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told him so, and they parted with many tears. David then set forth upon those wanderings among strangers and in solitary places, which lasted all the time of Saul. The friends met only once more. Saul was in pursuit of David when he was in the wilderness of Ziph; and Jonathan could not forbear coming to him secretly in the wood to give him comfort and encouragement (1 Sam. xxiii. 16-18). Nothing more is related of Jonathan till both he and his father lost their lives in the fatal battle of Gilboa, combating against the enemies of their country.

JOP'PA, a sea-port town and haven on the coast of Palestine, situated on an eminence, in a sandy soil, about forty miles N.W. of Jerusalem, and nine miles W.N.W. from Ramleh. It was a very ancient town. To say nothing respecting the fabulous accounts of its great antiquity, it existed when the Israelites invaded the land of Canaan, and is mentioned as lying on the border of the tribe of Dan (Josh. xix. 46). Joppa was the only port possessed by the Israelites till Herod formed the harbour at Caesarea; and hence it was here that the timber from Lebanon destined for both the first and second temples was landed (1 Kings v. 9; 2 Chron. ii. 16; Ezra iii. 7). It was the place to which Jonah went, in expectation of finding a ship bound on some distant voyage, and where he found one going to Tarshish (Jonah i. 3). Joppa belonged to the powers which were successively dominant on this shore; and it does not again appear in Jewish history till the time of Judas Maccabæus, when the inhabitants having, contrary to the faith of treaties, thrown 200 Jews into the sea, the hero, to avenge them, surprised the haven by night, and set the shipping on fire (2 Macc. xii. 3-7). It is mentioned in the New Testament only in connection with the visit of

the Apostle Peter, who here raised Tabitha from the dead, and lodged in the outskirts of the town with Simon, the tanner, when favoured with the vision which taught him to call no man common or unclean' (Acts ix. 36-39; x. 5, 18; xi. 5). From the first crusade down to our own day, Joppa has been the landing-place of pilgrims going to Jerusalem. There is still here an hospital for pilgrims, dependent on the convent of St. Salvador in Jerusalem, and occupied by Spanish monks. In 1797 the place was taken by storm by the French army under Napoleon, and was sacked without mercy; when the Turkish prisoners, to the number of 500 or 600, were carried to the neighbouring sand-hills and put to death by his order.

Joppa is naturally very unfit for a haven. The port is so dangerous, from exposure to the open sea, that the surf often rolls in with the utmost violence, and even so lately as 1842 a lieutenant and some sailors were lost in pulling to the shore from an English steamer that lay in the harbour. But however bad, it was the only port which existed within reach of the important district which lay behind it inland: and the miserable state of the ancient roads, or rather perhaps the absence of any roads, made a near harbour, however incommodious, of more immediate consequence than a good one at a greater distance.

The town is approached on the land side through rich and extensive gardens and orchards, and is very picturesquely situated upon an eminence or promontory, which is crowned by a castle. It chiefly faces the north; and the buildings appear, from the steepness of the site, as if standing upon one another. The aspect of the whole is mean and gloomy, and inside the place has all the appearance of a poor though large

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village. There are no public buildings to engage the eye, and the houses are mean and comfortless. No ancient ruins have been observed, nor are any to be expected in a place so often destroyed in war. There are three mosques in Joppa, and Latin, Greek, and Armenian convents. The former is that in which European pilgrims and travellers usually lodge. The town still enjoys a considerable trade with the neighbouring coasts. Its chief manufacture is soap, which is largely consumed in the baths of Cairo and Damascus; and its excellent fruits are exported in large quantities, especially water-melons, which are very extensively cultivated here and in other parts of the plain of Sharon. The inhabitants are said not to exceed 4000, of whom one-fourth are reckoned to be Christians. A British consul is now resident in the place. JO'RAM (God-exalted, a contraction of JEHORAM), ninth king of Israel, son of Ahab, and successor to his elder brother Ahaziah, who died childless. He began to reign B.C. 896, and reigned twelve years (2 Kings i. 17; iii. 1). Joram adhered to the sinful policy of Jeroboam in the matter of the golden calves; but, although his mother Jezebel was still alive, he discontinued the dark idolatries of Baal which she had introduced and maintained at such high cost of guilt and blood to the nation.

