A glance over the verse enumeration in the margin of one of the modern editions of the text will reveal, perhaps, most clearly how strong is the tendency to interpolation. Of the verses into which Stephen divided the Greek N.T. (1551), the Stuttgart edition omits entirely the following from the Synoptic Gospels—viz., Matt. xviii. 11 (xxi. 44, Tischen.), xxiii. 14; Mark vii. 16; ix. 44, 46; xi. 26; xv. 28; Luke xvii. 36 (xxi. 18, W-H margin); xxiii. 17 (xxiv. 12, 40, Tisch.). Compare also Matt. xx. 28; xxvii. 35, 38, 49; Mark vi. 11; xiii. 2; Luke vi. 5; ix. 55; xii. 21; xix. 45; xxi. 38; xxii. 19 f., 43 f., 47; xxiii. 2, 5, 34, 48, 53; xxiv. 5, 36, 51, 52. In the case of several verses this or that part had to be omitted. Luke xx. 30, _e.g._, is reduced to the three words, καὶ ὁ δεύτερος, with the result that it becomes the shortest verse in the N.T. Footnote 261: The best discussion of the form Ἀπελλῆς will again be found in Zahn, _Einl._, i. 193. Footnote 262: See my note in the _Expository Times_ for July 1900, p. 478, where I have brought forward a new witness for the reading Jonatha—viz., Jerome’s _Liber interpretationis Hebraicorum nominum_. He explains the word as “_columba dans_ vel _columba veniens_.” Footnote 263: Volck has an article of four and a half pages on Balaam in the PRE^3, iii. 227 ff., but he says not a syllable about the form βοσόρ, which is too bad. In Hastings’ _Dictionary of the Bible_ it is at least mentioned though not explained. Footnote 264: בער is explained as the Hebrew form of the Aramaic בעור by C. B. Michaelis (_De Paronomasia_, § 30); Hiller, _Onomasticum_, 1706, p. 536; and Bernardus (in Marck, _In praecipuas quasdam partes Pentateuchi Commentarius_, Leyden, 1713, 366). Marck himself makes it the equivalent of פתור. M. M. Kalish, _Bible Studies_, i. _The prophecies of Bileam_, London, 1877, contributes nothing to the solution of the question. CRITICAL NOTES ON VARIOUS PASSAGES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. THE GOSPEL. Matthew.