Christ at the Pharisee's House.
By James White
ONE of the leading Pharisees had invited Jesus to dine with him on the Sabbath, as the day specially devoted to social entertainments by the Rabbis,—with the sinister design of watching him and reporting to those in authority. A number of Rabbis and Pharisees had been invited to meet him, but they had not yet lain down to their meal, when a man, ill with dropsy, entered the open door of the house, with others who dropped in, with Oriental freedom, to look on, and stand about. In his case, no doubt, the motive of his coming was that he might attract the notice of Jesus. He was afraid, however, to speak, for fear of those present, and patiently waited to see if Jesus would, of his own accord, cure him. He had not long to wait. Looking at him, Jesus turned to the guest with the question he had asked before in similar circumstances—"Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or is it not?" In their consciences they could not say it was not, but few men have the courage of their opinions, when current sentiment runs the other way, so they were silent. But silence was a virtual affirmative, for, if it were wrong, it was their bounden duty, as the public guardians of religion, to say so. Passing over, therefore, to the swollen and wretched being, he put his hand on him, cured him at once, and sent him away. Then turning to the confused and baffled company, he completed their discomfiture by an appeal similar to that which he had made in the case of the woman healed shortly before. "Which of you, let me ask, if his son, or even only his ox, had fallen into a pit, would not immediately draw him out, on discovering it—even on the Sabbath?" No wonder that nothing further was said on the subject. The couches on which the guests reclined at meals were arranged so as to form three sides of a square, the fourth being left open to allow the servants to bring in the dishes. The right hand couch was reckoned the highest, and the others, the middle, and the lowest, respectively, and the places on each couch were distinguished in the same way, from the fact that the guest who reclined with his head, as it were, in the bosom of him behind, seemed to be the lower of the two. The highest place of the highest couch, was, thus, the "chief place;" and human nature, the same in all ages, inevitably made it be eagerly coveted, and as precedence was marked by distance from it, there was an almost equal anxiety to get as near it as possible. With the vanity and self-righteousness of a moribund caste, there was no little scheming among the Rabbis for the best place, and much anxiety on the part of the host not to give offense; for to place a Rabbi below any one not a Rabbi, or below a fellow-Rabbi of lower standing, or younger, was an unpardonable affront, and a discredit to religion itself. The intolerable pride that had made one of their order, in the days of Alexander Jannæus, seat himself between Alexander and his queen, on the ground that "wisdom" made its scholars sit among princes, remained unchanged. Such petty ambition, so unworthy in public teachers of morals and religion, and so entirely in contrast with his own instructions to his disciples, to seek no distinction but that of the deepest humility, did not fail to strike the great guest who had calmly taken the place assigned him. "you are wrong," said he, "in revealing your wishes, and obtruding your self-assertion in such a way. Let me counsel you how to act. If invited to a marriage feast, never take the chief place on the couches, lest some one of higher standing for learning or piety come, and your host ask you to go down to a lower place to make room for the more honored guest. Take rather the lowest place, when you enter, that your host, when he comes in, may invite you to take a higher, and thus, honor you before all. Pride is its own punishment, in this, as in far graver matters, for, whether before God or man, he who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."--Geikie. They watched him.—Or, were maliciously watching; parateeroumenoi—from para, intense, or denoting ill, and teereo, to observe, watch. Raphelius, on Mark 3:2, has proved from a variety of authorities, that this is a frequent meaning of the word:—to observe privately and insidiously what another does. The context plainly proves that this is the sense in which it is to be taken here. The conduct of this Pharisee was most execrable. Professing friendship and affection, he invited our blessed Lord to his table, merely that he might have a more favorable opportunity of watching his conduct, that he might accuse him, and take away his life. In eating and drinking, people feel generally less restraint than at other times, and are apt to converse more freely. The man who can take such an advantage over one of his own guests, must have a baseness of soul, and a fellness of malice, of which, we would have thought, for the honor of human nature, that devils alone were capable. Among the Turks, if a man only taste salt with another, he holds himself bound in the most solemn manner, never to do that person any injury. Probably the insidious Pharisee had brought this dropsical man to the place, not doubting that our Lord’s eye would affect his heart, and that he would instantly cure him; and then he could most plausibly accuse him for a breach of the Sabbath. If this were the case, and it is likely, how deep must have been the perfidy and malice of the Pharisee!—Clarke.