Bible Commentaries

Matthew 6:32. τὰ ἔθνη, again a reference to heathen practice; in Matthew 6:7 to their “battology” in prayer, here to the kind of blessings they eagerly ask (ἐπιζητοῦσιν); material only or chiefly; bread, raiment, wealth, etc. I never realised how true the statement of Jesus is till I read the Vedic Hymns, the prayer book and song book of the Indian Aryans. With the exception of a few hymns to Varuna, in which sin is confessed and pardon begged, most hymns, especially those to Indra, contain prayers only for material goods: cows, horses, green pastures, good harvests.

To wifeless men thou givest wives,

And joyful mak’st their joyless lives;

Thou givest sons, courageous, strong,

To guard their aged sires from wrong,

Lands, jewels, horses, herds of kine,

All kinds of wealth are gifts of thine

Thy friend is never slain; his might

Is never worsted in the fight.

—Dr. Muir, Sanskrit Texts, vol. v., p. 137.

—οἶδεν γὰρ ὁ πατὴρ ὑ.: Disciples must rise above the pagan level, especially as they worship not Indra, but a Father in heaven, believed in even by the Indian Aryans, in a rude way, under the name of Dyaus-Pitar, Heaven-Father. γὰρ explains the difference between pagans and disciples. The disciple has a Father who knows, and never forgets, His children’s needs, and who is so regarded by all who truly believe in Him. Such faith kills care. But such faith is possible only to those who comply with the following injunction.

Matthew 6:33. ζητεῖτε πρῶτον. There is considerable variation in the text of this counsel. Perhaps the nearest to the original is the reading of [44], which omits τοῦ θεοῦ with [45], and inverts the order of βασ. and δικαι. Seek ye His (the Father’s) righteousness and kingdom, though it may be against this that in Luke (Luke 12:31) the kingdom only is mentioned, πρῶτον also being omitted: Seek ye His kingdom. This may have been the original form of the logion, all beyond being interpretation, true though unnecessary. Seeking the kingdom means seeking righteousness as the summum bonum, and the πρῶτον is implied in such a quest. Some (Meyer, Sevin, Achelis) think there is no second, not even a subordinate seeking after earthly goods, all that to be left in God’s hands, our sole concern the kingdom. That is indeed the ideal heroic attitude. Yet practically it comes to be a question of first and second, supreme and subordinate, and if the kingdom be indeed first it will keep all else in its proper place. The πρῶτον, like the prayer against temptation, indicates consideration for weakness in the sincere.—προστεθήσεται, shall be added, implying that the main object of quest will certainly be secured.

[44] Codex Vaticanus (sæc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.

[45] Codex Sinaiticus (sæc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.

Matthew 6:34. Final exhortation against care. Not in Luke’s parallel section, therefore regarded by Weiss as a reflection appended by the evangelist, not drawn from apostolic doctrine. But it very fitly winds up the discourse. Instead of saying, Care not about food and raiment, the Teacher now says finally, Care not with reference to to-morrow, εἰς τὴν αὔριον (ἡμέραν understood). It comes to the same thing. To restrict care to to-day is to master it absolutely. It is the future that breeds anxiety and leads to hoarding.—μεριμνήσει: future, with force of an imperative = let it, with genitive (αὐτῆς, W. H[46]) like other verbs of care; in Matthew 6:25, with accus.—ἀρκετὸν: a neuter adjective, used as a noun; a sufficiency.—τῇ ἡμέρᾳ, for each successive day, the article distributive.—ἡ κακία, not the moral evil but the physical, the misery or affliction of life (not classical in this sense). In the words of Chrys. H. xxii., κακίαν φησι, οὐ τὴν πονηρίαν, μὴ γένοιτο, ἀλλὰ τὴν ταλαιπωρίαν, καὶ τὸν πόνον, καὶ τὰς συμφόρας. Every day has some such troubles: “suas afflictiones, quas nihil est necesse metu conduplicare”. Erasmus, Paraph. Fritzsche proposes a peculiar arrangement of the words in the second and third clauses. Putting a full stop after μεριμνήσει, and retaining the τὰ of T.R. before ἑαυτῆς, he brings out this sense: The things of itself are a sufficiency for each day, viz., the evil thereof.

[46] Westcott and Hort.

CHAPTER 7.

THE SERMON CONTINUED AND CLOSED.

