Luke 1

Whilst I a little more narrowly consider that severe interdiction by which the Nazarite was forbidden the total use of the vine, not only that he should not drink of the wine, but not so much as taste of the grape, not the pulp nor stone of the grape, no, not the bark of the vine; I cannot but call to mind,

I. Whether the vine might not be the tree in paradise that had been forbidden to Adam, by the tasting of which he sinned. The Jewish doctors positively affirm this without any scruple.

II. Whether that law about the Nazarites had not some reference to Adam while he was under that prohibition in the state of innocency. For if the bodily and legal uncleannesses, about which there are such strict precepts, Numbers 5, especially the leprosy, the greatest of all uncleannesses, did excellently decipher the state and nature of sin; might not the laws about Nazarites which concerned the greatest purities in a most pure religion, be something in commemoration of the state of man before his fall?

There was, as the doctors call it, the wine of command; which they were bound by precept to drink. Such was "that wine of the tithes," Deuteronomy 12:17,18, that twas commanded to be drunk at Jerusalem, and the cup of wine to be drunk at the Passover. What must the Nazarite do in this case? If he drink, he violates the command of his order; if he do not drink, he breaks the command about tithes and the laws of his fathers. Let Elias untie this knot when he comes.

17. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

[In the Spirit and power of Elias.] I. The Baptist is Elias, as our Saviour was David; that is, the antitype, Jeremiah 30:9; Malachi 4:5; Hosea 3:5, &c. It is less wonder that the Jews, from the words of Malachi, should expect the personal coming of Elijah, since there are not a few Christians that would be looking for the same thing, although they have an angel in this place interpreting it otherwise, and our blessed Saviour elsewhere himself [Matt 11:14]; "This is Elias which was for to come." But they misunderstood the phrase of the "great and dreadful day of the Lord"; as also were deceived into the mistake by the Greek version, "that Elias must come before the last judgment."

II. It is not said by the prophet Malachi, "Behold I will send you Elijah the Tishbite," but "Elijah the prophet"; which perhaps might be better rendered, "Behold I send you a prophet Elijah." And I may confidently say it would not be so wide from the sense and meaning of Malachi as the Greek interpreters, who by a prodigious daringness in favour of the Jewish traditions, have rendered it, I send you Elijah the Tishbite.

III. If I mistake not, "Elias the prophet" is but twice mentioned (I mean in those very terms) throughout the whole book of God: once in this place in Malachi, the other in 2 Chronicles 21:12. And in both those places I believe it is not meant Elijah the Tishbite in his own person, but some one in the spirit and power of him. That the words in Malachi should be so understood, both the angel and our Saviour teach us, and it seems very proper to be so taken in that place in the Chronicles.

IV. That great prophet that lived in Ahab's days is called the Tishbite, throughout the whole story of him, and not the prophet. Nor is he called the prophet, Luke 4:25 (where yet it is said, 'Eliseus the prophet'); nor by St. James 5:17. For the very word Tishbi, which is his epithet, sufficiently asserts his prophetic dignity when it denotes no other than a converter. For whence can we better derive the etymology? to which indeed the prophet Malachi seems to have alluded, "Behold, I send you Elijah the prophet, and he shall turn," &c.

V. But be it so that he might be called Tishbite from the city Toshab, as the Targum and other Rabbins would have it (which yet is very farfetched), that very thing might evince that it is not he himself that is meant by Malachi, but some other, because he doth not mention the Tishbite, but a prophet Elias, that is, a prophet in the spirit of Elias.

So among the Talmudists, any one skilled in signs and languages is called Mordecai, viz. because he is like him who lived in the days of Ahasuerus.

