Mga Komentaryo sa Bibliya

The people which sat (ὁ καθήμενος)

Wyc., dwelt. The article with the participle (lit., the people, the one sitting) signifying something characteristic or habitual' the people whose characteristic it was to sit in darkness. This thought is emphasized by repetition in a stronger form; sitting in the region and shadow of Death. Death is personified. This land, whose inhabitants are spiritually dead, belongs to Death as the realm of his government.

To preach (κηρύσσειν)

Originally, to discharge the duty of a herald (κήρυξ); hence to cry out, proclaim, (see on 2 Peter 2:5). The standing expression in the New Testament for the proclamation of the Gospel; but confined to the primary announcement of the message and facts of salvation, and not including continuous instruction in the contents and connections of the message, which is expressed by διδάσκειν (to teach). Both words are used in Matthew 4:23; Matthew 9:35; Matthew 11:1).

The sea (τήν θάλασσαν)

The small lake of Gennesaret, only thirteen miles long and six wide in its broadest part, is called the sea, by the same kind of popular usage by which Swiss and German lakes are called See; as the Knigsee, the Trauensee. So, also, in Holland we have the Zuyder Zee. The Latin mare (the sea) likewise becomes meet in Holland, and is used of a lake, as Haarlemmer Meer; and in England, mere, as appears in Windermere, Grasmere, etc.

A net (ἀμφίβληστρον)

From ἀμφὶ, around, and Βάλλω, to throw. Hence the casting-net, which, being east over the shoulder, spreads into a circle (ἀμφὶ). The word is sometimes used by classical Greek writers to denote a garment which encompasses the wearer. In Matthew 4:20, the word net again occurs, but representing a different Greek word (δίκτυον) which is the general name for all kinds of nets, whether for taking fish or fowl. Still another word occurs at Matthew 13:47, σαγήνη, the draw-net. See farther on that passage.

Mending (καταρτίζοντας)

Not necessarily repairing; the word means to adjust, to "put to rights." It may mean here preparing the nets for the next fishing.

Sickness, Disease, Torments, Taken, Lunatic

The description of the ailments to which our Lord's power was applied gains in vividness by study of the words in detail. In Matthew 4:23, the Rev. rightly transposes sickness and disease; for νόσος (A. V., sickness) carries the notion of something severe, dangerous, and even violent (compare the Latin noceo, to hurt, to which the root is akin). Homer always represents νόσος as the visitation of an angry deity. Hence used of the plague which Apollo sent upon the Greeks ("Iliad," 1:10). So Sophocles ("Antigone," 421) calls a whirlwind θείαν νόσον (a divine visitation). Disease is, therefore, the more correct rendering as expressing something stronger than sickness or debility. Sickness, however, suits the other word, μαλακίαν. The kindred adjective, μαλακος, means soft, as a couch or newly-ploughed furrow, and thus easily runs into our invidious moral sense of softness, namely, effeminacy or cowardice, and into the physical sense of weakness, sickness. Hence the word emphasizes the idea of debility rather than of violent suffering or danger.

In Matthew 4:24 we have, first, a general expression for ailments of all kinds: all that were sick (lit., all who had themselves in evil case; πάντας τοὺς κακῶς ἔχοντας). Then the idea of suffering is emphasized in the word taken (συνεχομένους), which means literally held-together or compressed; and so the Rev. holden is an improvement on taken, in which the A. V. has followed Wyc. and Tynd. The word is used of the multitude thronging Christ (Luke 8:45). Compare, also, "how am I straitened (Luke 12:50); and I am in a strait (Philippians 1:1-3). Then follow the specific forms of suffering, the list headed again by the inclusive word νόσοις, diseases, and the καὶ following having the force of and particularly. Note the word torments (βασάνοις). Βάσανος originally meant the "Lydian stone," or touchstone, on which pure gold, when rubbed, leaves a peculiar mark. Hence, naturally, a test; then a test or trial by torture. "Most words," says Professor Campbell ("On the Language of Sophocles") have been originally metaphors, and metaphors are continually falling into the rank of words," used by the writer as mere vehicles of expression without any sense of the picturesque or metaphorical element at their core. Thus the idea of a test gradually passes entirely out of Βάσανος leaving merely the idea of suffering or torture. This is peculiarly noticeable in the use of this word and its derivatives throughout the New Testament; for although suffering as a test is a familiar New Testament truth, these words invariably express simply torment or pain. Wycliffe renders, "They offered to him all men having evil, taken with divers sorrows and torments;" and Tyndale, "All sick people that were taken with divers diseases and gripings." Lunatic, or moon-struck, (σεληνιαζομένους), is rendered by Rev. epileptic, with reference to the real or supposed influence of the changes of the moon upon the victims of epilepsy.

A mountain (τὸ ὄρος)

The Rev. recognizes the force of the definite article, and renders "the mountain," that particular mountain in the place where Jesus saw the multitudes. The mountain itself cannot be identified. Delitzsch calls the Mount of Beatitudes "The Sinai of the New Testament."

When he was set (καθίσαντος), following Tyndale

Rev., more literally, when he had sat down (compare Wyc., when he had sete). After the manner of the rabbis, he seated himself ere he began to teach.

Taught (ἐδίδασκεν)

The imperfect signifies began to teach.

Blessed (μακάριοι)

As this word and its cognates occur at least fifty-five times in the New Testament, it is important to understand its history, which is interesting because it is one of those numerous words which exhibit the influence of Christian association and usage in enlarging and dignifying their meaning. It is commonly rendered blessed, both in the A. V. and Rev., and that rendering might properly be given it in every instance.

