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Matthew 6:4. Ὁ βλέπων ἐν τῷ κρυπτῷ] who sees, i.e. knows what goes on in secret, where He is equally present. Grotius and Kuinoel arbitrarily take the words to be equivalent to τὰ ἐν τῷ κρ.

αὐτὸς ἀποδώσει σοι] He Himself will reward you, that is, at the Messianic judgment (i.e. ἐν τῷ φανερῷ, 2 Corinthians 5:10); αὐτός forms a contrast to the human rewards, which the hypocrites, with their ostentatious ways of acting, managed to secure in the shape of applause from their fellow-men, Matthew 6:2.

Matthew 6:5. Οὐκ ἔσεσθε] See the critical remarks. The future, as in Matthew 5:48.

ὅτι] as in Matthew 5:45.

φιλοῦσιν] they have pleasure in it, they love to do it,—a usage frequently met with in classical writers (Ellendt, Lex. Soph. II. p. 910 f.), though in the New Testament occurring only here and in Matthew 23:6 f.

ἑστῶτες] The Jew stood, while praying, with the face turned toward the temple or the holy of holies, 1 Samuel 1:26; 1 Kings 8:22; Mark 11:25; Luke 18:11; Lightfoot, p. 292 f.; at other times, however, also in a kneeling posture, or prostrate on the ground. Therefore the notion of fixi, immobiles (Maldonatus), is not implied in the simple ἑστῶτ., which, however, forms a feature in the picture; they love to stand there and pray.

ἐν ταῖς γονίαις τ. πλ.] not merely when they happen to be surprised, or intentionally allow themselves to be surprised (de Wette), by the hour for prayer, but also at other times besides the regular hours of devotion, turning the most sacred duty of man into an occasion for hypocritical ostentation.

Matthew 6:6. Ταμεῖον] any room in the interior of the house, as opposed to the synagogues and the streets. We are therefore not to think exclusively of the closet in the strict sense of the word, which was called ὑπερῷον; see note on Acts 1:13. For the expression, comp. Isaiah 24:20; for ταμεῖον, conclave, see Xen. Hell. v. 4. 5; Matthew 24:26; Sir 29:12; Tob 7:17.

ἀποδώσει σοι] for thy undemonstrative piety. It is not public prayer in itself that Jesus condemns, but praying in an ostentatious manner; rather than this, He would have us betake ourselves to a lonely room. Theophylact: ὁ τόπος οὐ βλάπτει, ἀ̓λλʼ ὁ τρόπος καὶ ὁ σκόπος.

Matthew 6:7. Δέ] indicating a transition to the consideration of another abuse of prayer.

βαττολογεῖν] (Simplic. ad Epict. p. 340) is not to be derived, with Suidas, Eustathius, Erasmus, from some one of the name of Battus (passages in Wetstein), who, according to Herod. v. 155, was in the habit of stammering, but, as already Hesychius correctly perceived (κατὰ μίμησιν τῆς φωνῆς), is to be regarded as a case of onomatopoeia (comp. Βάτταλος as a nickname of Demosthenes, βατταρίζω, βατταρισμός, βατταριστής), and means, properly speaking, to stammer, then to prate, to babble, the same thing that is subsequently called πολυλογία. B א have the form βατταλογ.; see Tisch. 8.

οἱ ἐθνικοί] Whose prayers, so wordy and full of repetitions (hence, fatigare Deos), were well known. Terent. Heautont. v. i. 6 ff. In Rabbinical writers are found recommendations sometimes of long, sometimes of short, prayers (Wetstein). For an example of a Battological Jewish prayer, see Schoettgen, p. 58 f., comp. Matthew 23:15; and for disapproval of long prayers, see Ecclesiastes 5:1, Sir 7:14.

ἐν τῇ πολυλογίᾳ αὐτῶν] in consequence of their much speaking; they imagine that this is the cause of their being heard. As to the thing, consider the words of Augustine: “Absit ab oratione multa locutio, sed non desit multa precatio, si fervens perseveret intentio;” the former, he adds, is “rem necessariam superfluis agere verbis,” but the multum precari is: “ad eum, quem precamur, diuturna et pia cordis excitatione pulsare” (Ep. 130. 20, ad probam).

Matthew 6:8. Οὖν] seeing that you are expected to shun heathen error.

οἶδε γὰρ, κ.τ.λ.] so that, this being the case, that βαττολογεῖν is superfluous.

