Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 1:3
The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
Mar 1:3
The voice of one crying in the wilderness.
I. Ministers ought to show zeal and earnestness in their office (Isa 58:1; Hos 8:1; 2Ti 4:2). A minister of the Word must not do the work of the Lord negligently or coldly, but with zeal and fervency of spirit. This zeal and earnestness consists chiefly in
(1) being affected and moved in his own heart with that which he delivers, feeling the power of it in himself;
(2) labouring so to speak as to affect and move his hearers to the embracing of that which is taught. This is done by the particular applying, and earnest urging and pressing of the doctrine taught, to the consciences of the hearers; when it is not only delivered in general manner, and so left, but particularly applied, for the reproving and convincing of sin in people, and for the stirring of them up to good duties (Ecc 12:11). The doctrine of the Word (preached by the ministers of it) is compared to nails fastened, to show that it must be driven home, and up to the head (as it were), by the hammer of application.
II. Ministers should also, with courage and boldness of spirit, deliver the word and message of the Lord (Eph 6:20; Jer 1:17; Eze 3:9). We deliver not our own message, but that of God; we speak not in our own name, but in the Name of the Almighty. Let us then, with all boldness, deliver Gods message, not forbearing to reprove sin, nor concealing any part of the truth, for fear of mens displeasure (G. Petter.)
Gods use of mans voice
The highest praise of a prophet is that he should be simply a voice employed by God. God borrows voices still. While the weapons of our warfare are heavenly, the weapons of His warfare are earthly. For the human lips a Divine message must be sought; for the Divine message human lips are requisite. Consecrate thy lips to Him, and He will pour grace into them. (R. Glover.)
The preacher a voice
A preacher should, if possible, be nothing but a voice, which should be always heard and never seen to cry is to preach with such force as is worthy of the truth, without lowering the voice through complaisance. To this end he must not be a man of the world, but one who comes, as it were, out of the wilderness, without relations, without friends, without secular engagements, which may thwart and obstruct his ministry. The first man who appears in the gospel is one entirely dedicated to repentance: the first example and the first precept are an example and a precept of repentance-so necessary is this to salvation l (Quesnel.)
Novelty and mystery
I. A wonderful preacher.
1. The subject of prophecy.
2. The last of the prophets.
3. Choosing a strange place to preach in.
4. Adopting an antiquated garb and manner.
II. A wonderful sermon.
1. Not the exposition of a creed.
2. Not concerning traditions and ceremonies.
3. Personal-as repentance is a personal duty.
4. Practical-as leading to visible results.
III. A wonderful congregation.
1. Strangely composed-of city and country people.
2. All travelling a great distance to hear the preacher.
3. All yielding to the truth-confessing their sins.
4. All submitting to the rite imposed by the desert preacher. (J. C. Grey.)
Christs public entrance upon His ministry
I. The need of the human herald of Christ. Though our Lord came in the fulness of the time, the time was not ready for Him, so far as His own people were concerned. The popular heart was intensely cold and unrepentant. A certain measure of national disaster will bring repentance and reformation. People read chastisement in their sorrows. But without spiritual guides there comes on religious indifference. The popular heart was softened. It was prepared for the truth, and to be an honest witness of Christs miracles. Here lies the whole philosophy of the Christian ministry. Christ could operate directly on the heart without the human instrument. But He requires of man that he go before Him, and do all that the human voice can do, and then He comes to complete the order of salvation. He gives man as much as he can do and bear in the great work of saving men.
