Exercitations upon the Gospel of St. John

To the Right Honourable

Sir Orlando Bridegeman;

Knight and Baronet;

Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England,

And

One of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy-Council.

My Lord,

Let me bespeak you in the words of Orosius to St. Austin: "I have obeyed your commands (my most honoured lord); I wish I could say, to as much purpose as I have done it willingly: but I satisfy myself with the bare testimony of my obedience, wherein my will and endeavour is at least seen."

Such is your lordship's value for the Holy Scriptures, such hath been your care to promote and encourage the explication of them for the benefit of others, that you have not disdained my poor endeavours of this kind; animating me to a progress in what I have begun, not only with bare entreaties, but with the additions of your lordship's counsel, assistance, patronage, and bounty.

I should be the most stupid amongst men, if such kind and benign encouragements should not inflame me to attempt something, wherein at least I may give your lordship some specimen, not only of my obedience, but gratitude.

I confess myself, by I know not what kind of genius, warmly carried out towards these kind of studies, than which nothing can to me be more delightsome and satisfactory. But when it pleases your lordship both to add such sails to my little vessel, and also fill those sails with such gales of your favour, I still the more pleasingly engage myself, having not only the conscience of my own duty, but an ambition of serving your lordship, and approving myself grateful to quicken me to it.

Under your lordship's wings, do these worthless labours of mine adventure abroad; alas! How much below your patronage, short of your worth, and indeed of my own undertaking; the thin and slender product of a plentiful watering, aiming at great things but trifling in the performance.

I took, I confess, a high flight, when I attempted the explication of this evangelist; but how weak and languid I have proved, (besides that the thing itself speaks sufficiently,) there shall be none readier to accuse, than I to condemn myself. Let then the reader spare his censure, for I will load myself with a shameful acknowledgment, that I have adventured in things too high for me: and when he sees this, perhaps he will forgive me undertaking so difficult a task, wherein my design hath been only to be useful: nay, perhaps pity me if I cannot indeed attain at what I would. But if he will neither forgive nor pity, but still carp and censure me, let him make the experiment upon this evangelist himself; and see if he also may not step as short as I have done.

My lord, I have this comfort however, that I have not been idle: I had rather puzzle myself with hard and knotty inquiries, than wear out my time in either doing nothing or trivially. Nor can I reproach myself that I have made this research into this sacred volume through unwarrantable curiosity, but out of humble sincere zeal of mind, both to learn what I can myself, and teach others; offering, I hope, nothing that is noxious, and sometimes that that may profit.

But, my lord, that which is my principal encouragement is, the patronage and candour of so great a man, who I cannot but hope will accept this small trifling gift with a gentle and easy aspect, from the frequent experiment I have already made. But I must recall that rash word gift, when all that I can offer to your lordship is absolute debt: and alas! How poor a paymaster does your lordship find of me! A few sorry scribblings for great and substantial kindnesses not to be reckoned up. Yet such they are, that bring along with them all the returns of thanks that I am able to make. And since I have nothing else, may the great God of heaven, of his infinite goodness and bounty, reward you with all manner of felicity, temporal and eternal: which he from his heart wishes and makes it his daily prayer, who is,

My Lord,

Your Lordship's most humble,

most obliged, and faithful servant,

John Lightfoot

Expositors, almost with one consent, do note that this story of the woman taken in adultery, was not in some ancient copies; and whiles I am considering upon what accident this should be, there are two little stories in Eusebius that come to mind. The one we have in these words, He [Papias] tells us also another history concerning a woman accused of many crimes before our Lord, which history indeed the Gospel according to the Hebrews makes mention of. All that do cite that story do suppose he means this adulteress. The other story he tells us in his Life of Constantine: he brings in Constantine writing thus to him: "I think good to signify to your prudence, that you would take care that fifty volumes of those Scriptures, whose preparation and use you know so necessary for the church, and which beside may be easily read and carried about, may, by very skilful penmen, be written out in fair parchment."

