PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION.

* *

17

Says Prof. J. A. Ernesti: "There is in fact but one and the same method of interpretation common to all books whatever be their subject. And the same grammatical principles and precepts, ought to be the common guide in the interpretation of all. Theologians are right, therefore, when they affirm the literal sense, or that which is derived from the knowledge of words, to be the only true one; for that mystical sense, which indeed is incorrectly called a sense, belongs altogether to the thing and not to the words."*

Says the learned Vitringa: "We must never depart from the literal meaning of the subject mentioned in its own appropriate name, if all or its principal attributes square with the subject of the prophecy-an unerring canon, he adds, and of great use."t

Says Martin Luther: "That which I have so often insisted on elsewhere, I here once more repeat, viz.: that the Christian should direct his first efforts toward understanding the literal sense (as it is called) of Scripture, which alone is the substance of faith and of Christian theology. * The allegorical sense is commonly uncertain and by no means safe to build our faith upon: for it usually depends on human opinion and conjecture only, on which if a man lean, he will find it no better than the Egyptian reed. Therefore Origen, Jerome, and similar of the fathers are to be avoided with the whole of that Alexandrian school which, according to Eusebius and Jerome, formerly abounded in this species. of interpretation. For later writers unhappily following their too much praised and prevailing example, it has come to pass that men make just what they please of the Scriptures, until some accommodate the word of God to the most extravagant absurdities; and, as Jerome complains of his own times, they extract a sense from Scripture repugnant

*Biblical Repertory, Vol. iii., pp. 125, 131.

† Doctrine of Prophetic Types. 1716.

to its meaning of which offence, however, Jerome himself was also guilty."*

Says Rosenmuller: "All ingenuous and unprejudiced persons will grant me this position, that there is no method of removing difficulties more secure than that of an accurate interpretation derived from the words of the texts themselves, and from their true and legitimate meaning, and depending upon no hypothesis !"†

Says Hooker: "I hold it for a most infallible rule in expositions of sacred Scripture, that when a literal construction will stand, the farthest from the letter is commonly the worst. There is nothing more dangerous and delusive than that art, which changes the meaning of words, as alchemy doth or would the substance of metals; making of anything what it listeth, and bringing in the end all truth to nothing." Dr. John Pye Smith defines the literal sense as "The common rule of all rational interpretation, viz.: the sense afforded by a cautious and critical examination of the terms of the passage, and an impartial construction of the whole sentence, according to the known usage of the language and the writer."

Such is the system adopted in this volume, it being regarded as the only safe principle of interpreting the Bible.

* Annotations on Deut. Cap. i., Fol. 55.

+ Cox's Immanuel Enthroned, p. 70.

Scripture Testimony to the Messiah. Vol. 1, p. 214.

CHAPTER II.

UNIVERSAL TRADITIONARY TESTIMONY.

HEBREW CHURCH ON THE FIRST RESURRECTION.

"And many from out of the sleepers in the dust of the earth shall awake: these (shall be) to ererlasting life, and those (shall be) to everlasting contempt." Dan. 12: 2.

THE

Prof. Bush's Translation.

HE Hebrew church and her inspired prophets obviously taught a prior resurrection of the just. The common version of Daniel 12: 2, reads, "And many of," &c. Dr. Hody justly argues that if many, standing alone, could signify all, many of could not, and he adds, "Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth cannot be said to be all they that sleep in the dust. Many of does plainly except some." Prof. Whiting says: "There is an obscurity in this passage, produced by an improper rendering of the Hebrew words, 'ailleh-weailleh.' They are translated in this instance, some-and some.' Now, the phrase, composed of the pronoun ailleh, with the conjunction waw (and) joined to ailleh, is the proper expression for these and those." He then translates the verse thus: "And many from the sleepers of the dust of the ground shall awake, these to everlasting life, and those to reproaches and everlasting abhorrence." Prof. Bush renders it "these and those," and says: "The awaking is evidently predicted of the many and not of the whole; consequently, the 'these' in the one case must be

* "Anastasis," p. 230.

20 HEBREW CHURCH ON THE FIRST RESURRECTION.

understood of the class that awakes, and the 'these' in the other of that which remains asleep."* Rev. Edward Winthrop translates the words: "And many from out of the sleepers of the dust," &c. And the learned lexicographer, Gesenius, testifies that the Hebrew word thus rendered "designates a part taken out of the whole." This beautifully harmonizes with the first resurrection of Rev. 20th, and as it gives the true meaning of the original, we need not wonder at the pre-millennial faith of the Hebrew church.

Prof. Stuart remarks, "That the great mass of Jewish Rabbins have believed, and taught the doctrine of the resurrection of the just, in the days of the Messiah's development, there can be no doubt on the part of him who has made any considerable investigation of this matter. The specific limitation of this to the commencement of the millennium, seems to be peculiar to John. No one must understand me, however, as appealing to Rabbinic authority in order to establish the doctrine of a first resurrection. All that I design to accomplish by such an appeal is, to show that such a doctrine was not a strange one to the Jews."

Says Rev. J. W. Brooks, "The opinions of the orthodox Jewish writers have been cast aside, and confounded with the rubbish of anti-Christian Rabbins; as if, because a man were an Israelite, he could not possibly have been guided into the truth of God. There are various traditions of the early Jewish church which are entitled to attention from the general respect shown to them in all ages, though they cannot be urged in the light of direct testimony."§

With Dr. Duffield we would say, "These traditions we do not quote as authority, but as historical evidence of what the views and expectations of the church were during the

* Valley of Vision; p. 50.

† Letters on Prophecy, p. 90. Commentary on the Apocalypse, vol. 1, p. 177. Brooks on Prophecy.

JEWISH RABBIS.-FIRST RESURRECTION.

21

period that elapsed from the captivity to the coming of Christ.

The millennium John predicts, is exactly coincident in its leading features, with the expectations of the pious Jews before the coming of Christ."*

We gather the following Rabbinic testimonies from the Commentaries of Dr. Clarke, Scott, Prof. Stuart, the works of Mede, Bishop Newton, and others, as they were by them extracted from the Jewish Targums and Talmuds, together with the book of Zohar, a production of the early ages of Christianity, Maimonides and other Jewish authors.

The Jerusalem Targum, or Paraphrase of the Law, written A. D. 300, on Gen. 49: 10, says: "The King Christ shall come whose is the kingdom, and all nations shall be subject to him."

The Babylonian Targum, written A. D. 500, on the same passage reads: "Messiah shall come whose is the kingdom, and him shall the nations serve."

Rabbi Eliezar the Great, applies Hosea 14: 8, to the pious Jews who would die without seeing the glory of the Lord, paraphrasing it thus: "As I live, saith Jehovah, I will raise you up in the time to come, in the resurrection of the dead, and I will gather you with all Israel." Capitula, c. 34.

Rabbi Gamaliel, the preceptor of St. Paul, was asked by the Sadducees whence he could prove that God would raise the dead, and he finally silenced them on the authority of Deut. 11: 21. "Which land the Lord moreover sware he would give to your fathers." The Rabbi argued, as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had it not, and God cannot lie, therefore they must be raised from the dead to inherit it.† Christ's argument in Luke 21, is substantially the same.

* Duffield on the Prophecies, pp. 186, 190.

† Brooks on Prophecy, p. 33.