The Wycliffe Bible Commentary

The New Testament

Edited by

EVERETT F. HARRISON

MOODY PRESS - CHICAGO

COPYRIGHT 1962, BY

THE MOODY BIBLE INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

Library of Congress Catalog

Card Number: 62-20893

ISBN: 0-8024-9695-4

27 Printing/RR/Year 87

Printed in the United States of America

Publisher’s Preface

(HOW TO USE THIS BOOK)

The Approach

The Wycliffe Bible Commentary is an entirely new commentary on the whole Bible written and edited by a number of scholars representing a wide cross section of American Protestant Christianity. Within the limits of its more than a million and one-quarter words, it attempts to treat the entire text of the Old and New Testaments on a phrase by phrase basis. In addition, summaries of the major sections of each Biblical book generally appear in the text in connection with the main headings in the outline. Thus, the reader is permitted an overview and a detailed discussion of a passage of Scripture at the same time.

In the commentaries on the various books the writers present the results of their own careful, personal Bible study. But also they have preserved some of the best work of the older commentators and have utilized the insights of contemporary scholarship. While they infuse the whole with a fresh spirit, at the same time they manifest their unflinching belief in the divine inspiration of Holy Scripture.

Although the Biblical text used in the preparation of this commentary is that of the King James Version, several of the writers made their own translations of the books on which they worked. Occasionally they use phrases from their own translations in the text of the commentaries. For the convenience of the reader, all Biblical phraseology appears in bold face type, as do all the Biblical verse numbers. In this way numbers of verses are clearly distinguished from points in the outline. In cases in which the writer prefers to employ a reading from some version other than the King James, the source of such phraseology is identified. While the commentaries on the various books emphasize the interpretation of the actual words of Scripture, each is accompanied by a brief introductory discussion of authorship, date of composition, historical background, and the like. To Provide the reader with further background information, a brief review of the inter-testamental period has been included.

To improve appearance of the printed page, pronouns referring to deity (which appear in large numbers) are not capitalized, except when capitalization is necessary for clarity of meaning. Also in the interest of typographical appearance, Lord and God, when they are translations of the Hebrew YHWH, are not printed in capitals as in the King James Version. Often the Hebrew YHWH is represented by the English Jehovah. But in some instances the contributors preferred the spelling of Yahweh, which is gaining favor among Biblical scholars.

The basic aim of this volume is to determine the meaning of the text of Scripture. ...