inently to be brought to honour; then the whole territory along
the sea on both sides of it.--[Hebrew: iM] can, in this context
which serves for a more definite qualification, mean the sea of
Gennesareth only ([Hebrew: iM knrt] Numb. xxxiv. 11, and other
passages), just as, in Matt. iv. 13, the designation of Capernaum as
[Greek: he parathalassia] receives its definite meaning from the
context.--[Hebrew: drK] occurs elsewhere also in the signification of
_versus_, _e.g._, Ezek. viii. 5, xl. 20, 46; it will be necessary to
supply after it [Hebrew: arC], just as in the case of the [Hebrew: ebr
hirdN] following. It is without any instance that [Hebrew: drK] "way"
should stand for "region," "country." The region on the sea is then
divided into its two parts [Hebrew: ebr hirdN], [Greek: peran tou
Iordanou], the land on the east bank of Jordan, and Galilee. The latter
answers to the land of Zebulun and Naphtali; for the territory of these
two tribes occupied the centre and principal part of Galilee. In
opposition to the established _usus loquendi_, many would understand
[Hebrew: ebr hirdN] as meaning the land "on the side," _i.e._, this
side "of the Jordan," proceeding upon the supposition that the local
designations must, from beginning to end, be congruous. Opposed to it
is also the circumstance that, in 2 Kings, xv. 29, the most eastward
and most northward countries, Peraea and Galilee are connected. [Pg 73]
In that passage the single places are mentioned which Tiglath-pilezer
took; then, the whole districts, "Gilead and Galilee, the whole land of
Naphtali." By the latter words, that part of Galilee is made especially
prominent upon which the catastrophe fell most severely and completely.
In the phrase, "Galilee of the Gentiles," Galilee is a geographical
designation which was already current at the time of the Prophet. There
is no reason for fixing the extent of ancient Galilee differently from
that of the more modern Galilee,--for assigning to it a more limited
extent. We are told in 1 Kings ix. 11, that the twenty cities which
Solomon gave to Hiram lay in the land of _Galil_, but not that the
country was limited to them. The qualification, "of the Gentiles," is
nowhere else met with in the Old Testament; it is peculiar to the
Prophet. It serves as a hint to point out in what the disgrace of
Galilee and Peraea consisted. This _Theodoret_ also saw. He says: "He
calls it 'Galilee of the Gentiles'because it was inhabited by o