And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord; Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.
And Zaccheus stood - stood forth, openly before all; and said unto the Lord, Behold, Lord. Mark how frequently our Evangelist uses this title, especially where lordly authority, dignity, grace, or power is intended.
The half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation
- `defrauded,' 'overcharged,' any man, assessing him on a false representation of his means, or of the value of the articles for which he was rated, which was but too common with this class (see Luke 3:12-13),
I restore him four-fold. The "if" here is not meant to express any doubt of the fact, but only the difficulty, where there had been so much of this, to fix upon the eases and the extent of the unrighteous exactions. The meaning, then, is, 'in so far as I have done this.' The Roman law required this four-fold restitution; the Jewish law, but the principal, and a fifth more (Numbers 5:7). There was no demand made for either; but, as if to revenge himself on his hitherto reigning sin (see the note at John 20:28), and to testify the change he had experienced, besides surrendering the half of his fair gains to the poor, he voluntarily determines to give up all that was ill gotten, quadrupled. And what is worthy of notice, in the presence of all he gratefully addressed this to "the Lord," to whom he owed the wonderful change.