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TOPIC: Edwards, Jonathan - Rational Biblical Theology (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: Chapt 08 Inspiration of Scripture
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Jonathan Edwards’ life - intellectual and moral - centered around the Bible. Although virtually every aspect of his life has been put under the academic microscope, this area has been barely noticed. Lesser’s index to two and one-half centuries of writing about Edwards has not one entry under “Bible” or “Scripture.” Dozens of dissertations deal with one detail or another aspect of the great American Puritan but none on that which concerned him most. His use of the Bible as “prism” for the study of history, *1* or of typology or metaphor, *2* or sermon structure, *3* preaching, *4* or eschatology *5* fascinates his researchers but what he considered the very Word of God is looked at only obliquely. Except for a short work of mine *6* I know of nothing probing Edwards’ doctrine of, or argument for, the inspiration or basic interpretation of this foundation stone of his very existence. Because no one knows Edwards who does not know Edwards’ Bible I am giving major space to this sine qua non of his rational biblical theology.
I am devoting six chapters to this theme. First, inspiration itself is presented followed by chapters on canon and interpretation. Then going more deeply into the subject, comes a closer study of particular sermons, which show more profoundly his view of Scripture, leading in turn to a study of his biblical preaching generally. I conclude this theme - to give the reader some notion of this man and the sacred text - with a veritable commentary on one book of the Bible, Hebrews, drawn from the total corpus of Edwards’ literature on this one theme.
Does Edwards’ view of revelation, for which he has shown the necessity, evidence and reasonableness, imply a divine dictation? We have seen him argue that God would have to provide evidence - the miraculous - that he was speaking. But if God spoke through human agents, would He have to dictate His message? Sibbes thought so: “Isaiah was the penman, God the mouth. The head dictateth, the hand writeth.” *7* Perkins insisted that the “whole disposition thereof, with the style and the phrase, was set down by the Holy Ghost.” *8* Knappen does not hesitate to conclude, “In all but name the Tudor Puritans held the dictation theory of inspiration,” *9* though he may have been napping when he wrote that, if Edwards can be a cue to Puritan thinking.
Avoiding the word “dictation” John E. Smith, former general editor of the Yale University Press edition of The Works of Jonathan Edwards writes: “Edwards accepted totally the tradition established by the Reformers with respect to the absolute primacy and authority of the Bible, and he could approach the biblical writings with that conviction of their inerrancy and literal truth.” *10*
Edwards himself writes: “Ministers are not to preach those things which their own wisdom or reason suggests, but the things that are already dictated to them by the superior wisdom and knowledge of God.” *11* The word “dictate” and its cognates occur throughout this ordination sermon. Nevertheless, there is no laboring of it. No use of the correlative “amanuensis” or secretary occurs. In fact, apart from the word itself there is no hint of mechanical inspiration. On the other hand, Edwards assumes that the words of Scripture are the very words of the Holy Spirit. They could not be more so if they were literally dictated.
Peter’s words in 2Pe_1:20 are not merely Peter’s words. Peter’s “private interpretation” means for Edwards: “no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.”
It is not men’s speaking their own sense of things or interpreting their own minds but the mind of God. That which is their sense is not always the sense or interpretation of Scripture, but that which was the sense of the Holy Ghost. The prophets did not always perceive the meaning of their own prophecies. *12*
The reasoning seems to be: The words of the text are the words of the Spirit, and the forbidden “private interpretation” is a substitution of one’s own wisdom for the wisdom of God. Edwards is not opposed to “private interpretation” in the historic Protestant meaning of “private judgment” - in fact he is practicing it. It is his own “private judgment” that “private interpretation” in the text does not refer to a proper interpretation which is expected of every individual who reads the words but a substitution - conscious or unconscious - of that individual’s opinions for the opinions of the Holy Spirit. I once had a secretary on a board of the church I served who tended to write the minutes not of the meeting that happened but of the meeting that he thought should have happened. He quietly - unconsciously - substituted his own wisdom for what he thought was the non-wisdom of the majority. I thought myself that he often was wiser than the board but had to remind him that his duty was to record what the board did. So, Edwards is saying, we must interpret what the infinitely wise Holy Ghost said through Peter and not what we think that He should have said.