[To turn the hearts of the fathers to the children.] John came in the power of Elias; not that power by which he wrought miracles [for John wrought none, John 10:41]; but "in the power of Elias turning the hearts of men," &c. Elias turned many of the children of Israel towards the Lord their God, 1 Kings 18: so did John, who over and above "turned the hearts of the fathers towards their children." Which what it should mean is something dark and unintelligible. You will hardly allow the Jews' gloss upon this place, who do so greatly mistake about the person, and who will allow nothing of good to be done by the Elias they expect, but within the compass of Israel. But are not the Gentiles to be converted? They in the prophets' dialect are 'the children of Zion, of Jerusalem, of the Jewish church': nothing more frequent. And in this sense are the words of Malachi we are now handling to be understood: 'Elias the Baptist will turn the hearts of the Jews towards the Gentiles, and of the Gentiles towards the Jews.' This was indeed the great work of the gospel, to bring over the Jew and Gentile into mutual embraces through the acknowledgment of Christ: which John most happily began, who came that "all men through him might believe," John 1:7: yea, and the Roman soldiers did believe as well as the Jews, Luke 3:14.

[The disobedient to the wisdom of the just.] The Greek in Malachi hath it, the heart of a man towards his neighbour. The words of the prophet having been varied, the angel varies too, but to a more proper sense. For the Gentiles were not to be turned to the Jews as such, or to the religion of the Jews, but to God "in the wisdom of the just." "The children to the fathers": the phrase fathers, according to the Jewish state at that time, was of doubtful sound, and had something of danger in it; for by that word generally at that time, was meant nothing else but the Fathers of Traditions, to whom God forbid any should be turned to those fathers in the folly of traditions, but to God in the wisdom of the just.

18. And Zacharias said unto the angel, Whereby shall I know this? for I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years.

[For I am an old man.] If so old a man, why then was he not sequestered from the service of the Temple by the law of superannuation? Numbers 4:3, 8:24,25. Hear what the Rabbins say in this case:

"There is something that is lawful in the priests, that is unlawful in the Levites: and there is something lawful in the Levites, that is unlawful in the priests. The Rabbins deliver; the priests upon any blemish are unfit; as for their years they are not unfit; the Levites for their years may be unfit, but by reason of blemish are not. From that which is said, that at the age of fifty years they shall cease waiting, we learn that years may make the Levites unfit. Perhaps the priests also are made unfit through years: and indeed, does it not seem in equity, that if the Levites, whom a blemish doth not make unfit, should yet be made unfit by superannuation, should not much more the priests be made unfit by superannuation, when even a spot or blemish will make them unfit? But the text saith, This is the law of the Levites; not, This is the law of the priests. The Rabbins deliver: What time a priest comes to maturity, till he grow old, he is fit to minister; and yet a spot or blemish makes him unfit. The Levite from his thirtieth to his fiftieth year is fit for service; but being superannuated, he becomes unfit. How must this be understood concerning the Levites? To wit, for that time wherein the ark was in the wilderness: but at Shiloh and in the Temple they were not rendered unfit, unless through the defect of their voice."

21. And the people waited for Zacharias, and marvelled that he tarried so long in the temple.

[They marvelled that he tarried so long.] There is something of this kind told of Simeon the Just, concerning whom we have made some mention already:

"The high priest made a short prayer in the holy place. He would not be long in prayer, lest he should occasion any fear in the people. There is a story of one who tarried a long while in it, and the people were ready to have entered in upon him. They say it was Simeon the Just. They say unto him, 'Why didst thou tarry so long?' He answered them, saying, 'I have been praying for the Temple of your God, that it be not destroyed.' They answered him again, 'However, it was not well for you to tarry so long.'"

22. And when he came out, he could not speak unto them: and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple: for he beckoned unto them, and remained speechless.

[He beckoned unto them.] There is also, verse 62, they made signs. The deaf and dumb man, he nods to them, and they nod to him.

The Talmudists distinguish the judgments given by a dumb man into the nodding of the head, and the dumb man's making signs.

"If any person be dumb, and yet hath his understanding, should they say to him, May we write a bill of divorce to thy wife, and he nod with his head, they make the experiment upon him three times," &c. And a little after they do not much rely upon the signs of the deaf and dumb man. For as it is in the same place, the dumb person, and the deaf and dumb, differ. Gloss: "The one can hear and not speak; the other can neither hear nor speak."

