Article March 20, 1943 Issue

Bible Notes

[The Biblical citations given in the Christian Science Quarterly are from the Authorized King James Version. The Bible Notes in these columns 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 April 4, 1943.]

"The wilderness of Judaea" (Matt. 3:1)—This district is a mass of rolling and desolate hills situated just to the west of the Dead Sea. David is said to have composed there the sixty-third Psalm, and he well describes this wild and dreary tract of country as "a dry and thirsty land, where no water is" (Ps. 63:1). Among the early Hebrews it was often known as "Jeshimon"—literally "desolation" (cf. I Sam. 23:19).

"O generation of vipers" (Matt. 3:7)—It should be noted that the Greek word "gennemata," which is here rendered "generation," does not properly correspond to our modern use of the term with reference to "the mass of beings living at one period" (Webster's Dictionary). The word means rather "offspring, progeny," or "brood," and indeed "generation" was used in the latter sense in the early seventeenth century when our King James Version was first published. Goodspeed has: "You brood of snakes!" And Weymouth (Fifth Edition) has: "O brood of vipers."

"Whose shoes I am not worthy to bear" (Matt. 3:11)—To bear anyone's shoes, that is, "to bring and take them away; or to fasten them on or take them off," was regarded by the Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans as "the business of slaves of the lowest rank" (Meyer: Commentary on Matthew, p. 114). In consequence, the phrase employed by John the Baptist would surely suggest both the deep humanity of the speaker himself and the exaltation of the Messiah, whom he announced.

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