Matthew 6:9. “Having now rebuked and condemned such false and meaningless prayer, Christ goes on to prescribe a short, neat form of His own to show us how we are to pray, and what we are to pray for,” Luther.

The emphasis is, in the first place, on οὕτως, and then on ὑμεῖς, the latter in contrast to the heathen, the former to the βαττολογεῖν; while οὖν is equivalent to saying, “inasmuch as ye ought not to be like the heathen when they pray.” Therefore, judging from the context, Christ intends οὕτως to point to the prayer which follows as an example of one that is free from vain repetitions, as an example of what a prayer ought to be in respect of its form and contents if the fault in question is to be entirely avoided, not as a direct prescribed pattern (comp. Tholuck), excluding other ways of expressing ourselves in prayer. The interpretation, “in hunc sensum” (Grotius), is at variance with the context; but that of Fritzsche (in some brief way such as this) is not “very meaningless” (de Wette), but correct, meaning as he does, not brevity in itself, but in its relation to the contents (for comprehensive brevity is the opposite of the vain repetitions).

On the Lord’s Prayer, which now follows, see Kamphausen, d. Gebet d. Herrn, 1866; J. Hanne, in d. Jahrb. f. D. Th. 1866, p. 507 ff.; and in Schenkel’s Bibellex. II. p. 346 ff. According to Luke 11:1, the same prayer, though in a somewhat shorter form, was given on a different occasion. In regard to this difference of position, it may be noted: (1) That the prayer cannot have been given on both occasions, and so given twice (as I formerly believed); for if Jesus has taught His disciples the use of it as early as the time of the Sermon on the Mount, it follows that their request in Luke 11:1 is unhistorical; but if, on the contrary, the latter is historical, then it is impossible that the Lord’s Prayer can have been known in the circle of the disciples from the date of the Sermon on the Mount. (2) That the characteristic brevity of Luke’s version, as compared with the fulness of that of Matthew, tells in favour of Luke’s originality; but, besides this, there is the fact that the historical basis on which Luke’s version is founded leaves no room whatever to suspect that legendary influences have been at work in its formation, while it is perfectly conceivable that the author of our version of Matthew, when he came to that part of the Sermon on the Mount where warnings are directed against meaningless repetitions in prayer, took occasion also to put this existing model prayer into our Lord’s mouth. Schleiermacher, Baumgarten-Crusius, Sieffert, Olshausen, Neander, de Wette, Ewald, Bleek, Holtzmann, Weiss, Weizsäcker, Schenkel, Hanne, Kamphausen, also rightly declare themselves against the position of the prayer in Matthew as unhistorical. The material superiority of Matthew’s version (see especially Keim) remains unaffected by this verdict. On the Marcionitic form, especially in the first petition, and on the priority of the same as maintained by Hilgenfeld, Zeller, Volkmar, see the critical notes on Luke 11:2-4.

πάτερ ἡμῶν] This form of address, which rarely occurs in the O. T. (Isaiah 63:16; Deuteronomy 32:6 : in the Apocrypha, in Wis 2:16; Wis 14:3; Sir 23:1; Sir 51:10; Tob 13:4; 3Ma 6:3), but which is constantly employed in the N. T. in accordance with the example of Jesus, who exalted it even into the name for God (Mark 14:36; Weisse, Evangelienfr. p. 200 ff.), brings the petitioner at once into an attitude of perfect confidence in the divine love; “God seeks to entice us with it,” and so on, Luther.[419] But the consciousness of our standing as children in the full and specially Christian sense (comp. on Matthew 5:9), it was not possible perfectly to express in this address till a later time, seeing that the relation in question was only to be re-established by the atoning death.

ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς] distinguishes Him who is adored in the character of Father as the true God, but the symbolical explanations that have been given are of an arbitrary character (Kuinoel, “Deus optime maxime, benignissime et potentissime;” de Wette, “the elevation of God above the world;” Baumgarten-Crusius, “God who exists for all men;” Hanne, “Father of all”). Surely such a line of interpretation ought to have been precluded by ver.10, as well as by the doctrine which teaches that Christ has come from heaven from the Father, that He has returned to heaven to the right hand of the Father, and that He will return again in majesty from heaven. The only true God, though everywhere present (2 Chronicles 2:6), nevertheless has his special abode in heaven; heaven is specially the place where He dwells in majesty, and where the throne of His glory is set (Isaiah 66:1; Psalm 2:4; Psalm 102:19; Psalm 115:3; Job 22:12 ff.; Acts 7:55-56; 1 Timothy 6:16), from which, too, the Spirit of God (Matthew 3:16; Acts 2), the voice of God (Matthew 3:17; John 12:28), and the angels of God (John 1:51) come down. Upon the idea of God’s dwelling-place is based that very common Jewish invocation אבינו שבשמים (Lightfoot, p. 229), just as it may be affirmed in a general way that (comp. the ΘΕΟῚ ΟὐΡΑΝΊΩΝΕς of Homer) “ΠΆΝΤΕς ΤῸΝ ἈΝΩΤΆΤΩ Τῷ ΘΕΊῼ ΤΌΠΟΝ ἈΠΟΔΙΔΌΑΣΙ,” Aristot. de Coelo, i. 3. Comp. generally, Ch. F. Fritzsche, nov. Opusc. p. 218 ff. Augustine, Ep. 187. 16, correctly thinks there may be an allusion to the heavenly temple, “ubi est populus angelorum, quibus aggregandi et coaequandi sumus, cum finita peregrinatione quod promissum est sumserimus.” On heaven as a plural (in answer to Kamphausen), comp. note on 2 Corinthians 12:2; Ephesians 4:10.

ἁγιασθήτω] Chrysost., Euth. Zigabenus, δοξασθήτω; more precisely, let it be kept sacred (Exodus 20:8; Isaiah 29:23). God’s name is, no doubt, “holy in itself” (Luther), objectively and absolutely so; but this holiness must be asserted and displayed in the whole being and character of believers (“ut non existiment aliquid sanctum, quod magis offendere timeant,” Augustine), inwardly and outwardly, so that disposition, word, and deed are regulated by the acknowledged perfection of God, and brought into harmony with it. Exactly as in the case of נִקְדַּשׁ, Leviticus 10:3; Leviticus 22:2; Leviticus 22:32; Ezekiel 28:22; Ezekiel 38:23; Numbers 20:13; Sir 33:4; 1 Peter 3:15.

τὸ ὄνομά σου] Everything which, in its distinctive conception, Thy name embraces and expresses, numen tuum, Thy entire perfection, as the object revealed to the believer for his apprehension, confession, and worship. So שֵׁם יְהֹוָה, Psalm 5:12; Psalm 9:11; Isaiah 29:23; Ezekiel 36:23; and frequently also in the Apocrypha. Everything impure, repugnant to the nature of God, is a profanation, a ΒΕΒΗΛΟῦΝ ΤῸ ὌΝΟΜΑ ΤῸ ἍΓΙΟΝ (Leviticus 18:21).

Observe once more that the three imperatives in Matthew 6:9-10 are not meant to express the idea of a resolution and a vow (Hanne, comp. Weizsäcker), which is opposed to ΠΡΟΣΕΎΧΕΣΘΕ, but they are ΑἸΤΉΜΑΤΑ (Php 4:6), supplications and desires, as in Matthew 26:39; Matthew 26:42.

[419] In his translation, Luther renders it here and in Luke 11:2 by unser Vater; in the Catechism and manuals of prayer and baptism, Vater unser, after the Latin Pater noster. See Rienecker in d. Stud. u. Krit. 1837, p. 328 f. Kamphausen, p. 30 f.