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JOSEPH

cessor, Hazael. During the illness of Benhadad, the king of Israel seems to have employed himself in strengthening his eastern frontier against the Syrians, and in fortifying Ramoth-Gilead, which had fallen into his hauds, and which his father had perished in the attempt to recover from the Syrians. This strong fortress thenceforth became the head-quarters of the operations beyond the river. Hazael was scarcely settled on the throne before he took arms, and marched against Ramoth, in the environs of which the Israelites sustained a defeat, and the king was wounded. He returned to Jezreel to be healed of his wounds, leaving the army in the charge of Jehu, one of his ablest and most active generals. It was in this interval that Jehu was anointed king of Israel by the messenger of Elisha, and immediately proceeded to Jezreel to fulfil his commission to exterminate the house of Ahab. The king, who went forth from the city to meet him when the watchman on the tower of Jezreel announced his approach, was slain under the circumstances described in the article JEHU; and Ahaziah, the king of Judah, who was at Jezreel on a visit to his sick cousin, shared his fate (B.C. 884). With Joram ended the dynasty of Ahab, which reigned forty-four years in Israel (2 Kings viii. 25-29; ix. 1-20).

JOR'DAN, the principal river of Palestine. [PALESTINE.]

The Moabites had been tributary to the crown of Israel since the separation of the two king- JO'SEPH (God-increased), son of Jacob and doms. But king Mesha deemed the defeat and Rachel, born under peculiar circumstances, as death of Ahab so heavy a blow to the power of may be seen in Gen. xxx. 22; on which account, Israel that he might safely assert his indepen- and because he was the son of his old age (xxxvii. dence. He accordingly did so, by withholding 3), he was beloved by his father more than were his tribute of 100,000 lambs, and 100,000 rams, the rest of his children, though Benjamin, as being with the wool.' The short reign of Ahaziah had also a son of Jacob's favourite wife, Rachel, was afforded no opportunity for any operations against in a peculiar manner dear to the patriarch. The the revolters; but the new king hastened to re-partiality evinced towards Joseph by his father duce them again under the yoke they had cast off. The good king of Judah, Jehoshaphat, was too easily induced to take a part in the war. He perhaps feared that the example of Moab, if allowed to be successful, might seduce into a similar course his own tributary, the king of Edom, whom he now summoned to join in this expedition. The deliverance of the allies from perishing for lack of water, and the signal overthrow of the Moabites at the word of Elisha, have been already described under ELISHA and JEHо

SHAPHAT.

After this a more redoubtable enemy, Benhadad, king of Syria, occupied for a long time the attention and strength of the king. In the sacred records the more striking events of this war seem to be recorded for the sake of showing forth the great acts of ELISHA, and they have therefore been related under his name. It suffices here to indicate that they consisted in the Syrian king being constrained to terminate one campaign in consequence of all his plans being made known by the prophet to the king of Israel (2 Kings vi. 1-23); and in the deliverance of Samaria, according to the prediction of the prophet, from a horrible famine, caused by the city being besieged by the Syrians (2 Kings vi. 24-33; vii.). An interval of the war also afforded occasion for the remarkable cure of Naaman, the Syrian leper, by the same prophet (2 Kings v.) [NAAMAN].

After the death of Benhadad, Joram found a new and active enemy in his murderer and suc

excited jealousy on the part of his brethren, the rather that they were born of different mothers (xxxvii. 2). Joseph had reached his seventeenth year, when some conduct on the part of his brothers seems to have been such as in the opinion of Joseph to require the special attention of Jacob, to whom, accordingly, he communicated the facts. This greatly increased their dislike to him, and they henceforth hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him' (xxxvii. 4). Their aversion, however, was carried to the highest pitch when Joseph acquainted them with two dreams, which appeared to indicate that Joseph would acquire pre-eminence in the family, if not sovereignty; and while even his father rebuked him, his brothers were filled with envy. Jacob, however, was not aware of the depth of their ill will; so that on one occasion, having a desire to hear intelligence of his sons, who were pasturing their flocks at a distance, he did not hesitate to make Joseph his messenger for that purpose. His appearing in view of his brothers was the signal for their malice to gain head. They began to devise means for his immediate destruction, which they would unhesitatingly have effected, but for his half-brother, Reuben, who, as the eldest son, might well be the party to interfere on behalf of Joseph. A compromise was entered into, in virtue of which the youth was stripped of the distinguishing vestments which he owed to his father's affection, and cast into a pit. Having performed this evil deed, and

