soon have died if he had not obtained help. Although
it is not expressly stated, it appears from the whole complexion of the
narrative that this man was a Jew. Indeed this is so obvious and so
necessary that the point of the parable would be lost if it were
otherwise: I think the nationality of the unfortunate sufferer is not
stated, precisely because it could not be mistaken.

"And by chance there came down a certain priest that way," &c. By chance
is an unfortunate translation here. It was not by chance that the priest
came down by that road at that time, but by a specific arrangement, and
in exact fulfilment of a plan; not the plan of the priest, not the plan
of the wounded traveller, but the plan of God. By "coincidence" ([Greek:
kata synkyrian]) the priest came down: that is, by the conjunction of
two things, in fact, which were previously constituted a pair in the
providence of God. In the result they fell together according to the
omniscient designer's plan. This is the true theory of the divine
government, and this is the account of the matter which the parable
contains.[62]

[62] The analogy between the meetings exhibited in this parable and
the meeting of Philip with the Ethiopian (Acts viii.) is interesting
and instructive. In both cases the place is a desert, in both a man
in great need and a man who has the means of supplying that need
meet each other there. Here the want and its supply are material and
temporal, there they are moral and spiritual. The man who fell among
thieves on the way to Jericho suffered from bodily wounds, and the
Samaritan who came to his relief appropriately applied material
remedies: the Ethiopian treasurer, in that way towards Gaza which is
desert, suffered in his soul, and the name of Christ was the
ointment which Philip the evangelist poured into his wound. These
two cases are indeed diverse, but as we learn from the Scriptures
throughout, they proceed, both as to disease and cure, upon
analogous principles, so that the knowledge of the one throws light
upon the meaning of the other. The meeting in the desert near Gaza
did not happen by chance, it was a tryst duly made and exactly kept,
for "the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise and go
toward the south," &c. (Acts viii. 26). The appointment for the
meetings in the valley between Jerusalem and Jericho was as
certainly made, although it has not been as expressly recorded.