<p>13:18 <i>F</i><i>or about the time of forty years</i>- See on :19 <i>About four hundred and fifty years.</i></p><p><i>As a nursing father He carried them in the wilderness</i>- Another reading is 'He suffered their manners in the wilderness' as AV. This would again be drawing attention to God's patient grace towards His people. But the allusion to Dt. 1:31 LXX encourages us to follow the 'As a nursing father' option. The idea of a father carrying and feeding his baby child is one which creates sympathy for the father; and Paul may have this in mind. For he was going on to appeal to Israel to consider that they had slain God's only begotten Son.</p>