II. The human preparation of Christ for His work.
III. The subjection of the servant to the master. (J. F. Hurst, D. D.)
A rough man for rough work
He had rough work to do; therefore a man of refined taste and delicate organization could not perform it. John is fitted for his work-a coarse man levelling mountains and filling up valleys, sternness in his looks, vehemence in his voice. The truth is-Reformers must despise the conventionalities of society. They have rude work to do, and they must not be too dainty respecting the means they adopt to effect it. Adorn your frontispieces, embellish your cornerstones, but let the foundations be as rugged as you please. Decorations are for the superstructure, strength and solidity for the base. Luther has often been charged with rudeness, coarseness, and even scurrility. The indictment contains, perhaps, too much truth for us successfully to gainsay. But we should not forget that he had a coarse age to deal with, coarse enemies to contend with, coarse sins to battle with. Coarse or not coarse, the question is-Did he do his work? If he did that, who are we to cavil at the means he used? Would our smooth phrases and rounded periods accomplish the task of regenerating half Europe, and of giving the other half a shaking from which it has not yet recovered, nor is likely to recover this century? Regenerate half Europe indeed! Shame upon us! We cannot regenerate half a parish, and who are we to find fault with a mall who regenerated half a continent? Who will go to fell forest trees of a thousand years standing with a superfine razor? Is not the heavy axe the fit tool wherewith to cut them down? (J. C. Jones.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 3. The voice of one crying] See Clarke on Mt 3:1-3.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
3. The voice of one crying in thewilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his pathsstraightThe second of these quotations is given by Matthew andLuke in the same connection, but they reserve the former quotationtill they have occasion to return to the Baptist, after hisimprisonment (Mat 11:10; Luk 7:27).(Instead of the words, “as it is written in the Prophets,”there is weighty evidence in favor of the following reading: “Asit is written in Isaiah the prophet.” This reading is adopted byall the latest critical editors. If it be the true one, it is to beexplained thusthat of the two quotations, the one from Malachi isbut a later development of the great primary one in Isaiah, fromwhich the whole prophetical matter here quoted takes its name. Butthe received text is quoted by IRENUS,before the end of the second century, and the evidence in its favoris greater in amount, if not in weight. The chief objection toit is, that if this was the true reading, it is difficult to see howthe other one could have got in at all; whereas, if it be not thetrue reading, it is very easy to see how it found its way into thetext, as it removes the startling difficulty of a prophecy beginningwith the words of Malachi being ascribed to Isaiah.) For theexposition, see on Mt 3:1-6; Mt3:11.
Mr1:9-11. BAPTISM OFCHRIST AND DESCENTOF THE SPIRIT UPONHIM IMMEDIATELYTHEREAFTER. ( = Mat 3:13-17;Luk 3:21; Luk 3:22).
See on Mt3:13-17.
Mar 1:12;Mar 1:13. TEMPTATIONOF CHRIST. ( =Mat 4:1-11; Luk 4:1-13).
See on Mt4:1-11.
Mr1:14-20. CHRIST BEGINSHIS GALILEANMINISTRYCALLINGOF SIMON ANDANDREW, JAMESAND JOHN.
See on Mt4:12-22.
Mr1:21-39. HEALING OF ADEMONIAC IN THE SYNAGOGUEOF CAPERNAUM ANDTHEREAFTER OF SIMON’SMOTHER-IN-LAWAND MANYOTHERSJESUS,NEXT DAY,IS FOUNDIN A SOLITARY PLACEAT MORNING PRAYERS,AND IS ENTREATEDTO RETURN, BUTDECLINES, AND GOESFORTH ON HISFIRST MISSIONARYCIRCUIT. ( = Luk 4:31-44;Mat 8:14-17; Mat 4:23-25).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The voice of one crying in the wilderness,…. This is the other testimony in proof of the same, and may be read in Isa 40:3.
[See comments on Mt 3:3].
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The voice of one crying ( ). God is coming to his people to deliver them from their captivity in Babylon. So the prophet cries like a voice in the wilderness to make ready for the coming of God. When the committee from the Sanhedrin came to ask John who he was, he used this very language of Isaiah (Joh 1:23). He was only a voice, but we can still hear the echo of that voice through the corridor of the centuries.
Paths straight ( ). Automobile highways today well illustrate the wonderful Persian roads for the couriers of the king and then for the king himself. The Roman Empire was knit together by roads, some of which survive today. John had a high and holy mission as the forerunner of the Messiah.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
A voice ()
No article as A. V. and Rev., the voice. It has a sort of exclamatory force. Listening, the prophet exclaims, Lo! a voice.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “The voice of one crying in the wilderness,” (phone bontos en te eremo) “A voice of one crying aloud, resounding, or bellowing (like an ox) in the desolate place,” the desert or wilderness, Mat 3:1-3; Mat 11:10. This prophecy was certified as fulfilled by the coming of John the Baptist.
