some of these. The vivi lacus and vivum flumen of the clas sical writers have been adduced on this passage, but there is no analogy whatever between them. St. John, at the conclusion of the Apocalypse, sufficiently enables us to trace the ideas on this subject, and to connect them with others, which we discover among different people. To them, there were repeated allusions in the prophetic pages; and with the Jewish fictions, which branched from this metaphorical expression, the Targumin and later works of the nation abound. Hence proceeded the fable of the Sabbatic river, of which Buxtorf, and others, have given a copious account, and the various rivers of Paradise and Immortality, which are inseparable from oriental theology. The Mohammedans have introduced into the history of their, which Hafiz, in kasidahs identifies with the Paradisiacal Kawthar. are,

or Elijah one of his

His words

راهم مزن بوصف زلال خضر که من از جام شاه جرعة كش حوض كوثرم

But, here Christ combines the figurative allusion with his doctrine, of which we also have examples in the apocryphal books. Cf. Sirach, xv. 3. xxiv. 21. Baruch iii. 12. In Prov, x. 11. we retrace the same style: PTY "N PP, "the mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life," and from the extended use of this figurative expression, the Persian language admits knowledge and understanding among the various senses of ➡ (water) and interprets (literally, the water Khisr, i. e. the water of life,) as

*

- و آنرا کنایه از علم لدني a metaphor of the inti ؛ پیغمبران و جانشینان ایشان داشته اند.

mate knowledge which the prophets and their successors possessed."

In the sequel of the dialogue, our Saviour makes a clear distinction between the well, which the woman conceived to have been the gift of Jacob, and that doctrine, which he was desirous of inculcating under the metaphor of living, or rather life-giving water t. He continues the figure throughout, but so admixes it with the current idiom of the day, that his object could scarcely have been misapprehended. Thus, when he affirms, that

"whosoever drank of the water, which he would give to him would find it in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life," she necessarily must have understood, that he spoke of those who might become his disciples, and that such was the tendency of his precepts. For, "to become the disciple of a teacher," and "to drink his water," were equivalent terms; accordingly, the Targum explains, Isa. xii. 3. apm "and ye shall with joy receive a new doctrine," and Is. lv. 1. "Ho! to every one, who is desirous of learning! let him come and learn; and ye, who have no money, come, hear, and learn:—come, hear and learn without charge and without money, a doctrine better than wine and milk!" Therefore, whilst we may suppose our Saviour taking occasion from the place, where he found her, to correct the wild notions

אולפן חדת בחדוא :

,מעין השבת or the ,מעין העולם הבא of the day, concerning the

and the imagined sanctity of this particular well, he led her, as he pursued the metaphor, to a consideration of the completion of ancient prophecy in his person, and excited a desire in her to become more intimately acquainted with his doctrines.

Nor was this idiom exclusively Jewish for Suidas interprets διψάω by ἐπιθυμῶ, Hesychius by ἐπιποθῶ, and Alian. 1. x. c. 16. has the phrase, ἀκύειν αὐτῇ διψῶν. St. Basil speaks of διψώσαι ἀκόκι, which is in unison with the πεινῶντες καὶ διψῶντες δικαιοσύνην in St. Matthew. Both Greeks and Latins attributed a corresponding sense to sitis and fames, as we might shew by almost innumerable examples.

Christ's conversation with the woman about her husbands, shews the assertion in Kiddushin, f. 76. 1. to be authentic,

the Samaritans * כותים אין בקיאין בתורת קידושין וגרושין : .viz

or Cuthæans have no idea of the law of betrothings and divorces." Chrysostom says, τέστε γὰρ προτέρους ἅπαντας ἠριθμησε, καὶ τὸν νῦν κρυπτόμενον ἤλεγξε. From hence she argued to his prophetic character, and proceeded to institute an inquiry into the relative merits of the controversy between the Jews and the Samaritans. In Deut. xxvii. 4., where the Hebrew copies ready, the Samaritan reads

and they accuse the Jews of having made the alteration. From the circumstance of Jeroboam establishing the worship of the Apis, or Mnevis in Bethel, some writers (among whom is Al Aziz) have inferred, that he also erected the temple on Garizim, to withdraw the ten tribes from the national worship. Whatever was the cause which induced them to prefer this spot, it is evident, as Lightfoot contends, that they must have acknowledged the sanctity of Solomon's temple, to which the

tribes resorted before their secession from Judah and Benjamin : although it does not appear, (as he supposes) that the absence of the Shekinah, Urim and Thummim, &c. from the second temple, occasioned their disregard of the sanctuary on Mount Moriah; for, it is clear, from Ezra and Nehemiah, that their disaffection was antecedént to the existence of this temple. It probably originated in their national apostasy; and possibly, during the captivity of Judah, Garizim became the place of religious resort to the new occupants of Samaria, in consequence of which, their animosity was more violently directed against the re-establishment of Jerusalem, as the legal place of worship, calculated from long reminiscence to interfere with their holy spot.

The account of the Samaritans adoring the Divinity under the form of a dove, seems entirely to have originated in Jewish aspersions: thus, R. Nahhman informs us, that DT,

יונה מצאו להן בראש הר גריזים שהיו עובדין אותה

they found the image of a dove on the top of Mount Garizim, which they worshipped." (Hholin. f. 6. 1.) Our Saviour's accusation, at ver. 27. implies no such a thing: he simply refers to the errors in their religious services, without the designation of any particular error, and states, that salvation proceeds from the Jews, in consonance to the voice of prophecy, THEN confirmed by his ACTUAL advent as a Jew.

