Note 331 — Chapter IX · MIRACLES OF JESUS.

The answer of Jesus to the intimation of his mother (v. 4) has been just as often blamed with exaggeration331 as justified on insufficient grounds. However truly it may be urged that the Hebrew phrase, ‏מַה־לִּי וָלָךְ‎, to which the Greek τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοὶ corresponds, appears elsewhere as an expression of gentle blame, e.g. 2 Sam. xvi. 10;332 or that with the entrance of Jesus on his special office his relation to his mother as regarded his actions was dissolved:333 it nevertheless remains undeniable, that it was fitting for Jesus to be modestly apprised of opportunities for the exercise of his miraculous power, and if one who pointed out to him a case of disease and added an entreaty for help, did not deserve reprehension, as little and even less did Mary, when she brought to his knowledge a want which had arisen, with a merely implied entreaty for assistance. The case would have been different had Jesus considered the occasion not adapted, or even unworthy to have a miracle connected with it; he might then have repelled with severity the implied summons, as an incitement to a false use of miraculous power (instanced in the history of the temptation); as, on the contrary, he immediately after showed by his actions that he held the occasion worthy of a miracle, it is absolutely incomprehensible how he could blame his mother for her information, which perhaps only came to him a few moments too soon.334