2) “Prepare ye the way of the Lord,” (hetoimaste ten hodon kuriou) “Prepare ye or make ye ready the way (road, path, or entrance) of the Lord,” Luk 1:76-79; Luk 7:27. The long awaited, promised Messiah was now at hand.
3) “Make his paths straight.” (eutheias poieite tas tribous autou) “Make ye straight his path,” or pathway, Luk 3:4. Mark thus certified that John the Baptist was: 1)a forerunner of Jesus Christ the Son of God; 2)Who fulfilled Old Testament prophecies in both what he said, and did, as Divinely sent from heaven, Joh 1:6; Joh 1:23; Joh 1:28-34.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(3) The voice of one crying in the wilderness.See Note on Mat. 3:3.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
Ver. 3. The voice of one crying ] Here Mark begins the Gospel, at the preaching of the Baptist, which the author to the Hebrews begins at the preaching of Christ, Heb 2:3 . But that is only to prove that so great was our Saviour’s glory in his miracles, that it matcheth, yea, surpasseth that of the angels, those ministers of the law. The ridiculous parallel of Apollonius Tyaneus with our Saviour by Hierocles, and the malicious exceptions of R. Nizachon against his doings and miracles, are fully answered by Eusebius and Munster. Annot. in Mat. Hebraice. As for John Baptist, he professeth himself to be no more than a voice. And so indeed he was totus vox, all voice. His apparel, his diet, his conversation did preach holiness as well as his doctrine,Mar 6:20Mar 6:20 ; Joh 3:25-36 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Mar 1:3 . Quotation from Isa 40:3 as in Mat 3:3 .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
the LORD. App-98. A. a.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Mar 1:3. , the voice) see Luk 3:4, notes.- , in the wilderness) This is repeated in the following verse, where presently after also that expression, preaching (), answers to, the voice of one crying, in this ver.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Lord
Jehovah. Isa 40:3.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Isa 40:3-5, Mat 3:3, Luk 3:4-6, Joh 1:15, Joh 1:19-34, Joh 3:28-36
Reciprocal: Mal 3:1 – I will Mat 11:7 – What Mar 6:12 – preached Luk 1:76 – thou shalt Luk 1:77 – give Luk 1:80 – and was Luk 3:2 – in Joh 1:23 – I am Joh 1:31 – therefore Act 1:22 – Beginning Act 18:25 – instructed 1Th 3:11 – our way 2Ti 2:25 – repentance
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS
The voice of one crying in the wilderness.
Mar 1:3
In dealing with the character and work of John the Baptist as the forerunner of our Lords first coming, it may be pointed out that neither the man himself, nor his work, and the effects it produced, are, perhaps, sufficiently regarded. Archbishop Trench, following Augustine, has pointed out that John only claimed to be the Voice, while our Lord was the Word, and that a voice is nothing unless it be also the vehicle of a word, but goes before it in the act of communication, and, this being accomplished, the voice has passed away, as John did so soon as he had accomplished his mission. Yet we must never forget that our Lord said of him that amongst them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist. A man of the deepest humility and self-abnegation, he was fired by an intense earnestness and fearless courage which winged his direct and plain-spoken appeals to the hearts and consciences of all; and the whole nation was stirred by his mission to its very depths.
I. Whose the voice was.Isaiah prophesied of the voice of one crying in the wilderness (Isa 40:3), and this was now being fulfilled in the ministry of our Lords forerunner. Note these particulars of John the Baptist:
(a) He was the son of Zacharias and Elizabeth his wife. Born six months before Christ, he entered on his ministry of preparation six months earlier than our Lord did on His.
(b) His dress betokened the prophet. Clothed with camels hair, that is, with a mantle of camels hair. Elijah wore such a mantle (2Ki 1:8), which he gave to Elisha to show that the prophets office descended to him (2Ki 2:13); he had a girdle of a skin=a leathern girdle worn round the waist over the inner clothing.
