Bible Commentaries

Matthew 3:13. Τότε] at that time, when John thus preached the advent of the Messiah, and baptized the people, Matthew 3:1-12.

ἀπὸ τ. Γαλιλ.] See Matthew 2:23. It belongs to παραγ. The position is different in Matthew 2:1.

τοῦ βαπτισθ. ὑπʼ αὐτοῦ] Jesus wished to be baptized by John (genitive, as in Matthew 2:13), but not in the personal feeling of sinfulness (B. Bauer, Strauss, Pécaut), or as the bearer of the guilt of others (Riggenbach, Krafft); not even because He, through His connection of responsibility with the unclean people, was unclean according to the Levitical law (Lange), or because He believed that He was obliged to regard the collective guilt of the nation as His guilt (Schenkel); just as little in order to separate Himself inwardly from the sins of the nation (Baumgarten), or make it certain that His σὰρξ ἀσθενείας should not be opposed to the life of the Spirit (Hofrnann, Weissag. und Erfüll. II. p. 82), or because the meaning of the baptism is: the declaration that He is subjected to death for the human race (Ebrard); not even to bring in here the divine decision as to His Messiahship (Paulus), or to lay the foundation for the faith of others in Him, so far as baptism is a symbol of the regeneration of those who confess Him (Ammon, L. J. I. p. 268), or in order to honour the baptism of John by His example (Calvin, Kuinoel, Keim), or to bind Himself to the observance of the law (Hofmann, Krabbe, Osiander); or because He had to conduct Himself, before the descent of the Spirit, merely as an Israelite in general. The opinion also of Schleiermacher, that the baptism of Jesus was the symbolical beginning of His announcement of Himself, and, at the same time, a recognition of John’s mission, is foreign to the text. The true meaning appears from Matthew 3:15, namely, because Jesus was consciously certain that He must, agreeably to God’s will, subject Himself to the baptism of His forerunner, in order (Matthew 3:16-17) to receive the Messianic consecration; that is, the divine declaration that He was the Messiah (ἵνα ἀναδειχθῇ τῷ λαῷ, Euth. Zigabenus), and thereby to belong from that moment solely and entirely to this great vocation. The Messianic consciousness is not to be regarded as first commencing in Him at the baptism, so that He would be inwardly born, by means of baptism, to be the Messiah, and would become conscious of His divine destination, to full purification and regeneration as the new duty of His life; but the πρέπον ἐστὶν ἡμῖν, Matthew 3:15, presupposes a clear certainty regarding His vocation; and John’s relation to the same, as in general the existence of that consciousness, must have been the necessary result of His own consciousness, which had attained the maturity of human development, that He was the Son of God. But that baptism, to which He felt certain that He must submit Himself, was to be for Him the divine ordination to the Messiahship. It is clear, according to this, that His baptism was quite different from that of others, so far as in Him, as a sinless being, there could be no confession of sin; but the lustrative character of the baptism could only have the meaning, that from that moment He was taken away from all His previous relations of life which belonged to the earthly sphere, and became, altogether and exclusively, the Holy One of God, whom the Father consecrated by the Spirit. Although He was this God-sanctified One from the beginning, yet now, as He was aware that this was the will of God, He has, by the assumption of baptism, solemnly bound and devoted Himself to the full execution of His unique destiny,—a devotion which was already more than a vow (Keim), because it was the actual entrance into the Messianic path of life, which was to receive at the very threshold its divine legitimation for all future time. In so doing, He could, without any consciousness of guilt (Matthew 11:29), associate Himself, in all humility (Matthew 11:29), with the multitude of those whom the feeling of guilt impelled to baptism; because in His own consciousness there was still the negation of absolute moral goodness, to which He, long afterwards, expressly gave so decided expression (Matthew 19:17).

