ταῦτα πάντα ἐφύλαξα. This is a better reading than ἐφυλαξάμην. φυλάσσεσθαι in the sense of sibi custodire legem is common in the LXX[327], but not in classical Greek. There seems to have been an accent of extreme surprise in his reply. ‘You bid me not be a thief, adulterer, murderer! For whom do you take me? I am no criminal. These I kept since I was a child.’ And then he added, “What lack I yet?” (Matthew 19:20).—Here, again, the Gospel is true to the letter in its picture of a Pharisaic Rabbi. Thus the Talmud describes one of the classes of Pharisees as the tell-me-something-more-to-do-and-I-will-do-it Pharisee; and when R. Chaninah was dying he said to the Angel of Death, “Go and fetch me the Book of the Law, and see whether there is anything in it which I have not kept.”

[327] LXX. Septuagint.

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Old Testament