Amongst the doctors, the deaf and dumb person is commonly looked upon as one made so by some fit of palsy or apoplexy, by which the intellectuals are generally affected: whence the deaf and dumb are, according to the traditional canons, deprived of several offices and privileges of which others are capable.

This case therefore of Zacharias might have occasioned a considerable question, whether he ought not to have been sequestered from his ministry, and deprived of all the privileges of his priesthood, because he had been struck deaf and dumb, but that it happened to him in so signal and extraordinary a way.

24. And after those days his wife Elisabeth conceived, and hid herself five months; saying,

[She hid herself five months.] "She hid herself five months, saying, Thus hath the Lord dealt with me, in the days wherein he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men."

She was big with child, it is plain, because God had looked on her, and taken away her reproach among men. She hid herself, because the Lord had dealt so with her, till he had taken away her reproach; giving her so remarkable a son, one who was to be so strict a Nazarite, and so famous a prophet. Lest therefore she should any way defile herself by going up and down, and thereby contract any uncleanness upon the Nazarite in her womb, she withdraws, and sequesters herself from all common conversation. Consult Judges 13:4.

There were several amongst the Jews that were wont to take upon them the sect of the Nazarites by their own voluntary vow. [Three hundred at once in the days of Jannaeus the king came together to Simeon Ben Shetah.] But there were but two only set apart by divine appointment, Samson and the Baptist: whom the same divine appointment, designing to preserve untouched from all kind of pollution even in their mothers' wombs, directed that the mothers themselves should keep themselves as distant as might be from all manner of defilement whatsoever. Elizabeth obeys; and for the whole time wherein she bore the child within her, she hid herself, for her more effectually avoiding all kind of uncleannesses; although it is true we have the mention but of five months, by reason of the story of the sixth month, which was to be immediately related, verse 26.

26. And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,

[The angel Gabriel.] "R. Simeon Ben Lachish saith, The names of angels went up by the hand of Israel out of Babylon. For before it is said, Then flew one of the seraphim unto me; the seraphim stood before him, Isaiah 6; but afterward the man Gabriel, [Dan 9:21] and Michael your prince," [Dan 10:21].

The angel calls Zacharias back to Daniel 9, where the prediction concerning the coming of Messiah was foretold by Gabriel.

29. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.

[Was troubled, &c.] I. It was very rare and unusual for men to salute any women; at least if that be true in Kiddushin. Rabh Judah, the president of the academy of Pombeditha, went to Rabh Nachman, rector of the academy of Neharde, and after some talk amongst themselves, "Saith Rabh Nachman, Let my daughter Doneg bring some drink, that we may drink together. Saith the other, Samuel saith, We must not use the ministry of a woman. But this is a little girl, saith Nachman. The other answers, But Samuel saith, We ought not to use the ministry of any woman at all. Wilt thou please, saith Nachman, to salute Lelith my wife? But, saith he, Samuel saith, The voice of a woman is filthy nakedness. But, saith Nachman, thou mayest salute her by a messenger. To whom the other; Samuel saith, They do not salute any woman. Thou mayest salute her, saith Nachman, by a proxy her husband. But Samuel saith, saith he again, They do not salute a woman at all."

II. It was still much more rare and unusual to give such a kind of salutation as this, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, by which title Gabriel had saluted Daniel of old: with this exception, that it was terror enough so much as to see an angel.

32. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:

[Shall be called the Son of the Highest.] That is, "he shall be called the Messiah": for Messiah and the Son of God are convertible terms...

35. And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

[The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, &c.] I. This verse is the angel's gloss upon that famous prophecy, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bring forth." The veracity of which Mary not questioning, believing further that she herself was that virgin designed, and yet being utterly ignorant of the manner how so great a thing should be brought about, she only asks, "How shall this be?" &c. Doubtless she took the prophecy in its proper sense, as speaking of a virgin untouched. She knew nothing then, nor probably any part of the nation at that time so much as once thought of that sense by which the Jews have now for a great while disguised that place...

