On several counts, Esther is the strangest book in the Bible. Few of those who read it realize what a variety of curious problems it presents, and how little has been done toward solving them. As a preliminary to the following study, a few of the most troublesome questions raised by the book may be briefly stated.

In the first part of this verse it is said that Herod feared John the Baptist, knowing him to be a just and holy man, and protected him; the second part presents some difficulties which can best be discussed with the text before us. In the Textus Receptus the words are καὶ ἀκούσας αὐτοῦ πολλὰ ἐποίει, καὶ ἡδέως αὐτοῦ ἤκουεν. The authorities for the words with which we are concerned are reported as follows from Legg's critical apparatus, somewhat abbreviated:

ηπορει και א ΒLΘ Cop(bo), item ηπορειτο και W: εποιει και ACDNΠΣΦ ל Minusc. omn. Vss. pler.

Few passages of Virgil have led to the expending of more ink than the above (Aen. VI, 743), and, to my mind, it is seldom that a crux has less deserved the name. I wish to show that the sense is perfectly clear and ordinary Latin, observing a usual convention of verse, and further, that it was taken as such within about a century of Virgil's death, and that this continued to be the interpretation of the soundest exegetes, as it is now.

The device of using a Christian straw man as an intermediary, for the purpose of evading the usury laws, which is mentioned in the three thirteenth century Hebrew documents quoted in Heichelheim's article, also appears in a case decided by the Court of The Exchequer of The Jews in 1272. In this case a Jew borrowed money from another Jew at interest, using the above device, and gave the creditor a mortgage on a certain house as security for the debt. The debtor then sold the mortgaged house to a Christian. Upon default by the debtor the creditor sought to recover the debt from the mortgaged property which was then in the hands of the Christian purchaser. The case is interesting because the court refused to be misled by the evasive practice and adjudged the transaction usurious, and also because of the insight it affords into the working of the medieval mind with regard to the question of usury. An English court, consisting of Christian judges, apparently held that although it was permissible for a Jew to take usury from a Christian, it was unlawful for him to take usury from another Jew.