NOTES ON THE LESSON

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 5, 1881

NOTES ON THE LESSON.

"For verily I say unto you." Verse 18. Here, for the first time, does that august expression occur in our Lord's recorded teaching, with which we have grown so familiar as hardly to reflect on its full import. It is the expression, manifestly, of supreme legislative authority, and as the subject in connection with which it is uttered is the moral law, no higher claim to an authority strictly divine could be advanced.—Portable Commentary.

"A bushel." A measure both among the Greeks and Romans, containing a little more than a peck English. From some ancient writers we learn that only those who had bad designs hid a candle under a bushel; that, in the dead of night, when all were asleep, they might rise up and have a light at hand to help them to effect their horrid purposes, of murder.—Clarke's Commentary.

"Perform unto the Lord thine oaths." The morality of the Jews on this point was truly execrable; they maintained that a man might swear with his lips, and annul it in the same moment in his heart. They did not pretend to forbid ALL swearing, but only what they termed MUCH. A Jew might swear but he must not be too abundant in the practice. Against such permission our Lord opposes his, SWEAR NOT AT ALL!—Ibid.