messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way be

editors and expositors, putting a full point at the close of ver. 1, regard this expression as bending anticipatively forward, and hooking itself on to ver. 4. Whedon, running on the same line, but running faster still, says, the second "and third verses, by a strong inversion, should come after the fourth." This is unnatural, and assumes an artificial involution of structure which is quite unlikely in such a simple writer as Mark. It is better to put, with Tischendorf (in his eighth edition), a comma at the conclusion of the first verse, and thus to regard the contents of the second and third verses as appended to the first in a free and easy manner, with the intent of showing that the events about to be narrated had thrown their shadows before them in the Old Testament Scriptures; for it is really true that the Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, God's Son, was in accordance with what had been written.

In the Received Text there follows the expression in the prophets. King James's translators would find it in all the editions that were lying before them. It is, however, a tinkered reading, as both Erasmus and Beza were convinced, and Bengel too.

The reading of the autograph of Mark was, undoubtedly, in Isaiah the prophet. Such is the reading of the Sinaitic manuscript, and the Vatican, and the Cambridge, as also of 33, 'the queen of the cursives.' It is the reading too of the Vulgate version, and the Older Latin, the Peshito Syriac, the Harclean Syriac, the Coptic, and the Gothic. It is the reading of the principal Fathers too. It has been re-imported into the text by Griesbach, Scholz, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles. It would never have been disturbed had not some timorous students of the Gospel felt it difficult or impossible to account for the fact that, preceding the quotation from Isaiah, there is a quotation from Malachi (iii. 3). Eusebius says that the word Isaiah stands in the text as an erratum instead of Malachi. (See Cramer's Catena, in loc.) And Porphyry, the early enemy of Christianity, cast it in the teeth of the Christians that Mark had made a mistake. (See Jerome on Matt. iii. 3.) Griesbach too, alas! suspected that he had. (Comm. Crit. in loc.) Even Meyer thinks that there is a mistake, and that the evangelist's memory must have been at fault; surely a most unlikely occurrence on the part of one who, in that early age, and in the midst of the young fervour of admiration and love and zeal, was eager to persuade his fellow-men everywhere that Jesus was the Saviour who had been promised from of old in the writings of the prophets. Beza thinks that the evangelist had really quoted only the passage from Isaiah, and that the preliminary passage from Malachi had been subsequently intruded into the text from a marginal annotation suggested by Matt. xi. 10. The real solution of the case is to be found in the fact that the passage from Malachi is strictly preliminary. It is the mere porchway through which we are ushered into the quotation from Isaiah. The evangelist's mind went rapidly through it, and fixed its attention on the contents of the earlier and more remarkable oracle, lying beyond. (Comp. Matt. xxi. 5.) Behold, I send My messenger. It is the Lord of hosts' who speaks. See the concluding clause of Mal. iii. 1. He is just on the eve of turning the future into the present. Hence the expression I send, instead of I win send. The imminency of the act is indicated. My messenger: My servant, to whom

fore thee. 3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord. make his paths straight.

I say 'Go,' and 'he goeth.' It is the word that is generally translated angel, which word angel just means messenger. Heumann, indeed, insists on translating it angel in the passage before us. It is John the Baptist who is referred to. See ver. 4.

Before Thy face. A full way of saying Before Thee. Attention is graphi cally fixed upon the countenance or face, which is the index to the whole man. Before: The Baptist was to be the forerunner of the Lord, or His harbinger. It is noteworthy that in Malachi the expression is not before Thy face, or before Thee, but before Me. The Lord of hosts speaks of' Himself. When Mark however quotes the passage, he so modifies the form of expression that the Lord of hosts is represented as speaking to the Lord of hosts. It was a perfectly warrantable modification, for there is a sublime sphere of things in which all things are 'in common' between the Father and the Son. See Matt. xi. 10. Who shall prepare Thy way. So that it shall be fit for Thee to travel upon. In the East few good roads are ever made; and such roads as have been made are generally kept in most wretched repair. Hence when a sovereign is about to visit any part of his dominions, it is requisite that a messenger, or quartermaster, as Hofmeister has it, be sent on before to get the way made ready. Such, in things spiritual, was John's mission. Men's ways were in a wretched state. Encumbrances and stumbling-blocks lay everywhere scattered about. Mud and mire were the order of the day. It seemed impossible for any one to get along through life with unpolluted garments, or without stumbling and falling, and getting bruised and broken. The real preparation that was needed was in the hearts of the people. See Mal. iv. 5, 6.

VER. 3. Now comes the prophetic passage on which the evangelist's mind has been fixed. It is found in Isaiah xl. 3.