II. Give me leave, for their sakes in whose hand the book is not, to transcribe some few things out of that noble author Morney, which he quotes concerning this grand mystery from the Jews themselves:

"Truth shall spring out of the earth." "R. Joden," saith he, "notes upon this place, that it is not said, Truth shall be born, but shall spring out; because the generation and nativity of the Messiah is not to be as other creatures in the world, but shall be begot without carnal copulation; and therefore no one hath mentioned his father, as who must be hid from the knowledge of men till himself shall come and reveal him." And upon Genesis: "Ye have said (saith the Lord), We are orphans, bereaved of our father; such a one shall your Redeemer be, whom I shall give you." So upon Zechariah, "Behold my servant, whose name is Branch": and out of Psalm 110, "Thou art a priest after the order of Melchizedek": he saith, R. Berachiah delivers the same things. And R. Simeon Ben Jochai upon Genesis more plainly; viz. "That the Spirit, by the impulse of a mighty power, shall come forth of the womb, though shut up, that will become a mighty Prince, the King Messiah."--So he.

36. And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.

[Hath also conceived a son in her old age.] The angel teaches to what purpose it was that women, either barren before or considerably stricken in years, should be enabled to conceive and bring forth; viz. to make way for the easier belief of the conception of a virgin. If they, either beside or beyond nature, conceive a child, this may be some ground of belief that a virgin, contrary to nature, may do so too. So Abraham by faith saw Christ's day, as born of a pure virgin, in the birth of his own son Isaac of his old and barren wife Sarah.

39. And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda:

[She went into the hill country, &c.] That is, to Hebron, Joshua 21:11. For though it is true indeed that the priests after the return from Babylon were not all disposed and placed in all those very same dwellings they had possessed before the captivity, yet it is probable that Zacharias, who was of the seed of Aaron, being here said to dwell in the hill country of Judah, might have his house in Hebron, which is more peculiarly said to be 'the city of Aaron's offspring.'

41. And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:

[The babe leaped in her womb.] So the Seventy, Genesis 25:22, the children leaped in her womb. Psalm 114:4, the mountains skipped. That which is added by Elizabeth, verse 44, the babe leaped in the womb for joy, signifies the manner of the thing, not the cause: q.d. it leaped with vehement exultation. For John, while he was an embryo in the womb, knew no more what was then done, than Jacob and Esau when they were in Rebekah's womb knew what was determined concerning them.

"At the Red Sea, even the infants sang in the wombs of their mothers"; as it is said, from the fountain of Israel Psalm 88:27; where the Targum, to the same sense, "Exalt the Lord ye infants in the bowels of your mothers, of the seed of Israel." Let them enjoy their hyperboles.

Questionless, Elizabeth had learned from her husband that the child she went with was designed as the forerunner of the Messiah, but she did not yet know of what sort of woman the Messiah must be born till this leaping of the infant in her womb became some token to her.

56. And Mary abode with her about three months, and returned to her own house.

[Abode with her three months.] A space of time very well known amongst the doctors, defined by them to know whether a woman be with child or no: which I have already observed upon Matthew 1.

59. And it came to pass, that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child; and they called him Zacharias, after the name of his father.

[And they called it, &c.] I. "The circumciser said, 'Blessed be the Lord our God, who hath sanctified us by his precepts, and hath given us the law of circumcision.'" The father of the infant said, "Who hath sanctified us by his precepts, and hath commanded us to enter the child into the covenant of Abraham our father." But where was Zacharias' tongue for this service?

II. God at the same time instituted circumcision, and changed the names of Abram and Sarah: hence the custom of giving names to their children at the time of their circumcision.

III. Amongst the several accounts why this or that name was given to the sons, this was one that chiefly obtained, viz. for the honour of some person whom they esteemed they gave the child his name: which seems to have guided them in this case here, when Zacharias himself, being dumb, could not make his mind known to them. Mahli the son of Mushi hath the name of Mahli given him, who was his uncle, the brother of Mushi his father, 1 Chronicles 23:21,23.

