0' hinting at Himself. This is he that was in the wilderness, with the Angel that spake unto him. Lo, again he shows, that it was He," etc. So Edd.
0' In condescension to your infirmity. As a physician in his treatment of a delirious patient, etc.: thus did God likewise. For seeing them so frantic in their lust for sacrifices, that they were ready, unless they got them, to desert to idols: nay not only ready, but that they had already deserted, thereupon He permitted sacrifices. And that this is the reason, is clear from the order of events. After the feast which they made to the demons, then it was that He permitted sacrifices: all but saying: `Ye are mad, and will needs sacrifice: well then, at any rate sacrifice to Me.
0'"-(What follows may serve to illustrate the brief remark a little further on, Kai h aixmalwsia kathgoria thj kakiaj.) "But even this, He did not permit to continue to the end, but by a most wise method, withdrew them from it ...For He did not permit it to be done in any place of the whole world, but in Jerusalem only. Anon, when for a short time they had sacrificed, he destroyed the city. Had He openly said, Desist, they, such was their insane passion for sacrificing, would not readily have complied. But now perforce, the place being taken away, He secretly withdrew them from their frenzy." So here: "Even the captivity impeaches the wickedness (which was the cause of the permission of sacrifice.")
2 The meaning of v. 38 is that Moses became (genomenoj) a mediator between God (represented by the Angel) and the people. Cf. Gal. iii. 19 where the law is said to have been "ordained through angels, by the hand of a mediator" (Moses). No mention is made of angels as revealers of the law in Exodus xix. the first mention of angels in connection with the giving of the law being in a highly poetic passage in Moses' benediction, Deut. xxxiii. 2. (Even here the Heb. text is uncertain. Cf. the lxx. in loco). The function of angels in the giving of the law has a prominent place in later Jewish theology as opposed to the action of mere human ministers. The New Testament notices on the subject reflect this later phase of thought (Cf. Acts vii. 53; Heb. ii. 2). See Lightfoot on Gal. ii. 19.-G. B. S.
3 By logia zwnta are meant living oracles in the sense of operative, effectual, as Jesus affirmed his words to be "spirit and life" (John vi. 63). They contain vital truth. The law was indeed "weak" (Rom. viii. 3) but it was so "through the flesh," i.e. human sinfulness. It was not inherently weak but was so relatively to the great power of sin in man which needed to be overcome.-G. B. S.
4 It is not probable that this passage (v. 39, 40) means that the people proposed to return to Egypt (as Chrys.). In the O. T. the constant representation is that the golden calf (or bull) was worshipped as the image of the divinity who had led them out of Egypt (Ex. xxxii. 4; 1 Kings xii. 28). It seems clearly implied in Ezek. xx. 7, Ezek. xx. 8, Ezek. xx. 24, that the Israelites while in Egypt had been much addicted to the idolatry of the country. The meaning here is that, being discouraged and disappointed on account of Moses' continued absence in the mount, they were ready to transfer their allegiance from Jehovah to some of the divinities to whose worship they had previously been accustomed. The worship of cattle was especially common, as of Apis at Memphis and Mnevis at Heliopolis.-G. B. S.
5 !Enqa men euxaristein edei, A, B, C. D. F., but N. and Cat. axaristein.-E. Kai enfa men autouj axaristein hn. Edd. eux.
6 This clause, omitted by A. b.c., is preserved by N. and the Catena. The calf was one, yet they called it Gods: on which St. Chrys. remarks elsewhere, that they added polytheism to idolatry.-The next sentence may perhaps be completed thus: "that they did not even know that there is One God."-Edd. from E.F.D. "So frantic are they, that they know not what they say."
7 dia gar touto epishmainetai. The meaning is: Stephen was accused of speaking against "the customs,"-sacrifices, temple, feasts, etc. Therefore he significantly points to that critical conjuncture. from which these "customs" date their introduction: namely, the Provocation at Horeb. Prior to that, he tells of "living oracles," life-giving precepts: after it, and as its consequence, sacrifices, etc., those statutes which were not good, and ordinances by which a man shall not live, as God says by Ezekiel. Not a word of sacrifice till then: and the first mention is, of the sacrifices offered to the calf. In like manner, "they rejoiced," "the people ate and drank, and rose up to play:" and in consequence of this, the feasts were prescribed: kai eufrainonto, fhsin: dia touto kai eortai.-'Epishmainetai might be rendered, "he marks," "puts a mark upon it" (so the innovator, who substitutes, touto kai Dauid epishmainomenoj legei): we take it passively, "there is a mark set over it-it is emphatically denoted." In the active, the verb taken intransitively means "to betoken or announce itself," "make its first appearance."-In the Treatise adv. Judaeos, iv. §6. tom. i. 624. C. St. Chrysostom gives this account of the legal sacrifices: "To what purpose unto Me is the multitude of your sacrifices? etc. (Isaiah i., 11, ff.) Do ye hear how it is most plainly declared, that God did not from the first require these at your hands? Had He required them, He would have obliged those famous saints who were before the Law to observe this practice. `Then wherefore has He permitted it now?