So indeed the Latin interpreter: but may we not by the word volumes of those Scriptures understand the Gospels compacted into one body by way of harmony? The reason of this conjecture is twofold: partly those Eusebian canons formed into such a kind of harmony; partly because, cap. 37, he tells us that, having finished his work, he sent to the emperor threes and fours: which words if they are not to be understood of the evangelists, sometimes three, sometimes four, (the greater number including the less,) embodied together by such a harmony, I confess I cannot tell what to make of them.

But be it so that it must not be understood of such a harmony; and grant we further that the Latin interpreter hits him right, when he supposes Eusebius to have picked out here and there, according to his pleasure and judgment, some parts of the Holy Scriptures to be transcribed; surely he would never have omitted the evangelists, the noblest and the most profitable part of the New Testament.

If therefore he ascribed this story of the adulteress to the trifler Papias, or at least to the Gospel according to the Hebrews only, without doubt he would never insert it in copies transcribed by him. Hence possibly might arise the omission of it in some copies after Eusebius' times. It is in copies before his age, viz. in Ammonius, Tatianus, etc.

Amongst all the places in the Old Testament which mention this great Shepherd, there is no one doth so exactly describe him and his pastoral work, as chapter 11 of the prophet Zechariah Zechariah 11. We will fetch a few things from thence, that may serve to explain the passage now in hand:

I. He describes this great Shepherd manifesting himself, and applying himself to his great pastoral office, when the nation was now upon the brink of destruction: the prophet had foretold their ruin, and brings in this Shepherd undertaking the care of his sheep, lest they should perish too.

As to the first verse, "Open thy doors, O Lebanon"; take the Jews' own comment upon it, who yet do, by all the skill they can, endeavour to take off the whole prophecy from those proper hinges upon which it turns.

"Forty years before the destruction [of Jerusalem], the gates of the Temple opened themselves of their own accord. Rabban Jochanan Ben Zacchai declaimed upon it, saying, 'O Temple, Temple, why dost thou terrify thyself? I know thy end will be destruction; for so Zechariah, the son of Iddo, hath prophesied concerning thee; Open thy doors, O Lebanon,' " etc.

The rest that follows doth plainly enough speak out desolation and ruin, Joh 10:2-3; but particularly that is remarkable, Joh 10:6, "I will deliver the men every one into his neighbour's hand": how manifestly doth it agree with those intestine broils and discords, those horrid seditions, stirred up amongst them! "And into the hand of his king"; i.e. Of Caesar, concerning whom they may remember they once said, "We have no king but Caesar."

II. He describes the evil shepherds of the people under a triumvirate, Joh 10:8; "Three shepherds also I cut off in one month," etc.; i.e. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes; which interpretation though it cannot but sound very unpleasingly in Jewish years, yet is it what seems abundantly confirmed, both from the context and the history of things. They therefore would turn the edge of the prophecy another way, the Gemarists understanding the three shepherds of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam: Jarchi would have it the house of Ahab, the house of Ahaziah, and his brethren: Kimchi, the sons of Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah. Aben Ezra saith, "Perhaps they are the high priest Joshua, the person anointed to the wars, and the sagan; or perhaps Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi," etc.

But what can be more clear than that the prophet speaks of those shepherds that had wasted and corrupted the flock, and who, when the true Shepherd of the sheep should reveal himself, would do the like again? And who should these be but the principals and chief heads of sects, and the leaders of the people, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes?

Object. But how can these properly be said to be cut off by the great Shepherd when he should come, whereas it is well enough known that these sects lived even after the death of Christ, nay, after the ruins of Jerusalem; not to say that Pharisaism hath its being amongst the Jews to this very day?

Ans. So indeed it is said, that under the gospel, the nations should not learn war any more, Isa 2:4; and that there should not be an infant in age, or one under age, in the new Jerusalem, Isa 65:20; whereas we find enough of war in every generation, and that infancy or ignorance in divine things abounds still. But nevertheless God had done his part towards the accomplishment of such prophecies; namely, he had brought in the gospel of peace and the gospel of light, that nothing should be wanting on his side that peace might reign on the earth, and infancy in divine things should be no more. So did this great Shepherd bring in the evangelical doctrine, the oracle of truth and religion, which did so beat down and confound all the vain doctrines and institutions of those sects, that, as to what related to the doctrine of Christ, there was nothing wanting to have cut off those heresies and vanities.

