We may remark that there can be no reasonable doubt that the word saved in such discourses refers, contrary to most Universalist interpretations, to salvation from hell in a future world. Such was its meaning among the debaters of our Lord's day. the few. thew 7. 23, & 25. 12. See notes on Matthew vii, Will seek-It is one thing to strive and another to seek. And it is to be supposed that the failure arises from seeking to enter otherwise than by the strait gate; and to enter the strait gate is to strive. 25-30. The exclusion of sinners from heaven is here compared to the exclusion of night wanderers from a hospitable house. Ye 25. When once-Once for all and forever. The master of the house-The hospitable entertainer of his friends for the night. Is risen up-From his evening divan to close the house for the night. Hath shut to the door-Locked for the night's safety and repose. -Our Lord gives his reply to the question in the most admonitory form of the second person plural. Lord, Lord, open-These are not members of his family. They only claim acquaintance Nor is there any intimation of its being a feast. On the contrary, all they ask is an open door and a refuge. Know you not whence-Ye are straggling nightwalkers, from I know not what quarter. I cannot recognize you as part of my family or as guests. 26. We have eaten and drunk-They had perhaps partaken of his miracu lous feedings with the five thousand. In thy presence-At the same table, so as to be acquaintances. Taught in our streets-We have heard thee preach. Our Lord here slightly changes the man from householder to preacher; that is, from his parabolic to his real self. M t 27 But he shall say, I tell the south, and shall sit down you, I know you not whence in the kingdom of God. ye are; "depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. 28 There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, w when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out. 29 And they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from 30 And behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last. 31 The same day there came certain of the Pharisees, saying unto him, Get thee out, and depart hence; for Herod will kill thee. 32 And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures t Matt. 7. 23, & 25. 41; verse 25.-u Psa. 6. 8; v Matt. 8. 12, & 13. 42. & 24. 51.—w Matt. 8. 11. Matt. 25. 41. 27. Workers of iniquity-The word workers here signifies hired operatives. He charges them, therefore, with being the paid fabricators and labourers of wickedness. The householder has entirely disappeared; and in the following verse the house has become a kingdom, the kingdom of heaven. 29. They shall come-At the final consummation. For few as the Lord inds the number of the saved now to be, yet when the earthly history of the race closes, immense will be the number gathered from all points of the compass, constituting, perhaps, the vast majority of mankind. The points of the compass are given in their usual order; but it is something of a coincidence that they follow the course in which the Gospel seems in human history to proceed. 30. Last...first―The Gentiles, which were last, have become first; the reverse has been the history of the Jews. And so in the following chapters (xivxvi) the Pharisees and Publicans are reversed from first to last. Herod's malignant warning, and the Lord's reply, 31-34. 31. The same day-The day on which the question of verse 23 was answered; namely, the first of the two closing days of the Peraan ministry. Certain of the Pharisees-Herodian partizans among the Jews, flatterers and tools at the court of Hered Antipas. (See note on Matt. xxii, 16.) They were Pharisees in pro Matt. 19. 30, & 20. 16; Mark 10. 31. fession, but Sadducees in life and practice. It is this same sort of men, if not this very set, who appear in Luke xx, 19, 20. They appear here as emissaries sent from Herod to Jesus. For Herod Jesus in Peræa was within the dominions of Herod, and not far from that very fortress of Machærus where John had been beheaded by this same Herod Antipas. For the life and character of Herod Antipas, and for the superstitious dread he entertained of Jesus, consult our notes on Matt. xiv, 1, 2. Will kill thee-It is evident that Anti pas, equally infidel and superstitious, was actually at the present time afraid of Jesus; equally dreading to have him in his dominions, or to touch him with violence, so as to incur the odium of murdering a second holy man. He therefore sends these spies to frighten Jesus out of his dominions. 32. Go ye and tell-These men did not claim really to have come from Herod Antipas. They do not pretend to report Herod's own words as from him. But Jesus does, in his reply, recognize the fact which they leave unexpressed. He assumes that they came from Herod as with a murderous message, and he sends back his reply to Autipas by them. Our Lord thus unmasks the whole deceit, and holds Antipas responsible for at once his cunning and his cruelty. That fox-Who conceals himself, yet threatens my life through you. Those who charge our to-day and and to-morrow, and to-day, and to-morrow, and the the third day I shall be per- day following: for it cannot be fected. that a prophet perish out of 33 Nevertheless I must walk Jerusalem. y Heb. | 2. 