5 (return)
[ It has been thought the
number of Paul and his companions on ship-board, Acts 27:38, which are 276
in our copies, are too many; whereas we find here, that Josephus and his
companions, a very few years after the other, were about 600.]
6 (return)
[ See Jewish War, B. II. ch.
18. sect. 3.]
7 (return)
[ The Jews might collect this
unlawfulness of fighting against their brethren from that law of Moses,
Leviticus 19:16, "Thou shalt not stand against the blood of thy neighbor;"
and that, ver. 17, "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the
children of thy people; but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself;" as
well as from many other places in the Pentateuch and Prophets. See Antiq.
B. VIII. ch. 8. sect. 3.]
8 (return)
[ That this Herod Agrippa,
the father, was of old called a Great King, as here, appears by his coins
still remaining; to which Havercamp refers us.]
9 (return)
[ The famous Jewish numbers
of twelve and seventy are here remarkable.]
10 (return)
[ Our Josephus shows, both
here and every where, that he was a most religious person, and one that
had a deep sense of God and his providence upon his mind, and ascribed all
his numerous and wonderful escapes and preservations, in times of danger,
to God's blessing him, and taking care of him, and this on account of his
acts of piety, justice, humanity, and charity, to the Jews his brethren.]
11 (return)
[ Josephus's opinion is
here well worth noting:— That every one is to be permitted to
worship God according to his own conscience, and is not to be compelled in
matters of religion: as one may here observe, on the contrary, that the
rest of the Jews were still for obliging all those who married Jewesses to
be circumcised, and become Jews, and were ready to destroy all that would
not submit to do so. See sect. 31, and Luke 11:54.]
12 (return)
[ How Josephus could say
here that the Jewish laws forbade them to "spoil even their enemies,"
while yet, a little before his time, our Savior had mentioned it as then a
current maxim with them, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine
enemy," Matthew 5:43, is worth our inquiry. I take it that Josephus,
having been now for many years an Ebionite Christian, had learned this
interpretation of the law of Moses from Christ, whom he owned for the true
Melah, as it follows in the succeeding verses, which, though he might not
read in St. Matthew's Gospel, yet might he have read much the same
exposition in their own Ebionite or Nazarene Gospel itself; of which
improvements made by Josephus, after he was become a Christian, we have
already had several examples in this his life, sect. 3, 13, 15, 19, 21,
23, and shall have many more therein before its conclusion, as well as we
have them elsewhere in all his later writings.]
13 (return)
[ Here we may observe the
vulgar Jewish notion of witchcraft, but that our Josephus was too wise to
give any countenance to it.]
14 (return)
[ In this section, as well
as in the 18 and 33. those small vessels that sailed on the sea of
Galilee, are called by Josephus, i.e. plainly ships; so that we need not
wander at our evangelists, who still call them ships; nor ought we to
render them boats, as some do, Their number was in all 230, as we learn
from our author elsewhere. Jewish War. B. II. ch. 21. sect. 8.]
15 (return)
[ Part of these
fortifications on Mount Tabor may be those still remaining, and which were
seen lately by Mr. Maundrel. See his Travels, p. 112.]
16 (return)
[ This Gamaliel may be the
very same that is mentioned by the rabbins in the Mishna, in Juchasin, and
in Porta Mosis, as is observed in the Latin notes. He might be also that
Gamaliel II., whose grandfather was Gamaliel I., who is mentioned in Acts
5:34, and at whose feet St. Paul was brought up, Acts 22:3. See Prid. at
the year 449.]
17 (return)
[ This Jonathan is also
taken notice of in the Latin notes, as the same that is mentioned by the
rabbins in Porta Mosis.]
18 (return)
[ This I take to be the
first of Josephus's remarkable or divine dreams, which were predictive of
the great things that afterwards came to pass; of which see more in the
note on Antiq. B. III. ch. 8. sect. 9. The other is in the War, B. III.
ch. 8. sect. 3, 9.]
19 (return)
[ Josephus's directions to
his soldiers here are much the same that John the Baptist gave, Luke 3:14,
"Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and be content with
your wages." Whence Dr. Hudson confirms this conjecture, that Josephus, in
some things, was, even now, a follower of John the Baptist, which is no
way improbable. See the note on sect. 2.]
20 (return)
[ We here learn the
practice of the Jews, in the days of Josephus, to inquire into the
characters of witnesses before they were admitted; and that their number
ought to be three, or two at the least, also exactly as in the law of
Moses, and in the Apostolical Constitutions, B. II. ch. 37. See Horeb
Covenant Revived, page 97, 98.]
21 (return)
[ This appeal to the whole
body of the Galileans by Josephus, and the testimony they gave him of
integrity in his conduct as their governor, is very like that appeal and
testimony in the case of the prophet Samuel, 1 Samuel 12:1-5, and perhaps
was done by Josephus in imitation of him.]
22 (return)
[ It is worth noting here,
that there was now a great Proseucha, or place of prayer, in the city of
Tiberias itself, though such Proseucha used to be out of cities, as the
synagogues were within them. Of them, see Le Moyne on Polycarp's Epistle,
page 76. It is also worth our remark, that the Jews, in the days of
Josephus, used to dine at the sixth hour, or noon; and that in obedience
to their notions of the law of Moses also.]
23 (return)
[ One may observe here,
that this lay Pharisee, Ananias, is we have seen he was, sect. 39, took
upon him to appoint a fast at Tiberias, and was obeyed; though indeed it
was not out of religion, but knavish policy.]
24 (return)
[ The character of this
history of Justus of Tiberias, the rival of our Josephus, which is now
lost, with its only remaining fragment, are given us by a very able
critic, Photius, who read that history. It is in the 33rd code of his
Bibliotheca, and runs thus: "I have read [says Photius] the chronology of
Justus of Tiberias, whose title is this, [Footnote The Chronology of] the
Kings of Judah which succeeded one another. This [Justus] came out of the
city of Tiberias in Galilee. He begins his history from Moses, and ends it
not till the death of Agrippa, the seventh [ruler] of the family of Herod,
and the last king of the Jews; who took the government under Claudius, had
it augmented under Nero, and still more augmented by Vespasian. He died in
the third year of Trajan, where also his history ends. He is very concise
in his language, and slightly passes over those affairs that were most
necessary to be insisted on; and being under the Jewish prejudices, as
indeed he was himself also a Jew by birth, he makes not the least mention
of the appearance of Christ, or what things happened to him, or of the
wonderful works that he did. He was the son of a certain Jew, whose name
was Pistus. He was a man, as he is described by Josephus, of a most
profligate character; a slave both to money and to pleasures. In public
affairs he was opposite to Josephus; and it is related, that he laid many
plots against him; but that Josephus, though he had his enemy frequently
under his power, did only reproach him in words, and so let him go without
further punishment. He says also, that the history which this man wrote
is, for the main, fabulous, and chiefly as to those parts where he
describes the Roman war with the Jews, and the taking of Jerusalem."]
25 (return)
[ Here Josephus, a priest,
honestly confesses that he did that at the command of Vespasian, which he
had before told us was not lawful for a priest to do by the law of Moses,
Antiq. B. III. ch. 12. sect. 2. I mean, the taking a captive woman to
wife. See also Against Apion, B. I. sect. 7. But he seems to have been
quickly sensible that his compliance with the commands of an emperor would
not excuse him, for he soon put her away, as Reland justly observes here.]
28 (return)
[ Of this Epaphroditus, see
the note on the Preface to the Antiquities.]
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