(c) His food was the plainest and commonest, just what Nature supplied: locusts, an insect which when dried forms a palatable food, permitted by the law (Lev 11:22), and wild honey, the produce of wild bees, for which the land was famous (Deu 32:13).
II. Where the voice spake.In the wilderness of Judea, a wild, rocky, desolate region between Hebron (probably Johns birthplace) and Dead Sea, stretching north along valley of Jordan to the fords of Jordan, opposite Jericho, where he baptized. Probably he lived there some time (Luk 1:80). The place was suitable for the man and for his workalone with God, with time for prayer and quiet meditation.
III. What the voice said.This voice delivered Gods message. John did preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins; that is, the need of repentance in order to receive forgiveness. If we search we may find out a little more of what the voice said.
(a) Prepare ye the way of the Lord (Mar 1:3), the Lord whose kingdom was at hand. Under this figure Isaiah (Isa 40:3-4) pictured the work of the Baptist, a work of preparation, to make the Lords progress easier.
(b) Repent ye was the keynote of his teaching (Mat 3:2). Repentance=change of mind, accompanied by sorrow of heart and leading to newness of life.
(c) A mightier One is comingmightier in His Person (the Son of God), His preaching (He was the Word, John only a voice), His miracles (John did no miracle, Joh 10:41), and in the effect produced. I indeed have baptized you with water, which only washes the surface; He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, who will melt the heart and change the life. So he pointed to Jesus.
IV. How the voice was heeded:
(a) It was listened to.
(b) It influenced the people.
(c) It led to confession of sins.
(d) It led to baptism.
The Rev. R. R. Resker.
Illustration
Within that rugged exterior, the grace and power of the Holy Ghost dwelt, though, unlike Christ, John the Baptist had no authority to convey that grace to others. His call to his special work was internal. He preached because he must. It had become an irrepressible necessity of his nature. No tirade against Temple abuses do we hear. The hermit-preacher directs his artillery against mens personal sins. He is blunt, direct, earnest, fervid. In his intense earnestness about the one thing needful he makes men forget all passing disputations; all minor distractions. As if he were a herald direct from heaven, he fixes all eyes on their inward needtheir need of righteousness. His words seem like red-hot bullets. Mens duty is summed up in one wordRepent. But the climax of all his preaching was Christ. Like every true messenger, John hid himself in the shadow of his Master.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
3
See comments on Mat 3:1 for the explanation of wilderness.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Here note, 1. The title given to John the Baptist: he is called a Voice, in respect of his ministerial office, which was to speak forth, to promulge and publish, the doctrine of salvation.
2. The quantity or kind of this voice, a crying voice, the voice of one crying.
This implies, 1. His earnestness and vehemency his zeal His and fervency, in preaching. When we lift up our voice, and cry aloud, we speak with earnestness and fervour. When our own hearts are warmly affected with what we preach, we may hope to affect the hearts of our hearers. Why has God commissioned men rather than angels, to be the preachers and dispensers of his word, but because we can speak to and treat with sinners more feelingly and more affectionately than the angels can?
2. This crying of the holy Baptist in his preaching, implies his liberty and boldness, as well as vehemency and earnestness, in delivering of his message. The lifting up of the voice in speaking, argues boldness and courage in the speaker; as, on the contrary, the depressing of the voice showeth timorousness.
Learn hence, That the ministers of the word are to use both zeal and earnestness, and also courage and boldness of spirit, in delivering the word and message of God, not forbearing to reprove sin, not concealing any part of God’s truth, for fear of men’s displeasure.
Observe, 3. The sum and substance of what he cried, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight; that is, “Make ready yourselves, prepare your own hearts, to entertain the doctrine and glad tidings of the gospel.” It is a metaphorical speech, taken from the custom of loyal and dutiful subjects, who, when their prince is coming to lodge in their city, prepare and make ready the way for his coming, by removing every thing that may obstruct or hinder his progress.
Learn hence, That man’s heart by nature is very unfit to embrace and entertain the Lord Jesus Christ. We have naturally no fitness, no disposition, no inclination, to believe in him, or to submit unto him.
