The Bible Story
Chapter 277 : _Weddings_ in the East were times of elaborate ceremonials. The weddings were in the n

_Weddings_ in the East were times of elaborate ceremonials. The weddings were in the night, and the friends of the groom went with him, bearing torches, to the house of the bride, then, with the bride and her friends, all returned to the house of the groom. Here a feast of several days was held, with singing of songs and much merriment.

_Samaria_ had been partly settled by foreigners, more than seven hundred years before, but the Jews of Jesus' time still looked down upon the Samaritans, as not being pure Jews. They would not let them wors.h.i.+p in the temple, and despised them greatly. To be obliged to say that a Samaritan had done a good deed was not pleasant for a Jew.

_Raca_. "Fool."

_Jot_, jod. The smallest Hebrew letter. _t.i.ttle_. The little points on the letters like the projections from the top of our d.

_Publican_. A tax-gatherer for the Roman government. No patriotic Jew would take the office, and so the publicans were much despised; and indeed they were mostly not the best sort of men.

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_Leprosy_. A loathsome and lingering disease, for which no remedy was known.

_Sea of Galilee, Luke of Gennesaret, Sea of Tiberias_. Different names for the beautiful lake east of Galilee. It is pear shaped, about thirteen miles long and a little less than seven wide.

_Kingdom of G.o.d_. Used by the Jews for the great kingdom which they expected the Prince who should come, the Messiah, to set up; used by Jesus to mean the rule of G.o.d in the hearts of men, which he came to establish.

_Pennyworth_. About the equivalent of the wages for a day's work.

_Bethesda_. A pool in Jerusalem, fed by an intermittent spring, so that sometimes the water suddenly rose in it. This made the people think that it was powerful to heal diseases.

_Sabbath_ was very strictly kept by the Jews. They were very careful about doing any work. No fire was lighted, no meals cooked, no medicine prepared. They had made the needs of man subordinate to the Sabbath law, rather than the law subordinate to the needs of man.

_Show-bread_. Loaves kept in the temple and renewed every week. The point of Jesus is that the sacredness of the bread yielded to the needs of David and his men.

_Dipped a sop_. It is customary in the East for the host to honor a guest by dipping a piece of bread in the dish of meat or the cup of drink and giving it with his own hand.

_Greek woman, Syro-Phoenician_. A Syrian, resident in Phoenicia, who perhaps spoke Greek.

_Caesarea Philippi_. A town in the far north of Palestine, at the head of the River Jordan.

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_Fuller_. One whose business was to bleach cotton or linen cloth.

_Tormentors_. Those whose duty it was to obtain confessions, or to punish, by scourging and other tortures.

_Hospitality_ is a much-prized virtue in the East. There were not so many accommodations for travelers as there are among us. On the caravan routes there were khans, or inns, and places where one could buy food, but off the frequented routes of travel, among the villages, the traveler had to depend on the kindness of the people for food and shelter. So when the seventy went out, they must depend on the hospitality of their hosts. Jesus advises them not to go about to many houses in the same village, for that would waste much time in the necessary ceremonies of politeness.

_Purifying_. The Old Testament has many laws of ceremonial purification, but the tradition of Judaism had greatly expanded them. There were long directions about the was.h.i.+ng of dishes of all sorts, and of the hands--not for the sake of getting them clean merely, but of doing it in a certain way. For example, the hands must be held up so that the water should run from the fingers as far down as the wrists. Jesus taught that the good life came, not from such things as these but from a pure heart.

_Dogs_ abound in all Eastern towns. They lie in large numbers about the streets. Each gang has its own quarters, and woe to the dog which intrudes on the ground of another gang! These street dogs are much despised, and indeed they are wretched curs; but they are necessary to the health of a city where they are the only scavengers. They were sometimes even allowed in the courts of the houses, where they ate the leavings from the table.

_Tombs_ were often cut in the face of the rock, after it had been cut back to a perpendicular surface. The tombs were of all sizes, from mere places in which the body was put, to large rooms with rock-cut shelves on the sides. Many tombs of various grades of elaborateness are found in the rocks about Jerusalem.

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_The Temple_ of the New Testament period is called Herod's temple because it was greatly enlarged and beautified by Herod the Great. He began the work about 20 B.C., and most of it was done before the days of Jesus, but Herod's successors continued to build and beautify for long years after. The temple was now much larger than it was in the Old Testament days, though it still stood in the same place. It was in the eastern part of the city, and looked straight over the city wall and the Valley of Jehoshaphat to the Mount of Olives on the east. South of it was a slope that led down to the Valley of Hinnom, and north was the castle of the city, occupied by the governor and the Roman soldiers. The spot where it stood is still an open walled s.p.a.ce, and in the center of it is the so-called mosque of Omar, while to the north a garrison of Turkish soldiers still occupies part of the site of the old castle.

