And the measuring line shall yet go forth over against it upon the hill Gareb, and shall compass about to Goath.
Ver. 39. Upon the hill Gareb.] Versus collem scabiosi, toward the hill of the scabby, so Tremellius rendereth it; and Junius thinks it was so called because thither they used to send their lepers and lazars. poor and diseased person At Geneva in times of Popery there, they had in an empty place certain cottages set up whereunto they sent their lepers, wherewith that city then abounded, through the horrible filthiness that was there in those days committed. But from the year 1535, wherein they embraced the purity of the gospel, there hath been not above one leper seen in that city. So testifieth Matthaeus Cottherius in his Exposition of the Revelation, printed at Sedan in France, A.D. 1625.
And shall compass about to Goath,] alias Golgotha, as some think, but these places here mentioned, as also those Zechariah 8:3; Zechariah 14:4, as they were known to the ancients, so to us at this day they are unknown. Travellers tell us that Jerusalem is now a poor obscure place, governed by a Turkisk Sanzak, and that Golgotha, or Calvary, is in the very midst of the town.