Edwards also frequently speaks of the “penmen” of the Bible and says that the Holy Ghost uses the expressions attributed to the human writers. *13* Nevertheless, Edwards obviously did not believe in mechanical inspiration. The way in which inspiration is supposed by Edwards to have come about can best be seen in a statement in The Mind and a later one in the Miscellanies. The first shows how the inspired person himself encountered the deity; the second, how he went about communicating the message received from the deity.
First, we see how inspiration actually came to pass:
The evidence of immediate inspiration that the prophets had when they were immediately inspired by the Spirit of God with any truth is an absolute sort of certainty and the knowledge is, in a sense, intuitive - much in the same manner as faith and spiritual knowledge of the truth of religion. Such bright ideas are raised and such a clear view of a perfect agreement with the excellencies of the divine nature that it is known to be a communication from him. All the deity appears in the thing and in everything pertaining to it. The prophet has so divine a sense, such a divine disposition, such a divine pleasure, and sees so divine an excellency and so divine a power in what is revealed, that he sees as immediately that God is there as we perceive one another’s presence when we are talking together face to face. And our features, our voice and our shapes are not so clear manifestations of us as those spiritual resemblances of God that are in the inspiration are manifestations of him. But yet there are doubtless various degrees in inspiration. *14*
These “bright ideas” are so naturally-supernaturally or supernaturally-naturally given that anything like “dictation” seems out of the world of inspiration. Such inspiration and dictation would seem to be opposites rather than correlatives or synonyms. When dictation is mentioned, one - at least in the twentieth century - thinks of shorthand note-taking or keys of a typewriter or word-processor, not “intuitive” “spiritual knowledge” affording a “clear view” of excellency.
But, second, notice how the revelation once so naturally-supernaturally communicated by God is naturally-supernaturally articulated by the inspired man. In the case of Solomon's writing of his Song of Songs this is the way Edwards describes it:
I imagine that Solomon when he wrote this song, being a very philosophical, musing man and a pious man, and of a very loving temper, set himself in his own musings to imagine and to point forth to himself a pure, virtuous, pious, and entire love, and represented the musings and feelings of his mind that in a philosophical and religious frame was carried away in a sort of transport, and in that his musings and the train of his imaginations were guided and led on by the Spirit of God. Solomon in his wisdom and great experience had learned the vanity of all other love than of such a sort of one. God’s Spirit made use of his loving inclination, joined with his musing philosophical disposition, and so directed and conducted it in this train of imagination as to represent the love that there is between Christ and his spouse. God saw it very needful and exceeding useful that there should be some such representation of it. The relation that there is between Christ and the church we know, is very often compared to that that there is between a man and his wife; yea this similitude is abundantly insisted on almost everywhere in the Scripture; and a virtuous and pious and pure love between a man and his spouse is very much of an image of the love between Christ and the church so that it is not at all strange that the Spirit of God which is love, should direct a holy amorous disposition after such a manner, as to make such a representation, and ‘tis very agreeable to other the like representations. *15*
It would appear that Jonathan Edwards taught a very non-mechanical “dictation.” The “dictation” referred to the end-product which was the very words which God intended and from which the faithful minister could not depart. The manner of this “dictation” was “mechanical” only in the sense that it was natural to the human vehicle of inspiration. Solomon went about the writing of his Song just as he would, apparently, had he had no divine inspiration. Nevertheless, the supernatural divine inspiration produced the very words God intended and would have produced had Solomon received mechanical dictation. So far from Edwards being unique, it is the common understanding of almost all the fathers of the church in all ages, *16* though we see here a characteristic uniqueness and profundity of argument, analysis and articulation. *17*
However God moved His agents of revelation to write Holy Scripture, the end result was verbal inspiration. Not only was the Verbum of God present but the verba as well. The Bible is the very word of God, as inerrant as if it were mechanically dictated (though it was not), and as unified as if it were written by the divine author only (though it was not).
That Jonathan Edwards believed in and taught the verbal inerrancy of the Bible we shall attempt to show by some miscellaneous citations from various works, though it is fully evident in almost everything that he ever wrote or spoke.