Matthew 6:10.[420] Ἐλθέτω, κ.τ.λ.] Let the kingdom of the Messiah appear. This was likewise a leading point in the prayers of the Jews, especially in the Kaddisch, which had been in regular use since the captivity, and which contained the words, Regnet tuum regnum; redemptio mox veniat. Hence the canon, כל ברכה שאין בה מלכוח אינה ברכה. Bab. Berac. f. 40. 2. Here, likewise, the kingdom of God is no other than the kingdom of the Messiah, the advent of which was the supreme object of pious longing (Luke 2:25; Luke 17:20; Mark 15:43; Luke 22:18; Luke 23:51; 2 Timothy 4:8). This view of the kingdom and its coming, as the winding up of the world’s history, a view which was also shared by the principal Fathers (Tertullian, Chrysostom, Augustine, Euth. Zigabenus), is the only one which corresponds with the historical conception of the βασιλεία τ. θεοῦ throughout the whole of the N. T.; comp. on Matthew 3:2, the kingdom comes with the Messiah who comes to establish it; Mark 11:9-10; Luke 23:42. The ethical development (Matthew 13:31 ff., Matthew 24:14; comp. on Matthew 3:2, Matthew 5:3 ff., Matthew 5:48; also on Acts 3:21), which necessarily precedes the advent of the kingdom (Luke 19:11) and prepares the way for it, and with which the diffusion of Christianity is bound up, Matthew 28:19 (Grotius, Kuinoel), forms the essential condition of that advent, and through ἘΛΘΈΤΩ, Κ.Τ.Λ., is thus far indirectly (as the means toward the wished-for end) included in the petition, though not expressly mentioned in so many words, so that we are not called upon either to substitute for the concrete conception of the future kingdom (Luke 22:18) one of an ethical, of a more or less rationalistic character (Jerome, Origen, Wetstein: of the moral sway of Christianity; Baumgarten-Crusius: the development of the cause of God among men), or immediately to associate them together. This in answer also to Luther (“God’s kingdom comes first of all in time and here below through God’s word and faith, and then hereafter in eternity through the revelation of Christ”), Melanchthon, Calvin, de Wette, Tholuck, “the kingdom of God typified in Israel, coming in its reality in Christ, and ever more and more perfected by Him as time goes on;” comp. Bleek.

ΓΕΝΗΘΉΤΩ, Κ.Τ.Λ.] May Thy will (Matthew 7:21; 1 Thessalonians 4:3) be done, as by the angels (Psalm 103:21), so also by men. This is the practical moral necessity in the life of believers, which, with its ideal requirements, is to determine and regulate that life until the fulfilment of the second petition shall have been accomplished. “Thus it is that the third petition, descending into the depths of man’s present condition and circumstances, damps the glow of the second,” Ewald. “Coelum norma est terrae, in qua aliter alia fiunt omnia,” Bengel. Accordingly the will of God here meant is not necessarily the voluntas decernens (Beza), but praecipiens, which is fulfilled by the good angels of heaven. This petition, which is omitted in Luke, is not to be taken merely as an explanation (Kamphausen) of the one which precedes it, nor as tautological (Hanne), but as exhibiting to the petitioner for the kingdom the full extent of moral requirement, without complying with which it is impossible to be admitted into the kingdom when it actually comes. As, according to Matthew 6:33, the Christian is called upon to strive after the kingdom and the righteousness of God; so here, after the petition for the coming of the kingdom, it is asked that righteousness, which is the thing that God wills, may be realized upon the earth.

[420] On the inverted order of the second and third petition in Tertullian, see Nitzsch in the Stud. u. Krit. 1830, p. 846 ff. This transposition appeared more logical and more historical.

Matthew 6:11. Τὸν ἄρτον] same as לֶחֶם, victus; Genesis 18:5; Proverbs 30:8; 2 Thessalonians 3:12; Sir 10:26; Wis 16:20.

