were the symbolical representatives of these tribes, like the seventy elders appointed to
assist Moses.5 6 This symbolical meaning of the number Seventy continued among the
Jews. We can trace it in the LXX. (supposed) translators of the Bible into Greek, and in
the seventy members of the Sanhedrin, or supreme court.7
4. St. Matt. x. 5 &c.; St. Mark vi. 7 &c.; St. Luke ix. 1 &c.
5. Num. xi. 16.
6. In Bemidb. R. 15, ed. Warsh. p. 64 b, the mode of electing these Seventy is thus
described. Moses chose six from every tribe, and then put into an urn seventy-two lots, of
which seventy had the word Zaqen (Elder) inscribed on them, while two were blanks. The
latter are supposed to have been drawn by Eldad and Medad.
7. Comp. Sanh. i. 6.
There was something very significant in this appearance of Christ's messengers, by two
and two, in every place He was about to visit. As John the Baptist had, at the first,
heralded the Coming of Christ, so now two heralds appeared to solemnly announce His
Advent at the close of His Ministry; as John had sought, as the representative of the Old
Testament Church, to prepare His Way, so they, as the representatives of the New
Testament Church. In both cases the preparation sought was a moral one. It was the
national summons to open the gates to the rightful King, and accept His rule. Only, the
need was now the greater for the failure of John's mission, through the
misunderstanding and disbelief of the nation.8 This conjunction with John the Baptist
and the failure of his mission, as regarded national results, accounts for the insertion in
St. Matthew's Gospel of part of the address delivered on the Mission of the Seventy,
immediately after the record of Christ's rebuke of the national rejection of the Baptist.9
For St. Matthew, who (as well as St. Mark) records not the Mission of the Seventy -
simply because (as before explained) the whole section, of which it forms part, is
peculiar to St. Luke's Gospel - reports 'the Discourses' connected with it in other, and to
them congruous, connections.
8. St. Matt. xi. 7-19.
9. St. Matt. xi. 20-24; comp. with St. Luke x. 12-16.
We mark, that, what may be termed 'the Preface' to the Mission of the Seventy, is given
by St. Matthew (in a somewhat fuller form) as that to the appointment and mission of the
Twelve Apostles;10 and it may have been, that kindred words had preceded both.
Partially, indeed, the expressions reported in St. Luke x. 2 had been employed long
before.11 Those 'multitudes' throughout Israel - nay, those also which 'are not of that
flock' - appeared to His view like sheep without a true shepherd's care, 'distressed and
prostrate,'12 and their mute misery and only partly conscious longing appealed, and not
in vain, to His Divine compassion. This constituted the ultimate ground of the Mission of
the Apostles, and now of the Seventy, into a harvest that was truly great. Compared
with the extent of the field, and the urgency of the work, how few were the labourers!
Yet, as the field was God's, so also could He alone 'thrust forth labourers' willing and
able to do His work, while it must be ours to pray that He would be pleased to do so.
10. St. Matt. ix. 36-38.
11. St. John iv. 35.