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while they were taking refreshment, the brothers | daughter of Poti-pherah, priest of On, given him beheld a caravan of Arabian merchants, who to wife. were bearing the spices and aromatic gums of India down to the well-known and much-frequented mart, Egypt. On the proposal of Judah they resolved that, instead of allowing Joseph to perish, they should sell him to the merchants. This was accordingly done. Joseph was sold for a slave, to be conveyed by his masters into Egypt. While on his way thither, Reuben returned to the pit, intending to rescue his brother, and convey him safely back to their father. Joseph was gone. On which Reuben went to the wicked young men, who, not content with selling a brother into slavery, determined to punish their father for his partiality towards the unoffending sufferer. With this view they dipped Joseph's party-coloured garment in the blood of a kid and sent it to Jacob, in order to make him believe that his favourite child had been torn to pieces by some wild beast. The trick succeeded, and Jacob was grieved beyond measure.

Meanwhile the merchants sold Joseph to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, and captain of the royal guard, who was a native of the country. In Potiphar's house Joseph enjoyed the highest confidence and the largest prosperity. A higher power watched over him; and whatever he undertook succeeded, till at length his master gave everything into his hands. But a second time he innocently brought on himself the vengeance of the ill-disposed. Charged by his master's wife with the very crime to which he had in vain been tempted, he was at once cast by his master into the state prison.

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The narrative, which is obviously constructed in order to show the workings of divine Providence, states, however, that Joseph was not left without special aid, in consequence of which he gained favour with the keeper of the prison to such an extent that every thing was put under his direction. Two of the regal officers, the chief of the butlers' and the chief of the bakers,' having offended their royal master, were consigned to the same prison with Joseph. While there, each one had a dream, which Joseph interpreted correctly. The butler, whose fate was auspicious, promised the young Hebrew to employ his influence to procure his deliverance; but when again in the enjoyment of his butlership,' 'he forgat' Joseph (xl.). Pharaoh himself, however, had two dreams, which found in Joseph a successful expounder; for the butler then remembered the skill of his prison-companion, and advised his royal master to put it to the test in his own case. Pharaoh's dream, as interpreted by Joseph, foreboded the approach of a seven years' famine; to abate the evils of which Joseph recommended that some discreet and wise' man should be chosen and set in full power over the land of Egypt. The monarch was alarmed, and called a council of his advisers. The wisdom of Joseph was recognised as of divine origin and supereminent value; and the king and his ministers (whence it appears that the Egyptian monarchy-at Memphis-was not despotic, but constitutional) resolved that Joseph should be made (to borrow a term from Rome) Dictator in the approaching time of need. The highest honours were conferred upon him. He was made ruler over all the land of Egypt, and the

