Lamb.
Viewed in this light, what passed at the marriage in Cana seems like taking up the thread, where it had been dropped at the first manifestation of His Messianic consciousness. In the Temple at Jerusalem He had said in answer to the misapprehensive question of His Mother: 'Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?' and now when about to take in hand that 'business,' He tells her so again, and decisively, in reply to her misapprehensive suggestion. It is a truth which we must ever learn, and yet are ever slow to learn in our questionings and suggestings, alike as concerns His dealings with ourselves and His rule of His Church, that the highest and only true point of view is 'the Father's business,' not our personal relationship to Christ. This thread, then, is taken up again at Cana in the circle of friends, as immediately afterwards in His public manifestation, in the purifying of the Temple. What He had first uttered as a Child, on His first visit to the Temple, that He manifested forth when a Man, entering on His active work, negatively, in His reply to His Mother; positively, in the 'sign' He wrought. It all meant: 'Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?' And, positively and negatively, His first appearance in Jerusalem [a St. John ii. 13-17, and vv. 18-23.] meant just the same. For, there is ever deepest unity and harmony in that truest Life, the Life of Life.
As we pass through the court of that house in Cana, and reach the covered gallery which opens on the various rooms, in this instance, particularly, on the great reception room, all is festively adorned. In the gallery the servants move about, and there the 'water-pots' are ranged, 'after the manner of the Jews,' for purification, for the washing not only of hands before and after eating, but also of the vessels used, [b Comp. St. Mark vii. 1-4.] How detailed Rabbinic
ordinances were in these respects, will be shown in another connection. 'Purification' was one of the main points in Rabbinic sanctity. By far the largest and most elaborate [1 The whole Mishnah is divided into six Sedarim (Orders), of which the last is the Seder Tohoroth, treating of 'purifications.' It consists of twelve tractates (Massikhtoth), 126 chapters (Peraqim), and contains no fewer than 1001 separate Mishnayoth (the next largest Seder, Neziqin, contains 689 Mishnayoth). The first tractate in this 'Order of Purifications' treats of the purification of vessels (Kelim), and contains no fewer than thirty chapters; 'Yadayim' ('hands') is the eleventh tractate, and contains four chapters.] of the six books into which the Mishnah is divided, is exclusively devoted to this subject (the 'Seder Tohoroth,' purifications). Not to speak of references in other parts of the Talmud, we have two special tractates to instruct us about the purification of 'Hands' (Yadayim) and of'Vessels' (Kelim). The latter is the most elaborate in all the Mishnah, and consists of not less than thirty chapters. Their perusal proves, alike the strict accuracy of the Evangelic narratives, and the justice of Christ's denunciations of the unreality and gross hypocrisy of this elaborateness of ordinances. [1 Comp. St. Mark vii. 2-5; St. Matt, xxiii. 25, 26; St. Luke xi. 38, 39.] This the more so, when we recall that it was actually vaunted as a special qualification for a seat in the Sanhedrin, to be so acute and learned as to know how to prove clean creeping things (which were declared unclean by the Law), [a Sanh. 17 a.] And the mass of the people would have regarded neglect of the ordinances of purification as betokening either gross ignorance, or daring impiety.
At any rate, such would not be exhibited on an occasion like the present; and outside the reception-room, as St. John with graphic minuteness of details relates, six of those stone pots, which we know from Rabbinic writings, [2 These 'stone-vessels' (Keley Abhanim) are often spoken of (for example, Chel. x. 1). In Yaday. i. 2 they are expressly mentioned for the purification of the hands.] were ranged. Here it may be well to add, as against objectors, that it is impossible to state with certainty the exact measure represented by the 'two or three firkins apiece.' For, although we know that the term metretes (A. V. 'firkin') was intended as an equivalent for the Hebrew 'bath,' [b Jos. Ant. viii. 2. 9.] yet three different kinds of'bath were at the time used in Palestine: the common Palestinian or 'wilderness' bath, that of Jerusalem, and that of Sepphoris. [3 For further details we refer to the excursus on Palestinian money, weights, and measures, in Herzfeld's Handelsgesch. d. Juden, pp. 171-185.] The common Palestinian 'bath' was equal to the Roman amphora, containing about 5 1/4 gallons, while the Sepphoris 'bath' corresponded to the Attic metretes, and would contain about 8 1/2 gallons. In the former case, therefore, each of these pots might have held from 10 1/2 to 15 3/4 gallons; in the latter, from 17 to 25 1/2. Reasoning on the general ground that the so-called Sepphoris measurement was common in Galilee, the larger quantity seems the more likely, though by no means certain. It is almost like trifling on the threshold of such a history, and yet so many cavils have been raised, that we must here remind ourselves, that neither the size, nor the number of these vessels has anything extraordinary about it. For such an occasion the family would produce or borrow the largest and handsomest stone-vessels that could be procured; nor is it necessary to suppose that they were filled to the brim; nor should we forget that, from a Talmudic notice, [c Shabb. 77 b. So Lightfoot in loc] it seems to have been the practiceto set apart some of these vessels exclusively for the use of the bride and of the more distinguished guests, while the rest were used by the general company.
