Testimony of Christ to the Old Testament 49 you circumcision. * * * I f a man on the Sabbath day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken,” etc. (John 7 :22, 23). The omitted parenthetical words—“not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers”— seem clearly to show, it may be remarked in passing, that the Lord is not unobservant of historical exactness. The Psalms are quoted by our Lord more than once, but only once is a writer named. The 110th Psalm is ascribed to David; and the vadidity of the Lord’s argument depends on its being Davidic. The reference, therefore, so far as it goes, confirms the inscriptions of the Psalms in relation to authorship. Isa. 6 :9 is quoted thus: “In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand” (Matt. 13:14, 15). Again, chapter 29:13 of Isaiah’s prophecy is cited: “Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites. * * * This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me” (Mark 7:6). When, in the beginning of His ministry, the Lord came to Nazareth, there was delivered unto Him in the synagogue “the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor,” etc. (Luke 4:17, 18).' The passage read by our Lord is from the 61st chapter of Isaiah, which belongs to the section of the book very often, at present, ascribed to the second, or pseudo, Isaiah; but we do not press this point, as it may be said that the Evangelist, rather than Christ, ascribes the words to Isaiah. In His great prophecy respecting the downfall of the Jewish state the Lord refers to “the abomination of desola tion, spoken of by Daniel the prophet:” As in Dan. 9:27, we read that “For the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate,” and in chapter 12:11, that “the abomination that maketh desolate (shall) be set up.”
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