at the
Lord had thrust it down into dark hell. The Preterite tense of the
verbs in our verse is to be explained from the prophetical view which
converts the Future into the Present. How little soever modern exegesis
can realise this seeing by, and in faith, and how much soever it is
everywhere disposed to introduce the _real_ Present instead of the
_ideal_, yet even _Ewald_ is compelled to remark on the passage under
consideration: "The Prophet, as if he were describing something which
in his mind he had seen as certain long ago, here represents everything
in the past, and scarcely makes an exception of this in the new start
which he takes in the middle." At the time when the Prophet uttered
this Prophecy, even the _darkness_ still belonged to the future. As yet
the world's power had not gained the ascendancy over Israel; but here
the light has already dispelled the darkness.

It now merely remains for us to view more particularly the quotation of
these two verses in Matt. iv. 12-17. [Greek: Akousas de]--thus the
section begins--[Greek: hoti Ioannes paredothe, anechoresen eis ten
Galilaian.] Since, in these words, we are told that Jesus, after having
received the intelligence of the imprisonment of [Pg 78] John, withdrew
into Galilee, we cannot for a moment think of His having sought in
Galilee, safety from Herod; for Galilee just belonged to Herod, and
Judea afforded security against him. The verb [Greek: anachorein]
denotes, on the contrary, the withdrawing into the _angulus terrae_
Galilee, as contrasted with the civil and ecclesiastical centre. The
_time_ of the beginning of Christ's preaching (His ministry hitherto
had been merely a kind of prelude) was determined by the imprisonment
of John, as certainly as, according to the prophecy of the Old
Testament, the territories of the activity of both were immediately
bordering upon one another, and by that very circumstance _the place_,
too, was indirectly determined; for it was fixed by the prophecy under
consideration that Galilee was to be the scene of the chief ministry of
Christ. If, then, the time for the beginning of the ministry had come,
He must also depart into Galilee. The connection, therefore, is this:
After he had received the intelligence of the imprisonment of John--in
which the call to Him for the beginning of His ministry was implied--He
departed into Galilee, and especially to Capernaum, vers. 12, 13; for
it was this part of the country which, by the