Reading of Isaiah
V 1, p 290 To read (ἀναγνῶναι). Usually in New Testament of public reading.* After the liturgical services which introduced the worship of the synagogue, the “minister” took a roll of the law from the ark, removed its case and wrappings, and then called upon some one to read. On the Sabbaths, at least seven persons were called on successively to read portions of the law, none of them consisting of less than three verses.
After the law followed a section from the prophets, which was succeeded immediately by a discourse. It was this section which Jesus read and expounded. See Acts 13:15; Neh. 8:5, 8. For a detailed account of the synagogue-worship, see Edersheim, “Life and Times of Jesus,” i., 430 sq.
17. The book (βιβλίον). A diminutive of βίβλος, the inner bark of the papyrus, used for writing. Hence a roll. The word is also used to denote a division of a work, and is therefore appropriate here to mark the writings of a single prophet as related to the whole body of the prophetic writings.
Opened (ἀναπτύξας). Lit., unrolled. Both this and the simple verb πτύσσω, to close (ver. 20), occur only once in the New Testament. The former word was used in medical language of the opening out of various parts of the body, and the latter of the rolling up of bandages. The use of these terms by Luke the physician is the more significant from the fact that elsewhere in the New Testament ἀνοίγω is used for the opening of a book (Apoc. 5:2–5; 10:2, 8; 20:12); and εἰλίσσω, for rolling it up (Apoc. 6:14).
Vincent, Marvin Richardson. Word Studies in the New Testament. Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1887. Print.
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