Matthew 3:14. According to John 1:33, it was revealed to the Baptist that He upon whom he should see the Spirit descending was the Messiah. It was accordingly not until this moment that the recognition of Jesus as the Messiah entered his mind; and therefore, in the Gospel of John, he says of the time which preceded this moment: κἀγὼ οὐκ ᾔδειν αὐτόν. The passage before us is not in contradiction with this, for the recognition of the Messiahship of Jesus does not yet lie at its foundation, but the prophetic anticipation of the same, which on the approach of Jesus, as that solemn decision was about to begin through the revelation of the σημεῖον, seized the soul of the Baptist involuntarily and miraculously, and yet psychologically, in keeping with the spiritual rapport prepared by revelation. Comp. Luther: “he scents the Spirit.” Accordingly, we are not to assume in our passage either a recognition only of higher excellence (Hess, Paulus, Hofmann), or a contradiction with John (Strauss, de Wette, Keim), or, after Lücke, Holtzmann, and Scholten, that the oldest and shortest tradition of Matthew contained merely Matthew 3:16-17, while Matthew 3:14-15 were a later addition of the complete Matthew,[383] which Hilgenfeld seeks to support from the silence of Justin regarding the refusal of the Baptist, whilst Keim gives, indeed, the preference to the statement of Matthew over that of John, but still allows it to be very problematical.

διεκώλυεν] Stronger than the simple verb. The word (which does not occur elsewhere in the N. T. nor in the LXX., yet in Jdt 4:7; Jdt 12:7, and frequently in the classical writers) is selected, in keeping with the serious opposition of the astonished John. The imperfect is descriptive, and, indeed, so much so, that “vere incipit actus, sed ob impedimenta caret eventu,” Schaefer, ad Eur. Phoen. 81. Kühner, II. 1, p. 123. John actually repelled Jesus, and did not baptize Him at once, but only when the latter had made representations to the contrary effect.

ἐγὼ χρείαν, κ.τ.λ.] Grotius: Si alter nostrum omnino baptizandus sit, ego potius abs te, ut dignissimo, baptismum petere debui. Thus spoke John in the truest feeling of his own lowliness and sinfulness, in the presence of the long-longed for One, the first recognition of whom suddenly thrilled him.

καὶ σὺ ἔρχῃ πρός με;] A question indicative of the astonishment with which the Baptist, although he had received the divine declaration, John 1:33, was yet seized, through the impression made on him by the presence of the Lord. Moreover, this discourse necessarily excludes the idea that he too connected the baptism of Jesus with the profession of a confession of His sins. Yet the apocryphal Praedicatio Pauli, according to Cyprian, Opp. p. 142, Rigalt (Credner, Beitr. I. p. 360 ff.), had already made Jesus deliver a confession of sin; in the Evangelium sec. Hebraeos, on the other hand, quoted by Jerome, c. Pel. iii. 1, Jesus answers the request of His mother and His brethren to let Himself be baptized along with them: “Quid peccavi, ut vadam et baptizer ab eo? nisi forte hoc ipsum quod dixi ignorantia est.”

[383] According to Epiphanius, Haer. xxx. 13, the Gospel according to the Hebrews contained the conversation, although with embellishments, but placed it after the baptism. The want of originality of this narrative in itself (in answer to Schneckenburger, Hilgenfeld) already shows its apocryphal and extravagant character. The correctness of its position has found favour, indeed, with Bleek (p. 179 f., and in the Stud. u. Krit. 1833, p. 436), Usteri (in the same, 1829, p. 446), and Lücke, and Keim also, at the expense of our Gospel; but, after what has been said above, without any reason, as the want of agreement between Matthew and John is only apparent, and is not to be removed by changing the meaning of the simple and definite οὐκ ᾔδειν αὐτόν. See on John 1:31. The Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist (vom Zwecke Jesu, p. 133 ff.) has notoriously misused John 1:31 to assert that Jesus and John had long been acquainted with each other, and had come to an understanding to work to each other’s hands, but to conceal this from the people.

Matthew 3:15. Ἄρτι] now, suffer it just now. The antithesis of time is here not that of the past (see on Galatians 1:9), but of the future, as in John 13:37; 1 Corinthians 13:12. Chrysostom: οὐ διηνεκῶς ταῦτα ἔσται. ἀλλʼ ὄψει με ἐν τούτοις οἷς ἐπιθυμεῖς· ἄρτι μέντοι ὑπόμεινον τοῦτο.

