This mode of expression was very common with the Jews. Lightfoot cites from the Talmud a passage illustrative of it: “When a man is dividing nuts among the poor, though ninety-nine call upon him to divide them, and one call on him to scatter them, to him they must hearken. With grapes and dates it is not so. Though ninety-nine call on him to scatter them, and one to divide them, to him they must hearken.”