p. 148 | Scripture Notes

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 25, 1868

Scripture Notes.

COPPER LIKE GOLD.

EZRA viii, 27. Also twenty basins of gold, of a thousand drams; and two vessels of fine copper, precious as gold.

[Fine copper, precious as gold.] Syr. nechosho Corinthio toba, best Corinthian brass; so called from the brass found after the burning of Corinth, which was brass, copper, gold, and silver, all melted together, as is generally supposed. But it was probably some factitious metal, made there, that took the polish, and assumed the brightness of gold, and because of its hardness was more durable. The Asiatics have still a factitious metal of this kind, perhaps a very early triumph in the arts. I have often seen it made; it is as bright and fine as gold, takes a most exquisite polish, and will scarcely tarnish. I have kept this exposed to every variation of the air, even among old iron, brass, copper, &c., for 20 years together, without its being scarcely at all oxidized. It requires much art in the making, but the ingredients are of small value. Vessels of it, because of their luster and durability, for domestic and ornamental uses, are in many respects more valuable than gold itself. The only difficulty is to get at first the true color, which depends on the degree of heat, and the time employed in fusion; but there are proper rules to ascertain these. It widely differs from or moulu, is less expensive, and much more valuable.—Dr. A. Clarke.

EZRA.

Ezra is said to have lived to the age of 120 years, the precise age of Moses (Deut. xxxiv, 7); and his memory is held in almost equal reverence, by his grateful countrymen. [Indeed, they call this great patriot, “the second Moses.”] He, in fact, rendered them the most lasting services; for, besides conducting them back to their beloved country, and superintending the building of the temple, 1. He corrected, says Calmet, the errors which had crept into the sacred writings, from the negligence, or misapprehension, of transcribers. 2. He carefully collected all the books of which the Holy Scripture then consisted. 3. He occasionally added what appeared to him necessary to illustrate, connect, or complete, them. 4. He changed the former names of some places, which were in his time become obsolete, and substituted the modern; and 5. He is said to have transcribed the whole of the Hebrew Scriptures in the Chaldee character, to render them more intelligible to the people at large. See also Prideaux, Part 1, Book 5.—Hewlett.

ORIGIN OF TEXT PREACHING.

Neh. viii, 8. So they read in the book, in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.

Dr. A. Clarke thinks the people had lost their Hebrew (and so Poole, &c.), so the Levites gave the sense in the Chaldee; also, that “this was not only the origin of the Chaldee Targums, or translations of the law and prophets into that tongue; but likewise, probably, the origin of preaching from a text; a custom the most excellent and beneficial ever introduced among men.”—Jenks.

SUPPORTING THE MINISTERS.

Neh. xiii, 10. And I perceived that the portions of the Levites had not been given them; for the Levites and the singers, that did the work, were fled every one to his field.

It is a great artifice of the Devil, by his instruments, to defraud the ministers of religion of their necessary maintenance, that he may thereby abolish religion itself.—Wolphius, in Patrick.

NEHEMIAH.

For disinterestedness, philanthropy, patriotism, prudence, courage, zeal, humanity, and every virtue that constitutes a great mind, and proves a soul in deep communion with God, Nehemiah will ever stand conspicuous among the greatest men of the Jewish nation; and an exemplar worthy to be copied by the first patriots in every nation under heaven.—Dr. A. Clarke.

Many highly distinguished men were contemporary with Nehemiah; as, Æschylus, Aristophanes, Cincinnatus, Democritus, Euripides, Herodotus, Hippocrates, Phidias, Pindar, Plato, Socrates, Sophocles, Thucydides, Xenophon, Zeuxis.—Cond. Com.