First: The “seeming difference” in the account of the numbers of Israel when David numbered his people according to 2Sa_24:9 and Chronicles has to be explained. Edwards will not admit that inspiration does not extend to such external, non-religious data. He first refers to a standard author of his own time (Bedford) and then offers his own conjectures. *18* These need not concern us here where we are interested only in showing what his view was and not how he defended it.
Second, Edwards deals with “the accounts of the four evangelists, concerning the resurrection of Christ, reconciled.” *19* He struggles with this thorny historical problem harmonistically at the period when Herman Reimarus is using the problem secretly to attack the traditional position as destructive modern criticism begins in earnest. *20*
Third, Edwards takes several pages to explain why 2Ch_22:1-2 seems to make Ahaziah, the son of Jehoram, two years older than his father. *21*
Fourth, the “seeming inconsistency” in the blind Bartimaeus episode is “thus to be solved. . . .” *22*
Fifth, commenting on Psa_19:4-6, Edwards remarks, “It seems to me very likely that the Holy Ghost in these expressions, which he immediately uses about the rising of the sun. . . .” *23* In this characteristic manner Edwards attributes the expressions of the human author to the divine Spirit.
Sixth, that the “penmen of the Psalms” wrote “by the inspiration of the Spirit of God as much as the prophets when they wrote their prophecies the following things do confirm. . . .” Five arguments are presented. *24*
Seventh, “God has a design and meaning which the penmen never thought of, which he makes appear these ways: by his own interpretation, and by his directing the penmen to such a phrase and manner of speaking, that has a much more exact agreement and consonancy with the thing remotely pointed to, than with the thing meant by the penmen.” *25* Thus the words of Scripture are not only the words of the Holy Spirit but their transcendent meaning is not even understood by the human writer in some instances.
Eighth,
Moses was so intimately conversant with God and so continually under the divine conduct, it can’t be thought that when he wrote the history of the creation and fall of man, and the history of the church from the creation, that he should not be under the divine direction in such an affair. Doubtless he wrote by God’s direction, as we are informed that he wrote the law and the history of the Israelitish Church. *26*
We recall that Moses wrote many tedious genealogical details as well as grand passages concerning God and redemption.
Ninth, after arguing the absolute necessity of having an account in the Word of God of Christ’s life and a further explanation of it as well as a history of the early church and a prophecy of its future, Edwards goes on to argue the inspiration of this account since the preparatory Old Testament volume was inspired:
God took this care with respect to the books of the Old Testament, that no books should be received by the Jewish church and delivered down in the canon of the Old Testament but what was his word and owned by Christ. We may therefore conclude that he would still take the same care of his church with respect to the New Testament. *27*
Tenth, after discussing principles of interpretation Edwards comes to this conclusion about the Bible as the Word of God: “God may reveal things in Scripture, which way he pleases. If by what he there reveals the thing is any way clearly discovered to the understanding or eye of the mind, ‘tis our duty to receive it as his revelation.” *28* This is an Edwardsian equivalent to the classic expression that “What the Bible says, God says.”
Eleventh, “That the prophets after they had once had intercourse with God by immediate revelation from God gained acquaintance with [him] so as afterwards to know him; as it were to know his voice or know what was indeed a revelation from God is confirmed by 1Sa_3:7.” *29* In this text God is represented as speaking human words to Samuel. For the revelation came in words and the prophets’ “thus saith the Lord” is to be construed literally.
If Edwards was in the classic tradition, an inerrantist, how did this affect his biblical criticism? Everyone but the inerrantists seem to assume that inerrancy destroys criticism. It is mistaken for axiomatic that a person cannot believe the Bible to be inerrant and then seek to find errors in it. Of course, the document he now has (not being the original), may have had errors creep into it which the inerrantist is anxious to detect and remove, thus restoring it as closely as possible to the inspired original. Inerrantists have been most interested of all in detecting errors in copies of the Bible!
Jonathan Edwards is no exception. He is sensitive to critical problems. He does something with all of them and considerable with some of them.
