Article December 20, 1941 Issue

Bible Notes

[The Biblical citations given in the Christian Science Quarterly are from the Authorized King James Version. The Bible Notes in this column can be used, if deemed necessary, to elucidate some of the words or passages contained in the Bible Lessons. The Notes in this issue are related to the Lesson-Sermon designated to be read in Christian Science churches on December 28, 1941.]

"A grain of mustard seed . . . the least of all seeds" (Matt. 13:31, 32)—Among the people of Palestine the extreme contrast between the minute "mustard seed" and the plant or "tree" into which it grew, was proverbial. The seed in question is as small as, or even smaller than, the Icelandic poppy, yet when it has reached its full development the resultant "tree" is often some ten or twelve feet in height, and then it is by no means impossible for "the birds of the air" to "lodge in the branches thereof," as we read in verse 32.

"Without a parable spake he not unto them" (Matt. 13:34)—The Greek term which is here rendered "parable" means literally "a placing beside, or comparison," and so in time it came to mean "an utterance which involves a comparison." In Matthew 13:34 and elsewhere, Goodspeed gives the rendering, "figures."

"Blessed are the undefiled in the way" (Ps. 119:1)—The term rendered "blessed" in this verse and the following is not the regular Hebrew term for "blessed" but means more strictly "happy." Moffatt renders: "Happy are they who live uprightly;" and Smith: "How happy are they whose way is blameless."

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