"R. Nathan said, 'I once went to the islands of the sea, and there came to me a woman, whose first-born had died by circumcision; so also her second son. She brought the third to me. I bade her wait a little, till the blood might assuage. She waited a little, and then circumcised him, and he lived: they called him, therefore, by my name, Nathan of Babylon.'" See also Jerusalem Jevamoth.

"There was a certain family at Jerusalem that were wont to die about the eighteenth year of their age: they made the matter known to R. Jochanan, Ben Zacchai, who said, 'Perhaps you are of Eli's lineage, concerning whom it is said, The increase of thine house shall die in the flower of their age. Go ye and be diligent in the study of the law, and ye shall live.' They went and gave diligent heed to the law, and lived. They called themselves, therefore, the family of Jochanan, after his name."

It is disputed in the same tract, whether the son begot by a brother's raising up seed to his brother should not be called after the name of him that is deceased: for instance, if one dies without a son, and his name be Joseph, or Jochanan, whether the son that is born to this man's brother, taking his brother's widow to wife, should not have the name after him that afirst had her, and be called 'Joseph,' or 'Jochanan.' Otherwise, indeed, it was very seldom that the son bore the name of the father, as is evident both in the Holy Scriptures and the Rabbinical writers. It cannot be denied but that sometimes this was done; but so very rarely, that we may easily believe the reason why the friends of Zacharias would have given the child his own name was merely, either because they could by no means learn what he himself designed to call him, or else in honour to him, however he lay under that divine stroke at present, as to be both deaf and dumb.

78. Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us.

[The dayspring from on high.] I would readily have rendered it the branch from on high, but for what follows, "to give light," &c...

80. And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel.

[In the deserts.] Whether John was an eremite in the sense as it is now commonly taken, we may inquire and judge by these two things: I. Whether there was ever any eremite in this sense among the Jews. II. Whether he absented himself from the synagogues; and whether he did not present himself at Jerusalem in the feasts: and to this may be added, whether he retired and withdrew himself from the society of mankind. If he absented from the synagogues, he must have been accounted a wicked neighbour. If from the feasts, he transgressed the command, Exodus 23:17. If from the society of mankind, what agreeableness was there in this? It seems very incongruous, that he that was born for this end, "to turn the disobedient," &c. should withdraw himself from all society and converse with them. Nothing would persuade me sooner that John was indeed an anchoret, than that which he himself saith, that he did not know Jesus, John 1:31, whereas he was so very near akin to him. One might think, surely he must have lain hid in some den or cave of the earth, when, for the space of almost thirty years wherein he had lived, he had had no society with Jesus, so near a kinsman of his, nay, not so much as in the least to know him. But if this were so, how came he to know and so humbly refuse him, when he offered himself to be baptized by him? Matthew 3:14; and this before he was instructed who he was, by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon him? John 1:33.

[eremite - hermit; esp.: a religious recluse.--Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.]

From this question may arise two more:--

I. Whether John appeared or acted under the notion of a prophet before his entrance into the thirtieth year of his age. I am apt to think he did not: and hence I suppose it is said concerning him, "that he was in the deserts"; that is, he was amongst the rustics, and common rank of men, as a man of no note or quality himself, till he made himself public under the notion and authority of a prophet.

II. Whether he might not well know his kinsman Jesus in all this time, and admire his incomparable sanctity, and yet be ignorant that he was the Messiah. Yea, and when he modestly repulsed him from his baptism, was it that he acknowledged him for the Messiah? (which agrees not with John 1:33) or not rather that, by reason of his admirable holiness, he saw that he was above him?

[Till the day of his shewing unto Israel.] John was unquestionably a priest by birth; and being arrived at the thirtieth year of his age, according to the custom of that nation, he was, after examination of the great council, to have been admitted into the priestly office, but that God had commissioned him another way.

"In the room Gazith the great council of Israel sat, and judged concerning the priesthood. The priest in whom any blemish was found, being clothed and veiled in black, went out and was dismissed: but if he had no blemish, he was clothed and veiled in white, and going in ministered, and gave his attendance with the rest of the priests his brethren. And they made a gaudy day, when there was no blemish found in the seed of Aaron the priest."