10. Lord here with improper disrespect to his human sovereign, ought to see that the term fox is a just rebuke for Herod's sin of artfulness. happens that in a parable delivered a few hours afterwards a Lazarus and an infidel Rich Man present themselves to view. (See note on chap. xxi, 19–31.) And we may add that, keeping Herod Antipas in view, we may, perhaps, discover a connection in the passage xvi, 13-18, which commentators have been so puzzled to find. The third day I shall be perfected-The Greek for I shall be perfected, Tɛhɛlovμal, (being, as Van Oosterzee maintains, a present middle,) signifies, I complete or finish; namely my Peræan work. So fearless and calm was the Sav iour's reply to the despot. Spite of the bloody threat, he will remain his full appointed time; he will perform those cures and dispossessions of demons that excite the tetrarch's anxiety; he will then leave his work, not half done, but complete and perfected. Though our Lord uses this epithet to rebuke the present duplicity of Herod Antipas, yet fox-like cunning was one of the permanent qualities which he either possessed or affected. Wetstein says: “He, like many other princes of his time, shaped his manners after the model of the Emperor Tiberius, who, among all traits of character, prided himself upon his own dissimulation. Then Herod was an old fox, since he had held the government now thirty years and had played the most diverse characters. He played the slave to Tiberius, the master to Galilee, the friend to the Emperor's prime favourite Sejanus, and to his own three brothers, Archelaus, Philip, and Herod II.; all whose dispositions were most opposite to each other, and to the temper of Antipas himself." To-day and to-morrow The method of Wieseler, as we have remarked, (p. 101,) furnishes here a very apt adjustment. Most commentators have been obliged to explain this phrase of time to be indefinite. This arises from their inability to indicate any particular period of two or three days which it can be applied to measure. But turn to John xi, 6, and we find that after he received, at this very locality, 33. I must-It is the divine order, the message of Lazarus's death from and no tetrarch's threats can disturb it. the sisters of Bethany, he abode two He repeats the allotted time with firm days, and then said, Let us go into Judea. emphasis, that these Herodian PhariLet us suppose that the spies of Herod sees may see that he utters a fixed fact. and the messenger of the sisters arrived It cannot be-Literal, It is not admissible. at about the same hour, and the two A rebuking irony upon guilty Jerudays of John are just these two days of salem. That a prophet be martyred Jesus. Starting on the third day, Jesus elsewhere than in Jerusalem breaks a would reach Bethany on the fourth, rule of uniformity. It was indeed done and find Lazarus four days dead. John in the case of John and some others: xi, 39. And so, too, if a message but the exceptions are only sufficient touching Lazarus and Herod Antipas to illustrate the striking uniformity to ar-ived at the same time, we see how it the rule. This period of two or three days covers all our Lord's discourse to xvii, 10. How should we divide the matter into the days? It is not easy to say. We suggest that on the first day Jesus attends the feast, xiv, 1-24; and 25-35 is delivered. to the crowd that followed him as he returned from the feast to his abode. On the second day are the assemblage and discourse, xv, 1-xvi, 31; while xvii, 1-10 is uttered to the disciples on his way to Bethany. 7. b 34 70 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, I say unto you, Ye shall not which killest the prophets, and see me, until the time come stonest them that are sent unto when ye shall say, Blessed is thee; how often would I have he that cometh in the name of gathered thy children together, the Lord. as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not! CHAPTER XIV. 35 Behold, a your house is left AND it came to pass, as he a went into the house of one unto you desolate: and verily of the chief Pharisees to eat & Matt. 23. 37. -a Lev. 26. 31, 32; Psa. 69. 25; b Psalm 118. 26; Matthew 21. 9; Mark 11. 10; Isa. 1. 7: Dan. 9. 27; Mic. 3. 12. 34. O Jerusalem-Jesus reiterated the same apostrophe, in fuller terms, at a later moment, in Jerusalem itself, as his closing sentence before his retirement to the sacrifice of himself for the sins of the world. See notes on Matthew xxiii, 37-39, and cut on opposite page. 35. Your house is left-Our Lord speaks as from a future standpoint; namely, his departure by death at the crucifixion. The word desolate is here spurious; but is used in the later utterance of the apostrophe as the sign of utter giving over of the city to its fate. Not see me-In the later utterance Jesus adds ye shall not see me henceforth; as the standpoint of his abandonment, was then already assumed. That sad abandonment still continues, for the vail is still on Israel's heart. But though Jerusalem be desolate and Israel scattered. His unseen person is still on Zion, and His unseen feet still stand on Olivet. His ever preserving care perpetuates the race in its vicissitudes, waiting for the day when devoted Israel shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of Jesus the Lord. Through what ages his spirit shall thereafter watch over restored and millennial Israel until He shall appear to gather his elect into his kingdom, we cannot say. For in the dim perspective of prophecy distant events and ages are reduced in size; time is almost dropped from the account, and events far asunder are visually made to touch. See notes on Matthew xxiv, 14-29. See, also, Supplementary Note on Matthew xxv. But when at the consummation of the time chapter 19. 38; John 12. 13. he shall appear, every eye shall see him; the guilty shall look upon him whom they have pierced, and mourn ; and the true Jerusalem shall say, Blessed is he that COMETH. CHAPTER XIV. It would seem that whatever rudeness modern sceptics have found in the severe language of our Lord to Pharisees at their own table, these Pharisees were themselves very apt to repeat the invitation. It is often the case that men return, again and again, to hear the preaching of ministers who offend them through a wounded conscience. Our Lord is on the present occasion a central object for all eyes and ears, while he himself is calmly at perfect ease. A miracle is performed; a standing controversy is agitated and apparently settled, 2-6; some admonitions on humility of heart and conduct are administered them, 7-11; a method of giving feasts which God will reward is prescribed to his entertainer, 12-14; and a warning against failing to attend the final feast of the Son of man, 15-24, completes this discourse of feasts at a feast. 1. One of the chief Pharisees-That is, one who was a leading character among the Pharisees. The Pharisees were not an official class, but a sect; and their chief men were their eminent doctors or wise men. But such were often promoted to office, as this sect was very influential in public affairs, Alexander Jannæus, one of the Jewish kings, opposed the Pharisees with |