The Harmony Chronicle and Order of the New Testament, Part 1 · Section 14 – Section 18
SECTION XIV. JOHN Chap. III. All the Chapter. Nicodemus. The Disciples baptize in the Name of Iesus.
BEfore our Saviours departure from Ierusalem, Nicodemus one of the Judges of the great Sanhedrin cometh to him, and becometh his Disciple: for we cannot so properly look for a member of that great Council in any place as at Ierusalem. He had observed in his miracles, the dawning of the dayes of Messias, or the Kingdom of Heaven, but having but grosse and erronious apprehensions concerning the Kingdom of Heaven, or of the state of those dayes [as was the generall mistake of the Nation,] he is rectified about that matter, and is taught the great doctrines of regeneration and beleeving in Christ: Christ teaching regeneration by the spirit and Water, exalteth baptisme, and closely calleth to Nicodemus to be baptized. The Talmudish records make mention of a Nicodemus in these times, who had to do about waters, to provide sufficient for the people to drink at the festivals.
He is taught [against the great misprision of the Nation] that Messias should be a redeemer of the Gentiles as well as the Jews. The Jews in their common language, did title the Gentiles foreign, The Nations of the world. The earth they divided into foreign, The land of Israel, and out of the Land: and the people they parted into foreign and foreign Israel and the Nations of the world: The new Testament which followes their common language exceeding much, useth both these expressions very often, whereby to signifie the Gentiles: sometimes calling them those that are without, and sometimes the world. Nicodemus very readily understood the word in this common sense, when Christ sayes, God so loved the world, that he gave his Sonne. And he very well perceived that Christ contradicted in these his words, their common and uncharitable errour, which held, that the Messias should be a redeemer only to Israel [and those Gentiles only, that should be proselyted to their Judaisme,] but as for the rest of the Heathen he should confound and destroy them: Examples of this their proud uncharitablenesse might be produced by multitudes: let these two or three suffice. The Jerus. Talm. in Taanith fol. 64. col. 1. speaking of the coming of Messias saith, and produceth these words, Isa. 21.12. The morning cometh and also the night, It shall be the morning to Israel, but night to the Nations of the world. Midr. Till. on Psal. 2. The threshing is come, the straw they cast into the fire, the chaff into the winde, but preserve the wheat in the floor; and every one that sees it, takes it and kisses it: foreign So the Nations of the world say, the world was made for our sakes, but Israel say to them, Is it not written, But the people shall be as the burning of the lime kilne, But Israel in the time to come [foreign an expression whereby they commonly mean the times of the Messias] shall be left only, as it is said, The Lord shall lead him alone, and there shall be with him no strange god. Baal turim on Numb. 24.8. on those words, He shall eat up the Nations his enemies, and shall break their bones, observeth the letter foreign in one of the words to have a speciall mark upon it, signifying, saith he, that he should root out the seaven Nations [of the Canaanites] and in time to come [foreign] the other sixty three Nations, that is all the seventy Nations of the world. No, saith our Saviour, God loved the world or the Gentiles, and God sent not his Sonne Messias to condemn the world or the Gentiles, but that the world through him should be saved.
After this transaction with Nicodemus, Iesus departeth from Ierusalem into Iudea, and there he setteth his Disciples to baptize in his Name: that whereas Iohn had only baptized in the Name of Christ, and his baptized ones did not know who Christ was, now the Disciples baptize in the Name of Iesus of Nazareth, to evidence him to be the Christ into whose Name Iohn had baptized.
Iohn himself was baptizing still in Aenon in Galilee, having traversed Iudea upon the coasts of Iordan; and Peraea or beyond Iordan, and now come thither where presently his sunne is to set.
This Chapter contains the story of half a year and somewhat more, namely from the Passeover [if the conference with Nicodemus were at that time] till after the feast of Tabernacles: at which time it was a whole year since Christ was baptized, and a year and an half since Iohn began to baptize.
SECTION XV. LUKE Chap. III. Ver. 18, 19, 20. JOHN Imprisoned.
