_SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES_ What the temptation did for Jesus.—The benefit derived by Jesus from thus fighting out the battle against those temptations which assailed Him, immediately after baptism, was that the consciousness of His Messianic vocation, which had so suddenly come to Him, He now obtained as... [ Continue Reading ]
_CRITICAL NOTES_ THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS—GENERAL REMARKS _There is only one way of understanding the narrative_, viz. as the history of a real occurrence, of an actual temptation of our Lord by the devil as a person. Such a history it is clearly the intention of the Evangelist to give; and the only... [ Continue Reading ]
_CRITICAL NOTES_ Matthew 4:12. CAST INTO PRISON.—_Delivered up_ (R.V.). GALILEE = a circle or circuit originally confined to a “circle” of twenty cities given by Solomon to Hiram, 1 Kings 9:11 (cf. Joshua 20:7). From this small beginning the name spread to a larger district, just as the name of Asi... [ Continue Reading ]
_CRITICAL NOTES_ Matthew 4:23. SYNAGOGUES.—Places of religious assembly and worship. After the Jews returned from the exile in Babylon, a new hunger for the law of God and the worship of God seems to have sprung up in their hearts, and as it was difficult for those who lived at any distance from Jer... [ Continue Reading ]