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THE FULFILMENT OF PROPHECY IN THE BETRAYAL OF CHRIST."

DURING his lifetime, Jesus, the Holy One, having to do with sinners, had been exposed to suffering, and he, the Son of God, had experienced the assaults of evil to which human nature is subject. But he had also been able to make a stand against sinners, and to withdraw himself from the assaults of evil, so far as this comported with the fulfilment of his calling. Nevertheless, at last his calling itself required that he should deliver himself up to sinners, and allow the evil to pass over him uncontrolled. it was necessary that the Son of Man should be betrayed into the hands of men; to the rulers of the Jewish people, that they might condemn him to death, and to the Gentile government that it might execute upon him this capital sentence.

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This his passion began after he had celebrated along with his disciples that passover-meal to which he had come in public procession to Jerusalem. He knew what awaited him, and felt it in all its severity. His anguish in the prospect broke out in prayer and supplications with strong crying and tears to him who was able to save him from death.' d But since amidst all his anguish he suffered his Father's will to remain His will, he arose therefrom at the moment when his passion was to begin, strong in spirit and strengthened in the flesh by angelic agency, to surrender himself up to the enemies of his life. Two proofs of power he still gave to those who came to seize him: his word cast them to the ground that they might know that he had power either to give himself up

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a Translated from Dr. Hofmann's Weissagung und Erfüllung.' Dr. Hofmann is the acknowledged head of the modern historical school of German theologians, which is rapidly rising to a position of commanding influence and authority. It is denominated the historical school from its leading conception of revelation as history, Dr. Beck, author of an invaluable work on biblical psychology, and Dr. Baumgarten, who has recently presented the Church of Christ with the first really satisfactory commentary ever written upon that most neglected portion of the Word of God, the Acts of the Apostles, are among the chief ornaments of the same important school. It is a high gratification to be able to add that this new school is as staunch in its maintenance of a full-orbed evangelical Christianity, as it is rich in scientific equipment, and profound and fearless in its researches into truth. Dr. Hofmann's latest work is entitled 'Die Schriftbeweis,' or 'The Theory of Scripture Proof,' the first volume of which was published a few months since. It is a most masterly performance, and is rightly characterised in an able review of the work written by Dr. Auberten, in the 'Studien und Kritiken,' as having broken entirely new ground on this important subject, and opened up a path which Protestant theologians must more and more frequent if they would solidly demonstrate the great truths of the Reformation.' b Matt. xvii. 22, 23. c Matt. xx. 18, 19. d Heb. v. 7. e Luke xxii. 43.

VOL. V.-NO. IX.

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or to destroy them; and his hand healed the wound which Peter had inflicted on one of their number, that they might see that he would not be protected by his adherents with the sword.g

He who betrayed, apprehended, and delivered him up was one of the Twelve, and so one of those by whose means he had willed to gather together the community of the kingdom of heaven, and to whom by word and deed he had disclosed its mysteries. But the magistracy of the Jewish people, which had received from God the calling to govern the Israelitish community, and to watch over and train it for the kingdom of heaven, was the party causing him to be delivered over to itself by means of this traitor. These two, Judas and Caiaphas, belong together, and in conjunction represent the Jewish people which gave Jesus the Christ into the power of the Gentiles. For the Jews not merely did not receive Jesus, but even fell away from him after they had acknowledged him to be the Messiah. Caiaphas the high priest led the way in the former respect; Judas the apostle led the way in the latter. To the full bitterness of the passion of Jesus both these things were essential, viz., persecution on the part of him who should have relinquished to him the government of the ancient Israel, and treason on the part of him who had been called by himself to a participation in the government of the new Israel.'i