The 25th verse plainly shews, that the Samaritan woman understood him as alluding to himself; but, whilst he glanced as it were, at the rejection of the prophetic books by her nation, which restricted the Messiah to the tribe of Judah and house of David, which received, would have certified them, that salvation was of the Jews, he pointed at the errors in either system, and declared that hour Now to have arrived, in which God should be universally worshipped, as a Spirit, in spirit and in truth, without regard to either disputed sanctuary. Nor does Theophylact seem remote from the true sense of the word, when he writes: ἐπεὶ δὲ πολλοὶ δοκῶσι μὲν αὐτὸν προσκυνεῖν κατὰ ψυχὴν, ἐκ ὀρθὴν δὲ δόξαν περὶ αὐτῷ ἔχουσιν, ὡς οἱ ̓Αιρετικοί, διὰ τῦτο, προσέθηκε τὸ ἐν ἀληθείᾳ· δεῖ γὰρ καὶ ὅ μόνον κατὰ νῦν προσκυνεῖν τῷ Θεῷ ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀληθὴ δόξαν περὶ αὐτῇ ἔχείν. Thus,

צדקה and (קושטא Chaldaice) אמת we find in the Scriptures

and it is not improbable that ,תורת אמת היתה בפיהו : .6 .ii

used synonimously for true religion, whence we read in Mal.

our Saviour may have in some degree alluded to the force of this expression.

But, the Samaritan declares her belief of the promise of a

Messiah. It is true that she might have derived this knowledge from the Pentateuch; yet the fact is there so briefly expressed, that we must presume, she had more copious premises for her inference. The Jews have so vilified the Samaritans, that we know but little of the truth of their earlier history, and situated as near as they were to Jerusalem, and having boasted such splendid prophets as Elijah and Elishah, and having had a prophetic succession, as we argue from the history of Micaiah, we cannot for a moment conclude that the Jewish prophecies were utterly unknown to them, or that these great prophetic reformers were absolutely silent on the subject of this national expectation, although their predictions be not recorded in the Sacred Volume.

The only name under which the Messiah is mentioned in the Pentateuch is Shiloh: yet, the woman knew him under the name under which he is mentioned in the prophets. Procopius, on Deuteronomy, speaking of their opinions, does not say, that they rejected the prophets; his words are, rà Mwoéws μόνα δεχόμενοι τὰ τῶν Προφητῶν οὐ πολὺν ἐποιῦντο λόγον : they esteemed the books of Moses alone, as canonical, and set no great value on those of the Prophets, which manifestly intimates, that they were acquainted with them. That extraor dinary passage cited by Lightfoot, from Shabbath. f. 116. 1., which mentions the existence of all the Sacred Volume in the Assyrian character, in the possession of the "WD, is a strong collateral confirmation of the fact. In the Samaritan Epistles, translated by Schnurrer, we accordingly read, "auch haben wir ein buch Lieder und Gebete, und noch andre Bücher, die von DEN PROPHETEN DES HERRN geschrieben sind." In the subsequent Epistles, a continual mention is made of the prophets in connection with Garizim; and a vast expectation of the rise of another prophet like unto Moses, is every where expressed. From which collective circumstances, we have some grounds for arguing, that the Samaritans were not totally ignorant of the Jewish prophets; consequently, that the Samaritan woman's designation of the promised Redeemer, by the Jewish name, does not involve that difficulty which some critics have supposed.

The surprise of the disciples at our Saviour's conversation with her, has been repeatedly explained from Joma, f. 240. 2. where the Israelite is forbidden from talking with his own wife, much less with any other woman, in the street. Cf. Wetst. in loco. And, probably, the resort of improper persons to wells, as we have before shewn, may have increased their astonish

ment. In Nedarim, f. 20. 1. this is assigned as one reason of the Jewish injunction.

μήνον.

With few exceptions, the sequel is sufficiently perspicuous. Whether our Saviour in his discourse with his disciples alluded to the strange conceit of his countrymen respecting the feast expected at the advent of the Messiah, is too uncertain a matter for us to pretend to determine. A considerable dispute, however, has been agitated concerning the word TergaHeinsius, in Aristarcho, c. 20. conceived it to be that period in which the two D (the Passover and Pentecost) met, one of which he placed at the beginning, and the other at the end of the month. This does not fully explain the allusion. The sense is plainly, that there are four months between the sowing and reaping: thus, in Bava Meziah, f. 106. 2. half of Tisri, all of Marchesuan, and half of Kisleu is y, the seed-time half of Nisan, all of Jyar, and half of Sivan is p, the harvest, which renders the expression perfectly appropriate.

:

From thence, he went into Galilee; and here critics have discovered a difficulty in the reason assigned in our translation. "For Jesus himself testified, that a prophet hath no honour in his own country." This, as Galilee had been the place, where he had been educated, (as it stands in our version,) is totally irreconcileable with his journey thither. Some have attempted to remove it by the supposition, that he was speaking of Nazareth, not of Galilee, at large: we indeed find that he used this proverb at Nazareth, Luke iv. 24., but at the same time, we observe, that he actually went to Nazareth, (ver. 16.) therefore, this solution is false. It has, however, been felicitously resolved, by allowing to ', of which yàg is the Hellenistic substitute, the force of quoniam or quamvis, which it has been proved to bear in passages of the Old Testament. The Æthiopic and Persian use the common Dor,, but the Arabic, with more propriety, reads

شهد ان قد لان يسوع ,because, Jesus had already testified ، النبي لا يكرم في مدينتة

that a prophet has no honour in his own city."

Here Macknight places the history of St. John's imprisonment. To fix its chronological order in the actual course of events with an absolute precision, would be, perhaps, impossible; yet, as Jesus left Judea on account of more converts flocking to his disciples than to John,-from whence we argue John's continuance, at that period, in his ministry, and as Jesus has