Entering the spacious, lofty dining-room, [4 The Teraqlin, from which the otherside-rooms opened (Jer. Rosh haSh. 59 b; Yoma 15 b). From Baba B. vi. 4 we learn, that such an apartment was at least 15 feet square and 15 feet high. Height of ceiling was characteristic of Palestinian
houses. It was always half the breadth and length put together. Thus, in a small house consisting of one room: length, 12 feet, breadth, 9 feet, the height would be 10 1/2 feet. In a large house: length, 15 feet, breadth, 12 feet, the height would be 13 1/2 feet. From Jer. Kethub. p. 28 d we learn, that the bride was considered as actually married the moment she had entered the Teraqlin, before she had actually gone to the Chuppah.] which would be brilliantly lighted with lamps and candlesticks, the guests are disposed round tables on couches, soft with cushions or covered with tapestry, or seated on chairs. The bridal blessing has been spoken, and the bridal cup emptied. The feast is proceeding, not the common meal, which was generally taken about even, according to the Rabbinic saying, [a Pas. 18 b.] that he who postponed it beyond that hour was as if he swallowed a stone, but a festive evening meal. If there had been disposition to those exhibitions of, or incitement to, indecorous and light merriment, [1 Thus it was customary, and deemed meritorious, to sing and perform a kind of play with myrtle branches (Jer. Peah 15 d); although one Rabbi was visited with sudden death for excess in this respect.] such as even the more earnest Rabbis deprecated, surely the presence of Jesus would have restrained it. And now there must have been a painful pause, or something like it, when the Mother of Jesus whispered to Him that 'the wine failed.' [2 St. John ii. 3, A.V.: 'when they wanted wine.'] There could, perhaps, be the less cause for reticence on this point towards her Son, not merely because this failure may have arisen from the accession of guests in the persons of Jesus and his disciples, for whom no provision had been originally made, but because the gift of wine or oil on such occasions was regarded a meritorious work of charity, [b Baba B ix.]
But all this still leaves the main incidents in the narrative untouched. How are we to understand the implied request of the Mother of Jesus? how His reply? and what was the meaning of the miracle? It seems scarcely possible to imagine that, remembering the miraculous circumstances connected with His Birth, and informed of what had passed at Jordan, she now anticipated, and by her suggestion wished to prompt, this as His Royal Messianic manifestation. [3 This is the viewof many commentators, ancient and modern.] With reverence be it said, such a beginning of Royalty and triumph would have been paltry: rather that of the Jewish miracle-monger than that of the Christ of the Gospels. Not so, if it was only 'a sign,' pointing to something beyond itself. Again, such anticipations on the part of Mary seem psychologically untrue, that is, untrue to her history. She could not, indeed, have ever forgotten the circumstances which had surrounded His Birth; but the deeper she 'kept all these things in her heart,' the more mysterious would they seem, as time passed in the dull round of the most simple and uneventful country-life, and in the discharge of every-day duties, without even the faintest appearance of anything beyond it. Only twelve years had passed since His Birth, and yet they had not understood His saying in the Temple! How much more difficult would it be after thirty years, when the Child had grown into Youth and Manhood, with still the same silence of Divine Voices around? It is difficult to believe in fierce sunshine on the afternoon of a long, grey day. Although we have no absolute certainty of it, we have the strongest internal reasons for believing, that Jesus had done no miracles these thirty years in the home at Nazareth, [1 Tholuck and Lucke, however, hold the opposite view.] but lived the life of quiet submission and obedient waiting. That was the then part of His Work. It may, indeed, have been that Mary knew of what had passed at Jordan; and that, when she saw Him returning with His first disciples, who, assuredly, would make no secret of their convictions, whatever these may have conveyed to outsiders, she felt that a new period in His Life had opened. But what was there in all this to suggest such a miracle? and if it had been suggested, why not ask
for it in express terms, if it was to be the commencement, certainly in strangely incongruous circumstances, of a Royal manifestation?
On the other hand, there was one thing which she had learned, and one thing which she was to unlearn, after