III. This great Shepherd broke that covenant that had been made and confirmed with that people, Joh 10:10; "I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people." With all the people; i.e. With all Israel, the ten and the two tribes too. And in Joh 10:14; the affinity and kin which was betwixt Judah and Israel is dissolved; which it would not be amiss for those to take serious notice of, who as yet expect a universal conversion of the whole nation of the Jews. Let them say by virtue of what covenant; if the covenant of grace, that makes no difference betwixt the Jew and the Greek, nor knows any one after the flesh. If by virtue of the covenant peculiarly made with that people, that was broken and dissolved, when God had gathered his flock out of that people. For,

IV. The great Shepherd, when he came, found that there must be a flock gathered in that nation, as Rom 11:5; A remnant according to the election of grace; and these he took care to call and gather before Jerusalem should be destroyed. Zechariah himself calls it the flock of slaughter; and the poor of the flock, Joh 10:7. Where, by the way, whoever compares the Greek version in this place must needs observe, that so the poor is, by those interpreters, jumbled and confounded into one word. For, instead of and so the poor of the flock knew, they read it, the Canaanites shall know the sheep, etc. So instead of for this, or for you, O poor of the flock, Joh 10:7; they read, unto the land of Canaan...I have some suspicion that these interpreters might have had an eye upon the reduction of the dispersed captivity into the land of Canaan, according to the common expectation of that nation. But this only by the by.

That of the apostle ought to be strictly heeded; Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. Which indeed is, as it were, the gnomon to that chapter, and, above all other things, does interpret best the apostle's mind. For he propounds to discourse not concerning the universal call of the Jews, but of their not being universally rejected: which may very easily be collected from the very first verse of this chapter Joh 10:1; "Hath God cast away his people?" that is, so cast them away that they are universally rejected. "God forbid!" for I myself am an Israelite, and am not cast away. This argument he pursues, and illustrates from the example of those most corrupted times, the age wherein Elijah lived, when they threw down the altars of God, slew his prophets, and not a few worshipped Baal of the Sidonians, whom Ahab had introduced; and almost the whole nation worshipped that golden calf or cow which Jeroboam had set up. And yet, even in that worst state of affairs, saith God, "I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to that golden calf, " the common and universal error of that nation, much less to Baal of the Sidonians. "Even so" (saith the apostle), "at this present time also there is a remnant"; plainly intimating, that he does not assert or argue for the calling of the whole nation, but of that remnant only; and that he discourses concerning the present calling of that remnant, and not about any future call of the whole nation.

V. That is a vast mystery the apostle is upon, verse 25 of that chapter Rom 11:25; "Blindness hath severally happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in." I render severally, or by parts, not without warrant from grammar, and according to the meaning and intention of St. Paul. For the mystery mentioned by him is, that blindness severally, and at several times, happened to the Israelites: first, the ten tribes were blinded through idolatry, and, after many ages, the two tribes, through traditions; and yet both those and these reserved together to that time, wherein the Gentiles, who had been blinded for a longer space, are called, and then both Israelites and Jews and Gentiles, being all called together, do close into one body. It is observable that the apostle, throughout this whole chapter, doth not so much as once make mention of the Jews, but of Israel, that he might include the ten tribes with the two within his discourse.

And, indeed, this great Shepherd had his flock, or his sheep, within the ten tribes, as well as within the two: and to me it is without all controversy that the gospel, in the times of the apostles, was brought and preached as well to the one as the other. Doubtless St. Peter, whilst he was in Babylon, preached to the Israelites dispersed in those countries as well as to the Jews.

VI. Some of the Gemarists do vehemently deny any conversion of the ten tribes under the Messiah: let them beware lest there be not a conversion of their own.

John Lightfoot, A Commentary of the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica

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