2. If ever we desire to entertain Christ in our hearts, we must first prepare and make fit our hearts for the receiving and embracing of him. For though the preparation of the heart be from the Lord, yet he requires the exercise of our faculties, and the use of our endeavours.
He prepares our hearts, by enabling us to the preparation of our own hearts. This is done by getting a sight of the evil of sin, a sense of our misery without Christ, an hungering and thirsting desire after him, and true faith in him. Christ will lodge in no heart that is not thus made ready to receive him.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
CHAPTER 4
MINISTRY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST BY MATTHEW, MARK, AND LUKE
Luk 3:1-2. In the fifteenth year of the dominion of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip his brother tetrarch of Iturea and the Trachonitis country, and Lysanias being tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. Luke gives us important specifications, stating that Tiberius was emperor of the Roman world; Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea; Herod i.e., Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, who was on the throne of Judea when our Savior was born, and slew the infants was tetrarch of Galilee. His jurisdiction also included Perea, east of the Jordan. As both of these countries were traversed by our Savior, it is important that they appear in this introductory. The Philip here mentioned, the brother of Herod, and governor of Iturea and Trachonitis, was not the one whose wife, Herodias, Herod Antipas took; but she was the wife of another Philip, who was a half brother to Herod. Abilene, the tetrarchy of Lysanias, was a region of country in Anti-Lebanon, between Damascus and Heliopolis. We have Annas and Caiaphas here, both spoken of as high priests; and we see, in our Lords arraignment, He was brought before each one of them. The solution of the matter seems to be that the Roman authorities favored the high-priesthood of Annas, and the Jewish that of Caiaphas. After Zacharias and Elizabeth fled away from Jutta, near Bethlehem, into the wilderness of Judea, to protect their child from the cruelties of Herod, they returned no more during the minority of John. Consequently, upon reaching the age of thirty, he entered at once upon his ministry there in the desert (Mat 3:1-2), preaching in the desert of Judea, and saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Mar 1:4, John came baptizing in the desert, and preaching the baptism of repentance unto the remission of sins. I here use the word desert, in lieu of wilderness, because the latter is utterly illusory to the American reader. By wilderness, in this country, we understand a wild region of Country, overgrown with briers, brambles, and brush, as well as forest trees. That is not the Bible meaning of the word eremos, which means a region of country either destitute of water, because the rains do not fall on it, or at least partially destitute, because of insufficiency of rains. Four times have I traveled through the wilderness of Judea, where John the Baptist was brought up and did his first preaching. It is a desert, dry and unproductive, seldom seeing a green leaf, because of insufficient rains. Mosses, ferns, and nettles grow there, fed on by the goats, donkeys, and camels. In the deserts there are oases, like islands in the ocean, where springs of water so irrigate as to produce some sustenance for man and beast, and these are the places of habitation. John was brought up in that poor, wild, sterile desert of Judea, lying between Jerusalem and Bethlehem on the west, and the Dead Sea on the east.
Here we see that the burden of Johns Gospel is repentance unto the remission of sins. When man truly repents, God always forgives. John cried, with stentorian voice, Repent, because the kingdom of heaven is at hand; i.e., Christ the King is at hand, who, of course, brings the kingdom with Him. Matthew 3; Mar 1:3; Luk 3:4. The voice of one roaring in the desert, Prepare ye the way of the Lord: make His paths straight. Crying, E.V. is boontos, from boo, the noise an ox makes when he lows. Hence it means roaring like an ox. We see from these facts that John had a stalwart, robust constitution, having been brought up in the rough and tumble life of the desert, and now, thirty years old i.e., a grown young man in his vigor, filled and flooded with the Holy Ghost, he throws his great mouth wide open, and roars, like an ox bawling. His message was simple and brief. He had but one theme, and that was repentance unto the remission of their sins, confirming their covenant by water baptism. His stentorian voice, and the burning truth, which leaped like forked lightnings from his lips, stir the people terrifically, as he assures them that the King of heaven is already on the earth, and the most important enterprise of life is to prepare to meet Him, which they can only do by repenting of all their sins, unto a conscious experimental remission, which he proposed to confirm by water baptism. A true repentance is accompanied by restitution, which undoes all the bad work of the former life, making all wrongs right so far as possible, God taking the will for the deed in case of impossibility. If you would get saved, the Lord must come into your heart. He will not travel over a crooked road. Hence you must make his paths straight i.e., make straight ways for the Lord to come into thy heart; i.e., you must straighten out all of your own crooked ways otherwise the Lord will never come into your heart, and you would better never have been born. John gave the trumpet no uncertain sound. He had both the thunder and the lightning the former, to call attention and terrify; and the latter, to kill. O how the Lord needs such preachers now, to arouse a slumbering world and a dead Church from the lethargy of swift damnation!
