of them should chance to bring the reader to a stand-still,
CHAP. XVI.] IXTEEPKETATION OF METAPIIOES.
must of course yield to tlie Greek, especially those that are found in the churches of greater learning and research.
CuAP. XVI.—The hioioledge both of language and tilings is helpful for the understanding offigurative expressions,
23. In the case of figurative signs, again, if ignorance of any of them should chance to bring the reader to a stand-still, their meaning is to be traced partly by the knowledge of languages, partly by the knowledge of things. The pool of Siloam, for example, where the man whose eyes our Lord had anointed with clay made out of spittle was commanded to wash, has a figurative significance, and undoubtedly conveys a secret sense ; but yet if the evangelist had not interpreted that name,^ a meaning so important would lie unnoticed. And we cannot doubt that, in the same way, many Hebrew names which have not been interpreted by the writers of those books, would, if any one could interpret them, be of great value and service in solving the enigmas of Scripture. And a number of men skilled in that language have conferred no small benefit on posterity by explaining all these words without reference to their place in Scripture, and telling us what Adam means, what Eve, what Abraham, what Moses^and also the names of places, what Jerusalem signifies, or Sion, or Sinai, or Lebanon, or Jordan, and whatever other names in that language we are not acquainted with. And when these names have been investigated and explained, many figurative expressions in Scripture become clear.
24. Ignorance of things, too, renders figurative expressions obscure, as when we do not know the nature of the animals, or minerals, or plants, which are frequently referred to in Scripture by way of comparison. The fact so well known about the serpent, for example, that to protect its head it will present its whole body to its assailants—how much light it throws upon the meaning of our Lord's command, that we should be wise as serpents ; ^ that is to say, that for the sake of our head, which is Christ, w^e should willingly ofier our body to the persecutors, lest the Christian faith should, as it were, be destroyed in us, if to save the body we deny our God
! Or again, the statement that the serpent gets rid of
1 John ix. 7. 2 jy^^tt. x. 16.