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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.

Matthew 7:6. A complementary counsel. No connecting word introduces this sentence. Indeed the absence of connecting particles is noticeable throughout the chapter: Matthew 7:1; Matthew 7:6-7; Matthew 7:13; Matthew 7:15. It is a collection of ethical pearls strung loosely together. Yet it is not difficult to suggest a connecting link, thus: I have said, “Judge not,” yet you must know people, else you will make great mistakes, such as, etc. Moral criticism is inevitable. Jesus Himself practised it. He judged the Pharisees, but in the interest of humanity, guided by the law of love. He judged the proud, pretentious, and cruel, in behalf of the weak and despised. All depends on what we judge and why. The Pharisaic motive was egotism; the right motive is defence of the downtrodden or, in certain cases, self-defence. So here.—καταπατήσουσι: future well attested, vide critical note, with subjunctive, ῥήξωσι, in last clause; unusual combination, but not impossible. On the use of the future after μήποτε and other final particles, vide Burton, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses in N. T. Greek, § 199.—τὸ ἅγιον, τοὺς μαργαρίτας: what is the holy thing, and what are the pearls? In a moral aphorism special indications are not to be expected, and we are left to our own conjectures. The “holy” and the “pearls” must define themselves for each individual in his own experience. They are the things which are sacred and precious for a man or woman, and which natural feeling teaches us to be careful not to waste or expose to desecration. For this purpose knowledge of the world, discrimination, is necessary. We must not treat all people alike, and show our valuables, religious experiences, best thoughts, tenderest sentiments, to the first comer. Shyness, reserve, goes along with sincerity, depth, refinement. In all shyness there is implicit judgment of the legitimate kind. A modest woman shrinks from a man whom her instinct discerns to be impure; a child from all hard-natured people. Who blames woman or child? It is but the instinct of self-preservation.—κυσίν, χοίρων. The people to be feared and shunned are those represented by dogs and swine, regarded by Jews as shameless and unclean animals. There are such people, unhappily, even in the judgment of charity, and the shrewd know them and fight shy of them; for no good can come of comradeship with them. Discussions as to whether the dogs and the swine represent two classes of men, or only one, are pedantic. If not the same they are at least similar; one in this, that they are to be avoided. And it is gratuitous to limit the scope of the gnome to the apostles and their work in preaching the gospel. It applies to all citizens of the kingdom, to all who have a treasure to guard, a holy of holies to protect from profane intrusion.—μήποτε, lest perchance. What is to be feared?—καταπατήσουσιν, ῥήξωσιν: treading under foot (ἐν τ. π., instrumental, with, de Wette; among, Weiss) your pearls (αὐτους), rending yourselves. Here again there is trouble for the commentators as to the distribution of the trampling and rending between dogs and swine. Do both do both, or the swine both, or the swine the trampling and the dogs the rending? The latter is the view of Theophylact, and it has been followed by some moderns, including Achelis. On this view the structure of the sentence presents an example of ἐπάνοδος or ὑστέρησις, the first verb referring to the second subject and the second verb to the first subject. The dogs—street dogs, without master, living on offal—rend, because what you have thrown to them, perhaps to propitiate them, being of uncertain temper at the best, is not to their liking; the swine trample under foot what looked like peas or acorns, but turns out to be uneatable.

Before passing from these verses (Matthew 7:1-6) two curious opinions may be noted. (1) That ἅγιον represents an Aramaic word meaning ear-ornaments, answering to pearls. This view, once favoured by Michaelis, Bolten, Kuinoel, etc., and thereafter discredited, has been revived by Holtzmann (H. C.). (2) That ὀφθαλμός (Matthew 7:3; Matthew 7:5) means, not the eye, but a village well. So Furrer. Strange, he says, that a man should need to be told by a neighbour that he has a mote in his eye, or that it should be a fault to propose to take it out! And what sense in the idea of a beam in the eye? But translate the Aramaic word used by Jesus, well, and all is clear and natural. A neighbour given to fault-finding sees a small impurity in a villager’s well and tauntingly offers to remove it. Meantime his own boys, in his absence, throw a beam into his own well (Zeitsch. für M. und R. vide also Wanderungen, p. 222).

Matthew 7:7-11. Admonition to prayer: presupposes deferred answer to prayer, tempting to doubt as to its utility, and consequent discontinuance of the practice. A lesson more natural at a later stage, when the disciples had a more developed religious experience. The whole subject more adequately handled in Luke 11:1-13.

Matthew 7:7. Αἰτεῖτε, ζητεῖτε, κρούετε, threefold exhortation with a view to impressiveness; first literally, then twice in figurative language: seek as for an object lost, knock as at a barred door, appropriate after the parable of the neighbour in bed (Luke 11:5-8). The promise of answer is stated in corresponding terms.—δοθήσεται, εὑρήσετε, ἀνοιγήσεται.