Editor Help & Food :

The clipping sent me from the Christian Standard of May 14th, containing an article by the late Joseph Bryant Rotherham on the deity of Christ, fully exonerates him from all suspicion of unsoundness as to the essential Godhead of our Lord Jesus. I am truly thankful for this ; for while in my article, in February number of your magazine, I did not charge the learned translator with holding Unitarian views, I feared this was the case, and so expressed myself. Now I take this opportunity to acknowledge there is no grounds for such suspicion. I wish I could say the same as to the matter of eternal punishment. But his note in the Appendix which I have before noted, and his punctuation in Luke 23:43 still remain as a stumbling-block.

May I add, for the information of those who have not the latest (American) edition that it is in this, and not in the earlier edition, that the note on Matt. 25; 46, and the vicious punctuation of Luke 23:43, are found.

The article sent me was written nearly 50 years ago (in 1872). How many have since changed their faith! Whatever the translator's views were when the final edition was arranged, it is in the translation itself that the stated facts are found.

Dear Mr. Editor:

With reference to some remarks made at the Bible Reading at Oakland, reported in "Help & Food" (March 1921), may I make one or two suggestions? I confess to a liking for Jacob, and always feel inclined to stand up for him. Though his actions may have made him appear " a rascal" indeed, yet for all that, he was a man of faith, not only at the end of his life (as stated by H. A. I. on page 63), but from his early days. We may learn this even from Hebrews 11, where the first mention of him shows him (ver. 9) associated with Abraham and Isaac in their life of pilgrimage which witnessed to the reality of their faith in God's promise. As Jacob was only fifteen when Abraham died, his life of faith began early.* *The passage seems to apply to Jacob's later life, however, when he became the responsible head of a family. It could hardly apply to him in youth, under parental authority.-[Ed.*

Now though C. Knapp has put in "a weighty word" for the Authorized Version in the same issue of Help & Food, I must point out that the A.V. in Gen. 25 :27 wholly fails to give us the true sense of the amazing statement, not that "Jacob was a, plain man," but that "Jacob was a perfect man." The word that the A.V. translates "plain" is the same word that is used with reference to Noah in Gen. 6:9 and of Job in Job 1:1. Evidently the translators shrank from applying, as Scripture does, that same word to Jacob.* *J. N. D. has, "Jacob was a homely man;" and in his French version, " un homme simple." Nearly all versions have the same as the A. V. Gesenius say of this passage, "A peculiar use of this word:in this case it appears to indicate the milder and placid disposition of Jacob as opposed to the more ferocious character of Esau."-[Ed.* But the context shows that it applies to Jacob in his attitude to the promise of God. With respect to that he was " perfect," dwelling in tents, while Esau became a great hunter; Jacob preserved his pilgrim character' while his brother became a notable personality in the world.
The purpose of God was the dominating motive of Jacob's life,-not merely of his closing days. Even in his crooked acts, by which he twice supplanted Esau, his object was to secure (though in a carnal way) the God-given promise. That, and no present earthly good, was the motive that lay at the root of his actions. One would not excuse his subtle ways, but one admires, nevertheless, a man to whom the purpose of God was everything.

Surely God never sets His choice on anyone because of what He sees in him. But is it not true that God justifies His choice of a man by His subsequent work in that man's soul? H. P. Barker.