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15. τινὲς δὲ ἐξ αὐτῶν εἶπον. We learn from St Matthew (Mat 12:24) that this notable suggestion emanated from “the Pharisees” and, as St Mark (Mar 3:20) adds, from “the scribes which came from Jerusalem,” i.e. the spies who had been expressly sent down by the ruling hierarchs to dog the footsteps of Jesus, and counteract His influence. The explanation was too ingeniously wicked and cleverly plausible to come from the more unsophisticated Pharisees of Galilee.
βεελζεβούλ. The name and reading are involved in obscurity. In 2Ki 1:3 we are told that Beelzebub was god of Ekron; and the LXX[243] and Josephus (Antt. IX. 2, § 1) understood the name to mean ‘lord of flies.’ He may have been a god worshipped to avert the plagues of flies on the low sea-coast like Zeus Ἀπόμυιος (Averter of flies) and Apollo Ἰπυκτόνος (Slayer of vermin). But others interpret the name to mean ‘lord of dung,’ and regard it as one of the insulting nicknames which the Jews from a literal rendering of Exo 23:13 felt bound to apply to heathen deities. In this place perhaps Beelzebub is the true reading, and that means ‘lord of the (celestial) habitation,’ i.e. prince of the air, Eph 2:3. Possibly the οἰκοδεσπότης of Mat 10:25 is an allusion to this meaning. In any case the charge was the same as that in the Talmud that Jesus wrought His miracles (which the Jews did not pretend to deny) by magic.
[243] LXX. Septuagint.