Its root is supposed to be a word meaning great, and its earlier meaning appears to be limited to outward prosperity; so that it is used at times as synonymous with rich. It scarcely varies from this meaning in its frequent applications to the Grecian gods, since the popular Greek ideal of divine blessedness was not essentially moral. The gods were blessed because of their power and dignity, not because of their holiness. "In general," says Mr. Gladstone ("Homer and the Homeric Age") "the chief note of deity with Homer is emancipation from the restraints of moral law. Though the Homeric gods have not yet ceased to be the vindicators of morality upon earth, they have personally ceased to observe its rules, either for or among themselves. As compared with men, in conduct they are generally characterized by superior force and intellect, but by inferior morality."

In its peculiar application to the dead, there is indicated the despair of earthly happiness underlying the thought of even the cheerful and mercurial Greek. Hence the word was used as synonymous with dead. Only the dead could be called truly blessed. Thus Sophocles ("Oedipus Tyrannus"):

"From hence the lesson learn ye

To reckon no man happy till ye witness

The closing day; until he pass the border

Which severs life from death, unscathed by sorrow."

And again ("Oedipus at Colonus"):

"Happiest beyond compare,

Never to taste of life:

Happiest in order next,

Being born, with quickest speed

Thither again to turn

From whence we came."

Nevertheless, even in its pagan use, the word was not altogether without a moral background. The Greeks recognized a prosperity which waited on the observance of the laws of natural morality, and an avenging Fate which pursued and punished their violation. This conception appears often in the works of the tragedians; for instance, in the "Oedipus Tyrannus" of Sophocles, where the main motive is the judgment which waits upon even unwitting violations of natural ties. Still, this prosperity is external, consisting either in wealth, or power, or exemption from calamity.

With the philosophers a moral element comes definitely into the word. The conception rises from outward propriety to inward correctness as the essence of happiness. But in all of them, from Socrates onward, virtue depends primarily upon knowledge; so that to be happy is, first of ail, to know. It is thus apparent that the Greek philosophy had no conception of sin in the Bible sense. As virtue depended on knowledge, sin was the outcome of ignorance, and virtue and its consequent happiness were therefore the prerogative of the few and the learned.

The biblical use of the word lifted it into the region of the spiritual, as distinguished from the merely intellectual, and besides, intrusted to it alone the task of representing this higher conception. The pagan word for happiness (εὐδαιμονία, under the protection of a good genius or daemon) nowhere occurs in the New Testament nor in the Scriptures, having fallen into disrepute because the word daemon, which originally meant a deity, good or evil, had acquired among the Jews the bad sense which we attach to demon. Happiness, or better, blessedness, was therefore represented both in the Old and in the New Testament by this word μακάριος. In the Old Testament the idea involves more of outward prosperity than in the New Testament, yet it almost universally occurs in connections which emphasize, as its principal element, a sense of God's approval founded in righteousness which rests ultimately on love to God.

Thus the word passed up into the higher region of Christian thought, and was stamped with the gospel signet, and laden with all the rich significance of gospel blessedness. It now takes on a group of ideas strange to the best pagan morality, and contradictory of its fundamental positions. Shaking itself loose from all thoughts of outward good, it becomes the express symbol of a happiness identified with pure character. Behind it lies the clear cognition of sin as the fountain-head of all misery, and of holiness as the final and effectual cure for every woe. For knowledge as the basis of virtue, and therefore of happiness, it substitutes faith and love. For the aristocracy of the learned virtuous, it introduces the truth of the Fatherhood of God and the corollary of the family of believers. While the pagan word carries the isolation of the virtuous and the contraction of human sympathy, the Gospel pushes these out with an ideal of a world-wide sympathy and of a happiness realized in ministry. The vague outlines of an abstract good vanish from it, and give place to the pure heart's vision of God, and its personal communion with the Father in heaven. Where it told of the Stoic's self-sufficiency, it now tells of the Christian's poverty of spirit and meekness. Where it hinted at the Stoic's self-repression and strangling of emotion, it now throbs with a holy sensitiveness, and with a monition to rejoice with them that rejoice, and to weep with them that weep. From the pagan word the flavor of immortality is absent. No vision of abiding rest imparts patience and courage amid the bitterness and struggle of life; no menace of the destiny of evil imposes a check on human lusts. The Christian word blessed is full of the light of heaven. It sternly throws away from itself every hint of the Stoic's asserted right of suicide as a refuge from human ills, and emphasizes something which thrives on trial and persecution, which glories in tribulation, which not only endures but conquers the world, and expects its crown in heaven.

The poor (οἱ πρωχιὸ)

Three words expressing poverty are found in the New Testament. Two of them, πὲνης and πενιχρός, are kindred terms, the latter being merely a poetic form of the other, and neither of these occurs more than once (Luke 21:2; 2 Corinthians 9:9). The word used in this verse is therefore the current word for poor, occurring thirty-four times, and covering every gradation of want; so that it is evident that the New Testament writers did not recognize any nice distinctions of meaning which called for the use of other terms. Luke, for instance (Luke 21:2, Luke 21:3), calls the widow who bestowed her two mites both πενιχρὰν and πρωχὴ. Nevertheless, there is a distinction, recognized by both classical and ecclesiastical writers. While ὁ πένης is of narrow means, one who "earns a scanty pittance," πρωχός is allied to the verb πτώσσειν, to crouch or cringe, and therefore conveys the idea of utter destitution, which abjectly solicits and lives by alms. Hence it is applied to Lazarus (Luke 16:20, Luke 16:22), and rendered beggar. Thus distinguished, it is very graphic and appropriate here, as denoting the utter spiritual destitution, the consciousness of which precedes the entrance into the kingdom of God, and which cannot be relieved by one's own efforts, but only by the free mercy of God. (See on 2 Corinthians 6:10; and see 2 Corinthians 8:9.)