which He was about to fulfil at Jerusalem.'24 Although the term 'Exodus,' 'outgoing,'
occurs otherwise for 'death,'25 we must bear in mind its meaning as contrasted with that
in which the same Evangelic writer designates the Birth of Christ, as His 'incoming.'26 In
truth, it implies not only His Decease, but its manner, and even His Resurrection and
Ascension. In that sense we can understand the better, as on t he lips of Moses and
Elijah, this about His fulfilling that Exodus: accomplishing it in all its fulness, and so
completing Law and Prophecy, type and prediction.
14. On the peculiar meaning of the word µορφη comp. Bishop Lightfoot on Philip. pp.
127-133.
15. St. Luke.
16. This expression of St. Luke, so far from indicating embellishment of the other
accounts, marks, if anything, rather retrogression.
17. St. Matthew.
18. It is scarcely a Rabbinic parallel - hardly an illustration - that in Rabbinic writings also
Moses' face before his death is said to have shone as the sun, for the comparison is a
Biblical one. Such language would, of course, be familiar to St. Matthew.
19. The words 'as snow,' in St. Mark ix. 3, are, however, spurious - an early gloss.
20. St. Mark.
21. St. Luke.
22. St. Luke.
23. Godet points out the emphatic meaning of οιτινες in St. Luke ix. 30= quippe qui: they
were none other than.
25. In some of the Apocrypha and Josephus , as well as in 2 Pet. i. 15.
24. St. Luke.
26. εισοδος, Acts xiii. 24.
And still that night of glory had not ended. A strange peculiarity has been noticed about
Hermon in 'the extreme rapidity of the formation of cloud on the summit. In a few
minutes a thick cap forms over the top of the moun tain, and as quickly disperses and
entirely disappears.'27 It almost seems as if this, like the natural position of Hermon
itself, was, if not to be connected with, yet, so to speak, to form the background to what
was to be enacted. Suddenly a cloud passed over the clear brow of the mountain - not
an ordinary, but 'a luminous cloud,' a cloud uplit, filled with light. As it laid itself between
Jesus and the two Old Testament Representatives, it parted, and presently enwrapped
them. Most significant is it, suggestive of the Presence of God, revealing, yet concealing
- a cloud, yet luminous. And this cloud overshadowed the disciples: the shadow of its
light fell upon them. A nameless terror seized them. Fain would they have held what
seemed for ever to escape t heir grasp. Such vision had never before been vouchsafed
to mortal man as had fallen on their sight; they had already heard Heaven's converse;
they had tasted Angels' Food, the Bread of His Presence. Could the vision not be
perpetuated - at least prolonged? In the confusion of their terror they knew not how
otherwise to word it, than by an expression of ecstatic longing for the continuance of