8 Our passage here follows the lxx. which speaks of Moloch and Remphan. The terms in the original (vid. R. V.: Amos v. 25-27) are "Siccuth" and "Chiun." It is a disputed point whether these are in the prophecy names of divinities or whether they mean respectively "tabernacle" and "shrine" (or image). The difficulty lies in the ambiguity of the Hebrew text. The name Moloch being akin to the Hebrew word for king (rlm
), confusion might easily arise. The N. T. text varies from the lxx. only in adding the word proskunein (43) to lay emphasis upon the charge of idolatry, and in replacing Damascus by Babylon (43), an interpretation from the standpoint of subsequent history. The statement of our text that the Israelites fell into the worship of these divinities in the wilderness rests upon extra-Pentateuchal tradition, derived, perhaps, from such prohibitions of Moloch-worship and similar idolatries as are found in Lev. xviii. 21, and Deut. xviii. 10. The charge in the prophecy of Amos is a general one referring to the frequent lapses of the people into image-worship down to his own time.-G. B. S.
9 wste en tw orei h upografh gegone. In the following sentences, there are numerous variations in Edd. from the old text, but they do not materially affect the sense, and certainly do not improve it.
10 The expression here used-h skhnh tou marturiou is the constant but inexact lxx. translation of dcwm lh)
"tent of meeting"-i. e. the tent where God met the people. From a misunderstanding of the etymology of dcwm
(it being taken from dwc
to witness, instead of from dcy
to assemble) it was translated by marturion-a rendering which has occasioned frequent misunderstanding. Marturion is rightly used in the lxx. to render hzdc
(from dzc
) in Exod. xxv. 22; Num. ix. 15.-G. B. S.
11 E. F. D. Edd. add, "that they knew (Him) not, and that they murdered (Him):" but the meaning is, that they betrayed, and that they murdered: or, as below, Their fathers slew the Prophets, and they, Him Whom they preached.
12 ton ekeina poihsanta, A. b.c. N. Cat. i.e. that Christ, Who, as the Angel, did those works, etc. The modern text touj ek. poihsantaj: that those who did those wickednesses, etc.: and so Oec. seems to have taken it: "If ye killed them who preached Him to come, no wonder that ye kill Me," etc.-Below, for Oi toinun antipoiountai tou nomou, kai elegon, A. B. N. (N. corrected outoi nun) have ou toinun k. t. l. and A. legontej: "Therefore they claim not the Law (on their side), saying," etc.
13 'Aggelwn (53) cannot refer (as Chrys.) to the Jehovah-angel of the bush. It refers to angels as the mediators in the giving of the law, an idea which appears in the lxx., the N. T. elsewhere (Gal. iii. 19; Heb. ii. 2) and is prominent in later Jewish theology (Cf. Josephus, Ant. XV. v. 3) Vid. note *, p. 107.-G. B. S.
14 Ou gar dunatai omou kai kata tauton (kat auton A. C. and N. originally) kai katorqwma ei/ai kai elattwma. 'H parrhsia, katorqwma: o qumoj, elattwma.
15 Edd. from E. Sainei o diaboloj pollakij wj o kuwn, alla gnwtw paj oti. "The devil fawns full oft as the dog, but let every man know that," etc. A. b.c. N. wj o kuwn eidetw (idetw X.) oti. We restore the true reading by omitting wj. "The dog" is anger: the devil sainei, not as the dog, but upon the dog, as the allotrioj in the preceding sentence. "Let our faithful watch-dog see at once that he is an intruder." In the following sentence the image is so far incongruous, as sainwmen here has a different reference: viz. "as the dog fawns upon the friend though beaten, so let us," etc.
16 an de autouj kai trefh o allotrioj kai outw blaptousin (A. blayousin). The antithesis seems to require the sense to be, "While, if the stranger even feed them, for all that, they do him a mischief." But the words trefh and blaptousin are scarcely suitable in the sense, trofhn didw and lumainontai. Edd. have from E. alone, pwj ou mallon blayousin; in the sense, "If however the stranger (not merely caresses but) also (regularly) feeds them, how shall they not do more hurt (than good)?" i. e. "If the devil be suffered to pamper our anger, that which should have been our safeguard will prove a bane to us."-Perhaps this is the sense intended in the old reading; but if so, kai outw is unsuitable.