We turn to a number of the chronic “alleged discrepancies” and find Edwards leaning heavily on “Bishop Kidder” (1633-1703), *30* the scholarly Anglican bishop of Bath and Wells who was sympathetic to nonconformists. We try Edwards’ interleaved Blank Bible on Mat_27:9 where Jeremiah is quoted apparently for Zechariah. Edwards writes: “see Bp. Kidder.” We look up Act_7:16 which seems to confuse Abraham and Jacob (Gen_33:19). Edwards writes, “see Bp. Kidder.” On Heb_10:5, which many think conflicts with Psa_40:6-8 ew:6-8 w:6-8, Edwards writes: “see Bp. Kidder.”
Then there are problems where Edwards cites no one, not even himself. For the explanation of the long ending of Mark which, if texts had not yet been found which made it dubious, still had disciples handling snakes after the miracles were supposed to have ceased, Edwards wrote nothing. The sixteenth chapter of Romans, which has called forth entire volumes, elicited nothing from Jonathan Edwards’ Blank Bible. The address “To the Ephesians” required no comment nor did the authorship of Hebrews (assumed to be Paul), the authenticity of 2 Peter, or the source of Jude.
Nevertheless, Edwards was by no means insensitive to critical problems, nor did he always ignore them or rely on others’ handling of them. Many of them he did address, some at considerable length. He dealt with authorship problems; for example, the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. *31* He also dealt with alleged errors in fact, such as the Apostles’ prediction of the return of Christ in their generation and alleged discrepancies in historical details, as in the accounts of the resurrection of Christ.
Since Edwards’ harmonization account of the resurrection narratives was written in the same period that Herman Reimarus was beginning the critical Enlightenment attack at this very point I will quote Edwards’ discussion of this point from Notes on the Bible in full:
[220] Mat_28:1-20. The accounts of the four evangelists, concerning the resurrection of Christ, reconciled.
In the first place, there was a great earthquake; an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His appearance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow, and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. Mat_28:2-4. And presently, as soon as their extraordinary surprise would allow them, they ran away into the city; and then, soon after they were gone, Mary Magdalene, from her extraordinary affection, comes to the sepulchre before the other women, while it was yet dark, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre, and finds not the body there, and then runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and the other disciple, who Jesus loved, and saith unto them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him;” then Peter and John came running to the sepulchre; and Mary returns with them or comes after them as fast as she could. Peter and John went into the sepulchre, and saw the linen clothes lying, but found not the body of Christ, and not knowing what to make of things, went away again. Mr. Prince supposed that Luke speaks of this coming of Peter to the sepulchre in the 24th chapter of his Gospel, 12th verse (Luk_24:12), and supposes the word should have been rendered thus, “Now Peter also had risen, and ran to the sepulchre, and stooping down, saw the linen clothes lying by themselves, and departed, wondering in himself at what was done;” but when they were gone, Mary staid behind, and would not go away. She probably staid waiting for the company of women that she expected would presently come with spices to anoint the body; but as she stood there weeping, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre, and saw two angels in white, sitting one at the head, and the other at the foot, where the body of Jesus had lain; they speak to her, and ask her why she wept; she answers, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him; and when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.” (Probably because the twilight was yet dim.) Jesus asked her why she wept. She, supposing him to be the gardener, says to him, “Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou has laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus saith to her Mary;” and she then knew him, and worships him. Christ bids her go and inform his disciples, &c. On which Mary went away in haste to tell his disciples, and did not wait till the women came with the spices as she intended, Mar_16:9-10; Mar_16:12; Joh_20:1-19.