The meaning: “sine paulisper” (Fritzsche), comp. de Wette: “let it be for once,” is not sufficient. Schneckenburger, p. 122, regards the ἄφες as having been inappropriately transferred from the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Erroneously, as it there belongs (in the sense: let it remain) to the apocryphal addition, according to which John, after the baptism of Jesus, prays the latter to baptize him; and Jesus answers: ἄφες, ὅτι οὕτως ἐστὶ πρέπον πληρωθῆναι πάντα (Epiphanius, Haer. xxx. 13). This apocryphal outgrowth is manifestly a farther spinning out of the tradition, as recorded in Matthew. Several of the Fathers likewise inferred from ἄρτι, in our verse, that John was afterwards baptized by Jesus.

ἡμῖν] to thee and to me. To refer it merely to Jesus (Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Glöckler), or, in the first place to Jesus (de Wette, Bleek), is opposed to the context. See Matthew 3:14.

πᾶσαν δικαιοσύνην] all righteousness, all which as duty it is obligatory on us to do. Ch. F. Fritzsche in Fritzschior. Opusc. p. 81. Comp. πληρ. εὐσέβειαν, 4Ma 14:15. If I do not allow myself to be baptized, and thou dost not baptize me, there remains something unfulfilled (therefore, οὕτω) which ought to be done by us, in accordance with the divine will; then satisfaction is not made by us to all righteousness. Comp. on πᾶσαν the plural expression δικαιοσύναι in Sir 44:10; Job 2:13.

Matthew 3:16. Εὐθύς] which cannot belong to ἀνεῴχθ. (Maldonatus, Grotius, B. Crusius), nor can it be referred to βαπτισθείς by supposing a hyperbaton (Fritzsche); see Kühner, II. 2, p. 642. Matthew would have written, καὶ εὐθὺς βαπτισθείς. It belongs to ἀνέβη, beside which it stands: after He was baptized, He went up straightway, etc. This straightway was understood at once as a matter of course, but does not belong, however, merely to the descriptive, but to the circumstantial style of the narrative, setting forth the rapid succession (of events).

ἀνεῴχθησαν αὐτῷ οἱ οὐρανοί] designates neither a clearing up of the heavens (Paulus), nor a thunderstorm quickly discharging itself (Kuinoel, Ammon), since the poetic descriptions, as in Sil. It. i. 535 ff., are quite foreign (see Drackenborch, ad Sil. It. iii. 136; Heyne, ad Virg. Aen. iii. 198) to our simple historical narrative; as, moreover, neither in the Gospel according to the Hebrews, nor in Epiphanius, Haer. xxx. 13, nor in Justin, c. Tryph. 88,[384] is a thunderstorm meant. Only an actual parting of the heavens, out of which opening the Spirit came down, can be intended. Ezekiel 1:1; John 1:51; Revelation 4:1; Acts 7:56; Isaiah 64:1.

αὐτῷ does not refer to the Baptist (Beza, Heumann, Bleek, Kern, Krabbe, de Wette, Baur), since Matthew 3:16 begins a new portion of the history, in which John is no longer the subject. It refers to Jesus, and is the dative of purpose. To Him the heavens open; for it was on Him that the Spirit was to descend. Comp. Vulgate.

εἶδε] Who? not John, but Jesus, without ἐπʼ αὐτόν standing for ἘΦʼ ΑὙΤΌΝ (Kuinoel); Kühner, II. 1, p. 489 f.; Bleek on the passage. The Gospel according to the Hebrews clearly referred ΕἾΔΕ to Jesus, with which Mark 1:10 also decidedly agrees.[385]