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It happened to the second David just as to the first whom Saul persecuted and Ahithophel betrayed, save that, as was natural, what was separated by an interval in the case of the first, occurred together in the case of the second, that nothing might be wanting to the one great passion of Jesus. Therefore Jesus said, as he sat with the Twelve at the Paschal supper, that the Scripture must needs be fulfilled, ὁ τρώγων, κ. τ. λ. k course of thought in the Psalm in which these words occur presents itself to us as follows. The man who has consideration for the poor will be holpen by Jehovah when he himself is in need, and will be assisted to rise again when he is cast down to the ground. Now since David can accord to himself such a testimony, that he has not slighted the poor, but has fulfilled the duty of a king towards them," he says confidently, Jehovah, regard it not that I have sinned, but heal my wounded soul.' Let his enemies take up evil speeches concerning him, full of eagerness for his death; let them say ever so confidently, now that he lieth he shall rise up no more: though even one most trusted by him has lifted up his foot against him to trample him down, nevertheless Jehovah will raise him up again, and place him in a position to requite his enemies. Thus runs the

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John xviii. 6. i Matt. xix. 28.

8 Comp. John xviii. 36. h Matt. xxvi. 14; xxvii. 1-10.
k John xiii. 18. m Ps. xli. 10. n
Comp. Ps. Ixxii. 12-13.

psalm, to deny David's authorship of which, or to explain it of a sick person, is equally unreasonable. The worst treatment the poet meets with is that some one is ready to trample upon him,

accordingly one אִישׁ שְׁלוֹמִי אֲשֶׁר בָּטַחְתִּי בוֹ אוֹכֵל לַחְמִי whom he calls

in whom he believed he possessed his surest safeguard, one to whom he had accorded his entire confidence, his table-companion. With the words n is David does not recal the benefits which this person had received, but the great intimacy which had subsisted between the two. Now since we know that David had placed such reliance upon Ahithophel, P we are given to understand by these words this betrayer of his royal friend. This, therefore, is the Scripture, spoken by the Holy Ghost through the mouth of David, of which Jesus knew then that it must be fulfilled," and of which Peter afterwards said that it had been fulfilled.

What fruit the Jewish people had to expect from the crime committed, when its rulers instigated the betrayal of Jesus, and Judas the apostle betrayed him, we see from what became of the wages of the treason, which the former paid and the latter received. God brought it about that the traitor, seized with remorse in consequence of the condemnation of Jesus, gave back to the rulers the hire for which he had delivered an innocent man to death, and when these refused it, cast it down in the Temple, in order to give it to God and to be quit of it; and that the rulers, since they deemed the money for which they had caused Jesus to be betrayed to themselves, unholy, took it out of the Temple, and bought with it the same parcel of ground of which Jeremiah had prophesied, viz., that Jerusalem should be made like that place as a punishment for its being unclean, as that was. That field, bought with the traitor's money, he might claim as his property; but despair had driven him to lay violent hands on himself, so the rulers set it apart as a burial-place for such strangers as should die in Jerusalem. For the money with which the Jewish rulers had caused the Saviour of Israel to be betrayed to themselves, and which came into their hands again, since the traitor cast it from him into a public place-the place of Divine worship-they acquired the potter's field as public property, and thereby called down upon Jerusalem the curse which Jeremiah had pronounced upon that place.

The whole stress lies upon the two places-the Temple, or, as is naturally meant, the temple-court into which Judas cast from him the thirty pieces of silver, and the potter's field which the San

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hedrim secured to itself therewith. If Judas would no longer retain the money to which cleaved the curse for blood innocently shed, and the rulers who had instigated him to the crime would not receive it back from him, it might naturally occur to him to surrender it to the heavenly king of his people, who could forgive him his crime. Only this was not the right expiation, but a blind action of despair, just as blind as his destroying himself, when he might have found in that blood innocently shed the ransom of his soul. That accursed money belonged not to God, but either to the traitor or to the instigators of the treason. Therefore God brought to pass that the thought struck the latter that the price of a betrayed human life could with no more propriety be put into the offertory than any other infamous money;" and they could think of nothing on which it could be more suitably expended than the άypòs Toũ nɛρauέws, which was already adjudged unclean, for a purpose corresponding to the uncleanness of the locality. God, the proprietor of the Temple, had taken to Himself the price of the treason, and then presented it to the high-priest of his people to expend the same in the purchase of the potter's field.