The other women, that were concerned in the design of anointing the body of Jesus, went together in order to go to the sepulchre about break of day, and came to the sepulchre about sun-rise, after Mary Magdalene was gone, whom they had not seen, nor she them; and they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? and when they came, they found that the stone was rolled away. Mar_16:2-4, and Luk_24:1-2. “And they entered in, (the angel now not appearing on the stone,) and found not the body of Jesus there; and while they were much perplexed thereabout, behold two men stood by them in shining garments,” and one of them of a distinguished brightness and glorious appearance, being the same, the glory and majesty of whose appearance had so terrified the keepers. He sat on the right side, clothed in a long white garment. Mat_28:4-5; Luk_24:3-4; Mar_16:5. This angel on the right side is he that speaks to them, saying, “Fear ye not; I know that ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. Why seek ye the living among the dead? he is not here, for he is risen, as he said; come, see the place where the Lord lay; and remember how he spake unto you while he was yet in Galilee, saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands so sinful men, and be crucified, and then third day rise again. But go your way quickly; tell his disciples, and Peter, that he goeth before you into Galilee, there shall ye see him as he said unto you. Lo, I have told you.” Mat_28:5-7; Mar_16:6-7; Luk_24:5-7. “And they remembered his words, and they came out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre, for they trembled and were amazed, nor said they any thing to any one, for they were affrighted, they came out with fear and great joy, as they ran to bring his disciples word. Mat_28:8; Mar_16:8; Luk_24:8. And as they went to bring his disciples word, lo, Jesus met them, saying, All hail; and they came to him, and held him by the feet, and worshipped him. Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid; go tell my brethren, that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me. Mat_28:9-10. And they returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest.” *32*
Nor did Edwards ignore vital ethical problems such as the imprecatory psalms and Jephthah’s vow. Even the doctrinal teaching of the Bible was not sacrosanct as Edwards gave himself to the reconciliation of Paul and James, whom even Martin Luther, at first, thought to be irreconcilable.
That Edwards was keenly interested and active in biblical criticism is quite evident. For example, he writes no less than forty-four sophisticated pages in his Notes on Scripture *33* defending the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and gave no less than nineteen acute arguments against the critical notion, widely held even today, that the Apostles taught the return of Christ in their generation. *34*
Ethical issues were of special concern to Edwards. He gives a lengthy discussion of Jephthah’s vow, arguing that, properly interpreted, the narrative does not teach that the Old Testament judge killed his daughter out of respect for an evil vow to sacrifice the first thing that came out of his house upon his return in victory. *35*
Many entries deal with the yet more acute ethical problem of imprecations by saints in the Bible. Edwards does not deny that in both testaments the saints were known to have justifiably called for God’s curses on their enemies.
Edwards has various extenuating circumstances to cite. First, these imprecations were not personal or vindictive, aimed at gratification for indignities suffered by the saint as an individual. *36* Rather, they were usually uttered by the saint in the role of prophet, *37* speaking for God. *38* Thus, the saint did not curse but did, in the prophetic role, call for God to curse God’s enemies, *39* while the saint mourned for the unfortunate wicked. **
The duty of the individual saint was “to bless and curse not.” He is not permitted to offer imprecatory prayers, not because the prayers are in themselves evil, but because the imperfect saint cannot keep malice out. *41* In the future world where the infinite curse of God has come upon the wicked the perfected righteous will rejoice. *42* This is because the saint will then be free of all malice and, only out of love for God and His holy justice and not because of any personal vindictiveness, will celebrate as the smoke of hell’s torments ascends. In this world it is the teaching of the Old as well as New Testament that the godly will pray for them that persecute and not against them. *43*
Even doctrinal differences in the Bible are not sacrosanct, and Edwards faces them frankly and critically. One of the most important, the apparent discrepancy between James and Paul on justification by faith alone, causes Edwards no such trouble as it gave Luther. Edwards treats the subject at fair length in his published sermon-treatise on Romans 4:5. *44* James, Edwards explains, is simply using the word “justify” in the sense of “vindicate” so that works vindicate the reality of Abraham’s faith but are no way the meritorious ground of Abraham’s justification.
By way of summary, we note that Edwards saw the Bible as the inerrantly inspired word of God. He conveys that conviction, not shrinking even from the word “dictation.” However, his “dictation” is seen as leaving the writers following their customary ways of thinking and of expressing themselves while at the same time producing the very words of the Holy Spirit. Reverence for this word, which must control all the preaching of ministers, is not incompatible with wrestling with biblical problems which Edwards does himself as well as relying on such labors by others.
As a sort of appendix to this chapter we feel obliged to give the reader a better understanding of the way Edwards proceeded in dealing with apparent discrepancies in the text. So we will quote in full one harmonization of one apparent discrepancy to serve as a sample of many such efforts which we cannot quote.
