BROOKLYN, N.Y., SEPTEMBER 2ND, 1937
[p. 91] BROOKLYN, N.Y., SEPTEMBER 2ND, 1937
Dear ——— , — Having looked into the three accounts of the transfiguration, also J.N.D.’s comments and other comments thereon, I cannot find evidence that the entrance into the cloud refers to Moses and Elias. Matthew and Mark do not refer to it, and Luke says, “as they” — Moses and Elias — “departed from him”.
JND comments — in reference to the cloud — ‘Moses and Elias have disappeared’ and then goes on to speak of the cloud and the voice (Synopsis, Volume 3, page 127).
Again: — ‘Then ... the two disappear entirely, and Jesus remains alone ... Jesus brings the disciples to it’ — the cloud — ‘as witnesses ... the disciples ... are associated with Him ... introduced into connection with the glory in which the Father thus acknowledged Jesus’ (Synopsis, Volume 3, page 323).
Again — in note — he says, ‘They feared when they‘ — it is emphatic — ‘entered into the cloud’. In the text to which this is a note J.N.D. had been speaking of Peter, James and John and hence the ‘they’ refers to them, not to Moses and Elias for these were not yet named. Then in the note he continues, and speaks of God talking with Moses in the cloud in the wilderness, and adds, ‘here they’-clearly Peter, James and John — ‘enter into it’. In view of what preceded it is impossible to make the ‘they’ refer to Moses and Elias for Elias is not mentioned at all (Synopsis, Volume 5, page 413).
Then in note to second ‘they’ in Luke 9: 34, large edition, he says, ‘certain MSS reads’ those. ‘I have put’ they ‘as it seems a change made to refer it to Moses and Elias’.
In note on ‘overshadowed’ in Matthew 17: 5, he says. ‘used for cloud covering the tabernacle, so that it was filled with the glory; not a shadow above or over them’.
See also Collected Writings, Volume 25, page 134. In Collected Writings, Volume 16, page 417, J.N.D. says, ‘Peter and the others had entered into the cloud’.
In ‘Notes and Comments’, Volume 6, page 240 — ‘the cloud ... but the disciples enter into it’.
I cannot find anything contrary to these remarks in Mr. Darby’s works.
Affectionately,
Father.