ὡσεὶ περιστεράν] The element of comparison is interpreted by modern writers not as referring to the shape of the visibly descending Spirit, but to the manner of descent, where partly the swiftness (Fritzsche), partly the soft, gentle movement (Bleek) and activity (Neander), and the like, have been imagined as referred to. But as all the four evangelists have precisely the same comparison (Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32), which, as a mere representation of the manner of the descent, would be just as unessential as it would be an indefinite and ambiguous comparison; as, farther, Luke expressly says the Spirit descended, σωματικῷ εἴδει ὡσεὶ περιστερά, where, by the latter words, the σωματ. εἴδει is defined more precisely (comp. the Gospel according to the Hebrews in Epiphanius, Haer. xxx. 13 : εἴδε, namely, Jesus, τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ θεοῦ τὸ ἅγιον ἐν εἴδει περιστερᾶς κατελθούσης; also Justin, c. Tr. 88),—so that interpretation appears as a groundless attempt to lessen the miraculous element, and only the old explanation (Origen and the Fathers in Suicer, Thes. s.v. περιστερά, Euth. Zigabenus, Erasmus, Luther), that the form of a dove actually appeared, can be received as the correct one. So also Paulus (who, however, thought of a real dove which accidentally appeared at the time!), de Wette, Kuhn (L. J. I. p. 319), Theile (zur Biogr. Jesu, p. 48), Keim, Hilgenfeld, who compares 4 Esdr. Matthew 5:26. The symbolic element of this divine σημεῖον (see remarks after Matthew 3:17) rests just in its appearance in the form of a dove, which descends.

[384] In the Gospel according to the Hebrews: περιέλαμψεν τὸν τόπον φῶς μέγα. Justin. κατελθόντος τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἐπὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ πῦρ ἀνήφθη ἐν τῷ Ἰορδάνῃ.

[385] Schmidt in the Jahrb. f. D. Th. 1869, p. 655, erroneously says: If Jesus were the subject, ἐφʼ αὑτόν must necessarily have been put. See Buttmann, neut. Gr. p. 97 f. [E. T. 111 f.].

Matthew 3:17. Φω νὴ … λέγουσα] Here neither is ἐγένετο to be supplied, after Luke 3:22; nor does the participle stand for the finite tense. See on Matthew 2:18. But literally: and lo, there, a voice from heaven which spoke. Comp. Matthew 17:5; Luke 5:12; Luke 19:20; Acts 8:27; Revelation 4:1; Revelation 6:2; Revelation 7:9.

ὁ ἀγαπητός] dilectus, not unicus (Loesner, Fischer, Michaelis, and others). The article, however, does not express the strengthened conception (dilectissimus), as Wetstein and Rosenmüller assert, but is required by grammar; for the emphasis lies on ὁ υἱός μου, to which the characteristic attribute is added by way of distinction. Comp. Kühner, II. 1, p. 529 f. Exactly so in the same voice from heaven, Matthew 17:5.

ἐν ᾧ εὐδόκησα] Hebraistic construction imitative of חָפֵץ כְ. See Winer, p. 218 [E. T. 291]. Fritzsche, ad Rom. II. p. 371 (Polybius ii. 12. 13 does not apply here); frequently in LXX. and Apocrypha.

The aorist denotes: in whom I have had good pleasure (Ephesians 1:4; John 17:24), who has become the object of my good pleasure. See Hermann, ad Viger. p. 746; Bernhardy, p. 381 f.; Kühner, II. 1, p. 134 f. The opposite is ἐμίσησα, Romans 9:13; ἤχθηρε κρονίων, Hom. Il. xx. 306.

The divine voice solemnly proclaims Jesus to be the Messiah, ὁ υἱός μου; which designation, derived from Psalm 2:7,[386] is in the divine and also in the Christian consciousness not merely the name of an office, but has at the same time a metaphysical meaning, having come forth from the Father’s being, κατὰ πνεῦμα, Romans 1:4, containing the Johannine idea, Ὁ ΛΌΓΟς ΣᾺΡΞ ἘΓΈΝΕΤΟ (according to Matthew 1:20, Luke 1:35, also the origin of the corporeity). That the passage in Isaiah 62:1 (comp. Matthew 12:18) lies at the basis of the expression of that voice, either alone (Hilgenfeld) or with others (Keim), has this against it, that Ὁ ΥἹΌς ΜΟΥ is the characteristic point, which is wanting in Isaiah l.c., and that, moreover, the other words in the passage do not specifically correspond with those in Isaiah.