Seven years of abundance afforded Joseph opportunity to carry into effect such plans as secured an ample provision against the seven years of need. The famine came, but it found a prepared people. The visitation did not depend on any mere local causes, for the famine was over all the face of the earth;' and all countries came into Egypt to Joseph to buy corn' (ver. 56, 57). Among these customers appeared ten brethren, sons of the Hebrew Jacob. They had of necessity to appear before Joseph, whose licence for the purchase of corn was indispensable. Joseph had probably expected to see them, and he seems to have formed a deliberate plan of action. His conduct has brought on him the always ready charges of those who would rather impeach than study the Bible, and even friends of that sacred book have hardly in this case done Joseph full justice. Joseph's main object appears to have been to make his brothers feel and recognise their guilt in their conduct towards him. For this purpose suffering, then as well as now, was indispensable. Accordingly Joseph feigned not to know his brothers, charged them with being spies, threatened them with imprisonment, and allowed them to return home to fetch their younger brother, as a proof of their veracity, only on condition that one of them should remain behind in chains, with a prospect of death before him should not their words be verified. Then it was, and not before, that they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul and would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us' (xliii. 21). On which, after weeping bitterly, he by common agreement bound his brother Simeon, and left him in custody. At length Jacob consented to Benjamin's going in company with his brothers, and provided with a present consisting of balm, honey, spices and myrrh, nuts and almonds, and with double money in their hands (double, in order that they might repay the sum which Joseph had caused to be put into each man's sack at their departure, if, as Jacob supposed, it was an oversight), they went again down to Egypt and stood before Joseph (xliii. 15); and there, too, stood Benjamin, Joseph's beloved brother. The required pledge of truthfulness was given. If it is asked why such a pledge was demanded, since the giving of it caused pain to Jacob, the answer may be thus: Joseph knew not how to demean himself towards his family until he ascertained its actual condition. That knowledge he could hardly be certain he had gained from the mere words of men who had spared his life only to sell him into slavery. How had these wicked men behaved towards his venerable father? His beloved brother Benjamin, was he safe? or had he suffered from their jealousy and malice the worse fate with which he himself had been threatened? Nothing but the sight of Benjamin could answer these questions, and resolve these doubts.

Benjamin had come, and immediately a natural change took place in Joseph's conduct: the brother began to claim his rights in Joseph's bosom. Jacob was safe, and Benjamin was safe. Joseph's heart melted at the sight of Benjamin: And he said to the ruler of his house, Bring these men

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JOSEPH

JOSEPH

Most natural and impressive is the scene also which ensues, in which Joseph, after informing his brethren who he was, and inquiring, first or all, Is my father alive?' expresses feelings free from the slightest taint of revenge, and even shows how, under Divine Providence, the conduct of his brothers had issued in good-God sent me before you to preserve a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.' Five years had yet to ensue in which there would be neither earing nor harvest;' and therefore the brethren were directed to return home and bring Jacob down to Egypt with all speed. And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. Moreover, he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them: and after that is brethren talked with him' (xlv. 14, 15).

home, and slay and make ready, for these men, nothing more simple, natural, true, and im-
shall dine with me at noon (xliii. 16). But pressive.
guilt is always the ready parent of fear. Ac-
cordingly the brothers expected nothing but being
reduced to slavery. When taken to their own
brother's house, they imagined they were being
entrapped. A colloquy ensued between them and
Joseph's steward, whence it appeared that the
money put into their sacks, to which they now
attributed their peril, was in truth a present from
Joseph, designed, after his own brotherly manner,
to aid his family in their actual necessities. Noon
came, and with it Joseph, whose first question
regarded home: 'He asked them of their welfare,
and said, Is your father well, the old man of
whom ye spake? is he yet alive? And he lifted
up his eyes and saw his brother Benjamin, his
mother's son, and said, Is this your younger
brother? And he said, God be gracious unto
thee, my son!' 'And Joseph made haste, for
his bowels did yearn upon his brother, and he
sought where to weep, and he entered into his
chamber and wept there.' Does this look like
harshness?

|
The news of these striking events was carried
to Pharaoh, who being pleased at Joseph's con-
duct, gave directions that Jacob and his family
should come forthwith into Egypt. The brethren
departed, being well provided for- And to his
father Joseph sent ten asses laden with the good
things of Egypt, and ten she asses laden with
corn and bread and meat for his father by the
way.'

The connection brings into view an Egyptian custom, which is of more than ordinary importance, in consequence of its being adopted in the Jewish polity; And they set on (food) for him by himself (Joseph), and for them by themselves (the brethren), and for the Egyptians which did The intelligence which they bore to their eat with them, by themselves, because the Egyp-father was of such a nature that Jacob's heart tians might not eat bread with the Hebrews; for fainted, for he believed them not.' When, howthat is an abomination with the Egyptians' (ver. ever, he had recovered from the thus naturally 32). This passage is also interesting, as proving told effects of his surprise, the venerable patrithat Joseph had not, in his princely grandeur, arch said, Enough; Joseph my son is yet become ashamed of his origin, nor consented to alive: I will go and see him before I die' (xlv. receive adoption into a strange nation: he was 26, 28). still a Hebrew, waiting, like Moses after him, for the proper season to use his power for the good of his own people.