Or rather, A voice of one crying

The voice of one crying in the wilderness. in the wilderness! That is, I hear the voice of one calling aloud in the wilderness! It is as if the prophet had been listening from afar. Bending forward, and hushing all noises within and around, he strains his ear to hear. At length, Lo, a voice! He fixes his attention. It is a voice of one calling aloud in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord! Make His paths straight! It is not John himself who is called a Voice, as many-far too many-have imagined, inclusive even of Cajetan, Petter, de Veil, and Klostermann. Petter's remark is: "John is said to be a Voice, in respect of the "execution of his ministerial office, which was to speak and sound forth the "doctrine of the gospel touching Christ, and touching salvation by Him." Of one crying of one calling aloud as with a herald-cry. In the wilderness : Not in the great city, nor in any city, but in the wilds and prairie pasturegrounds of the wilderness. John did not go to the people; he let the people come to him. It was different with Jesus.

Make ye ready the way of the Lord. John himself made ready the Lord's way (see ver. 2),-by calling upon the people to make it ready. Thus he did not do everything himself. He could not. He could not, by his single

4 John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism

agency, prepare the hearts of the people. Even God could not wisely do everything. The co-agency of the people was indispensable: and hence the herald of the Lord called upon them to act. Self-action, indeed, would not be enough. Something from above is needed. God must begin and God must end the preparation of the heart (Prov. xvi. 1). But between His beginning and His ending human spontaneity comes in; there must be response to the Lord's initiatory ‘knock'; there must be preparation for His final enthronement in the soul. Make YE ready the Lord's way!

Make His paths straight. The word straight is the opposite of crooked. See Luke iii. 5; and comp. Acts ix. 11. Roads that have not been properly prepared at the beginning are generally more or less crooked. So are the ways of men, when no preparation has been made for the Great King. When John cried, Make His paths straight! he meant, Have done with all your crooked ways of acting! Be straightforward with yourselves! Let there be no winding and doubling! Be honest! The Lord will not enter into hypocritical souls.

VER. 4. John came. Viz., upon the scene. It came to pass that John made his appearance on the scene. At a certain unspecified time, John made, as it were, his début,' as a great public functionary, the harbinger and herald of the Messiah.

Who baptized in the wilderness and preached. The evangelist might have said, transpositively, There appeared in the wilderness John, who baptized and preached. But there is no occasion for disturbing the order of the evangelist's words; for it is true that John baptized in the wilderness. The wilderness referred to embraced a considerable tract of comparatively uninhabited land, stretching away eastward from Jerusalem and northward from the Dead Sea, but coming down, all along, to the banks of the river Jordan. It was chiefly in the Jordan, as it swept along the wilderness of Judæa, that John performed his baptisms. See Matt iii. 1, 5, 6; Luke iii. 3. The baptizing is mentioned before the preaching, because it was the outstanding peculiarity of John's ministry. The participial form of the expression, the baptizing (ỏ ẞanтiZWY), denotes continuity, or characteristic habit. The word intimates that John engaged himself in administering to the people a purificatory rite. He ritually purified them, in order that they might be prepared to be admitted into the approaching 'kingdom of heaven.' (See John iii. 23-26; Mark vii. 4, 8; Heb. ix. 9-23.) In thus ritually purifying them, he would throw or pour water upon them,- sprinkling them with clean water.' (See Joel ii. 28; Ezek. xxxvi. 25; Acts x. 44, 47, xi. 15, 16.) It was a beautiful symbolism, fitted to remind the people that the influence which truly purifies the heart is shed down from above (see Comm. on Matt. iii. 6). In the wilderness: By avoiding the frequented haunts of men, John indicated his profound sense of the corruption that was pervading the institutions of human society. Pollution was rampant everywhere. Had he been a man, however, of only ordinary calibre of mind and force of character, he would have been simply lost in the wilderness; only one here and there would have known

of repentance for the remission of sins. 5 And there went

anything about him.

But he was Elijah-like,-a man overtopping all his fellows in grandeur of character; when common people came in contact with him, they felt at once his superiority; he was a lion among men. And then too he belonged to a conspicuous family, a family of priests. So soon, therefore, as it was known that he was asserting that he had a message for his countrymen, and that he had undertaken to help them in preparing for the approach of the kingdom of heaven, the population, as it were en masse, docked out to him. And preached: or proclaimed (in a heraldic way). The word is participial in the original, and comes under the influence of the article which renders the preceding participle characteristically attributive. It thus conveys the idea of continuously repeated action or habit.