[386] In the Gospel according to the Hebrews the words of the voice ran, according to Epiphanius, Haer. xxx. 13 : σύ μου εἶ ὁ υἱὸς ἀγαπητός, ἐν σοὶ εὐδόκησα· καὶ πάλιν· ἐγὼ σήμερον γεγέννηκά σε. So also substantially in Justin, c. Tr. 88. Manifestly an addition from later tradition, which had become current from the well-known passage in Psalms 2. Nevertheless, Hilgenfeld regards that form of the heavenly voice as the more original. See on the opposite side, Weisse, Evangelienfrage, p. 190 ff.

REMARK.

The fact of itself that Jesus was baptized by John, although left doubtful by Fritzsche, admitted only as possible by Weisse, who makes it rather to be a baptism of the Spirit, while relegated by Bruno Bauer to the workshop of later religious reflection, stands so firmly established by the testimony of the Gospels that it has been recognised even by Strauss, although more on à priori grounds (L. J. I. p. 418). He rejects, however, the more minute points as unhistorical, while Keim sees in it powerful and speaking figures of spiritual occurrences which then took place on the Jordan; Schenkel again introduces thoughts which are very remote; and Weizsäcker recognises in it the representation of the installation of Jesus into His vocation as Ruler, and that by the transformation of a vision of Jesus into an external fact, and refers the narrative to later communications probably made by the Lord to His disciples. The historical reality of the more minute details is to be distinguished from the legendary embellishments of them. The first is to be derived from John 1:32-34, according to which the Baptist, after an address vouchsafed to him by God, in which was announced to him the descent of the Spirit as the Messianic σημεῖον of the person in question, saw the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descend upon Jesus, and abide upon Him, and, in accordance with this, delivered the testimony that Jesus was the Son of God. The seeing of the Baptist, and the testimony which he delivered regarding it, is accordingly to be considered as based on John 1:32-34, as the source of the tradition preserved in the Synoptics, in the simplest form in Mark. According to Ewald, it was in spirit that Jesus saw (namely, the Spirit, like a dove, consequently “in all its liveliness and fulness,” according to Isaiah 11:2) and heard what He Himself probably related at a later time, and that the Baptist himself also observed in Jesus, as He rose up out of the water, something quite different from what he noticed in other men, and distinguished Him at once by the utterance of some extraordinary words. But, considering the deviation of John’s narrative from that of the Synoptics, and the connection in which John stood to Jesus and the Baptist, there exists no reason why we should not find the original fact in John. Comp. Neander, L. J. p. 83 f.; Schleiermacher, p. 144 ff.; Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 230 f. Moreover, that seeing of the Spirit in the form of a dove is a spiritual act, taking place in a vision (Acts 7:55; Acts 10:10 ff.), but which was transformed by the tradition of the apostolic age into an external manifestation, as the testimony of John (John 1:34), which was delivered on the basis of this seeing of his, was changed into a heavenly voice (which therefore is not to be taken as Bath Kol, least of all “as in the still reverberation of the thunder and in the gentle echo of the air,” as Ammon maintains, L. J. p. 273 f.). The more minute contents of the heavenly voice were suggested from Psalm 2:7, to which also the old extension of the legend in Justin, c. Tryph. 88, and in the Ev. sec. Hebr. in Epiph. Haer. xxx. 13, points. Consequently the appearance of the dove remains as an actual occurrence, but as taking place in vision (Orig. c. Cels. i. 43–48. Theodore of Mopsuestia: ἐν εἴδει περιστερᾶς γενομένη ἡ τοῦ πνεύματος κάθοδος οὐ πᾶσιν ὤφθη τοῖς παροῦσιν, ἀλλὰ κατά τινα πνευματικὴν θεωρίαν ὤφθη μόνῳ τῷ Ἰωάννῃ, καθὼς ἔθος ἦν τοῖς προφήταις ἐν μέσῳ πολλῶν τὰ πᾶσιν ἀθεώρητα βλέπειν … ὀπτασία γὰρ ἦν, οὐ φύσις τὸ φαινόμενον),—as also the opening of the heavens (Jerome: “Non reseratione elementorum, sed spiritualibus oculis”). Origen designates the thing as θεωρία νοητική. Comp. Grotius, Neander, Krabbe, de Wette, Bleek, Weizsäcker, Wittichen. Finally, the question[387] whether before the time of Christ the Jews already regarded the dove as a symbol of the Divine Spirit, is so far a matter of perfect indifference, as the Baptist could have no doubt, after the divine address vouchsafed to him, that the seeing the form of a dove descending from heaven was a symbolical manifestation of the Holy Spirit; yet it is probable, from the very circumstance that the ὀπτασία took place precisely in the form of a dove, that this form of representation had its point of connection in an already existing emblematic mode of regarding the Spirit, and that consequently the Rabbinical traditions relating thereto reach back in their origin to the pre-Christian age, without, however (in answer to Lücke on John), having to drag in the very remote figure of the dove descending down in order to brood, according to Genesis 1:2. Here it remains undetermined in what properties of the dove (innocence, mildness, and the like; Theodore of Mopsuestia: φιλόστοργον κ. φιλάνθρωπον ζῶον) the point of comparison was originally based. Moreover, according to John 1:32 ff., the purpose of what took place in vision does not appear to have been the communication of the Holy Spirit to Jesus (misinterpreted by the Gnostics as the reception of the λόγος), but the making known of Jesus as the Messiah to the Baptist on the part of God, through a ΣΗΜΕῖΟΝ of the Holy Spirit. In this the difficulty disappears which is derived from the divine nature of Jesus, according to which He could not need the bestowal of the Spirit, whether we understand the Spirit in itself, or as the communicator of a nova virtus (Calvin), or as πνεῦμα προφητικόν (Thomasius), or as the Spirit of the divine ἘΞΟΥΣΊΑ for the work of the Messiah (Hofmann), as the spirit of office (Kahnis), which definite views are not to be separated from the already existing possession of the Spirit. The later doubts of the Baptist, Matthew 11:2 ff. (in answer to Hilgenfeld, Weizsäcker, Keim), as a momentary darkening of his higher consciousness in human weakness amid all his prophetic greatness, are to be regarded neither as a psychological riddle nor as evidence against his recognition of Jesus as the Messiah, which was brought about in a miraculous manner; and this is the more conceivable when we take into consideration the political element in the idea of the Messiah entertained by the imprisoned John (comp. John 1:29, Remark). If, however, after the baptism of Jesus, His Messianic appearance did not take place in the way in which the Baptist had conceived it, yet the continuous working of the latter, which was not given up after the baptism, can carry with it no well-founded objection to the revelation of Jesus as the Messiah, which is related in the passage before us. Comp. on John 3:23.