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Accordingly Jacob and his family, to the number of threescore and ten souls, went down to Egypt, and by the express efforts of Joseph, were allowed to settle in the district of Goshen, where Joseph met his father: And he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while.' There Joseph 'nourished his father and his brethren, and all his father's household, with bread, according to their families' (xlvii. 12).

Joseph, apparently with a view to ascertain how far his brethren were faithful to their father, hit upon a plan which would in its issue serve to show whether they would make any, and what, sacrifice, in order to fulfil their solemn promise of restoring Benjamin in safety to Jacob. Accordingly he ordered not only that every man's Meanwhile the predicted famine was paupermoney (as before) should be put in his sack's izing Egypt. The inhabitants found their money mouth, but also that his 'silver cup in which my exhausted, and their cattle and substance all gone. lord drinketh, and whereby he divineth,' should being parted with in order to purchase food from be put in the sack's mouth of the youngest. The the public granaries, until at length they had brethren departed, but were soon overtaken by nothing to give in return for sustenance but themJoseph's steward, who charged them with having selves. Buy us'-they then imploringly said surreptitiously carried off this costly and highly- to Joseph-and our land for bread, and we and valued vessel. They on their part vehemently our land will be slaves unto Pharaoh.' And repelled the accusation, adding, with whomso- Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, ever of thy servants it be found, both let him so the land became Pharaoh's. The people too, die, and we also will be my lord's bondmen.' A Joseph removed to cities from one end of the search was made, and the cup was found in Ben- borders of the land to the other end.' Religion, jamin's sack. Accordingly they returned to the however, was too strong to submit to these politicity. And now came the hour of trial: Would cal and social changes, and so the priests still they purchase their own liberation by surrender- retained their land, being supplied with proviing Benjamin? After a most touching interview, sions out of the common store gratuitously. The in which they proved themselves worthy and land, which was previously the people's own, was faithful, Joseph declared himself unable any now let to them on a tenancy, at the rent of onelonger to withstand the appeal of natural affec-fifth of the produce: the land of the priests being tion. On this occasion Judah, who was the spokesman, showed the deepest regard to his aged father's feelings, and entreated for the liberation of Benjamin even at the price of his own liberty. In the whole of literature we know of

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exempted.

Joseph had now to pass through the mournful scenes which attend on the death and burial of a father. Having had Jacob embalmed, and seen the rites of mourning fully observed, the faithful

JOSEPH

and affectionate son proceeded into the land of Canaan, in order, agreeably to a promise which the patriarch had exacted, to lay the old man's bones with those of his fathers, in the field of Ephron the Hittite.' Having performed with long and bitter mourning Jacob's funeral rites, Joseph returned into Egypt. The last recorded act of his life forms a most becoming close. After the death of their father, his brethren, unable, like all guilty people, to forget their criminality, and characteristically finding it difficult to think that Joseph had really forgiven them, grew afraid, now they were in his power, that he would take an opportunity of inflicting some punishment on them. They accordingly go into his presence, and, in imploring terms and an abject manner, entreat his forgiveness. Fear not-this is his noble reply I will nourish you and your little ones.'

Joseph lived an hundred and ten years, kind and gentle in his affections to the last; for we are told, The children of Machir, the son of Manasseh, were brought up upon Joseph's knees' (1. 23). And so having obtained a promise from his brethren, that when the time came, as he assured them it would come, that God should visit them, and bring them unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob,' they would carry up his bones out of Egypt, Joseph at length died, and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin' (1. 26). This promise was religiously fulfilled. His descendants, after carrying the corpse about with them in their wanderings, at length put it in its final restingplace in Shechem, in a parcel of ground that Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor, which became the inheritance of the children of Joseph (Josh. xxiv. 32).