FRom the last verse of the preceding Section and forward, we hear no more of Iohn in any of the four Evangelists, till you finde him in prison. Therefore this portion in Luke, which giveth the story of his imprisonment, is very fitly and properly to be subjoyned to what precedeth: observe how aptly the first verse of this and the last of that do joyn together. Luke indeed hath used an anticipation here, laying down the story of Iohns imprisonment, before the story of Christs being baptized, because he would shew the effects of Iohns doctrine altogether. With Pharisees, Sadduces, Publicans, Souldiers, and the rest of the people, he found entertainment of his doctrine when he told them their faults, and taught them their duty; but when he reproved Herod, he would not be so compliant, but imprisoned him. The time of his commitment may be guessed, by what time it was that Christ slipped aside for his own safety upon the hearing how the case went with Iohn, which will appear to be about the middle of our November, and Iohn had begun to preach and baptize at spring was twelve monethmonth before, about some eighteen or nineteen moneths ago.
SECTION XVI. JOHN Chap. IV. All the Chapter. MATTH. Chap. IV. Ver. 12. CHRIST at Iacobs well: Converteth Samaritans: Healeth a sick person, &c.
CHRIST. XXXI CHRIST was in Iudea when Iohn was apprehended by Herod in Galilee. His pretended quarrell was the multitude of Iohns disciples, as dangerous for innovation: but the very true cause indeed was, his and Herodias spleen for Iohns plainnesse with them about their incest. The Pharisees at Ierusalem would soon hear what was become of Iohn their eye-sore, and what Herod laid to his charge, namely the dangerousnesse of his gathering so many disciples. Now our Saviour understanding that they looked upon him, as one that had more Disciples then Iohn, and so was in equall danger from them upon that account, he getteth out of Iudea out of their reach and goeth to Galilee. But was not Galilee within their reach too?
From ver. 35. may be computed the time of this journey into Galilee, namely when it was now four moneths to harvest; that is, to the Passeover, for from the second day in the Passeover week their Harvest began, Lev. 23.11, &c. And from this, there may be some reasonable conjecture concerning the time when Iohn was cast into prison. Christ was in Sychar field about the latter end of our November, when it was now four moneths to the Passeover, and he took that journey as soon as he understood of Iohns imprisonment, Mat. 4.12. He was now entred upon his one and thirtieth year of age.
When he cometh up into Galilee, he avoideth his own City Nazareth, ver. 44. because he knew he should finde no respect there in regard of the mean education that he had among them: but he goeth to Cana where he had done his first miracle; and from thence with a word of his mouth he healeth one sick at Capernaum. It was the sonne foreign, of one of the Kings party, namely of old Herods, to whom divers of the eminent and learned of the Jews had gone to be his servants, to the distast of others, and probably in a reluctancy to their own principles, but overcome with court-interests, Iuchasin fol. 19.
SECTION XVII. LUKE Chap. IV. from Ver. 14. to Ver. 31. MARK Chap. I. Ver. 14. CHRIST Preaching in Nazaret Synagogue is in danger of his life.
THus is CHRIST come up to Galilee again from Ierusalem, and out of Iudea where he had staid a good space. The Reader may observe here what a chasma [if I may so call it] there is in the story of Luke, who hath stepped from the story of Christs temptation in the wildernesse, to this his coming to Galilee, and hath laid nothing between, whereas there was a whole years history intercurrent; and so we observed such another Chap. 2.39.
At his first coming up into Galilee in this voyage, he avoideth his own Town Nazareth, because he knew a Prophet hath no honour in his own Country, but now having gone up and down the country some space, and a renown being gone of him all over those parts, he cometh at last to see what entertainment he can finde in his own Town. There he is admitted [as a member of that Synagogue] to be Maphtir, or publike reader of the second Lesson in the Prophets for that day. But preaching upon what he had read, and hinting the calling of the Gentiles, from the dealing of Elias and Elisha with some Heathens, and withall pinching close upon the wickednesse of Nazaret by that comparison, he is in danger of his life, but delivers himself in some miraculous manner.