[387] Talmudic and Rabbinical witnesses, but no pre-Christian ones, are in existence for the Jewish manner of regarding it (amongst the Syrians the dove was held sacred as the symbol of the brooding power of nature; see Creuzer, Symbol. II. p. 80). See Chagig. ii., according to which the Spirit of God, like a dove, brooded over the waters (comp. Bereshith rabba, f. iv. 4; Sohar, f. xix. 3, on Genesis 1:2, according to which the Spirit brooding on the water is the Spirit of the Messiah). Targum on Song of Solomon 2:12 : “Vox turturis, vox Spirituss.” Ir. Gibborim, ad Genesis 1:2; Bemidb. rab. f. 250. 1. See also Sohar, Num. f. 68, 271 f., where the dove of Noah is placed in typical connection with the Messiah; in Schoettgen, II. p. 537 f. Comp. besides, Lutterbeck, neutest. Lehrbegr. I. p. 259 f.; Keim, Gesch. J. I. p. 539. The dove was also regarded as a sacred bird in many forms of worship amongst the Greeks.

CHAPTER 4

Matthew 4:4. ὁ ἄνθρωπ.] Elz., Scholz omit the ὁ. It might easily have been added from the LXX. in Deuteronomy 8:3, where, however, it is wanting in several witnesses; but as the article is superfluous, and the witnesses in its favour greatly preponderate, there are decisive reasons for retaining it.