Luke 5, 6. Every valley shall be filled up, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low. True repentance brings the king, the queen, the nobleman, the great man, the hon tons of society, down low in the dust at the feet of Jesus, where they can get religion, and be humble enough to black their own shoes, cook, and wash dishes, delighted to wait on themselves and their friends, and live the life of the meek and lowly; while the wonderful redeeming grace of God lifts up beggars, drunkards, and harlots, and transforms the very filth and offscourmg of the world into mighty men and saintly women, whose seraphic voices hold multitudes spellbound, and whose mighty works will glorify God in the day of eternity. Crooked things shall be straight, and rough places shall become the smooth Ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. These wonderful transformations of redeeming grace and sanctifying power, transforming the roughest reprobates into the most amiable saints, and the most stupid simpletons into fire-baptized witnesses for Jesus, the blackest debauchees into bloodwashed pilgrims for glory bound, tells the wonderful secret of the worlds evangelization. There is no other way to bring about this summum desideratum, for which every true heart sighs night and day. Hence it devolves on the holiness people of all lands to verify the Commission, and preach the gospel to every Creature. O what a glorious privilege, to be numbered with the Sacramental Army, going forth to conquer the world for Christ!
JOHNS LIVING
The great reason why we cant evangelize the world is, the puzzling problem of ministerial support. The Bible answers all questions and sweeps away all difficulties. Here we have John the Baptist, the greatest preacher the world saw in four thousand years, and a paragon for all others to imitate. See this wonderful prophet of the desert, with a huge stone for a pulpit, and an audience of ten thousand, standing on the burning sand, listening hour after hour, so utterly spellbound that the sun goes down before they are aware. The preacher has nothing on his body by way of apparel but the coarse, shaggy, camels-hair mantle, worn by the poorest people, and tied around his loins with a strap of rawhide; i.e., actually clothed like a beggar. Now what about boarding the greatest preacher the world had ever seen? It is an unequivocal truth that he lived on the locusts, sweetened with the wild honey gathered from the rocks in the mountains, as the wilderness [desert] of Judea is one continuous bed of rugged, precipitous, cavernous, barren mountains, where very little rain falls in the winter, and none in the summer, producing very scanty vegetation but a short period in the year. I am aware that great efforts have been made to explain away the idea that John really ate the locusts. There is a tree in the Holy Land called the carob or horn tree, bearing fruit eaten by poor people, much resembling the American honey-locust. Many have claimed that this was the food of John the Baptist. Even my Arab guide pointed it out to me as the food which John ate. I must state here, once for all, that the theory is utterly untenable. The fruit of that tree is called keration. (Luk 15:16.) The prodigal son actually ate it, along with the hogs, which are very fond of it; while the word translated locusts, and specifying the food of John the Baptist, is akris, and has no meaning except the animal locust. Hence there is no dodging the issue without flatly contradicting the Word of God. So set it down as a matter of fact that John lived on locusts. This clear revelation of Gods Word is abundantly corroborated by all the collateral facts and circumstances appertaining to the case.
(a) This day the locusts abound in the very country where John lived thirty years and entered upon his wonderful ministry.
I have seen them, in quantities so great that I could have filled a bushel basket in a diameter of a single rod.
