Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Luke 1:10 - 1:10
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
We are told, that the order of the Jewish daily service was this: twice in the day the priests whose course it was to minister, or such of them whose lot it was, went into the holy place to burn incense, according to the law, Exo_30:7. When they went in, a bell rung, to give notice that it was the hour of prayer. There were constantly there,
1. The rest of the priests of the same course.
2. The Levites.
3. Their stationary men, who represented the whole congregation, and laid their hands upon the beast slain.
4. So many more of the people as would voluntarily come; and it was very ordinary for many to go.
Thus we read, Act_3:1, of Peter and John going into the temple at the hour of prayer. These made the multitude, of whom it is said, that while the priest was burning incense they were without, not without the temple, but in the court of Israel, without the holy place, in which the priests were burning incense, praying; so they used to do privately by themselves. There is a text in Ecclesiasticus, Ecc_1:15, which (though it be not canonical Scripture) is as credible as any other civil history, and will much help to make the readers understand the order of the Jewish service, and what this text saith.