By his Egyptian wife, Asenath, daughter of the high priest of Heliopolis, Joseph had two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim (Gen. xli. 50, sq.), whom Jacob adopted (Gen. xlviii. 5), and who accordingly took their place among the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel.

JOSEPH, 'the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ' (Matt. i. 16). By Matthew he is said to have been the son of Jacob, whose lineage is traced by the same writer through David up to Abraham. Luke represents him as being the son of Heli, and traces his origin up to Adam. How these accounts are to be reconciled, is shown under GENEALOGY.

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judges everything by its own small standard, and
either denies miracles altogether, or admits only
such miracles as find favour in its sight.
Joseph was by trade a carpenter, in which
business he probably educated Jesus (Matt. xiii.
55; Mark vi. 3). The word rendered 'carpenter'
is of a general character, and may be fitly ren-
dered by the English word 'artificer' or 'arti-
zan.' Schleusner asserts that the universal testi-
mony of the ancient church represents our Lord
as being a carpenter's son. Hilarius, on Mat-
thew, asserts, in terms which cannot be mistaken,
that Jesus was a smith. Of the same opinion
was the venerable Bede; while others have held
that our Lord was a mason, and Cardinal Ca-
jetan, that he was a goldsmith. The last notion
probably had its origin in those false associations
of more modern times which disparage hand-
labour. Among the ancient Jews all handi-
crafts were held in so much honour, that they
were learned and pursued by the first men of the
nation.

Christian tradition makes Joseph an old man when first espoused to Mary, being no less than eighty years of age, and father of four sons and two daughters. The painters of Christian antiquity conspire with the writers in representing Joseph as an old man at the period of the birth of our Lord-an evidence which is not to be lightly rejected, though the precise age mentioned may be but an approximation to fact.

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It is not easy to determine when Joseph died, but it has been alleged, with great probability, that he must have been dead before the crucifixion of Jesus. There being no notice of Joseph in the public life of Christ, nor any reference to him in the discourses and history, while Mary' and His brethren not unfrequently appear, these circumstances afford evidence not only of Joseph's death, but of the inferior part which, as legal father only of our Lord, Joseph might have been expected to sustain. So far as our scanty materials enable us to form an opinion, Joseph appears to have been a good, kind, simple-minded man, who, while he afforded aid in protecting and sustaining the family, would leave Mary unrestrained to use all the impressive and formative influence of her gentle, affectionate, pious, and thoughtful soul.

JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA. The name Arimathea denotes probably the place where Joseph was born, not that where he resided. [ARIMATHEA.]

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The statements of Holy Writ in regard to Joseph are few and simple. According to a Joseph was a secret disciple of Jesus-'an custom among the Jews, traces of which are still honourable counsellor, who waited for the kingfound, Joseph had pledged his faith to Mary; dom of God' (Mark xv. 43), and who, on learnbut before the marriage was consummated she ing the death of our Lord, came and went in proved to be with child. Grieved at this, Joseph boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus.' was disposed to break off the connection; but, Pilate having learned from the centurion, who not wishing to make a public example of one commanded at the execution, that Jesus was acwhom he loved, he contemplated a private dis-tually dead,' gave the body to Joseph, who took ruption of their bond. From this step, however, it down and wrapped his deceased Lord in fine he is deterred by a heavenly messenger, who linen which he had purchased for the purpose; assures him that Mary has conceived under a after which he laid the corpse in a sepulchre divine influence. And she shall bring forth a which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he unto the door of the sepulchre (Mark xv. 43, shall save his people from their sins' (Matt. i. sq.). From the parallel passages in Matthew 18, sq.; Luke i. 27). To this account various (xxvii. 58, sq.), Luke (xxiii. 50, seq.) and John' objections have been taken; but most of them (xix. 38, seq.), .it appears that the Lody was preare drawn from the ground of a narrow, short- viously embalmed at the cost of another secret sighted, and half-informed rationalism, which disciple, Nicodemus, and that the sepulchre was

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