ἐπὶ παντί] ἐν παντί is found in C D, 13, 21, 59, 124, 300; approved by Griesb., adopted by Fritzsche, Lachm., Tisch. Rightly; ἐπί was just as easily suggested by the first clause of the sentence by itself as by the reading of the LXX., which is attested by preponderating witnesses.

Matthew 4:5. ἵστησιν] B C D Z א, 1, 33: ἔστησεν. Recommended by Griesb., adopted by Lachm. and Tisch. 8. The aorist interrupts and disturbs the representation as present, and has been introduced from Luke 4:9.

Matthew 4:6. λέγει] Lachm., but upon very slight authority, reads εἶπεν, which is not to be adopted, even in Matthew 4:9, instead of λέγει, with Lachm. and Tisch. 8, after B C D Z א and Curss. It is taken from Luke.

Matthew 4:10. ὀπίσω μου] is wanting in Elz., deleted also by Fritzsche and Tisch. 8, bracketed by Lachm. The witnesses are greatly divided, and the preponderance is uncertain (against it: B C* K P S V Δ א, Curss., Or. Ir. and other Fathers, and several Verss., among which Syr. Vulg.; in favour: C** D E L M U T Z, and several Curss., Justin., and many Fathers and Verss., amongst which is It.). An old insertion from Matthew 16:13, where the circumstance that Peter is there the person addressed, might cause the less difficulty that he also is called Satan. In Luke 4:8, ὕπαγε ὀπίσω μου σατ. is also an interpolation.

Matthew 4:12. ὁ Ἰησοῦς] is wanting in B C* D Z א, 16, 33, 61, Copt. Aeth. Or. Eus. Aug. The omission is approved by Griesbach. Rightly; the addition of the subject suggested itself the more easily that a new section begins in Matthew 4:12. Comp. Matthew 4:18. Deleted also by Tisch.

Matthew 4:18. δέ]. Elz. adds ὁ Ἰησοῦς, against decisive testimony. Comp. on Matthew 4:12.

Matthew 4:23. ὅλην τ. Γαλιλ.] Lachm.: ὅλῃ τ. Γαλιλαίᾳ, without evidence, as not merely C but B also has ἐν ὅλῃ τ. Γαλ., which Tisch. has adopted, 8th ed. א* has merely ἐν τῇ Γαλ. The reading of Tisch. 8 is to be adopted; the Received reading is a change made to harmonize with the more common construction.

Matthew 4:1-11. Temptation of Jesus. Mark 1:12 f.; Luke 4:1 ff.; Alex. Schweizer, exeg. hist. Darstellung d. Versuchsgesch. in s. Kritik d. Gegensätze zw. Rationalism, u. Supernat. 1833; P. Ewald, d. Versuch. Christi mit Bezugnahme auf d. Versuch. d. Protoplasten. 1838; Kohlschütter in the Sächs. Stud. 1843; Ullmann, Sündlosigk. Jesu, ed. 7, 1863; Graul in Guericke’s Zeitschr. 1844, 3; Pfeiffer in the Deutsch. Zeitschr. 1851, No. 36; Koenemann (purely dogmatic) in Guericke’s Zeitschr. 1850, p. 586 ff.; Laufs in the Stud. u. Krit. 1853, p. 355 ff.; Nebe, d. Versuch. d. Hernn e. äussere Thatsache, 1857; v. Engelhardt, de Jesu Chr. tentatione, 1858; Held in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschr. 1866, p. 384 ff.; Haupt in the Stud. u. Krit. 1871, p. 209 ff.; Pfleiderer in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschr. 1870, p. 188 ff.

The narrative in Matthew (and Luke) is a later development of the tradition, the older and still undeveloped form of which is to be found in Mark.

τότε] when the Holy Spirit had descended upon Him.

ἀνήχθη] He was led upwards, i.e. from the lower ground of the river bank to the higher lying wilderness. Luke 2:22; Luke 22:66.