τὸν ἐπιούσιον] occurring nowhere else in the Greek language but here and in Luke 11:3. See Origen, de Orat. § Matthew 27 : ἔοικε πεπλᾶσθαι ὑπὸ τῶν εὐαγγελιστῶν. It is possible that it may be derived from οὐσία, and accordingly the phrase has been supposed to mean: the food necessary for subsistence, לֶחֶם חֻקִּי, Proverbs 30:8. So Syr., Origen, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Etym. M.; Beza, Maldonatus, Kuinoel, Tholuck, Ewald (de Wette undecided), Arnoldi, Bleek, Weizsäcker, Keim, Hanne, and probably this explanation has also given rise to the rendering “daily bread” (It., Chrysostom, Luther), ἐφήμερος, Jam 2:15; comp. Victorinus, c. Ar. ii. p. 273, Augustine. But οὐσία does not mean subsistence (σύστασις), but (Ast, Lex. Plat. II. p. 491 f.) essence, as also reality, and, finally, possessions, res familiaris, in which sense also it is to be taken in Soph. Trach. 907 (911), where the words τὰς ἄπαιδας οὐσίας denote a home without children. In deriving the expression, therefore, from οὐσία, the idea of necessary food[421] must be brought out in a very indirect way (as Gregory of Nyssa: that which is requisite or sufficient for the support of the body; comp. Chrysostom, Tholuck, Hitzig). Again, if the word were to be derived from ΟὐΣΊΑ (ΕἾΝΑΙ), it would have to be spelt, not ἘΠΙΟΎΣΙΟς, but ἘΠΟΎΣΙΟς, in a way analogous to the forms ἘΠΟΥΣΊΑ, overplus, ἐπουσιώδης, non-essential, which come from εἶναι. Forms in which there is either a different preposition (such as ΠΕΡΙΟΎΣΙΟς), or in which the derivation has no connection with ΕἾΝΑΙ (as ἘΠΙΟΡΚΕῖΝ), have been brought forward without any reason with a view to support the above ordinary explanation. After all this we must, for reasons derived from grammatical considerations (in answer to Leo Meyer, Weizsäcker, Kamphausen, Keim), prefer the other possible derivation from Ἡ ἘΠΙΟῦΣΑ (therefore from ἘΠΙΈΝΑΙ), dies crastinus (Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 464; Proverbs 27:1), which is already expressly given by Ambrose, lib. v. de sacram. 4. 24, and according to which we should have to interpret the words as meaning to-morrow’s bread.[422] So Ar., Aeth., Copt., Sahid., Erasmus, Annot., Scaliger, Salmasius, Grotius, Wolf, Bengel, Wetstein, Valckenaer, Schol. I. p. 190, and V; also Winer, p. 92 [E. T. 120], Fritzsche, Käuffer, Schegg, Döllinger, Hilgenfeld, Holtzmann, Schenkel, Wittichen. This explanation, furnished historically by the Gospel according to the Hebrews, where Jerome found מחר, is recommended in the context by the σήμερον, which, besides, has no correlative, nor is it incompatible with Matthew 6:34, where the taking no thought for to-morrow does not exclude, but rather presupposes (1 Peter 5:7), the asking for to-morrow’s bread, while, moreover, this request is quite justified as a matter of prayer, considering how certain is the uncertainty of life’s duration. The granting to-day of to-morrow’s bread is, accordingly, the narrow limit which Christ here assigns to prayers for earthly objects,—a limit not open to the charge of want of modesty (Keim), inasmuch as it is fixed only at de die in diem. Of late, Olshausen and Delitzsch (“the bread necessary for man’s spiritual and physical life”) have again adopted, at least along with the other view, the erroneous explanation,—exegetically inconsistent with σήμερον, but originating in a supposed perverse asceticism, and favoured by the tendency to mystical interpretation generally, no less than by the early (Irenaeus,Haer. iv. 18) reference to the Lord’s Supper in particular,—the explanation, namely, that what is here meant is supernatural,[423] heavenly food (John 6), as, indeed, many Fathers (Cyprian and Jerome) and older expositors understood both kinds of bread to be included

[421] To this amounts also the view of Leo Meyer in Kuhn’s Zeitschr. f. vergleich. Sprachforsch. VII. 6, p. 401 ff., who, however, regards the word as expressing adjectively the idea of the aim involved in the ἐπί: “what ἐπί is.” In this Kamphausen substantially concurs. The word is said to be derived from ἐπεῖναι: “belonging to,” in which the idea of being “sufficient” or necessary is understood to be implied. But in that case we should also have expected to find ἐπούσιος, and besides, ἐπεῖναι certainly does not mean to belong to, but to be by, also to be standing over, to impend, and so on. This explanation of ἐπιούσιος is an erroneous etymological conjecture. Bengel very properly observes: “ἐπί non semper quidem in compositione ante vocalem amittit, sed amittit tamen in ἔπεστιν.” [See Lightfoot, A Fresh Revision of the English New Testament, Appendix on the words ἐπιούσιος, περιούσιος.—ED.]

[422] Not what is necessary for the next meal (Rettig in the Stud. u. Krit. 1838, p. 238). Baumgarten-Crusius, correctly, “to-day, what we need for to-morrow.” On σήμερον was founded the very ancient (Constitutt. apost. vii. 24. 1 f., Tertullian, Cyprian) daily use of the Lord’s Prayer.

[423] The expression was derived partly from ἐπιών (as Ambrose)—the bread of the World to come (so again Weisse, Evangelienfr. p. 201); partly from οὐσία, in which case it was interpreted to mean: the bread requisite for the life of the soul; or, as though it were ὑπερούσιος: panis supersubstantialis; as in the Vulg. and Jerome (“super omnes substantias”). Melanchthon fully and pointedly expresses his opposition to the view of heavenly bread, when he says: “Its advocates are deficient in eruditio et spirituale judicium.” However, it is likewise found in Erasmus’ Paraphr.; but Calvin pronounces: “prorsus absurdum est.”