Bibelkommentare

Matthew 19:1-2 Christ healeth the sick,

Matthew 19:3-12 answereth the question of the Pharisees concerning

divorce, and the objection of his disciples to the

expediency of marriage,

Matthew 19:13-15 receiveth little children with tenderness,

Matthew 19:16-22 instructs a young man how to attain eternal life, and

how to become perfect,

Matthew 19:23-26 showeth how hard it is for a rich man to enter into

the kingdom of God,

Matthew 19:27-30 and promises great rewards to his disciples, and to

all who have forsaken aught to follow him.

See Poole on "Matthew 19:2".

Ver. 1,2. Most interpreters agree that both Mark, Mark 10:1, and Luke 9:51, make mention of the same motion of our Saviour out of Galilee into the province of Judea which is here expressed, though Luke and John mention, something largely, some things done in the way, of which Matthew speaketh not. He departed from Galilee. Our Saviour had hitherto spent his time mostly in Galilee. The country of the Jews was divided into three provinces, Galilee, Samaria, and Judea. Galilee was the more northerly part of the country, and was divided into the Upper Galilee, which is also called Galilee of the Gentiles, Matthew 4:15, and the Lower Galilee, which was contiguous to it, but lay more southerly, and adjoined to Samaria. Our Saviour dwelt at Nazareth a long time. Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum, were all cities of Galilee. He is now taking his leave of this province, into which he never returned more. His next way into Judea lay through Samaria, (for Samaria lay in the middle between Galilee and Judea), and through part of it he did go, for, Luke 9:52,53, some inhabitants of a village belonging to the Samaritans refused to receive him.

And came into the coasts of Judea beyond Jordan. This phrase hath caused some difficulty to interpreters, because Judea was bounded by Jordan, and had no coasts beyond it. Some say that the term beyond Jordan must be applied to he came, he came beyond Jordan to the coasts of Judea. Others say, that as men came out of Egypt, the coasts of Judea were beyond Jordan, Matthew 4:15. But some think it should be there translated, by Jordan: the word peran signifies any border, or side of a border.

Beyond Jordan, therefore, is on the border of Jordan, and possibly were better translated so, seeing the word will bear it, and there were no coasts of Judea beyond Jordan. It is probable that our Saviour, coming out of Galilee into Samaria, kept on the left hand near to Jordan, till he came into Judea, which also bordered on that river. Wherever he went

great multitudes followed him, but more for healing their bodies, or for the loaves, than for the feeding or healing of their souls; so different is most people’s sense of their bodily and spiritual wants.

He healed them, the text saith; but it saith not, they believed in him.

Our Saviour, though yet at some distance from Jerusalem, was come into that province where the Pharisees had the greatest power, and were in greater numbers: now they come to him,

tempting him; where the word tempting rather signifies, generally, making a trial of him, than strictly, soliciting him to sin; they came (as appeareth by their question) to make a trial whether they could entrap him, and get any determination from him of a point for which they might accuse him. The question they propound to him is,

Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? The word here translated cause, signifieth not cause, or occasion, but crime also. So it may be translated crime; but they did not only put away their wives for crimes, but upon any occasion, in abuse of that text, Deu 24:1, When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her; which the Pharisees had interpreted of any kind of deformity, or natural infirmity, not merely of moral uncleanness. Had our Saviour now answered Yes, he had contradicted what he had formerly delivered, Matthew 5:32; had he denied, they had trapped him as contradicting the law of Moses, Deu 24:1, according to their interpretation of it. So they had whereof to accuse him.

See Poole on "Matthew 19:6".

See Poole on "Matthew 19:6".

Ver. 4-6. Mark, Mark 10:2-9, giveth us the same history of this discourse, differing a little in the order of the words, but nothing as to the substance of his discourse. Our Saviour answereth neither Yea nor Nay to their discourse, but gives them a fair occasion to answer themselves, and tacitly charges them with ignorance and corruption of the law of God. He refers them to the first institution of marriage, and for that to the book of Genesis, Genesis 1:27 2:24. It is as much as if our Lord had said, You own the book of Genesis, as well as the book of Deuteronomy. In the book of Genesis you read the first institution of marriage: it was instituted by God himself; he made male and female, Genesis 1:27; he made the law of marriage, Genesis 2:24, that a man (should) leave his father and mother, and cleave unto his wife, and they (should) be one flesh; from whence he concludes that the man and wife are one flesh in God’s account. From hence he leaves them to conclude, whether it was probable that Moses, whom they so reverenced, and who was so faithful in the house of God as a servant, would license them to put asunder whom God had put together; or whether they had not put an interpretation upon the law of Moses which it could not bear in consistency with the law of God. For the sense of those words, Genesis 1:27 2:24, see the notes on those places. See Poole on "Genesis 1:27". See Poole on "Genesis 2:24".

See Poole on "Matthew 19:8".

Ver. 7,8. Mark reports this a little differently, Mark 10:3 &c., as if Christ had first said unto them. What did Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept, & c. The substance of our Saviour’s answer seemeth to be this: Moses gave you no positive command in the case, he could not make a law directly opposite to the law of my Father; but Moses saw the wantonness and wickedness of your hearts, that you would turn away your wives without any just and warrantable cause; and to restrain your extravagances of cruelty to your wives, or disorderly turning them off upon any occasion, he made a law that none should put away his wife but upon a legal cognizance of the cause, and giving her a bill of divorce. Indeed possibly this bill of divorce was sometimes judicially granted upon irregular causes, and Moses might connive at it for the preventing of greater evils, because you were always a hard hearted and stiff necked people; and you by your traditions have expounded that law beyond Moses’s intention, and made a bill of divorce grantable in cases which he never thought of, nor intended in that law. But the measures of lawfulness are neither to be taken from Moses’s temporary toleration and connivance, nor much less from your traditions and expositions of the law of Moses, but from the original institution of marriage, and from God’s original law relating to it: now God at first made but one woman for one man, and so united them that he styled them one flesh; so as he who puts away his wife, doth as it were divide and tear his own flesh piece from piece, which is barbarous, inhuman, and unnatural. And the law of God was not, that a man should forsake his wife whenever he had a mind to it, but that he should rather forsake his father and mother than his wife; that he should cleave to his wife, living and dwelling with her, as a man of knowledge; not hating his own flesh; loving his wife as his own body, loving and cherishing her, Ephesians 5:28,29. Now how can this possibly consist with a man’s putting away his wife upon every little and trivial cause of offence or dislike unto her.