(b) It is a well-known fact that the Bedouins, living in the desert now, eat the locusts, not simply in case of emergency, but they are very fond of them, regarding them as a luxury, and devouring them voraciously, preferring them cooked, with salt, but eating them unhesitatingly raw, with salt if they have it, and without it if they have it not. They traverse the desert, hunting them; fill great sacks with them; carry them on camels and donkeys to their tents, and feast like kings so long as the locusts last.
(c) The poor people in the desert, with whom John was brought up, habitually eat the locusts.
Of course they invited their preacher to eat with them, giving him such as they had; i.e., locusts sweetened with wild honey. My Arab guide, accompanying me when I saw the locusts in the wilderness of Judea, and dismounted so as to enjoy a good look at them, as they manifested no disposition to get out of my way, told me that they taste much like fish, and are quite palatable. I took his word, and was satisfied without testing the matter. The locusts which I saw were very fine looking, and several times so large as the grasshoppers in the American deserts, of which the Indians are so fond.
(d) Good Lord, deliver us from criticizing Thy Word, and give us grace unhesitatingly to take the Bible as it says, and save us from all efforts to explain it away! John the Baptist had no money, and needed none.
We do not conclude from this that we should not give the preachers money, or anything else we have and they need. But we do conclude that the person who waits for money is out of Gods order. John had none, and was not in a place to get any. Myriads are now called by the Holy Ghost under similar circumstances. O how they grieve the Spirit when they wait, year after year, for money to defray traveling expenses, pay board, and purchase clothing and books, while millions are dropping into hell! I find men and women everywhere who confess that they are called by the Spirit, and are not in the work. An awful responsibility awaits them at the judgment bar. They should go, like John the Baptist, waiting for nothing. The Lord will provide.
It may not be my way, It may not be thy way; Yet, in His own way, The Lord will provide.
If I could be a thousand men, I have open doors enough for them all to enter. What about the support? That is already settled with a draft on heavens bank.
Can we not have the faith of Sister Amelia Andrew, the wife of the sainted bishop? The Confederate War has swept over the country, a deluge of blood and fire, disorganizing Churches and revolutionizing society. General Lee has surrendered, and the war is over. Bishop Andrew, though now an octogenarian, is much concerned for the work in Texas, which has received no attention during the dark quadrennium.
He says to his sanctified Amelia, O, how Id like to go to Texas, and look after the interest of Gods kingdom in the great Lone Star State!
My dear, why do you not go? No money.
I can send you to the boat-landing on Tombighee River, in my carriage, without any money.
But what can I do when I get there, with no money to defray my traveling expenses?
The Lord will provide, responded the sanctified wife.
The venerable bishop acquiesces, and goes away by faith alone, without a cent of money. On arrival at the boat-landing, he meets a steamboat captain, a dear old friend, who kindly invites him to accept a free ride to New Orleans. On arrival at New Orleans, he meets a sea captain, a precious old friend, so glad to see him, who invites him to enjoy a free ride on his ship to Galveston, Texas. O how the Texans are delighted to receive him! God blesses his ministry. He stays long, sees the glory of God, and returns to his Alabama home with money in his pocket.
But this was a good run of luck. O no! It was the good providence of God.
I have seen it all my life. The difficulty of ministerial support is the devils trump-card, in the game he is playing with the Church for the damnation of the world. The argument in the case of John the Baptist is unanswerable, covering all the ground, and applicable under all circumstances.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
Verse 3
Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. This prediction is quoted in Matthew 3:3; Mark 1:3; Luke 3:4; John 1:23, showing that it was regarded as a great outstanding one, and the predicted forerunner as the connecting link between the old and the new economies. Like the great ones of the earth, the Prince of peace was to have his immediate approach proclaimed and his way prepared; and the call here–taking it generally–is a call to put out of the way whatever would obstruct his progress and hinder his complete triumph, whether those hindrances were public or personal, outward or inward. Levelling and smoothing are here the obvious figures whose sense is conveyed in the first words of the proclamation, “Prepare you the way of the Lord.” The idea is that every obstruction shall be so removed as to reveal to the whole world the salvation of God in him whose name is the “Savior.”