Ὁ ἀγρὸς τοῦ κεραμέως does not mean the field of that wellknown potter,' but the well-known potter's field of Scripture, i. e. of Jeremiah's prophecy; for the Old Testament text cited [in Matthew] already speaks of it under the same name. If our remark is correct, that in reference to the fulfilment of the Scripture which Matthew here points out, the whole stress lies on the place of which he has made mention, we may expect the Old Testament text (i. e. according to the Evangelist, a text of Jeremiah) to treat of the very same place. Now we find the prophet Jeremiah in the 19th chapter of his book standing in a place near the pottery gate, which place belongs to the valley of Benhinnom, and is called Tophet. Jehovah had commanded him to go forth with an earthen pitcher, accompanied by the elders and priests to that valley, or, to define the direction more strictly, to the place where the entry of the pottery-gate was situate. For unless it had been intended to indicate more accurately by the words n nip, the spot in the valley of Ben-hinnom, any mention of the position of the valley would have been quite superfluous. Moreover, in other places in nne is wont to be used only where the place inside the gate, or next to the gate, is to be denoted. We must accordingly understand those words as

וְיָצָאתָ אֶל־נָא בֶן־הִנָּם אֶל־הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר פָּתַח שַׁעַר though it were written

anion; with which verse 6 very well agrees, where the place in

" Deut. xxiii. 19. * Comp. Num. xix. 16. y Paulus, Fritzsche in loc. e. g., Josh. xx. 4; Judg. ix. 35. Comp. Gen. xxxv. 13, 14.

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which Jeremiah stationed himself in consequence of that divine command, is called npn and the valley of Ben-hinnom, ¿. e. in the narrower sense nn, and in the wider sense the valley of Benhinnom.

Accordingly Jeremiah, standing close by the pottery-gate, broke that earthen pitcher, and prophesied à propos of this action, first, that God would break in pieces people and city, and that men should bury in Tophet for want of room to bestow the carcases in; and, secondly, that the city should become as Tophet and its houses, D'spun ngan dippe. Two questions here arise: for what reason was it necessary that the prophet should perform that symbolical action precisely in that place, and how can n be construed with the plural pen? Two apparently very different questions, the answers to which however may possibly well nigh coincide, that is, supposing the name of the place to bear upon its nature, and upon its being chosen for that prophetic action. The prophet himself seems to furnish a reply to the first question, by calling to mind the blood of the innocents, which was plentifully shed in this place, and the worship of Moloch, which was celebrated there with the burning of children. But upon a closer inspection, the reference of nin Dipen in verse 4 to Tophet

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in הִנְנִי מֵבִיא רָעָה עַל־הַמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה does not accord well with the words

the third verse; since here Jerusalem in its entire extent must necessarily be meant. And in spite of first appearances, even the mention of the numerous executions, of which we find no trace elsewhere that they were wont to take place precisely in this locality, Tophet, leads to just the same result. Only the burning of children in honour of Moloch can be said with certainty to have been practised in this place.

Why now had Jeremiah to perform his prophetic action precisely there? Was it because in that very spot the worship of Moloch had craved its victims? But in that case the symbol would not have said that Jerusalem should be destroyed, but would only have indicated why this should happen; whereas the prophet says Jehovah will make this city non. Was it, then, because Josiah had made the place unclean? For in order to render it impossible to offer there to Moloch in future this king had made Tophet an unclean place, probably by strewing around the bones of the dead. In this way we should certainly explain why nonn is accompanied by the particularizing adjunct D, where the prophet says that all the houses of Jerusalem in which idolatry

b Comp. 2 Kings xxi. 16.

d Comp. 2 Kings xxiii. 10.

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Comp. Jer. vii. 31; xxxii. 35.

e See 2 Kings xxiii. 14-16.

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