and he preached the word unto them. 3 And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four. 4 And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press,

and closely packed was the crowd, inside and outside. The evangelist makes us spectators of the scene, just as if we were present, and looking on. We see the public room rapidly filling up, till it is crowded to the door. The people, however, still come flocking toward the door (pòs тǹν Júpav) and choke up the whole space around, till there is no longer (μŋkétɩ) room. Those who are outside stretch their necks eagerly to get a glimpse of the Rabbi, or to catch something that He says.

And He spake the word to them. The word, in the collective import of the term, the import which it bears when the reference is to vocables ‘laid' in order (Móyos from Aéyw. Compare the Latin lego and the Anglo-Saxon lecgan; compare also the Latin sermo). It is some particular word that is referred to, 'the word.' It was what Luke and Paul so often call the word of God. It was no doubt the word of truth, the word of the truth of the gospel (Col. i. 5), the word of the kingdom (Matt. xiii. 19), the 'good-spell' regarding the kingdom of heaven. Our Saviour spake the word. Note the term spake, or was speaking. It is in the imperfect tense, and intimates that He was engaged in speaking when the occurrence just about to be narrated took place. The term preached employed in King James's version summons up before our imagination more of the nature of a public proclamation or harangue than is indicated by the evangelist's expression. The Saviour was in a private house, and sat talking to the people. Such is the import of the term (éλáλec).

VER. 3. And there come (persons) bringing to Him a paralytic (Epxovra φέροντες πρὸς αὐτὸν παραλυτικόν). The expression to Him does not necessarily mean up to Him or into His immediate presence. The preposition denotes, as Webster says (Gram., p. 183), 'the direction of motion.' Hence the saying of our Lord in John xii. 32, and I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me.' The direction of the drawing, rather than the accomplished result, is indicated. Borne of four: he would be suspended on his pallet between two pairs of bearers; a bearer would have hold of each corner.

VER. 4. And when they could not come nigh to Him for the crowd. The Vulgate version is, et cum non possent offerre eum illi præ turba, and when they could not bring (him) to Him because of the crowd. It represents a very ancient reading (poσevéуKαι instead of #роσeyyiσai), the reading of N B L, 33, and also of the Philoxenian Syriac, and the Coptic, and Ethiopic versions. It has been taken into the text by Tischendorf in his eighth edition; Ewald accepts it. Certainly it seems to be the more difficult reading of the two, as there is no noun or pronoun to represent the person whom they wished to lay before the Lord Volkmar however thinks that it has arisen from comparing the expression in Luke v. 18. Unlikely. But the reading itself is likely. That of the Received Text runs smoother, and would not be so likely to be voluntarily modified on the one hand, or unintentionally misread on the other, in a somewhat carelessly written manuscript.

they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had

They uncovered the roof where He was. Very literally, they unroofed the roof where He was. They undid the roofing at the spot which was right in front of the place where He was sitting. Purvey has a picturesque translation, thei unheeliden the roof,—the verb to heel or heal meaning originally to cover. (The heel is a peculiarly covered part of the body; he who is healed is recovered.) The Gothic version is not unlike Purvey's, andhulidedun hrot. As to the hrot or roof, which was partially uncovered, Shaw the traveller supposed it to be the awning that is sometimes drawn over the quadrangular court, around which larger houses are built. He supposed that our Saviour would be sitting and teaching in the court below, and that the bearers of the paralytic, leaning over the terrace of the house, would fold back a portion of the awning, and then let down (by ropes), not through the tiles,' but by the side of the tiles,' the couch of the patient. (Travels in Barbary and the Levant, vol. i., pp. 381-6, ed. 1808.) The supposition, when laid hold of by the imagination, forms itself readily into an interesting picture. But it is too romantic, and invested with too much 'pomp of circumstance.' It proceeds on the assumption that our Saviour was in a great house, where there was ample accommodation, with many of the appliances of luxury. Dr. Kitto modifies, and in some respects exaggerates, Dr. Shaw's conception. He supposes with Dr. Shaw that the people were gathered together in the quadrangular court of a great house; but he thinks it probable that Jesus, instead of sitting in the midst of the people in the court, was occupying a commanding position in the gallery or verandah that ran round the second storey of the house. "The roofing of this gallery "was distinct from that of the house," and "of very slight construction." "We think therefore that the men, having mounted to the terraced roof, pro"ceeded to remove a part of this light roofing of the gallery, over the place "where Jesus sat below." (Pictorial Bible, on Luke v.) Webster and Wilkinson adopt what is substantially Dr. Kitto's view; Bishop Wordsworth too. But it is inconsistent with the humble position in society of the occupants of the house; and it does violence, moreover, to the phraseology of the representation. Even the supposition of Lightfoot, Bland, Meyer, Bisping, and many others, that our Saviour must have been in an upper room' is entirely arbitrary, and improbable too; more particularly improbable when we take the crowding around the door into account. The house would doubtless be a very humble one, a mere cottage. When Alexander says that 'eastern houses are always built around an open court,' he writes under an entire misapprehension. Such a mode of construction is indeed the prevailing style for the larger class of houses; but for them only. The cottages of the mass of the people, and especially in the villages and hamlets, are quite different, and are really very humble, low roofed, one-storeyed residences, opening directly, without any intervening porch or vestibule, into the one apartment of which they consist, though sometimes there is an inner apartment; and in other cases there is a confused aggregation of subordinate apartments, stretching backward, and sometimes under distinct roofs, like cot attached to cot. With a little agility, and, if need be, with some simple appliance far less elaborate than the application of a ladder, there would be no difficulty at all in getting on the flat roof of the fisher

broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the

man's cottage. There would be just as little in undoing such a portion of the roofing as would be needed to admit of the descent of the paralytic on his couch. The flippant objections which have been persistently urged by Woolston (Miracles, iv. p. 57), Strauss, (Leben, § 92), Bruno Bauer (Kritik, § 35), and other scoffers, are founded on an entire misconception of oriental house construction, in the sphere of the humbler classes of society. See next clause.

And when they had broken it up. Or, more literally, and when they broke it up. The word thus translated (¿žopúžavres) explains, more particularizingly, what it was which they did to the portion of the roof which they removed. They dug it out, or scooped it out. (See Gal. iv. 15; Matt. xxi. 33, xxv. 18; Mark xii. 1.) A more appropriate term could not have been selected, even by Thucydides or Xenophon. The roofs of the humble class of oriental houses are such that digging or scooping is necessary whenever there is the intent to effect an entrance. And such digging or scooping does no injury whatever to the fabric. Dr. Robinson, speaking of the district about Lebanon, says: "The flat roofs of "the houses in this region are constructed by laying, first, large beams at in"tervals of several feet; then rude joists; on which again are arranged small "poles close together, or brushwood; and upon this is spread earth or gravel "rolled hard. This rolling is often repeated, especially after rain; for these "roofs are apt to leak. For this purpose a roller of stone is kept ready for use "on the roof of every house. Grass is often seen growing on these roofs." (Later Researches, p. 39.) Referring to his lodging in Jerjû'a, on the way between Beirut and 'Akka, he says: Like all the other houses of the village, it "had but one storey. The roof was of the usual kind, supported by rude

'props. It rained heavily during the night; and the water found its way through upon us. Quite early in the morning we heard our host at work "rolling the roof; and saw the same process going on with other houses. "Goats also were cropping the grass growing on several roofs." (Later Researches, p. 44.) "We must banish from our minds," says Dr. W. M. Thomson, "every form of European or American houses. All that it is necessary for

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"us to know is that the roof was flat, low, easily reached, and easily opened, so as to let down the couch of the sick man; and all these points are rendered in'telligible by an acquaintance with modern houses in the villages of Palestine." (The Land and the Book, pp. 358, 359.) In some cases, says Dr. Thomson (p. 359), stone slabs are laid across the joisting; and in the case before us there had been slabs of tile or dried clay underneath the thick compost of earth and gravel. (See Luke v. 19.) The roofs of the houses in Palestine required, and require, to be thick for the same reason that the people require to wear thick turbans on their heads,‚—to keep out, as far as possible, the heat. They let down the bed whereon the paralytic was lying. Examine," says Dr. W. M. Thomson, "one of the houses of the modern villages in this same region, and you will see at once that the thing is natural and easy to be "accomplished. The roof is only a few feet high; and by stooping down, and "holding the corners of the couch (merely a thickly padded quilt, as at present "in this region) they would let down the sick man without any apparatus of ropes or cords to assist them." (The Land and the Book, p. 358.) When

palsy lay. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. 6 But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their

Woolston wildly depicts the danger of a broken pate,' incurred by our Lord and His disciples during the process, from the falling of the tiles,' he simply allows his flippancy to run riotous. The word translated bed (кpáßаTTOs, such is its correct form) was an unclassical term for a narrow couch or litter, on which only one person could lie. (It corresponds to the Attic oxiμπOVS. See Phrynichus in voc., and Lobeck in loc., p. 62.)

The faith of the whole party, con

VER. 5. And Jesus seeing their faith. sisting of the paralytic himself and of his friends who had acted with him and for him. Jesus could look into their hearts and see; and no doubt He did thus look; but at the same time their inward faith was signally manifested by their outward acts.

