CHAPTER 4 VER. 1. _And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan_, having been there baptized by John a little time before, and having _visibly_ received the Holy Spirit, whose fulness He had already obtained _invisibly_ in the first instant of His conception.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Tempted of the devil._ In the Greek _πειζαξόμενος_, suffering or sustaining temptation by the devil. See Commentary on Matthew 4:5.... [ Continue Reading ]
_ln a moment of time._ S. Ambrose says, "It is not so much the quickness of the view which is indicated, as the fleeting frailty of power which is expressed. For in a moment they all pass away. And often the honour of the world is gone ere it is come. For what can be lasting in the world when the wo... [ Continue Reading ]
_And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee_. In the Greek _ε̉ν δυνάμει_, in the power, strength, or force of the Spirit. Under a strong impulse of the Spirit, Jesus returned to Galilee. For the Holy Ghost was moving Him, and powerfully impelling Him to put forth at this time that sp... [ Continue Reading ]
_And there was delivered unto Him_ (by the attendant) _the book of the prophet Esaias_. This was done by the counsel and direction of God, that Jesus might show from Isaiah that He was the-Messiah described by that prophet. _And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written_... [ Continue Reading ]
_The Spirit of the Lord is upon me: because He hath anointed me._ The Holy Spirit, who was in Me from the beginning, descending upon Me here in the baptism which I have now received from John the Baptist, descending visibly in the form of a dove, while the voice of God the Father spoke forth in thun... [ Continue Reading ]
_To preach the acceptable year of the Lord_ the pleasing year in Hebrew, רצון מנת _scenat raston_; in the Septuagint _ε̉νιαυτὸν ε̉υδοκίας_, that is, as S. Jerome renders it, "the placable year," or, as others with propriety, "the year of the good pleasure," of divine benevolence and liberality, suc... [ Continue Reading ]
_And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on Him._ "That they might hear," says Euthymius, "how He interpreted what He had read." For already the fame of what He had said and done at Capernaum had been noised abroad everywhere, so that many held Him to be the Messiah; and th... [ Continue Reading ]
_And He began to say unto them, This day is this Scripture_ ("which has sounded," says Euthymius, and the Syriac version), _fulfilled in your ears._ This day is fulfilled in your hearing this prophecy of Isaiah, while you hear me preaching to you and to the rest of the poor of Galilee the year of fu... [ Continue Reading ]
_And all bare Him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son?_ "Words of grace," he calls them (1) gracious, beautiful, suave, and pleasant; (2) full of grace and the Holy Spirit; (3) efficacious to move and persuade; (4) ful... [ Continue Reading ]
_And He said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country_. Ye, 0 Nazarenes, despise Me as your fellow-townsman, and the son of a carpenter; wherefore you are unworthy that I should confer benefits upon you., Therefore (says the Interlinear), I work not among you, not because I... [ Continue Reading ]
_And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed saving Naaman the Syrian_, a foreigner and a Gentile. As Elisha, following his master Elias, did not prophecy to the Jews, his own people, but to foreigners, and did not therefore heal the lepers that w... [ Continue Reading ]
_But He passing through the midst of them went His way_. Maldonatus thinks that Christ here made Himself invisible, S. Ambrose and Bede that He changed their wills, so that they consented to let Him go. Others hold the better opinion that Christ turned away their imagination or their eyes, or suspen... [ Continue Reading ]