The contents of this chapter are less closely connected and more miscellaneous than in the two preceding. In Matthew 7:1-12 the polemic against Pharisaism seems to be continued and concluded. Matthew 7:6-11 Weiss regards as an interpolation foreign to the connection. It seems best not to be too anxious about discovering connections, but to take the weighty moral sentences of the chapter as they stand, as embodying thoughts of Christ at whatever time uttered, on the hill or elsewhere, or in whatever connection. Section 1–5 certainly deals with a Pharisaic vice, that of exalting ourselves by disparaging others, a very cheap way of attaining moral superiority. Jesus would have His disciples rise above Pagans, publicans, Sadducees, Pharisees, but not by the method of detraction.

Matthew 7:1-5. Against judging.

Matthew 7:1. μὴ κρίνετε, judge not, an absolute prohibition of a common habit, especially in religious circles of the Pharisaic type, in which much of the evil in human nature reveals itself. “What levity, haste, prejudice, malevolence, ignorance; what vanity and egotism in most of the judgments pronounced in the world” (Lutteroth). Judge not, said Christ. Judge, it is your duty, said the Dutch pietists of last century through a literary spokesman, citing in proof Matthew 23:33, where the Pharisees are blamed for neglecting “judgment”. Vide Ritschl, Geschichte des Pietismus, i., p. 328. How far apart the two types I—ἵνα μὴ κριθῆτε: an important, if not the highest motive; not merely a reference to the final judgment, but stating a law of the moral order of the world: the judger shall be judged; to which answers the other: who judges himself shall not be judged (1 Corinthians 11:31). In Romans 2:1 St. Paul tacitly refers to the Jew as ὁ κρίνων. The reference there and here defines the meaning of κρίνειν. It points to the habit of judging, and the spirit as evinced by the habit, censoriousness leading inevitably to sinister judging, so that κρίνειν is practically equivalent to κατακρίνειν or καταδικάζειν (Luke 6:37).

Matthew 7:2. ἐν ᾧ γὰρ, etc.: Vulgatissimum hoc apud Judaeos adagium, says Lightfoot (Hor. Heb.). Of course; one would expect such maxims, based on experience, to be current among all peoples (vide Grotius for examples). It is the lex talionis in a new form: character for character. Jesus may have learned some of these moral adages at school in Nazareth, as we have all when boys learned many good things out of our lesson books with their collections of extracts. The point to notice is what the mind of Jesus assimilated—the best in the wisdom of His people—and the emphasis with which He inculcated the best, so as to ensure for it permanent lodgment in the minds of His disciples and in their records of His teaching.

Matthew 7:3-5. Proverb of the mote and beam. Also current among Jews and Arabs (vide Tholuck).—κάρφος, a minute dry particle of chaff, wood, etc.—δοκός, a wooden beam (let in, from δέχομαι) or joist, a monstrous symbol of a great fault. A beam in the eye is a natural impossibility; cf. the camel and the needle eye. The Eastern imagination was prone to exaggeration. This is a case of tu quoque (Romans 2:2), or rather of “thou much more”. The faults may be of the same kind: κάρφος, a petty theft, δοκός, commercial dishonesty on a large scale—“thou that judgest doest the same things” (Romans 2:2); or of a different sort: moral laxity in the publican, pride and inhumanity in the Pharisee who despised him (Luke 18:9-14).—βλέπεις, οὐ κατανοεῖς: the contrast is not between seeing and failing to see, but between seeing and not choosing to see; ignoring, consciously overlooking. The censorious man is not necessarily ignorant of his own faults, but he does not let his mind rest on them. It is more pleasant to think of other people’s faults.

Matthew 7:4. ἐκβάλω, hortatory conjunctive, first person, supplies place of imperative which is wanting in first person; takes such words as ἄγε, φέρε, or as here ἄφες, before it. Vide Goodwin, section 255. For ἄφες modern Greek has ἄς, a contraction, used with the subjunctive in the first and third persons (vide Vincent and Dickson, Modern Greek, p. 322).

Matthew 7:5. ὑποκριτά: because he acts as no one should but he who has first reformed himself. “What hast thou to do to declare my statutes?” Psalm 50:16.—διαβλέψεις, thou will see clearly, vide Mark 8:24-25, where three compounds of the verb occur, with ανά, διά, and ἐν. Fritzsche takes the future as an imperative and renders: se componere ad aliquid, curare; i.e., set thyself then to the task of, etc.