Acts xiii. 15. "After the reading of the Law and the Prophets the rulers of the Synagogue sent unto (Paul and his companions), saying, Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on." The passage selected from the Law was associated with a passage selected from the Prophets--there was a Lectionary for Sabbath Services. The present Jewish Lectionary associates Isaiah i. 1-28 with Deut. i. 1-iii. 22 as the Lessons for the Sabbath of Temple Desolation[2]. In S. Paul's Exhortation which followed (_vv._ 16-41) there are, in _vv._ 17-19, three words rarely found in the Bible, but of their rare use one ("exalted") is found in Is. i. 2, and the others in Deut. i. 31, 38 ("suffered their manners" and "gave for an inheritance"). The reference, in _v._ 20, to "judges" is also to be noted in connection with Is. i. 26. Bengel reasons that we may safely conclude that the two Lections on that day were those which we have just mentioned as associated together in the present Jewish Lectionary[3]. S. Luke iv. 15-20. Jesus . . . taught in their Synagogues--came to Nazareth--"entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood {53} up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias." It appears from what follows (_vv._ 17-20) that the Lord read Isaiah lxi. 1, 2, either instead of the appointed passage from Isaiah, or after He had read the appointed passage. For Isaiah lxi. does not now appear in the Jewish Lectionary, and we know no reason for its omission now, if it was included before. In any case what He said about it, He said as the Exhorter[4]. They divided the Law into 53 or 54 portions, and read the whole of them between one Feast of Tabernacles and the next, whether the Sabbaths were 50 or more. Each portion was divided into seven parts, read by seven different Readers (a Priest and a Levite being the first two). This Lesson apparently stood alone until in B.C. 163 Antiochus Epiphanes forbade the use of the Pentateuch. Lessons from the Prophets were used instead, and were not discontinued when the use of the Pentateuch was restored. Thus arose a practice of having a First Lesson from the Law, which they called Parascha (or, _Division_), and a Second Lesson from the Prophets, called Haphtarah (or, _Conclusion_). The word _Holy_ was said before and after the First Lesson and a Doxology before and after the Second Lesson--an arrangement similar to our own. We may, indeed, believe that we derived from the Jews this and other uses of our Services. For we read in Acts vi. 7 that a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith, and {54} in Acts xviii. 7, 8 that at Corinth, when they ceased to be able to go to the Synagogue, the ruler of the Synagogue himself went with them to the worship and teaching which they carried on in a house hard by. It would not be surprising, then, if the worship thus begun was arranged