_The Pa.s.sover_ was the great family feast of the Jews. Many customs had grown up about it as the ages had gone on. Those who could were glad to celebrate the feast in Jerusalem, but of course only a few could do that. The great event of the feast, which lasted seven days, was the supper, when each family procured a lamb and ate it with certain vegetables and with wine. It was a glad feast, and yet a solemn one. In its course one of the children would ask why it was celebrated, and then the father would tell the old, old story of how their fathers, long ago, went out of Egypt in haste one night, and how this feast was in memory of that great deliverance. Then he would tell how the nation still had faith that their G.o.d could deliver from all trouble. At the end they sang Psalms 115-118, Psalms 113, 114 having been sung at an earlier part of the meal. These were called Hallel, which means praise, and if you will read the psalms you will see why. Jesus and his disciples made a sort of family, eating the feast thus together.

_Pilate_ was a Roman who was governor of Judea for ten years, from A.D.

26 to 36. The Herodian government of Judea, under which Jesus was born, had been changed for a direct Roman rule in 6 A.D., but the change had worked little good to the people. Pilate was not, as Roman governors went, a bad man. He desired {492} justice and had many good intentions, but he was weak, vacillating, and liable to be violent. He had made himself much hated by the people, and feared they would complain of him to the emperor. So it happened that when he had the great opportunity of his life, and himself much desired to save Jesus from an unjust death, he dared not do what he knew was right because his past crimes had made him fear the Jews. He was at last sent to Rome in disgrace by his superiors in office, but what became of him afterwards is not known. A legend in the early church says that he committed suicide, but there is no good evidence that this is so.

_Caiaphas_, the high priest from 18-36 A.D., was son-in-law of Annas, the former high priest. He seems, from John 2:45-50, to be the one who first suggested the plan to put Jesus to death. He did it because he was afraid, if the people thought Jesus was the Messiah, they would follow him in a revolt against the Romans, which would only bring trouble and ma.s.sacre to the people. How he misunderstood the purpose of the peaceful Jesus!

_Annas_ was high priest A.D. 6 to 18. He was then deposed by the Roman legate, but, through his own influence and that of his family, long held great power in the nation. The family had booths for the sale of offerings in the temple, and gained great wealth thereby. When Jesus cleansed the temple, he was interfering with their unjust trade, and that may have had a good deal to do with their enmity toward him. Annas and his family were hated by the people, who thought them hypocrites, making gain out of the service of G.o.d.

_The trial of Jesus_ divides into the following parts: (1) An appearance before Annas, which was an informal, preliminary inquiry, seemingly to try to get evidence to present at the formal trial. The inquiry was fruitless. (2) The trial before the Sanhedrin, with Caiaphas as the leader. This was the formal Jewish trial. (3) The first appearance before Pilate, to whom the Sanhedrin sent him on the ground of treason to Rome in claiming to be king of the Jews. (4) The appearance before Herod, tetrarch of Galilee, to whom Pilate had sent him, learning that Jesus was a Galilean. Herod accepted the compliment Pilate paid him, but {493} refused to judge in a matter which belonged to a Roman officer, and sent him back to Pilate. (5) The final trial before Pilate, when, finding that he could in no way escape the responsibility, Pilate reluctantly condemned Jesus to crucifixion; so, as he himself admitted, sending an innocent man to death. The Jewish court condemned Jesus for blasphemy; the Roman, ostensibly, for treason.

_Crucifixion_. This cruel custom came to the west from the Phoenicians, and was used by Greeks and Romans. Under the Roman emperors it became common. First it was only used for slaves and persons much despised.

Later it was used more widely, but it was always considered a mark of deep disgrace.

_Emmaus_. The locality is unknown; possibly at Kolonieh, on the road from Jerusalem to Joppa.

PART II.

_Pentecost_. The great feast fifty days after the Pa.s.sover. It was the Old Testament feast of the first fruits, when the first of the wheat harvest was presented in thanksgiving to G.o.d. The Jews of Christ's time regarded it as the memorial of the giving of the law at Sinai, but the Old Testament does not authorize that. Much was made of the feast at the temple, and crowds came to Jerusalem for its celebration.

_"Had all things in common."_ This was not communism, in which all property was put into a common stock. Each believer regarded his property as sacred to the uses of his brethren, did they need it; but the story of Ananias and Sapphira shows that it was still in his possession to do what he chose with it.