τὴν ἔρημον] the same wilderness of Judea spoken of in ch. 3. According to the tradition, we are to think of the very rugged wilderness of Quarantania (wilderness of Jericho, Joshua 16:1), Robinson, Pal. II. p. 552; Schubert, Reise, III. p. 73; Raumer, p. 47. But in that case a more precise, distinctive designation must have been given; and Mark 1:13, ἦν μετὰ τῶν θηρίων, is a point which has a sufficient basis in the idea of the wilderness in general. Nothing in the text points to the wilderness of Sinai (Chemnitz, Clericus, Michaelis, Nebe).

ὑπὸ τοῦ πνεύματος] by the Holy Spirit, which He had received at His baptism. ἀνήχθη) does not indicate (Acts 8:39; 2 Kings 2:16) that He was transported in a miraculous, involuntary manner, but by the power of the Spirit, which is expressed still more strongly in Mark 1:12. Others (Bertholdt, Paulus, Glöckler) understand Jesus’ own spirit, Paulus regarding it as an ecstatic condition. This would be opposed to the context (Matthew 3:16), and to the view of the matter taken by the Synoptics, which, in Luke 4:1, is expressed without any doubt whatever by the words πνεύματος ἁγίου πλήρης. Euth. Zigabenus well remarks: ἐκδίδωσιν ἑαυτὸν μετά τὸ βάπτισμα τῷ ἁγίῳ πνεύματι καὶ ὑπʼ αὐτοῦ ἄγεται πρὸς ὃ ἂν ἐκεῖνο κελεύῃ, καὶ ἀνάγεται εἰς τὴν ἔρημον ἐπὶ τῷ πολεμηθῆναι ὑπὸ τοῦ διαβόλου.

πειρας θῆναι] designates the purpose for which the Spirit impelled Jesus to go into the wilderness: πειράζειν, to put to the proof, receives its more precise definition in each case from the connection. Here: whether the Messiah is to be brought to take an unrighteous step which conflicts with His calling and the will of God.

ὑπὸ τοῦ διαβόλου] In what shape the devil appeared to Him, the text does not say; and the view of the evangelist as to that is left undetermined. Yet the appearance must be conceived of as being directly devilish, not at all as taking place in the form of an angel of light (Ambrose, Menken), or even of a man.

REMARK.

The two opposed principles, ὑπὸ τοῦ πν. and ὑπὸ τοῦ διαβ., are essentially related to one another; and the whole position of the history, moreover, immediately after the descent of the Spirit on Jesus, proves that it is the victory of Jesus, filled with the Spirit (Luke 4:1-2), over the devil, which is to be set forth. It appears from this how erroneous is the invention of Olshausen, that the condition of Jesus in the wilderness was that of one who had been abandoned by the fulness of the Spirit. The opinion of Calvin is similar, although more cautiously expressed, Matthew 4:11 : “Interdum Dei gratia, quamvis praesens esset, eum secundum carnis sensum latuit.”

Matthew 4:2. Νηστεύσας] to be taken absolutely. Luke 4:2. Comp. Deuteronomy 9:9; Exodus 34:28; 1 Kings 19:8. It is explained, without reason, by Kuiuoel, Kuhn, and many others in the sense of deprivation of the usual means of nourishment. This relative meaning, which, if presented by the context, would be admissible (Kuhn, L. J. I. p. 364 ff.), is here, however, where even the nights are mentioned as well as the days, contradicted by the context, the supernatural character of the history, the intentionally definite statement of Luke (Matthew 4:2), and the types of Moses and Elijah. It is just as irrelevant to change the forty days as a sacred number into an indefinite measure of time (Köster); or, as a round number, into several days (Neander, Krabbe). That, moreover, the forty days’ fast became the occasion of the temptation, cannot appear as out of keeping (Strauss, de Wette) with the object, but, according to Matthew 4:1, was contained in the design of the Spirit.

ὕστερον] of itself superfluous, indicates, however, the circumstance that the hunger did not attack Him until He had fasted. Bengel: “Hactenus non tarn fuerat tentatio, quam ad eam praeparatio.” Comp. the similar usage of εἶτα and ἔπειτα after participles by classical writers, Stallbaum, ad Plat. Phaed. p. 70 E.