For he loveth our nation, and he hath built us a synagogue.
For he loveth our nation, and he hath built us a synagogue. These elders content not themselves with delivering the humble petition of the centurion himself, but urge their own arguments in support of it. And how precious is the testimony they bear to this devout soldier; all the more so as coming from persons who were themselves probably strangers to the principle from which he acted. "He loveth our nation," they say; because he had found, in his happy experience, as our Lord said to the woman of Samaria, that "Salvation is of the Jews: (John 4:22); "and (they add) he hath built us a synagogue" х kai (G2532) teen (G3588) sunagoogeen (G4864) autos (G846) ookodomeesen (G3618)] - 'and himself built us the synagogue;' rebuilding the synagogue of the place at his own sole expense. his love to the Jews took this appropriate and somewhat costly form. He would leave a monument in Capernaum of the debt he owed to the God of Israel by providing for His worship and the comfort of His worshippers. If "a good name is better than precious ointment" (Ecclesiastes 7:1), this military proselyte certainly had it.