Saith to the paralytic, Son, thy sins are forgiven. Or, have been forgiven. The verb is in the indicative mood of the perfect passive, Doric form (ȧpéwvrau). If however we should adopt the reading of Tischendorf and Tregelles (àøíevrai), the translation will be thy sins are forgiven. If this latter reading be accepted, the Lord is represented as referring to a present occurrence, thy sins are forgiven (viz. now). If the reading of the Received Text be retained, the Lord is represented as referring to a past occurrence, thy sins have been forgiven (viz. from the moment when thy faith began). The Received reading has the support of a great majority of the important manuscripts. The other has the support of the Vatican manuscript, and of the queen of the cursives' (33), and of the Syriac versions, and the Vulgate, and the Coptic. The Lord, looking into the heart of the afflicted man, saw that he was more distressed on account of his sins than of his sickness; and so He first of all spoke peace to his conscience. Not unlikely the young man had been foolish, possibly he had brought his disease upon himself by means of his sins; but he was now penitent, and a firm believer in the Messiah, superadding to his general faith the specific conviction that the Messiah was before him in the person of Jesus. Jesus calls him son, or more literally, child, partly no doubt because he was young, but principally, as we may believe, because there was a beautiful filial confidence in his heart.

VER. 6. But there were certain of the scribes sitting there. They had scented heresy from afar, and had come to pry censoriously and inquisitorially into the teaching of the wonderful upstart Rabbi. See Luke v. 17. They "carried," says Trapp, "gall in their ears." On the word scribes, see chap. i.

22.

And reasoning in their hearts. The reference of the expression their hearts is simply and generically to the interior sphere of their complex being, not specifically to the sphere of the affections. They reasoned: the term is graphic in the original. They started a dialogue with themselves within their own minds (daλoyiŠóμevoi). Themselves spoke to themselves, as it were, but with bated breath.

hearts, 7 Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only? 8 And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within

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VER. 7. Why doth this Man thus speak? He blasphemes. He does an injury to the fame of God; He detracts from the true glory of God. Blasphemy," says Sir George Mackenzie, in his Laws and Customs of Scotland in matters Criminal (Tit. iii. § 1), "is called in law, Divine lese Majesty or Treason; and "it is committed either (1) by denying that of God which belongs to Him as 46 one of His attributes, or (2) by attributing to Him that which is absurd, and "inconsistent with His Divine nature," or, as it may be added (3), by assuming to oneself, or ascribing to others, what is an incommunicable property or prerogative of God. It is with a reference to this third form of the crime that the word is used in the passage before us. See next clause.

Who can forgive sins except One, even God? It is God's incommunicable prerogative to forgive sins, to dismiss them from the sinner, as the original word signifes (ἀφιέναι). Men may forgive trespasses that have been committed against themselves in so far as they are injuries done to themselves. But these trespasses, besides being injuries to men, are sins against God. So far indeed as they are sins at all, they are relative only to God. (Ps. li. 4.) None but He, therefore, can forgive them. In this fundamental idea the censorious scribes were right; but then in all other respects they were wrong. They were censoriously presumptuous in rushing to the conclusion that the wonderful Personage before them had neither power nor authority to forgive sins. Why not justly judge of Him by His works, instead of censoriously criticising His mere words?

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VER. 8. And immediately Jesus, perceiving in His spirit that they so reasoned within themselves. He had an intuitive perception of the contents of their hearts; and, by explicitly presenting these contents to their recognition, He implicitly rebuked them for their unwillingness to acknowledge the supernatural element that was characterizing Him. We may either say, on the one hand, "instantly perceiving 'in' His spirit" (Jelf), or, on the other, "instantly perceiving by His spirit" (Le Clerc, Beausobre et L'Enfant), or 'with' His spirit (Piscator, Heumann, Volkmar), or through' His spirit (Bisping). The dative case employed may be either the where case' or 'the how case.' It is not likely that the locality idea is here intended; for, of course, perception or knowledge can never be localized anywhere but in the spirit, and there would therefore be no significancy in the specification. We should undoubtedly render the expression by His spirit, a rendering that brings into prominence in what way it was that our Lord read the hearts of His censors. It was not by what His ears heard or His eyes saw. It was not by means of any of those outward things that are objective to our percipient' senses'; His knowledge did not reach Him in that circuitous way, by the route of any of the five gateways' in the periphery of the complex person. It was direct, the knowledge of spirit by spirit. Wells translates the expression by His spirit, and explains it as meaning by His Divine spirit. Petter gives the same explanation, by His Divine Grotius contends at length, and learnedly, for the same explanation.

nature.