The baptism of repentance. Or, very literally, without the article, baptism of repentance, that is repentance-baptism, or penitential-baptism, that baptism of which repentance was a characteristic. It was thus not simply and abstractly the duty of baptism, that John proclaimed. It was the duty of that peculiar kind of baptism, which, when voluntarily and intelligently received, mirrors forth, in its outward act, the acceptance of that inward purification which is essential to the enjoyment of the privileges of the Messiah's kingdom. Hence John did not attribute any real purificatory virtue to his baptismal rite. (See Matt. iii. 2, 7-10.) He knew that it was but the shadow of the one really efficacious baptism. (See Matt. iii. 11, 12; 1 Pet. iii. 21.) No one would know better than he, that it is the water of life,' as Justin Martyr says, which is 'the only baptism that can purify the repentant.' (Dialog. Trypho, § 14.) John's baptism, nevertheless, was a beautiful figure of the true. And hence he unhesitatingly proclaimed, with heraldic cry, that it was the duty of the people to come to him, that they might receive it at his hands. Repentance: that is, afterthought, or change of mind, or turning to a right state of mind, namely, as regards things moral and spiritual. Such a turning begins in the intelligence (the voûs), but prolongs itself into the feelings, and runs out into the ultimate choices of the will, and then terminates in the fixed activities and habits of the whole complex man. Repentance may thus be incipient, or progressive, or complete. It was only incipient repentance that was enjoined by John as the prerequisite of his baptism, and hence the first word of his ministry was, 'Repent.' (Matt. iii. 2; and comp. ver. 5-8.) Hence, too, as he looked to the end, and realized profoundly the necessity of progression and completion, he baptized unto repentance.' (Matt. iii. 11.)

Unto remission of sins. The meaning is, in order to, or with, a view to, remission of sins. But, of course, we are not to suppose that either the people's repentance on the one hand, or John's baptism on the other, or any combination of the two, could be either the efficient or the meritorious cause of forgiveness. God only is the Efficient Cause. The sacrificial Lamb, who bore the sin of the world (John i. 29), and He only, is the Meritorious Cause. Repentancebaptism could be nothing else than a kind of instrumental cause,—pædagogically leading the mind out and up at once to the Efficient and to the concurrent Meritorious Cause. It was really in the faith, which was underlying the

out unto him all the land of Judæa, and they of Jerusalem; and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 And John was clothed with camel's hair, and

repentance baptism, that the link was found which united the soul to the Indispensable Causes. Remission: or forgiveness. It is realized in deliverance from the penal consequences of sins, and is to be carefully distinguished from moral cleansing of the soul, which, however, is a still greater and grander blessing. (See Matt. vi. 12, xviii. 21–35; Luke xvii. 3, 4.)

YER. 5. And there went out unto him all the country of Judæa. More literally still, all the Judæan country. The evangelist used that figure of speech called by grammarians metonymy,-naming the country while meaning its inhabitants. So we sometimes say, London at this season is out of town. It is the same licence that is employed, when, in the dispensation of the Lord's Supper, we speak of drinking this cup.' (1 Cor. xi. 27.)

And all they of Jerusalem. More literally still, and all the Jerusalemites. The adjective all, which in the Received Text occurs in the next clause, properly belongs to this, and is so placed in the texts of Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles. All: The word is used in a free and easy, and popular, way. And yet, as Alexander remarks," it must mean more than many, namely, “the great bulk and body of the population." All the Jerusalemites: not only all Judæa in general, but also all the Jerusalemites in particular. Even they And they were baptized of him in the river Jordan. John would stand, perhaps, at some suitable point or angle within the margin of the river, and when the people came to him in file, he would lave them in succession. Or they might station themselves in rows along the margin, and, as he passed by inside he would sprinkle them in detail.

Confessing their sins. The word rendered confessing (¿§oμoλoyovμevo) strictly means confessing out, that is, confessing openly or aloud. It is not implied, therefore, that the people made private confession, auricularly, one by one, of particular sins. But when charged by John, in general terms, with unfaithfulness to their own consciences, and to the claims of their neighbours, and to God, they admitted the justice of the charge, acknowledged that they were verily guilty,' and that they thus stood greatly in need of being cleansed or baptized from unrighteousness. Both the Latin word confess, and the corresponding Greek word, bring out the idea of two parties speaking; and when applied, as here, to sins, it is implied that some one-from without or within-charges the sinner with his sins, and that the sinner consents to the charge. Thus there is a togetherhood of speaking in the matter, that is to say, a confession.

VER. 6. The evangelist passes on to a description of some of the personal peculiarities of the Baptist. He was just a modern edition of the ancient Elijah. And John was clothed with camel's hair. It is not said, as Hofmeister remarks, with a camel's skin, but with camel's hairs. (Vestimentum non de pelle, sed de pilis camelorum.) The old sacred artists misunderstood the ex