And David said on that day, Whosoever gets up the water shaft, and strikes the Jebusites, and the lame and the blind, that are hated of David's soul, he shall be chief and captain. Therefore they said, The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.
Read Chapter 5
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Gutters. Hebrew Tsinnor, "through (Nodius) the subterraneous passage "(leading to the tops of the houses.) (Hugo of Vienna)
Thus Babylon was taken by Cyrus, who passed through the channel of the Euphrates, the waters of which he had let out; though the inhabitants had derided his attempt to take the city by siege, as the men of Jebus do here. Polybius says, "Rabata mana, a city of Arabia, could not be taken, till one of the prisoners showed the besiegers a subterraneous passage, (uponomon) through which the besieged came down for water. "Of the same nature were the gutters here spoken of. (Kennicott)
"The king promised to give the command of the army to the man who would pass through the cavities (pharaggon) below, and take the citadel. "(Josephus)
This reward is expressly mentioned in 1 Paralipomenon xi. 6, with the person who obtained it; (St. Jerome, Trad.) and it seems, after David, this ought to be inserted, "shall be the head and captain. And Joab, the son of Sarvia, went up f...
For (here is one of Marcion’s antitheses): whereas David long ago, in the capture of Zion, was offended by the blind who opposed his admission (into the stronghold). In this respect (I should rather say) that they were a type of people equally blind, who in later times would not admit Christ to be the son of David. So, on the contrary, Christ helped the blind man to show, by this act, that he was not David’s son and how different in disposition he was, by being kind to the blind while David ordered them to be slain. If all this were so, why did Marcion allege that the blind man’s faith was of such a worthless type? The fact is, the Son of David acted so that the antithesis must lose its point by its own absurdity. Those persons who offended David were blind, and the man who now presents himself as a beggar to David’s son is afflicted with the same infirmity. Therefore the Son of David was appeased with some sort of satisfaction by the blind man when he restored him to sight, and added ...