He preacheth thus in the Synagogues, in the authority and demonstration of a Prophet, and as he evidenced that authority elsewhere by his miracles, so doth he here in Nazaret, by reading of the Lesson in the Prophet, which being to be read in the originall Hebrew, which Language was now lost among them and only attained to by study, he sheweth his Propheticall spirit in this skill in the language, having had no education to such a purpose. The reader in the Law and Prophets both, had an Interpreter, that rendred what was read out of the Hebrew text into the vulgar language, and the Interpreter sometime took liberty to paraphrase upon the Text [as the Chaldee Paraphrast had done, especially upon the Prophets,] and kept not alwayes verbatim to it. The Ierusalem Gomarists give an instance of such a thing, in Sanhedr. fol. 20. col. 3. Ioseph the Maonite interpreted in the Synagogue in Tiberias these words, Hear ye this all ye people, Why do not ye labour in the Law? have not I given the Sanhedrin to you for a gift? And hearken O house of Israel, Why do you not give the Sanhedrin the gift I appointed you at Sinai? And hearken O house of the King, for the judgement is to you; I speak it to you, but the judgement is to the Priests: I will come and sit with them in judgement, and end and destroy them out of this world. So Christ in reading the Lesson out of the Prophet, becomes his own Interpreter and Paraphrast both.
SECTION XVIII. MATTH. Chap. IV. Ver. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. MARK Chap. I. Ver. 14, 15. CHRIST at Capernaum in the coasts of Zebulon and Nepthali, &c.
WHereas Matthew in the beginning of this Section, telleth that Christ left Nazareth, Luke in the end of the preceding, shewes the reason why, namely because he was in hazard of his life there, and so the connexion is made plain.
In the coasts of Zebulon and Nepthali captivity had first begun, 2 King. 15.29. and there Christ first beginneth, more publikely and evidently to preach the neer approach of the Kingdom of Heaven and redemption. In the first plantation of the Land after the captivity, Galilee escaped from being Samaritan, and was reserved for this happy priviledge, of being the first scene of Christs preaching the Gospel. And as that country was inhabited by a good part of the ten Tribes before their captity, so upon the return out of Babel in the times of Zorobabel and Ezra, it may well be held to have been planted with some of the ten Tribes again. For 1. Observe in Ezra 1. that there is a Proclamation from Cyrus, that any of the blood of the Jews wheresoever within his dominions, should have liberty to go up to Ierusalem, ver. 3, 4, 5. Now undoudtedly the ten Tribes were then residing within his dominions, and it is harsh to conceive that they had all so far utterly forgot God and their country, as none of them to desire to go to their own Land again when permitted. 2. There is a summa totalis in Ezra 2. of fourty two thousand, three hundred and threescore, ver. 64. that returned out of captivity upon that Proclamation, and there are the number of severall families reckoned, as making up that summe: whereas if the totall of these particulars be summed up, it reacheth not, by sixteen thousond or thereabout, to that number of fourty two thousand, three hundred and threescore. Where then must we finde those sixteen thousand, since they arise not in the number of the families there named? The families there named are of Iuda and Benjamin, and then certainly those sixteen thousand can hardly be imagined any other then o… the ten Tribes. And 3. Whereas it is apparent that the returned of Iuda and Benjamin planted Iudaea, whom can we imagin, but some of the ten Tribes to have planted Galilee? And hence their difference in language from the Jews of Iudaea, and in severall customs. And hence the reducing of some after the captivity, to the line of some of the ten Tribes: as Hannah to the Tribe of Asher, Luk. 2.36. Ben Cobisin of the line of Ahab. Talm. Jerus. in Taanith fol. 68. col. 1.
And here is the first returning of the ten Tribes, to be supposed, and it carrieth fair probability, that the most of the twelve Apostles, and many of the rest of the Disciples that were of Christs most constant retinue, were of the progeny of some of the ten Tribes returned.