[233] Luk_18:35. “And it came to pass that as he was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the way-side begging.” Here this is said to be as he came nigh unto the city, in the original, it is said, en tw eggizein, in his approaching to the city. And we have an account afterwards in the first verse of the next chapter of Jesus’ entering and passing through Jericho. And yet it is said in Mat_20:29, that it was as they departed from Jericho, or as it is in the original, ekporeuomenwn autwn, they going out of Jericho; and in Mark, the same is said, and there we have an account before of his coming to Jericho, Mar_10:46. “And they came to Jericho: and as he went out of Jericho, with his disciples and a great number of people, blind Bartimeus,” &c. It seems to me the difficulty and seeming inconsistency is thus to be solved, viz., that Jesus passed near the Jordan the day before from the other side, where he had been, Joh_10:40-42; Joh_10:4241, 42; Mat_19:1-2; Mar_10:1, and came to the suburbs of Jericho that night, and that this is what is meant by Mark when it is said they came to Jericho in the first words of chap. 10:46, now mentioned; and that Christ did not go into the main city that night, but lodged in the suburbs for the comfort of lodging and to avoid the crowd and throng of people, for it is evident that the people were now in a great disposition to flock after him and throng him, by the whole context of these places. If he had gone into the midst of so populous a city as Jericho that evening, the multitude would necessarily have greatly distressed him that night; and that Christ did lodge somewhere after he came over the Jordan into Judea before he entered the main city of Jericho seems evident by this, that otherwise we shall not find room for the four days that Lazarus had been dead before he came to Bethany, if we suppose the day he was raised to be the fourth day; for we are told that, when Christ heard he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was, even beyond the Jordan, Joh_11:6, compared with the next verse (Joh_11:7), and the 40th of the foregoing chapter (Joh_10:40). Lazarus died before Christ heard this news, as is evident by what Christ said, Joh_11:11. It was when Christ was going out of that place into Judea that he said to his disciples, “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep”; by this we cannot rationally suppose that he died sooner than the day before he went over the Jordan, which may be reckoned one day of his being dead; and when he came over the Jordan and lodged in the suburbs of it, there was two days; and the next day he passed through Jericho and lodged at the house of Zaccheus, Luk_19:5, &c.; and the next day he came to Bethany, which is four days. There is a necessity of supposing that Christ lodged somewhere on this side of the Jordan before he came to the house of Zaccheus; but it seems evident that he did not lodge at all in the old city of Jericho, but passed directly through it and came to Zaccheus’s house the same day that he entered and passed through the city, by Luk_19:1-2. “And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho, and behold, there was a man named Zaccheus,” &c.
Another thing further strengthens the probability that Christ had lodged a night on this side of the Jordan before that day that he passed through the city and came to the house of Zaccheus, viz., that if he went through the city to his house, the same day that he came near the Jordan, it is not at all likely there would have been gathered such a multitude to him; there would not have been time for it. The multitude was exceedingly great, as appears from the blind man’s taking so much notice of the noise they made as they passed, Luk_18:36, and by Zaccheus’s being forced to climb a sycamore-tree to see him; and therefore thus the seeming inconsistency between the evangelists is solved.
Jesus' coming from beyond the Jordan to the suburbs of Jericho, and lodging there, Mark calls his coming to Jericho, Mar_10:46; and when Christ set out on his journey the next morning to go from Jericho further towards Jerusalem, Mark calls his setting out from Jericho as his going forth from that city, though the main city was in his way, and he passed through it in his journey, which is not disagreeable to our customary way of speaking. If a man that belongs to a certain town, supposed the town of Northampton, then living in the outskirts of it on the north side, sets out to go a journey to another town south of Northampton, supposing Hartford, and any one at his journey’s end should ask him at what time it was that he set out from Northampton, though he after that passed through the main body of the town; or if he was on a journey before and lodged at Northampton for a night, at a house in the utmost northern skirts of it, and so went forward on his journey to Hartford the next morning, this does not alter the case. The case seems to have been thus, that Jesus lodging in the eastern suburbs of Jericho, the people flocked to him in the morning before he set out on his journey, and when he set forth on his journey forwards to leave that town, on the borders of which he then was, Mark and Mat. speaking of him as then going out of Jericho, but between the place where he lodged and the walls of the main city, which he must pass through in his way; the blind man cried for mercy, and therefore Luke says it was as he was entering into the city.
Note, that the supposition of his coming over the Jordan is not agreeable to Doddridge’s Harmony. *45*